Average Guy X

Facebook https browsing can be turned off by applications.

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

For those of you playing along at home, we recently learned that Facebook has turned on secure browsing on it's whole site. You can accomplish this by checking the "Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible" box in the Account Security section of your Account settings. Now we know that this stops local hackers from stealing information when you are connected to a the network and this prevents advanced hackers from engineering hacks that can dump your information to them. But I found something interesting the other day while auditing my applications settings.

This is not working so well.

As I went through some of my applications, I wanted to refresh my memory of why I installed some applications. I click on the application's page in Facebook and I get a page that tells me that I need to switch back to http (non-secure) browsing in order for the application to work.

So I play along.

Now to check the damage. I look at the checkbox that I know I have checked previously to browse in https and it is not checked anymore! WOW! Facebook doesn't even let you know that this is a PERMANENT CHANGE TO YOUR ACCOUNT SETTINGS!!!!!

Just all the more reason to do what I do.

Audit your applications!
Go through your list of applications every once in a while to make sure that nothing has crept in there that you don't want. If that has happened, immediately remove the app from your profile.
Audit your settings!
The same should apply for your settings. Go through your settings every so often to ensure that what you have set in the past is still applied.

As always, remember that in the end no one is responsible for your information but yourself. Always check and double check to make sure your information is as private as you want it to be.

Facebook security http vs. https questions answered

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:30:00 +0000

There's been a lot of talk on Facebook lately about http and https and how to change it. Do any of the folks touting this wobegone actually understand what is going on here? Do YOU know what the difference between http and https is? Let me try to explain.

When a web browser tries to get to a web site, there is a conversation that happens in the network between the browser and the web server. Basically you browser gives the web server a bunch of information about itself and then asks the web server to transmit back the page it's requesting. When you're browser address bar has http:// in front of the web server, this happens in "plain text". This means that anyone that can see the network traffic between your web browser and the web server can read in plain words what is going on in that conversation. When you are writing an email, writing a Facebook status update, filling in a form on a website, writing a Facebook message, or sending ANY data to a web site, anyone can read that data that really wants to. Now, this can happen only at the time that you hit save, send, login, update, or any other button that uploads the information. As soon as the information is uploaded, that's it. Noone else, besides the folks you sent it to, can read that data.

Now, when you're browser address bar has an https:// in front of the web server name, then the conversation is a little more involved. First your browser asks the server for it's "keys", server certificate and then goes out to a certificate authority (such as Verisign, Microsoft, or others) and makes sure the server is who you think it is. Then your browser takes the "keys", looks at it's own "key" and creates an encryption "key" that will scramble the data that is sent back and forth. The server then looks at that key and makes sure everything is OK. Then all data back and forth from the server to the browser is sent coded with the "key". If someone were to look at that conversation in the network, it would look like gobbledygook to them.
This is the preferred way to log into web sites (since you don't want to send your password over the network so that anyone can read it), send emails, Facebook messages, web site forms, etc, etc, etc so that no one can read the information you are transmitting.

Why is everyone worried about this right now? Because of Facebook "hacking"? Will this prevent this???

NO!!!

There are very few opportunities to do this type of hacking. The first is an open WiFi network. Open means that you have to do nothing to connect to it besides hit the button on your computer or phone that says "Connect". If you did that, and I did the same thing, I can run a program in the network and listen to everything your computer/phone is saying out on the internet. If you connect to a WiFi that is password protected, then I can't listen in because the WiFi network does basically the same as the web server in the https:// scenario.

The other two opportunities I have to do this is to send you a bogus email with a link to Facebook that looks like Facebook, but really is my bogus server where you put your information in. Then my server records that information and sends you on to Facebook so you don't suspect anything. The last one is that I need to hack into the internet. This is a little more difficult since I will need to get into network devices owned by AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc. Not that easy.

Although this is always good practice to make sure that whenever you are sending private information to a web server, that you ensure https:// is in the address bar, this is not how many of the email and Facebook scams are getting your passwords. They are getting it by "brute force". Basically, they are just trying a bunch of passwords and getting a success because yours is easy to guess. (and don't think you're being clever by using P@55w0rd).

