Everything is turning green around here. Tulips are already blooming and most of the trees have leaves. This picture from spring of 1982 seemed appropriate for this Throwback Thursday. Mom is helping me inspect the plants coming up out of the dirt.
Heartbleed
The general media has picked up on a huge bug that rocked the tech world this week. I’m sure it’s partially because it has such a great name and logo. But what is Heartbleed and how does it affect you?
This isn’t a virus or malware that affects your computer. It’s a bug in some very critical code that is run by a lot of web servers. Basically, it gives out somewhat random chunks of computer memory to anyone who asks for it. That memory usually contains gibberish but sometimes it will contain things like user passwords or keys to the encryption of all the traffic going in and out of the server. The webcomic xkcd has a very simple explanation of the bug.
There are a bunch of things that need to happen to fix the hole. First the server admins need to patch their systems, get new encryption keys, and replace their SSL certificate. Once that happens, you can complete the final piece of the puzzle by changing your password. Some websites are being proactive and telling you when they’re ready for you to change your passwords. Others are being more quiet about it.
This whole thing has been *gasp* overhyped by the media. Yes, it’s a potentially big vulnerability but the odds of someone exploiting you are low, the patch is relatively quick and easy, and there’s evidence that nobody launched a widespread attack using this vulnerability before it was announced. That being said, updating your passwords is still a good idea. There are various lists around the internet that tell you which sites were affected, but this is one a pretty good resource. They are updating it regularly and telling you when it’s time to change your password (if you need to change your password at all.)
If you’re changing all these passwords but you aren’t using a password manager, consider getting started with something like LastPass.com. It’s free and easy. If you’re already a LastPass member, run their security checker tool. They’ll tell you which of your passwords need to be changed. LastPass was affected by Heartbleed too, but because they encrypt all of their traffic even underneath the SSL encryption, there’s no chance that any of the LastPass data was exploited.
So don’t fret about this too much, but do make sure you’re changing passwords as needed.
Peg Board
About a month ago I took some time and reorganized the peg board above my workbench. Sounds exciting, right? The odd thing is that I did it on a Saturday and on Sunday morning when I told Tim what I had done he said “I’m doing that exact same thing this afternoon!”
The peg board mostly just holds tools like you’d normally expect but I got two special pieces for it too. One is a paper towel holder and the other is a metal basket. I wouldn’t recommend the paper towel holder because it was pretty difficult to install (which is ridiculous on a peg board), but the metal basket is great and I might get one or two more. It’s a convenient place to hold pencils, ear plugs, headphones, etc.
As part of my effort to improve the workbench, I also added a shelf below the main working area. It gives me more places to keep tools. Generally, I like the shelf but I’ve hit my knee on it a couple times while sitting on my stool. I might need a little redesign or a piece of foam to go over the edge.
What you can’t see in this photo is that I also have a place to mount a bench vise that I got for Christmas. I drilled holes on the left side where the scroll saw is currently sitting. Since I don’t use the vise every day, it sits on the shelf under the bench.
I’ve been waiting until my workbench is clean to take this photo, but you know what? It’s a work bench and it’s generally covered in a project. That’s what it’s for!
Movie Draft With Power Query
I know I’ve been making a lot of Power Query posts lately, but once you get into it, you start seeing data everywhere! The latest example is a movie draft that I participate in with some friends. I won’t explain what a movie draft is except to say that it’s like fantasy football for movies. We participate in a huge league run by Brian Brushwood and friends. They post a spreadsheet with all the data here: http://draft.diamondclub.tv/
I pulled those spreadsheets into Power Query, cleaned up the data, and voila, now we have an easy way to track just the people in our little group! You can see it at http://bit.ly/excelmovies We get interesting views like a leaderboard just for our group, and a list of the movies left for each one of us. I might add some more data views later, but these are the basics.
So if you’re in our movie group, how can you use it? You can use it passively by just visiting that bitly link every once in a while. I’ll update the data periodically for your enjoyment.
If you want to update the data yourself, add your own friends to the list of names to watch, and/or learn how the workbook was built, then you’ll need to do a little extra work.
- Install Office 2010 or 2013
- Install Power Query. If it fails then you don’t have the the right version of Excel. Sorry, you’ll have to stop here. (I continue to tell management that I think this is a bad decision.)
- Go to the bitly link and click Edit Workbook > Edit in Excel
- Save the file as a local copy.
- Click Data > Refresh All and wait a bit. When the status bar along the bottom of Excel completes then you should be seeing new data.
- You can see the Power Query queries that make up the workbook by clicking the Power Query ribbon and then clicking Workbook. You’ll see a side pane appear and you can double click any of those queries to start digging in.
Unfortunately I think Step 2 is going to stop a lot of you, but at least you can view the online link. And if Power Query doesn’t work with your version of Office, please feel free to complain in our forums!
