tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72426820834861017112024-02-07T06:38:04.329+01:00Computer Doc in JosThoughts and issues about computers and computing, particularly in Africa.Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-26599061598033389042013-03-15T10:49:00.003+01:002013-03-15T10:49:53.098+01:00Useful Lessons from Google Reader's Demise<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://slate.me/YfkhhK">Why Did Google Reader Die? And what free Web service will be next? </a><span style="font-size: 13px;">by Farhad Manjoo</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Anyone using web apps with some regularity, especially if you rely on them heavily, should read this article. What are web apps? Everything that does something for you online. I use Google Reader, Google Voice, Google Docs, Twitter, bit.ly, Gmail, Google Plus, Diigo, Flickr, and others. Many are really useful and would not easily be replaced by desktop applications.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The bottom bottom line lessons from Farhad's article:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Consider an app's business model before investing in it--how does the company expect to keep it going? (And remember, you're investing in it simply by getting used to it, putting your data and time into it.)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Remember that your favorite service might just die anytime. Unlike desktop software, there is no possibility of continuing to use your legacy product you love so well. You might or might not get your data back.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">If you use a web app that has a paid version, support it by paying, if you can afford it--how else do you expect it to remain viable?</span></li>
</ul>
Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-80171692263160232112013-03-14T20:24:00.000+01:002013-03-14T20:24:33.183+01:00The End of Google Reader ... What Will You Use to Replace It?Google has <a href="http://support.google.com/reader/answer/3028851">just announced the end of Google Reader</a> on July 1.<br />
<br />
Most people haven't even heard of Google Reader, but among those who have, it's quite popular. It's a free online service that lets you organize your newsfeeds. Haven't heard of news feeds, either? They likewise may not be as hot as when they were developed some years ago, but the concept is great: just add websites or other information sources to your incoming feeds, and you'll be able to check all the new items from a single source on your computer. Forget visiting all your favorite blogs and news sources, just open your newsfeed and see everything in one place.<br />
<br />
Many applications help you manage your newsfeeds, but Google Reader has been a popular one. It is very simple to use and is just there when you want it. Click on a title and the whole article opens up in the same window (if the feed included all the content) or a new window if you want to see the original. Mark the articles you want to remember, share, and so on.<br />
<br />
My first reaction at hearing about the "retirement"--death seems a better word--of Google Reader was dismay. But then I thought, maybe there is a silver cloud. I haven't even looked for a better solution in years. Yes, well, I didn't see a need, and why fix what isn't broken. I still feel that way, but at least the death of Reader will force me to get out there and explore new options.<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/14/tech/web/google-reader-discontinued/index.html"> This CNN article</a> mentions <a href="http://www.feedly.com/">Feedly</a>, <a href="https://www.pulse.me/">Pulse</a>, <a href="http://www.flipboard.com/">Flipboard</a>, and <a href="http://www.zite.com/">Zite</a>. I'm not checking out Zite since it seems to an iOS-only app. But they all have nice-looking home pages, and that's a start!<br />
<br />
What about you? What news readers do you already use and love, or what are you planning to do now that Google Reader is terminal?<br />
<br />Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-43207417804795650742013-02-08T12:24:00.000+01:002013-02-08T12:24:14.509+01:00Warning to Airtel Nigeria Internet users<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjZ9gdQtDt-Cnp0KeyXvLt3-_IJogeq9qRgOVg77q8fDzlilMJafOz_yS0zYwDyjZu-ZFcZ5T6-XRD_xMwtsqwVZO60rKjswKY-Jm6M-4c7UyRMuVGnwnylzrGlX_6i-dUYU0pBtQ7Bw/s1600/temp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjZ9gdQtDt-Cnp0KeyXvLt3-_IJogeq9qRgOVg77q8fDzlilMJafOz_yS0zYwDyjZu-ZFcZ5T6-XRD_xMwtsqwVZO60rKjswKY-Jm6M-4c7UyRMuVGnwnylzrGlX_6i-dUYU0pBtQ7Bw/s1600/temp.png" /></a></div>
Airtel has a pattern "chopping" or exhausting the entire credit balance on your phone or modem if your data plan ends. This has happened to many people.<br />
<br />
In my case, I got a notice that my plan would auto-renew in a few days, so I added 8000 naira credit to allow the auto-renewal. The next day, the plan ended because the gigabytes were exhausted. Airtel did not renew the plan despite the credit on my phone, they simply charged me the whole 8000 for "browsing without a plan," while never informing me that I was doing so.<br />
<br />
Despite several useless phone calls to customer service (where they did not even know where my city Jos was), an hour in person with the local customer service, and an appeal to the manager, Airtel insisted that I was at fault, and they would not give a refund.<br />
<br />
I know some other providers (MTN, I think) will drop the data connection until you explicitly say you want to continue without a plan, but Airtel conveniently "forgets" to let you know; you simply move with no notice from operating under your plan to exhausting your credit balance. While Airtel has provided good service, this fact would make me cautious about recommending it. I understand that<a href="http://www.gloworld.com/hsi.asp"> Glo</a> is also very good, but don't know how they handle this billing issue. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.gloworld.com/internetplans.asp">Glo's Plans</a> are cheaper with 7,500 naira for 8 GB as opposed to 8,000 naira for 5 GB with Airtel.Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-47758939048734161342012-06-07T11:57:00.001+01:002012-06-07T12:33:59.795+01:00Multiple Select Combo Form for RailsI was trying to find the way to make a dropdown combo box with multiple selection for a Rails project. There are many tips in the documentation and online, but I could not find the right way to make sure the options were initialized to their proper values when the form is created. For example, if a book already belongs to categories "fiction" and "mystery," how to make sure that those are already selected and highlighted on the form.
This is what I finally arrived at. A key point is that the column name needs to be “{collection}_ids” and not simply “{collection},” in order for the right choices to be automatically selected when the form is built. This example would be used in selecting multiple categories to apply to some model.
<pre style="margin-left: 10px; color: #DD7903; font-family: consolas, courier; font-size: 0.9em" >
= fields_for :record do |form|
= form.label :category_ids, “Categories”
%br
= form.select :category_ids,
Category.collect {|x| [x.name, x.id]}, {}, :multiple => true
</pre>
I think the standard update action in the controller will handle this without any special action. To do the update manually, you could just say
<pre style="margin-left: 10px; color: #DD7903; font-family: consolas, courier; font-size: 0.85em">@record.update_attributes(:category_ids=>params[:record][:category_ids])</pre>
<p>See the Rails doc at <a href="http://bit.ly/LDDSma">http://bit.ly/LDDSma</a>.</p>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-77852900018760750732012-04-25T09:42:00.001+01:002012-04-25T09:42:56.587+01:00Add Check-in, Check-out to Dropbox<p><a href="http://www.dropbox.com" target="_blank">Dropbox</a> is a great solution for online backup and, to some extent, for simple collaboration. One limitation, however, is that there is no way to know when a collaborator has opened a file for editing. If two people edit a file at the same time, Dropbox will save both edited files which will not have conflicting changes.</p> <p><a href="http://www.notifybox.com" target="_blank">Notifybox</a> is a third-party solution to this problem. It only works with Microsoft Office documents and on Windows, but it does seem workable and is free for use on a single folder.</p> <p>When you open a file within a monitored folder, a dialog pops up: </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-h7DtWAcb1As/T5e4_wG9X6I/AAAAAAAABq0/s7Mf8UtMeIM/s1600-h/image%25255B3%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-_YLlcXkntEs/T5e5BR1XQfI/AAAAAAAABq8/ylpykAexN_s/image_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="269" height="146" /></a></p> <p>If you choose “Check-out,” you can go ahead and edit the file. When you save and close it, <a href="http://www.notifybox.com" target="_blank">Notifybox</a> informs you that it is now checked-in.</p> <p>If you choose “Cancel” instead, a dialog box tells you that you should close the file without saving it. This isn’t enforced, so it’s up to the user to pay attention to the prompts.</p> <p>If you try to open a file that is already checked out by someone else, a different message tells you that you should close the file without saving since it is already in use. It appears that all the potential users must be using <a href="http://www.notifybox.com" target="_blank">Notifybox</a> … I don’t think that it can tell if someone has checked out a file unless that person is also using <a href="http://www.notifybox.com" target="_blank">Notifybox</a>.</p> <p>It’s a simple solution that bridges a gap between Dropbox and more complex version control systems that are likely too intimidating for most casual users. </p> <p>A full subscription costs $6 monthly and allows you to monitor multiple folders and subfolders, and to encrypt and compress files in your Dropbox folder. The free version lets you monitor a single folder.</p> Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-70926725627133520142012-03-28T13:16:00.001+01:002012-03-28T13:24:51.175+01:00Dead Paypal Security Key<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-8_a-3jAHiyg/T3MBHXoedVI/AAAAAAAABo4/RwkILqfOUlA/s1600-h/images%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="images" border="0" height="74" ilo-full-src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ZOTCpvre1Co/T3MBIgqx7nI/AAAAAAAABpA/o-nc2FMxIis/images_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ZOTCpvre1Co/T3MBIgqx7nI/AAAAAAAABpA/o-nc2FMxIis/images_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="images" width="143" /></a>Just on the off chance someone else has the same problem … My PayPal security key is several years old and last night it finally quit. It flashed these messages when turned on:<br />
<br />
88888888 <br />
(some gobbledygook strange characters) <br />
batt 75 <br />
--E994-- <br />
Soft3328<br />
<br />
I presume it means the battery was low, which wouldn’t be surprising. Well, should I just give it to my son to play with, or try to change the battery? I paid $5 for it but now they don’t even sell the key-chain model, and the credit-card model costs $30. Plus, I’m in Nigeria and it would take a good while to get a replacement. <br />
<br />
I opened it up, which is fairly easy, and found a standard CR2032 lithium battery. I slid it out and slid in a new one. Uh oh, same error message! Well, let it sit for a while without the battery, I thought. So I took it out again, waited 5 minutes, then put the new one in. Now it just shows 88888888 no matter what! The button does nothing, the display does not turn off after a minute. Shorting some of the pads inside doesn’t do anything either. So now it’s no use even as a dumb toy.
