Apple Wireless Keyboard and DVORAK

Published on July 1, 2009 by Michael Wheeler. 0 Comments Tags: , , .
New Apple Keyboard
Matthew Piper – New Apple Keyboard

So I went and spent some disposable income on the Apple Wireless Keyboard, not just because it has an Apple logo on the back, but because I find the low set keys much nicer to type on. The other great thing about the keyboard is the fact that it runs on Bluetooth, allowing it’s range to be longer, and not require a silly dongle. The use of Bluetooth may also be a disadvantage as the devices battery life was much shorter than I was expecting, and I am yet to put rechargeable batteries in. Being Bluetooth, I can easily use the keyboard at work and at home, although the Dell Bluetooth driver aren’t the best, and I usually have to turn my keyboard off every 2 hours.

As well as changing my keyboard, I have changed my keyboard layout to Dvorak, as it makes sense. I’m still learning the layout, but I can already notice the difference. Aside from the issues with OS X logins and remote desktop, it seems to work well. Learning the new layout on computer games is hard though :P.

Geocaching

Published on June 13, 2009 by Michael Wheeler. 1 Comment Tags: , , .
First Geocache
TheSkorm – First Geocache

My uncle has kind enough to give me his old GPS unit to me, so Chris and I decided to try out geocaching. We had 5 unsuccessful attempts, followed by a success. It was really fun looking at all of the items and logbook entries. We signed the book and put the cache back and had two more unsuccessful attempts.

ps. This blog post is smallish due to me still learning the DVORAK keyboard layout.

Hazard Perception Test hacking

Published on June 1, 2009 by Michael Wheeler. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
Hazard perception test hacking
TheSkorm – Hazard perception test hacking

HPT (Hazard Perception Test) is a test to test your reaction time for hazards when driving. It is required for Queensland drivers to take the test to move from a P1 to P2 licence. The test is taken online where you are shown several one minutes videos, and you must click on the hazard as soon as you spot it. I always like to play around with online systems testing security so I gave this setup a shot. I used the practice tests to see how the system worked, and it was pretty easy to work out a way to cheat the system (like most online exams).

Since it was encrypted using HTTPS Wireshark was out of the question, however this doesn’t mean you can’t still see what’s happening. I found a nice tool called “Live HTTP headers” which shows you all the requests. The first thing I noticed is that the videos are preloaded. You can see all the requested URLs in Live HTTP headers.

To watch one of the videos before taking the test, all you have to do is grab the URL for it (see the screenshot above) and paste that into a new tab. The videos seem to be able to be downloaded at least twice. You can then watch the videos, and then take the exam, and know exactly what’s in the exam / video.

It’s not overly hard to do, and actually quite fun.