Check out this /. article for the some of the contents of a shortlived Microsoft Knowledge Base article on how to safely navigate webpages in IE. Some of the highlights?
The most effective step that you can take to help protect yourself from malicious hyperlinks is not to click them. Rather, type the URL of your intended destination in the address bar yourself.
In the Address bar, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
javascript:alert("Actual URL address: " + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/");
Simply too funny for words. :-) One Caveat though, I can't verify the authenticity of these Quotes since KB article #833786 has been yanked from the site. Check the link if you don't believe me.
Update: I feel stupid now since the link works again. You'll just have to take my word for it that the article was MIA for at least several hours.
Apparently the Disney name isn't worth what it used to be. Pixar certainly thinks its not worth paying what Disney charges to distribute a film with the Disney label. What did that label really bring them anyway?
I say, good for them, Pixar has been the brains behind most of Disney's recent successes with Disney contributing little more than a fading trademark and a distribution network. About time someone told Disney they don't own the family movie industry.
Conscience bothering you about using that shareware app longer than the license says you can? Have I got the application for you.
When I first started using 7-Zip it was useable but not easily. It is a File archiving utility like WinZip or WinRar with one marked difference. Its free. It also claims to having better compression ratios than it's commercial competitors, a claim I havn't tested. The current 3.13 version is however much more polished and easier to use than the alpha version I first started out with. You never have to see that nag screen again.
Have I mentioned I LOVE open source?
I just recently moved as some of you may know. As a resulf of the move I was forced to go back to dialup for my service. Now my modem which has been in storage for the past several years decided not to work without crashing my machine. So I decided to use a laptop which had a working modem to serve out my Internet connection to my Desktop. Clunky I know but hey I didn't have the funds to go buy a new modem and didn't feel like waiting till I did.
To make a long story short: XP is not easy to share connec tions on unless the other comp is XP also. In short It doesn't play nice with older Windows let alone other OS's. I finally get it to work with my desktop while in Win2k(a superior version of windows I believe) only to discover when my wife tries to open Explorer it can't see the internet connection. Firebird? No problem. Explorer no connection. After several tries I finally get it to work by uninstalling the LAN connection and reinstalling. Geez Do they really have to dumb stuff so far down that when stuff goes wrong an intelligent person can't fix it?
This excerpt of a news wire from the Sci Fi Website illustrates how "wussy" our nation has come when it comes to race issues and "Hate Mongering"
"Jewish leaders have been saying for months that any film based on the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and death risked depicting Jews as Christ-killers and stirring up anti-Semitism, Reuters reported."
Since when has telling the truth become "hate mongering"? The facts of Jesus Death on the cross are historically verifiable. Historical fact should never be avoided on the basis that it might be "offensive". Neither for that matter should recent fact. If we become so touchy that the truth must be avoided then we are too touchy.
Sherman Networks (owner) of the popular KaZaa P2P clients is suing record companies and movie studios. It seems those studios have used the KaZaa network to harrass and invade the privacy of its users. Or so Sherman Networks is alleging anyway. I'm curiousely watching this to see how it all plays out.
*grins sheepishly
My apologies to those who wondered where I went. I am going through some transitions right now so I had to change my blog's host. Namely I couldn't host the blog off my own server anymore.
So..... Roll call. Who all made it here? I'm curious to see if I lost anyone along the way. Speak up don't be shy and feel free to berate me for giving little or no notice.
I promise I'll get the rest of the site up later on.
According to this DNC Blog entry
Bush was planning to go to war long before 9/11. As soon as he was in office actually, according to Paul O'Neill in Suskinds new book. Of course as usual you have to do a little digging to get the whole story. As demonstrated by this article found via Blogs4Bush. I find it rather interesting the Democrats forgot to mention that Mr. O'Neill was fired by the Whitehouse which puts his story in a considerably different light.
Update:
For even more holes in Mr. Suskind's book look at this Blog article at Power Line
Type Miserable Failure in Google and Bush is still at the top but Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are fast on his heals.
I still think these two would make better candidates though:
Miserable Failure - The democratic party
Miserable Failure - The United Nations
Type Jeremy Wall on Google and what do you get? Me at the top of the heap. Not that very many will be typing that in but hey, it is kinda cool.
