Diary of a Network Geek

I've been doing a lot more on my phone lately.

I'm not really big into the latest and greatest phone technology.  I don't go out and grab the latest phone just because it's come out and has new bells and whistles.  No, really!  But, I have to admit, my new iPhone has pretty much taken over a significant portion of my technological life.  And, I'm pretty much okay with that, because I love it.  One of these days, Real Soon Now, I'm going to write up a review of the VNC software I use on it to manage my servers remotely.  But, until then, I'm going to give you a quick high-light of something absolutely miraculous: secure shell sessions for your phone.

Yeah, now, notice that I didn't write "for your iPhone", but, rather, "for your phone".  There are actually secure shell clients for all three of the big smartphone players; Blackberry, iPhone and Palm.
Now, for those of you not sure what I'm talking about, that's okay, it's a geek thing.  Secure shell is a protocol that hardcore, professional geeks like me use to securely access remote systems.  In a nutshell, it's like Telnet, another hardcore geek tool, but it doesn't pass information like usernames or passwords in "clear text", which makes it more secure.  And, that's the reason guys like me use it.  It lets us securely access servers remotely over networks in ways that don't endanger our networks or users.  It used to be really only for Unix and Linux, but there are secure shell clients for just about everything now.  Frankly, more professional geeks should be using it for a lot of reasons, but many don't.

Regardless, I think we've reached the pinnacle of technology when I can get a secure shell client for every major smartphone out there.  What that means is I can securely access virtually any kind of server from my phone, where there is a speedy enough data link.  Think about that for a second.  From my PHONE, I can securely access servers, wherever I may happen to have the freakish whim to do so and can get a decent cell signal.
I remember back in the days when you had to have an actual dial-up MODEM to get into servers remotely.  There was no method, secure or otherwise, to get into a server from home or anywhere else.  Now, I can do it, securely, from my PHONE!  How crazy is that?  Seriously!
So, if you want to be able to do that, too, here are links to three reviews of SSH software for the various smartphones. They should all have links to where you can actually download the software, if you want it.
SSH for Blackberry
SSH for iPhone
SSH for PalmOS

Also?  There are lots of applications for managing Windows servers, especially for the iPhone.  Check out Managing Servers and other systems from the iPhone.  It's why I couldn't hardly wait for the prices to come down to reasonable levels and why I babble about how there's an app for everything on this iPhone. Really, it's made so many things so much easier for me, I cannot begin to tell you.
But, I may just try.

I likes me some creative photography!

And, Kyle Bean, a photographer and creative graphics guy from the UK, sure fits the bill.  He makes things, out of cardboard, and then photographs them.  Aw, hell, why waste time reading about it?  Hit his portfolio and enjoy!

The FTC has some new rules for bloggers.

Okay, they haven't taken effect yet, but, they will soon enough. The new rule is, basically, that bloggers now have to make any paid endorsements or reviews clear, or clearer, at any rate, so that people reading their review know that they got something for it, even if it's just the product itself. Which, frankly, only seems fair.

Now, you all know I review stuff here all the time; movies, books, applications, and other stuff I use. But, know this, I have never, ever been paid to review anything here, nor would I accept payment for reviews unless it was the sale of an article to a magazine or newspaper. I certainly would never review something for someone who paid me to give their product a good review. Even if I happened to agree that their product was the best, accepting money for that review would bias me.

So, you konw, when I tell you a movie sucks, I mean it!

Pandorum

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
I saw Pandorum Sunday morning.

It was okay, but nothing fantastic, frankly, or overly surprising.
The premise is simple enough; a flight crew wakes up from an extended hypersleep on an enormous spacecraft that seems to be either abandoned or damaged, but they don't know what or why and no one is there to tell them what's going on.

But, of course, it's more complicated than just firing up the computer and reading the ship's log.  The power is out, mostly, except for power surges that are almost more trouble than the lack of power that seems to be the rule.  The flight crew is missing one person and suffering from a kind of temporary amnesia caused by the extended hypersleep, but things start to come back to them quickly.  The officer of the team, a Leutenant played by Dennis Quaid, gets enough emergency power routed to the local workstation to discover that the ship's reactor is going to overload, or rather, it's going into emergency shutdown before it does actually overload.  The Corporal, played by Ben Foster, just happens to have remembered that he knows how to restart the reactor and save the ship and everyone on it.  All he needs to do is get to it, which means getting past a whole lot of bulkhead doors effectively locked due to the power fluctuations.  Naturally, that means he's going to have to crawl through a whole lot of very strange, ooky ducts that lead to a lot of eerie, drippy, abandoned corridors.

The thing is, as huge as the ship is, most of the crew and passengers aren't there or awake.  And, while wandering the corridors, looking for a way to the reactor, the Corporal remembers that they're a colony ship, sent to create a new Earth on a very distant planet.  A one-way trip meant to off-load a significant portion of the population of an over-stressed, worn-out, abused Earth and give humanity a new start.  Which makes it even more confusing that they seem to be all alone.
Only, it turns out, they're not alone.  Something else is there.  Something human-like, but more animal.  Something that hunts in packs and seems to know the ship quite well.  Something that's hunted the other flight crews down for food.  And, at least some of the colonists, too, as it turns out.
The Corporal runs into two colonists, each involved in life-sciences of one kind or another, who have learned to live in the dark, corroded ship, hiding from the alien things who have made it their hunting ground.

Well, that's the basics of the movie.
It's not a bad premise for a story, actually.  In fact, in one form or another, it's been used in science-fiction for many years.  It was even the basis of at least one sci-fi role-playing game.  This movie handles the topic quite well, I think.  It produces a fairly realistic set of circumstances, if it's possible to create a "realistic" setting in a science-fiction setting.  Then, it puts reasonable people in that setting and applies pressure.  I think that is the essence of a good story, whether in a movie or a book.  People are at their most interesting when they're under significant pressure, when they're given a chance to show their true character.
The sets are very much like the sets we saw in Alien, and many, many times since.  It's nothing particularly new anymore, but I think Pandorum does it better than I've seen since the Alien movies, so it was fine and not over-done at all.  It is a dark movie, in both the cinematography and the theme are dark.  The sets are mostly in shadow and odd emergency lighting, reinforcing the idea that no one knows what's going on and what dangers might be lurking just off screen.  And, of course, the idea that an entire ship of people, an entire colony, might be lost at any moment and the possibility that something sinister already has happened to them are themes that are ever-present and weigh heavily on both the characters and the audience.

It's been a long time since I've seen a good science-fiction horror movie, but I have to say, Pandorum was that.  It wasn't great, but it was good.  It's hard not to compare it to Alien, since that was the first true sci-fi horror movie I ever saw.  But, it's no where near as good as Alien.  Still, Pandorum is worth seeing on the big screen if you like scary, tense science-fiction films.  And, I did enjoy it.

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
Yeah, so now I'm reviewing iPhone apps.

One aspect of my personal life that probably doesn't come through that much on this blog is how concerned I am about health and, specifically, my weight. Now, some of this may come from having been married to a self-diagnosed anorexic, but, mostly, it goes further back than that.  In any case, weight and general health have always been a concern for me, but even more so since surviving cancer.  So, I know from all the health magazines I read that one of the greatest tools for weight loss is tracking caloric intake.  I had been doing this via a Moleskine, but I always had to look up the calories in a book or on a website or something.  It was just challenging enough to make me want to quit.  So, naturally, when I got an iPhone, I went looking for an app that let me do record my intake that way.  Enter FoodScanner.

Not only does this fantastic app have seemingly endless lists of food, including many popular restaurant menus, but you can scan the barcode on the package and it will automagically find the food and all the nutrition information for it.  But, wait!  If that's not in the database yet, you can add it in manually and link the barcode yourself!  How cool is that!  Seriously, I love this thing.  It's made it so much easier to track my calories I can't believe I ever lived without it.  And, at $0.99 it's a real bargain, especially if you want to work on consuming less to lose weight.  Fantastic!

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
Now, as cool as FoodScanner is, what's even cooler is the free app that goes with it called DailyBurn.  To get the full functionality, it does require that you setup a free account with their service, but, trust me, it's totally worth it.  Once you've setup your free account, DailyBurn will get the calorie and nutrition information you put in with FoodScanner and use that, so you don't have to enter it twice.

Now, as you'll notice from the screen shot to the right, the default screen on DailyBurn shows you your caloric intake, what you've burned via work outs, and your current and goal weight.  There's also a tracker to show if you've met your workout and nutritional goals, which I'll mention later.  This page, as you might have guessed from the title "Today's Stats", is updated daily, which they define as 12:00AM to 12:00AM.