Over 75,000 systems compromised in cyberattack

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:14:00 +0000

Over 75,000 systems compromised in cyberattack
via computerworld.com

Security researchers at Herndon, Va.-based NetWitness Corp. have unearthed a massive botnet affecting at least 75,000 computers at 2,500 companies and government agencies worldwide.
The Kneber botnet, named for the username linking the affected machines worldwide, has been used to gather login credentials to online financial systems, social networking sites and e-mail systems for the past 18 months, according to NetWitness.
A 75GB cache of stolen data discovered by NetWitness included 68,000 corporate login credentials, login data for user accounts at Facebook, Yahoo and Hotmail, 2,000 SSL certificate files and a large amount of highly detailed "dossier-level" identity information. In addition, systems compromised by the botnet also give attackers remote access inside the compromised network, the company said.

Read entire article

Posted using ShareThis

Passwords make a difference in keeping your accounts safe from hackers

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:06:00 +0000

Lately I've had an influx of people that have had their Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo and other accounts hacked only for someone in Nigeria to ask me to wire them money. Do they really think that I am going to wire $2000 to someone I have just reconnected with? No. What I usually do is throw in a stumper in the chat. Something the hacker won't have a clue about. Not something that is true, but something that is false because the hacker will agree. The other day someone asked me to wire them $3500 to London. Now I haven't seen or heard from this guy since 8th grade so the fact that he's asking for money is already throwing up red flags, but I go with it. Then I ask "How's my best UVA roommate doing?" He answers; "I could really use the help." Now, I know he went to Virginia Tech and saying he went to UVA would be like branding him with red hot pokers. Furthermore, we did not even go to school together so being roommates was definitely not the truth. At that point I knew his account was hacked.

How did his account get hacked? Every account you open up on the internet requires a password. It's the old daunting "what password can I make up today" scenario. Most of us have one password that we use over, and over, and over, and over, well.... you get the point. How secure is that password? Can I guess it? Is it a variation of your username, real name, wife/girfriend's name, kids' name, dog's name? I can guess those. Most of the time, the hackers run programs that just try a bunch of passwords in a list. This is what I call the "well known passwords and variations" list. Do you really think that Pa55w0rd is a unique password you thought up and was cool? No. As soon as they get one password, they look for other accounts. They then try the same password on the other accounts. Once they have your email account, watch out, because they can reset passwords on just about any other account on the internet you created with that email address.

So, you ask, what is the casual, non-geeky internet user to do?

Build a better password. There are plenty of random password generators out there so use one. When you register for a site, make sure that the password is random. Now, you ask, how do I keep track of all these passwords? I don't want to have to remember a different gobbledygook password for each site. Well here's where technology comes into play. In your browser, you have the option to save the password for each site. Use that. Many security experts say not to use it, but I say go for it. There are only two scenarios where this poses a risk and those are when your computer gets physically stolen or totally hacked into. I'll put up another blog post about securing your computer so that nothing can get accessed when it gets stolen, and someone trying to hack into YOUR computer doesn't really happen much anymore. You can secure your computer against that with good anti-virus, anti-spyware/malware and a decent firewall.
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, you can use a password manager. This is a program that you install on your computer that keeps track of all your passwords for the different sites. Some can even automatically log you in or copy & paste your password onto the webpage. My personal favorite is KeePass password Safe. (http://keepass.info) This password manager will not only keep your passwords, but will automatically generate a new random password for you every time you create a new site. The second bonus, it's FREE.

Give better answers. Many of the sites ask you some "challenge questions". "What's your mother's maiden name?" or "What city were you born in?" are the most common. These are also easily guessed. I can research the 'net and find out where you were born or what your mother's maiden name is without even having access to anything but your full name. Here is what I like to do. Make up your own and rotate the answers. Put together a decoder key of sorts. Every time a site asks for your mother's maiden name, put in your birthplace, or your first pet's name, or the street you grew up on, or even better some non-sensical answer. Just make sure you have a good decoder sheet for it. You can also use the KeePass Password Safe to manage this since each site has a "notes" section. In here you can put in the challenge question and how you answered it.

Stay safe out there on the 'net. It's powerful, fun, entertaining, and dangerous. When you put a lock on your house, you use a unique key that's hard to guess what the ridges look like. You don't use one that has no ridges or only one. Do the same for your online "house". Use a good key to lock it all up.

