From now on, I will only update jipsta.com.  So please, the two of you that subscribe to this blog, update your feeds!  :)

November 16th is my last day at PaperWise, the next week is Thanksgiving, then I start the new job the following Monday.   That does not give me much time to pack and move.  I’ll just barley step off the plane before I have to start work.   Anyway, that’s it for now.  Stay tuned for more.

I love Google Reader, but it has one caveat: cognitive overload. It can consume a lot of time, especially if one subscribes to 40-50 feeds (like me). There’s simply no way to keep up-to-date. The task of reading can be overwhelming, especially without proper management and hacks to increase your time effectiveness. That’s why I am writing about a technique that I use to slim down my reading list: Feed Thresholds.

1. Create several tags, label them “Level1″, “Level2″, …, “LevelN”
2. Tag the “must read” feeds as Level1, the “kind of important” feeds as Level2, and keep going down the list.
3. Set the default view to show only Level1 feeds.

Since the default view is Level1, you always keep up-to-date with the most important feeds without overloading yourself by filtering out all the extra crap. Then, as time permits, lower the threshold. Read Level2, Level3, etc.. The idea is to select only most important feeds now, so that when you’re in a hurry, you don’t have to scan the entire list and mentally select the important items.

For those Google Reader addicts out there, I hope this helps.

Seamlessly provide access to tactical outsourcing and collaborative software projects. Appropriately administrate out-of-the-box solutions. Interactively facilitate integrated customer service with wireless applications. Energistically strategize distributed applications with synergistic resources. Distinctively re-engineer premier metrics before functional ideas.

Objectively generate fully tested solutions via market-driven sources. Interactively underwhelm long-term high-impact convergence rather than future-proof convergence. Conveniently parallel task cross-unit markets rather than cross functional technology.

Just out of curiosity, I checked to see if any attempts have been made to access my computer from the outside. Looking at my /var/logs, noticed some interesting entries:

20:14:19 localhost sshd[1588]: Illegal user iqbal from 85.132.13.186
20:14:22 localhost sshd[1590]: Illegal user kazal from 85.132.13.186
20:14:29 localhost sshd[1592]: Illegal user almuslim from 85.132.13.186
20:14:33 localhost sshd[1594]: Illegal user sayed from 85.132.13.186
20:14:40 localhost sshd[1596]: Illegal user pacific from 85.132.13.186

In a mannor of four minutes, 63 attempts were made to access my server with the following usernames: ab_siddique, akbar, almuslim, anwar, ashok, asraful, atiq, badol, bokul, chanchal, dilwar, dulal, emon, extern, f_ahammad, faruk77, ferdous, feroj, giasuddin, habib, habibur, iqbal, jahir, jakir, kazal, khabir, kh_mamun, khorshed, mahbub, mamun, masud, missionaleybeley, monir, pacific, qa, rajon, ripon, rsilk, s_ahallad2005, sangit, sayed, scan, selim, shagor, shahid, shakhawat, shamsul, shanjhbela, tanvir, tawfiq, theone, zahid, and zero.

A quick tractroute search reviled the illegal login attempts originated from Afghanistan. It’s beyond me why they used Arabic names to attack a U.S. based server. Whatever the reason, 63 login attempts from Afghanistan in less than four minutes is impressive. For this type of scan, the “hackers” must be running some sort of sophisticated multithreaded brute force script. After some research, I found that the problem typically used is called brutessh and is readily available to download.

So what happens when a username and password is successfully cracked? Well, the guys over at securityfocus decided to find out. They set up a honeypot, sat back, and watched as their servers fell prey to the attacks. From the article,

“Once a valid account name/password was determined, the attacker logged into the honeypot via SSH and proceeded to download an SSH scanner tool. [...]

After the initial scan, the attacker proceeded to download and install an IRC Bot. IRC Bots are tools that can control a compromised system remotely via IRC chat channels that the compromised system is set to listen to. Using IRC to control a compromised system is much more covert than using SSH directly, as the attacker does not have to directly log into the system anymore. Further, it allows the attacker to control several such systems, also known as Zombies, at the same time.

The conversations in the IRC channel revealed that the Zombies were used to scan class B networks with an SSH scanner just like the one that had been downloaded to our honeypot. During a period of a couple of hours, four class B networks were scanned with the SSH scanner from various IRC Bots, identifying thousands of SSH servers. A scan took approximately 700 seconds to complete. [...]

Combined with an army of IRC bots, an attacker only needs 525 Zombies to scan the entire IP4 of today’s public Internet in just one day. If you have a publicly accessible SSH server, you are very likely to be targeted by one of these attacks.”

Now thats a sobering thought!

After Chris demonstrated each component of TFS, I didn’t any particular piece overly exciting. For example, I didn’t see anything the source control component could do that subversion couldn’t. Nor was the bug tracker particularly impressive. The real selling point is the integration of components. Most developers have a bug tracker, most have source control, and some even have a documentation system in place, but almost no one has an integrated solution. That’s the true power of TFS. With everything integrated, you can easily control the software development process and micromanage your team to hell!

By the way, does anyone actually read this?!?

On top of that, all of these sites have far too many ads! Why do people want their websites to look like NASCAR vehicles?

• ky3.com – This site is simply painful to look at. It makes my eyes bleed.
• news-leader.com – Their goal is to squeeze as much crap and advertising in one page as they possible can.
• bestof417.com – Is this a joke? Seriously. WTF?
• kolr10.com – The best way to cheapen your website is to cram as many hideous ads on the main page as possible.
• 417today.com – Yea! Another bland, pointless, cookie-cutter postnuke website! They even managed to remove all the postnuke credits and promote their site like they actually developed it themselves! At least they're trendy. I should rename my blog to 417jipsta.com.
• thexdegree.com – I saved the best worst for last. The X Degree is a site my ex-coworker created to contend with myspace, thefacebook, xanga, and the rest. His site manages to break EVERY web design rule in the book. He actually quit his decent full-time job to pursue promoting thexdegree.com full time.