Wireless email security compromised

October 21st, 2006 at 13:33 · Filed Under Call Me a Geek · 1 Comment 

Yesterday I went out (and drove) alone for the first time after my eye surgery to meet up with a client and to get some chores done. After all these running about, I met up with my co-workers who were on their way back to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore. Together with them, tucked a young IT executive, Darren, together with his brand new Mac Book Pro. Darren was a fresh graduate from Malaysia. We went to have some drinks at Coffee Beans at Mahkota Parade.

After we ordered some drinks, Darren took out his shining Mac Book Pro and began downloading emails. Because my team was on a project involving Darren and his client, he willingly shared with us the email from his client. The email contained some confidential information about their project in plain text. Because of my involvement in the security issues of the project, I asked Darren if his email is secured. To my surprised, he told me it was not necessary to be secured because it was difficult to hack on wireless. Oh my god!

I quickly lectured my team and Darren about security and setup secured wireless email on his Mac Book Pro. Security is utmost priority in this project. If the security has been compromised, the contract will be terminated immediately.

I think it’s time for me to raise awareness of wireless email security. Read on.

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重出江湖！

October 21st, 2006 at 9:37 · Filed Under Chinese, Days in My Life, Family, Karate, Medical · Comment 

哈！有一个多月没有在此发牢骚了。自从我的眼睛动手术了之后，中文输入法有点嘛烦。中文字的笔画好难看的清楚。现在手术了之后一个月，虽然右眼视觉还没有完全恢复，还是可以看的清楚。

我右眼的视网膜剥落。那时有点害怕『武功』从此废了！发生之前，没有半点预兆。现在想回，真是感慨万千。唉，人生无常。

还好，医生说现在我可以如常活动，也可以练习空手道，但是不可以练搏击，也不可以飞。

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Protected: A tiny birthday party

October 20th, 2006 at 22:34 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, Photography · Enter your password to view comments. 

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Protected: Nik in the car seat

October 20th, 2006 at 19:23 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Dmitry, Dominik, Family · Enter your password to view comments. 

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3 weeks after surgery

October 15th, 2006 at 14:24 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Family, Medical · 2 Comments 

Most of the redness on the white has diminished. The far right corner of my eye still can see some redness. I believe this is where the scleral buckle located. Scleral buckling is a tiny sponge or silicon plastic used to sewn in place on the outside of the eye to help holding the retinal in place.

I can see through my right eye that the air bubble in my eye is getting smaller. I still have not regain my vision completely. All I see are lights and features are not distinct.

If I turn my head a lot, I will get dizziness because of the wobbling air bubble that distorts lights. I have to avoid shopping where I have to navigate through crowds and racks. Not a nice place to go.

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Tunnel X over SSH

October 14th, 2006 at 23:41 · Filed Under Call Me a Geek, Computing, Hacking, Linux, Mac OS X · 8 Comments 

The drawback of Remote Desktop Login I posted 2 days ago is its slow speed. It takes a while to display the desktop login screen. Another drawback is it creates another X session at the server if you already have another running.

My laziness and desire to start up applications and finish the job quickly makes me look further into the world of remote access. This leads me to X tunneling over SSH.

With X tunneling over SSH, I am able to run X applications (Linux FC5) on my preferred Mac OS X desktop, Pluto. The screenshot shows that I am running KDE Control Center (Linux FC5 on triton1) on Pluto (Mac OS X).

This is how I do it:

  1. ForwardX11 needs to be enable. Edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config. Make sure you have ForwardX11Trusted yes is enabled in ssh_config.
  2. On Mac OS X, start X11. At terminal, type 
    $ ssh -X username@ip_address
  3. Start any X applications you like.

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ISP anger!

October 14th, 2006 at 22:40 · Filed Under Critiques · Comment 

My broadband connection was down since October 13, 0009 hours. I reported a few times to my ISP, tmnet streamyx, and I was told that their authentication servers were down. It affected some users nationwide.

