I'm a muppet! I've been using a Dell 820 laptop (other machines are available) as my main machine for six months and yet hadn't realised that it had a built-in smartcard reader. I've been using a PCMCIA smartcard reader instead. While I helped James debug...

A UK nightclub made the morning news today as they are about to start broadcasting sexual advice messages via bluetooth. Their stated aim is to remind drunken clubbers that their should keep safe if they go off piste - in principle this sounds like a...

James wrote about the new NASA Photosynth collections a couple of days ago. I really like the way the descriptive text includes links to areas of the Photosynth image. Here's a case in point - click on the "struts" link whilst viewing the collection...

Back in "the old days" I used to build hardware on a regular basis hence was intimately familiar with the various standards and terminology. These days it's pretty rare for me to dabble in hardware hence when friends have asked me "should I get a SATA...

The Brian Solis's PR 2.0 blog has an interesting interview with Robert Scoble titled " PR is about relationships " I'm not a Sycophantic Scoble fan though I really enjoyed reading the transcript. The following quote sets the scene: "As much as...

* Don't take the post as an endorsement of "Email Me Instead" or of it being fit for purpose - it seems to work for me but could have untold effects on your system, your privacy and the security of your personal information * I love blogging. Helpful...

Some of you may be getting bored of me talking about Facebook - apologies if that's the case. I'll be posting about other topics today too! I'm finding that as I use Facebook more many of my friends are using the built in email feature to contact me...

Channel 8 Beta site was launched a couple of weeks ago following hints from Mark Johnston - it was interesting to see just how many people started talking about it after his post . The site includes a wealth of information about the Imagine cup which...

I like the "add application" interface in Facebook as it asks meaningful questions in everyday English that a non-security professional would have a chance of making sense of - I suspect that most people still hit "OK just do it" though. I suspect...

Thanks to Kai Axford for his post Wow! I wonder who's going to take the heat for this? which linked to the following image from the Strategic Security Blog The Strategic Security Blog post titled New Chinese Ballistic Missile Submarine Spotted goes...

James eluded to my visit to the hospital in his Pigs Drugs and Naked Dwarves post . Thanks to everyone who asked after me when they heard that I'd wiped out on my skateboard. Going to the conference the next day with bandages on certainly led to lots...

In the UK a common "authentication" question used by banks and many other institutions is "what is your Mother's maiden name?". The idea is that it's supposedly difficult to find out what someone else's Mother's surname was before she was married. It...

This is a question many of you will be asked if you know people who use Facebook. For some requests it's really straight forward as they are someone you socialise with and regard as a friend. What about if a work colleague asks to be your friend? ...

I've been slow to adopt Facebook. Perhaps I'm a luddite. Perhaps I'm too paraniod. There's an article titled Facebook users open to cyber attacks, ID theft? on News.com which discusses many of my concerns. Rick Howard (Director of intelligence at...