brenton strine http://brentonstrine.com a website should be a simple and a beautiful thing Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:55:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Two-liner http://brentonstrine.com/2012/04/two-liner/ http://brentonstrine.com/2012/04/two-liner/#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:55:33 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=280 I think of a Chef as a sensitive guy
Cutting onions makes him happy, but it also makes him cry.

]]> http://brentonstrine.com/2012/04/two-liner/feed/ 0 The Daily Something http://brentonstrine.com/2012/04/the-daily-something/ http://brentonstrine.com/2012/04/the-daily-something/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:00:12 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=267 I got in to the office early this morning and was on the web, waiting for all my work programs to finish loading (it can take like 8 minutes for Visual Studio sometimes). My boss just walked over to my cubicle to chat about what food we should get with our office kitchen, and we talked for a few minutes, but I noticed him glancing at my computer screen. So I start worrying, what did I leave up on my computer screen? Is it work related? Does it at least look like it might be work related? Oh gosh, hopefully I don’t have something like Facebook, or an embarrassing email to my mom or something!

As it turns out, the page that was open was a how-to manual for how to tie a bow tie. When I got over my embarrassment, I wondered what he thought my purpose was in looking this up. Certainly not your typical I’m-wasting-company-time sort of website.

Go from sort-of-frowny to happy, by tying a bow tie!

But this is what I do. Bleary-eyed and alone in the office, I am suddenly struck with overwhelming curiosity about how one ties a bow-tie. Did I try to wear a bow-tie today? No. Did someone mention a bow-tie to me? Did I see a picture of one? Was it mentioned on the radio on the way to work? No, the lack of understanding simply reached a critical mass, and I Had to Know.

Another day it might be how keys are made. Another day it might be how and why power transformers blow up in electrical storms. Sometimes these things are related to something in my life, sometimes not. But it happens almost every day. They say you learn something new every day! That is certainly true of me.

So I think I’m going to start a new category on this blog called “Daily Something” and post these new somethings that I learn every day. Not every day, but every once in a while. Sound good?

]]> http://brentonstrine.com/2012/04/the-daily-something/feed/ 0 HTML5 as a Brand http://brentonstrine.com/2012/01/html5-as-a-brand/ http://brentonstrine.com/2012/01/html5-as-a-brand/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:10:56 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=241 If you’re in the web developer world, you’ve noticed by now that there isn’t a space before the ’5′ in HTML5. This is different than HTML 4.01, HTML 4, HTML 3.2, and HTML 2.0. Why this new direction? Actually, it’s more in line with the old direction than most realize. The first version of HTML wasn’t called “HTML 1.0,” in fact there is no such thing as “HTML 1.” It all started out with a document called “HTML Tags,” which is, for all intents and purposes, the first version of HTML. Things were a little muddy there for a while as updates came in rapidly, but the next real version was called HTML+. Sure, you can go back and find the incremental numbered versions of HTML in some official specs, but in terms of reality and use, there was HTML Tags, then HTML+. These were real innovations and steps up in the language, but after that there was a drive to clean things up a bit, and the numbered versions dominated. I’m not saying that HTML 4 wasn’t groundbreaking and painfully needed (and it took way too long for developers and browsers to implement), but it was truly an incremental update, fixing and adding things that were obvious next steps.

Things changed with HTML5, which starts out with an awareness of the internet today. A search for “HTML 5″ will find any page that mentions HTML and has some numbers on it–not very useful. But removing the space allows search engines to key in on just the term we need. This is just the first indication of what characterizes HTML5: an awareness of the world as it is today, and where it is going. We learned from HTML 4 that the internet is run by people, lots of people, and an official specification or update doesn’t do anything unless all those people–browser vendors, web developers, users–get on board. What if Tim Berners-Lee had submitted his “HTML Tags” document to the IEEE or some official organization, got it approved, registered, published, and then just waited for the world to adopt it? We wouldn’t have the internet we have today.

HTML5 BadgeTim Berners-Lee made something that worked, and he publicized it–created documents to help people use it, he facilitated it’s growth. The same with the market-minded naming of HTML+. It’s true that HTML was in deep need of regulation, but regulation was not enough to magically make HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.01 become a universal standard. That’s why HTML5 doesn’t have a space. And why it has it’s own logo. Have you noticed that people don’t really talk about “Web 2.0″ anymore? HTML5 has completely encompassed both that term and that concept–HTML5 has come to mean not just the next version of HTML, but the next version of the web. It includes the newest version other languages, like CSS 3, dozens of little technologies like offline storage and location detection, it includes rapid-release browser schedules like Firefox and Chrome have, it stands for everything the internet has been waiting for.

