Diary of a Network Geek

Or, better living through data mining satellite imagery.

Seriously.
I’m not a big fan of the goofy, “Web 2.0”, startup-app naming convention that drops vowels out of words to make domain names, but, in this case, I’m going to make an exception.  Mostly because it’s free, but also cool, in spite of the name.  Besides, since WLPPR relies on freely available satellite imagery gathered by scientific agencies funded by the U.S. government, I figure we all have this one coming.
What it is, is a website that gathers up some of the most beautiful, and pretty abstract, images shot from far, far above the Earth and crops them to the right size for you smart phone’s wallpaper.  (That’s where the vowel-less name comes from; WaLlPaPpeR, get it?)
The site gives you the previews and there’s a link to the app for your iPhone, with an Android app in development.  The iPhone app is free, too, by the way.

So, hey, why not check it out and pretty up your phone with government data your tax dollars already bought?
And, have a great weekend!

This post originally appeared at Use Your Words.

No, those quotation marks aren’t ironic.

Last year, in August, I wrote about a free service called LensTag that would help you track your camera gear if any of it went missing.  Well, they’re back in the news for another service!  This one was discovered by accident by their president’s wife who mistakenly turned on the tracking for her camera when a couple of flashes got stolen.  It turns out, she started getting notifications about where her photos taken with that…
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So, here it is, almost time for Halloween Party weekend and you don’t have a costume?

What to do, what to do, eh?  Well, if  you have a t-shirt that you’re willing to sacrifice and a modicum of creative ability, and an iPhone or iPad or Android device, then you may be in luck.  Gizmodo covered a buy last year who used a pair of iPads to make a costume which seemed like he had a hole in his chest.  That was pretty awesome.  Well, after spending some time working on some Mars Rover project you may have heard about, that guy, Mark Rober, is back with a slightly less expensive alternative.  Rober and his team at DigitalDudz have come up with a pretty amazing app that lets you make a creative costume pretty cheap.  In fact, the app itself is free and, basically, consists of some pretty cool and creepy animations that you can combine with an old t-shirt, or one of the custom ones that they sell relatively cheap, to make a pretty cool costume.
The basic app is pretty amazing, but it does have “upgrades” which will cost a couple bucks more and, I have to admit, the t-shirts that they sell at DigitalDudz are better than anything I can whip up, even if I wasn’t in a hurry, but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers at this late date.

Anyway, it is a cool app and a cool idea.  Maybe for next year for me, though.
But, hey, it’s Friday, so why not check it out!  (And, no, I don’t get any money for those links.  I just liked it, so I linked it.)

Lifehacker loves iPhone apps almost as much as I do!

No, seriously, I use this thing for everything.  Not too long ago, I showed you a ToDo app that makes life easier for you when trying to keep track of all the things you need to do.  I’ve talked about other apps before, and, of course, earlier this week, I mentioned that people are using their iPhone as a security testing tool.  Really, there’s no end to what you can do with today’s smart phones, though I happen to prefer the iPhone, obviously.

In any case, Lifehacker has put together a list of apps that they recommend, most of which are free.  And, the few that aren’t are only a couple of dollars a piece.  If  you’re a heavy iPhone user, it’s worth it to go take a look at their selection of “must have” iPhone apps: Lifehacker Pack for iPhone.

No, this is not a post about sexual performance.
Pervs.

I use my iPhone for a surprising variety of things, even at the office.  For around $14, I threw together a suite of network scanning and testing tools that let me get a pretty good look at any network I manage.  But, that’s another post.
Today, I thought I’d bring to your attention a great blog post by Nicholas M. Petty tittled “iPen: Hacking with the iDevice“.  What he’s got is a set of instructions and tools for turning your iPhone, or, presumably, your iPad, into hand-held computer security penetration testing tool.  Yeah, I know, it still sounds dirty when you say “penetration”.  Grow up.

If you’re into security, whether you own an iPhone or not, it’s worth going to take a look at just to see the thought process and methodology.
Now, as much as I love this idea, I probably won’t actually do it myself because the first step is to “jailbreak” your phone and, frankly, as tight as money is and as important as my phone is to me, I can’t afford to have problems with it.  Still, it is an interesting idea, especially considering how many of these little devices are wandering loose out there and how many wifi access point exist out in the world.  I often wonder how secure any of them really are, especially in corporate environments.

Anyway, this should be something for network managers to think about the next time they see someone in the lobby of their building “playing a game” on their iPhone!