I don’t usually do fresh installs anymore.  With the advent of Time Machine I usually end up having all of my applications, files, directories, etc there waiting for me after a restore.   This time, however, I had no easy way of doing that as the SSD is not large enough to house all my files.  This gave me the excuse, and opportunity, to clean out the cruft, start with a clean slate and have only those files and programs that I know I’m going to use.

That, of course, got me thinking and considering what programs I would need to download and install.   What programs do I feel are essential?  Thankfully, I found that to be incredibly easy to answer, and decided I would share my list of apps I can’t live without.

1. Dropbox:  Many of the applications I use are able to be kept in sync between my different computers by using Dropbox.  Beyond that, it provides me with a place I can put things and have it appear on all of my machines.  Since I started using it in early January it has become absolutely essential for me.
2. 1password:  Like most people, I find it incredibly difficult to remember many 15+ character passwords.  I found myself greatly sacrificing password integrity and strength, and using the same password everywhere.  Enter 1Password by Agile Web Solutions. Never before has an app made it easier to have large, complex, secure passwords,   but also can help you easily identify which sites of yours are using the same password, and easily help rectify that.   If you use a Mac, you should use 1Password.
3. Things:  Prior to using this beautiful app from Cultured Code I struggled to become, and stay, organized.  I was never able to find anything that clicked quite right with me until my friend Jason recommended I take a look at Things.  I’ve been smitten ever since,   and now entrust Things with nearly everything I have to do.
4. TweetDeck:  For those of you who are big into Twitter, I probably don’t have to explain why TweetDeck is great.  Aside from the fact that it runs on Adobe Air (a sin I can forgive it), it looks fantastic, works fantastic and just plain is fantastic – it makes managing Twitter a lot easier.
5. Kindle for Mac:  We all need down time, and this allows me to read my books from the kindle store on my mac over lunch.   Stays in sync with my Kindle, and my iPhone,   pretty damn awesome.
6. CoRD:  If you find yourself having to do remote desktop sessions into Windows machines often then you can benefit from CoRD.   The main benefit I see over Microsofts RDP client is that this makes it easy to “save” servers with the appropriate settings so that you just click a server and are logged in.
7. Alfred: This app launcher is still in beta but has performed incredibly well for me over the past few weeks.  Faster than quicksilver ever was and just seems to… work.   Added ability to initiate several web functions (wikipedia / google searches, etc) make it just a little bit more useful without adding in an intrusive amount of clutter.
8. Adium:   This is, by far, the best IM client I’ve ever used.   My only complaint is that its not available on Windows/Linux.    If you have a mac and use IM with any frequency,  you owe it to yourself to try Adium.

There are other programs that I use, naturally, but these are the apps that are my go-to apps for any Mac that I own.  I like Safari, so generally don’t NEED to have another browser (until Chrome is more stable I’ll stick with Safari),  I use Feedly in my browser for RSS and Apple’s Mail.app for email.  These 8, though, are guaranteed to be on any Mac I own.

The easiest fix for this is to tape a piece of white paper (cut to size) over the cliff sensors (four of them).  While this works fairly well,  I found with my Roomba that often this taped on paper gets torn up and dirty over time, requiring it to be replaced – which means further upkeep and maintenance beyond the fairly high routine maintenance you already have to do.  I often would not have the motivation to re-fix the cliff sensors,  meaning my Roomba would be benched for weeks.

Last night I got tired of fighting with my Roomba over this, and decided to implement a more permanent fix.

The way the Roomba’s cliff sensors work are that they fire a beam of IR at the ground with an IR Transmitter,   which bounces off and is received by a separate IR receiver.   These are kept separate from each other in the sensor housing.   When a “cliff” is encountered, the IR signal doesn’t bounce back, and the Roomba backs off.   This also occurs with dark colored flooring.

