2011 retail tinplate finds, at Big Lots and Shack
If you’re a tinplate fan like me, it would behoove you to make a trip to Big Lots sometime this week. Big Lots has a selection of building-shaped cookie tins priced at $5 each. The buildings include a...
View ArticleWhat happened to the Crunden-Martin Manufacturing Co.
Crunden-Martin building #5 burned in downtown St. Louis this week, starting on Thursday. Crunden-Martin was a manufacturer of wooden and metal household goods in downtown St. Louis for nearly 100...
View ArticleMy buddy Halon-2402
Some years ago, I saw an old sign in a computer room. The sign had to be old, because smoking in offices has been banned since the 1980s, and the sign appeared to be hand-lettered. It read something...
View ArticleSecuring wi-fi isn’t about price gouging
The so-called wi-fi golden era is over, and apparently being glad about it makes me an absolutist. But John C. Dvorak is wrong. This isn’t about making people pay for Internet access. It’s pure...
View ArticleDon’t call the war on hackers unwinnable
John C Dvorak asks what war we’re waging on hackers. While war may not be the best choice of words, because it’s not exactly a conventional war, there’s no question there’s something going on, and...
View ArticleAdvice on avoiding college debt–at least for Missouri residents
The business section of the Post-Dispatch had a good article on avoiding college debt. It’s tricky, as even Mizzou costs $22,000 a year now. I’m pretty sure when I was a Tiger, it was more like $10,000...
View ArticleA cheap kitchen makeover
The kitchen cabinets in the house we live in have seen better days. They were reasonably well-built, but 50 years of raising families–mine is the third family raised in this house–took their toll on...
View ArticleWi-fi wants to be free… except it’s not 1994 anymore
The Open Wi-Fi movement was on the front page of Slashdot yesterday afternoon. Predictably, comment #2 was, “give me immunity from the MPAA and RIAA and I’ll open my Wi-Fi.” Valid point. Very valid...
View ArticleNew media in Cuba
I read an ingenious article this week on Slashdot, talking about how Cubans evade Internet censorship (not to mention lack of access) by passing contraband material around on flash drives. It’s so old...
View ArticleValue Village and Affton could be very good for one another
There’s a Value Village thrift store in Shrewsbury that’s being displaced because the plaza it’s in–the same place I used to go to buy Commodore gear–is going to be demolished to make way for a...
View ArticleLeaving his mark. Or his Matt.
Matt, one of the higher ups in my department, departed from the company on Friday. Rich, a coworker I’ve now worked with in two different shops in two different states, got Matt’s office. Rich grew...
View Article9 things your landlord won’t tell you: A rebuttal
My wife found an unflattering piece about landlords in the Huffington Post titled 9 things your landlord won’t tell you. This sorry excuse for an expose just makes accusations, without backing any of...
View ArticleWhat on Earth is a Mainframe?: A review
I’ve been reading David Stephens’ self-published What on Earth is a Mainframe, (also available on Amazon) which is as close to z/OS For Dummies as we’ll ever see. I deal with mainframes at work from...
View ArticleKSDK-TV was wrong to test Kirkwood High School’s security
Last week on Jan. 16, KSDK-TV caused Kirkwood High School to go on lockdown as part of a news story. As a security professional, a journalist, a St. Louisan, and a parent, I have more than one stake in...
View ArticleRetracing the Home Depot attackers’ steps
New details emerged on the Home Depot attack that left 56 million consumers with compromised credit cards. The interesting thing in the new details is that it could have been much worse, but maybe not...
View ArticleThe difference between a CPU and cores
Here’s a good question from a search query: What’s the difference between the number of CPUs and the number of cores in a system? It’s easier than it sounds. As far as the operating system is...
View ArticleYes, we need to run vulnerability scans inside the firewall
I got an innocent question last week. We’d been scanning an AIX server with Nexpose, a vulnerability scanner made by Rapid7, and ran into some issues. The system owner then asked a question: The server...
View ArticleMicrosoft looks back at MS08-067
The most infamous Microsoft patch of all time, in security circles at least, is MS08-067. As the name suggests, it was the 67th security update that Microsoft released in 2008. Less obviously, it fixed...
View ArticleWhat to do when vinyl tiles won’t stick
As I write, I’m installing self-stick vinyl tiles in an old basement as part of a project to modernize a ’70s man cave. It’s possible to run into a few problems when installing vinyl, so I thought I’d...
View ArticleThe probable reason why early home computers were beige
Due to their tendency to yellow with age, there’s some occasional debate over what color early home computers really were, but, having spent about a decade working with them starting with when they...
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