DimDim

No, we're not talking about dimming the lights to save energy. Dimdim is a program with another fancy name. If you've ever used webex, you're going to like Dimdim. Working remotely is the way of the future in my opinion. Why spend hours in traffic every week, while you could have done your work from home? With todays internet speeds, it doesn't really matter if your files are in the office and your computer is at home. Of course you'll sometimes need face to face meetings, but you'll have Skype to do that. However, there are times where you need to show your colleagues what you are talking about and show a presentation or your desktop. This is where Dimdim comes in. 

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Unboxing: Holding out for a Hero

It's not easy surviving without an Iphone in a world where seemingly everyone these days is walking around with them. Everywhere you look you see the shiny metallic cases. A few feet above, sometimes right next to, aforementioned shiny cases you'll often see the inanely grinning, vaguely superior smug looking mug of the owner of the thing looking at you in a compassionate sort of way. The compassion, of course, is something that all owners of any Apple product must be familiar with - subconsciously or not. It's compassion felt for anyone not brandishing, wielding, or otherwise owning an Apple product. Surely there can be no substitute for the vaunted Iphone? Surely there can be no alternative for the app store, with it's 50 gazillion apps of many shapes and sizes?

Well. Maybe there is.

While my erstwhile companions were out of the country, I took it upon myself to sneak off and perform a tiny act of rebellion. I bought an HTC Hero. I'm sure Shizzle, the Captain and Nacho would not approve. I figured: If everyone has an Iphone, why not go against the grain just a tiny bit and see if something can even get close in functionality and style to it.

So how does it compare? Interested? Read on...

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We're sheep! Beehhh!

After a long, very long flight from Amsterdam via LA , we finally reached the Riviera Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip! We had only one day to get used to the time difference and this morning we showed up for the first sessions at Defcon.

We registered to the conference, but all we got was a paper badge.. Nothing electrical or to hack with it. The fancy badges were stuck at Chinese customs, but arrived later this day. Again, (credits to Joe) this year they are wonderful again. Shizzle is deep into I2C and 1940's microphones right now ;-)

We made it to the Wall of Sheep! Yes! We chalked our name at Defcon. Instead of using our AT&T 3G connection, we accessed our Twitter account via the Defcon Wifi network and sent our password plaintext by HTTP. Guess what?...

So that's all for the first Defcon day. Preparing for a dip in the Riviera Pool. See you tomorrow, please watch the Wall of Sheep!

A ping of death for the iPhone

The release of the 3rd generation of the iPhone was the reason for me to rush to the TMobile store to get the 32G version. I had to wait for about one week first, but finaly got one, and I love it! But there is one thing that worries me a bit. I was able to remotely drain the battery in 30-45 minutes, just by pinging the public IP address, assigned by TMobile, to the GPRS/3G interface of the phone. Is your battery draining for no reason? Is your iPhone running hot when in standby modus? Then read on...

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Flash on Fedora 11 not working?

Hello peeps!

Yes, it's been a while. Do you think only Earthlings have the right to go on vacation? Sheesh.

This post is really not worthy of being called a post. More of a quick tip, really. Something I came across when upgrading my Fedora 10 system to Fedora 11 was that my Flash no longer worked. Most readily apparent when trying any youtube video: Video would begin to play and then a fraction of a second later the video window would turn grey and all would be lost.

I checked that I had the proper flashplayer installed, which it turns out I did (fresh from Adobe's own software repository). So that couldn't be the problem. Also, this particular system on which the problem occurred was running the 32 bit Fedora 11 install, so it could have nothing to do with 64 bit issues (64 bit has caused problems in the past when running Flash).

A quick search of the trusty Internet yielded a perfect result:

Get rid of the libflashsupport package (yum erase libflashsupport) since this apparently no longer is necessary in Fedora 11 and throws a spanner into the works when it comes to Flash working properly.

After typing the above command, it worked. Like a treat..

Sometimes solutions are easy. I love it when that (occasionally) happens.

Tux lives!