greg hughes - dot net

I laughed out loud for some reasons when I read some of Trevin's comments from his trip to the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, where he listed a number of not-so-hot items from the super-mega-tradeshow of the gadget industry.

One of the more amusing categories in his post is "Wierdest celebrities coupling: Snoop Dogg and Donny Osmond."

XM had Snoop Dogg appear, then about 30 mins (later) they had Donny Osmond.  They had to have met at some point -- wtf did they talk about? 

 

Snoop Dogg: "Hey Don-dogg, what's the shizzle?"

Donny: "What?"

Snoop Dogg: "Fo sho"

Donny: "What?"

Snoop Dogg: "Peace out dogg"

Donny: "What?"

From CBC in Canada comes a hilarious video from Rick Mercer's show - The Mercer Report - demonstrating the latest in apparel for the Blackberry user. Should be mandated by OSHA in all high-tech office settings:

Check out the Blackberry Helmet Video at:

http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/videos/blackberry.wvx

(note - in non-USA style, there's some slightly-blurred-out nudity in this, so if you can't handle it, don't click - but hey, the video is funny)

I broke down last week and bought an iPod. I got the 60GB model (5G iPod Video, black) and its a pretty cool device. Not without its quirks, but cool for sure. I like it, and I'll be adding some of the available (expensive) accessories as soon as I figure out which of the zillion accessory manufacturers actually makes something worth buying. Talk about a zoo...

iTunes is all hooked up (pretty cool app dontcha know), a few podcasts are subscribed (small list below for people who are interested) and a couple movies have been loaded. Great video conversion information and help can be found here, by the way. I've only bought one song on iTunes so far, and that will probably change but I think it says something that after having this thing for a week I've used it primarily to load some video for traveling and to subscribe to syndicated content (audio and video podcasts).

I really, really wish - every time I look at an apple product package - that they would at least tell me what is included and what's not. I know, I know... I could just ask any random human being on the street what came with their iPod and the zoo of accessories they own, since I am like the last person in the world to buy one of these things, but seriously - no compact wall charger? Leaving out the iPod dock is crazy enough, but I figured there would at least be an AC-outlet-to-USB thing in there.

One thing I learned early on: When it says "do not disconnect" on the screen, regardless of the fact that the message stays there for-freakin-ever, it's best not to disconnect it. If you do, and your iPod starts an endless cycle of reboot, power up, power off, flash the display, reboot, power up, power off, flash the... Yeah, anyhow the iPod updater has a "Restore" option that nukes the iPod, reformats the hard drive and installs all the software from scratch. Works wonders.

Oh and another thing - I can only sync this $400 device to one computer? Seriously? Ok, so I can hook up to a second computer and as long as I don't choose auto-sync, I can manually move files to the iPod. But this is not so good: Mac and Windows synced iPods are not compatible? Jeez, there's something worth spending some serious dev time on. Using the iPod updater to reformat the thing so I can use it on the Mac mini doesn't solve any problems, it creates them. And there's no way I'm buying Apple computers just to work with the iPod.

Oh, and copy-protection and all that RIAA crap aside, iTunes is a service, and it should flow from computer to computer with the authenticated user's settings and content, and I should be able to sync to the iPod anywhere I am logged in. In other words, some content everywhere, and associate the device with my user account, not my computer.

Anyhow, in the accessories department, it's pretty clear I need an iPod dock. I'll have to break down and ask my friends if it comes with a USB cable, or if I have to purchase that separately, too. I won't be shelling out the $20 for Apple's video cable so I can play content on my TV or projector - I think I'll just use one of the almost-exactly-the-same cables I already have lying around the house and just mix up the plugs as described at the Mac Dev Center site:

• Plug the red RCA plug into your TV's yellow RCA jack.
• Plug the yellow RCA plug into your TV's white RCA jack.
• Plug the white RCA plug into your TV's red RCA jack.

Pure. Freakin. Genius. If it works.

But don't get me wrong here. I'm complaining a bit about the proprietary, non-standard and closed nature of the Apple way of business, but this is a terrific piece of hardware, as the marketplace has clearly proven. Audio quality is great. The user experience is simple, flows and just works. But you already know that.

I stopped by a couple stores the other night between appointments and checked out the plethora of radio-transmitter accessories. I spend a lot of time driving (two hours of commute time daily), so having something that does a good job of transmitting relatively high quality audio to my FM car radio would be nice. On the higher end of the car-audio purchasing spectrum (about $200), the Harman Kardon Drive+Play looks really cool. Not sure if it's video iPod compatible, but I have emailed them to ask. The Monster iCruze also looks nice and it is confirmed to work with the iPod Video models, but I need to make sue my car stereo is compatible - And it's on sale in a huge way as of the time of this writing: $99 for a complete kit. A FAQ page is here.

Oh, and (sidebar comment here) you gotta check out the videos on this page at the HK Drive+Play site - especially the "Title and Registration" one. Heheh...

Below are the few podcasts to which I've subscribed so far. Now that I am coming back to podcasts (my first round with them was more geeky in nature than practical, which is my approach nowadays) the number of shows I am interested in subscribing to is relatively small. I'm pickier. You'll note these all tend to be either professionally produced shows or well-produced indi ones, and that the only common denominator is that they're relevant and matter to me. And none of them are podcasters talking about podcasting. Thank goodness we moved past that phase.

Note: The iTunes interface makes it pretty much impossible for me to figure out where the real home pages are for these podcasts, so it's hard to link you to them, sorry. If someone knows a trick, please tell me (hey Apple - seems like easy access to a phobos.apple.com subscription link plus a standardized "home site" URL in the iTunes XML and UI would be a nice thing to do for sharing subscription links?).

• Diggnation (video and audio podcasts) - these guys sit around and discuss what's hot on Digg.com
• Ebert & Roeper - movie reviews from the top critics, weekly audio from the broadcast television show
• Engadget podcast - ultimate gadget geek site and podcast show (but their RSS feed is broken and iTunes is out of date, ugh)
• Major Nelson Radio - podcast from inside the world of the XBOX and XBOX Live!
• NASACast video - this Week at NASA video podcast - just a cool, short video update on what's happening at the space agency
• Security Now! podcast - Consumer focused security audio show - We really need more security-focused podcasts
• Superman Returns, Bryan Singer's Journal - The director of Superman Returns video-blogs lots of interesting stuff in the process of the creation of Superman Returns, which is set to hit theaters this year. Professionally produced video shows (I don't think Bryan is shooting any of these, but hey...)

If you happen to have a HP ScanJet 4C lying around, check out this page and see if you can get it to play classical music for ya. Apparently there's a not-so-well-known command that plays "Fur Elise" using the ScanJet's motor. Cool.

Video of the scanner music is here (it's been removed from the original site)

(props to Dave M for the link)

The beauty of this fancy new clothing line for the discerning sarcastic person is that those who understand what it says will laugh, while those who don't understand... Well - let's just say some things are perfectly self-defining.

I used to be a cop. I can't tell you the number of times the phonetic alphabet was used to contract colorful descriptions of situations, usually as a quick final status update on a radio call. Like "Tom-Ocean-Tom-David," which is short for Too Old To Drive using the non-military version of the phonetic alphabet. Probably more than you wanted to know, but you get the idea. The point is that there are some things you can't say out loud, and there are other things you can get away with. And hey, don't take any of this too seriously - there really are people who are too old to drive, after all, but it's all relative.

Anyhow...

Oh yeah, and when they say "there are no stupid questions," we all know what a huge lie that is. Hence these t-shirts.

So... For your dry humored, geeky enjoyment - the Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot shirts. Please wear appropriately. And remember the first rule of holding others accountable: Give them the ticket or give them the lecture, but never do both. Adding insult to injury is uncool. Analagize that and apply it to your own world. You'll go far. Whatever that means.