I was furious because that supposed to be 24/7 service and such a long downtime was not acceptable as a standard. I was also surprised that they did not have any redundant system. How can a national largest ISP carrier have not setup a redundant system? Or simply their staff do not know what is redundant system?

The service was restored this evening. I don’t know what time. I was out of my house from 1630 till 1945.

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Remote Desktop Login from Mac

October 12th, 2006 at 23:06 · Filed Under Call Me a Geek, Computing, Hacking, Linux, Mac OS X · 9 Comments 

Some friends told me the laziest programmer is the best and most creative programmer. When a person becomes older, he/she will become lazier.

Remote Desktop Login has been out there for some time ago. I did not try it. Remote Desktop Control has been useful for me occasionally. I had a bad experience with RDC when my Linux server crashed in early September. I was RDC from my SPARC/Solaris workstation. I stopped using RDC since then.

One drawback about RDC is that I have to login before I can access the desktop remotely.

Because of my eye condition, I feel lazy to switch between keyboards and mice and running from one room to another. I decided to check out Remote Desktop Login. It took me a while to understand. But after I tried it out, it was pretty easy though.

Here’s how I do it to login to SPARC/Solaris. Launch X11 from Mac OS X then

$ xhost +ip_address
$ Xnest :1 -query ip_address -geometry 1280x1024

According to some documentation, it is required to configure gdm on Linux boxes. I used the following to configure FC 5 (Fedora Core 5) box:

  1. Edit /etc/gdm/custom.conf
  2. Add RemoteGreeter=/usr/libexec/gdmlogin to [daemon] segment
  3. Under [xdmcp] segment, change the line Enable=false to Enable=true
  4. Restart gdm

With Remote Desktop Login, I don’t have to login before I remotely access the PC. It has also save me some money for investing in a KVM switch. I was thinking about hooking up some of my computers with a KVM switch. It will still be a mess with all the cables despite of its pricy tag. Remote Desktop Login is the best method for me at this moment. It allow me to become lazier because I no longer need to login at computers which I want access. I can login remotely, simple!

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AdrianHoe.com powered by WordPress

October 12th, 2006 at 11:28 · Filed Under Blogging, Business, General, Web · 7 Comments 

I was just wanting to try out WordPress, a blogging script that was installed on web server, to see if it was any better than Blogger. I installed WordPress to AdrianHoe.com root directory and started to mingle with it. After less than an hour of mingling, I started to love WordPress.

I did not expect to start using WordPress right away. I ended up redesigning AdrianHoe.com business website using WordPress. I find it easier to design and maintain web contents using WordPress.

Here’s the screenshot after the redesign:

I have installed WordPress Database Backup plugin and have my database backup. I will not import my existing personal blogs to WordPress until I am more convinced and comfortable with WordPress.

WordPress is more flexible, powerful and faster than Blogger for sure.

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Assurance from Honda

October 12th, 2006 at 11:22 · Filed Under Autos, Critiques · Comment 

A Honda representative called again a minute ago. He promised that the part will be sent to Melaka today and I could have my problem fixed by tomorrow.

UPDATE (October 20, 2006 1030 hrs) :
The Melaka service center called yesterday to inform me about the arrival of my warranty claim. I went to the center today and had the door rubber seal changed. There was a week of delay from date Honda promised. However, the rubber had been changed but the service center did not clean the carpet for me. Their excuse was that they did not have the spray. I insisted and finally they told me to wait for the next heavy rain to see if there was no more leaking. It was fair enough and I agreed. I hope there will be heavy down pour within a week or two.

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Honda warranty anger!

October 12th, 2006 at 10:21 · Filed Under Autos, Critiques · 3 Comments 

My Honda City is still under the 3-year warranty and there is a leak at left rear passenger side. Every each time when it rains heavily, water will flood the left rear passenger compartment.

