août 2009 Archives

Once upon a time, a long time ago I discovered something called Pretty Good Privacy (pgp in short) and tried to use it on my Atari to communicate with a friend - that really never worked.
10 years later I installed gnu-privacy guard and started using it so sign emails. The idea at that time was - that if every email was signed then we could easily filter for spam. I have encrypted a few emails - but my correspondence doesn't need to be generally encrypted. With signed emails we would come back to emails without spam - a useful tool to communicate. So I started trying to install gpg on my families computers so we could all signed our emails. That failed - they didn't see the point. And I myself got tired of having all my emails look like spam as they were all starting like :
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256
So I stopped using gpg and signing emails as I didn't see the point in putting those in my emails and making them harder to read for their recipient.
I recently picked up interest in signing email again, as there are a few ways to do it that are not intrusive for the other users. Both methods are involving S/mime, one will work with certificates. The other works with pgp. So I've started signing my email again with my key. This let's me know for sure if the email I'm getting is signed and I can encrypt emails containing sensible information easily (say I need to share a password, I will then encrypt the email.).

So why do I use gpg over certificates ?

• Setting up gpg is way easier than a certificate at least for my geek mind. Certificates are the solution for big corporation where HR/IT can ensure a proper process for certificates. For my personal use or for my family domain it would be too much of a hassle.


• One feature that is provided easily with gnupg is the web of trust, which will let me know if/how I can trust the sender of that specific email (email as to be signed of course).


• Last but not least I can use my key to sign software

.

• Dopplr by email
  The reference documentation on sending trips to dopplr and making it a very good place to organize and prepare travels.
  (tags: email dopplr trips travel organizing)

Aujourd'hui je me suis rendu dans un magasin T-mobile afin de prendre un abonnement 3G pour mes portables - au cas où ma ligne principale cesserait de fonctionner. Première chose qu'on me demande est un relevé bancaire. Je reviens donc une heure plus tard avec pour m'entendre dire que je ne peux pas prendre d'abonnement chez t-mobile qui est mon fournisseur de téléphonie mobile, je suis client t-mobile depuis qu'ils ont racheté orange, ils viennent de me donner un nouveau contrat sans que je ne demande rien.
Une heure plus tard et quelques représentant for sympathique au téléphone je suis en train d'écrire une lettre au Service client :-(

Today my ISP was down for a few hours. I work from home - so having a connection is important for me and my work.
This is very annoying when some of the work you need to accomplish happens online. It's not the first time, but last time it was over six months ago and I had kind of forgotten.
Next time I'd like to have a backup plan. I have a few options :

• Add an ADSL line (cheapest as can be.).
• Get one of those 3G dongles.
• Figure out where I can get Free Wifi in my area and move there when my line as an issue.

I'm wondering which of these solutions I should adopt. Any ideas, sharing of experience is welcome.

• spriteCloud - Home
  If you need and require QA to be done on your ready to launch product - Sprite cloud might be a good solution.
  (tags: quality, qa, tools ,service)

Je viens juste de découvrir que les dates du Fosdem 2010 étaient déjà disponibles. Les 6 et 7 Février 2010.

Last week the Mozilla Messaging Team met in Vancouver for a All-Hand. This was a good opportunity for me to take pictures of the people that work for Momo. If you want to have a look at what some of the people in #maildev look like here's your chance : (and yes it's in Flash, bash flickr for that).

Update: for planet readers the flash slideshow is not visible you'll need to come to the blog entry to see it :-(

Like me you are probably very annoyed when the application that you are using crashes. This usually means loosing work, or loosing data. When this happens, the system or the application usually launches a crash reporter - this will gather information and send it to the developers. With that developers will be able to try to figure out what is going wrong, or how you are using the application in a way that they don't.
But some time they can't figure it out for a lot of reasons. One thing you as a user can do to improve that is write a small comment before sending the bug report. That little comment should say what you where doing when the crash occurred. For you filling in that little box and telling us what happens is maybe 30 seconds , for us in qa, for the developers it can be a very good indication on how to reproduce the bug and thus fix it.

So next time your application crashes take the time to fill in a comment before sending the crash report.