The fix involves an almost complete dis-assemble of the Roomba (following directions found here: http://www.pottsland.com/roomba/Roomba_5xx_Cliff_Sensor.html), an effort that is not difficult assuming you’re comfortable taking apart and re-assembling electronics,  and taking the IR transmitter and Receivers out of their housings, taping them together, and putting them back in the clear sensor casing.   This way – when the IR Transmitter sends its signal, the receiver always sees it.

For obvious reasons you should not do this to a Roomba that will be operating where it can fall down stairs or where it needs to avoid falling from heights.  Mine cleans the ground floor of my house, so I don’t have to worry.

The fix worked great – no more worrying about cliff sensors for me.

Now if only I could get the Roomba (his name is FloMar by the way), to clean his own brushes….

Back in January, PGP Corporation released a much anticipated update to their PGP Desktop lineup -PGP Desktop 10.0.  This update was much anticipated because it finally added support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.  The great benefit here is that those who would be so inclined to utilize whole disk encryption on mac, and choose PGP as their platform of choice, could now upgrade to Snow Leopard and have their drive encrypted.

In testing this new software I discovered a bug, however.  When utilizing PGP Desktop 10 for Mac in an environment managed by PGP Universal Server (2.12), I was frequently asked to re-enroll my Mac with the universal server.   Until I was able to re-enroll, PGP Desktop was unavailable.   Whole Disk Encryption was thankfully NOT affected.

After working fairly closely with PGP support on this issue it was determined to be a bug,  and after providing them a wealth of information from our environment they were able to reproduce the issue on their end and provide a list of steps that would reproduce it 100% of the time.

Thankfully,  we’ve also been able to determine a successful workaround for this issue.

The underlying cause for this behavior appears to be on-access scanning by antivirus products on the Mac interfering with the PGP plist files in ~/Library/Preferences/

The workaround that has worked in my testing so far has been to create exclusions in the scanning policy for:

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.pgp.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.desktop.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.admin.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.engine.plist

With those four files excluded from on-access antivirus scanning, I have been unable to get PGP Desktop to prompt me for re-enrollment,  indicating that this does, in fact, provide a workaround for the issue.

A huge thanks goes to the PGP Support team who worked this issue hard and were a pleasure to work with in finding a resolution to this issue.

(note: I am in no way affiliated with PGP Corporation.)

In the course of considering my career – both where it’s been and where it’s going – I’ve come to a very important realization:  I don’t want a career in information security.

Let me say that again, for those of you who are shocked:   I do not want a career in information security.

I do realize this may come as a surprise to many, given that my current profession is information security.  It came as a mild surprise to me, too.  I realized, however, that information security is just not what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I do enjoy it, and I am happy in my current job (and really like my employer), but when I look down the road 5 to 10 years,  what do I see?   I see either being in the same type of position I’m in now (whether it be here at my current employer, or at a different employer),  or managing information security somewhere.   I’ve done both,  and am capable of doing both,  but am not sure that’s what I want long term.

Instead, when I look long term at what I would LIKE to be doing, I see myself using my technical abilities in conjunction with more business related work.  While I’ve got the technical abilities part down,  the business side is where my foundation is a little shakier.  I’ve owned businesses, which helps, but I lack any sort of formal training in that regard.   I have some experience,  including some valuable experience being in tough situations and having to make difficult decisions.   I’ve helped shape and steer a company from a strategic perspective, and have learned some valuable insights from that experience.  I haven’t, however, been schooled in many of the aspects of business, and management, that would benefit me further down the line in my career.

With that thought in mind, I’ve decided that it would be in my best interest to pursue an MBA, in an effort to shore up my business knowledge and abilities so that I can combine them with my technical capabilities and make myself more desirable for the types of work I would enjoy moving into.

Having said all of that, however, I don’t plan on changing employment anytime soon.   The plan to apply for and get into business school will likely take a year or more to execute,  and I don’t currently plan on going to school full time, as I would like to work while doing it if possible.   I also really like my current job, and the company I work for.  This isn’t an immediate change, to be sure, but a more long-term plan that I want to execute carefully and make sure I can maximize it’s benefits over the long haul.

