RoamingGecko

2011-10-22_15-36-00

Originally uploaded by gagegecko

View of the lodge from across Otter Lake. Love the leaves this time of year.

I have had more people than you might think come to me looking for help with forgotten passwords. Most of the time there is little  I can do to recover your password. There is, however, something users can do to make sure they don’t forget their passwords. Use a password manager program. I use a program called Keepass. It’s available for both Windows and Mac users and combined with your dropbox account you will never, NEVER, be without your password.

 

First let’s download Keepass. For you Windows users out there head over to the following link…

http://keepass.info/

Once you have download the app, go ahead and create a new password database. You can do this by clicking the first icon on the toolbar in the Keepass window (See the orange arrow in the Window dialog image below). Choose a password you will remember!!! When we are done with this process you will only need to remember this one password. For extra security you can create a key file that you can store on a USB drive. This will prevent access to your new password database unless the user has the master password and the key file. I’ll let you decide if you think you need this.

After you have chosen your master password create an entry in the database by clicking the “New Entry” icon on the toolbar (See the red arrow in the Window dialog image above). Here’s where Dropbox comes into play. Select -> File -> Save As… from the file menu and then give your database a name. I suggest something inconspicuous like RefData.kdb or Clients.kdb anything but “passwords.kdb”. Browse to your Dropbox folder and save it to a folder there. This will sync it across all your computers with Dropbox installed as well as give you access to the file from any where as long as you have access to the internet and a web browser. Any changes to the database, ie. add/change/delete a password, are automatically synced across all your desktops. This means you only have to worry about this one file and it updates pretty much instantly across all your desktops.

 

For you Mac users the process is pretty much the same. You download a program called KeepassX which is virtually identical in every way.

 

 

 

 

You can download the application from the following URL…

http://www.keepassx.org/

Once downloaded follow the steps outlined above for Windows users. Remember to save your newly created password database to your Dropbox folder so you will have one database that you can access from all of your computers. That’s it. One password to remember. One database that syncs across all your desktops. Doesn’t get much easier than that.

Might just be me but I see definite uses for this in the classroom.

Way to stir the pot

Originally uploaded by gagegecko

This comic book cover has got to piss some folks in the bible belt off. This was from the holiday special of this comic series.

I have a lot of comic books scanned, some where around six thousand, and I tend to sort them into different categories and folders. Well, I got bored and decided to make my own folder icons. Figured I would put some of them up here in the event any one else wanted to use them. These are full sized icons, all the way up to 512 x 512, although I can’t image why anyone would want icons that size buy hey, they look good.

Click here to download the icons.

The image to the left shows what the icons will look like. They are screen captures of actual comic books that appear to arrange as if sitting on a table. Covers were selected at random for some of the icons and along a central theme for the others. I may produce more in the future to help, maybe character themed icons.

With the 4.3 update of AppleTV, this method of producing a screen saver no longer works. Seems ATV doesn’t display PNG images correctly. Will check it after the next update but not holding my breath. Apple loves screwing with things for no apparent reason.

The other day I was playing around with the screen saver option on the Apple TV and found that if I used PNG-24′s to create logos that I could use those images to create some pretty cool screen savers with a transparent effect. Here is a quick video I put up on YouTube to give you an idea of what I’m talking about…

If this seems like some thing you want to try then go ahead and download the DMG I have put together from the link below…

http://www.roaminggecko.com/my_content/files/AppleTV-SCRSVR.dmg

Here are some quick directions. These directions are also in the DMG.

Create an album in iPhoto called “AppleTV”
Add some of the images from this dmg to iPhoto
Drag the images you want to use to the AppleTV album

Close iPhoto and go into the settings of your Apple TV
Click “Photos” and then browse to your Mac and select the AppleTV album
Make sure your select the “Floating” effect from the list below

That’s about all. Leave a comment below if you have any questions about how to get this up and going.
Cheers!

Saw this earlier this week and thought it was humorous but the main reason for posting this message is to test integrating Skitch more tightly with my blog.

To come directly to the point, I collect playing cards. It’s probably my cheapest hobby. Since most decks cost under 10 dollars it a hell of a lot cheaper than most of the video games I buy. Lately plastic cards have caught my attention. It seems like the natural progression in the manufacturing of playing cards. They are more durable than paper. They can get wet and therefore be cleaned and for that reason will last longer than the average deck of plastic coated playing cards. They also are capable of bending without damage to an extent well beyond what a paper card can sustain. So, with that said, if you wanted to purchase a set of plastic cards of your own to experiment with I decided to review those cards that I have purchased in attempt to give people a better idea on what to look for in a deck of plastic cards.

So let’s get on with the first review, the Modiano 4 Color Poker set. This is a four color deck. These decks are more popular overseas than they are here in the U.S. but are starting to catch on here so don’t be surprised to run across a deck in the near future. Spades are still black and hearts are still red but the clubs in this deck are green and the diamonds are blue. I purchased these cards (a red and blue deck) online for approximately $10 USD and they are manufactured in Italy. After shuffling and dealing a couple of hands I noticed they are a little thicker than the other plastic cards that I have. They also have a very nice texture to them. While plastic, they have a paper feel to them which I attribute to the texture more than anything else. Here is the back of the blue deck…

This is actually the second deck of this set of cards. There was a problem with one of the cards in the first set. When I contacted Modiano they happily replaced the deck with a new set. I was very pleased with their customer service. I should point out that the back design was different in the replacement set than the one I originally purchased so I can’t be sure what the backs will look like should you purchase your own deck. Overall I am very pleased with this set of cards. I have several plastic decks and this one is first on my list. (Copag, Dal Negro, Gemaco being some of the other manufacturers. I will review these decks in later posts.)

The colors in the face cards are better than other decks I own. The Copag Fall edition comes to mind. I didn’t care too much for the abundance of green ink they used on the face cards of that deck. The colors are more balanced on the Modiano deck in my opinion. Take a look here at the Queen of Clubs.

The blue on the diamond cards is a little lighter than I would have personally chosen but still looks good. Here is the jack of diamonds.

The red used for the heart suit is more or less the standard and the color most have come to expect. I am including the picture below more or less to give you another look at the face cards for this deck. The ace of hearts also bears the company’s name as well as the place where they are manufactured. Trieste, Italy. I’m not sure what the significance of the stag logo but it appears on every set of Modiano cards that I own so I am assuming it’s a company logo.

So, to sum up this short but hopefully helpful review of the Modiano 4 Color deck, this is a set of cards that I am very pleased to have purchased and have no reservations on recommending it to others. I like the thickness of the cards, the texture and the classic feel of the paper deck I get when using them. If you don’t already own deck of plastic cards then this is definitely the one to start with and an excellent first purchase. If anyone has any questions about this deck or plastic cards in general, please feel free to post a comment to this post and I will be happy to answer your questions if I can.

One last parting image and one I intend to leave the reader with in every deck review I do, the ace of spades from the deck. The ace of spades is the signature card for any deck of cards produced the world over.

I hope you enjoyed this review and remember to post any questions you might have in the comment section below. Cheers!

We brought home a new puppy this past weekend. He’s adorable and affectionate and I think he’s going to fit right in. This capped a good week for us. Bought a new car and brought home a new Basenji. It was a good week.