Category: Computers

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Computers Mobile Devices New Technology

More iPad Thoughts (NOT A Review)

You can’t help but to have read articles on the iPad since it’s announcement, and now that it is officially out, there will plenty more.  I’m sure I’ll check one out the next time I’m near an Apple store. I did not get one since I honestly cannot think of a compelling use case for me that would warrant dropping $500 on what I see as a companion, primarily content consumption device. I would expect that Apple at some point in the not too distant future will have a price drop.

Most of what I found were reviews, one of which from the NY Times. Actually, it’s two reviews in one article. One for “Techies”, and one for everyday folks. I do have to disagree though with articles premise that the everyday people are/will be iPad lovers, and the “Techies” iPad haters. Being a techie, I am not dismissing or hating the iPad. If I were still commuting to work on the commuter rail, that would be a perfect scenario of using one. I work with all techies as well being in IT, and there has been plenty of interest with many intending to get one. It would have been more appropriate I think if the article simply indicated each one as the iPad critic, and iPad fan review.

I’m obviously not going to try and review this since I have never used one. If you are interested in some initial thought articles on the iPad, check Paul Thurrott’s first impressions here, and another articles from the NY Times here. I have a few thoughts of the concept:

  • The extra screen real estate is a plus for many applications.
  • A great form factor for eBook reading and carrying in a bag or backpack. Something I would definitely consider if I were still taking the train to commute to work.
  • I’m wondering what is better for long term reading though – the reader screen of something like the Kindle, or the gloss color screen of the iPad?
  • And speaking of Kindle, I’m curious to see how the actual Kindle app on the iPad is compared to the native Apple book reader.
  • Seems like a perfect type of device to do Skype on, but no camera. Perhaps there will be one included in the next gen hardware.
  • No Flash.
  • Screen is not widescreen format, so I would expect to see those black bars when watching a movie on it.
  • From what I’ve read in reviews thus far, it seems like it’s a bit on the heavy side for its size.
  • Same closed system of applications for the device as is the case with the iPhone & iPod Touch. Maybe some think this is a positive, but I tend to lean toward a more open system myself. That said, I do have an iPod Touch and really like it.
  • I know this is just a pet peeve I have of the marketing, but come on, is it really “magical”? It’s real technology, and when I hear the word “magical” used, I start thinking of Disney music.

I can probably think of a few more things, but I would really want to check one out in person prior.

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Computers Mobile Devices New Technology

iPad – What Do You Think?

I’ve been really bad about putting up new posts both here and my other blog lately, but how could I miss out on putting up something about the latest thing this week – the Apple iPad. What do I think of it? Well, I’m not sure yet. It’s definitely is a wonderful piece of technology. It’s a new category though, so not 100% sure where this will “fit in” just yet. It’s more than just a big iPod Touch, more than just an eBook reader, similar yet different than a netbook…

You get the idea. And we’ll have to wait and see what happens when they are actually available for purchase how well they sell, and what demographic(s) will be buying them.

What say you though? What are your thoughts, praises, critisisms, comments on the iPad?

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Computers Information Technology Linux

Disabling User List in GDM Login Screen – Ubuntu 9.10 / Linux Mint 8

I’ve been playing around with both Ubuntu 9.10 and Linux Mint 8 (just released and based on Ubuntu 9.10). One of the differences that’s noticed right away is the change in the GDM login screen. By default, it lists the users to choose from, then enter the password. This may be OK for some, i.e. perhaps a home system, but what if you wanted to not use the list of users. If you wanted to require users to type in their username to make it more secure, you can no longer just adjust this setting within the login screen settings. The login screen settings now contain just a couple of options around allowing autologin. It would be nice to have the other setting back, but here is a method that someone can use now:

  1. Logout so you are at the login screen.
  2. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to enter the CLI.
  3. Login to CLI using the normal credentials.
  4. Type: export DISPLAY=:0.0
  5. Type: sudo -u gdm gconf-editor
  6. Alt-F7 to return to the GUI. Gconf-editor should be visible.
  7. Drill down to apps –> gdm –> simple-greeter.
  8. Check box for disable_user_list. Close gconf-editor.
  9. Reboot, GDM should now show a button to login, and prompt for both username then password.
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Computers Information Technology Linux

Notes on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)

ubuntu-logo-jackalopeI went and installed Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) onto my test system as a dual boot with Windows 7 Release Candidate, and so far so good.  This was the same system I had installed OpenSUSE 11 on before and I went back and reviewed how I tweaked my desktop there and did very similar setup for the Ubuntu setup.

