@lenovo's trust eaten by #superfish

It's over before the news spread out too much about it. However, this has left a dent in Lenovo's trust factor. A lot of people had developed positive brand image for Lenovo until this "man-in-the-middle" adware approach broke out in the news:
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/19/lenovo-caught-installing-adware-new-computers/.
The adware proxy #superfish injected third-party ads on Google search and websites (in chrome/ie).
Not good!
https://twitter.com/fugueish/status/568252885839912960?s=09

Well, a fun side to this story is a nice hacking diary detailing the steps involved in extracting superfish certificate.
http://blog.erratasec.com/2015/02/extracting-superfish-certificate.html#.VOYAWbDF_Xo

You probably remember that your computer was preloaded with lots of bloatware, and had to uninstall some softwares or trials. I wish the computer box were sold with the option that let people do fresh install their OS.

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Insert the date and time into the google docs

This is how you insert the date and time to the google docs

1. Go to the Google document/new document.
2. Go to the Tools/Script Editor, and insert the following script at the bottom of the scripts.
This will create a new menu. You can modify the code to change the appearance of the month/date.
3. See the end note to add automated date entry!

The code is available below/ at pastebin.
http://pastebin.com/QFpTRQ3h

function onOpen() {
  var ui = DocumentApp.getUi();
  // Or FormApp or SpreadsheetApp.
  ui.createMenu('Insert Date')
      .addItem('Insert Date', 'insertDate')
      .addToUi();

}

function insertDate() {
  var cursor = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getCursor();
  if (cursor) {
      // Attempt to insert text at the cursor position. If insertion returns null,
      // then the cursor's containing element doesn't allow text insertions.
      var d = new Date();
      var dd = d.getDate();
      var hrs = d.getHours();
      var min = d.getMinutes();
      dd = pad(dd, 2)
      var mm = d.getMonth() + 1; //Months are zero based
      mm = pad(mm, 2)
      var yyyy = d.getFullYear();
    var date =  "Date: "+mm + "-" +dd + "-" + yyyy+ "::"+hrs+":"+min +"\n";
      var element = cursor.insertText(date);
      if (element) {
        element.setBold(true);
      } else {
        DocumentApp.getUi().alert('Cannot insert text at this cursor location.');
      }
    } else {
      DocumentApp.getUi().alert('Cannot find a cursor in the document.');
  }

}
function pad (str, max) {
  str = str.toString();
  return str.length < max ? pad("0" + str, max) : str;
}

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Note:
If you add the following function call inside the onOpen() function:
  insertDate();
Then you will get automated insertion of date and time. Great for logging the daily notes!!!

function onOpen() {
  var ui = DocumentApp.getUi();
  // Or FormApp or SpreadsheetApp.
  ui.createMenu('Insert Date')
      .addItem('Insert Date', 'insertDate')
      .addToUi();

  insertDate();

}

CA welcomes much needed rain

Finally the rain is here in California!
California has seen the worst drought in history (ask @JayFamiglietti, for example!).

I would be interested to see how the map is updated after these rainy couple of days:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/WeeklyComparison.aspx

Howver, this weekend and through few of the weekdays, we will see some rain. Below I have copied snapshots of weather by NOAA.

The situation is almost like a welcome a song from the Bollywood movie "Lagaan" where they sing to the incoming rain.



Watch the beautiful GOES west view here:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/goes-w.html
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