<br />
<br />
It all makes sense, though. The key works by generating a 6 digit number every 30 seconds, and the number is verified by PayPal as belonging to your key. That means it’s tied to real clock time. If the battery is low and the unit thinks it may be unable to assure the accurate time, then it has to fail. Once that state has occurred, there should be no way to restore the correct state. Changing the battery doesn’t change the fact that the time has become suspect. Waiting 5 minutes before changing the battery probably put the key into a factory new state where it is waiting for programming.
<br />
<br />
Bottom line: If your security key fails, don’t bother trying to fix it. My own feeling is that it’s not worth $30 for the current credit-card-size key unless you have a weak password or are really careless with it, but then I might feel differently if I see a $3000 fraudulent charge on my account some day!Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-54322300299074979662010-11-13T14:30:00.023+01:002010-11-15T09:29:05.459+01:00Creating an Autocompleting Association Input in Rails3 + ActiveScaffold + JQuery UI<i>Summary: This is a way to add an auto-completing input on a form in Rails 3 + ActiveScaffold using JQuery UI. No method or template overrides are needed. Only one short Javascript function is used. Note that ActiveScaffold uses Prototype rather than JQuery by default, so existing projects based on Prototype will have to be adjusted to use JQuery instead (as well?) for this to work.</i><br />
<br />
The Rails/ActiveScaffold project I’m working on has models for Member and Country. Each member belongs to a country—i.e. has a nationality. This is all done in the usual way using a key country_id in the member model to refer to the country:<br />
<br />
<pre><code>class Member < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :country
</code></pre><br />
and<br />
<br />
<pre><code>class Country < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :members
</code></pre><br />
The usual way of making an editing control in the member create and update forms is simply to add the line<br />
<br />
<pre><code>config.columns[:country].form_ui = :select
</code></pre><br />
to the members controller. This creates a dropdown select box populated with the labels and ids (values) of the countries table. If your list of options (countries in this case) is very large, however, it can be impractical to send the entire list for the user to select from. Hence the need for something like an Ajax-based autocompletion input. As the user enters characters, the newly forming string is sent back to the server, which returns a list of possible options that match the string to the current point. Type “Z” for the country and “Zimbabwe” and “Zambia” pop up.<br />
<br />
I've spent several days trying to convert a select-box to an autocompleting-text-box in my Rails project. One thought was that perhaps I should have left well-enough alone rather than make the change. Even selecting a list of several hundred options for a select list does not add too much overhead: say 300 items of 20 characters each = 6 KB, hardly worth worrying about. Still, I’ve done it so will document what worked for me.<br />
<br />
My second thought is actually a question: why isn’t it dirt-easy to do this in Rails and/or ActiveScaffold? Is it so rarely used? Or perhaps I simply missed the easy way even though I did quite a bit of searching. There is an <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7242682083486101711&postID=5432230029907497966">auto_complete</a> plugin but I couldn't get it to work with Rails 3 and ActiveScaffold--perhaps I could now that I understand more. I was greatly helped by Anup Narkhede's <a href="http://www.anup.info/2009/07/01/using-autocomplete-with-activescaffold-forms/">helpful example</a>. In the end, though, I found a method that seems to me even easier than using the plugin!<br />
<br />
<h2>How to Do It</h2><br />
Anyway, this is how I did it – I’m sure there are better ways. To start with an overview, the way I did this is:<br />
<br />
<ol><li> Adjust the member model so that we can set the <code>country_id</code> indirectly just by saying <code>this_member.country_name='France'</code>. To do this define accessor method's to read and write the member's country name. The read method looks up the <code>country_id</code> and returns the name, while the write method <code>country_name=</code> sets the <code>country_id</code> based on the name.<br />
</li>
<li> Replace the form's input for <code>country_id</code> with one for <code>country_name</code>.<br />
</li>
<li> Create a lookup function to be called by JQuery. For example, if JQuery sends 'Z' the function will return {'Zambia','Zimbabwe'}.<br />
</li>
<li> Add the JQuery autocomplete function to the <code>country_name</code> input.<br />
</li>
</ol><br />
<h3>The Details</h3><br />
Start with these models:<br />
<br />
<pre><code>class Member < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :country
end
class Country < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_uniqueness_of :name
has_many :members
end
</code></pre><br />
<h3>Step 1: add the accessor functions to the <code>member</code> model:</h3><br />
<pre><code>class Member < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :country
def country_name
Country.find(country_id).name
end
def country_name= (name)
country = Country.find_by_name(name)
self.country_id = country.id if country
end
end
</code></pre><br />
<h3>Step 2: Replace the form's input for <code>country_id</code> with one for <code>country_name</code>:</h3><br />
<pre><code>class MembersController < ApplicationController
active_scaffold :member do |config|
config.columns = [:name, :country_name]
end
end
</code></pre><br />
<b>Totally Optional Sidetrack:</b> Before I hit on the technique of using the accessor methods in the model, I was overriding the MemberController <code>update</code> and <code>create</code> methods, as <a href="http://www.anup.info/2009/07/01/using-autocomplete-with-activescaffold-forms/">Anup Narkhede</a> had shown. If for some reason you use a variation of that technique, there is one gotcha to be aware of. You cannot simply look up the id and insert it as <code>params[:record][:country]</code> unless the <code>:country</code> column was included in the form, because it will be ignored. This is part of the security of Rails 3: the user can't pass back arbitrary fields, because only those present in the form are processed. So, when I was overriding the controller <code>update</code> and <code>create</code> methods, I had to include the original <code>:country</code> column as a hidden field in the form. I'm guessing that this is also the reason that Anup first saved the country id in an instance variable @country, then used it in a <code>before_create_save</code> method rather than just adding the new element to the parameter hash.<br />
<br />
<b>Sidetrack:</b> Note that you could compose any kind of string to use as the label rather than using "name." You would simply write the accessors for whatever you wanted. For example, you could use nationality rather than country name. Whatever is used, however, must be present and unique for each country so that the label-to-id lookup will return a single, valid country.<br />
<br />
<h3>Step 3: Create a lookup function to be called by JQuery.</h3><br />
<i>In app/controllers/autocomplete_controller.rb</i><br />
<br />
<pre><code>class AutocompleteController < ApplicationController
def country
@countries = Country.where("name LIKE ?", "#{params[:term]}%").select("id, name")
@json_resp = []
@countries.each do |c|
@json_resp << c.name
end
respond_to do |format|
format.js { render :json => @json_resp }
end
end
</code></pre><br />
I would have preferred to put this into the existing CountriesController, but for some reason when I did that the response was very slow (2+ seconds). In any case, it's important to get the routing right. I used <br />
<br />
<pre><code> match 'autocomplete/:action'
</code></pre><h3>Step 4. Set up JQuery</h3><br />
We need to add JQuery and JQuery UI to our project if they're not already present. Add to your default template (or elsewhere as long as it will be available)<br />
<br />
<pre><code><%= stylesheet_link_tag </code></pre><pre><code> 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.4/themes/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css' %>
<%= javascript_include_tag 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.1/jquery.js' %>
<%= javascript_include_tag 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.4/jquery-ui.js' %>
</code></pre><br />
If you prefer, you can load the files to your own Rails <code>public/stylesheets</code> and <code>public/javascript</code> folders and link to them there. <br />
<br />
<i>Finally,</i> add this short script to <code>public/javascripts/application.js</code>:<br />
<br />
<pre><code>$(function() {
$( ".country_name-input" ).live("click", function(){
$(this).autocomplete({
source: "autocomplete/country.js"
});
});
});
</code></pre><br />
The <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">country_name-input</span></span> (be careful of the underscore and hyphen) is the class of the input. You could use an ID or other means of specifying it depending on what ActiveScaffold or other framework is generating.<br />
<br />
The <code>.live("click"</code> piece is used to attach the JQuery UI <code>autocomplete</code> widget to <code>country_name-input</code> as soon as the input is clicked. We do this because, in ActiveScaffold or other Ajax-based views, the input may not exist in the DOM when the page loads, so some other event must be used to attach it. The demo and documentation for JQuery UI autocomplete are at <a href="http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/">http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/</a>.<br />
<br />
Everything is in place and should work now, once you put a few countries into the countries table. <br />
<br />
Please comment if you have any questions, corrections, or suggestions!Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-47777495146371043772010-10-12T10:28:00.003+01:002010-10-12T10:35:02.161+01:00Change or Remove the Horizontal Line Above Footnotes in MS Word 2007This should be a simple thing, right? If you don’t want a separating line above the footnotes, just remove it. In my case, the end notes flow to several pages, and a line is still being put at the top of every page, conflicting with the page header.<br />
I look around and tried to find how to do this, but (a) the help documentation doesn’t seem to say, at least not in a place I thought to look and (b) most of the answers on the Web refer to the same set of instructions from years ago for Word 2003, even when they claim to be for 2007. The instructions are actually almost the same, except that Word 2007 no longer has a “normal” view, which is what you are supposed to start with in the instructions. <br />
Anyway, here is how to do it in Word 2007<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" style="width: 600px;"><tbody>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="300"><ul><li>Select Draft from the View tab on the ribbon</li>
