ptalk http://ptalk.withy.org Random musings by ptw posterous.com Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:40:00 -0700 How I spent my weekend http://ptalk.withy.org/how-i-spent-my-weekend-46188 http://ptalk.withy.org/how-i-spent-my-weekend-46188

swim 1.2, bike 80, run 2, swim 1.2, run 6.2. With some friends who are equally crazy:

Img_1749
 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:09:00 -0800 EFF FTW! http://ptalk.withy.org/eff-ftw http://ptalk.withy.org/eff-ftw
the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers
via eff.org

Google may be able to search your email without your permission, but at least the government needs a warrant!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:56:25 -0800 Why you should not use the same password everywhere... http://ptalk.withy.org/why-you-should-not-use-the-same-password-ever http://ptalk.withy.org/why-you-should-not-use-the-same-password-ever

Like every major password breach from christiansingles to rockyou.com, there are an alarming number of people that use completely insecure passwords. Perhaps the thought process is that the worst an attacker could do if he or she got your password (assuming the same password is not used everywhere else) is leave comments as you on a Gawker Media web site. But the same pattern emerged in the hotmail password dump that showed up on Pastebin last year, and in that case it was a password for a person’s e-mail access.

1,958 Gawker users’ password was ‘password’.

681 users used ‘qwerty’ or qwerty and a minor variation (qwerty followed by two digits or letters).

We haven’t finished analyzing the file to determine how many users had 1-2-3-4-5, the combination on my luggage.

Forbes blog

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:34:01 -0800 Pacific Sun http://ptalk.withy.org/pacific-sun http://ptalk.withy.org/pacific-sun
Photo

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sat, 04 Dec 2010 11:20:51 -0800 Does anyone actually believe the DDOS attacks on WikiLeaks are coming from 'friendly hackers'? http://ptalk.withy.org/does-anyone-actually-believe-the-ddos-attacks http://ptalk.withy.org/does-anyone-actually-believe-the-ddos-attacks

From The Guardian:

after several days of WikiLeaks coming under a determined DDOS attack, apparently from hackers friendly to the point of view of the US government

I’m sure the folks behind this are wearing black, but it may not be only their hats. Does the name stuxnet ring a bell? Curiouser and curiouser.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:30:45 -0800 Attention world governments! http://ptalk.withy.org/attention-world-governments http://ptalk.withy.org/attention-world-governments Good luck trying to tell the Internet what to do. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." (http://bit.ly/h2GBVW)

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:14:25 -0800 WIKILEAKS: Free speech has a number http://ptalk.withy.org/wikileaks-free-speech-has-a-number http://ptalk.withy.org/wikileaks-free-speech-has-a-number WIKILEAKS: Free speech has a number: http://88.80.13.160

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:38:34 -0700 Dear Bank of America http://ptalk.withy.org/dear-bank-of-america http://ptalk.withy.org/dear-bank-of-america

I cannot schedule an e-bill to be paid on Veterans Day because your computers take the day off? Seriously? Do you suppose it is a coincidence that I am paying a credit card issued by you that the due date is the day after Veteran’s day? Is it my imagination, or are you trying to squeeze an extra day’s float out of me?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sat, 09 Oct 2010 14:38:00 -0700 The iPhone Battery is not Ironman tough http://ptalk.withy.org/the-iphone-battery-is-not-ironman-tough http://ptalk.withy.org/the-iphone-battery-is-not-ironman-tough Not even half way through the bike and my battery is dead. I need a solar charger to attach to my hat!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:49:33 -0700 I am so glad I am a vegetarian http://ptalk.withy.org/i-am-so-glad-i-am-a-vegetarian http://ptalk.withy.org/i-am-so-glad-i-am-a-vegetarian http://jwz.livejournal.com/1302505.html

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:07:29 -0700 Not sure a cell phone camera can do this justice http://ptalk.withy.org/not-sure-a-cell-phone-camera-can-do-this-just http://ptalk.withy.org/not-sure-a-cell-phone-camera-can-do-this-just
Photo

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sat, 02 Oct 2010 09:56:55 -0700 The texting huddle http://ptalk.withy.org/the-texting-huddle http://ptalk.withy.org/the-texting-huddle
Photo

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:17:36 -0700 E-Boarding Pass http://ptalk.withy.org/e-boarding-pass http://ptalk.withy.org/e-boarding-pass Cool. My boarding pass is just an URL I display on my phone. I wonder what the security implications of that are... ?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:21:11 -0700 It sure is small http://ptalk.withy.org/it-sure-is-small http://ptalk.withy.org/it-sure-is-small I got mine. Maybe I'll just throw it in the suitcase.

