The Fastest Way to Cool Down Beer

This is about the science... Really... Truly...

Beer. I prefer to drink it cold.

Unfortunately, sometimes the beer which I have is warm. This usually happens when we are planning a party, because I buy a bunch of beer on pallets at Costco.

I mean, I don't buy it on pallets. It is on pallets at Costco, and I buy one case of 24 bottles.

The time-tested way to cool down some beer is to put it into the freezer. That works, but has three shortcomings:

1) It takes an hour. 
2) Frozen beer.
3) Exploding beer.

My recent experiments with the heat transfering properties of water (Hairdryer vs. Bowl of Water) encouraged me to try improving on this beer-cooling method. Instead of cooling the beer with very cold air, I decided to try cooling the bottles with very cold water.

I was certain that cold water would work better than the freezer. I prepared three bottles of Heineken. All three bottles started in a 12-pack in the garage, where I assume they settled to the same temperature. I opened the first bottle and took the temperature of the beer inside. It was 82°F (28°C). Warm. This was my starting temperature.

I prepared a cold bath. For the "ice bath" beer, I used three cups of tap water (24 oz) and ten ice cubes.

12345 ...12

I cleared out a little spot in the freezer and was ready for the test to begin. With superhuman agility, I dropped one bottle into the ice water and stood one up in our freezer.

The race. was. on.

Cooling beer takes FOREVER. Luckily I had some rum and Coke handy to pass the time.

Even with 10 cubes, the ice bath wasn't very impressive. The beers were still sealed shut, but I could check the temperature of the ice water bath. The temperature was falling. As the ice melted, it quickly cooled the water from room temperature, 75°F, down to 60°F. Condensation began to form on the outside of the ice bath. In 15 minutes, as the last ice cube disappeared, the water approached 52°F.

After 20 Minutes

After 20 minutes, it was time to check the results. I opened the beers and tested the temperature of their contents.
The ice bath beer was colder.

Although both glass bottles felt cold, the beer from the freezer had only dropped to 63°F! (17°C) The icewater-cooled beer was down to 56°F! (13°C)

It wasn't even close. Why hadn't I been cooling beer like this before now? The freezer is for fools!

The bottles were open now, but I decided to continue the experiment for another 20 minutes.

The freezer beer went back into his freezer and the ice-water bath got another ten ice cubes. I mixed myself a singapore sling... and waited.

Twenty minutes later, the freezer was starting to have a genuine deliciousing effect.

I measured the bottles. The freezer beer was now down to 48.5°F (9°C), just a shade warmer than the ice bath beer (47.5°F (8.6°C)

The ice water was almost at its limit when it came to cooling power. It was hard to imagine the beer getting any closer to freezing temperature (32°F 0°C) when the ice water itself wasn't there yet.

13

Opinions vary on the subject, but I pretty much draw the "cold enough" line at 55°F (13°C). If the beer is warmer than that, I'll pass. Of course, it is hard to judge the temperature until after you open the bottle...

The results of this experiment demonstrates that if you only have 20 minutes to cool down beer, use an ice-water bath instead of the freezer. It is faster.

If you have 40 minutes, both setups work with about the same level of effectiveness. After 40 minutes, the freezer will work faster, eventually dropping the temperature of the beer to freezing.

I really like the ice-water bath method. Next I wanted to try aluminum cans!

I was curious what the difference would be if I was using aluminum cans rather than glass bottles full of beer. Any metal is more conductive than glass, and aluminum is particularly conductive.

Here's a short list of the thermal conductivity of some materials. Thermal conductivity is measured in watts per meter kelvin.

Thermal resistance is highly dependant on the thickness of the insulating material, so the paper-thin aluminum will be much easier for the coldness to pass through than a quarter-inch of glass.

Glass bottles are great for drinking, and the glass is a good insulator for when you are trying tokeep the beer cold, but when you are trying to cool down the beer, that insulation works against your efforts to pull all the heat out.

I started with a six pack of tall cans of warm Coors Light from a gas station. The start temperature for these cans was 78.8°F (26°C).

I don't think I've ever wanted beer less than when I was handling these warm cans of Coors Light.

I restarted the experiment, placing one can in the freezer...

...and one can in a jar with 3 cups of water and 10 ice cubes.

The race. was. on. again.

Knowing that the canned beer would change temperature much faster, I only waited 10 minutes to open the cans and test the temps.

The temperature difference was even more impressive with beer cans. Check out these results on the chart below.

The beer in ice water had dropped dramatically in temperature, from 79°F (26°C) to 50°F (10°C)! Awesome.

The beer in the freezer had lost 15 degrees. It was losing heat faster than the freezer bottle had, but the ice-water bath was having an even more extreme effect on the metal can than it had on the glass bottle.

In ten minutes, the cans of beer in ice-water had gone from warm to cold, from bad to good.

