(Editor’s Note: This a Rant, so the opinion/beliefs expressed below are the author alone. Feel free to email him or leave comment below.)

The spread of technology could be leading into a decline in human brainpower! While it’s probably not that serious (yet) I’m sure in the future it could. Emmanuel Goldstein (creator of 2600) proved a point in saying “how many of you know your friends and home phone numbers by heart?” You have to ask yourself the question are we really forgetting whats important and forfeiting our minds to readily available knowledge although a points against and with my argument are posted up here that little snippets of information obtained from the Internet wouldn’t create a noticeable difference or replace reading a full-scale book. I however still think that depending too much on technology is a bad thing because truly imagine what would happen if our information cloud of the future such as a large network of robots or public computer have bugs or security holes and suddenly a real life “botnet” could be created by hackers with real moving bots. Just imagine a DDoS against the Apple Store or Wal-Mart or a worker strike of all mechanical labor now the robots wont actually have an AI they will just be programmed to stop or to surround a certain point on a map. Then again there is always the possibility that we have built-in integrated computer-brain interaction systems but i have a feeling that’s a long time away and what happens when the Wi-Fi or servers go down rely on your Wikipedia wget backups? In my opinion it’s just a bad idea and people should still learn and work their memory.

Anyway that’s just my view on this matter and id love to hear your ideas in the comments,

- John

-Cheers, Anay

The new OS scraps all the crap from previous OS’s, and old Windows Mobile apps are not compatible with WP7S.  They started from a blank slate, every thing is brand NEW. With a sexy and completely redesigned interface, it comes with Zune and X-Box LIVE integration, and cloud based Office 2010. It resembles the Zune HD interface, but that’s better than *gasp* Windows Mobile 6.5.

Microsoft also has everything locked down, in a good way. Before, Microsoft gave phone makers a software kit, and the phone makers did whatever. Now, Microsoft is dictating everything. They’re going to be picky on who makes WP7S phones, and all phones must have a capacitive screen, a “Bing” button, a FM radio, etc. This promises robust and competitive phones. All skins for OS’s, such as HTC SENSE, are banned, and the phone makers really only decide the shape and the optional keyboard.

Carrier partnerships are far and wide, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, while hardware partners include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm. We’re told that we likely won’t get to see any third-party devices at MWC, though Microsoft is showing off dev units of unknown origin.

For more info check out this links:

Gizmodo

Engadget

Microsoft’s Livestream

The Open SSH Website Logo

Going on unprotected WiFi is always  dangerous and you should take precautions so your computer, identity, passwords and other data doesn’t get compromised and abused. One easy way to protect yourself is to use SSH or Secure Shell which is mainly used in Linux and Unix computers.

If you run a server for a website or other uses you have probably used SSH. Using SSH you can also route all your web traffic through a server/computer that you own or have access to so that your packets are encrypted and used on your home or servers network.

SSH is commonly run on port 22 and it is an Application Layer Protocol. SSH it is all about encrypting your packets which is where it becomes useful if your using unsecured WiFi because no one can easily steal your info. The First step would be to set up your SSH Server which can be set  up on both your computer or if you have one your server

Note: Macs can run Cygwin too but its more efficient to run Mac’s SSH Server

1. To run OpenSSH on Windows all you have to do is download Cygwin which is a Linux emulator for Windows basically letting you install apps that run on Linux to Windows (Cygwin)
2. Then You can follow the instructions at Lifehacker for more information

Note: This is Debian/Debian based systems only at least for the installing part your distro might handle it differently

For Debian/Ubuntu Linux you can use the command

sudo apt-get install ssh

After that command the server and client are installed and pretty much preconfigured unless your paranoid and want to look through the config file but just to test it to make sure run this

ssh localhost

now that SSH is up and running you can control it through these commands:
STOP

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh stop

START

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start

RESTART

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

Now you can control and start the server on your home computer or server. The last step is to connect to your computer or server from an outside Internet source thus protecting you.

When out in the wild you would probably be using a Windows computer (i.e. School, Library) or on your Linux laptop (i.e. Cafe, Airport) in which case you would need an easy little client to use to connect to your home server this is where the AMX project comes in. You can get it here at The JMX Project site. Now all you need to do is download and run the exe file or python script (the client program will still work when copied to  a USB sticks.)

So now you have a SSH server and client setup and you have all the instructions so go and get some encrypted packets going!

-John

I would like to welcome John “KitsuneDragon” D. and Anay “anaychi” to the site, and I am glad you guys are here. Makes the blog look less empty. I met John via Twitter (do  I meet all my friends there?) and got him to join in on the fun over at LiquidBabble #slackstuff. We, slackers have been, molding him into a true geek, and slacker. Slowly we are figuring out what he likes to do, and helping him grow in these areas.

Anay saw my request for writers above and emailed me, and asked if he could join up. And to be honest he scares me a little, in a good way, a very good way. Within 24 hours of the iPad (next version will have wings!) he had written a great Editorial about the real need for the iPad. I am expecting great things from him, I am waiting impatiently for them.

