Tuesday - July 17, 2007

Unhappy. Birthday Computer Viruses turn 25 this Month

Go ahead and Guess what the first computer a virus infected?

The first computer virus wasn’t much of a threat. Created by a mischievous Pittsburgh high school student, Elk Cloner annoyed unwitting Apple II users with a brief poem extolling its power to proliferate:

It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it’s Cloner! …

The year was 1982. The IBM personal computer had only been born the year before (its first virus would not crop up until 1986), the worlds of science and business had yet to adopt computer technology on a wide scale and computer users were primarily a gaggle of tech-savvy hobbyists who swapped files by floppy disk.

In the 25 years since the irksome but relatively benign Cloner, the growing World Wide Web of computer networks and high-speed Internet connections has left just about everyone with a PC or laptop vulnerable to malware (malicious software). In the process, malware has evolved from a minor irritant into big business.

The costs of malware are hard to quantify, but estimates range from tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in lost profits and fraudulently acquired gains annually, says computer security expert Eugene Spafford, a professor of computer science in the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue University.

Like viruses and similar programs called worms, modern malware copies itself onto unsuspecting computers via e-mail attachments, Web pages or more direct attacks. But instead of causing those machines to crash, it may monitor keystrokes to detect social security numbers or deliver spam peddling bogus get-rich-quick schemes. So-called bots even allow attackers to remotely control infected systems.

Old-style malware, seemingly written for bragging rights, made headlines for knocking out swaths of the World Wide Web. The SQL Slammer worm briefly slowed Internet traffic to a crawl in early 2003. Financial motives often drive newer malware, which is subtler, more like a parasite, Spafford says. It sticks around inflicting damage but “it doesn’t want to kill the host because that kills it,” too, he says.

In a commentary published online this week in Science, Spafford and computer scientist Richard Ford of the Florida Institute of Technology warn that the problem will widen in scope as cell phones and other household electronics become increasingly sophisticated and connected (think iPhone). Proof-of-concept viruses could in principle hop between cell phones via the Bluetooth wireless standard. “Virulent cell-to-cell malware is not far off,” the researchers caution.

Malware has no single cause or solution, and is likely to get worse before it improves, Spafford says. “A lot of the problems have to do with human nature,” he says. Consumers demand more and fancier computer functions, creating more spaces for viruses and bots to hide. Software and machines could include tools to make them more resistant to malware, but people would probably switch them off to play games, he says.

A National Research Council report published in late June called for more research to improve cybersecurity technologies and policies. Spafford says a concerted effort by governments and industry could rein in the growth of malware in the coming decade—if the subject received sustained attention.

“We don’t see malware going away,” he says. “The question is, how much is it with us?”

Source
Yep while not very malicious and more of a joke program.. the first computer in the wild was unleashed on an Apple.. isn’t there a warning against patronizing Apple in the bible as well? and Apple potentially getting us into a big mess?

Posted by Infinity     on 07/17/2007 at 05:47 PM   
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   Thursday - July 05, 2007

TED - Hans Rosling

If you are not familiar with the TED conference, it is a gathering of real thinkers (and some loons) to give short, 18 minute talks about what is important in their worlds.  It started as a conference about Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED), but has expanded to cover much more.  To be sure, there is a plethora of liberal thought spread thickly throughout this community, but amongst the chaff, there is some good wheat.

This talk is by Dr. Hans Rosen.  He makes some claims about CO2 emissions and climate change that you will most likely take issue with, but don’t let that keep you from missing some very interesting points he is making.  Also, the software he is using is absolutely amazing in terms of statistical Visualization (my pet project for the past couple of years).  Finally, his conclusions about the means and goals of helping the developing countries is fascinating to me.

What do you think?

Posted by Mr. Christian     on 07/05/2007 at 10:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Climate-Weather • Colleges-Professors • Computers • Health-Medicine • International •  
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   Saturday - May 19, 2007

Once Upon A Time …

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/19/2007 at 09:31 AM   
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   Friday - April 20, 2007

Apple Worms

Apple today released software updates to plug more than two dozen security holes in its Mac OS X operating system and other software. The free patches are available via the Mac’s built-in Software Update feature or directly from Apple’s Web site.

All told, today’s batch fixes some 25 distinct security vulnerabilities, including a dangerous flaw present in the AirPort wireless devices built into a number of Apple computers, including the eMac, the iBook, iMac, Powerbook G3 and G4, and the Power Mac G4. Apple said computers with its AirPort Extreme wireless cards are not affected.

- Security Update 2007-004

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/20/2007 at 10:53 AM   
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   Sunday - April 08, 2007

Vista System

I’ve been promising to give you some tips if you want to run Windows Vista and get all the new features working at blazing fast speed for as little cost as possible. What I will be describing below is one monster system and it all fits in a tiny1 foot by 2 foot case that you can easily hide under your desk.

