That’s not to say i endorse piracy. It’s a deplorable act, and i only provide the notes above for informational purposes, or something like that, and I fully intend to pay for all of the apps on my phone. No, seriously, i do. Promise.

I’ve also been using the travel time to listen to audio books and podcasts. The thing about this kind of audio, compared to say straight music, is that every words counts, and a misheard sentence at a critical junction in a novel can make or break the entire story. And so, in an environment awash with social noise, belching mobile phones, screeching tyres, and annoying young women that talk too loud, the only way you can ensure that you don’t miss anything is to turn up the volume way loud. It’s only when you exit the bus, and move away from the traffic drone, that you realise your iPod is churning out sounds at stadium levels, and your ears are in immediate danger of implosion.

It didn’t take me long to realise that ear health was important, and if i was to continue to listen to audio books and podcasts on the bus, i needed a solution that would facilitate a safe listening volume. Enter noise canceling headphones.

I looked around at a few options, and quickly learnt that the Bose QuietComfort 3 is the ultimate noise canceling device, but at $599, you’ve got to be kidding me. So i looked some more, and after significant deliberation, settled on the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7. At $449, they sell for considerably less than the QuietComfort range, but even better, i was able to pick up a brand new set from eBay for only $194. A bargain.

I won’t bore you with pages of technical specifications, for i’m anything but an audiophile, but i can share a little of my experience so far.

Firstly, the noise cancellation capability of the ATH-ANC7 headphones is pretty decent. I can’t compare it to the competition, for i haven’t used other noise canceling headphones, but i can say that the device does a very good job of eliminating most ambient noise. It’s important to point out that this does not mean that distinct external sounds, like conversation, or music, is silenced. These sounds are certainly muted to some degree, simply because you’re sporting what amounts to a funky pair of ear muffs, but the noise canceling feature is primarily aimed at what can be best described as the “background hum of life”. In particular, the headphones are tailor made to cancel out noise from planes, the drone of computers, the whiz of cars, and other annoying buzzing and humming. In fact, it’s only after you wear the headset that you begin to appreciate how much ambient noise actually exists. It’s quite unsettling at first.

The noise canceling feature must be explicitly activated via a switch on the side of the left earpiece. A small light on the earpiece glows blue when noise cancellation is enabled. This capability requires power, and for that you will need a single AAA battery. The battery is inserted into a hidden compartment, once again in the left earpiece, and apparently you can expect it to last up to 40 hours. A strong selling point of the ATH-ANC7 over QuietComfort is that you can listen to audio through the headphones without noise cancellation enabled. This is a real plus if you want to save on battery, or if you just so happen to be stuck on a long haul flight when your battery runs dry.

There is a noticeable degradation of sound volume and quality when noise cancellation is disabled, but even so, the reduced quality still trumps the sound i’ve experienced from other headphones.

The audio cable is approximately 2 metres in length, and completely detachable from the headset. I really like this feature. Firstly, if your cable gets a kink and stops working, you can easily replace it with another without throwing the entire kit in the bin. Secondly, you can wear the headphones like a pair of fashionable ear muffs without dragging a long cable around with you. This is in fact what i do when i want to block out background noise at the office while i’m trying to concentrate on something big.

As a side note, if instead of the over-the-ear option, you are considering ear-bud noise canceling headphones like the ATH-ANC3, be aware that the noise cancellation circuitry is too large to be built into the earpiece, and as such, will be included as a small appendage midway along the audio cable. This may not concern you, but i’ve personally found this type of inline componentry to pull on the cable, catch on my clothing, or bag, and generally piss me off. The ATH-ANC7 avoids this objection by including the circuitry inside the earpiece.

If you are an iPhone user, you need to be aware that the audio cable supplied with the headphones will not plug into the input-jack of the phone. This is not the fault of Audio-Technica, but rather a consequence of ridiculous non-standard design by Apple. You can overcome this inconvenience by buying an iPhone headphone adapter like that offered by ifrogz. Be aware that alternative solutions, such as the Belkin Mini-Stereo cable for the iPhone, may not work if the casing surrounding the connector at the end of the cable is too thick to plug into the audio-out jack of the ATH-ANC7.

The headphones sit completely over the ears and are very comfortable. They are little heavier than the QuietComfort range, but still light enough that you are not constantly reminded of their presence. My ears were a little sore when i took the headphones off after wearing them for about 4 hours on the first day, but strangely, it was only after i removed the headphones that i became aware of a slight throbbing in my ears.

The headphones are supplied with a sturdy stiff-sided case. To minimise the size of the case, the earpieces are designed to swivel such that they lay flat. You could jam the case deep into the most rough-and-tumble backpack, comfortable in the knowledge that the headphones are well protected.

