(11:30am) I was thinking about digital cameras and printing photos last night (continuing the discussion that started last week).

I like my digital camera, which I have had for about a year. There are some inherent problems with digital cameras (at least the one that I have, which I think applies to most digital cameras). The first is 'latency', or the delay between pressing the button and the actual picture capture. It can be a second or two, which sometimes causes you to miss the right part of the action shot. And there is the time required to actually capture the image, which can be another second or two. So you can't really grab a quick series of shots like you could with a film camera.

I do like how a good sized memory card can let you take lots of pictures on a single 'roll'. I have a 128M memory card, and I can get about 160 pictures on my 'roll'. So you can take lots of pictures without worrying about using up a roll of film.

It can take a while to download the pictures into the computer, though. I do have (somewhere around here) a memory card reader that hooks into the USB port; that might make the download process faster.

But then you have to look at all the pictures, and decide which ones to print. And you probably spend some time editing the pictures to get rid of the old red-eye, or do a bit of cropping, etc. Then you have to print out the pictures on your ink-jet printer, using the special photo paper (and hoping you don't run out of ink in the expensive ink cartridges).

I spent part of the New Year's 'weekend' doing that (along with learning how to use the PhotoSuite program). You can easily spend a whole evening or more on the whole process.

With a film camera, you just have to remember to drop of the film at the local photo place. And sometimes that's a problem: during periodic cleanings around here, I always seem to find a roll of film that hasn't been developed. And all of that is assuming that you finish up the whole roll of film, which can take a while.

So, getting back to my thinking last night (during the Green Bay/Atlanta football game)....what if there was a process that worked this way:

• Stick the 128M memory card in the camera, go off and take a whole bunch of pictures.
• When you are all done, 'mark' the pictures you want to keep (a quick view on the computer with reasonably sized thumbnails).
• Optionally do a bit of light editing on the picture (cropping, etc.). Save the changes to the memory card, which now contains a 'keeper' tag for each picture you want printed
• Take the memory card out of the camera, drop it into an envelope (just like a film roll), and give it to the photo shop.
• They stick the memory card in their photo-making machine, which prints only the shots you marked as 'keepers'. They also make a CD of all the pictures on the memory card (not just the keepers). And they do a bit of picture optimizing (brighten images that are too dull, remove red-eye, etc., all done automatically by the processing machine)
• You get back your pictures (double-prints if you want), a CD of all the pictures, and your memory card.
• Make sure that the cost is comparable to film developing

Hmmmm.....an interesting process, don't you think? Yeah, I know that you can already do all that (sort of), but it needs to be much less of a hassle. There are some kiosks at some photo places that will read your CD or memory card and print the pictures for you, but the cost is a bit too high (40-90 cents a picture).

I give this idea to anyone that wants to run with it. It's another one of my million-dollar ideas that I never got around to following through on. (One of them was a compilation disk of all the good shareware programs. This was in 1983 (?) before the shareware industry took off.) If you do manage to make a bunch of money on the whole process, a small voluntary reward would be nice.

I guess that's what you get for thoughts when you are watching a blowout football game on TV.

(8:30pm) Late post today, quite busy at work. Seems that a Russian hacking group did a bit of web page defacement on a web site that I didn't even know belonged to the company. The company has several departments that have their own IT staff, and one of them had some pages hosted by an outside ISP. That ISP got hacked (current theory), and there was an FTP access who had a password that was the same name as the site name. It probably was the default password that the ISP set up for that site, and the site administrator never bothered to change it.

That brings to mind the fact that there are lots of devices out there with default passwords. In fact, there are several sites that have the default user name/passwords for just about any type of computer equipment, from servers to switches to routers. I've got the name of one of those sites at the office, but I'd bet that you could find out that information with a very quick Google. (Is Google a verb? I Googled. He Googled. They all Googled.)

So, how many devices do you have in your organization that still have their default user name and passwords? How many web servers still have an account called "Administrator"? (Mine does, but that account name only has Guest privileges. The real administrator account is called something else.) How vulnerable does that make you or your organization?

(8:50pm) Looks like I have settled into a pattern here, if you can call a whole week of 'daynoting' long enough for a pattern. The daily posts here will be updated in the evening sometimes, maybe late, depending on the activities after work.

For example, today was 'meeting day' at work. Had the weekly meeting with the Security team (all four of us, and that includes the boss and one guy that is sort of half-day security, and the consultant who knows more than I do). We discussed the current projects, and which ones the big guys think are important, which makes those important to the Security team.

Then the afternoon meeting of all the network admin types in the company, where we discuss company-wide networking issues. It's a passive group, each are more concerned with their own little section rather than working as an entire team. The computing enviroment at work is very decentralized, which each department sort of doing their own thing. We then started networking things together, but there was minimal dedication to making all things work together. Each dept has their own little projects that are important to just them, with cooperation between depts sort of an afterthought. It has gotten better, but it makes it difficult for my security team, which must ensure that the entire company is secure. That means that I am developing policies and guidelines and best practices, and then get those approved by the entire group. That doesn't mean that they immediately implement the approved guidelines. They are busy with their own problems, and I've been slowly dragging them into security compliance.