First, you need to start out with the microATX case shown below from Ultra. It’s a small box but everything can be squeezed into it with little or no trouble. I like it because it is compact, easily disassembled and well ventilated.

Second, you need a power supply that is SLI ready (I’ll explain that later) and with enough power to handle everything we’re going to put into this box. The Ultra comes with a 400W power supply which is the bare minimum we need and it is not SLI ready - so the first thing we do is snatch out the power supply that comes in the case (three screws and it’s out) and replace it with the Ultra X-Finity 500W power supply shown below.

Third, we need to add a motherboard to this little case. There are about eight screws that mount the motherboard onto precisely laid out spacers in the bottom of the case. You can’t get them wrong. The motherboard fits nicely on top of the spacers and you simply screw it down with the provided screws. Plug in the power supply to the motherboard in the special ATX power supply connector on the board. You can’t miss it. It’s a big molex connector at the front of the motherboard. Just plug in the power supply (it’s keyed to only plug in one way so you can’t get it wrong).

Fourth, we need to add our CPU. I have chosen the top of the line AMD 64-bit Athlon 2.60GHz Dual-Core beastie. Follow the instructions carefully to insert it into the CPU socket on the motherboard (there are markings to tell you which way to orient it), lock it in with the locking bar and finally clip on the provided heat sink (which already has silicon heat sink compound on the bottom, so no messy gunk to play with). Make sure it is firmly seated and oriented the correct way before proceeding.

Fifth, next we have to add memory to our creature so it can remember stuff. Again, I have chosen top of the line DDR2, dual-channel, 800MHz memory. It doesn’t get any better than that. The two DIMM sticks are keyed to go into the slots only one way and the slots have locking bars at the ends. Make sure you have inserted them properly and locked them down. You now have 2GB of RAM and room to upgrade to 4GB later if you wish. More than enough for Windows Vista Ultimate.

Sixth, you need a hard drive to store all the goodies and with today’s multimedia deluge you need a big hard drive. I have chosen the Seagate 750GB SATA drive which is plenty enough for now. The hard drive cage that comes with the case has space for two SATA hard drives so you can add another later if you really need 1.5 TERABYTES. Simply remove the cage from the case (one screw), install the hard drive in the cage (four screws), mount the cage back in the case and connect the hard drive power cable and data cable. They are plainly marked on the motherboard and only go in one way.

Seventh, of course no system is complete without a DVD/CD drive and I have chosen the Sony because it is a burner as well as a reader so you can create your own DVD’s or CD’s. This model handles both single-layer DVD’s (4.7GB) and dual-layer DVD’s (8GB). It is also fast. Mount it into one of the two 5.25” drive bays in the front. Four screws is all it takes. Connect the power and data cables (use IDE0 primary - marked on motherboard).

Eighth (and last) we install the one critical component that will give you all the bells and whistles of the new Vista Aero video display and DirectX 10 for awesome video and really cool game play. The motherboard has a built-in video chip and a VGA port on the back but it is not nearly powerful enough to give us the rich video that a dual-GPU (graphics processing unit) SLI (scalable Link Interface) can give us. The geForce 8800 video adapter I have chosen is the most expensive component in our system and darn well worth it. It is PCI Express, blazingly fast and takes two adapter slots because it is actually two video adapters in one.

Of course you’ll still need to shell out a few hundred bucks to get a really cool LCD monitor if you wish and Micro$oft will tag you for $200-$400 for Vista but this is the basic system you need to enjoy all the bells and whistles in the new operating system from Micro$oft. The prices I’ve quoted below are all from TigerDirect (except the motherboard), an online computer shopping store. They have great prices and a good reputation. You may be able to beat some of these prices if you shop around a little. Prices may fluctuate over the next few months and will drop significantly by Fall (as they always do - first adopters always pay more than those who wait a little while).

If anyone out there has any suggestions to improve this little system drop some shopping goodness on us in the comments. There are bargains out there. Shop around. Let me know what you think. Enjoy your new system and don’t forget to bookmark this web site as soon as you get it up and running. Hehehe ...

P.S. You may have noticed that I did not include a floppy drive. Who in heck needs one nowadays anyway? If you insist, the case has a special mounting point just below the 5.25” drive bays. You can pick up a 3.5” floppy drive at CompUSA or Best Buy for about $10, complete with cables.

P.P.S. If you’re wondering how you’re going to get audio from this box, I kept that for a surprise. The Gigabyte motherboard has a built-in RealTek 6-channel audio system that is top of the line. Surround sound plugs for six speakers are all on the back of the motherboard. All you need is speakers.

P.P.S. The motherboard also has gigabit LAN built-in so you can connect to a network right out of the box, along with plenty of USB and firewire ports for external goodies.

