The Apple Mighty Mouse came with my iMac has been replaced today with a totally new one under the warranty of AppleCare. This is the second time for my iMac, as well as me, to get Apple parts replaced. The first one was the DVD drive.
Commonly, the Apple keyboards and mice sold individually are not covered by AppleCare. However, if the accessories are parts of your Mac purchase, they are covered, even by an extended warranty which is definitely worth buying. As we know, computer accessories are more easily broken because of intensive usage, including mouse, DVD drive, and cables/adapters.
The good thing is, the replaced part is also under the extended warranty.
The bad thing is, the scroll-ball design of Mighty Mouse is a great weakness for intensive usage and easy cleaning. The mouse is not intended to be opened and disassembled as its components are all permanently jointed together and I believed no one could actually make it as it was, including the Apple authorised repairers. You may find some blogs and YouTube videos showing you how to disassemble the mouse but unfortunately no one could actually recover the one-way operation. You have to use plastic glue to fix it.
As I remember, my mighty mouse got no scrolling problem after using it for half a year, and eventually got worst last week, stopped working at all. The one more annoying behaviour was every time I clicked the left button, the gadgets appeared instead of the left-clicking operation, which made the mouse malfunctioned at all.
The new mouse is very good, working perfectly with steady scrolling and fast response. My finger can feel the friction of scrolling, smooth and steady, which lets you know the mouse is under control.
The issue is, I am not sure how long the mouse can actually work...
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Smart Grid traffic analysis
According to my recent study on Smart Grid and the Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap (2009-08-10) published by EPRI, I summarised the following characteristics for the network traffic between Service Provider domain and Customer domain.
1. Nearly real-time
2. Small-size package
3. Large amount of clients
4. Asynchronous messaging
5. Connection-based messaging
6. Secure messaging
7. Broadcast and multicast when required
1. Nearly real-time
2. Small-size package
3. Large amount of clients
4. Asynchronous messaging
5. Connection-based messaging
6. Secure messaging
7. Broadcast and multicast when required
Friday, November 13, 2009
Overheard from Aussies
The following is excerpted from the Overheard column of today's mX, a free afternoon daily newspaper available to commuters in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. The Overheard column is for what people "eavesdropped in on something funny, weird or just plain dumb."
Guy 1: "Hye man, did you know the Winter Olympics are on the next year?"
Guy 2: "Oh really, where they holding them at?"
Guy 1: "I don't know, maybe somewhere where there is snow... maybe Mt Everest."
- Andrew
Girl: "Aren't Japan and China the same thing?"
Boy: "No, Japan is a little island by itself and China is in Aisa."
Girl: "Oh, so China is in Asia and Japan is inside of China?"
- Geography lesson
Guy 1: "Hye man, did you know the Winter Olympics are on the next year?"
Guy 2: "Oh really, where they holding them at?"
Guy 1: "I don't know, maybe somewhere where there is snow... maybe Mt Everest."
- Andrew
Girl: "Aren't Japan and China the same thing?"
Boy: "No, Japan is a little island by itself and China is in Aisa."
Girl: "Oh, so China is in Asia and Japan is inside of China?"
- Geography lesson
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Hard disk accident
I got my tablet notebook ready for work again, after the nightmare of crashed hard disk.
The hard disk of my tablet computer, Acer TravelMate C110, suddenly crashed last week. Windows XP froze at once while the mouse pointer still could move when the disaster happened. Tried rebooting, reading on another computer, and reparing with HD utilities, no one worked. I gave up, at all, eventually.
Thanks God I did have a copy of most data on the died laptop. I virtualized the whole laptop in 2008 therefore all old files, since I started using the tablet in 2005, were kept in a virtual machine on my iMac. The biggest lose for me was the books I just recently downloaded for preparing my CISSP and CISA exams. I didn't save the links in bookmarks and I therefore had no idea to find them out again. Google didn't help here.
Since there were no explicit signs before this crash, I was curious about why this could happen, at that time, and in that way. After checking the official specification of the dead hard disk, Hitachi Travelstar 5K80, I realised that its lifetime jsut reached according to how it was used in the past years. As per this specification,
"Service life of the drive is approximately 5 years or 20,000 power on hours, which comes first, under the following assumptions:
• Less than 333 power on hours per month.
• Seeking/Writing/Reading operation is less than 20% of power on hours."
