Been quiet here on both blogs and in the photography department – right is the reason why. Did you know that ROM packs better than EEPROM, and EEPROM packs better than RAM? Or that the Vpp contact on smartcards is no longer used because it could be exploited via simple power analysis – preventing PIN entry attempts from being written to EEPROM? No? Well neither did I. :-) Man I’ll be glad when this is over. Only three months to go and I get my life back. That said I’ve packed more into my cerebral EEPROM in the last six months than I have in the last six years. The Web security and identity management stuff has been particularly good. Not 100% sure yet – but might like to do something in the area of identify management and privacy for my final project. Watch this space…  

A little under a year ago I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p. I love it. It's a great notebook; solid design, easy to update, a great support site. However when I'm occasionally asked for advice on notebooks and whether I would recommend Lenovo - I sort of say yes but then come unstuck. The reason? It took me several days - and I mean literally several days to work out the various configurations that were available for the ThinkPad T61 range.

I'd like to recommend Lenovo notebooks - but I can't just point to a model and say "this one". A few minutes ago I came across this post on Crunch Gear - Apple’s secret sauce: A simple product line. Great post, and I agree that Apple has got it right by having a simple product line. Too many choices and confusion results. Apple learned this lesson the hard way when back in the mid 90s they had more flavours of Power Macs than Baskin Robins has ice cream - and it was confusing.

I don't think computer manufactures are in the flavour business and a simple product line - small, medium and large, would make it easier for consumers to shop, and even easier for others to recommend.  

Televangelism in IT - does this work? I like a good show as much as anyone - but two presentations I came across recently left me.. er.. well - confused I guess. While looking for content on the topic of identity management (CardSpace along with identity selectors that have been implemented on other platforms) I came across this... a 2007 Friday BrainShare session at Novell. The opening act is impressive.

Well partly as an act of procrastination (the books and reading are piling up), and partly in recognition of the fact that the previous design sucked big time... I've redesigned the blogs and photo gallery. It took three days in total - and I think the results are ok. At least I think it sucks less than the previous design. Thanks to firebug and a list of fairly well known IE7 issues - it went pretty well this time. No major CSS gottchas... a pretty good two column liquid layout and drop shadow as well as less cruft.

One of the texts for the Network Security module I'm currently studying is Douglas E. Comer's book  'Computer Networks and Internets (5th Edition)'.

The book is a tour de force of all things networking. It's written in a clear, uncomplicated and beautiful narrative. Comer is obviously brilliant (like I'm able to judge - just search for his bio online). But what makes this book really special is the way you are constantly reminded of where you are in the bigger scheme of themes; how everything fits together - from data communications, carrier frequencies and modulation, to LAN/WAN and wireless network technologies, to higher level protocol and application layer features. I don't think I've ever read a technical textbook that I actually didn't want to put down (at least at times). It normally takes me about a month to work through a 500+ page textbook, longer if it's a yawner... but in a little over a week I've nearly finished Comer's book - highlighted and marked up. It will remain a permanent member of my reference library.

Whether you're a technology professional, or just curious about 'how stuff works' - this book is for you. (I also love the dedication at the beginning of this book... "To Packets Everywhere".) Thank you Douglas E. Comer.

As if anyone needed more proof.