This is what happen..!

I dipped my toe in Android land

I’ve been using a Google Nexus One phone since 3 days. I’m using it exclusively, keeping my iPhone 3GS without a sim card and power off at home. This is a nice experience because I was always curious about this new phone os. I never tried version 1.x, so I can’t tell how much it evolve since day one. What I can say for now, I like it. But there are a few things that I would like to point out.

• Keyboard layout needs a bit of getting use to. This is probably due to the fact that I’m coming from an iPhone and I’m used to it’s layout.
• This one bugs me a lot, I can’t change the language while in a text box. I speak french and english, and I write email / im / sms in both language. While typing, the dictionary / replacing tends to slow me down.
• Android market, there is a lot of good apps, not as much a on the iPhone, all seem free at first. I found out that some apps have a pro version, but where do I buy..? It looks like every dev needs to sell their apps from there own website.

Other than that, I’ve been using DoubleTwist to drop music and video from my iTunes. And it works great.

Weewar Stats

For almost a year, I’ve been playing Weewar, an online game based on Advanced War for the Nintendo DS.  It’s a turn base game that you receive email when it’s your turn to play. It got chat, around 12 types of units, air, land and sea, it’s really cool and fun.  You should try it.  I’m “optikz” in the game, friend me up and let’s play.

This post is not to gain friends on the game, but to promote a web app that I’ve been working on.  I used to use a Greasemonkey script to gather stats while playing.  This was nice, but I sometime played from other computers that I do not fully control.  That’s where my new web app comes in handy.  It gives me almost the same stats as de GM script, but on a website with an iFrame at the bottom with the game I’m playing.

It’s been really fun to work on, I hope it will gain popularity.

Here’s the link:  http://weestats.com

Jolicloud on my Sony Vaio P

Well my Vaio P has been gathering dust from quite some time now. I’ve stop using it as it was too slow and even in Linux, I wasn’t really satisfied. I’ve been waiting for some time to try something new on it, but the Intel GMA500 video card is kind of keeping me away from a lot of distro / options.

Jolicloud looked promising, but it took them like 2-3 month to release a GMA 500 compatible version. I’ve installed it Sunday and I’m quite pleased with it. It’s basically a Ubuntu Netbook Remix branded with Jolicloud and using their Social featured package management. I haven’t tried UNR 9.10, so I can’t tell if this is the reason why everything is working. But it’s fast, and my hardware is fully supported. I can even use the hotkeys to set the sound and britghness. Their package management is full of usefull web apps. They use something like “Fluid.app” on OSX to create native looking web apps.

I’m happily using my Vaio P again, and in 3 months when I’ll visit Hong Kong and Beijing, I’ll probably be bringing it with me instead of my Macbook Air. On vacation, it will probably be the best weight / size notebook to take on the other site of the world.  =)

2010 resolutions

This year, I’ll make things simple… As making a list of things I want to achieve is probably one of the worst thing you can do. Last year I only did 3 things out of 9. Maybe 9 was too much. Thinking about it, it should not, cause you have 12 month to do stuff. You could spread it all over evenly and be able to do one thing a month.  But history says it doesn’t work. So let’s do it 3 things on do it great.

1. Loose some weight; (this can be tricky, but achievable)
2. Get one security certification; (work on doing my cissp, I need this for consulting)
3. Work on my consulting cie. (I got my first gig, beginning January 4)

That’s it, 3 things, 3 easy things.

Happy New Year peeps! Be safe.

Looking back on 2009

Let’s have a look back at the big highlights of 2009.

Olivier my second child (last one) was born on the August 31.

I’ve bought a house in Montreal.

I’ve lost a job, but I’ve reinstated my personal company and started to work for myself. This is good as I found a consulting gig 2 weeks down the road. I will now work on stuff that matters to me.

As for my 2009 resolutions, here is what I have achieved out of 9.

• I did start drinking more tea. By the end of the year, I was drinking tea 2 times a day. It feels really good.
• I did de-clutter a bit. This is probably due to buying a house and moving in. The more I packed / unpacked, the more I threw away.
• I worked on a sleeping schedule, but I lost it after my new born got home.

That’s about it for my old resolutions… I did lost some weight, but I got it all back and some more. I’m not proud of it… This will probably be what I need to work on next year. Starting January, I’ll be planning and working on what I eat.