All up, i’m extremely happy with this purchase. The ATH-ANC7 noise canceling headphones offer great sound, decent noise cancellation, and a solid build profile, all at a very reasonable price. They are versatile, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing. And best of all, i can now listen to podcasts on the bus without blasting my ear drums into oblivion.

Well, if you’re running on Windows Vista, you could use the outbound packet filtering capability offered by Windows Firewall. But guess what? In this scenario you’re running Windows XP, and the firewall in XP doesn’t support outbound filtering. Now what?

I recommend you implement some rather simple IPsec policies to selectively control the outbound connections made from your computer. In particular, you could block all outbound connections to the backend server, and then, one by one, open the ports that you think are required by your client software. After opening each new port, test your application. Once you’ve got the app working, try different port combinations until you’ve found the minimum set of required ports. You can then pass the port list to the firewall team, confident in the knowledge that you’ve requested a functional, yet highly restrictive, firewall policy.

So how do you make this happen? Start by downloading the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools. Install the package, open a command prompt, navigate to C:\Program Files\Support Tools\, and then using ipseccmd.exe, try executing the commands described below.

Block all outbound requests to a specific target IP address:

ipseccmd -f [0=TargetIP:*:*]

Where 0 is shorthand for “my IP address” and the square brackets indicate this is a “block” rule.

Allow an exception to the “block all” rule. In particular, permit outbound connections to the target IP address only on a specific port and protocol:

ipseccmd -f (0=TargetIP:TargetPort:Protocol)

Where Protocol = UDP or TCP and the round brackets indicate this is a “pass” or permit rule.

Additional exceptions can be added as required:

ipseccmd -f (0=TargetIP:TargetPort2:Protocol2)

All previously set rules can be cleared as follows:

ipseccmd -u

The following is an example that blocks all outbound connections from the local computer to the target computer with an IP of 10.0.0.101, with the exception that both HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443) outbound traffic is permitted.

ipseccmd -f [0=10.0.0.101:*:*]
ipseccmd -f (0=10.0.0.101:80:TCP)
ipseccmd -f (0=10.0.0.101:443:TCP)

You can validate your rules by using good old telnet. In the example above, after implementing your “deny all” rule, telnet 10.0.0.101 80 will fail, but after adding the permit rule for port 80, the connection to the remote server should be successful.

The ipseccmd commands outlined above create dynamic filter rules. These rules will stay in effect until you clear the settings, or restart your computer. So breathe easy, and have some fun exploring IPsec policies.

Note: You will need to replace all instances of server.domain.com in the below steps with the name of your Active Directory server.

1. Get the CA certificate of your Active Directory server. You can do this by connecting to the server via Internet Explorer using the following URL: https://server.domain.com:636/. A little padlock should appear at the bottom of the browser window in Internet Explorer 6.0, or near the address bar at the top of the window in Internet Explorer 7.0. Click the icon and view the certificate. Click on the Certification Path tab. Select the certificate at the top of the certification tree and click View Certificate. Click the Details tab of the new dialog, and then click the Copy to File button. This will launch the Certificate Export Wizard. Use the wizard to export the CA certificate in DER encoded binary X.509 format (.CER). Save the file as c:\temp\ca.cer.

2. Convert the CA certificate into PEM format. To do this you will need OpenSSL installed. You could do this from your Linux server, or if you want, you can download and install a port of OpenSSL under Windows. Let’s assume you have OpenSSL setup and running on your Windows workstation; open a command prompt, navigate to C:\openssl\bin\ (or the equivalent for your installation) and run the following command:

openssl x509 -inform DER -outform PEM -in c:\temp\ca.cer
-out ca.pem

This command will convert the CA certificate into a file in PEM format named ca.pem.

3. Deploy the CA certificate to your Linux server. Now that you have the CA certificate in the correct format, you must copy it to your Linux server. You can put it anywhere you like, but for simplicity, let’s dump it under /etc/openldap/. Now edit /etc/openldap/ldap.conf and add the following lines:

TLS_CACERT /etc/openlap/ca.pem
TLS_REQCERT allow

The first line tells OpenLDAP where to find the CA certificate. The second line permits a check to be performed on the certificate during SSL negotiation.

4. Kick off the query. It may look something like this:

ldapsearch -h 'server.domain.com' -p 636
-x -Z -D 'cn=admin,dc=domain,dc=com"
-w Passw0rd1 -b 'ou=orgunit,dc=domain,dc=com'
'samaccountname=bob' distinguishedName

This command will initiate a connection to the host named server.domain.com (-h), on port 636 (-p), using a simple bind (-x) under the context of a user named admin (-D) with a password of Passw0rd1. The query will return the distinguished name of a user with a userid (samaccountname) of bob located in the organisational unit named orgunit. And most importantly, thanks to the -Z parameter, the query will be performed over an encrypted connection. The SSL session will be established through reference to the CA certificate that we have identified in /etc/openldap/ldap.conf.

