Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

Folks have railed against me for liking the idea of using Ethanol as a fuel. And, I admit that using corn as a source for Ethanol is problematic! However, when President George W. Bush was laughed at for saying that research was pointing to switchgrass as an Ethanol source, folks may have been a bit premature!

It turns out that plain ol’ boring switchgrass is a very good source for biofuel! A recent study says that we can get well over 500% more power out of using switchgrass than goes into cultivating it! That’s no small return!

Biofuels from Switchgrass Offer 540 Percent Return on Energy Inputs

“(NaturalNews) Biofuel produced from a fast-growing variety of grass can produce 540 percent more energy than is used during its manufacture, according to a study conducted by researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers grew switchgrass on 10 different farms, ranging between three and nine hectares in size, for five years. They calculated the energy used to produce the fertilizers, herbicides, diesel and seeds used in the switchgrass production. Because no large-scale biorefineries currently exist, the researchers used estimates to calculate how much biofuel could be produced from the switchgrass farms’ output. In contrast to an earlier study, which found a net energy gain of 343 percent, the researchers found a 540 percent energy gain from switchgrass. The researchers did not include in their calculations how much energy used to ship the switchgrass to a refinery. In order to keep these costs low and the energy output high, they recommended that biorefineries be constructed near the fields on which switchgrass is grown.”

So, leave the corn for food and livestock feed, and use switchgrass! (What else are you gonna do with it?)

Yep… I am struggling with my new laptop (see a previous post) to try and do the podcast using it. Turns out it has a Realtek HD sound card that is proving problematic. I am working on it… if nothing else, I will get a podcast out soon with my old setup. But I gotta try a few things first. By the way, I have already dumped Vista… yeeesh, what a junker Vista is! Sigh. I have installed XP Pro and I have found the drivers for the notebook. But, it has been slow.

Adobe has reported that their flash player’, prior to version 9.0.124.0 have a potential vulnerability that is exploitable “in the wild!” Please click on the link below and update your copy of the Adobe Flash player!

Description of the Problem

Link to the Latest Flash Player

“The exploit appears to be taking advantage of a known vulnerability, reported by Mark Dowd of the ISS X-Force and wushi of team509, that was resolved in Flash Player 9.0.124.0 (CVE-2007-0071). This exploit does NOT appear to include a new, unpatched vulnerability as has been reported elsewhere – customers with Flash Player 9.0.124.0 should not be vulnerable to this exploit. We’re still looking in to the exploit files, and will update everyone with further information as we get it, but for now, we strongly encourage everyone to download and install the latest Flash Player update, 9.0.124.0.”

It came in yesterday afternoon from Tigerdirect via UPS! DEWD! My new Acer Aspire 7520 notebook computer! Tigerdirect had it on sale, and I bumped up it’s memory to 4 gig! 4 GIG! Dual core… rock on! It does have Vista on it… but, to be fair, I am going to give it a chance… I’ll let you know how that goes… but one thing surprised me… the quality of the built-in webcam! It is a 2 megapixel webcam… and it has a GREAT picture! I may even do a DrBill.TV show with it! Cool!

This link may not last long… but here it is:

Acer Aspire 7520-5757 Laptop Computer – AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55 1.8GHz, 802.11b/g Wireless, 1GB DDR2, 160GB HDD, DL DVDRW, 17″ WXGA+, Webcam, Windows Vista Home Premium

For you geeks, here’s the lowdown from that page:

“Acer Aspire 7520-5757 Laptop Computer

Powered by capable yet affordable AMD Athlon 64 X2 Mobile Technology, the Aspire 7520-5757 laptop computer is ideally suited for any home computing or entertainment environment. Impressive NVIDIA graphics, a 17″ Acer CrystalBrite widescreen, and ultra-realistic Dolby® Digital Live sound provide alluring audio/video playback, gaming and more. Plus, the 7.4-pound Acer Aspire 7520-5757 Laptop Computer presents Acer Video Conference, an exciting communication solution for worldwide, face-to-face video chatting, as well as 802.11b/g wireless technologies. This 7.41-pound laptop computer delivers desktop power and versatility, in a portable chassis with plenty of entertainment and business options. The Acer Aspire 7520-5757 Laptop Computer boasts an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55, 1GB of DDR2 667 memory (which I bumped to 4!,) a 160GB HDD, and an integrated Super-Multi drive with double layer support.”