Ultra Black MicroFly Aluminum Micro ATX Tower Case with Clear Sides, Front USB,
FireWire and Audio Ports and Ultra V-Series 400-Watt Power Supply
$69.99

- TigerDirect

---

Ultra / X-Finity / 500-Watt / ATX / 120mm Fan / SATA-Ready / SLI-Ready
/ Black / Power Supply w/ Ultra 10 Outlet Surge
$59.99

- TigerDirect

---

GIGABYTE GA-M51GM-S2G AM2 6100+430 2000FSB DDR2 PCI-E SATA RAID MATX
$79.95

- ATACom

---

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.60GHz Processor (Retail) and a FREE 512MB USB 2.0 Vista Boost Flash Drive
$234.99

- TigerDirect

---

Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 1024MB)
$189.99

- TigerDirect

---

Seagate / Barracuda 7200.10 / 750GB / 7200 / 16MB / Serial ATA-300 / OEM / Hard Drive
$289.99

- TigerDirect

---

Sony DRU-120C Multi-Drive / 16x DVD±R Burn & Read / 8x DVD+RW / 6x DVD-RW / 5x DVD-RAM / 8x DVD+R DL / 4x DVD-R DL / 48x24x CD-R/RW / Black Only / Internal DVD Burner - Retail
$39.99

- TigerDirect

---

EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS / 640MB GDDR3 / SLI Ready / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / HDCP Enabled / Video Card
$359.99

- TigerDirect

---

TOTAL COST . . . . . . . . $1,344.88

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/08/2007 at 01:02 AM   
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   Tuesday - March 27, 2007

Single Finger Salute

Paul Allen, former partner of Bill Gates and one of Microsoft’s founders recently founded a company called Vulcan to produce a new portable computer. It’s called the FlipStart and will be released at the end of this year. It’s larger than a PDA or cell phone but smaller than a laptop at 5.8 inches by 4 inches by 1 inch and weighs only 1 pound. It also has a full keyboard in that small space. It also runs Windows XP. Which presents a problem.

As anyone who runs a Windows PC knows, you have to press a unique key combination in order to login. Which is kinda hard to do if you’re holding the device in your hands and typing with two thumbs. That’s about one finger (or thumb) too few for the combination, right? Well, the geeks at Vulcan solved that problem in no time flat. You can see their solution right below the power button in the upper middle of the keyboard below. That snickering sound you hear is thousands of Macintosh users laughing their butts off.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/27/2007 at 09:52 AM   
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   Monday - March 12, 2007

Time Check

I’m sure you’re all wide awake this fine Monday morning and you know what time it is. It’s time to check all of your electronic devices to see if they made the transition to the new Daylight Saving Time hours that started two weeks earlier this year thanks to several hundred bloviating retards in Congress. Here are the results of a time check from your three favorite desktop operating systems ...

“Like ... dude, it’s seven-ish. Where’s my latte?”	4739.833.01Z-22.43 Standard Galactic Time	January 1, 1980 00:00 Abort, Retry, Ignore?

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/12/2007 at 08:16 AM   
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   Thursday - March 01, 2007

Daylight Saving Time Headache

In August of 2005, the United States Congress passed the Energy Policy Act. The Energy Policy Act changes the start dates and the end dates of daylight saving time (DST). When this law goes into effect in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007 and end one week later on November 4, 2007. These dates are referred to in this article as the “extended DST period.”

Now how does this affect you? In every way possible probably. You see, most of your electronic devices (including computers) that maintain internal clocks are programmed to switch to Daylight Saving Time from April to October. Some of these devices, like your cable TV box and cell phone, get their time “pushed” down to them from a central location and will not be affected. Other devices, like your personal computer have to be told about the new rules.

I’m going to offer you a little help to get you though this mess which will occur in 10 days. First of all, this will apply only to you folks in the United States and who are running (1) Microsoft Windows computers, which something like 98% of desktop users are running and (2) Linux, which I know a lot of you are switching to nowadays. I can’t help you with Macintosh computers because I rarely use them at work and am not that familiar with them. Contact Apple for information.

When you’re ready to start, click CONTINUE READING ...

Windows:

First of all, if you are running any of the following versions of Windows, your computer has probably already been updated via Microsoft Update (Windows Update on some systems). If you have automatic updates turned off, you need to manually run Windows Update to make sure your time zone data is updated. Microsoft is updating the following desktop versions:

Windows Vista (all versions)
Windows XP SP2 (all versions)

The following versions of Windows are no longer supported by Microsoft and you will need to follow the instructions here:

Windows 3.0
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP SP1

The first thing you need to do is download a little utility called TZEDIT. I have provided it here with help file and these instructions in TzEdit.zip. Click on that link and download the tool. It’s small, only 68K.

Once you unzip the TZEDIT package, you will have three files: TZEDIT.EXE, TZEDIT.HLP and EDIT.TXT. That last one being a text file with these instructions. If you’re ready to start, lets go. Go ahead and double-click on TZEDIT.EXE to start the program. Your screen will look something like this (your time zone may be different) ...