Ah, the t-shirts. Yeah. Click the images to go to the product pages:

I just went to do a quick Google search and noticed a new line on the page with a link, under the infamous "I'm Feeling Lucky" button:

New! Download the essentials to make your PC just work: Google Pack

One package, several pieces of cool and useful software. And a catchy name. You get a slew of established titles - check them out at http://pack.google.com/

I'm not completely sure I want Google monitoring and updating my software for me, and I'd recommend you take advantage of the "Add or Remove Software" link on the page so you can avoid stuff you don't need (a.k.a. "bloat") and the Real Player (a.k.a. "Evil"). Or whatever you like. Here's what you can package together:

• Adobe Reader 7
• Ad-Aware SE Personal
• GalleryPlayer HD Images
• Google Desktop
• Google Earth
• Google Pack Screensaver
• Google Picasa Photo Organizer/Editor
• Google Talk
• Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer
• Google Video player
• Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar
• Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition
• RealPlayer
• Trillian

I have exactly four invitations available [Note: ALL INVITATIONS HAVE BEEN TAKEN - I WILL UPDATE THIS POST WHEN MORE ARE AVAILABLE] for people who would like to get and use the beta of Windows Live Messenger (that's the new name for MSN Messenger v8.0 - it's part of the whole Live family of app services that Microsoft's rolling out).

If you haven't seen it, it's a lot like MSN Messenger combined with the look and feel of an ice cream cone (I mean that in a nice way), with a whole slew of new and enhanced features/functionality - like a UI revamp, a new thing called sharing folders and Internet voice calling.

So, anyhow, the invitations - it's first come, first served. Once they're gone, they're gone - and I only have four left. Please send me an email to make your request (email is greg-at-greghughes.net), and be sure to indicate which email address you want me to send the invitation to. It would be nice if you would also tell me who you are and a little about yourself. You know, that whole community thing.

If you want to find out more about Live Messenger, check out the team's blog here.

After something like two and a half years of blogging, another calendar year comes to an end. Here's a list of some of my favorites from 2005. A bit belated, since we're already five days into the new year, but what the heck. Why do this? Because I can, of course.

Here are 12 of my favorites - chosen from the 754 blog entries for 2005. And typically not-too-tech-related, I just noticed:

• Loose is a four-letter word
• For the guys only - write your name in the snow
• It's 2005 - resolutions, plans and stuff
• Passphrase success, Sigmund Freud and Slips
• Best, sweetest, most ultimate book EVER!
• Click here now, have some fun
• The Realities of Software Development Projects?
• Decisions, decisions: Right back to the back surgeons...
• How to Destroy the Earth - a Guide - Not for Wusses
• Doc washes his hands: Toilets and bad bathroom habits
• Tech Support woes, and why process everywhere ain't all it's cracked up to be
• The ultimate, pan-galactic test for a knowledge-centric computer system in 2006

Scott and Chris reminded me that there's a nifty feature in dasBlog that lets me put all the headlines from this weblog for 2005 on one page in a calendar-like view. So, here ya go:

• The 2005 greghughes.net weblog year in review

Every single post from the year, listed in a chronological calendar view. All 754 of them. Wow, now that's scary.

A patch for the truly nasty WMF vulnerability on all versions of Windows has just been pushed out in an extra release by Microsoft. It is described in Security Bulletin MS06-001. It's available for your WSUS server and from Microsoft Update, or you can get it by downloading it from the links on the security bulletin web page.

This update resolves a newly-discovered, public vulnerability. The vulnerability is documented in the "Vulnerability Details" section of this bulletin. Note This vulnerability is currently being exploited and was previously discussed by Microsoft in Microsoft Security Advisory 912840. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This is a huge one - super critical, as there are many exploits in the wild that are actively taking advantage of this vulnerability. UPDATE NOW!

On January 12th at 9:00 am Pacific time my boss, Jim Maloney, will be presenting along with George Tubin, a senior analyst at Tower Group, on the topic of preventing fraud in the online banking world. They'll discuss the threats, ways to protect customers, and some tools and processes that can help get the job done. It's a hot topic in the marketplace, and I think many people will find this web cast interesting from a security perspective, regardless of whether or not you work at a financial institution.

There's been a lot of talk and movement in this space in the past few months, after the FFIEC (the federal government organization that's made up on several individual federal agencies responsible for setting banking standards) issued new guidance to banks and other financial institutions that says something needs to be done to further protect online banking accounts, and that it needs to be done sooner rather that later. The emphasis of the guidance is on a defense in depth and layered security approach. Jim and George will be specifically addressing that guidance in the web cast.

