My everyday watch

This is my everyday watch. It is a Lucien Piccard stainless steel chronograph - 28165bu

My new addiction

Battlefield 3 for pc

my return to gaming

I'm getting back into gaming....the last video game I played on my own was Day of Defeat while I was in high school.

I just got a new video card that blows the pants off the onboard one.
So my rig specs are:
Intel i7-2600k
8 gigs Kingston X ram
1.5 SATAIII Seagate Barracuda drive
GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

So with my video card, I got Dungeon Siege III, Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood, and Batman Arkham City. With one of the other components, I got Total War Shogun II. I also pre-ordered Battlefield III. Say goodbye to the rest of my social life.


Dungeon Siege III is a decent game but the camera angles and key bindings suck. I remember playing Diablo II and not having this many keybindings. But the graphics are pretty cool.

Arkham City doesn't come out for another month despite the console versions are already out in the US. I watched all the teasers and trailers and I'm really excited about it. Too bad it comes out while I'm out of town.

Haven't even touched Assassin's Creed.

Battlefield III comes out next week and I'm going to be playing that for a while.

Update: Information diet

I'm now down to 95 RSS feeds from 133 feeds from about a month ago. The fact of the matter is that I probably can drop  that even further. Because it's pretty hard to keep up with blogs like Techcrunch or PSFK which have more than 20 posts per day. 

a week with Spotify

After bunch of comparisons I decided to get a Spotify Premium membership about a week ago. So far I like it. I guess this means I can finally delete all the questionable music I've acquired. The library is pretty good though they don't have a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers or other major bands but I like how it integrates with Facebook and my Android phone for offline listening of playlists. Also the music has a 320 kbps so it's really high quality.

There are a lot of tiny things that I've noticed. In Win7, you can see how far into a track you are by looking at the icon in the taskbar.
I also have it scrobbling to Last.fm. No sense getting rid of 5 years of listening data. 

Quote On social Media

Found this apropos quote

Today, however, thanks to the social networks' digital exploitation of loneliness, horniness, and ambition, it is now widely believed that it is possible for one's résumé or curriculum vitae to become friends with other person's résumé or curriculum vitae. A friend is a person, not a set of data.

Glenn O'Brien in GQ April 2011.  "The Style Guy's Guide"

My information diet-133 RSS feeds!

I am trying to cut back on my information diet by paring down all the blogs that are in my Google Reader account. I have 133 RSS feeds which also includes all the pod casts I subscribe to using Google Listen! Talk about information overload.

I think it will be pretty easy to cut down that number significantly. Goal by End of August 100 RSS feeds including Google Listen. Let's see if I can pull this off. 

A Short Commentary on Netflix's New Pricing Plan

I subscribed to Netflix because I like movies but I don't want to build up a huge library of movies at home. It takes up money and space. That's really what makes it appealing.

I know I'm late to the discussion on the whole new pricing plan for Netflix. Honestly, I don't mind that they're doing making the 'Instant only' one dollar cheaper and making the DVD/Blu-ray more expensive as long as they improve their library. There are shows/movies that are only available on DVD/Blu-ray, so if they can make it so I can watch as many movies as I want with a larger choice. I really don't care. That said, come September I will be dropping my 'in-home' rentals because it doesn't make sense for me. 

BYOD: What does it all mean for Enterprise IT

I've been having some interesting conversations with some folks I work with and around changes in IT that tablets and smartphones have brought to enterprise IT. People are bringing their personal devices and in many cases storing company data on these devices IT has no control over.

Not to worry! There is a movement afoot called BYOD (Bring your Own Device) with solutions for both phones/tablets (Mobile Device Management /MDM) and the desktop (Virtual Desktop Interface/VDI).  MDM refers to a a genericized BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server). With VDI, what is old is now new. This is essentially the thin clients that were used in the mainframe days. These virtual desktop clouds can be in data centers. With these solutions, IT depts can control the data that goes on these endpoints and enforce policies around anti-virus versions/software/definitions, passwords, and device encryption.

I don't think this is all good. Simply put, by buying in, IT is saying they can't /won't manage their own IT services currently.  So if stuff breaks under this new model, the helpdesk will point them to Apple/Dell or wherever the user bought their laptop/smartphone/tablet/widget for specific device issues e.g. printing from home or component failure. IT should really be scared because that would mean that we're shifting/outsourcing resources more IT functions such as provisioning for mobile devices to MDM tools, physical device management to virtual device management where stock of devices is now unimportant.

Yes there are definite advantages for using this model, like allowing users to choose whether they want to use a Mac or a PC or the choice of an Android phone, a webOS, iPhone, or the standard issue BlackBerry. The other advantage is security in the case of desktop virtualization because we can control what leaves the virtual desktop if anything. Also we have better DR capabilities because 99% of user data will be data center. There are definite use cases for having many types of devices, but these decisions need to be made correctly and shouldn't only be mad for cost savings purposes. 

cool new site-The 99%

I recently found a new site based on an article that was posted on one of my favorite sites (lifehacker.com) called The 99% and is all about execution and delivery. I find that these two concepts are just as if not more important than inspiration and creativity.

I like how the content and the layout and their lack of ads. They interview well known names in creative fields to understand how they are so productive.

From their 'About us'

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”— Thomas Edison

At 99%, Behance's think tank, we focus on what happens after inspiration — researching the forces that truly push ideas to fruition. Our profiles of proven idea makers, action-oriented tips, best-practices sessions, and annual conference are all designed to help you transform ideas from vision to reality.

Link: The 99%

Teletubbies meet the flaming lips

a note on the anonymous RIM EE's letter to senior management

RIM letter to senior management

This is the first time I'm reading this. It makes sense. RIM is getting losing ground in the enterprise market because people see what's being done in the consumer space by Google/Apple and they want those capabilities and the singular interface for their personal/work devices. 

