Nicholas Pike

I have accepted a position with Northrop Grumman Corporation as an Aerospace System Test Engineer and will be moving to LA next week.

Goodbye Rochester.  We’ve had some good times, and a lot of bad times (that I am looking forward to forgetting)  I won’t miss you.

I use KeePass for all of my password/account management – and it really has made life incredibly simple (and secure).

For just about every online service I use, I now have a unique strong password.  Having so many strong passwords makes it incredibly difficult (impossible) to remember even a handful of them.

There are a few downsides to relying on software to manage your digital account security – and I won’t list out the safety implications.

During my brief trip to California the last week I realized that I no longer know the strong password to my professional email account (npike@npike.net) – and thats BAD!  This password is of course stored in my KeePass Database (which is synced to all my computers via an AES-256 encrypted db file) – but I was on the West Coast with no computer, only my iPhone.

Due to KeePass being opensource, it exists for most flavors of operating systems out there – theres even a project to port it to the iPhone (that seems dead :( ).

My life would have been so much easier if I was able to look at my KeePass database from my phone while away from my computers.

I spent the evening today trying to port some of the KeePass C++ to Objective-C without much luck.  For now I cobbled together a crappy solution that should work in a pinch in the future.

1. Export KeePass Database as an XML file
2. Encrypt resulting XML file with openssl (AES 256bit)
   

   openssl enc -aes-256-ecb -in kp.xml -out kp

3. (Make sure to have a strong but memorable passphrase for the encrypted file).
4. Delete original unencrypted XML file.
5. Write stupid script to decrypt encrypted file (pain in the ass to type out the whole command on iPhone)
   
6. Add my iPhone’s unique SSH key to the authorized key list for my linux box. (See Send your SSH Public Key to each host you use)
7. Write a lazymans script on the iPhone to SSH to linux box by typing a single letter (Saved as “S” on my path)
   #!/bin/bash
   ssh staging.npike.net -l npike
8. Profit!

Being the lazy, but creative geek that I am – I now only have to launch the terminal application on my iphone, type “s” – navigate to where my encrypted keepass export is saved, and run the decrypt script above.

Granted, this file will be stale all the time unless I manually re-export it everytime I make a change in KeePass… but should hold me in a pinch until KeePass is ported to the iPhone.

Moral of the story? Make your email account have a strong, but memorable password thats different from all of your other passwords.

Safari just might have won itself the spot as my web browser for “personal use”.  (I keep a pretty lean Firefox on my home computer… not even Firebug installed!)

Safari 4 Beta OS X 10.5.6

Safari 4 Beta Windows

I ordered my 2.5″ suspension lift kit this week, should be here next week!  The list of parts im getting:

• front and rear Performance 2.2 shocks
• transfer case spacers
• Front and rear progressive coil springs

Can’t wait!

I likely won’t be able to get the kit installed for a week or two, as I will be going to CA this coming weekend for Erik’s wedding (go erik!).  First time on an airplane and all… that’s enough excitement for me.

… and I will leave you with a picture of my parking spot at BlueTie.  My snow banking is melting away =(

12/9/2008 6:57PM: Didn’t stall at all on the way to work today… but the drive home was a different story: stalled once and had a pretty horrible launch at an intersection.  It seems the clutch behaves slightly different when its raining – over all it shifted smoother this evening though…  stupid rain.

12/10/2008 6:45PM: Didn’t stall at all today!  There was also some wintery mix outside to greet me after work, and I drove without music so I could better pay attention to the engine.  Accidentally shifted from 5th to 3rd gear turning off the main road… Jeep did not like that, and I squeeled some tires.

Here’s a picture for today:

12/11/2008 4:51PM:  No stalls so far yet today (to work, and to home)  It’s my birthday, and I actually feel like the Jeep knows it and doesn’t want to be a dick today.  There’s still more driving to do tonight though… always more chances to stall.

12/12/2008 6:22PM: Nice little western NY mini snow storm today after work… took a bit longer to get home because of slow drivers.  Spent a lot of time between 2 and 4th gear, but made it how with out incident!  I think I have solved my bucking/clunking problem when shifting into 2nd and 3rd… I just have to leave the clutch in longer before I start the shift, and still let it out slowly.  Strange, because 3-4th and above, I usually can just let go of the clutch after shifting with no problems.

Today may have been the very first stall free commute to work and home.

A friend helped me with by stereo install over the weekend (life is hell without iPod play back!) and he showed me some new tricks.

When starting on a hill, hold down the clutch and brake peddle. Slowly release clutch until you feel the engine vibrate a little, then give it a tiny amount of gas and let up off the clutch. Worked great, no rolling backwards!

Twice a year or so I make a 1000 mile round-trip to visit the family in NH.  For five years it has been with my very trustworth 1995 2D Jeep Cherokee Sport.  At the start of every winter season something major on it has required repair… practically like clock work.  This year being the most expensive repair so far.

The Friday before turkey week my water pump exploded like a grenade – and required me having the Jeep towed to my favorite Jeep dealership in Rochester.

Total cost?  Almost $700 to make it drivable again.

Moving forward… I drove it another 500 miles (after repair) back to NH – with it over heating off and on the whole way.  This was also my first long drive using my iPhone as my soul means of navigation – the Google Maps GPS actually did fairly well!

It’s interesting to note, that voltage from a cigarette lighter is not enough to power the iPhone completely while it is using GPS,3G,Google Maps, and playing music.

Almost as soon as I entered NH I lost AT&T service completely… and it remained mostly unavailable through out my stay in NH.

The weekend that followed was a marathon of car shopping…  saw many many Jeep Wranglers, and even test drove a few…  finally settled on the very last one we found – just as we were about to call it quits for the night.

2005 Jeep Wrangler X: 26,900 miles – barely used.  Has never had the top taken off, never had the doors taken off, and still had its original stock tires.   Unfortunately it was a stick…. but for the deal they offered me, I was willing to learn.

I drove it home that night… and the end is history.

More pictures of stuff:

RIP Jeep… you will be missed :(

I battled with it for a long time, but finally purchased a new LCD HDTV!  Thankfuly was able to sell my old HDTV for $100.

Here’s a shot of the new TV – its a 32″ Sharp.

1. Bloc Party
2. Incubus
3. Hoobastank
4. Carolina Liar
5. Staind

I know this is a tad bit late, but this was my “Halloween Costume” this year…  I went as myself, Mr.Awesome that is.