YNAB? Why not?

Just a quick little post here folks.  I’ve been using a handy (and affordable) budgeting tool called You Need a Budget (aka YNAB).  You can think of it as an electronic version of the “envelope” method of budgeting (put money in the envelope at the start of the month, stop spending in that category when the envelope is empty), plus a nice register for keeping on top of your various accounts.

You can a try it out for free, and as an added piece of interest, they’re getting set to release version 3 (preview)  here in the near future.  If you’re in search of a budgeting tool, I’d say you should check this one out – you’ve got nothing to lose, other than your debt!

It’s gadget time!

Alright, I finally have another gadget to talk about.  I just installed a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo on the network.  This little box seems to pack a lot into its chassis.  The setup was an absolute breeze, and I’ve got some backups running to it right now.

Due to a deal I found on Dell, I’ve got this running with 2 x 500 GB drives, rather than the single drive most configurations come with.  This provides automatic mirroring, so even if one drive fails, I’ve got another copy there and ready to go.

Some other functionality it has (that I’ve not yet played with) includes a BitTorrent client and iTunes streaming.  One very nice feature we’ve already made use of is the fact it can act as a print server.  Just plug a USB printer into one of the three USB ports, and you’re off to the races!

This little box has a great set of features (click on the image to go to the product site), especially for the price.  If you’re looking into some network-attached storage, put this one on your list to check out.

You got your mandelbrot in my T-SQL!

If pets were smart enough to code T-SQL, this would show up on Letterman, no doubt.  In it’s own way, pretty nifty!

More jiggahertz!

Ahhh… nothing like the simple (geeky) pleasure of jumping up from 1 GB of RAM to 3 GB.  Now to get some gaming in to, uh, stress-test it.  Yeah, that’s the ticket, stress-testing!

Of note, I’ve read some predictions that say RAM prices are going to be rising in ‘09.  So, if you’re on the fence, go poke around Newegg, discover how cheap memory is at the moment, and fill up those slots before prices jump up.

Super Gen Pass

After hearing about this password creator on a few different podcasts (Security Now, Diggnation), I thought I’d give this application (or bookmarklet, as it turns out) a try.  Hey, if it’s good enough for Leo and Steve, why not me?

In short, it’s doing some clever math to come up with unique passwords for websites you visit, based on a master password (that you know, and is not stored) plus the website address.  I won’t pretend to understand the math, but the calculations are supposed to be one way.  In other words, even if someone knew the website address and the resultant password, they couldn’t arrive at your master password.

This seems quite handy for several reasons:

• One password (to rule them all!) that you have to remember, yet is unique to each site.  In other words, even if someone cracks your password for one web site, that’s all they get – one site, not all the sites you may visit regularly.
• The resulting passwords are just gibberish, so they can’t be broken by a dictionary attack
• If you need to change your password regularly (say, once per month), you just increment your master password by 1 character (say, add a 1, then a 2, and so on) at the end of the master password, thereby generating a new and unique password.

• Though I’ve not tried this yet, you can utilize the website (link is off to the left under Tech) on other computers to generate the password and get you logged in.  Of course, an instance of Portable Firefox on a USB key may be the safest way to go about this

I’ve got it in limited use so far, but if my initial impressions hold up, this could be a very nifty way to manage passwords.