New web site ranks San Francisco restaurants: "Zoodango combines a geographical search engine with social networking tools. Pick an area and it shows you the restaurants, along with landmarks like Union Square that help you get oriented. Stay...
"
(Via SF Gate 2.)
iLife Tip: Enable Multi-Touch maps in iPhoto '09: "
Filed under: iLife, Terminal Tips
After using iPhoto '09 for a couple days, I have come to love the new features, in particular the Places feature. However, one thing that annoyed me is that you cannot use the Multi-Touch feature on newer MacBooks to manipulate the maps (zooming in/out, etc.). 
defaults write com.apple.iphoto MapScrollWheel -bool YESContinue reading iLife Tip: Enable Multi-Touch maps in iPhoto '09
TUAWiLife Tip: Enable Multi-Touch maps in iPhoto '09 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
(Via Clippings.)
In Depth: 10 seriously useful Photoshop tutorials: "
Our colleagues over on Computer Arts magazine have been handing down Photoshop wisdom for over a decade.
Their website is a mine of information not just for Photoshop tips, but for llustrator, InDesign, web design apps and much more.
We've had a poke around and chosen 10 of our favourite Photoshop tutorials. You can download free PDFs and accompanying files for every single on of these guides from the links in the article below.
1. Transform a dull stock image into great looking artwork
This tutorial demonstrates a series of techniques for coping with the situation where you're sent a boring bit of stock art to use in a design for an ad. Discover how to give it the image some life, while leaving room in the composition for copy and logos.
Read more
2. Boost your images with Lab colour
Lab colour is a useful colour space in Photoshop that enables you to separate luminance information from colour information. Lab splits colour information into two channels, but separates the luminance onto a third independent channel. This allows you to achieve amazing colour treatments that aren't possible in RGB, all without compromising the luminance, contrast or detail of the image.
Read more
3. Create striking portraits
This Photoshop tutorial shows you how to compose a portrait in Photoshop in such a way that the viewing is directed into the image without being distracted by the background. The tutorial also defines the light source, to tie the whole image together. These ideas apply to landscapes, portraits and still life.
Read more
4. Retouch mediocre photos
Using just the standard filters and tools in Photoshop, with no add-ons or plug-ins, you can make a photo look however you want it to. The techniques demonstrated here will help you get the best possible result from any image. As the tutorial notes, 'in Photoshop there are no rules to break - just different ways to accomplish your goals.'
Read more
5. Combine textures with vectors
Vector art can sometimes appear a little too crisp - this is where Photoshop comes in. Blending modes, masks and Alpha Channels can give a convincing distressed effect to your vectors. This guide uses a number of real-world image resources as the basis for this effect, achieving a tactile imperfection.
Read more
6. Combine photos to create surrealist landscapes
One trend in photo manipulation is to take several stock images to create a composition. To make it convincing you need to understand how lighting, colours and shadows work in the real world. This project demonstrates how to combine stock images to construct a landscape.
Read more
7. Create fake photo-real scenes
Remember the Smirnoff 'bottle as lens' ads? Now you can make your own. In this guide you'll learn how to compose an image using three photographs shot in different places at different times. The result is a rhino in a bottle!
Read more
8. Dress up fashion photography
If you're working on a fashion project, you can have some real fun. In this project, you'll use Photoshop, plus raw materials such as card and paper to develop a strongly themed result.
Read more
9. Create graffiti stamp art
To create cool graffiti stamp art, you need to go against the conventional idea of how to use the brush tool. If you use a piece of artwork as your brush tip instead of an ellipse, you can get some stunning results.
Read more
10. Defringe hair
Selecting fine strands of hair in order to cut out a model from a background is enough to drive most Photoshop users mad - but there is a solution. The answer lies in using channels to make a detailed alpha mask for your image, as well as in harnessing the Layer Matting features to refine your final extraction.
Read more
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(Via Clippings.)
The 7 dirty secrets of the security industry: "
Do you ever get the feeling your security providers are failing to tell you the whole truth? We entrust the industry to protect us from unacceptable risk. But we must confront the underlying truth: The goal of the security market is to make money.
