Know How... 112 (Transcript)

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Father Robert Ballecer: On this episode of Know How, Bryan is going to teach you how to make a brand-new watch face for your Moto 360. I’m taking you through segment two of our upgrade project and bash, bash, bash.

Fr. Robert: Welcome to know how. It is the twit show where we bend, break, and upgrade and all those other things. I’m father Robert Ballecer.

Bryan Burnett: And I’m Bryan Burnett and clearly Padre is on top of his game today.

Fr. Robert: One of these days. Now folks we had been in the middle of a project with this Acer Predator. We have been showing you how to upgrade individual bits and pieces. Right?

Bryan: I think we were supposed to send it back about 3 or 4 weeks ago? Oh months. Well, I’m in love with it.

Fr. Robert: In just a bet we are going to show you the next part. Last time we upgraded memory and this time we are going to upgrade the video card. To give you some info on what you should be spending your hard-earned dollars on. The next time you want to upgrade. But before we get there, there is kind of a new story circulating right now about a new vulnerability.

Bryan: Yeah. This has to do with Bash.

Fr. Robert: Bash, Bash, Bash. Now Bash, as we know is a command shell. It is a command interpreter for Linux. And for Linux operating system. It is used in all variants of Linux, it is used in Mac OSX. It is an incredibly powerful thing you can use if you know a little bit about it. It is like command shell for windows.

Bryan: It is widespread.

Fr. Robert: It is super widespread because it is so powerful. It allows you to bypass the user interface, all the pretty bright colorful things. And just instead say, no just do this. Anyone who has used Windows and has copied files from one directory to another in a command shell and then gone in the operating system and realized how much slower it is, understands a little bit how powerful Bash can be. It lets you reach in and touch every part of an operating system.

Bryan: I’ve always read stories about the hard-core guys who are like I don’t need a UI. I am just going to type this in.

Fr. Robert: And there is nothing wrong with that. It just means they know all the commands that they need to make something work. In fact, if you are working with a Rasp Pi, you kind of have to know that. Most of the time you are not going to have that pretty UI. So that is good. Bash is good. I think we are in agreement that bash is fun and powerful. But there is a problem with it.

Bryan: And this just came out?

Fr. Robert: This just came out this past week. Some researchers over at Red Hat were poking around with Bash and they realized there is a fundamental problem. A fundamental exploit ability in Bash.

Bryan: How long has Bash been around?

Fr. Robert: Since 1989. So it has been around for a long time. This is one of those things where now you look at it and you go, why didn’t we see that before? Or it could just be one of these things that some people knew about and they never told the rest of the world. Essentially, if you have append a bunch of stuff to the end of a Bash command, you can make it execute a script. You can make it execute a script remotely which means you could make it execute a script or the Internet. Which means that someone could take complete and total control of your computer, even if you are not sitting in front of it.

Bryan: That is kind of scary.

Fr. Robert: Remember we talked about heart bleed not too long ago. That was scary because it allowed people to spy on your communications. If you wanted to know what heart bleed was just go back about 20 weeks ago in know-how and we were able to show you exactly how heart bleed worked. That was scary and at the time we thought that was the worst exploit that had ever been discovered because it was so pervasive. In fact, their web service right now is still being affected. It affected over a half 1 million Web servers. And now may be 70% of those have been patched. So it is still affecting people. This has the potential to affect hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of computers and devices.

Bryan: Is there a patch or anything for this?

Fr. Robert: There is kind of a patch, some researchers who are really hammering on the problem aren’t sure how effective those patches are.

Bryan: Wow. So this is fundamental?

Fr. Robert: This is fundamental. So imagine this. It is not just your laptop. If you’ve got the latest version of Mac OSX, I think you are fine. Hammering on the patch that they integrated right now to make sure that actually works. But you are probably okay. If you are using an old version, like mavericks, you are not okay.

Bryan: That is a lot of computers. Some I can think of right off the top of my head that are still running old operating systems.

Fr. Robert: Think about how many devices this effects. It is not just your Mac. It is Linux. And how many millions of installations of Linux exist in data centers around the world? And how many devices like those integrated devices are Linux. Drop Cam is using a version of Linux. There are a lot of alarm systems and temperature controls and irrigation systems and lighting systems that are all using a Linux kernel. They all have the ability to be exploited with this Bash exploit.

Bryan: All right. I’m closing the computer. I am going to not use the Internet ever again.

Fr. Robert: So it is bad. Now researchers are working on it. And people shouldn’t panic.

Bryan: So the exploit is that they can remotely take over. Someone could remotely take over your computer. But how would you even infect the computer where you could get to the Bash?

