Inspired Intuition

So it would seem that I can’t keep up with my desired blogging output (of at least one post a week). It’s been… a while since my last post to say the least! My focuses lately have been with applying to jobs, working for my part-time job (continuation of my summer job), keeping up with academia, and a bit of recreation in the form of beating Fable 2 last night. So, that brings me to what I am going to post about over the next week or so (and actually post about, not just “want” to post about).

• A review of Fable 2: I believe I did a review of Fable 1 way back when I played that, so might as well do a follow-up.
• The jobs I am applying for and what opportunities I am presently interviewing for (this is likely to be my next post actually).
• My senior design project: we are actually working on a pretty cool concept, but I really don’t like the restrictions to what technologies we have to work with. Expect a rant on this subject…
• Other subjects that come to mind, maybe my entrepreneurship class project…? Depends if I want to release this idea into the wild since it is a bit more unique.

The plan is to do the job offer applying one this weekend, and have it post on Monday. Then knock out the next one by the end of Monday and have it post late next week, etc. Basically the time-table I WAS working with before I started getting lazy about it.

So there are a bunch of different things that I’ve intended to blog about for some time now, but never got around to them. As a result, most of it is either old news, or just not as important to me. Fortunately for me, but likely unfortunately for everyone else, is the fact that I sent each of these to myself so that I wouldn’t forget them (and then promptly forgot to post about them).

The first of importance is a guide that LifeHacker posted a while back about how to use GoogleCL (Google Command Line). Many of us use Google’s services these days. Google took that a step further and released their GoogleCL product for 2 reasons:

1. To allow those computer nerds out there to geek out about being able to use Gmail and the like in their command line.
2. To allow users to do some things with Google products that aren’t traditionally allowed through the front end like backing up your contacts from Gmail.

The second one is definitely the most important, because now you can use the command line to make it auto-backup your contacts! There are other handy things that you can do with GoogleCL, but allowing for auto-backups I think is the most important. You can already export your contacts as a CSV (they added this feature, I believe, around when they separated out the Mail and Contacts functionality in Gmail), but you can’t setup automatic backups because Google likes the idea that they don’t ever lose data. The part they are forgetting is that while they may not lose it, people have the potential of accidentally deleting it! Anyways, here is the article on LifeHacker about it: 5 Handy Google Command Line Tricks.

I have also been meaning to post about the Google set-top box. If I had to guess, when they announce it officially this fall, it will be running some form of ChromeOS. I am of course not 100% sure, but it is the only thing that makes sense. It also won’t have to deal with the “file system” issue that the computers running ChromeOS will have to handle for things like attachments to emails. Regardless, I just rewatched the video on google.com/tv and they have definitely updated it since I last saw the video! Anyway, it looks like it is going to be a serious contender to Apple TV, other standard DVR boxes, and pretty much everyone else in the field, simply because it is going to meld the web with DVR and satellite content.

That was it for things on other websites that I wanted to post about. I’ll focus on something much more theoretical next.

… looks like this ended up being my Google post …

[Image from techdigest.tv]

Let me describe my apartment’s setup a little bit first. My desktop computer is in my bedroom, which will require about a 50+ foot ethernet cable to reach the router. My solution to this? Try out my room mates PCI Linksys wireless card (the WMP54G). Unfortunately, Linksys (technically Cisco) has not bothered to make 64-bit drivers for these wireless cards. This resulted in a HUGE headache for about 3 hours, till I finally found a solution. Here’s what I did from start to finish, but if you want the quick solution, skip to the end:

1. Tried to install the 32-bit drivers from Linksys’ website, only to have them get stuck when you try to search for wireless networks with it.
2. Started Googling for a better solution, and ended up on this page (I don’t know if that link will always work, so it’s just a forum post about how to get the wireless card working on a 64-bit machine).
3. Found out through that tutorial that the chip set in the wireless card is made by Ralink Corp. So I ended up on their site here and downloaded the latest copy of the RT2500 chipset drivers.
4. After trying to hacking these to work appropriately (according to the forum posts that I had found), I managed to get it to install the drivers appropriately (albeit hacked), but it the wireless utility didn’t work. In fact, I couldn’t get ANY wireless utility to work, and I tried quite a few!
5. Finally, I did some more Googling for answers, and this is about 2.5 hours in, and found this forum post that had a link to justinho.com.
6. Within Justin Ho’s blog, here is the appropriate post (as of now) to the article with the working drivers!!! To install them was quick and easy. I simply found the wireless card in the device manager, selected properties, selected upgrade drivers, found the .inf file from the download on Justin’s site, and it installed in one shot. Then just power-cycled my computer and was up and running!