My 5K80 (HTS548080M9AT00) was about 4.5 years old. But I believe the power on hours must be over 333 hours per month (11 hours per day), and the relevant operations should be more than 20% of power on hours. I used the laptop intensively. So basically, the hard disk's quality was very good, it was just too tired, tired to death.
I got a new hard disk last weekend: Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVE, 250 GB, 5400 RPM, at A$135. It is rich in capacity compared with the 80GB of 58K80. But it seems that this model is not that good in quality according to the reviews directly from the end uers. Bad sectors and heat issues are the major problems. The shame is: I knew this after I bought the disk. Probably I am too sensitive now, as I have heard of some kind fo symbolic sounds (scratching and clicking) while writing this post. According to DataCent, they are the signs of unreadable bad sectors. My God!
Nevertheless, here are a few very useful links from where I learned the lessons.
DataCent - Professional Data Recovery
http://www.datacent.com/
This site gives comprehensive information regarding common issues and recovery approaches of most hard disk available on the market. It also give recordings of disk sounds to help you understand different problems and situations.
New Egg - The most loved and trusted marketplace on the web
http://www.newegg.com/
An online shopping mall for electronics based in the US. The site offers an easy way to see the comments from end users by rank, date, and your keywords. That would be very important to know the downsides of a product before putting your money in. I love reading the comments from the field, especially those negative comments.
Retrevo - The ultimate electronics marketplace
http://www.retrevo.com/
This site puts vendor's information (spec, review, user manual, and etc) and 3rd party reviews together. The good thing is: those 3rd party comments are automatically gathered from the Internet, such as blogs, shopping sites, and forums. That would be very convenienet for readers seeing the real quality a product could offer.
The hard disk of my tablet computer, Acer TravelMate C110, suddenly crashed last week. Windows XP froze at once while the mouse pointer still could move when the disaster happened. Tried rebooting, reading on another computer, and reparing with HD utilities, no one worked. I gave up, at all, eventually.
Thanks God I did have a copy of most data on the died laptop. I virtualized the whole laptop in 2008 therefore all old files, since I started using the tablet in 2005, were kept in a virtual machine on my iMac. The biggest lose for me was the books I just recently downloaded for preparing my CISSP and CISA exams. I didn't save the links in bookmarks and I therefore had no idea to find them out again. Google didn't help here.
Since there were no explicit signs before this crash, I was curious about why this could happen, at that time, and in that way. After checking the official specification of the dead hard disk, Hitachi Travelstar 5K80, I realised that its lifetime jsut reached according to how it was used in the past years. As per this specification,
"Service life of the drive is approximately 5 years or 20,000 power on hours, which comes first, under the following assumptions:
• Less than 333 power on hours per month.
• Seeking/Writing/Reading operation is less than 20% of power on hours."
My 5K80 (HTS548080M9AT00) was about 4.5 years old. But I believe the power on hours must be over 333 hours per month (11 hours per day), and the relevant operations should be more than 20% of power on hours. I used the laptop intensively. So basically, the hard disk's quality was very good, it was just too tired, tired to death.
I got a new hard disk last weekend: Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVE, 250 GB, 5400 RPM, at A$135. It is rich in capacity compared with the 80GB of 58K80. But it seems that this model is not that good in quality according to the reviews directly from the end uers. Bad sectors and heat issues are the major problems. The shame is: I knew this after I bought the disk. Probably I am too sensitive now, as I have heard of some kind fo symbolic sounds (scratching and clicking) while writing this post. According to DataCent, they are the signs of unreadable bad sectors. My God!
Nevertheless, here are a few very useful links from where I learned the lessons.
DataCent - Professional Data Recovery
http://www.datacent.com/
This site gives comprehensive information regarding common issues and recovery approaches of most hard disk available on the market. It also give recordings of disk sounds to help you understand different problems and situations.
New Egg - The most loved and trusted marketplace on the web
http://www.newegg.com/
An online shopping mall for electronics based in the US. The site offers an easy way to see the comments from end users by rank, date, and your keywords. That would be very important to know the downsides of a product before putting your money in. I love reading the comments from the field, especially those negative comments.
Retrevo - The ultimate electronics marketplace
http://www.retrevo.com/
This site puts vendor's information (spec, review, user manual, and etc) and 3rd party reviews together. The good thing is: those 3rd party comments are automatically gathered from the Internet, such as blogs, shopping sites, and forums. That would be very convenienet for readers seeing the real quality a product could offer.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
What is the direction of information security?
