Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams

Poof! After Wireless, the Computer Mouse Turns Invisible -- Wired

In a magic trick that only geeks can pull off, researchers at MIT have found a method to let users click and scroll exactly the same way they would with a computer mouse, without the device actually being there.

Cup your palm, move it around on a table and a cursor on the screen hovers. Tap on the table like you would click a real mouse, and the computer responds. It’s one step beyond cordless. It’s an invisible mouse.

The project, called “Mouseless,” uses an infrared laser beam and camera to track the movements of the palm and fingers and translate them into computer commands.

Read on ...

Linux Doesn't Cost Anything - But Maybe It Should -- LinuxInsider

Discussions, theses, theories and memes abound around Linux's inability to gain traction in the desktop marketplace. Some think the Linux Desktop is too hard to learn (it's not). Others say Linux Desktop is deficient (it's not). Linux elite (or 1337) say Linux wasn't really meant for the general users anyway (not true). Microsoft says Linux in general is evil (see the Halloween Memo) (oh, and by the way, it's not).

I submit yet another theory: Linux isn't expensive enough!

Why, you wonder, when all along we've sung the FOSS praises of GNU/Linux (hereafter referred to as the more simple "Linux," with all deference to Stallman) and that Linux is free? What could be better than free?

If Linux Desktop is free and can't gain more marketshare (estimates range somewhere around 1 percent Linux Desktop market penetration) then one or a combination of the above reasons must be why Linux fails. If Linux passes all points in the opening paragraph, what gives?

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Audi’s Robotic Car Drives Better Than You Do -- Wired

The race to the top of Pikes Peak is among the most harrowing in motorsports, a flat-out sprint through 156 turns on a 12.4-mile road to the clouds. It is a test of grit and skill that demands the best from drivers as they brave perilous drops at 130 mph. Audi thinks it can do it without a driver.

The German automaker will send an autonomous TTS barreling to the summit in September. It will navigate the course at race speeds -- the best drivers make the run in around 12 minutes -- with no one at the wheel or even in the car. No one’s ever attempted anything like it before. Although robocars have driven the course, they haven’t done it at more than 25 mph. Audi says it is pushing autonomous-vehicle technology to its very edge in an effort to make the cars the rest of us drive smarter and safer.

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Idiot users still intentionally opening, clicking on spam -- Ars Technica

Internet users are still opening their spam e-mail with abandon and clicking the links and/or opening the attachments within. These are the latest findings from the Ipsos Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), which found once again that people continue to practice poor e-mail habits despite awareness of the consequences. A healthy dose of denial and ignorance about who should protect them is apparently enough to keep users clicking away.

According to the MAAWG report, a full half of all North American and Western European users admitted to having opened spam, with nearly half of those people (46 percent) doing so intentionally. Sure, a quarter of those users claimed they did so in order to unsubscribe or complain to the sender -- bad idea, people! -- but a full 15 percent said they opened spam because they were interested in the products or services being offered. Another 18 percent simply wanted to "see what would happen," and four percent actually forwarded an e-mail they identified as spam to someone else.

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How robots think: an introduction -- Ars Technica

A future full of helpful robots, quietly going about their business and assisting humans in thousands of small ways, is one of technology's most long-deferred promises. Only recently have robots started to achieve the kind of sophistication and ubiquity that computing's pioneers originally envisioned. The military has hundreds of UAVs blanketing the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan, and Roombas are vacuuming living rooms across the country. At the bleeding edge, there's the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005. This grueling, 140-mile, no-humans-allowed race through the desert showcased full-sized, completely autonomous robot cars that could navigate across rugged desert terrain, avoiding rocks and cliffs and cacti in a race for a $2 million cash prize. The follow-on 2007 Urban Challenge went even further, with the robotic competitors required to drive alongside humans on crowded roads, recognizing and avoiding other cars and following the rules of the road. Suddenly, the robotic future doesn't look so far off.

In some ways, the remarkable thing is that it took so long to get here. In the 1960's, researchers in artificial intelligence were boldly declaring that we'd have thinking machines fully equivalent to humans in 10 years. Instead, for most of the past half-century, the only robots we saw outside of movies and labs were arms confined to factory floors and were remotely operated by humans. Building machines that behaved intelligently in the real world was harder than anyone imagined.

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Apple Beware: Dell (With A Little Help From Amazon and Google) is Taking on iTunes -- Wired

The formidable triumvirate of Amazon, Dell, and Google is apparently poised to give iTunes the first serious run for its money just as the iPad is about to take Apple's downloadable media megastore where no computer has gone before.

Engadget has posted two slides that appear to come from a Dell presentation showing that the Google Android powered Dell Streak tablet will include access to over 300,000 e-books in the Kindle store, everything in the Amazon MP3 download store (over 11 million 'songs and extras"), and over 50,000 movies and television shows available for one-day rental or permanent purchase.

Taken together, this mirrors what iTunes offers for Apple devices, giving hardware manufacturers such as Dell a way to kick-start plans to take on the iPad.

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With a word like triumvirate it must be worth reading.  

 
Photo: Stephen Dodd, Jay Forrester, Robert Everett and Ramona Ferenz test Whirlwind in 1950.

March 8, 1955: The Mother of All Operating Systems -- Wired

Computer pioneer Doug Ross demonstrates the Director tape for MIT’s Whirlwind machine. It’s a new idea: a permanent set of instructions on how the computer should operate.

Six years in the making, MIT’s Whirlwind computer was the first digital computer that could display real-time text and graphics on a video terminal, which was then just a large oscilloscope screen. Whirlwind used 4,500 vacuum tubes to process data.

The Whirlwind occupied 3,300 square feet and was the fastest digital computer of its time. It also pioneered a number of new technologies, including magnetic core memory for RAM.

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US lifts lid on top secret plan for internet security -- BBC

The White House has declassified parts of a top secret plan outlining how government will protect the nation's computer networks from cyber warfare.

The document acknowledges that traditional security approaches have fallen short, but says the federal government is moving forward in outlining "grand challenges" for the research community to help solve.

Mr Schmidt said the declassification would show that the government has a workable strategy for protecting the nation's computer systems in the event of a cyber attack.

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Roger Ebert using software to find his lost voice -- CNET

Although he lost his voice to cancer surgery, Roger Ebert is sounding like his old self thanks to some innovative software.

... But traditional TTS software is far from perfect. The voice that comes out of the computer can sound robotic and mechanical. One of the best-known examples is probably the audio system used by famed physicist Stephen Hawking. Voices that use an accent for added flair--Ebert initially tried a British voice--often mispronounce words and are still hard to understand.

Then one day, as Ebert writes on his Web site, he was surfing the Web and discovered a site for a company called CereProc with a new kind of TTS software, one that builds voices based on a person's actual recordings.

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Internet overtakes print in news consumption among Americans -- Ars Technica

The Internet has surpassed newspapers as a primary way for Americans to get news, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That makes the Internet the third most popular news platform overall, with many connected users taking advantage of nontraditional consumption methods such as social media postings, personalized news feeds, and getting their news on-the-go.

National and local TV stations still dominate the news cycle for most Americans, but the Internet now stands third in the list, ahead of national and local newspapers. Additionally, the majority of news consumers say they use two to five websites per day to get their fix -- a number we think sounds about right -- but a surprisingly high number (21 percent) rely on that one favorite site to get everything they need.

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News You Can Use About How You Use News -- PC World

Have you heard the news? We Americans are increasingly getting our news online, as evidenced by the very fact that you're reading this now. But you don't have to rely on your own personal experience for proof.

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, along with the Project for Excellence in Journalism, conducted a study to see how Americans' news habits had evolved in recent years. Their findings: Nearly all of us rely on multiple platforms for our daily diet of info, with TV news leading the way and the Internet following close behind. Among cell phone owners, a third of people access mobile news sites or apps while on-the-go.

Sources aside, social engagement is becoming increasingly important: Nearly 40 percent of us love to get involved with the news, Pew reports -- blogging, commenting, or sharing on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Not only that, but we rely on those social networks to feed us the info we crave: Three-quarters of people say they regularly receive news stories through Facebook-style sites and e-mail.

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Microsoft's foiling of botnet gets mixed response -- BBC

Security experts are split over the effectiveness of Microsoft's efforts to shut down a network of PCs that could send 1.5 billion spam messages a day.

The firm persuaded a US judge to issue a court order to cripple 277 internet domains used by the Waledac botnet.

... Many saw Waledac as a devastatingly active botnet. Microsoft cited one 18-day period in December when the botnet sent more than 650 million spam e-mails to Hotmail accounts for everything from online pharmacies to fake designer goods, jobs and more.

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The Linux Desktop Expansion -- PCPlus/TechRadar

There are three reasons why Linux isn’t succeeding on the desktop, and none of them are to do with missing functionality, using the command line or the politics of free software. The first is that there’s too much momentum behind Microsoft Windows and too many preconceptions about the alternatives. Linux is perceived as having too much of a learning curve for relatively few advantages and an unknown heritage. Migrating big business to a Linux desktop is akin to turning a T1-class supertanker around mid-Atlantic. The opposite direction may look brighter, but it’s easier to chug onwards into the storm.

read on ...

US government rescinds 'leave internet alone' policy -- The Register

The US government’s policy of leaving the Internet alone is over, according to Obama’s top official at the Department of Commerce.