It honestly feels good, though, to have something long term that I’m working for… I have a goal, something to work for, and perhaps most importantly, something to be passionate about (other than my marriage, that is ).

Now – to prepare for the GMAT….

I’ve been very fortunate in this regard.   A few years ago, shortly before the housing bubble burst and sent the economy into the toilet, I was a co-owner and co-founder of the technology company Proxito.   I don’t expect many of you to have heard of us – in fact I fully expect that the vast majority of you haven’t.   We were attempting to do some fairly ambitious things with text messaging as our platform.  I think we missed the mark on what we were attempting to do – specifically by trying to bill ourselves as text messaging companies instead of content delivery via multiple methods – but that’s a story for another day.

We shut down operations in late 2007,  leaving both myself and Brian – the other co-founder – to try to figure out an important question: Now what do we do?

We both agreed that starting more companies probably wouldn’t be feasible – at least in the near term – as we’d fairly well exhausted our investment opportunities.  I opted to go back into the regular workforce in an area where I was formally trained – information security.  The job market was just starting to turn sour,  so it took a little while before I was able to find the right fit.  I ended up as the Systems Security Officer for a medicare contractor based out of Fort Wayne Indiana.

It was an interesting position, and I really enjoyed the work. While there I expanded upon my existing skill-set by adding in government experience while  also allowing me the opportunity to do policy development and l build a security program from the ground up.  It was challenging and rewarding, but wasn’t where I really wanted to be.  While I liked the work,  the corporate culture, along with certain members of the senior management, made it uncomfortable for me.   It became obvious to me after 8 or so months that I needed a change, for my own sanity.

And so, despite the fact that the economy had just fallen into the toilet and the job market crashed almost as hard as the stock market had, I decided to start looking for other opportunities. I was ecstatic when in december I was asked to come in for an interview with a company in downtown Indianapolis.  I was relieved when I showed up for the interview and the office, and culture, was exactly what I wanted in a place to work.

The job, an Infosec Admin position, was a step down in terms of job title and responsibilities.  It meant, however, that I could go back to playing with technology and making things work,  something I sorely missed.  I aced the interview and a few weeks later (ok, a month later) they offered me the position.   I accepted, and immediately turned in my resignation at the medicare contractor.

Two weeks later (a year ago, tomorrow) I started my current job.

I find myself working now for a company that, despite the economy and increasing jobless rate,  is performing exceptionally well.  Rather than cutting jobs, we’re adding hundreds.  It is by far one of – if not the – best technology companies to work for in the state, and our technology platform is internationally recognized as one of the best in our industry.   It’s a great place to be, and I am nothing short of ecstatic that I get to work here.

I often find myself thinking “I can’t believe I get paid to listen to music and play with technology all day…”, and it’s true – I can’t believe my good fortune.

So – why do I write this?   Is it because I want to flaunt my good luck and how awesome my life is?  No.  I do think it’s important to point out though that while we hear constantly the “doom and gloom” about the economy, and job market,   that it’s important to  keep some hope.  It’s not ALL doom and gloom.  There is some good still to be found.   It’s easy to become scared, and worry, and be afraid of what may happen.  It’s important, though, to be thankful for what we do have, and to know that it’s not ALL bad news.

Keep calm, and carry on.

(Special note:  The idea for this post,  including the image up top and title, come from a book mark Ann bought while we were out this weekend.)

The holidays that have passed were good,  and so far the new year has treated me pretty well. For the most part.

A little over a week ago,  8 days if you want to be picky,  Ann called me about 15 minutes before my alarm was set to wake me up.  I groggily answered the phone with “yeah, what’s up”

Ann replied with “My truck just broke down on me.”

“Huh? what do you mean?”

“…. It broke down, as in stopped working, shut off…”

At this point I initially was going to say “Well what do you want ME to do about it, I’m sleeping here!” but thankfully my mouth refused to actually SAY that, and instead chose the way more tactful and safer “Let me put clothes on and I’ll come help – where are you?”