HTML CAN NOT DO THAT

Here’s something that I think is telling. The doctype for HTML 4 looked like this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Besides being messy, you notice the prominent versioning of it. 4.01. But here’s the HTML5 doctype:

<!DOCTYPE html>

No version number! HTML5 is the end of the idea that we can just release a new version of HTML and wait decades for people to update. From now on, the expectation is that you’re up to date–you’re using the latest browsers with the latest standards and the latest technologies. If you’re not, we’ll still display your content, but the internet is done pandering to the lowest common denominator. HTML5 is not the next version of HTML, but rather it’s a vision for the future of the internet, and it has a lot more in common with HTML Tags than with HTML 4.01 Strict.

]]> http://brentonstrine.com/2012/01/html5-as-a-brand/feed/ 1 Adventures of making a Udemy video http://brentonstrine.com/2011/12/adventures-of-making-a-udemy-video/ http://brentonstrine.com/2011/12/adventures-of-making-a-udemy-video/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:25:19 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=195
  • Buy big, really bright lights and a reflector screen.
  • Get tripod.
  • Arrange to pickup microphone from craigslist guy.
    –> Craigslist guy changes his mind and wont sell.
  • Arrange to get microphone from eBay.
    –> Microphone arrives but won’t turn on.
  • Contact eBay seller.
    –> Seller won’t respond.

    •  

    1. Open a case for arbitration with eBay.
      –> Seller wants you to pay to ship defective item back and pay 15% restocking fee.
    2. Craigslist guy changes his mind and wants you to buy microphone. Arrange to get it.
      –> Craigslist guy informs you he has sold it to someone else.
    3. Try to make a test video.
      –> Camera is missing.
    4. Look for camera for days, retrace steps, call everyone you talked to, put up posters.
      –> The camera’s gone, Jim.
    5. Get brother to ship his camera down from Portland.
      –> Camera records on Digital8 tapes.
    6.  Record on MemoryStick.
      –> MemoryStick is limited to 15 seconds and has terrible quality.
    7. Connect camera to computer with USB.
      –>  Camera won’t connect with USB.
    8. Connect with FireWire.
      –> Computer has the 4 pin instead of 6 pin FireWire plug.
    9. Buy different FireWire cable.
      –> Computer won’t recognize FireWire device.
    10. Update Driver.
      –> Still won’t work.
    11. Arrange to use another computer…….
      –> (We’ll see!)
    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2011/12/adventures-of-making-a-udemy-video/feed/ 0     strong passwords http://brentonstrine.com/2011/08/strong-passwords/ http://brentonstrine.com/2011/08/strong-passwords/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:58:50 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=177 People are beginning to hear about this idea of using words and spaces to make strong passwords instead of crazy characters. Cases  in point: “fluffy is puffy” is more secure than “J4fS<2″, and “correct horse battery staple” is more secure than “Tr0ub4dor&3″, while the more secure passwords in both cases are easier to remember.

    When people see stuff like this, they seem to make a few mistakes due to not really understanding the principles behind this. Using the word method is useless if your password ends up being short (less than 12 chars), or if you use a phrase (“happy go lucky”), or if you  draw from a limited set of words, (“five three two nine six four eight ten three two”) .  Using only common words is bad too.

    Here is one way to think about why: the security of your password can be measured by the number of possibilities. Traditionally, this has been measured character-by-character. So in a lowercase letter only password, there are 26 possibilities per slot. A six slot password  has 308,915,776 possibilities (which is not very secure).

    “hsufbe” = 6 chars, 6 slots
    (26)^(6) = 308,915,776

    The problem is that that is only true if password guessers work like this: aaaaaa, aaaaab, aaaaac, aaaaad… and so on. But if your password is “happy!” then it’s going to get guessed by a dictionary attack much much sooner.

    Therefore, we need to make a more general rule:

    (values in category) ^ (slots) = possibilities

    If you’re working with characters on the keyboard (e.g., these: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 01234567890 `~!@#$%^&* ()_+-={}[]\|;’:”,./<>?) then you have 95 values in the category. A six character password is then 735,091,890,625 combinations.

