Last night, my friends and I saw That 1 Guy at Higher Ground in Burlington. The show was great. That 1 Guy is not just an extremely talented musician, one-man-band, and stage magician, but also an inventor who created his own multi-function instrument: the Magic Pipe. Continue reading “That 1 Guy & the Magic Pipe”
Dell System Analyzer Is a Waste of Time
While looking for hardware upgrades for a client’s server this morning, I decided to run the Dell hardware analyzer via their website to save myself the time of digging up the Dell Service Tag or running a one-line PowerShell command, I watched as the system installed an ActiveX control in the browser (always a pleasent feeling…)? and identified the server as…
a P703w All-in-One Printer
OR
V505 & V505w All-in-One (PRODUCT) RED (tm) Printer.
Uhm. Okay. Right… That was helpful.
"Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must Have an Earnest Desire to Save the World."
“Teacher Seeks Pupil.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.”
It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime.
Continue reading “"Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must Have an Earnest Desire to Save the World."”
GCFW: GIAC Certified Firewall Analyst
As of the time I’m writing this, you can see I am the newest GCFW. From the GIAC website, this means I now
- “…have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to design, configure, and monitor routers, firewalls, and perimeter defense systems.?
Combine that with my GSNA
from last year, which states that I
- “… have the knowledge, skills and abilities to apply basic risk analysis techniques and to conduct a technical audit of essential information systems”?
and it seems that I really need to get back to work with these skill thingies I’ve accumlated!
Windows XP is Still Available, Says Amazon
Amazon.com just sent me an email telling me that Windows XP is still available. Well cool! I’ll definitely be using a couple more copies of Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional.
Comodo's EasyVPN Landing Page is an Attack Site?
After listening to a recent episode of the Data Security Podcast, I was intrigued with Comodo’s free VPN product. Continue reading “Comodo's EasyVPN Landing Page is an Attack Site?”
I've Hit a New low
Last week, I followed a friend’s example and started celebrating my birthday two days in advance, and really didn’t finish until, oh, about a week after. As a result, I had my highest caloric intake in a single day since I started the Medifast diet last June. See this graph for a visual.
- Weight and Calories Graph
Observe that I’ve only broken 3,000 calories in a single day twice. Once when I was at the SANS conference in December, and this past weekend, when I consumed far too much of my own Greek Olive and Onion bread (which, by the way, is getting rave reviews all around, even from my 4 year-old godson, who “is not fond of olives and onions”).
The kicker is that I weighed in at 163.8# this morning – an all-time low for me as an adult. I think I’ll go get some beer and pizza now.
I bet you thought this post was about the divorce, didn’t you? Psych!
Are We There Yet?
This weekend, thanks to my friend’s small child, I had a brilliant suggestion for auto makers and after market car whiz-bang installers: Stop installing DVD players in the back seat (which just perpetuate the military industrial entertainment complex) and GPS receivers in the dashboard (which lead to distracted drivers and accidents).
Instead, put the display for the GPS in the back seat. What does this accomplish?
- Drivers are no longer visually distracted by GPS maps. Instead, they can ask the kid in the back seat, who will be more than happy to provide navigation functions.
- Drivers are no longer distracted by the sound of “are we there yet? Are we there yet,” from the back seat.
- Kids learn the value of being helpful, which both pleases the parents and speeds the journey.
Obviously a person driving solo can’t use a GPS display in the back seat, so maybe you need two, but still, skip the DVD player.
Think about it.
Really Fast ICMP Echo Requests
Today I was helping a client troubleshoot some odd network behavior. He reported that he had no network connectivity. Not knowing exactly what he meant by that, I decided to ping his computer from one of the servers at the same location. What followed next was pretty interesting. Continue reading “Really Fast ICMP Echo Requests”
Scam of the Day: Stimulus Payment, Python, Pants, and Bombing.
This one just came in via my mom. I consider myself fortunate enough to have a mom who can recognize a good scam when she sees one.
And, on that note, is anyone else reeling from astounding spike in spam over the last couple of weeks? I mean everywhere, from email to IM to Skype, to blogs and other web forms. Everything from these scams to the traditional 419 to a “python in my pants.”
Side note:
Dear Spammer, please take note: I used to handle boa constrictors and have no desire to have a python in my pants.
Thanks,
Peter
Thought of the day: can we route the military to do something useful, like bombing spammers? Thanks.
------- Forwarded message follows ------- Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: from smx74.sover.net (smx74.sover.net [209.198.112.154]) by spot.sover.net (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n05JZW0F066421 for <[email protected]>; Mon, 5 Jan 2009 14:35:32 - 0500 (EST) (envelope-from [email protected]) Received: from post.nvozrast.ru (post.nvozrast.ru [212.44.139.147]) by smx74.sover.net (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n05JZVbQ008350 for <[email protected]>; Mon, 5 Jan 2009 14:35:32 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from [email protected]) Message-Id: <[email protected]> Received: from User ([87.198.234.70]) (authenticated user [email protected]) by post.nvozrast.ru; Mon, 5 Jan 2009 22:34:35 +0300 From: "Internal Revenue Service"<[email protected]> Subject: Stimulus Payment form it's ready for you to submit Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 19:32:47 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_00D3_01C2A9A6.2E79EE60" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-Bayes-Prob: 0.0001 (Score 0) X-Spam-Score: 2.60 (**) [Tag at 5.00] FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,L_T_COMBINED,MSGID_FROM_MTA_HEADER, MSGID_FROM_MTA_ID,UNDISC_RECIPS X-Spam-Milter-Status: No, hits=2.60 required=5.00 l=75 f=1 st=1 tests=FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,L_T_COMBINED,MSGID_FROM_MTA_HE ADER,MSGID_FROM_MTA_ID,UNDISC_RECIPS X-CanItPRO-Stream: sovernet:[email protected] (inherits from sovernet:default) X-Canit-Stats-ID: Bayes signature not available X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 209.198.112.38 Status: X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 8.0.200 [270.10.2/1876] X-Antispam: NO; Spamcatcher 5.1.0. Score 2 X-PMFLAGS: 570949760 0 1 PV1H9GJ5.CNM After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a Stimulus Payment. Please submit the Stimulus Payment Online Form in order to process it. A Stimulus Payment can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline. To submit your Stimulus Payment form, please download the document attached to your email. Note: If filing or preparation fees were deducted from your 2007 Refund or you received a refund anticipation loan, you will be receiving a check instead of a direct deposit. Regards, Internal Revenue Service