corey gilmore's blog

I told you AT&T sucked…

Corey — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:15:58 +0000

I said it near the end of August, now there's a slightly more official story confirming AT&T's shitty actions.

In an act affecting owners of 2G cell phones on AT&T Mobility’s network, including the highly visible, and originally highly expensive first generation iPhone, Open for Business has learned that AT&T has been quietly sacrificing 2G signal strength in an effort to speed up the build out of its next generation 3G network.

Consider my horn tooted.

UPDATE: BGR picked up the original story and Ronen over at BerryReview has noticed 3G coverage where he didn't have it previously.

Recovering a corrupt iTunes DB on an iPhone

Corey — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:59:12 +0000

The past week has been a rough one for all of my technology products. My MacBook Pro hard drive died, my tablet pc pen had a speck of crushed diamond or something equally hard that lead to a big gouge on the screen, half of my RAID mirror died on my development machine and some crappy software corrupted the iTunes database on my iPhone.

Word to the wise: as of January 1, 2009 there is no software available that can update the iTunes database on an iPhone or iPod Touch running firmware 2.x. Once the new hash for signing the database is reverse engineered this will be possible again, but until then be careful. I discovered this the hard way while trying to add some movies to my iPhone while my MBP was out of commission.

When you connect your iPhone after using one of the crappier utilities (quality apps tell you it's not possible) you'll be greeted with the following message:

iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone "XXX". Go to the Summary tab in iPhone preferences and click Restore to restore.

Restoring on a customized jailbroken iPhone is a bit of a pain; you need to reinstall all of your jailbroken apps, set your Winterboard theme, arrange all of your icons "just so", etc. It takes me about an hour to get everything just the way I like it, and I've got most of the process scripted out now.

Your iTunes database is stored in /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes and mine has the following files in it:

Extras.itdb
IC-Info.sidb
IC-Info.sidv
PhotosFolderAlbums
PhotosFolderName
PhotosFolderPrefs
Rentals.plist
Ringtones.plist
iPhotoAlbumPrefs
iTunesApplicationIDs
iTunesControl
iTunesDB
iTunesMovies
iTunesPrefs

The suspect file was iTunesDB. My first thought was just to remove (rename) the iTunes directory and see what happened. Instead of an error I was prompted to configure a new iPhone or restore from backup. No go. When I refreshed the directory listing I saw that iTunes had re-created the iTunes directory.

I removed everything inside of the newly created /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes directory except iTunesDB and copied all of the files (except iTunesDB) from my backup directory, /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes-bad. Everything inside of the iTunes directory should be owned by user/group mobile/mobile and permissions set to 644.

chmod -R 644 /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes
chown -R mobile:mobile /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes

I plugged my iPhone in and iTunes happily recoginzed it, sans music. Since it's a horrific music player (I love my touch wheel) I didn't care about this, my jailbreak configurationwas much more important.

You can download the virgin iTunesDB file here.

Manually removing Cisco VPN on OS X

Corey — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:00:41 +0000

For Christmas my MacBook Pro hard drive decided to die at the ripe old age of 6 months. Go Hitachi!

I restored from a Time Machine backup and installed the full 10.5.6 update. After rebooting the Cisco VPN kernel module would load, attach to the VMware interfaces and immediately trigger a kernel panic and halt the machine after attaching to en0, the onboard ethernet.

I'm fairly positive that no one at Cisco works full-time on the ipsec VPN client anymore given that it never works with a new release of OS X and seems to stop working on alternating dot-release updates. Cisco isn't biased though, the ipsec client still doesn't work right on 32-bit Vista (hey, Vista is only two years old, these things take time!), and there is not, nor will there ever be, an ipsec client for 64-bit versions of Windows.

The latest release of the VPN client for OS X is 4.9.01 (0100), which was released over a year ago on December 6, 2007. Cisco's commitment to the product is evident with the release notes for their "latest" version, which is still listed as 4.9.00 (0050). While this is a bit tongue in cheek, I do think that Cisco's ipsec vpn client is a dead product. They're pushing the SSL/TLS AnyConnect VPN client hard, and AnyConnect shows signs of being an actively mantined product. It also supports x64 versions of Windows.

Manually removing the VPN client

Reboot into single user mode by holding command-S while the computer boots
Remount the / filesystem as read-write (it's read-only by default)
```
/sbin/mount -uw /
```
Run the uninstaller:
```
/usr/local/bin/vpn_uninstall
```

At this point things will either work, or you'll receive an error saying that you need to be the super user (root). That's odd considering you ARE root.