GEEK OUT! GEEK OUT! (Pardon my excitement!)

By the way, I like the modular approach to the system… it made it easy to replace the two 512 meg DIMMs with two 2 gig DIMMs!

I downloaded RC1 and I like it… now RC2 is out, and we are even closer to a release of the Firefox 3 browser! It seems faster… and I like some of the new features. The “look-and-feel” is not THAT different, but it seems a bit “cleaner.” All-in-all, my favorite web browser is getting a well deserved up-fit!

Forefox RC2

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Revision3, the leading IPTV content company was attacked by a DoS attack. The FBI has been called in… whoa!

Inside the Attack that Crippled Revision3

Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3 tells the whole story: “As many of you know, Revision3’s servers were brought down over the Memorial Day weekend by a denial of service attack. It’s an all too common occurrence these days. But this one wasn’t your normal cybercrime – there’s a chilling twist at the end. Here’s what happened, and why we’re even more concerned today, after it’s over, than we were on Saturday when it started.” Read the whole story at the link… but here’s a bit more:

“A bit of address translation, and we’d discovered our nemesis. But instead of some shadowy underground criminal syndicate, the packets were coming from right in our home state of California. In fact, we traced the vast majority of those packets to a public company called Artistdirect (ARTD.OB). Once we were able to get their internet provider on the line, they verified that yes, indeed, that internet address belonged to a subsidiary of Artist Direct, called MediaDefender. Now why would MediaDefender be trying to put Revision3 out of business? Heck, we’re one of the biggest defenders of media around. So I stopped by their website and found that MediaDefender provides ‘anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention industry.’ The company aims to ‘stop the spread of illegally traded copyrighted material over the internet and peer-to-peer networks.’ Hmm. We use the internet and peer-to-peer networks to accelerate the spread of legally traded materials that we own. That’s sort of directly opposite to what Media Defender is supposed to be doing. Who pays MediaDefender to disrupt peer to peer networks? I don’t know who’s ponying up today, but in the past their clients have included Sony, Universal Music, and the central industry groups for both music and movies – the RIAA and MPAA. According to an article by Ars Technica, the company uses ‘its array of 2,000 servers and a 9GBps dedicated connection to propagate fake files and launch denial of service attacks against distributors.’ Another Ars Technica story claims that MediaDefender used a similar denial of service attack to bring down a group critical of its actions.”

“… In the end, I don’t think Media Defender deliberately targeted Revision3 specifically. However, the company has a history of using their servers to, as Ars Technica said, ‘launch denial of service attacks against distributors.’ They saw us as a ‘distributor’ – even though we were using Bittorrent for legitimate reasons. Once we shut them out, their vast network of servers were automatically programmed to implement a scorched earth policy, and shut us down in turn. The long Memorial Day weekend holiday made it impossible for us to contact either Media Defender or their ISP, which only exacerbated the problem. All I want, for Revision3, is to get our weekend back – both the countless hours spent by our heroic tech staff attempting to unravel the mess, and the revenue, traffic and entertainment that we didn’t deliver. If it can happen to Revision3, it could happen to your business too. We’re simply in the business of delivering entertainment and information – that’s not life or death stuff. But what if MediaDefender discovers a tracker inside a hospital, fire department or 911 center? If it happened to us, it could happen to them too. In my opinion, Media Defender practices risky business, and needs to overhaul how it operates. Because in this country, as far as I know, we’re still innocent until proven guilty – not drawn, quartered and executed simply because someone thinks you’re an outlaw.”