Author Archives: NeoSmart Technologies

Why isn’t WPA2 an Automatic Update?

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
12

If you’re using Wi-Fi in your workplace, chances are, you’re using WPA2 security. After all, nothing else is worth using. WEP (extended or otherwise) was cracked virtually before it was even released, despite the obvious misnomer, you do not want to be using this! WPA came a while later, and is several hundred times more secure. Unfortunately, WPA is also susceptible to wireless cracking techniques and if you aren’t using a strong password, it’s even less secure than a WEP-encrypted network.

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TweakUI for Vista (x64 too!)

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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NeoSmart Technologies has withdrawn this particular guide because it has proved to only work on pre-release editions of Windows Vista, and versions of Vista that were upgraded to RTM from beta Vista builds.

The original workaround involves install the x86 or x64 versions of TweakUI and running both the setup and the executable in XP SP2 Compatibility Mode with UAC disabled. Unfortunately this has been found to not work on current builds of Windows Vista.

NeoSmart Technologies apologies for this erroneous guide. We are currently working on a fix for this matter. NeoSmart Technologies does not engage in paid advertisement reviews, posts, guides, or anything of that nature. We made a simple, honest mistake, and we’re sorry. Hopefully we’ll have another workaround soon – that really works.

Wanted: Documentation Experts

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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NeoSmart Technologies is pleased to announce its first opening in a long time: we’re looking for a documentation expert to help us finalize our documentation for a number of programs, chief of which is EasyBCD.

We already have a “template” for documentation pages, the documentation system, and all information needed available, we just need someone with some time to devote to NeoSmart Technologies and our 100% free & non-profit projects to help fill in the content and look over the info to see if anything is missing.

Ideally, we’d like someone with previous experience writing either documentation, articles, guides, FAQs, or walkthroughs for the job, but even if you don’t have that extensive experience, let us know if you’re interested and we’ll see what can be done.

If you want to help one of the most up-and-coming freeware on the scene develop and grow (more than a hundred thousand downloads in 3 weeks!), please post away below or drop us an email at EasyBCD@NeoSmart.net if you’d like – we’re waiting!

Creating a (Unified!) Vendor-Neutral Markup Standard

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Take a look at any blog, wiki, forum, etc. Specifically, look at how posts are created, filtered, and displayed. There are dozens of different ways for authors to specify the formatting and content of their articles/posts, and hundreds of ways to render the results. Some blogs rely on now-famous 3rd-party markup implementations like Textile and Markdown, some use bbCode, and quite a few still rely on plain old HTML. Then you have vendor-specific proprietary implementations and many more, popping up as the need arises.

We’re not trying to standardize markup formats, on the contrary, there is no real benefit – and the web can always do with a bit more diversity. But what does need standardization is how post-markup data (the article text) is stored in the database and later rendered. In the past, this wasn’t a problem: each “platform” had its markup format, and stored the output straight in the database. Then the platform triggered the markup language’s bundled HTML renderer and converted the database contents to HTML for display.

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Dear Windows Vista Firewall…

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
19

Dear Windows Vista Firewall,

When I ask you (repeatedly, and on multiple occasions) to turn off, why do you insist on re-activating yourself at random? Please go away.

Sincerely,
Me.

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Hard-Wired Alternative Layout Keyboards

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
1

Although the jury is still out on whether or not alternative keyboard layouts really do stress on the joints and tendons in typical day-to-day typing excercises, and that even the speed-typing results aren’t very clear, one salient fact hasn’t been disputed: There is no real reason to ever use the QWERTY layout. Following no real pattern, rhyme, or reason, the QWERTY layout is difficult to memorize, difficult to adapt to, and difficult to master. But every single OS out there uses QWERTY as the default, and it’s not always easy to change.

The reasons vary, but whether it’s lack of user privileges, difficulty of installing new keyboard layouts, not having enough time, or simply using an OS that doesn’t support anything but QWERTY, the fact remains that a software-fixed keyboard layout isn’t always the best answer. It certainly is a very flexible solution – especially on the operating systems that let you drag and drop letters around to create your own keyboard layout that acts exactly the way you want it – but it’s not necessarily the only one.

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PostIt Notes: A Programmer’s Best Friend

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There are some things technology can’t replace. We previously discussed the typewriter, and a good novel in paperback or hardcover format certainly is another. But an often-overlooked “utility” is the PostIt Note. Something that’s been around forever, and no matter how you do it, it can’t be emulated via software for a PC and retain the same purpose and magic touch.

PostIt note’s are an all-in-one answer to almost any brain-storming, visualizing, and jotting things down for later. With a PostIt Note, you can figure out an entire algorithm on a tiny square of yellow paper. Sure, Microsoft Visio may give you more options and actually let fellow programmers understand your flowchart, but it sure isn’t going to work miracles for your creativity.

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MySQL on the Fritz

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Earlier today (according to UTC at any rate), NeoSmart Technologies had a severe MySQL problem. After some very heavy load on our resource-intensive NST Gallery it seems that MySQL just started coughing up bytes, nuts, and bolts. It’s all fixed now though, and we’re sorry for the downtime.

The reason it took so long is that we decided to “seize the moment” to upgrade MySQL to the new 5.1.x series, and unfortuantely, we ran into a bug that has been in the 5.1.x series for a while that stops InnoDB tables from loading up. We tried to go back to the 5.0.x line, but that didn’t work either. It took a long time to get our binary recovery data from MySQL to another server to get a SQL dump of the data, then completely scrub the main NST server clean of all MySQL residue, then restore the SQL dumps.

Hopefully everything is well now, and we’ve put in some safeguards that should prevent or at least minimize this kind of problem in the future. If you notice anything weird still happening, please do let us know. Some of the symptoms included an inability to view Forum posts, crashes when commenting here on The NeoSmart Files, and some problems in the Gallery. Again, our sincerest apologies for the downtime.

The Difference Between an Acronym and an Abbreviation

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
3

Ten to one, if you’re posting an article, creating a web page, or just coding some HTML; and you’re about to code in a <abbr> tag to let people not “in the know” get what exactly it is that you’re talking about, you actually should be using the <acronym> tag instead. Maybe you’re not even doing it for the people, and you’re actually just a benevolent person that cares about a truly semantic web and wants the bots to also grasp just what it is that’s being said.

Either way, it’s good to know when to use an <abbr> tag and when to use an <acronym> tag. At face value, <abbr> is for abbreviations, and <acronym> is for, well, acronyms. ‘But what’s the difference?’ Joe Blogg asks…

NASA is an acronym. BBC is another. But gov’t and Mr. aren’t – they’re abbreviations. In Grammar 101 it was easy to tell the difference, but in real life, it can get kind of confusing. But the general rule is, if it’s pronounced by spelling it out, it’s an acronym. If it doesn’t have a period, it’s an acronym. But most importantly, if you can spell it another way, chances are it’s an abbreviation.

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How Pioneers in Technology are Different

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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While reading Amy Armitage of Lunartic’s interview with Eric Meyer, the biggest advocate of CSS, it became obvious that there is something completely different about pioneers in computers and technology. Although we can’t testify to having personally spoken to explorers and inventors in other fields, we think it’s highly unlikely that they’re as down-to-earth normal as the “geeks” and “nerds” that bring computing and technology to the next stage.

Reading through the interview, you can’t honestly tell that this is man is the epitome of what some would call “geek;” after all, you can’t write six books on a topic without being some kind of half-human half-android hybrid, can you? But geek or not, here’s a guy that lives in Cleveland, has a BA in History, and had his own radio show for an entire decade.

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