Before and After Case Upgrade: The NZXT Lexa
Recently, I grabbed a sweet new NZXT Lexa case from NewEgg, using a gift cert from my parents. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) After all the rebates, the total cost is $110 on it including shipping. The first machine I ever owned was purchased in 1999 for college. The old case was the only remaining original part on my machine. Over the years, I’ve upgraded every other component, some multiple times, but I always decided on moving up the chain technologically, never aesthetically.
Not that my machine is at the top tier of tech specs today, but I finally decided to get rid of the 7-year-old case in favor of something more pleasing to the eye. What I found is that cases have changed a lot over the years! My new case, the NZXT Lexa, is beautiful! The case is definitely edgy, but it has subtle elegance. It’s also more quiet, has larger capacity and makes hardware upgrades simple through screwless PCI mounts and drive rails.
I decided to snag a few before-and-after images of the hardware exchange. I’ve had a few other parts from previous upgrades stored away and I found that with my old case, I now have enough parts to build a second box using all the old gear. That machine will now be running Ubuntu Server and used as a project box for me to toy with various systems and applications, like Asterisk, Smoothwall and a plethora of fun web applications.
View all the images in the Flickr set.
Before:
After:
[tags]case, upgrade, nzxt, lexa, newegg[/tags]
Virb: The Social Network You’ll Love!
Virb is now live!
Virb is rad!
This social network is not like the social network you’re used to. Virb is the social network that changes what we know and liberates us from what we’ve known.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience in the beta phase and, now that Virb is wide open to all, I am proud to recommend this lovely app to my friends and readers.
It’s time to sign up for Virb. Hit me up when you get there. We’ll be friends. :)
[tags]virb, social, network[/tags]
RegisterFly and the Question of Registrar Stability
According to Netcraft, a popular domain registrar, RegisterFly, recently went offline “amid allegations that the former president and CEO misused company funds.”
This is unsettling to me. It makes me wonder: if an ICANN accredited registrar can go down like this with no real regard to their customers, could it happen to me? Apparently, ICANN is on the frontlines of this one, fighting to get the customer records and ensure that each registered domain is protected from being snatched away from rightful owners. But it’s still tough for all those caught in the middle.
I’m with one of the most reputable registrars / web hosts in the world. And I’m not sure what RegisterFly’s reputation was prior to this breakdown. Given the scope of the matter, it would seem that no company is immune to this type of problem. Rigid standards for accountability in finance and business practice would go a long way to help the matter, but there are loopholes to every system and some executives would simply find the flaw and exploit it.
I hope I never experience an outage like this with my registrar. And I hope ICANN makes an example of RegisterFly.
[tags]registerfly, netcraft, ICANN, registrar, domain, company[/tags]
Podcast 12: Ciphers and Cryptography
This podcast is the first in a series of podcasts on security. In this episode, I’m joined by co-host Zack Rippy and we discuss the topic of cryptography with particular regard to the encryption of communications and data storage. This podcast was developed for Binary Church and the branding follows suit.
Show Notes
0:00
Intro
2:40
Zack Profile
3:33
Overview of Security (David)
5:00
Reasons for Encryption (Zack)
12:16
Methods of Encrypting Data Stores (Zack)
19:30
Methods of Encrypting Electronic Communication (David)
27:20
Public Key Cryptography (Zack)
37:06
Final Remarks
40:24
Addendum
Links
Microsoft Windows EFS
TrueCrypt
Encryption
Cryptography
+ Public Key Cryptography
+ PGP
+ OpenPGP
+ GnuPG
+ Enigmail for Mozilla Thunderbird
+ GPG4WIN / GPGOL for Microsoft Outlook
David’s Public Key
Zack’s Public Key
Runtime: 44:57
Size: 21MB
Bitrate: 64kbps
Codec: MP3
[tags]security, encryption, cryptography, ciphers, truecrypt, EFS, PGP, GPG, email, communication[/tags]