Instead, an “Internet Policy 3.0” approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, according to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance.

The outcomes of such discussions will be “flexible” but may result in recommendations for legislation or regulation, Strickling said in a speech at the Media Institute in Washington this week.

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I guess by IIPA standards, since I use the open source GNU/Linux Ubuntu operating system, I'm an enemy of capitalism! Does this make me a communist or a socialist?

Uh oh, I may be a socialist, does this now mean the Tea Party is going to come after me too?

When using open source makes you an enemy of the state - The Guardian

The US copyright lobby has long argued against open source software - now Indonesia's in the firing line for encouraging the idea in government departments

... Guadamuz has done some digging and discovered that an influential lobby group is asking the US government to basically consider open source as the equivalent of piracy - or even worse.

What?

It turns out that the International Intellectual Property Alliance, an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its "Special 301 watchlist" because they use open source software.

What's Special 301? It's a report that examines the "adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights" around the planet - effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure - often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods - to try and force governments to change their behaviours.

Read on ...

The decade's top 10 quotations - Salon

Before our country can move forward, we need to know how we got here in the first place. Here are a few clues .

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FTC reminds us that storing data in the cloud has drawbacks - ArsTechnica

The Federal Trade Commission worries that consumers don't really understand the privacy implications to storing some of their most crucial data in the cloud, and it wants the FCC to think about such issues when finalizing its national broadband plan.

read on ...

Kendall-Jackson to drastically cut water usage - CNet

Jackson Family Wines, known for its Kendall-Jackson label, has developed a process to reduce winery water usage by 70 percent.

A new system developed by Jackson Family Wines recycles and filters the hot water used for rinsing, losing only about 10 percent of that water in the process, the company said Tuesday. The system also retains 75 percent of the water's heat. As a result, the process also saves energy.

read on ...

"Bandwidth hogs" join unicorns in realm of mythical creatures - Ars Technica

One analyst has had it with Internet data caps. Bandwidth hogs are a myth, he says, and caps simply penalize heavy users who cause no problems for others. Now, he's throwing down the gauntlet and challenging ISPs to turn over some data for analysis.

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Nov. 10, 1983: Computer 'Virus' Is Born - Wired

Fred Cohen, a University of Southern California graduate student, gives a prescient peek at the digital future when he demonstrates a computer virus during a security seminar at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. A quarter-century later, computer viruses have become a pandemic for which there’s no inoculation.

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How a blunder finished off the Wall - BBC

When the Berlin Wall opened on 9 November 1989 Brian Hanrahan was the BBC News reporter on the ground. This year he's been back to talk to some of those whose decisions made this key moment in 20th Century history possible.

From the safe distance of 20 years, the opening of the Berlin Wall can be seen as inevitable - the natural consequence of changes that were reshaping Europe. But for most of 1989 it was unthinkable.

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Capitalism flawed, says poll - BBC News

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

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Technology doesn't isolate people: US study - Reuters‎

Contrary to popular belief, the Internet and mobile phones are not isolating people but enhancing their social worlds, according to a US survey.

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How your brain sees virtual you - New Scientist

The way the brain regards the virtual "you" may help explain why some people spend large chunks of their life online playing immersive games

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The real distractions for pilots - Salon

The scolds in Congress pushing for legislation banning nonessential gadgets from the cockpit are on the wrong track

... Am I absolving the Northwest pilots of blame? Am I advocating that crews should be allowed to break out their laptops to play computer games or surf the Internet while flying? No. But here again we are witnessing one of this country's most wasteful and self-defeating tendencies: that of coming up with unrealistic, zero-tolerance solutions to problems that are either greatly exaggerated, badly misunderstood, or that don't exist in the first place.

read on ...

Nov. 5, 1955: A Flux of Genius 

Google releases Dashboard privacy tool - CNN

Ever wonder what information Google knows about you? With a click or two, now you can find out.
Google released a feature Thursday that lets users see and control data that the Web giant has collected about them. Called Google Dashboard, the service provides an online summary of a user's Google files -- Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa photos and so on -- by collecting pre-existing privacy controls in one place.

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Obesity responsible for 100,000 cancer cases annually - CNN

More than 100,000 cases of cancer each year are caused by excess body fat, according to a report released Thursday in Washington. Researchers with the American Institute for Cancer Research looked at seven cancers with known links to obesity and calculated actual case counts that were likely to have been caused by obesity.

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Hubble's New Camera Delivers Another Stunner - Wired

The Hubble Space Telescope's new camera is returning incredibly detailed, stunning images of space. This close-up view of an area near the core of the iconic Southern Pinwheel galaxy, or M83, shows very rapid star birth.

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Record labels keep blaming P2P, but it's a hard sell - Ars Technica

In response to a new survey suggesting that P2P file-swapping might not be harming music sales, music's international trade group IFPI today put out a statement. "The net effect of illegal file-sharing in the UK and elsewhere has been to reduce legitimate sales," IFPI asserts. "This is why spending on recorded music has fallen every year since illegal file-sharing began to become widespread."

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Inside the Army's Far-Out Acid Tests - Wired

Dropping acid to boost the Pentagon's psychic powers was just the start. The Men Who Stare At Goats, the upcoming movie based on Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book of the same name, has George Clooney and Jeff Bridges in a bizarre military research project involving astral projection, remote viewing, and LSD. But for the real dope on the Army's narcotics and psychedelics tests, you have to turn to Dr. James S. Ketchum, who wrote a firsthand account of the military’s trials with these "incapacitating chemical agents."

read on ...

Report: Americans dumber than a box of rocks about spam - ZDNet

When it comes to spam, we Americans are quick to point our fingers at Russia, China and eastern Europe as the regions responsible for the bulk of it. But a new report issued today found that Americans are largely to blame - not because we create it, but because we’re too stupid to recognize that we’re spreading it.

OK, maybe the report, conducted by IT security and data protection firm Sophos, didn’t use the word “stupid” to describe us but it might as well have.

read on ...

White House: cybersecurity facing a Sputnik moment - Ars Technica

The Obama administration has sent a number of signals that it takes the information infrastructure of the nation seriously, having approved stimulus money for broadband and established a post for a national CTO. In parallel with these actions, the administration authorized a review of the national cybersecurity policy, and that review is now complete. Depending on how you read the resulting report, it concluded either that we don't have a cybersecurity policy, or that we have too many of them; in either case, its authors have made a number of very specific suggestions as to how to improve the situation.

The report is fairly blunt, stating early on that "the architecture of the Nation’s digital infrastructure, based largely upon the Internet, is not secure or resilient." As our network infrastructure has developed, the focus has been on things like performance, ease-of-use, and compatibility, and security consciousness was pretty low for much of its history. So, it's not a surprise that both government and private computer systems have been victimized, and evidence suggests that both private parties and foreign governments have been behind these attacks.

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ISPs' costs, revenues don't support data cap argument -- ars techinica

Data caps and metered billing have generated significant consumer resistance not because the idea of metered billing is always bad, but because the new packages on offer feel like highway robbery. Proponents of such caps, like Time Warner Cable, often claim that people need to "pay their fair share" in order to fund future upgrades, so we rounded the quarterly earnings statements out last week from the major US ISPs in an attempt to gauge how accurate that argument might be.

It turns out that just about everyone is making huge margins in Internet access, revenue is surging even as costs drop, and companies like Time Warner Cable have actually reduced (significantly) their capital outlays on infrastructure.

Even those cable companies that are in the midst of their DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades are posting significant profits. Here are the highlights.

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The "best and the brightest"? Spare me -- Salon

Some are arguing that if we prosecute Bush officials for torture, or reregulate the financial industry, talented people won't enter government or become bankers. No, they're not kidding.

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Wanted: Computer Hackers ... To Help Government -- AP

Federal authorities aren't looking to prosecute them, but to pay them to secure the nation's networks.

General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could ``think like the bad guy.'' Applicants, it said, must understand hackers' tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems.

In the Pentagon's budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011.

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Down With Denim -- Daniel Akst -- WSJ

If there is a silver lining to a financial crisis that threatens to leave the entire country dressed only in a barrel, it is this: At least we won't be wearing denim.

Never has a single fabric done so little for so many. Denim is hot, uncomfortable and uniquely unsuited to people who spend most of their waking hours punching keys instead of cows. It looks bad on almost everyone who isn't thin, yet has somehow made itself the unofficial uniform of the fattest people in the world.

It's time denim was called on the carpet, for its crimes are legion. Denim, for instance, is an essential co-conspirator in the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby no matter what the occasion. Despite its air of innocence, no fabric has ever been so insidiously effective at undermining national discipline.

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It Was 20 Years Ago Today, Berners-Lee Got the Web to Play -- Sharon Gaudin, Computerworld

Twenty years ago, computers were either the size of a basketball court or they were novelties that we played with. Twenty years ago, we got our news at 6 p.m. on television or in the morning newspaper. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to buy a sweater, you drove from store to store until you spent as much on gas as you did on the sweater.

And then twenty years ago Friday, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a paper that laid out his thoughts for the World Wide Web. That one paper would be the seed that changed the way we communicate, shop, gather friends, date and do business. That one paper arguably held one of the most important ideas of the 20th century.

