To create a new encrypted secrets file, 'vim secrets.gpg'. Vim prompts you to specify recipients from your gpg keyring. Then vim opens a buffer; you write your secrets in the world's greatest text editor.* On write or close, vim prompts for your passphrase and encrypts the file to the recipient keys you specified, saving it as ascii-armored gpg.
Open an existing file with a.gpg extension, and vim prompts for your passphrase, decrypts the file, and opens it in a new buffer. On write or close, it re-encrypts the file to its configured recipients.
For easy sharing and revisioning, we keep these gpg files in a mercurial repository. This gives us a distributed, free, scalable, and reasonably secure solution.
*There's a similar gnupg plugin for emacs, if you're of that heretical religion.
These days, my favorite is the gold touch keyboard from key ovation.
It has very good feel and travel (though without the m-series clicks), a highly adjustable, split, ergonomic design, windows meta keys that exist but are placed out of the way in the left corner, and no bulky number pad.
I've been typing on one for years now, and I can never go back!
One of Mossberg's complaints is about the lack of available codecs for playing back common media types. Unfortunately he seems to blame the developers for this, when it's really a legal problem. With a community-supported distro, there is essentially no one to negotiate and pay the license/royalty fees for nonfree codecs. This leaves the user in the lamentable situation of having to find and "illegally" download/install the relevant codecs.
If Dell is serious about desktop linux, why not take the lead on this and fix the problem? Dell is a big enough company, with a large enough user base, that it should be able to negotiate the relevant license/royalty fees for common codecs. They should just offer their own ubuntu repo with dell-supported software, including codecs, special drivers, and anything else needed to make for a stellar user experience.
The touchpad problem Mossberg experienced is clearly not acceptable shipping from a commercial entity like Dell, and I think Mossberg's other complaints fall under the grass-is-always-greener, it's-hard-to-switch territory.
sysprep can be made to remove the registry info about the hardware on the ghost image, forcing windows to redetect at boot time. just put all the drivers you might need on your ghost build, and make sure that you run sysprep before actually making the ghost image. this is really well-documented.
I don't think the article you referenced says that Microsoft does not support disk duplication. Quite to the contrary, they have their own tool to avoid problems with SIDs on cloned machines, and they certainly expect people to use it.
I've always used Ghost for duplicating Windows installs with no real problems. True, their licensing is getting uglier, but they have the best product, hands down.
So just prepare your build with all of your software and settings. If you have multiple hardware configurations you plan to run the build on, create a folder on the hard disk and save any special drivers you might need. Then run Microsoft's sysprep tool (there is documentation for using on the WinXP CD). Finally, create your ghost image, and you should be good to go.
I couldn't believe the absence of the neuros player from this dude's article. Neuros has ALL of the features of the players in the article, combined (except maybe the low price-point of the CD players). More importantly, it has ogg and full linux support, and the FM receiver/transmitter is way cool:)
I'm sorry, but the title and implication of this posting are just dead wrong sensationalism. The federal government is absolutely not trying to create a massive homeless tracking system. HUD is very clear about this, and my daily work on HMIS issues, as a nonprofit consultant to homeless providers, has made me quite confident that HMIS is not a scary Orwelian tactic to disenfranchize the poor, but a valuable tool that can be used to help end homelessness in America.
The truth about HMIS:
The goal of HMIS is not to create a "massive homeless tracking system" but to obtain statistical and demographic data about homeless people to inform federal homeless policy. The aggregate and anonymous data HUD wants is vitally necessary to the goal of ending homelessness.
The federal HUD office has never expressed any interest whatsoever in collecting client-level data about homeless people on a federal scale. I have written and oral confirmation of this from senior-level policy makers in HUD's DC office. The way HUD has chosen to implement HMIS, by creating an unfunded mandate devolving the ownership, development, and management of HMIS data to local governments, will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the federal government to collect identifiable client data without a court order.
HUD wants aggregate, de-identified information about the number of homeless people, their patterns of service usage, their income sources, and the causes and duration of their homelessness. This data is simply necessary to the formation of sound homeless policy, and it does not currently exist. They don't care who is homeless, they just want to know why, so that they can address the underlying causes of homelessness. Having also worked for HUD, I can say with confidence that they have neither the time, the motivation, nor the budget to do anything useful with a nationwide homeless tracking system. HMIS is for policy analysis.
