I have been awfully busy lately, with lots and lots of work projects, travel for work and personal purposes, and all the rest of life on top of that. As a result, there are over a hundred interesting tidbits of info I set aside with hopes of writing here about them.

But since I know in the real world that won't ever happen, here are the 48 random things that caught my eye ad attention long enough for me to save each one - These fall mostly in the tech category:

New digital camera chip slashes power consumption 50x
Cingular To Offer Free Webcast on 8700c Development
Photon, the next version of Windows Mobile
Mobile WiMax standard gets IEEE seal of approval
Ian Holsman/Feh! v2: What is 99% uptime anyway?
Wireless IP PBX from Samsung
Google Local Now Available for the Blackberry
PetCell GPS tracker phone for dogs
Cingular launches their 3G BroadbandConnect network
USPTO rejects yet another NTP patent
Ask Engadget: What's the best home projector? (part II)
makezine.com: MAKE's Mostly Under $100 Gift Guide 2005!
Dr Divx 2.0 Released!!!
Configure WMCE for HDTV without a full-time NTSC tuner
Alternative PDF viewer
And what would you do with an extra $430?
The World’s Worst IT Organization
Blackberry 8700 Examined: Themes
Beginners Guide to Securing a Pc
SPS Sites Navigator
IPTVshows
SharePoint: Web Part (Status Report)
99 Useful Run Commands
How To Write Unmaintainable Code
The Ultimate Guide to Google Services
Design Your Own Blackberry Theme
Really Simple Sharing
Microsoft and Open Text announce new strategic relationship
DIY Steadicam Camcorder Stabiliser
VoIP Telephony with Asterisk
Xbox 360 Media Download Center Available for Download
Is a Hybrid Worth It?
Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 1.2
Is Microsoft's Sparkle the new Flash?
Build a Google Maps service
Windows Desktop Search Loses Toolbar
Steve Rubel/Micro Persuasion: Ten Blogging Hacks
Circuit City selling Xbox 360s 3.5 days early?
Think AWK and GREP sound funny? Try SPLUNK!
Record anything with "Silent Bob"
Microsoft Looks to Scrum to Speed Development
One Bad Apple Spoils the XPod 360
Flowfinity Wireless Launches Blackbird
Arming administrators with full client control
A change in URI parsing between IE7 and IE6
McAfee's end-point security beta on the way
JPEG iFilter - Index your images
American Science and Surplus

Everyone knows XBOX360's are in very short supply, and the ones that are available are being swept up as soon as they hit shelves. So, it makes sense that a few web resources have appeared to help you find one.

• http://xbox.clambert.org/ - Best Buy stores in the US will be receiving fresh inventory next weekend (the 18th). This site lets you enter your ZIP code and find out how many will be arriving at a store(s) near you.
• http://www.notify360.com/ - Sign up for a free or premium service that will notify you when online retailers have XBOX360 consoles available to purchase.

Sounds like there will be opportunities to find one before Christmas. Rumor on Friday was that there were Costco stores with large shipments at that time in some areas.

My coworker, Brent Strange, has just started a Quality Assurance (QA) blog. Brent's what I would call a QA expert (he amazes me from time to time for sure) and he does terrific quality work, so I am looking forward to what he says and thinks on it.

Here is his introductory post, and he's already started adding new content. And it's another dasBlog weblog, which is cool. Nice template, too.

This will be one to watch. Subscribed.

Google has released an early version of Google Transit, a Google Maps internal mash-up that my fellow Portlanders can use to find public transportation to get from point A to Point B around the metro area. Once you search for your trip, you can compare the relative costs and time required to use public transportation or drive, and have complete instructions for each. Click here for a sample transit search from Hillsboro, Oregon to the Portland International Airport (PDX).

I mention that my fellow Portland residents can use it, because this is an early beta so (as of the time of this post) it contains information for public transit services in the Portland, Oregon metro area. But hey, it's a beta release, and Portland's a great place to try something like this. It's a large city but not huge, so it's manageable. the transit info is available electronically, and with the many bus and light rail options and all the interconnections, it's a good test bed. So those of us that live here can be very happy, and the rest of ya can learn more about Portland until your city is available. Just don't move here, heheh. Just kidding.

From the "About" page:

"Do you live in or near a city? Want to go someplace—to the airport, to dinner, to work every day—and not worry about the hassles and expense of driving and parking? Google Transit Trip Planner enables you to enter the specifics of your trip—where you're starting, where you're ending up, what time of day you'd like to leave and/or arrive—then uses all available public transportation schedules and information to plot out the most efficient possible step-by-step itinerary. You can even compare the cost of your trip with the cost of driving the same route!

"At the moment we're only offering this service for the Portland, Oregon metro area, but we plan to expand to cities throughout the United States and around the world."

