Zune and Xbox 360

One of my favorite features of the Zune software and an Xbox 360 is the ability to stream music from my PC to the Xbox. My favorite feature when it works.

Recently I upgraded to the Zune 4.0 software^[1] and was unable to play my songs any longer. The issue was with the Zune Pass^[2]. Fortunately, there is a reset tool that’s available to fix this. If you can’t play your music any longer on your Xbox, try this:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=86b2a33d-9bf8-45f6-89ff-b9a6236aa37d&DisplayLang=en

After running the tool, I opened up the Zune software, played a few songs, and gave it about 30 minutes to download whatever licenses it needed. After doing that, everything worked just fine.

^[1] Software that puts iTunes to shame.
^[2] A fantastic offering from Microsoft - $15/month for all the software you want, with the ability to download 10 DRM-free songs per month.

KeePass 101

This is a posting I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while and just haven’t found the time. Well, now I’ve found the time.

I’ve posted in the past about my love for KeePass, which is a fantastic tool for managing passwords. The most secure thing you can do when it comes to creating accounts on sites (besides just not creating an account) is to have a unique password for each site. This becomes rather problematic, as trying to remember them all is impossible.

Now a bigger concern is the security questions that sites ask you as a backup for your password. Forget your password? Not a problem – just answer these general knowledge questions about yourself and we’ll give you a new password. What drives me crazy is most questions they ask are ones that nearly anyone would know, meaning nearly anyone could access my account if I answered those questions honestly. The end result of “security questions” is decreased security, as was demonstrated recently in the hacking of a Twitter administrator’s account.

In an effort to try and aid people looking for a good solution to this problem, below is a walkthrough on how to setup KeePass and create an account with it. What I love about KeePass is that it does not need to be installed on the local system; you can just place the files in a folder and run it out of the folder. You can then either put the folder on a flash drive and make it portable, and synchronize the folder with Mesh for safe keeping.

(BTW – you can download KeePass here. I’m demoing version 2)

Step 1: Create a database

When you first launch KeePass you’ll be presented with the following screen:

The button you want is the one on the far left (the one that looks like a piece of paper with a sunburst on it). That will allow you to create a new database. The database will store all your usernames, passwords, URL’s and other notes.

After clicking on “New…”, you’ll be presented with a traditional “Save As” dialog asking you where you wish to save the database. For ease of use I place my database in the same folder as KeePass. Choose whatever name you wish here.

Step 2: Encrypt the database

After choosing the name of your database, you’ll then be asked to secure the password. You’ll have the option to provide a password, create a key file, or map it to your Windows account. The last option is a tad problematic as it makes the database non-portable, so I choose the first two options.

The key here is the password. You need to ensure it’s going to be something very secure. It should be a sentence with punctuation, and realistically at least 20 characters. It can be something about yourself, but it would need to be something that absolutely nobody knows. When you create the key file, you’ll be asked for the location first (just another “Save As” dialog).

After choosing the file you’ll be asked to generate entropy, which for the most part is a fancy way of saying “we need something random we can use for encryption purposes”. Just move your mouse around the little box on the left until the bar below it fills up.

Step 3: Configure the database

After creating the entropy and clicking on OK on that screen and the Create Composite Master Key screen, you’ll be asked to configure the database. There’s a couple of tabs of note here. First is the General tab, where you can set your default username. Most sites now just use your email address as your account name, so you can specify that there.

Next will be the security tab, which will ask you how encrypted you’d like your database. If you click on the “1 second” link it will set it to take one second to load and save the database, which is generally pretty good.

Last but not least is what you want encrypted in the database. What I like to do is encrypt the notes as well, as I store my “security question” and answer in that field so I can create random answers.

Step 4: Create a new account

Congratulations. You’ve now created a database and you’re all set to go. To create a new account, simply click on the little key with the green arrow on it.

You’ll then be asked for information about the account. Put the username you’re going to use in the first field, and then any notes (such as that security question and answer) down below.