You can sign up for the web cast here (uses LiveMeeting). A press release that announces the event is available here.

Plagiarism sucks, and Om Malik's weblog was apparently being copied verbatim, images and all, and repurposed sans-attribution on another site that was serving up ads and (potentially) making money. I've had this happen to me a few times in the past year or so, and in some cases found the only way to fight it was to quote the DMCA in an email to the host. Lord knows asking Google to hold them accountable for their terms of service did not work in my case - Google just wrote back and said "we can't do anything." Plus the bad guys were repurposing content from a whole slew of other sites. Lazy jerks.

By the way - this is really not exactly a trivial deal for many blog authors and publishers. I know when it happens to me, I chase it down and take it seriously. No lawyers needed - I am pretty good at that stuff and have some legal and courtroom experience, so why not put it to use eh? The ads on my site pay for my web hosting and my Internet access each month, and then some, so I have a little more than just an ego interest in what I choose to write and post.

Anyhow, below is an email I used last year to resolve a plagiarism problem involving full content from this web site. It's blunt, direct, complete and it worked. Also, note that this letter followed multiple attempts to get the site owner to remove plagiarized content. I'm posting the email letter here simply for the benefit of anyone who might become a victim of blog plagiarism and wants access to some ideas that have worked for others in the past.

And by the way - make sure you have a copyright statement and maybe a Creative Commons license on your main page that states what people can and cannot do with your blog content (mine's at the bottom of every page - it says people can repurpose it with attribution and for non-commercial purposes). It can't hurt to do this, and it helps set reasonable expectations and ground-rules for well-behaved people, while it can also be ammo for the ill-behaved later on...

Note that the problem I tackled with the below email was resolved within 4 hours of the email being sent to the hosting provider (the site owner never responded), and it happened a year and a half ago, so please don't go harassing anyone - this is just posted here to help people who might end up in a similar situation.

Where you see the word "(-- edited --)" below, I have removed identifying information to protect the innocent as well as those who complied with the requests to remove the offending content.

[via tech.memeorandum.com]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  ACTION REQUIRED: Illegal use of copyrighted content by one of your customers for commercial purposes
Date:  Sun, 3 Apr 2005 17:18:51 -0700

NOTICE: IF YOU ARE THE OWNER, OPERATOR OR HOSTING PROVIDER OF THE “MICROSOFT-DOTNET-TECHNOLOGY.INFO” DOMAIN, THIS IS A CEASE AND DESIST LETTER REQUIRING YOU TO IMMEDIATELY CEASE REPUBLISHING CONTENT OR ALLOWING/ENABLING CONTENT TO BE REPUBLISHED, WHICH IS SOURCED FROM THE “GREGHUGHES.NET” DOMAIN.

The owner of the web site(s) located on your servers/network at the below IP address and domain name is stealing and republishing - via an automated web-server application that gathers an XML feed - content owned and copyrighted by Greg Hughes at http://www.greghughes.net:

216.7.187.20 (MICROSOFT-DOTNET-TECHNOLOGY.INFO)

The following ARIN information identifies (-- edited --) Holdings, LLC (which is a corporation in Colorado) and (-- edited --).com (which appears to be a possibly defunct operation) as owners of the IP address/block in question:

Location: United States [City: Loveland, Colorado]

NOTE: More information appears to be available at NET-216-7-186-0-1.

(-- edited --) Holdings, LLC D393LLC-DC-INVERNESS6 (NET-216-7-160-0-1)
                                  216.7.160.0 - 216.7.191.255
(-- edited --).com VONOC-216-7-186-0-23 (NET-216-7-186-0-1)
                                  216.7.186.0 - 216.7.187.255
 
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2005-04-02 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

The person(s) running the web site at MICROSOFT-DOTNET-TECHNOLOGY.INFO have been contacted in the past via the “contact” form on the web site and told to stop repurposing this content, specifically because they have not obtained permission and because they are profiting from advertising revenue from said web site. This activity constitutes theft of intellectual property under copyright laws and the DMCA. The information being sourced is copyrighted as indicated on the web site, and is not in the public domain for re-use. The party(ies) associated with MICROSOFT-DOTNET-TECHNOLOGY.INFO have not responded to repeated contacts and requests to cease use of the copyrighted material.