In regard to the trend of Information Security, one point of view is that Information Security is moving from the technical domain to the management domain.
Indeed. I agree with this, as in general speaking Security is a management issue, therefore Information Security will eventually become into management domain.
In management domain, Security Awareness is the key to make a security program successful. As a result, the relevant awareness policy and/or awareness training will be a direction.
Another direction should be, as always, Standardization in turn to adopt the best practices in the management domain in varied industries.
The above are just my two cents.
Indeed. I agree with this, as in general speaking Security is a management issue, therefore Information Security will eventually become into management domain.
In management domain, Security Awareness is the key to make a security program successful. As a result, the relevant awareness policy and/or awareness training will be a direction.
Another direction should be, as always, Standardization in turn to adopt the best practices in the management domain in varied industries.
The above are just my two cents.
How important are standards and certificates?
At first, I would say, theoretically, certificates are not that important for designing a secure infrastructure, as a certificate is just a kind of official document confirming some facts such as competence of an individual or an organization. In other words, it is optional.
Of course, however, digital certificates are essential for building a secure infrastructure. We know that is another story. :-))
In regard to the role of standards in designing a secure infrastructure, I would say it is not only important, it is essential, as standards are the best practices that have been widely recognized and well proven by authorities and experts all over the world. Standards tell people how to do the right thing in the right way.
Basically, standards are essence of knowledge.
Therefore, the best practice to do something is to follow the standard. The same for designing a secure infrastructure.
Of course, however, digital certificates are essential for building a secure infrastructure. We know that is another story. :-))
In regard to the role of standards in designing a secure infrastructure, I would say it is not only important, it is essential, as standards are the best practices that have been widely recognized and well proven by authorities and experts all over the world. Standards tell people how to do the right thing in the right way.
Basically, standards are essence of knowledge.
Therefore, the best practice to do something is to follow the standard. The same for designing a secure infrastructure.
What is the biggest security threat this year?
Someone recently launched a survey at Linkedin regarding the biggest security threat to a organization this year. The survey listed six options as the answer including proliferation of mobile devices, adoption of social networking, internal treats, hackers, regulators, and lack of understanding by senior management.
I think none of the above options points out the biggest threat. My point of view is:
Lack of Security Awareness should be the biggest, as it is the root threat of other threats.
We know most organizations already have their security policies in place, let's talk about why in reality people (average users and security professionals) do not always obey the rules people defined in security policies: Lack of Security Awareness.
One CISSP at Microsoft commented this in the discussion: "There are two kinds of systems - those that have been compromised and those that will be".
I think it is a good point. This kind of negative consciousness in security is actually a survival technique. People with this kind of awareness can prevent incidents and damage, as awareness is the prime factor to make a security program successful.
Therefore, as I mentioned above, I always believe the biggest threat is not from technical domains, it’s from people’s mind: lack of security awareness, the root threat.
No awareness, no security. Not only for this year, it is permanent.
I think none of the above options points out the biggest threat. My point of view is:
Lack of Security Awareness should be the biggest, as it is the root threat of other threats.
We know most organizations already have their security policies in place, let's talk about why in reality people (average users and security professionals) do not always obey the rules people defined in security policies: Lack of Security Awareness.
One CISSP at Microsoft commented this in the discussion: "There are two kinds of systems - those that have been compromised and those that will be".
I think it is a good point. This kind of negative consciousness in security is actually a survival technique. People with this kind of awareness can prevent incidents and damage, as awareness is the prime factor to make a security program successful.
Therefore, as I mentioned above, I always believe the biggest threat is not from technical domains, it’s from people’s mind: lack of security awareness, the root threat.
No awareness, no security. Not only for this year, it is permanent.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
ActiveX Killbits
Microsoft released a new set of ActiveX Killbits for Windows XP on 10 Feb. It is a critical update rollup.
As per Microsoft, “a security feature in Microsoft Internet Explorer makes it possible to prevent an ActiveX control from ever being loaded by the Internet Explorer HTML-rendering engine. This is done by making a registry setting and is referred to as setting the kill bit. After the kill bit is set, the control can never be loaded, even when it is fully installed. Setting the kill bit makes sure that even if a vulnerable component is introduced or is re-introduced to a system, it remains inert and harmless.”
