It was a dark and stormy night, a sharp ringing arises from your phone.  You pick up the phone quizzically.  You don’t recognize the number. Who could be calling at this hour?  It has to be an emergency!  Cautiously, you press the “Connect” button and lift the phone to your ear.  Before you can muster out a groggy and raspy “Hello” an automated female voice comes on the line warning you that your factory warranty on your car is expiring!  /cue ominous music/

If this situation seems eerily familiar, you are one of millions of people currently being targeted by the latest identity theft scam.

If you thought you were protected by the Do Not Call list, think again.  There is a tiny exception which you may not be aware of; if you initiate a call to the company, the company may call you for up to 18 months.  “I never did that!” you say.  When you received a call and missed it, did you instinctively call it back?

This is assuming that the company even follows the Do Not Call list, if they don’t, it’s illegal, but you have to file a complaint to the FCC.  Note the date and time, and number from which they called you.

For the daring, before you give them any of your information (as if you would), tell them you are legally obligated to let them know this call is being recorded and ask them a few questions.  Ask them their name, their company, and their company’s address.  Make sure you save this information for when you file a complaint to the FCC.

The most important thing to remember here is do not give out your personal or financial information to people on the phone.  For the dummies, this includes any Infomercial you see on TV.  Companies in the past were notorious for selling this information to every bidder since you were silly enough to buy something on TV without doing any research on the product or the selling company.  If you are easily glamoured into buying something because some fast-talking good-looking person said so, you are flagged as a sucker and other companies want their shot at selling you something.

Yes, it’s true.  Finally a way to get your personal files on each machine you work with that gets backed up online without any worry of who is rummaging through your data when you aren’t looking!  It’s the secure online backup you were looking for!

Windows? Linux? Mac? No problem.  Installers are available for all three systems.

DropBox (a glorified subversion system for the rest of us) has finally worked its way out of beta and will become the backbone for our project.  Transmission of data to DropBox is via HTTPS, so we at least have half the problem resolved.

The second problem is DropBox’s STORAGE of my files.  If they defect to the goverment faster than AT&T did with the NSA, then you can be sure your private key and personal bookmarks to porn sites will be used against you.  I wanted the storage of my files encrypted. Since I couldn’t trust DropBox, I turned to my good old friend, TrueCrypt.

The solution here is to create a TrueCrypt volume inside of your DropBox folder.  Even though DropBox has a 2GB folder limit, you shouldn’t use all of it for your TrueCrypt drive.  Unfortunately, TrueCrypt creates the encrypted partition to it’s maximum capacity, which means if you create a 1GB encrypted volume, it actually takes up 1GB on the harddrive even with nothing in it.  And transferring a 1GB file many times for little to no content isn’t the best plan.

Since the volume is filled out to maximum filesize even with no data, it’s best to create a few smaller drives (in the 256MB range) as DropBox has to upload the entire file at least once and you have to download the synchronized file on every computer.  TrueCrypt can mount about 12 volumes automatically, so my recommendation is to keep the volumes small and increase the sizes for volumes you don’t modify often.

Don’t feel guilty about using encyption.  Don’t be guilted into the “If you have nothing to hide” mantra; privacy is your right as a human, exercise it.

I love my little Macbook.  It’s so cute.  And this coming from a guy who has Windows experience back to 3.1, and whose primary job responsibility is to support and manage a Windows domain and hundreds of clients.  So why is my Macbook so nice?

For one main reason: it’s polished. That critical “step-back” after everything is done to say “what can we improve now?”  This is something that Microsoft and companies who build Intel PCs are seriously lacking.

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One of my favorite songs of all time is the timeless hit “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” as recorded by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer (although written by Frank Loesser). Despite it’s popularity during the winter holiday season, I have found it quite enjoyable all year round.

The duet is one of music’s best, second only to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s version of Summertime.  While the characters in the song do not have names, the female voice is called “The Mouse” while the male is “The Wolf”.

The song is a back-and-forth duet of the male persuading the female to stay with him for the duration of the night after their date; her indecisive protests clarify while she is obligated to go home, she is tempted to stay.

