SveaSoft has published the new Talisman/Basic release of their replacement firmware for the Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GS wireless routers. It's available for v1.1 and newer revs of the router hardware (see the label on the bottom, if it's v1.1 or newer you'll see the numbers there).

Subscribers to Sveasoft's firmware service can download it now. It's only $20 a year, and if you're a hardware/software geek with a WRT54G, it's worth the $20 a year just for the fun of messing with it, not to mention the great functionality.

This firmware is excellent, and includes a large number of technical enhancements and improvements over both the default Linksys firmware and the previous SveaSoft firmware versions.

Just some of the extra features the SveaSoft firmware provides above and beyond what the default firmware gives you:

Classic funny moment - I've been victim of the Slashdot effect (lots of referral traffic) a couple of times in the past. A friend pointed this out to me just a minute or two ago. Looks like Slashdot's got a little hair of the dog that bit 'em problem? What comes around... Heh...

Thanks, Dave.

Audible.com - an great audio book/publication service that I have been using for about a year - has published a whole set of RSS feeds so you can subscribe to find out easily what new content is published, including both free and pay-for selections:

This Week's Best Sellers (Top 50)
This Week's New Audiobooks and Programs
New Free Audio Programs
Under $10 Audio Programs
New York Times Best Sellers
BusinessWeek Best Sellers
Publishers Weekly Best Sellers
Best Sellers in Arts & Entertainment
Best Sellers in AudibleOriginals
Best Sellers in Biographies and Memoirs
Best Sellers in Business
Best Sellers in Classics
Best Sellers in Comedy
Best Sellers in Drama and Poetry
Best Sellers in Fiction
Best Sellers in Foreign Language
Best Sellers in Great Talkers
Best Sellers in History
Best Sellers in Information Age
Best Sellers in Kids
Best Sellers in Mystery
Best Sellers in Non-fiction
Best Sellers in Science
Best Sellers in Science Fiction and Fantasy
Best Sellers in Self Development
Best Sellers in Speeches and Lectures
Best Sellers in Spirituality
Best Sellers in Sports
Best Sellers in Travel and Adventure

And perhaps the coolest thing on the page? I scrolled down and noticed the question "Where can I find more information about RSS?" and the first resource listed is the RSS Quickstart Guide from Lockergnome.com - nice.

Several Tablet PC hardware announcements/leaks/what-have-you in the past couple of days:

• Some pictures are out of what looks like a tablet from IBM (long rumored and IBM has told me when I speak to them that it's coming, just not commitments):
  http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2005/04/fcc_pics_of_the.html
  
• Hot new Toshiba M4 Tablet PC - looks very nice (but heavy):
  http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?coid=-29325&ccid=1291041&rcid=-26367&seg=SMB
  
• Funky low-power, long-battery Electrovaya Tablet PC (interesting one, but not a power notebook replacement):
  http://www.electrovaya.com/product/sc2200WXA1.1.html
  
• Another Toshiba, the R15 Tablet PC:
  http://www.tabletpcreviewspot.com/default.asp?newsID=229

I'm still using an Acer C300-series. Still works, but I am holing out for the IBM to see what it looks like, since I am awfully impressed with their T-Series laptops.

WinBeta has posted a review and some screenshots of Windows Longhorn Build 5048. Anyone who's interested in the future of Windows may want to check it out.

http://www.winbeta.org/articles.php?action=show&id=15&perpage=1&pagenum=1

The next several months will be quite interesting as Longhorn continues to be built up and new information becomes public.

But release is still a ways off. The author of this article speculates it could still be two full years before Longhorn is released by Microsoft. Time will tell.

There's slashdot conversation taking place about using and enforcing cryptographically strong passwords (it's all about passphrases, people, passphrases - read my experiences here). In that thread, someone linked to an old and quite perfect social engineering example that I had not seen in a while. In my field I see and hear some of the funniest (or rather scariest) stories about situations like this.

From an IRC chatroom:

<Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
<Cthon98> ********* see!
<AzureDiamond> hunter2
<AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me
<Cthon98> <AzureDiamond> *******
<Cthon98> thats what I see
<AzureDiamond> oh, really?
<Cthon98> Absolutely
<AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
<AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you?
<Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
<AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
<Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
<AzureDiamond> awesome!
<AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw?
<Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
<AzureDiamond> oh, ok.

Pretty darn funny - unless it's you.

Of course, much of the /. conversation has evolved into the requisite noise and talk about how the original question is a moot point because passwords are dead, etc etc etc blah blah blah shashdotadnauseum...

And, since we need something useful to go with the something-funny/scary, here's some information worth reading about how to make it possible for users to remember and use cryptographically strong authentication without having to resort to post-it's and .txt files on the computer:

The Great Debate: Pass Phrases vs. Passwords

• Part One - covers the fundamentals of passwords and pass phrases, how they are stored, and so on
• Part Two - discusses the relative strength of each type of password, and use some mathematical approaches for illustration
• Part Three - offers some conclusions and guidance on how to choose passwords and configure a password policy