cat slave diary

Category: Life, the universe, and everything…

  • End of an era

    I’ve given up my PC to my brother as his computer (my old 1999 Dell) was finally giving up the ghost. I no longer have the ability to execute Windows x86 binaries or Linux x86… for now. This leaves me only with my Mac.

    I miss the pedestal of my PC’s case (clear horizontal surfaces being a bit rare due to the chronological ordering system I use (ie I dump things on spare space, and neglect to clean up), but I will not miss is the fan noise.

    In the new year, after the wedding, I’ll get a nice MacBook Pro once they’ve sorted out the whine (apparently sorted with later MacBook Pros which have a different display inverter), fan noise and overheating issues (probably fixed with the firmware update), distorted right hand speaker, and expanding batteries and reports of poor battery life.

     

  • OSCON 2006 – See you there!

    Just a quick note as to the quietness of the blog. I’m working on a few things:

    • my slides for OSCON (webappsec 150 tutorial, and updating my Ajax presentation to include the latest research and make it a bit more (ahem) controversial to liven things up)
    • doing demos for the above
    • my slides for OWASP Melbourne, July 2006 meeting (this coming Wednesday! Details)
    • reconstructing my work laptop
    • the OWASP membership packs and other executive director project items
    • administrating Aussieveedubbers
    • writing a fresh Ajaxy UltimaBB installer
    • writing a proposal for a workable security architecture for PHP 6 which I want to present to Chris when I go to OSCON, and maybe earn myself an audience with Rasmus and the other PHP luminaries to discuss it over a beer or two and thus decrease my trolliness to those folks.

    and plus Tanya would like my body sometime as well. I’ve given up TV. Woe is me!

    See you at OSCON 2006.

    I’m also making an appearance at BlackHat and Defcon, and will be in SF in between those two conferences, and possibly in Salt Lake City before OSCON (depends on work). If you want a Thawte Notarization for the Web of Trust (free *real* fully trusted S/MIME certificates!), please bring photocopies of your photo ID and I’ll do it for free.

  • It doesn’t rain, it pours

    As I was wondering how to force myself to sleep at 2.30 am as my body clock is still way out of whack from the unspeakable misery that is my throat, my fiancée Tanya had an anaphylactic reaction to something. After she tried all three methods of control, including an auto-injecting adrenaline monster needle, I had to zoom her to hospital. Although I am still suffering the full effects of laryngitis, extremely tired, and out in 7C weather wearing just shorts and t-shirt and with nothing to read. But I’d do it all again.

    Our nearest hospital is Werribee Mercy hospital, about 5 km and around 5 or so minutes in the car. The hospital had nurses, but no doctors as they all called in sick, so emergency was shut down. Tanya’s breathing wasn’t improving. Although the nurses on duty tried to make things better, it looked as if the MICA dudes would have to intubate her whilst on the way to the next nearest hospital, some 15 km away.

    The care Tanya received from all concerned was great (except of course, the Werribee Mercy, where due to stupid laws prohibiting qualified nurses from prescribing anything, Tanya couldn’t be given anything until the MICA dudes arrived, even though this meant she might have choked to death). The nurses at the Mercy were clearly worried and got us out of there as quickly as they could. They shouldn’t have needed to. I feel sorry for them, as it’s not their fault Tanya’s recovery was made so much worse by unnecessarily and potentially fatal delays in treatment. It is pure and utter luck that Tanya survived this period – there were no drugs available for treatment (see the bit about no doctors!), and adrenaline to keep your heart going only helps if you can breathe.

    I rang her parents as I left Werribee Mercy, and they came as soon as they could, arriving at Western General shortly after I was allowed in to keep Tanya company.

    After getting to Western General at Footscray an hour after the attack had occurred at our place, Tanya received treatment, but was left on a trolley under bright neon lights all night – there literally is no other option at Western General. It’s a bit ancient, run down, crowded and primitive there. However, for the poor western suburbs, there is basically nowhere else.

    The triage area didn’t let Tanya’s parents in to see her until nearly 40 minutes after we arrived. I could see that Tanya was immensely relieved to see her folks, as I know I was. Tanya’s parents and I took turns staying with her in the very crowded and busy emergency department.

    However, at 6.30 am it was obvious I needed my drugs for my throat. So I had to go, even though I didn’t want to. I was extremely tired and so I drove very carefully. I got home at 7 am, showered, ate breakfast, and rang Tanya’s parents to check up on her condition. Luckily, Tanya had been moved to a recovery ward and was resting, so I took the opportunity to take some sleep.

    I woke at 11 am with the sorest throat I’ve had in the course of my horrible illness, had a huge painful coughing fit and spent the next hour or so gagging in the bathroom. I wanted to go back to Tanya, but I knew I couldn’t do it. Luckily (for me!), Tanya rang and told me that a reporter will be speaking to her, and most likely appear on the news that night. I hadn’t realized a political football had been set in motion by *someone*, but it certainly wasn’t us.

