I spent a week out of town. I checked in advance about broadband access where we would be staying. Yes, wireless.
So, I have my Dell Inspiron on a public wireless connection without WPA or WEP. What if I need to connect into a system at the church or do anything important on an unencrypted connection?
I have been trying out Hamachi for a while and thought this would be the perfect use. I installed it on a few different computers and registered a private encrypted virtual network.
Hamachi creates a software network connection in your Network Settings area and assignes you another IP address. You call into their server and once you join up there it connects you with the other computers signed into your network and you access them with their Hamachi IP addresses.
I was able to use Remote Desktop, view remote directories, transfer files securely. It is a bit slower since you are going through a software connection to do the encryption and then through the regular network adapter.
I have tried to use it for logging into a remote domain, but I have not been able to get it to connect before login so while I can register to the domain it does no good.
There are a several references to Hamachi on the GRC Security Now podcast.
People have long talked to the final resting places of friends or written notes to those who have passed away. Technology has unexpectedly given us another way to speak to the memories of loved ones.
After 9-11-01 I heard of a lot of people calling the cell phones of victims and listening to the voicemail greeting before leaving a message of their own as though the person would be checking their messages at any moment.
It is an odd feeling to have someone you know online pass away, especially if your only contact with them was through text. You have often written them messages not knowing if you would receive them. With the mainstreaming of blogs there are many people with an online presence separate from their physical influence so that it continues to exist long after they themselves have gone.
http://mydeathspace.com/ lists myspce members who have passed away and links to their pages where people who are mourning the loss have continued to post messages to the person they miss. Reading a few of them can really catch you. There is no real death notice. Instead, you see the settings as they left them and then look at the messages from friends to see the stark change at the date of death.
UPDATE:
I just found out that Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, died instantly from a stingray barb in his chest a few hours ago. He was one of those people that in a way you expect them to die unexpectedly, but you have this odd feeling that they are really immortal.
As I was catching up on info I noticed that I had missed the announcement about Windows Vista RC1. I quickly logged into my Hotmail account I have registered for my Microsoft login and noticed that I had received an email last monday with a link and a warning that it was only available for the first 100,000 downloaders.
I was too late!!!
I’m never taking a vacation again. Well, that may be a bit much. I think I might see about having that homtail stuff go to my catchall gmail account.
We arrived back from vacation this afternoon. The nice thing about living in Florida is that a beach vacation doesn’t require too long of a drive. We stayed down the coast a ways and although the Shuttle launch we hoped to see was canceled due to Tropical Wind Gust Ernesto we did have a good time.
Our room was right next to the main office so the one wireless access point for the entire building was just on the other side of the wall. Unfortunately it needed to be reset at least once each day and I got tired of having to ask them to do it so I was without access much of the time.
As with most vacations, the ripple effect on my work went back a week before I left to make sure everything was ready and will be effecting me in the week to come, but I do have some stuff ready to post.