2007

My new book – Podcasting with Audacity – is out!

art, personal, social software, technology / /

Audacity is universally recognized as the number one software program for creating podcasts. Hundreds of thousands of amateurs and professionals alike have created podcasts using Audacity.

Podcasting with Audacity: Creating a Podcast With Free Audio Software is designed to get you podcasting as quickly as possible. The first few chapters show you how to install Audacity, plug in your microphone, record your first podcast, and get it online as quickly as possible. The following chapters cover podcasting-specific topics, such as adding background music or conducting interviews. Finally, the remaining chapters focus on how Audacity works, with lots of tips and tricks to make complicated editing even easier.

Read an excerpt: "Edit Your Podcast" is available on the Web or download a 950 KB PDF. An unedited version of the book is available under as a wiki under a Creative Commons license at the Audacity website.

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Sneaky advertising

business, language & literature, musings / /

I bought a mug that has no handles on it at all. I noticed that the accompanying slip of paper said, “Most Copco travel mugs are intended for right or left hand use.” Well, yes, if there are no handles, that would make sense. It goes on, “If your mug is handled, the lid is designed to fit securely in two positions, allowing for right or left hand use.” What fantastic advertising copy, creating something out of nothing! It’s like saying, “Our handles can be used by people who are right- OR left-handed! Amazing!”

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The importance of escalators in shopping

business / /

From “A-Z Retail Tricks To Make You Shop“:

Escalators – Multi-level Department stores often use their escalators to encourage you to see more of the store. Travelling either up or down the store you will find you have to walk half way around the level in order to find your next connecting escalator, as opposed to it being the one next to you. This has not happened by accident.

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How to delete stuck files on Amazon’s S3

security, tech help, technology / /

I use Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) to back up files, and I also use OmniGraffle, a diagramming program, on my Mac. This is a letter I sent to OmniGraffle recently that explains a problem with the interaction of OmniGraffle and S3.

Start letter:

OmniGraffle (OG) is a great app, but it has a serious, showstopping incompatability with Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service).

S3 is an online backup service run by Amazon. Lots & lots of people use it, with more moving to it all the time. You can find out more about S3 here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_S3

I created some documents in OmniGraffle and uploaded them to S3. When I tried to perform another backup, the command-line S3 app I was using crashed. I tried another. Crashed. I tried Interarchy, a GUI app, but while it appeared to work, in reality it simply silently failed. After much trial and error, I finally determined that it was a particular file generated by OG that was causing the problems. But I had no idea how to fix things.

After searching on the Amazon S3 forums, it turns out others are experiencing the exact same problem. I found two entries discussing how an invisible character in the name of the Icon file located in a .graffle folder was causing the crash. Here are those two entries:

http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/thread.jspa?messageID=63273

http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/thread.jspa?messageID=45488

Eventually, after over an hour of trying various combinations with the help of a friend, I was able to delete the offending file using this command.

./s3cmd.rb -v delete “granneclientele:clientele/images/omnigraffle/audacity-toolbar-tools.graffle/Icon”$’\r’

I show that command to you not because I expect you’ll understand it, but because it demonstrates that this is a bear of a problem that many of your customers will be unable to solve on their own. As more of your customers use S3, they’re going to run into this issue.

I understand this all may sound confusing, so please do not hesitate to call or email me for further details.

/End letter

An OmniGraffle support person wrote me back, saying that this issue had been fixed in version 4.2 of the software.

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Notes on getting into well-guarded events using social engineering

security, writing ideas / /

From Bruce Schneier’s “How to Crash the Oscars” (7 March 2006):

If you want to crash the glitziest party of all, the Oscars, here’s a tip from a professional: Show up at the theater, dressed as a chef carrying a live lobster, looking really concerned. …

“The most important technique is confidence,” he said. “Part of it is being dressed the part, looking the part, and acting the part and then lying to get in the door.”