One problem with the interface when I used it - no scroll bars. The directions pane is cut off at the bottom of the browser window and there's no way to scroll down to see more. The data is there, but it's not displayed. But I am sure they'll work on it. After all, it's a beta.

I've written before about FrontMotion's Firefox MSI installers and their Active Directory ADM policy templates, but with the recent release of Firefox v1.5 and the resultant updating of the installers by FrontMotion, I figured it's worth another mention. In a security-conscious IT environment, we all know how difficult it can be to exercise the necessary level of control over programs that are used to access the Internet - and the web browser is number one or two on the list of possible problem Internet apps (along with email programs). So being proactive whenever the tools are available to us is quite important.

Luckily, FrontMotion distributes MSI (Microsoft Installer) versions of the Firefox web browser for people to use (free of charge at this time) and there are two editions of the installers available. FrontMotion's Firefox Community Edition - which is the one that includes the Active Directory integration for centralized management and control - is slated to be updated shortly, and their stand-alone MSIs (which are not AD-integrated) have already been updated to incorporate Firefox v1.5.

• Download Firefox MSI installer files (stand-alone)
• Download FrontMotion Firefox Community Edition for use with Active Directory

The features of the Firefox Community Edition should be of interest to companies that centrally manage software for IT and security purposes, and the package allows you to upgrade non-MSI installations as well as those from other organizations. Features of the community edition include:

• Active Directory deployable and upgradeable.
• Active Directory management through Administrative Templates (*.adm).
• Desktop Icon similar to IE.
• Shell integration similar to IE.
• Set Default browser
• Macromedia Flash plug-in preinstalled
• Detect and upgrades non-MSI installs.
• Can upgrade 3rd party MSI's from MIT, Webheat.co.uk, and ZettaServe.
• Able to properly perform uninstalls and restores system associations

You can subscribe to the FrontMotion mailing list for occcasional announcements about updates at: http://www.frontmotion.com/mailinglist.php. I don't see a blog or RSS feed, but we can hope.

Kathy Sierra does her typically terrific job of distilling the Web 2.0 hype down to something meaningful in a post where she says:

"If I were a VC, the 'elevator pitch' I'd ask for would be simply: 'Tell me how this thing helps the user kick ass?' If you can't answer that, don't bother launching your power point."

Check the full post (with trademark cartoons and buzzword bingo) and find out why "engaging" and "inspiring" are what today's techies should be thinking (and talking) about.

Always wondered who that dude was talking to...

"The Worst Job Ever"
(Windows Media video - contains strong language, etc etc)

It takes a really gullible type to fall for one of my secret plans. Either that or someone who trusts me implicitly, misguided as that may be.

Along those lines, I didn't tell my friend David where we were going or what we were doing this weekend, just that I'd pick him up on Friday, that he should bring enough clothes for a couple days, and I'd have him back to his ship (he's in the U.S. Navy) in time for duty early Monday morning.

We try to do something crazy and insane once a year or so, and we were a bit overdue for this trip. I've actually been planning it for more than a year, at least in part. Without going into all the details, what matters the most if that Dave knew nothing of what we were doing on our trip (not even that we were flying to California) until we got to the location for each planned activity.

The plan included roller coasters, jousting dinner, visiting David's family in the area, and other fun stuff. But the real big event of the trip was on Sunday at the end of our stay in Orange County.

On Sunday afternoon, to end the Secret Plan trip, we went to Air Combat USA in Fullerton, California. There we suited up, were briefed by former military pilots, and climbed into two high-performance military training aircraft, which we flew with the instructors for about an hour in some training maneuvers and six real-live dogfights. Gunsights, smoke and all. It was - to say the least - a blast. I can now say I know what it feels like to fly 5.5-G turns and that I did just that. Wow.

It's not cheap, for sure, but if it's something you've ever wanted to do, check our Air Combat USA on the web - http://www.aircombatusa.com - and give it a try.

Just be sure to keep the yak-bag handy. Dave's new call-sign is "Ralph," if that tells ya anything.

Above is a pic of Dave and I in front of one of the planes before we took off. Good thing we took the pic before we left - no stains on Dave's flight suit. Heh.

Thomas Hawk wrote about a severe problem he had ordering a camera from an abusive online retailer that's really nothing but a major, unethical sales scam operation. The fact that he wrote about it and pointed to a number of other people's experience is great, and it brought to mind a number of other things that people need to know, especially this time of the year.

First of all, there ARE unethical, bad people out there trying to sell YOU their stuff. And there are some that will threaten, extort and otherwise manipulate their "customers." It doesn't just happen to other people - it can and will happen to you, too. Protect yourself and do your homework. While the vast majority of online retailers are good, solid companies, there are the few bad apples, just like in any community, that make it bad for everyone they can take advantage of. 