So,  I did just that and about 15 minutes later pulled up behind her broken down truck.   We called a shop I had taken my old Honda to a few times (that conveniently offered free towing and diagnostics) and after the tow truck showed up to tow it we went back home to await news.

The shop – Edwards Transmissions and Engines (specifically the one up near Castleton on the north side of Indianapolis) – was nothing short of a nightmare.    They continually would inform us that they thought they knew what the problem was, but couldn’t get the truck to die on them.   They then told us they needed to order parts and it would be another day.    The next day it was another excuse.   Come Saturday, a full five days after having the truck,  the day they promised to have it fixed by,  yet another excuse came up of “we need a specialty tool and nobody seems to have it except a place out in Plainfield – we should have the tool monday morning and your truck fixed by early afternoon monday”.

Monday morning, around 11am, they still did not have the tool.    By 2pm they officially GAVE UP on trying to fix the truck and told us to come pick it up.    That’s right folks – the shop that supposedly fixes NOTHING BUT TRANSMISSIONS AND ENGINES *GAVE UP* on trying to fix our truck.    They wasted a week of our time on unkept promises and downright lies.  I usually don’t ever say this but: AVOID THIS SHITHOLE OF A SHOP AT ALL COSTS.  I cannot recommend this place to anybody – ever – for any reason.

Lets list the things that Edwards Transmissions and Engines did WRONG:

1. Lied to us about when they could fix it,  and took an incredibly long time to diagnose the problem
2. Failed to diagnose all of the problems with the truck and frequently told us on status updates that they were going to “look into” the squeaking noises we heard when the truck was on.
3. Probably minor as things go but, did not use disposable floor mats or seat covers – tracking in such nasty things as cigarette butts onto the floor of the truck.
4. Changed all kinds of settings inside the car on the radio – including EVER SINGLE RADIO STATION PRESET.
5. Lied to us and told us that they did not hear any squeaking noises the entire time they had the truck.   How do I know they lied?  It was squeaking when Ann got in it to leave their shop.   Unless it magically required Ann or I to be present for it to squeak Edwards’ staff are a bunch of big fat liars.

The same day Ann took the truck over to the Ford dealership near our house.   She said they were kind, courteous, and professional.  They immediately put disposable floor mats and seat covers in to avoid tracking stuff into the car.  They also kindly gave her a ride home as they would be keeping the car overnight.   They even offered to give her a ride to and from school as long as they had her truck (a service she didn’t use, but was nice of them to offer).

The next morning they had diagnosed the problems.  The Idle air controller needed to be replaced, as did the serpentine belt tensioner and finally the cam shaft (which was the ONE thing that Edwards said they were going to replace,  but for whatever reason couldn’t make it work).   They also topped off her fluids and did an oil change.

So lets look at all the things the Ford dealership did RIGHT:

1. Were professional, courteous and knowledgeable.
2. Quickly and accurately diagnosed the problems.
3. Just as quickly and accurately FIXED the problems.
4. Used disposable floor mats and seat covers.
5. did NOT change any internal settings
6. Offered to provide transportation to / from school (even if we didn’t use it).

As it was – Paul Harvey Ford did everything exactly right.   They gave us the experience we HOPED Edwards Transmissions and Engines would.  I would highly recommend them to anybody who needed work done on their Ford car or truck.

Edwards Transmissions and Engines though…… they’re dead to me.  Unless you like being jerked around, lied to, and having someone doing god knows what to your vehicle, avoid them like the plague.

This year has seen the following events in my life (in no particular order):  I got married, I changed jobs to my current job (which I love), spent a week in las vegas,  drove a tow truck for the first time, spent a week in florida,  got an xbox 360, and bought a new car.

Now – that’s just the things I can think of off the top of my head.   I’m sure there are other things that have happened (such as me catching perhaps the best shot of my photographic career),  and plenty of other things that have made this a great year.