Notice, though, that the Nutrition indicator only shows when you've met all your "goals", which, frankly, aren't quite my actual goals.  For one thing, I want to keep my calorie consumption below what they have as a goal, so as to lose weight.  Also, notice the "Upgrade to Pro" link.  That takes you to a sign-up screen for a monthly membership, which I didn't want to get roped into paying.  Not sure what the upgrades are, actually, but one presumes additional control over goals and additional exercises and other options.

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
On the screenshot to the left, of this paragraph, you can see the "Body Tracker" page.  Here you can track any number of physical characteristics including weight, waist size, body fat, resting heart rate, arm size and many more.  Frankly, it's got all the recording features of any big program that you could want.  Also, if you upgrade your free account, which I have not done, to a "Pro" account, there are even more things you can track, like sleep levels.

I like having the chart to see how well, or poorly, I've been doing over time.  Sure, maybe it's a little bit over-kill, but, I'll be honest, I love charts and graphs and stats.  My favorite page on my Flickr account is the stats page.  It's true; I'm a stat whore.  So, yes, this feature appeals to me.  Your mileage may vary.

Also, like I mentioned, I didn't want to get started paying a monthly fee for something I may not continue to use in the long-term, so there may be additional features here that are worth having.  Not sure.   Right now, I'm just a rookie fitness nut, so my health isn't worth a monthly fee for those kind of intangibles.  Heck, I don't even pay for a gym membership yet!  So, that may be something worth checking out for you super-hyper fitness nuts.

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
The next page I seem to hit a lot is the "Workouts" page. Granted, I've probably worked out more since I got this app than I have in the past month, but, still, if it's working, then that's all that matters.

Now, one of the things I don't like is that the exercises it DailyBurn measures are somewhat limited.  And, you can't enter anything new.  So, if, for instance, you were to get exercises out of Men's Health and knew the caloric expenditure, there's no way to enter that in.  Now, I assume that buying the "pro" version of this, which is actually a membership and not a one-time payment, you might be able to add more exercises or have a larger selection, but, frankly, I get close enough that it's not worth it to me to pay a monthly fee for that kind of "upgrade".

I should also note, however, that I haven't looked into the "My Workouts" section too much, but it looked like it had promise.  It gave you workouts to achieve certain goals, like Fat Loss and Strength Building and so on.  Under each section, there are several workouts designed to help you with that particular goal.  Kind of like a personal trainer in an iPhone app.  (Though, I prefer the Men's Health app for those kind of things to the ones I saw in DailyBurn.)  The last section is essentially a workout log that shows all the sets you've done and how much weight you lifted on each set.  The only problem is, it only shows today's workout, not any previous day.  It like this to show a chart of progress, not unlike the body goals charts shown above.  But, again, I'm sort of a stat whore, so take that for what you will.

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
Now, what I think is the best thing about DailyBurn, next to showing me how little I burn off with my wimpy home workout, is the "Nutrition" screen.  I specifically chose the screen at the left because it showed several things I want to highlight.  This is not what I hope a "typical" day is for me.  Or, at least, not what I hope a typical day will be for me going forward.

In any case, you can see that it shows you your consumption levels and whether or not you've met your "goals" for the day.  Goals not met are shown in blue.  Goals that are in the "good" range, or met, but not exceeded are in green.  And, finally, goals that have been exceeded are in red.  You can see that I was a bad, bad boy on the day used as an example.  Also, since I'm trying to lose weight, I'm doing my best to keep my caloric intake between 1500 and 1900 calories.  My goal here is to burn more calories than I actually need so as to shed some poundage.

Now, again, I'm a total stat geek when it comes to this stuff, so I love see all this.  Also, in just the few weeks that I've been using these two programs, I've learned some very valuable lessons.  For one thing, I need to work out more.  My little, tiny workout in the morning doesn't even burn off breakfast most days!  Not acceptable!  So, I need to adjust that.  Also, I noticed that I'm not getting anywhere near enough protein while consuming way too many carbs and, obviously, more than enough fat, too.  So, I need to adjust my diet as well as step up my exercise program.  But, it took getting good information to do it.

For the couple of bucks it cost me to get FoodScanner and the free version of DailyBurn, I've gotten a lot of valuable information and awareness of what I need to change and improve in my personal health and nutrition plan.  Well worth the small change I paid.

I know I'm not the only one who loves those stop-motion shots.