</ul></td> <td valign="top" width="300"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqA6aUkkI/AAAAAAAAAIk/LkRaR9rzEB8/s1600-h/image%5B24%5D.png"><img align="left" alt="image" border="0" height="174" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqCWDTrOI/AAAAAAAAAIo/SyO5KOs9ByE/image_thumb%5B14%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px none; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;" title="image" width="367" /></a></td> </tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="300"><ul><li>Select “Show Notes” from the References tab. If you don't see “Show Notes,” be sure you're looking at “References” and not “Review.”</li>
</ul></td> <td valign="top" width="300"><div align="left"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqEDHqgkI/AAAAAAAAAIs/aecsddq5cp4/s1600-h/image%5B6%5D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="119" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqE1Wv6uI/AAAAAAAAAIw/LbT4K4q-ReM/image_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px none; display: inline;" title="image" width="185" /></a> </div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="300"><ul><li>Now you <i>should</i> see your notes in the bottom pane, below this menu:</li>
</ul></td> <td valign="top" width="300"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqFqdYowI/AAAAAAAAAI0/V9ZkSxxAdQU/s1600-h/image%5B18%5D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="69" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqGWu5fkI/AAAAAAAAAI4/LxKXGw6b1yU/image_thumb%5B8%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px none; display: inline;" title="image" width="330" /></a> </td> </tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="300"><ul><li>Since “All Endnotes” is the first item in the drop-down box, you would think that the other options would be “All Footnotes” or similar. However, this is where you select the separator formatting & other options. Select “Endnote Separator.” I suppose if you have footnotes, you will see “Footnote Separator.”</li>
</ul></td> <td valign="top" width="300"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqHN1VMUI/AAAAAAAAAI8/sqW9OHcPt1k/s1600-h/image%5B17%5D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="130" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqIMP_zBI/AAAAAAAAAJA/FRFuKYH2t4M/image_thumb%5B7%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px none; display: inline;" title="image" width="331" /></a> </td> </tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="300"><ul><li>Now you can delete the separator or define a new one. I don’t know if a graphic can be substituted; I couldn’t find a way. Be sure to re-define the “Endnote Continuation Separator” also, if you need to; it’s what appears on subsequent pages.</li>
</ul></td> <td valign="top" width="300"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqJWePWUI/AAAAAAAAAJE/sVH4MGHekWM/s1600-h/image%5B28%5D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="105" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/TLQqKCVPSsI/AAAAAAAAAJI/smnHtwUEsco/image_thumb%5B16%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px none; display: inline;" title="image" width="334" /></a> </td> </tr>
</tbody></table>Thanks to Rob van der Heijden whose post was the one that finally got me on the right track!<br />
<div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:863e4eb4-0214-4eb3-a728-7286e68f2798" style="display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/MS+Word+2007" rel="tag">MS Word 2007</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/separator" rel="tag">separator</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/notes" rel="tag">notes</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/footnotes" rel="tag">footnotes</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/endnotes" rel="tag">endnotes</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/formatting" rel="tag">formatting</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/remove" rel="tag">remove</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Microsoft+Word+2007" rel="tag">Microsoft Word 2007</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Word" rel="tag">Word</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/2007" rel="tag">2007</a></div>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-28411881032762650572010-04-03T18:33:00.002+01:002010-04-03T18:34:29.739+01:00Energy-efficient LCD MonitorsMany of us live in areas where electrical power is at a premium, so one of the threads I follow in this blog is low-power computing. It’s amazing how far you can stretch your amps and watts these days without loosing much computing power.<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=kidoinjo-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&asins=B001L18ED2" style="float: left; height: 240px; margin-right: 10px; width: 120px;"></iframe> <br />
I’ve recently bought a Fit-PC and have an order in for the Fit-PC2 model. These are very small “desktop” computers that run on only a few (6-8) watts, but do all the usual things you need a computer to do. In contrast, typical laptops run at 30-60 watts.<br />
I haven’t had a chance to try out the Fit-PC yet, because I need a monitor. Since I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the last 7 months, I’ve just been using a laptop. Now that I’m getting ready to return to Nigeria in two months, though, I’m looking for an energy-efficient monitor.<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=kidoinjo-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&asins=B002R0JJY4" style="float: right; height: 240px; margin-right: 10px; width: 120px;"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/ctqlSc" rel="http://bit.ly/plugins/iframe?hashUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FctqlSc" style="line-height: 1em;" target="_blank">One review of energy-efficient monitors</a> covers four models, but only one is in the size range I want for carrying overseas: the <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ICU3FQ?ie=UTF8&tag=kidoinjo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001ICU3FQ" target="_blank">Lenovo Thinkvision L1940P</a>. It runs at 18 watts, is rated 5 (of 5) stars by one reviewer on Amazon, and costs $222. However, Amazon also sells the <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002R0JJY4?ie=UTF8&tag=kidoinjo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002R0JJY4">19-inch ViewSonic VX1932wm-LED,</a> <img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=kidoinjo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B002R0JJY4" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; margin: 0px;" width="1" />which runs at only 15 watts, costs $167, and is rated 4.5 stars by 7 users. That's the one I plan to buy. With that monitor and the fit-PC, I'll be using barely 23 watts when using the computer at maximum capacity. That means I could run it for 24 hours straight on half the capacity of a 100 amp-hour 12V storage battery. Of course, the performance is nowhere near that of a “normal” desktop or even laptop, but it should be fine for most tasks (browsing, email, word-processing). I’ll let you know!Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-9599730775352014742010-03-31T19:54:00.001+01:002010-03-31T19:54:50.503+01:00Send and Receive Faxes Online – Free (or almost free)!<p>Faxes are becoming less essential in our lives as we can usually substitute scanned documents sent by email. Now and then, however, it’s useful or even necessary to send or receive a fax. There are a couple of low-cost (or free) solutions for this.</p> <p>If your phone line is connected to your computer, then you can simply use the built-in fax services of you computer. However, that can be hard to set up. In any case, many of us no longer have working phone lines.</p> <p><a href="http://www.faxitnice.com" target="_blank"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline" align="left" src="https://www.faxitnice.com/faxitnice/images/logo-faxIt.gif" /></a> To <em>send</em> faxes, the service I like is <a href="http://www.faxitnice.com" target="_blank">FaxItNice</a>. You can fax a document up to 10 pages long for $5. However, the better option is to sign up for the plan where you pay $20 up front, then pay only $0.18 per page whenever you want. Credits don’t expire. I’ve been using the service for 7 years and so far it has been quite stable and reliable. You just fill in name and number of the recipient, select a document you want to send (Word, text, PDF, images, and many other formats), and press the button to upload the document. You can preview the fax, add a cover sheet, then click to send. The service then sends the fax for you, redialing as needed until it gets through. You can try the system for free (one fax) <a href="http://bit.ly/aVu7GI" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>To <em>receive</em> faxes, which I need to do even less often than sending them, I use <a href="http://www.k7.net" target="_blank">K7</a>. It’s completely free. You just sign up to get a phone number which will then receive your faxes. When someone sends a fax, K7 will convert it to a fairly small image file and email it to you. You can also log in to view your faxes.</p> <p>There are other services for sending and receiving faxes, but I haven’t found any better deals than these. Let me know if you have more suggestions.</p> Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-52241254805477326562010-03-10T16:56:00.001+01:002010-03-10T16:56:59.890+01:00Ushahidi to map conflict in Jos, Nigeria<p><a href="http://bit.ly/bFRZnL" target="_blank"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="temp" border="0" alt="temp" align="left" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpe7IkFFfAkbt2ZVZdrrWt2iXk4dFLJOZcHwrn4KebIwRlUd5a2Sc4EFQzT9g20YMbUNh2lrXIpim2gdD9LyR-5UIh4WPJRofYTlc1riAID3ml9xQ80tylqYR1zuRJtzscYTXrnqdHXQ/?imgmax=800" width="244" height="150" /></a> I’ve been interested in <a href="http://www.ushahidi.com/">Ushahidi</a> for some time now but had never gotten around to installing it. If you haven’t heard of it yet, <a href="http://www.ushahidi.com/">Ushahidi</a> is a web-based, community-oriented tool for mapping events. It has been used for tracking civil unrest, events related to the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, and so on.</p> <p>I finally did set up a test installation a few weeks ago, just in time for the latest outbreak of violence around Jos. You can see it at <a href="http://bit.ly/bFRZnL">here</a>. The killings this week were south of Jos. I still have not figured out how to connect email to the Ushahidi server, so it is not receiving alerts or sending them out. Also, there is no mobile phone connection so it’s not receiving text alerts. Anyone who wants to help set these up would be welcome. </p> <p>I have also set up a <a href="http://bit.ly/bR8BeZ">news feed</a> to gather from many sources news stories related to the conflict centered in Jos. I’ve used Yahoo Pipes to pull in the headlines from CNN, Reuters, al Jazeera, AllAfrica.com, and so on, then extracted the ones dealing with the Jos situation. You can <a href="http://bit.ly/bR8BeZ">view the stories</a> or use the <a href="http://bit.ly/d9ii1D">(RSS) news feed</a> to put the headlines into your favorite news viewer such as <a href="http://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a>. </p> Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-15751141970635778622010-01-14T23:12:00.001+01:002010-01-14T23:12:40.099+01:00Trying out Free Smilebox – Flash Presentations from Your Photos and Videos<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN6rrUdHfkJkYN0vs28VavQ7FnW8AgCb2vzlXVd9B9q4ywC2oTt9u6RzMWcvaCVkxqujVYrUVy7SHibnTl44iDfRT2i90JQ98NVRGWOvfnif7QNdEMZoYkGGfbvOqPbbMkscQv_gGDfA/s1600-h/smilebox%20screenshot%20cropped%5B3%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: 0px" title="smilebox screenshot cropped" border="0" alt="smilebox screenshot cropped" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgbX6TH-L8YUD8_pg_La0Apu48d7BHsdRVR0gMhmjafIbQW7rLVaeUhhvbVgN_ZUhuGy1swdADOGAwfzSGIX4M6VanVuq0vZ0xqOrLmtH5rQ8DKXBNFhGWT68t9UIaa9SMlEw7QLGvQw/?imgmax=800" width="217" height="244" /></a> I got an email from a friend today containing a family slideshow made at <a href="http://www.smilebox.com">Smilebox</a>. If you're not familiar with that site, it's an easy way to use your photos and videos to create a slideshow you can then email or post. The show is a self-contained Flash presentation that plays in any browser.