If you look at the bottom of the screen you will see that my computer is already set for the new Daylight Saving Time period - from the Second Sunday Of March to the First Sunday Of November. If your display says something different then click the Edit button and let’s start fixing things. The editor screen looks like this ...



Now, all you need to do is follow these instructions from Microsoft (which uses the Pacific Time Zone as an example - use your local time zone instead) ...

To manually modify time zone settings by using the Time Zone Editor, follow these steps:

1. Start Time Zone Editor.

2. In the Time Zones list, select a time zone, and then click Edit. For example, click (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada); Tijuana, and then click Edit.

3. In the Edit Time Zone dialog box, click to select the Automatically set Daylight Saving Time check box.

4. Specify the correct daylight saving time start date and end date. To do this, follow these steps:

a.  In the Start Day box, click the number of the day, the corresponding day of the week, and the month that you want. For example, click Second, click Sunday, and then click March.

b.  Select the time that you want to start daylight saving time. For example, select 2:00 A.M.

c.  In the Last Day box, click the number of the day, the corresponding day of the week, and the month that you want. For example, click First, click Sunday, and then click November.

d.  Select the time that you want to end daylight saving time. For example, select 2:00 A.M.

e.  In the Daylight Bias list, select how long you want the time to change when daylight saving time is in effect. For example, to set the clock forward 1 hour, leave the default setting of +1:00.

f.  Click OK.

g.  Select another time zone that has changed, and then repeat steps a-e. For more information about the time zones that have changed, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 931836 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836/) February 2007 cumulative time zone update rollup for Microsoft Windows operating systems

Repeat steps a through f for every time zone that has changed. When you have finished, click Close.

h.  Click Start, point to Settings, point to Control Panel, and then double-click Date/Time.

i.  Click the Time Zone tab.

j.  Select a different time zone than the (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada); Tijuana time zone, and then click Apply.

k.  Click (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada); Tijuana, and then click OK.

Note: Steps j and k are required for the new changes to take effect.

In this example, steps a through f update the time zone database. Steps h through k force Windows to read the time zone database and copy the updated information into the TimeZoneInformation registry key in the current control set.

That’s all there is to it. Don’t worry, you can’t seriously break anything if you screw up. You can always re-run TZEDIT to correct any mistake you made. Just be sure to follow ALL of the instructions above exactly like they are spelled out.

Linux:

Linux is actually a little easier but you have to start up a terminal screen because we can’t do this from any of the fancy desktops like KDE or GNOME. We are going to use the zic command-line utility. You can get more information about zic by typing “man zic” at a system prompt. Here are the instructions (which I got from Novell (who distribute SuSE) but apply to all flavors of Linux, including slackware) ...

1.  Download the most recent time zone data file (at the time of writing, tzdata2007b.tar.gz) from ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/. Updates to this data file have the year and release letter updated.

2. Copy the file to a temporary workspace of your choice on the Linux system.

3. Extract the data with the following command:

tar xvfz tzdata2007b.tar.gz

4. Apply the updates for the region(s) of interest the system’s time zone data through the zic command. E.g., to update the North American data, run

zic northamerica

5. Relink the new time zone names with the old time zone names that were just updated with the following command:  (See the Additional Notes below for a workaround to possible error(s) in this step.)
zic backward

6. Verify that the updates are applied correctly with the following command

zdump -v timezoneofinterest | grep yearofinterest
e.g
zdump -v Canada/Mountain | grep 2007
The output from the previous step should look similar to this:
Canada/Mountain Sun Mar 11 08:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 MST isdst=0 gmtoff=-25200
Canada/Mountain Sun Mar 11 09:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 02:00:00 2007 MST isdst=1 gmtoff=-21600
Canada/Mountain Sun Nov 4 07:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:59:59 2007 MST isdst=1 gmtoff=-21600
Canada/Mountain Sun Nov 4 08:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 02:00:00 2007 MST isdst=0 gmtoff=-25200

7. Relink the localtime setting (in /etc/localtime) with the corrected timezone information using the following command
zic -l timezonename
e.g.
zic -l Canada/Mountain

Note: If you encounter error(s) executing zic backward

Executing zic backward may return errors if other time zone data is not recent enough. One option would be to update those time zone as well in the same manner as noted in step 4 after identifying the specific time zones involved.

A workaround in this situation is to extract only the time zones from backward that need to be re-linked following execution of step 4 above. In this case that would be the time zones that are listed in the northamerica file. The following steps can be substitued for step 5 above:

grep ‘America’ backward > backward.america

zic backward.america

Most of the major distros of Linux (Red Hat, SuSE) have supplied patch packages to automate this process. Check with your vendor to see if they have one.

CLOSE IT UP ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/01/2007 at 06:21 AM   
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   Saturday - February 10, 2007

The Third World

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/10/2007 at 08:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Computers • Humor • Satire •  
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   Tuesday - January 30, 2007

Geek Stuff

Microsoft is officially launching Windows Vista upon an unsuspecting world today. The official launch site is up and running. There is even a demo page that lets you see the brand new, bright and shiny O/S in operation. Here is the bad news ... the official price list ....

