Squidly1’s Weblog

Well crap. It’s official… My Lacie 1TB Ethernet Big Disk NAS took a dirt nap and I have lost a *lot* of data - some personal, tons of research, more than a few hard-to-come-by hacker / security videos and lots of other fun stuff. Sadly, attempts to recover the data have failed as one of the RAID 0′d 500G Samsung drives is already dead and the other is well on it’s way to mechanical failure. A total loss. I’m sure if I had TONS of money, I could send it off to a clean-room recovery company, but who has that type of cash?? (Any sugar daddies out there?) The other sad thing is that I was just days away from a major file sort/cleanup and backup evolution - making this drive failure a bit more tolerable… (sadhat)

I’m planning on sending the unit back to Lacie for total replacement. Thinking seriously of taking the new drive and selling it on eBay and using that money to get a Buffalo Linkstation Pro. At least the Buffalo is hackable (wiki link) with custom firmware (wink).

Nekkid Lace Pics:
My Lacie 1TB Ethernet Big Disk’s Guts
One of the two Samsung drives in the EBD

Interested in a Buffalo NAS? Check the links:
Buffalo Linkstation (UK)
Firmware passwords
Firmware FAQ
FreeLink for Linkstation Pro Info Page
Turn a FreeLink LSP into a Slim Server (SqueezeCenter 7)

Well, I did it. I have manually sync’d my various blogs all onto this one. Little did I know that the 757 blogfeed would pick all the posts, despite all of the dates being set as the same as the ones posted originally on the other blogs, and show them all appearing TODAY!!11!!1! Crudola - sorry guys & gals… Ah well, at least all of the posts since January 2008 have been added, and that glitch won’t happen again.

Now I just need to find a way to sync automatically… Hmmmm….

Also, I fixed a broken graphic on the sidebar. Seems one of the online gamer trackers went belly-up and all I got was a broken graphic as my consolation. :/ So now I have a general image under the XBL tag that points to my video gaming page.

I should have a new Nike+iPod set up soon. The old one pooped out in near record time - hence the almost year-long gap in speed-walking logs (also) on the sidebar.

Ya know… It’s pretty shocking that a little blog site like mine can garner so much unwanted spammer attention. Most of my blogs get one or two hits of comment spam a month, but my Hax0r blog tends to get hammered (in a couple of weeks I racked up 850+ spam attempts). I mean, really… Only a few people read my stuff - why bother trying to post on an insignificant website like mine? Guess the morons bank on the average rube not knowing that all those male enhancement (or insert any other idiotic sales attempt here) spam ads are just hokum.

If you are having issues with spam, fear not, there are auto to semi-automatic plugins to the rescue. I use Akismet on all my blogs and it stops 99.99% attempts at posting trash. If, for some reason, that doesn’t do the trick, you can always add a “human challenge & verification” plugin (reCaptcha, etc.) and force those (bleep) bags to have to manually post their tripe (and we know they won’t do that - too (bleeping) lazy).

To get your own Akismet API key, go HERE.
Math Comment, go HERE.
Some other options, HERE and HERE.

Hotnessssss… I can finally roll with the cool kids… I got my Chumby in the mail!! After a couple months of hearing about it from friends who jumped on the train ages ago, I caved to the peer pressure. My unit is the “Latte” color (as seen to the left), but a “Basic Black” Chumby was a VERY close second choice. Oh, and word to the wise: if you buy one on eBay do NOT pay over $179 total for it (price+ shipping) - that’s what the delivered cost of the unit goes for direct from Chumby Industries. I got mine for a little under that cost, but while I was shopping for mine I noted that there are more than a few Chumby units were listed at a $40+ profit on eBay… CLICK to see the latest crop of sellers and scammers… (Bleep) bags.

I have a couple of small plans for this Chumby, as it is marketed as a hackable device, and hope to create a widget or two as soon as I learn how it’s done… To see the official wiki for developing widgets go HERE.

Chumby Review Links:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/chumby-redux
http://www.geek.com/review-chumby/
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/14/technology/ptpogue15.php (Added)

SHOUTcasts I Fall Asleep To:
SOMA FM Drone Zone - MP3 stream
BlueMars - MP3 stream
BlueMars Cryosleep - MP3 stream
Sleepbot - MP3 stream

[[[ Updated 18 May 2008: I have added a total of 78 widgets on my Chumby - spread out over four channels. I have channels set up for Day, Night, Test and Kitchen. For one of my widget ideas, I'm looking at how I might be able to work a small search engine GUI out, using the on-screen keyboard. Why? Cause I wanna take a stab at integrating my Kitchen Assistant (using a Google API) as a means for looking recipes and drink mixes up. The only down side is that I am not certain if I will be able to work some magic and get all the clicked-through recipe pages to display right on the Chumby without a serious portal (most of these recipe sites do not export their data in XML format). The other option is to syphon a truck load of recipes from a variety of locations, convert them into an XML format and dump the whole lot into a personal SQL database on my (or a central) network. Either way, uuuggghhhhh...]]]

Interested in seeing what CTNs will be tested on during their exams soon? Look no further, HERE is a PDF I created to help you find those books - if you want to buy them yourself. Commands with CTNs at them *should* be getting these books before the January 2009 Chief’s exams, as that exam will be the first one to reflect the new material.

Brace yourself… Some of these books are a tad pricey!

I temporarily lost my original recipe for parve Hamantaschen cookies this week, so I decided to try another go at making a recipe for the Purim holiday treat. Here’s what came of it! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Download PDF of this recipe HERE.
Download PDF of the original recipe HERE.

Yocheved’s Hamantaschen Cookies v2.0
[Kosher - Parve] Ingredients I used to make this parve

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 medium whole eggs
1 cup sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup margarine
2 Tbsp key-lime juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
favorite jams or other fillings

Directions:
- Take your margarine and either allow it to get to room temperature or soften it up in the microwave. Do not overcook / burn it. Pre-heat oven to 350 F / 180 C. Put non-stick on your cookie sheet(s).

- Add all dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Mix thoroughly. In a smaller bowl combine the eggs, key-lime juice, oil, margarine (slightly melted or room temperature), and vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly, and then add to the dry ingredients in the medium bowl. Mix and finally knead with your hands until you have a nice solid and semi-sticky ball.

- Pinch off and roll up a ball about the size of two of your thumbs wide (sideways). Take a cup and dust the bottom lightly in flour, then use it to flatten the cookie ball into a nice circular shape. Then roll three sides up and pinch the corners together, forming a triangular pit for your filler to sit in. Using a spoon put about a teaspoon of filling into the cookie. As you finish each cookie transfer them to the baking sheet and make sure they have plenty of space to cook.

- Let bake for 12~15 minutes – or until the dough is lightly golden in color. When done, move cookies to a cooling rack and let sit for at least 20 minutes. You may find that some filler may have leaked out during the baking process – replace what is needed during the cooling phase.

- These cookies will tolerate refrigeration and freezing, as long as they are put in an air-tight bag before hand.

Gots nothing but love for the DC757 and HRGeeks. Figured I would try my hand at making a theme for the M3 Real (for the Nintendo DS) in honor of the hardest working (or skating) geeks I know. HERE is version 1.0 of the theme. Enjoy!

…And yes, there is a back story on why it says, “We f33r teh Segway.” ; P

Whiew! I flew back in from my ShmooCon (DC) trip laaaaate last night. Seemed that there was a problem with the little crop-duster I flew in on from Memphis to Pensacola… The main hatch wouldn’t seal. So there was a very long lay-over in Memphis as we waited for the initial mechanic and then a specialist to work on the problem. Been catching up on sleep lost all weekend today (yawn).

What a blast! ShmooCon was a little bigger this year from the last, but it had the same great speakers, organizers and attendee. Incriminating photos of my drunken state may be found on Flickr accounts of some friends (SullyJMan, Ethan, and the general ShmooCon 2008 stream) - I know I was not the only toastie that night ;P. Thanks to everyone who made ShmooCon4 a joy to attend!

While there, I was tempted to purchase three books (saving up cash):

No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing
by Johnny Long
Publisher: Syngress (February 21, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-1597492157
Hit up Johnny’s link (HERE) to help raise money for AOET (Action for Empowerment). For more information check out his site at: http://www.hackersforcharity.org/

Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition
by Jon Erickson
Publisher: No Starch Press (February 2008, 488 pp., w/ CD)
ISBN-13 978-1-59327-144-2

Practical Packet Analysis: Using Wireshark to Solve Real-World Network Problems
by Chris Sanders
Publisher: No Starch Press (May 2007, 172 pp.)
ISBN-13 978-1-59327-149-7

Yeppers. SquidlyAIR has been accepted on iTunes as a FREE podcast for download.

To access the iTunes link click HERE, or on the graphic provided in the right sidebar.

Wow… Sony finally did something realllly cool - they included Skype on firmware 3.90. Wonder how much of the decision to include Skype in the latest firmware was based on homebrew pressures to do a similar trick. I mean, anyone who has been fiddling around with a modded PSP has known that this little beastie can do lots of neat little tricks (evil grin). What’s even better about all this is that Dark_Alex has graced us with another installer so mod fans may upgrade to 3.90 while keeping the ability to use *some* homebrew apps.

Now on that note, about the *some* homebrews… I plan to test various apps for compatibility from time to time and post the results. I have three systems (1.50, 3.40OE-A and 3.90-M33) and will report if a given app will work on one or all of them. Keep your peepers glued here for the release of the first list.