</p> <p>Since I just used Smilebox myself to make a little picture show, I thought might save you some time if I tell you more before you try it yourself. The most important point is that <em><strong>once you’ve assembled your show, you can’t change the style</strong></em>. Don’t spend a lot of time designing your show before you are sure which style you want to use. </p> <p>The summary is that Smilebox is a good tool for a quick, simple slideshow. The results look professional. It probably isn’t the tool you want to use for your most important presentations both because it is inflexible.</p> <p>I’ve created some samples with a few styles. They’re 2-8 MB each. See at</p> <ul> <li>“<a href="http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d54517a4e5451324d44513d0d0a&sb=1">Storybook</a>” sample </li> <li>“<a href="http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d54517a4e5451774d7a4d3d0d0a&sb=1">Photo Chronicle</a>” sample </li> <li>“<a href="http://smilebox.com/play/4d54517a4e544d324f54453d0d0a&sb=1">Mosaic</a>” 4x4 sample </li> <li>“<a href="http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d54517a4e544d794e7a46384d7a45344e5463344f54453d0d0a&sb=1">Slide</a>” Simple slide show with 41 pictures. </li> </ul> <h4>The Good</h4> <ul> <li>There is a free version. </li> <li>You can email your show, post it on Facebook or a blog, etc. </li> <li>There are many styles to choose from, from simple slideshows to “books” with interactive zooming to greeting cards and notes. </li> </ul> <h4>Limitations</h4> <ul> <li>You need a reasonably good Internet connection to use this (not an issue in developed world). </li> <li>Each style has its own methods for you to arrange and caption the photos. You have to experiment and learn each one. For example, the “Slide” style has a sorter view where you can drag and drop photos to reorder them, but most styles don’t. You may enter captions directly on the photo in some cases, or on the page in others, or have to click the enlarge button first. </li> </ul> <h4>Limitations on Free Version</h4> For $3.00 you can avoid the following restrictions on a single presentation. You can also pay $6 per month or $40 per year to have the full version. <ul> <li>Supported by ads. As usual, you can’t know what ads might appear alongside your show. </li> <li>Each style has its own music. You typically get three choices with each style. With the paid version, you can choose from hundreds of pieces of stock music or use your own. </li> <li>The full version can play full-screen. </li> </ul> <h4>The Bad</h4> <ul> <li>The program does not use titles, captions, descriptions and so on that you may have already embedded in your pictures. You have to enter all captions whenever you start a new project. </li> <li>Once you’ve committed to a style, you can’t change it without starting over. That is, you can choose a different style, but then you have to arrange and caption your photos all over again. </li> <li>The styles are fixed in stone. That is, there is nothing you can modify, not fonts, position on page, layout of a given page, and so on. Of course, this is part of the reason that the program is simple. </li> <li>The interface is rather slow. I think all the whole thing is written in Flash. </li> </ul> Let me know if you try it and have any further observations or comments. Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-76286482828712675662009-07-04T14:26:00.005+01:002009-08-31T17:27:18.351+01:00Create a high-security vault for your data in 5 minutes<p><a style="" href="http://www.truecrypt.org/" target="_blank"><img style="border-width: 0px;" alt="truecrypt_icon" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik35UgKnBUy1F54e_PD-4u8RMBhKtac2ZYHRSVCFVInpaB-D6PHoFUljWrzsBua2ou317qw94029_SvXrI8hAKYD6PohUTfsgVjZalgTRXYW1cZmp1Hy57HuWF1YHPv8gaj1NnOB-Uig/?imgmax=800" align="left" border="0" height="70" width="59" /></a>In the last article, <a href="http://compdocjos.blogspot.com/2009/07/protecting-your-sensitive-data-with.html">Protecting your sensitive data with TrueCrypt</a>, I gave an overview of what Truecrypt can do for you: make an encrypted virtual hard drive, encrypt an entire partition, or encrypt an entire hard drive. This time, we'll see how to make the virtual hard drive in at most 5 minutes. Rather than write my own tutorial, I direct you to the step-by-step <a href="http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=tutorial" target="_blank">TrueCrypt Beginner's Tutorial</a> with full screen shots.</p> <p>Instead of another tutorial, I'll summarize the steps, add a note or two, and try to give a little more explanation of what is happening in this method. </p> <h3>Why use TrueCrypt? </h3> <p>First, why use Truecrypt rather than one of the many, many other encryption programs? </p> <ul> <li><em>Compatibility</em>: TrueCrypt runs on Microsoft systems from Windows 2000 upward, on Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, and on Linux. (According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software" target="_blank">this Wikipedia article</a>, only one of the other 45 disk encryption programs work on all three systems, and that one is not open source). </li> <li><em>Price</em>: Free. Not shareware, not trial-ware, not "free download," but just free, period. </li> <li><em>Open source</em>: This means that anyone can examine the program's instructions to see how it all works. This means that many people can be working on improvements and bug-fixing. More importantly, though, the transparency of open source makes it hard for any security flaws to remain undetected. </li> <li><em>Wide use</em>. TrueCrypt is one of the most widely used encryption programs. The site reports over 10 million downloads to date. </li> </ul> <p>That said, the most important thing is to protect your sensitive data <em>somehow</em> and to use a well-supported, respected encryption program. If you like experimenting, there are many programs out there. TrueCrypt can be a complicated program with all kinds of options, but it's quite easy to use the most important features.</p> <h3>Overview</h3> <h4>Goal</h4> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/Sk9YkgBmJyI/AAAAAAAAAFg/LVHv6TnLNvs/s1600-h/banksafe%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="banksafe" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4qTS7yA8BOHkmp1jZrDApt4gcJtnS9UuH_E6ym0oBw4Grc7tbxUJj32Ahj-ZlCpFMAc5uMSgt9Xm4GVbZHhyphenhyphenzdaYojmqgOwL-pyNMU_jVa7k6jDAbriU-tVdIN0wYbX3H4Pg9_MYsCw/?imgmax=800" align="right" border="0" height="153" width="204" /></a> What will you accomplish when you follow <a href="http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=tutorial" target="_blank">the tutorial</a>? </p> <ul> <li>Within a few minutes, you will have a new "drive" M: on your computer where you can safely store sensitive information. You can use it like any other drive--create files, drag-and-drop files into our out of folders on the drive, even use a folder on the drive as your "My Documents" if you like. </li> <li>Though in action you see a new drive M:, all the data is kept in a <em>container file</em> that can only be unlocked ("mounted") using TrueCrypt and your passphrase. </li> <li>While your new drive is <em>mounted</em>, you will not know or care that your files are encrypted. When you turn off your computer or lock ("dismount") the drive, the data will be invisible, safe from any prying eyes. </li> <li>You can copy or move the entire encrypted drive, as a single file, to a different location such as a USB flash drive or another computer. This is good for backup. </li> </ul> <h4>Steps</h4> <p>Here's a high-level explanation of the 18 steps in the tutorial.</p> <ul> <li>Step 1: Download and install the program. </li> <li>Steps 2-12: Create the container file. This only has to be done once. </li> <li>Steps 13-18: Mount the container file for use. You do this every time you want to unlock and access your data. </li> </ul> <h3></h3> <h4>Precautions</h4> <ul> <li>You are making a data vault or safe, and your passphrase is the combination to the lock. There is no backup, no spare key or emergency button to use to recover your data if you lose or forget your passphrase. In most cases, it is probably best to <em>record</em> your passphrase somewhere safe rather then rely on your memory. Obviously, you don't want to keep it somewhere where a thief will see it, such as in your computer bag. Depending on your situation, you may not even want to keep it in writing in your home or office, but <em>do</em> consider keeping it somewhere. </li> <li>Putting your information onto an encrypted drive is only one part of security. Do not neglect other parts; a chain is as strong as its weakest link. </li> </ul> <h3>OK, let's do it </h3> <p>Now, go to <a href="http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=tutorial" target="_blank">the tutorial</a> and follow it step by step, referring to these notes as you do.</p> <ul> <li><em>Step 1. Downloading and installing TrueCrypt.</em> Ideally, you should download the program directly from TrueCrypt so that you get the most up-to-date, "pure" version. </li> <li><em>Steps 2-5. Telling TrueCrypt you want to create a virtual drive.</em> Just click the buttons as shown, no choices to make here. </li> <li><em>Step 6. Specify location and name of container file.</em> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzQymqXo85P2RjPh3v0HLC8NmlUpMtiRuyLvBkDTAI8EhVfyaX0823p-1HxM_Y2MEL7muiBLJimezgFWWPmNcOdM4G_9Khw2PdPxF50W01YW38S-t4ytKLRtM0Pmg9q88XyR5VyJvvDg/s320/warning-small.png" height="14" width="16" /> Attention: be sure to read the explanation in the tutorial. Although it might appear that you are to <em>select</em> an existing file to encrypt, this is not true. Rather you are giving the program the location and name of a file to create. This new file will be the "container" for your virtual drive. If you select an existing file, <em>it will be erased, not encrypted!</em> </li> <li>Steps 7-8. Having chosen a name for your container file, you just press "next" two times. </li> <li><em>Step 9. Tell TrueCrypt how big to make your virtual drive</em>, how much data you will be able to store in it. TrueCrypt will create a container file of this size, so you will need at least that much free space in the location you have chosen. Don't make it too big if you plan to copy the entire thing onto a flash drive.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Optional note: If you choose to make the container "dynamic" (Step 11), it is very small at first and only grows as you add files. In this case, the size you select in step 9 is the </em>maximum<em> size. If you do not make the container dynamic, then the container file will be this maximum size from the very beginning, even though it contains no data.