Full versions

• Windows Vista Home Basic: $199
• Windows Vista Home Premium: $239
• Windows Vista Business: $299
• Windows Vista Ultimate: $399

Upgrade versions

• Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade: $99
• Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade: $159
• Windows Vista Business Upgrade: $199
• Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade: $259

As I told you yesterday, I’ve been running Vista for some months now and I’m here today to offer you a few tips if you want to jump on the latest and greatest from The Borg Empire at Redmond.

Hardware: pitch your old PC in the trash. It won’t run Vista worth a damn. In spite of Microsoft’s recommendations, here is what I think you need: (1) a 2GHz or higher processor, (2) 2GB of RAM, (3) 500GB hard drive, (4) DVD-RW drive, (5) high-end 5.1 channel audio card (Audigy or better) and speakers, (6) SLI-capable PCI Express video card. That last is the most important. And this is what I consider the bare minimum.

I built a machine from scratch to take advantage of all of Vista’s features. Here are the specs: (1) AMD Athlon dual-core 64-bit 4600+ CPU, (2) 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 128-bit RAM (3) 2 Terabytes of SATA-2 hard drives, (4) Sony DRU830A DVD-RW drive, (5) RealTek high definition 7.1 channel audio card with Altec Lansing surround speakers, (6) EVGA GeForce 7950 GX2 PCI Express, video card with 1GB video RAM. The video card is the most expensive component, ringing up a $450 price tag. It works well with the Planar 21” LCD monitor.

Total cost of the above “monster” system: $1390.00. That includes Mini-ATX Shuttle case and 600 watt power supply.

64-bit or 32-bit If you’re going to go, go whole hog. I remember the mid-1990’s when we were all switching over from 16-bit O/S (Windows 3.0) to hybrid 16/32-bit O/S (Windows 95) to full 32-bit O/S (Windows XP). Now the time has come again to raise the bar. I’ve had a 64-bit O/S on my Linux server here for some time. Red Hat Enterprise Server 4.0 64-bit version. Slick and smooth. Works like a champ.

I wish I could say the same for 64-bit Vista. You guessed it - no 64-bit drivers yet. A trickle of drivers from the larger manufacturers has slowly allowed me to get almost everything working in 64-bit Vista that I had working in 32-bit Windows XP. Almost. I’m still waiting on Canon for my scanner and HP for my printers. It will be the end of this year or early next year before all vendors catch up but I wouldn’t waste money on a 32-bit system at this point. It will be obsolete in two years. Trust me.

Anti-Virus: By now you all know Microsoft is pushing their Windows Defender as the AV tool for Vista and they have tried to shut out McAfee, Symantec and others. Lawsuits stopped that but the other vendors are way behind. I found a really good anti-virus tool called Avast! from Alwil software. They have a free “Home Edition” and a relatively inexpensive professional edition ($39.95 annual subscription). It works with both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista and works quite well.

Vista Aero Interface: The coolest thing about Vista is the new Aero display interface. Transparent window frames and 3-D windows is only the start. It just is very pleasing to the eye. The problem is that a lot of older programs use their own color scheme and this blows Aero out. When you start one of these older programs, the screen flashes, goes dark and a warning message pops up to tell you that Aero has been disabled because your old program sucks.

Most vendors are already rushing to fix this incompatibility. The programs work fine but you lose the cool display while they are running. One major Aero killer is java. Any app that uses java will kill Aero - unless you go grab Sun’s just-released Java 6 SE JVM. Remove all older versions, install it and all your programs (including Firefox) work with Aero.

That’s all for now. I’ll have more tips in the weeks and months ahead. If you have any questions about Vista, drop me an e-mail and I’ll post the answer here. Before I leave you with this though, I better tell you that on the day of the official launch Windows Update dropped no less than TWELVE (12) KB (Knowledge Base) patches on my system. I heard the machine churning all last night. I finally had to turn audio off to get some sleep. That bodes ill. You might be best advised to wait until this Fall before even thinking of upgrading. By then SP1 (Service Pack 1) will be out and most of the major bugs will be fixed.

Or you can go buy a Linux or Macintosh box and laugh at your friends fighting Vista ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/30/2007 at 12:02 PM   
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   Monday - January 29, 2007

Wow?

Get ready. It is about to hit store shelves tomorrow. The long-awaited (?) next Windows operating system is finally ready for prime time. According to Bill Gates, this new O/S is bug free and 100% secure. After making this statement, we noticed Mr. Gates’ nose had grown significantly. (just kidding, Bill - please don’t hurt me)

Seriously, I’ve been beta testing Vista since last summer when Microsoft released Beta RC1. I’ve had the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) version from MSDN Technet since November and I have to confess that there is a certain “wow” factor involved, especially with the new Aero display.

