Originally published: 01-08-2009
Re-tweeted 03-02-2010

While scanning through some email newsletters, I came across this article . It looks like data security is still an afterthought to many organizations. I cannot stress enough that it is very important to secure your important data.

Video Tutorial: Encrypting your Laptop

Even home users have Quicken, Money, or Quickbooks files. I have several clients that store a list of their passwords or other important information in Word documents on their computers. That’s fine – I keep my entire business stored on my primary laptop. The difference is that my entire hard drive is encrypted. If someone steals my laptop, that will not be able to access my data.

As I’ve said before, the irony is that the software to do all of this is free and open source. It is easy to use and once you encrypt the drive, your computer acts normally. The only time you notice anything is when you restart the computer. You must enter the password at reboot or the operating system simply won’t start.

One other point that  I’m going to state again – Windows and Microsoft and Security don’t go in the same sentence. Just because you have a Windows login password doesn’t mean anything. That is trivial to bypass.

Also remember the following:

• Rule #1: You are only as good as your last successful backup – from which you can recover.
• www.truecrypt.com – open source and free

Hard drives can and will fail. It’s not a matter of “if” – its just a matter of when.

I’m attaching the audio from a failed hard drive – this is the “click of death” which means a physical failure of the drive. Could it be fixed? Possibly – but it depends on how important the data is and how much money you want to invest in attempting to recover it.

The moral of this article: You are only as good as your last successful backup – from which you can recover.

Now, arguably I run around like a chicken with my head cut off much of the time. If it weren’t for the Google Mobile Sync and my iPhone, it would be much worse. Of course, you don’t have to have an iPhone – the sync works with several different smart phones.

One other added benefit now is that you can sync multiple calendars. For instance, my business schedule calendar is shared online to Genia via her email address through Google Apps for your Domain. That means she can check my schedule against things she might want to plan for the family. In reverse, her calendar is shared to me so I can check for school meetings, birthday events, etc. It works out great.

Here is the deal – I’m not a tin-foil hat guy, but I’m also a conservative and definitely was as little government intrusion as possible. This is a prime example. Can anyone explain to me why the federal government needs a reason to eavesdrop on Skype conversations?

You can use the straw man argument that “the government needs to be able to listen in to criminals to apprehend them”, but that also restricts the freedoms of the law abiding citizens. No – the government doesn’t need a backdoor.

NSA offering ‘billions’ for Skype eavesdrop solution
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/

Source code for Skype eavesdropping trojan in the wild
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=4133&tag=nl.e589

Now here is the cool thing. A lot of people play MMORPG games just to play, but for me EQ was different. It actually inspired me. I can honestly trace the vast majority of my web coding skills and graphics abilities back to the days when my guild needed a website. Ok – I learned to code. We needed a way to show off our characters outside the game. Ok – I learned Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop. We need a way to communicate in the game. Ok – I learned about early VOIP programs such as Ventrilo, and that spawned a further interest in routers, port forwarding, and much much more including Flash and video technologies.

At some point, I became interested in a program called ShowEQ or SEQ for short. It allowed you to have an in-game radar. Some of the developers spun-off and needed a home for development. I volunteered the web hosting and site, and Scott and I launched the MySEQ forums February 4, 2004. It grew to 4000 members within 24 hours. That’s nothing these days, but then it was awesome for a bunch of EQ’ers who were running an outlaw program at the risk of Sony banning us.

Of course, I haven’t played EQ in a long time. I just honestly don’t have the time with my business and family. However, I do owe a lot to my days in EverQuest. They were inspirational to say the least.

Sure, you can type in the search bar of Google, Yahoo, or Bing – but that requires an extra click. It’s not a really big deal, but when I’m trying to get you to type in an address and see a particular page, and then you don’t and get something different – it just makes it that much harder to help you.

Interestingly enough, if you want to see the top search terms for Yahoo and Google – click the following links:

http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

http://www.google.com/trends

Rex,
I have a customer that is having a real problem with her wireless signal in a 2 story hotel. She has tried everything from getting another Netgear range max router and still can not get a signal on her outer areas of the 2nd floor. I recommended the WRT54GL and the DD-WRT firmware. That would increase the signal of the wireless on that router correct?