The problem is in these two lines:

ID="/usr/bin/id"
WHOAMI=`$IDsed -e 's/(.*//'`

When you're in single-user mode the id command fails, returning "Bus error" instead of a line like

uid=501(cfg) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),98(_lpadmin),81(_appserveradm),79(_appserverusr),80(admin)

You'll need to edit the vpn_uninstall script by hand and fake the check. Use nano or your preferred editor to edit the file.

nano /usr/local/bin/vpn_uninstall

Add a new line right after WHOAMI=`$ID|sed -e 's/(.*//'`:

WHOAMI="uid=0"

The file should now look like:

ID="/usr/bin/id"
WHOAMI=`$IDsed -e 's/(.*//'`
WHOAMI="uid=0"

Save the file (ctrl+o, enter, ctrl+x, enter) and re-run /usr/local/bin/vpn_uninstall. At this point it should uninstall successfully and you can type reboot to restart sans-vpn client.

Seven Things You May or May Not Have Wanted to Know About Me

Corey — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:53:32 +0000

Steve called me out on this, so here goes.

The rules for this tortuous task are as follows:

Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged.

I could talk about awesome handlebar mustache I sported at a friend's bachelor party, the floating pool of shit I once had in my basement, the time I met Steve Ballmer, being blamed for hours of downtime of 100+ .gov websites or being (wrongly) accused of and almost having criminal charges filed against me for "hacking". Instead prepare to be wowed by a small sample of my food related illnesses.

I once ate fudge until I threw up.
Remember Bubble Tape gum that came in a 6 foot roll? I chewed an entire roll one afternoon and broke out in hives.
I ate an entire 18 ounce carton of prunes and was sick enough to miss a day of school.
I ate a seafood salad sandwich from a gas station somewhere near Whitehall, NY and was sick for about 3 days, including Christmas.
I ate 2 pounds of meatloaf (with a hot dog in the middle, because I'm classy) all by myself in a 3 day period before going to Peru. I was sick for the entire .
When I was around 5 my parents insisted that I finish all of the Chinese food on my plate. I said I'd be sick if I ate one more bite. They made me to eat one more bite. I was right (directly onto my plate).
While on vacation in North Carolina a couple years ago I was washed down the daily special at a dive bar - some creamy mixed seafood burrito - with tepid jungle juice from a jug on the bar and was really sick for a day.
Bonus! I'm blanking on what it was, but I ate a ton of something else another time and gave myself hives - again. I think I also had a broken wrist (one of two times I broke my left wrist), so I got to experience the worst type of itch - one you can't scratch.

The Victims

No one deserves to be forced to come up with 7 interesting facts about themselves. Or even boring facts. If you want to write something up though leave a comment below with the link to your post and I'll quietly edit this post and we can all pretend that I called you out.

In the meantime if you happen to see Steve make sure to ask him what it was like playing Mr. Joshua in Lethal Weapon.

MS Word is smart

Corey — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:50:23 +0000

Outlook 2007 uses Word (2007) for its editor; there's no way around it. Luckily Word 2007 is much smarter than it's predecessors when it comes to HTML. I pasted a single 14 character word into a WordPress RTE and Word truly shined. As you can see it only came with the most essential XML.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Consolas; panose-1:2 11 6 9 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750091 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} p.MsoPlainText, li.MsoPlainText, div.MsoPlainText {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-link:"Plain Text Char"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.5pt; font-family:Consolas; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} span.PlainTextChar {mso-style-name:"Plain Text Char"; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-locked:yes; mso-style-link:"Plain Text"; mso-ansi-font-size:10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt; font-family:Consolas; mso-ascii-font-family:Consolas; mso-hansi-font-family:Consolas;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

20105 characters to describe 14 characters of text, a 1436:1 ratio. Smooth, damn smooth.

Disable Spotlight for VMware Fusion

Corey — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:46:24 +0000

I haven't used VMware Fusion in a while, but this evening I noticed that applications from a Windows installation on Fusion 2.x were showing up in Spotlight. At first Firefox (Windows) was the top hit for Firefox, trumping the OS X installation.

Not exactly what I was after.

It's simple to fix, although not terribly intuitive for someone who doesn't use Spotlight much (like me). Open System Preferences, and then open the Spotlight preference pane. Select the Privacy pane and drag your Virtual Machines folder in. By default this is located at \Documents\Virtual Machines\.

Close System Preferences and you'll find that your virtual machine contents will immediately be excluded from Spotlight.

Using Eclipse for Web Development

Corey — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:12:11 +0000

As I alluded to on Twitter, Eclipse is a horrific scattered mess of projects masquerading as an IDE. I only hear wonderful things about it, mostly from ColdFusion developers, but god help the person that assumes it will be a quick and easy installation.