Over the last few months I've been traveling a bit and I've started using website that aim at making the process easier. I've dent a few things already when I started using tripit a few months back, in the last month and a half I've been traveling quite a bit, to Thailand, Finland and Canada. I've invited my linkedin contacts to join tripit as I like the idea of sharing my work related trip with present and past co-worker. The other point that made me invite was the fabulous feature of plans@tripit.com.
This feature is the feature that will make me continue to use tripit.com. For every trip I book, I usually end-up having an email confirmation in my mailbox. If I forward this email - it's most likely going to be processed by tripit. Trip it will then create a "trip" with the dates and then write down a summary with flight numbers, hotel reservations, and phone numbers. So before boarding I can print that and have everything on one sheet of paper. I could also synch that information to my iphone (bat as I don't own an iphone, for the moment I don't). I can also export all that data to a calendar - that I can then synch to my nokia phone. You can also see where you friends are going, make sure your trips are not shared. For each destination, you'll get the wikipedia page with the best images from flickr tagged with the name of the place you are going to visit. And if you wish to figure out what is going on tripit propose a few upcoming event from the eventful website - so if you feel like attending a Jazz concert while staying on the other side of the planet, you might find where to go.

I had been using dopplr before I used tripit. My network on dopplr is smaller than on tripit, but overall dopplr offer way more features that I use and will use than tripit, and I can easily get the benefits of tripit ported to dopplr.
The first thing I get from dopplr is the ability to import calendars. The first thing I've set up is a bridge between tripit and dopplr - this let's me use the plans@tripit feature and get the trip imported and showing on dopplr. This feature also let's me import events I've subscribed to on the upcoming.yahoo.com website. So with dopplr I can aggregate some of the calendars that are exported from other websites I use. Of course it would be simpler If I could use plans@dopplr.com.
One other thing I like about dopplr is that I can use my OpenID to authenticate on the website - I don not need to give more credential and more personal information to use the website.
Besides calendar integration, the other feature that I love about dopplr, is that dopplr let's me add and publish content. I can easily add , restaurants, hotels and place to visit for any destination dopplr knows about. For some of these destination, it seems that dopplr has partnered with lonely planet and has imported some places and tips and trick from that website. One other benefits of having places is that for every place know by dopplr you can find a specific tag. That tag can be used to tag pictures for instance - and on flickr , this will add a little badge on the picture page. So people seeing your picture will be able to figure out details about it (These can be phone number, url for a website - reviews). I also like the fact That I can easily add a mini-review for a restaurant for instance. One thing I dislike in the current version of the website is that places are paginated : say that for instance you are looking at the City of Vancouver , British Columbia and looking at restaurants, if there are three pages of restaurant you need to go thru the three pages (maybe, if you are unlucky) to find it if it's on the website, it would be nice if these places (restaurants, hotels, sites to see) would be searchable from within the place I'm looking at.
Dopplr is also present on the iphone and integrates with both linkedin and Xing (tripit does linkedin only.). The social features in dopplr are richers as I can see who in my network visited the place I'm looking at - I then can fire them an email to figures a few things out. When I'm preparing a trip I use dopplr to see where to stay and eat, read reviews, ask questions - use their flickr integration to figure out what's to see and how other fellow photographer took the pictures.
As to dealing with trip details I use tripit make sure that the trip is exported in a calendar so I get it on dopplr. If I feel like attending a concert or anything else in that vein I'll have a look at both tripit and upcoming.

• Software Update:Testing - MozillaWiki
  (tags: mozilla qa documentation update)

Yesterday while I was flying from Amsterdam to Vancouver and discovered that I could send SMS and/or Emails from within the MD-11, using the individual console that is provided to each passenger. So the process of sending an email goes like :

1. Take out the console controller
2. Navigate to the SMS / email item
3. Pass your credit card into the console
4. decide between SMS/email
5. Write your email with the virtual keyboard
6. Send it

each item sent is factured $2.5. The emails are supposed to be short like sms messages (not really clear on that). So I wrote a message to my self to see how it worked ! Using the virtual keyboard is clumsy, as you use the four direction arrows to select each letter. The virtual keyboard doesn't offer any option to support accentuated letters.

