Pisay Homecoming 2006

Yoda Backpack

I couldn’t help but post it for I was so fascinated with this Yoda Plush Backpack from ThinkGeek:

Another plus for my wishlist!

Freedom

Too much of anything is bad right? So, is it bad for a system to have too much freedom? For me, maybe yes..maybe no.

But wait, is there really a concept of freedom? Absolute or just relative?

On Security and Technology (OST?)

For some reason, I was so absorbed or interested lately on security issues. To start with my “craves”, this was the topic that my group reported for a Networking class. As always, I had made it in a multi-perspective way – by showing all the possible circumstances that can happen in the real world (thanks to an ACM resource) ranging from various operating systems to web services such as Google. ISAW was also mentioned and the issues on Java vs PHP as a choice for web programming was stated as well. Being a member of the UP ACM Java SIG, obviously I promoted the former because I’ve used it since high school, it’s more convenient, portable, and add to it the power of being secure as compared to other programming languages. I haven’t tried Ruby yet but I will in the near future..

Speaking of Google, yesterday I’ve tried Freenigma on GMail. Freenigma is a privacy technology that can be used on a webmail service. It uses one of the popular cryptographic software packages in the world: the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). Setting up Freenigma can be done in just a minute or two (YMMV, of course) – you only need to follow these steps on how to get an account and a GMail cryptography plugin. It’s awesome!

Well, sometimes temptation gets on my nerves on discovering security vulnerabilities. I guess, I would just consider myself ranging from a white hat to a gray one. For hardcore hackers, how about this one?:

If the Mac’s market share is five percent, then shouldn’t it have five percent of the viruses? It ought to have seen 5,700 viruses last year, not zero. Clearly, there’s something else at work here, and I’ll tell you what it is: Mac OS X is simply harder to hack.

and..

I believe that Windows Vista will be about as secure as Mac OS X, because Microsoft has closed most or all of the weaknesses I’ve just described.

Since UP ACM’s currently a side event exhibitor in the coming Philippine Youth Congress for Information Technology (Y4iT), we’ll be having an OS ShowDown for the participants – it’s up to them to choose their paths on desktop usage and software development. I just hope that problems will not “mushroom out” during our configuration of the machines before the actual event. No, better wait for the actual details of our side event some time later (to add a little suspense) . Of course, Linux and maybe Solaris will also be included in the exhibit so stay tuned for updates!

UP ACM 3rd General Assembly, ‘06-’07

Iwas-Pusoy

While I was cramming a PI100 requirement, I was listening to the House ‘Pikunan’ Session too. It’s not only an informative one (‘iwas-pusoy’ is a new term for me), but it was also an entertaining scenery just like this one. I was too absorbed to the ’show’ but eventually, I returned back to finish my paper.

If I only had the time, I would have noted a lot of unforgettable lines such as: “Mr. Speaker, you’re killing me softly.”

As always…ang pikon ay laging talo…pa rin.

Software breaks

I’ve just revived my Ubuntu Dapper installation (fresh install using the ShipIt CD) – it went bonkers after having the xserver-xorg update. Actually, the update icon was there for a day or two already but the wrong step I had made (in fact, i know that xserver is a critical package) was to have the update installed without checking the forums! You can find the result of that decision in this Ubuntu forum thread. The thing is, I go to about 4-5 forumboards a day either by getting directly to its website or via RSS feeds; definitely, I had missed this one. Having forumboards is one way how Linux promotes community collaboration.

Good thing I have partitioned my hard drive into / and /home and the upgrade was very neat and easy. Differentiating it from Microsoft Windows, in my opinion, with Linux or Mac – you get to experience a new filesystem simply without reformatting the whole disk or overwriting it with the OS. The / partition was reformatted and /home was left untouched.

If you’re thinking on dual-booting with Vista, you might wanna try reading the article on How Vista screws dual-booting nirvana.

Taxi and Restaurant Terrorism

Taking up the term “terrorism” from a Philstar article, it’s true that it also exists too in the restaurant setting. Some hours ago, I was informed by a friend who had a bad experience on going to a Japanese fastfood in SM North Edsa. Good thing, some days ago, we (with my Dilnet friends) decided to have lunch (the actual plan was to go to Engg canteen or “cart” only) not in that fastfood, but in a nearby one instead who has tortillas in their menu. Well, that lunch lasted for about 2-3 hours. Haha.

Now, that Japanese fastfood is blacklisted in my set of preferences. I wouldn’t even dare to eat in that place! How about you?

In the case of taxis, it’s really hard to face the truth. Imagine having an experience where you’re in a hurry to get to your destination and your face emits the same expression, the driver starts to ask you: “Ser/Mam, pwedeng pa-gas lang po?“. And before you can even decline, he’s already taking the right turn to the gasoline station. Some additional cases were noted in this blog.

Need I say more?

IRC on paper

Believe it or not, we used to do this crazy thing way back in our elementary years! From what I can remember, everything was logged in a “special notebook”.

Spymac

All of my Spymac accounts were gone already due to some Club membership complications. I wasn’t notified of any updates regarding the change of their email service conditions whatsoever – I just noticed that one of my messages bounced back and I guess, there’s no way of getting it back except to upgrade my membership there or use Paypal stuff. It has been a great service though (like the forums..).

Anyways, kindly update your addressbooks.