In a previous blog post, I pointed out that every user has a responsibility to keep their computer malware free. Alas, it takes time and effort to do this!

I should note that I have many computers:

I have three Netgear Routers: WNDR3700, WNDR4000, and WNDR4500.

On the SAME wired network, the 3700 works great. But both the 4000 and 4500 exhibit the same symptom. They periodically drop WAN connections for a minute (almost exactly), then allow them for 5-20 seconds, drop them for another minute, etc. In the plots below, red in the time graphs means that traceroutes and pings are not getting returned by the affected hops along the path (top part of the plots).

Air traffic controllers must solve a four-dimensional (space + time) problem in their head using only the conventional two-dimensional radar display. This works when things are normal, but when for example, a thunder storm closes part of the airspace, the usual solutions do not work, and traffic must be slowed.

One of the biggest worries faced by a computer system administrator is that users are really imposters. As an administrator of a small computer cluster used by scientists, this is the number one issue. How do you detect whether a logged-on user is legitimate? Do you want North Koreans running bomb codes on your supercomputer? Could you tell if they were?

I currently have about 420 GB of 320 kb/s mp3 albums of mostly classical music. Since almost all of these I ripped from my own CDs, a long and laborious task, I have 4 replicas of my collection. This has saved me at least 6 times. I have had a hard disk crash, and a backup disk erased by the restore program! Nowadays, a 2 TB external drive is only $89, so it does not pay to be chintzy about backup storage.

The Barnes & Noble Nook Color (NC) was recently updated to run Android 2.2. It is a svelte, beautiful 7" tablet that is a much more convenient size and weight than, say, an iPad.

But as delivered by B&N, it can't do very much because you can only install apps from the B&N marketplace (all of which seem to cost money).

   There is an old adage: "If it's working, don't change it." Unfortunately, that is bad advice when it comes to computer security. Software is inherently ephemeral, and when a version goes out of support, it must be upgraded or replaced. When a patch appears, it must be applied, and the sooner the better because the bad guys decompile those patches to figure out what to attack.