The biggest hole in the elaborate Oscars security plan, Mamlet said, is that while everyone from stagehands to reporters have to wear official credentials, the celebrities and movie executives attending the event do not.

“If you really act like a celebrity, the security guards will worry that they will get into trouble for not recognizing you,” Mamlet said.

From Bruce Schneier’s “Social Engineering Notes” (15 May 2007):

This is a fantastic story of a major prank pulled off at the Super Bowl this year. Basically, five people smuggled more than a quarter of a ton of material into Dolphin Stadium in order to display their secret message on TV.

Given all the security, it’s amazing how easy it was for them to become part of the security perimeter with all that random stuff. But to those of us who follow this thing, it shouldn’t be. His observations are spot on:

1. Wear a suit.
2. Wear a Bluetooth headset.
3. Pretend to be talking loudly to someone on the other line.
4. Carry a clipboard.
5. Be white.

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A quick tutorial on writing a program that accepts plugins

tech help, technology / /

On the CWE-LUG mailing list, someone asked a question about creating a program that can be extended with plugins. I thought the answer was so useful that I wanted to save it and make it available to others.

On 2/17/07, Mark wrote:

I’m a young programmer (just finishing high school) who has done a fair amount of programming with PHP, MySQL, and other web technologies. … How does one go about designing a program so it can be extended later with plugins, apis, and modules?

Ed Howland, veteran programmer, replied:

Mark, if i understand you correctly, you are seeking how to design a general purpose program that can be extended by others. It would help us to know what your target environment is. Especially if it is a dynamic language like Perl, Ruby or Python.Or a compiled language like Java or C/C++. The difference lies in linking others source code with yours, interpreted languages are easier in this respect.

That said, the general techniques are well-established. For purposes of illustration, I’ll call the code you are wanting to write the host (application) and the external modules, the guest (module.) The basic idea is to use various callbacks into the guest module from the host application. But first the guest application must register itself with the host (see it is like a hotel checkin…) This registration process can take many forms and is usually dictated by the programming environment. Anyway, the host maintains a list of registered guests. Each time a new guest registers, he is appended to said list.

Next, the host will then use the handle that represents the main object of the guest, and call an initialize routine in the guest. That routine sets stuff and gets a handle to the host so it can call things in the framework API to open windows, etc.

So the basic steps are:

  1. Devise a registration process
  2. Maintain a list of registered guest modules
  3. When starting, loop over your registered guests and call their initialize routines
    1. When a guest’s initialize routine is called, it calls pre-defined host API calls to open windows, or other things.
    2. These might cause the framework (in the host) to callback to the guest to display the window, and paint the contents of the windows.

You want to make your plugin callback interface as narrow as possible. And you want your host API to be simple to create widgets, windows, whatever in a few easy steps. If using a O-O language like Java or C#, use interfaces for both the IPlugin (guest) and IPluginHost (host) and guest module writes will inherit from or implement those interfaces. Ideally, the minimal IPlugin interface could be as small as init() and destroy() (if destroy is needed.)

Finally, if starting fresh, you might think about designing your entire application to nothing but the framework and your own pieces will simply be plugins.

The hard part is the registration process. Do you allow files to be uploaded to a web server? Does it write and re-read a config file listing plugins? I haven’t looked at DotNuke or PHPNuke or Typo, WordPress or any of the other ones. But the answer is in there.

Ruby on Rails has a built-in plugin architecture, but not one that you can upload files to, at least not w/o restarting the RoR app iteself, IIRC. It looks in a subdirectory for plugin subdirs for a file called init.rb. It just executes whatever is in that tile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plugin
http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin
http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/misc/misc/plug-insadd-ins/article.php/c3879/

HTH, somewhat.

Ed

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All stories have the same basic plots

art, commonplace book, language & literature, on writing, writing ideas / /

From Ask Yahoo (5 March 2007):

There are only so many ways to construct a story.

Writers who believe there’s only one plot argue all stories “stem from conflict.” True enough, but we’re more inclined to back the theory you mention about seven plot lines.