Fr. Robert: If it is Internet facing and you have left a port open so that they can communicate with your kernel, they can run this exploit. Now, most of us don’t have that. So if you are behind a standard firewall there are no open ports to the outside world and I should do something stupid and open up a port.

Bryan: Like DMZ your whole network?

Fr. Robert: We talked about that. But, imagine this. There are these routers that are facing the Internet. And they run Linux. So, technically if I were poking around I would exploit a DD WRT router that is using a Linux kernel. I would use the Bash exploit to say that me peek into your network and see what else is in there. And now I’ve got everything. Kind of scary right? Oh by the way, there is no way to fix this so just sleep on it.

Bryan: IM unplugging everything.

Fr. Robert: Folks, that is what we do here on know-how. We make you afraid.

Bryan: The more you know, the scarier it is.

Fr. Robert: Don’t panic. Nobody should panic. But, the national foundation that looks at these exploits rated this as a 10 out of 10. In other words they are saying this is now the scariest thing we have ever seen. It’s not heart bleed anymore. Heart bleed we can manage. This is total access to everything you have.

Bryan: You were saying so many boxes that have different distro’s of Linux and other routers, servers and devices.

Fr. Robert: Essentially everybody can get on except people who run Windows.

Bryan: Who knew that that would be possible?

Fr. Robert: So that is that. We had to mention it, but again keep tuned to ensure that we are going to break it down. There is going to be a patch available for most devices. The biggest problem is the devices that are not patched. That is going to be the problem.

Bryan: The older systems with older hardware.

Fr. Robert: And you know this is the scary part. With all these new exploits coming up like bad USB, bash and heart bleed. We are starting to realize there is a generation of devices that we owned that should never be turned on again. They cannot be patched. They cannot be updated. They cannot be fixed. We need to just throw those away.

Bryan: When those devices were even conceived the sort of things weren't even on the radar. I think this also means that you need to monitor the eye guarding that you talked about on Twiet. whenever these things pop up, these vulnerabilities, it makes you have to take a closer look at what we can do to prevent them. It makes security better in general.

Fr. Robert: That is actually a very good point. Because one of the things we are realizing is that we cannot count on us being able to seal the bad guys out of our devices anymore. But what we can do is that we can use products that let us examine the traffic so that we will realize something got owned. There is definitely a traffic pattern that you will see when there is a device that has been exploited and is now doing nefarious things. If you look at that, rather than hoping that your passwords and usernames are going to hold up, I think you have the better chance of actually….

Bryan: Because when I hear stories like this, it is like I want to know how it works. I want to know what I can do to protect myself and that is why I use Last Pass and have different passwords now. If I hadn’t heard any of the stories I’d probably still be ushe same password with like one or two variants for every website. Like I used to when I was in high school. But my security patterns have evolved as technology has.

Fr. Robert: Absolutely. So folks, patch, patch, patch. Find the patch for your device, make sure it is updated. Make sure you have the latest firmware, make sure the latest operating system is running, make sure the latest version of that kernel and within a week I’m sure you’ll be fine. But you know what doesn’t make me cry? Is knowledge.

Bryan: Well that is what we are all about.

Fr. Robert: We are all about knowledge. In fact, you could say that we like to poor knowledge into the knowledge hole.

Bryan: Those little crevices.

Fr. Robert: Was little crevices in the brain that just crave information. They crave new knowledge. And thankfully we’ve got a sponsor of Know-How who helps to fill the knowledgeable.

Bryan: lynda.com.

Fr. Robert: lynda.com. What is lynda.com? lynda.com is a one-stop shop. The place you go on the Internet to find anything about anything.

Bryan: That is where I go to brush up on my premier stuff. We are transferring to that soon.

