Streetview, Anyone?

Maybe I'll stick with Mapquest or Yahoo Maps.

Actually, I still like Google Maps best.

New Tools

Neue Handwerkzeug.

Last Thursday, I went to University of Central Florida's Decision Days. You bring your transcripts, a check, and they can tell if you're in right there. I went to find out what I'd need to get in. As it turned out, I need just one more non IT class; German II. I took German I at Jacksonville State University in Alabama in 1983, but when I took German II at University of Georgia, I had to drop out of school during that semester, and never finished the class. So, I have to take to finish that requirement now.

Life is way different that it was in 1984. Back then, I had a text book to help me, and a few Berlitz Phrasebooks. We weren't allowed to copy the schools audio tapes, so I got no help there.

Now, in the matter of four hours, I was able to subscribe and download ten different German language study podcasts, 'preview' a full audio series, download free and 'previewed' software, bookmarked about fifteen German language teaching websites, and downloaded free German/English dictionaries for my Pocket PC. Since Thursday, I've gone through four lessons of the audio files, four lessons on the software, and practice some phrases with Nancy. I've got more files in my downloading hopper, and I'm about ready to use old business cards to label everything in the house.

Yeah. Life is different than it was in 1984. The accessibility to educational material is incredible. This is a big part of the reason I want to be involved with the delivery of educational content. By setting up kids with Edubuntu computers, I'm helping in a small way. If I can get many more of those machines out, I'll be helping in a large way.

Being an information junkie, this accessibility is intoxicating for me. Some would think it overwhelming. For me, it's like a kid in a candy store. I want it all.

And I Thought It's Cold In Florida

This happened off the coast of Newfoundland.

Geek Reading

I know it's hard to believe, but Geeks do indeed read. Not just web sites, tech manuals, and hacker instructions, but actual, honest-to-G~D fiction. That's right - Geek stories actually exist.

Geek Mafia
Right now, I'm reading Geek Mafia, by Rick Dakan:



Here's the blurb about the book:
Fired from a job he hated at a company he loved, videogame designer Paul Reynolds is drowning his sorrows in late-morning margaritas when he meets an alluring, pink-haired conwoman named Chloe. With her gang of techno-pirate friends, Chloe helps Paul not only take revenge on his former employers, but also extort a small fortune from them in the process. What more could a recently unemployed, over-worked videogame designer in Silicon Valley ask for?

I like Geek Mafia because the story uses actual technology hackers/crackers use. Anyone in Network Security should read Geek Mafia. The author's writing style needs practice and polish, but like I say, "A good story will beat poor style." Dakan's style isn't poor, by any means, but there are parts in the story where there's a bit too much telling instead of showing. But, the story of Geek Mafia is just plain good.

You can even download a free copy of Geek Mafia here. You can choose the format you want. If you click on the picture above, you can download the .pdf file of the book.

Here's Rick Dakan doing a talk about his book at PhreakNIC - a hacker convention:



And here's a link to the book on Amazon:

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
This book isn't available yet, but when Neil Gaiman recommends something, I listen:
"I'd recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I've read this year, and I'd want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can."

"Because I think it'll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won't be the same after they've read it. Maybe they'll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it'll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they'll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they'll want to open their computer and see what's in there. I don't know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or stranger or odder. It's a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its flaws pretty much meaningless."

Little Brother is about some hacker kids in San Francisco. Here's a blurb from Cory about the book:

"...hackers who declare war on the Department of Homeland Security. Every chapter has got a real-world how-to about why homeland security does not work, and how you can defeat it. And it talks about the math and computer science and information science behind the war on terrorism, the junk science behind the war on terrorism. But it's also meant to be an instruction kit for teaching kids to be culture jammers and technology jammers. I've been calling it Encyclopedia Brown meets The Anarchist Cookbook. My editor at Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, called it Wikipedia Brown. So I just finished it, and finished the outline of book two. It's a two book series."