By far the biggest and best thing (as mentioned above) is that I got married and now get to spend my life with my best friend  - it doesn’t get more awesome than that.    A close second was snagging a new job at one of the best email and 1:1 marketing companies in the world.   I was able to move out of a position that was in a toxic environment for a variety of reasons,(which I won’t post here), and into a position in an environment that allows me to thrive.

I was able to spend two weeks in places I love – Florida and Las Vegas.    Florida was for my honeymoon, and was everything I hoped it would be (which had a lot to do with the person I was with).    Las Vegas was a work trip to install firewalls in a data center.   As you can imagine, experiencing Vegas through a cold noisy data center isn’t exactly the best experience.  We did manage to have some fun while out there, though, and I love that part of the country.

I also was finally able to ditch the 13 year old honda civic that I’ve had for years.   My upgrade?   I went the sensible route and got a Toyota Camry (2010 model) – and I love it.

Thanks to my brother-in-law Steve, I got to drive a flat-bed tow truck while up visiting Ann’s family this summer.  I only stalled it twice (once while IN traffic) – which is better than I expected.

And – as you hopefully read on my previous post – I finally broke down and got an Xbox 360.   While I do enjoy it,  I’m honestly not sure we really have time for it.   Ann does now because she’s on break from school,  but I generally don’t have too much time to spend playing games (which is why my World of Warcraft characters are languishing).   I’ll see how it shakes out, but I’m not sure I’ll get as much use out of it as I should.

While 2009 was a good year in many ways – it wasn’t without it’s downside.    The biggest downside was the passing of my Uncle, Marty Whelan, who was a very big part of our family.  Marty will be missed – but never forgotten.

As my Mom always told me: Never say never.

Last week, Ann and I came upon a $200 gift card to Best Buy.  We collectively decided that the best use of that would be to break down and get a gaming console.   We wanted something fun we could do with friends when they come visit, and another thing to pass time and relax.    Our options were a PS3 or an Xbox.   Both are good systems and I would have enjoyed either one,  but the main draw for the PS3 (the fact that it also plays Bluray) doesn’t really matter all that much since we already have two Bluray players.   The big draw for the Xbox – the fact that I have a handful of friends who have them and play online regularly – ended up being the deciding factor.

And so we got an Xbox 360 Elite,  a second controller, HDMI cable and a couple of games.   Currently we’ve got the games that came with the bundle (which are as you’d expect, nothing to write about), as well as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,   and Dragon Age: Origins.   Ann and I have played some CoD:MW2, but haven’t played any Dragon Age yet.   I’m pretty sure Ann is planning on playing Dragon Age while I’m at work tomorrow.   I’m not sure yet when I’ll get a chance to play it…. but I’m looking forward to it.

Now – if you’ll excuse me, I have two litter boxes that apparently need cleaning.    Why the cat’s cant learn to flush a damn toilet is what I want to know… if they can figure out how to open a door, they can figure out how to flush a toilet.

There are, however, ways you can securely delete files from your computer.  These tools will overwrite the space on the hard drive where the file resided,  usually 7 or more times (and often the number of passes is configurable).  This morning my boss brought to my attention the fact that one such utility is available by default on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).   The command, srm, is used via the command line and will securely remove your files.

David (my boss) helpfully created an automator workflow, however, which when saved as a service on your machine will add an option to the right-click context menu in Finder that allows you to securely delete the file.

I – being in a sharing mood – have shared this automator workflow HERE for your enjoyment.

A few notes:   In the actual shell command – pay attention to the switches after srm.  Specifically, you may want to change the s in “-rsf” to an m ( so -rmf).  The s will do a single pass at overwriting the file, while m will do a full 7 passes.

This is provided as-is, though I will answer any questions I’m able to.   As always – use at your own risk, if it breaks your stuff that’s not my fault.

Special thanks to David Meade for providing the automator workflow.

[Update:  I forgot to mention that you can also securely delete files by moving them to your trash folder, and selecting "Secure Empty Trash" from the finder menu...]

