Something else being Iphone or Android.  Lets examine the choices.

• Iphone 3GS 16 or 32 GB.
• Nexus One
• Droid
• HTC Desire?

In terms of plan, I am looking for unlimited everything.  Unlim voice minutes, texting and data.

So, I just priced the Iphone 3GS 16GB x2 on AT&T’s website, $495 upfront and $210 a month.  Holy crap!  Not worried about the up front but the monthly is much more than the $160 odd we pay now.

Other option is 2x Nexus One.  We’d need to change our current T-Mobile family plan to 2x single plans, $80 each.  Still about the same $160 we pay now.  Only catch is, not 100% sure we CAN do that.  I read things about people having to setup new accounts in other names because the $179 Nexus One price is “new” customers only.

And the droid, nice phone, and Verizon is having a GREAT deal on them, buy one, get one free.  Sweet, only $199 due now.  But, umm, the monthly is $225!.  Ah, yeah, pass.

So, I wonder if I could Hybrid it.  The wife really wants an Iphone.  I think she’d be fine on a Nexus One, but she has a ipod touch and is comfortable with it.  So what if, we got her a 16gb 3GS and me a Nexus One.  She’d be AT&T, I’d be T-Mobile but that is ok.

So, adding that all up, assuming I can actually get the Nexus One at the prices advertised, is $120 for her, $80 for me.  Still about $200 a month.

Damn.  So I guess I need to work out;

1. Can we in fact get 2x Nexus One’s at the $179 price, on separate accounts, for about $80 a month without going insane.
2. Can the wife make do with an Android phone over the Iphone?

Wish me luck

meh.

And then I got an email.  An email telling me, that a plugin on Aharon’s blog needed updating.  I mean that isn’t exactly earth shattering news, but it has got me thinking on why I still use wordpress for my blogs, but love Drupal so much.

Simple reason.  Updates.  Drupal BLOWS for updating compared to WordPress.  Let me walk you through what it takes for me to update a plugin in wordpress, or even upgrade wordpress itself to a new version.

1. Open the email I got sent (sure I cheat and install a plugin to send me emails when things need updating, but it’s super simple to install)
2. Click the link.
3. Login.
4. Look for the “Upgrade Automagically” link.
5. Click it.
6. Done.

It’s really that simple.  I can install new plugins, new themes, upgrade wordpress versions, all simply from within the WordPress Dashboard.  Pure awesome.  This is what Druapal misses.

Sure Drush does some of that, a little.  For me though, my one wish for Drupal 7 is WordPress-like install/upgrade functionality of core and modules.  Let me “browse” modules like I browse plugins in wordpress.

Please.

Right now I am on like month 3 of several things.  I think it’s a case of trying to do to much.

I have a course coming up soon on Pen Testing with Backtrack (PWB) that I am pretty excited about.  It’s 30 days of labs, a bunch of video lectures and a final exam that is 24H long.  Yes, 24H exam, I cannot wait.  I haven’t had anything really challenge me in a while.

Decided also that I am going to add a few new categories to this blog and write more often.

Adding :

• Fatherhood – going to write a little about my boys and some of the cool things they do.
• Games – going to write a few opinion pieces on Games, MMO’s and PC gaming specifically.
• Security – going to weigh in on a few security topics that have been on my mind, this might prompt me to invest more of myself in my career.

This is in addition to the 3 categories i already have; Things, Stuff and Bananas.  All very important.

It reminds me of online multiplayer games.  It sucks to use alone.  I invited some friends, we got on it.. and it’s a chat client?  Well at least thats how we used it, it was a rather kludgy chat client.  Google Chat group chat is better, using communicator at work is better.

I dont see how to email to it, how to connect it to my gmail.

I’m just a bit stumped on what it is good for.  It’s fancy, it’s sexy, but it’s confusing.

Edit:  I found out at least some stuff to do with it.  Type in “with:public” in the search box, ok now stuff starts to make more sense.

I am intrigued by the seemingly total lack of security though.  So is this guy, and he has great points.

I am guessing it’s just a case of searching for blog.* on domains, and if it’s got a wordpress, hit it up.  Still, kinda cool.

So, working hard on Drupal.  I like Drupal, but boy is there a major steep learning curve to go beyond simple site.  I’m working with Organic Groups.  I figure a “Cause” on HFC can be a Group, and a “Need” be a response.  Thing is, when I think about a fully working HFC, I kind of see hackers browsing through a catalog of “Needs” looking for ones that meet their skills.

