Charging the future

Published 3 December 2009

The brilliant Douglas Adams (R.I.P) wrote (if I am right in 1998) a funny, true story about ‘dongly things‘.

I have always wondered why 90% of all equipment, with or without batteries, don’t work on 240v as it comes to my home. I have so many adapters in my home, that going on holiday almost forces me to carry another case.

But when I travel by car, all items can work easily from the cigarette lighter. My current car has three of those and doesn’t have an ash-tray… I always charge my phone by a cigarette-to-USB converter in my car.

When I am on the move with my laptop, it gets even better. I can use my USB slots to charge everything. I still have a few special cables (iPod), but it is much lighter than any power-adaptor. I have bought a small USB-powered switch, my phone, Bluetooth headset and my USB-hub to power them all. I only need one power adapter to charge my laptop.

So there is a solution. We need USB outlets and it seems cheap and easy to build them yourself.

We probably just need to start building USB 3 outlets and have one, efficient electric transformer to power them all…

categorie(s): technology | 1 Comment

A secure blanket

Published 27 August 2009

You shouldn’t trust the Internet. It is dangerous and because most people do not fully comprehend the technology and inner workings, it is hard to understand how and when you are in danger. And yet, as we become more and more reliant on Internet, we clearly need to use it. The Internet was invented by people with large ideological ideas which completely trusted each other. Yet it was conceived to withstand a nuclear bomb and keep on functioning. It appears that the threats we encounter are quite different though. As you are using Internet banking and started to buy stuff on-line, it seems ‘they’ are out there to steal your money or, worse, your identity.
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categorie(s): security, technology, work | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What works for me

Published 21 July 2009

I was recently asked to give a training to a technical staff to help them improve their skills. Their manager asked me if I could help them improve on troubleshooting skills and problem management. I thought about it for a long time, but it seems very hard to teach a group to ‘troubleshoot’. So I moved this to one-on-one training sessions and decided to change the training to soft skills with the motto: “What works for me”. I like to share some of these with you.

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categorie(s): draft, work | Leave a comment

unstash in Java

Published 8 March 2009

It has been ten years ago – 1999 – since the (in)famous unstash-script came out. It was a cryptic PERL script, which could read IBM’s stash files and deliver you the ‘encrypted’ password.

I was in need of the script, as I lost a password from a cryptocraphic key database and got stuck as I had no PERL installed. So I decided to create a Java-version of this script, because Java is always available when you are installing most IBM products. You may use it to your liking.

For an explanation how it works and a link to download the jar-file, please read on!

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categorie(s): security, technology, websphere, work | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

smart lazyness

Published 24 February 2009

I am lazy. I admit it. I wouldn’t know how to cope with the information overload otherwise. You know what: Actually being lazy keeps me quite busy. You need to be lazy and apply it in a smart way.

Being lazy is not about doing nothing. It is about not remembering, because things are obvious. It tries to work on the “don’t make me think” paradigm. Whenever you have a choice, you stop and have to make a decision. This takes time and effort. We need to remove the little, interfering choices.

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categorie(s): draft, work | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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