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Congress scores low grade on Net communication -- C|Net

Attempts by Congress and grassroots advocacy groups to employ different technologies to communicate with each other have done more harm than good, a new report says.

"The result has been misunderstanding, frustration, wasted effort, and even anger on both sides, which must be resolved to truly realize the tremendous opportunities for electronic communications between citizens and their representatives in Congress," according to a report from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Congressional Management Foundation.

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Clue to break-up of ice shelves -- BBC

US researchers have come up with a way to predict the rate at which ice shelves break apart into icebergs. These sometimes spectacular occurrences, called calving events, are a key step in the process by which climate change drives sea level rise.

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Brains More Distracted, Not Slower with Age - Scientific America

Brains slow down as they become more easily distracted. Older brains do not think as quickly as younger brains do. But does this cognitive impairment arise because processing speeds slacken or because the ability to block out irrelevant information falters? A recent study reconciles these two leading hypotheses: older brains have a harder time ignoring distractions in the initial stages of performing a task, which slows down processing.

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Amazon deforestation accelerates -- BBC

The destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has accelerated for the first time in four years, Brazilian officials say. Satellite images show 11,968 sq km of land was cleared in the year to July, nearly 4% higher than the year before.

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Movie Studios Gang Up on Aussie ISP -- PCWorld

iiNet gets into hot water for attempting to protect customers. In case you didn't know, iiNet is being sued for not doing anything to stop its users from downloading stuff off the Internet. It's a case that could change the landscape of the Internet industry in this country if iiNet loses, as Roadshow, Universal, Paramount, Disney, Fox, Warner Bros. and Columbia, as well as Channel Seven, seek unspecified damages.

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Putting the Kibosh on Spam-Spewing McColo -- PCWorld

When McColo was taken down, worldwide spam volume dropped by 75 percent. Roger A. Grimes looks at how the spam-loving ISP was taken down, and lessons we can learn from this rare anti-spam success.

... It appears that a single security company and a technology columnist for The Washington Post has succeeded in bringing down worldwide spam rates 75% or more. No single event has ever accomplished what Brian Krebs and security firm Security Fix did nearly two weeks ago.

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Shuttle astronaut invents zero-gravity cup -- Reuters

Future space travelers may be drinking their own urine, thanks to the International Space Station's new water recycler, but they can now do so with a touch of class.

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Drill for Natural Gas, Pollute Water -- Scientific America

The natural gas industry refuses to reveal what is in the mixture of chemicals used to drill for the fossil fuel

... Over the last few years, however, a series of contamination incidents have raised questions about that EPA study and ignited a debate over whether the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing may threaten the nation's increasingly precious drinking water supply.

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Under Worm Assault, Military Bans Disks, USB Drives -- Wired

The Defense Department's geeks are spooked by a rapidly spreading worm crawling across their networks. So they've suspended the use of so-called thumb drives, CDs, flash media cards, and all other removable data storage devices from their nets, to try to keep the worm from multiplying any further.

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Deleting your digital past -- for good -- ComputerWorld

Can you erase your tracks online? We tried to get a few bad mentions off the Net forever. Here's how we did.

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Ars Technica -- The Future of Driving:

Part I: Robots and Grand Challenges

Part II: Life after Driving

Part III: Hack My Ride

October 29, 1969; 10:30 p.m. PST: The first packets make their way across the Net -- barely.

Before the Web was born, there was simply the Internet, and before the Internet came ARPAnet. Though plans for ARPAnet had been brewing since the early 1960s, it wasn't ready for prime time until fall 1969 -- and even then things didn't go exactly as planned.

Late on the evening of October 29, Professor Len Kleinrock linked a mainframe computer at UCLA to one at the Stanford Research Institute over a dedicated phone line. To test the connection, Kleinrock had arranged for students at UCLA to transmit the word "LOG," after which the computer at SRI would respond with "IN." Researcher Charley Kline managed to send the L and the O, but before he could send the G, the system crashed. (Some things really haven't changed all that much.)

The next attempt was successful, but "LO" marks the moment the Internet sent its first word -- as significant an utterance as Samuel Morse's "What hath God wrought?" or Alexander Graham Bell's "Watson, come here, I need you."

"Morse and Bell were a hell of a lot smarter than we were," Kleinrock noted in a 2004 interview. "They knew they were doing something of historical importance. We were just engineers, trying to do a good job."

Log off. Shutdown. Reboot - ZDNet

Log off. Shutdown. Reboot Jason Perlow: Has your job, your enabling technology and the events of the day turned you into an anxious, depressed, sleep-deprived irritable head case? Enough already! Take a break from technology.

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Privacy 2.0: No Privacy at All -- John C. Dvorak

Google's limiting the length of time it keeps records on people? Big deal. Why the public puts up with any tracking whatsoever is a mystery to me.

... this information would be quite useful in a police state or to merely curb dissent. The potential for abuse alone should have the public up in arms.

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The voters are angry -- and don't know why - Salon

What happens when the messy thing called democracy collides with the financial markets in full panic.

... The morning after the 778-point market mayhem, three TV ads were released with public fanfare, two by the candidates themselves and the third by the Republican National Committee blasting Obama. It was stunning how unresponsive all three commercials were to the real-world details of the worst financial crisis since brokers drank their martinis in speak-easies. Both campaigns seem determined to cling to their familiar arguments (Obama is too liberal and McCain is an out-of-touch Bush III) in the face of the dramatically reshaped realities on Wall Street.

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Six hours to hack the FBI (and other pen-testing adventures) - Computerworld

It takes a lot to shock Chris Goggans; he's been a pen (penetration) tester since 1991, getting paid to break into a wide variety of networks. But he says nothing was as egregious as security lapses in both infrastructure design and patch management at a civilian government agency -- holes that let him hack his way through to a major FBI crime database within a mere six hours.

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New Climate Report Foresees Big Changes - NYTimes

The rise in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities is influencing climate patterns and vegetation across the United States and will significantly disrupt water supplies, agriculture, forestry and ecosystems for decades, a new federal report says.

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Bob Metcalfes original memo describing his idea for the ethernet.

Enter Ethernet - Wired Magazine

Metcalfe had been an MIT undergraduate whiz kid and Harvard grad student working on computers and how to network them. Even before completing his Ph.D., he went to work for Xerox PARC, which assigned him the task of designing and building the first network for PCs.

PARC was installing its own Xerox Alto, the first personal computer, and EARS, the first laser printer. It needed a system that would allow additional PCs and printers to be added without having to reconfigure or shut down the network. It was the first time that computers were small enough for hundreds to be in the same building, and the network had to be fast to drive the printer.

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Ethernet - Wikipedia

Ethernet was originally developed at Xerox PARC in 1973-1975. Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs wrote and presented their "Draft Ethernet Overview" before March 1974. In March 1974, R.Z. Bachrach wrote a memo to Metcalfe and Boggs and their management, stating that "technically or conceptually there is nothing new in your proposal" and that "analysis would show that your system would be a failure." ... In 1975, Xerox filed a patent application listing Metcalfe and Boggs, plus Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson, as inventors (U.S. Patent 4,063,220 : Multipoint data communication system with collision detection). In 1976, after the system was deployed at PARC, Metcalfe and Boggs published a seminal paper.

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~ update ~

The Ethernet entry on Wikipedia has been edited to remove the Bachrach memo reference and quotes. It now reads:

Ethernet was originally developed at Xerox PARC in 1973-1975. In 1975, Xerox filed a patent application listing Metcalfe and Boggs, plus Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson, as inventors (U.S. Patent 4,063,220 : Multipoint data communication system with collision detection). In 1976, after the system was deployed at PARC, Metcalfe and Boggs published a seminal paper.

Also, I have received an email from R.Z. Bachrach, and so has at least one other person, clarifing his point of view of the 1974 quoted memo. Here is the text of email to me.

Deep packet inspection under assault over privacy concerns - Ars Technica

Add the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) to the list of groups concerned about the privacy implications of widespread deep packet inspection (DPI) by ISPs. CIPPIC has filed an official complaint with Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, asking her office to investigate Bell Canada's use of DPI (and we're flattered to be quoted as an expert source in the complaint). In addition, the group would welcome a wider investigation into possible DPI use at cable operators Rogers and Shaw, as well.

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Broadband: other countries do it better, but how? - Ars Technica

One of the ironies of the current broadband situation in the US is that staunch free marketeers defend the status quo even though the result of their views has been duopoly and high prices. Meanwhile, other countries (including those with a reputation in some quarters for "socialism") have taken aggressive steps to create a robust, competitive, consumer-friendly marketplace with the help of regulation and national investment.

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The computer security paradox - Raiden's Realm

One of the most prized rights of any American is the right to privacy and security. It's something people in some countries would kill for. Yet now there appears to be a very frightening trend growing. Your privacy and security are being thrown out the window wholesale in favor of easier access by law enforcement. A recent example of this can be seen with the announcement that Microsoft has been providing a tool to investigators that can effectively rip your Windows security to shreds in seconds, exposing all your private data to whoever wants to look at it.