Here are the seven dirty secrets of the security industry and practical ways to command honesty from your trusted security providers.
[ Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by InfoWorlds 2009 Technology of the Year Awards. | And keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Todays Headlines newsletter. ]
1. Antivirus certification omissions. The dirtiest secret in the industry is that, while antivirus tools detect replicating malicious code like worms, they do not identify malcode such as nonreplicating Trojans. So, even though Trojans have been around since the beginning of malicious code, there is no accountability in antivirus certification tests. Today Trojans and other forms on nonreplicating malcode constitute 80% or more of the threats businesses are likely to face. Antivirus accountability metrics are simply no longer reflective of the true state of threat.
2. There is no perimeter. If you still believe in the perimeter, you may as well believe in Santa Claus. That isnt to say there is no perimeter. But we need to define what the perimeter is. The endpoint is the perimeter, the user is the perimeter. Its more likely that the business process is the perimeter, or the information itself is the perimeter too. If you design your security controls with no base assumption of a perimeter, when you have one you are more secure. The mistake we tend to make is, if we put the controls at the perimeter, then we will be fine. For many threats, we couldnt be more wrong.
3. Risk management threatens vendors. Risk management really helps an organization understand its business and its highest level of risk. However, your priorities dont always map to what the vendors are selling. Vendors focus on individual issues so you will continue to buy their individual products. If you dont have a clear picture of your risk priorities, vendors are more than happy to set them for you. Trusted security partners will provide options for assessing your risk posture and help you develop plans to make the most security impact for the least cost and complexity. Security needs to conform to and support your business priorities. Too often, vendors want your business to conform to their portfolio.
4. There is more to risk than weak software. The lions share of the security market is focused on software vulnerabilities. But software represents only one of the three ways to be compromised, the other two being weak configurations and people. The latter is the largest uncovered area of risk. This is malicious code that doesnt leverage a vulnerability but rather leverages the person. For example, downloading a dancing skeleton for a spooky good time (this was a trick employed by Storm), social engineering, spear phishing, etc. While we still need to find vulnerabilities and patch them, we must understand that an organization is only as strong as its weakest link. And more attention needs to be paid in mitigating the other two ways beyond software.
5. Compliance threatens security. Compliance in and of itself is not a bad thing. But, compliance in and of itself does not equal security. At the very least its a resource and budget conflict, and it splits our focus. Compliance is supposed to raise the minimum standard of security, but it just gets us to do what we are required to do and nothing else.
Whats more, that which is easy to measure is not necessarily that which is most valuable. So if there were 15 software vulnerabilities last month, we can measure that 12 of them have been patched. It is much harder to measure how effective end user training was to make administrators immune to social engineering attacks. The lesson is you need to be compliant, but your entire risk strategy cannot be based on it.
6. Vendor blind spots allowed for Storm. Storm is being copied and improved. The Storm era of botnets is alive and well, nearly two years from when it first appeared. How is this possible? 1. Botnets thrive in the consumer world where there is little money for innovation, a fact Storm and its controllers know. They are making money off of everything from spam to pump-and-dump stock scams. 2. They eat antivirus for breakfast. A lot of the techniques and innovations used by Storm are not new; they are just being leveraged artfully against the blind spots of antivirus certifications and antivirus vendors. 3. Malcode does not need vulnerabilities. Most of the Storm recruitment drives have leveraged social engineering and play off of a holiday or sporting event.
7. Security has grown well past 'do it yourself.' Technology without strategy is chaos. The security market is often far too focused on the latest hot box or technology. The shear volume of security products and the rate of change has super-saturated most organizations and exceeded their ability to keep up. Organizations realize only a fraction of the capabilities of their existing investments. Furthermore, the cost of the product is often a fraction of the cost of ownership. There was a time when you could 'do it yourself.' But the simple days of Virus meets Antivirus are long gone. Highly effective organizations are embracing professional and managed security services to extend and augment their in-house expertise. By focusing your in-house expertise on what you know best -- your business -- scale comes from teaming with third-party expertise. This will be increasingly necessary in these tough economic times.