Four Years
It seems like a short chunk of time
Since I married my partner in crime
But now there’s a son
Who can nearly run
And my thoughts are all metered and rhymed
I can’t end a line with your name
No rhyme exists I claim
Four years ago
You married your beau
And my heart is still aflame
Windows 8.1 Update 1
If you’re running Windows 8, you probably got a pretty big update this week. The Windows team has been listening to the feedback and has made some pretty key tweaks to improve your user experience. PCWorld says “This digital love letter should woo over all but the most obstinate of the PC faithful.” So what’s included?
The user experience is tailored depending on the type of device you’re using. If it’s a traditional mouse and keyboard desktop computer, you’ll boot to the desktop and media files get opened in the desktop version of the apps instead of the full screen Modern App experience. Additionally, you can right click on tiles on the start screen and there’s a bar at the top of the screen for full screen apps with common controls like minimize, close, etc. Those full screen Modern Apps will now show up in your taskbar on the desktop just like any other app.
There are a couple other tweaks, but those are probably the biggest things you’ll notice after you apply the update. Go forth and enjoy! And keep giving feedback not just on Windows but on all your favorite Microsoft products. They listen!
Home Improvements For Baby
When I look back at all the things I did around the house before our son was born, I’m amazed at all the free time I had. But there are a few home improvements that stick out and continue to pay benefits. If you’re having a baby and you’re a little bit handy, consider these projects:
- Dimmer switches: Put one in the nursery so you don’t blind your child or stumble over toys when he’s crying in the middle of the night. If your child is going to spend some time in your bedroom, put one there too. The nursery can be a regular dimmer switch, but for the master bedroom, consider splurging a little on a dimmer switch with a remote control. I think that’s Tyla single favorite project that I’ve ever done. It’s so handy to be able to shut off the lights without getting out of bed or to turn them on a tiny amount in the middle of the night.
- Tamper resistant outlets: You’ll probably want to buy these at Home Depot or Lowes instead of Amazon, but they will remove the need to cover all your outlets with those plastic plugs. I replaced every single outlet in our house with these, mostly because we had some flaky old outlets, but it’s paying off now.
- Black out drapes and blinds: I added black out drapes and blinds to the nursery. His windows will catch the sun in the summer when it’s up the latest and you can’t make a nursery too dark. We might even have to add a bit more covering to catch the light.
There’s lots of other things that could go on the list but those are the big three that I recommend. Feel free to comment if you have anything to add to the list!
March Madness Brackets
The tournament isn’t even over and already our bracket pool has been decided. Nobody even has a shot at getting the final game correct. I don’t think that has ever happened in our pool before and I also think this is one of the lowest scoring pools. But all that aside, congrats to AndyB who beat out second place Logan by one point and third place Jay by two points!
Jay and Logan have both won in the previous two years. Following up with second and third is a pretty good showing.
Now we can all enjoy the final game without wondering who is going to win the pool. And when I say “we” I mean “you” because most likely I’ll be giving a baby a bath and putting him to bed. I’ve watched approximately 7 minutes of the entire tournament this year.
Website Traffic
I used our nifty new Power Query tool to connect to the database that contains all of the information for this blog to see what I could learn from the piles of data. I found a table that showed how many visitors I had each day for the last few years. Sure this is available from Google Analytics but this is the raw data straight from my blog management program so it should be about as accurate as you can get. It looks like traffic was growing for a while and then fairly abruptly dropped to a pretty constant level near the end of 2011. I’m not sure what that change represents, but the overall chart does reflect my expectations. This is never going to be a blockbuster site. It’s for friends and family to catch up on some of my ramblings and that’s about it.
Oh and don’t think that 500-1000 people are reading my site every day. This counts everything that hits my page so a lot of it is explained by spam bots and search engine crawlers.
What If I Don’t?
As my free time at home gets squeezed more and more (parenting takes a lot of time!), I’ve been trying hard to apply this at home too. I regularly ask myself “What if I don’t do X?” What if I don’t mow the lawn or clean the furnace filter? Well that’s clearly not good. But what if I don’t watch that television series or watch that movie or spend a day doing a hobby? It takes some practice to answer that question honestly because there are many activities that I think make me who I am. But once I forced myself to find a good answer, I’ve been able to remove a ton of old habits from my life. And you know what? I don’t miss them! In fact, it feels liberating to have all this time handed back to me.
Having a child was a forcing function to make this happen since it put such a huge constraint on my available free time, but it feels like a very healthy experience. Instead of trying to schedule in a bunch of habits, I now schedule in time to just “veg” and do some random activity that used to be a time-sucking habit. It’s a good balance for me right now and lets me focus on things that I really do consider important and high priority.