stripethree

I passed the exam for the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification today with some relief. The course last week was invaluable, but I was still not overly confident since the majority of the material was new to me. I guess I studied enough though since I passed by a comfortable margin.

Now, I will move on to some self study in preparation for another certification, the Certified Information Systems Security Profession (CISSP). I have about 6 weeks between now and the exam and plenty of material to go through. I’m more familiar with a good portion of what the CISSP covers, so I’m going to skip taking a class. While the CEH class did help, it is hard to sit through a marathon week of class trying to absorb over a thousand pages of technical material. I do not really want to do that again.

Most of the time I write about all the fun, wonderful, productive things going on. Today, I write about a failure. With the arrival of a new digital SLR camera over Christmas, I thought it would be wonderful to hone my skills all 2008 long with a photo a day project. The fruits of this labor may or my not have been noticed here.

Well, I made it to the first week in March, then I slipped up, forgetting to snap something after a long day at work and a trip to the gym afterwards. Last week I started my new project and my hour fifteen minute one way commute. Makes it hard to find time to take pictures. I considered bringing the camera on my drives, but that would prove a bad distraction, and additionally, I did not want to leave the camera in the car all day or bring it into work. It is a military base so even if it is technically allowed, it would probably be looked upon oddly and with suspicion. Not worth the trouble. So with my time window closing I forgot one day, then two, now three. Even before I missed the days, the subject matter was getting predictable. Working at home left me ample chances to catch the cats doing something photo worthy, but also left me with more pictures of my cats than any man should have. My car, and my friends cars from the Friday night gatherings also began to dominate the subject matter, and one can only have so many pictures of cars. I have more than I need.

So it is now that I officially declare this little pet project a failure and I’m pulling the plug. No excuses: it was simply getting overly forced, and I need to find another way to motivate myself to practice and find new subject matter. While I didn’t expect the photo a day to always yield my best frames, it was becoming too much of a ‘snap a quick one before bed just to keep it going’. Not what I wanted, at all, and not what was going to be conducive to sharpening my skills. Perhaps some of the monthly ‘assignments’ and contents on some of the forums I participate on will suffice. I won’t stop shooting, and perhaps it will even spark more creativity when I do have the time to dedicate to it.

I’ve been slacking on the blog front, mainly because February has been extremely busy. Work has been hectic for two reasons, the first being upcoming deadlines on the project I am working on and the metric ton of work that needs to be completed before those deadlines come and go. Second, I’ve been figuring out the ins and outs of a work transition, as it is more than 95% certain at this point I will no longer be working from home starting next month. I am changing projects, changing teams, and changing what I do on a daily basis from a software engineering focus to a software vulnerability testing and evaluation focus. So I’ll be driving to the fort in Sierra Vista everyday, but I have the chance to learn and participate in some very interesting and cool (as in nerdy cool) things and get sent to all sorts of fun (as in nerdy fun) courses such as ethical hacker training. So I’m excited, but I have been very busy organizing things and getting as much done with my current work as I can before the transition.

Besides that, there was the SSCC autocross on the 3rd, which I did ok, sort of. Apparently there were some issues with the radios and the course and a lot of course deviations did not get called in and recorded, on my runs included. So I have no idea how I actually faired since I know my times on the results probably aren’t right. In addition, I had some battery with my camera issues so the in car video I thought I took didn’t really come out well. I did get some good pictures with my XTi. This has lead to design thoughts on a way to secure the charger to have it in the car running off the 12v power adapter. On the other hand, I have taken a step into further involvement with the Tucson folks and have designed a course which we will be using at the February event next weekend. It took some time and some input from other members, and of course, approval of the design for safety and feasibility, but hopefully it will be fun to run next Sunday. I’ll post the map with my usual post event ramblings.

Last weekend Summer and I spend the weekend in Bisbee, which is a small town about 90 miles southeast of Tucson. Bisbee was a copper town before the mines were shut down in the 1970s and now sort of straddles the border of a small arts community and an old west ghost town.

We went down on Saturday, attended the annual Chocolate Tasting, and stayed at the Gym Club Suites. The suites building was originally a YMCA, then was converted to an apartment building, and now is a hotel. The loft we got was excellent and had a small balcony with a nice view of most of the town.