The ellipse icon next to the password simply indicates if you want the password to be hidden on this screen. The little keys allow you to create a new password randomly, which is by far my favorite feature of KeePass. Simply click on that and choose “Open Password Generator” and you’ll be presented with the following screen:

From here you can choose the password length and what characters you want to include. You should choose any special characters the site will let you, as well as the maximum length. What is annoying is many sites won’t tell you right up front the restrictions they place on passwords (something that drives me crazy), but when they do take advantage of it. For instance, here’s the account creation screen from Yahoo:

You’ll notice that I can use up to 32 characters and no spaces. So I’d want to type 32 into the size, and choose Minus and Underline as well as Special. Then simply click on OK on the first screen and then OK on the second. This will bring you back to the main screen (mine is pictured below, slightly “fuzzed out”).

To put your new password into Yahoo, simply click on the entry and hit “Ctl-C” (the copy command). What’s nice is it will put the password into your clipboard for 10 seconds, which is long enough to paste it twice into the password and confirm boxes on the account creation page.

Congratulations – you’ve now set up KeePass and created your first account.

Step 5: Use KeePass

To use KeePass going forward on a day to day basis, there’s just a couple of things to keep in mind. When you open KeePass you’ll be prompted for your password and key file. Simply type your password and choose your key file on this screen.

To use your passwords, you can simply click on the entry in the screen and hit Ctl-C to copy it. Another great trick is to bring up the screen you need to enter your username and password in, click in the username field, and then bring up KeePass. Click on Ctl-V (paste), which will switch windows back to the one you were last on, and then put in your username, tab, and then your password, and then hit enter for you. Pretty slick.

Making the move to KeePass will take a little getting used to, but once you do you’ll be more secure online, and very pleased with your decision.

Maybe Take the Word Out of the Rotation

If you’ve spent any time on the internet, you’ve no doubt had to interpret a fuzzy image and type in whatever letters happened to be there. That bit of verification that you are a human and not a “bot” trying to break the site is known as Captcha. For the most part I find it a minor nuisance than anything. And then today as I was sending a message on Facebook I came across the following:

I’m thinking maybe having a toast to fascism as the Captcha isn’t the best of ideas. Granted, not overly offensive, but enough for a head tilt and a smile. Probably best to just pull the word out of the rotation.

I Love My iPhone

Over the years, I’ve had many a smart phone, to the point where I can’t imagine life without one now. Having my calendar on my phone, as well as my contacts, the ability to check sports scores and Wikipedia from anywhere, and play the occasional game while standing in line is invaluable to me. But no other phone has engendered the passion for a smart phone as the iPhone.

The iPhone does so many things perfectly. Their App Store, where they sell add-on applications, is seamlessly integrated with iTunes, making it almost too easy to download and install applications. Safari, while not perfect, is still the best mobile browser that I’ve come across. The feel and interaction of the phone is perfectly intuitive – without an instruction manual you can figure out how to do whatever it is that you’re trying to do.

Listed below, in no particular order, are my 10 favorite things about my iPhone. These include built-in iPhone features as well as add-on applications.

1. Safari – Having fought with the version of IE that’s built into Windows Mobile devices for years, Safari was a breath of fresh air. It’s not perfect when it comes to rendering sites, but it’s very close.
2. Yelp – In case you hadn’t noticed, I travel a fair bit. Having a Yelp application on my phone makes it very easy to find new restaurants in whatever town I’m in. The new version also includes “Twitter-like” 140-character reviews that can be added from a mobile phone.
3. Facebook – As if I needed to spend more time on Facebook.
4. TwitterFon – By far the best Twitter application I’ve found for the iPhone. It’s what actually keeps me connected to Twitter.
5. Shazam – A great little application that listens to a song and can tell you what it is. No more having to guess which 80’s hair metal band it is.
6. FlightTrack – A tad delayed, but FlightTrack gives great information on flight status, including a little map of where the plane is. I can’t imagine travelling without it.
7. Photo Gallery – It’s nice to be able to sync photos on the phone with my PC. And the implementation is very slick, with the ability to zoom in on photos.
8. Email Client – It’s IMAP compliant, meaning that emails I delete from my GMail account on my iPhone also get clobbered on GMail, and that I can access the archives.