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IBM, Microsoft Trounce Apple on Climate Friendliness Scorecard - Wired

Scorecard IBM earned top honors among electronics manufacturers on a recently-updated climate friendliness scorecard (.pdf), earning 77 out of a possible 100 points to beat runners-up Canon, Toshiba, Sony and HP in a ranking of the companies' responsiveness to climate change. IBM, which makes big, hulking servers and mainframe computers, even beat out Microsoft (38 points) and Google (55), whose products are composed entirely of electrons. Apple, which has taken heat from Greenpeace for the allegedly toxic chemicals in its iPhone, scored a pathetic 11 out of 100.

more ...

Viacom, Google set for fight to bitter end over Safe Harbor - Ars Technica

It has been just over a year since Viacom launched its $1 billion lawsuit against Google for "brazen disregard of intellectual property laws" on YouTube. Although we haven't heard much news about the case as of late, some fightin' words have come out of both sides recently to indicate that the case is still going strong. There's no sign of an impending settlement, either, as Viacom is still beating the piracy drum and Google continues to stand its ground. Because of this, the eventual outcome of the Viacom suit may set a legal precedent that could send ripples throughout the entire Internet.

more ...

What piracy crisis? MPAA touts record box office for 2007 - Ars Technica

... But this sort of thing has become crucial to the MPAA. Take a look at the group's homepage; nearly everything is about copyrights and piracy. The MPAA routinely asserts that the movie business is being decimated by piracy, but the press release announcing the Weekly Reader deal sits just below a far more interesting piece of news (PDF): data that shows the US box office doing its biggest year of business ever in 2007, growing 5.4 percent over 2006 and bringing in $9.63 billion.

more ...

Comcast Must Die - MojoBlog

Comcast, the cable TV giant, has given its customers lots of reasons to hate the company. They've refused to embrace a la carte programming, charged people $2 to stop sending them junk mail, wrecked people's credit reports, falsely advertised its Internet speed and generally abused the people who pay for its services. Comcast's customer service problems are so acute that Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield started a blog called Comcast Must Die to compile all the gripes about the company from consumers. But Comcast doesn't really need any help generating bad press.

more ...

AT&T's degrading service and my landlord’s ban on Comcast - ZDNet

With all the negative attention headed towards Comcast lately, AT&T's problems seem to be slipping below the radar. Unfortunately for me, those problems are first hand for me as I'm personally suffering degradations in speed. As if getting 1200 Kbps downstream on a so-called 1500 Mbps service and all those outage problems (example here and here) weren't bad enough, my AT&T DSL service has declined. I suppose I could count myself lucky compared to my Mom's neighbor who only got 320 Kbps service after AT&T unilaterally and without permission "upgraded" his bill to the 1500 Mbps service without upgrading his performance.

more ...

Great news for Microsoft: Zunes stolen! - ZDNet

Providing yet another sign that Apple's iPod is the audio and video platform, a policy think-tank on Tuesday said that thefts of the media player have skewed crime statistics. Microsoft wishes it had that publicity.

more ...

The Gaza Bombshell - Vanity Fair

After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

more ...

Could a Coffee Maker Be Worth $11,000? - Slate

The New York Times used words like "cult object," "majestic," and "titillating"; the Economist called it "ingenious" and "sleek." The subject of these encomiums is, incongruously, a commercial coffee machine—the Clover 1s, an $11,000 device that brews regular coffee (not espresso) one cup at a time. Could the Clover represent that much of an advance in the state of the coffee art? I had to try it for myself.

more ...

Immune Systems Increasingly On Attack - Washington Post

First, asthma cases shot up, along with hay fever and other common allergic reactions, such as eczema. Then, pediatricians started seeing more children with food allergies. Now, experts are increasingly convinced that a suspected jump in lupus, multiple sclerosis and other afflictions caused by misfiring immune systems is real.

Gary Gygax, 1938-2008: Rest in peace, Dungeon Master - Crave

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and one of the fathers of tabletop role-playing games, died on Tuesday at the age of 69. He had suffered from heart problems.

Windows-based cash machines 'easily hacked' - ZDNet

Security experts have hacked ATMs to show how easy it is to steal money and bank account details from modern cash machines. ATMs, or automated teller machines, today face the Internet-born threat of worms and denial-of-service attacks, as well as being at risk from malicious applications that can harvest customer data or hijack machines.

Why spam isn't going away soon (Hint: Blame the Storm worm) - C|Net

Recently, Symantec said in its February 2008 State of Spam report that 78.5 percent of all e-mail is spam; they also said most of that is now coming from Europe. That's a change from previous reports that had suggested servers in North America were responsible. What the Symantec report doesn't explicitly state is that much of the European spam doesn't come from individuals sitting at their desks pumping out lists. Europe is one of the hotbeds for the Storm worm botnet, notorious for automatically co-opting its victims into spam relays.

New supercomputer is a rack of PlayStations - The Sydney Morning Herald

When the PlayStation3 was released in November 2006, Gaurav Khanna's wife braved long queues so he could be one of the first people in the US to get his hands on the gaming console. But the astrophysicist was not itching to burn some rubber in Gran Turismo or shoot hoops in NBA 07. Instead he wanted to build his own supercomputer.

Record-High Ratio of Americans in Prison - Washington Post

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.

No impact from Energy Saving Day - BBC

The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable reduction in the country's electricity usage. E-Day asked people to switch off electrical devices they did not need over a period of 24 hours, with the National Grid monitoring consumption.

In Norway, Global Seed Vault guards genetic resources - IHT

With plant species disappearing at an alarming rate, scientists and governments are creating a global network of plant banks to store seeds and sprouts - precious genetic resources that may be needed for man to adapt the world's food supply to climate change.

French police deal blow to Microsoft - AFP

The French paramilitary police force said Wednesday it is ditching Microsoft for the free Linux operating system, becoming one of the biggest administrations in the world to make the break.

Your First Steps with Linux - Terminally Incoherent

Over the years I think I helped to influence few people here and there to actually start experimenting with linux. I count that as a personal success. I’m sure I was not the primary influence in most cases, but I’m glad I could help people to start tinker with the new OS

The Tao of ScreenIn search of the distraction-free desktop - Slate

If your computer desktop is anything like mine - and, brother, it is - you've paved over every spare pixel in an iconistan of clutter. Desktop design originated in a wistful visual metaphor, the clean, still work surface, encouraging users to productive ends. Leaps forward in computing horsepower and the rise of constant Internet use has transformed the tabletop terra firma into a cockpit, an antic terminal for the networked self. Our desktops are now a thick impasto of tabbed windows, pull-down menus, dashboard widgets, and application alerts. No possible distraction gets left behind, no link, feed, IM, twitter, or poke unheeded.

Senate Delays Eavesdropping Vote - AP/US News

The Senate granted at least a temporary victory to the White House on Thursday, turning back an attempt to increase court oversight of the government's surveillance of phone calls and e-mails that involve people inside the United States.

Rising Anti-Americanism in Russia - US News

Vladimir Dobrovinsky, 33, a teacher at a design school in Moscow, says he's not interested in politics. But bring up America and the well-traveled, university-educated Dobrovinsky holds forth. He criticizes Washington's "crude interference" in world affairs. He complains that Russia is not treated as an important partner by the Bush administration. "A lot of Russians," he says, "are angry that America deals with us like we're Thailand."

Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs? - NY Times

It could be the weirdest and most embarrassing prediction in the history of cosmology, if not science. If true, it would mean that you yourself reading this article are more likely to be some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and energy out in space than a person with a real past born through billions of years of evolution in an orderly star-spangled cosmos. Your memories and the world you think you see around you are illusions.

U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment - NY Times

A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list.

Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShipTwo model - Reuters

Entrepreneur Richard Branson on Wednesday unveiled a model of the spaceship he hopes will be the first to take paying passengers into space on a regular basis as soon as next year.

Geophysicists Urge Steep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Scientific American

The scientists of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) warn that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be slashed in half to keep temperatures from rising 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius)—or else. "Warming greater than 2 degrees Celsius above 19th-century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity and - if sustained over centuries - melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea levels of several meters," the AGU declares in its first statement in four years on "Human Impacts on Climate."

It's be a year (to the day I believe) since I've installed Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop and it's been a fun ride. So, if you have a few minutes, let my tell you my story.

Last winter we had a bit of snow here in Denver that left us with little we could actually do outside. After the first few weeks of January, cabin fever started setting in and I began playing around of the idea of putting Linux on my computer. I can't remember exactly how or why, but I ended up downloading Ubuntu 6.10 and tried the LiveCD on my laptop. It worked wonderfully and I decided to do a dual boot with XP so I could see how it actually functioned day to day. Well, I dun f***ed up the dual boot and ended with a PC that would do anything. Can you say nOOb!

I have been a practitioner of the backup for years, so after a few minutes of utter panic, I calmed down and remembered everything was backed up on an external drive. (OK, I did inevitably loose a weeks worth of emails, no great loss.)

As luck would have it, having been an experimenter and no great fan of MS, I had moved onto programs that where all cross-platform (Thingamablog, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird) but one (MS Money). Thus, I thought, what the hell, maybe I should just install Ubuntu by itself. So I did.

It was shocking once Ubuntu was installed. I have media buttons on the front of my laptop, they worked. All my data for Thunderbird, Firefox and Thingamablog was easily loaded. All the function (Fn key) keys on keyboard worked. It was amazing to me, I never expected this all to work so well. I was sold.

