Picture from here

A few months ago my home server lost all of my MP3′s from a share.  I was freaking out thinking some process had magically deleted them.  Then I noticed the partition was missing.   I spent a few days banging my head against the wall trying to recover the data and nothing helped.   Since I’m a listener of Security Now, I attempted to use Spin Rite on the drive, even this didn’t help it.   I was freaking out.

I set aside the drive and re-addressed it yesterday.  A friend of mine had a copy of Partition Doctor 3.5 and we ran it against my drive.   In a matter of minutes we managed to get the drive back up and all of the MP3′s were there.   Neither my wife and I were too anxious to go through the 2-3 week ripping process we did last time when we re-ripped at a higher bit rate.

This is not a promotion, I get no money from the links you click, if however you do have an issue with a lost windows partition, try Partition Doctor’s demo version and it will show you if it can be recovered.

I ran across this article by way of Slashdot.  A teacher had punished a student for handing out live linux distrubution discs, for those that aren’t familar with a liveCD, it allows you to boot your computer off of CD and test drive linux without modifying your hard drive.  You can remove the CD and reboot and be back to using windows or whatever in no time. This teacher wrote the head of this particular linux group and stated:

I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows.

and also:

This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..

Now the person at the Helios distribution had some key things in response (these are snippets):

First off, if there was even the slightest chance that I was doing something illegal, it would not have been done. To think that I would involve my kids in my “illegal” activities is an insult far beyond outrage.

linux is superior to MS windows in so many ways, they are too numerous to mention here…I am weary of enumerating them. Unlike Microsoft who meters their “improvements” and then shovels them to you every five years or so for purchase; Linux releases their improvements upon their completion. We receive the newest and the best of the system when it is tested to be usable and stable

The most disturbing part of this resides in the fact that the AISD purchases millions of dollars of Microsoft Software in a year’s time when that money could be better spent on educating our children. A dedicated School Teacher would recognize that fact and lobby for the change to Free Open Source Software and let the money formally spent on MS bindware be used on our kids.

Now I do recommend you read the original article, but I do think this shows the ignorance of the teachers in our systems. Some people try to tell me when my child arrives that home schooling is a worse option then sending the kid to public or private schools.   I know I went through similar issues like this with my teachers, sometimes it was on english, other times it was on history.   Teachers won’t admit they are wrong and will continue to spew the same crap to students year after year.  They feel they must be the ones in the right otherwise they wouldn’t be the teacher.

I’m stopping now before I bust into a complete rant – read the original article and let me know what you think.

Maximum PC recently ran an article titled 50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have, I wanted to go through and see how I ranked in their skill list.   Let’s find out.

1. Name the Connectors – yes I was able to :)

2. Run your essential apps on a USB stick – no I don’t do this, I could – I just prefer to run everything in the cloud or on my N810 – which is with me most of the time.

3. Straighten Pins on a CPU – I have done this too many times

4. Know the 13 basic HTML Tags – well I kinda know most of them – I use freaking wordpress I hardly need to use HTML and when I do I look it up and hav ethe answer in seconds.   Though I do know quite a few by heart that aren’t listed in the basic 13.

5.  Get through to executive customer service – hey I read the consumerist.

6.  Beat quake in 60 minutes – maybe at one point in time, but I’m not big on FPS games.

7.  Build a Hackintosh – I know how, I just don’t the components that seem to work, and I’m a cheap bastard that won’t buy parts just to run OSX - I’ll stick with ubuntu as my alternative OS.

8.  Watch TV Online legally – um that’s how I watch 100% of my TV these days.

9.  Get around a content filter from a public computer – yes I know how, I’ve helped friends at other companies, it’s not worth it to do it at my own job though.

10. Recite Pi to 23 decimal places – nope – I have no inclination to ever learn either.

11. Replace the controller board on a hard drive – hey I did that once, it’s not a skill that comes up at parties though.

12.  Benchmark your computer – really?  Is this even on this list? Yes, I was doing this before I fully understood what the benchmarks meant on my 386 DX40.

13. Decorate your room with only printer paper – am I physically in the skill set to be able to do this?  Yes I am – would I?  No.  I’m more likely to decorate with NES cartridges.

14. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered – yes I am capable – it would be easier if you encrypted it first though.

