Memestate

DEVONthink for Scientists: Part I

By way of Cabi's Glasses (DEVONthink for Scientists: Part I):

Managing information is a very important part of a modern scientists life. Lab notebooks, ideas scribbled on papers, proceedings, papers to be written, papers written 10 years ago, papers to be read, papers to be refereed and of course physics blogs. Many people have many different ways to cope with it. Some are very tidy with classified hanging folders and highly maintained list of bibliographies and some are very messy. I personally hate bunch of papers flying around filling desk and shelf space. I can never find things there. What can I do, I was using Yahoo before reading my first paper! So for the last few years I was in a search for effective collecting techniques for information. My dear idea notebook served me quite a while but it was just better than nothing. I couldn't easily cross reference and it didn't integrate into paper folders. But finally I feel like the issue is settled for quite a long while. Today I will talk about my final decision: DEVONthink.

DT is a (Mac-only) database management software for every kind of electronic document. It lately became well-known (read fashionable) thanks to Steven Johnson's NYTimes article and following blogs (here and here). Probably journalists and writers are the primary market for this software but I believe it is an invaluable tool also for scientists. So I'll try to give review (or a praise) of it for you.

Transition Seen from Hacker Posturing to Criminality

From NPR Morning Edition (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4857144):

Computer viruses used to be created for the chance to brag about the ability to break into a well-guarded system. A new Internet security survey indicates that computer attacks are increasingly being used to make money like stealing identities.

Rangers are at .500? Redskins win at Texas Stadium?

I stopped following the Rangers about half way through there 1-12 road trip in August. I just took a look at the newspaper and somehow, the Rangers have made their way back to .500 primarily on the strength of good starting pitching developed in their farm system. What's next, the Redskins winning at Texas Stadium?

I could have sworn that hell just froze over, but it's too damn hot for that theory to hold water.

Introduction: IP Spoofing - The Community's Center for Security

From LinuxSecurity.com (Introduction: IP Spoofing - The Community's Center for Security):

IP spoofing is a technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers, whereby the attacker sends messages to a computer with a forging IP address indicating that the message is coming from a trusted host. There are a few variations on the types of attacks that using IP spoofing.

Next month will mark the fourth year that I've been working in the Information Security business. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase, "my ip address must have been spoofed," when confronting a user about suspicious activity originating from their machine. This line of reasoning generally comes from sophisticated users or professional system administrators who just can't fathom the idea that they could have been hacked, wormed, or exploited. In the course of my time in the business, I've only seen two legitimate instances of IP spoofing (the SQL Slammer worm and a trinoo DDOS agent running on an abandoned Solaris box) and one instance of a misconfigured NAT setup that one could stretch into the "must have been spoofed" category if you are inclined to be generous. Being a fan of Occam's Razor, I am inclined to reject the "must have been spoofed" hypothesis in favor of the empirical evidence in hand.

The referenced article does a passible job of explaining IP Spoofing and is worth a quick read.

Buffer Overflow Basics.

From Linux Security (Buffer Overflow Basics - The Community's Center for Security):

A buffer overflow occurs when a program or process tries to store more data in a temporary data storage area than it was intended to hold. Since buffers are created to contain a finite amount of data, the extra information can overflow into adjacent buffers, corrupting or overwriting the valid data held in them.

HOW TO Share your music via iTunes on the Net

By way of MAKE (HOW TO Share your music via iTunes on the Net):

Extremely good HOW TO - After much frustration, I've finally set up my new mac mini to stream all my music to my work laptop. I say frustration, because whilst there is plenty of help out there, none of it in itself was complete enough to get me up and running. Some where too mac to mac, some to unix to mad, some unix to windows. Nothing really gave me the step by step, follow this and it will work guide. So, I present "The definitive guide to setting up iTunes streaming via the internet from a Mac running OSX to your PC running windows". Link.

Panic Begins PodCasting

From TheMusicNeverStopped:

The folks over at Widespreadpanic.com have released their first official podcast featuring a conversation with Dave Schools and George McConnell. The band intends to use this technology as way to bring fans new information, interviews, music, and more!

For the iTunes link, click here.
For the XML feed, click here.

To access the MP3 file direct, click here.

It's great to see bands like Widespread Panic and Umphrey's McGee begin embracing podcasting as another way to reach their fans. Podcasting not only benefits the existing fan base but also offers another method for new audiences to discover what these bands are all about. [Ed]

Camera Hacks.

By way of MAKE (http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/09/tons_and_tons_o.html):

Great collection of camera hacks...Building a Car Camera Mount: A mount for getting in-car pictures and videos. Hacking Lenmar Mach 1 Speed Charger: Various battery power hacks using this cool charger. How to multiple expose with an APS camera: Want to try some creative imagery? How to re-use Kodak MAX One-Time-Use disposable camera? Let these step-by-step instruction show you how to turn disposable cameras into re-usable spy cameras. Link.

DEVONthink.

From MacDevCenter.com: Delve into DEVONthink:

... earlier this year, author Steven Berlin Johnson wrote a widely linked and oft-cited weblog post about how he made use of DEVONthink as a reading and research tool. By throwing enormous amounts of data into it, he was able to make best possible use of the application's built-in semantic searching and cross-referencing. The result was that DEVONthink made suggestions and links between materials that Johnson could never have spotted himself; it actually did some of his research for him.

Ok. I'll admit that I'm a bit of a junkie when it comes to research tools. DEVONThink Professional 1.0 is my latest toy. I've been using DTP for about a week or so to track my work related research. Having tried OmniOutliner 3.0, Circus Ponies Notebook, Aquaminds Notetaker, various Blogs and Wiki packages already, I think I've found the holy grail of research organizational tools. It's very difficult to describe what this tool does, but I would recommend downloading a demo, indiscriminately dumping all your documents into the program's database, and start searching and playing around with the relationships the program finds between your work. Cool stuff. It's a little too late for this to be terribly useful for my dissertation research, but I will probably blow some of my disposable income on DEVONThink when I finish paying off the D70 and recover financially from the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security.

From Slashdot (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/11/1716205&tid=172&tid=218):

The IT industry spends a huge amount of money on security -- and yet worms, spyware, and other relatively mindless attacks are still able to create massive havoc. Why? Marcus Ranum suggests that we've all been spending far too much time and effort on provably ineffective security measures. It may come as a surprise that anti-virus software, penetration testing, and user education are three of "The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security."

Marcus Ranum is right on target with his "Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security" essay. You could easily change the title of the piece to "Six Reasons Why Rich Will Not Miss the Computer Security Field When He Finds a New Line of Work."