I've added a countdown button to the release of Little Brother on the right side of the page. I'm a Doctorow fan, not only in Cory's fiction but his activist efforts too. Here's a link to the Little Brother MySpace page:

The next book isn't a fiction, and I haven't read it yet. I highly intend too asap.
The Pirate's Dilemma - by Matt Mason
Here's a pretty cool presentation about the book:

| View | Upload your own

And here's a link to the book on Amazon. You can read through the first few pages:

I hope this book comes out with an audio version soon.

Read up, folks.

Alex 2.0 is here

Baby Alex Khoury was released at 11:38pm Thursday, January 10, 2007. The new package seems very stable, with no evident bugs to report, and mostly no problems. Alex Khoury 2.0 does require A LOT of dependencies: Blankey 2007, libmilk 4.5, Diaper 8.0 -which seems to require several daily updates, and many other packages. Unfortunately, Baby Alex comes with no documentation. But, like Linux, Baby Alex has a HUGE community of volunteers to help with the information of experience with previous Baby releases. One interesting thing about Baby package releases: Each package seems to be specifically designed only for the new user. There are occasional, but rare duplicates sent, and some users will receive more than one baby package at time. With all the dependencies involved with Baby, more than one seems like a lot of work with dependencies, especially the Diaper dependency.

Actually, I'm not sure if this release of Baby Alex is 2.0. It could be 10.0, for all I know. I'll ask the project's namesake later. I am aware that the Alex project does have 3 major forks, but they all seem to cooperate quite well.

Congrats to the Baby Alex team. Well done.

KDE 4.0 is here

KDE 4.0 is here, and it looks pretty good. On the lottalinuxlinks podcast #59, Dave Yates interviewed Rich Johnson, a contributor to Kubuntu. Since Kubuntu uses KDE, Rich has experience through the development cycle of KDE 4. Rich indicated that the average user should probably wait for KDE 4.1.

I'll probably load up one of the more powerful Free Geek computers up with Kubuntu when KDE4 is integrated, and see how it feels.

Jimmy ef'n Carter

Now, I know Carter didn't write this, but it makes a bit too much freakin sense:

I Got What America Needs Right Here

Sometimes I'm a little stupid, maybe, a little slow in the head, so I'm wondering if you can help me get something straight....

Bug Reporting

My friend, K.Mandla got called out on bug reporting. K responded, realizing that K should start doing more bug reporting, to 'give back to the community'. I admired K's response, and still reread K's post on bug reporting.

But, after listening to the recent Linux Action Show podcast (#69), I now question the person that challenged K on bug reporting.

I highly recommend listening to the show. The hosts make some good points on the responsibilities of who should be doing bug reporting. I hope this point gets discussed more throughout the year.

Still Not Getting It

I'm sure it's mostly me, but I struggle to find the advantages of selling pre-loaded Linux machines. I'm glad there are companies that do; System76, ZaReason, Dell to name the one's I really know. But I struggle to see the advantage. I like the idea of promoting open source software, and open drivers for hardware -which I think all vendors would do well to go with- but where is the advantage of sell a pre-loaded Linux machine?

There are thousands of used and older computer that run Linux very well. If someone is really a stickler, many of them will run Windows XP just as well too. Vista's turned into more of a flop than a wow, so the need for super hardware is mostly a niche market; Gamers, Engineers, Graphic and animation specialist.

The only real benefit from the absolute newest hardware is battery life on a laptop. Other than that, a used computer is just as good as a new one. A Pentium 4 machine with a good graphics card feels just as fast as a Core Duo.

Maybe my old hardware fetish clouds my judgment. Maybe my over-consumer stance clouds my judgment too.

Someone please tell me: Why spend $1200 on a new computer, when a $300 spent on rebuilt older hardware is just as good?

Disclaimer: Even after all this rambling, I'd love to have a System76 Darter, topped out. Four hour battery life? Yeah, baby!