• If the price is too good to be true, it's probably not true. Seriously. Don't fool yourself.
• Do your homework if it's a company you have never head of or dealt with. You're trying to save money, so spend some time. That means getting information about the company. A good way to do this is to look for bad information online, by using Google or another search engine to search for "The Company Name"+scam (like this and this show some serious info). Look for the NEGATIVE information. Keep in mind that there are times when the bad guys will try to make themselves look good by posting positive information. It happens.
• Don't rely solely on the Better Business Bureau to tell you what you need to know, but do be sure to check information there. The company Thomas wrote about has a record with the New York BBB that's pretty terrible. Also be sure to use epinions.com's "Online Stores and Services" search and read through the whole lot. Again, there are bad guys that will post fake positive comments about themselves - so be a pessimist.
• Always use a reputable credit card, never use a check or debit card. If you ever need to reverse charges, a credit card with purchase and fraud protection is invaluable; You can't reverse cancel payment on a check that's already posted, and you fighting the debit card battle is painful if the money has already been pulled from your account. Credit cards provide lots of real protection, so use them for these purchases. That's why I have credit cards, really, is to protect myself if ever needed for major purchases. That and true emergencies. Other than that I think they are evil, heh.
• Did I mention "If the price is too good to be true, it's probably not true?" Okay, well it's worth repeating.

Finally, based on other people's experiences with the company Thomas had his problem with, I'd suggest you never, ever do business with Price Rite Photo, which also uses a number of other business names. Check the BBB for retailer names and aliases, and alway always always be careful and suspicious of the too-good-to-be-true deals.

It's a question many of us in the security field have been asking for some time. How is a user supposed to know they are on the correct web site when they enter their credentials or make an online purchase? How are they supposed to know when it's not the trusted site they're on?

I was having a side conversation about more ways to solve this problem with some coworkers today (common topic in our line of work), and this evening I ran across some details on the IEBlog discussing how Microsoft is dealing with it in IE7 (found via Mark Harrison). And other browser vendors are playing nicely, too. Ahh, solving problems is such a good thing to see... Nice!

IEBlog: Better Website Identification and Extended Validation Certificates in IE7 and Other Browsers

Here are some visuals that show what the user expeience looks and feels like in the dev versions. Visit the link above to get the complete details.

Fig 1, IE7 address bar for a known phishing website detected by the Phishing Filter 

Fig 2, IE7 address bar for a suspected phishing website detected by the Phishing Filter

Fig 3.1, IE7 address bar for a site with a high-assurance SSL certificate
(showing the identity of the site from the SSL certificate)

Fig 3.2, IE7 address bar for a site with a high-assurance SSL certificate
(alternating in the name of the Certification Authority who identified the site)

Because some things are truly worth repeating each year, and because sometimes people do things that are just so damn wrong... Everyone should have their own copy of this Christmas music classic:

• Download: holynight.mp3 (MP3, 861 KB)

Leave it to the Oregon Lottery to come up with the holiday marketing stunts to top all stupid holiday season marketing stunts. Thank God for the lottery people... And here we were starting to worry people might actually take Oregon seriously for a second...

So, here you have it: Scratch-and sniff lottery tickets in a beautiful fruitcake flavor. Yeah, seriously. Scratch the card, and it smells like f-r-u-i-t-c-a-k-e. Uhhh... Yuck.

People actually want to buy this crap? Wow.

To top it all off, be sure to check out the (actually somewhat amusing) MP3 files being used to promote the seasonal cash-collecting game.

It's all at http://spiritoffruitcake.com.

Sheez...

Over at VoIPSpeak, there's an article describing how to set up Asterisk@Home, a distribution of the Asterisk open source PBX software for Linux, in a virtual machine on a Windows box. It uses the recently-released (and free) VMWare Player for virtualization.

Note that Asterisk@Home is actually a bit of a misnomer - it's more like "Asterisk-Plus" - a package of the Asterisk PBX with many of the more common and popular add-ons and enhancements packaged up. Installation is simplified and the heavy lifting is mostly done for you. Running in a no-cost VM environment, it's really easy to mess with and learn from. Set up a couple soft-phones and you'll be able to try it out all you like.

(via Digg)

This one is perfect for students, who (we all know) spend way too much time on IM anyhow. So in the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em department, have them add encarta@conversagent.com as a contact on their MSN IM people lists. Chris Sells pointed out this service - which ties into the Encarta online encyclopedia - the other day, and so I tried it out.

If you ever have to research things for classes or work and want a more accessible way to do so, you'll find it cool and useful.

Just open a conversation with the "Encarta Instant Answers" contact in your list and start asking questions. You'll get results right in the IM window. If there's information available from Encarta online (did you know you can use pretty much everything from Encarta online???), the agent will offer to share it with you in an expanded window (see below).

It works quite well, and has already tied up a bunch of my time. I'll be keeping this one in my IM contact list for sure.

(click above for a larger view)