Case in point: the group agreed several years ago to naming conventions for users, including entering phone numbers, addresses, password standards, etc. But I did an audit last month, and found between 40% and 85% compliance to the standards that were agreed upon several years ago. But, the group again agreed last November on the standards (again), and now I have the authority to enforce those standards. And I am. Another audit of those standards will happen at the end of this month. We shall see how that turns out.

Some parts of security practices at the company have been more of an afterthought, than an ongoing concern. That can't continue, though. And that's one of the challenges of my job. I do have the full support of the company's CIO, though, so things will improve (and they are starting to). I've only been doing this job for three months (been at the company for 17 years), and there has been progress.

I'm sort of a "Nike" guy ... "Just Do It". So it is difficult to not want to "Nike" things. But, the boss (and her boss) are happy with the results so far. I'll just keep plugging away at it.

On the home front, the bathroom remodel is complete except for the sink/countertops, which won't be here for a couple of weeks. We're doing cultured marble, and it's an odd size, and they couldn't measure for it until the new cabinet was installed. But, I do have a new shower stall, and a new toilet (with an elongated bowl ... it's a guy thing, if you think about it). I'm working on a few high-fiber meals so that I will be able to properly perform the inaugural ceremony with all it's pomp and circumstance (or is that 'poop and flush'? ... sorry...I think I lapsed into the "John Dominick" mode..). And the new high-capacity exhaust fan will be well-used during that private ceremony.

Must quit now...it's time for "24".

(8:40 pm) Last night's "24" episode was really good. I didn't watch it last season, so there are some things that I don't understand (like the reason that Jack's wife got killed). I suppose that a quick Google would get me the answer. But I enjoy the pacing and writing of the show. It always seems to come up with a few surprises.

Another show I like is "West Wing", which is on tonight's schedule. It also has some excellent writing, although it can be a bit left-leaning. It does make you think a bit about issues.

Tonight is cake-making night (again). You regular readers (all two of you, if I am not seeing double) might recall that last Wednesday night was also cake-making night. I'm in charge of the monthly department meeting, and that responsibility includes bringing cake for the month's birthday people. I made four cakes last week, and it wasn't until after I arrived at work the next day that I realized that the meeting was one week later. There was lots of cake to share that day. Tonight I am only making three cakes. Someone else is bringing two others. (Don't ask me about the math involved in that.)

Today at work I spent some time organizing the existing security guidelines, and getting ready for the my presentation at the meeting. And planning for the next group of projects. For instance, the anti-spam server that we are installing. We're using SurfControl, which we determined gave us the most features for minimal administration. There are other products out there, some of them free, but they require much more administrative time. We figure that SurfControl will only require 3-4 hours a week, in addition to any mail retrieval of messages that weren't really spam. The server is about $3.5K, and the software about the same price. But the labor costs will be less, so the total cost/year is actually cheaper. It will be interesting to see how well it works. The big shots are getting tired of all the spam, so they were willing to spend the money. And it will benefit everyone. We're hoping for an 80% reduction in spam. We go in testing mode next week, and then enterprise-wide a couple-three weeks later. I'll post some numbers about the whole thing then.

Read some interesting stuff about protecting your computer from the hackers and crakers in one of the PC Magazine issues (don't have the correct issue, but this link will show you the back issues). The covers do show some interesting topics related to computer security.

I used to read PC Magazine all the time. I even used to have their first issue, and others (PC World, PC Computing); that was back in 1982-3 (?). They are probably worth something now, if they hadn't gone to the 'free table' at the local PC Users Group meetings years ago. What is interesting (and really dates me): we were in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC last summer, and they had an exhibit of lots of old computers. I recognized my first one, and saw Jerry Pournelle's "Zeke" system there. Most of those computers were older than most of the people there. And they were sitting on piles of old magazines...most of the ones that I used to read regularly. Now, some are gone, some are on-line (some free, some not). But it was interesting.

(11:15 pm) Really late tonight. Busy at work, busy after work, then I had to squeeze some computer time between the kids and wife. You'd think that I would have multiple access routes to the computer.

Actually, I've been thinking about a small network here. The main thing is to get two/three computers to share the same dial-up phone line. We live in a rural area, and there is no chance to get DSL or cable here. I could do the DirecTV thing, but that's a bit too expensive and not sure if it is quite stable enough yet.

And I am a bit leery, given all I am learning about security and the Internet, in setting things up without a proper firewall, other than ZoneAlarm. I haven't done a whole lot of research yet, but would like to have a router serve as the firewall that would connect to the dial-up line. I'm assuming there is such a thing, but haven't gotten around to finding one yet.

