No Phish for You! (Location Bar 2)

About a week or two ago, I stumbled upon this nugget and just had to share.

Anyone remotely concerned with keeping his or her machine secure and free of malware, viruses, worms, rootkits, etc. should already be using Firefox. That being said, there is one more weapon that you should wield.

My friends, I give you Location Bar 2. This is an add-on for Firefox that alters the appearance of your address bar. While it allows you to customize, the default setup shows the top level domain of the website that you are currently visited in a different format than the rest of the address (subdomains, folders, etc.).

So the next time that you click on a link that says that your ATM card was stolen, the address that it will show in the location bar will look something like this:

http://www.bankofamerica.fakesite.com/account_login.asp.

Instead of:

http://www.bankofamerica.fakesite.com/account_login.asp ... genius.

Until next time ...
-D

True Crypt

Traveling with data has always made me nervous because of the possibility of losing my thumb drive ... with passwords, FTP info, POP3 email (still working on a solution for that one), etc. This same problem transcends my thumb drive (no pun intended) ... the laptop is also a major problem.

My friends, I bring you True Crypt AND Portable True Crypt. Using this free, open source application, you can create an encrypted volume on your disk of choice (full disk, new partition, etc.).

The one downside is that the volume will not grow based on the amount of data inside. When you create the volume, you need to specify how much memory you want the volume to have.

Once you create the volume, unmount like you would any external drive (like a thumb drive for instance). The next time you mount the drive via True Crypt or Portable True Crypt, enter the password and you have access to your files again.

The recommendation for a more secure password includes letters (upper and lowercase), numbers, and symbols totaling at least 20 characters.

At this point in time, I believe this is Linux and Windows only. For our Mac users, you can accomplish the same thing using Disk Utility or can opt to encrypt the entire drive.

Until next time ...
-D

Feedity + Pipes = Awesome

When it comes to tech stuff, I'm the kind of person that is all about trying new things ... the problem is that I usually need a reason for it.

I discovered Yahoo! Pipes a little bit ago, but never had a real reason to do anything with it. Well, I did, but I guess it didn't quite work the way I had hoped.

My fiancee is actively pursuing employment and regularly monitors 50+ sites (mad kudos because I had no idea she was monitoring so many). Offering to make our lives a little easier, I turned again to Yahoo! Pipes.

For those of you not familiar, Yahoo! Pipes allows you to take data and do all kinds of interesting things with it in the form of mash-ups. For example, someone took a Craigslist feed of apartments and the data from Google Maps and fed it through a pipe. The result was a list of the apartments along with their locations on the map. The possibilities are endless, especially when you combine that with data that is dynamic.

Now, Yahoo! Pipes doesn't exactly have the shortest learning curve. So, naturally I scoured for tutorials. Now I bring you to 'Feedity'. Now, if Yahoo! Pipes has a short learning curve, this one is just a wee bit longer. The genius of Feedity is that you can specify areas of a web page that you want to have transformed into an RSS feed. It does the rest.

What does that mean? I'll tell you what it means - we don't have to search 50+ pages anymore. The listings come right into an RSS reader (like Thunderbird) or in my case, my Google account where I view all of the listings at once. See the pic:


Even if you think taking the effort to do something like this is pretty ... dorky, you still have to appreciate that it's pretty neat.

Until next time ...
-D

Virus Lock Part 2: SATA Drives

Earlier in the year I did a blog on the wonderful contraption of Virus Lock. I had to retire the device because I've moved on to SATA drives and this is only for IDE drives.

Back up for a second - the concept for the Virus Lock is that you are able to have two different machines in one tower ... two hard drives separated by a physical switch that allows only one (or both depending on the setting) hard drive to receive power at any point in time. This is an excellent solution for back-ups or for just having two machines (be aware of licensing restrictions).

Well, I've recently resurrected this hardware contraption. Why? Because I recently discovered IDE to SATA power converters. What a wonderful thing!

Until next time ...
-D

Virtual PCs Part 2

In March I did a blog about Virtual PC 2007. I'm going to revisit that briefly because there are some updates that I'd like to add to that. For starters, I discovered Virtual Box and had a chance to go at it. It too is free and open source and worth looking into for a variety of VM needs. I really like the idea of having a Linux box of some kind and having a guest OS.

I really like the idea of setting up a machine ... doing whatever to it (software speaking), but upon rebooting, it's back to its good ol' original self. Case in point, a number of years ago, I became victim to a virus delivered by email. It was one of those that when you open it - BAM! It got me good. I like the idea that - okay, I have a virus ... kill the virtual machine without saving the instance, and do again. It's like getting a chance to reroll the dice in a board game. More than likely, I will never have to use it, but I really like the idea of it.

Until next time ...

-D

Coupon Codes

I stumbled upon this little nugget while reading some publications for work. A coupon codes (for online purchases) via web site or internet browser plugin.

I bring you Registered Coupons

I was only able to test some of them ... most online vendors want you to either create your account or log into your account before you can get to the coupon code section. I was kind of paranoid about accidentally going through with a purchase, so I stayed away from these.

Of the sites I was able to test (about 5), I found that most codes worked. The big culprit was Vision Direct, but that may have been user error. I didn't see the expiration dates on the codes that are generated until I hit the last code for the site.

While the plugin lacks some mainstream sites (Best Buy, Circuit City) it did have some obscure ones (Think Geek, Discovery Store). If you're not interested in installing the plugin to your browser, it's at least worth bookmarking the site and utilizing it before doing any internet shopping.

Until next time ...
-D

Real Time Traffic Alerts

I'm considering this Stage 1 in regards to my traffic alert voyage. I'll probably have it down to an art just before traffic alerts are sent to us ... "smartly" ... that's where "Stage 2" will come into play.

I am happy to announce that I've come up with a way (if you are in PA, MD, or DC) to receive real time traffic updates via text message at no cost (unless of course your mobile provider charges you for incoming messages).

To get started:

Send me an email.

You will be required to register your routes on which you would like to receive alerts as well as what conditions warrant an alert. This can be changed at any time.

Send me your cell phone number and the name of your service provider.

It's that simple. Your text message alert, after server processing, will look something like this:

"From Work Route: 4:05PM 03/26/08, FRUITVILLE PIKE at US 30, Accident."

At present I'm looking into Yahoo! Pipe options ... I would love to be able to generate alerts based on directions recently acquired. But alas, that is Stage 2. Until next time ...

-D