Author: AMH

I cannot decide what if anything I want to use this for, but this is a very nice little tutorial on writing your own IM bot. [via Lifehacker] It presumes you know how to do the server-side scripting (though they do give a nice sample php script so you can see there really isn’t anything IM specific in there) and the tutorial just shows how to IMified service to host a bot for you. Right now IMified is in beta, so you can get an account free, but it looks like they may start charging later so if you think … Continue reading Build-a-Bot Workshop

Oddly, Chrome actually imported all of my bookmarks except the one in my “Daily” folder to my weblog management system (I clear through spam comments and the like each morning). It took me probably ten minutes to figure out how to add a bookmark. There isn’t a Bookmark menu anymore. There is a Bookmark folder, but you can’t add a bookmark from there. Right clicking on the page, or it’s tab, doesn’t do it. Right clicking on the URL in the address bar doesn’t do it. It turns out there are two ways to do it – either click on … Continue reading Chrome, Day Two

The Google Chrome browser came out this afternoon, and after reading the comic book description of its features and innovations I wanted to give it a try. The ideas behind it seemed intriguing, and I’m willing to admit that I’m a bit of a Google fangirl. I used it for the afternoon and evening, performing a variety of tasks including working with my course management software and the college’s registration/enrollment system, checking email, and generally websurfing, for work and for pleasure. Installation, as you would expect, is easy, and, if you are using Firefox at least, if you let it … Continue reading Initial Thoughts on Chrome

Another reason to feel sorry for the aardvark – they probably get more spam than any other animal. A study was done showing that patterns in your username, such as the first letter, seem to impact how much spam you get. Actually, their title claiming that aardvarks get more spam than zebras is misleading. The pattern is more complex than that, with L, P, R, and S seeming to lead the pack in terms of spam versus non-spam messages received. Really, it seems like all this is saying is that spammers guess email addresses, and if your address occurs on … Continue reading Aardvark@gmail.com

In yet another RFID update (it’s funny how once you are thinking about something like this you see it everywhere) this is an interesting little video of Adam Savage explaining why Mythbusters won’t be debunking any more RFID myths anytime soon. In short, they had an entire show planned around RFID myths – how hackable they are, how easy it is to track someone with them, etc. – and legal counsel for various large financial institutions contacted Discovery and scared them into blocking the show. But it is more fun to hear it in Adam’s words so go watch! I’m … Continue reading All RFID, All the Time

Related to my post from last week, Scientific American has an article about how RFID tags are popping up in unexpected places and be able to be used to track individuals, including, due to poor security in the devices, by individuals unassociated with the tags. The main application that the article is concerned with is the desire to have border states issue drivers licenses equipped with RFID tags to simplify border crossings. Says the article: Although such “enhanced” driver’s licenses remain voluntary in the states that offer them, privacy and security experts are concerned that those who sign up for … Continue reading Tag You’re It

While I have played around with sed/awk and perl and shell scripting in the past, in recent years I’ve spent more time using programming languages than scripting languages. This summer I’ve been playing around with Python a bit, though I’ll probably get more into it once I think of a good problem to solve using it. I thought about picking up Flash, but between it being so closed and it being difficult to just see your code, I decided to pass on that bit of frustration. Somehow I didn’t think of Javascript at all, though I do not do much … Continue reading Have Language, Will Code