Fr. Robert: And that is where I go any time I need to look at how this aftereffects work? Because I haven’t worked in after effects for a long time. lynda.com is not like an online university, it is an online repository of knowledge. And it is the breadth of knowledge that they have that is just amazing. lynda.com is the place where you want to go any time you want to learn new skills, new features for your resume, or new pieces that you are going to use in your job. They are the one-stop shop for knowledge. And they are constantly improving their platform. They’ve got new features, new designs and even better support. Now as a special promotion for our know-how audience, they are making sure that you have the latest and the greatest. The things that you have to know immediately. They work directly with industry experts in software companies to provide timely training. Often the same day with new versions or releases that hit the market. So you are always up to speed. They are an easy, affordable way to help you learn. That is what we are talking about. You want something that you are going to be able to go to, browse around and say wow I never knew about that. Maybe I want to learn. Maybe you want to learn about Premier. Maybe I want to learn about after effects. Maybe I want to learn how best to use my go pro. All courses are produced at the highest quality. These aren’t like those all made videos on YouTube, which I love because that is where I came from, but sometimes you want good lighting, sometimes you want good audio, sometimes you don’t want the production to get in the way of learning. And that is what lynda.com does. They include tools like searchable transcript that you can find specific parts of the videos and the lessons so that you can just learn the thing that you need at that moment. It is not always sitting down for a 30 minute lesson, sometimes it is just I forgot this one thing show me how to do it. lynda.com can help. Whether you are a beginner or advanced, lynda.com has courses for all experience levels. And you can learn while you are on the go with lynda.com apps for iPhone, iPad and android. They’ve got one low monthly price of $25 which gives you unlimited access to over 100,000 video tutorials. Premium members with an annual plan can download courses to their iPhone, iPad pads or androids and watch them online. Premium plan members can also download project files and practice along with the instructor. They also offer courses on simple Android development tools, practical cyber security, Monday productivity pointers, and song writing in LogicPro. Now for any software that you rely on, lynda.com can help you stay current with all their updates. And learn the ins and outs to be more efficient and more productive. We’ve got a special offer for you. If you think that maybe lynda.com might be right for you to fill your knowledgeable, then you can access all their courses free for seven days. Visit lynda.com/know-how to try lynda.com free for seven days. And we thank lynda.com for their support of Know How.

Fr. Robert: Now shall we continue to fill the knowledge hole?

Bryan: Yes.

Fr. Robert: Now, Bryan, last time we talked about replacing or upgrading the memory.

Bryan: We did that and we saw a little bit of increase.

Fr. Robert: We went from about eight gigs up to 16 gigs and then up to 32.

Bryan: And you won’t notice much of a gain once you get up to 32.

Fr. Robert: The performance gain was between 1.6 for 32 gig and something like six point something for 16 gigs. For the benchmark you got more of a boost out of the 16 gate upgrade then you did out of the 32. And that is just because, remember the way memory works is that it has got to refresh. And if you increase the amount of memory it is actually taking more of your processing time in order to keep the memory updated.

Bryan: Your recommendation was that if you are doing a lot of video editing or something like that then you would need the 32.

Fr. Robert: That was the best test for what we are benchmarking is for. Which is gaming. So we are benchmarking for gaming. Productivity tools, unless you are doing video editing are not really going to stretch the boundaries of even 8 GB of memory. If you are a video editing, more memory is better but if you are gaming, 8 GB is actually pretty good.

Bryan: I think if that point you're more worried about the speed of the RAM then the quantity.

Fr. Robert: You want to be able to go through your RAM as fast as possible. You can do that really quickly with 8 GB versus 32, which is what you would need if you had such large files that you didn’t want to swap them out to the hard drive of the SSD. I think what we concluded was that that is good. Upgrading memory is good. But, if you are looking for a performance system and you already have eight gigs, it is probably not the place that you are going to spend money.

Bryan: So what is next for bang for your buck?

Fr. Robert: The next thing that we are looking for the baying for the buck is the video card. Bryan, This is a gaming desktop. That was what it was built for. The Predator series for Acer was for turnkey gaming. Nothing fancy, in order to keep the price down. It has a decent motherboard with four slots for memory with a decent video card. This particular one was a GTX 60. Optical drive, power supply that is just enough to power everything that is in the case. This is a 500 W power supply. When we start looking at video cards, when we start looking at upgrades…

Bryan: Bigger is better.

Fr. Robert: Bigger is better. But specifically what you are looking for is the type of processor. Did GTX series is really easy. The higher number you go…

Bryan: The ATI has gone back around again. I have the 6800 in my computer and I think the newer ones are 280 or something.

Fr. Robert: Look, this one is a 285. So this is actually good. But one of the important things other than just the GPU that is integrated onto the board is the amount of memory.

Bryan: Right. Which is typically for an offensive to forgive me). What is the money?

Fr. Robert: But this one I believe he is a 2 GB. So 280 is raining with 2 GB of GDDR4 and this one is upgraded to the GDDR5. The more memory that you have, the more textures that you can load, which means it is going to run faster because you have swapped out.

Bryan: With games that have the compressed textures, you need the extra memory to do them.

Fr. Robert: So, what we wanted to see is that we wanted to see if we could get about by replacing the video card in a PC that was already designed for gaming, without being crazy and spending $500, $600 or $800 on a new video card.

Bryan: Which would be nearly the cost of a new PC.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. So, we are going to show you how to replace a video card.