First you need to choose the package you want. I'm going to be writing PHP, ColdFusion, JavaScript, CSS, HTML files, and committing them to Subversion repositories.

Installation

Now, which package should I download?

Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers (163 MB) - Tools for Java developers creating JEE and Web applications, including a Java IDE, tools for JEE and JSF, Mylyn and others
Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (85 MB) - The essential tools for any Java developer, including a Java IDE, a CVS client, XML Editor and Mylyn.
Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers (68 MB) - An IDE for C/C++ developers with Mylyn integration.
Eclipse Classic 3.4.1 (151 MB) - The classic Eclipse download: the Eclipse Platform, Java Development Tools, and Plug-in Development Environment, including source and both user and programmer documentation.

The size differences alone give me pause, and the descriptions don't help at all. Why is Eclipse Classic - which includes Java Development Tools - twice the size of Eclipse IDE for Java Developers? Since I'm not writing anything in Java I'm going to choose Eclipse Classic.

Individual Package

I want syntax highlighting and code completion for PHP, ColdFusion, JavaScript, CSS and HTML. I also want integrated SVN access. This should be easy enough, let's get started.

ColdFusion

ColdFusion is easy, thanks to CFEclipse. Well, almost. From the download page:

Important note regarding Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede): Currently CFEclipse does not work well with Ganymede. We recommend you continue using Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) for a stable user experience.

I'm going to choose to ignore that, I don't like to run old software. Add http://www.cfeclipse.org/update to the Software Update locations, select your packages (not CFUnit), click Install and restart Eclipse.

PHP

PHP is not so easy. There are three options; PDT, PHPEclipse and Zend Studio for Eclipse. Zend is of the main contributors to PDT, and even offers a handy comparison between Zend Studio and PDT. Oh, Zend Studio (for Windows) is 317MB whereas PDT is 7.8MB. Or maybe it's 122.5MB.

We're starting to see where in my opinion, Eclipse falls apart. PDT All-In-One includes Eclipse 3.3 and the dependencies. The latest version of Eclipse is 3.4.1. Oh and Zend Studio for Eclipse? It's not for Eclipse, it's a custom Eclipse bundle. Zend Studio on Eclipse would be more accurate.

Let's take a look at the PDT install documentation. Obviously we want to install from an update site, an automated installation has to be easier than downloading a zip file.

From Update Site

Install a JDK or JRE — minimum required level is 5.0.

Get Eclipse:

Download the latest Ganymede JEE Bundle, then unpack it and start it up.

Start the Install Manager. You will require three update sites to perform an install of PDT 2.0.

Help > Software Updates… > Available Software > Manage Sites…
Add… > add the DLTK 1.0 interim site: download.eclipse.org/technology/dltk/updates-dev/1.0/
Add… > add the PDT 2.0 interim site: download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/updates/interim/
Enable the Ganymede Update site (if not already enabled): download.eclipse.org/releases/ganymede/
Expand the DLTK site and select the Dynamic Languages Toolkit - Core Frameworks or Dynamic Languages Toolkit - Core Frameworks SDK Feature
Select the PDT or PDT SDK Feature
Install…

Wait, why do I need the Ganymede JEE Bundle? What's wrong with the Eclipse Classic bundle we downloaded before? According to the Eclipse site the JEEE bundle is "Tools for Java developers creating JEE and Web applications". I'm developing in PHP, not Java. Since the answer isn't on the PDT or Eclipse sites I'm going to take a pass and install PHPEclipse. Add http://update.phpeclipse.net/update/stable/1.2.x to your Software Update sites, and I installed PHPEclipse and Xdebug.

Duplicate Sources

You'll notice that when you add http://update.phpeclipse.net/update/stable/1.2.x to your Software Update list that you end up with two entries. That's because there's a HTTP 302 (temporary) redirect there, and for some reason Eclipse adds an entry for both URLs. That's not at all confusing.

That's odd, there's an obtuse error message about unmet dependencies for CFUnit when we try and install PHPEclipse and Xdebug. Because they're obviously related. Uninstall CFUnit and it'll work.

CFUnit dependencies for PHPEclipse

Subversion

I'm going to use Subclipse here for no other reason than a few people said it's what they use. I have no idea what the differences are (if any) between Subclipse and Subversive. Subversive says it "aims to provide SVN integration for Eclipse" and that in November 2007 it was started Incubation as a Technology Project. To me, none of that implies anything good. To install Subclipse add http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.4.x as a Site, install the Subclipse (required) package and restart. This sure is easy!

