Jhender

Ok actually there’s no real link between RSA and Thinkpad keyboards. Perhaps other than they’re geek stuff (as jx would classify them).

So I was actually on Sciencedirect spending NUS money (actually this is geek stuff as well, searching research papers), then I went to look at my comics feed, and there was Xkcd (which is ultra geek comic, but absolutely funny). So today’s comic was on this uber hacker girl who tries to get into NSA to see if they’ve cracked RSA. [oops am i using too many acronyms? NSA=National Security Agency which basically tries to decrypt everything in the world and intercept everyone's communications.] ok here comes the explanation:

RSA is a public key encryption algorithm. It’s named after the founders Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman from MIT. The name doesn’t stand for anything geeky. So you can read more at wikipedia about the math and the implementation and the shortfalls and how good it is. I actually spent some time trying to understand the math, which I am hopelessly unable to understand of course. What more they wrote it in some weird form. So it’s good it’s cool and it’s still quite unbreakable.

Then I went to look at AES, a newer encryption algorithm, Advanced Encryption Standard. Very good too. and they encrypt stuff up to Top Secret level at US.A with this thing. Although NSA scoffs at it for anything about Secret.

Anyway these things are rather unbreakable, if you use a large secure key and avoid all the loopholes.
Found this AxCrypt program which looks not bad, but I dont need it now, nvm. Can get it from Filehippo.com

Somehow I jumped over to searching for IBM Thinkpad keyboards. I think I suddenly remembered I was trying to replace my keyboard. It’s oily/glossy and stuff, which isn’t the best of states, although perfectly usable.

And I went to Thinkwiki, I went to the IBM sites. There’s a helluva lot of information out there on Thinkpad stuff. It’s really nice to see detailed documentation available freely. Details so good you can practically build your own laptop. Thinkwiki specialises in running linux on thinkpads. Surprisingly Lenovo officially supports Linux on Thinkpads. I think that’s very good, and they seem like a progressive China company to me. They’ve also incorporated more features into the Thinkpads. Although of course there are no great new innovations. Actually the Thinkpads don’t look like they’ve changed much over the last few years with IBM anyway. Lenovo has also added in the windows key, you know the one that lets you open up the start menu. IBM refused to do it because they are rivals with Microsoft over the operating systems. IBM has their OS/2 which they used to run on their servers. Anyhow I map my Alt key to the windows key, there’s IBM software to map keys. Did I mention they’ve got great software? I think I mentioned before that I love the Access Connections, which can auto connect to many wireless networks and there are so many options to configure. Actually windows can do much of it, but well it’s a nice interface. And also their programs typically come with information dumps that show you alot of details you typically don’t need to know unless you’re the technician trying to fix stuff.

Oh yes the keyboard. Well the keyboard is replaceable, as I knew before. It’s officially stated as a CRU, customer replaceable unit I believe. Although it’s a category 2 one, which means you need screwdrivers and some guidance. Category 1 is like RAM. Anyway I went to look at the part numbers and stocks, and I found alot of them on Ebay. Here’s one US english thinkpad keyboard which was surprisingly cheap at US$0.99 with US$8 shipping within US. Very tempted to get it, but he wouldn’t ship here. … hm… I would also like a french layout keyboard too.

I also tried to search keyboards on the IBM site, and I found this amazing thing:
which is absolutely fantastic. I mean, it’s got these great keys on a desktop USB thingy, and it comes with the trackpoint(i think) and trackpad. wow. too bad it costs $200. Would love to have one of it.

Ok that’s the exciting stuff. Here’s some Youtube trivia, a thinkpad ball program and thinkpad tux racer game. Both of them make use of the Accelerameter(or sth liddat) in the Thinkpad that detects if there’s laptop movement and stops the harddisk from spinning.