———–
My Reply:
———–

The NetGear Range Max is marketing hype. The reason that it doesn’t help her is simple – even if the access point can transmit a considerable distance, that doesn’t mean the remote device (laptop) has the strength to transmit back. The main advantage to the devices with MIMO technology is that they are less prone to interference.

Wireless N won’t help either since the majority of laptops won’t support N and will fall back to G.

The WRT54GL flashed with DD-WRT or Tomato (what I recommend now) is an excellent choice. Of course, it’s what I recommend due to features, cost, and performance. Plus, the WRT54GL runs 16MB of onboard RAM, which means it can handle higher numbers of devices well. I’ve set them up with 80+ devices connected and no performance issues.

However, her main concern is going to be saturating the wireless to the 2nd floor. You have to remember that the G band basically comes out in an umbrella shape. Even turning up the transmit power (available under Tomato and DD-WRT) won’t guarantee The best solution is to run ethernet to the 2nd floor and connect a 2nd WRT54GL setup as a switch/AP.

If she can’t run ethernet cable to the 2nd floor, then a 2nd WRT54GL can be setup as a repeater. As long as you place the “repeater” in decent proximity to the 1st floor access point, it should work out fine. Again, remote devices at the edge signal on the 2nd floor may still experience connectivity issues. It depends on total square footage of the 2nd floor, walls, other interference, etc.

Well, this is the story of how a Panasonic SV-AV20u was donated to me by someone with whom I have done a lot of computer work. The device is pretty cool as it will work as an mp3 player (sort of), video recorder (.asf), and audio recorder. It even has some good write-ups. The only real issues seem to stem for the SD Jukebox software and the use of the SD encryption technology.

##########
Charging System
##########

The CH-9007 Charging System is compatible with this device even though Panasonic tries to say only their charging unit works. eBay usually has some, but I found one for around $50 here:

http://www.batterysavings.com/site/1/product/5/194/16619/CH- 9007/1/a.aspx

One of the nice things about this unit is that it comes with both the a/c charging plug and the car adapter for the charging unit.

#########
USB Cable
#########

The USB cable is a  USB 2.0 to MINI USB 2.0 (5 Pin Format). These aren’t hard to find either. As a matter of fact Wal-Mart has them too.

http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/CUSB2-AM506.htm?x=22&y=9

*See below for the Lexar Jumpdrive Trio method of dealing with the files.*

#############
A/C Power Supply
#############

One of the issues with using the USB cable is that it will not respond until the SV-AV20 detects the A/C power supply. The until calls for a 4.7v DC input. I went to Radio Shack and purchased the 4.5V/1600mA AC-to-DC Power Adapter (part# 273-1760) which comes with a free “B” type plug. Connecting this unit works perfectly.

#############
SD-Jukebox, SD-MovieStage, and USB Drivers
#############

The fact that you cannot download the USB drivers nor the software from the US Panasonic website is crazy. There is nothing very proprietary about this software. It is simply a way for Panasonic to make their products more difficult or rape you of more money for something that should be easily accessible.

Originally, the Russian Panasonic site had the v3 downloads of the software. After I downloaded the software, and published the link, Panasonic yanked it down.

I have copies of the software so here are the links to them (at least until Panasonic threatens me):

www.smartergeek.com/files/PanasonicVoiceEditor3.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/PanasonicSDJukeboxv4.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/Panasonic_SV-AV20_USBDriver.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/Panasonic_SD-MovieStage_and_USBDriver-SV-AV20.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/Panasonic_SD-JukeboxV3_and_USBDriver-SV-AV20.zip

#########
Converting the .VM1 files
#########

I’ve found that using Awave Studio is the best and easiest method to convert the SV-AV20 .vm1 audio files to mp3. No, it’s not cheap to buy the software, but it works very easy. Make sure you copy the Lame encoder DLL to the Awave installed directory for mp3 output.