15.  Get into a windows computer if you don’t have a password – yes I’ve done this quite a few times.

16.  Hide data from anyone – yes encryption, hidden volumes, stegnography (which I got bored with in 2001) – I am capable of doing all that – I’m more likely ot share my data then hide it though.

17. Explain what e=mc2 means – yes I would like the e=MC2 with a side of fries please – yes I am capable, but refuse to put in the details here since I want to make it through this list.

18.  Abstain from buying extended warranties – I may have bought one, once – it was on something i thoguht it fall apart though – so it’s all good.

19.  Use photoshop or gimp – yes I am capable.

20. Use a DSLR in full manual mode – I can – I’m just lazy and prefer it to do the work.

21. Mooch your neighbors wi-fi – my neighbor doesn’t have wi-fi but I’m ready to mooch when they do.

22. Protext your wi-fi – Wep2 currently – For a while I had mac filtering, I hated to keep getting mac addresses from visitors though.

23. Create an animated spray in Valve games – um – I don’t think I’ve played a single one for more then 5 minutes….so this one is a no.

24.  Setup RAID – yes I’ve done this a few times over the years for my home network.  Now implement Iscsi raid across multiple computers – that’s a challenge.

25. Calculate a Pitchers ERA – no I don’t know how – but I know google will give me the answer quicker then I can calculate it.

26. Run two Operating Systems – um I dual boot currently……

27. Install a hard drive in laptop – done before and some day I’ll do it again.

28. Pull off an elaborate prank – I think have the skill set and knowledge – I just never have – unless stealing street signs as a teenager counts.

29.  Rocket jump with a macro – um – I said I don’t really do FPS games – so no I can’t do this.

30.  Wire your home with ethernet – um every place I’ve lived with my wife we have had wired ethernet – we even used RG58 at one point.

31.  Know the 6 most important linux commands – yes I get command not found when I’m not thinking and run them in windows.

31. Rip your CDs to Flac – we did this for awhile then went back to MP3

32.  Stream Music, Movies, Pictures to any TV in the house – I’ve done this before – now we just carry our laptops around – shrug.

33.  Install and configure a VM – yes I’ve done this for literally years (maybe even a decade by now)

34.  Run multiple monitors – yes I use to dual monitor and run SWG on two different ones at the same time – I’m sad I know.

35. Run hacked firmware on a router – yes liek the rest of hte world I have a hacked linksys router /yawn.

36.  Pick a lock – I’m not good at it, but I’ve done it a couple times.

37.  Tell the difference between Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb – it’s been awhile but I think I could.

38.  Avoid DRM on everything – well streaming video legally that they talked about above seems to contradict this one doesn’t it.   However all my local video, music, picutres, and ebooks are DRM free.

39. Download a flash video and reformat it – yes I’ve done this – youtube videos locally stored on the N810 ftw.

40.  Get around in DOS – I grew up and DOS and resisted windows for a long time – so let’s just say yes.

41. Rip a DVD to h.264 – yes been there done that.

42.  Overclock your PC – yes I’ve done this my pride and joy was overclocking my AMD 133 mhz 486 to 160 MHZ – and it benchmarked and ran like a pentium 133 for half the cost.

43.  Use remote desktop – it’s part of my job – so yes.

44. Debate the merits of a star destroyer vs. the enterprise – yes, and the star destroyer would win.

45. Buld your own computer – built too many to actually count – I’m serious to – I worked at a small PC store and we sold hundreds – thousands of machines – so I cna build my own.

In irony they don’t seem to actually have 50 things on their list – so I think most geeks should know how to count also.

People in the security world were all pretty sure that users never paid attention to dialog boxes.   Ars Technica printed information about a study performed North Carolina State University that proves that the security professionals were correct.  Most users only want to get rid of the immediate annoyance and don’t read what is happening on their screens.

We already know most people don’t read their end user license agreements – but come on.  How many fake windows dialog banner ads do you need to load and have bad things happen to your computer before you learn.   Unlike other childhood cause and effect lessons, we don’t lear clicking the button is bad like the stove is hot when we get burned.   There is a mantra I’ve always enjoyed, “If Stupidity Can’t Hurt, Then It Should Cost”.   I’m rather happy that most users that click and click and click to punch the monkey or get rid of fake banners hads more then likely spend hundreds of dollars keeping their computer in running order after the spyware has had a field day.   I do feel sorry for their family members that have to fix it for free though……

For More information click the link below (Ars Technica)

Fake popup study sadly confirms most users are idiots