jayunsplanet

Facebook’s latest product, a locations-based service called ‘Places’, was announced today. It was released in a Facebook app update (at least on the iPhone) tonight. Is this the beginning of the end for Foursquare and Gowalla? Can they really compete with the giant social experience that is Facebook? Though, Facebook isn’t claiming to be a competitor, but rather a provider of an API (Places API beta) for smaller locations services to utilize to incorporate into their own service. Being an avid user of Foursquare and a skeptic of Facebook, I sure hope they can stay afloat in the long-run. Regardless, I am going to use both Foursquare and Facebook’s ‘Places’ to learn both platforms and decide for myself which one I like or if they both really can work together. I currently, and will continue to, send my interesting Foursquare Check-in’s to Facebook. It will also be interesting to see how Facebook will use ‘Places’ to generate revenue from businesses – as Foursquare and Gowalla were starting to incorporate that type of model.

(On a side note: The latest Facebook iPhone app release seems to have resolved the slow/lag time after posting a comment on an item. Your comment is posted as soon as you finish typing and hit “Post” as fast as your internet connection allows. It used to lag several seconds.)

I previously tried replacing the antenna, which worked VERY well, but it was a little too bulky and tacky – and let’s face it, I only bought an iPhone so I could make a statement to everyone else about how much of a hip tech guy I am. Form > Function.  Click here to see details on the first antenna mod I tried.

/satirical sarcasm.

I was somehow eligible for an upgrade, so I flipped my 32GB 3GS on eBay and reserved a 32GB iPhone 4. Today, I stood in a 2 hour line at the Towson Apple Store for the launch of the iPhone 4. It went by in no-time. They were handing out free Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and drinks. A full review/my thoughts post will be coming after I use the phone for a whole week. I’ll post my thoughts in this entry. Check back later, friends. In the meantime, you can check out some initial pictures I took while un-boxing the phone and setting it up:

Digg.com founder and interim CEO Kevin Rose, has confirmed that, after 5 years, he’s leaving Diggnation at the end of 2010. He has officially announced his new show ‘fforward‘. The show will be distributed by the internet-tv startup, Revision3.

Rose says that fforward will be “a weekly live streaming tech/geek culture show” and that while he will be the host, he will also have guests on for discussions and new tech product reviews.

Regarding Diggnation, Kevin Rose has been quoted as saying, “It’s been five years, Alex [Albrecht] and I still have fun doing the show, but I think we’re both ready for less travel and something new.”

“..ffoward is going to be unlike any show I’ve ever done, I’m excited to try some new ideas w/a live streaming audience. Diggnation will continue till the end of this year, we’ll be having a huge final live show sometime in November or December” says Rose.

(Kevin Rose quotes are sourced from an article Michael Arrington wrote for Tech Crunch and claims Kevin Rose made to him.)

Click to view more high-res pictures

The leaves are changing, the temperature is dropping, and the holiday shopping season is upon us. For the better part of the next month you will no doubt be racking your brain out trying to find that “cool” gadget for the “techy” person in your life. Or maybe you ARE the techy person and need to drop some hints to your friends and loved ones. You have that laptop, that big screen TV, that iPod. What else do you need? Here are a couple interesting gadget ideas for the holidays.

Blu-Ray player

A few years ago, there was a battle going on between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. That war is over and Blu-ray reigns victorious. Blu-ray discs are capable of holding A LOT of High Definition data. The name Blu-ray comes from the blue-violet laser that is used to read the Blu-ray disc.  Whether you prefer a blockbuster action movie or Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth”, your jaw will drop at the picture quality of Blu-ray. Plus, all Blu-ray players can play DVD’s and will actually improve the video quality of a DVD! Prices of Blu-ray players have dropped nearly in half. Sony’s PlayStation 3 is a very good Blu-ray player.

LG BD390 ($299 – Best Buy)

Sony PlayStation 3 ($279 – Best Buy)

HD Radio

By now, everyone has heard of XM Radio – the “commercial-less” paid radio service that connects to satellites orbiting in space and sounds better than FM radio. Did you know that there is better sounding FREE radio available across the country? HD is quietly making its name known as many stations broadcast FM and HD radio to their listeners – for free. You simply need to purchase an HD Radio receiver for your automobile, home, or person. HD receivers can be professionally and cleanly installed in your vehicle by a car-audio shop. You can also opt for a more portable unit that does not require installation. The JVC KT-HDP1 receiver grabs the HD audio transmission and sends it, via a built-in FM transmitter, to your cars stereo. No wires involved.

Example: JVC KT-HDP1 Portable HD Radio ($149 – Sears)

DSLR Camera

Camera manufactures are seeing the demand by amateurs for high quality photographs – photos that have “that look” that you just can’t capture with your typical “point-and-shoot” camera. It’s easy to get into high quality photography with an entry-level DSLR camera. Second to the photographer, lenses are the key to a good photograph. DSLR cameras use detachable and interchangeable lenses. There are lenses for close up shots, portraits, regular shots, and long distance shots. Most entry-level DSLRs will come bundled with a standard lens, most likely an 18-55mm lens, which will be sufficient for beginners. Photography is a great way to enjoy the world and capture memories of people, places, and things.