So that to me speaks of Taxonomoy.  I think I can go one further.  What if there was a shared taxonomy between Needs and Hackers?  A Hacker selects from a set of skills that they have, or things they are interested in.  When a Cause posts a Need, it fills out the same skills.  We can then match up hackers to needs in many ways.  Show a “New Needs” box to Hackers browsing that only show them Needs that require their skills.  All kinds of possabilities become available.

Before that though, I need be able to get this Organic Group crap working.  Installing XAMPP right now to experiment.  I have Ubuntu VM with things on it, but it’s a pain to star tup and shut down.  TR/TF box is hosed and can’t host Drupal.  Don’t have enough access to HFC stuff to put up a test site.  So XAMPP it is for now.  Sucks that I can’t show it to anyone as I am working though.

Still struggling with How Hacker, Cause and Need interact.  Need is pretty simple, something needs doing.  Hacker is pretty simple too.  Cause.  Cause.  Cause?  Are you a person?  Are you a umbrella concept for Need?  A Group?  What if Cause was a person?  You sign up as a “Cause”?  No.  Cause is, well a Cause, a Charity.  Need a name for the person creating the cause.  Hackers are the tech people, so Cause owners would be?  Charity?  I dunno.  Might just go with Charity for now.  When people sign up they can select that they are a Charity who needs help, or a hacker who can help.

Actually that might work with the front page concepts I have in mind.

I smell dinner, later.

So I am putting the pressure on Aharon to buy us something new.  Looking at this — http://knownhost.com/dedicated-servers.html

It’s what a site I frequent quite often (tankspot.com) uses, and they have many times our current users, so if it works for them, should work for us.

We can get a nicely configured quadcore i970 box, 12gb ram, 2x500gb drives, for about $300 a month.  Only caveate is bandwidth, it comes with 2.5TB.  Not sure how much we are currently using.  I should look that up.

Biggest issue with that is backups.  The drives are not mirrored (ouch!).  so what happens if we have a disk failure?

in other news, making some real headway with Drupal for HFC.  Using the Organic Groups module, I can set a “Cause” as an Organic Group, and then a “Need” as a sub reply.  The Needs can then have discussions.  It’s really easier than I anticipated.  More work to do tweaking it and I think I might try a fresh Drupal install.

Part of the frustration with the current server we are on is I can’t get php-mbstring installed, and Drupal needs it.  Bummer

So work is… work.. and not overly bad right now.  Finally feel like I have direction.  Still can’t wait until I can actually DO some appsec.

Crap.

I like the idea of having a blog, problem is the times when I have something to say, an idea that makes me think “Holy crap, I should totally blog that!”, I am no where near any means to record it.  Usually the car on the way too and from work.  Or the shower, the shower is great for inspiration.

So anyhow, stuff I am working on :

• Hackers For Charity – fun side project, working with an industry hero of mine, Johnny Long on adding some functionality to his hackersforcharity.org website to help charities reach out to get tech help better.  It;s slow going on my end, still shaping some of it up in my mind.  Hardest parts will be the marketing to get the right kinds of people to use it.
• Tankspot.com – working with the guys who run this site to help with some server optimization stuff.  Should be fun.

Regular TR and TF stuff, though really that’s getting old.  Users don’t give a crap, get nothing but complaints when we change anything and the ROI on investing a large part of my time is just not there.  Not sure we will even do the upgrades.  Just let it limp along like it is.

So much to do around the house too and I need to get better at that.  I’m not really a “do-it-your-self” kind of guy when it comes to house stuff, but can’t be any harder than teaching myself the countless things I’ve taught myself before.  Especially want to get control of the damn Ants out side, kids can’t play in the yard without getting bit.

Playing a few games, though not as many as I might have before.  Just Aion now.

Upgraded the wifes site to use wordpress, looks great (link is over there –>)

Work is getting much busier, slowly making progress on some things that are way outside my comfort zone.  Not ability wise, but “want-to-do-them” wise.  Hard to muster the will to accomplish something I have ZERO interest in and think is a waste of time and money.  Getting some progress though, don’t feel like I am the sole person working a big project anymore.

Thats it.  Writers block over.

Perhaps I can slow it down a little and get the correct words to describe the correct concepts out here.  I tend to think a lot, and none of it is about what I might be doing right now, so perhaps some of the less complicated abstracts can be written up here.

No set topics, no set agenda, just a collection of things and stuff.

Chances are I’ll forget I set this up in a week anyhow.