Google Turns on Gmail Encryption to Protect Wi-Fi Users

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:00:00 +0000

via Wired.com

Google is now encrypting all Gmail traffic from its servers to its users in a bid to foil sniffers who sit in cafes, eavesdropping in on traffic passing by, the company announced Wednesday.
The change comes just a day after the company announced it might pull its offices from China after discovering concerted attempts to break into Gmail accounts of human rights activists. The switch to always-on HTTPS adds more security, but does not help prevent the kind of attacks Google announced Tuesday.
All Gmail users will now default to using HTTPS, the secure, encrypted method for communicating with a remote server, for their entire e-mail sessions, not just for log-in. Session-long HTTPS has been an official option for Gmail users since 2008 (and unofficial for much longer), but Google says it hesitated turning it on for all since the encryption does slow down the service.
“Over the last few months, we’ve been researching the security/latency tradeoff and decided that turning https on for everyone was the right thing to do,” Gmail Engineering Director Sam Schillace wrote in the Gmail blog.
This option often wasn’t necessary when people used fixed and trusted connections, such as their home or office DSL or cable lines. But as Wi-Fi connections, especially public ones, became more popular, hackers began using simple sniffing software to snoop on people’s online activities with the goal of stealing passwords.
Still, the switch doesn’t encrypt e-mail — it simply encrypts the communications in transit between Google’s servers and a user’s computer — the same as when you use your bank’s website. E-mails sent to other people are transmitted in the clear as they have always been. True encrypted e-mail can only be read by the sender and receiver, regardless of how they move across the internet.
For those whose schools or workplaces that routinely monitor employee or student internet usage, the change also shields their e-mails from the IT department.
A coalition of privacy and security experts called on Google publicly to make the change last June, saying that Google was putting millions of people at risk by not using encryption as the default for their so-called cloud computing services.
Users who find the service slows them down or determine that it’s overkill for their needs can turn the HTTPS off in their account settings.
Rival free e-mail from Yahoo and Microsoft do not use HTTPS throughout their sessions, nor do social networking sites or other so-called cloud-computing services.
Instead, most of those services use the secure “HTTPS” protocol only for logging in, and fall back to unencrypted browsing thereafter.Failing to use HTTPS full time increases one’s vulnerability to a host of nasty hack attacks when using an open or badly secured network, particularly a public Wi-Fi spot.

Posted using ShareThis

Another new year and a new focus

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:14:00 +0000

So I've had 1 post in the last year. That really pathetic. After looking at the last year or two in happenings and other things, I will post some hints and tips on personal technology and security. There's been a few friends that have had their Yahoo, Facebook, GMail, and other online accounts hacked. The worst thing is that the hacker is exploiting the relationship that person has with their friends/followers/contacts to extort money or other things. Lets see how this goes.

Lost in mobileland

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:45:00 +0000

I think that I've given up on my Palm Treo 680. It's lived a good life, but it has failed me. I put it in the beach bag the other day at the pool so as not to get it wet. But according to Murphy, it'll get wet somehow and it did. Nothing too awful, just looked like a few well placed drips onto the case. The battery was dead at the time so I went to charge it. After a while I came back to it to check it out.... it was trying to sync. Hmmm..... so let's throw the cable on it and let it sync. OK. Now take the cable off, and it tries to sync again. Not good. After a few rounds of this, I've determined the phone is shorted out on syncing, hence unusable. So I throw my SIM card into an old Moto Razr of my wife's. Alright. I have a phone.
After a few minutes, I understand how awful this really is. I go to text a buddy of mine... and my address book is still on my palm and sync'd with Google, but not on this phone. Can I get my address book on there? Probably not. So I just look up his number on Google and then text him.
Then one of my twitter friends tweets something interesting with a web link. Alright, this this has a web browser. I go to the link and get a 413 error. (basically, this means the web site isn't compatible with a dinky Razr web browser). Darnit! Strike 2.
Then I get this text. "Wanna have a few beers?" Great. Sure! Uh Oh... who's phone number is this? Back to Google. Oh. Ok. It's one of my other buddies. Sure.
Then I want to tweet something. I've done it through text before, no big deal and plus, Twitter updates my Facebook status automatically. So I tweet......... About an hour later, not literally, but not too far off, I have tweeted two sentences! Wow. This is really starting to bother me.
The bottom line is that I have been pretty spoiled about having a smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard. I can't live without another one. I can't surf, text, tweet, facebook, play games, use apps, take video, or store alot of things on this darn phone. I don't even have 60 texts in it and it says the memory is almost full. Boo. I'm definitely spoiled.