I did have some problems, suspend had issues and there was the problem with no wireless. I spent some time on the Ubuntu forum and after some time of trial and error the wireless kicked in. Honestly, I still have no idea how I was able to get the wireless working, all I know is, boom, it worked one day and has ever since. Suspend came around after a month or so.

I spent the next few months perusing everything Linux. I learned cool commands to run from the Terminal. I played with installing and removing programs from the Add/Remove manager and the Synaptic Package Manager. I screwed things up and re-installed 6.10 a few times. The first time I did this, I was amazed by the fact that quite a few of the settings in my /home folder (set on a different partition, something I started doing way back when from my 2-3 re-installs per year of Windows to keep it clean) kicked right in. Things like Tomboy notes where all there, KeyPass knew where to look for its database, JAlbum and Thingamablog where able to start without having to re-install them. These kind of things where unheard of from my Windows days, it was re-install everything and update all settings to my liking.

Then, along came 7.04. I promptly upgraded to it. Oops. Then I downloaded and did a fresh install. Much better. The first few weeks it acted a little funny, issues mainly with suspend. Once a month went by it was smooth sailing. I spent more time on anything Linux or Ubuntu. I downloaded and tried other distros LiveCDs, spend more time exploring the Linux OS and even tried to help out on the forums (I never really did learn enough to be much help, but I tried).

With the other distributions, I found no reason the change. I was happy with how my laptop worked, so why change. I spent some time on Gnome-look and figured out how to change my splash screen, login in screen and themes. In all I was settling in quite nicely with my new OS and how it worked.

As October was coming closer I was getting excited with the prospects of 7.10. Once it was released I promptly upgraded. Oops. Then I downloaded and did a fresh install. Much better. The first few weeks it acted a little funny, issues mainly with suspend. Once a month went by it was smooth sailing (hmm, sounds familiar?) I played around with the new graphics for a while, installing software for widgets and desktop toolbars. In the end, I removed Compiz as I am happy a simple UI and don't need the fancy graphics. The Panel with shortcuts on it works just fine for me and I never really did like things all over my desktop (see). This also explains why I never switched to a KDE distribution.

Of course there was that Load_Cycle_Count issue. For me the fix was removing Tracker, something I didn't use anyway.

So now I am just waiting for 8.04 to come out. I've learned to wait for a month or so before I install the upgrade. Actually I will probably do a fresh install, I never have liked how upgrades go whether Windows or Linux. Once it is running I probably will not upgrade again, what, with 8.04 being a LTS version. For this laptop it should be just fine for it's life.

All in all, it has been a fun little adventure. I'll keep running Linux and helping all my friends with their Window boxes and laptops. I doubt I'll ever be one to get anyone to switch to Linux, Windows works for them and there is no reason tor them to change right now. Maybe when XP is no longer supported the time may come. However, I will do what ever it takes to keep them away from Vista.

I'll keep perusing Ubuntu forums and the various Linux sights - I especially loved finding the flame wars between Linux and XP/Mac, KDE and Gnome and the various distributions. The second two seem so ironic to me, isn't Linux suppose to be about choice? Occasionally I might throw my 2 cents in, but I think pretty much I just be user from here on out. I have found an OS that works and I don't have to worry about.

I am one happy Ubuntu camper.

Wow, I didn't even notice,but Bob has been busy. Thingamablog has been updated quite a bit in the last few months.

Check out What's New.

Found the coolest extension for OpenOffice the other day. It is enables you to bookmark documents for easy opening. It places a Bookmark button on your the main menu for easy access.

Read more about the extension on Linux.com.

OpenOffice Bookmarks Menu download

~ Update ~

I have been using Bookmarks Menu for a few days now and have come to find it very useful. I don't care for desktop shortcuts and since you are unable to put documents/files in the Gnome panel Drawer feature, this extension has become invaluable to me. I definitely suggest it.

Ten Best Technologies and Trends of 2007 - Extremetech.com

Ten Worst Technologies and Trends of 2007 - Extremetech.com

Five desktop Linux highlights of 2007 - DesktopLinux.com

2007: The Miserable Year in Review - John C. Dvorak

The Top 10 New Organisms of 2007 - Wired

THREAT LEVEL's Year in Review - 2007 - Wired

The Year in Oversight:The yeas and nays of Congress' efforts to gavel the Bush administration into order in 2007 - MotherJones

100 things we didn't know last year - BBC

Restricted Codecs Mess in Linux - Mad Penquin

There are a number of newcomers who migrate to Linux and then find themselves at ends with the confusion regarding restricted formats and codecs in the US. The laws regarding usage are confusing and all over the map, thus leaving many Linux distributions forced to mark them as possibly illegal to use in some countries, despite no solid evidence to actually support this outside of MPAA and RIAA rhetoric, which is hardly a court's decision. And in a recent article, I took this whole idea to task and examine how it may not actually be illegal to use libdvdcss after all.

Interesting comment from CompUSA - Very Grumpy Rabbit

I don't know if you've heard or not, but CompUSA is going out of business. ...

... I asked one of the employees off the record if he could comment at all on the impact of Vista sales on the end of CompUSA's business, expecting no comment. Afterall, most such retail chains don't want local employees speaking out for the company.

That... isn't what I got. With a glaring look he responded I'd be better off asking about the returns. Returns? Well, the employee asked me to follow him to the back, and he pulled out a cardboard box opening it up to reveal it was packed full of copies of Vista.

Returns.

Sixty years ago today William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain succeeded in building the first practical point-contact transistor at Bell Labs.

ENIAC, which used vaccum tubes, weighed 28 tons, consumed 170,000 watts of power and required several operators

Opera files EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft - Reuters

A small Norwegian maker of Web browsers, backed by an industry coalition, has filed the first complaint against Microsoft to the European Commission since the software giant lost a landmark antitrust case earlier this year.

Microsoft hits back at Opera antitrust claims - ZDNet UK

Microsoft has hit back at Opera antitrust claims regarding Internet Explorer, denying that it is abusing its dominant market position to lock users into the web browser.

Stars named in report on steroid use in baseball - Reuters

Pitching great Roger Clemens joined home-run king Barry Bonds among dozens of Major League Baseball players named on Thursday in the Mitchell Report that detailed widespread use of banned drugs in America's pastime.

Bamboo PC is eco-friendly and looks nice too - Reuters

Back in 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the Apple I, an early personal computer that consisted of a circuit board in a simple wooden box. ...The Asus Eco Book, as it's dubbed, has a case made of laminated bamboo strips available in different shades.

Review: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon takes on Mac OS X Leopard for the OS of the Year - Linux Magazine

Today we have a technological cage match involving two operating systems, both UNIX- based, both mature, both with passionate detractors and even more passionate defenders, and both released just a week apart. I'm talking, of course, about Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), with its final release on October 18, and Apple' s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which was available for purchase on October 26.

The stereotype for each OS is well known: Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time. Both have come a long way in a short time, and both make excellent desktops. So we have two great desktop operating systems out at roughly the same time. Let's see how they stack up against each other.

Read on ...

Choosing a Linux Distro, Part 1: Kicking the Tires - LinuxInsider

Start your search by checking out the distribution Web sites. Read the the FAQ and Wikis pages to learn how the different distros work. Check out the features and read what sorts of requests for help have been made on the community forums, and how those requests were answered. This approach will help you to narrow down exactly what you are looking for in terms of support and ease of use.

Running Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Windows or Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple Mac OS X gives users about the same amount of flexibility as was offered to early car buyers. They could drive any kind of car they wanted, as long as it was a Model T and as long as it was black.

When the free open source Linux OS first showed up, early developers offered much the same set of options. Today, however, when picking a Linux distribution (known as a "distro"), users are offered a wide variety of flavors and features. In fact, Linux comes in so many different sizes and shapes that selecting the version most suited for consumer or enterprise use can be a seemingly impossible task.

Read on ...

Six places in the world where climate change could cause political turmoil - CSM

From Nepal to Nigeria, Indonesia to the Arctic Circle, a warmer world poses different problems.

Data-recovery firm reveals top client mishaps - C|Net

Ant infestations, oil saturation, and failed parachute jumps are some of the unusual fates that have befallen innocent data-storage devices recently, according to data-recovery company Kroll Ontrack's list of the most unusual recovery jobs it has faced in the last

Iran's Nukes: Now They Tell Us? - Time

The President looked awful. He stood puffy-eyed, stoop-shouldered, in front of the press corps discussing the stunning new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003. He looked as if he'd spent the night throwing chairs around the Situation Room. ...

Taser death in Canada sparks heated debate around the world - CSM

The death of a Polish man at Vancouver International Airport has sparked an intense debate in Canada over the increasing use of Tasers by law-enforcement officials. Concerns over the use of these electric shock guns has mounted in several other countries after a UN Committee on Human Rights recently labeled their impact "torture."

Heritage Foundation on Hunger: Let Them Eat Broccoli - MotherJones
Poor people aren't hungry; they're fat.

While most Americans were planning for the annual ritual of overconsumption known as Thanksgiving, the good folks at the Heritage Foundation, America’s leading architects of conservative thought for at least three decades, were doing their part to add to the holiday cheer. According to a November 13 Heritage article, well-off revelers could stuff their faces unhampered by guilt about the less fortunate, because there are no longer any hungry people in the United States.