The primary goals for executives over the next few years is to cut cost and reduce complexity. Today we are seeing a massive convergence in the security market. There are only going to be a few large players left and a bunch of smaller players. Will consolidation lead to better efficiency, or will it lead to vendor lock-in?
As executives simplify, they will face many choices. Simply reducing vendors may fail to balance cost, complexity and risk. Vendors have a responsibility in this equation and must rise to the challenge. True risk management can show where to prune solutions, but the key is risk driven, responsible simplification.
Corman is principal security strategist for IBM Internet Security Systems. Network World is an InfoWorld affiliate
(Via Clippings.)
The Canon EOS 5D was a revelation. But a lot has happened since then. Nikon and now Sony have full-frame sensors.
So while the Canon EOS 5D Mk II is a major development of the original, it's never going to enjoy the same near-monopoly as its predecessor. So what's changed?
The new bits
The sensor resolution has gone up from 12.8 megapixels to 21. The 2.5-inch 230,000 pixel LCD has been replaced with one half an inch larger and with four times the resolution. And the new 5D has technology inconceivable when the original 5D was launched, notably a Live View mode and a 1920 x 1080 HD movie mode... we were impressed with the D90, but this is something else again.
The definition is such that there must be more than a few mid-high end camcorder makers starting to wonder if they've backed the wrong horse. Canon's latest Digic IV processor means that the new camera can shoot at 3.9fps compared with the old camera's 3fps, and it handles these big files very well.
In our tests the camera matched Canon's claim of 13 consecutive RAW files at full speed, but it did slow down after that and, once the buffer was full, it took around 20 seconds to clear.
High ISO
Other, less obvious enhancements include a larger, brighter viewfinder, two 'silent' Live View modes for unobtrusive photography, an ISO increase to 6400 in normal shooting and an amazing 25600 in 'expanded' mode.
An Auto Lighting Optimiser extends the camera's dynamic range, opening up shadows without sacrificing highlights, and a peripheral lighting option promises to reduce or remove any corner shading caused by your Canon lenses.
Design and handling
Much of the 5D Mk II's appeal, though, is tied in with its handling rather than its technology. The appearance and layout will be instantly familiar to anyone who's used a high-end EOS before, but Canon has tweaked and reined the user interface to make it better than ever.
Like other pro cameras, this one has two control dials. The first is mounted in the conventional location on the top of the grip. The second, though, is a much larger dial which lies flat on the back of the camera.
Its size and its knurled edge make it very easy to spin with your thumb. Twin control dials mean it's much easier to make independent shutter speed and aperture adjustments, but this rear dial does a lot more.
It's used for menu navigation too – a small joystick just above can be used to move between the menu tabs, but you move down the options by 'spinning' the rear dial. It's both fast and precise. But there's one more twist.
Quick controls
Interactive LCDs have proved their worth in amateur cameras, notably Olympus's E-series and the Nikon D60. They have the advantage that they both show the current settings and enable you to change them directly. And that's just what Canon's introduced on the 5D Mk II. You can stick to the traditional control method if you prefer, or use the new interactive 'Quick Control Screen' instead.
The big question is whether the 21-million pixels have made a big difference to the image quality. One worry will be that the higher pixel density harms the high ISO performance, but in fact the image quality at ISO 6400 is strikingly good. As good as the Nikon D700/D3? Maybe, maybe not. But it's impressive.
What's clear, though, is that the increased resolution really puts the emphasis on lens quality. We tested the 5D Mk II with the 24-105mm f/4 IS lens usually supplied with it as a kit, and found the performance to be good but not exceptional, and this includes some chromatic aberration at the edges of the frame at shorter focal lengths that you might not be expecting to see.
Having said that, the Digital Photo Professional RAW converter/editor supplied with all EOS SLRs has an option to fix this. It can dial out lens aberrations including chromatic aberration, distortion and corner shading automatically, using the lens data and settings embedded in the image's EXIF data.
Digital Photo Pro is sometimes overlooked, but it's a very capable program. In particular, it reveals a lot more fine, textural detail than you tend to see in the 5D Mk II's JPEGs.