</em></span> </li> <li><em>Step 10. Choosing a passphrase</em>. While you are just testing, you can use a simple passphrase. For serious use, however, be sure to read the guidelines about how to make a secure passphrase. </li> <li><em>Step 11. Select format type. </em>Just follow the instructions, moving your mouse around randomly for a while to help make the encryption strong, then click Format.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Optional note: For advanced use, you can use a format other than the default FAT. For large virtual drives in Windows, you might consider using NTFS.</em></span> </li> <li><em>Step 12. Finishing up. </em>Now the container file is ready to use. </li> <li><em>Steps 13-18. Mounting the container as a virtual hard drive.</em> Although this occupies six steps in the tutorial, it is really simple. First, you choose a drive letter to assign to the new drive (step 13), then you tell TrueCrypt which container file to use (i.e., the one you just created) (steps 14-16). Finally, you enter your passphrase for that container file and mount it (steps 17-18). </li> </ul> <p>At this point, your new drive M: is ready to use just like any other drive. Remember that you data is exposed as long as the drive is mounted; if someone steals the computer while you are working on it, M: will be unlocked until the computer is shut down. Depending on the situation, you may want to manually dismount it when you leave the computer or when you do not need to access the secure files.</p> <p>Finally, read the small print at the end of the tutorial and realize that your original, unencrypted data is still present on your original drive even after you delete it--that's why file-recovery programs work. To permanently remove it, you need to use a disk wiping program with the option of erasing all unused disk space. See <a href="http://cybercoyote.org/security/purge.shtml" target="_blank">Purge Your Hard Drive</a> for a good explanation. One wiping program is Heidi Computer's <a href="http://www.heidi.ie/node/6" target="_blank">Eraser</a>. Some others are reviewed in <a href="http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-secure-erase-utility.htm" target="_blank">Best Free Secure Erase Utility</a>.</p> <p>Even then, how do you know that you have deleted <em>all</em> the files that contain sensitive data? What about backups, email folders, temporary files, obscure files in the Application Data folder, the paging and hibernation files? You really don't know. That's where whole disk encryption comes into play. It may seem a little scarier to think of altering your whole hard drive, but it's actually easier than making a virtual drive, and it eliminates all these residues of the information you want to protect. You will not need to worry about wiping or shredding your files, either. I'll cover whole disk encryption next time, in a much shorter article I hope!</p> <p></p> <div about="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pong/288491653/" cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"><span style="font-size:85%;">Photo of safe by rpongsaj on Flickr, </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pong/" rel="cc:attributionURL"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/pong/</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> / </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" rel="license"><span style="font-size:85%;">CC BY 2.0</span></a></div>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-61951701308080881072009-07-04T09:04:00.005+01:002009-07-04T14:29:45.154+01:00Protecting your sensitive data with TrueCrypt<p>About two weeks ago, I finally took the big plunge and encrypted my laptop's entire hard drive. I knew in theory that it was a good security precaution, and in fact, our mission's IT policy requires hard drive encryption on all laptops. It's a policy that is still more honored in the breech than in practice. Why didn't I do it earlier?</p> <p>Not that I've been totally slack about protecting my data. I've always kept my passwords and financial accounts encrypted. (Always? What about those home accounting programs--I know my Microsoft Money program opens without a password....) I don't <em>think</em> there is any sensitive information in my email folders, except that anyone successfully logging on to the computer could get enough information about me and my contacts to start lots of scams even without actually breaking into my email server. ("This is Pastor Jonah, friend of Mike, who you support. He's been in a bad accident and needs money for treatment. Please urgently send $1000 to this account number ...") The bottom line is that any unencrypted information on my computer is potentially exposed to anyone who steals or borrows my laptop.</p> <p>But since I have a good password for even logging on to my laptop, no one should even get that far, right? Wrong. It's very easy to break into a Windows computer if you have physical access to it. Anyway, if the data is not encrypted, someone can take out the hard drive and read it on another operating system.</p> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEA7zspdZK1kB7Gba-J4ZEo5X8lF1tzFbZ2oDmHiwKboSovzQm3Ai8GxRgPpnOyCEaNATIiLdXR3JdHjiWOuOB00geYLr1DTCUvz4EDKAJA7edt_39NXndHSkXVD5IeGcj7a-P_5-89g/s320/truecrypt_icon.png" style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 59px; height: 70px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354518154529313890" /><p>Last year, I finally installed <a href="http://www.truecrypt.com/">TrueCrypt</a>, an excellent, <strong>free</strong> encryption tool. TrueCrypt can work in three main ways:</p> <ul> <li>Create an encrypted <em>virtual hard drive</em>. Tell TrueCrypt where to put the file to contain the data, assign a pass phrase, and TrueCrypt creates new, encrypted volume ("hard drive") for you with the drive letter you choose, such as "T:". From then on, you can use it exactly like any other drive. As long as the volume is unlocked with your pass phrase, you can't even tell that the data is encrypted. Lock it again and the drive letter disappears, leaving only what looks like a file of random garbage. </li> <li>Encrypt a <em>partition</em>. Most hard drives these days are divided into different logical areas or partitions, each with its own drive letter ("C drive," "D drive," etc.). TrueCrypt encrypts all the data in the entire partition, making it inaccessible until you supply the pass phrase. This option allows you to keep some data unprotected and more sensitive data encrypted on a separate partition. Unless you encrypt the operating system partition (usually C: in Windows), you can still boot the computer without the password. </li> <li>Encrypt an entire drive. In this case, <em>everything</em> on the drive is encrypted and nothing can be accessed without the pass phrase. Nothing, that is, except the tiny boot program that loads enough TrueCrypt to get your password and unlock the drive for you. If you lose your pass phrase, there is no way you're going boot your system or recover your data, period.</li> </ul> <p>Rather than encrypting my whole drive, I started with the first option--a virtual hard drive where I could keep my sensitive data. <a href="http://compdocjos.blogspot.com/2009/07/create-high-security-vault-for-you-data.html">Next tim</a>e I'll show just how easy it was. </p>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-59726589066213407912009-06-01T16:17:00.002+01:002009-06-01T16:23:29.582+01:00How we use FrontlineSMS<p>Jos, Nigeria has been in the news recently because of riots in November that killed hundreds of people. This was the second such episode since 2001, and the situation remains tense. Besides this, violent crime has increased rapidly in the past 4 years, with frequent robberies by armed gangs of up to 20 or more men.</p> <p><a style="" href="http://www.frontlinesms.com/"><img style="border: 0px none ; margin: 6px 0px 6px 10px;" alt="temp" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/SiPxCUqha4I/AAAAAAAAAFQ/yyeW9p5F58g/temp%5B12%5D.png?imgmax=800" align="right" border="0" width="338" height="373" /></a>Part of our response as a group of missions in Jos has been to strengthen our communications network, and <a href="http://www.frontlinesms.com/">FrontlineSMS</a> has become a key part of that network. The mobile phone is the basic means of communication in Jos, where there are few if any functioning land lines, and where Internet access is still expensive and spotty. During the November crisis, we noticed that voice calls on the mobile network rarely connected, probably because of congestion, while SMS messages got through well.</p> <p>With FrontlineSMS, we have so far developed a system with these features:</p> <ul> <li>Anyone can text the system and receive a response with the current status message. In a crisis, this could contain warnings, instructions, announcements and so on.</li> <li>Besides this "on demand" capability, we keep one list of users ("text alerts") who receive broadcast alerts.</li> <li>Anyone can join the "text alerts" group by sending the request as a text message to the system. We ask people to send the message ".join " followed by their name. At this point, FrontlineSMS cannot automatically include the name when the phone number is added to a group, but we hope that could be added in the future.</li> <li>We maintain other user lists such as compound security leaders, crisis management team, and so on. Anyone can broadcast a message to the crisis management team by prefixing a text message with a code that causes FrontlineSMS to forward the message to team members.</li> <li>The system <em>sends</em> outgoing SMS message through the Internet when it is available. They're sent to the <a href="http://www.clickatell.com/">Clickatell</a>, which routes them to the actual SMS network. Clickatell is is very fast and inexpensive. We can send about 80 messages per minute this way, far more than is currently possible if we were to send messages directly onto the mobile phone network. </li> <li>FrontlineSMS is compatible with many mobile phones and modems. We are using a Huawei E170 modem.</li> </ul> <ul></ul> <h3>Real Life Examples</h3> <p>Fortunately, we have not had actual rioting since we set up the system. However, there have been times when it has been very useful to send warnings and to raise the alert level. Here are some actual examples:</p> <blockquote> <p>@Alerts: Jos is tense, please avoid downtown today. </p> <p>@Security: X and Y have been robbed tonight & report the robbers took their Toyota Land cruiser and muttered something about Hillcrest on the way out.</p> <p>@Alerts 20Feb 655pm. Serious rioting reported in Bauchi. No problems in Jos. Obey curfew, avoid areas that could be troublesome.</p> <p>22 Feb 8am. *** Rioting on Friday Bauchi, churches & mosques burned. Now controlled. Keep on alert. Report signif news this num or ur security rep.</p> <p>SecGrp: Some rumors are going around about unrest planned for Friday, .... Email or txt me if you know more. --Mike</p> </blockquote> <h3>Effectiveness</h3> <p>The system has worked quite well. The most serious limitations have been</p> <ul> <li>The interfaces (modem and Internet) have had a tendency to lock up, failing to receive messages, and have to be re-initialized manually.