    Tanya made the news: she was interviewed by Channel 9 for their main evening bulletin, and Channel 10 reported a slightly inaccurate version – she was never intubated. The Age also covered it here (“Furore over casualty closure”). Our phone was red hot for a while after the 6 pm news.

    However, it would have been nice to have doctors in an area where there’s upwards of 30,000 families relying upon their hospital. I just hope that this leads to changes that allow us to assume that our nearest hospital is safe to attend in an emergency. I know that the western suburbs seem like the wasteland to our medical fraternity, but it’s unacceptable to leave us all at risk just so they can live in Toorak or South Yarra. Now this thing is a political football, it should be sorted. But having worked in the health care industry for a while in the past, I am terribly cynical and know it will not be fixed. Our horrible episode will just be forgotten in a day or two, and nothing will change.

  • Not a well chappie

    I’ve got more stuff to go up here, but I’m not feeling very well.

    On Sunday night in Steve’s flat in Munich, I felt a bit lightheaded after some decent wine and grappa. I put it down to that. I woke the next morning feeling very hot and flushed. I thought, bugger, what a hang over! I knew I needed some drugs, but it was a public holiday in Germany on Monday and every pharmacy I could see was shut. When we got to the airport, the pharmacy was on the inside, but no dice there either – they were shut.

    When I got to Singapore, it was too short a stop over to try and get some drugs and plus, I didn’t want an ear temperature test keeping me in Singapore until they worked out what it is I have.

    However, upon returning to Australia I was feeling less than stellar, so I went to bed, thinking I’ll sleep it off. Not being shy of the GP, my lovely financée rang and was directed by my GP to make myself available at my local hospital’s emergency department at the earliest opportunity. Which is exactly what my financée and her mum did. I was groggy from the long flight and tired. They woke me up, drove me there, and we waited. And waited. and waited. I could have done with that sleep! Eventually, the drugs she plied me with kicked in, and we decided to head back to the GP, even though he was treating me like a leper who also had avian bird flu.

    A quick two minute exam – bronchitis. A short course of antibiotics, no alkyhol, and rest. Which is exactly what I feel like and have been doing. Except I should be at work today, and I should have been back in my own time zone. It’s 2.20 am, and I feel … well … up. Tired, crappy, and up.

    I’ll try staring at the bedroom ceiling and see if it helps.

  • Munich – Saturday (Deutsches Museum)

    We got up, had breakfast, and walked to the Deutsches Museum.

    Unlike any other museum, this is a geek museum. It’s like geek heaven there. Except there’s so much to see and that entails a lot of walking. They have feet massagers, but they take 50 c coins, and I haven’t acquired any of those yet, only heaps of 20 euro cents.

    The first thing we checked out was the high energy lab, and that was amazing. Lots of noise, sparks and high energy!

    We took in (not nearly exhaustive to describe it!):

    • High energy lab
    • Planes, and lots of them!
    • Planetarium
    • Rockets, rockets, rockets!!!!!! And more rockets!
    • Chemistry … no explosions, doh!
    • Space exploration (astronautics)
    • Measurements and time
    • A temporary exhibition on German progress
    • Walked through the agricultural area, but checked out a complete house they’d reconstructed
    • A cave about neolithic art work. It was dark.
    • Nuclear physics and other physics
    • Paper and printing (look at real leading and type!)
    • Musical instruments (nearly missed out on this one, but it was awesome!)
    • Techno Toys – looking at all these early proto-legos from the late 19th century and early 20th century

    Check out the gallery of stuff here:

    After the techno toys, my feet were killing me, so we headed back to Steve’s place. We geeked out there for about an hour and watched a Coupling episode. I’d forgotten how cool that show is – I’ve only seen the one episode until then. Will need to get the DVDs when I get back to Australia.

    We had dinner at the Mexican restaurant near Steve’s friend Andi’s place. It was really good, particularly the half price Margaritas. Again, no Visa, and the prices at most European places are in ouchy land territory for earners in $AUD. At this stage, I’m nearly out of cash again. Need to find an ATM on Monday to deal with this if I run out of Steve’s hoard of cash (we’re trading at the correct rate, so he doesn’t need to be done over when he comes to Australia).

    Sloshed our way back to his place. Even at 10 pm, the public transport doesn’t take long, despite needing to change trains (and system) three times. You simply couldn’t rely on public transport in Melbourne to do this.

    We watched a few episodes of Coupling and I hit the sack.