That wasn’t too hard now, was it.

Pwnage 2.0 is a very simple tool that can activate, unlock, and jailbreak a 2G iPhone (it will jailbreak but does not yet unlock the 3G iPhone) with the latest firmware (version 2.0). This guide provides really clear instructions on the process. The procedure worked flawlessly and took approximately 20 minutes. Another 5 minutes later and i had connected to the new iTunes App Store and downloaded the free FaceBook app. That’ll win me some brownie points.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, i changed the content management system from Mephisto to Wordpress. I fully intended to stay with Mephisto: it’s a lightweight and easy to use Rails based platform, but ultimately, it’s templating system lacked the flexibility i required, and i didn’t have the Rails skills needed to fill in the gaps. Wordpress seemed like the natural alternative. It is supported by a wealth of plug-ins, great documentation, and a large community of active users. The templating system is also easy to pick up as it is based on PHP.

The visual aesthetic for the site was derived from the Grid Focus theme by 5thirtyone. I poked and prodded the interface in numerous places, and rewrote (for better or worse) much of the XHTML/CSS, but the inspiration, and indeed much of the detail, was sourced directly from the original theme.

The site makes use of a number of plug-ins:

• Audio Player by Martin Laine. A flash component for playing songs.
• DS-Rating plug-in by Mike Harding. Used for rating items reviewed on the site.
• Quotes Collection plug-in by Srini G. Used for displaying snippets of info under the About Me section of this site.
• Recent Comments plug-in by Rob Marsh. Used, not surprisingly, for displaying a list of the most recent comments.

All the content was migrated by hand, article by article, comment by comment, as i could not find any existing tools for converting from Mephisto to Wordpress. Let’s hope everything made it across safely.

I’ve added a number of new categories primarily aimed at supporting shorter and more frequent posts. For example, the Listening, Watching, and Reading categories will be used to capture the titles and star-ratings of the albums, films, and books that cross my desk, without the overhead of writing proper reviews.

I’ve also introduced targeted feeds for each of the categories (available from the categories menu), so readers can subscribe to updates in the specific topic areas that are of personal interest.

Anyway, i hope you like the end result. Poke around and let me know if anything is out of place. I’ve tested the site using Firefox 3.0.1, Safari 3.1.2 and Opera 9.51 under Mac OS X 10.5.4 (Leopard), and Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0 under Windows XP SP2, but other browser and platform combos may be out of whack.

I recently bought an Apple iPhone bluetooth headset from eBay. This device is nothing short of incredible. Despite looking at many photos, such as the one shown here, it wasn’t until i held the little sucker in my hand that i truly came to terms with the size of this thing. It’s unbelievably small.

Unlike other bluetooth headsets, this unit does not have a strap that curls around your ear. I was initially concerned that without this support the headset would wobble around and fall out, as i’ve always found it difficult to keep the earphone buds from my iPod secure. However, the concern was unjustified. The headset is so light that even without a perfect fit, there is little chance of it falling out.

Without the restriction of an ear strap, it can be placed in any ear without adjustment. It only sports a single button which is used to answer, decline, and switch calls. Despite the odd rumour to the contrary, the reception is good, with interference only creeping in once the headset is several metres from the phone. Perhaps the only drawback is battery life. I guess a consequence of the small form factor is a small battery, and i find that in the course of a normal working day, i need to charge the unit each night. However, even when dead, it charges over a USB connection in probably no more than 30 minutes.

In summary, the headset rocks. It’s easy to use, versatile, and small enough to slip into even the most dainty of pockets. Without the moving parts or strange appendages common to most of the monstrous bluetooth headsets on the market, you don’t need to worry about clips or buttons getting caught in your clothing, or worse, snapping off. Throughly recommended.

After forking out a decent sum of cash for an iPhone, it’s important that you look after it. With a mighty glass screen, and a nice shiny silver base, there is plenty of room for nicks and scratches.

There are a surprising number of protective cases on offer, and yet none have caught my attention so dramatically as the Vaja i-Volution Top SP Holster. This work of beauty is personally hand crafted by skillful artisans in Argentina. Each case is especially made to order. The cow is literally slain the day the order is submitted. There are over 1000 colour combinations to choose from. I went with a primary of vibrant green and a racing strip of birch. A flip style case may prove annoying to some, however, if you predominantly use a bluetooth headset, as i do, and you don’t need constant access to the screen, the i-Volution Top SP Holster is surely your fantasy iPhone case.