Monday July 24, I sent my car back to Kah Motor, Honda 3S dealer in Melaka, to check. The technician at Kah Motor confirmed it was the fault of the door rubber and he filed a warranty claim for me. He told me that I had to wait for 2 weeks. 2 weeks? That’s too long for a part and my car could become a mobile pond on the road!

No choice and I had to wait. I then sent my car for regular service on August 3 and I asked them when I could get my door fixed. They told me Honda Malaysia had no stock. That’s a ridiculous lie I ever heard. How in the hell can Honda Malaysia have no stock?

I waited again and I finally lost my patience again. I called Honda Malaysia on its toll free (1-800-88-2020) on August 25 and they promised me they would call back. They did in less than an hour. The representative from Honda Malaysia told me they would look into this matter and check with Kah Motor Melaka and promised me someone from Kah Motor would call me back. And they did after a while. They asked what kind of problem I had. It seemed like they were not aware of my claim. How could this happen? Honda Malaysia had got my claim in their computer system and Kah Motor was the one who filed my warranty on July 24.

Because of the arrival of Dominik, I was busy at home and had to time to think about this problem until last night. We were out in the car last night and my wife smelled some moistness. She reminded me and I quickly checked the carper. It was wet! Flooded because of heavy down pour on Tuesday morning.

I called Honda Malaysia again today and I gave them one week to fix my problem and to clean up my carpet. Otherwise, I will write a complaint to Honda Japan. Let see how fast they will resolve my case.

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2 weeks after surgery

October 9th, 2006 at 19:03 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Family, Medical · Comment 

This is how my eye looks like 2 weeks after the surgery. The redness is gradually diminishing. Both pupils are not aligning properly and I hope it is the air bubble that causes the misalignment.

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Jabra BT110 and Skype on Mac OS X

October 4th, 2006 at 23:23 · Filed Under Call Me a Geek, Computing, Hacking, Mac OS X · Comment 

I tried to pair my Bluetooth headset, Jabra BT110, on my G3 iBook a few months ago but was not successful. I was using Tiger and Skype prior to version 1.5.x.

With my new Mac Mini, it does not come with a microphone and I have not been able to have audio Skype then. I suddenly thought of giving it a try a few minutes ago and it worked! Now, I am able to have audio Skype with friends and co-workers.

I am using Skype 1.5.0.80 on Mac OS X 10.4.7. Here are screenshots of my Bluetooth and Skype preference.

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A week after my surgery

October 1st, 2006 at 17:38 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Family, Medical · Comment 

This is my eye a week after the surgery. The thick red mucus is subsiding and I begin to feel irritation on my eye ball. I think it is due to sutures on my eye ball.

It is suffering to lay down and sleep only on my left side. Another two more days before my doctor examine my eye. I hope he will tell me I can sleep as usual and not so much of laying down in the day time.

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Fearless

October 1st, 2006 at 12:20 · Filed Under Karate · 2 Comments 

Fear is the greatest enemy for a martial artist. Typical fears a karate-ka faces in kumite are the fear of injuries and the fear of losing. In real life, typical fear a martial artist faces is death!

If one is able to control fear, he/she can become fearless fighting machines. Fear is a psychological agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. Fear is a psychological barrier for most karate-ka.

My recent ordeal has opened my mind to recognize and to accept fear. Although my experience did not involve death, but it was kind of adjacent to death. This is the first time in my life to undergo surgery. I would not say I was fearless but I had managed to control my fear. My ordeal enabled me to recognize real fear and provided an opportunity to train myself to control fear.

Of course, it is not necessary to have the same or worst experience like mine to learn about fear and controlling them. There are other ways about it.

Before this, I have talked to a friend of mine, Bharatheesh, from India. He is doing a research in psychology for karate. He is now testing his theories in real training and has received positive results.

I am writing a paper about the science of karate. The paper was originally to discuss about kinesiology, economy of motion and medical implication of karate techniques. Now, I wish to include psychology into my paper. Fear is an important element in karate training but it is missing from most karate training I have seen or experienced.

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