Sentinel Visualizer is a intelligence analysis program developed by FMS Advanced Systems Groups. FMS does work in data analysis, visualization, and also creates solutions in the area of Geospatial/Temporal Analysis and Situational Awareness. Sentinel TMS allows users to input data and values to create a graphic visualization to represent patterns and relationships between people, places, meetings, buildings, organizations, and events. It uses Social Network Analysis metrics to give value to different types of data. These values are then used to rank centrality, threat level, and other key metrics within large complex datasets. Sentinel has a powerful query search that allows

Here is an example visualization map of the terrorist network behind 9/11:

I heard about this tool from a presentation from retired NSA analysts Kirk Wiebe and Bill Binney at an SRA club meeting. The software costs between $2500 and $5000 depending on the version and amount of users registered. Thankfully, they allow a 45-day free trial version that is fully functioning. I downloaded soon after the presentation by these two retired NSA analysts to play with myself. I found it to be a very cool program, and I could only imagine at how useful it could be in the intelligence community. I could see how great it would be for Law Enforcement if used to map out networks for cases. The private sector could also use Sentinel for security audits or analysis by mapping out assets and employee’s access to them.

I strongly advise anyone interested in a security related job to download the trial version and play around with it. While your future employer may not necessary use the same software, but the same ideas in approaching data analysis.

“20 terabytes of unique multi-media information generated every minute world-wide.”

— Kirk Wiebe and Bill Binney

I just picked Mass Effect up when I got back from school for winter break, and I have to say that it goes beyond all of my expectations. I was of a big fan of Knights of the Old Republic, and when BioWare announced a title for the 360, I was psyched. Over past two days, I have put about 12 hours into my career, and there never was a dull moment. Mass Effect has a non-linear storyline that never ceases to amaze you. There are always three or more leads that you can choose to pursue at any given time to continue the main story. There are also other many another side-quests that take you across the many galaxies, clusters, systems, and planets available to explore in Mass Effect.

The games starts out with the creation of your character. You can choose your first name (your last name is always Shepard), your Psychological profile (Lone Survivor, War Hero, or Ruthless) , your character class ( Solider, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Vanguard, and Sentinel), and customize your character’s face. Your psychological profile determines what some NPC’s think of your during gameplay.

Lone Survivor:
You where the only survivor of a mission that you and a team of marines went on. You are know as a survivor.

War Hero:
In a mission where the chances of living where slim to none, you rescued soldiers on your team, and defeated the enemy.

Ruthless:
You have always gotten the job done, no matter what the costs, no matter what the conditions.

Picking a character class is very important, because it dictates what skills and weapons are available to you during the game.

Solider (Combat):
Improved health and health regeneration, widest selection of weapons, massive melee damage

Engineer (Tech):
Improved tech resistance, reduced recharge time for tech abilities, can only be trained with the pistol.

Adept ( Biotic):
Improved biotic resistance, reduced recharge time for biotic abilities

Infiltrator (Combat/Tech):
Increased damage by tech mines, reduced overheating of sniper rifles and pistols

Vanguard (Biotic/Combat):
Reduced recharge time for tech and biotic abilities, increased damage and accuracy of pistols

Sentinel (Biotic/Tech):
Increased biotic resistance and damage of shotguns and pistols

One of the coolest and jaw-dropping parts of this game is the character interaction. Dialog is ridiculously realistic. The characters body and facial movement makes the game look almost like a sci-fi movie. You can pick what you say, and just like Knights of the Old Republic, character alignment is determined by how you interact with other characters in the game.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gZK15KcA2k&rel=1]

Mass Effect is a game that puts you in the driver seat of an epic blockbuster space opera.

Moments ago, Maiselog came into existence from WordPress’ womb. And thanks to Caroline Furey, Maiselog will have its own domain name and server space. The switch will come in the following month.

Yes it is true, a Russian based chat bot nicked named, “CyberLover,” is fooling chatroom goers into giving it there personal information in an attempt to steal their identities Note that this is just another reason not to mess with Russia, or they will send their CyberLover bots out in swarms to seduce you out of your social security card and bank PIN numbers.Security software company PC Tools warns that the bot can easily be used for malicious purposes. The company said that the program’s ability to mimic human behavior to dupe chatters is worrisome, and could readily be used to collect all manner of information. The creators of the bot are denying that it was intentionally created to do these evil acts.

For that one assignment way back in the beginning of the year about the bloggers evaluation, I posted an entry about a blog titled Cobalt Blue. I looked at the amount of posts, comments, and people on the Cobalt Blue blogroll to better understand how blogs worked. I was just checking Google Reader to sees what today’s RSS feeds brought to me, when I noticed that Cobalt Blue had recently posted a new entry on a Youtube video.