Once again guys, welcome and thanks for joining me!

-Jacob

(Editor’s Note: This a Editorial, so the opinion/beliefs expressed below are the authors alone. Feel free to email him or leave comment below.)

First off, let’s start off with the specifics of this device. It starts at $499 for 16GB, 32GB for $599, and $699 64GB. Adding 3G costs a $130 per model, so the most expensive model (64GB / 3G) is $829. The WiFi-only model will ship in 60 days, and the 3G models will come in 90. It’s half an inch thick, 1.5 pounds in weight, with a 9.7 inch capacitive display.

All of a sudden, that five-hundred dollar price tag doesn’t seem like a ridiculously great deal. The iPad has it’s pros: It’s actually a usable tablet. Looking at it is like eye-sex. It’s decently priced as an e-reading device. But, there’s obviously cons: No camera, only assisted GPS with a 3G model+plan, still has flash restrictions, a new sort of DRM, and it’s bezel is fatter than your mother, there is STILL no multi-tasking and it actually isn’t widescreen as originally thought. Also it doesn’t support T-Mobile’s 3G so you’re still restricted to AT&T. I think what Apple was aiming for was a mash of a netbook, e-reader, and a smartphone that was later blessed by Christ.

They kind of reached a some-what middle ground. It can surf the web, read email like a pro and make portable gaming a lot more deck. But it lacks a camera, meaning no videoconferencing. Netbooks do that. Heck, even some phones can do that. Built in GPS would have also made this tile-of-a-device a must have. Even besides all of that, Apple doesn’t even own iPad.com. Or even iBooks.com, the iPad’s fascinating e-book reader. Even if the interface is a lot cooler than the iPhone’s, and it looks pretty, it’s gonna take a lot more than design for me to buy that Apple device. Here’s a suggestion: Thorough functionality. A novel concept, innit? But, what can I say? For the past 10 years, if it’s the way they wanted it, it’s the way you want it.

P.S: If those “pad” jokes the iPad is receiving are anything, they’re bad karma, Apple.

-Anay

Add the Tor repository to your sources.list:

"deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org karmic main"

Note: if you have not upgraded to karmic you can change “karmic” to the name of the Ubuntu version your on (ie: jaunty)

After adding the repository you have to add the gpg key so open a terminal (or if you already have one open) and type this:

"gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89" and
"gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -"

Then you will want to refresh your apt and and install tor with these commands

"sudo apt-get update"
"sudo apt-get install"

Now that you have Tor installed you can run it but it is always nice to have a pretty interface right? in that case you would want to apt-get install Vidalia from the Ubuntu repositories

"sudo apt-get install vidalia"

Now you should be done unless your getting an error through Vidalia that says that Tor is already running if you get this message it means that the Tor daemon started running after the package was installed and all you have to do is stop the daemon using this command

"sudo /etc/init.d/tor stop"

This will stop the daemon and will allow you to control Tor through Vidalia.

You have now made yourself anonymous to others on the Internet.

Other Browsers: To use Tor in a browser besides Firefox(with the torbutton addon) such as Google Chrome or Opera or if you want to use it in other applications that connect to the Internet go to the Proxy Settings and make sure they are set to SOCKS 5 on 127.0.0.1(localhost) on port 9050.

Enjoy your increased privacy,

-John

Note: there are packages for other distros on the tor website (https://www.torproject.org/)

Outside Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/

Well I not sure what talks I will be able to get to, but to have a few that I want to go to. There are :

Social Zombies II: Your Friends Need More Brains – with Tom Eston, Kevin Johnson, and Robin Wood

GSM: SRSLY? – with Chris Paget and Karsten Nohl

The Splendiferous Story of Archive Team and the Rapidly Disappearing Digital Heritage – with Jason Scott

Build your own Predator UAV @ 99.95% Discount – with Michael Weigand

The other talks I want go to but, not sure what will happen.

I want to say thanks to @armorguy for helping me get from the South to Washington D. C.

-Jacob

Now to as every other geek, I have to get a job to pay for new computers, upgrades, and other geek porn. And at that job there is users. and there is to major groups of users, teachers and students. Now in our current network setup this is how the work-order/work-flow should be:

Nice work-flow right? When sadly that’s not how it works around here. This is how it really works:

See my problem? Now As a former student and a son of one of the teachers, I know that not all the teacher/students are like this, but enought of them are to make it a problem. Now my co-worker and I know of this problem but sadly my boss is oblivious of it. His job is to keep the money straight, but he spends more time in the field than he does in his office. And his boss (and indirectly (and he thinks directly) our boss) believes he his the second coming well it comes to computers and anything tech. So we can’t spend a weekend and/or all-nighters to fix the problems that these teachers see, or to give us time to break the network to fix it and make it better.

Well now got that off my chest. The rant started after I got a email from a user(not how our work order system works) about him having a “Trojan horse on my printer”. Just thought you guys would like to know.

-Jacob