Category: Geek Stuff

Nope, not the iPod I just got, although that’s cool too. The latest is much cheaper and potentially cooler: a universal TV zapper . When I saw the story, I wanted one. When I saw the price, I ordered one. Stay tuned for details of its effectiveness. I can think of a lot of places… Continue reading New Toy

Unfortunately, “Windows for Warships” is not the latest computer game, or even just a bad joke. A recent article in Scotland’s Sunday Herald describes the concerns of a naval software engineer about the British Royal Navy’s use of Windows for combat management software. The capitalized phrase “Windows for Warships” really raised my eyebrows, indicating that… Continue reading Windows for Warships?

As I’ve mentioned before, scanning webserver access logs sometimes occasionally provides a source of minor amusement (at least for a pathetic computer geek with no other life). Something I stumbled onto tonight leaves me unsure whether to be amused or frightened. 209.58.72.84 – – [23/Sep/2004:21:25:21 -0400] “GET /blog/article.php?story=2003112608264175&mode=print HTTP/1.0” 200 1077 “http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&q=fighting%20unemployment” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE… Continue reading Government Consultant?

Regular visitors to this site (if there are any left) may have noticed that, in the last couple of months, it was frequently excruciatingly slow to load. I noticed it, and had an initially fruitless email dialogue with my hosting service. When they realized ignoring me wouldn’t work, they committed the tactical error of telling… Continue reading Back in the fast lane

I know, I sound like a broken record on some topics, like FreeBSD vs Linux. But this morning’s email highlighted a couple of interesting articles in serendipitous juxtaposition. First was yet another story about SCO’s lawsuit against IBM for patent infringements in Linux. Linux-lovers believe SCO is full of baloney on this issue, and they… Continue reading FreeBSD, Anybody?

Once again, the boundary between geeky topics and political ranting is blurring. Not long after a report that Teddy Kennedy’s Senate office runs on Macintosh technology, we get a story about the technology choices of the Bush and Kerry campaigns. And, once again, it’s ironically appropriate.

A Computerworldarticle reports that Postini’s email management service is rejecting over half the messages addressed to their customers without reading them, based on the sending server’s IP address. 53% of connection attempts are immediately dropped without even looking at the message contents.

It’s tough to decide whether this belongs in the “Political Rants” or “Geek Stuff” category. When I first read about it on a newsgroup, I first thought it belonged in tne “Bullshit” category, but a quick Google News search revealed that it’s true. The Department of Justice has refused to comply with a Freedom of… Continue reading Don’t read that! You’ll destroy it!!

I received email from one of the security geeks at work that began: Microsoft and UK have arranged a two-day (no-cost) training session that will provide information about what we can do to better protect our IT infrastructure and applications against security threats — both today and in the future. So, after they tell us… Continue reading Short Course?

I knew there was a reason why I liked Ted Kennedy. From a Wired article: Ngozi Pole is systems administrator for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), whose office runs the only Mac operation on Capitol Hill. Pole administers about 60 Macs and a couple of PCs. “(The Senate) got hit pretty hard by a worm recently,”… Continue reading Yay, Teddy!