Paul Begley Web Log

Suitable label for OTC medication

2010-03-02T06:47:00.001-05:00

This is the type of label I want to see on over the counter medications. It clearly states it’s claim, and backs it up with results of a scientific study.

Technorati Tags: science

I’m special, Google told me so…

2010-02-22T08:52:00.001-05:00

Below is my notification e-mail from Google regarding the shutdown of FTP support next month. I always knew I was special, but now Google quantified it for me (0.5%). I’m not one in a million, but five in one thousand isn’t bad.

I’m moving to WordPress (wordpress.org), but the import (Blogger, and RSS) both failed. I took a break and will revisit the issue this evening.

Dear FTP user:

You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your blogs at Blogger.com are set up to publish via FTP. We recently announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and wanted to make sure you saw the announcement. We will be following up with more information via e-mail in the weeks ahead, and regularly updating a blog dedicated to this service shut-down here: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.

The full text of the announcement at Blogger Buzz follows.

Last May, we discussed a number of challenges facing[1] Blogger users who relied on FTP to publish their blogs. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that. On top of this, critical infrastructure that our FTP support relies on at Google will soon become unavailable, which would require that we completely rewrite the code that handles our FTP processing.
Three years ago we launched Custom Domains[2] to give users the simplicity of Blogger, the scalability of Google hosting, and the flexibility of hosting your blog at your own URL. Last year's post discussed the advantages of custom domains over FTP[3] and addressed a number of reasons users have continued to use FTP publishing. (If you're interested in reading more about Custom Domains, our Help Center has a good overview[4] of how to use them on your blog.) In evaluating the investment needed to continue supporting FTP, we have decided that we could not justify diverting further engineering resources away from building new features for all users.
For that reason, we are announcing today that we will no longer support FTP publishing in Blogger after March 26, 2010. We realize that this will not necessarily be welcome news for some users, and we are committed to making the transition as seamless as possible. To that end:

We are building a migration tool that will walk users through a migration from their current URL to a Blogger-managed URL (either a Custom Domain or a Blogspot URL) that will be available to all users the week of February 22. This tool will handle redirecting traffic from the old URL to the new URL, and will handle the vast majority of situations.
We will be providing a dedicated blog[5] and help documentation
Blogger team members will also be available to answer questions on the forum, comments on the blog, and in a few scheduled conference calls once the tool is released.

We have a number of big releases planned in 2010. While we recognize that this decision will frustrate some users, we look forward to showing you the many great things on the way. Thanks for using Blogger.

Regards,

Rick Klau
Blogger Product Manager
Google
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

[1] http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/05/ftp-vs-custom-domains.html
[2] http://buzz.blogger.com/2007/01/blogger-custom-domains.html
[3] http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/05/ftp-vs-custom-domains.html
[4] http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373
[5] http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/

----
This e-mail is being sent to notify you of important changes to your Blogger account.

Technorati Tags: Blogger,WordPress,PaulIsSad

Bye Bye Blogger

2010-02-21T22:41:00.001-05:00

Blogger is eliminating support for FTP publishing as of March 26, 2010. For once in my life, I’m not waiting until the last minute to change.

I previously experimented with WordPress, then had the mySQL database explode when I attempted an upgrade, so I reverted to Blogger, and have been fat, dumb, and moderately happy since.

After a quick review, I’m looking at WordPress (again), and Movable Type. I considered using Drupal, and it looks interesting, but I don’t have the bandwidth this year to go deep geek with Open Source.

I have installed WordPress 2.9.2, and I’m having issues importing ten years of Blogger posts. I don’t want to retain 150 Meg of redundant posts, so I’m looking into alternate methods of exporting and importing Blogger data.

Any input is appreciated.

Technorati Tags: Blogger,WordPress,Internet,blogging

Windows 7 RC (build 7100) expires March 1, 2010

2010-02-12T07:35:00.001-05:00

“Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you'll need to rebuild your test machine using a valid version of Windows before the software expires. You'll need to rebuild your test PC to replace the OS and reinstall all your programs and data."

I didn’t realize I still had the RC Build running on my primary workstation. I have also been very busy and am *not* keen on spending a day doing an entire system rebuild.

Although Microsoft (and most IT Pros) recommend a clean install with the production code (Build 7600), there is a way around the problem.

If you attempt a standard upgrade by running setup.exe using the latest build, the upgrade fails, and you receive the message below:

The way around this issue is to copy the contents of the DVD (3.01 GB for Ultimate x64) to a folder on your drive.