    “h&’8,}” = 6 chars, 6 slots
    95 ^ 6 = 735,091,890,625

    While this is better, it’s still not fantastic. But here’s where English words really come in handy. There are between 300,000 and a million English words, depending on your dictionary and how you define words. Let’s use the lower range and assume 300,000 possible values per slot (the slots are the WORDS now, not the characters).

    “fluffy is puffy” = 15 chars, 3 slots
    300,000 ^ 3 = 27,000,000,000,000,000

    “correct horse battery staple” = 28 chars, 4 slots
    300,000 ^ 4 = 8,100,000,000,000,000,000,000

    The important thing to notice here is that we’re not calculating by characters anymore–a brute force cracker would have an impossibly hard time. But a dictionary attack cracker is going to have the best shot, so that’s what we’re looking at.

    Even though you’re using words with 5 and 6 characters, you don’t get to count each character as a slot: they get chunked into one slot. Similarly, if you use a phrase, even though you’re using multiple words, you don’t get to count each word anymore: they get chunked into a single slot of phrases. I have no idea how many common phrases there are, but I’m sure there are password programs that take sentence fragments from the internet and try them as passwords. What is the probability that such a program will hit upon the phrase ”jimmy crack corn?” Hard to say. If it’s drawing text from a transcript of Pinky and the Brain, then your odds might be pretty bad. But the big point is that your slots have now been reduced to 1. Let’s assume that the cracker is drawing from a trillion phrases.

    “jimmy crack corn and i dont care” = 32 chars,  1 slot
    ( 1,000,000,000,000) ^ 1 = 1,000,000,000,000

    Not very good. Barely better than a 6 char password, even though it’s 32 characters and 7 words long.

    So: things to keep in mind. Draw your “chunks” or slots from categories with very large number of values. The more the better: drawing common English words is ok if you use a lot of them. Drawing from a larger range of English words (e.g. include scientific words, place names, proper nouns, stuff that would get you disqualified from Scrabble) means you can get away with using less slots. If you also use other languages, you’re even better off.

    But also remember that you’re always limited by the less sophisticated password cracking algorithms. The following  words are all extremely uncommon words drawn from various languages and various technical terms: xi af ju . Let’s assume that for some strange reason you’re somewhat familiar with these words and so it’s easy for you to remember. So you might think:

    “xi af ju”  = 3 slots
    (~6 million )^ (3) = (absurdly large number)

    but in fact

    “xi af ju ”  = 8 slots
    (27 )^ (12) = (282,429,536,481)

    So you’ll beat the sophisticated dictionary attack but lose at a persistent brute force attack. Likewise, you may have several words that are all part of some similar category (e.g. numbers, as from the example above) in which case you now only have ten values per slot, even though each slot is multiple characters long. Similar story if you happen to choose all words that are in the 1,000 most common words, because the dictionary program may be using only those 1,000 common words, reducing your values per slot from 300k to 1k.

    Lastly, and this should be obvious, but once a random assortment of words or characters goes on the internet or becomes famous, it effectively is the same as a word or a phrase. If you see an example of a secure password on the internet, (here you go: “D&hjd6G44@#46″;}{neh*(Jeheg$#@EfTGTgSYhs” ) it automatically ceases to be secure because some programs build their dictionaries from the internet. That means that that “secure” password back there is no longer secure. So you can’t use “fluffy is puffy” or “correct horse battery staple” anymore. And really, you can’t use any password that has any google results if you google it (in quotes).

    This is just one small part of password security, especially compared to problems like people reusing passwords for more than one site. But if it’s learned correctly, it can help solve the problem by creating easier to remember passwords and encouraging people to create unique passwords for each site they visit.

    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2011/08/strong-passwords/feed/ 1     Arguments and Confirmation Bias http://brentonstrine.com/2011/05/arguments-and-confirmation-bias/ http://brentonstrine.com/2011/05/arguments-and-confirmation-bias/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 18:04:53 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=111 An article from wired that I was reading today pointed out an interesting connection between argumentation and confirmation bias. I never would have thought the two were so connected before now, but it actually makes sense.

    The article begins by wondering at the phenomenon of confirmation bias. Why do we even have it? Why is it that we dumbly look only for evidence that supports the idea we already have in mind, and are blind to contrary evidence? The result is that people make tons of bad choices! But what they point out is that this ability to only see things that confirm an idea is helpful when it comes to being persuasive. If I’m encouraging you to do something for me, I only want to give reasons you should do it, not reasons you shouldn’t.

