Java 1.6 on OS X
As a default java 1.5 is the enabled Java version on Mac OS X, however if you run an updated version of your OS X you can easily start using Java 1.6 instead – it is already there! All there is to it is, that you need to enable it.
If you simply want to use Java 1.6 in your current terminal session, you can fire this command:
alias java=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Commands/java
From that point on, when you use your Terminal, Java 1.6 will be used.
Also, you can add that line to ~/.bash_login – well, at least if you are using bash, and then it will always be the java used when firing off “java” from the terminal.
And! You can change the link from /usr/java/bin to use the 1.6 version. Do this with these:
sudo rm /usr/bin/java
sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Commands/java /usr/bin/java
Personally I use the alias method. That was it for now. Have fun with Java 1.6.
Maximizing Password Security
Amongst several years I have been using very complex passwords, however they could somewhat be linked to each other. I memorized around 15 different passwords with an average length of 15 chars. All of them had a complexity level which was rather high, (at least 3 of these: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters, whitespaces).. So, from these I created passwords put together from them and so on.
But really, does that maximize my password security? No, not really, because using the same password two places no matter what increases the risk of a password to be compromised. Even though both places kept the passwords in some encrypted format, there would still be 2 paths to reach my hashes. So, the only way of really solving this issue is by having a different password _everywhere_ and not use 2 equal ones anywhere. This leads to some kind of challenge. I would never, ever use a passphrase like “I am awesome for having a long password”.. So the solution would be to have a password database, containing all the different passwords used. For this I chose KeePassX – the OS wide port of KeePass.
This has a nice password generator, so I genereated a 28 character, random password containing lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers and special chars. Now I have memorized that password. The database is 256bit AES encrypted.
So now I do not use any password that matches one I use somewhere else – furthermore, all passwords are 15-30 chars long with maximum complexity level.. Well, at least those who are not for stupid pages which has a.. MAXIMUM complexity level. How stupid… Anyway, I’d like to share my keepass multiOS, portable package with you.
The contents are:
KeePass 2.08
The windows version – portable.
KeePassX 0.4.0 Linux 32-bit
The Linux version, compiled from source using GNU/Linux Debian Lenny.
KeePassX 0.4.0 Linux 64-bit
The Linux version, compiled from source using GNU/Linux Ubuntu Jaunty.
KeePassX 0.4.0 Max OS X
The OS X version .app package. Works like charm.
All of them are tested on the respective platforms, and works like a charm. You can fetch the package I made right here:
http://frands.net/pub/Keepass_MultiOS.zip