But from a view of point of software development, that is not a right way to achieve security. Security should be by design, not by patch.
IE – Intrude Easily. :-)) That’s I do recommend people using Firefox or Chrome, which has no ActiveX support at all. A simple browser is a good browser. IE isn’t.
As per Microsoft, “a security feature in Microsoft Internet Explorer makes it possible to prevent an ActiveX control from ever being loaded by the Internet Explorer HTML-rendering engine. This is done by making a registry setting and is referred to as setting the kill bit. After the kill bit is set, the control can never be loaded, even when it is fully installed. Setting the kill bit makes sure that even if a vulnerable component is introduced or is re-introduced to a system, it remains inert and harmless.”
But from a view of point of software development, that is not a right way to achieve security. Security should be by design, not by patch.
IE – Intrude Easily. :-)) That’s I do recommend people using Firefox or Chrome, which has no ActiveX support at all. A simple browser is a good browser. IE isn’t.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Three years in Australia
Time flies.
On 4th February 2006, three years ago today, I arrived at Sydney and started my new life in Australia.
I went to the Rocks tonight to take pictures of the beautiful city of Sydney, and also to record the milestone moment of my life in this great country.
Sydney Opera House, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/4, 1.6 secs, 12.8 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 16:9, 20:35 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/4, 5 secs, 5.4 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 16:9, 20:47 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge + Sydney Cove, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/4, 6 secs, 5.4 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 16:9, 20:49 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge + North Sydney, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/8, 25 secs, 5.1 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 4:3, 21:17 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge + North Sydney, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/8, 40 secs, 5.1 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 4:3, 21:30 4 Feb 2009
I have got used to living here in Sydney, one of the most fabulous cities in the world. I also have started loving this country, Australia.
On 4th February 2006, three years ago today, I arrived at Sydney and started my new life in Australia.
I went to the Rocks tonight to take pictures of the beautiful city of Sydney, and also to record the milestone moment of my life in this great country.
Sydney Opera House, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/4, 1.6 secs, 12.8 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 16:9, 20:35 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/4, 5 secs, 5.4 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 16:9, 20:47 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge + Sydney Cove, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/4, 6 secs, 5.4 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 16:9, 20:49 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge + North Sydney, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/8, 25 secs, 5.1 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 4:3, 21:17 4 Feb 2009
Sydney Harbour Bridge + North Sydney, The Rocks, Sydney
Leica D-LUX 4, F/8, 40 secs, 5.1 mm, ISO 80, Pattern Mode, 4:3, 21:30 4 Feb 2009
I have got used to living here in Sydney, one of the most fabulous cities in the world. I also have started loving this country, Australia.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
WD My Book Studio Edition
I today bought an external hard drive for my almost overflowed iMac: WD My Book Studio Edition. I am going to use it as an "internal" storage for my iMac by utilising the external drive's FireWire 800 connection. The Studio Edition series is the only line that supports FireWire 800 (1394B) interface in Western Digital's map of external hard drives.WD My Book Studio Edition has a pretty cool looking design, which is very well matched with the my silver iMac. The design of its case cover seems copied from Mac Pro, especially the power button. No wonder Western Digital promotes this model by saying creative power for your Mac.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
New blogs launched
Two more new blogs of mine have been launched.
Bengmugenr (嘣呒哏儿) is my Chinese Blog, and used for talking about anything in Chinese, including China affairs and my personal life. Almost all posts in Chinese I ever published have been moved to bengmugenr.blogspot.com, and are no longer available here at bbao.blogspot.com.
OZ Photographer is dedicated for my hobby in photography, and will be publishing my photos and comments.
This site is still my primary blog. It will be mainly talking about technical stuff, especially on Microsoft technologies, hence the name, Googling on Microsoft.
Bengmugenr (嘣呒哏儿) is my Chinese Blog, and used for talking about anything in Chinese, including China affairs and my personal life. Almost all posts in Chinese I ever published have been moved to bengmugenr.blogspot.com, and are no longer available here at bbao.blogspot.com.
OZ Photographer is dedicated for my hobby in photography, and will be publishing my photos and comments.
This site is still my primary blog. It will be mainly talking about technical stuff, especially on Microsoft technologies, hence the name, Googling on Microsoft.
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