  • Munich – Friday

    I landed in Munich and waited to pick up my luggage. The new airport feels like one big BMW ad. There’s BMW everywhere, so at least I had something to look at. Eventually my bag came, and I headed out. I met up with Steve Riehm, who is hosting me in Munich. When I was organizing the last minute trips, I did not know that Munich is hosting a goodly percentage of the soccer World Cup, so all the flights were full and mine was no exception. That’s why I had to travel to Munich a day earlier than I expected.

    The weather in Munich is even worse than that in St Anna, which is hard to top. Steve cranked on the heated seats in his beemer, and I was toasty in seconds. 🙂

    After dropping my crap at his place, we geeked around a bit and then headed into town for a look see. I took heaps of photos, which can be found in the Gallery, here:

    After walking around Munich for a few hours, my footsies were a bit sore. Luckily, there was a pub only a little distance away, so we ended up eating there, and again, I was surprised to find that Visa is not accepted widely in this fairly first world nation. Unbelievable. After a few really nice beers and some roast suckling pig and crackling (the Germans know how to do pork!), Steve bundled me home on the excellent public transport here. If only Melbourne had such good public transport!

    We traded Euros for Australian dollars as the Travellex rate was insanely bad. My normal savings card didn’t work here, despite the ATM I used having a Cirrus logo. So beware if you come from a place like Australia where everyone uses electronic cash and come to a place like Munich, where it’s hard to use your own money. I wonder how many tourists to the World Cup are going to be bitten … coming here with only a tad of real money like me, and expecting to use ATMs and EFTPOS as per normal.

    We watched a movie – Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Awesome film noir / comic / kitsch. Get it!

  • Meeting up with the family

    On Thursday morning, I took the very reasonably priced train up to my family near St Nicklaas. It looks a long way on the map, but it’s only 40 or so km. Europe is compact that way. The weather is still crappy and it barely makes it above 10 C.

    Met up with Eddy at the train station, and we had a good old conversation about geeky stuff. Eddy is a funny bloke – he didn’t know where the coffee was, so he rang his sister, who popped over with some coffee and a filter. Then when his better half (Viviane) came home, she showed us where the coffee was… it was right in front of the cupboard. The shame of it! 🙂

    We had an awesome meal of witlof and ham and cheese sauce, much thanks to Viviane’s awesome cooking. Eddy broke out the wine, and we started getting merry.

    Those were taken around 7 pm… the sun finally came out, and it was still cold, but at least I’ve seen the sun whilst I was overseas! It’s supposedly summer, but it’s colder than Melbourne.

    More family came around after dinner, and we had some awesome beer, West Vleteren. Eddy thinks it’s best beer in the world, and I think he could very well be right. I stayed with the family overnight, pushing Michael out of his room. Sorry about that Michael! 🙂

    In the morning, I left for Munich. Europe has awesome integrated public transport. Even though the train for the airport had been cancelled, I made my checkin at the airport with ages to spare. The new part of the airport is shiny and new. They really need to demolish the old bit as it makes a terrible impression, and I’m sure with 97 gates in the new bit, they can afford to get rid of the crusty old terminal.

  • eBay: do not recommend, waste of time

    Well, I’ve just had my first experience with eBay of being kicked in the teeth for being honest. I’ve been a member for six years, and until last week, I maintained a perfect 100% reputation basically by being me in all my dealings. Here’s a hint – it’s simply not worth it as eBay will not back you up when the going gets tough.

    A woman wins one of my four auctions last week. She bid several times on a table setting, comes to my place, asks to measure the table in a lame effort to prove that the table is smaller than I said in the listing, and says she doesn’t want it as it’s too narrow and she likes to spread out. She then leaves.

    Sorry lady, on eBay, like all auction houses, if you bid on it and you win it, you own it. So I leave her negative feedback for abandoning the sale:

    Refused item even though exactly as described and as per photos. Not recommended

    She then leaves negative feedback for me, but in her case, she lied:

    item failed to meet description. do not recommend, waste of time

    This is a laugh as:

    0) the description is accurate (8 seat table with 6 chairs). The table can seat eight if you must, but six is about right.
    a) the description of the condition is accurate (as new, with minor dints from regular use)
    b) there’s photos of the item including a photo of the only chair which has (cleanable) marks
    c) there’s accurate measurements in the questions area five days before the auction ended for all to read

    I complain to eBay. They suggest asking her to withdraw the feedback. I do so, even though I know she wont. She didn’t. I complain again to eBay. They tell me that due to US law, they can’t remove even slanderous postings. Sorry fellas, Gutnick proved that Victoria, Australia defamation law trumps US defamation law. All the way to the High Court. eBay have a responsibility to deter and remove slanderous postings when they occur, and not hide behind some lame interpretation of US law which simply doesn’t apply here.

