Jesse David Hollington put together a set of scripts that automatically disables and enables his screensaver password when his cellphone comes in and out of Bluetooth range. Ideally, I would want to activate the OS X screen saver and enable the password protection when I move away from my computer (out of Bluetooth range), but […]
There’s a feature built into OS X that will allow you to create AES-128 encrypted disk images. You can use this to create mountable, encrypted virtual drives, or even burn password protected CDs. Here’s how: Open Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilties folder. Click “New Image”. In the “Encryption” pull-down menu, select AES-128 If you want […]
bbum runs down some great ideas for removing all traces of your data from an old hard drive: Me? I take dead drives apart. They have amazingly powerful magnets inside, along with all kinds of very useful screws, washers, nuts, coils, and other fiddly bits. The platters, obviously, contain the data and they should be […]
Last month, Brian wrote about Windows Vista’s 30 day activation grace period and how it can be extended to 120 days using the included licence manager program. It turns out that with a quick registry tweak, you can extend this grace period for a year on copies of Vista that haven’t been activated yet. Here’s […]
This may be an old one, but it’s a hack that’s had a chance to prove its usefulness. If you use AIM or iChat, it’s extremely easy to send a message to someone’s cell phone via SMS. Just add a the complete cell phone number preceded by “+1” to your buddy list. For example, if […]
Smart Home Hacks
Yesterday’s Wired News article on the Rise of the Netflix Hackers suggests that “Netflix claims to appreciate the work of hackers.” The emphasis in the quote is mine, because the implied skepticism strikes me as a little disingenuous, based on the content of the rest of the article, including this bit, which I see as […]