JPEG vs. RAW
Like other EOS SLRs, this camera produces clean, noise-free JPEGs but at the cost of fine, high-frequency information. It doesn't affect every image by any means, but there are some subjects in some lighting where the surfaces and the details seem to drop below the camera's detail 'threshold' and are rendered with a characteristically 'glassy' look.
This shouldn't trouble potential 5D Mark II owners, partly because the files are so large that the detail involved is very small and partly because most are likely to shoot RAW anyway. And this is where the Digital Photo Pro software ties in perfectly with the camera, duplicating the Picture Styles, white balance presets and other on-camera adjustments.
Ultimately, the 5D Mk II no longer has a single, conclusive advantage – it's going to have to rely on a combination of things, like its Live View, its HD movie mode and, perhaps most of all, its superb build, design and handling and the backup of Canon's extensive and long-established professional lens and accessory range.
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(Via TechRadar: All latest feeds.)
In Depth: Expert solutions for misbehaving Macs: "
The majority of problems you could encounter with your Mac can be solved easily, but there will always be some that require lateral thinking.
Terminal, in Applications > Utilities, is a program for directly accessing the core of OS X at a command line level. With it you can access and modify all sorts of parameters, but if used incorrectly it can completely mess up your system.
To use Terminal you need an Administrator account, but you should only proceed if you are confident using the utility.
Terminal tricks
If an app refuses to quit, or your Mac appears to be idle but the processor is working overtime, open Terminal and type top. This lists all running processes; in the %CPU column you will see which one is using all the power.
If it's a process that's not supposed to be running, note its PID number from the PID column and open a new Terminal window. Then, type kill followed by the PID number, press [Enter] and OS X will terminate the thread.
To find out your Mac's IP details, type ifconfig into Terminal, which displays all available network interfaces plus their MAC addresses. Typing disktool -e disk# and replacing the # with a drive number will eject any drive.
You can find a drive's number using System Profiler. Do not attempt to unmount the boot drive. If a networked volume refuses to unmount, type umount -f /Volumes/volumename and replace volumename with the name of the networked drive.
It is possible to delete stubborn files and folders from Terminal, but with one slip or wrong character you can delete the wrong thing, so restart to render the item no longer in use. A handy command is, type defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25 in Terminal and press [Enter], and you can speed up Safari by reducing the time it waits to load data before displaying it.
Third-party apps
There are some great free programs that put a graphical front end onto complex Terminal commands, making them easier and safer. OnyX can tweak and maintain your system.
Its cleaning section is useful as it lets you clear out caches, logs and other clutter that may be slowing down your system. Under its Automation tab you will find a series of system-level tasks like optimising the system.
You can also reset the LaunchServices Database, which re-associates files with their creator apps, and reset the Spotlight Index, forcing OS X to re-index all the data on your Mac.
Disk Utility can erase, partition and repair drives, but there are more powerful products. ProSoft's Drive Genius and Data Rescue help you defragment, repartition, analyse and repair drives, and recover corrupted or deleted data respectively. DiskWarrior is often able to recover seemingly dead hard drives.
PMU reset
If a Mac is acting up for reasons that are not entirely clear, try resetting the power management unit, or PMU. This 'clears out' any troublesome settings and forces the Mac to start up from fresh. The exact technique varies between models and details for your specific Mac can be found on Apple's support website.
When resetting a PMU, a Mac should always be turned off, left to cool and have all cables and batteries detached. For towers there is usually a small button on the logic board which is accessed by taking down the side and sometimes removing fans.
On a Mac mini, you do it by plugging in the power cord whilst holding the power button down. On some laptops you need to shut down and disconnect all power and batteries, holding the power button for five seconds then rebooting with power reconnected. Other laptops have an actual reset button, accessed by removing the keyboard or base.
Network issues
If you are having networking problems, a reboot will often force a Mac to look again at what network interfaces are connected. Sometimes, an Ethernet cable may not be recognised, and even going into System Preferences > Network and configuring it may not help. A log out or restart almost always fixes this.
If a problem persists, reset the PRAM. If your AirPort connection isn't picked up, try switching AirPort off and on again, which forces a re-scan. Make sure you know the password for any protected networks you're trying to join.
A weak AirPort signal may be the result of thick walls or too great a distance from the base station, in which case a booster antenna or a second, relay base station can help.