Sen. Clinton proposes moratorium on foreclosures - Reuters

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton proposed on Monday a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures to give financially troubled borrowers time to work with lenders and avoid losing their homes.

U.S. report contradicts Bush on Iran nuclear program - Reuters

U.S. intelligence has determined that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but believes it is continuing to develop technical capabilities that could be used to build a bomb, a government report said on Monday.

Bali climate summit: a test of the world's resolve - CSM

Next week is seen as crunch time in the fight against global warming. Representatives from some 130 nations will gather in Bali, Indonesia, beginning a two-year effort to agree on a new pact to cut greenhouse-gas emissions - one that goes well beyond the goals of the current Kyoto Protocol.

Microsoft FUDwatch II: Internet Explorer vs. Firefox security - C|Net

Microsoft is at it again. Or, rather, Jeff Jones is. Jones is Microsoft's security strategy direction and is the one who periodically remixes history and data to declare that Windows is more secure than Linux. Now he's declaring that Internet Explorer is much safer than Firefox.

If you use Firefox and wish a festive Christmas/Holiday theme, check out Tinseltown. The extent that the author went in taking this theme is incredible.

Tinseltown is a Christmas theme with holiday imagery including Christmas lights, snow, reindeer, presents and more. This theme is made eve better with great Christmas icons from Watiworks and a semi-transparent URL bar. Get in the holiday spirit!

I Was Wrong: Microsoft Won - open dot dot dot

I could feel it in my bones: the great victory of the EU over MS is a sham. Here's why.

Ex-steely Neelie - to be renamed wheeler-dealer Neelie - said as follows:

I told Microsoft that it should give legal security to programmers who help to develop open source software and confine its patent disputes to commercial software distributors and end users. Microsoft will now pledge to do so.

And naively, I thought that meant what it said. Silly me. Reference to the rather low-profile EU FAQ clarifies:

Can open source software developers implement patented interoperability information?

Open source software developers use various “open source” licences to distribute their software. Some of these licences are incompatible with the patent licence offered by Microsoft. It is up to the commercial open source distributors to ensure that their software products do not infringe upon Microsoft’s patents. If they consider that one or more of Microsoft’s patents would apply to their software product, they can either design around these patents, challenge their validity or take a patent licence from Microsoft.

Read on ...

Tenryu-ji temple and its 14th century zen garden (Kyoto)

Image available on Flickr

Here is a great slideshow of antonioperezrio.es' Traditional Japan

Mother's ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista - ComputerWorld

The For a few minutes during Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer's appearance at the Gartner Inc. Symposium ITxpo conference here, emotionless management-speak gave way to a mother's frustration with the Vista operating system.

Shuttleworth on Ballmer - Linux-Watch

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has once more claimed that Linux and open source violates Microsoft's intellectual property and patents. Canonical's CEO Mark Shuttleworth thinks Ballmer has it all wrong.

Ballmer comments reflect deeper problems - ZDnet

Ballmer Claims Red Hat Violates Microsoft IP - PCWorld

All open source dev should happen on Windows - Register

Ballmer threatens Linux and open source with patents again - Linux-Watch

Microsoft is updating Windows without user permission - ZDNet

Is your Vista or XP system set to not automatically update? Doesn't matter. Microsoft is fiddling with your system files -- without asking or telling you.

Read on ...

DRM, Vista and Your Rights - polishlinux.org

In the US, France and a few other countries it is already forbidden to play legally purchased music or videos using GNU/Linux media players . Sounds like sci-fi? Unfortunately not. And it won’t end up on multimedia only. Welcome to the the new era of DRM!

In this article I would like to explain the problem of Digital Rights (or restrictions) Management, especially in the version promoted by Microsoft with the new Windows Vista release. Not everyone is familiar with the dangers of the new “standard” for the whole computer industry. Yes, the whole industry — because it goes way beyond the software produced by the giant from Redmond and its affiliates.

A similar (but a bit more specialized) term to DRM is Trusted Computing. The term is intentionally misleading. It does not try to improve the security of the user, but rather wants to ensure that the user can be “trusted”. Obviously it’s not about the trust, it’s about the money. The companies that deliver content (specially multimedia, but it’s not restricted to media only) to the client want to be able to control the way it is used. For example, they want the content to be displayed on approved media only, banning all the “illegal” applications (illegal does not mean that it violates the law, but rather the agreement between the client and the company that sells the media). More on Trusted Computing can be found (as always) in Wikipedia.

Read on ...

It's from January, but still a good read if you are unfamiliar with what DRM really is.

Microsoft patents the mother of all adware systems - ars technica

It's such a tremendously bad idea that it's almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an "advertising framework" that uses "context data" from your hard drive to show you advertisements and "apportion and credit advertising revenue" to ad suppliers in real time. Yes, Redmond wants to own the patent on the mother of all adware.

The application, filed in 2006, describes a multi-faceted, robust ad-delivering system that lives on a "user computer, whether it's part of the OS, an application or integrated within applications."

"Applications, tools, or utilities may use an application program interface to report context data tags such as key words or other information that may be used to target advertisements," says the filing. "The advertising framework may host several components for receiving and processing the context data, refining the data, requesting advertisements from an advertising supplier, for receiving and forwarding advertisements to a display client for presentation, and for providing data back to the advertising supplier."

Read on ...

Google Earth and NASA Turn Up The Lights - Wired

Google has rolled out some spectacular new layers for Google Earth. "Astronaut Photography of Earth" is filled with images from the last 40 years of NASA Earth exploration, and "Earth City Lights" has stunning views of our home planet at night, as viewed from space.

The new layers can be found in the Featured Layers section of Google Earth. If you don't have Google's desktop atlas program, it's available as a free download. If you already have Google Earth, there’s no need to upgrade your installation. The layers should be there - just look for the "NASA" header.

The update showcases the ongoing collaborative effort between Google Earth and NASA which is designed to promote NASA’s various Earth exploration programs. As Wei Luo notes on the Google LatLong blog, "People are usually familiar with NASA’s space missions, but not everyone knows that NASA also devotes a considerable amount of effort to Earth explorations."

Read on ...

Living With a Computer by James Fallow - The Atlantic Monthly, July 1982

The author talks about his Sol-20 that he purchased in 1979, his trials and tribulations with it and then gives advice about buying a computer in the early 80's. It is interesting read as he talks about the make up of the industry in pre Microsoft days. It is amazing to read the specs he suggests and the capacities of the time.

... for a total of about $4,000, Optek gave me the machinery I have used happily to this day.

The microcomputer industry these days is like the auto business in 1910, with a thousand little hustlers trying to claim a piece of the action.

although any serious computer should have at least 48 and preferably 64K of random access memory

You don't need to remove the hard disks because each one stores a prodigious amount of data, from two or three on up to several dozen megabytes.

I gave in and bought a daisy wheel (printer), the Anderson-Jacobson 830 model, which cost about $1,400.

... the Displaywriter with a good printer was quoted at $11,350 by my local IBM dealer.

The best-known small computer is probably the Apple. Because there are so many Apples in circulation, and because the company has pushed software so aggressively, you can get a wider variety of programs and accessories for an Apple than for any other system. (How things change!)

One of the most interesting new computers, both as a piece of machinery and as a specimen of capitalism in action, is the Osborne I.

PC Mags Five Ideas That Will Reinvent Modern Computing

• IMAX At Home
• The Midair Mouse
• The Perfect Machine
• Extreme Peer-to-Peer
• The Man-Made Brain

Read on ...

There are a couple of interviews with Mark Shuttleworth recently.

"I'd love to work with Microsoft" - Duncan McLeod spoke to software billionaire Mark Shuttleworth last week about his Ubuntu Linux deal with Dell, the Microsoft software patent fracas, and his desire to return to live in SA. This is an edited extract.
(An edited interview with the complete one available on mp3)

Mark Shuttleworth Talks Dell, Hardware, Ubuntu 7.10 & More - Mark Shuttleworth has flown into space on a Soyuz TM-34 and founded Thawte Consulting that later sold to Verisign for over $500 million, but he is now known most for being the founder and leader of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. In addition to Ubuntu he also established HBD Venture Capital and is involved with several other free software projects. Earlier today we had spoke with Mark Shuttleworth to discuss the latest happenings in the Ubuntu world including Dell shipping Ubuntu PCs, getting open-source drivers from hardware vendors, and what is coming down the road for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.
(This is the one where he refers to Linux as "a bit of a dorky teenager" on page 3)

Dell Backpedals on Preloading Linux - newsfactor

The Linux camp's ears perked up earlier this week when Dell said it planned to unveil a new line of certified, Linux-loaded desktop and laptop PCs. But business users who want to buy a Dell machine with the open-source operating system preinstalled won't have that Linux luxury in the near-term.

Although Dell is dancing around the idea of reintroducing Linux desktops and notebooks, the computer maker said it won't make a move until one of the competing flavors of Linux emerges as a business favorite. Dell now maintains that it doesn't want to pick one Linux distribution and alienate users with a preference for another.

Read on

~ More ~

The empire strikes back - ITWire

With one stroke, Microsoft has reasserted its number one position as deal maker and decision maker in the computer industry, reminding all wannabes that they are just that - wannabes.

