Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

IP over SMTP

Way back in the early days of the Intarw3b, not everyone with a computer was surfing around. My first exposure to real use of the ‘net revolved around getting actual work done. At that time, I was a neophyte networking and security goob (today, I’ve advanced to just being an all-around good) and I spent a lot of my work time reading networking and security mailing lists and tracking down tools and documents squirrelled away in the corners of the ‘net.

One of the coolest things I remember reading from those lists was about one of the security gurus who needed some binary files while working at a site without general Internet connectivity but that did have e-mail services. He wrote some scripts to actually implement NFS file transfers over SMTP. I don’t remember the exact details, but I remember that he sent scripts to a co-worker back at his office who installed them as the mail processing scripts for a particular account and then did the same with some other scripts at the worksite. Using these he was able to make the worksite system and his office servers talk as if they had an NFS connection, but using packets 7-bit safe encoded and transferred via SMTP. If that makes no sense to you, it’s OK. I probably have some of the details wrong (it’s been over 10 years since I even read about this), and non-networking folks have no need to understand this. But to really geeky people (especially, if you can imagine it, people more geeky than I), this is really cool use of technology, and worthy of hacking recognition.

So, with all that information, here’s the reason I posted about this. While reading some older web articles I long ago tucked away for later review, I found a link to a Dutch site on which the author has posted a script for doing IP over SMTP. I can’t recall ever being in a situation where I’ve needed this functionality, but it’s really cool that it even exists and someone remembers well enough a time when it was useful that they would post it.

[tags]Script for running IP over SMTP, IP traffic via SMTP encapsulation – useless? But cool[/tags]

Kodak looks to churn up the inkjet printer market with substantially reduced ink prices

Assuming the printers perform as well as Kodak says, this new printer product line from Kodak should drop prices significantly from what current consumer printers offer.

Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK) today entered the consumer inkjet industry with a revolutionary new product line for the home.

KODAK EASYSHARE All-in-One Printers will enable consumers to affordably print crisp, sharp documents and KODAK lab-quality photos at home using premium, pigment-based inks that will save consumers up to 50 percent on everything they print. The three new printers provide ultimate levels of print quality and ease-of-use, while offering low total cost of ownership compared to other leading consumer inkjet printers on the market.

. . .

The KODAK EASYSHARE AiO Printers use Kodak’s premium, pigment-based ink, priced at $9.99 for a cartridge of black ink and $14.99 for a five-ink color cartridge (US MSRP). For every $15 spent on color ink and $10 spent on black ink, consumers can print the same number of pages at half the cost of other consumer inkjet printers.When the KODAK Photo Value Pack is purchased, a 4 x 6-inch photo costs as little as 10 cents per print.

So all that remains is real world testing and reviews to see if the print quality stands up as well as consumables testing to verify similar printable pages/photos per cartridge as compared with competitors. If this is as good as Kodak says, I’m sure HP, Epson, and others will not be happy about legitimate price competition. Fuck ’em, I say. Competition is good for us, and I’m tired of paying $35 for a single color ink cartridge.

[tags]Kodak looking to shake up consumer inkjet market, New printer line from Kodak with low-price ($10) cartridges[/tags]

Rock on with the action games – they make your vision better

I don’t play the action games like I used to. The original Quake (I so pwned with the off-hand grappling hook mod) and Unreal Tournament (still the best of the bunch, although UT2004 is awesome) were my favorites. By my slowing reaction time (as a 36 year old gamer, I’m ancient by twitch-game standards) and frequent hand tremors leave me unable to compete against most of the folks that play shooters. However, if I could/did still play them, I would apparently benefit from improved visual acuity after playing (bonus shortened URL available as well).

Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can actually improve your vision.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved by about 20 percent in their ability to identify letters presented in clutter–a visual acuity test similar to ones used in regular ophthalmology clinics.

In essence, playing video game improves your bottom line on a standard eye chart.

Continue reading “Rock on with the action games – they make your vision better”

Gaming’s most important multi-player games

Gamasutra polled people in the gaming industry what the most important multi-player games of all time are.  I was all ready to protest the article before I even read it, because one of my favorite games was sure to be missing, I thought.  Well, looks like my personal number one game for the list made it:

tribes-screenshot.jpgDynamix created the template for both team-based gameplay and “kit selection” that have been iterated on by every multiplayer-focused FPS since its release way back in 1998. Despite having a steep learning curve that scared off more than a few potential players, Tribes still managed to find a strong following that progressed the game to an ultra-competitive artform of teamplay.

Tribes‘ focus on playing as a team, filling roles, seperating offensive and defensive units, supporting flag carriers, etc, etc. pushed the future of FPS multiplayer gaming from pure deathmatch/”cowboy” gaming to one where squad play and team focus is just as important as “point and click” kills. Tribes represents a significant quantum leap in FPS multiplayer gaming…and sucked away five years of my life!

