Create Passwords EZ with L33T

The other day I was helping my friend Isabelle out with her blog. Of course setting up a blog with your own hosting etc. you need some good passwords, for example many sites insist that you create an extra strong password. Isabelle was having trouble with good passwords that were easy to remember. I told her about my L33T technique and she thought it was brilliant. Here is what I told her.

A good password has a number of letters and text at least 8 characters long. Many sites require this. However most people just use thier phone number, or name or a word which are all easily hacked using a dictionary or number crack. As I talked about before, having a few passwords for different sites is a good idea. I usually say 3 max so that if one doesn't work, you can try one of the other 2 before getting locked out. This is because most sites allow for password retry for 3 times. Ready to make one of your own?

1. think of a phrase that you like or can easily remember. A good idea is to have some letters like O and I in it. for instance: "I Love Gummy Vodka"

2. Writedown your phrase on a piece of paper and start replacing letters for numbers. Also add a couple letters as Capitals. 1LuvGummEV0dkA

3. There is your new password. however if you are still having trouble with it, just take your phrase and place it into a LEET translator, and remove the spaces to get this: 1l0V39ummyV0Dk4

4. No this is not a password I use, but I am waiting for my gummy bear vodka to be ready. Another week or so now I think.

Leet is a style of writing that popped up on the message boards when certain words were being censored or filtered and has found it's way into our culture. Much of the LOLSPEAK and SMS or TEXT message techniques we use today are derived from LEET speak. Thank you L33T for helping me remember my passwords.

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PowerPoint Karaoke

Have you played PowerPoint Karaoke yet? Ok this is one for the real nerds and geeks. The rules are simple. 1. Have a powerpoint or slideshow that no one knows yet. 2. A presentor tries to present the Powerpoint or Slideshow and make a coherent (and often humoruos) presentation. 3. (Optional) Presentor must take a shot after every second slide or other interval for drinking game varioation.

I first saw this played at Kinnernet09. I realised this is an excellent game to use in my presentation techniques course at the HKU. Unfortunately there is a lack of powerpoints created for Powerpoint Karaoke. so I had my students make a bunch of them. Here is a whole slew of free Karaoke presenations that you can use with your friends or co-workers that they made. Just click on one of the links and start playing.

Free Karaoke Powerpoints online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16220300/postit http://www.slideshare.net/bartArtist/cats-and-rubbish http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=AuYcrjFv2QM%3d http://www.slideshare.net/wallece/explanation http://www.slideshare.net/pyrojester/barney1 http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=31l6lZZ7GNY%3d http://www.slideshare.net/kiwein/what-if-1548745 http://www.slideshare.net/job.jutten/karaoke-job-jutten-1548431 http://www.slideshare.net/Jajaben/dieet http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=rEiUri5sSZg%3d http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=ib8OupLbxdU%3d http://www.slideshare.net/guest08c0aca/presentatie-gabe-v-liesther http://www.slideshare.net/cedecode/sokken http://www.slideshare.net/rajivkrijnen/karaoke-rajiv http://www.slideshare.net/ramirpascal/guess-the-conmnection http://www.slideshare.net/Rikderooij/toes-they-carry-us http://www.slideshare.net/Hobsbawm/tony-victorian-dvtg2 http://www.slideshare.net/trancilian/10picstory http://www.slideshare.net/eric423/bussen-buschauffeurs http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=54E8a2F7zbg%3d http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=CQ8oxveTF%2bk%3d

No MORE Twitter!

File this in the category: WTF? I log into my twitter today to see this:

MY FREAKN ACCOUNT IS SUSPENDED! FOR WHAT? And what pisses me off the most is the fact that there is no email to sent to me to give a "Head's Up!" or WHY? Nothing what so ever. I have to surf through the site for 30 min. to put in a request that will probably take a week or so for me to get through. Screw it. If this service treats it's users with such fascist authority, I'm out. Fuck Twitter, Fuck Biz Stone fuck the lot of you.... So I'll probably burn in hell for this. Might as well post my shitter video with Chris Sacca (one of the investors in twitter). Yes I can feel the burn now...

update: It seems that there was a glitch in the matrix with twitter. I again have access, but all the sudden I started following strange people in my account. Looks like I have to purge my followers. I beleive my twitter account was hacked actually. Marc believes it was Russians. Great, now I've got Russians hacking me to worry about. In the end I'm still upset and turned off by twitter as I still have no idea, no correspondence, nothing to what happened or what it going on. Come on guys! Can't you even explain what happened in 140 characters to me? I find this lack of communication disturbing.

