Category: Cool Stuff

More open source software

Since I’m made periodic posts lately about the stuff I’m working on in the Open Source world (as a consumer of applications, not a producer – my code-fu is too weak), I think it’s safe to add this list of 30 essential free and open source applications to the blahg. A number of the tools on this site I am already using or currently learning. However, there were a few new-to-me tools on the list that I’ll be working on getting a handle on in the near future.

11. VLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, etc.
If you get tired of having tons of media players on your computer, get this package that runs pretty much every media type you’ll run across without breaking a sweat.

This is my personal media player now, as well. It’s not been too long ago that I thought VLC was weak in the interface, but that has been improved dramatically since then. Overall, it’s tremendously useful. Like many tools on that page, VLC also comes in a portable version which you can run from a USB key or any directory on your system without installing the application. So you remove it by just deleting the directory.

18. Handbrake
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
Unique but essential
Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few movies on my laptop for travel purposes, so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of DVDs while on the road.

I’m not currently a Handbrake user, but I may use it this week to rip some DVDs to my laptop for the kids to watch on the road this week-end when we travel to grandma’s house. I’m familiar with the tool, but have never needed it before.

So there are 2 as a sample. Now head over and view the full list to see what legally free and redistributable software you should be using. And if the full list isn’t enough information for you, spend time in the comments area – there are more recommendations there that are worth checking out. IF you want to try any of these tools and are looking for a portable version, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to track that down if you can’t find it yourself.

[tags]Open source, Essential open source software, Essential Windows freeware[/tags]

Online open courseware

If you are looking to learn something new on the techie side, here’s another site worth looking in to.

Open-Of-Course is a multilingual portal for free online courses and tutorials. By “free” we not only mean free as in “free beer” but also published as open content. Our focus is on educational information where you can benefit of in daily life.

You will find here lots of free courses and tutorials and you can join a community of over 5000 students. All the courses have their own forum for students to interact and help each other out. You can join the fora after registration. Our privacy policy can be viewed here .

People can also add their own courses or tutorials to our system for free. Open-Of-Course runs on the open source electronic learning environment “Moodle”. Read more about that here.

One of the new tools I’ve picked up lately is Scribus – a layout processing/desktop publishing tool (think PageMaker or InDesign). While looking for some tutorials on learning how to better use the tool, I found open-of-course, and felt that I should pass it on.

[tags]Desktop Publishing, DTP, Open-of-course, Open courseware, Scribus[/tags]

Make your own cotton candy machine

Every once in a while, I find the stuff that would make your kids vote for you in a “Coolest parent of the year” contest (for the record, *I* would vote for you every time, but sometimes the kinds need a reminder of how great you are). Follow this cotton candy machine build guide (or if you don’t want all the instructions on one page, start at the intro page)and you’ll get back high on their list for votes.

Here’s a bit to help you see if you are ready to start:

instructable-cotton_candy.jpg

step 1:Materials / Necessities
Okay, so here’s what you’re going to need to make your own cotton candy machine!
Materials:

  • 1- standard electric motor (preferably 1/4″ motor shaft)
  • 1- 3.25″ X 6+” Aluminum extruded round bar (3.25″ diameter)
  • 2 – 1/2″ bolts of any size diameter (smaller = better, but you need the tap for it)
  • 2 – 1″ bolts of any size diameter (need the tap for the right size)
  • 1 – average toaster heating element
  • ? – .25″ diameter copper pipe (or crimping connectors for wiring)
  • 1 – radio-controller “floppy” antenna
  • ? – lots of miscellaneous screws, nuts, and bolts
  • 1- 3″ (dia) X .125″ piece of wood
  • 1- Light Switch Dimmer or Adjustable power supply ( needs to be able to handle high voltage and amperage output)
  • Teflon Tape
  • Conductive Tape
  • A large, plastic or metal, circular object (if you don’t have one, make one)
  • Some wire mesh (usually used as gutter covering)
  • A Few Sheets of paper
  • Some tape
  • Some heavy gauge wire
  • A small bit of fast drying concrete

Tools:

  • Lathe
  • Tap
  • Electrician’s pliers
  • Band/Hack saw (if using copper pipe)
  • Drill press (and the smallest drill bit you can find, at least 1/16″ or smaller)
  • metal working clamps
  • Tin Snips
  • Alibre Design Express (free at www.alibre.com)

The entire instruction set is a bit long, but we’re talking home-made cotton candy here, folks. You just can’t pass up awesomeness like that.

[tags]Instructables, MAKEzine, Cotton Candy, DIY, Do it yourself, Build your own cotton candy machine[/tags]

Watch with phone – Dick Tracy style

Come on – you know you want the SMS M500 GSM Watchfone now.

