Join Dr. Bill as he examines the wild and wacky world of the web, computers, and all things geeky! Hot Tech Tips, Tech News, and Geek Culture are examined… with plenty of good humor as well!
The author says, “It spans all the way from people who know next to nothing about it to those who know it well enough to write the actual HTML specifications. I thought I’d describe a few different levels of HTML knowledge. For some people, these levels are stages that they pass while learning more and more about HTML, gradually understanding concepts such as web standards, semantics, and accessibility. Others are at a certain level because it matches their attitude towards HTML and coding in general. Many people never advance beyond the first few levels. For some that is just fine, while for others it is not. This is all written in a tongue-in-cheek way and is just my personal opinion. Please don’t over-react if you don’t agree or think some of the descriptions are a bit harsh. Try laughing instead.”
For an interesting “side-bar” thought to this post, the link below to an article that says that 50 MILLION people in the U.S. actually have posted content to the web in some form or fashion! Interesting!
After month’s of beta testing, Microsoft has announced official availability of it’s “Live OneCare” program of data security. You can protect three PCs for $49.95 per year.
“The move pits the world’s largest software maker head-to-head with longtime business partners Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc. and others. Windows Live OneCare, which will protect up to three computers for $49.95 per year, marks the latest step in Microsoft’s effort over the years to make its operating system less vulnerable to crippling Internet attacks.”
DEWD! We think we have a “hot” connection to the Internet when we have a full 1 megabit line (nearly T1 speeds.) But, imagine a connection that offers 800 Gbps (Yes, that is GIGAbits per second!) Internet2 (which is mostly academic and research institutions already have 10 gigabits per second on average… which is already awesome… but they are getting an upgrade… and WHAT an upgrade! Wow! When can I have it!??!
“The upgrade will use 80 different wavelengths to send the traffic that could make it possible for uncompressed hi-def video and video conferencing, over the net collaboration and even give a massive boost to grid computing. Internet2, a consortium of 201 academic institutions plans to phase out its Abilene network, which has been in service for seven years. The consortium will not renew its fiber contract with Qwest Communications. The Abilene Network used 10,000 route-miles of Qwest’s 10-Gigabit-per-second optical network.”
eWeek has an article that I thought I would never see in a “standard” IT newsmag… a “smackdown” comparison between Microsoft Vista and OpenSUSE 10.1 (Linux!) Now, I have no illusions here, obviously due to prior market penatration, Microsoft has the overwhelming advantage, but who would have thought that the day would come that anyone would dare compare a new version of Windows to a new version of Linux? Interesting days are ahead!
“In one corner, we have the champ—Windows. Come January, it will come out swinging with what Microsoft tells us is the latest and greatest version ever—Vista. In the other corner, we have the challenger—OpenSUSE 10.1, the latest shipping version of Novell/SUSE’s community Linux. Sometime this summer, its commercial version, SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, will come out looking to KO the champ.”
Dr. Bill Podcast – 38 – (05/27/06)
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Happy Memorial Day! A “mod” of a PC case that looks like a “Bond-type” A-Bomb! Very cool, ya gotta see the photo! Microsoft recommends using MS Word in safe mode due to the exploit that makes Word dangerous! The 25 ABSOLUTE WORST tech ideas/software/devices of all time! OF ALL TIME! And what is number one? Why, AOL, of course! Another REALLY good reason to ditch Symantec Norton Anti-Virus! Use Grisoft AVG instead! Very cool “Techie Tip” on how to do backups on Linux with Rsync! Kinda lame Geek Software of the Week… but here it is! WinRoll. OK, folks, send me Geek Software of the Week candidates, pleeeese! Weird Al Yankovic’s cool parody song: “All About the Pentiums!” Here’s a link to the video, check it out!
————————–
It’s All About The Pentiums
by Al Yankovic
It’s all about the Pentiums, baby
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
It’s all about the Pentiums, baby
It’s all about the Pentiums, baby
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
Yeah
What y’all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin’ time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin’ at Hewlett Packard?