I put them back for another 10 minutes of cooling.

A second ten minutes really proved the case for an ice water bath. The freezer beer was down to 54°F, but the ice bath beer was down to 43°F!

My cans of Coors Light featured this two-stage temperature indicator. The can on the left came out of the freezer. The can on the right came out of the ice-water bath. The indicator on the left isn't even showing the can as "cold", where the can from the ice water is registering as "super cold"!

In the photo above, check out the difference in condensation on the cans!

With two experiments complete, and four beers sacraficed in the pursuit of knowledge, I can wholeheartedly declare that a bath of ice water is the fastest way to cool beer down to a pleasant drinking temperature.

The freezer is colder, but surrounding a can of beer with cold air is never going to cool it off as fast as dunking it into a vat of cold water.

Unless, of course you are making beer slushies.

Related Links:

• Icebreaker! The Ultimate Frozen Drink Temperature Challenge!
• Using Salt and Ice Water to Cool Down Beer
• Where Is the Coolest Place to Store Things in Your Car?
• How Much Backwash is left in the glass after you drink?

Image: Shutterstock/Valentyn Volkov

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This post was originally published on Cockeyed.com's Science Club, created by Rob Cockerham who has worked doing internet tech support for MCI, as a graphic designer for iConvention, for Blue Moon Printing, EDS, and Hewlett Packard. His latest job is at Intel.You canfollow Cockeyed.com on Twitter here or like his Facebook page here.

This post has been republished with permission from Rob Cockerham.

This Handheld 3D Printer Could Let Doctors "Draw" New Bones

The original Gizmodo article is here.

Waving a magic wand over an injured bone to create a custom, living repair patch sounds like something out of I, Robot. But researchers have created a handheld 3D-printing pen that could someday do just that. It's not magic, it's science.

The BioPen, developed at Australia's University of Wollongong, holds two different "inks:" one made of human cells, the other a protective, UV-activated structural gel. The pen layers the cells inside the protective gel, which hardens under the device's built-in UV light. Instead of the current weeks-long process of harvesting and growing replacement cartilage tissue, the compact, handheld device could enable doctors to "draw" functional material directly on to a damaged bone.

The benefit, as with most 3D-printed organs and body parts, is total customization. Instead of mass-produced orthopedic implants, which don't work exactly like human tissue, a matrix of human cells printed directly onto an injured bone would create actual, functional cartilage. And with the right mix of cells, growth factors, and drugs in the ink wells, doctors could even draw replacement tissue that would grow into functioning nerve or muscle tissue, with the protective scaffold biodegrading as the cells grew and matured.

Scientists Have 3D-Printed Mini Human Livers for the First Time Ever

The dream of one day completely doing away with frustratingly long transplant lists in favor of made to order, 3D-printed organs is closer to…Read…

How 3D Printers Are Cranking Out Eyes, Bones, and Blood Vessels

At the dawn of rapid prototyping, a common predication was that 3D printing would transform manufacturing, spurring a consumer revolution that would… Read…

Someone’s Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Security Hole in the Internet

BGP hijacking is an “exceedingly blunt instrument” to capture traffic, and is “about as subtle as a firecracker in a funeral home,”

The full Original Wired article is available here.

This is just a summary of that article:

In 2008, two security researchers at the DefCon hacker conference demonstrated a massive security vulnerability in the worldwide internet traffic-routing system — a vulnerability so severe that it could allow intelligence agencies, corporate spies or criminals to intercept massive amounts of data, or even tamper with it on the fly.

The traffic hijack, they showed, could be done in such a way that no one would notice because the attackers could simply re-route the traffic to a router they controlled, then forward it to its intended destination once they were done with it, leaving no one the wiser about what had occurred.

Now, five years later, this is exactly what has happened. Earlier this year, researchers say, someone mysteriously hijacked internet traffic headed to government agencies, corporate offices and other recipients in the U.S. and elsewhere and redirected it to Belarus and Iceland, before sending it on its way to its legitimate destinations. They did so repeatedly over several months. But luckily someone did notice.

And this may not be the first time it has occurred — just the first time it got caught.

BGP hijacking happens in some form or fashion every day, but it’s usually unintentional — the result of a typo in a routing announcement or some other mistake. And when it does occur, it generally results in an outage, as the traffic being routed never reaches its destination. This was the case in 2008 when Pakistan Telecom inadvertently hijacked all of the world’s YouTube traffic when it attempted to prevent just Pakistan citizens from reaching video content the government deemed objectionable. The telecom and its upstream provider mistakenly advertised to routers around the world that it was the best route through which to send all YouTube traffic, and for nearly two hours browsers attempting to reach YouTube fell into a black hole in Pakistan until the problem was corrected.

In April 2010, another outage occurred when China Telecom distributed an erroneous announcement for more than 50,000 blocks of IP addresses, and within minutes some of the traffic destined for these domains got sucked into China Telecom’s network for 20 minutes. After analyzing the details, Renesys concluded that this incident, too, was likely a mistake.

