Dave’s Lab

And Behind Door #1....

your new car!
 
2003 Mazda Protege5 with 70k miles on it. Runs smooth and great Mazda
handling. I'm so happy with this car. Also, check out the great guys
at FBN Auto in Highland Park, NJ. Super, super helpful and nice.
 
http://www.fbnautosales.com/

Steve Wozniak on Hacking, Entrepreneurship, and What is Most Important

Of all the titles I could apply to myself, the sexiest sounding would probably be "hacker." Hackers are, at their core, people who just aren't satisfied with the default state of the world around them. We see something that's less than what it could be, and we try to fix or "hack" it. Like most hackers, my worldview has always been slightly skewed in this way, to always look at broken things and desire to fix them. On a small scale, this can mean taking apart toasters, jailbreaking your iPhone, or reading binaries in hex. On larger scale, fixing what is broken can mean starting a foundation to find a cure for AIDS, discovering tomorrow's ubiquitous energy solution, or creating the next social web phenomenon. The truest hackers find joy in the process, not necessarily the solution, so tinkering to our own needs is often sufficient. However, when the needs of particularly Jedi-like hacker meets the needs of the greater community, amazing things can happen.

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qHighlight! - The First Project Out of Dave's Lab.com

(You can skip all this emotional gobbledy-gook below by going below the fold) Starting from when I first started playing around with making websites, I had dreams of owning my own dot com website. Initially, I was just using Front Page to place some files onto a free web account, which I believe was on Lycos' Tripod, now out of business. Later a friend of mine who owned a dedicated server was nice enough to give me a little space, and I continued to play with these emerging technologies. Only this time, I didn't have ads on my page! While I was excited by the prospect of having my own websites, the strongest description I could give to these efforts is "dabbling." In college, however, I returned to my old curiosity and started to code HTML by hand. Unlike before, I now had access to awesome computers all over my campus and a smokin' broadband internet connection, as well as one tiny programming course under my belt. I dove right on in and became immersed. Armed with 100 MB on my college's web server and the kind help of my college webmaster, I had free reign to learn HTML, PHP, CSS, Javascript, MySQL, etc etc.

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A Fun Riddle from a Test Long Past...

So I once had to take this test for a company I was interviewing with. It was mainly about logic, some Math and English concepts, and programming fun. However, there was this one question, which I initially answered incorrectly, that I found so fun and interesting that I wrote it down on a napkin and have been showing it to friends since I took the test.

I thought I'd the take the time out here and post it. Think you know the answer? Post it in the comments:

All of the following answers refer to the other possible answers to this question. Which statement is true?

a) All the statements below this one are true.
b) None of the statements below this one are true.
c) All of the statements above this one are true.
d) One of the statements above this one is true.
e) None of the statements above this one are true.
f) None of the statements above this one are true.

(Yes, (e) and (f) say the same thing).

Tips for Installing Windows 7 Beta on Your iMac

For my Mac brethren who are excited about Microsoft's latest OS offering, and would like to get your hot little hands on the beta of Windows 7, I have some advice for you. I spent much time between Saturday and Sunday trying to both get and install the latest Windows 7 beta. While I must admit that most of the problems I encountered were the fault of my own moronic tendencies, I have some advice to proffer:

• The Boot Camp assistant works out very nicely. Just use it like you would to install Windows XP or Vista using Apple's provided documentation. They recommend that you print it out, but I didn't find it necessary. I guess it depends on how much you can remember.
• The most frustrating part was trying to download Windows 7, I must say. I initially got a direct link download from Lifehacker(http://lifehacker.com/5128193/how-to-get-your-windows-7-beta-product-key), which was working fine for several hours (it is ~3 GBs after all), but then my router had to be reset and I lost the download. I then found out that even after going to the legitimate site for getting a copy of Windows 7, it *would not* download on my Mac. I found out via some blogging that you need to run a sort of Java/ActiveX (not sure which) app called the Akamai Download Manager, and (get this) it ONLY RUNS ON WINDOWS. Therefore, you need a copy of Windows to download Windows 7. I think that's pretty dumb on Microsoft's part, and I'm sure there's a way around it, but I decided to just download it on my other Windows machine. Also, using the Akamai download manager allows you features like pause/resume if the connection konks out, so that is a plus.
• Note: I downloaded the 64 bit version of Windows 7, which works fine, but I later found out that installing the Boot Camp utilities and drivers *within Windows* later will not work. I would suggest going for the 32 bit, quite frankly. At this point, it's not worth the headache.
• Note 2: Also, make sure to *write down* your product key. You will need it on hand later, when you can't boot into your Mac.
• I found that a partition size of 30 GBs works out pretty well. You should be informed that by default, Windows 7 will take up about 16 GBs. I did run into some problems in resizing my partitions and changing the Master Boot Record. I got an error that recommended that I should make a copy of my native disk, resize the partitions, and THEN put the disk image back on! What a hassle! The underlying problem I found out, was that it's hard for the computer to resize your partitions if you have several really large files, such as ones greater than several hundred megabytes. I had quite a few of these kinds of files, actually, with my several VMWare images and dozens of movies I've ripped from Handbrake. Once I moved these onto an external hard drive, I could *finally* resize the hard drive. So, have a heads up if you have lots of big files.
• After the drive has been partitioned, it's pretty much smooth sailing. When you run the Windows installer from Boot Camp Assistant (don't worry, you won't have to hold the <Option> key to boot from CD at any time during the install process, it should do it automatically), make sure you select the partition with the name "BOOT CAMP" prominently displayed, as per the Apple documentation.
• One thing that might stump you at this stage is that when you select the Boot Camp partition, it will tell you that you can't install Windows 7 on this partition because it's not formatted in NTFS. No problem. If you select the partition, then click "Options" or "More" (I admit I can't remember), the Windows installer will give you the option of formatting the drive. Just click "Format" and then you'll be able to install happily.
• After about an hour, and a few restarts, you should be ready and roaring to go. Some almost universal issues people seem to be encountering are covered in these next two links. They have to do with audio not working (happened to me) and the Boot Camp installer not starting (did not happen to me). As I mentioned before, try to install the 32 bit version, the 64 bit has some weird issues that are annoying to get around:
  