Looking at the New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Wow. I really can't organize myself to have at least a post a week? I would really love that. I guess I have my answer to the question "What will my new year's resolution be?" I get so consumed in work and home that my other endeavors suffer. Well, no more. I am going to give myself a boot in the a$$ and put the nose to the grindstone when it comes to other endeavors. I will be trying to document my steps here on my blog so stay tuned.
I'm still using most of my stuff on Google. Google Notepad and Google Documents have been valuable resources. I've been using Google Documents to create notebooks about stuff. One notebook has ideas, tasks and other things about my garage. Another has stuff about trying to make a Linux home computer and what packages to put on it. Yet another is a few recipes that I clip off the internet. My wife and I love trying new things at dinner.
Google notebook is something I use more for web-clipping than anything else. I also track changes that I make in the presentation of this blog. I know there's a little convergence in the two programs right now, but that'll get ironed out later.
I still have not found a good tasks program for Google. Now they just did implement Google Tasks in GMail. You can read about it here. I have not yet used that feature. I have been using Remember the Milk with a little bit of success, but I'm not fully sold. I cannot sync it with my Palm Treo 680 and would really love to have that feature.
And awa-a-ay we go!

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:33:00 +0000

It's a little late for Halloween, but what the heck. I end up rockin' it like Rosie Greer for the month before halloween. I make as much as I can for all the family costumes. We're not the "buy it off the shelf and wear it" type of people. We scavenge, sew, create, improvise and just about do anything to get that look we want. This year, the wife and I went as Beetlejuice and Lydia (the wedding scene).
I was pretty intimidated by the makeup part, but I think that I scooted by. I used a relatively cheap Beetlejuice wig/cap and enhanced it a bit with real moss from a craft store and some white face makeup. I found the vintage 70's tux complete with ruffled shirt at a local antique/vintage store. That was one awesome find. As for the wife, the dress part is bought, but I made the veil/train with some tuile from the local fabric store and the sewing machine. The tiera is from HS when she was homecoming queen. The choker is from an older costume.
The kids weren't that hard or elaborate. My son was ObiWan Kenobi and my daughter was Willy Wonka. For my son, I sewed together a top from a few patterns online. (There's a plethera of Star Wars geeks online that well tell you how to sew a "proper" Jedi costume) We then get a "monk's robe", cut it up a little, a pair of sweats and some boots and viola. My daughter was even easier. At the goodwill store, we found a black button down shirt, a maroon/purplish trenchcoat and a pair of old black penny loafers. The I picked up a brunette "supermodel" bob wig and I had an old top hat from an old costume. There. Willy Wonka!

Work - Life balance in a connected world

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:30:00 +0000

A friend of mine posts a blog entry the other day about work-life balance and it got me thinking. These days, competition is fierce, the Fortune 500 companies are locking down their employees as if they own them. State and Federal governments are even worse! This really breeds a workforce that is pretty separated from their employer. We are pretty much locked into a 9 to 5 world when we are living in a 24-7 world. Not the best for morale, productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, and motivation.
With me being a geek's geek, I have the answer. A 24-7 job. Now stay with me here, this is where it gets complicated. We all have the tools to go mobile; laptops, iPhones, Blackberrys, Windows Mobile smartphones. Some of us even have other tools that are pretty cool; cellular "network" cards for the laptops, cool bluetooth accessories that help us out, GPS units, multi-mode phones that also connect to Wi-Fi hotspots. Now taking all this into account, you are virtually connected anywhere and anytime, right? Why would your average CEO not leverage this technology to allow their workers to work from anywhere?
Let's think this scenario all the way through. We have Average Worker X. Let's make it complicated and let's say he's an IT worker. I'm going to use the IT worker example since there aren't that many roadblocks to encounter when your function exists in marketing, sales, accounting, or a few other places. Manufacturing would be an exception to this idea. If you give the worker the tools to connect from anywhere, you might not get all the "face time" that we are all accustomed to, but in turn you have a worker that is more willing to devote time and effort into their workday because they are allowed to have the day to day distractions of chatting with friends, attending other things that are part of their personal life, and the general satisfaction of that if something comes up, they aren't "chained" to their desk. This means you're not working the traditional 9 to 5. You're working 24-7. You have a better ROI on your employees since they are more willing to stay with your company. You have less costs in searching for new talent and you have the tools to retain your top talent. Is this not a win-win for everyone?