If you have several Macs but some are not showing up under the Network or Shared Places tabs in Finder, go to System Preferences > Sharing on the relevant Macs and make sure that Personal File Sharing is switched on.
How to verify and maintain your system with OnyX
1. Download and install OnyX, then fire it up. It's recommended to back up before performing any maintenance. In the Verify tab, you can make OnyX check the structure and reliability status of your startup volume, which is recommended every once in a while to catch any problems before they become serious.
2. In Maintenance > Rebuild, you have the option to rebuild the Spotlight index, which is helpful if you are having problems with Spotlight. If you have been having problems opening files, try rebuilding the LaunchServices database from this menu, as it often corrects problems between files and their helper apps.
3.In the Automation section, you can repair permissions and clean out the various system and user caches, which can speed up the computer and deal with inexplicable application crashes or launch problems, and problems with Software Update. After performing these tasks you will need to restart the Mac.
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First published in MacFormat, Issue 204
Now read Quick fixes for 10 common Mac problems
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(Via TechRadar: All latest feeds.)
A shortcut and a fix for Outlook's autocomplete feature: "
A couple of weeks ago, I described how to disable the feature in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007 that automatically completes addresses as you enter them in the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: fields.
As I stated then, I've come to depend on Outlook's address-autocomplete feature, though it's ...
(Via Clippings.)
How to keep your gas furnace working properly: "
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(Via Consumer Reports.)
Building a better spam-blocking CAPTCHA: "CAPTCHA used to be an easy way for Web administrators to block spam bots. Then it became an easy way for malware authors and spammers to do their dirty work. Can CAPTCHA technology be repaired and redeemed?
"
(Via Computerworld Breaking News.)
Installing Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008: "Server virtualization, also known as hardware virtualization, is a hot topic in the IT world, and Microsoft, with Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008, has entered
the game. Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based technology that is a key feature of Windows Server 2008, and provides a scalable, reliable, and highly available
virtualization platform. Alongside with management tools such as System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Hyper-V provides a great virtualization
solution for many small, medium and large organizations, and is expected to have extensive impact on the virtualization market share, predominantly controlled by
VMware. In this article, MVP Daniel Petri will show and walk you through how to get Hyper-V up and running on your Windows Server 2008 server.
Get 6+ hours of Windows Server 2008 Training for Free! Check out this Download! | |
 | Train Signal is offering Windows Server 2008 Training. You can learn all of the new benefits and features of Windows Server 2008 by watching this downloadable file - I highly recommend it! Here are some of the topics covered:
It's better than a book, and instructor, Ben 'Coach' Culbertson, makes learning this material easy! Click here to read more and download free Windows Server 2008 Training! Daniel Petri, Petri IT Knowledge Base |
(Via Clippings.)
Microsoft unveils Mac-to-Exchange sync beta: "Microsoft today launched a public beta for software that ties Mac users more closely to Exchange mail servers, making good on a promise the company announced earlier this month.
"
(Via Clippings.)
Sundance from the comfort of you home: "No need to travel to Utah, you can get a taste of Robert Redford's indie festival by downloading up to 10 short films via iTunes."
(Via Clippings.)
Four undiscovered sites to use when investing: "Going to Yahoo Finance and Bloomberg are so cliche. Check out these small investment startups that provide the same information."
(Via Clippings.)
10 dumb things you can do to your Cisco router: "
One of the best ways to sidestep admin problems is to learn from the mistakes of others. David Davis put together this list of missteps and oversights to help minimize Cisco router pitfalls.
As IT pros, we have many stories about end users who did something dumb with their computers. (How many times have you heard the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder story?) However, we tend to keep our Cisco networking mistakes to ourselves, right? I am not too bashful to admit that I have taken down a network before due to a dumb mistake that could have been prevented (but I won’t tell you what it was). To help other network admins avoid costly mistakes, I’ve come up with a list of 10 dumb Cisco router mistakes.
Note: This article originally appeared as an entry in our Network Administrator blog and is available as a PDF download.
