Don't panic!

I’m Back!

Jürgen R. Plasser — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:45:42 +0000

After a relaxative holiday on Malta, I’m back at work again. Malta has some beautiful areas, awesome lagoons and is well known for diving and snorkeling. If you come to Malta you should try the Leyland buses there, you won’t need to go on any adventure tour thereafter (don’t eat too much before a bus ride). It was some kind of strange experience for me to be driven on the left side, as it all is very British there what also means you can eat everything with chips (even the mussels) and if you like, dark sauce. I’ve to admit not being a big fan of the British food, but Malta offered a lot of different dishes too, so hunger was never a problem ;).

I really will miss the salty sea and the delicious Gnocchi we had at the Riviera Resort Hotel in Marfa. And after all Malta has a rich cultural heritage and a very interesting history. It’s definitely worth a visit!

And before I forget it, people with sailing boats targeting these Mediterranean archipelago should consider a stop in the Blue Lagoon of Comino.

Try This Captcha

Jürgen R. Plasser — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:24:35 +0000

Try this captcha.

Workshop on Security and Human Behaviour 2008

Jürgen R. Plasser — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:16:39 +0000

At the moment I am especially interested in security and human behaviour (there’s a good article to start in German on zeit.de: Die Konjunktur der Ängste). Ross Anderson and Bruce Schneier were blogging about this workshop, where a lot of interesting people attended, for example James Randi.

Here is a list of all attendees and their papers.

SOS Turns 100

Jürgen R. Plasser — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:02:53 +0000

Read here.

Boring IT Experts

Jürgen R. Plasser — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:09:36 +0000

A new study (PDF) says that IT experts and their jobs are boring. WTF?

Do undergraduates want a career in IT?
A study of the attitudes of current
UK undergraduates in relation to
careers and work in the IT sector.

20kg

Jürgen R. Plasser — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:56:16 +0000

I’ve lost 20kg of body weight in the last 6 months without any diet (ok, without any particular diet I am aware, it’s more like living the same way like before, but better). W00t!

How?

Sports: First three months I had training for the half marathon in Linz, I occasionaly run now,
Alcohol: I almost do not drink beer anymore, more wine, (rule of thumb: less time with friends, less beer! ), I drink a lot of water if possible,
Food: I changed my eating behaviour slightly; first of all I don’t eat late in the evening anymore — what I used to do almost every day, and second I eat less (please don’t ask me how I managed this; there must exist a correlation between eating less and the consumption of more organic and whole meal food) and more organic food, fruits and vegetables,
And most important: She, the best woman in the world. But, well, you don’t live on love alone …

Besides that I still eat (dark) chocolate, sweets, cakes, barbecue and meat as always. From my opinion all changes were definitely minor changes and they do not affect my life in any negative way.

I find it rather interesting that I began to dislike Mc Donald’s food and other greasy stuff like potato chips. But I really love my self made Pizza, like before.

I will try to loose another 10kg of weight for being on my ideal body weight again, after 20 years - hmm, I should also try to get the sixpack back again!

The Six Dumbest Ideas In Computer Security

Jürgen R. Plasser — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:47:17 +0000

Old, but good: Marcus Ranum’s “The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security”.

Female Sounds

Jürgen R. Plasser — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:38:42 +0000

Ok, they are chimpanzees, but is this probably applicable to humans too?

File Recovery Software

Jürgen R. Plasser — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:31:59 +0000

PhotoRec is a software for recovering files independently from the file system. From their website:

PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures (thus, its ‘Photo Recovery’ name) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the filesystem and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media’s filesystem has been severely damaged or re-formatted.

PhotoRec is free and under GPL.

Hacking A Coffee Maker

Jürgen R. Plasser — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:24:29 +0000

Someone hacked a Jura F90 Coffee maker.