CSS, HTML, JavaScript

Does Eclipse include support for this out of the box? Maybe. Does Eclipse make it clear if they do? Of course not. And the answer is no, support for this is not included.

It appears that the Web Tools Platform (WTP) Project will provide support for this. WTP "includes source and graphical editors for a variety of languages, wizards and built-in applications to simplify development, and tools and APIs to support deploying, running, and testing apps." There isn't much detail about what is included in a variety of languages. Eclipse projects seem to be big on only providing a summary of what's included in a package. And if you think it's important to have more details, well then fuck you, go read the changelog.

Let's download WTP.

WTP - Stable Builds

What the hell is this? Oh, whew, there's a legend.

WTP - Legend

OK, that's not comforting. Why would I want to download a stable build of anything that has 40 Access Rule Violations, 816 compilation warnings and 968 Access Rule Warnings? Here's the quintessential example of a project that's run by developers. Just because that information is available, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD DISPLAY IT. Odds are since this is a stable build that those warnings and errors aren't a big deal. If that's the case, don't show them right on the main page.

Let's skip the zip file anyways, and use the Update Manager.

This update site provides the features of the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP).

If you are just getting started with Eclipse or Eclipse Web Tools, you may want to first install from the Ganymede update site, as it would have everything you need to get started.

This Web Tools Platform update site does assume you have all the pre-reqs installed.

Beyond the basic Web Tools Platform, this site offers the SDK version of Web Tools and also the XSL Incubating Component.

To use this update site in your existing installation of Eclipse, add the following URL as a remote update site in your update manager, if it does not already have it.

http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/updates/

Vague, obtuse documentation? I'm sensing a trend.

If you are just getting started with Eclipse or Eclipse Web Tools, you may want to first install from the Ganymede update site, as it would have everything you need to get started.

Install what from the Ganymede update site? Eclipse Web Tools, abbreviated as WTP? Or Ganymede? Don't forget, Ganymede is the latest release of Eclipse, 3.4.x. What does "it" have to get me started?

This Web Tools Platform update site does assume you have all the pre-reqs installed.

You know what they say when you assume. Maybe I've got the pre-reqs installed, where can I find a list? Seriously, I'd love to know.

OK, let's pretend that we have the mythical pre-requisites installed, and add http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/updates/ to our Software Update sites.

Here is the list of available software before adding the WTP source:

Sources - Before Adding WTP Site

Here is the list of available software after adding the WTP source:

Sources - After Adding WTP Site

Can you spot the diffence? Me either. If I drill down to Ganymede > Web and Java EE Development section I see something called Web Developer Tools, but the version number doesn't match anything on the Web Tools Platform (WTP) download page. I've got an idea, let's take a look at the XML used by the pseudo-repository.

OK, there's a description: "The update site contains the features of the of Eclipse Web Tools Project (WTP)". Good, that helps. Huh, I can see that the Web Developer Tools package in the Software Update utility has a meaningful version of 3.0.2.v200808250510-7A-8f8QqVJLTFUkFahb1QIq2z0t8, and inside the XML ther's something with a category name of Web Tools Platform (WTP) 3.0.2 that also has a version of 3.0.2.v200808250510-7A-8f8QqVJLTFUkFahb1QIq2z0t8! Let's view the Properties for the Web Developer Tools package through the Software Update tool. The description is "Web Developer Tools minimum installation". So, what is it, Web Tools Platform, or Web Developer Tools?

It's listed in the WTP site.xml, so it must be WTP. That's odd though, 3.0.3 is the latest release of WTP, and I've got Software Update configured to "Show only the latest versions of available software" so why don't I see version 3.0.3?

Oh wait, even though we've added a source, we still need to enable it.

Because obviously the act of proactively adding a source doesn't imply that I want to see any updates from said source. From the Software Update tool click Mange Sites and check the box next to the webtools URL.

Enable WTP Site

Check off a few of the WTP items and click Install. It doesn't seem to matter which you check, because Eclipse will decide what needs to be installed anyways. But hey, thanks for giving me the illusion of choice.

Once it's done you'll have to restart Eclipse. Or do you? Even the WTP folks don't know (scroll to the very bottom), and they wrote the software!

Apply or Restart

The End

This is as far as we're going to get today. The installation is such an incredibly complicated mess that I don't have the energy to test it out. Hell, I barely have the energy to proof read this post.

links for 2008-11-10

Corey — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:55:03 +0000

“Blue Badge” tool available, unlocks all known protected features - Within Windows

Useful for anyone running one of the pre-beta's of Windows 7 who wants all of the features seen at PDC.