A Few Reviews

In the last few days, I've set up a few VirtualBox systems. The idea is to install and use an OS well enough to get a good idea of it. As I try out a system, I focus on one primary principle- Ease of Use. I try to put myself in a frame of mind of a complete new computer user. It's not easy.
Here's my experiences so far:

CentOS

CentOS, short for Community enterprise Operating System, is a complete copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The difference is, other than community support, CentOS comes with no official support. Oracle produces a copy of Red Hat called Unbreakable Linux. Fedora is Red Hat's cutting edge future work, but Red Hat Enterprise is what is used in business.

I decided to load CentOS in a VirtualBox machine so I could go through some Red Hat tutorials. The installation and desktop reminded me of my first experience with Linux - Fedora Core 4. Other than being an RPM based distribution, CentOS is pretty good.

Many businesses use Red Hat Enterprise, or even CentOS, on their servers. I need to know how to use it in a business setting. From what I can tell, CentOS is an excellent way to learn how to use Red Hat Linux.

PCLinuxOS

PCLinuxOS is topping the distrowatch chart lately, so I decided to try it out and see why. Installing PCLinuxOS was fairly straight forward, but there were a few places where a new user unfamiliar with Linux might get confused. Just like Windows, it's easier to just go with the default settings.

PCLinuxOS is a KDE based distribution. There's a variant designed to look much like Windows XP/Vista, but it's not really supported by the forums.

Other than visual appeal, I didn't see anything really special about PCLinuxOS. I'm not sure why it's topping the Distrowatch list at the moment. It looks better than Ubuntu/Kubuntu, but the Ubuntu variants installation seems easier.

I'm not a KDE fan, so PCLinuxOS wouldn't be a primary choice for me. Don't get me wrong -I'm glad KDE offers a choice. Maybe KDE 4.0 will change my mind. But, for now, my desktop of choice is Gnome, and my distro of choice is Ubuntu.

gOS

I did a few reviews of gOS recently, but I wanted to comment a bit more on it. There have been some recent reviews of the Everex gPC, featuring gOS, and they were not raving reviews. gOS offers an excellent Ubuntu variant, but can be confusing for a completely new user. I still think gOS is a good option for millennium kids, but not for the average person. Everex would have done better to go with a straight forward version of Ubuntu.

Over the next year, I'm going to try out the top 20, and maybe a few more, Linux distros. I'll report on them as I experience each one. Unfortunately, a Virtual Computer doesn't give you the real information about a Linux installation. A true test would be to install and use it on a laptop.

Windows Security

The more I think about it, the more I suspect that I may never have had a malware problem on my Windows partition. I used to figure that if I had Windows running longer than six months, it got malware. At least, that was my previous experience. But, that experience was based on running Windows only.

In the last 1 1/2 years since I installed my dual boot desktop, I used Windows for schoolwork, iTunes and Audible.com. I used Linux for everything else, especially random internet surfing. If I didn't have school, I'd wouldn't use Windows at all. I get it through school, as part of our materials for training. I rarely use Windows for surfing the internet, and I never went on myspace or facebook with it. Most of my mail was opened in Ubuntu, and unless I know who it's from, I don't open attachments. So, looking back, I rarely exposed Windows to potential malware.

Maybe most people who insist on using Windows should have a dual boot system. They could surf and email from Linux, and do whatever they need to for work or school in Windows. As more applications are available online, there will be less of a need for a particular operating system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. That's a whole 'nuther security issue itself, though.

Upgrades

The Tinkering Monster got me. I did the upgrades on my desktop:

1. Graphics card- from 32 mb ATI to 128 mb Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440. -- I did this upgrade first. When I turned the computer back on, Windows came on, but obviously wasn't using the drivers. Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake didn't work with the Nvidia card. It could have, but I didn't bother to go through the xorg.conf file to fix it. I was already planning more upgrading anyway.
2. Pentium 4 processor from 1.8 GHz to 2.26 GHz - The major difference isn't necessarily the speed of the processor, rather the speed of the bus. From 400 MHz to 533 MHz. That is where the speed really comes from. Anyway, the computer worked right away. A good bit faster.
3. Dbanned the hard drive, reinstalled Windows and Ubuntu.