Free Audiobooks for summer

Image via Wikipedia

Many of you may be planning a vacation, or maybe staying around town for vacation. One thing I love during vacations or long drives is audiobooks. It's nice to listen to podcasts, but sometimes a nice audiobook for a longer period is better. Although you can buy many audiobooks on Amazon and Audible.com, there are a lot of FREE audiobooks at LibriVox. Also great for you students who have to read some books over the summer! Have a look, and have a listen. It is opensource, so that means if you really like a book, you could create an audiobook from it as well (as long as it is public domain). Yes that is the catch. Only public Domain books, but there are quite a lot of classics amoungst them. Enjoy!

Facebook Virus and Hacking Passwords in Firefox

Sometime this afternoon I started getting mails from people asking me about a link I had mailed through facebook. I thought it was one of the links I put through twitter. Then I noticed it was a message I hadn't sent at all. Plus, it had sent it to practically everyone in my friends list. Some application, website, something somewhere had hacked into my facebook account and sent emails saying "Look at this" with a link to something called silvertag.be. As soon as I noticed I started replying to people saying it was not from me. Then I quickly changed my facebook and some other passwords. Fortunately I don't use the same passwords for facebook and twitter type sites. This makes it easier for me to make sure that even though one attack might get through on one of these sites or apps, it will not hit anything that can really make my life miserable. Like my paypal or banking passwords. It is a good idea to create a series of passwords that you can remember easy for different levels of security you would like on different sites. Here are some tips to good passwords.

One nice thing about the MacOSX is that it has a secure keychain for many passwords. However, what many people do not know is that Mozilla browsers are easily hackable if you do not secure them. One way to do this is to go into your mozilla browser (such as Firefox or Flock) and set a Master Password.

Firefox-> Preferences -> Security. This makes sure that all those saved passwords on all the different websites will not auto fill in when someone else tries to use your browser. By setting a master password, Firefox or Flock will ask you for your password at startup. If you enter it, then it will auto fill and auto login to all those sites you use most often. If you do not set it, then no passwords or sites will be logged into. It's not the be all end all of securtiy measures, but it does help.

I am sorry I got tagged with this virus on FB, and am sorry to any friends that it inconvenienced. Sorry folks.

update: I just saw on Mashable Pete Cashmore talking about it. He said " Today my Facebook inbox shows there’s another attack underway that’s suckering even some of the most tech savvy users:". Now I don't feel as bad at being suckered in.

Our present become echos of our past online

After coming back from Webcom where I gave a presentation on Virtual Immortality, I opened up my monthly photojojo time capsule and am floored yet again. This month I see pics from when Nuno and Nikki came to visit last year. I just got back from visiting them in Canada this weekend.

Not only that but I see pics of the wedding of Hans and Neltje from last year, on a boat where this week other friends of mine will be getting married on that exact same boat.

I twittered earlier that "blogging allows me to appreciate the present, by allowing me to see through my eyes in the future, and appreciate the past which is now." Now I realize that everything becomes more cyclical in life than I had realized. As I said in my talk in Montreal, "THE APPLICATIONS AND DATA WE CREATE TODAY WILL BE OUR COMMUNICATION WITH FUTURE CULTURES AND BEINGS," and now I beleive ourselves as well.

Advice from my DAD over Skype

Last week my dad was showing me his new toy the Logitec Pro Webcam over Skype. I grabbed a screencast of this hilarious and awesome video chat together with my father. All I can say is he is an amazing man, and I love him so much. He’s one of my heroes for sure! He talks about diet, surviving in the corporate world, credit crisis and tech support. My dad is just trying to keep it real in a virtual world. How do you communicate online with your family?

Jon Stewart on Twitter

This is hilarious. Sorry Jon. With Bush out, you have to stretch and bust on twitter? Come on mate.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
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DLD Schwag

What is in the DLD goodies bags? We take a look.

Flickr Vouyeruism

There is a guilty pleasure that really comes out in Flickr. Anonymous voyeruism. I noticed that some complete strangers have been faving certain pictures of mine for some time now. I could not figure out whether it was a stalker, or just some sad lonely person as there is nothing in the profiles to understand who it is. Then after digging deeper I think I discovered it. It is like a game almost. In my search for why or what it is... I discovered the stories. Clicking randomly on commenters, seeing thier favorites and making huge leaps and jumps starting from my own anonymous voyeuers, I begin to make a story together. A weaving through the reaches of cyberspace, to create a story in my head, based on the click of the mouse and my own A.D.D. to guide me. Here is a small glimpse into the stories you can piece together.

MAke your own story, and let me see.... Add a link in the comments.