But the incidents this year have all the characteristics of an intentional intercept, Renesys says.

BGP hijacking is an “exceedingly blunt instrument” to capture traffic, and is “about as subtle as a firecracker in a funeral home,” Renesys has noted in the past.

In all the years Renesys has been monitoring internet traffic, analysts had never seen anything that looked intentional before. Generally, Madory says, mistakes look clumsy and show obvious signs of being mistakes. They also generally last minutes, not days as these did, and they also generally do not result in traffic being re-routed to its legitimate destination, as occurred in these cases.

“To achieve this thing where you can get [hijacked] traffic back to its destination, . . . you have to craft your [BGP] messages in a way that you control how far it propagates or where it propagates,” he says. “And we can see these guys experiment over time, modifying different attributes to change the propagation until they’ve achieved the one that they want. We’ve never seen anything like that, that looks very deliberate where someone is tweaking the approach.”

As Renesys warned on its blog: “We believe that people are still attempting this because they believe (correctly, in most cases) that nobody is looking.”

What's it like to jump from 128,000 feet?

It’s been one year since Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner made the highest jump of all time. The Red Bull Stratos project was part science, part adventure, and of course part caffeinated beverage promotion overload. In the end, the successful leap from 127,851 feet set a new height mark, and Baumgartner became the first person ever to exceed the the speed of sound in free fall.

But the flight wasn’t without its drama. As many watched live last year, Baumgartner entered a spin about a minute into the flight. A relatively mild instability beginning about 25 seconds into the jump appeared to stabilize as he accelerated towards his top speed of Mach 1.25 (844 mph). But as Baumgartner continued to fall through the very thin air, the lack of control was apparent and the spin progressed into something that looks much worse from his point of view than it did from the outside.

In the video above, you can see him transition onto his back, and the rate of spin accelerates (along with his heart rate), as he passes about 90,000 feet.

Soon thereafter, he begins to use his arms in an effort to control the spin, much as a figure skater can change their rate of rotation on the ice. Baumgartner tries using just one arm at a time to regain control, and eventually the veteran skydiver manages to stabilize his free fall after more than 20 heart-pumping seconds.

After that it’s a relatively calm — if you think breaking the sound barrier in an astronaut suit is calm — with three more minutes of free fall to the ground as the sky transitions from black to blue. Eventually he deploys his parachute and enjoys a few more minutes before touching down in the New Mexico desert.

In addition to the impressive POV video above, Red Bull has released a feature-length documentary about the Red Bull Stratos project that can be seen here.

Original Wired article is available here.

BioLite Camp Stove

I have been a fan of home made 'rocket stoves', but this is different...

It cooks whilst it's charging up your iPhone.

I Love it!

http://www.biolitestove.com/campstove/new-portable-grill/grill-features/

A practical Hydrogen car?

So why is it the government prohibits the sale of this hydride 6Li (Lithium 6)?
Watch this video...

Microsoft: The monohedral and the bizarre

Summary: It's obvious to all observers that Microsoft is in a state of transition and transformation. Ballmer has declared that now that there is 'One Microsoft.' E Pluribus Unum, dude. What's the next move?

This is a brilliant article by Ken Hess of ZDNet... I tip my hat to you. Read on...

Ken's full article is here.

In case you haven't noticed, Microsoft has been in a state of transition for a few years now. Their foray into open source software, their giving away of software, their new stance on competition and cooperatition; it's a whole new company. Microsoft is entering middle age. And with middle age comes the regular prostate exam and colonoscopy. Both of which involve discovery from the bottom up. Welcome to the new age of reason, Microsoft, we've been waiting for you. Grab your ankles and think pleasant thoughts.

The discovery that you're doing things wrong is painful. Microsoft has historically been just a bit behind the game in three key areas: virtualization, consumerization, and cloud computing. Now that they've caught up and surpassed other companies in technical features, it's time for the company to re-evaluate itself. Take a close look at where it is today and where it's going tomorrow.

It's kind of ironic that the catch phrase for Windows 95 was, "Where do you want to go today?", when it should have been, "Where do you want to be tomorrow?"

The realization that the world has passed you by isn't a good one. It requires restructuring, refocusing, and making some tough decisions in order to remain relevant and profitable. Some of those tough decisions always begin at the bottom and work their way skyward. This typically means layoffs for technical staff, salary adjustments, deleting bonus programs, removing redundant positions, and shifting of personnel from silos and towers to unified global strata.

I feel bad for the average Microsoft worker. I really do. Every large company experiences growing pains. But Microsoft has been experiencing more than its share for the past decade or so. I think though, that its pain is almost over. Middle age doesn't have to be full of aches, pains, and complaints. It can be a time of great and positive discovery. It can be a time of enlightenment. It can be the transitional and transformative time that Microsoft is now experiencing. 