So it seems the message is first sent to a gateway and then to the users, the headers look like :

Delivered-To: me@xxxxx.net
Received: by 10.216.17.200 with SMTP id j50cs623508wej;
Sun, 9 Aug 2009 10:22:27 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.151.78.19 with SMTP id f19mr1236114ybl.182.1249838547080;
Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:22:27 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from post1.aircom.aero ([57.77.136.81])
by mx.google.com with SMTP id 5si6771352gxk.115.2009.08.09.10.22.25;
Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:22:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 57.77.136.81 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of Fly-KLM@aircom.aero) client-ip=57.77.136.81;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 57.77.136.81 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of Fly-KLM@aircom.aero) smtp.mail=Fly-KLM@aircom.aero
From: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Reply-To: Fly-KLM@aircom.aero
To: me@xxxxx.net
Subject: Message from a passenger onboard a KLM flight
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 13:22:24 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <20090809172224.AC1D1662F@post1.aircom.aero>

Your message has been submitted for delivery.
Message delivered to Email Gateway

------- OriginalMessage -------
To: yyyy@xxxxx.net,me@xxxxx.net
From: me@xxxxx.net
CC:
Subject: depuis l'avion
Body Text: ams-yvr coucou
- Message sent on board KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. You can reply during the flight; this will be delivered directly to the sender's seat on board the aircraft


An then the headers for the full message look like :

Delivered-To: me@xxxxx.net
Received: by 10.216.17.200 with SMTP id j50cs623507wej;
Sun, 9 Aug 2009 10:22:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.151.46.3 with SMTP id y3mr2710025ybj.133.1249838545258;
Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:22:25 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <300411GDWWZDYB@message.aircom.aero>
Received: from mconnect.aero (mx3.gmsmail.com [57.250.220.30])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 3si5665141gxk.105.2009.08.09.10.22.23;
Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:22:24 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 57.250.220.30 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of 300411GDWWZDYB@message.aircom.aero) client-ip=57.250.220.30;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 57.250.220.30 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of 300411GDWWZDYB@message.aircom.aero) smtp.mail=300411GDWWZDYB@message.aircom.aero
X-SITA-SMTP-ID: QhhOXlML62FUQS9A+yvT2g
X-Junk-Score: 2 [X]
X-SpamCatcher-Score: 2 [X]
Received: from [10.4.143.48] (HELO sms-gw1jao.prod1.gmsmail.com)
by imail1jao.mconnect.aero (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.2.13)
with ESMTP id 37964392; Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:22:27 +0000
Message-ID: <3190310.1249838544256.JavaMail.root@192.168.220.37>
From: ludovic hirlima <300411GDWWZDYB@message.aircom.aero>
To: xxx@xxxxx.net, me@xxxxx.net
Subject: depuis l'avion
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: inflight@message.aircom.aero
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:22:27 +0000


The good news is that you don't get charged if the message is not sent before you land.

Update

As noted in the comments I had not obfuscated my email address , I'm now getting spammed - using that email that I had not obfuscated !!! here's the spam :

Delivered-To: me@xxxxx.net
Received: by 10.216.17.200 with SMTP id j50cs678458wej;
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:27:15 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.150.215.20 with SMTP id n20mr9291591ybg.135.1249943234261;
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:27:14 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from post1.aircom.aero ([57.77.136.81])
by mx.google.com with SMTP id 4si10896287gxk.114.2009.08.10.15.27.12;
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:27:13 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 57.77.136.81 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of Fly-KLM@aircom.aero) client-ip=57.77.136.81;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 57.77.136.81 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of Fly-KLM@aircom.aero) smtp.mail=Fly-KLM@aircom.aero
From: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Reply-To: mrsamkwame@gmail.com
To: me@xxxxx.net
Subject: GOOD DAY
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:27:11 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <20090810222711.E9C3E6661@post1.aircom.aero>

From Sampson Kwame Dear Friend, My name is Sampson Kwame I am the regional manager of Standard chartered bank of Ghana tarkwa branch in the western region of - Message sent on board KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. You can reply during the flight; this will be delivered directly to the sender's seat on board the aircraft

• 20 Beautiful HDR Photographs of the Marvels and Mysteries of Iceland : Speckyboy Design Magazine
  2à very nice HDR pictures taken in iceland.
  (tags: photography iceland hdr nature photos)
• VirusTotal - Free Online Virus and Malware Scan
  (tags: security tools virus)

• http://www.dk-fr.com/
  Site d'un traducteur.
  (tags: traduction danish french)

Sans un mot, la dernière traduction d'Harlan Coben. Une bonne traduction de Roxane Azimi. Comme d'habitude un bon polar a rebondissement et a tiroir.
C'est un des romans à part , où l'on ne retrouve que certains des personnages des livres précédent qu'en filigrane et en trame de fond. L'histoire en elle-même est assez simple, un adolescent se suicide et son meilleur amis disparaît. Ce qui fait la force de ce roman c'est la manière dont les éléments nous sont présentés et comment ce qui parait simple au départ est un peut plus compliqué - sans vraiment être très complexe. Bref j'aime beaucoup.