Thank you so much Justin!!! You are the sole reason that I now have wireless in my desktop, granted it took 3 hours to find your blog… you would think that Justin’s site would pop up sooner on Google searches since he is an employee there.

Almost 2 months ago, I started on a project that required the use of Python and access to an Oracle database. It took me multiple days in a row to finally get it up and running so that I could actually make progress on the project, but once I did, I thought nothing of finally getting it to work. However, I was recently approached by another person at work who had to use the cx_Oracle package to access an Oracle DB through Python, and realized the value of actually putting together a post about the steps required.

First off, it is really easy to get it running on Linux. I mean super easy to get Python and cx_Oracle up and running. Secondly, I have an XP machine at work, so no guarantees that this will work with all other Windows Operating Systems until I get to test it on one (not possible till about September at the earliest, I’ll put a todo item in my calendar to try to remember to do it).

Alright, down to the nitty-gritty of it. You first need to install a recent, if not the latest, version of Python, if you don’t already have it of course. When I was installing it on my work computer, that was Python 2.6.5. Now that would be Python 2.7, but since Python is intentionally backwards compatible, it SHOULDN’T matter. For installing Python, be sure to follow one of the many Python install guides available on the web, but the quick run-down of the install process is:

1. Install Python.
2. Edit your environment variables to add the Python directory to your PATH variable and create a PYTHON variable. I will cover editing/creating Environment Variables with the later part of this guide because you will have to do it again for cx_Oracle.
3. Code in Python (you can use an IDE like Eclipse, or a regular text editor like Notepad++).

Next, run the cx_Oracle .msi installer for your particular Windows install. Now that was the easy part.

Next up is the part that most people seem to miss, having an Oracle client on your local machine. Oracle suggests the use of the Oracle Instant Client, and that’s what I used this time. Oracle’s instructions seem to have improved since I first installed the Oracle Instant Client, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to follow.

1. Go download, and unzip, the Oracle Instant Client from here.
2. Put it in a place on the C:\ drive that is easy to find/access later (it’s a drag and drop procedure for getting the files there, no installer). My suggestion is to create a directory called Oracle, and place the instantclient directory in there. This way, my path to the Instant Client directory reads “C:\Oracle\instantclient”.
3. Add this guy to your PATH Environment Variable. You can get to the Environment Variables by right clicking My Computer, select Properties, go to the Advanced tab, click the button that says “Environment Variables”, and now we’re here. From the Python install, your PATH variable (in the user variables section, not the system variables) should already exist from you creating it as “C:\Pythonxx”. Now, add that directory location from step 2 so that the PATH variable reads similarly to mine, which is “C:\Oracle\instantclient;C:\Python26″.
4. Now you are going to need a tnsnames.ora file. For those of you that don’t know what that is, read here. The company I work for fortunately provided me with one, so I didn’t have to make it from scratch, but basically they contain your connection strings to the different databases you are going to be accessing. I saved mine to “C:\Oracle\network\admin” just for easy memory (and because that’s where someone else’s was when I asked). I hope you didn’t close the Environment Variables screen, you’re going to need it again.
5. Lastly, you need to add the TNS_ADMIN variable with step 4′s path in it.

You have now installed cx_Oracle successfully. To really test it, you can open up a Python command prompt and run the following lines of code to test it.

• import cx_Oracle
• db_conn = cx_Oracle.connect(“user/pass@tnsname.world”)

If either of those steps went wrong, double check the steps. If you still don’t know, comment on the post, or email me (my email is lying around somewhere on this site), and I’ll do my best to help you. There are also many forums and forum threads scattered around that have tried to explain these points as well, but I found them to be inadequate.

Lastly, Google is your friend for finding out about the different functions available in cx_Oracle, and the documentation isn’t terrible for this either.