The reinstallation is something I've been wanting to do. I save all my personal data and setting to external hard drives, wiped the disk, then reinstalled my dual boot system. It's REALLY important to install Windows XP first. Not that you couldn't do it another way, but it makes setting up a dual boot much easier. I installed Windows, did all the updates, installed the anti-virus and anti-spyware, the defragged the disk and installed Ubuntu.

Here's the catch: Ubuntu to all of 2 hours to:

1. Install the system
2. Do the system updates
   
3. Enable all the repositories I want
4. Load all the software I want
5. Copy specific personal data to My Home folder.

Done. Actually, in slightly less than 2 hours. Windows, however, was another story.

The installation alone took almost 2 hours, and that was before the updates. 10 hours later, almost all the updates were finally done. I counted seven rounds of restarts. That should have been the justice departments punishment for Microsoft: to restart their entire business seven times a day. I eventually got most of what I need installed. Once again, I've learned what I use and what I don't use. 95% of the software I installed on the Windows side is open source. A few proprietary programs, but not many. I'll go without Microsoft Office as long as I can, and use OpenOffice.org exclusively. I would love to say that I use Open Source exclusively, but I'm in school for IT, so it's not an option just yet. I'd love to say that I use Ubuntu Linux exclusively, but I have to know how all the other Operating Systems work: Windowx XP/Vista, Mac OSX, Unix, Solaris, FreeBSD. Yes, I know the last four are basically the same thing. I have to know how to use them.

The main advantage to upgrading Ubuntu from 6.06.1 to 7.10 is being able to use the files in the Windows partition. Click on the disk, browse to the folder with the file I want, and use it. I don't even have to drag it to the Ubuntu side. And no extra packages to install to make that happen. 7.10 also comes with the latest packages/programs for Ubuntu.

The only real upgrade left that I really need is the ram. It's 1 GB right now, but 2 GB would work better for me. If I wasn't in school, I'd probably not bother, but many of my classes use Virtualization for learning and practice. For now, 1 GB is fine, but I'll probably have to upgrade the ram with my own money. If I get a job, that is.

I did decide to scavenge the Gateway box for this upgrade. The Gateway isn't dead though, not by a long shot. I had some extra processors, so I put in a 2.8 GHz Celeron in it, and the 32 mb ATI graphics card that was in my Dell to the the Gateway machine. Installed Ubuntu, and it's ready to go to a trusty volunteer. I just hope whoever gets the machine doesn't try to upgrade the ram.

What to do?

The semester is over. The urge to tinker is overwhelming. I have plenty of machines to work on for Free Geek, but that's almost getting routine. A good routine:

• Pickup or receive equipment
• Wipe the hard drive(s)
• Check and upgrade if necessary
• BIOS
• Memory
• Graphics card
  
• Load Ubuntu or Xubuntu as an OEM installation
• Deliver to recipient or have them pick up
• Usually deliver, since people who can't afford a computer usually can't afford a car.
• Prepare for the inevitable onslaught of "Thanks You"s

Yep. A good routine.

The Gateway I recieved is a pretty good one, except for the RDRAM. Now RAMBUS is actually a really good technology, but the company messed themselves up on the licensing, so RAMBUS is just way too expensive. To upgrade the memory from 512 mb to 1 Gb would cost almost $500. Not practical at all. The only choice with a machine that uses RDRAM is to wait till other machines like that come it, and use those memory chips. For our purposes, RAMBUS is a show-stopper.

So, I've decided to scavenge the Gateway for parts. As I am the primary volunteer, I get first pick of best-of hardware. So, I'm going to try to use the parts from the Gateway to upgrade me Dell:

• The Pentium 4 processor from 1.8 GHz to 2.26 GHz
• The graphics card from 32 meg to 128 mg

Those would be the main upgrades. I would eventually want to upgrade the memory from 1 GB to 1.5 GB on too. I use my desktop for lots of projects using a virtual machine, so memory is important to me. When you have two virtualized servers going, and two virtualized desktops going, memory tends to forget.

