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Referrer Spam Attack…yet again
“Referrer Spam”:http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/referer_spam/. There is no end to the spam disease. It ain’t just email. With all this self publishing, I’ve spent more time on comment, then trackback spam. Now I’m barraged by referrer spam. That is links of folks who have recently visited. What is really needed is some sort of server side filter and…
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PC Recommendations for 2Q04
George asked me about what computers should he get. Surprisingly, January-March was quiet in the computer business without any major events. The Prescott launch turned into a non-event given that although they moved into a new chip family pricing didn’t really change. Even with CeBit coming next week, doesn’t look like any major shakeups. Those…
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Gas Hybrids are Coming…
Well here they come, hat tip to my buddy Jeff for pointing this out to me: * Toyota Prius is named best car of 2004 and one of the ten best by Car and Driver. More importantly, production goes to 150,000 units next year. Who would have ever guessed that! * Lexus hybrid – RX400h.…
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Using Bit Torrent…after 30 days
I’ve been using Bit Torrent now for the last 30 days. It is a little confusing since there doesn’t appear to a site for novices who want an easy to use P2P system. Here’s my short guide with what I know so far: * “Azureus”:http://azureus.sourceforge.net/. First, you have to select a client. I’ve tried a…
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Nikon's Latest
I haven’t seen reviews of these yet, but Nikon has a pretty interesting 1Q04: * D70. A response to the Canon Digital Rebel. This is a 6Mp camera. Also has a new 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens. “DPPhoto”:http://www.dpreview.com/articles/nikond70/ thinks it compares well with its bigger brother, the D100, and its competition, the Canon EOS-300D. * “Nikon…
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Dummy Files for Spyware
Dummy files for neutering Spyware-based programs. Even if you use Lavasoft’s Adaware to remove spyware, some programs require them, here are some files that you put in that look like spyware, but aren’t.
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Vienna Teng
ViennaTeng.com: Scrapbook. A great example of an independent artist doing promotion via blogs and a web site. Interesting to see how folks develop an audience. Much is by traditional means, get a label like Virt Records, do interviews on NPR, go do lots of shows, but part of it is letting folks see who you…
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Online Shopping Guide
OK, as usual, the sources of information for shopping have shifted some. Here’s the 2Q 2004 guide to getting the best values on the web. h4. For Electronics and Computer Gear This is the easiest category to shop for. There are so many different sources of information. Here’s the path I use: # Get a…
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Blackberry Internal Error #4238
Livelink – Result Page for Internal Error #4238. Talk about obscure error messages. Got this while using my Blackberry and trying to synchronize contacts. The bad error message mumbles about a bad connection to the Exchange Server. Digging deeper, it looks like there is some corruption in the Outlook contact file and you have to…
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The state of file sharing
Slyck – File Sharing News and Info. I haven’t had a chance to look at the many advances in file sharing and peer-to-peer commercially. Interesting to see an entire site dedicated to it. Most interesting is to see how many users are on various networks cribed from Slyck, the top hit for sites that monitor…
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Blog Pingers Galore
a little ludwig goes a long way: Pinging Service Rundown. What a great idea. “Neil”:http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2004/Jan/30/pinging_service_rundown.html has a list of good sites to ping and “Doug Gunters”:http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2004/02/23/blog-service-pinger-enhancements is working on an automated version of this.