(tags: windows7 bundle-blog)

links for 2008-11-07

Corey — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:55:02 +0000

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Instance Metadata

All of the available information an EC2 instance can programatically obtain about itself.

(tags: ec2 amazon aws bundle-blog)
Tiny Geo-coder | The fastest way to find latitude and longitude

Turn a location into a latitude/longitude pair.

(tags: geocode gps mapping bundle-blog)

links for 2008-11-06

Corey — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:55:02 +0000

myDisk.se

(tags: webdav hosting bundle-blog)

Colorado Early Voting

Corey — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:18:44 +0000

Like an increasing number of states, Colorado publishes their early voting statistics down the the county level. It's interesting to look at the surge in ballots that have been received over the past few days. About 62% of active voters received a mail-in ballot, and of those about 82% of those have been returned. Overall about 64% of Colorado has voted already, presumably the other 36% haven't given up yet. There's been a huge push this year to vote early with advertising appearing in video games, on Hulu and of course TV and radio. Actually I haven't heard of any McCain advertisements on less traditional media, nor does McCain have a slick iPhone app.

As of 7:00p.m. on Monday, November 3, 2008

Voter Registration Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Eligible
Total Number of Eligible Electors:	3,208,878
- Active Registered Voters:	2,638,211	82.2%
- Inactive Registered Voters:	570,667	17.8%

General Election Participation Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Active Voters*
Number of Mail-In Ballots Sent	1,633,190	61.9%
-Number of Mail-In Ballots Received	1,339,065	50.8%
Number of Early Voting Ballots Cast	365,215	13.8%

As of 8:30p.m. on Friday, October 31, 2008

Voter Registration Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Eligible
Total Number of Eligible Electors:	3,208,265
- Active Registered Voters:	2,636,834	82.2%
- Inactive Registered Voters:	571,431	17.8%

General Election Participation Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Active Voters*
Number of Mail-In Ballots Sent	1,632,141	61.9%
-Number of Mail-In Ballots Received	1,112,782	42.2%
Number of Early Voting Ballots Cast	365,054	13.8%

As of 7:30p.m. on Thursday, October 30, 2008

Voter Registration Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Eligible
Total Number of Eligible Electors:	3,207,368
- Active Registered Voters:	2,625,664	81.9%
- Inactive Registered Voters:	581,704	18.1%

General Election Participation Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Active Voters*
Number of Mail-In Ballots Sent	1,627,941	62.0%
-Number of Mail-In Ballots Received	993,542	37.8%
Number of Early Voting Ballots Cast	298,029	11.4%

As of 7:30p.m. on Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Voter Registration Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Eligible
Total Number of Eligible Electors:	3,206,766
- Active Registered Voters:	2,617,112	81.6%
- Inactive Registered Voters:	589,654	18.4%

General Election Participation Statistics

	Totals	% of Total Active Voters*
Number of Mail-In Ballots Sent	1,623,329	62.0%
-Number of Mail-In Ballots Received	880,491	33.6%
Number of Early Voting Ballots Cast	242,682	9.3%

links for 2008-10-31

Corey — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:55:03 +0000

Duplicating keys via distant digital images | Planetary Gear: a CNET blog on mechanical engineering technology - CNET News

Between this and bumping you probably shouldn't ever leave your house unattended.

(tags: keys lockpicking bundle-blog)
Food Storage Guidelines For Consumers

How long certain foods last opened in the fridge - I've been looking for something like this forever.

(tags: food fridge foodstorage bundle-blog)

Connecting to OS X/Samba shares from Vista

Corey — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:03:47 +0000

If you've ever tried to connect to a shared folder on a Linux or OS X host running Samba (SMB) from Vista you've probably been unsuccessful. Vista defaults to using only NTLMv2for authentication for network logins, which requires Samba 3.0.22¹ or newer. Oddly enough OS X 10.5 is running Samba 3.0.25, but NTLMv2 isn't enabled.

Relaxing Vista's Security Requirements

You'll need to configure Vista to use LM and NTLM authentication instead of only NTLMv2.

From the Start menu open Local Security Policy or press Start+R to open the Run window and type secpol.msc.
Browse to Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options and double click on the Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level policy.
LAN Manager authentication level
Change the security level to LM and NTLM – use NTLMV2 session security if negotiated.
LAN Manager authentication level Properties
Click OK and you should be able to connect to the remote Samba server.

Troubleshooting

If you're still unable to connect or browse the network make sure that Network Discovery is enabled for your location. Open the Network and Sharing Center and under the Sharing and Discovery heading, expand Network Discovery. If Network Discovery is off, turn it on.

Network Discovery

3.0.21 has a security hole