Next, edit the source\cversion.ini file using a text editor like Notepad.

Edit so the MinServer and MinClient values match the example below and save the file.

[HostBuild]
MinClient=7000.0
MinServer=7100.0

Run setup.exe, and proceed. You will need a valid license key for Windows 7 and your system will be upgraded. You can confirm the new version by typing the command “ver” from the command prompt.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,software,Win7

Yes, it snowed in NJ

2010-02-11T18:57:00.001-05:00

Here’s the before picture, December 2009:

After three feet cumulative snow, February 10, 2010:

For reference, the wood fence in the foreground is 5’ high, and the white fence is 6’ high.

Technorati Tags: weather,NJ

Nick Bradbury

2010-01-25T22:17:00.000-05:00

Nick Bradbury: "Introducing FeedDemon 3.1"

FeedDemon is my preferred RSS reader. It integrates transparently with Google Reader, it has tons of features to efficiently process hundreds of feeds in short order. It's also stable, fast, and integrates with all of my existing tools.

Girl Scout Cookie Time!

2010-01-20T21:22:00.001-05:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/holyjuan/3326572579/

This is how Girl Scout Cookie nutrition labels should be updated. Am I the only one who eats a box at a time?

Technorati Tags: nutrition

I am pbegley

2010-01-20T21:16:00.001-05:00

I am registered on almost every major site as pbegley and I registered the e-mail address pbegley at gmail dot com while Google Mail was in beta.

Off and on, I have run into problems with some other Begley either giving my e-mail address to family (Patricia in Kentucky), or signing up for various services (jobs.com, Pat Begley in Wyoming). Tonight it was someone attempting a password reset for Ubernote.

I’m hoping that posting this so it shows up in the major search engines.

Technorati Tags: identity,Internet

Tonight Show = 11:35PM

2010-01-13T09:11:00.001-05:00

Technorati Tags: media,culture

I’m with Coco

2010-01-13T07:09:00.001-05:00

The Tonight Show should remain in its 11:35PM time slot.

Technorati Tags: TV,culture,media

Fear and Loathing on Sesame Street

2010-01-11T22:52:00.001-05:00

I don’t know why I like this so much, but the more I look, the more I like it. Hunter S. Thompson used to write amazingly insightful political pieces in Rolling Stone, but I wouldn’t want to have him as my neighbor.

Update: Original link from Imageshack gone, removed link

Technorati Tags: literature

Phishing e-mail today

2010-01-10T10:22:00.001-05:00

Below is the body of the message I received. It’s obviously malicious because I control all the services for paulbegley.com, but I was intrigued.

Dear user of the paulbegley.com mailing service!
We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (rants@paulbegley.com) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:
http://paulbegley.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=rants@paulbegley.com&from=paulbegley.com&fromname=rants
Best regards, paulbegley.com Technical Support.
Message ID#T1SYDT2B4BVZJ72

First, I looked at the header information and the entries below flagged this as fake. It originated in Japan (.jp TLD), there is no reverse lookup for the IP address 119.152.104.119, and it’s part of APIC (Asia-Pacific Information Center).

Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning unquotingpoy4@strl.nhk.or.jp does not designate 119.152.104.119 as permitted sender) client-ip=119.152.104.119;
Return-Path: <unquotingpoy4@strl.nhk.or.jp>
Received: from CAWADZSGG (unknown [119.152.104.119])
Received: from 119.152.104.119 by iron.nhk.or.jp; Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:45:04 –0800

Also embedded in the message is the real link to some server in Korea (.kr TLD):

http://paulbegley.com.yhuttte.ne.kr/owa/service_directory/setting

Last, if you have a modern browser installed and configured correctly, your browser (at least Chrome and Firefox) flagged the link as a malicious site and blocked any connections. IE let you through, but blocked the automatic download. Screen shots below.

Chrome

Firefox

IE 8

Technorati Tags: Security,Internet,phishing,e-mail

Verizon software update ‘bug’

2010-01-09T20:49:00.001-05:00

I recommend that everyone update their Verizon phones using the *228 feature on a regular basis. My daughter did this last night, and after the software update (option 1), her phone reset. No problem, this is often required after a firmware update. However, after the reset, her security code changed. It took us a few minutes to guess that is was reset to the last four digits of her phone number.

Is this a bug or a feature? This is a feature, but not well documented. I found it after searching the Verizon forums.

Technorati Tags: Verizon,mobile,firmware

Verizon Responds To Erroneous $1.99 Fee

2010-01-09T20:46:00.001-05:00

More interesting is the phantom $1.99 fee Verizon's been hitting consumers with for doing absolutely nothing. The fee was first exposed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer last summer. It only gained the FCC's attention after David Pogue at the NY Times posted a column featuring a Verizon insider -- who claimed Verizon was aware of the glitch -- but was too in love with the millions in additional revenue it generated to do anything about it.

Verizon Responds To FCC Inquiry On ETFs, Erroneous $1.99 Fee - And the excuses are just as lame as you thought they'd be... - dslreports.com

Technorati Tags: wireless,Verizon,finance

Encryption busted on NIST-certified Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim USB flash drives

2010-01-06T19:56:00.001-05:00

At first I thought this was hyperbole from ZD-Net regarding encryption of some popular USB flash drives.

After reading the article, I’m very surprised at how simple the crack is to implement:

When the correct password is supplied by the user, the authentication program always send the same character string to the drive to decrypt the data no matter what the password used. What’s also staggering is that this character string is the same for Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim USB flash drives.

UPDATE: To clarify, my concern is that the NIST security specification doesn’t include a protocol for how the authentication token is managed. I expected it to be unique between vendors at a minimum.

Encryption busted on NIST-certified Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim USB flash drives

Technorati Tags: encryption,storage,security

Happy Birthday, Isaac Newton.

2010-01-04T06:50:00.001-05:00

Thanks for Calculus (with Leibniz), the laws of motion (Newtonian Physics), and your work with light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

Technorati Tags: Science,mathematics

The TSA is not interested in science

2009-12-29T18:54:00.001-05:00

Thank you, XKCD

Technorati Tags: TSA,science,politics

We are doomed, I say…

2009-12-19T15:23:00.001-05:00

Thanks to source…

Technorati Tags: politics,Lieberman

Droid Apps

2009-12-05T23:44:00.001-05:00

I have a few minutes and wanted to tabulate the Android applications I have installed on my Droid.

The more I use the Droid, the more I appreciate the integration and utility it offers on a daily basis. As an example, today a co-worker sent me an IM through Google Talk asking me to call him along with a phone number. I touched the phone number, which cross referenced the phone number and it was the office phone for another co-worker. So I knew where he was before he picked up the phone.

Applications I’m using on a regular basis

Google Apps
- Google Maps – are just awesome, and is the basis for navigation, Latitude, and other features
- Latitude – very neat, people can track your location in real time. The tracking is granular enough to show me walking through a town.
- Google Talk – Google IM client
- Google Mail – seamless integration on the Android; Contacts sync automatically
- Google Calendar – automatic sync
- Google Contacts – configurable sync, supports tags, can merge with ActiveSync contacts
Find Starbucks - self explanatory
twidroid for twitter - Twitter Android client
Google Voice - VoIP phone calls and manage Google Voice account
Periodic Table - yes, it's a periodic table for your Droid
PdaNet free edition - tether your laptop for Internet access
gTasks - beta - Google Task sync
My Tracks - use Droid and GPS as a training tool – bike
Tone Picker - MP3 ringtones - I have Star Trek and Star Wars alerts
GDocs - Google Docs sync
Barcode Scanner - scan bar codes (UPC) and look up product info and compare prices on web

Applications I’m testing or are just interesting

PaderSyncFTP - FTP sync tool - still testing

Key Ring Reward Card - scan reward cards

Applications I tested and uninstalled

SugarSync - sync files from desktop to phone. Documents are read-only, and I have some minor issues with file formats (line wrapping, and tabs).

Technorati Tags: Droid,Android,apps,software

Where’s my Windows 7 telnet client?

2009-12-05T17:31:00.001-05:00

And how to enable Remote Administration on Windows 7 (and Vista). Telnet and other features are not installed by default with Windows 7 (or Vista).

To install, go to Control Panel – Programs – Programs and Features – Turn Windows features on or off. This opens a Windows Features dialog box where you can enable or disable features.

For remote server administration, you want to install the Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7, which adds a laundry list of tools which you manage with the same interface (screen shot below).

Technorati Tags: Win7,telnet,utilities

Mozilla Labs Weave

2009-12-04T07:12:00.001-05:00

Mozilla Labs - Weave

Weave is a FireFox (Mozilla) add-on. I installed and will test the sync capabilities. The only issue for me is that I had to create Yet Another Account (including a pass phrase to encrypt my data/credentials). At this point, I prefer to use an existing account and/or cloud services (think Microsoft, Google) for my sync services.

I am hoping that cloud services will be the source of centralized authentication and services, but at least we are headed in the right direction.

Some of the key functionality enabled by the Weave add-on includes:

Synchronization engine - securely transports your browsing experience across all your devices
Cryptographic engine - provides default client side encryption for all your data
Weave server - a secure storage location for all your encrypted data
APIs - extension interfaces for 3rd party developers

The initial release provides synchronization of browser meta-data (bookmarks, stored passwords, history, tabs, preferences, add-ons, personas). Future releases will support other types of data and functionality.

Technorati Tags: Mozilla,sync,Firefox,cloud

Google Sandbox closed

2009-12-02T18:50:00.001-05:00

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ is now offline. We have to take our toys and go home. I enjoy using the various beta products from Google and Microsoft. For the past few years most of the ‘beta’ tools, with a few exceptions, have been production ready. Participation in beta programs provides insight into new product features helping define best practices and roadmap technologies for my clients.

Thank you!

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.

Based on the success we've seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

©2009 Google

Thank you!

Technorati Tags: Google,beta,internet

Home Energy Monitoring

2009-12-02T07:09:00.001-05:00

There was a useful piece on the Today Show this morning on home energy use. They referenced two devices that cost about $100 - $130 and do whole home monitoring (you connect them to your meter). They work in the same fashion as the Kill-A-Watt, but you can plug in your local energy rate ($/KWh) and monitor your costs real time.

On the show, the woman demonstrated the before/after on her home after unplugging various 'vampire' devices including transformers and always-on appliances.

I still think the Kill-A-Watt is the best bang for the buck, but I like the idea of 'whole house' monitoring and the ability to monitor the cost using the device.

http://www.blackanddecker.com/Energy/PowerMonitorCompatibility.htm

http://www.bluelineinnovations.com/Products/

Technorati Tags: energy,home,frugal

Location Aware Printing

2009-12-02T07:07:00.001-05:00

This is a Windows 7 feature I stumbled upon this on my work laptop. I noticed that my default printer changed when I connected to my home wireless network.

TechNet has a walkthrough article and downloadable document detailing the setup. A screen shot from my laptop is below showing how you can customize the default printer based on your network connection (and, yet, I miss Frank Zappa).

Technorati Tags: Win7,printers

The Motorola DROID Review Mix!

2009-11-11T22:37:00.001-05:00

The Motorola DROID Review Mix! - iSmashPhone iPhone Blog

This is a summary of reviews from NYT, WSJ, Gizmodo, and Engadget with my comments on each topic.

Screen

The screen is the biggest and brightest I have experienced on a handheld. Text and graphics pop from the screen, and the best feature is its automatic brightness adjustment based on ambient light. The phone is easily visible at all times, even in direct sunlight.

Keyboard

I agree with other reviews – the keyboard is marginal, particularly for people (like me) with large hands and fingers. I type with my thumb, and I miss the auto-correct I had with my WinMobile phones. Auto capitalization does work with the keyboard. I *do* like the keyboard layout which is optimized for e-mail and web use. The ‘@’ sign, ‘/’, and most commonly used punctuation don’t require use of Shift or Fn.
I’m not too keen on the screen keyboard, but Motorola needs to enable auto-correct with the slide out keyboard.

Camera

It works, it’s 5 megapixels, it integrates with software, and it supports applications such as barcode reader, which I like have found very useful.

Operating System

Android 2.0 is very impressive. I have used Windows Mobile since the 2003 release in various form factors (flip phone, QWERTY no touch, touch screen with keyboard, touch screen only).

The biggest feature I need to address is the full ActiveSync with Exchange/Outlook. The base ActiveSync support works with e-mail, contacts, and calendar (Corporate Calendar on the Droid). However, in my testing, e-mail and contact sync appear to work fine, but I’m debugging an authentication issue with Calendar and using Google’s Outlook Calendar Sync as a work around. Also, Outlook/Exchange Tasks and Notes are not supported, which makes me sad.

Android integration with Google is very, very good, but still not complete. I would like to see full mobile support for all Google Apps.

Technorati Tags: Droid,review