Well, I wanted to have my first blog post of the week be about a different topic, but since this is breaking news, I’m going to post about it.

There has been a new vulnerability discovered, and reported by Microsoft as of July 16th with security advisory number 2286198. It affects all Windows operating systems (XP, Vista, 7, and correlating service packs), and the source code is already publicly available. The worry is that this will start to experience wide-spread usage within the next few weeks by malware writers.

What It Does

When we browse the file system in Windows, it shows icons for each file/shortcut/directory, and these can be customized. This malicious code is hiding in the simple viewing (not even running the shortcut) of the shortcut’s icon containing the malicious code. The malware utilizing this exploit can spread via infected USB thumb drives and the usual unintentional downloading of trojan horses and the like.

How to Protect Against It

Follow Microsoft’s instructions for not displaying shortcut icons. Microsoft’s temporary fix can be found with their security advisory number 2286198 (see the Workarounds and Mitigating Factors sections).

My Original Source

I found out about this issue through Trend Micro’s CounterMeasures blog post about the situation.

Parting Advice

Follow the workarounds described by Microsoft in their security advisory and hope that they can push out their fix by Patch Tuesday in August (closest planned patch date).

If I ever do my own ad campaign, I will definitely follow the model that Old Spice is using right now. If you are unfamiliar with what they are doing, they have the man in their regular TV commercials (which are quite humorous to say the least) doing personalized YouTube videos for people sending the OldSpice twitter account a message of what they would like said. Suddenly, Old Spice is getting tons of brand awareness, resulting from a little bit of real-time, instant work. Very interesting to say the least.

As more people become aware of this project of Old Spice’s, more people will submit to have videos made. As more videos are made, the larger the presence of Old Spice on YouTube and the internet in general. The larger their brand awareness level is, the greater expected profits for Old Spice and increased purchasing by consumers. To top it off, it is definitely a CHEAP advertising campaign. They are doing everything in probably 1-2 takes, and a little bit of writing ahead of time. The result will likely be a combo of the best use of social media to advertise and one of Old Spice’s cheapest advertising campaigns.

Of course, the novelty of this advertising scheme will likely only be viable for another day or so of straight use, but after that time, and giving the social communities a rest, Old Spice or someone else can likely rinse and repeat the process. Now, the most interesting use of this ad campaign would certainly be if someone ELSE had the guy say something that advertised for a different product all-together. Association would get the word of this other product out there, but would likely ruin the ad campaign for all the bystanders.

Yeah, that’s right, I went to Israel. It was pretty awesome actually to get to see the country, not to mention it was an experience I won’t ever forget. Most would say that they won’t forget seeing Israel because they are more religious now, or because a sight in Israel really touched them, but for us, this trip was all about the connections to others that we made. The group of people that we had the opportunity to go with was absolutely awesome! I could not imagine a better group of people. By the end of it, we were more akin to family than simply close friends. I will go through some of the sights we got the opportunity to see, and then talk about the best part of the trip a bit further. The trip itself is called “Taglit-Birthright” and is a free opportunity that college students can take advantage of, if they are between the age of 18 and 25.

So every day was basically non-stop. We were doing 12 hour days from the time we touched down in Israel. Our plane left Newark airport at 2:30 PM on 5/10, and hence landed at 7:30 AM on 5/11 (local time) in Israel. Not one to waste time, we were seeing sights all day WITHOUT any sleep for pretty much any of us. We landed, and started the trip in Jaffa. From there, we went to a market for lunch and then moved on to Independence Hall in Tel Aviv and Rabin Square. Independence Hall is where the country was declared a sovereign Jewish state, and Rabin Square is where Rabin (one of the leaders of Israel in the 90′s) was killed during his term. We then ended the first day on Mount Scopus.

Mount Scopus deserves a little bit more of a description. Firstly, it is just outside of Jerusalem, and gives a gorgeous view of the city along with the Dome of the Rock. Also, it is the home of one of the Israeli universities and did I mention it is gorgeous up there at sunset? This is where they welcomed us, officially, to Israel, served us challah and wine, and provided some music to encourage some ethnic dancing (of which there was lots of). At this point, we have ONLY had one day in Israel, and that hasn’t even included sleep yet!

The next day started with a tour of the Jewish Quarter of the old city, and a little exploring around there, but was focused around the visit to the Western Wall. I had REALLY high expectations about the connection I would feel when I got to touch the Western Wall, but I unfortunately had TOO high of expectations for the experience. When I touched the Wall, I only saw all the people around me who were affected more, and I regret not taking the moment to truly go within myself. I wish I had allowed myself to be more introspective, but sadly I did not, and this is the ONLY regret of my entire trip!

The Western Wall was followed by dinner and a thing they called the “Mega Event,” but that was just a huge opportunity for them to talk about how great Birthright is and how it has been around for 10 years, etc. The next day started early with a talk from a man named Avraham Infeld. As speakers go, Avraham was amazingly good, and the sad room he talked to us in was an embarrassment to the message he was trying to tell us. The greatest quote from him was that “Judaism is not a religion” and that it is a culture and a people and a connection that we all have. He continued by telling us many stories about his life experiences, how he grew up hearing that Judaism is not a religion, and that to others, Judaism is a religion and not a culture. It depends on the person, their upbringing, and many other factors that shape that opinion in a Jew’s life. However, the crux to it all was that we are all a family. We are connected to each other in an almost indescribable manner that goes deeper than any religion truly can (he also inserted a plug here for all of us to move to Israel). His talk was definitely a highlight and learning experience!

We then followed Avraham’s talk with a visit to Yad Vashem. For those who don’t know, Yad Vashem is a Holocaust Memorial Museum. But calling it that understates its importance and connection to anyone and everyone who has learned about the Holocaust, not just Jews and other peoples who lost loved ones during World War II. You can equate much of the memorial to the one in Washington D.C., and as a result, many of the images had been seen by me before and were a little less profound, but the final room is where I was truly touched. Of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, they have managed to collect in this final room boxes upon boxes of identifying information for 3 million of the men, women, and children who died. For many of them, this includes pictures of them before the war and information about their birthdays and country of origin. For others it is simply a name and the signature of a relative who survived saying it was so. Seeing this room, being able to truly grasp the enormity of 3 million, really hit home for me compared to the entirety of the rest of the memorial.

The next day, we met the soldiers who would be with us for the next 5 days, and volunteered at a local soup kitchen. Since the soldiers were THE highlight of the trip, let me say a little bit more about them here, and then I’ll move on to a description of Mount Herzl. In America, we imagine soldiers as burly men, or the depiction of them in Jarhead and other movies. Israeli soldiers are very different. Their military is based upon all men and women serving 3 years, and being in the reserves well into their 40′s (or maybe right up to 40). As a result, the soldiers are no different than myself when out of uniform. The group of 8 soldiers who joined our group for 5 days had something even more special than that. They connected with us. Each and everyone one of the 40 people who went to Israel in our group. We hung out with them at night, joked with them during the tour, cried with them at Mount Herzl and at departure, and connected with them at a level akin to the lifelong connections that people typically make over the course of years. All in just 5 days! They are our family, and we are theres. As if the group of people we flew to Israel with weren’t awesome enough, we got there and met these soldiers who truly resonated with us and will always be part of the memories that this trip gave each and everyone of us.

Mount Herzl is what Americans would call a cemetery for the Israeli soldiers who have died for the state of Israel. To Israeli’s, and clearly to anyone who visits it, it is more akin to a memorial of what people are capable of when they truly believe in their cause. There are stories for each and every grave, some of camaraderie, others of bravery, and many of commitment and believing in what they fight for. Even to the most staunch anti-Zionists, the stories that accompany the sight of the graves is moving.

Shabbat services were led by a member of our group, and would have been great if the other buses had been more respectful. Also, I have never heard so many diverse and different tunes for the same songs. Who uses the tune of Yankee Doodle? The next day was Shabbat, and the first time that we had some time to relax, and we used it! The majority of the day was spent sleeping, and it was a good thing that we got so much rest, because the next day started with hiking Masada. For those who don’t know, Masada was the site of the Jewish Zealots’ last stand against the Roman Legionnaires where, the night before the Romans were going to overrun the outpost of Masada, after a terribly long siege, the Zealots took their own lives to never surrender, so that they would “die as free men” instead of under the whip or sword as defeated men. The hike up was not easy, since we climbed up the Snake Path (a series of many, many switchbacks that took us up about 400+ meters in elevation to the top), but the hike back down was on the Roman Path, which was a straight shot done, and much easier to do.