Fr. Robert: In the last upgrade segment we bumped to the 8 GB of system memory in our Acer Predator to 16 and then 32 gigabytes of high-performance DDR3. We received a small bump in performance between 1.5 and 6.2%. We started with the memory because that is the easiest component to upgrade. It doesn’t require new drivers for installations or power calculations. Now we are getting a little dirtier by replacing the video card. The first thing we need to do is to make sure that our system can actually support a new video card. Opening up the case, first look at the power supply. Your power supply needs to support the power requirements for all the components in your computer. Rotating hard drives typically draw a max of 10 W. SSD’s pull about 3 W. Motherboards can pull about 40 W for a midrange model while the high-end motherboards can draw up to 80 W. Intel I3 to L7 CPU’s will pull between 55 and 150 W while AMD CPU’s draw between 65 and 125. Each stick of memory will pull up out 3 W in an optical drive about 30. Each fan in the case adds about 3 W of load. The biggest power hog any performance box is typically it’s a video card. A high-end video card will demand up to 260 W while a top-end card can grab 350 W. That means that our Predator with its I7 CPU, midrange motherboard, 1 TB harddrive, blue ray optical drive, 8 GB of memory, high but not top end GTX660 video card and two fans will pull just under 450 W. Our power supply can provide 500 W so we’ve got about a 50 W surplus. Now we need to know how many CPI express slots are available on the motherboard. As the Predator is a compact case, we pulled the existing GTX 662 give us an unobstructed view of the motherboard. This required us to first unlock the rear video card bracket, remove the power cables, then tripped the small plastic lever that locks the card into the existing PCI express slot. With the card free, we had an unobstructed view of the motherboard. The Predator has one PCI X express 16 slot and two PCI X1 slots. The X refers to the number of lanes in each PCI express expansion port. The number of lanes, the more data packets can be transmitted simultaneously. PCI express slots can have one, two, four, eight, 12, 16, and 32 lanes. With one and 16 being the most common. You can tell how many lanes that PCI express slot has by looking at the size. Each lane adds four wires to the slot. Video cards work best when you give them PCI express X 16 slots. You could run a video card in an X1 slot but as your goal is to go faster and not to cripple your brand-new and probably extremely expensive upgrade, that would be stupid. More importantly, with only one PCI express S 16 slot we cannot run more than one video card in the Predator. Since we will have to replace the existing card, which we estimate it could pull 260 W in the worst-case scenario, we had a 310 W power budget for a card that fits in our PCI express as 16 slot. In other words, and the sky is the limit. We didn’t go with the sky because that would have been crazy expensive. And we are all about being for the buck. As we mentioned in the last segment, a GT X6 60 isn’t a slow card, it is just a bit dated. We decided to go with the GTX 770 upgrade. Why? Because the super club version can be had for about $330. While his super club GT X7 80 would run 200 more. Also, there was one and Alex’s desktop computer so we stole it for the test. We slotted the 770 into that Predator, secured it, reattach the power cables, and powered it back on. Since we were previously using an in video card we didn’t need to reinstall drivers. But if you are installing a new graphics card for the first time, you may need some driver work. We kicked off PC Mark eight and ran a benchmark. From the previous segment we knew that the baseline Predator with a 660 scored 3924. With the 770 upgrade, but the same memory and hard drive, our Predators scored 4229. That is an increase of 7.8% or .024% performance boost for dollars spent. In other words, strictly judging by benchmarks it is more bang for the buck then a 32 GB memory upgrade.

Fr. Robert: We would like to thank Alex for donating his video card out of his computer. How is your computer working now Alex?

Alex: It wasn’t booting up this morning and I was wondering why.

Bryan: That strange.

Fr. Robert: It was working fine.

Alex: It must be a coincidence.

Fr. Robert: We’ve also got a bunch of 780’s downstairs which are essentially two 770’s stuck together. I would really like to try those out but Alex keeps those locked up.

Bryan: For good reason. There is also SLI where you can use two cards simultaneously.

Fr. Robert: Which is why we did the whole taking the card out think. Especially for people who do not have the manuals were aren’t that computer savvy. There are people in the chat room who are saying we need this step-by-step for taking out your video card? But some people do need the step-by-step. There is no shame in that. But you need to look at the motherboard because it will tell you what your capabilities are. If you’ve only got one PCI express 16 slot then there is no reason for you to think about SLI because you can’t do it. Now there are systems where people will use these adapter cables to go from an ex-one slot to a next 16 so they can hook up a second or third or for the video card. But that is usually when they are trying to make like a BitCoin minor. Because you don’t need all that capacity. You don’t need all the transfer.

Bryan: And we know a little bit about that. We’ve seen a couple melted cards from them. Not that we were responsible for it.

Fr. Robert: So I had one of those plugged in at home and it did the same thing.

Bryan: That same card? It is that little ATI card.