    It makes sense, and it speaks to our being designed for community. We literally can’t think logically about things without another person to bounce ideas off of. The other person has their own confirmation bias and, hopefully, you’ll get someone with a different idea than you. The result is a debate, and you get different ideas going back and fourth in opposition to each other. So our confirmation bias actually does work towards logical conclusions, but only in the context of a somewhat diverse community.

    I think that confirmation bias further functions to strengthen the community once the debate is over and a conclusion is reached: everyone agrees on the idea in the end, and then everyone’s confirmation bias kicks in to start seeing reasons that it was right, bonding the community in agreement. That’s why stores have liberal return policies. As much as you may be debating in your head and hesitant about a purchase, once you’ve got it, you start seeing all the reasons you should keep it, even if you thought you didn’t like it before.

    Where debates don’t end in agreement, community tends to polarize more and more, splitting into factions that will probably separate. This seems unfortunate but is probably helpful in that it keeps a diversity of approaches to life alive. You have people making cars that run on gas, and people making cars that run on electricity (like we did at the turn of the 20th century). If both approaches are perused, then you have better options down the line. If only one is perused (e.g. gas) then it’s really hard to adapt when problems emerge with that approach.

    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2011/05/arguments-and-confirmation-bias/feed/ 0     Computinghost.com can’t get its act together http://brentonstrine.com/2011/03/computinghost-com-cant-get-its-act-together/ http://brentonstrine.com/2011/03/computinghost-com-cant-get-its-act-together/#comments Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:10:54 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=107 My websites have been down, unreachable, misconfigured, or wrong for months now. Basically I’m paying them a yearly fee so that I can send them emails every few weeks saying “why are all my websites broken again!? Please fix them!” Then they take about a week to “fix” it, which doesn’t really fix it, and I have to email them several more times until it works. I’m busy so I just leave it at that.

    Until a week later when I check the website to see if it’s even still up, and notice yet another problem. Right now I’m getting these stupid “you need to clear your DNS cache” pages instead of my website. First they told me it was a problem only with my computer, but when I sent them screenshots of several proxies showing the same problem, they finally looked into it. I’m still having this problem on and off, but then my anglicanyouth.com website was pointing to an old backup copy I had of augiescoffee.com. Totally wrong. I asked them why this happened, and they are still working on fixing it, I guess. But now anglicanyouth.com points to this website! Don’t ask me why or how!

    I’ve mentioned that my websites have been down for months and months, and particularly the anglicanyouth.com website has basicallybeen unusable for years, but sales was unwilling to give me any sort of refund at all. So basically: avoid xisto and computinghost. It would be a good deal, except that they don’t actually give you hosting. So you’re just giving them money for free.

    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2011/03/computinghost-com-cant-get-its-act-together/feed/ 0     Educator Video on Youtube breaks 1,000 http://brentonstrine.com/2010/10/educator-video-on-youtube-breaks-1000/ http://brentonstrine.com/2010/10/educator-video-on-youtube-breaks-1000/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:50:07 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=104 The introductory video for my HTML5 course on Educator is on the Educator YouTube channel and it gets way more views than any of the videos on my own YouTube channel.


    Educator HTML Lesson

    Alright then! I feel like I’ve outstripped myself! But honestly, its’ crazy to think that in just a few days so many people have sat through a long, boring video, whereas over months nobody wants to sit through the “more interesting” and shorter videos on my vlog!

    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2010/10/educator-video-on-youtube-breaks-1000/feed/ 0     When Cats Become Magnetized http://brentonstrine.com/2010/10/when-cats-become-magnetized/ http://brentonstrine.com/2010/10/when-cats-become-magnetized/#comments Sat, 09 Oct 2010 14:50:36 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=71 Much like how aircraft can become magnetized when flying through the earth’s magnetic field, or electromagnets when a current runs through them, cats sometimes become magnetized. It’s just one of those strange things about cats. G. Curtis Hoskins describes one method for determining whether your cat has become magnetized:

    Note when a cat is lying in a certain orientation. Pick it up and then put it back down. If it chooses the same orientation (to magnetic fields), then it is in need of degaussing.

    Degaussing is the process of removing the magnetism from an object, for example, old CRT monitors will frequently need to be degaussed when you move them or point them in new directions. A magnetized cat is not a serious problem, but you may notice your cat exhibiting curious behavior while suffering from magnetism.

