Email Security With GPG Keys
When I was younger (and not quite as aware of consequences) I used to set up relay mail servers and send out perfectly spoofed mail from president@whitehouse.gov to people who made assumptions about security. My spoofs were perfect (other than the fact they did not originate from white-house IP address ranges and that the president never actually sends mail from that address). My method still easily fools Gmail spam filters and I can easily impersonate anyone I want. Problem is so can thousands ...
Making Users Think Firefox Is IE6
I have had customers... that the mere word "change" scares into tears. Some people just can not wrap their heads around concepts like Favorites being the same thing as Bookmarks. The solution? Hand them Firefox, in a way that they are not even aware you did. Everyone wins. Before you write me off as a dirty sinner... hear me out. Ever have those situations where you install a peice of software for someone for their own protection... and they uninstall it and go back to they way they were used ...
Convincing Random Polaroids with iMagick
I would love to see people using more creative dynamic graphical effects in websites, however many of them can take ages to pull off by hand. For instance, selecting 3 images from a series of folders at random, putting them all in a scene in your graphics editor of choice, adding borders, warp, dropshadow, saving it, then doing that all over and over again for hours on end, all so you could have a random photo arrangement to greet vistors to your website. This is why I love automation. PHP and ...
OpenID and why it matters
OpenID is an amazing up and coming open source ( and corporate backed ) effort to accompolish a single goal: to have one login for most websites on the internet. Thanks to services starting to adopt the OpenID protocal, the same account information you use for sites like Wordpress, Livejournal, Google, Blogger, Yahoo, AOL, AIM, MySpace (are we namedropping yet?) can now be used as OpenID logins to hundreds of other websites around the web. The way it works is a site with OpenID support alows ...
What If?
So I got a chance to play with Galatea by Emily Short, and was quickly reminded how much I love interactive fiction games. (Thanks to David Pflug for pointing me to it) I decided to share with the class. Interactive fiction games are like books or stories that you control. Think of them as text-based role playing games. They have lost popularity in recent years because people have flocked to games that do not require reading... and thinking. As a starter for those who want to dive in I present ...
DIY Nuclear Bomb
Adapted from an archive of an article by Mike Schmitt in 1996: First, obtain about 50 pounds (110 kg) of weapons grade Plutonium at your local supplier. A nuclear power plant is not recommended, as large quantities of missing Plutonium tends to make plant engineers unhappy. I suggest that you contact your local terrorist organization, or perhaps the Junior Achievement in your neighborhood. Please remember that Plutonium, especially pure, refined Plutonium, is somewhat dangerous. Wash your hands ...