According to the Internet Public Library, they are:

1. [wo]man vs. nature
2. [wo]man vs. man
3. [wo]man vs. the environment
4. [wo]man vs. machines/technology
5. [wo]man vs. the supernatural
6. [wo]man vs. self
7. [wo]man vs. god/religion

Ronald Tobias, author of “Twenty Basic Plots” believes the following make for good stories: quest, adventure, pursuit, rescue, escape, revenge, riddle, rivalry, underdog, temptation, metamorphosis, transformation, maturation, love, forbidden love, sacrifice, discovery, wretched excess, ascension, and decision.

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Find out a hard drive’s UUID

1 Comment / tech help, technology / /

If you want to add a device like an external hard drive to your /etc/fstab file, it helps if you know the hard drive’s UUID. If you use K/Ubuntu, the following command will display the UUID, along with other useful information.

$ sudo vol_id /dev/sdo1
Password:
ID_FS_USAGE=filesystem
ID_FS_TYPE=ext3
ID_FS_VERSION=1.0
ID_FS_UUID=4857d4bb-5f6b-4f21-af62-830ebae92cff
ID_FS_LABEL=movies
ID_FS_LABEL_SAFE=movies

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2 New TV Interviews, Both on Cell Phones

overheard, technology / /

I was interviewed twice in the last couple of months by two local TV news channels, both times on the same subject: the cool stuff that even ordinary cell phones can do nowadays. Google features prominently, as does Flickr, Wireless Amber Alerts, and Cellfire. Best of all, the later one has Libby, my dog, in it, which is a nice added bonus.

KMOV’s Cell Phone Secrets (23 May 2007)

Video available at http://www.granneman.com/presentations/interviews/kmov23may2007.htm

KSDK’s How To Get The Most Out Of Your Cell Phone (6 July 2007)

Video available at http://www.granneman.com/presentations/interviews/ksdk6july2007.htm

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Out now: Microsoft Vista for IT Security Professionals

business, personal, security, technology / /

Microsoft Vista for IT Security Professionals is designed for the professional system administrators who need to securely deploy Microsoft Vista in their networks. Readers will not only learn about the new security features of Vista, but they will learn how to safely integrate Vista with their existing wired and wireless network infrastructure and safely deploy with their existing applications and databases. The book begins with a discussion of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Initiative and Vista’s development cycle, which was like none other in Microsoft’s history. Expert authors will separate the hype from the reality of Vista’s preparedness to withstand the 24 x 7 attacks it will face from malicious attackers as the world’s #1 desktop operating system. The book has a companion CD which contains hundreds of working scripts and utilities to help administrators secure their environments.

This book is written for intermediate to advanced System administrators managing Microsoft networks who are deploying Microsoft’s new flagship desktop operating system: Vista. This book is appropriate for system administrators managing small networks of fewer than 10 machines up to enterprise-class networks with tens of thousands of systems. This book is also appropriate for readers preparing for the Microsoft exam MCDST 70-620.

I contributed two appendices to this book:

  • Appendix A: Microsoft Vista: The International Community
  • Appendix B: Changes to the Vista EULA

Appendix A, “Microsoft Vista: The International Community”, was about Microsoft’s legal troubles in Europe and Asia, and the changes the company had to make to Vista to accommodate those governments. Appendix B, “Changes to the Vista EULA”, explained that the EULA in Vista is even worse than that found in XP, which was worse than any previous EULA. In other words, Vista has a problematic EULA that users need to know about before they buy the OS.

Read excerpts: Front Matter (350 KB PDF) and Chapter 1: Microsoft Vista: An Overview (760 KB PDF). You can flip through the entire book, although you’re limited to the total number of pages you can view (but it’s a pretty high number, like 50 or so).

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1 Henry VI: Lucy lists Talbot’s titles

language & literature, word of the day / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 7):

LUCY:

But where’s the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence;
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge;
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece;
Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
Of all his wars within the realm of France?

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