. . . Now we can all get a little Dick Tracy with “the world’s smallest mobile phone” — or so says SMS Technology Australia. Unlike Dick’s 2-way Wrist Radio which emerged in 1949, this pup goes quad-band GSM while packing a 1.5-inch touchscreen with itty bitty, built-in stylus; Bluetooth 2.0; and all the 120 x 160 pixel MP4 video (or MP3/AAC audio) you can pack into its 128MB of storage. The watch weights just 60-grams and should hold-up to about 200 minutes of talk or 80 hours standby before needing a USB recharge. . .

And you can tell the phone is super cool because phone is spelled fone in the name!

[tags]Watchfone, Dick Tracy style, A phone on your wrist[/tags]

Big brother of the year is bad-ass 5-year-old

Man, this is the kid I want as my big brother when I’m going through life on the next pass-through.

A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children before his stepfather could step in.

“I wanted to protect my little brother,” said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the animal in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.

Soooooo, 5-year-old. Rabid fox. Little brother to protect? Much canine ass-whooping occurred. Well done, sir Rayshun. Well done, indeed.

[tags]Bad-ass of the year in under 10 category, Big brother of the year, He opened a can on the fox[/tags]

Robot news – shocking to you

As the robots continue their work toward world domination, they are picking up new partners.  In an attempt to not be crushed by the robots, the humans at Taser have agreed to arm the robots for the coming battle.

RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality Thursday as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled ‘bots for police and the Pentagon.

By adding Tasers to robots it already makes for the military, iRobot Corp. says it hopes to give soldiers and law enforcement a defensive, non-lethal tool.

But some observers fear such developments could ultimately lead to robots capable of deciding on their own when to shoot and kill.

Expect those humans to mysteriously disappear soon.  The robots don’t want humans pointing out their slow growth in power.

I happen to know the robots are collecting lethal weapons too.  This deal with Taser for non-lethal (actually less-lethal according to law enforcement, but that’s a minor quibble) weapons is a ruse to cover the real ambitions…

[tags]The robots will take over, The coming robot uprising, Robots get tasers – zap your ass, Robots stocking up on less lethal weapons to cover amassing of lethal weapons[/tags]

Government slowing on plans to implement ineffective Real ID plan. For now.

I haven’t made much mention of the Real ID act before other than stating that it is a plan to implement a meaningless identification system. It has no value, provides no security or safety, and increases costs to states as an unfunded federal mandate – meaning you and I pay more in state taxes with no reprieve in federal tax payments. In what can only be described as an unexpected move, the now more liberal Senate is implementing changes and ammendments which will slow down and perhaps ultimately stop the Real ID act by limiting the allowable uses of the federally mandated identification card. Maybe I’m just out-of-touch, but I don’t typically expect liberals to make moves that will reduce how much the government interferes with our private lives. However, that’s the movement that is spreading through the Senate right now.

During Wednesday’s floor debate over a massive immigration bill, Real ID foes managed to preserve an amendment to prohibit the forthcoming identification card from being used for mandatory employment verification, signaling that the political winds have shifted from when the law was overwhelmingly enacted two years ago.

The anti-Real ID amendment is backed by two Montana Democrats, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, who say the digital ID cards represent an unreasonable government intrusion into Americans’ private lives. In April, Montana became one of the states that has voted to reject Real ID.

One of the (numerous) problems with the Real ID act is that it is viewed as some security solution. Somehow, if we could just KNOW with whom we are dealing, then we can KNOW if we are at risk or not. I’m not sure where this fallacy comes from, but it appears to have grown since the 9/11 attacks. Apparently, many people believe that had we had this kind of ID system in place, the terrorists couldn’t have flown the planes into buildings. Years ago Bruce Schneier wrote how identification does not equal knowledge of intention. In other words, just because you can say WHO someone is doesn’t mean you can say WHAT they intend to do. And that doesn’t even deal with the issue of forged identity cards. All the 9/11 terrorists had some form of ID. Some had valid state-issued ID cards. Some had fake IDs comparable to what under-age people try to use to get into bars or other age-restricted venues.

Continue reading “Government slowing on plans to implement ineffective Real ID plan. For now.”

