Everything, Everything

I saw this on a random forum today, and it made me smile.

And God came down from heaven, and he said unto the chicken THOU SHALT CROSS THE ROAD. And the chicken didst cross the road, and there was rejoicing.

On one hand I don't like when people fall for scams, but at the same time it's hard to feel sorry for greedy people. Anyway, here's why you shouldn't buy a dog online from some random person abroad (aside from the fact you should buy cats as they're cuter than dogs).

What a crap sounding idea. I'm glad The Register agrees.

This company has come up with software that lets you hover over a link and quickly see the entire web page without actually clicking your mouse button.

Instead of dealing with the rigors of tabbed browsing, users can now glance at hundreds upon hundreds of web pages at, erm, mouse-over speed. Browster claims that the average user will look at about 10 times as many web pages as a result of its technology. This potentially means more money for the likes of Yahoo! and Google.

If this technology took off, Google or Yahoo would be able to create their own version of the code over a long weekend and knock Browster flat. Milener, however, insists that making an extra browser window is "harder than it looks" and assured us that the company has patents on the technology. He also reckons that people get addicted to surfing with an extra browser window.

Time magazine apparently dubbed Browster "one of the year's coolest innovations", which speaks volumes about the mainstream media's attachment to reality.

Milener has basically taken a mouse gesture and created an entire company around it. We can't believe people fund this.

Go on, hit it (but not too hard).

Oh how silly they are. I bet my old place would seriously consider such a project, in order to solve the desk sharing problem.

There's an article on the BBC News website about an experimental nuclear fusion reactor project, and the BBC explain how it's being funded:

"The EU is to foot about 50% of the cost to build the experimental reactor, with the six other parties contributing 10% each."

At least they said "about", giving them some wiggle room.

I was reading about an alleged vulnerability in Windows and thought to myself "that sounds wrong". The person says (in a nutshell) you either have to:

a) replace logon.scr with a malicious screensaver
b) edit some registry keys to point the default screensaver to a malicious file

The problem with "a" is that you need to already be on the system to replace the file (i.e. an authenticated user) unless you've got direct access to the hard drive (in which case you can do what you like), and every other user on that system will see your malicious file - not very subtle. The problem with "b" is that only an Administrators group account (or SYSTEM) can edit the key to point it at another executable.

I was so annoyed that I thought about replying, but it turns out two people have already replied (see the links at the bottom of that page) and pointed out my thoughts. I did like the more subtle suggestion of replacing the sticky keys executable with cmd.exe (again, relies on an Admin or SYSTEM account), useful if you can temporarily gain the right privileges and want to be able to get back into a system again without leaving an obvious local admin account on a box.

I've already stopped reading XSS reports from one person, perhaps I'll have to start a blacklist of people that I should just delete emails from as they arrive in my inbox.

Didn't get to chat with her for long on MSN, but she helped cheer me up tonight. She's wonderful.

Hilarie Burton plays Peyton in the TV show One Tree Hill, she's so lovely. So lovely and pretty. It sounds like there will be a fourth season, so I get to see more of her.

I'm listening to Alanis Morissette now, I forgot how good Wake Up is. And how good the whole album (Jagged Little Pill) is.

Similar to a previous post I made, don\'t bother answering this number either. I thought about it as it's a Cardiff number, but then I remembered my brother is at Glamorgan now, so I let my mobile ring (it was on silent) and then threw the number into Google. The funny thing is that just searching for 02920 was enough to get the missed number at the top of the results. Anyway, it looks like there's no point in answering any calls from this number. Google even seems to have this search cached.

Not mine, thankfully(!!!), but a friend on Dave's forum has managed to kill his. It sounds like it put up a good fight: "After getting thoroughly soaked on the golf course (twice) and playing football over the weekend my phone was fine, but it didn\'t quite manage getting through the washing machine this morning".

Watford just scored a lucky second goal against Leeds, it was funny and painful to watch the deflections. Reading the paper now and it talks about the Nokia N91 being the end of the iPod Nano. I thought the same thing with my mobile with a large memory stick. And this mobile also has a 2 megapixel camera.

I think I want a Sony W850. I never liked the W800i as it was orange, the 810 is meant to be better (i.e. not orange), but the 850 sounds great (supports 3G too).