New site-Everyday Carry

Today I discovered the site EDC (Everyday Carry) which shows what people keep on their person on an everyday basis with images of the items.

These items include keys/keychains, watches, phones, wallets, multi-tools/knives, Field Notes notebooks.

I find that what you carry tells a lot about you. For instance if you carry two smartphones, it may mean that you need to stay connected to work. If you've got your cash kind of disorganized in your pockets, it reflects on your overall organization system. Also it gives me ideas on how to reduce the crap that I do carry on a regular basis. Maybe I'll post my EDC sometime soon here.

Link

Console Gaming and privacy

Slashdot: Your 3DS pwns you

Extremely paraphrased: Anything you do on your 3DS is property of Nintendo including taking photos.And they have no restriction on what they can do with your content...

 And then there's the whole PS3 community fiasco. They didn't follow best practices with storage of sensitive info e.g. Credit card numbers, Name, address, DOB, names of dependents with sub-accounts and their DOBs, purchase history, and passwords in the clear. No obfuscation, no hashing, no encryption. Have we learned nothing in the years preceding the formation of PCI (Payment Card Industry)'s data security standard? PCI was created because of data breaches like this almost 10 years ago. 

Random streetart

Found in Chicago near Damen Blue Line stop

Career Realization and snap decisions

So I was recently very lucky in having to deal with two awesome opportunities within my company in the same department:

1. A new role in the same city as my brother and sister-in-law. Since we're all grown up, we haven't lived in the same city for around 10 years, so that'd be cool and interesting. But I just moved and I'd be doing the same thing I'm doing now. This opportunity came to me first and forced me to really consider what I want out of my career in the short term.

2. A role in my current office but my responsibilities would change slightly. I've now got global ownership/major involvement of several large workstreams like DLP, Virtual Desktop, and privileged account management just to name a few. It feels really strange to say that I'm the global lead for initiative xyz as a 20 something that's new to information security but it's really cool and kind of an ego-trip. Also the role is more technical, which is really what I want in the short term.   

I ultimately chose the the role where I'd become the global lead. I wasn't excited about the first opportunity and that's the dead give-away. The more I found out about the 2nd opportunity the more excited and interesting I found it. I actually made the decision in about a day and a half. I know I'm going to be working my tail off but I was anyways so that's nothing new. At least I'll enjoy doing it.

Image credit: Flikr/Somemixedstuff

HUH training or lack thereof

So yesterday morning I woke up somehow at 3:30 am (before my alarm to do Hustle Up the Hancock, as if I didn't remember how horrible it feels while doing it last year. Then again, I really didn't train. I did a few stair workouts here and there, but I hardly ever worked out and weigh about 10 lbs more. But I did PR by 50 sec!

Here's what it took.
2 months of working 40+ hour days (with less than 6 hours of sleep a night), 6 months of intense studying for certification exams. 2 weeks off of working out for vacation in Seattle. So I trained less than last year.

The night before-
I lazed around and watched episodes from season two of The Fringe. Had Dinner at the bar in my apt complex with beer That's the important part. I somehow got to bed at 9pm, but not without drinking tons of water.

What I'd do next time around-
If I'm still as masochistic as I am now (prob will be) than I'll do HUH again. So I'll do the same thing except do more core training. After I finished, my abs were killing me. It hurt to breathe. The dry stairways don't help. I think that'll cut another minute off my time, maybe more.

CISA results

I took the CISA exam about a month and a half ago and I finally got my results...and I passed! It's not that I found the content challenging, but I found the questions themselves really confusingly written, so I wasn't sure of what the correct answer was. But now I don't have to worry about that. :) The difference between this exam and the CISSP exam is that the CISSP is far more technical and the CISA is more conceptual with an emphasis on general audit and governance topics. Lucky for me I took the CISSP recently so it was fresh in my head. Also CISA gives you a composite score along with scores for each of the domains. I found that I did on protection of information assets and worst on IT System and Service Delivery...I really don't even remember what was in that domain. Oh well....

I've done finally done it...

I've finally moved out of my folks place and getting settled in my own place. Granted living with my folks wasn't the worst thing in the world, I got along with my parents really well but it has its moments where it was....challenging. Yea that's the right word. Part of my challenge is that I work at the same company as my dad and when I'd do dinner with them (most nights) the topic would inevitably shift towards work. So it never felt like I left work. Neither of us had the discipline to make that topic off limits despite swearing to do so.

But now I'm on my own. The first week or so took some getting used to, especially making sure I got up and got out at a decent hour to make sure I didn't have to fight too much traffic. I find that I need a pretty rigid routine in the morning or I start getting distracted and getting late. Stupid ADD! 

I don't know the area super well, so I'm looking forward to when it warms up so I can take my longer runs to explore the neighborhood. two birds with one stone...

my CISSP prep strategy

It is said that test taking is a skill that can be learned. This is something that I feel is true. But you need a certain amount of preparation to ensure a successful exam. I think the knowledge of the material will get you a certain number of points but test taking skills may net you a few more points. This can make the difference between a pass and a fail. I think lots of practice exams helps build this mind set.

Materials used
 cccure.org
Shon Harris CISSP All in One book+CD

Comments
 I skimmed through the CISSP book. After going through the ginormous book, I used the CD's practice problems. I found these questions to be much deeper in detail than the exam itself so it wasn't very representative. Also I felt that there wasn't enough detail around explaining why the question wasn't correct. After that, I spent a lot of time on cccure.org's questions. I found the explanations to be very helpful. Also there are lots of questions in their question bank.