On Sunday we walked around ‘downtown’ and checked out the shops and sights. We also went on a tour of the Queen Copper mine and rode down the tracks over 1000 feet into the mine, 600 feet underground. I didn’t bring the camera on the tour because I had no idea how rough the ride would be and how much possibility there was for the camera to get damaged. After all, before we got on the rail cars we were outfitted in bright yellow jackets and hard hats along with battery packs hooked up to lights. Let me tell you how flattering that outfit wasn’t.

Yesterday I dropped by the Tucson Animal Fair which Summer was working at, which provided some good photo ops.

It was basically a mass gathering of animal rescue shelters and services located in and around Tucson ranging from breed specific rescue foundations, to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, to various dog agility and dancing (yes, dancing) classes/groups.

That’s all for now, next stop: New Orleans with Summer and 5 of the Maryland VW kids. Louisiana has no idea what it is in for.

Now that the MacWorld 2008 keynote, and all the rumor and hype that preceded it has come and gone, I would like to take a look at what was announced and offer pure opinions on each new item. Note that I, like most of the rest of the free world, have no yet land eyes or hands on most of these things since they are not going to available for the next two weeks.

First we have Time Capsule, which is basically an 802.11n Airport Extreme base station with a built in 500GB ($299) or 1TB ($499) drive. It also has hooks to allow Leopard users to backup to a Time Capsule using Time Machine wirelessly and automatically. Pretty slick that Apple is bringing simple backup to the everyday user, good considering its something everyone should do, but usually dont until weve already had a catastrophic loss of data. Personally, I dont have Leopard, and dont plan on updating anytime soon since both of my Macs are, well, old. I would still love to have one of these, seeing as how only a few months ago I replaced a deceased Airport Express with a new Airport Extreme and I am in the market for an additional external hard drive. The price is more than you would pay for non-Apple wireless router and a comparable external hard drive, but I suppose Apple justifies the premium in the all in one functionality and the ease of use factor. Plus, when do Apple products not cost a premium? Is it worth it? I think so. In my experience Apples Airport products have been very easy to use, rivaled in that respect only by Linksys, which you could argue wrote the book on easy to configure routers for the average joe. Sure, I can plug an external hard drive into my existing Airport Extreme (or many other routers out there), but thats another device taking up valuable surge protector space, another USB or Firewire cable, and another box on a shelf somewhere. Theres something to be said about the elegance of a smart solution such as this, especially when you already have plenty of cables running amok in your office or under your entertainment center.

Apple also released some software updates to the iPhone ad iPod touch (of which I have neither) including an updated (new to the iPod Touch) Maps application which now allows you to triangulate your current position, provided you have a cellular or wireless internet signal. I like this idea, its one thing I do not have on my Sony W810i with Google Maps and I would love to have it. There are many times it would have been very useful. The new software for the iPod Touch will set you back $20 if you already have the hardware, and Im not sure why Apple is charging for this, since this stuff is already on the iPhone and the iPhone software update is free. Who knows. Id probably pay the $20 to get the Maps, Mail, Notes, and Weather (Stocks? Meh) on an iPod Touch, if I had one. Nice to know theyll be there if I get one.

Next was a dual announcement of sorts, AppeTV Take 2 and iTunes movie rentals. It is not clear if the hardware of the AppeTV has been updated, but the software certainly has, and it breaks free of some of the limiting factors of the first iteration. It is now a stand alone set top box, no longer requiring a computer. Brilliant. Buy and download directly from the iTunes store without having to have a Mac or any computer for that matter. HD content is now supported and the price also dropped, now $329 for the 160GB model. The 40GB model is still around at $229, but really, 40GB? I have more music than that, much less TV shows and movies. Movie rentals have arrived also, with every major studio on board, including limited amounts of their libraries in HD.Its $2.99 for a library title, $3.99 for a new release, and $1 more for HD content. I dont rent movies much anymore basically because I think Netflix is too expensive and going to the video store is a pain, but maybe this is the ticket. Once you pay for a movie, you have 30 days to start watching it and 24 hours from when you start watching it to finish it. Follow me? You can view it on your Mac, AppeTV, iPod, or iPhone. I like this, a lot, and its going to make it all too easy to rent movies. My only two questions are, why no subscription based service and why only 24 hours to view the movie? Most video places let you have at least 48 on new releases, if not more. I wonder how long that 24 hour limit will last, well see. I am anxious to try this out because I am a little nervous about how fast the movies will download and how the quality of the non-HD movies will translate on my TV. This pair of announcements were probably the most significant, simply because it shows that Apple really wants to go after the digital media market, despite some of the recent setbacks on the music side of the iTunes music store. The first revision of the AppeTV was lacking, and Apple knew it, Steve Jobs even directly said so in the keynote, and now I think theyve taken a huge step in the right direction.

Lastly was the long rumored, long drooled over super portable ultra light sub compact whatever you want to call it notebook, the MacBook Air. I understand what and why this product is what it is but have mixed views. This is certainly not a replacement for anything in the current MacBook line, and for the price point (starting at $1799) it can be easily pointed out that you can have a well (perhaps better, depending on your needs) configured MacBook. The Air does not have a built in optical drive, a built in ethernet card, firewire ports, and only has one USB port. It it built to be wireless, almost completely wireless, to the point that I bet if Apples engineers could have figured out how to solar power that sucker through the lovely lightweight aluminum skin or the heat generated by the Core Duo processors, theyd be throwing their MagSafe power adapters at the fridge to see if theyd stick. Its got an 802.11n Airport card of course, the latest and greater Bluetooth (2.1), 2GB of memory standard, a 13.3 LED backlit display, a light sensitive backlit full size keyboard, and built in iSight. Apple even will let you get a 64GB solid state (flash) drive in this little sucker, for about a grand more that the base price. I like it, and it would be very useful to me since I rarely have my laptop plugged into wired ethernet, I rarely use the optical drive, and really, I rarely use many of the other ports. I think it would fit my needs nicely if I were in the market for a new laptop, but Im not since my Powerbook keeps on chugging. Even with the trick software that lets an Air borrow another computers optical drive wirelessly and the other cool things Apple has to promote the wireless lifestyle (Time Capsule anyone?) I still dont think this is going to appeal to a whole lot of people, but I could be wrong. I love my 12 Powerbook and I, personally, would have much rather seen a MacBook Mini to complete the line, something with a 11.1-12.2 screen with some of the same de-contenting done to the Air at a lesser price. It seems small, but the 12 is so comfortable that even when I go into the Apple store and fiddle with the 13 MacBooks they seem cumbersome. Granted, the Air only weighs 3 lbs, which is 2/3 of what my Powerbook weighs, so maybe I will think differently when I have a chance to see and hold it in person.

Overall, the announcements did not seem to generate that frenzy that the last major announcement, the iPhone did, but thats a lot of expectation to live up to. Also, the fact that everything announced had been rumored for weeks, even months, and in some cases, leaked at the 11th hour, probably left some people waiting for a surprise one more thing on top of all the goodness that Apple delivered. They have simply set the bar for these types of things so very high and people seem more relieved than anything else that the things they were hoping would see the light of day, were revealed. Other than iTunes rentals, I probably wont buy anything that was announced yesterday simply because Im not in the market. However if I hit the Apple store in a few weeks and fall all over a MacBook Air, dont be alarmed if I accidentally throw/drop/kick/drop-kick-throw my Powerbook into a wall or something (oops!), but only after a thorough backup!

If you have never heard of this, check it out. I entered two photos this year and you can see them in the galleries. One in the black/white category and one in the people/portrait section. I didn’t win anything, and I didn’t expect to either, but it’s something cool that I plan to enter again.

Switched hosting companies this weekend and am already enjoying the upgrade. Paying less money, and thus far am experiencing much faster upload and download speeds to the site. Also, I now have access to MySQL 4 (and 5) and PHP 4.4 so I was able to upgrade to WordPress 2.3. Good times.

Courtesy of my awesome lady

Maya!

Now to unpack…

And secured.