I’ll have a full review for you all later this week. I’m still putting my notes together. One thing I better tell you right up front - your old PC is probably headed for the trash if you want to run Vista. The hardware requirements have increased significantly so you better plan on buying a new PC if you want the new toy.

Next is the price. I’ll have a full breakdown of the upgrade prices and new install prices later. For now my best advice is - don’t get too excited yet. Start saving your pennies because you’re going to drop at least a grand on a new PC and the O/S. Windows XP will continue to be supported for several years so be patient.

Gates Promises Vista to Wow PC Buyers
_{NEW YORK (AP) - January 29, 2007, 11:02 AM EST}

“Wow" hasn’t tended to be a big part of Bill Gates’ vocabulary, but to hear him speak in the hours before Microsoft Corp.’s planned launch of the long-awaited Vista operating system, you’d never know it.

“This ‘Wow’ thing is a great way of describing what we’ve got here,” Microsoft’s chairman told The Associated Press on Monday as the software maker scheduled a slate of splashy events in New York. “There are chances for wows all over the product.”

More than five years in the making, Vista was released for business customers Nov. 30, but the new Windows operating system’s unveiling for consumer buyers was scheduled for Tuesday around the world.

In Tokyo, about 80 people lined up at the Bic Camera Department Store to become among the world’s first consumers to own Vista. Celebrities and executives were on hand as a large-screen television set displayed a countdown to the midnight launch (10 a.m. EST).

The second person on line, Fumihiko Koyama, 33, waited three hours and was hoping the new operating system will make his work in Web design easier. “My expectations are very high for Vista,” he said. “I want to try it out because it’s new.”

He said he felt compelled to be among the first Vista owners because of the parties Bic and other major retailers were holding. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker contends that Vista is such a huge improvement over previous computing platforms that users inevitably say “Wow” when they see it—and so the word plays a big role in the company’s marketing campaign.

When users boot up Vista for the first time, they’ll be wowed by the slick 3-D graphical user interface and document icons that give at-a-glance previews, Gates said. The next wow comes when they start using a system-wide search program that Microsoft’s engineers built into both the operating system and new versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and other Office 2007 elements, which also hit store shelves at midnight.

Then, Gates said, there are layers of wows for all the different types of PC users: the gamers, the students, the business users, the moms. But will this talk of “wow” translate into crowds at the CompUSA and Best Buy stores that are staying open until past midnight to sell the very first Vista machines?

“When I look at Windows Vista, I see a technology that is interesting, that is relevant, but to some extent is evolutionary,” said Al Gillen, an analyst at the technology research group IDC. “I do not believe it will create a lot of motivation for people to rush out and get a new operating system.”

Gates said Microsoft actually wasn’t pushing midnight sales events—after all, the software will be available as a download over the Web for the first time. And while the software is prettier and more secure, “the biggest impact is always what partners do with it,” Gates said in an interview.

Still, Gates didn’t play down Vista’s importance. He argued that as the PC has morphed from a souped-up typewriter to a networked entertainment center, personal media library and gateway to the Internet, the operating system itself has earned a higher profile.

“When people think about their PC, they think about Windows even more than who the manufacturer is. That determines how it looks, how you navigate, what the applications are that are available,” Gates said. And in this case, Vista has folded in programs that users once bought separately—including automated back-up systems and some spyware protections.

Microsoft shares dropped 13 cents to $30.47 in late morning trading Monday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/29/2007 at 11:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Computers •  
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   Friday - January 19, 2007

Tempus Fuggit

WARNING: THE SKIPPER IS ABOUT TO GO INTO FOAMING-AT-THE-MOUTH RAMPAGING RAGE MODE! YOU MIGHT WANT TO ASK ALL LITTLE CHILDREN TO LEAVE THE ROOM! HIS DAY JOB IS STARTING TO REALLY SUCK THANKS TO THE GOVERNMENT AND HE ISN’T TAKING IT VERY WELL!

I hate the goobers in Washington with a passion. I’d like to wring every one of their silly little necks. Here’s why they need to have their asses whupped ....

Got all that? A rough translation is that they decided to make Daylight Saving Time last longer by a piddling few weeks and then see if it did any good. If not they will change it back to the old dates. That doesn’t sound too complex does it?

What you good folks (and the asshats in Congress) don’t realize is that there are a bajillion computers out there in the world and ALL OF THEM HAVE TO BE RE-PROGRAMMED! Computers don’t know diddley squat about time other than the little crystal vibrating in their innards somewhere or their connection to a time server in some far off location (which happens to be another computer).

If we miserable humans change the way we observe time we have to tell our dumb computer friends about it. As is stands right now, every freaking computer on the planet is pre-programmed to change the time at the locally observed dates each year. Now the US Guvmint is going to change all that on a whim. I could beat every one of these bureaucrats to death if I could get to them.