I could set up a Linux-based computer as the dial-up router, but I am not entirely up to speed on Linux. Although I have no doubt that I could get it figured out ... my first computer was an IBM PC with cassette Basic. And I have taught myself on computer for the past 20 years. But don't think I am ready to commit to that amount of time .... yet. It may happen, though.

It would be a lot easier if the local telco would get DSL in this area. Not sure when/if that would happen. This area does have a lot of higher-income population, so you would think there would be the demand. I could swing that cost, since I could get rid of the second phone line.

On another subject, I got a nice note the other day from Brian C., a reader of the "Digital Choke" story. Brian mentioned some minor holes in the story (and some editing suggestions). I'll probably work on those this weekend. I already fixed a couple of broken links in the story last weekend.

Writing fiction is challenging to a first-timer like me. The whole process took about two years total ... there were long stretches when I didn't work on it a lot. And the story changed a bit in that time to take into account some current events.

But I like the results, even with all it's warts. (Take a look and let me know your opinion. You can even be part of the story; details are inside the book's web site.)

Now, I just need to wait for the New York book publishing houses to start the bidding war for the printing rights ... but, in the meantime, I'm not quitting my day job.

Met with the big boss today. She is still happy with the progress of the company's info security. She OK'd purchase of a new server (probably a Compaq DL380) for the company's Intranet. Need to consolidate all the department's intranet sites into one central server. Made some minor changes to the security web pages for the intranet. And figured out the specs for a new IBM Thinkpad T30 (P4-2Ghz, 1M RAM, CDRW/DVD drive, and their new security chip, with a wireless card). Should be a nice toy to play with.

Had a nice evening with the kids and grandkids. Dinner of chicken stir fry and fried rice, played with the kids afterwards, then came home and fell asleep on the couch in front of the television. So, since it is almost tomorrow, the rest of this post will happen in the morning.

Saturday chores ahead. A bit of touch up on the bathroom paint (there are always some spots you miss, no matter how hard you try). Maybe torch the 'burn pile', unless it keeps on raining. A trip to Home Depot for some more wood pellets for the stove. And maybe straighten up the garage a bit.

But, was able to 'bless' the new toilet tonight. Very satisfying. It's got an oval bowl, so it is roomier. You'll have to think about that one for a minute.

An exciting life, eh?

Slept in this morning, and then wandered off to look at some new houses. Ours is up for sale, even while we are in the midst of remodeling. We added a 9' x 9' laundry room in the garage, moving the washer/dryer out of the corner of the kitchen. And the master bath has been completely redone; our contractor took it down to the bare walls and started over. We have a nice glass shower, a new commode, new cabinets (waiting for cultured marble top to be finished), new paint, even a new (very quiet) exhaust fan.

I mentioned yestereday that I 'blessed' the new commode. This morning, tried out the shower for the first time. Although we have good water pressure from the well, the water stream from the shower head was quite wimpy. It's either some gunk that got into the pipe, or the low-flow heads that is required by law. It puts out less water than some hotel rooms I've been in. I'm going to have to look into the 'gunk' theory to see if that will fix it. I did save the old shower head, which let a good flow through it. A weak water stream does not a good shower make.

The next step to the remodel is the kitchen. That will go down to bare walls, and will be a major task. We are still working on the final design, so haven't started yet.

And, we get the occaisional realtor and clients stopping by. January is normally a slow month for house selling, so am not too worried. I like the location of the house, it's in a rural area with some hills around, and I have a nice view from the living room and office. But there are upgrades that must be done. All of the double-pane windows have failed, and must be replaced. And the siding on the house (T-111, or 4' x 8' panels of wood with vertical lines) has gotten too weather-beaten to repaint. So all of the siding needs to be replaced. And the wall insulation was done with foam blocks, which have shrunk and started to break down, so the insulation will need to be replaced when we re-do the siding.

We've already got a new roof, and a new heat pump for heating and air conditioning. There's an old horse stable out there that needs to be torn down, which will also improve the view.

But this is a very good area, high value, and will keep it's value. So, do we grab some of the equity out of the house and move to a newer house? Do we buy a lot and build? Do we stay in this area, or go farther up into the hills (where property values haven't increased as much)? Or do we stay in here, and just fix up the place? But you have to be careful you don't over-fix and get beyond the value of the house and neighborhood. And we really need to take advantage of the lower interest rates.

Our last daughter will be going off to college next year, so we don't really need the four bedrooms (about 2000 square feet). But the new (and newer) houses my wife is looking at are at least that big.

Our current decision is not to make a decision. We probably should refinance to save 1 1/2 % on the interest rate, even if we move. And, although the housing market around here is pretty strong, our house value is such that we are available to a smaller group of buyers. We get a lot of buyers from the San Francisco area, who have a lot of equity built up in their overpriced homes, so they keep pushing the housing values up here. That's good for us as a seller, but not so good for us as a buyer.

So, we occasionally wander around looking at houses, and property, and put off making a decision.

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