The migration has proceeded apace, in spite of other commitments.
All e-mail accounts and forwards have been migrated. Moving the imap accounts was significantly simplified with the use of imapsync. Oddly, imapsync is free (as in speech), open-source software, but not gratis. The author wants to be paid if you download it from his website, but if you can find it somewhere else, it’s yours to do with as you please.Odd. And vaguely appropriate for a Frenchman. Anyway, I found the source-code online, and it worked a treat.
This blog and photoblog have also been migrated. The migration was somewhat painful since the old server has a slow uplink, and the new server has a short transaction timeout. Fun. On this blog, I killed the old theme, but I don’t have time to craft a new one at the moment, so I’m just sticking with the stock one. I’ll try to come up with something real soon now. The photoblog has a new posting — the first in about 4 years. Don’t get too used to the idea of new photos though.
So as a follow-up to my change in attitude towards Google, I’m taking a greater interest my privacy in general. There’s a news on the Net these days of growing support for “Do Not Track” headers. I use Safari by default, and I was pleased to see that the latest versions have implemented it.
To turn it on, you need to have the “Develop” menu active in Safari (Safari → Preferences → Advanced → Show Develop menu in menu bar). The you merely need to select: Develop → Send Do Not Track HTTP Header.
I also took the time to add a couple of extensions to Safari while I was at it. Ghostery (Safari → Safari Extensions → Security) can detect and block the breadcrumbs websites use to track your usage. Finally, Incognito blocks Google, Twitter and Facebook tracking.
I’m not sure these are legit, but the one I have (from Yugster) looks the same and works OK. It has a pretty wide beam compared to my green pointer, but it’s still very cool. Oddly, the blue pointer is the only one that seems to excite the glow-in-the-dark stars on the kids’ ceiling.
Does anyone know why some of these pointers are selling for $150 (link), and others are selling for much less?
PS: I should also note that this thing is much more powerful than its <5mW rating. It’s probably closer to 30mW. It’s definitely not a toy, and I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t let the girls play with it.
The main website migration has started. So far I’ve moved DNS and the main www.knot.org page to the new server. I’m going to start moving blogs as I am able. If you have a blog on knot.org, please be sure to contact me to make sure your site makes the migration.
Just started looking at node.js, and I have to admit I think it looks really useful. So far it seems lightweight and pretty powerful with less mental baggage than some other languages I’ve seen lately.
Anyone have a recommendation for a (canonical) project I should implement to get my feet wet?
I just started migrating processes from the old server to the new hosting vendor. First up, karmadogs.com. The e-mail has already been migrated, and I’m cloning over the web page data now.
As always let me know if any problems are spotted.
(logo from Scroogled and TechRepublic’s GeekEnd)Google’s slogan used to be “Don’t be evil.”, but whether by accident or design Google’s new privacy policy — really a “you have no privacy” policy — is evil. Giving Google information had been acceptable, because they did not aggregate all of the bits of knowledge we entrusted them with into a single profile.
On March 1, 2012 that all ends. Google is modifying their policies to allow them to use every scintilla of information they have on their users for their own purposes. Let’s be clear, Google isn’t promising to make our lives better, they’re promising to make more money. You might not call that “Evil”, but it sure is not “Good”.
So I just went through Google Dashboard, and scrubbed everything I could. I don’t use Android (and won’t start now), so nothing lost there. I changed every privacy setting, cleared histories, removed profile information, etc. You won’t find me on Google+ or Orkut any longer. I’ve removed deleted contacts, profile pictures, and personal information from every product I could stand to give up. Unless a Google product makes my life significantly better, it’s history. I’m somewhat surprised at how much information Google has lying around about me.
Primarily, I have kept Search (with history turned off), Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Groups. I’ve pared down which groups I belong to, and tried to obliterate any identifying information from the profiles. Finally, I’ve logged out of my Google account, and will only log in for specific purposes. Gmail I mostly handle using dedicated mail clients, so that’s partitioned from my web surfing. Reader and Groups are the two products that will leak information about me, but I’m committed to minimizing my use of Reader going forward. Sadly, I don’t know of a way to really ditch Groups since I don’t control the selection of that product, and I really want to stay in touch with the communities that do use it.
Am I being paranoid — probably. But I’d like to try to hang onto the appearance of privacy a bit longer. Besides, if any rogue player manages to obtain Google’s data, I’d rather be safe(r) than sorry. I hear Google has decided to implement these changes to compete more effectively with the growing Facebook juggernaut. Good for them, but in my case, they’ve just lost some of my viewership and become less central to my Internet life.
PS: It’s worth noting that I’m not much of a Facebook user, but I’m likely to take this opportunity to pare back my profile information there as well.
More importantly, I want to work with/for/near Bret Victor. After I spent a fewposts bagging on Sierra as an inadequate mechanism for improving the spend and quality of code, here comes this guy with an amazing demo of the kinds of tools that could revolutionize software development.
I’ve been struggling with how to help our 11-year old develop her attention to detail and critical thinking skills. I spent some time trying to interest her in programming, but it didn’t take. Anyway, I think I’m too close to that topic, and I don’t know that I’m the best person to teach programming to a kid. On the other hand, I have wanted to get back into electronics for a while, and I think it could make for a good geek/geekling activity.
Like any good pack-rat I still have my old Radio Shack electronics kit, which I dutifully handed down to my daughter:
I should point out that the older set is still available, even though Radio Shack no longer carries them. I prefer that set for kids, since it includes lots of fun projects, but only limited explanations of how the projects work. The newer kit comes with manuals by the famous Forest M. Mims III, but the experiments are a bit more limited in scope, but are somewhat better explained. The newer kit is absolutely a great buy for geeks 16 and older, but might have more limited appeal to those younger.
So far she’s built a couple different projects/games from the old kit, including the Quick Draw II game that provided quite a bit of entertainment for the entire household. Hopefully, this is the start of a beautiful friendship…