The problem is: my desktop is working fine. It dual boots Windows XP and Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake. I set it up like that right after Dapper Drake came out, so it was around June 2006. I've been running that setup this long - probably the longest I've gone without doing a system reinstall. Every once in awhile, I'll scan my Windows installation with different tools for malware, but nothing comes up. I use the Ubuntu side to do 90% of my internet surfing or IMing. I use the Windows side mostly for school assignments that require Windows, so my Windows side is rarely exposed to the outside world.

Windows XP SP3 (service pack 3) is due out soon, and I hear good things about it -as far as security and speeding things up. Also, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Herron will be an LTS release (Long Term Service, like Dapper Drake is) meaning 3 years support for the desktop. My original idea was to wait till both are available, and do the hardware upgrades and system reinstalls then. Part of the reason is that I don't look forward to the Windows installation. Getting the system installed, updated, and programs reinstalled and updated can take almost 48 hours -or more even. Getting everything setup and installed just like I want -including programs and desktop settings- in Ubuntu take two hours, three at the most. It would probably be shorter if I didn't walk the dogs during the install process.

There is also the possibility that if I wait till both of those are available, even better equipment donations will come through Free Geek, and I can use some of those. That, and while RAMBUS is expensive, it runs very well with just 512 mb. I could give the Gateway to a volunteer -provided they'd never need to upgrade the memory.

So, to my avid readers, what do you suggest?

Finals Are DONE!

My first final -Advanced Network Security- took all of 7 minutes. 40 questions, multiple choice. Five seconds or more a question? Something like that. I got 100.

My second test -Introduction to Business- took even less time. I got to class -filled in the scan tron sheet with my name and school number- then the teacher took up the sheet from me and another girl, and said, "Thanks. You can go."
Now, when a teach does and says that, my instant assumption is that I've done something wrong. "Whad I'do? My book? I'll take it off the desk."
"No. You got an A," she replied.
The who's from Ukraine, and has been speaking English for only a few months, grabbed my arm and said, "Come on, let's go."
Clueless me is still going, "Huh?"
"Merry Christmas," the teacher said.
"Merry Christmas?" I replied, still clueless.
When we got out to the hall, Nelya told me what was going on. Evidently, she and I had above a 95 average, and were the only ones in the class who'd done all the work. We could have failed the final, and still gotten an A. Reward for effort.

My third final -Introduction to Network Security- was about as fast as the other test, except I missed two questions on Public Key Cryptography- Sender/Receiver keys and digital signatures and digital certificates. I get all those a bit confused. I'll get them ironed out eventually. Maybe a bit of practice with GNUPG (GNU Privacy Guard) will help.

I made a 95 on the Intro to Security, after I'd made a 100 on the Advanced Security. Go figure.

Today, I took my last final -Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure. I got a 97. The class uses SamAcademy by Course Technology. I don't like that product. TestOut is WAY better. Learnkey is somewhere in between. The final was completely practical, using the simulator environment in SamAcademy. Windows always you many ways to do the same thing, like close a window. You can click the X in the top right corner, click "File" and select close, or right click on the Window bar and select close. SamAcademy lets you do it only ONE way in their sim. Like Mac OSX, you have to do it THEIR way. The problem is you get use to doing it one way, and you reflexively do that way. Then you get the "INCORRECT ACTION". How Soviet. This time, I went back through all the simulations, wrote down everything step by step (in an OpenOffice.org file, of course- who uses paper?) and followed it in the test. I only missed one question -and I think it was sim error, not mine. But I got a 97 anyway, so I'm not complaining.

Even after all that, I consider my best achievement this semester to be getting our printer networked in Ubuntu. It's cool being able to print wireless from my laptop.

I've Been an Elitist!