</li> <li>Message delivery is sometimes delayed for hours, occasionally more than a day. This is a fault of the local network and has nothing to do with FrontlineSMS or Clickatell.</li> </ul> <h3>Summary</h3> <p>FrontlineSMS has served us very well as a well to communicate quickly by SMS. We would recommend it for others in similar situations.</p>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-20597493514231673982009-05-26T09:46:00.004+01:002009-05-26T11:37:34.121+01:00Using WSUS to save bandwidth, and how to set up an XP Home edition computer to use itTwo of the biggest challenges in keeping computers running in Africa are power and bandwidth. Bandwidth as in connection to the Internet, which is now vital for many of us. We're constantly trying to control and limit our bandwidth usage, which gets harder as people have higher and higher expectations. Our old-timers remember when we had to pay $0.50 a page to get emails that were sent over a noisy transatlantic phone connection to an expensive, 19 kbps Zyxel modem. Newcomers from developed countries are used to streaming video, Skype phone calls, file-sharing and so on.<br /><br />One of the hidden consumers of bandwidth, though, is program updates. Keeping programs up to date is critical for security, but can consume a lot of bandwidth. For example, our network at SIM Nigeria serves roughly 40 computers (including laptops members bring to the office just to connect to the Internet). If a set of Windows updates is released that comes to just 10 MB, that translates to 400 MB to update all 40 computers, which is close to a whole day's bandwidth allocation for us.<br /><br />Part of the solution is to use Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). This lets you download Microsoft updates onto a server on your network from which all your other computers can access them. Each update is downloaded once for the whole network, rather than once for each computer. You can read about WSUS and how to set it up <a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wsus/default.aspx">here</a> on the Microsoft Technical network.<br /><br />An issue I encountered when trying to get as many computers as possible to use WSUS, though, is that XP Home (as opposed to Pro) edition does not include the policy-setting tool (gpedit.msc) normally used to instruct computers to get updates from the local WSUS server rather than over the Internet from Microsoft. Nor can you simply copy gpedit.msc from another computer onto the XP Home computer.<br /><br />Instead, you can use a simple script to add some keys to the XP Home computer's registry. The script and explanation can be found at <a href="http://www.wsus.info/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t8361.html">Guide For Setting Up XP Home Clients With WSUS</a>. Just create a new text file, enter "REGEDIT4" as the first line, and copy and paste the registry keys as shown in that page. Change the two occurrences of "http://yourWSUS" to reflect the URL of your WSUS server. Save the file as "WSUS4XPHome.reg" (or whatever.reg) and run it on the XP Home machine. I think a simple reboot will suffice to start it looking for updates in the new location, but the page above tells how to use some commands to start the process immediately and without rebooting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reversing the process</span><br /><br />You definitely do <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> want to leave these settings on a computer once it is no longer using your network for updates, since it will then fail to be updated at all. For computers joined to a domain that sets the group policy to use WSUS, it should be enough to remove them from the domain. For computers you manually changed (via local policy or registry changes) , you will have to undo those changes. As far as I know, you can simply delete the entire [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate] key as it does not appear to exist in the default installation.<br /><br />If anyone has corrections or further information, I would love to know.Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-54174497108005970782009-05-18T16:04:00.002+01:002009-05-23T20:57:22.950+01:00Twe2 is gone, but then I never did get it to work<p>Earlier, <a href="http://compdocjos.blogspot.com/2009/02/now-you-can-use-twitter-in-nigeria.html" target="_blank">I wrote about</a> a service called Twe2 that allows people around the world to get Twitter messages on their mobile phones. That's needed because Twitter does <em>not</em> send to mobiles in most countries, only to the US, Great Britain, Canada, and, for some reason, India. Twe2 was supposed to be a gateway you could use to get around that limitation. Without something like it, Twitter is of limited use here (actually, I'm still trying to figure out what the use is). </p> <p>I've tried many times to get my mobile phone number "verified" to work on Twe2, but for some reason the confirmation message would never come through. Perhaps a problem with my carrier. Whatever the case, it's now a moot point because I learned today from <a href="http://www.twe2.com/">Twe2's website</a> that it no longer exists, the source code having been sold <strike>to <a href="http://www.wadja.com/">Wadja</a></strike> (an unfortunately heavy, clumsy sounding name in English, in my opinion, but what's a name). </p> <p><a href="http://www.wadja.com/" target="_blank"><img style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;" alt="temp" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ts0ohABSg5g/ShF43aDvQNI/AAAAAAAAAE0/VzorvAtWJGY/temp%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" align="left" border="0" width="72" height="29" /></a> I've signed up for Wadja (as MikeBlyth, in case you want to follow me) and am trying to get some friends in Jos to join so that we can test its capabilities. So far, I haven't seen anything about a gateway with Twitter, but we don't really need that if all we want is to access a Twitter-like network for our friends in Nigeria. I'll report later how it works. So far, all I can say is that the web interface seems really slow, at least from Nigeria.</p>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-25090425654089347072009-05-10T23:20:00.004+01:002009-05-10T23:28:39.608+01:00Disaster Avoided -- A Corrupted Microsoft Access Database File<p>I had a near miss today, almost losing my main address list, which I keep in Microsoft Access. I haven't used it in quite a while, as I have another list of recent address changes, but it's still my most comprehensive list of mailing addresses. When I tried to open it today, I got a message that it was in an "inconsistent state" and Access would try to repair it. Next, an error message that it "can't be repaired" or "isn't a Microsoft Office Access Database File." </p> <p>I tried using my backup copies, but they had the same problem. It has been very long--4 years!--since I've put backups onto CDs or DVDs, simply because it takes so many of them, and have been relying mainly on one or two levels of medium term backups on an external hard drive. </p> <p>Of course, this is far better than nothing, but the risk is just what I encountered today: having a file lost or corrupted and not knowing about it until the last "good" backup is gone. The same can happen with a virus. If you are keeping system backups but a virus has silently infected your machine, it could happen that all your backups are infected by the time you discover the problem.</p> <p>I tried the solutions I found on the Microsoft site and by Googling, but they didn't work. The main thing I learned was that when your Access database is corrupted, there is a good chance that it's not something you can repair on your own. There are professionals who will do it, and some commercial programs. I tried one program, Advanced Access Repair, which quickly showed me that my data was recoverable. I was all ready to pay the $29.99 price of the program to actually <em>recover</em> the data, then noticed that the price is really $299.99. Oops.</p> <p>Happily for me, the next program I tried was <a href="http://download.cnet.com/MDB-Repair-Tool/3000-2065_4-10692755.html">MDB Repair Tool</a>, by Skysof, and it promptly repaired the database without my having to answer any questions or try different options. It just worked. To my surprise, this "trial" version actually recovered all the data for me for free, and I still have 58 more uses before I have to register. What a deal!</p> <p>Lessons learned:</p> <ul> <li>If you can't or don't want to save full backups to long-term media (DVD, CD, tape, or online), then you should at least save your most important data that way once in a while. This method is risky because you might miss data you should have backed up, but at least you will have most of what you need. (Be sure to include your email in your backup; it may not be included if you're not careful).</li> <li>My address list doesn't <em>need</em> to be kept only in an Access database. I could periodically backup the actual address information so a simple text file. Then, if I lost the Access file, at least I would have the essential data.</li> <li>Hopefully I won't ever have to repair another Access database, but if I do, MDB Repair Tool will be the first thing I try.</li> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:a5e258f0-d745-4ff8-a3b0-cf192c3bc314" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/backup" rel="tag">backup</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/security" rel="tag">security</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/data" rel="tag">data</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/database" rel="tag">database</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Access" rel="tag">Access</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/tools" rel="tag">tools</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/recovery" rel="tag">recovery</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/repair" rel="tag">repair</a></div> </ul>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-17688516743366035282009-04-26T13:48:00.002+01:002009-04-26T13:51:51.440+01:00Don't neglect online backups<p>A week ago, one of my friends was mugged on his way home from school on a bike path. He was badly beaten and ended up unconscious in the hospital. Though his bike, computer and some other things were stolen, and despite his injuries, I suspect that his most serious loss is much of the work he had done on a masters thesis. Apparently any backups he had were also stolen. </p> <p>It's one thing to lose your most recent work, and losing your whole email store can be serious. But what if you lose something you've been working on for years--that book you're writing, a carefully compiled bibliography, your research data, a major proposal for your organization? It's almost unthinkable, yet it happens. Data loss is sure to happen if you have <em>no</em> backup strategy, but it can happen even if you do have backups. For example</p> <ul> <li>Backups may be lost along with your computer in a fire, theft, evacuation and so on</li> <li>Backup media may fail or be destroyed. Here in Nigeria, at least, flash drives have a high failure rate. CDs and DVDs can be scratched or damaged by sunlight and heat. </li> <li>If your original data becomes corrupted and you don't immediately know it, you may store the corrupted data in the backups.