Why is it no one got a recent Dilbert joke? I thought it was the funniest thing I've read since... actually, he's on form again, I've liked the last few weeks. I really must watch Wayne's World again someday. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the old Saturday Night Live sketches they did too.

Oh yeah, I saw a kid spray Dr Pepper all over himself yesterday when he opened the bottle. I had to try hard not to laugh.

Telephone-equipment maker Lucent sued computer makers Dell and Gateway in 2003, claiming they infringed patents for inventions such as color memory, video-search functions and for controlling a computer with a stylus. Microsoft, which had pledged to cover the costs incurred by customers Dell and Gateway, filed a suit later to invalidate the patents or get a ruling that they weren\'t infringed. In April, Lucent sued Microsoft, alleging its Xbox 360 video-game system infringed a Lucent patent for video-decoding technology. In court papers Monday, Microsoft countered with the claim that Lucent infringed 10 of its patents. Cat fight anyone?

I quite like the look of the new MacBook Pro laptops (if only I could decide between the standard white or the pretty black one), I just wish they had a better resolution. The two main reasons I've never liked Apple computers are: they contain expensive proprietary components and the range of software is pretty poor. Well it seems they're slowing moving towards more generic parts, even having moved to Intel processors, and there's plenty of decent commercial and open source software (and you can compile a lot of open source code with gcc - that you can download from Apple for free). The main reason for liking the Apple Mac was its "better security" due to its unix background. Sadly, as Microsoft have gotten better, focus is shifting towards Linux and Unix. Sure, Microsoft gets the odd bug in Windows, but you can also find the odd bug in Sendmail or X. Viruses are not only appearing on Linux to infect other Linux PCs, you can now find cross-platform versions that will infect Windows and Linux machines. And even the good old Apple Mac and it's nice looking OS X interface isn't much better, the recent Security Update 2006-003 fixes a stunning 43 flaws. It references 31 CVEs for a wide range of applications and OS compontents, from Safari and Mail to AppKit, ImageIO, CoreFoundation, Finder, and others. The security update is joined with a Quicktime 7.1 release, which fixes 12 CVEs that were previously reported for Quicktime software. One blogger's estimation of the flaws: "without the latest update, OS X is secure as long as you don't look at any movies, images, websites, zip files, flash content or email messages". As Apple's marketshare continues to grow through new Intel-based models, it is increasingly becoming a platform of curious interest to security researchers. Sadly, I'm pretty sure the attention will shift back towards Windows once Vista is released.

I noticed the other day that I had a missed call from an odd looking number (08444823210). Well I just got around to doing a search for it with Google and came across this. I'm glad I didn't answer it/call back.

I'm online! It's only dialup, but better than nothing (or my mobile). Finally made it home, and about to eat some pasta, as predicted. Nearly stopped by McDonalds though, as I was starving.

I don't want either one to win, neither impressed me, I almost think I could have done better (why limit it to just the tower?). I can't believe what they said at the end, I'd have said "you've already made up your mind, what I say now shouldn't change it, and if it does I'd rather not work for such a fickle person". I was right though, the pretty one won. But it was obvious as soon as Ruth picked that crap theme. Well done Michelle, I'd give it to her for not slapping Sayid (is that how you spell it?).

I haven't watched it before, but I'm obviously aware of both the American and British versions. It's the final on TV now, down to the last two, both are female. I bet the prettier one wins hehe. I wish I had a six figure salary.

Aside from the fact it sucks, at least it gets me online, or it would if I had a modem or the right cable. I think they're both at my parents' house. But I do have a phone line that's connected and a dialup account with Virgin Net. I used to be with them back in 1997 when you had to pay the local rate and a subscription cost.

Today's Dilbert cartoon made me smile.

Is it weird that I don't mind drinking cold coffee? I guess I'll have to get used to Nescafe again, but at least it's free. I prefer Kenco, or 'proper' coffee from a coffee shop.

I decided to wear my blue shirt that requires cufflinks, and I keep hitting them against the laptop (no marks yet, but it makes an annoying noise). I'll have to remember not to wear them in future, or get myself a docking station so I can use a normal keyboard and not worry about it. Mind you, the laptop already has a few scratches on it, so a few more won't matter.