 I think it's good that Microsoft is refocusing and reasserting itself as "One Microsoft". Microsoft was once the most powerful company on the planet led by the richest man on the planet. But that was a different time. Things have changed. Now there's cloud and big data and XaaS and consumerization. Yes, the dirtiest of all IT slanguage, consumerization. Since this blog is consumerization focused, I get the best opportunity to focus on that part of this transition. 

Why does consumerization come into play, you ask? It's very simple, you as a consumer, now have more power than ever before. Consumers can now shift a company from Fortune 500 to yesterday's news. You have to make people happy or they'll switch. Today, we have the power.

Microsoft now realizes that its power is gone, or at best is on the wane. No longer can it churn out products that we must love or lump. We can now choose. Sure we've always had a choice but never such good choices that we enjoy today.

Microsoft knew that.

And why not tighten the vise when you have one's victim's delicate parts in it? Anyone would. Although Microsoft took a good beating over doing what anyone would do. It took advantage of its top seed position, just as others have done in the past. But somehow Microsoft was a criminal for doing it too.

Now the tide has turned.

The old saying goes, "The customer is always right." And it's true. The customer is always right.

Apple has proved this. Microsoft had to learn it the hard way.

Unfortunately, the price of this lesson, and all lessons, is very high.

The consumer now drives the market, not the vendor. You probably think that the market has always been consumer-driven. You'd be wrong.

It's the same lesson that Russia learned. One choice is not enough and quality does matter. You can't give people what you want to give them and expect loyalty or happiness. You have to give people what they want.

And the all-powerful consumer is a fickle beast.

This is where it gets "weird".

Do you remember when Blackberry was the "must have" mobile phone? I do. I had one and thought it was the greatest mobile device the world had ever seen. It was ahead of its time. Then the service took a couple of big hits and the fickle consumer jumped to other technologies almost over night. Now the company struggles in the single digit market share range. FYI, Blackberry, in my opinion has addressed its issues and is well worth another look, but that's another story.

Now Microsoft has to compete with Apple, a host of mobile device vendors, and itself.

Yes, itself.

It sounds crazy but Microsoft has committed the ultimate crime: competing with itself.

Windows XP was too good and Microsoft decided to support it for too long. Vista didn't have the uptake expected because of its too soon release and a myriad of problems. Windows 7 was the savior that rescued us from Vista but still XP hung on. A lot of people still use it, while others have only begun to convert to Windows 7.

And now there's Windows 8. Corporate uptake of Windows 8 might never happen. Once the Windows 7 conversions are fully realized, businesses might wait until Windows 10 to consider another major cutover. So, in the meantime, what does Microsoft do with Windows 8 or Windows 9?

One answer is to change support policy. Provide full support for an operating system for five years and extended support for two more. Seven years is long enough with one operating system. No company should be held over the fire for a decade or more for a product that should have been replaced years ago.

The alternative is for Microsoft to only create a new operating system every seven years, charge more for it, charge more for support or change its model completely to one of support tiers.

It might work something like this:

• Microsoft builds new operating systems every seven years and offers ten years of support, which gives companies that three year transition period they often need.
• Microsoft gives away its operating system software or charge a subscription for use. Crazy I know but wait, there's more.
• Setup tiered support for individuals, SMBs, and Enterprises that allows companies to pay for support on an annual or on a per incident basis.
• Only provide updates and patches for those who subscribe. Of course, certain critical patches would have to be made public to address major security issues with applications but not the operating system itself.
• Provide its own Microsoft-branded virtual desktops and servers to companies and individuals via subscription. All patching and updates would be handled from the data center and not left to the individual user or company.

I rather like the idea of subscribing to a desktop that I can use from anywhere and at anytime I choose. And the idea of a virtual infrastructure that's owned and supported by Microsoft appeals to me as well.

Microsoft must change its business model to meet the new consumer paradigm. Allow me to use a Microsoft desktop and servers from any device. Microsoft owns their own cloud that I subscribe to. I like it. Bizarre, yes. One Microsoft, definitely.

What do you think about Microsoft' restructuring? Do you think that they're playing catchup or is there something bigger brewing? Talk back and let me know.

MS Cloud background image used with permission from Meghan D. Cox. I placed the MS logo on top of the original image.

It’s Beyond Ridiculous That Email (But Not Mail) Has Been Left Out of Privacy Laws

• BY KEVIN YODER, TOM GRAVES, AND JARED POLIS
• 06.17.13

As with so many significant privacy violations of late by government agencies — from the NSA to the IRS — it’s become clear that technology has far outpaced law. Federal laws meant to protect our Fourth Amendment right “to be secure in [our] persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure” do not adequately cover Americans’ property online.