Fr. Robert: It gets really hot when you try to mine with them.

Bryan: I don't think that’s what they’re intended use weapons. Wasn't it just for basic desktop?

Fr. Robert: I need to bring that thing in though. Because just to watch it. I want to put a time laps go Pro on it to see the pressure actually bend the aluminum.

Bryan: It is pretty crazy. I’ve never seen a heat sync do that before.

Fr. Robert: Speaking of syncs, sometimes you need to sync a new idea into the Internet right? You planted and you hope that it grows. The Internet is all about location. That hasn’t changed. If you have a great idea, a great project, a great portfolio but you don’t put it in the right place no one is going to see it. And it won’t grow.

Bryan: I feel like you might be talking about SquareSpace. The hard work for me is coming up with the idea. But SquareSpace has made it really easy for posting stuff.

Fr. Robert: That is the whole idea. SquareSpace is for the people. TV you are a super programmer, if you control everything on your own, if you run a data center in your backyard for fun then SquareSpace probably isn't for you. Because you are always going to want to do things your way. But if you are one of these people who has a great idea, who has a great portfolio, who is a photographer or a videographer and you want to show off your work, you don’t want to spend all your energy and your creativity and your resources on setting up your server. That means registering your domain, making sure you got the back ends rented out from someone, and making sure the front end looks the way you wanted to look.

Bryan: And you can customize a lot of stuff for it.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. With SquareSpace you get to customize all that without having to be a programmer. Or any engineer. Or a designer. Or an administrator. You have a one-stop shop to grow your Internet idea. Now, SquareSpace is the all in all I’m why not plan to make you the secret of the website or online portfolio. As a special promotion for our audience they are also giving a way of full year of its most premium level service valued at more than $288 to a randomly selected listener. That is right. Contest time. Just tweet better websites for all with #squarespace/knowhow to be considered. If you currently have a SquareSpace site, then post your site and we may talk about it in a future episode. Now I have used SquareSpace in the past. Because I am always setting up sites for organizations and my larger organization. SquareSpace is perfect. They had the ideas, the content. SquareSpace then becomes the forearm. They are constantly improving their platform. They’ve got new features, new designs, even better support and beautiful designs. 25 templates for you to start with and they have recently added a logo creator which is a basic tool for individuals. It is a good way to create your brand. Why have to pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a loco when you’re just starting out and you can use their logo Creator tool to make an identifiable symbol that says this is me. It is also easy to use. And if you want some help, SquareSpace has live chat. You are not going to need them, but they are there 24 hours a day seven days a week. Plus there is a completely redesigned customer help site for easier access to self-help articles and video workshops. It also includes e-commerce for sites that are able to support it, which is great if you want to accept donations, or if you are a nonprofit or if you have a cash wedding registry or just for school fund drives. Starting in just eight dollars a month, SquareSpace is not going to break the bank. And they include a free domain name if you sign-up for a year. One of my favorite things about SquareSpace is that they are mobile ready. Your site may look horrible, bad stuff if you design it for a desktop and someone tries to look at on a phone. That is not going to happen with SquareSpace template because it automatically adjusts for whatever the user is looking at your content with. IPhone, android device, tablet, how about a big screen TV? SquareSpace will automatically adjust the content to look as good as it possibly can. Now even their code is beautiful. We all know that SquareSpace looks nice on the outside, but I am a coder and when I looked inside, when I actually look at the code that generates I know that they know what they are doing. SquareSpace includes hosting so again one stop shop you don’t have to worry about that after setting up your domain and all your content options. So here is what we want you to do. We want you to start a free two-week trial with no credit card, and start building your website now. Get your idea out there. When you decide to sign up for SquareSpace make sure to use the offer code know how to get 10% off and to show your support for Know How. We thank SquareSpace for their support of know-how. A better Web awaits and it starts with your new SquareSpace website.

Bryan: I like to tinker a lot with it. It has all the options for changing colors and the logo and everything. It is fun.

Fr. Robert: I just want to do a few real quick feedback items before we get to your Moto 360. Because that is actually cool. The first one actually comes to us from Ian Trevelian. what he asked is he said, “Father Robert could you tell us about your home network. I heard you say once it every personal device gets their own VLAN. What is your preferred setup for a home network”? Well, Ian. That is a very good question. I love showing up my network because I’m very proud of it. It all starts with this. This is an Enterasys D2, an Interprise class switch. it is going to cost you between $1000-$2000. It is pricey. We have 12 ports. All gigabit, all POE so they can push out power to support other devices. Plus I have the two SSP’s so I can connect to my fiber backbone. But more important than what it connects to, this thing has policy built into it so I was able to program this. So that it would automatically create a new VLAN for any device that attempts to connect to the network. We know from way long ago that a VLAN creates a virtual network. That device can only see anything else that is also on the same VLAN.

