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READ THIS: It's Important.

Ken — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:24:28 +0000

Good Morning;

I'm writing this to you to warn you about a new trend that's appearing.
Within the last week, I've found out about four different people (including myself) who have had hotmail or gmail accounts hacked. My spam catcher email account was hacked, and according to the gmail logs, it was accessed by an IP address originating from somewhere in China.

When these accounts are compromised, they use it to mass mail a spam message ( I've seen them for electronics and pharmaceuticals so far) to everybody in the user's address book.

At this point, they are not doing anything malicious to the users account, but that could change. There's nothing stopping them from using a compromised email account to gain access to your paypal account, your online banking or other sensitive information. Just think, what happens when you click the "I forgot my password" link on your online banking? THEY EMAIL IT TO YOU. If they're in your email, they could change the password and use it to get into far too many other aspects of your life.

That's why it's incredibly important to have a STRONG password. Pay particular attention to the difference between using only lowercase characters and using all possible characters (uppercase, lowercase, and special characters – like @#$%^&*). Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.

The following table demonstrates how long a standard dictionary based password cracker takes to crack a password. I strongly urge you to chose a password that's at least 8 characters long, and contains at least one upper case letter and a special character.

Password Length	All Characters	Only Lowercase
3 characters 4 characters 5 characters 6 characters 7 characters 8 characters 9 characters 10 characters 11 characters 12 characters 13 characters 14 characters	0.86 seconds 1.36 minutes 2.15 hours 8.51 days 2.21 years 2.10 centuries 20 millennia 1,899 millennia 180,365 millennia 17,184,705 millennia 1,627,797,068 millennia 154,640,721,434 millennia	0.02 seconds .046 seconds 11.9 seconds 5.15 minutes 2.23 hours 2.42 days 2.07 months 4.48 years 1.16 centuries 3.03 millennia 78.7 millennia 2,046 millennia

While we're at it, Here's a list of the top 10 most commonly used passwords. Don't be an idiot and use them (and don't get cute and just use a variation of them either.)

Your partner, child, or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
The last 4 digits of your social security number.
123 or 1234 or 123456.
“password”
Your city, or college, sports team name.
Date of birth – yours, your partner’s or your child’s.
“god”
“letmein”
“money”
“love”

I've included links at the bottom of this email if you want more information, or instructions on how to change your email password. Feel free to forward this to your friends.

Please take this seriously. These spammers are only going to be the first ones doing this, and if four people ( that I know of) in a tiny little town in northern Manitoba got hit within three days, you're not as safe as you think you are. I hope you take this warning seriously and beef up your email security before it's too late.

http://onemansblog.com/passwords
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_change_my_windows_live_hotmail_password.html
http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/ss/wt091404.htm
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/edit/id_password/edit-13.html

I took a picture!

Ken — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:57:18 +0000

Too Far, Kijiji, Too Far.

Ken — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:04:42 +0000

You really CAN get anything on the internet!

I didn't take these, but I wish I had!

Ken — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:46:40 +0000

Just got my second taste of the engagement photos I had done by Janet Ketonen, of North of 55 Fine Art Photography and I'm absolutely thrilled with them!

Wanted to share a couple of my favorites.

Happy Halloween!

Ken — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:14:01 +0000

I think the last of the candy seeking hordes are gone. All said and done, we had roughly 350-400 kids.

It was a lot of fun, but they didn't leave much candy for me!

Quit buying extended warranties.

Ken — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:21:19 +0000

Sound advice from FiveCentNickel.

Instead of buying warranty after warranty, why not create an "extended warranty fund." In other words, whenever a retailer offers you an extended warranty, simply transfer that amount of money into a dedicated savings account.

If/when problems arise, you can simply pay for the repairs (or replacement) out of your warranty fund. And once the fund builds up to a sufficiently healthy size, you can back off on your contributions.

There are two main benefits to self-insuring in this way. First, you'll get to earn interest on the money as it accrues. Second, you'll be the one that gets to keep the cash when your stuff doesn't break.

HP Takes the excessive package crown from... Themselves!

Ken — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:46:23 +0000

You know when you decide to pull that mean prank on your brother at christmas? You know, when you put the pair of socks you bought him inside a series of duct tape wrapped boxes reminiscant of Matryoshka dolls?

Apparently someone at HP does too. After setting the world record for excessive packaging back in july for shipping a huge box, which then contained sixteen smaller boxes, each holding two pages of foam wrapped paper.

HP wasn't happy though. They had to go bigger. Better. They had to ensure that those sissies at Dell or IBM or, heaven forbid, Apple didn't oneup them. They've fine tuned their carbon footprint enlargement program , by shipping a ten foot AC power cord from Shanghai-- in a giant, empty box strapped to a 10kg pallet.

Way to go, boys. Keep up the good work.

Source: HP shatters excessive packaging world record (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/)
Source: HP's Ridiculous Shipment Packaging (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=409825)
Related: HP takes the Wasteful Packaging Cake (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/hp_takes_wasteful_packaging_cake)

It's almost here!

Ken — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:56:30 +0000

Earlier, I posted about Sony's new eBook readers.

Since then, they've made it official by adding the new readers to their website (for preorder.) I've spent a lot of time since then debating whether to get the Touch or Pocket version.

Sony's PRS-300After much consideration and internal debate, I've decided on the Reader Pocket (PRS-300) It's petite size, and attractive price tag lured me over. I figure, if it's smaller, it'll be easier to carry around, and the gadget that you have with you is the one you use.

I agonized about the color selection for a while, but honestly, when your choices are between an ugly pink (pink was out anyway) and the dark navy blue -- which did tempt me. Classic silver won out in the end.

Rubber Band Machine Gun

Ken — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:31:56 +0000

Office wars have been fought with paperclips, elastic bands and nerf guns since the first cubicle was erected over four thousand years ago. Here's the equivilant of the atomic bomb, 'cause once you bring one of these out, nobody else is going to attack you.

Sony unveils two new editions to the reader family.

Ken — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:48:41 +0000

According to a press release found at Sony.ca there's going to be two new versions of the sony reader coming out at the end of the month.

The Reader Pocket (PRS-300) appears to be a stripped down PRS-505 with a 5 inch screen. The memory stick and SD card slots have been removed and it looks like it won't play MP3's anymore. They've also stripped out a few of the buttons.

It'll be available in silver, navy blue and rose (which looks more like faded red to me)

It'll retail for $199 in the US, and $279 in Canada.

The Reader Touch (PRS-600) Appears to be Sony's attempt to fix everything that's wrong with the PRS-700. It's sporting a 6" touchscreen, but, as far as anyone can tell from leaked service manuals and anecdotal evidence, the LED side lighting has been removed. This will get rid of the light pipe layer that was present in the PRS-700 which caused blurry screens and poor battery life. The 600 appears to have more in common with the PRS-505, except with the addition of a touch screen. It's also features an onboard dictionary and the ability to highlight, annotate and take notes either with your finger, the stylus or the on-screen keyboard.

The Reader Touch will be offered in red, black and silver and will retail for $399 in Canada and $299 in the US.

Source: Sony.ca Press Release (http://sony.ca/view/press_816.htm)