Upon closer inspection of the lyrics (”You have to listen to the words, MAAAHHN”), the wolf employs classic teenage bargaining techniques in order to guilt his prey into staying “the night” and slowly persuades her through potentially-ruffied alcohol.  While the song ends before you know her decision, (in some versions) soft pillow-talk banter closes out the song and the wolf whispers a lingering “Ahh, do that again…”.

Thickly-veiled references to sex were very popular throughout music in the 50s and 60s, but this is the first reference to date rape I can find.  I just hope you think about this song and its true intended meaning when your mother and father get up to the karaoke machine, eggnog in hand, and share the mic with this holiday classic.

Sometimes I wish a natural disaster would occur just so people would be distracted and I could get items on eBay much cheaper.

NBC has the Olympics this year (as they always do) and without any doubt, they have failed to produce a useable TV schedule.  In response, someone has done the work for them, and created a Google Calendar version of the schedule.

http://www.google.com/calendar/htmlembed?src=olympics_%257e_01039895__10003%23tv%40group.v.calendar.google.com

I didn’t see an iCal version anywhere of the Olympic schedule, but if I find one, I’ll be sure to update this post.

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For those of you who do not know, Gary Gygax, the father of D&D, died at 69.

Like many great people throughout time, he did not invent something from scratch. He created the world of Dungeons and Dragons from the archetypes that J.R.R. Tolkien imagined. This in no way diminishes his achievements, for millions of lives have been affected.

To me, and plenty of other kids who preferred brain over brawn, he gave us an outlet for our creativity. He created a world where the only limit was your imagination. A world where guidelines were given, you fleshed out the details, and was created with a simple 5-word magical incantation; “You are in a bar…”

I’m sure there will be many other posts like this (but this one is mine) around the Internet today, and my self-serving nature merely wants to contribute. Boring you with details on how he affected my life would be completely pointless; those of you who played Dungeons and Dragons understand, those of you who didn’t, won’t.

To Gary, let’s just hope the deity you meet in the after-life isn’t begrudging you for being left out of Deities and Demi-Gods.

The Internet would be better if two related technologies would work together:

1. Google needs to get their ass in gear and present their Single Sign-On (SSO) package.
2. Forum Coders and Popular Websites need to embrace this technology.

I’m TIRED of having to create a new sign-on for every stupid shitty website (including THIS one) I want to post information on. Read the rest of this entry »

Why should fans be loyal to sports teams, when the players aren’t loyal to the fans? Each year (read: end of contract), players have to decide if they want to go to another team to make more money or stay where they are. The only reason most players stay on a team for any length of time is because they are bound by contracts.*

I, however, am not. I’m not bound to the Phillies(/Eagles/Flyers/Sixers) just because I live near Philadelphia. I’m a fan. I demand action, and excitement. If my “team” isn’t giving me action or excitement, why can’t I choose another? Tell me honestly, WHY do I have to be a fan of only one team?

And the jocks cry, “duuuude, you bandwagon jumper! Where were you when we were on a 10 game losing streak?” You know where I was? Supporting a team which DESERVES my energy by giving me fantastic games to watch. But I know your anger stems from your jealousy of me, watching me jump up and down in elation as the team I’m rooting for scores again, and it’s OK. It’s a perfectly acceptable response, you just need to recognize that as a human, if I’m going to invest my time, money and emotions into a team and I don’t get a return, I need a new investment.

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch by Russia, essentially the beginning of the Space Age. It’s times like this that makes one marvel at the capabilities of human ingenuity.

When one considers the hundreds of years it took to go from using stone to bronze to iron, and the thousands of years to just get to the Stone age, it really shows the human potential when you consider the Industrial Revolution was only a mere 150-year span.

In a paltry 50 years, we have a (relatively) stable space program with regular human flight, created a world-wide electronic data network, developed nuclear power and even gave blacks the right to vote.

And now, I can’t help but think what will happen in my lifetime (hopefully another 50 years). Will commercial space flight be available? Will everything be Internet-ready? Will there be a black President?