Bryan: It is like compartmentalization? Like the Titanic?

Fr. Robert: Yes. It was a great idea in theory, Alex. W’ere talking about engineering here. This is geek stuff. Seriously, the Idea that when a new device comes in to the network it can just see everything that is in the network. That is crazy and secure. If someone who has malicious intent plugs into your network you don’t want them to have the keys to the kingdom. Which is what they would have. so instead what mine does is that every time an new device plugs than it gets a VLAN on the un-trusted subnet. All those computers on the entrusted do is see the gateway and they can access the Internet. They don’t see anything else on the network. In fact if you have two or three or 10 different computers on un-trusted subnet, they can't even see each other. All they can see is the gateway that gets them onto the Internet.

Bryan: Can you only do this with enterprise hardware:

Fr. Robert: No. You can do it on the DDWRT. You can do it on your own. The problem is that it is a pain in the butt to configure all that. Something like this I can do it all in one policy. So I’ve said VLAN’s X-Y are all entrusted. Every time a new device comes in, give it one of those. Now, it goes a layer up. Because this is actually my authentication server.

Bryan: What is an authentication server?

Fr. Robert: It allows me to use 802X to give a certificate to any computer. It is an encryption certificate so it says this is unique to you, which means that no one else on the network is going to be able to listen in on you. And it also means that this tells me whether or not a computer should be moved from that and trusted subnet to the trusted subnet.

Bryan: Under what parameters?

Fr. Robert: Your username and password. And your Mac address. It actually looks at your Mac address and says is this one of the devices that is trusted? Once you move into the trusted subnet you still get your own VLAN that now you can see the storage servers and you can see the printers and entertainment devices. Everything that is a shared resource. Now here is the magic. Here is the part that I really like. This is a lot of fun and you really can only do this with an enterprise class switch because it would be too much to do it on a consumer switch. If I have one device that wants to talk to another device and that happens all the time. Because they are on their own VLAN they can’t. What will happen is the gateway will see it. The switch will see it and will say oh you want to talk to this device? It will check with the authentication server to say should this device be able to talk to this device? If the authentication service says yes then it creates a new VLAN that encompasses both of them.

Bryan: Is does that on the fly?

Fr. Robert: It does it on the fly. when the conversation is over it destroys that VLAN so that communication is separated again. This is my added protection. It means that even if I have a computer that gets owned. Let’s say my mom comes then and she decides that she wants to look at that really weird Russian website. She will still be able to establish a connection. That the switch is actually looking for behavior. it is looking for that wait a minute why are you contacting those IRC’s out there in the world? It will re-isolate her and it will tell me I think this computer is owned. I am going to isolate it so that it can’t infect anything else. It is cool but it does take a lot of doing.

Bryan: So how long. This is obviously something that you are passionate about and you have done a lot. So how long would this take someone to set up a network? I guess it would depend on the number of devices. If you are going to have three computers on the network how long would it take you to set all this up?

Fr. Robert: Depending on how comfortable you are with driving the CLI. You could probably get a switch that does much the same thing. I like this because it is super quiet and there is no fan.

Bryan: Like a day?

Fr. Robert: Months.

Bryan: Months? Really?

Fr. Robert: Unless you really, really knew it. It is going to take a while to develop these policies. That is why I like the Enterasys. It is not built on levels. It is built on policy. You can write the policy and it will implemented.

Bryan: I’m looking forward to win this enterprise level of security is kind of like a household thing. Which it sounds like we need. So products like that EyeGuardian are pretty cool. I am expecting them to become more prevalent and easier to use.

Fr. Robert: I think so. Let’s do one more feedback real quick. We’ve got a question here from Stephen Stewart. He writes, “I have heard a great many things regarding the infinite powers of an SSD. I was wondering if I could use an SSD as the source drive up my media server in place of Array. My theory is that an SSD would not fail as often as a hard disk drive and would last forever if I am only reading a static list of movie files. Obviously if money were no object because they ain’t cheap.” Stephen, good question actually.

Bryan: The money thing is the dividing point there.

Fr. Robert: But not so much anymore. Five years ago, yeah it was crazy. This SSD that was manufactured for commercial use was a 60 GB and it cost over $1000. Now something like this 240 GB drive will cost you like a $100. he wanted to know if he could use it for a media server drive. Specifically a place where he could put a bunch of media files and then just read them.

Bryan: Do you need the speed that an SSD provides for that?