Especially email. Under current statute, government agencies such as the IRS, DHS, SEC and many others are allowed to access emails and other private communications older than 180 days without obtaining a search warrant or demonstrating probable cause that a crime has been committed.

How is it possible that government can claim this authority, accessing our most intimate “soft” communications — but not, say, a “hard” letter lying around our houses?

The reason is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Originally intended to protect — not violate — the privacy of our digital communications, this act set standards for government access to private information (such as emails, private photos, documents) transmitted and stored on the internet with an online service provider.

But ECPA was passed in 1986. Twenty-seven years ago, most Americans did not have a home computer or an email account. They did not all carry cell phones. “Facebook” described only the hardbound photo books of university freshmen and “Twitter” was an adjective used to describe the chattering of birds — such social networking sites did not even exist.

Whether they occur online or offline, our private communications should be protected. And that’s why we, a bipartisan group of representatives — Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas), Tom Graves (R-Georgia), and Jared Polis (D-Colorado) — have come together to introduce the Email Privacy Act. We’ve already gained a bipartisan group of 94 co-sponsors, and are pleased to join with our colleagues in the Senate, Senators Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee, who are pushing companion legislation that would modernize the ECPA.

Simply put, this bipartisan legislation would affirm what most Americans already assume — and have every constitutional right to believe — that their privacy is protected from unwarranted government intrusion.

The Email Privacy Act updates legislation written in a time when server storage was limited. Back then, an email user was expected to permanently download his or her email locally from a server for reading, response, and long-term storage. So the 180 day rule made sense, because email left on a server for that long could be reasonably viewed as abandoned. But that’s not the case today with people accessing and storing years and years worth of email through third-party servers.

Fundamentally, the Email Privacy Act would ensure that the Fourth Amendment protections Americans already have for mail, phone calls, and other paper/ hard documents are extended to their soft communications too. Specifically, our legislation updates ECPA by strengthening privacy protections for electronic communications stored by third party service providers such as Amazon, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and countless other cloud services. If government agencies want to obtain any of these communications, they would first need to obtain a warrant from a judge — not their self-anointed authority.

The constitution prohibits the government from accessing personal files stored in a cabinet or letters sent through the mail without a warrant. When the telephone was introduced into mainstream culture, our laws changed to protect the privacy of calls using such technology. But even though email is ubiquitous today, such electronic communications don’t have the same privacy protections as the — arguably far less used! — mail and landline phones do.

This is a real issue and must be addressed; Congress needs to act now to update our laws through the Email Privacy Act and reign in any overreaching by government agencies. It’s ironic that we have benefitted tremendously from technological innovations and advancements such as smartphones and always-connected networks but that our laws have not kept pace with the privacy realities of the 21st century.

Still, Americans deserve to have a reasonable expectation of privacy … despite what the NSA, IRS, or other government agencies believe.

Original article is here.

SPLITTING THE SEA: TURNING OCEAN WATER INTO HYDROGEN FUEL

Great work University of Wollongong...

UOW scientists have developed a novel way to turn sea water into hydrogen, for a sustainable and clean fuel source.

Using this method, as little as five litres of sea water per day would produce enough hydrogen to power an average-sized home and an electric car for one day.

The research team at UOW’s Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have developed a light-assisted catalyst that requires less energy input to activate water oxidation, which is the first step in splitting water to produce hydrogen fuel.

A major limitation with current technologies is that the oxidation process needs a higher over-potential input, which rules out using abundant sea water because it produces poisonous chlorine gas as a side product under operational conditions.

The research team, led by Associate Professor Jun Chen and Professor Gerry Swiegers, have produced an artificial chlorophyll on a conductive plastic film that acts as a catalyst to begin splitting water.

The results were recently published in the journal Chemical Science.

Lead author, Associate Professor Jun Chen, said the flexible polymer would mean it could be used in a wider range of applications and it is more easily manufactured than metal semiconductors.

“The system we designed, including the materials, gives us the opportunity to design various devices and applications using sea water as a water-splitting source.

“The flexible nature of the material also provides the possibility to build portable hydrogen-producing devices.”

The development brings UOW’s energy research a step closer to creating an artificial leaf-like device that can efficiently produce hydrogen.

ACES Executive Research Director Professor Gordon Wallace said: “In today’s world the discovery of high performance materials is not enough”.

“This must be coupled with innovative fabrication to provide practical high-performance devices and this work is an excellent example of that,” he said.

Original article here

The ISS Has Ditched Windows Entirely--For Linux

International Space Station switches from Windows to Linux, for improved reliability...

Original article available here.

The United Space Alliance, which manages the computers aboard the International Space Station in association with NASA, has announced that the Windows XP computers aboard the ISS have been switched to Linux. “We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable.”