Workin’ at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin’ the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin’ my hard drive for thrills
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don’t read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin’ on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I’m strictly plug-and-play, I ain’t afraid of Y2K
I’m down with Bill Gates, I call him “Money” for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It’s all about the Pentiums, what?
You’ve gotta be the dumbest newbie I’ve ever seen
You’ve got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You’re usin’ a 286? Don’t make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You’re the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
You’re waxin’ your modem, tryin’ to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you’re still livin’ in your parents’ cellar
Downloadin’ pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin’ “Me too!” like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You’re just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y’all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin’ time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin’ at Hewlett Packard?
Uh, uh, loggin’ in now
Wanna run wit my crew, hah?
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got ’em printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer’s got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you’ve had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it’s an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that’s great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is write-protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operating system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed ’em
While your computer’s crashin’, mine’s multitaskin’
It does all my work without me even askin’
Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide
I believe that yours says “Etch-A-Sketch” on the side
In a 32-bit world, you’re a 2-bit user
You’ve got your own newsgroup, “alt.total-loser”
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax
Where’d you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks?
Play me online? Well, you know that I’ll beat you
If I ever meet you I’ll control-alt-delete you
What? What? What? What? What?
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
It’s all about the Pentiums! (It’s all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y’all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin’ time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin’ at Hewlett Packard?
What??
OK… this is pretty odd to be a “Geek Software of the Week.” Why? Well, for those that need it, it will be very cool. For those that don’t the reaction will be, “Huh?” This free utility allows you to “roll up” a window in Windows XP like a window sash. Why would you do that? Because you might have lots and lots of windows open and need to “clean up.”
So, for those of you that say, “Dewd, this is JUST what I was looking for!” Great! For those that are still scratching their heads and saying, “Huh?” Well, pass it along… OK?
“This document describes a method for generating automatic rotating ‘snapshot’-style backups on a Unix-based system, with specific examples drawn from the author’s GNU/Linux experience. Snapshot backups are a feature of some high-end industrial file servers; they create the illusion of multiple, full backups per day without the space or processing overhead. All of the snapshots are read-only, and are accessible directly by users as special system directories. It is often possible to store several hours, days, and even weeks’ worth of snapshots with slightly more than 2x storage. This method, while not as space-efficient as some of the proprietary technologies (which, using special copy-on-write filesystems, can operate on slightly more than 1x storage), makes use of only standard file utilities and the common rsync program, which is installed by default on most Linux distributions. Properly configured, the method can also protect against hard disk failure, root compromises, or even back up a network of heterogeneous desktops automatically.”
“A gaping security flaw in the latest versions of Symantec’s anti-virus software suite could put millions of users at risk of a debilitating worm attack, Internet security experts warned May 25. Researchers at eEye Digital Security, the company that discovered the flaw, said it could be exploited by remote hackers to take complete control of the target machine ‘without any user action.'”
If you had to list the very worse of all tech devices/software/concepts, what would they be? And, could you get people to agree on what these all time worst ideas were? Well, here’s PC World’s Top 25!
Here’s the top 10 of the 25, see what YOU think… I must admit, number one IS a no-brainer!
1. America Online (1989-2006)
2. RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
3. Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
4. Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)
5. Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)
6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
7. Microsoft Bob (1995)
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
9. Pressplay and MusicNet 2002
10. Ashton-Tate dBASE IV (1988)
What PC World said about thier list: “Picking our list wasn’t exactly rocket science; it was more like group therapy. PC World staffers and contributors nominated their candidates and then gave each one the sniff test. We sought the worst of the worst–operating systems that operated badly, hardware that never should have left the factory, applications that spied on us and fed our data to shifty marketers, and products that left a legacy of poor performance and bad behavior.”
If you use Microsoft Word… (and NOT OpenOffice? Shame on you!) how can you be safe given the new evil exploit that is unpatched to this day? Well, here’s an article with some tips:
“Because the current attack vector requires that the target is running the admin rights, the implementation of software restriction policies can reduce the effects the attack. Microsoft’s advisory also contains step-by-step instructions for running the vulnerable Word 2002 and Word 2003 in safe mode. The company is recommending that users first disable the Outlook feature to use Word as the default mail editor before changing settings to run Word in safe mode.”