We have sent a CEASE AND DESIST letter to the parties once again today (April 3, 2004) through their web site contact form at http://www.microsoft-dotnet-technology.info/contact.asp. At this time we request that you remove the offending web sites and pages from your servers, as they are clearly in violation of the common acceptable use provisions of the parties to this email:

http://www.(-- edited --).com/acceptable-use.asp#copyright

IN ADDITION, the same person(s) appear to be sourcing copyrighted material for commercial use from Yahoo!, Search Engine Watch, moreover.com, the Kansas City Public Library, National Geographic News, about.com, and Web Hosting News. Unless the situation is rectified immediately we will also be contacting those persons and companies to advise them of the misuse of the copyrighted property and data.

The WHOIS information on record for the domain in question is:

Domain ID:D8436219-LRMS
Domain Name:MICROSOFT-DOTNET-TECHNOLOGY.INFO
Created On:27-Nov-2004 15:34:17 UTC
Last Updated On:27-Nov-2004 15:34:20 UTC
Expiration Date:27-Nov-2005 15:34:17 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:R136-LRMS
Status:ACTIVE
Status:OK
Registrant ID:C7727838-LRMS
Registrant Name (-- edited --)
Registrant Organization:(-- edited --)
Registrant Street1:(-- edited --)
Registrant City:(-- edited --)
Registrant State/Province:Gujarat
Registrant Postal Code:(-- edited --)
Registrant Country:IN
Registrant Phone:(-- edited --)
Registrant (-- edited --)
Admin ID:C7727839-LRMS
Admin Name:(-- edited --)
Admin Organization:(-- edited --)
Admin Street1:(-- edited --)
Admin City:Ahmedabad
Admin State/Province:Gujarat
Admin Postal Code:(-- edited --)
Admin Country:IN
Admin Phone:(-- edited --)
Admin (-- edited --)
Billing ID:C7727840-LRMS
Billing Name:(-- edited --)
Billing Organization:(-- edited --)
Billing Street1:(-- edited --)
Billing City:Ahmedabad
Billing State/Province:Gujarat
Billing Postal Code:(-- edited --)
Billing Country:IN
Billing Phone:(-- edited --)
Billing (-- edited --)
Tech ID:C7727841-LRMS
Tech Name:(-- edited --)
Tech Organization:(-- edited --)
Tech Street1:(-- edited --)
Tech City:Ahmedabad
Tech State/Province:Gujarat
Tech Postal Code:(-- edited --)
Tech Country:IN
Tech Phone:(-- edited --)
Tech (-- edited --)
Name Server:VOB1.(-- edited --).COM
Name Server:VOB2.(-- edited --).COM

(Note: I edited the names and other identifying infomration from the WHOIS record at the request of the person listed in the contact sections of the record becuase they asked me to do so. While the information is accurate as it was originally posted, it serves no useful purpose to keep that person's phone and other information here and the orginal issue was resolved, so I agreed to make the change).

Looks like Santa's got himself a gmail account, and the Google Earth team has been working with him to set up a live map tracking capability for the big night. If you've got Google Earth, you can track Santa online. If you don't have it, now is a good time to grab a free copy.

Here's email from Santa that Google posted:

To: "Google Support"
From: claus@gmail.com
Subject: Naughty or Nice Layer

I love Google Earth and have been planning a big trip with it. Now I'm wondering if you've ever thought about licensing data layers for "nice" and "naughty." If interested, I've got a really good list -- I've checked it twice. Rooftop accurate data!

Let me know,
S. Claus

Google says: "While we didn't work a deal for Naughty or Nice data layers, we did negotiate the rights to track this user on his big trip. If you've already got Google Earth, you can too."

Philip Chu's Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers is a great read. He goes into the characteristics of what I would agree makes up a truly effective technical professional (regardless of whether you be a programmer, systems engineer, admin or whatever).

Anyone who works in the software or IT field should read this.

I like his final line, too: "Stupidity is contagious."

Nice.

[via a link from Digg]