After our hike, we got to ride camels, and float in the Dead Sea before we headed to the hotel. Israel without getting the experience of riding a camel is not worth the money, I’m glad we got to do that, even if the ride was short. Floating in the Dead Sea is… painful. Imagine the saltiest water you’ve ever seen (it creates salt crystals on the bottom in lieu of a sand bed) getting into any cut, nick, or orifice, and multiply that by 4. For anyone who had a cut, it stung like hell. If you got it in your eye or nose, that hurt to no end and you were out of the water in a snap to rinse. But just staying in the water eventually causes is to get into areas that most prefer not to talk about, and that stinging is just annoying. With all that being said, floating in the Dead Sea is a true experience!

The highlights of the next day were a nature walk in the Tel Dan Nature Reserve, standing atop the Golan Heights, and rafting down the Jordan River. The walk was really cool because the area was very nice, we got to see the ruins of a Canaanite temple, and we were able to see the border of Lebanon. Later that day, we went up the Golan Heights and were able to look out from atop the mountain, through the haze since it was a bit rainy, and see the border of Syria. Then rafting down the Jordan was TONS of fun (once people got into the mood of it). We started out with a bunch of people who just didn’t want to be splashed by the cool water, but by the end of it, everyone was splashing each other, jumping from one boat to the other, and dragging people into the water. It was tons of fun (and I ended up with a broken sandal from the experience).

The following day was the saddest day of our entire trip. It was our last day with the soldiers, and saying good bye to people who we had connected to so thoroughly was difficult at best. You know the song Absolutely (Story of a Girl)? Well we cried 40 rivers that all drowned the world!!! We sat in a circle and basically kept talking about how much none of us ever expected to connect to each other and to the soldiers at half the level that we did, and there were SO many tears! The rest of the day from then on was pretty much shot. That evening was Shavuot, which was delicious! The rest of the night was spent with everyone just kind of going to bed. The next day included bnei mitzvah services and naming ceremonies on the beach in Nahariya, which were beautiful! We hung out on the beach for the rest of the day and then were surprised by some of the soldiers when we got back to the hotel. It was so awesome to get to see some of them just one more time and we went out that night and had a great last night together at a couple bars on the beach. Was a stellar way to end the trip minus the fact that many of us didn’t bother going to bed since we were leaving the hotel at 4:30 AM.

Overall, the trip was absolutely awesome! There are precious few moments in life that I would be willing to trade for the memories that I have from Israel. I love everyone who we were with and all 8 soldiers! You are all awesome and that was the most fucking Taglit trip of my life!!!

Not a whole lot to report in regards to the family reunion. It went surprisingly well and it was great to actually meet extended family! About 30 of us showed up for the reunion and of those, I knew about 10 (including grandparents and immediate family) beforehand. Also, I didn’t know I had so many cousins of my own age. Great to know, and I think that we will be able to stay in touch a bit over the course of the next few years. Maybe we’ll even have a follow up reunion before I’m 40!!!

The weekend was definitely a busy one. Between having/attending a party at a friends’ place and then spending the rest of the weekend doing homework (had an assignment for my Algorithms class and a group paper for my Ethics class to finish), it was a very busy, but productive weekend. I got all the work done (eventually), and had a great time Friday night! I’d rant a bit about my Ethics assignments not being clear enough, but I don’t think that’s really necessary when I have better fodder to write about in the form of my Marketing online homework submissions.

So the system is called Management by the Numbers and the site/product is completely new. At the beginning of the semester, they provided us with accounts according to the school we are in and the number we were on the roster (I assume that’s how the number was generated at least). So, the format would be gtxxx, and they initially gave EVERYONE in these classes the EXACT SAME PASSWORD! I noticed this immediately in the email that they sent out to us regarding what our login credentials were. As someone who wants to professionally doing information security for a living post undergrad, I just cringed when I saw this. To make matters worse, I did the first assignment on the WRONG username because ALL the passwords were the same. Of course, I didn’t realize that was the issue when I saw a 0 for the grade, but only after contacting the professor and TA about the issue did it become apparent “Aaron, your username is gtxxx.” “OH MY GOODNESS, I did the homework on the wrong username, I did it on gtxxy.”