</li> <li>When do yo discover that your backup is damaged or corrupted? That's right, you discover it when you need it because your original data is lost. </li> </ul> <p>For these reasons, it is important to have more than one level of backup for any data that is important to you. For any data that is <em>really</em> important, you should have at least two and preferably three backups stored in a way that they cannot be lost simultaneously. For example, you could keep one copy on a hard drive at work, one copy on a flash drive or re-writable CD at home, and one copy online.</p> <p>In my last post, I briefly mentioned that one use of Dropbox was backing up your data online. Online backup should be more than an afterthought--it should be an important part of your backup strategy. Most of us in Africa do not have the luxury of a low-cost Internet connection that will let us back up <em>all</em> our data, let alone the whole system, but we can back up what is most important. Apart from multimedia files (video, pictures, music), your most important data, what you've actually invested the most time on, is probably a few hundred megabytes at most. You should at least consider saving some or all of it online.</p> <p>There are many online data storage services, including a fair number of free ones. I like Dropbox--it works for me--but another solution might work better for you. One thing I like about Dropbox is that it keeps previous versions of changed and deleted files. That feature has already saved me a couple of times.</p> <p>David Bradley's article "<a href="http://www.sciencetext.com/make-skydrive-a-virtual-drive.html/comment-page-1#comment-148904">Make SkyDrive a Virtual Drive</a>" describes the free Microsoft SkyDrive online service and add-ons that make it more useful and transparent. Some people send their important documents to their own online email addresses (a Gmail account, for example). It's not the simplest or most secure method, but it's a lot better than nothing. </p>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-58524540670664525852009-02-28T09:51:00.005+01:002009-02-28T11:46:28.647+01:00Dropbox: A free, low-bandwidth solution for online file sharing, syncronization and backupOne of my projects is the book <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.aids-is-real.com/">AIDS Is Real and It's In Our Church</a>,</span> which I co-authored. The English version has been quite a success, Hausa and Amharic editions are in print, and now we're working on the French version. One of the technical problems we've dealt with is simply how to share the files between authors and editors on different continents, while being sure that corrections and updates are made to the right file. Once, in the Hausa version, I spent quite a few hours making corrections and then discovered that the file I'd been given was not the latest.<br /><br />There are many approaches to this issue, which after all is a common one whenever people are collaborating on documents. One of the particular constraints for some of us though, is that the solution has to be low-bandwidth, simple, and free (or at least very low cost). It simply isn't practical to be uploading and downloading a 20 MB file every time it is changed.<br /><br />I've looked briefly at <a href="http://docs.google.com/">Google Docs</a>, which works fine and would be my first choice for documents that don't have a lot of formatting requirements. Collaborators work (even simultaneously) on a document in Google's own format, stored in cyberspace somewhere, and that document can be exported when necessary to another format. Documents can be text (with pictures), spreadsheets, or presentations. Google Docs is free, doesn't require any setup, and lets users work online or offline (that is, you can edit documents even while not connected to the Internet, and they will be saved again when you are online).<br /><br />Google Docs won't do what I need at the moment, though, which is to allow people to edit Microsoft Word and Publisher documents. That is where <a href="https://www.getdropbox.com/home">Dropbox</a> has been a real help. I use it to<br /><ul><li>Share files with co-workers, automatically keeping everyone's copies synchronized</li><li>Work on files from different computers without having to do anything manually to keep them synchronized</li><li>Keep online backups of projects I'm actively working on, so that the backup is always current.<br /></li></ul>Here's how it works:<a href="https://www.getdropbox.com/install"><br /></a><ol><li><a href="https://www.getdropbox.com/install">Download and install the free software</a> (currently a 14 MB file). It creates a special My Dropbox folder on your computer.</li><li>Register as a user with the service. You get a 2 GB online folder free, and can pay for more storage.<br /></li><li>"Once installed, any file you drop into your Dropbox folder will synchronize and be available on any other computer you've installed Dropbox on, as well as from the web. <span style="font-style: italic;">Also, any changes you make to files in your Dropbox will sync to your other computers, instantly</span>."</li><li>Dropbox does not transfer the entire file each time it is changed, but only sends the changed portions. This means that when I change one word in the 20 MB file, only a small amount of data has to be sent back and forth over the Internet, not 20 MB. That makes it useable over our low-bandwidth connection.<br /></li></ol>You can use the Dropbox folder like any other folder. Drag files into it, make sub-folders, add and delete files, and so on. All those files and sub-folders will be transparently synchronized with your online folder <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> with any users sharing those files. That last point is important. People sharing your files do not have to do anything to keep their copies up to date, as Dropbox does that in the background.<br /><br />Example:<br /><ol><li>I create an "<span style="font-style: italic;">AIDS is Real</span>" folder inside my Dropbox folder and drag my 20 MB aids_is_real.doc file <span style="font-style: italic;"></span>into it.</li><li>If my collaborator does not already have Dropbox installed, I send her an invitation to install it.</li><li>I mark the <span style="font-style: italic;">AIDS is Real</span> folder as shared with my collaborator, for reading and updating.</li><li>The Dropbox software automatically downloads aids_is_real.doc into my collaborator's computer.</li><li>I open my copy of the document from my local Dropbox folder, make some changes, then save and close the file (changes are not synchronized until the file is closed).</li><li>Dropbox software automatically saves my changes to the online copy <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> to my collaborator's local copy. When my collaborator opens her copy, it is always up to date (as of the last time she was connected to the Internet).<br /></li><li>Likewise, when my co-worker changes the file on her computer, those changes will be reflected in my local copy (almost) immediately.</li></ol>Give it a try! It's well worth the effort if only for the ability to keep 2 GB worth of your important projects safely backed up online. (Of course, <span style="font-style: italic;">how</span> safely depends on the long-term survival, security, and stability of Dropbox; you shouldn't depend on any one service for the backup of your valuable data).Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-79454049321731406222009-02-16T17:30:00.003+01:002009-02-16T18:57:29.297+01:00Now you can use Twitter in NigeriaThis is the good news I learned today from Jon's <a href="http://appfrica.net/blog/archives/1559">latest blog</a> at Appfrica.net. In case you don't know, Twitter is a "micro-blogging" service that lets you send tiny posts, limited to 140 characters each. The posts appear on your page where (as you choose) others can view them, but they can also be broadcast by mobile phone text messaging (SMS) to anyone subscribed to you. You can choose to let everyone subscribe, or you can let only approved individuals subscribe, depending on your needs.<br /><br />The problem has been that last year Twitter stopped sending out those SMS messages in most countries of the world, basically because they didn't have any way to fund the service--someone has to pay for all those messages. Now, as Jon describes, you can use a new service called <a href="http://www.twe2.com/">Twe2</a> which <span style="font-style: italic;">does</span> send text messages around the world. They're financed by attaching a small text advert to each one, which seems to me a reasonable price to pay to receive free text messages by Twitter.<br /><br />I'm still trying to subscribe ... it's very easy but requires your mobile phone number to be verified, and sometimes here in Jos it takes many hours for SMS messages to be received, so the verification could take a while.<br /><br />Now, if I can just figure out a good reason to <span style="font-style: italic;">use</span> Twitter ...Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-737343982862025642009-02-16T17:09:00.003+01:002009-02-16T17:24:24.831+01:00Mobile Internet Services in Jos, NigeriaAs I said in the previous post, I've been researching the mobile ISPs that are currently available in Jos. It's a dynamic situation, with several companies entering or about to enter the playing field, and with<span style="font-style: italic;"> promises </span>of broadband 3G service to come "soon". Since 3G is already available in some cities in Nigeria, we hope the "soon" is actually in the near future, this year sometime.<br /><br />As I said in the previous post, I am summarizing all my information as I gather it, on the <a href="http://www.ecwaevangel.org/living_in_nigeria/tiki-index.php?page=Mobile+ISPs">Mobile ISPs page</a> in the Living in Nigeria wiki. So go there for more details and for more recent news. Add information if you have it!<br /><br />The summary at this point is:<br /><ul><li>Although advertising as high speed, MTN offers low-speed (GPRS) service with a variety of monthly and day plans (from a few hours to a full 24 hours). They plan eventually to have broadband (GSM family, UMTS) </li><li>Multi-links and Zoom offer medium-speed (1x) connections. They plan to have broadband (CDMA family, EVDO). I don't know about actually-observed operating speeds. <ul><li>Multi-links requires you to buy a 21,000 naira phone or 16,000 naira (unavailable) modem. </li><li>Zoom requires you to buy a 3,000 naira phone or 10,000 naira modem. </li><li>Multi-links and Zoom both have a variety of plans, but only Multi-links has day plans. </li><li>Zain and Glo do not offer intermediate range (1x) service and don't seem to have any attractive features at this point. </li></ul></li><li>My personal experience with MTN on only a few occasions has been that it is not worthwhile (too slow). </li><li>I have heard from <span style="font-style: italic;">one </span>person each for MTN, Zoom, and Multi-links that the service has been fair (MTN, Zoom) to good (Multi-links).</li></ul>My friend who has been testing Zoom (with the rather bulky 1x/EVDO modem) told me today that it's not tolerable for browsing, as far as he is concerned, with very low speeds at times. However, he pointed out that it's ok for email since that can trickle in at any speed.