I was over on s/v Itinerant, helping Joe with his WiFi setup, and decided to write what I did. Joe had bought a NanoStation2 based on my recommendation and was having some trouble with it.
The equipment I’ve been recommending for cruising sailboats are either the NanoStation2 or the Loco2 for monohulls and the Bullet [...]
This past Christmas, I received a SPOT Messenger. I didn’t activate it until just recently, when I was helping deliver a sailboat from Annapolis to Marion, Mass. The reason I decided to activate the SPOT service was so that several of the families and friends of two of my fellow delivery crew would be able [...]
One thing you have to do on boats is bed hardware. This has to be done on a regular basis, especially with hardware that is under heavy cycling loads, like cleats. However, using the right sealant can make this task much simpler.
Most people are familiar with silicone caulk, since it is the most commonly used [...]
Recently, I wrote a post on a sailing forum about the 25 Watt solar panel I added to the s/v Pretty Gee to act as a maintenance charger for the boat, while it is stored on the hard for the winter. On one of the forums, I was asked if a charge controller was [...]
One thing that I’d highly recommend for all cruising sailboats is upgrading to LED-based lights. This is for two reasons. The first is that upgrading to LED lights can reduce the electrical load on a cruising sailboat significantly. The second is that LED-based lights are lower maintenance and lower cost over the [...]
The average passenger car requires about 25 horsepower for 90% of its operation. The only time more horsepower is really needed is when the vehicle is accelerating. Unfortunately, current automotive technology has to design the engine for the 10% requirement of relatively high-horsepower, rather than the 90%—leaving the engine running fairly inefficiently 90% of the [...]
Recently, some companies have come out with personal breathalyzers. People are supposed to buy these small, portable, battery-powered devices so they can find out whether they’ve had too much to drink or not. Will using a personal portable breathalyzer help reduce drunk driving? No, I actually think it may make things worse. [...]
I recently received a new iPod Classic. This is the latest generation of the full-sized, hard-diskdrive-based iPods. I’ve noticed a few things about it that I believe are a key reason that Apple has managed to retain the bulk of the MP3 player market share, even after all of these years.
First, the hardware [...]
Over on John Battelle’s Searchblog, is a post about the new Comcast HD DVR and how it compares to a Tivo. Some of the commenters have mentioned a few other technologies in their comments. One is the Windows Media Center-based Home Theater PCs. Another is the Macintosh computer. I commented on [...]
According to this Freedom to Tinker blog article, a month ago, Princeton University released a paper describing how the Diebold electronic voting machines could be infected by a computer virus that could alter the vote tallies via their memory card.
According to Edward Felten, Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, “Diebold has [...]
Apparently, Diebold has issued a quiet recall on the motherboards in their insecure electronic voting machines. This article from the freedom to tinker blog has the details. One interesting detail in the story is that according to a Diebold internal memo, the flaw was known in March of 2004, and yet Diebold allowed [...]
On the Freedom to Tinker blog, there is an article discussing the Diebold electronic voting machines. Apparently, the keys to many hotel minibars are capable of opening the Diebold voting machines. The access panel that these keys open allows access to the memory card, which can be used to alter the votes recorded [...]
Wired.com has an interesting article on the controversy created by Christopher Soghoian, a security researcher, who had created a website application that allowed one to generate authentic looking, but completely bogus, Northwest Airline Boarding Passes. He created the application in hopes of getting Congress to take a real look at the security vulnerabilities of [...]
I had a conversation with a friend of mine about a month ago. She was asking about what laptop to buy. I told her to get a new MacBook Pro, but to hold off, as I felt that Apple would be announcing upgraded machines around the end of October, which would have the [...]
Well, scientists are stating the obvious again. In a recent NYT article, they publish the results of a study, which concludes that listening to music at too loud a volume will lead to hearing damage. Umm…this is news?
The New York Times has a good article on how easy it is to hack some of the new “touchless” RFID-based credit cards. My favorite quote from the article:
And because the cards can be read even through a wallet or an item of clothing, the security of the information, the researchers say, is startlingly [...]
I occasionally read Gizmodo, as one of the blogs I use to keep up to date on electronics and technology. Recently, I’ve found that their reporting appears to be fairly poor, if not outright ridiculous. For instance, their recent article on the Samsung GX-10 DSLR mentions the Canon Rebel XTi and the Pentax [...]
Good news for the PC users out there. Google has released Picasa v. 2.5. This is great for Windows-based PC users who are into digital photography, since the PC platform doesn’t really have anything like iPhoto on the Mac. There are higher-end programs, like i-View Multimedia Pro, and Lightroom, but i-View is [...]
Apple has finally completed the switch from Motorola/IBM PowerPC processors to Intel-based processors for all of its computers. Now, all of the Mac line are available in Intel-based versions.
The MacMini was among the first to be replaced, with an Intel version. The iMac was replaced by a very similar appearing Intel-based iMac. [...]
WordPress has just been updated. The new version, 2.04, is a security release, and has over 50 bug fixes. You can get it at WordPress.org.
Well, I did go out sailing on Wednesday. While the day was pretty good overall, my cell phone was killed in action. It fell out of my shirt pocket, and into the water along side the Pretty Gee, when I was tieing off one of the docklines. So, if you’re trying to reach [...]
My previous post on the pharming scam attempt on one of the more popular sailing on-line forums led me to write about another common way to get ripped off. One common phishing technique used by today’s criminals is the faked e-mail. Here is a good example of one, posted as JPG image.
Things to [...]
This post mixes two of my favorite topics: computer security and sailing.
On one of the many sailing boards I visit, there was a posting for crew positions on the Team Compass Point boat for the 2006 Sydney-Hobart and Gosford-Lord Howe Island Races. I was curious about this, so I requested the information—sending them an [...]
In a recent Fox News story, Geek Squad, a subsidiary of Best Buy, the national electronics retail chain has been accused of using pirated software. This isn’t really surprising. Reuters, the financial information and news wire service, constantly pirated software for use at special events. So do many other large corporations. [...]
In a recent Security Focus article, there is a discussion about Blizzard, the DMCA, and the use of lawyerbots to prevent copyright infringement. Unfortunately, this is corporate bullying at its worst—the book they’re preventing from publishing isn’t a matter of copyright infringement, but of lost corporate profits and licensing fees. Quoting from Mark [...]
I was reading a post over at Cavemonkey50 technology blog. It was about bad customer service from Gateway computers. I’m really not surprised. I had a run-in with the quality of their customer service a few years ago—I’ve posted the story here again, from my website archives.
Customer Disservice
Saturday, December 13th, I [...]
It is mid-March, and the sailing season in New England is fast approaching. I will be sailing in about two weeks. I’m hoping to get Pretty Gee in the water during the first week of April. Right now, I plan on driving down to Annapolis the first week of April to hold [...]
I recently received an e-mail which states that the Bush regime is spending money at the rate of $1 billion every eight hours and twenty minutes. This means that Bu$hco is spending a little over $33,000 per second. This is over twice the $16,090 poverty-level income for a family of three—per second.
This [...]
Recently, there was an article from ZDNet about how a Mac was “hacked” in a mere thirty minutes. Much was made about how insecure Mac OS X is because of this article.
However, one very important fact that was never mentioned in the ZDNet Wintel propaganda article was that the person who “hacked” [...]
Here is a different take on the Mac vs. Wintel debate. Winn Schwartau, a noted computer security consultant, switched last year, and this article from Network World is his conclusion on the true total cost of ownership of a Mac vs. a Wintel-based PC.
Going above and beyond
Selected by five Network World contributors, [...]