Articles

Internet Privacy, and steps to protect yourself

Wed, 03/11/2009 - 01:32 — sgrover

Making my living working with computers requires me to be aware of various security issues and how to handle them. Everything from viruses, to spam, and even to encryption. But sometimes I'm fortunate enough to observe the humanity behind the computers. And sometimes this humanity itself is a security issue. Humans are mostly social creatures. They want to interact with each other and share information. Humans can also be parasites trying to better themselves or their environment at the expense of others. This dual nature of us humans leads to some interesting situations. We trust.

Design Patterns

Mon, 02/09/2009 - 23:25 — sgrover

I recently did a presentation on Design Patterns. This was an intro level talk and was primarily focused on awareness and where to get more info.

When I was posting the file to my blog here, I found an older presentation file on design patterns that I created but never did give - I think. So rather than just replace it, I'll make it available here as well.

For those who may like to see that presentation, you can check it out here:

Use PHP to create & modify Active Directory/LDAP entries

Wed, 12/31/2008 - 06:31 — sgrover

Working with LDAP servers from within a PHP based application can be a very handy trick to have up your sleeve. But the path to acquiring the know-how for this can be filled with mis-steps and confusing issues. Having recently worked through this, and finding the online documentation unhelpful for a relative LDAP novice, I'd like to document what I have found and help rectify that situation.

Inkscape presentation

Sat, 11/08/2008 - 01:58 — sgrover

CLUG recently asked me if I could do a presentation on some topic. I said "of course!" and selected Inkscape as the subject. For those not in the know, Inkscape is a free, cross platform vector graphics tool that is great for creating images from scratch. It is useful for logos, web images (buttons, themes, etc.), as well as more mundane things such as signs, banners, and business cards. Or any image you can think of, you can probably do in Inkscape.

First serious issue with the OpenMoko FreeRunner

Mon, 09/22/2008 - 01:20 — sgrover

I've been puttzing around playing with my Freerunner over the weekend. Since my last post, I've installed an OS on the thing about 10 different times. I've tried the 2008.8 distro, as well as the Debian install. I picked up an 8 GB microSD card for Debian, though it took me a time or two to get it right. Lastly I tried the Qtopia distro. But, in all my efforts I stumbled across one HUGE problem for the FreeRunner. And that was a power problem.

My New Phone - OpenMoko Freerunner - with Geek Porn!

Fri, 09/19/2008 - 02:05 — sgrover

I've been running into issues with my current phone provider (Bell), and limitations with my current phone (Samsung A920). The Samsung is now 2 years old. It operated fine in that time frame, though the battery is starting to die out much faster. Bell has had ongoing issues for me. I have a dropped call once or twice a week it seems. Some are dropped even before the outgoing number is dialed. A call to Bell tells me I've only had 9 dropped calls this year. Though I know it's been more than that, at least on my end of things. Hello Bell... ONE dropped call is too many.

Projects are now online - sort of.

Thu, 08/28/2008 - 22:37 — sgrover

I wrote jquery.dates about a year ago, and put it up on the site here. A few months later I realized I didn't have the time to keep it up to date, so I removed the links to the project from the main navigation. Odd that, because now jquery.dates has received a number of emails with either thanks, or bug fixes, and the jquery.dates documentation page has been seeing consistent hits.

Self Signed Certificate for Apache

Wed, 07/23/2008 - 23:59 — sgrover

I often find myself in need of an SSL certificate for some of the websites on my Apache web servers. The problem is that the old method of "ssl-certificate" has been deprecated. And the new "make-ssl-certificate" requires a configuration file. Unfortunately this configuration file sets up a default of one month for your certificate.

Zend Framework

Wed, 07/23/2008 - 00:39 — sgrover

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, I have undertaken a large project converting an existing application to PHP whith a MySQL back end (a LAMP stack type app). To do so, I have begun looking into PHP frameworks. I have settled on Zend Framework.

New project, new framework

Mon, 07/07/2008 - 23:13 — sgrover

I am about to begin on a new project. This project is a migration of an existing, large application from Cold Fusion running on a Windows server with the SQL Server 2000 database server to a LAMP server. Yep, I get to convert the application to a LAMP application.