    It will not be strong enough to attract metal objects to the kitten, however, the cat will tend to position itself in the room according to unseen magnetic fields, sometimes resulting in funny behavior such as sitting in the corner facing the wall or hanging half way off of objects in seemingly impossible (or at least uncomfortable) positions. They will also tend to align themselves along a north–south axis (much like cattle and deer, which are naturally magnetized).

    Unlike cattle, however, magnetization affects some of the highly refined senses of the cat, such as its inner ear mechanisms that allow it to always land on its feet, the high sensitivity of its whiskers, and ESP. Usually cats are able to keep themselves from becoming too magnetized by brushing against things as they walk by, which creates a static current in their fur that will naturally tend to degauss them. Petting your cat also helps it to keep down magnetic build-up. However, once magnetism has built up too much, cats will try more drastic measures, such as taking advantage of the photoelectric effect to degauss by sitting in the sun or lying on top of devices which emit small amounts of radiation, such as laptop computers. If your cat has most of the aforementioned symptoms of magnetic build up, or any of the following, it is time to manually degauss your cat:

    • Cat is startled by you when you walk into the room. (Indicates severe ESP interference, most probably by magnetic build up. )
    • Your cat randomly and for no apparent reason bolts around the room at full speed and then sits still again. (This is caused by changes in the magnetic field in the room which suddenly puts the cat out of alignment, causing them to run around until they find a more magnetically stable place.)
    • Your cat demonstrates a craving for broccoli. (Broccoli is rich in iron, which affects the magnetic field in a way that helps neutralize the effects on the cat.)
    • Coriolis Effect in the Earth's HemispheresYour cat is fascinated with your toilet or has figured out to flush it, which it does over and over. (This happens because the cat’s natural magnetic sense of which hemisphere it is in gets thrown out of whack, and thus the water may seem to the cat to be swirling in “the wrong direction” [as determined by the Coriolis effect] for the hemisphere it is in.)

    Fortunately, there are reliable ways to degauss your cat, if you’re willing to put in the effort. Hoskins, in the same Air & Space article linked to above, outlines the steps:

    First: Take the cat outside and coil a lightweight copper or aluminum wire loosely around it, beginning at whichever end the cat prefers, or allows. The coil may be either right-handed or left-handed, but be sure to note the direction of the coil and whether the cat is left-pawed or right-pawed, so the outcome may be correlated later.

    Second: Wrap either end of the wire around a long nail and drive the nail into the ground. Note which end of the wire is used.

    Third: After a suitable period of time, remove the wire from around the cat, or remove the cat from within the wire. Cats generally choose the suitable time period, and will pretty much take it from there.

    Finally: Check to see if the cat’s direction is more random when lying down. If so, then the procedure has been successful. If the cat still appears to be polarized and unduly oriented within the magnetic fields, then a repeat of the procedure is recommended.

    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2010/10/when-cats-become-magnetized/feed/ 0     My Web Host got Pwned http://brentonstrine.com/2010/09/my-web-host-got-pwned/ http://brentonstrine.com/2010/09/my-web-host-got-pwned/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:49:11 +0000 brenton http://brentonstrine.com/?p=60 So I look at my website today, and it’s this crazy black web page with hacker bragging slogans in Turkish and this big flag:

    Totally hacked! I run a tight ship, so I suspected it wasn’t my fault but the fault of my host provider, since it’s shared hosting. A quick check of all my other websites confirmed that the entire server was hacked! Aah, massive pwnage!

    I did think it was interesting, looking at the source, that the page was made using Microsoft FrontPage 6.0! Yeah, using FrontPage is really going to give you some serious hacker cred, right there, buddy. I’m in awe of your 1337 skillz. Ha ha.

    Anyway, so the good news was that 1. no actual content was displaced, just the main index .php files, and 2. I had somewhat recent backups of everything so all I had to do was find every file that was modified between 11:20am and 11:50am today, and replace them with my local copies. There were a few deleted files that needed to be replaced, and a few added files to be deleted, but that was pretty much it. Lessons learned? Back up often, and don’t buy shared hosting. :D

    Edit: About ten hours after I’d manually cleaned up all the damage from the hacker, my web host informs me that every website on their server has been hacked and they’re going to revert to their monthly backup… thus doing more damage than the hacker himself, because now I’m losing a month of data! Well I convinced them that this was absurd, and they were able to compromise, but it still had some weird effects and I’m still not sure how much of my stuff has been reverted. Annoying.

    ]]>     http://brentonstrine.com/2010/09/my-web-host-got-pwned/feed/ 0