I Hate My iPhone

Over the years, I’ve had many a smart phone, to the point where I can’t imagine life without one now. Having my calendar on my phone, as well as my contacts, the ability to check sports scores and Wikipedia from anywhere, and play the occasional game while standing in line is invaluable to me. But no other phone has engendered the passion for a smart phone as the iPhone.

What I find most infuriating is the fact the iPhone does so many things perfectly, flawlessly and intuitively. But too often I’m left scratching my head wondering what in the world the designer was thinking.

With that in mind, here are the 10 things I hate about my iPhone.

1. No copy/cut/paste – Really guys? No copy/paste?
2. The calendar doesn’t auto-detect the time zone – The clock on the phone does, but the calendar doesn’t. Which means every time I land in a new time zone I have to manually go in and change it.
3. No tethering – This is something I’ve been able to do with all of my Windows Mobile devices. It’s allegedly coming, but I’m not too sure. And, no, I don’t want to jailbreak it.
4. iTunes – I hate, loathe, and otherwise despise iTunes. I can’t for the life of me figure out how Apple, who allegedly makes good looking and easy to use applications, has released iTunes and garners any praise for it.
5. Can’t remove the built-in applications – I don’t use iTunes. It would be nice to get rid of the icon from my phone.
6. There’s only two options for the ringer – silent or ring, rather than 3 – silent, ring or vibrate. Yes, you can toggle vibrate, but that requires going into another screen rather than just flipping a little switch.
7. No turn by turn navigation – Almost every other GPS enabled phone offers this. Why not the iPhone?
8. No video on the camera – Again, nearly every other phone offers this.
9. No MMS (multimedia messages) – I’ve seen $20 pay-as-you-go phones offer this, yet the iPhone doesn’t.
10. No expandability – It would be nice to be able to slide in an SD card to add on memory.

TiVo’s Had That for Years

One of the things that makes me smile the most is when tech companies start touting a feature they’ve added to their product that another has had for years. Recently DirecTV has been running a marketing blitz letting the world know you can program your DirecTV DVR from the Internet.

No kidding? Really? Interesting. See – I’ve been able to do that with my TiVo for years.

Quick show of hands – who knew you could program a TiVo from the Internet? For the two of you who raised your hands, put your hands down if you heard it from me.

That’s what I thought.

This leads us to the greatest problem with TiVo – their marketing department (assuming they have one), well, sucks.

I’m often asked why I don’t use <fill in satellite or cable provider’s DVR solution here>. The simple answer – it’s not TiVo. TiVo offers me features that I can’t get from any other provider, including:

• The ability to schedule from the Internet. Just head on over to TiVo’s site and you can program anything you like. Or you can do it from Yahoo. Or if you download i.TV you can schedule it from your iPhone (thanks to Jarod for that tip).
• Access to many streaming media options, including Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and, soon, Blockbuster.
• The ability to transfer most recordings off the TiVo onto a computer (which makes for great plane viewing) or a shared server in the house.
• The ability to transfer programs from one TiVo to another. (I thoroughly enjoyed watching AT&T U-verse get all excited about this feature that TiVo’s had for years.)

The simple fact of the matter is that there is not a device that offers me what TiVo does. Unfortunately, as TiVo slowly dies on the vine, few people know what TiVo actually brings to the table. Hopefully TiVo will start putting together a good marketing campaign.

Hopefully.

Windows Home Server

This may be of little interest to anyone, but the tech item I want to talk about today has been one of the best investments I have ever made.

