Amplifier Ventures Seeds Android Data Security Startup

Amplifier Ventures Seeds Android Data Security Startup

Amplifier Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund, today announced the seed financing of SpydrSafe Mobile Security, Inc. SpydrSafe had been operating in stealth mode since its formation in early November. The company has developed an innovative approach to DLP (“data loss prevention”) and app control on Android devices. The company’s proprietary technology will allow employees to use their own Android devices at work while protecting the sensitive enterprise information that they access. The company’s innovative approach to BYOD (“bring your own device”), enables IT departments to deploy enterprise apps and proprietary data with enterprise-grade app and data oriented policies and security, all while preserving the native user experience.

New Year’s Day Black-eyed Peas

Following is a recipe for New Year’s Day black-eyed peas. As the name implies, this is a dish traditionally served on New Year’s Day—at least in the Southeastern United States it is. Having it is supposed to bring you luck for the rest of the year. So, if you didn’t have it this year, well, you’ll be well prepared for next year.

Similar recipes are found all over the Internet. I can’t say there’s anything particularly new or unique about this one. I can’t even say this is best way to do it. I think the “best” way to cook black-eyed peas is in a crockpot but, if you don’t have one, this version works well enough.

Prep time: 15 minutes (not counting soak time)
Cook time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (total)
Servings: 8 - 10

Ingredients

Dry black-eyed peas – 16oz / 454g
Ham hock – 1
Garlic powder – 1tsp / 5ml
Onion chipped – 1 large
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Thoroughly separate and rinse black-eyed peas
2. Soak black-eyed peas in tap water over night
3. Add ham hock and onion to pot, cook until onion pieces are medium tender, turn ham hock frequently, as it has an irregular shape
4. Add black-eyed peas
5. Add water to pot and submerge black-eyed peas by an inch or two
6. Add garlic powder, salt, and pepper, then stir
7. Bring ingredients to rolling boil
8. Turn heat down to low and cover pot
9. Cook for about 2 and ½ hours

Rake task to drop, create, migrate then seed your development database

When developing a Ruby on Rails application you will often want to drop, create, migrate then seed your development database. Justin French wrote a blog post describing how to write a custom rake task to do just that. I had to modify the code to work properly in my Rails 3 (3.1.x) development environment, so I thought I'd share.

# Rake task to drop, create, migrate then seed your development database
# with fixture data
# Based on http://justinfrench.com/index.php?id=232

namespace :db do
  desc "Raise an error unless the current Rails environment is development"
  task :development_environment_only do
    raise "Development only!" unless Rails.env.development?
  end

  desc "Drop, create, migrate then seed development database"
  task :devreset => [
    'environment', 
    'db:development_environment_only', 
    'db:drop', 
    'db:create', 
    'db:migrate', 
    'db:seed'
    ]

end

Pressure Cooker Coconut Chicken Curry Recipe

Following is my personal recipe for coconut chicken curry, cooked in a pressure cooker. This recipe is based on other recipes from around the Internet. I can’t claim that this recipe is “authentic” in any way. Rather, it’s inspired by similar dishes from Indian restaurants around the Washington, DC area.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes (total)

Servings: 8 - 10

Ingredients

Onion, chopped – 1 medium

Bell pepper (red or orange for color), sliced thin lengthwise – 1 medium

Garlic, chopped – 6 cloves

Potatoes, cubed – 2 small

Curry powder – 2 Tbsp/30ml

Paprika – 2 tsp/10ml

Ginger – dried, ground – 1 tsp/5ml

Garlic salt – 2 tsp/10ml

Coconut milk – 1 can/13.5oz/400ml

Sesame oil – 2 Tbsp/30ml

Chicken thighs, thawed, with bones – 10

Preparation

1. Add sesame oil to pressure cooker and heat to medium high heat

2. Add onion, bell pepper, and garlic to oil, cook for several minutes

3. Add chicken thighs and cook on one side for several minutes

4. Add curry powder, paprika, ginger, and garlic salt

5. Turn chicken thighs and cook on other side for several more minutes

6. Add potatoes

7. Add coconut milk

8. Place lid on pressure cooker, lock, and adjust pressure setting to poultry

9. Continue cooking on medium high heat until pressure indicator pops up (about 10 minutes)

10. Lower heat to low/simmer (about 10 more minutes)

Weight Watchers PointsPlus values (per serving per the online recipe builder): 9

How to Remove a Provisioning Profile from iTunes on Mac OS X

If you are developing and testing applications for the iPhone, you may occasionally need to remove an old or obsolete provisioning profile from iPhones in a test or pilot environment. While this is straightforward, the problem is that the profile is reinstalled on the iPhone the next time your users sync with iTunes. The way to work around this problem is to remove the provisioning profile from iTunes as well. While this is not difficult, there is no obvious way to do this from iTunes. Therefore, I thought I’d post some instructions on how to do just this. Here I’ll describe how to remove a provisioning profile from iTunes on a Mac, as well as how to remove it from the phone.

Step 1

Ensure that your iPhone is not connected to your Mac (you’ll connect and sync later). If iTunes is running, close it.

Step 2

1. Delete the provisioning profile from your Mac
2. Open Finder
3. Navigate to <your_home_directory>/Library/MobileDevice/ProvisioningProfiles
4. Select the provisioning profile(s) you wish to remove, right click, select Move to Trash

Step 3

1. Remove the provisioning profile from your iPhone
2. Go to Settings -> General we
3. Scroll down to Profiles
4. Tap the profile you wish to remove
5. Tap the red Remove button, a confirmation dialog will appear
6. Tap Remove to dismiss the dialog and remove the provisioning profile
7. You will be returned to Settings -> General

There. You’re done and the profile is gone.

How the IPad Fits Into IT

This is a very interesting blog post on PCWorld by John Welch of Macworld.com.

How the iPad Fits Into IT

How do you think the iPad will fit into enterprise IT?

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Device Management for Google Sync

On Wednesday February 3, Google announced support for basic corporate policy enforcement across a range of mobile devices. Administrators may apply these policies to Windows Mobile, Nokia, and iPhone devices, all of which are Exchange ActiveSync enabled. This is a good move by the Google Apps team and brings them one step closer to parity with myriad Exchange hosters. While, in my biased opinion, this capability does not constitute an enterprise class device management solution, I do think that the recognition that organizations want to connect mobile devices to enterprise IT services means that Google is listening to their customers. It also means that Google Apps is becoming more applicable to a wider variety of users, and end-points. These administrative controls, as Google calls them, allow Google Apps admins to set password policies for mobile devices connecting in via Google Sync. An admin can also remotely wipe a mobile device in case it is lost or stolen. Both of these features are critical security measures for enterprises leveraging mobile technology. An interesting omission in all of this however is lack of support for Google's own Android. I imagine Google will remedy this over time, either by adding deeper support for Exchange ActiveSync to the Android platform, including support for security policies, or by some Google proprietary method.