This is going to be an even worse mess than the Y2K melodrama a few years ago. The Y2K problem mainly affected several billion lines of old COBOL code in older mainframes. This change to Daylight Saving Time affects EVERY COMPUTER AND EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE. Because of this, software vendors have been scrambling since 2005 to create what we call patches or updates and since Daylight Saving Time ended last Fall we have been feverishly pushing these patches out to all the computers we manage.

For the record, this crap affects your Windows and Macintosh computers too. Microsoft has already updated its new operating system, Vista and patches are automatically being downloaded through Windows Update for Windows XP and Windows 2000. No word yet on whether they will patch the older Windows versions like 95, 98 or NT. Apple should be pushing out patches soon too if they haven’t already.

And that’s just the desktop operating systems.

Information Technology professionals like myself have been working a lot of overtime hours lately applying patches to all of our Unix servers and other mid-range servers as well as mainframe big iron.

Which brings us to the software. In addition to telling the operating systems about the change we also have to update all of the applications software. This includes all of our database servers, web servers, e-mail servers. In addition, your e-mail client software along with any other time-sensitive applications also have to be updated.

My database administrator team is currently in the process of patching over 600 Oracle databases - and that’s just for a single client. Multiply that by a gazillion-trillion for all the other major businesses out there and you start to get the picture.

And Congress says that if they don’t see any benefits from this change they will blithely change it all back by waving their magic legislative wand.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/19/2007 at 01:28 PM   
Filed Under: • Computers •  
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   Tuesday - January 02, 2007

Starting A New Year

It’s only fitting that we start the New Year off with a little humor and a little advice. Before you get to Tom Purcell’s hilarious (depending on whose side you’re on) column below, I’m going to ask you to indulge me for a few minutes while I go over a few blog-related and web-related subjects. Pay attention ....

Registration At This Blog: Most of you know that you have to register and become a member here before you can post comments. Registration takes only a few minutes and then you’re done. If you have cookies enabled in your browser you never need to login again. Just check “Log me in automatically in the future” the first time you login.

There is one simple step that a lot of people just don’t understand though. After you register, the server sends out an automated e-mail to the address you provided. You registration is not complete until you reply to this e-mail. If you enter a bogus e-mail address you’ll never get registered so for those who have been trying this .... GET A CLUE, ASSHOLES.

The reason we do this is twofold: (1) it enables you to receive e-mail notifications when someone responds to a comment thread you are subscribed to and (2) it insures that you are a real person with a real e-mail address and not some dipshit spammer or spambot.

I can assure you that your e-mail address will NEVER be sold or given away to anyone. Period. All member information is stored in the server’s databases and are not accessible to the outside world. You may reveal as much or as little about yourself in your member profile as you wish. Your e-mail address is not made public, even to other members.

Submissions To This Blog: I receive literally hundreds of e-mails daily and quite a few of them have links to articles and/or goofy pictures. I usually post these under the name of the submitter or at least give credit to the person who submitted it.

If you submit something be sure to include valid links to the news articles referenced and if possible to the original creator of any pictures or text you quote. It’s not that I don’t trust you in particular, it’s just that I don’t trust anyone at all out here in the blogosphere. There are way too many mischief makers and just general asshats trying to “put one over” on me.

Plus, if you wish to have an entire editorial or article (that you have written) posted, try to format it in HTML like you want it displayed, OK. I don’t have time to do ALL the work for you. And most importantly, don’t get all uppity with me if I don’t post your submission. There may not be space or time.

Etiquette: For the most part, I generally leave the readers here to themselves when commenting. As long as civility is maintained, you can pretty much say whatever is on your mind no matter how ridiculous it is.

If you start verbally attacking me or another commenter on this blog, you will most assuredly find your comments deleted and you will be banned. Period. Deal with it. If you can’t discuss the issues without launching ad hominem attacks against others here, you’re in the wrong place. Try some of the Lefty, bullshit sites if that’s what you want.

Sense Of Humor: Ask any one of my (four) ex-wives what pissed them off the most about me and they will all tell you that the one thing that most chapped their ass was the fact that about 50% of the time I am just full of shit and they never could tell when I was serious. I prefer to think of it as just having a wicked sense of humor.

For that reason, you will find a lot of satire and parody in my writing here. Before you get all deranged and upset over something I said, make sure I’m not just “pulling your leg.” With that said, I can assure you that I am well aware that no matter what I say, someone, somewhere out there is going to get pissed off about it. You can’t please everyone and I’m not about to start trying.

Blogging: This blog is a hobby for me ... nothing else. I have a full-time “day job” that puts food on the table and keeps me warm and dry. There are some issues that mean a lot to me and I post about those issues in the hope of somehow making a difference. This has never been and never will be a popularity contest for me.

I have been accused of being “egotistical and arrogant” - usually by those who possess those traits in abundance themselves. I have also been called a saint. Neither one is accurate. Neither a saint or a sinner - just something in between.

