Cussedness
The natural cussedness of things in general.
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Securing MAMP
MAMP is a really easy way of running recent versions of Apache, PHP and MySQL on your Mac for development purposes, something that can take quite a lot of effort if you attempt to set things up on your own. There is one major drawback, however: the default install is really rather insecure, with Apache serving pages up to all and sundry, including the configuration sections of the install, meaning that anyone who happens to spot that port 80 is open can do things like drop databases at will, which would be somewhat irritating to say the least. This tutorial from Eric Keil covers some techniques for securing everything, but I went about it a little differently. (more…)
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Y-Cam Black Wireless Night-vision IP Camera Review
In response to a previously related incident involving the security of our postal delivery arrangements, I recently invested in a Y-Cam Black. I have had suspicions regarding the moral integrity of some of the regular users of the footpath that runs past our house for a while now, but the theft of sixteen Chuck Ds worth of train tickets confirmed them. In an effort to thwart any further attempts at stealing my possessions via this particular method, I moved our postbox inside our front porch, and affixed the Y-Cam Black in a suitable position to monitor both the box and any parcels placed on the floor inside. Triggered by the motion activation feature built into the camera, it uploads still pictures to an FTP server whenever anyone enters the porch. This arrangement allows me to see any activity related to postal deliveries to my property, and, potentially, any criminal efforts on the part of the mentally subnormal, mail-bothering yokels that frequent our lane.
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Windows Mobile 5 WPA Key Input
I just acquired a new smartphone, with all the bells and whistles, including WiFi capablility, and upon trying to connect to my office network I discovered a particularly stupid piece of GUI design: it is impossible to paste a network key into the wireless key input box. You are forced to type it in manually. If, like me, you have a stupidly long and meaningless 63 character key for security and paranoia purposes, this is rather a pain. In combination with the fact that the input is completely replaced by asterisks it’s borderline impossible. After about four attempts to input my key manually, I gave up and formulated an alternative solution.
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