Web 2.0 Mobile

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:00:00 +0000

I've always been a geek. I'm geekier than most geeks, but I'm a man's geek. Lately though I've been ashamed of my geekiness. I'm lagging behind in the mobile world. I had mobile internet before there was mobile internet. I'd hook my old Palm 3C up to my Nokia 8210 via infrared, have the palm dial up some numbers and viola... mobile internet on my Palm 3C! A few phones later, I have a Palm Treo 680. This thing is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but because I'm a loser lately, I haven't done any customization.
Now that I'm moving my life to Google, I need to do mobile too. Now with the palm, I get the Palm Desktop, but I want to do everything over-the-air. GMail is easy. You just create the Versamail account according to the instructions found here. Now for the calendar, I use GooSync. Pretty easay to set up, not alot of extraneous features and pretty straight forward.

Next up, to-do's, memos, and other trivial things that I can sync.

Stay tuned.....
Average Guy X~~~~~

I am a slacker

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:26:00 +0000

Now that I have started all this Web 2.0 and social networking/media stuff, I am a total slacker. I started out hot and heavy, but have been sputtering off. Only one post last week? I even chastise myself. Stay tuned.... more stuff to come though.

Moving my life to Google: Part Deux

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:31:00 +0000

I have successfully transferred my email to Google. I've configured GMail to check my "old" email accounts and let me send email as my "old" email addresses. Good. Now for the bad. It only checks the email accounts at certain intervals which is determined by some algorithm that takes into account how much mail you get through that account. Well, it's not all that bad until you see the connection interval time being an hour. Now I don't call myself popular, but I'd like to see that configurable, but I can live with it. I still need to reconfigure my Outlook client (yes, I still like to use outlook) to use it exclusively and not check my other "old" email addresses.

I've got my calendar in Google Calendar. I'm using this nifty sync tool called RemoteCalendars which has two-way sync between Outlook and any other iCalendar compliant calendar. This takes care of my personal calendar, but what about my work calendar? Do I want to combine them? Do I want to keep them separate? I'll have to look into that a little more.

To-dos are non existent on Google. There's been a few suggestions and add-ins available to compensate. The one that I found most useful is Remember the Milk. It actually integrates with the Google Calendar. Now to try to sync it with Outlook.

Stay Tuned....

Social networking & privacy?

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:05:00 +0000

When you register for just about any website it asks you for a real name and a username. Even on blogger, you have a profile with a real name and a username and even your GMail address can reveal information about you. Now I consider myself a professional worker. I work in a corporate-type environment where business casual dress is required, some days I might even need a tie depending who I'm meeting with. I've started blogging, have GMail accounts, started with a bunch of social networking sites (twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and am wondering a few things.... How much is too much?

How much information should you be revealing online about yourself? I've created this persona for this blog "Average Guy X". If you search hard enough, you can probably find out my real name, but how does all the stuff I do online affect my value at work or even my prospects for furthering my career?

Have you ever been around the office water cooler having a conversation with some co-worker that you've known for some time and then he/she tells a story of something they did over the weekend and you say to yourself "Wow. That was a little too much TMI and now I can't really have the same relationship with them anymore!"? Most of the time, it's harmless information about religion or politics that you find out, but sometimes there can be lifestyle, work habits, personal opinions, or even the occasional revelation about how they make money with some "scheme" that really make you see this person in a different light. I'm wondering how much of this social networking can contribute to that.

Stay tuned.

It's Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:26:00 +0000

It's friday and time to enjoy a cold one.

Cuil is not cool

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:04:00 +0000

All this buzz about the new search engine Cuil (pronounced "cool") going on perks my interest. Now, I'll give anything a chance once. I go there and search for myself. I have a few hits on Google, and maybe a few on Yahoo, but most of the time, I get the results for someone else with the same name as me. So I search Cuil for my name. The results are a little goofy looking for me, but I'll play.
First of all, this image this is ANNOYING! Every search result I have comes up with the same 2 or 3 photos which is really distracting. Now why do they think that I need a random picture to identify my search results? Not very helpful.

-10 cuil points

Next, I add it to my Firefox search bar so that I could use it throughout the day instead of my usual Google, or some other random engine. I'm doing some coding for the sidebar I use in XP; Desktop Sidebar. I need to do some regular expression parsing. So I use Cuil to search. I put into the search bar regular expression debug or something similar and I get 0 results. That's right. nil, zip, zilch, nada, niet, nothing, bupkiss, the big goose egg!!! Now being the proper geek that I am, I should have found out why, but I'm too busy to be bothered with it. DOH! But still, I gasped. No results! FAIL!

-100 cuil points

Now I'm exercising a few searches in Cuil and I'm looking for the next pages. Let's see.... Oh wait... there it is. It's in the black "frame" on the bottom.