Sometimes it's difficult to see when it's happening. In the USA, pretty much any purchase you make puts you in the category of an elitist. The massive overconsumption we do (and I'm just as guilty as anyone) would take six and 1/2 planets to sustain. We've gone past the point of abusing our resources to the point of running them dry.

What I never realized was the impact of actually using Windows. The exclusionary and elitist statement that even turning on a Windows machine says is pretty big. Bruce Byfield, a journalist and editor for the Open Source Technology Group, did a really good article on the subject in November 2006. I highly recommend reading it.

I have a Windows Server 2003 test due tomorrow. To quote the dinosaur in Toy Story, "Now I have guilt!"

Compiz

Today, I received a donation of a Gateway tower, 2.26 Ghz, 512 mb RAMBUS ram, 40 gb hard drive @ 7200rpm, Nvidia GeForceMX 440 graphics (128mb). Except for the RAMBUS ram, it's a really nice machine. Rambus is actually an excellent and fast type of memory, but the company screwed themselves with a stupid licensing deal, and their memory is WAY too expensive. It would take $500 or more to take this computer up to 1 gb of memory, and it's not really necessary with the RAMBUS type of memory to do that.

This computer is the first I've had with a good enough graphics card to use Compiz-fusion - the desktop effects that comes with Ubuntu. I decided to enable the effects, install the effects manager and play a little.

Mac OSX and Vista got nuthin over compiz for desktop effects! Here's a demonstration of what the desktop effects can do:

While I like the effects, I probably would rarely use them myself.

Truecrypt is DONE!

While I mean my presentation is done, it would be just as true to say, "Truecrypt is DONE" as an application. This is one incredible program.

I spent most of the end of last week watching Truecrypt tutorials, like this one on YouTube, or this one on Irongeek. The Irongeek one is especially informative. I spent most of Sunday and Monday actually practicing using Truecrypt. It's pretty easy to use, but to use it to it's full potential takes practice. I first learned about Truecrypt on Security Now! with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte, espisode #41. I highly recommend listening to it a few times if you intend on using Truecrypt.

• If you have files that you don't want anyone else to see, use Truecrypt
• If you use a laptop, and have sensative files on it, use Truecrypt
• If you keep any files on a USB jumpdrive, use Truecrypt - even regular files can contain sensitive information that can be used against you
• If you want to keep important records with your attorney, mother, best friend - make a CD with Truecrypt and have them keep it - just in case of fire, hurricane, or flood
• If you work for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, and you're sending a CD with 7.25 million peoples ID's by courier service - use Truecrypt. And get a different courier service!
• If you suspect your ex has hired private investigators to find out how much money you really have - use Truecyrpt.
  
• If you finally have evidence that the Electoral College if fake - use Truecyrpt

I really can't say enough about how important a tool Truecrypt is, and how important the skilled use of Truecrypt can be for a company with sensitive information - even if that company is only one person. At the very least, watch the Irongeek video on Truecrypt.

The Linux version of Truecrypt is command-line based, and the Truecrypt people are working on a GUI for it. A Mac OSX version is suppose to be forth coming too. I'll play around with the command-line version over the holidays, and report back.

"Nuke it for Morbid"

In working on my Data Destruction presentation, I wanted to use that quote from Aliens. On looking it up, I learned the real dialog is;
"...take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

I liked it better as "Nuke it for Morbid". Much more poetic.

Security Presentations

In an inevitable twist of academic logic, I'm taking Introduction to Network Security and Advanced Network Security in the same semester. Evidently, the school will not be able to offer Advanced Network Security till next year, so they allowed some of us to take both classes. Luckily, Advanced Network Security was only slighty more advanced than the Introductory class. Both classes have presented new material for me, and tickled my interest. I can watch movies like Hackers or Live Free or Die Hard, and know what they're talking about, or being slightly inaccurate about. I now know just how much a problem home users of Windows XP have to deal with, and also how much they unknowingly contribute to the problems.