I installed Cairo-Dock, and included launchers for Firefox, Thunderbird, Terminal, BitTorrent, and OpenOffice Word Processor.  As part of installing Cairo-Dock, I eliminated the botton toolbar and merged its contents to the top toolbar. I also played around some with Gimp (v2.6 comes with this version of Ubuntu) – the Jackalope pic with the Ubuntu logo merged into it was the result.  I also installed Screenlets and setup clock, calendar, slideshow, weather, and system info screenlets to launch upon login.  As expected, Thunderbird was just as easy to setup for imap to my gmail account as it was in Windows.

So those are my first notes for this version of Ubuntu.  As I play with it more and find things noteworthy, I’ll post those.

Screenshot of my Ubuntu Desktop.

Ubuntu_904_SS

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Computers Information Technology Linux

OpenSUSE 11 First Impressions

I decided to give OpenSUSE 11 a try on my dedicated Linux box. Since I’ve only installed it and made some adjustments within Gnome, I thought I would give what I can really only call some first impressions of it.  I’m writing this post from the OpenSUSE box.  The system I installed it on is my few years old Gateway GX7022E – a Pentium D processor (3.0Ghz) with 3GB RAM.

I took the defaults during installation, choosing Gnome as the WM.  I did briefly try both KDE 3.5 and 4.0 within VMs, but I am a bit more used to Gnome and tend to favor a more simple look (with some small creature comforts).  I would definitely say that installation time is much shorter over my experience in the past installing OpenSUSE 10 and 10.1 (both were installed a while back on this same box).  Call me old fashioned, but I also chose the more “traditional approach” of UNIX/Linux by not allowing automatic logins, or allowing the first user account created to be the administrator account (which does things using sudo in the background  – in the same way Ubuntu does).  This basically means that for any software I need to install, system changes, etc., I need to provide the root password (as opposed to my own, even though I am already logged into the system).

So now I’ve logged into Gnome and I’ve began my tweaks.  OpenSUSE 11 comes with the “Main Menu”, aka SLAB 0.9.10, which is a one button menu.  I ended up removing this in favor of the more typical menu bar (Applications, Places, System).  Perhaps I will give SLAB another chance at some point, but for me anyway, having to click on “More Application” and having it open up a window with the apps to click seemed a little bit too much “Windows 3.1/NT 3.51” to me.  I also changed themes to one I found on gnome-look.org, Ubex2; and the desktop background to one of Boston from the Charles River that I found on Interfacelift.com.  Both these sites are great for Gnome tweaks and backgrounds.

I installed Screenlets as a desktop widget/sidebar app, and Cairo-dock as an app launcher similar to Objectdock (by Stardock) for Windows, or the Mac OS launcher.  (As an aside, I’ve also been experimenting with setting my Windows system up similarly with the taskbar on top, and Objectdock on the bottom.)  I also adjusted the font resolution to 96 dots per inch, and set for LCD, and medium hinting.  This allows better font rendering in my opinion.

So first impressions are – fairly quick and easy install, but also an install that allows for more traditional approach to account logins, as well as some other options.  I hope Ubuntu – another great distro – includes that option, for those that want it, in a future release.  Then with some pretty easy customizations, I have a nice Gnome based environment to do my stuff in.  The first screenshot is the default OpenSUSE, found on opensuse.org, and the second is mine, customized as I mentioned above.  If you’re looking to try a different Linux distro, give this one a shot to see if it works for you.