I'm a pretty fresh begginer when it comes to photography, but I'm willing to branch out into new areas.  One of the areas that interest me is high-speed or stop-motion photography.  Capturing an image at the moment of action, when something bursts or splashes or explodes is fascinating to me.
Well, it may still be a bit beyond me, but thanks to DIYPhotography.net, if you're up to the challenge, you can setup a High-Speed Photography rig at home.

Surrogates

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
I know, I'm late with my review of this and I didn't post anything at all on Monday.

What can I tell you? It's just been that kind of week! I suppose that I should be grateful that I have my iPhone to so I can, uh, "phone this one in" via the WordPress beta app.
Anyway, I saw Surrogates this past Friday. I liked this movie a lot. Now, I doubt it will be lauded as a great movie, nor will it do fantastically well at the box office, but I liked this movie better than Gamer, which covers some of the same intellectual ground. Surrogates is an action flick, too, but not to the same degree and, more importantly to me, Surrogates focused more on the social implications of the technology and less on the tawdry, flashy sex.

Surrogates stars Bruce Willis as an FBI agent in a world where virtually everyone has a "surrogate", or remote-controlled robot, with which they interact with the world. The idea behind that is that the surrogate can't die or be permanently damaged the way a human, or "user", can. The problem is someone has found a weapon that can send some kind of feedback signal through the surrogate that will killthe user. Willis' character is called in to investigate just such a crime and what might be the first murder since the invention of surrogates. The bigger problem is that the murder victim is the son of the man who invented surrogates.
The chief suspect is a "meat bag", as people without surrogates are known. And, he was apparently used by an anti-surrogate extremist group called the "Dreads", who are led by a dreadlocked Ving Rhames. So, now, not only does Willis' character have to solve the first murder since the invention of surrogates, but has to figure out who made this "impossible" weapon, how, and, most importantly of all, why.  Add to this the fact that Willis' character isn't overly fond of surrogates to begin with, since his wife is using it as a way to hide from him emotionally as she tries to forget that they had a child who died.

But, like I said, this is an action film, so there is plenty of action.  A car chase with a helicopter that ends poorly and results in Willis' character not being able to use his surrogate.  Being forced into the real world has some strange effects on people not used to it, or so it would seem from the level of anxiety he displays.  And, who can blame them for wanting to be in their surrogates all the time?  The surrogates are perfect.  Perfect bodies, perfect faces and, all but Willis' have perfect hair.  And, these things are virtually indestructable.  So, that's why it's so important that they find out who's killing people through their surrogates.
Willis' character does find out, incidentally, but that's far from the end of the story.  You'll have to see it to understand and I'm not going to ruin it.

One thing to know, though, is that the action isn't quite as good as Gamer, but the nasty, shock-value-only sex is virtually not present.  Also, I think they explored some of the social relevance of the surrogate phenomina better than those same aspects were explored in Gamer.
Definitely worth seeing this movie, but if you're not a fan of science-fiction, you'd better hit this in a matinee.  Still worth seeing, though.

TheInformantAndNineAndExtract

Originally uploaded by Network Geek
I saw a bunch of movies in the past two weeks.

I know I see a lot of movies, but, until I got behind on my reviews, I didn't realize just how many!
So, these will be three short, quick reviews to help me catch up, also they're being written on the Wordpress iPhone app, which encourages brevity. I'll review them in the order I saw them.

First up is Extract, which is a Mike Judge film. He's the guy who did Office Space and if you liked that you'll like this one, too. This time, the "hardluck hero" isn't a front-line worker, but management. In fact, he's the owner of a small factory that creates extracts, like almond extract and other flavorings. Now, this might not seem like a funny setup, but, trust me, it is. Judge manages to find the hilarity in an over-worked, under-sexed small-business owner, trapped in an unhappy marriage and disenchanted with his own creation, played by Jason Bateman. He struggles with all the problems attendant to an entreprenuerial business, but manages well enough. Until, that is, there's a freak accident in the factory that partially emasculates one of his star employees. That alone wouldn't be a problem, actually, but it draws the attention of a sexy grifter played by Mila Kunis. She conivces the "victim" to sue, setting off a chain of events that are not only tragic and hilarious, but also so incredibly believable that you never question how outrageous they are or the reactions to them.
Trust me when I tell you this will be a cult hit just like Office Space was. I laughed out loud so often my sides hurt by the end of the movie. Oh, and Gene Simmons as the ambulance-chasing, shyster lawyer is too funny for words! Watch for his ad in the background because when he does it in Spanish you'll have a hard time controlling you bladder. Very funny film and, if it's not too late, a must see.

