Posts

• Aug 13, 2007

  Symbian Slingplayer In Private Beta

  Saw this on mocoNews.net this morning: Symbian Slingplayer In Private Beta Looks interesting, even with the number of operators making video available on mobile, this allows an individual get the video content that they have available, in their home or office, delivered to their phone. So, while they’re on a train, or waiting in an airport, etc. they can get the news, the latest soap, or the view from the security cameras at home/office. This is obviously subject to bandwidth availability and cost. (uploading from home and downloading to phone).

• Aug 3, 2007

  SSH updates

  The Past: I’m a long-time user of SSH. I presume that I was typical in my initial use of it for secure access to remote servers. But I quickly became familiar with its port-forwarding capabilities, and have often set up intricate webs of connected and nested tunnels, in order to negotiate the problems of multiple NAT servers and firewalls. I even considered myself a power-user.

  The Present: Today, while checking out A Defcon survival guide on The Register, I noticed that they had mentioned the -D parameter to SSH. It was that kind of “in-passing” reference, where you know they think they’re stating the obvious. You’ve probably guessed though, that it was not obvious to me. Enter the Ubuntu SSH Howto, and in particular the “SSH as a Proxy” section. How could I not know that a SSH could run as a SOCKS proxy, tunnelled to a remote server? Now I’ll be able to run SOCKS capable client applications (including web browsers) across lots of network configurations, without having to identify and forward individual ports. Brilliant!

  The Future: Wait, what’s that I see? At the bottom of the page there’s a link to SSH VPN. It can’t be. Not full networking access (routing,UDP,etc) over an SSH tunnel using the “tun” driver. Yes it is, it’s amazing. I can’t try this one out at the moment, but it will be a definite must-have for me (very soon). Anywhere, on any network, once I have SSH access, I can get full access to my home network. (Or, if I wanted, an Amazon EC2 node that I could start when I needed full Internet access)

  What lessons I’ve learned today, and not just about SSH. It’s important to check out the features and updates of software and networking tools that you use. Especially, if you already consider them important and useful. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you already know how to use them, even if, like me, you’ve been using the tools for too many years to remember.

  Now, I’ve also been using Ethereal for a long time, but a colleague has recommended WireShark, I must find out which one is better ;-)

• Jul 26, 2007

  'They threw my laptop into the atmosphere' | The Register

  It’s funny what happens in really large organisations. ‘They threw my laptop into the atmosphere’ | The Register

  I wonder if I could try any of those excuses with my boss? ;-)

• Jul 26, 2007

  Create an in-cell bar graph with Excel

  Excellent tip here to Create an in-cell bar graph with Excel from the Lifehacker Shortcut Screencast Contest. Really handy for quick graph, and it works in OpenOffice.org also.

  Screencasts look like a good way to distribute tips like this, so I’ll have to look into that for the future, maybe using Jing for screenshots and screen recordings as suggested by Paul Watson. I wonder if there’s something to add a voiceover.

• Jul 24, 2007

  Nokia N95 vs. iPhone

  Nokia are saying that the N95 is better than the iPhone, at least in the European market. Just read an article on SiliconRepublic.com: Nokia aim to “rip through the iPhone hype”
  

  While I personally would prefer the features in the N95, the screen, interface, and form factor of the iPhone are much better. If Apple could put in a 3G radio and allow you use the iPhone as a modem…

  The whole reliability and updatability issues will have to wait until the phones have been in the market for a while. (I’d be concerned that the large iPhone screen would get scratched.)

  Edit to add: “…European carriers are hell-bent on reviving flagging ARPU (average revenue per user) levels by replacing lost revenues with new streams from high-speed data services…” Network coverage issues are still going to be an issue - when you force everyone to use online data they get annoyed when they can’t access it. (e.g. I work in a metal-clad building and can’t get phone coverage inside)

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