Yesterday's announcement that Dell would be joining the Microsoft-Novell pact is proof positive that Microsoft is playing the same game it always has - extend, embrace and then extinguish.

Notice that Dell wasn't exactly prominent in the announcement of the deal - most of the talking was done by Microsoft, in itself a reminder that whether you are a big player or not in the tech industry, you had better do as the boys in Redmond say. No getting too much out of line.

Read on

Via consumeraffairs.com

The news that Dell will begin making the fast-growing Ubuntu flavor of Linux available on some of its machines should be welcomed by consumers everywhere.

It not only makes a tiny dent in Microsoft's armor but also is one of the few times consumers can actually get something for nothing. Best of all, the something for nothing is, in this reviewer's humble opinion, a lot better than the high-priced spreads.

Though its name may sound odd initially, there's nothing odd about the way Ubuntu works. It is fast, lean and responsive, like a sleek jungle cat prowling through the South Africa outback.

Read on

From the free features section of Wall Street Journal comes:

Linux Starts to Find Home on Desktops
More Businesses Adopt Cost-Saving Software For Some Workers' PCs

The Linux operating system, having made inroads into corporations' backroom server computers, is showing hints of inching into a much broader market: employees' personal computers.

The much-hyped notion that Linux would be viable software to run desktop and notebook PCs seemed dead on arrival a few years ago. But the idea is showing some new vital signs.

Chief information officers have experienced the cost savings that Linux has brought to their server computers, which do narrow and repetitive tasks such as data storage and serving up Web sites. Now some CIOs are taking new interest in installing Linux on workers' PCs as well, for certain narrow applications.

Auto maker PSA Peugeot Citroen last month said it will start using Linux on 20,000 of its workers' PCs. Novell Inc., which sells a version of Linux and is supplying it to Peugeot, says it has recently signed up several large U.S. financial institutions that are installing Linux on some employee PCs. Sales of Linux PCs are showing a "really nice uptick" at Novell, says Ronald Hovsepian, chief executive of Novell.

Read on ...

MIT Technology Review - Open Source and You

The real value of open-source software is the community it fosters.

No one would buy a car with the hood welded shut, but that is essentially what commercial software is. However, since computing began, some software has been distributed in such a way that users can change or repair it by modifying its source code--the step-by-step instructions that the computer executes when the software runs. Software distributed under a license that allows a programmer to modify the source code and freely distribute an improved version of it is called open source.

Open-source software can make good business sense. For example, a company might be able to reduce costs by building a product on top of an existing open-source application rather than writing it from scratch. But does open source matter to those who do not program computers? I think the answer is yes.

Read on

I am sitting over at my local Einsteins using their hotspot and enjoying it. I wasn't sure how easy it would go with my Linux system, but no problemo. Just a click in the NetworkManager and away we go. It is slow compared to my wireless at home, but it's nice to be out of the house and connected.

Last week the power supply died on my DVR. With this opportunity at hand, I decided to go with a new Silverstone LC13 HTPC case to replace the Silverstone TJ06 case I had been using as I wanted to get it up off the floor. Because of the 3 dogs in the house and where it was located, the case seemed to be taking more that average amount of dust and dog hair which led to the eventual downfall of the power supply, and luckily just that. So, anyway, most of yesterday was spent rebuilding that system. I had no problems with the disassemble and rebuild, it was all very straight forward. The longest part of the day was installing WinXP and the required drivers, but once I was to the BeyondTV install, it was all downhill from there. The LC13 is not as quiet as the TJ06, but it does look better in the living room than the big tower case.

I did receive a little grief yesterday about using WinXP on that system. I would like to change over to Linux on it, but I am waiting for Linux DVR software to come of age. There are a few out there such as MythTV, but from what I have read they are close although still needing some development.

Since switching from XP to Ubuntu, I have noticed my battery is lasting longer per charge. Whether this would be true for all Linux distro's, I don't know, but I have noticed it with Ubuntu. I also don't know why except it must not have as much overhead and demands that XP did.

I am having an issue with the sleep mode. I rarely shut down my computer now, I usually just put it into sleep mode. After doing this a half dozen times, the power comes on but I just get a blank screen. I then have to do a forced shutdown. I have noted that this happens to others with laptops via various forums. It will be interesting to see whether the 7.04 release will take care of this issue.

~update~

I have noticed if I unplug any USB devices - mainly my mouse - the sleep problems goes away.

I have been using two different backup options to figure which I like best. To begin with, I did like ntbackup on my old XP install. It was straight forward and I like it did differential backups as I have never been a fan of incremetal backups. With my Ubuntu distribution, I have been using both Keep front end for rdiff and Simple Backup Suite (sbackup). I have decided to go with Keep. My main objection with sbackup is that I have to go into root to look at the backups, Keep doesn't require this. I do miss being able to do a full backup and then weekly differentials though. I will keep looking for possible replacements.

Man, haven't posted in a coons age.

Here are a couple of new links I have found recently pertaining to the installation of XP and Ubuntu:

Installing Ubuntu: A comparison of Ubuntu 6.06 and Windows XP
http://rhosgobel.blogspot.com/2006/06/installing-ubuntu-comparison-of-ubuntu.html

This weekend, I reinstalled XP and Ubuntu.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221756

~~

I have been running Ubuntu for a good month and a half and have enjoyed the experience. I have had a couple of problems along the way, but overall, everything has gone incredibly smooth.

Picasa started acting funny a few weeks ago. It requires me to change the permissions on 2 nvidia files after every shutdown. It also imports photos in reverse order of time stamp and photo number. Very bizarre.

Thingamablog still requires to be started from a terminal window.

I am still playing around with music files and my iPods. I have started copying my music onto my laptop with the intention of trying out Banshee's ability to sync with my Nano. Right now I am burning all my purchased iTunes music onto cd's so that I don't have to rely on a Windows machine to update my iPods.

I have liked using Tomboy for making notes and gFTP has worked fairly well for me as a replacement for WS_FTP.

I do miss not having Roboform anymore. I am using KeePass for my passwords, but it doesn't intigrate into a web browser. I guess I could memorize my passwords, but just think of all the brain cells that would require.

Here is a collection of links I have found useful for my beginning Linux experience. They range from help sites to news sites and are in no particular order

http://www.control-escape.com
http://www.linuxlinks.com
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/
http://lxer.com/
http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
http://www.ericharshbarger.org/lego/penguin.html - Lego Penguin
http://www.xpenguin.com/penguinlinks.php
http://www.linuxjournal.com/
http://www.linux-mag.com/

So, there are a couple of problems showing themselves with my recent Ubuntu install.

Wireless comes and goes. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Haven't quite figured that one out. It does appear there are quite a few people out there like me having these problems, so, more than likely, I am hoping, this will get worked out in future kernel and Ubuntu updates. (That is a nice run on sentence!)

I am having some problems with Ubuntu and Thingamablog. Luckily for me, Bob, who wrote the program, keeps a constant eye on his forum and helped me out pronto. Bob, you rule!

Picasa is causing some problems also. I really liked it as a photo manager in windows and for some reason it is just not working for me in linux. I will have to hit the forums harder for help on that one.

But I still am enjoying playing with it. Must be all the snow we have here in Denver. Nothing left to do but put linux on your laptop

~ Update ~

Yea - Picasa works now. I just have to learn the terminal window more. I am making silly little mistakes in it that prevent things from working correctly

I have installed Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Elf" on my Dell Inspiron 6000 and it is working amazingly well. The wireless took a few tries to get going but once I installed Wifi-Radar and Network Monitor everything was working just fine.

I was amazed that the function keys and media keys worked from the get go.

As far as iTunes goes, I have another Windows machine that I use as a DVR and have put my music on that machine.

I was incorrect about the firewall and antivirus. It is suggested to use a firewall with Linux and the most recent Linux kernal comes with a firewall. I have installed antivirus for the main reason of not passing on viruses to other Windows users.

As far as financial stuff, I am just starting a new set of files with Moneydance. It is not free, but I like it's look and feel more than the other applications available for Linux.

I may be tossing my XP os out the window very soon. I have been playing around with Linux distros recently have come to enjoy Ubuntu.I have been using the Live CD on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop with no problems. I also loaded it onto an extra desktop just to see how that goes.

I had concerns with program adaptability but those are pretty much gone now. I have either been using or changing over to cross platform applications with no problem. They include:

• OpenOffice
• Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird
• Picasa
• Gimp Image Editor

Luckily I started using Thingamablog for this blog from the get-go so I don't have to change anything there.

The only issues I am going to have is:

1. I have used Money for years and haven't found a program that will import exported qil files properly. I will probably just have to change to a new program and start over. Bummer !
2. I have an iPod. iTunes doesn't come in a Linux flavor and I will have to figure out what I am going to do about that.

Currently I am playing around by moving files over to the desktop and seeing how that goes.

Oh, programs that I will not need are:

1. A firewall
2. Anti-virus

Now, that's cool.

Bob has updated Thingamablog to version 1.0.6.

Thanks for all the hard work Bob. We appriciate it.

You ask, why do I use Thingamablog - Thingamablog does NOT require a third-party blogging host, a cgi/php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. This makes life pretty easy. It is also a cross-platform application, meaning, if I ever switch to Linux or Mac I can take my weblog with me and not have to rebuild it.