[Update 2:  A friend of mine has pointed out that you can set it up so that Finder uses srm to securely empty the trash by default, to do this go the the Finder menu -> preferences -> advanced, and check the box for Empty Trash securely. Enjoy]

Thanksgiving, along with the help of two days of PTO (Paid Time Off, for those who don’t know), allowed me to enjoy a nice six-day weekend.  I did thoroughly enjoy the time off as it allowed me to unwind quite a bit and disconnect myself from work.

Over that weekend I finally broke down and installed our new garbage disposal – which we’ve had for almost six months – replacing the old battered and abused garbage disposal that came with the house (and couldn’t perform it’s primary duty at all, was loud as hell and made the entire countertop shake).  The new unit, an Evolution Compact series from Insinkerator is nothing short of wonderful in comparison.   We can put things down the garbage disposal now that would have resulted in a clogged sink before.  It’s a lot quieter as well, and does not cause the counter to shake either – making it better on all counts.

The installation was significantly easier than I was expecting,  even though I decided to remove the old mounting from the old unit (same mounting type, or so it looked) in favor of using the new hardware.   Installation – for me anyways – required nothing more than a little upper body strength to hold the disposer in place, plumbers putty, and enough wiring knowledge to connect wires with wire caps.   Thankfully I had my wonderful wife to help me,  which did prove to be quite helpful.

This weekend I also found myself looking at Bento (from Filemaker) again as a tool to get some things organized.  I’ve had mixed feelings about Bento since I first tried their beta release,  not FULLY understanding what I could use it for (or would use it for). With the release of Bento 3 recently, though, I decided to give it another look (since the upgrade was only about $30 since I had a valid Bento 2 license).

I have to say,  when combining it with the $5 iPhone app,   Bento has become a bit more useful for me.   I’m working on building a home inventory of our electronic and expensive equipment – a project that is going very well since I can take my iPhone around with me to the various equipment, enter in the details, and sync it back to Bento on my Macbook Pro.   I’ve also used it to organize and catalog my wine collection.   Admittedly it’s not a large collection (currently only 9 unopened bottles),  but Ann and I are planning on going to a local wine store to find some new wines to try.  This will help me organize the new arrivals.

My Dad has been using Bento to catalog his wine as well, though he is using a custom built template to do so (whereas I’m using a new template in version 3 for wine collections).   He’s got a very large collection of wine,  and his process involved going to each bottle and taking a picture with his camera,  uploading into Aperture, Selecting the images, exporting to a directory, and importing into the correct record in Bento.

My process was much easier (and I believe he’s going to switch to my process after I showed it to him):   I create the library on my mac, and sync the blank library to my iPhone.   I then take my iPhone with me, enter the data straight from the bottles – and from within Bento on my phone, use it’s camera to take the picture of the wine.    It’s then already stored in Bento and I can sync everything back to my Macbook Pro.   I think all told it took me about 15 minutes to catalog my wine.

As I’ve gone through this process, I’m starting to see more and more of the capabilities of this software, and I’m actually starting to get excited about some of the things that I could possibly do with it.   It’s certainly not for everybody, and some people just won’t get any use out of it,  but I am really starting to enjoy it myself now that I’m finally “getting it”.

And lastly – while setting up my old Macbook Pro (after Apple replaced BOTH of the dead batteries I had for it.  Applecare FTW!) – I got to thinking about how great it would be to have my 1Password data sync between my various macs like it does between my iPhone and Mac.  I tweeted about wanting to be able to do that, and had SEVERAL people (Including the folks who made 1Password, which is just plain awesome) suggest using Dropbox to do it.   This turned out to be incredibly simple to do and has me wondering why the hell I didn’t do this sooner.

The fact that the folks from Agile Web Solutions responded to my “I wish there were an easy way to sync 1password data between my macs” tweet with the answer to how to do so, is awesome.   They’ve proven to be very responsive to their customers, and in the process are building a lot of goodwill and a solid base of supporters.  I think that’s definitely an example of “The Way It Should Be Done”.