I’ll definitely do a 2010 resolution post, stay tuned!

Haitus

Wow, it’s been a pretty long time since I wrote anything on my blog.

All I can say is that I’ve been busy.  New baby, buying a new house and all. If you want some updates, you can follow me on Twitter.

iPhone 3.0 tethering over bluetooth on Linux Ubuntu 9.04

This is a repost from ubuntuforum.com from Cooperlees.  I’m posting it on my site so I can find it easier and I like to spread the word.

Ubuntu iPhone 3.0 Bluetooth Tethering with uit.sh

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If you would like to use your iPhone 3.0 with your bluetooth capable Ubuntu 9.04 PC then uit.sh (Ubuntu Iphone Thethering) is for you. This script installs all required conf, allows you to enable and disable your iphone tethering and even uninstall the conf if you no longer need it. I do expect NetworkManager to eventually support this out of the box.

Thanks to http://xn—9bi.net/2009/06/17/tether…o-ubuntu-9-04/ blog post which assisted me in knowning what configuration was needed.

Usage:
— Ubuntu iPhone Tethering (uit) Version 0.1 - Cooper Lees <me@cooperlees.com> —
Usage: ./uit.sh options
- This script will install, uninstall, enable and disable iPhone tethering with iPhone 3.0 Software.
- It has been tested on a upto date (patched) box as of 20090623.
- !! Be careful, this script will ask for your password to get root privledges to your system!

OPTIONS:
-h Show this message
-i Install required configuration
-u Uninstall required configuration
-c Connect Tethering
-d Disconnect Tethering
-m [] Set iPhone’s MAC Address (to /home/USERNAME/.uitrc)
-v Verbose

Install Guide:
Avaliable from: http://us.cooperlees.com/download.php?F=uit.sh.gz

- Inital installation requires an active Internet Connection to get required dependancies through apt-get. Current dependancies = ‘bluez-compat’
- Only the install requires you to sudo the script, other areas apropriately sudo where required.

Install Process:

1. Open terminal
2. wget http://us.cooperlees.com/download.php?F=uit.sh.gz
3. gunzip uit.sh.gz
4. chmod 755 uit.sh
5. [OPTIONAL] Move the script into your sbin - ‘sudo mv uit.sh /usr/sbin’ (This will allow it to be in your PATH)
6. Run ‘sudo uit.sh -i’ (You will need to have your iphone in discoverable mode with Bluetooth on)
7. You will be notified if it all sucessfully installs.

Connect Process:
- Ensure Bluetooth is on and paired with your system (use the GNOME Bluetooth tool to pair). Also make sure Internet Tethering is on.

1. uit.sh -c

- Once connected you will see the iPhone come up with a blue bar stating ‘Internet Tethering’ is activated.

Disconnect Process:
One command will disconnect from the iphone tethering - You should see the blue notification text dissapear.

1. uit.sh -d

Uninstall Process:

1. uit.sh -u

- This will remove conf from files and also make backup of files modified.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I am. Finding the bluetooth a little slow. But still very handy and good. Thanks Apple.

Password security

I had a talk lately about password.  People are asking me, what are good password?  Well let me tell you how I create my random password that I use.  I have 3 rules to create them.

1. It needs to be longer than 8 chars.  10 chars is a sweet spot.
2. It needs to contain numbers, extended chars and letters.  All of those!
3. Extended chars and numbers need not to be use to end the password, some of those chars needs to be in the middle of the password.

With those guide lines, you need to make a password.  The best password are those that are not words.  They are easy to crack with a dictionnary attack.  Even if you change some letters for numbers.  Like l33t speeking.  Well I hate to pop your dreams, but now, almost everyone knows that trick.

When I took my CHFI class, we came to conclusion that the best password are made from a phrase.  Something that has a meaning to you but not others.  Lets try this.

Lets say that I ate a KFC at lunch time, it was good, I had a great meal.  My pass phrase could look like this:  “I love kfc, f**k the world!”  With a pass phrase like that, my password would look like this:

i<3kfcftw!

Ok, I got an extended char at the end, but I do have one in the middle, so it doesn’t count.  I got a number, and this password is not a dictionnary word.

It’s easy like that.  Keep in mind that remembering a phrase is quite easier than remembering random letters and numbers.