I really like the program and have used it for over 3 years now. One thing I would suggest though is regular back ups. I have had my database get corrupted twice in that time and would have had to start over had I not had a backup. But I am sure you back up all the time anyway, don't you.  

Microsoft and Novell have wasted little time in demonstrating there is real work being done as part of their recent Linux interoperability pact. Just a month after the historic deal between the companies, Novell said today it will support the proprietary document format in Microsoft Office 2007, Open XML, in its open-source version of the OpenOffice productivity suite by the end of January.

Novell also will release software that will bi-directionally translate word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations between its version of OpenOffice.org's productivity suite and Microsoft Office to the OpenOffice.org project so Open XML can become a part of that open-source project, the company said.

Read on

As soon as I saw this I was lol. Definitely a classic.  

I have started using Mozilla Thunderbird. One of the things that surprised me the most about the program was it's ability to import my Outlook pst file. I was shocked to say the least.

I think the program works great. I like how fast it loads and starts downloading mail, none of that waiting like with Outlook and it's forever loading. Overall Outlook was probalby overkill for me anyway, all I really needed was email and calendar.

For my calendar I am experimenting with the Lightning calendar addon, which although not very powerful is fine for keeping basic dates. Hey, it works for me.

After waiting a few days for problems with the June 2006 Windows patches I went ahead and installed the patches. Until today I have had problems everyday and it took me quite a while to find out what the issue was. I have a NetGear SC101 running on my network and the software for it was causing all my problems. Once I uninstalled that software all my problems went away. Now I just have to wait for NetGear to update the software.

Some of the problems I was having once the SC101 software loaded:
- USB ports stopped functioning
- Windows would not shutdown
- Programs constantly froze and I would have to do a power off shutdown of the computer

NetGears forum is being rebuilt, so there is no way to post there right now.

From Brian Livingstons Windows Secrets Newsletter:

Genuine Advantage is Microsoft spyware
Windows Genuine Advantage — the controversial program Microsoft auto-installed as a "critical security update" on many PCs starting on Apr. 25 — not only causes problems for many users but has now been proven to send personally identifiable information back to Redmond every 24 hours.

PC World has put out their yearly collection of 100 best products. I have or use #'s 3, 4, 6, 12, 17, 30, 43, 79 & 100.

I thought the 25 worst tech products of all time was rather humorous. I especially like that #1 has gone to AOL, I never did like those guys.

From BBC:

The 20th anniversary of the first PC virus falls this month.

It was during the opening weeks of 1986 that the first PC virus, called Brain, was discovered in the wild.

Though it achieved fame because it was the first of its type, the virus was not widespread as it could only travel by hitching a ride on floppy disks swapped between users.

Now 20 years after they first appeared there are more than 150,000 malicious programs in existence.

Read On

Thingamablog v1.0b5 has been released.

I have to say I have been happy with Bob's program for a couple on years now.

Thanks Bob

I installed SP2 a week ago and didn't like the fact that I had to have Automatic Update Service turned on for WindowsUpdate to work. When Microsoft updated that site they only way it works if a few services I don't have turned on are turned on (and I don't like having to restart my machine in the default hardware profile just to check for updates).

I have found a work around to get to the old update site. Use this link to go to the old catalog page (which the new site doesn't refer to anymore!) and then you can use the link towards the bottom to go to the old windows update site.

This way you can have your OS scanned and see if there are any updates that need to be applied. You can then head back to the catalog and download them and apply them when you feel they are not going to mess up windows to badly ;).

http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/catalog/en/default.asp

Bob has updated Thingamablog to version 1.0b1!

I installed it this morning and like the features it has. One of my favorites is that all the blog databases are available in one window. No more having to open new databases everytime you want to work on one blog or another.

Thanks Bob!

Windows users are being warned about a virus that is "aggressively stealing" credit card numbers and passwords.
The Korgo virus debuted on 22 May and since then has been steadily racking up victims.
Although the virus is not widespread, security firms are issuing warnings because it is proving so effective at stealing confidential data.
Those infected by Korgo are being urged to change passwords and credit cards if they have been used online recently.
Korgo exploits the same vulnerability that the Sasser web worm used so effectively when it struck early last month.
Like Sasser, the Korgo worm spreads around the net by itself.
"There's a real danger that your online banking ID would get into the wrong hands" - Mikael Albrecht, F-Secure
Despite the fact that many people patched their PC to remove the threat from Sasser, anti-virus firms are advising people to be on their guard against Korgo.
The virus opens up a backdoor on PCs it infects which allows its creators to install a key logging program that activates when users fill in forms on websites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3776247.stm

Due to an increased rate of submissions, Symantec Security Response has upgraded this threat from a Category 2 to a Category 3 as of June 2, 2004.
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.korgo.f.html

Here is an news item that is worth reading in full. There are three new Bagle worm variants that are out there that pose a new leve of threat.

A series of new variants of the prolific Bagle worm has raised alarms in the security community through an innovative infection mechanism: The e-mail message in which the variants arrive may have no file attachment, and it's possible for a user to become infected without having to launch one.

The message includes a Windows ActiveX control and uses a vulnerability announced and patched by Microsoft Corp. in August and another problem from last October. The most recent Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer also includes a fix for the more recently discovered flaw.

Continued Here: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1550835,00.asp?kc=EWNWS031804DTX1K0000599

Out of the blue there is an update for Thingamablog. I hadn't seen any news on the program and thought it wasn't being developed anymore. I guess I was wrong. I am glad because I do like this little blogging program. It's nice because now you can post and publish with one click as opposed to before when it took two.

For those of you wishing to run a clean, safe machine go check out Black Viper and check out the Windows Service Configurations. I use his information to clean out all those running services that Bill G. feels you have to have up and running for no good reason other that to use up resources and leave ports open to attacks. Be sure to check out the rest of his site as there is plenty of other good information about all aspecs of windows and the various OS. I feel it is time well spent.

Well, I think I am about done setting up the computer. I have reloaded WinXP Pro again, I didn't do a quick format on the C:\ drive so there was leftover shit that was messing up Windows. I have most of the programs I want to use loaded. I have spent some serious time tweaking the GUI to my liking. I think I am about there.

Looking back the only problem I really had was with the power switch. Once I had that figured out everything started up fine and I haven't had any problems since (note crossed fingers and toes!). Now, this machine runs at an incredible rate. On my old system it was taking about 12 hours to process a SETI work unit, now a mear 3 hours, if that. Not a bad jump in speed if you ask me. All of this for under $500 and I still have my case with all the cool stickers. You have got to love that ;)

Had fun this weekend upgrading my computer this weekend. Ok, not all of it was fun. I definitely did run into some problems. But first here is what I now have:

AMD 2800+
MSI K7N2 Delta L
Crucial 2700 512mb x2
AGP nVidia FX5200 128 mb
Creative Audigy 2
430W PS

The major problem was figuring out how to get the current power buttons and HDD and Power LED to work. I had some problems getting the system to power up when I first put everything together. I would hit the power button and nothing would happen. It took a good nights sleep to come up with the idea of just hooking up the power pins and nothing else and see what would happen. I found that worked and was thus on my way. I am still having some problems as the connecting pins are a little loose and have to be wiggled every now and again for the system to get going. It can be a little frustrating sometimes! But I will pick up some new wires and go from there.

The case is an old MicronPC tower that I could not get rid of as it has a great collection of stickers on it.

Well I now have a decently fast system (I had a Tyan that was running a PIII 600 EB processor) to play with. Now I can get some new games and play.

Update - I found out that if I just don't tighten one screw on the panel that has the power switch and LED's to the case to tight, everything works just fine. Go Figure!

Update - Again - The switch panel is still playing games with me. I just had to take the front panel off and tweak the screws a touch to get the computer to power back up. Guess I will keep a screwdriver close to the case for a while. Must be a problem with the contact on the switch panel and the computer case. At least that is all I can figure at this point.

I saw this and just started chuckling.

The Many, The Oblivious, The Suckers!


- Steve Sack

FYI, I went down on the bike yesterday morning and thus I have been stuck at home mending some ribs. It is comfortable to sit and that is about it. This has given me lots of time to cruise the information highway!

I.M.F. Says U.S. Debts Threaten World Economy: Excessive fiscal deficits in the US could hurt the long-term sustainability of the American and global economies, the International Monetary Fund warned.
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3377795.stm
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/business/08FUND.html?th

Warming May Threaten 37% of Species by 2050 : In the first study of its kind, researchers in a range of habitats including northern Britain, the wet tropics of northeastern Australia and the Mexican desert said yesterday that global warming at currently predicted rates will drive 15 to 37 percent of living species toward extinction by mid-century.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63153-2004Jan7.html

Wraps come off solo record plane: Richard Branson and Steve Fossett have unveiled the plane which will attempt the first solo-piloted non-stop trip around the world without re-fuelling.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3380137.stm

Feds seek wiretap access via VoIP: In pursuing "criminals, terrorists and spies," the FBI and the Justice Department are renewing their efforts to listen in on voice conversations carried across the Internet.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352_3-5137344.html

Study: Wi-Fi weaving its way into homes: An estimated 50 million homes in Europe, the United States and Asia will have Wi-Fi connections by 2007, according to new data released Wednesday.
http://news.com.com/2100-7351_3-5136533.html