In specific, the “dozens of laptops” will make the change to Debian 6. These laptops will join many other systems aboard the ISS that already run various flavors of Linux, such as RedHat and Scientific Linux. As far as we know, after this transition, there won’t be a single computer aboard the ISS that runs Windows. Beyond stability and reliability, Keith Chuvala of the United Space Alliance says they wanted an operating system that “would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.” It’s worth noting that the ISS laptops used to run Windows XP, and we know they’ve been infected by at least one virus in their lifetime: in 2008, a Russian cosmonaut brought a laptop aboard with the W32.Gammima.AG worm, which quickly spread to the other laptops on board. Switching to Linux will essentially immunize the ISS against future infections.

The laptops that were upgraded belong to the station’s OpsLAN. The crew use the OpsLAN to perform day-to-day activities, such as viewing stock inventory, controlling scientific experiments, or checking their current location. Presumably the laptops used to run bespoke Win32 apps on Windows XP, and now those apps have been re-written to work on Linux — hopefully they’re not being emulated in WINE. To get the astronauts and cosmonauts up to speed, they will be trained by the Linux Foundation.

To be honest, we shouldn’t be too surprised at the ditching of Windows. Linux is the scientific community’s operating system of choice. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is controlled by Linux. NASA and SpaceX ground stations use Linux. DNA-sequencing lab technicians use Linux. Really, for applications that require absolute stability, which most scientific experiments are, Linux is the obvious choice. The fact that the entire OS is open source and can be easily customized for each experiment is obviously a very big draw, too.

In other news, the first humanoid robot in space, Robonaut 2, which also runs Linux, is due for an upgrade soon. Robonaut 2 (pictured above) was delivered on Space Shuttle Discovery’s final mission in 2011, and at the moment it’s just a torso with two arms — but later in 2013, some climbing legs and a battery pack should be delivered. The ultimate goal is to see whether humans and robots can operate peacefully in zero gravity, with Robonaut eventually performing menial tasks (vacuuming, changing filters), and possibly dangerous tasks during space walks, too.

Now read: Windows 8 may drive me to Linux

What Should I Do With My Old Windows XP Laptop?

This is a great article from Lifehacker...

Don't throw away that old laptop or desktop...

Read the full article is here.

Malware fight goes public on the wed

The original article by Ben Grubb (SMH) goes on to outline the numbers of Australian computer IP numbers that were found to be infected by Bot's and Trojan malware. For the lay-people... you are assigned an IP address when you access the internet via your ISP. Malware signatures can be detected by the 'packets' of information your computer sends and receives.

Please don't be fooled by tele-marketers telling you you are infected, you may be, but they only want remote access to your PC in order to plant malware of their choice, and to get you to pay them for it.

The Government would like the ISP to contact their users and offer assistance to remove the infection from the end users PC. This however is a BIG ask and can be quite difficult.

The ACMA (Australian Communication and Media Authority) have published a page that outlines the statistics daily - click here for that page. The page details the total numbers and type of infection that it has detected.

I have listed the malware variants (outlined by ACMA) below:

1. Zeus targets Microsoft Windows machines. It does not work on Mac OS X, or Linux.
2. Conficker Exploits the Windows Server Services.
3. IRCBot affects Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2.
4. Ramnit only infects Windows. Mainly known for spreading via USB devices.
5. Mebroot infects all Windows O/S'.
6. Virut infects all Windows O/S'.
7. Rootkit TDSS infects all Windows O/S'.
8. Flashback is a virus that infects Apple's OSX.
9. Sality infects all Windows O/S' and spreads through Windows networks.
10. Slenfbot infects all Windows O/S'.
11. Festi infects all Windows O/S'.
12. Cutwail infects Windows XP, Vista and 7.
13. Kelihos infects all Windows O/S'.
14. Waledac infects all Windows O/S'.
15. Nitol Botnet, interestingly, came installed in Windows PC's manufactured in China. Meaning it was installed at the factory.
16. Spyeye infects all Windows O/S'.
17. Lethic infects all Windows O/S'.
18. Darkmailer infects all Windows O/S'.
19. Trojan Pony - Found inside Pirated Apple & Windows versions of Adobe Illustrator CS4.
20. Dorkbot infects all Windows O/S'.
21. Pushdo infects all Windows O/S'.

Only two are capable of infecting Apple Mac computers the rest will infect all Windows operating systems. None quoted affect Linux.

Particularly interesting is 'Nitol' came pre-installed on some PC's manufactured in China. Clearly this is a real worry. The other worry is that pirated versions of software from Adobe (Illustrator CS4) came with the trojan Pony. The CS series of Adobe products are so expensive ($1800 approx) that people without the ability to buy them were forced to install pirated versions. I prefer to encourage people to use 'Open Source' instead. A good example is Gimp. Possibly not as comprehensive as Illustrator but how much do you need... really.

Flashback uses a well known exploit. It tricks the user into thinking that it is a real Adobe Flash player and asks the user to authorise it's installation. Seems Steve Jobs had good reason to disallow iPads from using flash. Unfortunately Flashback will infect Apple Macs.