I enjoy keeping up on world events and writing about them. Developing my writing skills is probably the only reason I keep on “keepin’ on” here. I am working on two books at the present time, one fiction and one non-fiction. I have not been able to concentrate on them as I should have, mostly due to the strain and problems of maintaining this blog. I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it.

Resolutions: That’s pretty much it for this New Years “day-after” bull session, folks. My only resolution this year is to finish at least one of my books and get it in print. Other than that, I intend to just go with the flow and see what happens. My advice to you is to keep your New Years resolutions short, sweet and simple. Nothing fancy but something that stands a slight chance of success.

Oh ... and one other thing .... be careful what you say in e-mails, as Mr. Purcell finds out below. And for God’s sake never, NEVER, NEVER click on that “Reply All” button. You never know where that e-mail may wind up ....

_{Daryl Cagle - Slate.com}

Another New Year’s Resolution – Tech Etiquette
-- By Tom Purcell

Here’s something many of us need to do better in the New Year: Be more civil toward one another, particularly where technology is concerned. I remember reading a Wall Street Journal story last year about a couple of Boston lawyers. One, a 24-year-old woman, sent an e-mail to an older, established lawyer declining his job offer.

The older lawyer, miffed the woman would e-mail her rejection after she’d already accepted the job orally, fired off a reply. He said she wasn’t very professional.

She replied that if he were a real lawyer he would have had her sign a contract. So he replied, suggesting, in so many words, that she was a snot. She sent one last reply that read: “blah, blah, blah.”

Well, the older lawyer e-mailed the exchange to a colleague, who forwarded it to another colleague and soon the entire Boston legal community read it. It was featured on “Nightline” and in the papers, and now you’re reading about it here.

This latest example of technology-enhanced rudeness reminded me of a similar situation that happened to me seven years ago. Just after moving to Washington, D.C., I’d joined a large writers’ organization. Since I was new to town, I decided to start an informal monthly happy hour to meet other writers – or, to be more precise, WOMEN writers.

I got permission from the writers’ organization to send an e-mail out to all 4,000 members. Several folks e-mailed me back, and we soon established a time and place to meet. Nearly 40 folks attended the first event – one that would be the LAST event.

As it went, one particularly attractive attendee caught my attention. I found myself in stiff competition with another fellow in trying to win the woman’s affection. She soon made it clear to us that had no interest in either of us knuckleheads and that she came only to discuss the writing craft.

After she landed her blow, the other fellow and I quickly realized the pickings were otherwise slim. The other women were either much older than we or otherwise didn’t strike our fancy. It never occurred to us that they might have come to meet men.

One woman, a woman of overpowering verbosity, soon had us pinned up against the bar. For the rest of the evening she shoved a dozen opinions at us on every subject under the sun. It was the first time in my life I was happy to hear the words “last call.”

The next morning, I got an e-mail from the other fellow. He thanked me for organizing the event, then said, “and for goodness sakes, for the next happy hour event, do NOT invite any more loud, obnoxious (expletive)!”

I was surprised at the rudeness of the fellow’s e-mail. That should have been the end of it. But it was just the beginning.

You see, instead of e-mailing his response only to me, the fellow unwittingly sent his reply to all 4,000 members of the writers’ organization, some of whom, much to his poor luck, were also women of overpowering verbosity.

I don’t know how many e-mail responses came that day, but they surely topped 100. A story-line quickly established itself. Our heroine, who was so viciously attacked, did nothing to deserve her fate and, incidentally, it’s typical of misogynistic men to be threatened by intelligent women.

As for our villain, he was dubbed an idiotic male rogue. He should not only apologize, the e-mails demanded, but he should resign from the writers’ organization, give up writing altogether, and move to another city, where, hopefully, something bad would happen to him.

In any event, as civility continues breaking down across America, technology is helping us get more efficient at being rude. In the New Year, we ought to be more cautious when we use it.

Here’s one solution: If you wish to say something nasty about somebody, use the phone. You can only offend one person at a time that way.

---

_{Tom Purcell is a humor columnist syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons. For comments to Tom, please email him at TomPurcell@aol.com.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2007 at 01:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Computers • Cyberspace-Internet •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks (1) • Permalink •  

   Tuesday - December 19, 2006

Monitoring The Kids

Speaking of children (see post below this one), The Skipper has been doing a little research over at his personal blog, The ArgoKnot for some of the techie readers there and answers the question about how to keep track of the rug rats in your household when they get on the family computer.

It’s a package called Spector Pro and it costs $99.95. The Skipper has a full review and also a cautionary warning for any of the asshats out there who just want to spy on their wife or girlfriend.

Go take a look and decide for yourself but consider this ... if you have to covertly spy on your own kids, something is wrong with discipline in the old homestead. Maybe what you need is a thick leather belt ($19.95 at Wal-Mart) instead of an expensive software package.

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/19/2006 at 01:31 PM   
Filed Under: • Computers •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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