Fr. Robert: It depends how many streams you are pulling simultaneously. What I am thinking he is probably creating an entertainment center where several dozen, hundreds or thousands of people could be pulling from the same file? If you are using the standard grade that is going to start to choke. SSD is crazy fast. Here is the thing that he actually made a reference to. SSD’s only get used up when you write.

Bryan: Because they have a limited number of times that you can write to them.

Fr. Robert: The way that S Estes work is there is actually a memory cell. The memory cell has a little insulator and you have to push energy past the electrons. Once the cell is charged it counts as one. The process of charging the cell actually kind of burns away some of the insulation. So after time you can’t really charge it anymore. Which is why it has a limited number of rights. But as far as reads are concerned, you could do it forever. It only uses up the lifespan of an SSD when you are writing. So a media server would be a great use for an SSD. Because you are not going to erase all those files. You are not going to recopy the files. You are just going to read them for the life of the SSD.

Bryan: I do remember you talking to Steve Gibson about memory leak. Wasn’t it that SSD's overtime start to lose?

Fr. Robert: Over time they start to lose. And what you do is you need to run a utility that will basically do a check. And it kind of re-sets the parameters. Because if all is no charge and on is a certain level of charge, after a certain amount of time the charge actually starts to leak out of the cell. We are talking a long long time.

Bryan: The point I am trying to figure out is reliability wise and longevity wise does the SSD compared to a spinning hard drive?

Fr. Robert: On paper yes from practical experience? I have had dozens if not hundreds of a hard drives fail. I have never had an SSD fail. Even if I buy a cheap one. This is a Samsung 470, it is an old one. This started to lose performance almost immediately, but even though it was losing performance for writes, it never lost performance for reads. It never lost data.

Bryan: If money is not really an object. I guess if you had a terabyte of video footage that you are using that would be expensive.

Fr. Robert: All right Bryan. Let’s get past the feedback because I want to see this. You have figured out how to create a custom watch face on a Moto 360.

Bryan: Well I have been playing around with the Moto 360 a lot. Google has had a few different watches. There is the LG watch, the Samsung watch but the one I got excited about was the one from Motorola because it is round. It is a cool looking watch. I’m used to wearing a watch that is not much bigger than my other one. But there weren’t easy ways to customize it. You can’t just customize the face, you have to download an app. So there is an app in the Play Store for 99 cents called facer. I thought you would be able to design on your computer and then upload into your phone. that you actually design at all for your phone. And once you wrap your head around it, it is like using Photoshop where you have layers to do. Here is the Moto 360 with my Moto X that I use as my daily driver. Here is the Facer four android. Once you have it installed and you bring it up they actually have watch faces and featured lists where people upload to the server and you can download those if you want. But if you want to do the customization and make a Twit watch you can. I did this in about 15 minutes, so it’s not the best watch face. You do it all on the phone. So whatever image you want to use, if you have it on the phone, go to my gallery, my download file and you scale it how you want it. If you wanted to make a custom image and make it fit I believe the Dimensions are 320 x 320. Ideal image size. You can enlarge or shrink and then shift the image on the XY access. It is not super intuitive but it does allow you to move it around to your preferences.

Fr. Robert: If you’ve ever had to clip an image to your social media account this is kind of a clunky version of that.

Bryan: Exactly. That was the first thing that confused me. I was doing this all on the phone. The next layer if you want to add the time, obviously, these are the codes. There is a description in the middle which isn’t 100% clear. Some of them are kind of confusing. But if you look in the right-hand column that shows you what it is going to output. So I want the hour of the day in 12 hour terms, so the code for that is #dhZ# and so that goes up into the top there. If you want to put a : between the hour mark and the minutes you type it in there. Or a space or any other character. The closure is # for the code. The end is #DMZ# which is the minutes. I have to enlarge it. This allows for a lot of play.

Fr. Robert: You should be able to drag it into place.

Bryan: It is still pretty new. The MOTO 360, this is the first generation. This is all the first generation stuff for watches. So people are still writing apps for it. This is the first one I found that allowed me to do what I wanted to do. You can bold the tags and so I am going to switch it to white because the background I am using will let me see it a little better. So I can align it to where I want it. On the top is the layer section so you can tap that to see okay, that what it looks like on the watch face. I don’t want to just stop at the time, I want the date also. You can add shapes, edit them on the fly. I am going to add the date, so I’m going to add a little square and I’m going to adjust it so that when I put text over it, it is going to highlight it. It looks more like you would usually on watch with a square that has a date on it.

 Fr. Robert: You get to be your own little watch designer on this.