So what do you do?

From my experience (if you are a Windows fan) you need to start from a clean operating system. Installed from an 'original Microsoft' disc. Even if your PC is pre-installed... format it and install from the original disc. You will not have the 'Bloat-ware' installed by your PC manufacturer. You should also be able to install the appropriate drivers from the manufacturer's disc's. If the manufacturer does not supply the disc's choose a different manufacturer's PC. Many of the cheaper Chinese PC's don't come with original disc's. Stay away from those. Once you have a clean PC, install a good virus scanner. My choice would be Avast, available here for free.

If you already have a PC (or more), and want to use a cheap PC but also want to be safe... format them and install Linux instead. Linux Ubuntu is my choice but Linux Mint is also a favourite as it is the most similar to Windows XP in it's interface. You will not require a drivers disc as they will sense your hardware and install the drivers automatically during the installation process. Both have support for all your Windows document/image/music/video formats and are the easiest to use for beginners. Both are also perfect of corporate desktop applications as they support Windows RDP sessions and VPN connections to Windows Servers.

Drop me a message on Google+ if you need help/advice.

Ubuntu for your Phone

As a corporate IT Support person (in my previous life) we had to support iPhones. As is usual only the upper level of executive staff were issued with them. And as per usual they were the least capable of using them. This turned out to be a nightmare.
But now with Ubuntu (Linux) that job is made a whole lot easier.
Bring it on!

Graphine - the new wonder material

There has been a lot of buzz globally about the wonders of a new material called "Graphene". This video will explain the importance of this discovery.

Imagine charging your iPhone in about 5 seconds, or your laptop in 30 seconds. Perhaps charging your electric car in the same time it takes to fill a tank of gas.

I'm sure we will hear more about "Graphene" in the future.

Enjoy the video...

Upload Photos to YouTube for a Simple and Easy to Share Slideshow

Original Article: Here

We're all well aware that YouTube is great for sharing videos, but tech blog Digital Inspiration points out that it can also be used to create easily shareable slideshows in a matter of seconds.

The process is incredibly easy. Just login to your YouTube account, and head over to the upload area. Navigate over to "Photo slideshow," and click create. Now you just need to drag your photos into the upload area. When you're done, head to the next screen to change time duration, transition effects, and add some background music. You can always set your slideshow to private or unlisted if you're just trying to share vacation pictures with you grandma and not the entire world.

Not Just Videos, Upload your Photos to YouTube | Digital Inspiration

Why use OpenERP in your business

OpenERP is a full featured Open Source Enterprise Resource Planner for small to large organisations.
It is available online for a monthly fee or you can install it on your own server for FREE.

My choice would be to install it free. I have installed it on a Linux Ubuntu 12.04 workstation and can access it from any other workstation on my network regardless of operating system. The benefits are obvious.

The video below gives you an overview of the numerous features of OpenERP... enjoy!




Other video's from OpenERPConsulting are available here

The death of Google Reader - Sob :-(

This really saddens me... really...



So what now?

I'm trying out Akregator for Linux. The rest of you are on your own... :-(

My relationship with operating systems.

My relationship with operating systems. 

I started my computer career back in 1985. It was the age of main frames and CPM was in flavour. A couple of geeks (Bill and Chris) working in a garage in Seattle came up with a system to operate smaller computers. They called it DOS. In a few years it took over the world and it got me hooked too. They sold it to IBM who named it PC-DOS and it flourished. Bill & Chris changed it's name to MS-DOS and Microsoft came to the fore.

At this time I began my career as a Database Developer. I used a RDBMS called Dataflex. And till this day find that Dataflex is better than sex. Only another Dataflex Developer will understand. I was intorduced to Dataflex by a computer salesman who loaned me his Dataflex manual. I read it and found I understood it. Nobody else could? I did do 3 courses to learn Dataflex properly and within 3 months wrote a system to control a Travel Distribution company I worked for.

In the next few years the dudes at Xerox (correct me if I'm wrong) came up with something later called a GUI and also a mouse as Xerox was into document scanning/printing. Microsoft saw an opportunity and Windows was born. My acceptance to that technology was during the reign of Windows 2.0. Other versions of Windows were released and the best version for networks was Windows 3.11, which supported workgroups and networking. Do you remember 'ini' files. They rocked!

Around this time Viruses were born. I remember the Jerusalem Dos based virus, then the Michaelangelo Virus.

Years passed... the Internet came, Windows adapted. Bill even tried to compete with it and started a parallel network called the 'MSN' or Microsoft Network. It failed and was forced to infuse itself as part of the Internet. Netscape was the web browser you had to have to surf the world wide web.