  http://techiemusings.typepad.com/techie_musings/2008/10/running-windows-7-pdc-build-on-a-mac-with-boot-camp.html http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1842538&tstart=0
  
• My final note, even after installing the Boot Camp tools successfully in Windows, you should still get the latest version (2.1) directly from Apple's website here:
  
  http://support.apple.com/downloads/Boot_Camp_Update_2_1_for_Windows_Vista_32
  
  After that, you should a great working version of Windows 7. Happy installing!

Behold, Ye, the Definition of "Price Gauging"

Buy from Verizon: $70
Buy from anywhere online: $10
Screwed person: the consumer

Wanna See More of My News Commentary? Check Out Technologizer.com

This fall I was granted the tremendous honor of becoming a blogger for an actually reputable tech news site. Not only that, but I was also told by my editor that I would paid!

Thoughts on the Reaction to Google Chrome

It has been a week since Google released their addition to the web browser market, Google Chrome. In case you've been in a coma for the last seven days or turned off the RSS feeds for any tech site on the internet (I wouldn't blame you), Chrome is based on WebKit, the same spectacular rendering engine behind Safari, Adobe AIR, the Google Android browser, the iPhone, and a few other projects. Also, much like WebKit, Google is open sourcing almost all of the work that they've done on the browser, including new additions to the framework like their Javascript virtual machine called V8. They have also included a way for outside developers to contribute to the project via Google Chromium. This is to be commended in my view, because many other open source projects sponsored by big companies, do not allow developers to contribute to the product. Google has released this product only for Windows users, for now, but they intend to release versions for Linux and Mac. This is to be expected of course, since WebKit is, after all, largely developed by Apple and we've seen ports of the engine ported to Linux in some upcoming projects. The real problem right now is that they're trying to finalize UI (user interface) and integration designs, which, quite frankly, I don't mind them taking their sweet time on. Too often, open source projects get way too excited about the idea of the project, rather than the people who will be using it, and, as a result, user interface in open source projects falls to the wayside. To be clear, this is purely my opinion, but I strongly believe that software is inspiring and worth spending my life studying, using, and making because of people, not in spite of them. Now, I know that this post, so far, is off topic from my stated mission of helping you with your computer problems. I promise that I am working on a way to make many, many more tips available, in shorter write-ups, so you'll see more content coming at you soon. However, I was so interested by Google's efforts in Chrome and what it could mean for the rest of us, and was so frustrated by journalists' coverage of the event, that I felt compelled to put my thoughts out there. So, here goes. Following the advice of Henry McCracken, formerly of PC World and now founder of Technologizer, you can put almost anything in a list, so why not my contentions? Here are my problems with most news analyses of Google Chrome.

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SuperGenPass: Clicking Your Way to Better Passwords

For the first few years of my life on a computer, I knew almost nothing about security. I built my first desktop PC at age 15 and I loved it. I was cheap, so I put Windows XP Home on it, ignoring the warnings of my older and wiser geek friend about XP Professional vs Home. I turned it on, happily clicked the seemingly-smiling blue E icon on my desktop, and blazed about the interweb on my 56K connection. I paid no intention to passwords, firewalls, antivirus software (I knew about it, but remember, I was cheap), or anything resembling safe browsing habits. Several nasty trojans and something called the "Zlob worm" later, I started to take what you might call a mild interest in security. Almost 7 years later, I have become a security freak and find myself evangelizing about the latest and greatest security practices and products. Security Now on the TWiT Podcasting network is one of my favorite podcasts and an excellent resource for the security-concious. However, it was only until recently that I started taking the notion of secure passwords seriously. While I have certainly changed my outlook on the value of computer security, I have stayed cheap, and I have been extremely reluctant to spend money on a good password generation and management application such as RoboForm or 1Password. Yet, as of late, I have found a great way to manage and create secure passwords within one's browser. And it is free.

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Backing Up Any Email Account with Gmail

So I was listening to Buzz Out Loud yesterday and it was mentioned that one of the listeners received his email from his Internet Service Provider (ISP), but was incredibly disappointed when his ISP's email servers failed and they did not have a backup! Of course, this meant that he had lost his email with no recourse to get it back. This got me thinking as to how one could backup his/her email to another service in case of a massive fail by an ISP. As I started to do some research around this, I realized that the easiest resource was staring me in the face as I checked my own email: Gmail!

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