Category Archives: Rich’s RPG
Choosing a laptop for Rich, Windows 8, Intel Haswell, Iris Graphics, HD 5200, LGA 1150 socket, On-Die Voltage Regulator, ASUS VivoBook, Ultrabooks – RRPG022
The guys from Home Tech Podcast show #117 hang around post-show to help me, Rich O’Neil, figure out what to buy as a replacement for my 2 1/2-year old $199 Acer Aspire 5251-1317 laptop. The cheap little laptop has been holding its own, especially since I had I installed an SSD in it, but the screen is beginning to die and I don’t know if I’m going to replace it. Besides, it really doesn’t have enough power to run virtual machines well, something I occasionally require for testing and schoolwork.
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The guys and I talk about hardware and choice of OS – Windows 7 or Windows 8. If I’m going with W8, they recommend getting the touchscreen so I can experience Windows 8 in all it’s glory. I agree. I also like the fact that W8’s Hyper-V feature makes working with virtual machines fairly easy. It’s nice to have a decent alternative to VirtualBox. As far as when to pull the trigger on a purchase, Michael Martis suggests waiting until Haswell, Intel’s newest CPU series, arrives next month on June 3rd or 4th. It’s a good idea and I think I’ll wait. The decreased power consumption by itself is reason enough – Intel is claiming at least 20x power consumption improvement over Ivy Bridge. But Intel is also claiming up to a 2x boost in graphics performance with support for 4k video. Whoa! I guess it’s a tough time right now to be in the market for a new laptop.
Interview with John Horton,USM EE Student Turned Theatre Major: MadMapper, HTTPS Everywhere, Wireshark & WinPcap, Metasploit, Forrest M. Mims, Packet Radio – RRPG021
This week on Rich’s Random Podcast Generator, we’re joined by John Horton, a University of Southern Maine theatre major on the Gorham campus who’s involved in the technical aspects of theatre. John grew up in a hi-tech household. His dad was a MIT grad who worked as a design engineer for DEC, and later Intel. John was breadboarding basic circuits as a child – flip-flop, 555 timer IC, etc. – and picking up whatever else he could from Forrest M. Mims‘ instructional books originally sold by Radio Shack.
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John talks about acquiring some old computers from dad’s work place and building a network environment with machines running Unix, Linux, Apache, Mac, and Windows. He learned how to get these machines to work together, and then learned about system vulnerabilities and pen-testing with Metasploit.
As we talk with John about Wireshark (and WinPcap), the subject of the Chrome and Firefox plugin HTTPS Everywhere comes up as a way to protect oneself against traffic sniffing. The discussion inevitably branches to the topic of antivirus/malware protection and security in general. HOSTS files rule!?
#20 Rich’s Random Podcast Generator: LastPass with Amber Gott – Online Password Security, Multi-factor Authentication, One-Time Passwords, Phone Apps, LastPass Security Challenge
“The Last Password You’ll Have to Remember!”
Amber Gott, Online Community Manager for LastPass.com joins Jim and Rich to talk about online password management and security. Online security has always been a hot topic, and it’s only going to be more so as time goes on. With that in mind, there’s never been a better time to look at how you’re handling your online presence, specifically the passwords you use for site logins, be it a gaming site or commerce such as Amazon.com.
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To start with, people are known for using the same password across multiple sites because it’s too hard remembering all the site/password combinations. Or they have a similar reason. Quite often, they use very simple passwords that are easily guessable. Passwords such as ‘123456’ and ‘password’ are just plain horrible choices. Dictionary-based passwords such as ‘smellycat’ are not much better. They’re way too obvious and lack any level of complexity that would prevent someone from cracking them. So this presents a huge security hole, one that could cause a lot of heartache, not to mention significant financial loss. And yes, this stuff really happens. Every single day!
#19 Rich’s Random Podcast Generator: Acronis True Image Home 2012 PC Backup and Recovery Review
This week Jim and Rich go guestless and spend some time covering Acronis True Image Home 2012 Backup & Recovery Software. After talking for a few minutes about working with our friends and neighbors on their PC problems, we take an in depth look at the Acronis UI and spend some time covering items that might be helpful for both beginner and expert. As a bonus, we’ve included some screenshots for reference. All images can be seen in full size just by clicking on the image.
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| Getting Started | Backup and Recovery |
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| Disk Backup | Schedule your operation |
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| DBO – Advanced | DBO – Performance |
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| DBO – Notifications | DBO – Exclusions |
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| Online Backup | Nonstop Backup |
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| Email Backup | File Backup |
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| Media Builder | Rescue Media Contents |
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| Bootable Media Type | Destination File Selection |
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| Synchronization | Try and Decide |
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| Clone Disk Wizard | Protection Tools |
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| Backup Settings Transfer | Backup Conversion |
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#18 Rich’s Random Podcast Generator: CrashPlan, Drobo, Mac Mini, Backup Solutions
Nathaniel Lindley joins Jim Collison and Rich O’Neil on RRPG #18 to talk about how he uses a Mac Mini, CrashPlan and Drobo together for his home and social back up strategy. A former CrashPlan employee, Nathaniel has a lot of interesting things to say about this solid and flexible backup solution.
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”In early 2008, my friend and I were looking for a way to backup our children’s photos to each other’s house. We didn’t want to trade external drives; we didn’t want DVD copies. We wanted to use the Internet to transfer. Tried setting up FTP or WebDAV without much success. Found CrashPlan when it was starting out, and it was the perfect solution for us. Encrypted, background, used existing storage, free or cheap, cross-platform. Now when friends or family ask about how to protect their files, I set them up with CrashPlan, and if I repair or fix their computer, it is a requirement.” -Nathaniel Lindley
Nathaniel’s CrashPlan+ and Drobo Setup at Home - June 2012
Mac Mini –
- (Mid 2007)
- OS X 10.6.8 (always on)
- 2GB RAM
