August 16, 2003
Microsoft Dodges a Bullet?
I'm sure just about everyone has heard about the little worm that's spreading around the Internet. Heck, even my mother asked me about it when I last talked to her. Microsoft's solution to saving their precious WindowsUpdate service was to take down the URL completely.
Actually, the news stories are a little misleading. They've taked down the windowsupdate.com URL, but the windowsupdate.microsoft.com URL is still up and running. I giess Microsoft's just fortunate that the worm author just happened to point to the alternate (shorter) URL and Microsoft's WindowsUpdate feature built in to their operating system uses the longer URL. They'd be in big trouble if the worm was going to hit the same URL as the WindowsUpdate feature requires. Maybe next time they won't be quite so lucky.
As an aside, here's an interesting link to a tool put out by Microsoft that will allow the user to scan an entire subnet for machines that are still vulnerable. I found this a few days ago, and used it on our corporate network. Even though we regularly patch our machines, it still found a couple of machines that got overlooked.
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Posted by Ian at 12:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 01, 2003
Science Fiction
Now this is cool! A two-dimensional image projected seemingly in mid-air on a curtain of mist. Not very portable, but it's a start. Now, if only they can get a 3-D version working...
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Posted by Ian at 09:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 10, 2003
Slurpee Conspiracy
In case anyone is interested, tomorrow is Free Slurpee Day at 7-Eleven. I'm starting to notice a trend at my local 7-Eleven. The slurpees are getting runnier. As I was approaching the machine, I though I spied the Coke slurpee was perfect. From a distance, you can tell by the colour of the mix in the machine exactly what the consistency is. The Pepsi one was very dark, and obviously very runny. Well, as I approached the machine, I realized that someone was playing a cruel trick on me - it wasn't Coke - it was Vanilla Coke! What an awful slurpee flavour (it's terrible as a beverage - freezing it does nothing to enhance the experience). What was I left with? Grape, or some mexican thing. Ewww.
Talking of slurpees, I ran across this online diary the other day. It's obsessive-compulsives like this that help me feel normal.
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Posted by Ian at 11:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 09, 2003
Nothing Better Than Finding a Virgin
I love listening to Internet radio stations using my Slim Devices MP3 player. However, recently, my favourite Internet radio station Wolf FM stopped broadcasting their Shoutcast stream. Very disappointing - all they offer is a Windows Media stream now.
Not more than 48 hours after that devastating discovery, I found that my favourite broadcast radio station, Virgin Radio now offers an MP3 stream!
It was a little difficult to find, but I was able to manually craft a playlist file with the following URL in it:
http://www.smgradio.com/core/audio/mp3/live.pls?service=vrbb
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Posted by Ian at 11:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 08, 2003
Monkey... or Condiment... ?
The strangest conversation happened at work today. It was concerning an ingredient in HP Sauce. The ingredients include tamarind. Well, one staff member insisted that a tamarind was a kind of fruit. I, on the other hand, was convinced that a tamarind was a kind of bearded monkey.
A quick google, and I was happy to see that in fact I was right.
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Posted by Ian at 11:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack