Yes, I used "fortuitous" and "mishap" in the same sentence.
The original holiday schedule for my company had us observing New Year's day on Friday, 12/30/2011, even though it's on a Sunday. Traditionally, we observe holidays that fall on a weekend on the weekday closest to the event (Friday for Saturday events, Monday for Sunday events). For whatever reason, they didn't do it that way this year.
Well, it seems that all of the other tenants in our office building used the more traditional method, and our building did the same. So our office building is closed on Monday, 01/02/2012.
Yep. That's right.
We get an extra paid holiday day this year due to HR's scheduling mishap.
I don't think anyone's crying about it.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Funny Picture of the Day
The only that that makes it "not funny" is I have two friends that work for Nokia and are losing their jobs soon.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Updates, get your updates!!
Well, look here.
Barnes & Noble has released update 1.4.1 for the Nook Color.
The biggest feature in this update is that they added the Netflix streaming client. Since they had it on the Nook Tablet, I was hoping they would put it over on the Color as well, and it seems they have.
It also looks like they finally added landscape mode support for reading, which given the free-flow nature of ePub, I always wondered why they didn't have.
Now, the one thing that I hope is in here, but I don't see mentioned specifically, is a fix for the suspend mode issue. Basically, periodically it will refuse to go to sleep, and the battery runs down inside 8 hours. The only way to fix this is to do a hard reset to restore to factory defaults. That didn't start happening until I installed 1.3.1 (as best I can tell) so I'm hoping it's just a software glitch that they have finally corrected.
Oh, and there are a few other eye candy updates as well that seem interesting.
So, you can either wait until the rolling update hits your Color automatically, or you can follow that link above and manually update by side-loading the update file.
Barnes & Noble has released update 1.4.1 for the Nook Color.
The biggest feature in this update is that they added the Netflix streaming client. Since they had it on the Nook Tablet, I was hoping they would put it over on the Color as well, and it seems they have.
It also looks like they finally added landscape mode support for reading, which given the free-flow nature of ePub, I always wondered why they didn't have.
Now, the one thing that I hope is in here, but I don't see mentioned specifically, is a fix for the suspend mode issue. Basically, periodically it will refuse to go to sleep, and the battery runs down inside 8 hours. The only way to fix this is to do a hard reset to restore to factory defaults. That didn't start happening until I installed 1.3.1 (as best I can tell) so I'm hoping it's just a software glitch that they have finally corrected.
Oh, and there are a few other eye candy updates as well that seem interesting.
So, you can either wait until the rolling update hits your Color automatically, or you can follow that link above and manually update by side-loading the update file.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Soldiers' Angels Fundraiser
Yet another thing about which I've been remiss.
Linoge over at Walls of the City is running a fundraiser for Soldiers' Angels.
He has lined up quite the nice little list of prizes and is in the interesting position of having more prizes than he does entrants. So, if you want to support a great cause, go hit the fundraiser page, read the rules, and then go buy something from the Soldiers' Angels store.
What, you're still here? Okay then, let me give you a taste of some the prizes:
A Wyvern .380 pocket holster from Dragon Leatherworks
A not-even-released for general sale Glock Gen4 Lasergrip from Crimson Trace
Flipside wallets
Gunwalker t-shirts
Seriously, go donate to a great cause, and get entered for some great prizes.
Linoge over at Walls of the City is running a fundraiser for Soldiers' Angels.
He has lined up quite the nice little list of prizes and is in the interesting position of having more prizes than he does entrants. So, if you want to support a great cause, go hit the fundraiser page, read the rules, and then go buy something from the Soldiers' Angels store.
What, you're still here? Okay then, let me give you a taste of some the prizes:
A Wyvern .380 pocket holster from Dragon Leatherworks
A not-even-released for general sale Glock Gen4 Lasergrip from Crimson Trace
Flipside wallets
Gunwalker t-shirts
Seriously, go donate to a great cause, and get entered for some great prizes.
Correcting an oversight - Blogroll Update
Not sure why I haven't added him to my blogroll yet, seeing as how he's in my RSS feed and all, but WizardPC has himself his own shiny blog over at Guns, Cars, and Tech.
If you haven't checked him out yet, I highly recommend that you do so.
If you haven't checked him out yet, I highly recommend that you do so.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Another day, another security fail
This time, it's at another Dutch digital certificate issuer, Gement.
According to the story, the hacker gained access to one of the web servers through the PHPMyAdmin module. It does not appear that any certificates were compromised, but it's this type of breach that is completely preventable.
When will companies learn that they have to be proactive about security. Put password policies in place, and enforce them, preferably systematically when possible. AUDIT to make sure they are being followed. Make sure you have someone that follows the bug and defect lists for your major components. Patches and fixes are constantly being released. There is absolutely no reason to be running HTTP, FTP, or SSL services with known vulnerabilities. That's just lazy and inexcusable.
Personally, if a company is running software or a configuration with widely known vulnerabilities, and have not made good faith efforts to mitigate (either by changing the config or patching the software) the problem, and customer information is compromised, they should absolutely be liable at law for the breach.
For the individual, don't just rely on the little lock symbol, or color-coding, or whatever other visual indicators your browser is giving you. You are also responsible for protecting yourself. Make sure that the URL is one you recognize, and where you mean to be. Make sure you have anti-virus software at a bare minimum. You should also strongly consider malware and adware software, and even a phishing filter. Most of these products are available as packages or suites, and there are some excellent free alternatives out there.
Oh, and you're regularly changing your passwords, right?
Oh, and you're not using the same password on multiple different systems, right?
Yeah, I know keeping up with all of your passwords is a pain, but there are password vaults and crypts available to help you manage that.
Trust me, keeping up with 50 passwords is less of a pain than dealing with 50 different compromised accounts all because you shared passwords amongst them.
According to the story, the hacker gained access to one of the web servers through the PHPMyAdmin module. It does not appear that any certificates were compromised, but it's this type of breach that is completely preventable.
When will companies learn that they have to be proactive about security. Put password policies in place, and enforce them, preferably systematically when possible. AUDIT to make sure they are being followed. Make sure you have someone that follows the bug and defect lists for your major components. Patches and fixes are constantly being released. There is absolutely no reason to be running HTTP, FTP, or SSL services with known vulnerabilities. That's just lazy and inexcusable.
Personally, if a company is running software or a configuration with widely known vulnerabilities, and have not made good faith efforts to mitigate (either by changing the config or patching the software) the problem, and customer information is compromised, they should absolutely be liable at law for the breach.
For the individual, don't just rely on the little lock symbol, or color-coding, or whatever other visual indicators your browser is giving you. You are also responsible for protecting yourself. Make sure that the URL is one you recognize, and where you mean to be. Make sure you have anti-virus software at a bare minimum. You should also strongly consider malware and adware software, and even a phishing filter. Most of these products are available as packages or suites, and there are some excellent free alternatives out there.
Oh, and you're regularly changing your passwords, right?
Oh, and you're not using the same password on multiple different systems, right?
Yeah, I know keeping up with all of your passwords is a pain, but there are password vaults and crypts available to help you manage that.
Trust me, keeping up with 50 passwords is less of a pain than dealing with 50 different compromised accounts all because you shared passwords amongst them.
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