Clients must be informed that their information is being collected, have access to said information, and have the ability to correct errors. Establishment of consent/assent will vary by locality, though many communities in my area plan to require the written consent of their clients to enter their personal data into an HMIS.
Local Continuums of Care have full control over the data they collect, how the information is used, and who can access it. Generally, written MOUs are required between any data-sharing organizations, carefully delineating what information is to be shared, who can access it, and for what purposes it may be used. This includes law enforcement agencies; as Chapter 4 of the Draft Data Standards clearly states, "An HMIS user or developer may... disclose protected information for a law enforcement purpose to a law enforcement official... A court order or search warrant may be required for the disclosure of information about an individual in an HMIS." In essence, the accessibility of information by law enforcement will be determined by local HMIS policy.
Participation in HMIS is only required of agencies receiving federal funding. If they don't like, they can find money elsewhere.
There is a huge need for accurate information about the homeless population, which simply cannot be generated without an HMIS. Some of the policy goals:
Produce an accurate, unduplicated count of homeless people so that progress can be accurately measured. I can tell you from personal experience that many communities don't really know how many homeless people they have, and that they often
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We use gnupg+vim to share passwords and other secrets among my team. http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=661
To create a new encrypted secrets file, 'vim secrets.gpg'. Vim prompts you to specify recipients from your gpg keyring. Then vim opens a buffer; you write your secrets in the world's greatest text editor.* On write or close, vim prompts for your passphrase and encrypts the file to the recipient keys you specified, saving it as ascii-armored gpg.
Open an existing file with a .gpg extension, and vim prompts for your passphrase, decrypts the file, and opens it in a new buffer. On write or close, it re-encrypts the file to its configured recipients.
For easy sharing and revisioning, we keep these gpg files in a mercurial repository. This gives us a distributed, free, scalable, and reasonably secure solution.
*There's a similar gnupg plugin for emacs, if you're of that heretical religion.
oh, and it also has both mac and pc versions, so the author will never have the mac config problem mentioned w/ das!
These days, my favorite is the gold touch keyboard from key ovation. It has very good feel and travel (though without the m-series clicks), a highly adjustable, split, ergonomic design, windows meta keys that exist but are placed out of the way in the left corner, and no bulky number pad. I've been typing on one for years now, and I can never go back!
One of Mossberg's complaints is about the lack of available codecs for playing back common media types. Unfortunately he seems to blame the developers for this, when it's really a legal problem. With a community-supported distro, there is essentially no one to negotiate and pay the license/royalty fees for nonfree codecs. This leaves the user in the lamentable situation of having to find and "illegally" download/install the relevant codecs.
If Dell is serious about desktop linux, why not take the lead on this and fix the problem? Dell is a big enough company, with a large enough user base, that it should be able to negotiate the relevant license/royalty fees for common codecs. They should just offer their own ubuntu repo with dell-supported software, including codecs, special drivers, and anything else needed to make for a stellar user experience.
The touchpad problem Mossberg experienced is clearly not acceptable shipping from a commercial entity like Dell, and I think Mossberg's other complaints fall under the grass-is-always-greener, it's-hard-to-switch territory.
sysprep can be made to remove the registry info about the hardware on the ghost image, forcing windows to redetect at boot time. just put all the drivers you might need on your ghost build, and make sure that you run sysprep before actually making the ghost image. this is really well-documented.
I don't think the article you referenced says that Microsoft does not support disk duplication. Quite to the contrary, they have their own tool to avoid problems with SIDs on cloned machines, and they certainly expect people to use it. I've always used Ghost for duplicating Windows installs with no real problems. True, their licensing is getting uglier, but they have the best product, hands down. So just prepare your build with all of your software and settings. If you have multiple hardware configurations you plan to run the build on, create a folder on the hard disk and save any special drivers you might need. Then run Microsoft's sysprep tool (there is documentation for using on the WinXP CD). Finally, create your ghost image, and you should be good to go.
I couldn't believe the absence of the neuros player from this dude's article. Neuros has ALL of the features of the players in the article, combined (except maybe the low price-point of the CD players). More importantly, it has ogg and full linux support, and the FM receiver/transmitter is way cool :)
The truth about HMIS: