XSet is the personal website of Rob Dudley, a 29 year old software and web developer who lives in the Channel Islands...
// August 26th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
Well we have a whole 70 (ish) days to go until the democratic process has once again been discharged in the US and everyone can go back to bitching about the guy who won / didn’t.
In my exaustive search for updates to the political process I cam across this piece over at Defective Yeti – a succint review of democracy in action… honest!
// August 26th, 2004 // No Comments » // Tech
to anyone who popped in (or tried to) during the upgrade to EE 1.1 – it didn’t go as smoothly as planned but then it is rather their fault for not telling me that overwritting my path.php file was a bad idea!!!
But what the hell, thanks to their excellent support community I was up and running 10 minutes later and they did give me a copy of the best damn blogging software in the world… so I think we’re quits.
// August 26th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
As Jeremy over at Ensight has included my post on rigging RDC for true remote access in his ClipBlog, I feel it would be prudent of me to clear up a couple of things that I didn’t mention in the original post.
Firstly, my tutorial is strictly for the home user. It is in no way recommended for professional or office use. There are a number of very powerful, professional terminal server applications out there (Citrix MetaFrame and the Windows 2003 Terminal Services to name but two) which allow for much more control over security and user management. These programs also deal with the licensing implications of having a thin client / terminal architecture. Namely they allow multiple users to run the same program but in order to do this legally, you need to own licenses for each unique connection. In my example you are connecting to a Windows XP or Windows 2000 machine which will only allow one connection at any time. Connecting via RDC will actually lock the host computer so effectively there are no licensing implications other than those that already existed.
Secondly would like to re-iterate the security implications of setting up your home PC to allow RDC from the outside world. You could be opening up your system to absolutely anybody so it is imperative that you lock your system down before allowing access. This post over at Scobleizer* covers very neatly the concept of layering security and can be applied to any system. I would ensure that you can check off everything on Robert Schole’s list before you even attempt the stuff listed below.
Other than that I’d like to say thanks to Jeremy for the link. I’ve been reading his site for a couple of weeks now and have already found it to be a wonderful source of information about all things tech / business.
* I’ve seen this list referenced on so many tech blogs recently that I can’t remember where I saw it first so no hat tip… sorry.
// August 23rd, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
For those of you who don’t know what a terminal server is a bit of background will be required. The idea is the you have a powerful server running all the applications you need (word, IE, Photoshop, whatever) and then you have cheap, low powered workstations that simply act as a monitor and a keyboard for the server. The server runs loads of different instances of the same programs.
The benefits of this are easy to work out but the main one is that you can access the apps on the server from anywhere in the world across the internet!!!
Now, here’s the cool bit. If you have DSL or better and are running Windows XP Professional (I’m still trying to see if this works with the home edition) then you can configure your computer to accept Remote Desktop Connections (RDC) from the internet.
// August 21st, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
Those lovely and very intelligent people over at the Web Standards Project have started a new intiative under the snappy title “Browse Happy”.
The main premise of this initiative is to educate the world at large that IE is unsafe. And let’s face it, spyware, virii deliberately targeted at the Microsoft browser, tens of security updates each month and no new development for over a year. IE is a liability for home users and office users alike. Before I get to the main point I would like to share an experiance I had last week on my work PC.
The company I work for is in the IT business and as such has top of the range network defence facilities: firewalls, proxys, virus scanners on all desktops – our network is locked down. I ran a well known spyware scanner on my work machine and it located over 250 issues requiring attention … 250 and that’s on the best protected network I’ve ever worked on. Each and every one of these buggy uninvited pieces of software forced itself onto my system through IE 6. And my copy of IE is fully patched.
So here’s my point. If you are still using IE and have control over which browser you want to use, ditch it. If you only need a browser then go for Mozilla FireFox. If you need the full suite of tools then go for Mozilla 1.x. If you’re on a Mac then Safari is the way to go.
It may take a little getting used to but believe me, you’ll thank yourself for it in the long run.
Make the change today and make sure you 
// August 18th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
Well things have been a little quiet here at chez XSet and I figure I owe what’s left of my readership something of an explanation. And no this is no going to be an apology for “quiet posting” as that would be in direct breach of the laws of blogging, which of course I do not acknowledge.
Nah, what’s been going on that has meant no more than 3 posts in over a week (and two of those no brainers) ? Simply put I have been busy. Stupidly, wonderfully all encompassingly busy. Work has gone into overdrive. Petanque has recently leant me new responsibilities – unfortunately I am not currently at liberty to discuss what these are – and even my social life seems to be picking up.
Let’s add to that an unfortunate side effect of my little slip up last Friday. According to the lovely people at Jersey A&E I have managed to break a rib which has pretty much put paid to what little exercise I used to do. I also have a couple of personal projects on the go as well as a holiday to plan for.
But the main reason for lack of bloggage is the simple fact that I used to do most of my writing at work. This is no longer an option. Whilst it may not seem like it keeping up on all things bloggy was becoming too much of a distraction; a distraction to the point of it being noticed by my colleagues; it being noticed to the point of a quiet chat that suggested I may wish to keep my posting to my lunch hour*. Unfortunately, I have never been that good at keeping hold of ideas. I may well have 250 an hour but unless I post them immediately they evaporate never to be seen again. I won’t tell you the number of unfinished drafts I have saved but suffice to say that number is large … very large.
So here’s the thing. My situation isn’t going to change any time soon. I am working on my ability to jot an idea post down and on finding time in the evenings to polish and publish these, primarily inconsequential, thoughts. I have no idea if I am going to be successful in this endeavour but I guess you’ll be the second to know if it works out.
Anyway, I just thought I’d check in.
See you all soon.
Rob
*The simple fact is that my lunch hour is normally spent eating lunch or not at all.
// August 17th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
(Thanks to one of my esteemed collegues for passing this on…)
// August 15th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
And I’m back with a quiz!
Grover on Ecstasy
You’re funny, you’re loveable, you’re entertaining, you like to call yourself “Super Grover!”–You’re obviously on ecstasy. But that’s why we love you. Be careful, ok?
Which Sesame Street Muppet’s Dark Secret Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
// August 9th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
It is seriously hot tonight. Hot and sticky and almost impossible to get to sleep.
We need a thunderstorm and we need one soon. One thing that made this evening more interesting than normal was the small contingent of black beetles that greeted me on my return to the apartment. I sheparded them back out into the potato field over the road where they will no doubt be happy to munch on whatever other bugs they can find.
Well I’m done for the night. Now for a couple of hours of tossing and turning and the inevitable fitful sleep. See you tomorrow.
// August 8th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal
This kind of thing is why my little sister is going to go far.
And by way of explaining the post title, sheâ??s both my blog sister and my blog daughter … go figure.