Default OpenSUSE 11 Gnome Screenshot

My Customized OpenSUSE 11 Screenshot

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Computers Information Technology Technology

Logitech VX Nano Mouse

I know I’ve been very lax about science or tech posts of late, but as I’ve picked up a wireless mouse for my work laptop recently for use at home, I thought I would share some impressions of it.  This is the Logitech VX Nano mouse.  When it comes to mice, I tend to like them fairly simple – not the “buttons all over the place” types (i.e. like gaming mice).

What I like about this mouse is that while it is marketed as a notebook mouse, it is not too small.  It is only slightly smaller than a standard mouse.  Its shape and size still make for a comfortable mouse for me at least.  The shape should also allow for left handed users to be comfortable with it as well I think.  Larger hands may find it a tad small – my hands are more medium sized with longer fingers.  The USB transceiver is really nice in that it is small enough to plug into the laptop USB port and can leave in there without much worry of breaking it.  The portion that sticks out is just a hair under 1/4″, and the mouse itself fits into an included pouch which helps protect in in a bag.  It also has an on/off switch underneath to help save battery life when not in use.  Again while I don’t do much with the extra buttons, this mouse includes web browsing “forward” and “back” buttons next to the left mouse button.  There is also a button behind the scroll wheel that sort of acts as a replacement for Alt-Tab in Windows, giving a menu to select any open window.  Of course, these button functions are customizable through the Logitech software.  The scroll wheel has both horizontal and standard vertical scrolls.  One of the nicest features, for my use at least, is the that the scroll wheel has two vertical scroll modes.  One is the standard scroll of 3 or so lines at a time with some tactile feedback.  If you click the wheel as a button though, it goes into what I call “free wheelin’ ” mode.  This mode freely scrolls many lines. It’s very useful in a long web page, large spreadsheet, or in what I find really handy, while at work I have the ability to scroll through about 20,000-30,000 lines of text in large log files.  I find the section I am concentrating on, for instance an error dump section, then one flick brings me to the most recent events at the bottom of the section.

So, if you’re in the market for a nice cordless mouse for your system, check out the VX Nano from Logitech.  I like it enough that I now keep it in my bag and use it at work as well as when working from home.

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Computers Information Security Information Technology

Creating Good Passwords

Most companies and universities have password policies in place that enforce complexity requirements. But do you have a good policy you use for your personal accounts? You should create good strong passwords for any accounts you access – your email, eBay, online merchants, your personal finance file on your system, etc.

When creating your password, it should:

  • Be at least 8 characters long, but be easy to remember (more on this in a second).
  • Contain at least one capital letter, a digit, and a special character along with the lower case letters. Some web sites may not allow special characters (shame on them!!), so be creative with more digits (preferably) or capital letters.
  • Not be built from a dictionary word or any name – including character substitution!! For example, password is obviously a BAD password, but P@ssw0rd is also a bad password. Hacking utilities would have this figured out in very little time.
  • Not contain sequences, patterns, or repeated characters, for example 123, 111, qwerty, etc.

So I mentioned making your password at least 8 characters. I tend to like to make them 8 characters exactly. Perhaps this is because of my past experience using UNIX systems, where the first 8 characters only were significant (standard UNIX would ignore anything after 8 characters), but I also think 8 characters would be easier for most to remember. What you don’t want is to have to write the password down; it should be something you can commit to memory.

So given the rules, how to actually create a good password? Think of a phrase seven to eight words long, and then use the beginning of each word to make into your password, mixing up the capitals, symbols, and digits. If you use seven words, you can use punctuation as the last character. If you can easily remember a longer phrase and the password you create from it, certainly go for it. Some examples (don’t use these for yourself, though):

Phrase: I found the Science Attic really useful today
Password: Ift5@ruT

Phrase: My dog Fido is the best dog!
Password: MdF1tBd!

Phrase: Firefox is a great internet browser to use
Password: F1@giB2u

So you get the idea. And you can get really creative with this. 🙂 So have a little fun with it, while keeping your accounts that much more secure.