While these mistakes aren’t listed in any particular order, I would say that this one is among the most common router mistakes. Picture this: Your Cisco router dies, but you’re getting a replacement overnight, so your boss is ecstatic. However, you, as the Cisco network admin, can’t seem to make the router pass traffic, as you have no backup of the config. Don’t get put in the doghouse over this. It’s easy to make a backup using:
Router# copy running-configuration tftp
Built into routers with newer IOS versions is IOS configuration archiving. This can automatically copy your router’s configuration off the router when configuration changes are made. To learn more about it read ‘Use the Cisco IOS Archive Command to Archive Your Router’s Configuration.’
Also, many third-party GUI applications will schedule this for you so that you can ‘set it and forget it.’ For examples, see my article on Kiwi CatTools and products from ManageEngine OpUtils and PacketTrap pt360 Pro.
Not only is a Cisco router completely useless if it isn’t properly configured, but it is also useless if it has no IOS or it has the wrong IOS. As a Cisco network admin, you had better have a repository of all the different Cisco IOS router and switch IOS versions in use on your network today, stored on a file share somewhere.
By doing this, you can copy the proper IOS back onto a Cisco router that is shipped to you from Cisco or reconfigure another Cisco router (say an older router off the shelf) to take the place of a broken one.
Backing up the IOS is easy. Just TFTP it to your server with a command like this:
Router# copy flash tftp
You will be prompted to answer all the questions needed to back up your Cisco IOS.
I have found Cisco hardware to be extremely reliable. Still, I’ve had to replace both Cisco routers and switches periodically over the years. These days, it’s not acceptable for the Internet connection to be down for a few days should a Cisco router go bad or an interface in the router start taking errors. You must be prepared to replace that hardware at a moment’s notice. The replacement hardware must have the same configuration (or a config that delivers the same network connectivity to the end users), and the IOS should also be the same (or offer the same features as needed by the config).
Trust me, you don’t want to be making calls all over the country asking if anyone can overnight you a router for a hefty charge.
If you aren’t going to have spare hardware on site, you should at least have a Cisco SmartNET contract on your router hardware that can deliver a replacement router to you in an acceptable amount of time.
When you discover that you are having networking issues, the first questions are always ‘When did this start?’ and ‘Did we change anything?’ By setting up a change documentation or change management procedure, you can have a history of changes — what was changed and when. If you set up change management, you typically also have approval processes in there so that someone must have tested and then approved the changes before they went in.
Another way to document changes is to use router configuration archiving. To learn more about it read ‘Use the Cisco IOS Archive Command to Archive Your Router’s Configuration.’
When issues do come up in the network, you first want to check out router logs. Not only should you have some buffered logs on the router for temporary storage, you should also have a central syslog repository of Cisco router logs. Cisco IOS logging is easy to configure, and you can use a free Linux syslog server or buy one for Windows, such as Kiwi Syslog.
To learn all about configuring logging in the Cisco IOS, see my article ‘Get to Know Your Logging Options in the Cisco IOS.’
Like any operating system, the Cisco IOS periodically has bugs (see tip #7 on searching for bugs). Plus, over time, you will get new routers with new IOS versions, and you want router IOS versions to maintain compatibility. For these reasons and others, you need to make sure that your Cisco IOS stays up to date.
To upgrade your Cisco IOS, see my video on upgrading your Cisco IOS.
I get many Cisco IOS technical questions via e-mail, and many of these can be answered by using your favorite search engine. However, here are a couple of tips:
At some point, you may forget the password on a router. Or an admin could leave and not tell you the password to a router. Because these things can happen, you should know is how to reset a lost Cisco router password. To do this, check out these two resources:
Security? Who has time for that, right? Well, if you don’t secure your routers and network, it could all be lost (and so could the company’s most critical data). Make sure you follow best practices to lock down your routers and your network. I recommend you start by reading my TechRepublic download on locking down your Cisco IOS router in 10 steps.
Most of us loathe having to create documentation, but let’s face it: We forget things and we aren’t going to be here forever. Wouldn’t you just love to tell a junior admin, ‘Go read my document on how to reset a Cisco router password’ when he asks you how to do it? To prevent mistakes and downtime in the future, make sure you keep your Cisco network documentation up to date.
(Via Clippings.)