Photo

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:07:00 -0700 The Farmville Lesson http://ptalk.withy.org/the-farmville-lesson http://ptalk.withy.org/the-farmville-lesson

Mozilla have had to patch Firefox in very short order because of an assumption they should not have made.

Safari, when it first came out, made the same wrong assumption.

What is that assumption? That you the browser builder know better than the browser user what they want to do. You don’t. You have a gigantic customer base, and they have many purposes and expectations which cannot be reduced to a simple number. Especially not to a single number that says how long they are willing to wait.

Mozilla thought they were doing everyone a favor by detecting when a plug-in had not responded for 10 seconds, in which case, they assumed the plug-in was hung and aborted it. In response to many complaints, they have rushed out a patch that ups that time-out to 45 seconds, but I claim they should have just eliminated it. Who can say what is a reasonable time to wait for a result from loading a web page? Really only the person who loaded the page. Depending on why they loaded that page, and their level of desire and patience, only they can decide when they want to give up waiting.

The lesson Mozilla learned was brought home by some game called “Farmville”, which I have not played, but which many people do. Farmville apparently takes a looong time to initialize, but people are addicted to it — they are willing to wait for their fix — and how dare Mozilla tell them that waiting 10 seconds is too long?

The only thing a browser can do is to make sure that the plug-in cannot “hang” the browser in such a way that the only recourse of the user who loses patience is to “force quit” the browser, which would result in them losing all their state. As long as the user is able to abort the loading of a page that is taking too long, that is sufficient.

Most browsers still have fixed timeouts in them, such as the one that tells you ‘the server stopped responding’. It did? How do you know? How do you know it stopped, and not that it is just busy and needs a little more time? Who are you to dictate how long I am willing to wait for a response? The best approach here is to simply keep the user informed: make sure the status bar is accurate (tell us you are waiting for the server), and don’t give us the fictitious IE “progress” bar that indicates nothing but the passage of time, whether any progress is being made or not.

Power to the people!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Tue, 04 May 2010 13:19:01 -0700 What's wrong with this picture? http://ptalk.withy.org/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-88 http://ptalk.withy.org/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-88

Parallels_desktopscreensnapz001

Using Bing to search for `ie 8 debugger` brings up the ie 8 debugger?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sun, 02 May 2010 16:31:04 -0700 iWBRNI the #iPod on my #iPad could use #iTunes via Home Sharing http://ptalk.withy.org/iwbrni-the-ipod-on-my-ipad-could-use-itunes-v http://ptalk.withy.org/iwbrni-the-ipod-on-my-ipad-could-use-itunes-v

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sun, 02 May 2010 06:37:36 -0700 What happens if I do this? http://ptalk.withy.org/what-happens-if-i-do-this-2 http://ptalk.withy.org/what-happens-if-i-do-this-2
94561923

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:04:00 -0700 Silverlight != Apple Pie http://ptalk.withy.org/silverlight-apple-pie http://ptalk.withy.org/silverlight-apple-pie

Wow. How can MS be so stupid? They bundle Flash with Windows and not Silverlight? Doh!

First, baseball wanted Microsoft to make it possible for users to download Silverlight without having to possess administrative rights. When people are at work, it's often the company that possesses those rights and employees would need authorization to download the player. That frustrated plenty of MLB.com subscribers, according to the sources

Why Major League Baseball dumped Microsoft's Silverlight | The Industry Standard

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:38:16 -0700 My first Posterous Post http://ptalk.withy.org/my-first-posterous-post-320 http://ptalk.withy.org/my-first-posterous-post-320 I think this _could_ be an interesting service. Wonder if it understands [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/). That would be a nice feature.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/49856/Photo_6.jpg http://posterous.com/users/1gysaHuZzkl P T Withington ptwithy P T Withington