Bryan: There are limitations to it, but once you kind of wrap your head around it. If you design your own custom background and you understand how this app works you can kind of fit things in the way you want. And you can upload custom watch hands and stuff too. In the featured apps there are so many cool ones that people have done. Here I am going to add the date so I go back into the #staff and scroll down to find the code. You can do the day of the year which isn’t really helpful to me so I did not do that. I just want the day of the month. I did the month in text so it will say September and then I want the day that he is and so that is what the little code at the top is and you go back and then you can just adjust it on the X and Y access.

Fr. Robert: This is definitely first version of the software. Eventually it will get much more user-friendly. This is more like a developer interface right now.

Bryan: It is. But I liked it.

Fr. Robert: You know what I like about this? Everyone has complained about UI. Now you can actually design your own. And it will probably make you respect designers more because there is a fine balance between putting as much data on the screen as possible and making the screen something that you actually want to look at.

Bryan: In my mind I thought I got this. This is going to be such a cool watch face. And then I sat down and designed to realize this was really hard. So this took me about 15 minutes or maybe even less. So this is the part that is pretty slick. Once you have Facer installed on the phone, it will be seen on your Android Wear device. Then you just tap the sync with your device and it just shoots it over. You are good to go. You got your own little custom watch face.

 Fr. Robert: I have to say, at first I didn’t get it. I don’t like watches and I don’t like wearables. But after seeing you and Jason use the 360 for two weeks now. I’m kind of wanting one.

Bryan: This was one that somebody had custom made with the custom hands and stuff. It is not too difficult to do. It is fun to play with. I tried explaining to my significant other why I spent $250 on basically a screen on my wrist.

Fr. Robert: Did you tell him this is me accessorizing? These are all the accessories I will ever need.

Bryan: Exactly. With Android in general, I like tweaking it. The way that I partially justified is that I have owned a watch for about four years. I needed a new watch.

Fr. Robert: That was called Facer?

Bryan: Facer, it is 99 cents in the Play Store.

Fr. Robert: If you’ve already paid $250 for the Moto 360 you’re going to pay 99 cents for the app that lets you customize.

Bryan: Maybe you don’t want to spend that much on a watch. Maybe you’re more of a DIY’er. There is a project that you can buy the parts from AdaFruit. A do it yourself watch. This one is $40. This is a fun project that we’ll be doing. You built it yourself. It will just take a weekend of soldering. You’ll have a wearable.

Fr. Robert: I don’t wear watches, but I would wear that because it screams geek.

Bryan: The last thing I did was a little pendant. The dot gobbler. I figured I should give another wearable a shot.

Fr. Robert: Folks we know this was a lot of information for you to take in. The upgrade, the notes about Bash, trying to program your Moto 360. So we have made it easy for you to follow along with any of our projects. All you have to do is go to our show page and check out our show notes. Bryan where can they find our show page?

Bryan: Those live at twit.tv/KH and not only our show notes or thereabouts every past episode we have done it if you want to search through part one of Linux, you can find it there. Like last week we did the NFC tags, fixing WIfi, the beginning of the PC upgrade stuff. You’re going to want to go back and see them.

Fr. Robert: Especially when we start doing these ARC. You’ve got to see the whole series. Don’t forget that you can also see us on Google plus. We’ve got a very vibrant Google plus community. Look for know-how. There is only one know-how on all of Google plus. And find out what our community is talking about. We take a lot of feedback from this group and we use it in the show. If you have a project you are thinking about, if you have a project you want us to do, or if you’ve got the knowledge to contribute to other people’s questions, make sure that you join and be a part of the know it all else.

Bryan: There is only so much talent that we have and there is a lot of talented people out there that do projects that we’ve done and they do them better. It is fun to see them.

Fr. Robert: People that are so much better than I am. Don’t forget if you don’t have GPlus you can also find us on Twitter. Follow us so you can find out what we are doing each week. Converse with us in between our shows. Where do they find you?

Bryan: You can find me on twitter @cranky_hippo.

Fr. Robert: You’ll find me @PadreSJ.

Bryan: If you do follow us on Twitter or Google Plus you’ll find out that Leo found the No Hole.

Fr. Robert: The first thing he said was, “So Robert, have you moved in to the studio”?

Bryan: The bean bags give it that look.

Fr. Robert: The refrigerator and the laundry, microwave, and my bathrobe was a big tip off. Folks that is all we’ve got on this episode of Know How. Join us next week when we are going to be finishing up our project upgrade. We are going to be upgrading the hard drive to an SSD. I know you are hoping for a big performance jump. Let’s see if that happens. Next week we are also going to be finding our first segment on Destiny. You’ve heard about it. Is it worth the hype? I’m Father Robert Ballecer.

Bryan: And I’m Bryan Burnett.

Fr. Robert: Now that you know how…

Bryan: Go do it!