This discussion on the Democratic Weblog is one example of how funny they are. Absolutely nothing can be good news for them it all has to be turned around. I sent them a trackback as a way of commenting on their site I wonder if they will notice?
This article is a perfect example of how open source is exerting market pressure on Microsoft. Especially in this quote here:
"Ministry of Finance sources told Globes that the decision could be reversed if Microsoft Israel shows willingness to compromise on its pricing policy for tens of thousands of computer stations at government offices."
Programs like OpenOffice are helping to drive Microsofts price down or even supplant microsoft. It is providing people with a bargaining position in negotiations with Microsoft. This is perhaps the greatest strength of OpenSource. It also demonstrates the power of the free market. If any possibility for a competitor to a Monopoly exists then that competitor will come about. Even if it requires a free price tag.
I recently recieved a spam mail purporting to be from Paypal asking me to update my account information. Now considering I don't have a paypal account this was obviously a spam mail. Most likely a con job to get access to my paypal account. Being the curious sort I decided to do a little investigation.
On the surface the email seemed to be from paypal. But we all know surfaces can be decieving. To get the true story you have to do a lttle digging. Fortunately for me I use Pegasus Mail. It lets me look at the whole story. here are the headers for the email.
Return-Path:
Received: from mxsf15.cluster1.charter.net ([10.20.201.215])
by mtai03.charter.net
(InterMail vM.6.00.04.00 201-2115-106-20030714) with ESMTP
id <20040109021044.GPWA8785.mtai03.charter.net@mxsf15.cluster1.charter.net>
for
Received: from alexandria6.alexsrv6.com (alexandria6.alexsrv6.com [66.78.34.252])
by mxsf15.cluster1.charter.net (8.12.10/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i09287ne052431
for: 08:07 -0500 (EST)
(envelope-from verification@paypal.com)
Received: from [193.28.100.166] (helo=mail.epost.de)
by alexandria6.alexsrv6.com with esmtp (Exim 4.24)
id 1Aem4B-0005kL-Av
for: 08:03 -0500
Received: from [62.111.240.130] (62.111.240.130) by mail.epost.de (6.7.015) (authenticated as barney@epost.de)
id: 08:05 +0100
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 03:08:05 +0100 (added by postmaster@mail.epost.de)
Message-ID: <3FF19CFB0012C450@PPD27103.x.de> (added by postmaster@mail.epost.de)
From: "PayPal"
X-Mailer: PayPal Mailer
Reply-To: "PayPal"
To: jeremy@marzhillstudios.com
Subject: Verify your identity
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - alexandria6.alexsrv6.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - marzhillstudios.com
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - paypal.com
X-PMFLAGS: 34079360 0 1 PSO6M8DM.CNM
the part we want is the first recieved portion of the header.
"Received: from [62.111.240.130] (62.111.240.130) by mail.epost.de (6.7.015) (authenticated as barney@epost.de)
id: 08:05 +0100"
Someone authenticated as Barney logged on to the epost mail server to send this message. from the IP address 62.111.204.130
A quick glance at www.epost.de revealed a site in dutch which google was unable to translate for me. Time to dig deeper. fire up cygwin for its far superior network tools and do a whois on the ip address 62.111.204.130 The address is owned by Crowley Data Poland. A Polish Business ISP. Were I so inclined I could request information from Crowley Data regarding the sender of this email. I could also request information from epost as to the identity of Barney. Both these avenues could assist me in tracking down said spammer were I so inclined. The information I have right now was from 5 minutes worth of work.
"Maybe I can't carry it for you mister Frodo, but I can carry you." - Samwise Gamgee
Hat tip to Cemper for alerting me to this. fabForce.net has an outstanding Mysql DB managment application. Not only is it open source but it has all the spit and polish of the commercial competitors. Features I saw in apps like Access or Oracle's offerings are present here. I am going to check out the rest of their site later to see what else they have.
P.S.
I should add that this application is not restricted to Mysql. You can use it with native drivers for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and SQLite and of course your standard ODBC Connections to any database that supports them.
Daniel Stoddart who runs the Lollardy blog just published a great article on children and parenting.
This guy refrenced my entry "Bush a miserable failure?" in his article here.
Ahhhh, the power of trackback pings.
I have a new article up in the Programming section. It is the first part of a series on Perl and CGI. Feel free to check it out.