[FSF]: Stand up for your freedom to install free software

Stand up for your freedom to install free software — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software.

When done correctly, “Secure Boot” is designed to protect against malware by preventing computers from loading unauthorized binary programs when booting. In practice, this means that computers implementing it won’t boot unauthorized operating systems — including initially authorized systems that have been modified without being re-approved.

The biggest issue with the “Secure Boot” system, is that it’ll create a vendor-lockin. This has been seen with the android system as well, but it’ll be Microsft pulling the strings on this one.

Some other interesting reads on Secure Boot:

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/09/windows-8-secure-boot-will-complicate-linux-installs.ars

http://www.osnews.com/story/25180

Time Wasters – Part2

Well, this is part 2 of a series of time wasting websites I started here.

In what year will the earth seize to exist? – Pick a date.

You know them, the movies and books about the end of time…
But do you know all references? This website lists them out for you so you can just pick a date as you please 🙂

http://web.me.com/lorenmadsen/endings/pick_a_year.html

Play Rock-Paper-Scissors against AI

Ever wondered how good you are in the game rock-paper-scissors?
Test your skills and go against a well trained computer-bot (Artificial Intelligence)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html

Barbie gone bad!

Barbie has always been the perfect blonde… Or that’s what the company wanted you to believe.
Here are the unseen and uncensored pictures of this young blonde girl gone wrong. Well I wonder how much hit’s I get on this previous sentence. 🙂

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marielclayton/

Do nothing for 2 minutes

Would you want/need to spend 2 minutes doing nothing?
This site can be used as a relaxing tool to help you succeed doing absolutely nothing.

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

Stuff On My Cat

A website full of images from cats with stuff on them.
No, not a cheeseburger…
Be careful… there are quite a lot of times you can press “next”.

http://www.stuffonmycat.com

Time Wasters – Part1

We all know how easy it is to lose track of time while surfing the awesome internet.
During the last months, I’ve been bookmarking some of the most useless sites that I came across. (Without a reason at that time)
Now I have this folder full of time-wasting websites sitting in my toolbar and wondered whether to delete it or keep it…
So I came up with the brilliant idea of putting the list up here for later referral whilst sharing it with you 🙂 That’s double karma!
Here we go.

Uncomfotable Moments With Putin

Although I think there could be wound up a lot more of pictures, it’s already an awesome concept.

http://uncomfortablemomentswithputin.tumblr.com/

 

What’s Osama Bin Watchin’?

On this page you can enter any youtube video and make Osama Bin Laden watch it.
You can make the old man watch Justin Bieber for over a few hours if you’d like 🙂

http://www.tomscott.com/osama/

 

Kim Jong-Il looking at things

No need to explain the content of this page.
It’s better populated than the Putin page and has a higher rofl count.

http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/

 

Your Mom Was Hot

Have you ever seen the hot-or-not page’s? Well, this is like one of them, but with an extra requirement…

Was your Mom hot? Or your kid’s mom, or your grandmom, or your friend’s mom, etc…Click submit to send us a photo because let’s face it, before your Mom was just your Mom… Your Mom Was Hot!

http://www.yourmomwashot.com/

 

 Just Add Balls

Not sure whether I should call this funny or 200% wasted time… But anyhow, the title itself made me lol at least a bit.

Everything is better with balls in it!

http://justaddballs.tumblr.com/

 

Those were the first five links,
keep an eye open for the upcoming stuff.

If you have some awesome time wasting links yourself, share them in the comment section.

Must see documentary on Privacy [Dutch]

Yesterday there was this documentary on the state of the internet, privacy and security (in Belgium).
The  idea was based on David Bond‘s movie/experiment “Erasing David“.

Dirk Leestmans (journalist) hired a private security audit and asked him to hack Freek Braeckman‘s computer and bank account within the next three days.

Dirk also goes deeper on the different used technologies applied by the Belgian Police force to track people.

Watch the video:

http://www.deredactie.be/permalink/1.1014456

Who’s there? – Invalid ssh user

So, It’s been a while since I’ve set up my home server to use it as a swiss army knife at home and on the road.
Now I was wondering on the system’s integrity.
First step was checking /var/log/auth.log
To do some quick’n’dirty check I’ve ran the following command

grep “Invalid user” /var/log/auth.log | less

Continue reading Who’s there? – Invalid ssh user

Open Data in the city of Ghent

Yesterday was my first visit to a GentM event.
The topic of the evening: “Open Data”. (Someone even mentioned Smart Cities)

Someone (didn’t catch the name) talked about the digitalized University Library Ghent.
They pointed out that they’ve already gathered a lot of data and made it publicly available.
On the top of their homepage, there’s a link to available downloads and API’s for the people wanting to be creative with their data.

Next up was Pieter Colpaert, the father of the famous iRail going for word domination.
Pieter explained how iRails started, how they do it, and their goal (which is world domination).
His presentation:

After the awesome talk of Pieter, the microphone was passed on to Bart Rosseau.
Bart works as the Strategic Communication Advisor for the city.
He shared the view of the city on Open Data and what they want and will do for the public.
He noted that it’s obviously not as simple as just opening everything up to everyone, as there are privacy concerns etc…
He promised that there will be data available starting somewhere in the middle of May on http://gent.be/open
Probably on the 14th of May (source: appsforghent.be)
His presentation:

It’s not clear on which data will be placed in the public domain and/or under which license the data will be put.
So let’s keep our eyes open for changes on the http://www.gent.be/open page.

After his talk I’m glad I can conclude that there’s awareness on Open Data and Open Source within the city ​​council.

New items on my wishlist

Thanks to Zhann, whom pointed out to these 2 fine books, my wishlist got (even) longer.

1. Time management

This collection of time management tools addresses the very specific needs of embattled system administrators everywhere. Bestselling author Thomas Limoncelli shows you how to manage interruptions, eliminate timewasters, prioritize based on customer expectations, automate processes for faster execution, and much more. It’s the first step to a more productive, happier you.

Time management

2. UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook!

This twentieth anniversary edition of the world’s best-selling UNIX system administration book has been made even better by adding coverage of the leading Linux distributions: Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

This book approaches system administration from a practical perspective and is an invaluable reference for both new administrators and experienced professionals. It details best practices for every facet of system administration, including storage management, network design and administration, email, web hosting, scripting, software configuration management, performance analysis, Windows interoperability, virtualization, DNS, security, management of IT service organizations, and much more.

UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook!

So, mom if you read this and you’d like to surprise me with something… This is it!!! You know I love you! 😉