Last week Friday, I saw The Informant, starring Matt Damon. Now, you might not expect that an action star like him could do comedy, but he really pulls it off.
Now, this movie is an entirely different kind of funny than Extract. It's still funny, but as much in that over-the-top sort of way. It's a dryer sort of comedy, almost British in where it gets its laughs. I doubt it will do as well as other comedies this season for that reason, but I found it very funny. Also, this movie is based on a book which is in turn based on actual events. In. nutshell, Damon stars as an exec at ADM, a corn conglomerate, who gets into a tight spot and does some lying to get out of it. The only problem is, those lies bring in the FBI who need to be distracted. So, in an effort to save his own skin, he rats out the company on a huge price-fixing scheme and ends up being an FBI under cover informant for almost three years. Of course, during that time he also embezzeled more than 9 million dollars and never seemed to tell anyone the while truth, not even his wife, not even himself.
Damon is clever and likeable, in a kind of nerdy way, as the obviously not quite right Mark Whitmore, who still thinks he can steal from the company, become the next president after the old management team is out, and inform for the government at the same time. The really funny thing is that he manages to pull it off for three years before things really start to unravel. And, this movie is more than just laughs. You see a guy under incredible stress trying to maintain his sanity, world-view and family image while betraying those very same things. Near the end, Damon has some truly poignant moments where the frayed edges of his assorted lives and realities begin to show through. I really liked this film, but I doubt most people would. I honestly don't see it doing well in the theaters or in rental, but I really enjoyed the surprsing subtlties in this movie. Damon turns in a fantastic performance that I suspect will go largely unnoticed by the public. If you're a Matt Damon fan, definitely rent this one.

The last film I saw last weekend was Nine. Nine is a pretty adult animation film. The story follows Nine, a magically created living puppet in a post-apocalyptic world. He wakes not knowing who he is or why he was made and not even having a voice. Nine quickly explores his world, however, and meets more of his kind, one of whom helps him find a voice, literally. When that other "person" is taken by some malevolent machine, Nine tries to convice his newly found brethren that they need to go and rescue their missing member. Much of the film is spent in that sort of activity, either convincing older "people" who are afraid of losing thei power to change, or off fighting technology that has no soul.
And, that is one of the major themes of this movie; fighting the soul-less technological world. In a sense, this movie is all about heart, but it's also an action film of sorts. And it was animated. Actually, it was animated very well, so that's a point in its favor.
I'd recommend this film for anyone who's either a sci-fi fan or an animation fan, but it's not for the kids. Way more grown up than that. But, even though I liked it quite a bit, I don't think it's everyone's cup of tea.

So, to sum up, go see Extract quickly, rent The Informant, and see Nine if you love sci-fi or animation or both, otherwise just rent this one, too. But, for the record, I enjoyed all three films.

Oh, and just so you know, this was meant to be posted yesterday morning and would have been the fifth consecutive post written primarily with the WordPress iPhone app beta. Outside of a problem uploading pictures, the beta app is working very well.
More movies this weekend, so, more reviews coming, though, they may not all be via the iPhone.

Yeah, I'm lazy.

So, I'm not going to tell you how to create a seamless background in Photoshop, I'm going to let the fine folks over at TestFreaks teach you how to create a seamless background in Photoshop CS4.

Seriously, this is a very good tutorial for something that a lot of us would like to do, so go check it out.

Ever wonder what I did before my blog devolved into what it is today?

Well, I uses write Perl code for fun. Yeah, that's right, I used to code for fun. I mostly started with super geeky constructed language scripts and then moved on to other stuff. But, you know, I used to let people use them for free, just because it was fun and people seemed to really enjoy the scripts. Hey, there are a lot of geeky people out there! Anyway, it didn't take long for these scripts, which used to reside at the Fantasist.net conlang page, to become very popular. It took even less time for them to become problematic for me and my series of webhosts. Well, they've finally become so much of a problem that I had to take them down this week.

Honestly, I can't tell you how sad and angry and frustrated that makes me. I really wish I could keep offering them up, but people have abused them for too long and now they've caused me more trouble than they're worth to me, so they're gone for the forseesble future.