Notes and Ramblings

Steves Digicams - Minolta DiMAGE Xt - User Review
Here's the latest item on my wishlist. I've been contemplating a newer/better/faster/fits-in-a-shirt-pocket digital camera for several months and this looks like just what the doctor ordered.

The Sniper Yagi is a 14.6dBi yagi antenna, 500mW amp, and high-powered rifle scope, mounted on a ruger 10-22 stock. With only small modifications to the antenna and the stock, and a bit of custom welding, the sniper yagi can be assembled in a few hours. We apologize for some of the vague instructions, but we didn’t anticipate ever writing a how-to for this experimental pipe-dream. Even so, it’s easy enough that anyone should be able to construct a sniper yagi without too much difficulty.
Link goes to the instructions...

Load up your USB drive before you visit your parents

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To summarize the comments, here's what a well-equipped geek carries along when visiting family for the holidays.

• Inventory (Belarc Advisor, Computer Profiler)
  
• Anti-Spyware (Spybot, Ad-Aware)
  
• Anti-Virus (GriSoft, Avast!, F-Prot)
  
• Personal Firewall (Kerio, Sygate, ZoneAlarm)
  
• Anti-Spam (PopFile, xyz)
  
• Registry Cleaner (Crap Cleaner,
  
• Browser (Portable Firefox)
  
• E-Mail (Portable Thunderbird)
  
• Instant Messaging (Gaim, Skype)
  
• Remote Management (VNC) for helping them out later...
  

I recently picked up a great deal... Staples had the SanDisk 512MB Micro on sale for $29.xx (after rebate) and I noticed in a posting on FatWallet that when the Micro was gone, Staples was substituting the 512MB Titanium. The Titanium is normally in the $80 neighborhood, so at ~$30 plus tax this was too good to pass up. I called the nearest Staples and asked if they had any 512MB Micro's on hand and heard "No, but we're substituting the Titanium for it". Needless to say, I rushed right over...
I gotta say, this is one sweet piece of geek hardware. The USB connector extends and retracts from the case like little data landing-gear. Transferring files seems much faster (15MB/sec read and 13MB/sec write) than with the SanDisk 256MB Mini that I've been carrying for the last year-plus.
This calls for a quick review of USB flash drives that I've owned:

• Dell 16MB - USB 1.1
• Gateway 32MB - USB 1.1
• Lexar JumpDrive Secure 128MB - specs
  
• SanDisk Cruzer Mini 256MB - specs
  
• SanDisk Titanium 512MB - specs
  

I already know that I'll be looking for a 1 or 2GB (maybe bigger) drive between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2005.

So what does a guy do with all that space? First, you add all your favorite applications. Then whatever data you can't live without. If you're a geek like me, getting constant helpdesk requests, you add Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware and other diagnostic tools.

Abston Church of Christ

XLiveCD: "XLiveCD allows users of Microsoft Windows to connect to remote Unix computers, run graphical applications and have the graphics displayed on their desktops. The software runs from the CD without being installed. XLiveCD was prepared by University Technology Services to facilitate use of research Unix systems at Indiana University by Windows users on campus."

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I found this mentioned today at SecGuru and had to give it a try. It worked great, after ssh'ing into one of our Linux servers here on campus, I ran konqueror and a nice graphical view of my home directory popped up. I was able to right-click on files and open them with their appropriate application or type in a URL and surf the web right from the server.