Geek Wisdom

I started Victoria day with a "long sleep in", by that I mean I didn't get up until about 10:00am. I then proceeded to spend most of the day tunnelling away at AES encryption in PHP. It was rather frustrating and not working quite the way I wanted. Several problems I ran into including: Not saving the Initialisation Vector (IV), which (upon encrypting) generates a random series of bytes. The idea of this is that if you encrypt the same phrase multiple times, each time you will get different crypted values.  The problem however is that if you don't somehow save / remember the (IV) it will not decrypt properly. Not saving the 'TAG'. I didn't even know what the 'TAG' was. Apparently, when encrypting, the 'TAG' is a self-check or 'finger print' of the encrypted string.  One the problems with many encryption algorithms (particularly based on 'XOR') is that when you decrypt you can't really be sure the decrypted message...

Most of the morning was spent playing TryHackMe . I completed 2 rooms and earned level 3 with 728 points and got this nice shinny badge I didn't do a lot of coding, as we went out for lunch with our 'bubble' family to Dunbar falls. A lot of water around the area this time of year, and I counted about a dozen cars, though I did not see near that many on the trail itself. The trail was pretty challenging with all of the water everywhere a few spots you have to get down and crawl. We then headed from their out to the Princeville Suspension Bridge, but we got a little lost doing a 'Google Maps' for Princeville doesn't really get you where you want to be. For those planning to head their yourself. I recommend setting the destination as 'McNamee' your google maps. We ended the day with a BBQ at my sisters and a game of washer toss. I spent about an hour later in the evening working on some encryption stuff.

Shh? - I love documentation. I know...I know...can I be a 'real' programmer if I love to document things? What is with this contradiction I have been working (steadily?) on the development of the GeekWisdom tools / shared components over the past few years. However on the 'back burner' has been a severe lack of documentation. How can I expect others to take advantage of these amazing tools if programmers / developers don't know how to use them. Documentation Today I started a github documentation repository, and completed documentation for two of the components ( GWSettings and GWLogging ). I also pointed the existing tool repositories README.md to point to the new tools... Binged TV Last half of Hackers (started last night on plex.tv) Upload (from Amazon Prime) The Outsiders (CraveTV) Hacking TryHackMe ->  https://tryhackme.com/ Completed Up to Level 3

Announcing my 2nd annual Weekend of Coding event For my second year, follow along on twitter , YouTube , Facebook and this blog, as I continue to explore my inner geek. Plus this year, in addition to my usual Patreon page, you can help support GeekWisdom's mission, by ordering your very own GeekWisdom T-Shirt and Mug Starting Bid Just $0.99 - Get it on E-Bay Do you have what it takes to come along for the ride? Interested in last year's activities??  => Check them out at #ProgrammingWeekend2019

One of the strengths of community over individualism is the varied nature in which individual values come into contact with each other. Let us suppose for example, that you were to 'rate' your values on a list, with the most important value on top and the lesser important ..well near the bottom. Let us further imagine that at the top of that list is the value of "respecting other people's property", and another value slightly down on the list is to 'be empathetic with others and always willing to lend a helping hand' So your out for an emergency grocery run one day, and you notice a car next to yours seems to have left his/her trunk open, no one is around...You find yourself in a bit of a dilemma What do you do? If you hold great respect for respecting other people's property, and you feel that closing that trunk would be disrespectful (it's not your car, you have no authority to touch it), you might not even think of closing the car, and c...

  THIS JUST IN... THE NEW FASHION STATEMENT FOR 2020 - THE FACE MASK With the continuing COVID-19 pandemic spreading across the world, and the new rules around staying home and social distancing, there are some areas recommending face masks. However, even in these cases it is noted that the face mask is not for your protection, but for the protection of others. But this potentially introduces a bit of a problem.  There are many people who may (or may not) have COVID-19 (or even a common cold).  You may have no symptoms at all but are still spreading the virus. In the (hopefully limited) times you head out for necessities - How can you tell if that person ahead of you has a virus or not? Of course, with physical distancing (2 meters / 6 feet), and frequent hand washing, you can help stop the spread of the virus, so even if the person in front of you has the virus, you can stay clear of it. But if you wear a mask, and if the mask is to help others, you...

"Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together." ―Obi-Wan Kenobi — When I was a child my parents tried to teach me a lesson, it is an old lesson.. "It is better to give then receive". But when your a youngster, it feels a lot better to receive, and it can be hard, if not impossible to truly understand what this means. Later in life things get more complicated when you realize that doing something for others, makes you feel good, but wait, am I doing 'it' for others or because I want to feel good? During my early years working as a consultant, I worked with a great bunch of people.  Folks that showed faith in me, and in my abilities.  Colleagues who showed gratitude when I gave a helping hand or made suggestions for improvement. When you find yourself in this kind of environment,  you feel like anything is possible, you will w...