In 1995 Bill released Windows 95. It was sexy, good looking and had great promise. It was a complete redesign of the Windows system, It had something called a 'Registry' and promised to encompass all those pesky 'ini' files. The masses cheered. Only thing was, when you looked at the registry it had more entries that the human brain had synapses. I was worried, and for good reason. Viruses had all this 'white noise' to hide in.

Time passed and 'NT' came. At first it was not considered as a replacement to other Server software but later was adopted by smaller companies. Windows 98, Windows ME, SE and then... Windows XP arguably the best and most utilised of all operating systems. Viruses flourished and they needed to be categorised as there were so many of them. Trojans, Worms, Bots, Malware, Adware. They all seemed to do the same thing. Make my life difficult.

I recall one time being called into the Microsoft head office in North Ryde, Sydney to offer my technical knowledge because my company was applying for a distribution job they advertised. They so proudly showed me their air-conditioned, glass walled, raised floor server room. I asked what OS do they run, NT? They blushed as replied... Unix. They are connected to Seattle directly. Gosh. Why was I there... well... they had a call centre that took calls from consumers who were interested in their software. The call staff took a blank A4 envelope and wrote down the address of the caller and on the inside of the envelope flap wrote what product they were interested in. Ya know... Windows, Office, Publisher etc. They then placed the envelope in a tray and took the next call. Someone then came from the mailroom and collected all the envelopes, inserted the applicable brochures, sealed and posted the envelope. How many calls did they take, who called, what did they ask for? No body knew as they didn't recorded anything. Nothing...

This is from the people that created Access and Excel? I was shattered. I could have done that in a week. Automated everything for them and offer them a customised sort of CRM. We didn't get the job, possibly because our solution to them was too cheap. Those Managers are probably retired now but I think they lied on their resumes when getting their job.

My 4 daughters all had PC's running Windows and I soon was fed up of restoring their OS when they became infected. Steve Jobs was plugging Mac's like crazy and they were all happy when I suggested they go Mac and not PC. Till this day they are all Apple users.

Windows Vista came and soured my fondness of computing. Windows 7 arrived and I was dismayed that it wasn't a whole new OS, but just Vista polished up. Everything was hidden but it essentially remained the same. I could have XP run with under 20 system processes. 7 had around 60 to 80 processed running and needed more and more memory and processor speed to run efficiently.

Around this time I started to notice other good lookers in computing. The old Unix system for servers had spawned an offspring... Linux. At first it was a character driven (Dos like) system, but later a GUI emerged. A friend of mine introduced me to Ubuntu. I was immediately attracted to this gorgeous system. I remember thinking about my first introduction to 95, only this was better, faster and crikey... stable.

I was intrigued, hooked, and explored like a cat in a new house. It had something called the 'software centre' which was like a catalogue of software tried and tested for that version. What's more all that software was free. Also I was completely taken aback by the fact I could now browse the internet without any fear of catching any pesky viruses. It was completely liberating.

I first put Ubuntu on my old Thinkpad laptop. Ubuntu sensed the hardware and immediately found that my old Thinkpad's scratch pad could tolerate multi-touch and enabled it. It was like having an iPad before they were invented. Windows on the other hand could only tolerate single-touch or edge-scrolling. What's more the old Thinkpad sped up like Lance Armstrong on steroids. Booted up in a flash, shut down in a flash and the 'suspend/hybernate' actually worked and didn't crash as in the case with Windows. I found that I could VPN and RDP into my work server just as if I was using Windows.

Ubuntu was now my secret 'mistress'. Don't tell the wife.

I kept my relationship with Windows alive as I was working in the IT department of the 2nd largest Privately owned Transport company in Australia. They were a Microsoft preferred organisation. However even my work PC was dual booted and I used Ubuntu first and Windows only if I really needed to. Slowly though I noticed I needed Windows less and less.

Everything I needed in a Windows system I found in Linux, with only one exception... iTunes. Apple as it seems, didn't want to bother creating a version of iTunes for Linux. Bad move Apple... I traded my iPhone for an Android. Again a breath of fresh air... instead of fussing with iTunes to update my music and ringtones... all I needed to do is drag and drop new music & video to and from the phone. No more 5 PC limitation in iTunes. FREEDOM was mine at last. It felt good... really, really good. No more rules to follow using proprietary software. No more worrying about registering a software license, looking over you shoulder in case Windows WPA itself detected you were using pirated software when in fact you weren't.

Windows is now my ex-wife. Although I still have my pc's dual booted, I can't remember the last time I needed Windows for anything. What's more I no longer need to buy software, it's all FREE.

Dataflex runs happily in Lunix and the world is wonderful again.

For those of you that have done the Microsoft MCP, MCSE courses and have been told you need to do the refresher course for the newer OS or remove the letters from your business cards and letterheads will understand the costs involved. I am free from that.

My advice to anyone that is caught in a relationship that requires constant work to maintain... it's simply not worth it. It's time for a change.