Ed Smiley's Blog

A while back I checked into IRC apps for the Iphone. Was not really much to choose from at the time. A conversation on ##mac-social on Freenode about mobile IRC clients made me look again. I was surprised to see that there are now many choices for IRC choices for the Iphone from free to $4.99. After reading some reviews and talking with some people on ##mac, I ended up buying Colloquy for only $1.99.

So far, so good. It works great over Edge, 3G, and Wifi. Works great in portrait or landscape mode. It allows you to do pretty much everything you need to do like identify your nick with a password, have a list of channels to auto-join, and you can even set the phone to vibrate when a keyword is mentioned (like your nick).

The bad part, and not really Colloguy’s fault, is the disconnect on exit or a call. Although it does stay connected on locking the phone and when SMS messages appear. Hopefully it will incorporate the push notification service, but some think some think this service is dead in the water. A nice addition is a built in web browser so that you do not have to exit the app when you click on a link.

Overall, I think it is a great app and look forward to any updates or features that come along. Some screenshots are below:

These are my links for January 20th through January 28th:

• Thin Clients – Delhi Computer Information Systems (CIS) – Thin Client Info
• Vyatta – Community Software Download – The Vyatta Community Edition routing and security software is available as a bootable live CD iso (see Vyatta Software Installation Video) and as a VMWare virtual appliance. Both versions include the current Vyatta feature set and are suitable for evaluation and test environments.
• Tor Browser Bundle – The Tor Browser Bundle lets you use Tor on Windows without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser and is self contained. The Tor IM Browser Bundle additionally allows instant messaging and chat. If you would prefer to use your existing web browser, install Tor permanently, or if you don't use Windows, see the other ways to download Tor.
• SANS Internet Storm Center; Cooperative Network Security Community – Internet Security – isc – Twitter is fun. It's also a powerful research tool. People increasingly use Twitter to share advice, opinions, news, moods, concerns, facts, rumors, and everything else imaginable. Much of that data is public and available for mining.
• 10 Minute Mail – By clicking on the link below, you will be given a temporary e-mail address. Any e-mails sent to that address will show up automatically on the web page. You can read them, click on links, and even reply to them. The e-mail address will expire after 10 minutes.

  Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don't want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable. And it's free. Enjoy!

These are my links for January 8th through January 12th:

• gOS – Discover a Good OS – gOS 3.1 Gadgets – gOS 3.1 Gadgets instantly launches Google Gadgets for Linux on startup, introducing over 100,000 possible iGoogle and Google Gadgets to the desktop.
  Google Documents, Calendar, and Mail launch in Mozilla Prism windows to closer resemble desktop applications.
  The newest release of WINE 1.0 is included to now support thousands of Windows software for our advanced users.
  gOS 3.1 Gadgets is based on the solid Linux distribution base of Ubuntu 8.04.1.
• IEEE Spectrum: The Hunt for the Kill Switch – Last September, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear installation in northeastern Syria. Among the many mysteries still surrounding that strike was the failure of a Syrian radar—supposedly state-of-the-art—to warn the Syrian military of the incoming assault. It wasn't long before military and technology bloggers concluded that this was an incident of electronic warfare—and not just any kind.
• Geostationary Image Browser — SSEC – Awesome interactive weather map
• Pretending to be a Printer with Netcat – Use netcat to catch print jobs.
• JPG Magazine Archives Available for Free – JPG Magazine, suffering in the current economic state, is boarding up the doors January 5th. They have all their back issues available for free.

These are my links for December 26th through January 6th:

• Cloud Security: A New Level of Trust | The Virtual Data Center –
• The Essential Guide to Growing Your Blog on Minimal Time – If you let it, blogging can become two full-time jobs. But get this: you can grow your blog quickly on very minimal time, by setting limits and focusing on the essentials.
• Standalone Sysadmin: Use Double Driver to simplify your next reintstall – Double driver is for Windows systems, and when you run it, it scans the system to find all the used drivers. It then gives you the ability to backup those drivers (maybe to a network drive or flash media, for instance).
• When a Phillips is not a Phillips! – For each screw drive type, from ancient Slot through to space-age Lox we present a quick view of the screw head, the drive name, a picture of the appropriate drive bit, followed by an explanation of the type. Also presented are the advantages and disadvantages of each drive type. Slot type are also included because that is where the screw began and a double slot becomes a cross drive, and the Robertson or square drive enter the story with recent combined Phillips/Square drives. The Allan, Spline, Torx etc drives are not included and maybe neither should the Uni-Screw, it is just so darn new and interesting.
• Gyminee – Gyminee is the premier fitness social network for detailed tracking, online accountability, and motivation. Whether you are trying to lose weight or get fit, it's time to start taking your fitness seriously.
• Speaking Evolved – Room362.com – Great post from Mubix about speaking and presentations

First off, I would like hope that everyone had a happy holiday and a fantastic new year. Going to try to hit the ground running this year by forming some good habits. Actually, I purchased Leo’s book, The Power of Less, from Amazon and will hopefully be commenting on it more as I read. Actually, the price has recently dropped over a dollar so go check it out!

Happy New Year everyone!