TECHNOLOGY: MAGICJACK (NOT RECOMENDED)

Monday, July 13, 2009

Playing with MagicJack.

A very expensive McBa

add

MagicJack

add

Verizon Wireless Broad Band

add

a $10 Radio Shack phone

EQUALS

A phone booth?

A cell phone?

A free Local and Long Distance phone?

Hmmm?

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Notes:

It didn’t go together as easy as they make it sound.

The user interface isn’t as user friendly as it could be.

The FAQ is difficult to navigate and may need some filling out.

Powered USB hub is fine. Although that is NOT clear, the device is labeled “no hubs”.

We’ll see if it’s useful.

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OBSERVATION: No way to import all your phone numbers. No way to use a directory (i.e., Apple’s Address Book or Microsoft Outlook).

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FINAL UPDATE: NOT RECOMMENDED

Gave it a live test and I could hear the drop outs. So could the other person.

RMA process is a hassle.

(And, that was from home with a real high speed line. Not Verizon Wireless Broad Band!)

Funny the McBa with VWBBIE performed better that a VISTA desktop and Comcast Broadband!

Oh well, it was a thought.

I guess you do get what you pay for.

Back to Skype and Google Voice.

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TECHNOLOGY: Some spammer tips his technique with spam to my domain

Sunday, July 12, 2009

AN EMAIL TO A SECURITY GURU ACQUAINTANCE OF MINE

*** begin quote ***

Thought you’d find this interesting. As an old security guy, (well that’s what all the recruiters tell me, “too old”, and “50 is the new 90”. I’m “only” 62! Strange world we live in.), I am seeing a “new” form of spam.

Background: I run an alumni news blog / ezine / website. Never, ever any email address in it. Just news. “Joe Blow Class of 1970 died”, “Samantha Smith Class of 1980 promoted”, “Harry Potter Class of 1990 gets Hogswarth PhD”. Absolutely of little interest to other than alumni. I, of course, having too much time on my hands have our own domain. Jasper Jottings dot com.

Punchline: I am now seeing spam addressed to: Joe.Blow, blow.joe, blowj …, jblow, samantha.smith, smith.samantha, etc. etc. AT my domain name! Lots of it.

Conclusion: Someone is parsing the content. Extracting names. And, has a pretty sophisticated addressing mechanism.

Sidenote: Of course, the laughs on them because there are ZERO real people to read the spam. These are advertising commercial products. Not Nigerian benefactors, male / female enhancements, nor get rich quick schemes. But they are tech conferences, odd technology products, and tech books on amazon.

Observation: “Real” websites, for companies or business, with people named on the site are going to get slimed.

Just thought you’d enjoy this little wrinkle. Clearly we need IPv6 and authenticated email; replace SMTP once and for all. (Love to lead that effort for some one!) As I said, too much time on my hands.

*** end quote ***

Love it when I find something new.
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SERVICE: BUG HUNT! WORDPRESSDOTCOM prime suspect; ECTO secondary suspect

Friday, July 10, 2009

I lost content on my Jasper Jottings blog. The the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom is the prime suspect. But, it might be ECTO, my secondary suspect.

Only on Jasper Jottings. Happened once last week. Didn’t have time or attention to chase.

Now I do!

*** begin quote ***

Using ECTO, I posted a story on 7/10. “JBlogger: Stagnaro, Melissa [MC1997?] Cancer runner. Donate?”

*** and ***

When I looked at my FEEDBLITZ daily email collection of stories, one was blank. So I recreated and reposted it with today’s date. It was blank on the site as well (so it wasn’t feedblitz).

*** and ***

It happened last week, but I didn’t think to much of it. I thought maybe I screwed it up. Today, I’m positive, I didn’t.

I’m not sure it’s the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom that has a bug. It could be ecto. But, why all of a sudden, starting last week do I suddenly have a problem? I’ve been using ecto for a while and no updates. Whereas, WP being outside of my control, might have had a change last week. So I suspect, WP. No proof.

But, I’m on a “bug hunt”

*** end quote ***

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UPDATE: The the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom responded that the items were store blank. This makes ECTO prime.

UPDATE: Certain posts, prepositioned, are blank. That content is lost. Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Everyone needs to plan for a disaster

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Hi. I wanted to let you know that WindowsSecrets.com was unavailable on July 3 and the early part of July 4. A serious electrical fire shut down the Web hosting company in Seattle that we and hundreds of other sites rely on. Windows Secrets came back online at approximately 9:15 a.m. Pacific Time July 4.

{Extraneous Deleted}

It is ESPECIALLY important that you enter an alternate e-mail address. This is your own personal “disaster recovery” plan. Companies change their filtering policies every day, and sometimes readers stop getting the newsletters they’ve subscribed to or paid for. When we receive a bounce notification, we send a short alert to your alternate address. This is the ONLY use we make of this information, and many people have thanked us for informing them of a problem affecting their inbound mail.

Our own disaster-recovery plan consisted simply of switching to a maintenance server, which displayed a message about the hosting company’s fire. As a small gaggle of writers, we found the cost of buying and synchronizing two servers in separate data centers too great. Instead, we chose to locate our equipment at a “hardened” data center, with dual diesel generators that could power the hardware indefinitely in case of any power outage.

When the blaze started, however, fire marshals ordered the evaculation of the entire building, and the generators could not be run. This knocked out some very big Web sites, not just our own. Authorize.net, one of the world’s largest credit-card gateways, couldn’t process transactions online for its 238,000 clients for about 12 hours. Bing Travel (a component of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine) was dark for even longer.

*** end quote ***

Interesting.

What’s your “disaster recovery” strategy?

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TECHNOLOGY: Internet access rates

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

200907081319.jpg

You have to be kidding me!

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TECHNOLOGY: WSP wiped out my blundering along site

Saturday, July 4, 2009

And, of course, my backups are less than perfect. Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Freedom of the Press?

Monday, June 29, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia

from ResourceShelf

From the Article: For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. Days after Mr. Rohde was kidnapped in November, editing tussles began on his Wikipedia entry. But that was pretty …

*** end quote ***

Doesn’t anyone think that this is manipulation of the news and casts a pall over Wikipedia as a “reliable” source?

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TECHNOLOGY: Stuff doesn’t work so good without power

Monday, June 29, 2009

Power outage in 08824!?

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SERVICE: ALUMTWEET doesn’t support adding schools?

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

# jasperjottingsIcon_lockhttp://alumtweet.com – Doesn’t have Manhattan Prepless than 5 seconds ago from web

# jasperjottings Just added myself to http://alumtweet.com – Manhattan Prep ’64 and Manhattan College ’68

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TECHNOLOGY: How to get privacy?

Saturday, June 20, 2009

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/the_hidden_cost.html?nc=16#comment-378824

Bruce Schneier
A blog covering security and security technology.
June 15, 2009

The “Hidden Cost” of Privacy

*** begin quote ***

Forbes ran an article talking about the “hidden” cost of privacy. Basically, the point was that privacy regulations are expensive to comply with, and a lot of that expense gets eaten up by the mechanisms of compliance and doesn’t go toward improving anyone’s actual privacy.

*** end quote ***

I’m a fan of simple non-gooferment solutions. It would seem that “copyright” is an already existing “solution”. If your stuff (e.g., your NAME, your SSN, your PHONE NUMBER, and your EMAIL NAME) was “yours” (i.e., copyrighted), then each entity that wanted to “copy” it (i.e., save it in a database) should have to have your permission by some type of written agreement. Seems that would prevent Credit Reporting Agencies, Google, and such from being disinterested in our collective satisfaction. imho! Copyright metadata for privacy?

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