Curiosity in Practice

Author: jgamblin

My goodbye letter to Windows XP

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Dear Windows XP,

So this is how it feels to feel abandoned?  That is the question you have to be asking yourself this morning.  For the last 4549 days you have been a constant workhorse for PCs around the world and this morning Microsoft has decided that you are no longer worthy of support.

I remember the first time I meet you.  I was a 20 something systems admin who was in love with Redhat 7.1  and I thought you were going to be the end of the enterprise operating system.  A few service packs later you were a solid work horse who did her job without any real complaints.

You have been great to me and my career.  I owe you a lot and until Windows 7 came out you had been what I have used and supported nearly every day of my life for 10 years (I am still sorry about that fling I had with Vista in 2007. She was shiny, pretty and had so much promise. I am wrong and glad we can move on.).

I know you will live on in unprepared and underfunded schools, banks and grandparents systems for the next 10 years but  I am going to miss you.  Thanks for all the good memories you gave me and thanks for taking me this far in my career!

 Yours Truly,

Jerry Gamblin

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Life’s greatest difficulties always happen right before life’s greatest breakthroughs.

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If you’re tired of starting over, stop giving up.

How To Disable Twitter Photo Tagging

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Twitter added a photo tagging feature today and like Facebook decided to have the default setting to allow anyone to tag you.

For your own saftey you should change it to this:image

The steps to do this are easy:

1) Login to Twitter.com
2) Go to the Settings tab.
3) Go to the Security tab.
4) Under Photo Tagging click “Do not allow anyone to tag me in photos”.
5) Scroll to the bottom of the page and Click “Save changes”
6) Enter your password to save your changes.

The Goonies is my favorite hacking movie.

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My favorite conference asked the following question this morning: 

My answer was the noncontroversial WarGames and the controversial The Goonies.

My friend Steve Lord asks the question that inspired this blog post:

Why yes it is. Please let me explain:

Gooines: A group of working class families are being evicted from their houses to make room for an expansion of a country club.

Hacking:

Goonies:

Hacking:

Goonies:

Hacking:  Data was the original hardware hacker.  Any security conference you attend will have at least one talk of someone hacking non security related hardware.

Goonies:

Hacking: The Fratellis are basically a group of blackhat hackers who think they are a smarter than they really are and can be easily defeated by a group of teenagers. 

Goonies:

Hacking: The hacking community is basically built on taking a group of socially awkward people and forming tight knit and caring communities.

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If you aren’t training new leaders you are on autopilot and you won’t succeed.

Facebook vs Twitter

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Today I had a “Classic Jerry” moment and had a pen explode as I was spinning it around in a meeting.

This was the aftermath:

Afterwards I post the exact same same stats to my FaceBook and Twitter account:
“My pen broke while I spinning it around in a meeting it ruined my shirt and got ink all over my face.”

The reactions couldn’t have been more different.

On twitter I get made fun of:

and on Facebook I get tips on how to remove the stain:

Computer Search

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This is what it is like anytime I am asked to search someone’s computer.

Hammers and Social Media

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I had a chance last night to speak to the Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association about social media and social media security.

My opening question was simple:
What does social media and hammers have in common?

The two main points of my talk were the following:

My first point was:
You wouldn’t give your 13 year old a box of nails and hammer and tell them to go build something without first showing them how to properly use a hammer.  This means as parents you are going to need to know the difference between a snapchat and an instagram. The days of being able to say “I dont do that internet thing” are over.

My second point was:
According to the FBI 2011 496 people were killed by hammers. It was terrible and tragic misuse of the tool. The way to fix that isn’t to ban hammers. This applies to social media also. There are tons of tragic cases about when people misuse social media but that shouldn’t stop you from letting your child use this very important communication tool.  

This was one of the favorite groups I have talked to all year. These people all have amazingly loving hearts for kids and want to do what is best for them. It was great to talk to a group of such involved parents.

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