    So what’s eBay’s final offer? Ask the liar who didn’t pay for her winnings to mutually withdraw the negative feedback. I’m loathed to do this as a poor rating is a good warning to other sellers / buyers that all is not well with that person. But I want my 100% back for exactly the same reason, and I’m buggered if I’m going to pay some shiny arse lawyer $20k or more to get a clean eBay account again through winning a defamation case.

    Six years of being “me” down the drain.

    So if you want to be treated nice at eBay – shit all over the other sellers. There’s nothing that eBay will do to you. At all. eBay is not the good guy’s friend. do not recommend, waste of time.

  • My Mac is back. Oh yeah!

    I’ve been off the air effectively for two weeks with the temperature sensor issue. It’s been everything I could do just to do the things I had to do, like moderate the webappsec queue. Everything else – writing the Guide, responding to e-mail, doing my slides for OWASP EU, etc have all been put on hold. That really sucks.

    The AppleCenter told me that my Mac would be ready at 3 pm, so when I popped in at 4.45 pm to pick it up, I was surprised to find that it was not yet done. The tech replaced the lid and I got out of the store just after 6 pm. :(  

    AppleCenter Richmond repaired my Mac using a spare part from another G4 laptop that didn’t end up needing it, rather than wait any longer for the mythical part to come from Apple’s lephrechaun factory. The laptop now has no warranty, so hopefully it will survive long enough for me to save enough dosh to buy a MacBook Pro, or … more likely a nice shiny Dell. 

    The trackpad button is now really stiff and the temperature sensor is reading the ambient temperature of the interior of the case (around 25-40 C depending on use). This is good. However, I feel an eBay auction coming on as soon as I have the difference in dosh between the sale of the G4 and the next one. I can’t stand lemons.

    Now, to get my life back in order. If you’ve been waiting for an e-mail response from me, I can now do it. It will take most of Easter to get through them all. I beg for your patience. 🙁

     

  • Why Apple will never win the desktop dominance battle

    For the last few months, I’ve been battling a debilitating issue with my Apple G4 laptop. It has narcolepsy. The trackpad in many G4 laptops contains a faulty temperature sensor. It normally reads -16 to 4 C (which is wrong), but the operating system monitors it. From time to time (and for me all the time), the sensor will register -150 C to +260 C.

    When this happens, the OS puts the computer into emergency sleep. There is no way to turn this behavior off.

    This has not been the only battle with faulty hardware. My laptop lost half its memory shortly after I acquired it, and this required a new logic board to remedy. But not before Apple tried replacing all the RAM several times. In the end, it took Apple four or so weeks to get a new logic board. Luckily, I could struggle through with half my memory. Imagine if it was dead.

    Well, that’s where we are today. My laptop puts itself asleep almost continuously now. I can barely get 10-20 seconds out of the laptop. For all intents and purposes, it’s a $3600 silver hunk of crap.

    Apple in their infinite wisdom, must *see* the laptop fail. There are no Apple dealerships near me. I cannot easily take time off work. The Apple dealers which are open late do not have any service staff on after hours. You get the picture. I have the logs dating from January. I have the Apple support article. I know the part number. I can show the temperate sensor readings and the obvious places it goes crazy. Apple will not believe me because they haven’t seen it fail. Well, I finally managed to find some time to go take it to Apple in late March when it was totally driving me nuts. It’s now nearly 12 days later, and I still have a faulty computer.

    Compare this to the last Dell I had (I’ve had three). One morning, my hard drive crapped out. I rang them at 9 am to report the issue. The tech was there at 11 am, and I was using the recovery CD at 11.15 am. Or the HP workstation I bought in the mid-90’s after my last Mac, a Quadra 650. About two years into its three year warranty, the monitor developed a fault and I rang in to get it looked at thinking I might need to drop it off somewhere. No – HP sent out a courier the same day with a brand spanking new monitor and the courier waited for me to unpack the monitor and repack the faulty monitor. Now that’s service.

    Apple wants me to pay $530 for AppleCare to continue my warranty for another two years as my warranty runs out on Tuesday. It’s obvious that I need it with this pile of steaming feces – it’s a lemon. But why should I pay for such crappy service? As far as I’m concerned as a customer, if I tell you something is not right, you just tell me when I can bring the damn thing in and you will fix it right there and then.

    But no – Apple can’t currently tell me when the required part (a new “top” unit, which includes the temperature sensor for the trackpad) will arrive, so I’m forced to wait. They don’t provide me an alternative laptop in the meantime.

    Apple – I was considering a nice new MacBook Pro. Your truly awful customer service has turned me off your products. If you can’t be bothered to stand behind your $3600 products, when Dell stands behind their $1500 products so much better, I can’t honestly justify the additional $1100 to buy your crap.

    I’m not going to buy the $530 AppleCare. I’m going to save up for a nice new shiny Dell and end my switching experience permanently. This sucks.