Assuming you have managed switches a simple crontab entry pointing to a shell script can open a connection to the switch an admin down the port that its plugged into. If you want to get really fancy you can have the outbound traffic going via a transparent squid proxy / iptables so you can tell when the port is in use, and keep logs of the connection state.

You can also go with a non-NAT firewall (bridge mode), which will block incoming connections while the device / people on the inside wont know anything is there.

Honestly a timer on an unmanaged switch isn't a bad solution, it takes any technical skill out of the equation, its (assuming the timer doesn't fail) hack proof, and does not require and maintenance / patching to keep secure.

It will be interesting to see what happens then the global supply of helium runs out in a few years, apparently we have about 25 to 35 years left.

Its not just used for your kids birthday balloons (in fact that gas is likely second-hand / reused gas in the first place) it used to cool MRI machines.

Time to buy a couple of tankers and invest in a long term profit :)

Malware is like a cockroach: if you see one, chances are there are dozens you don't see hiding behind the walls.

Having jumped this morning on the download train, I think I've now got everything back up and running, Parallels v7 required a reinstall (it uses kernel extensions so I'm not surprised that it needed an over-the-top reinstall) The odd one was Firefox not allowing me to download anything (even with a control-click save-as) the solution to that one was to clear my download history (why that fixed it ... I have not idea)

Fink is proving to be a total pain in the ass to get working again, not to mention xcode apparently now requires a developer-enabled apple account to download and install the command line tools via the GUI (you can still download the tools via the developer website)

Ah the fun of running a new .0 release of software on the day it comes out :)

address bar -> about:config

find the: browser.newtabpage.enabled setting and set it to false

It will grant you the nice clean, fast white page for new tabs.

Why there's not a checkbox somewhere for it ... I have no idea.

As others have mentioned, I would as your local power company, our local provider (Duke Energy) offers something called StrikeStop (http://www.duke-energy.com/strikestop/) which offers whole-house protection (and they install it on the power meter, which is a nice bonus) at ~160$ installed it was a no-brainer decision for me considering it offers insurance along with it.

Speculating here ... since the only people that can have unlimited are the ones that have been grandfathered into it, and that was over two years ago (I think) my guess is that everyone in that group is now legally in the clear to pack up their stuff and walk to the exit whenever they want to.

I hope that this service is backwards compatible with their existing Kindle devices, making it Amazon Tablet (aPad?) only is going to anger their existing customer base...

Yeah, I missed the low UID boat by a mile because I didn't want another password to remember back then :)

These are not the only batteries that have firmware as well, Google "Pandora Battery PSP" it was one of the original ways to un-brick a Sony PSP back in the day :)

Invite sent

What I ended up doing is this:

First quit firefox

Next (depending on platform) find your Mozilla preferences folder, next find the {3112ca9c-de6d-4884-a869-9855de68056c} folder (google toolbar)

Inside there should be a install.rdf file, open with your text editor of choice.

Change
<em:minVersion>2.0</em:minVersion>
                <em:maxVersion>4.0.*</em:maxVersion>

to:
<em:minVersion>2.0</em:minVersion>
                <em:maxVersion>9.0.*</em:maxVersion>

Restart firefox, and re-enable your google toolbar.

Note: this only works if you upgraded to 5.0 with the toolbar already installed, if its not already installed (and disabled) this wont work. I think 9.0 should keep me safe for at least 2 more months of firefox updates! :)

There are several different options (all enforceable from the BES server, some are end user selectable depending on applied device policy)

These range from (in level of paranoia)

Simple password (device backups are in plain text)
Wipe after n-number of failed passwords (default 10 tries)
Encrypt device (requires the above two options, and requires password on powerup and USB connection / file access mode)
Wipe on power loss. (the "I hate my helpdesk staff" option!) you pull the battery, or let the charge go to zero ... the device will wipe on power up
Wipe on n-number of hours with no communication with BES server (another option with limited appeal, but useful in some cases I guess)

And of course the ever popular remote Nuke option from the BES :)

Exactly why I'm one of the (apparently few) who picked "tape" I'm still running LTO3 but get about 750gb on a tape, I have 14tb of media that's backed up every 6 months, and ~1tb that's "active" and gets a weekly backup (vmdk file exports from the servers, etc) the weekly backups are on a rotation, and the "full" 14tb backups have 3 sets of tapes, one of which sits in a safe deposit box at the bank across town.

I used to use removable hard drives for backups but then two things happened, I found out the hard way that older drives sometimes don't spin back up after 2 years of sitting on the shelf, and my data set just got two big for even 1.5tb drives.

Without PS3 or AppleTV support I doubt I'll be making much use of this service (speaking as both an existing Prime member and a Netflix member)