<br /><br />It is very important to remember that while the companies <span style="font-style: italic;">advertise</span> a connection speed and while the hardware could in fact support that speed, the actual speed is still limited by how much bandwidth the company chooses to pour into the pipeline. Bandwidth is expensive and so far the companies are not actually giving out as much as they could, or so it appears to the consumer.Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-36757849134467879352009-02-04T16:01:00.003+01:002009-02-16T17:07:41.120+01:00Using a Blackberry phone in the bush in NigeriaI plan to post a couple of blog entries soon about using mobile internet services in Nigeria, specifically in Jos rather than in the big cities. If you're interested, you can see and contribute to the <a href="http://www.ecwaevangel.org/living_in_nigeria/tiki-index.php?page=Mobile+ISPs">wiki page </a>where I'm gathering and organizing the information I have. Meanwhile, this note came from Tom Crago. He is having better luck with a Blackberry phone in the village than I am having with an MTN modem in Jos.<br /><blockquote>We are using a Blackberry 8830 World Edition cell phone in Nigeria which we obtained and are paying for in the USA. We are currently in the small village of Kwarhi, on the grounds of EYN's Kulp Bible College. This is about 13 km west of Mubi in Adamawa State. By comparision, Jos is a huge metro service area.<br /><br />The phone is designed to search for the best available service connection wherever we may be. At different times it has connected to MTN or CelTel (now <a href="http://www.ng.zain.com/en/">Zain</a>) while we have been in Nigeria. Here in Kwarhi, and in Jos while we were there, it has connected to CelTel's GPRS system. It took about one minute to download the wiki page you reference in your article.<br /><br />The phone was purchased in the US for 99 dollars, and we got a 70 dollar rebate. Net cost about 29 dollars. Price probably can't be matched now.<br /><br />We added the global service to this phone just before leaving the US. I don't recall the sim chip charge--20 dollars or so I think. We are charged 65 dollars a month, on top of our US domestic voice service plan, for unlimited 24/7 email and Internet browsing service in 140 countries with partnership agreements with Verizon Wireless, our US service provider.<br /><br />We have been very pleased with this service in Abuja, Jos and now in the "bush." It seems to work anywhere there is a CelTel tower.</blockquote>I don't know the cost of the basic voice service plan Tom refers to, but I'm guessing that the monthly total for that plus the data service must be close to $100, currently about 15,000 naira per month, for GPRS (low-to-medium speed) service.<br /><br />On the other hand, I've tested the MTN service in the past couple of weeks and it has been unusably slow, both at my home and the office, despite having a strong signal.Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-31174263493081524242008-12-20T13:34:00.003+01:002008-12-20T15:50:26.407+01:00Don't Rely on Password Managers to Keep you Safe on Untrusted Computers<p>In my <a href="http://compdocjos.blogspot.com/2008/12/password-managers-brief-review-of-three.html">previous post on password managers</a>, I concluded that they can help you by "remembering" strong, hard-to-guess passwords for your different online accounts (or for other personal information). Actually, though, I started investigating these programs with a specific need in mind: to find a way to use my private accounts on untrusted computers such as <em>public</em> computers (airports, libraries, cybercafes) or your friend's computer if you aren't sure about the security it has. </p> <p>In my post "<a href="http://compdocjos.blogspot.com/2008/11/danger-ahead-using-cybercafe.html">Danger Ahead: Using the Cybercafe</a>," I talked about the dangers of public computers, especially the fact that they can capture what you type including your user names, account numbers, and passwords, then pass that information along to cybercriminals. What good is a cybercafe if I can't trust it enough to log into my email account, for example? I looked into the password managers hoping that they would protect my information on public computers, but unfortunately my conclusion is that <em>they do not</em>. There is a ray of hope in another sort of solution, <a href="http://kyps.net/">kyps</a>, which I will mention later.</p> <h3>Can Password Managers Keep you Safe on Untrusted Computers?</h3> <p><strong>Short answer: </strong><em><strong>no.</strong> You should not use your personal data on an untrusted computer, even by way of a secure password manager. </em>The kyps approach is more promising, but using your own (clean) computer is still the safest.</p> <p><strong>Long answer</strong>: no, though a password manager might reduce the risk somewhat. The problem in a nutshell is that, in principle, an untrusted computer and do <em>anything</em> with the data that goes through it. Theoretically, for example, someone could design a program from scratch that looks and acts just like Windows but also stores and forwards all personal information to the RBN (Russian Business Network) or other cybercrime center. There is simply no way to make an untrusted computer into a secure one.</p> <p><a href="http://www.passpack.com/">Passpack</a> is one of the two online password managers I reviewed. When I asked the company about this issue, this is what they said:</p> <blockquote> <p>Yes, you're absolutely correct. The decrypted pack is used by (thus temporarily stored in) the javascript DOM. So any application that can access that DOM, can access the information stored in the decrypted pack.</p> <p>As you noted, local memory is an issue with any program, online or off. Unfortunately, for as much as we can do to protect your account, <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">you need to make sure you are on a clean computer.</span> We have written one post to this effect here: <a href="http://passpack.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/travelers-check-your-browsers/">http://passpack.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/travelers-check-your-browsers/</a></p> </blockquote> <p>If I understand correctly, since Passpack stores your data in a single pack which it decrypts on your local computer, not only the passwords you <em>use</em> in a session but <em>all</em> your data is exposed this way, which would be dangerous on an untrusted machine.</p> <p>Security expert Keith Bergen says,</p> <blockquote> <p>In order for the passwords to be transmitted they have to pass through memory unencrypted so after they're sent to the other side the site can run a hash (md5, or what ever) against the plain text password to compare it to the hash that it stores. <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">There are a few pieces of software that will look for passwords in memory as that is one of the best places to lift them from</span>. ...</p> <p>There are methods of stripping out the local SSL cert that your computer uses to initiate the SSL communication with the server and to copy and decode all SSL traffic that is sent to and from your computer. There are many Linux programs that do this and I have heard of some Windows implementations as well.</p> </blockquote> <p>Bergen goes on to say that the practical implications of these issues are less clear. Even though methods exist to steal you credentials in these ways, we don't know how widespread they are. One thing is sure, though, and that is that the cybercriminals are sophisticated, motivated and bright. If it becomes cost effective for them to steal your identity in this way, then they will. So, although some of these managers may in some cases be better than nothing, their security is not something to, so to speak, put your money on. (And note that they may be <em>worse</em> than nothing as in the case of Passpack).</p> <p>The author of <a href="http://kyps.net/">kyps</a>, Andreas Pashalidis, also <a href="http://kyps.net/home/comparison?lang=en">discusses the risks</a> of using password managers as well as other methods of trying to make a public computer safe. He points out that malware on the computer might not only capture your passwords, but also corrupt the data on your flash drive (if that's what you use) or infect the drive with malware making it unsafe to use even on your own computer.</p> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p>In the end, I would not want to use any password manager on an untrusted computer, that is one that I am not reasonably sure is free of malware. In a situation where I had no alternative but to use an untrusted computer (suppose I was dying and stranded in a Somali village with no cell phones but with a cybercafe), I would either type in the credentials by hand or use a password manager, then change them as soon as possible and watch for any suspicious activity. However, there is a better approach, which is <a href="http://kyps.net/">kyps</a>, discussed in the next post (or just go there and have a look).</p>Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7242682083486101711.post-25931253654573063932008-12-19T16:14:00.001+01:002008-12-19T16:14:51.120+01:00A new blogging platform for Africa: Maneno<a style="" href="http://www.maneno.org/eng/home/" title="Maneno"><img src="http://www.maneno.org/img/spread/spread300_eng.png" alt="Maneno" style="" 10px="" align="right" /></a>Yesterday, reading <a href="http://whiteafrican.com/2008/11/08/maneno-a-blogging-platform-made-for-africa/">WhiteAfrican.com</a>, I was alerted to the existance of a new blogging site for Africa: Maneno (which means "words" in Kiswahili). By "blogging site" I mean something like Blogger or WordPress, a place where anyone can create a blog. What is the point of a new site or platform when other good ones are available? There are several advantages:<br /><ul><li>The site is designed from scratch with the goal of making pages load <span style="font-style: italic;">fast</span> over the slow connections that most of us have in Africa. There really is a noticeable difference.</li><li>The site is easy to use. (Actually, I'm not sure it's any easier than Blogspot, but the authors are working to keep it simple.)</li><li>Maneno is multilingual. Other sites do allow you to type your blog entries in your own language, but Maneno has the added feature of an easy interface that lets any member translate any blog post into another language, sort of a communal approach to making the entries themselves available in other languages. Of course, it's the African languages that are the focus.</li><li>Maneno recognizes that many users in Africa do not have access a computer, so the site is exploring ways to allow people to access it through mobile phones and other relevant technology. (Blogspot also allows posting by mobile phone & email ... will Maneno be better in some way? Probably it at least will be slimmer.)</li><li>Maneno is focused on <span style="font-style: italic;">Africa</span>. Unlike Blogspot, which is a place for any and every type of blog, Maneno is more topical, describing itself as striving "to provide a communication and development platform for Sub-Saharan Africa."</li></ul>If you live in Africa and write about life and culture here, or if you're interested in reading the blogs and commentaries of those who do, you should definitely have a look at <a href="http://www.maneno.org/">Maneno</a>.Mike Blythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189486229376291297noreply@blogger.com0