Jeff’s Blog

This series by Keith Loutit really make me want a shift tilt lens.  I have seen plans online to make one since I will never be able to afford one.

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I hear this argument all the time that Mac OS X is better than windows becuase it is more secure.  The proof alot of people stat is there are very few virus and spyware on OS X.  Yes that is true there are also very few on OS/2 warp, minux, BeOS, windows 3.11, NT 3.51, Irix, linux, solaris, BSD, and pretty much every other operating system know to man compared to windows.  That doesn’t make them more secure.  That makes them a small target compared to windows, it doesn’t make OS X more secure.  There is a reason why tons of bugs were found in safari when Apple ported it to windows.  Was the code so different from the OS X code base?  I doupt it, there are many more automated security tools build for use on windows which also makes it that much easier to find the flaws in XP and Vista than in OS X.  Any one who thinks apple cares that much about security let me remind you it took apple three weeks to patch the DNS vulnurability!!  Weeks after there were working exploits.  The larger the market share grows for Apple the more virus and malware you will see released targeting OS X. 

Apple fan boys please don’t bug me.  I personally use a mac as my main lap top now.  I personally like OS X better than Vista and XP because I am a unix fan boy.   But that is a personal choice.  Also Linux fan boys I love linux and am a RHCE but I need an OS for my day to day work where I don’t have to wory about breaking everything because I upgraded lib c compat, or installed a new kernel.  I run Cent OS on all my servers when I can and I also have another Ubuntu laptop that I use for certain security tools.  Windows fan boys, securing mainly windows boxs is my bread and butter.  Windows with AD in an enterprise is the way to go.

Best damn fark comment ever.

“I like to eat a bowl of Kraft Dinner (a.k.a. “KD”) while watching some opera or ballet. There’s nothing better than a little arts & Kraft.”

In response to winy poor Canadians not wanting to eat free kraft mac and cheese.

I have seen the lowest of the low today. I live in Riverside where fireworks are illegal and went and bought fireworks in San Bernardino County where they are legal. I was followed into Riverside County and pulled over by Cal Fire and sited for possession of fire works. They did not care that I was going to my friends in Chino to light them off no its illegal to even be in possession. This is the most under handed slimy bullshit I have ever seen in my entire life. They are obviously only doing this for revenue as you know safe and sane fireworks used properly are not a hazard. What do they think they are accomplishing by doing this? Now I have a chip on my shoulder and have to pay a fine for possession of safe and sane fireworks. Do they really think this fosters good will within the community? No now ever time I see a Cal fire or Riverside PD officer I think what ass holes. I no longer feel good to live in Riverside County where they do everything to make upstanding law abiding citizen pay for technicalities so they can make money. I hope the county goes bankrupt and all the county supervisors are thrown the hell out of office. I will do everything possible to make up that money in BS from the county. I will get my 2 bulk pickups every year from the trash service even if I don’t need one and I only have a garbage bag of trash. I will put as many requests into code enforcement office as I can. I will do anything and everything I can to make Riverside County and City spend money and in general be a pain their ass without breaking any laws. Thanks for fostering good will to your citizens Riverside. If you treat everyone as a criminal you will have nothing but criminals left in your city. I for one will be moving as soon as possibly can so say good by to even more tax revenue, and hopefully I can sell my house to some dead beat drunk a hole that will bring the city even further down the tubes.

It is mind blowing how fast thing spread on the internet. Take this XKCD comic there were only 2 results in google when you searched for “died in a blogging accident” just yesterday. Now there are over 2,000 results and climbing every hour. “Died in a knitting accident isn’t so popular so only a rise to 107 results from 7. Also of note not many people read the title tag of the image since “Died in a snake charming accident” rose from 0 results to 10 and “Died in a haberdashery accident” also rose from 0 to 10 results. The sadist part of all of this is that when someone does die in a blogging accident we won’t be able to find it on google. Remember kids don’t walk around blogging on your iphone or you will end up dying in a blogging accident.

I just got the email I passed the CISSP exam that I took July 7th.  I just have to get my endorsement letter signed by my boss and send in my resume to ISC2.  I am glad I passed especially since it cost $500.00 of my own money.  Hopefully this will open up some doors professionally. I studied off and on for 2 months and crammed like crazy the last week.  I used the official ISC2 CISP book to do most of my studying but also took some practice tests that I found, and reviewed Shon Harris’s CISSP All in one Exam Guide book for some of my weaker areas.

This is a little diversion from my usual technology related postings. I reviewed Pharaohs lost Kingdom last year on Yelp. I nailed it, I said in the review that they would be out of business within a year.  It hasn’t been a year yet and it looks like I have been proven correct. Proving that the evil don’t always prosper.  I worked there for 2 years while I was in college and it was by far the worse job I ever had.  The managers treated the employees like dirt and it showed.  Moral was non existent and employees were rude and dismissive to the customers.  They shaved as many corners as possible and safety and customer service suffered.  I found out that  a man fell off the same Ferris wheel I used to operate due to operator and maintenance neglect. Pharaohs paid out a lot on that one.  Just think if they had paid their employees better, been nicer to their employees, and had real certified mechanics they probably would still be in business today.  I hope the park stays closed and because a Urban ruin not only as a reminder of what greed gets you but also because I like to take pictures of Urban Decay.

I signed up for the pownce beta and just got accepted.  I have some invites if anyone is interested leave a comment with your email address.

I think my next side project is going to be a theme park attendance site. Where park visitors can SMS or use WAP to tell how busy an amusement park is at any given time. I would love this as I have a Disneyland season pass and I hate crowds. If I knew no one is in the park I would stop off after work for a few hours, other wise its not worth the 40 minute drive from my work. I would also like to get day by day historical attendance figures and upcoming event at the parks to try and forecast how busy the day has been historically. I can always build this info as I go if enough people use the service. If I get enough traffic I can move it to a dedicated server and hopefully ad sense revenue would be enough to cover the cost. This service would be a win win. The customer will be happy to find a slow day to go and the parks attendance will go up slightly on these slow days.

My DSL was messed up once again. I have to say I love their Callvantage VoIP service. The DSL service has sucked big time. This is the third time in a year that my DSL has stopped working. This time I insisted to go to Level 2 tech support at the start and wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I was prepared to ask to be transfered to customer retention if the gave me a problem. Lucky for them they transfered me right away and I had the tech rebuild my config and was back online in 10 minutes. There will not be a next time, if it stops working again I will cancel and move to cable. So just remember just say no to Level 1 outsourced technical support, if they want me as a customer I want to talk to someone that can actually do something.