As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

GPS is quickly becoming a staple of the modern automobile.  I'm not sure what the stats are, but it seems that just about everyone has a GPS these days.  And why wouldn't they?  GPS is a great tool that helps us know where we are and figure out where we are going.  With play by play instructions, paper maps have become obsolete.  Again, where is the downside?

The downside is in the companies that produce them.  My GPS came with my car.  It's not built in, in fact, it's a Magellan Maestro 3210.  It was a freebie from General Motors for my purchase of a Chevy Colorado this summer.  As an aside, I love my truck.  That being said, the maps in the GPS are limited to Canada only for some strange reason.  To make matters worse, they are from the first quarter of 2007.  That means that they were a year and a half outdated when I received it. 

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Last week I was fortunate enough to attend Microsoft Tech Days 2008 in Toronto and let me tell you, it was a blast.  The basic summary of the event goes something like... Microsoft tried to bridge the gap between developers and IT pros and for a last minute event, they did manage to pull it off.

The events were supposed to be more like training sessions and each lasted between and hour and an hour and a half.  Having taken sessions from both the MSDN and the TechNet streams, I can tell you that the MSDN side did a much better job at pulling it off.  Let me explain.

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Well, I finally made the time to finish reading Learning FreeNAS by Gary Sims, and I must say that I was very impressed with this book.  The simplicity of the name truly lends itself to the content of the book - simple, yet precise.  This title is packed solid from cover to cover with useful information for everyone from the beginner to the professional.

The content of the book is laid out in a very logical and intelligent manner, paving the way for easy navigation.  Many sections within this book appeal to the very novice user, such as a basic explanation of Network Attached Storage (NAS) and how it can benefit your organization.  The good news though, is that the author prefixes such content with a notification advising you that more advanced users can skip ahead to the next section.

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The newest operating system scheduled to be released by the Microsoft machine has been unveiled and this time they are taking a simplistic approach to naming.  The new desktop OS is officially going to be named Windows 7.  While this may confuse a good number of users, it actually makes a lot of sense.  You see, each version of Windows that Microsoft has released in the past (after Windows 3.1) has pretty much hidden it's version number under a clever name.  Let me demonstrate:

• Windows 9x - Version 4
• Windows XP - Version 5
• Windows Vista - Version 6

While the next smash hit from M$ won't have a catchy name, simplicity will prove to have its virtues.

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As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

It's been a little while since I wrote about my first experiences with John's Background Switcher (JBS) - a truly remarkable and useful tool.  Well, I am very happy to inform you that Version 3.6 is now available for download.

If you recall, John's Background Switcher is a utility that periodically changes your desktop wallpaper, or in my case, allows me to display different images on each display of a multi-monitor setup.  It's very simple to use and really creates great value for anyone who strays away from the default background from the operating system.

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Well, the mighty M$ (Microsoft) is at it again.  This time, it's practical and useful - sort of.  Ok, I shouldn't be too hard on them, after all it is still a beta product and the problems I found were annoyances more than anything.  The question now would be - what is the Web Platform Installer?

Well nobody says it as good as the manufacturer, so let me quote them:

The Web Platform Installer Beta (Web PI) provides a single, free package for installing and configuring Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s simple user interface, you can select specific components or install the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. To help you stay up-to-date with product releases, the Web Platform Installer always contains the most current versions and new additions to the Microsoft Web Platform.

That was a mouthful.

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Today I set out to burn an audio CD.  Wait, did he just say audio CD?  He must have meant mp3 CD.  Nope, I meant audio CD.  Good old 80 minute, 17 song audio CD.  Don't worry about the why.  Worry about the how.  :)

The first challenge I faced was getting disks.  Apparently the only type that I stock in my home are DVDs.  So I trekked down to the local Wal-Mart and grabbed a spindle of 50.  Sadly, they were nearly double the price of the same sized spindle of DVDs.  Not cool.

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Welcome to the continuation of my review of SecTor.  Make sure you read part one before you read part two.

Day 2 (for me) started off with a complimentary hotel breakfast - not the shitty kind either.  They had everything except bacon.  Who forgets the bacon?  Anyway, I was a little late getting to the conference this morning because the keynote by Stephen Toulouse just didn't interest me.  We managed to check out from the hotel and make it over to the convention center for about 10:30am.  That left us about 15 minutes to spare before our first session...  Can you guess what it was?  I'll give you a hint...

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I think that my life might have been re-purposed.

I can has hacking?

Wow.  I just got back from two days of mayhem at SecTor 2008.  If I said I was impressed, I would be understating my impressions by about 1000x.  Imagine being at the happiest and scariest place on earth, all at the same time.  Impossible?  I think not.  For those of you that are unfamiliar, SecTor 2008 was the 2nd annual Security Education Conference brought to us by Black Arts Illuminated Inc.  They cover everything from physical security (such as lock picking) to electronic security (such as wireless security). 

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Today I received a copy of Learning FreeNAS in my mailbox from my good friends at Packt Publishing.  I've been eagerly awaiting this package since last week, after I had the chance to trade emails with Gary Sims.  Gary is the author of the book, as well as the mastermind behind the Learn FreeNAS website.  Last week I wrote a small review of this wonderful site and encourage anyone with an interest in FreeNAS to check it out.

The book covers all sorts of topics from the basics of network attached storage and how FreeNAS benefits you and your business, to planning, configuring, administering, and troubleshooting an installation.

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