Posts from — October 2004

The Washington Post announced their winners of the readers choice Best Political Blogs of 2004. Reading through some of the winning sites, I found a lot of useful information. Just in time for next Tuesday, this is a great resource to prepare yourself for the election.

For the lighter side of the election, check out The Specious Report. They’ve compiled an extensive list of parodies, satire and links to humorous web sites devoted to the campaigns of both political parties. It’s very funny stuff.

Finally, The Onion is reporting the Republicans are urging minorities to get out and vote on Nov. 3rd.

From their report:

“You can’t walk through a black neighborhood here in Miami without seeing our ‘Don’t Forget Big Wednesday!’ message up on a billboard, tacked to a phone booth, or taped to a bus shelter,” Monreal added. “The Republican Party has spared no expense in this endeavor.”

It’s an old joke but their spin on it is hilarious.

The latest craze on the internet is Podcasting. This is where you subscribe to MP3 RSS feeds which are automatically downloaded to your iPod. The best site to learn more about it is strangely enough, Podcaster.net. Adam Curry (a former MTV VJ) is leading this new revolution and has several great feeds from which to choose. For the latest list of available feeds, click here.

Over the last month or so I’ve been listening to Adam’s radio show, Engadget’s reviews and Slashdot’s daily news articles and much more.

This is really cool stuff, check it out.

“A new study from the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and America Online (AOL) paints a dire picture of the state of security in the land of the home PC.” - via InfoWorld.

If people would take the time to educate and protect themselves from potential threats, their computers would be much safer. The article reports 67% of the users surveyed had outdated virus signatures and a staggering 93% had spyware installed on their computer. Both problems are easily remedied with anti-virus and spyware removal tools. Incredible.

Meanwhile, have you installed Firefox?

Bush in 30 seconds is a political advertising contest. Some of the entries were excellent. I liked “What are we teaching our children” the best.

The site upgrade is mostly complete. Moveable Type 3.12 has some enhancements that will allow me to easily add some cool features here.

Man, I wish I could get great feedback on eBay like this guy.

A9 - another kind of search engine.

After the upgrade to version 3.11 of MovableType, I was having trouble posting new entries. Turns out an obscure javascript file was in the wrong directory. Everything is fixed now and I will continue to tweak the site.

Meanwhile, I installed Google’s new desktop search application last weekend. After it indexed my computer’s hard drive, I can now do a Google search of any file, IM chat, email or cached web page on my system. Unfortunately it only indexes Internet Explorer’s web cache and I use Firefox. Hopefully they will soon fix this oversight and I’ll be able to retrieve tons of information stored in every dark corner of my computer.

I hear the new version of Windows will have some type of super search built in but for now the Google desktop search rocks. Code-named Longhorn, the new Windows won’t be available for a few years. If they don’t hurry, Google is going to take over everything.

Speaking of Firefox, the available extensions (my favorite feature) are awesome. Here’s what I have installed:

Adblock - filters ads from web pages.
Web Developer - adds a toolbar with various web dev tools.
Status bar clock - the date and time displays in the status bar.
BugMeNot - bypasses compulsory registration forms.
SwitchProxy - acts as an IP anonymizer (very handy).

And if you want to be famous, you can contribute $30 to the development of Firefox and get your name in the New York Times. They are taking out an ad to promote the release of Firefox version 1.0.

I was never thrilled with the latest look of the site. I searched for other weblog applications and was settled on using Wordpress. But after some more research I decided to stick with Movabletype. I upgraded to their new version 3.11 and applied a few templates and this is what I have for now. I’ll continue my tweaking to get it looking like I want. My main objective is to divide the page in half with one side for the weblog entries and the other for a “sideblog.”

Ben Browder from Farscape was on the Screen Savers last night. He’s busy promoting his new Farscape mini-series starting this Sunday. It’s a 4 hour show that will explain what happened to John Crichton and Aeryn Sun in the series finale. Browder said if the ratings for this series are good, a feature-length movie may come next. How cool is that. I’ve mentioned Farscape in my weblog in the past, and I’m sure this new series will continue to be among my favorites.

I’ve been using Movable Type for my weblog for years but I think it’s time for a change. Lately I’ve been looking around for something better and I think I’ve found it, Wordpress. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be playing around and updating things on my site. The best part is I’ll be learning new things along the way. That’s the primary reason I have the weblog in the first place.

Back in April, The Washington Post published its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. And the winners are:
1. Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
13. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
14. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.

…continue for the 2003 winners
[Read more →]

Reports are growing regarding the flaw in Microsoft�s JPEG parsing software. Many people have not even heard about it. The flaw is a buffer overrun that allows someone to execute code. This is not a virus but rather a trojan downloader, it has no ability to spread on its own. However it does have the potential of causing some nasty problems.

It only affects people running Windows XP service pack 1. Update to SP2 right away and you should be fine. All major anti-virus programs with current signatures are detecting the vulnerability.

An alternative would be to use Firefox which does not have the JPEG vulnerability. I’ve been using Firefox for months and it’s been working well for me. I highly recommend you download and start using it.

Google’s Gmail has some new features. You can now search within your contact list, forward messages to other email accounts and save drafts. Let me know if you would like an invite, I have several left to give out.

You may have heard I got a new car a few weeks ago. With some creative financing, an excellent value for a trade-in and a night job, I was able to afford a Chrysler 300C. It’s loaded with fantastic features including automatic headlights, wipers and mirrors. The best part is the V8 Hemi engine.

But its the modifications I made to the car after I got it home that I like to brag about. With hard work, I managed to make this already awesome car into something I will love for years to come.

Here’s a rundown of the added options:

- Adapted the windshield with the same technology as the Joo-Janta 500 Super-Chromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses, they become opaque when the driver gets scared.
- installed a BFG9000 behind the headlights. For when the horn isn’t enough to get someone out of the way.
- obtained a cloaking device provided by the Romulan government under a special amendment to the Treaty of Algeron.
- cobbled together an FSQ Primary Force Field and Deflector Control System to keep idiots from scratching the paint.
- purchased a neurogenic dampening field to disable the morons that don’t use their blinker or generally piss me off. I hear repairs are costly to counteract the field’s effects.
- tailgater’s will be in for a suprise when I activate the oil slick and tire puncturing system behind the license plate. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be able to keep up with me after that.

Congratulations to SpaceShipOne. They won the X Prize.