I played that game for 3 years before moving on to my current game of choice (City of Heroes).  And I kicked all kinds of ass on the map pictured above.  The other two games I felt HAD to make the list, Bomberman and Quake, did make the list.  I could go on for a long time about the multi-player games I played the most, but this short article highlights very well some of the most important.  I might consider Unreal Tournament for the list, as well, but I realize that some games have to get left off in the interest of brevity (not one of my strong points, admittedly).

Also missing is any mention of Massively Multiplayer gaming, of which perhaps Ultima Online and World of Warcraft are most important.  Yes, there were other MMOs before Ultima Online, and there have certainly been more successful ones than UO, but it made MMOs acceptable to many.  And there is no questioning the importance of the 1200 ton beast that is World of Warcraft.  It’s Ginormous.  I think at least one of these should be on the list.

[tags]The most important multi-player games of all times

Government approves new mileage ratings standard

This article at Consumer Reports caught my eye, as it says that the Environmental Protection Agency has updated its fuel-economy tests to better reflect modern driving habits. This change is the first real change since the fuel-economy tests were set in the 1970s. The outdated standard is the reason almost all drivers get lower actual mileage results than the advertised efficiency rating on cars.

fueleconomypage-thumb.jpg

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed to change the way it estimates the fuel economy published on vehicle window stickers in order to make the estimates more consistent with real-world driving. The new proposal would reduce the city mileage estimates for most vehicles, starting in the 2008 model year, by 10 to 20 percent. Highway mileage estimates would drop 5 to 15 percent.

Continue reading “Government approves new mileage ratings standard”

Amazing news on the cancer research front

If you spend a lot of the time reading news on the web, keep up with the newspaper, or watch the news regularly on television, you have probably already heard some about the potential new cancer treatment via dichloroacetate (DCA). DCA is a long used compound previously known for combating mitochondrial diseases. It also is known to have very few and mild side-effects. This could be huge in treating cancer.

dichloroacetate.jpgDr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast and brain tumors.

Michelakis and his colleagues, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Bonnet, have published the results of their research in the journal Cancer Cell.

DCA functions by normalizing the behavior of mitochondria. Cancer has been known to alter the effects of mitochondria, and the belief has long been that this damage was permanent. The testing Dr. Michelakis has done shows that at least for some cancers, this is not true.


Continue reading “Amazing news on the cancer research front”

Beware unknown Excel spreadsheets

Microsoft has announced that there is, unfortunately, another currently unpatched exploit in Excel.

In its security bulletin, Microsoft warned that “other Office applications are potentially vulnerable” to the zero-day flaw.

Zero-day refers to a flaw for which there is an exploit but no available fix. The Excel vulnerability is Microsoft’s fifth zero-day exploit since December, and part of an increasingly troubling trend.

The zero-day flaw affects Office versions 2000, XP, 2003 and 2004 for the Mac, but not 2007 or Works 2004, 2005 or 2006.

That means don’t open any Excel spreadsheets that you don’t know and trust the source if you are using any of the vulnerable versions.  In related news – if you aren’t already aware, there is a similarly troublesome exploit available for Microsoft Word.  While it is fun to pick on Microsoft, note that this problem is a nearly unavoidable result of increasingly complex software.  Even some of the best known security software and networking tools have had security vulnerabilities in the past.

[tags]Exploit out for Excel, Microsoft Word vulnerability, Secure software is tough – just ask Microsoft (and others)[/tags]

Nokia tries again – new N-Gage this summer or fall

It appears that the dismal failure of the first two passes of the N-Gage gaming/MP3 phone (well, MP3 was dropped in the first re-tooling) weren’t enough to dissuade Nokia.  With an announced ship date of later this year, the new N-Gage is predicted to be more successful.

According to the Nokia sponsored semi-official blog Future Watch, by the middle of this year, “the N-Gage experience will evolve into the next generation of mobile gaming.” The blog suggests that the new N-Gage will make its debut this September and that two major publishers, EA Mobile and Gameloft, are already backing Nokia’s latest effort.

. . .

“By early 2008, we expect to have some of the biggest franchises and hottest mobile games included in the N-Gage experience,” it concluded.

Seems like I recall predictions from Nokia that the first N-Gage and the revamped N-Gage were going to be big hits, too (in case you don’t know – they weren’t).  I also seem to recall all of 1 good game and 2-3 decent games were all that were available once you threw out the crappy games.  (via /.)

[tags]New generation N-Gage later this year, Nokia says *This time the N-Gage* will succeed, One ringtone to rule them all?[/tags]