About a year ago, Microsoft released a new operating system called Windows Home Server. They did so with little fanfare, which is really a shame, as it’s one of the best products they’ve ever released.

Windows Home Server (WHS) is designed to sit in a closet (although we have it in our office) and be a central location for your files, just like a normal server. But it offers many more features that are extremely helpful to the household with multiple computers or connected devices (such as a TiVo or XBox 360).

By far the best feature is the ability to automatically backup the systems in your house. When you install the client onto your other computers, it will prompt you to set up a schedule for backups. At night it will then backup any changes made to each system that day. The backups are bit-level, and are accessible through the server. It automatically keeps 3 daily backups, as well as 3 weekly and three monthly backups. I can easily restore individual files, or in the case of a complete meltdown, there’s a recovery disc I can use to connect to the server and restore the entire system from scratch.

WHS will also monitor the “health” of the systems on your network. If one hasn’t been backed up recently, or has a security configuration issue (no firewall turned on, hasn’t been updated with patches in a couple months, etc.) it will alert you – either through a client, or in the case of my server a little red light.

WHS also allows for remote connections. For me this is extremely valuable, as I often have need to retrieve data I have on the home server while on the road.

Another great use is the ability to have TiVo or an XBox 360 to connect to it. It’s nice to have one central store for my movies and music, as well as a central repository for all recorded TV shows.

The particular WHS that I have is the MediaSmart Home Server from HP. While it’s lacking in RAM (although that’s not a huge issue), it’s plug and play setup is a breeze. Plug in the server to a power outlet and then to your network. Install the software from the CD, which will detect the WHS and walk you through the configuration. Repeat the installation on the other systems on your network and you’re done. What’s also great about this little box is the hard drive bays are little drawers that you pull out to put the new drive in to – which you can do while the system is up and running.

It is a bit of an investment, but for the features and functionality it’s perfect for the person who has multiple PC’s on their network. And just as this video explains, some servers get to stay home and do fun stuff – which is what mine does.

E-ticket Virus

Boy this was freaky. I booked a flight on Delta the other day. Today I received the following e-mail on an address I don't use when I book travel:

Good afternoon,

Thank you for using our new service "Buy airplane ticket Online" on our website.

Your account has been created:

Your login: <e-mail address here>

Your password: PASS2VS9

Your credit card has been charged for $941.89.

We would like to remind you that whenever you order tickets on our website you get a discount of 10%!

Attached to this message is the purchase Invoice and the airplane ticket.

To use your ticket, simply print it on a color printed, and you are set to take off for the journey!

Kind regards,

Delta Air Lines

Being the bright guy that I am, I immediately went into investigation mode. Step one - scan the attachment and find out if its a virus. Sure enough, it turns out that it was.

Couple of things to always keep your eyes open for:

1. If you're not expecting an attachment, always scan it first before opening it up.
2. Always remember that anti-virus software is there as a backup to your savvy. Don't rely on it as a first layer.
3. Notice that the e-mail didn't say my name. Any legit e-mail from a site such as Delta would include the recipient's name. There's also just a general lack of personal information - there is no information about the flight, the last four of the cc that was used for the charge, etc.
4. Notice the typo - "..simply print it on a color printed..."
5. Notice the funky English - "Buy airplane ticket Online". That was the title of the new service. Bad formatting the whole way around.

Morals of the story: If something doesn't look right it probably isn't, and don't trust attachments from anyone.

Passwords and Credit Cards

(I thought about titling this "Playbills and Monkeys", but only Karin would get that reference.)

One of my favorite geeks, Jesper Johansson, recently wrote a 3 article series on the fact that for the general populous security is all about passwords and credit cards. And he's right, of course. One of the questions then becomes, how does one manage passwords?

Passwords should have a few qualities:

• be difficult to guess
• have a good combination of letters, numbers and special characters
• be unique to each site so an attacker can't use information learned from one site on any others

It's that last one that makes things difficult. How do you remember a separate password for every site? The answer is to use a password manager.