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Incredible AT&T Wireless Snafu
a little ludwig goes a long way: ATT phone obsoleting. For those of you who have been wondering why AT&T GSM coverage is so horrible. Ludwig explains it. Basically, AT&T launched their GSM in the 1900 MHz range, but then built out their older 850 MHz TDMA spectrum, so now they really need phones that…
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Video Cards: March 2004 Recommendations
Last review of these I did in early January, so time for the 2Q04 recommendations. As usual, “Digit-Life”:http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/digest3d/index.html has the very best comprehensive review. Here’s a quick summary. These figures were done with an Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Not much change here since January, no major new releases. These prices are as of March 9…
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Guide to Cell phones in general: March 2004
Well, Jenn asked me about cell phones. She needs one or maybe two. Given the pricing right now and wireless local number portability, here’s what I told her (this applies mainly to Seattle) and is tuned for “just married” set for once vs. geeks galore: * “Wireless Local Number Portability”:http://wireless.fcc.gov/wlnp/. Given that it costs $30…
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More Mac Blogging Applications
:: w.bloggar FAQ ::. Som e good tips on Mac blogging applications. The one I’ve been using crashes like crazy. Called Ecto. I’m not sure why. Mysterious, “Application Unexpected Quit” which is about as useful as the BSOD on Windows. * Netnewswire:http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/. Is a Mac RSS reader and editing off line as well
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Disk Drive recommendations
Can it be that another quarter has passed. Here again are the recommendations for the best hard drives to buy. It basically is that you should get the WD740GD for system drive, the Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 ATA-100 for your data drive. If you are on a budget, then get the WD2000JB or the WD1200JB if…
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Best CD-Rs, DVD+Rs and other consumables
OK, now that I’ve run out of consumables, here’s a good place to get them. Its actually hard to find an inexpensive place to buy this stuff, but you can try Yesmicro.com as well as thenerds.net. Verbatim has done consistently well in benchmarks for media, but it is a mess trying to decipher the various…
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Guide Books
Well, its the start of the new year and it seems like we are planning travel like crazy. Here are some of the things we sue for planning: * “Seattle”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/17405/ref=br_bx_c_2_2/103-9763570-0061442. Amazon has a nice list of the best selling travel books. Travel is one area where having the book ranking is certainly really useful. BTW,…
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Been listening to…
With all the great new artists out there and the Internet, it sure is easier to find some great new folks to listen to. Lately, I’ve been gravitating towards alternative artists like: * NPR : Vienna Teng, Live at NPR. One of the few folks I learned about reading the “Seattle Times”:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2001871281_nite05.html. A cross between…
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iTunes and Pepsi Promotion
About.com : http://www.macmerc.com/news/archives/1270. Pepsi is doing a big giveaway where if you find the right bottle top, you can get a free iTunes song. Here’s a good post in about.com that explains how to tell if the bottle is the right one: # You find a bottle that has a yellow top. Diet Pepsi, Pepsi…
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Predicting Your Own Weather
NWS Seattle . It is kind of amazing how the Internet lets you do so many things đ Connie pointed out to me that if you wanted to see if it was raining when we go biking, just jump on the National Weather Service Forecast office rain radar and voila. Give it a try!
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Browser reviews…
Well I know most folks use Internet Explorer, but I’ve spent a little bit of time using some alternative (non-traditional browsers). Here’s a quick review, in order of preference: * “Opera”:http://opera.com. Definitely the geeks choice. Features that I love are: a) it has panes, so you can multiple web pages open at the same time…
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How to Change the World
“How to change the World”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195138058/qid=1078375029//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-4363506-2466406?v=glance&n=507846. I’ve been pretty fatigued on charitable giving. Done the board thing, seen how hard it is to change things and also how hard it is when non-profits become an end unto themselves (that is, where maintaining employment is more important than the cause). Anyway, “SVP”:http://www.svpseattle.org/ sent us this book. Inspiring…
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Athlon 64 Optimizations
Its been hard to find code optimized for the Athlon 64. Here were some threads I found on the topic as folks struggle to do this: * mersenneforum.org – Creative ways to achieve Athlon 64 / Opteron optimization * “AMD64 Optimized”:http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9488^9563^9598,00.html. The small list of folks doing 64-bit optimizations. Biggest names are probably America’s Army…
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DVDInfo
dvdinfopro.com – Home Page. Great utility for figuring out what DVD you really have and also to figure out what the media code is so you know if the media you have is reliable.
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Cool DVR from Scientific-Atlanta
a little ludwig goes a long way: Super DVRs. Wow, Ludwig finds an article about DVRs that will let you preview three streams and record a bunch of others in the background.
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Offshoring
a little ludwig goes a long way: Tom Peters on Offshoring _Hat tip to John Ludwig on this_ Some great thoughts on offshoring that makde tons of sense. All kinds of ideas, but the biggest one is the service jobs that are going away. The Americans’ unearned wage advantage is going away is probably the…
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Best Linux live boot from a CD review
“Linux boot from CD”:http://desktops.linux.com/desktops/04/02/09/1840218.shtml. Great review of different distributions that boot from a CD and then use either the hard disk or a USB key fob for storage. Interesting that Slackware has done a version that boots in less than a minute. It’s called “Slax”:http://slax.linux-live.org. Interesting BTW, that Knoppix is 600MB loaded with junk, but…
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Magic, Magic, Magic everywhere
“Magic”:http://www.wizards.com/magic/ has become Alex’s favorite game. I have to say, I can see why, it certainly is addicting. The fact there are so many different decks means that the games are really totally different. Pretty different from other games where they get to be more or less the same. Right now he’s a magician with…
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KABOOM goes Dad's ACL
Calvin’s latest stumper while playing hangman. I was totally stumped by the Kaboom word. Grace does a nice imitation of Dad’s groans as he tries to get 120 degrees of flexion.