-5 cuil points

I found the pagination links. Great. Now lets go through the results. Page 2... hold on... it looks like page 1. Well,.... it's the same as page 1 with the order changed. (well almost) But still, no really new results. All the same images too.

-5 cuil points

Go on to page 3 of the results. Good, there's some different links in there. But all the images are the same. Why? If you MUST have images linked to search results, why not go the ask.com route and take a screenshot of the web site? And why does it insist on putting a picture for a website that's a mailing list archive (read: text only) site?

-5 cuil points

Now the category thing pops into the rightmost column. Do any of the categories have anything to do with the search results or the search term itself? I'm not really sure, and I'm not sure if it's even useful.

-5 cuil points

Total: -130 cuil points

Sorry Cuil, that's a fail!

Its all about the kids

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:32:00 +0000

The wife calls me up with a question. Do you want to take the kids to the Jonas Brothers' concert? Let me think... oh yay! A middle-aged guy at a tween concert??? I'm gonna feel awkward, but I'll do it. It's for the kids anyhow. I wonder if they serve alcohol at the tween concerts? I certainly hope so. I can already feel the headache with a few thousand tweens/teens screaming all night, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm bonding with my kids (my tween daughter especially) and hopefully that will reciprocate further down the road. Dad of the year.... here I come! (BTW... do they serve alcohol at that contest too?)

Bad day at the office

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:44:00 +0000

Moving my life to google

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:13:00 +0000

Now I'm not sure how much sense this makes, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Between home, work, friends' houses, in-laws, outlaws, and wherever else I might find myself, I feel the need to find my online presence. Now here's the hard part: how do I keep everything in synch so that I can get to everything I want? Google. It seems that Google can organize your so-called online life. Email, bookmarks, reader, calendar, groups, YouTube, Picasa and whatever else you'll need to live online.

First, I cleaned out my Gmail account. It had alot of remnants of past lives. Now I'm not sending out a mass change to everyone with a new email address, I'm just adding an "identity" to gmail. You can do this in the "Accounts" tab in the Gmail settings. Just add another email address you want to send from, and then Gmail will send a confirmation email to that address and you either click on the link or enter a verification code. Then Viola! You can send email as that email address from Gmail. I've also added my regular email account to Gmail so that I'll get my email in Gmail also.
Next come the bookmarks. Now what self-proclaimed IT guru would be complete without their own bookmarks? Not I! I've installed Gmarks, a Firefox extension to manage my bookmarks from Firefox. Not a bad extension.

I'll move various other things to Google also and let you know how it goes.

Stay tuned!
-Average Guy X

Just do it!

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:53:00 +0000

So now that I've officially kicked off this blog, I'm in a new state of mind. Normally, I'm a procrastinator. I put things off until the very last second that I can. It's always been that way for me. I have a little logistical OCD disorder in my brain that prevents me from doing anything before it's "time". Here's an example. I can't reply to an email as soon as it hits my inbox. Why? I don't know, but I just can't. I tell myself I'll wait five minutes to reply, then forget about it and two days later someone will ask "did you get that email?" Well that's no way to do business and talk to folks. When you have a conversation with people, you don't pause for five minutes to answer them? No. You answer them right away.
Here's my rationale. I've missed plenty of opportunities in my life because I can't "pull the trigger" right away. I have this uncanny ability to put off things just because I'm too logical. I missed the RedHat stock explosion back in the late 90's (I had the opportunity to buy early in the IPO), I missed the Google stock explosion and basically missed the whole tech bubble because I was too sheepish to do anything. This just causes me too much stress. I can't constantly think, what if...? That just doesn't sit right.
Like this blog. I'm going to "just do it" from now on. Who cares if I fail. If I do, I better have learned something from it and the next iteration of it will be better, faster, stronger.

Just do it damnit!!!

And we're off........

noreply@blogger.com (Just some guy) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Now here I am. In my own little corner of the universe, internet, blogosphere, whatever. I've been meaning to set something up like this, but really have been procrastinating. I have alot of ideas, opinions, like to hit on alot of different topics. Some of them that I'd love to hit on:

Pussification of America
Technology (I'm an IT guy)
Relationships (I've been happily married for 12 years)
Kids (I have 2)
Friendships
Anything else I feel like ranting and raving about.

Stay tuned. I'm new to this blogging thing and really would like to try this new fan-dangled technology out!