Example: Nikon D3000 ($550 – Best Buy)

HD Camcorder

Isn’t it great to watch your favorite TV shows, sporting events, and movies in High Definition? Wouldn’t it be even better if you could capture memories of your family in High Def? These days you can! The price of HD camcorders has dropped to a reasonable level making it possible for the average user to start capturing their own HD moments. There are different mediums that camcorders record to (DVD, flash memory, hard drives). Also, there is no “standard” format that all HD camcorders use, so you will need to do some research on the medium and format that is best for you.

Example: Canon VIXIA HF200 HD ($700 – Best Buy)

There is a wealth of information about electronics on the internet. Be sure to read reviews from reputable sources and shop around before you buy!

Good sources of information to visit: CNET.com, Amazon.com, MaximumPC.com, gdgt.com

i’m all about a clean and simple workspace.. i’m actually pretty anal about it..

the other day i bought another 1TB hard drive.. with the intention of getting 90% of all my media on one drive.. i’m a geek that had an ungodly amount of harddrives spread across a couple ‘servers’. it was hard to keep track of where stuff was — especially since most of the drivers were different sizes and weren’t large enough to hold all of a specific thing.. for example, i had to put pictures from 2009 on a seperate drive from all my other pictures… 4GB photoshoots eat up a lot of space…

anyway, now i have all my music, pictures, videos, photo/video editing, and movies in one spot. the drive doesn’t have much breathing room though… and my tv shows are still somewhere else.. but it’s a start.

also… i went through all my other drives and got rid of stuff that had been accumulating through the years… so much stuff! most everything is organized now too..

i’m gonna take an ‘image’ of this harddrive (basically a copy of the contents in one ginaromous single file) and put it on one of my other 1TB drives… as well as backups of important junks elsewhere… like the 16GB thumbdrive i got for $30. jeebus.

up next is renaming my music folders… everything is organized in folders by artist.. but within the artist folders.. the album folders are kind of a mess… normally, that wouldn’t really bother me, BUT, i want to start using songbird again (which flippin rocks — it’s a super-lite itunes w/ plugins and it will grab the lyrics to the song that’s playing and put it along side the player.. that is awesome.) but to import my gigantic library — i have to first organize it… so that’s one of my tasks for this holiday weekend.

/nerdy rant. i love it!

RPC, or ‘Remote Procedure Call’ provides a method of causing a subroutine or “procedure” to execute.

The procedure would generally execute on another computer on a network. Operating on Port 135, RPC utilizes a Client/Server model and spans the Transport and Application Layers of the OSI model.

For example, a program running on Computer A would execute code on Computer B over the network. Other services can be called to using Port 111.

MS03-026 is a known RPC exploit that was discovered July 27, 2003. On an un-patched system the crafted RPC request can ultimately allow an attacker to gain full access and execute any code on a victim system.  With an exploited system, an attacker could utilize RPC to perform any action on the victim system including installing programs, viewing changing or deleting data, or creating new accounts with administrator permissions.

ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol. ARP is how network devices associate MAC addresses with IP Addresses so that devices on the local network can find each other. ARP is different from TCP/IP as it uses only the ethernet frame in its packets. ARP is similar to DNS, except instead of converting host names to IP addresses, ARP converts IPs to MAC addresses.

An ARP request works by Computer A asking the network “Who has IP address of 10.10.1.123?” An ARP reply is sent by Computer B telling Computer A, “My IP is 10.10.1.123 and my MAC address is 01-23-45-67-89-ab”.

To improve efficiency, most systems update their MAC tables every time they get a response, even if they did not specifically make a request for it. This is the vulnerability of ARP that an attacker can use by sending a message out to computer B, saying “Computer C is at my MAC”. Packets sent from B, to C’s IP will instead be routed to the attacker’s computer. The attacker can capture these packets or sniff them for the data he wants. The attacker could either forward these packets out so the victim wouldn’t even know someone was sniffing his packets or he could block all traffic – rendering the victims network connection useless.

There are five sequential steps involved in the ‘ethical hacker’ penetration testing methodology.

1. The first step is ‘reconnaissance’. Reconnaissance can be either passive or active. Passive reconnaissance involves acquiring information without directly interacting with the target system. Active reconnaissance involves interacting with the target directly.

2. The second step is ‘scanning’. Scanning refers to the action of scanning the network for specific information on the basis of information gathered during reconnaissance. Scanning can include the use of dialers, port scanners, network mapping, and vulnerability scanners. The hacker needs to locate a single point of entry in order to launch an attack properly.

3. The third step is ‘gaining access’. This is the point where the hacker would penetrate and exploit their victim’s vulnerable system. The exploit can occur over a Local Area Network (wired or wireless), the internet, or even through social engineering. At this point, the attacker could gain access at the OS level, Application Level, or Network Level.

4. The fourth step is ‘maintaining access’. The attacker has already compromised the system and now he must reliably and silently maintain his access to the victim system. Hackers may ‘harden’ the victim system from other attackers as well as securing their exclusive access. Hackers can upload, download, or manipulate data, applications, and configurations on the compromised system.

5. The fifth and final step in the hacking methodology is ‘covering tracks’ or ‘clearing targets’. The hacker must mask his identity and activities on the victims system and/or network. Reasons for masking his identity could include the need for prolonged access to the system – where he might come back later to gather more information or further attack the system, continued use of system resources, removal of hacking tracks, or avoiding legal action.

There are two US codes that can be used as legal against the hacker.

• “18 U.S.C. Section 1029 – Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Access Devices.”
• “18 U.S.C Section 1030 – Fraud and Related Activity in connection with Computers”