Double-Click Click Boom!
August 26th, 2010 
Steve
Computerworld – Less than 24 hours after Microsoft said it couldn’t patch Windows to fix a systemic problem, attack code appeared Tuesday to exploit the company’s software.
Also on Tuesday, a security firm that’s been researching the issue for the past nine months said 41 of Microsoft’s own programs can be remotely exploited using DLL load hijacking, and it named two of them.
On Monday ...
App Inventor. Hurry up Google!
August 23rd, 2010 Steve
I have Google fever! I’m anxiously awaiting my invite to the Google App Inventor download, and I’m starting to see some Tweets of people receiving theirs within the past couple of days. I need some ideas for apps.
Maybe I can develop an iPhone app that checks my email for an App Inventor invite!
Hurry up Google! *mimics commercial* Droiiiiiddd
here’s a link to the current Android SDK: http://dev ...
Download: Big Digital Clock
July 10th, 2010 Steve
At work the other day, I was in need of an application that could display the time and date very large for a “Kiosk” type display at the front of a large room. I perused the net for a web page that had the current time and date on it, thinking I could just increase the font size of the web page, but this proved to be a waste of time.
I then googled “big free clock” and first link up took me ...
My Latest Favorite Quote
May 15th, 2010 Steve
“The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris” – Larry Wall (Creator of PERL)
What are your favorite computer quotes?
...
Download: Keystroke Logging and Screenshot Gathering (Lookout)
April 16th, 2010 Steve
Against my better judgment, I decided to post this project on basic keylogging and screenshot techniques. There are a few legitimate cases where these techniques are needed and it is hard to find information or people willing to help as the immediate malicious red flag goes up.
If you are looking for a ready-made keylogger, this probably isn’t for you. While this project will teach you the techniques, provi ...
Tutorial: 2 Column CSS With Equal Height DIVs
April 16th, 2010 Steve
Here’s a quick post, not so much a tutorial, on something I find myself needing quite frequently these days. You need a 2 column css layout, but you need both columns’ heights to stay the same height regardless of which column has the longer content in it.
The fix: DynamicDrive’s pre-made layout:
See a DEMO of this layout
The HTML Code:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Trans ...
IRIS: ReView Part 3
February 11th, 2010 Steve
So far so good! Did some more work today getting the UI finished and implementing a feature I had not thought of earlier. ReView will allow the Alarm Operator to specify the video error type is there a problem with the video that is shown (or not shown) to them. There are some “canned” options as well as ability to enter their own description of the problem. The reason for this, is because, simply sendi ...
IRIS: ReView Part 2
February 8th, 2010 Steve
Well… I promised you a working prototype for Part 2, and here it is! Spent today getting the planned UI completed and actually have almost all the features implemented and working. The coolest part to me is that there is a “Zoom Live” button which launches the Live video feed fullscreen, giving the alarm operator a very clear picture of the alarm.
The one issue I’m having at the moment is th ...
IRIS: ReView Part 1
February 7th, 2010 Steve
I haven’t been in the alarm monitoring industry very long, 3 years to be exact, but what I’ve learned early on is that there is a real need for technology in some areas. For example, video verification on alarms is a growing trend, convenient Dealer access to information, and more support for Windows-based monitoring software.
I’ve started work on what will be a video verification tool for monito ...
Video: Project Natal
February 6th, 2010 Steve
You might have heard about Microsoft’s “Project Natal.” I finally got around to watching the video demo of it and my jaw dropped.
This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.
To quote another blogger “if it works, it will be epic. If it fails, it will be sad.”
It is amazing how it is able to detect your entire body, ...
Video: BigDog Robot from Boston Dynamics
February 3rd, 2010 Steve
So the newest video is out from Boston Dynamics demonstrating their Big Dog robot. I had not seen it until today and wasn’t expecting much when I clicked the link… but WOW! I can definitely see the level of programming and work that has gone into it, especially with the way it corrects itself when being kicked or loses its “footing.” Have a look at the video and check out the life-like movem ...
Detecting eSATA drive in Windows 7
February 3rd, 2010 Steve
Just got back from the store with your shiny new external hard drive, or you just tackled the UPS guy to rip open your brand new backup solution… you plug it in to your awesome Windows 7 box and!….
nada…
If you’re like me, it probably doesn’t detect your drive and you start cursing at your cat, flailing wildly and vowing to never buy another *insert manufacturer here*’s product a ...
CSS Lightview Style Popup
February 3rd, 2010 Steve
Before I begin, I want to be perfectly clear that this is NOT my creation. I am merely improving upon the code provided by its creator at www.sohtanaka.com
So.. if you’re reading this, you probably got here in the hopes of finding out how to make it do multiple popups on the same page. I struggled with posting this on the author’s site, I believe due to length of text in the comment box, so I thought I ...
Debate: To Ping or Not To Ping?
January 31st, 2010 Steve
…that is the question!
An interesting thread over on vbforums.com brought up the topic of using a ping to condition whether or not to continue performing a network task. One argument is that you want to see if there is a viable connection to the remote device before you try to do anything to/with it. The other argument is, why introduce the bandwidth overhead of a ping command when you can just attempt the ta ...