A password manager should have a few bits of functionality:

• Generate new passwords
• Make it easy to get the password from the app into the site
• Be portable
• Be free

The one that I use that meets all of the above is KeePass Password Safe. What's also great about KeePass is that it can run off a USB stick drive, meaning that it's portable.

The basic step is to come up with a master password which is used to encrypt the database of passwords. The main login looks like this:

The Master Password should be something good - I recommend a sentence that only you would know (a personal fact that nobody knows, an obscure movie quote, etc.). I have a personal fact that I use, and I use the finger print reader on my laptop to "type" it in. The "Key File" is the database file with all of your passwords. When you want a password, simply click on the one you want, a quick Ctl-C to copy it to the clipboard, and then paste it into the site. What's also nice is it will clear it out of the clipboard in 10 seconds to avoid any program from accessing it.

And finally, you can generate a password based on any specifications you need. (Side note to all site designers - please make it very clear what characters I can and can't use, as well as the maximum size, for all password registration screens. Thank you.)

I'd also like to mention the fact that the program is documented very well on their site.

This is a call to everyone - use strong passwords. And use a password manager. This is the one I use, but there are many others out there.

Just a little geek tip for you.

Get Mesh-ed Up

(Ok - that was bad even for me)

(Editor's note - I'm tweaking with the site at the moment (all Sarah's fault). I *think* I like the new color scheme and layout, but that may change any moment. I'm also thinking about making a geek tip a regular item on the blog - there's quite a bit out there I've been wanting to point people at, but I don't know if I have the dedication to actually make it a weekly thing.)

If you're remotely connected to the tech industry, you can't go a week without coming across someone talking about "the cloud" or "cloud computing". The basic concept is that going forward data and applications will be available through the Internet, and PC's will be relegated to simply clients to the applications in the cloud. For sure this has been a promise for quite a while, but as broadband becomes more pervasive we're starting to see an increased drive towards this model.

Towards that end, Microsoft has announced a public beta of their entry into this space called Mesh. Going forward Microsoft will be releasing more capabilities, as well as opening it up to third parties to develop applications, but right now it offers two really cool features - synchronized folders and remote access.

Synchronized folders:

Mesh gives you an "Live Desktop", which is very similar to a standard Windows desktop. The difference is that at the moment there's only folders for storage available. You are able to create folders, like a normal desktop, as well as upload files. Right now you have access to 5 gigs, but going forward that will likely be expanded or at least give you the option to pay to expand it.

The cool part is that you can create a copy of a folder from your Live Desktop on your local PC or PC's (Mac and Mobile support "coming soon"). For someone like me with two computers and who's constantly on the road, it's nice to be able to sync with my desktop back at home. Plus, there's a copy that is stored on the Mesh, which not only is accessible from anywhere that I have Internet access and a browser, but also serves as a great backup^[1] location - when you install the client (there is a piece you have to install locally) you can right click on any folder and tell it to sync with your Live Desktop.

Remote Desktop:

Quite simply, you can access your home desktop (or other connected device) from anywhere. And unlike certain solutions *cough*GoToMyPC*cough*, this is free. It's the same experience as if you were sitting there, except a little slower. You also have the ability to copy files to and from the remote system. Very cool.

If you're interested, you can check it out at www.mesh.com. You will need a Hotmail-or-Passport-or-Live account, but pretty much everyone has at least one of those.

There's your geek tip for the week.

^[1] Everyone should have backups of anything they want to keep in case of computer failure or earthquake/fire/tornado/hurricane/flood/frog plague. The backup should be somewhere other than your house. Simple solution - try Mesh!

Is AI that far off?

This may only interest me....

In case you didn't already know, I'm a bit of a geek. Ok, well, I'm a huge geek. I've had a computer in front of me in some form or fashion pretty much since I can remember. As a result, I'm fascinated with human interaction with anything artificial, if it's a computer or a robot. I wanted to buy an AIBO for the longest time (until Sony discontinued it) simply because I wanted to play with the AI built into the machine.