Next week, I have to do a presentation in both classes. It can't be the same presentation either. I'm keeping my presentations simple, and on things I'm interested in.

In the Introductory class, I'm doing my presentation on Data Destruction. Specifically, I'm presenting Darik's Boot and Nuke -Dban. Organizations like Free Geek have to present their Data Destruction Policy up front, so people can feel safe about turning over their hard drives to us. I've created a Virtual Machine to show the actual program, a slide presentation to present specific information, and I'll probably show this video at the end:

If I don't need to show the video, at least you got to see how Dban works. Dban is also helpful if you want to reinstall an operating system. Simply reformatting your hard drive isn't always good enough. If you had an infection from a virus, or got spyware, or hacked through a vulnerability, your system can no longer be trusted. Dban it, reinstall and rebuild the system. As they said in Aliens, "Nuke it for morbid."

In my Advanced class, I'm presenting Truecrypt - an open source data encryption program. Steve Gibson discussed details about Truecrypt in Episode 41 of Security Now Podcast. I highly recommend Security Now for anyone interested in Network Security. I don't understand about half of what they say at the time, but as I learn more I think to myself, "Oh yeah. I heard that on Security Now." I'm learning how to use Truecrypt, but with my complete openness philosophy, I don't really have a need for it. There is a Truecrypt for Linux, but I'll learn that over the holidays. Maybe you have some files you'd like to keep from prying eyes. My presentation will look something like this:

Through these Security Classes, I've learned the most from listening to podcasts. Here are the main ones I listen to:

• Network Security Podcast
• Mostly current events and news. My favorite segment is "C-Level"- used to be called, "Dealing with the Suits" - how to deal with management.
  
• Security Now
• Very detailed explanations of specific security topics. I think the first 50 or so should be mandatory listening for the Intro class.
  
• Pauldotcom
• News and current events with commentary and analysis. Authors of Wireless hacking books. These guys are pretty funny too.
  
• Security Round Table
• Martin McKay from Network Security Podcast host a discussion with people in the business. This is a really good podcast if your interested in working in the Network Security field.
  

I can't say any one of them is better than the other. I've learned something from each show and each episode I listened to.

Throughout these classes, I've had an occasional thought: I wonder what an Operating System designed by Smith and Wesson would look like.

Cooler

After all this time working on computers, I have yet to replace a CPU cooling system. I've taken a few CPU's out, and have a few extra laying around, but I'd never replaced a CPU cooling system. Until this week.

We got in a nice 1.8 GHz Intel P4 machine. Each time I tried to wipe the hard drive, it froze. I replaced the memory, still the freeze happened. When I examined the machine again, I notice the CPU heat sink was loose. Not good. The heat couldn't conduct from the CPU to the sink. That was causing the freeze. I got out my thermal paste, and went for my first try at fixing it. I used the instructions from this video:

All went well till I tried to put the fan on the sink. The fan was what locked the sink to the motherboard. The fan and the sink just wouldn't stay seated. I looked again, and found the fan connector attached to the motherboard was broken. Luckily, I had a few of the same model in the Free Geek CPU/Heat sink and fan collection. I replaced the connector, and tried again. This time, it worked perfectly. Booted the computer up, and it was ready to go. Dbaned the hard drive, installed Ubuntu as OEM, and it's ready for it's new home.

Machines that we get in over 1 GHz go to volunteers. Volunteers basically get the best of the equipment. They can use use best of what comes in to upgrade their hardware. Machines under 1 GHz are absolutely free for FreekBox recipients. An 800 MHz machine with 256 mb ram and Xubuntu installed runs just fine. With 512 mb ram installed, it feels like a new machine. As long as the user has no mission-critical Windows applications they need to use, the machine is as good as anything on the shelf today. It might be a bit slower if you try to do any deep level photo work or video editing, but other than that, it's more than fast enough.

As a bonus for my efforts this week: I finally figured out how to network our printers. It was much easier than I though it would be. No more USB thumbdrive to print things.