Russ Wenner | 
07 27th, 2008| 
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1:40 – Chainsaw time! Here’s a picture of my 16-inch Homelite E-Z Automatic Chainsaw. This is what one looks like when it is all prettied-up! Here’s the page of Husqvarna chainsaws, I want one!
3:00 – The Python programming language.
3:05- The O’Reilly book “Learning Python” by Mark Lutz and David Ascher.
3:30 – The PythonGroup has a Forum, Wiki, and IRC channel at #pythongroup on freenode.net
3:44 – Cygwin is a Linux-like shell environment for Windows.
3:58 – ShowMeDo.com is a place where you can watch tons of free technical how-to videos on such topics as Python, Linux, and more.
4:05 – Chris Lasher does a fantastic series of 13 videos on Bash Shell Basics.
4:50 – You can automate many routine tasks in Windows using Batch files and Task Manager as described in this ZDNet article.
5:25 – Python is easier to learn than Java.
5:49 – Compiled programming languages and Interpreted programming languages.
5:58 – Free PDF book “Think Python: An Introduction to Software Design” by Alan B. Downey is awesome. Another excellent free book is “How to Think Like a Computer Scientist” by Elkner, Downey, and Meyers. And “Snake Wrangling for Kids – Learning to Program in Python” by Jason R. Briggs for ages 8 and up.
6:55 – Clonezilla is an excellent free Linux based Live CD for making exact copies and images of hard disks. This is similar to the non-free commercial product, Symantec Ghost.
8:20 – Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate is a bargain at the suggested retail price of $319.95…NOT!
8:50 – Here’s two hacks that can be used to avoid activating Vista. This one extends the trial for 30 days and this one avoids the eventual lockout. Note: These hacks are intended for informational purposes only.
11:46 – The ‘dig‘ command in Linux.
13:20 – The now famous DNS vulnerability known a “Cache Poisoning“.
13:50 – Use the free DNS service OpenDNS as your DNS server. OpenDNS is already patched againt the posioning vulnerability. Follow the instructions found here to change your DNS servers to OpenDNS.
14:45 – DNSstuff.com has several free tools including this tool to see if your DNS server is vulnerable to cache poisoning. IPtools.com is a completely free web site with many tools that other site charge for.
17:50 – Getting off AOL’s suspected spammer list ain’t easy, you can find the instructions how here.
20:10 – SPAM databases are used by filtering services to filter junk mail from your email. See if you’re listed here. Tarpitting is a technique my ISP uses to deal with spammers.
23:10 – Making sure you have a valid Reverse DNS Lookup will go a long way to keep you out of the SPAM databases.
24:10 – Tracy sent in another audio tutorial on the Linux Bash command ‘cal‘. Thank you Tracy!
Check out these great podcast sites: Techpodcasts.com and BluBrry.com