One of the biggest challenges besides mobility in creating robots that will become a part of everyday life is human interaction with the machine; will we as sentient beings treat a machine that is simply programmed to act sentient the same as we would another human?

According to at least this study, we will. What the researches did was placed a robot programmed to behave similar to a human into a daycare center to study how the children reacted to the robot. While at first they treated it as a normal toy, in the latter sessions they began to treat it more as a peer. When the reprogrammed the robot to act more predictable or robot like, that interaction decreased dramatically.

I'm not sure exactly what this study indicates. Does this indicate that we as humans can accept something that is designed to act as a human? Or are toddlers, whose perception of reality is still being formed, willing to accept anything that interacts with them? It's a great question, and personally I find it fascinating.

(Discovered via SciGuy's blog)

Picasa

Over the last few years, more people have begun the migration away from the classic film based camera to a digital camera. Personally, I can't imagine ever going back to a film based camera. I like to take tons of pictures, go back through and get rid of the ones that didn't come out very well, and keep the ones that did. Doing this with film becomes expensive, and probably isn't very friendly for the environment.

As a result, I have (at present) 9.7G of photos on my hard drive. I know this will expand as time goes on, and I intend to move all of our actual photos into digital form. The problem is dealing with all of these files.

The best program I have found for managing photos is Picasa. Picasa is a free (let me say that again - free) program that was written by a small company that was eventually bought out by Google.

Besides just the price point, Picasa does several things right. It's very intutive to use, allowing you to easily manage and edit your photos. In the past I have always created a new folder for set of pictures. Picasa lends itself very well for this organization, listing all folders by the date they were taken in - which is exactly what I want. (The biggest reason I don't use the Microsoft alternative is because it doesn't list my photos that way).

Picasa provides you with the ability to do simple editing, like cropping and red-eye reduction. It also allows you to easily add keywords (for easy searching) and captions (so you know what that ship was you took a photo of.)

My favorite feature by far, though, is the easy ability to upload photos. Google will give you a small amount of storage (a much larger amount is available for a nominal fee). It's easy to upload and share (or not share) pictures. Other Picasa users are also able to go to the site and download your albums, which is nice in situations where multiple people took pictures of an event and you wish to collect them all. What's also nice is it's an easy way to back up your photos, so should disaster occur (hard drive failure, fire, etc) your photos will be safe.

With the price point and features, if you don't already have something to manage your pictures, this is it.

Virus Prevention 101

While I'm here, I figured it was a good time to add one more post.

Recently I've had a spate of virus e-mails that have come in. I'm not exactly sure where it started or who's infected, but I've been getting about one a day for the past couple of weeks. Seems to me now would be a great time to review how to protect yourself from viruses.

Avoiding viruses is actually pretty straight forward if you listen to what your parents taught you about strangers as a kid.

1. Don't accept anything from someone you don't know. If you get an e-mail from someone you don't know, delete it. And, for the love of everything, don't open any attachments on it.
2. Even if you know someone, don't trust anything from them you weren't expecting. If you weren't expecting someone to send you a PDF file, don't open it.
3. If your gut tells you something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. If you get an e-mail from someone with an attachment, it only takes an extra couple of moments to ask them if they really sent it to you.
4. Don't trust links or e-mail addresses. Well, OK, so your parents probably didn't teach you this one, but it still applies. Just because an e-mail says it's from someone doesn't mean that it is. E-mail addresses are very easy to forge, so just because it says it's from your friend, coworker, bank, or eBay, doesn't mean that it is.
5. Use protection. Again, getting a little away from the strangers analogy, but you should always (regardless of the OS you are using - Mac OSX doesn't magically make you safe) have anti-virus software installed. There's a great free one available from Grisoft that I personally use. But remember, anti-virus protection is there as a safety net. You must still practice caution.

Just following that simple advice will help keep you virus-free.