Tech Lesson From My Son

Today morning my nine month old son – Dhruv, taught me something that I didn’t even realize was a feature in Windows7! I tried to allure him to crawl by opening and booting up my laptop, but when he got tired I made the keyboard accessible. That’s when he got busy and later I noticed that he cleared out all the icons, shortcuts and files on the desktop. My initial thought was that he may have hit the delete button (after selecting all) and moved them to the recycle-bin, but then my wife figured that the files were intact in the Desktop folder. After some research, I found that there is an option in Windows7 to hide all the desktop icons by unchecking the ‘Show desktop icons’ option when you right click and select ‘View’ on the desktop. This feature is very handy for people like me who have a bunch of items on the desktop, especially while sharing the screen during a demo. It’s amazing how kids see, perceive and alter things differently from adults. Thanks Dhruv!

My new look iPhone4!

Recently, I broke my black iPhone4 display screen by dropping it while getting out of my SUV. After researching and a futile attempt to get it replaced at an Apple store, I did some exploring myself to find detailed (with corresponding images) step by step instructions on how to replace an iPhone display yourself. Then I found and ordered a white replacement display for iPhone4 on Amazon.com. I decided not replace the home button and the back black cover just get a custom look for the iPhone4 amd ofcourse save some extra money! Interestingly, the outcome was a new look black&white iPhone4!

President Obama issues proclamation declaring October National Cyber Security Awareness Month | Stay Safe Online

President Obama issues proclamation declaring October National Cyber Security Awareness Month Stay Safe Online

AES vulnerable but not broken yet!

Researchers from Microsoft and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium have proved that the AES algorithm used in online transactions and wireless communications is vulnerable and can be broken in this article. I got my CISSP certification in the beginning of this year and learned all through that AES is the most powerful and unbreakable algorithm. Now we do need to make a note that this algorithm has now become brittle but not yet broken yet, as the technologies and resources available to carry out this task are still under construction!

Cursive writing, now a legacy?

I still remember my childhood days when my grandmother used to discipline me when my cursive writing went bad. The next generation may not have this opportunity of knowing, let alone learning cursive writing in school. I read this article about several states (Indiana being the recent one) adopting a program that makes cursive writing an optional skill set and keyboarding or typing skills are a mandatory in the school curriculum. I was thoroughly disappointed after learning this fact and can only hope that schools in these states will continue to teach cursive writing along with typing skills since this is up to the school to decide.

Celebrations for the 'D's

Eventful year so far for my son Dhruv who is now two months old. India have won the ICC Cricket World Cup couple of days after he was born and recently the Dallas Mavericks have won their first NBA Championship in the franchise history. Little 'D's arrival, big 'Dirk' gets his first ring and first ever NBA championship to 'D'allas. Looks like it's the year of the Ds! See the celebrations with my son, all along!

Feature that's a bug!

Inserting an installation CD-ROM, DVD or USB drive automatically initiates the "autorun.inf" program. This program apart from opening up attractive flashy screens on loading the disc can also be a carrier of some nasty program embedded by the attacker to compromise your system or access your system files. This program can be turned off by pressing the "shift" key while inserting a CD-ROM or USB drive. A permanent solution would be to change the registry settings. The usage of USB drives and Firewire in the form of ipods and other day-to-day electronic accessories can be of greater risk to your laptop/computer than expected.