• Just put the SD card in your computer
• make sure hidden files are enabled in Windows
• copy the files to your computer
• start Awave and open the files to convert them

#########
Another Thread on AV-20
#########

http://www.petesipple.co.uk/panasonicbook.html

########
Other Notes:
########

I do have a PDF copy of the manual for the SV-AV20u. If you would like a copy, send me a private message on the board or email at rex (at) rexpage.com with Panasonic SV-AV20u in the subject (or the spam filters will get it).

I also purchased a Lexar Card Reader for SD/MMC/Memory Stick (USB thumb-drive type device) so that I could read the 64MB SanDisk SD Card on any computer. This device is compatible with Win98, 2k, and XP without the need for drivers. Now, I can access the device however I need. Moving the files from  the SV-AV20u is now simply a case of pulling out the SD card, inserting it into the Trio, plugging that into my USB port, and doing a little copy/pasting. Then I use my other methods described in this article to deal with the movies and voice recorded audio. In the future I may also purchase a larger SD card although I hate to spend money on DRM-type devices.

##########
Convert .asf to .mpg
##########

www.tmpgenc.net

===========

TMPGEnc converts *.AVI file to MPEG1, the format which is used in VideoCD. Using variety of option in TMPGEnc, you can compress your video file in high quality.

TMPGEnc enables us adjust bitrate, quantize matrix, GOP structure, Interlace and many other parameter so that you can create most appropriate movie file depends on your purpose.

===============

Since the .asf format is proprietary Microsoft and oddly enough it is patented, I highly recommend that you convert your videos out of this format as soon as you are able. Using TMPgenc, you can easily convert the .asf files to non-proprietary MPEG or AVI (non-compressed) which means they should be playable in any player including vCD’s, DVD’s, etc.

#########
Listen / Convert .vm1 files:
#########

A reply on [ this site ] gives a method for listening to .vm1 files. You can then record them using Audacity or whatever method.

Note: you will unfortunately need Microsoft Windows Media player for this method.

Download WMP: [ Click here ]

Download WMP Plugin
http://www.wmplugins.com/ItemDetail.aspx?ItemID=524

#########
Convert .wav to mp3 format:
#########

Well, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to do this in JukeBox or MovieStage or Voice Editor. The device saves your voice files in .vm1 format which is proprietary to Panasonic and requires the SD Voice Editor Software. Use Voice Editor to convert to .wav file. Then, simply use Audacity to convert to .mp3 or oog. Problem solved.

Link to Audacity (free and open source sound editor)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net

You can read more by checking [ this article ].

You will also need to install the LAME encoder [ download here ] for mp3’s. This is easy to do. You will download and unzip the file. Then place the lame_enc.dll somewhere in your computer (I usually put mine in the c:\program files\audacity directory) and use the File…Preferences…File Format (tab) to locate the .dll.

#########
Final Conclusion:
#########

This is the most idiotic thing I have seen that tries to utilize some sort of DRM. I called Panasonic support, and from what I can research I can either (1) order the software from them or (2) purchase an SD card reader to work with the SanDisk 64MB SD card that I have. The only downside is that audio recordings are saved on the device in a proprietary format, the video is saved as .asf which is owned by Microsoft, and I will not be able to really utilize it as an alleged “mp3″ player.

Since it is really not an mp3 player anyway as it encodes the mp3’s on-the-fly to the device anyway plus I have an iPod, I was going to opt for the card reader until I finally found the software. However, I up buying the SD card reader anyway. Then I can at least access the jpg images and .asf video files. The video files can then be converted to whatever format I wish. It’s a little bit of a pain to convert the voice recorder audio, but not too bad. All in all for a donated piece of technology, it is not too bad.

Would I ever buy one? Hell no.

I’ve preached this over and over – your anti-virus is only 1 layer of security. Don’t be lulled into a false sense. You have to stay vigilant and aware of layered security. The first layer is always common sense. Preventing 99% of phishing schemes is easy – read how here.

The main point is that you need to be aware of security even if you are just a casual computer user. I get on my technology soap box all of the time and try to preach about “prevention” since there is not a “cure all” solution except staying off the ‘net – and we can’t do that now can we?