Game Boy history

Over at Portable Video Gamer, you can read a brief but informative history of the Game Boy gaming line from Nintendo, including the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS, and variants of these handheld consoles.

gameboy-line2.jpg

On January 10, 1989, a patent was filed that would lead to the creation, distribution, and ultimate enormous success of the world’s most popular videogame machine: the Game Boy portable gaming series. Nintendo’s previous handheld experience with the Game & Watch (a watch that included mini-games for quick play), led to the invention of a fully-developed, portable gaming system. Many people imagined the Game Boy would play just like the Game & Watch systems, with different games available for purchase but featuring little differences amongst them. Surprisingly, the Game Boy allowed for development of sophisticated games of many styles and genres. The Game Boy has had many different variations over time and eventually led to the creation of the Nintendo DS. Hop along as we explore the history of the Game Boy franchise and take a look at how things have changed along the way.

. . .

GAME BOY POCKET
gameboy-pocket.jpg40% smaller than the original, with AAA batteries and longer lasting life, a truly gray and not yellowish screen, and the disappearance of the battery life LED marker, the Game Boy Pocket was a big change. Released in 1996, it was first available on a limited-edition platinum color.


. . .

WIDE BOY
The Wide Boy was available to developers and the gaming press only. It would play Game Boy games on the NES.

I’m surprised at how many of these I have owned or currently own. I sometimes forget how much of a gaming-stuff purchaser I am, given how little I buy any more. Pretty cool backgrounder information on the entire line of hand-helds, and a link off to speculation on the future of the series.

[tags]Game Boy series history, Gaming, Nintendo, GBA, NDS[/tags]

LinuxChix teach you

As I expand my free and open source software use, I’m finding that I like seeking out tutorials, tips, tricks, books, articles, and whatever else I can find to learn these tools as quickly as possible. One of my recent finds is the LinuxChix courses. Courses are available for C Programming, Security, LaTeX (I bet most of my readers have never even heard of LaTeX), the Unix filesystem, and several more computing topics. If you are looking for some online coursework, you should at least check out the full list of tutorials from the LinuxChix.

[tags]LinuxChix, Online courses, Linux tutorials[/tags]

See, this is what Vietnam did to our soldiers

Ahhh, Vietnam. That much maligned military engagement from over a quarter century back. Not all the stories of Vietnam are brought out, though. Check out this tale of what one Vietnam vet recently did to another living creature.

A 62-year-old Vietnam veteran said he was acting on instinct when he strangled a rabid 25-pound bobcat that attacked him on his back porch.

Dale Rippy endured the bobcat’s slashes and bites until it clawed into a position where he could grab it by the throat. Then he strangled it.

Rippy said it was clear the crazed bobcat had to be stopped.

Yup. That’s what Vietnam did to a man – turned him into a bad-ass. Some folks might read that and see 25-pounds and figure “Big deal!” But even a little 5 pound cat can be a beast that’s tough to handle in the wrong circumstances (ever try to give a cat a bath?). Mr. Rippy saw that the crazed bobcat had to be stopped, and decided he was tough enough to do it. Hit the full article for pictures of Mr. Rippy, the dead cat, and commentary from animal services. Hats off to Mr. Rippy – that’s a feat to be highly regarded.

[tags]Bad-ass of the week, Vietnam vet strangles living creature[/tags]

The risk of information leakage and the Slingbox Pro

Security is hard. Sometimes, you secure the information well enough that it is infeasible to determine what the encrypted information is, and you feel like you’ve done well. Normally, that would be enough. However, sometimes you have some clever folks come along and look at the characteristics that aren’t subject to encryption to figure out what the secured data is. Basically, an attack on the secondary information in the stream. So what, exactly, does this mean? Well, in this particular instance, I found the security and privacy analysis on gadgets extremely interesting. These researchers were able to determine with extremely high accuracy what movies were being streamed from a Slingbox Pro based on the variation in amount of data sent. They couldn’t tell what the data was, but could still count the number of bits and compare that information to known characteristics of the unencrypted streams from movies to guess what was being passed.

The Slingbox Pro is not the only target of their investigations, but it is the most interesting to me. They also find privacy issues with the Nike+iPod Sport Kit and security issues with Microsoft’s Zune social relationships.

We analyze three new consumer electronic gadgets in order to gauge the privacy and security trends in mass-market UbiComp devices. Our study of the Slingbox Pro uncovers a new information leakage vector for encrypted streaming multimedia. By exploiting properties of variable bitrate encoding schemes, we show that a passive adversary can determine with high probability the movie that a user is watching via her Slingbox, even when the Slingbox uses encryption. We experimentally evaluated our method against a database of over 100 hours of network traces for 26 distinct movies.

Despite an opportunity to provide significantly more location privacy than existing devices, like RFIDs, we find that an attacker can trivially exploit the Nike+iPod Sport Kit’s design to track users; we demonstrate this with a GoogleMaps-based distributed surveillance system. We also uncover security issues with the way Microsoft Zunes manage their social relationships.

Continue reading “The risk of information leakage and the Slingbox Pro”