Cobalt Blue has posted about three or four posts a month since my analysis. I still have never seen more than one or two comments on each of his posts, but that doesn’t mean people don’t read his blog. Basically all of his posts are videos or audio clips. His blogroll has a couple more people than it did than last time. He also updated his profile as well. It appears that his blog has experienced a small amout of growth in fan base. His content also steadily is added as well.

A company in China has taken Google to court over copy right infringement. Google’s name translated into Chinese is “Guge,” the company claims to have that name patented.

According to the case, which was heard by a court in Beijing this week, Beijing Guge Sci-Tech Co. was officially registered at the Beijing Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau on April 19, 2006, but Google didn’t register the name “Guge” in China until Nov. 24 of that year.

—WSJ

Both companies claim that they were the creators of the word, and both say they have different meanings.

All that I have to say about this…these idiots in China are going to get what is coming for them. Google is going to unleash the wraith and fury of its thousands of patent lawyers, and harness the energy and power of its web presence to wipe this company of the face of the internet.

As they once said, “Don’t Mess with Russia.”

the new saying of the wise is, “Don’t Mess with Google.”

I have only realized that the skiing industry has really been on ball with emerging web technologies and has gone all out on web design, podcasts, blogs, and even wikis. I think that it is great for skiers to take advantage of information technology and spread the joy of the sport. Ultitizing these kinds of information services makes the sharing of information very fast and concentrated. Every month I wait for all of the skiing podcasts that I subscribe too come out, so I can find out what the Pros are up too, how the season is going in various places, how big the parks are out west, and how much pow was dumped out in AK in the most recent snow storm. This makes it really easy for skiers like me who can’t get out all the time to know what is going on in the skiing world.

And now some good stuff…if you skip over this entire blog at least watch this video. This is a twelve-year old kid out in Mt. Hood Washington last summer:

William Kamkwamba has a dream: to power up his country one windmill at a time.

-Wall Street Journal

Kamkwamba is a 20 year-old resident of Malawi a relatively small country in Africa. In the past couple of years he has devised a couple of windmills that power his family’s house: three light bulbs, one radio, and one television. At first, his family thought he was crazy with his idea of using a windmill to create electricity, but after studying a windmill in a magazine, he was able to build a 39 foot windmill out of blue-gum trees and used bicycle parts. With no prior education, Kamwamba electrified literally and metaphorically his neighborhood, and now with the publicity that African bloggers have gotten it, nation. What amazes me with this story is that it was because of African bloggers that this story was pushed throw the pipeline. After this news hit the blogosphere, a group of independent investors decided to fund Kamkwamba’s education.

I have learned more about Adwords over the past few weeks in preparation for the competition next semester. I am finding it to be a very good tool to get publicity and drive web traffic to websites. An Adword campaign usually takes place over a set period of time. A campaign manager chooses certain keywords, and sets bid prices for each these words. A bid price is the amount of money the manager is willing to pay Google when someone clicks on their ad after a search using those keywords. The goal for the Adword campaign manager is to get his or organization to appear at the top of the sponsored list on the search result page. There are a couple factors that determine the position of each ad. The quality of the landing site (the web page the ad takes the user to), clickthrough rate (how many times do users click on the ad), and also the amount of money (bid) that is placed on certain keywords. These variables are ultimately used to determine the position of the ad on the search results and also how much money that it costs to the Adword campaign when a user clicks on the ad. Sometime campaigns with ads in higher positions pay less money than those in lower positions depending on their quality.

I’ve been teleporting throughout the various islands of SL, and I have been looking for a romantic island to take a special someone out on a date. So far, I have been very disappointed. Most of the “romantic” islands that I have found turn out to be tacky, virtual, soft-porn orgies. I am looking for a quiet peaceful island where my date and I can get a bite to eat in an upscale restaurant, and then go take a walk on the beach, be out in nature, or chill in some sort of karma inducing location where my date and I can cuddle. I want detail to be put in this island, and don’t mind spend a couple hundred lindens. I did a little research online through sltree.com. This pointed me to a couple of romantic getaways. Midnight Reflection, Aphrodite’s Waterfall & Caverns, and The Lost Gardens of Apollo all caught my eye. When I searched the three of these in SL, I found out that they were all credible places that didn’t allow mature content. The Lost Gardens of Apollo was overcrowded, and I couldn’t teleport to the island. The other two seemed to be very nice places to go on a date. I think that I have a better idea now of where I want to go.