After further discussion, I discovered that the company was “working on” a password change “feature,” which I consider standard in ANY login system. I almost asked for a contract to write the code to do it in PHP out of frustration, but thankfully I didn’t because I have had a bunch on my plate this semester. Overall, it was really disappointing. The funny part, that’s not even what I wanted to show with this blog post.

When I was doing the assignment that was originally due tomorrow, I found a few interesting bugs in it (causing the due date change). The first one had to do with an algorithm that was used to obtain the answer for a problem. It was supposed to be:

(($23.90 – 10) / (.71 * $23.90 – 10)) – 1 = 0.99

Instead of:

(($23.90 – 10) / (.75 * $23.90 – 10)) – 1 = 0.75

You see, the .71 in the correct answer was because it was supposed to have a 29% decrease (in this problem, since that number is dynamic) in price for the comparison, but the algorithm had been setup for a static 25% decrease in price instead. This caused correct answers to be completely wrong.

The more interesting bug, pictured to the right, had to do with precision. They were taking the number out to multiple decimal places, and requiring precision according to that, but the dollar amounts were automatically rounding as we expect cents to do. The end result was that a correct answer was STILL wrong. Of course, this was extremely frustrating for me at first, until I thought to myself “I wonder if it will accept the decimal written ALL the way out (I think I did 6 places just to be over accurate). It worked of course, since the issue had to do with their accuracy, but displaying it as a whole cent was extremely confusing. Regardless, I have finished the assignment and the due date has been pushed back to this Thursday now.

The weather outside is positively… frightful! It’s basically a tease of “here’s some snow… but there’s no reason it should be cold enough for any of it to stick to the ground and roads so just keep dreaming of that snow day that you should have had students!” What a waste! Regardless, it is extremely wet and just plain not fun outside right now. Hopefully the rest of this week will be nicer, considering that I think it’s supposed to get back up into the 50′s and 60′s again.

So I am SICK of GT Housing. They really did not do a very good job of taking care of us during the course of the past year, and enough is enough. I’m now looking for an off-campus apartment to share with my roommate for the Fall and Spring semesters. The plan is for a 2-man apartment that is near Tech and hopefully relatively well furnished. We should be able to get our hands on a deal that is relatively cheap, and are aiming at about 700-775 per month per person including utilities. A more complete list of what we want in an apartment presently:

• Furnishings: we are college students and hence don’t have to desire to go out and get furnishings only to move it in the next 12 months from the signing of the lease.
• Washer and Dryer: we aren’t going to a laundromat under any circumstance, if the washer and dryer isn’t at least in the apartment complex then you can forget it, but most of the floor plans that we’ve seen so far include washer and dryer in most 2-man apartments.
• Parking: if we can’t park at the apartment, what’s the point?
• Safety: being able to safely take a walk outside is a no-brainer.
• A kitchen with dishwasher, stove, oven, and fridge: without these we wouldn’t eat, end of story!
• Bathroom per bedroom in the apartment: we have no problem with sharing a bathroom at present, but boy would having one to ourselves be nice!
• A balcony that we can sit on: 2 reasons for this, we would be ensured not to be on the first floor, the most commonly broken into floor in most apartment complexes, and we would not have to walk out of the building to enjoy some fresh air.

Some bonuses

• Being able to have pets: I would love to be able to have a pet in my apartment, my girlfriend wants to get me a kitty for my birthday (which I would LOVE), but if we find a sweet deal on a nice place with the only stipulation being no pets, we might just have to take it.
• Having a shuttle/bus to and from Tech would be great!
• Being within a shorter driving distance is preferred.
• Being to the east of Tech would put us closer to Agnes Scott, which would be a big bonus for both of us since we are both dating Agnes women.

This week we are going to do some apartment shopping and will be making some calls. We are also going to try a site called promove.com. It looks pretty cool, but we don’t have all the details about how to actually utilize their services. Should this list change, I’ll post accordingly.