Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon
Join Dr. Bill as he examines the wild and wacky world of the web, computers, and all things geeky! Hot Tech Tips, Tech News, and Geek Culture are examined… with plenty of good humor as well!
Dr. Bill pontificates on all things technical!
The podcast, that is… this week is just like last week… Ben and I got the Gamemaster segment done on Saturday as usual, but I have not yet found a slot to master together the rest of the show. I suspect that since I will be out of town all this coming weekend, I may just do a “bridge version” of the podcast that will include all of last week and this week’s “stuff!” As Arthur Dent said, “I seem to be having a problem with my lifestyle.” (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Sigh.
This is a neat “HowToForge” article on exactly how to set up dual-booting Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP or Vista.
Dual-Booting Windows XP/Vista And Ubuntu 7.04
The tutorial is what I like to call a “PhD Document,” which stands for “Point Here, Dummy!” Lot’s of screen shots, details and helpful tips! If you have the disk space, you will benefit from being able to switch back and forth between good (Ubuntu) and evil (Windows) on your PC! Check it out!
First they demoted Pluto from planet status. But now, a moon of Pluto MAY have liquid water below the surface!
“As a planet, Pluto was a real dog. Now scientists say there may be something truly fishy about one the little world’s three known moons. Astronomers have announced they have evidence that, despite the bitterly cold conditions on the edge of the solar system, Pluto’s moon Charon may have an underground ocean of liquid water, triggering speculation it could harbor marine life. The water appears to be spewing up through cracks in the surface, producing spectacular geysers that instantly freeze, creating showers of ice. Using Hawaii’s giant Gemini Telescope, the astronomers found that the 1200 kilometer-wide moon is covered in patches of water crystals, and ammonia hydrates. The crystals appear fresh, suggesting ice geysers, or ice volcanoes, must be erupting every few hours or days. The observations point ‘consistently to cryo-volcanism, which brings liquid water to the surface, where it freezes into ice crystals,’ said Jason Cook, from Arizona State University. ‘That implies that Charon’s interior possesses liquid water.’ Radioactive materials could be melting Charon’s interior ice, producing the water.”
I have recommended “The Democracy Player” before… I use it, and it does rock for watching shows like “DL.TV,” “Ask a Ninja,” and, of course “Dr. Bill.TV!” Now, in order to reach more folks, they have released a new version, and changed the name! It is Open Source, free, and, as I mentioned, awesome!
The folks at “Participatory Culture” that wrote “Miro” say of their new release:
“I am very excited to announce Miro, the new name of Democracy Player. We’re still the same non-profit organization, the same people working on the project, the same open-source code. But we have a new name and a new logo that I think will reduce a lot of confusion (lots of folks thought ‘Democracy’ was only for political video) and will help us reach more people.”
So, if you haven’t tried it yet, do so… if you have, download the new version! Enjoy!
That’s right! Microsoft wants to analyze your hard drive and then deliver targeted advertising to you! Isn’t that great!? NO? I don’t think so either!
Microsoft patents the mother of all adware systems
“It’s such a tremendously bad idea that it’s almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an ‘advertising framework’ that uses ‘context data’ from your hard drive to show you advertisements and ‘apportion and credit advertising revenue’ to ad suppliers in real time. Yes, Redmond wants to own the patent on the mother of all adware. The application, filed in 2006, describes a multi-faceted, robust ad-delivering system that lives on a ‘user computer, whether it’s part of the OS, an application or integrated within applications.’ ‘Applications, tools, or utilities may use an application program interface to report context data tags such as key words or other information that may be used to target advertisements,’ says the filing. ‘The advertising framework may host several components for receiving and processing the context data, refining the data, requesting advertisements from an advertising supplier, for receiving and forwarding advertisements to a display client for presentation, and for providing data back to the advertising supplier.’ The adware framework would leave almost no data untouched in its quest to sell you stuff. It would inspect ‘user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, computer status messages (e.g., a low memory status or low printer ink),’ and more. How could we have been so blind as to not see the marketing value in computer status messages?”
I know, I know… believe it or not, we did get the Gamemaster segment recorded on Saturday with the new mixer board and microphones, and it is the best audio quality we have ever achieved! Now, I just need to finish the rest of the show! Sigh! Tonight fer sure!
Happy Birthday virii. Right. May they die a horrible death. Bleh! Evil.
“The computer virus turns 25 years old this year. It’s been a rocky quarter-century, but according to Richard Ford and Eugene Spafford, two computer scientists writing in this week’s issue of the journal Science, viruses can look forward to a long, fruitful life. The researchers say that in today’s hyper-connected world, when everything’s got a chip in it and is running software, stopping malware is basically an impossible task. (Their article is not online.) The computer virus conception story begins in 1981, when a tech-savvy 9th grader named Richard Skrenta got an Apple II for Christmas. Over the following few months he began cooking up ways to trick his friends using the machine. ‘I had been playing jokes on schoolmates by altering copies of pirated games to self-destruct after a number of plays,’ Skrenta once told the tech news site Security Focus. ‘I’d give out a new game, they’d get hooked, but then the game would stop working with a snickering comment from me on the screen.’ When his friends realized his tricky ways, they banned Skrenta from their machines. And that’s when he had an epiphany: He could put his code on the school’s computer, and rig it to copy itself onto floppy disks that students used on the system. Thus was born Elk Cloner, the world’s first computer virus to spread in the wild. The virus didn’t do much damage; it infected the Apple II’s OS and copied itself to other floppies, and every so often would display a tittering message on the screen:
Elk Cloner: The program with a personality
It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it’s Cloner!
It will stick to you like glue
It will modify RAM too
Send in the Cloner!
Ford and Spafford note that in the years since, as viruses spread to other computer platforms and throughout the world, wreaking billions in damages, there has been little progress in fighting them. There is a scientific reason for this: ‘Building a computer program that can tell with absolute certainty whether any other program contains a virus is equivalent to a famous computer science conundrum called the ‘halting problem,” they write. The halting problem concerns the difficulty of spotting whether a program will terminate or continue to run forever. ‘It has no solution in the general case and has no approximate solution for our current computing environments without also generating too many false results,’ they write.”
My friend Chuckie is ticked off! Why? He found a cool, new thing to do on the ‘net… that is, listen to Internet radio. And now the bad guys wanna kill it. So, he has blogged about it. Check it out:
Emergency Train Stop: Call “2DAY†please!
Chuckie likes his Pandora Internet radio… help him stop the bad guys. It is up to you!
They how ultimate power over your computer life and data… so be kind to them! And, we get so little love throughout the year… so celebrate Sys Admin Day this year! July 27th… send a geek a card!
“Friday, July 27th, 2007, is the 8th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. On this special international day, give your System Administrator something that shows that you truly appreciate their hard work and dedication. Let’s face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It’s the least you could do. Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.”
Is this the Open Source iPhone?
“OpenMoko is a GNU / Linux based open software development platform. Developers have full access to OpenMoko source and they can tailor their implementations to underlying hardware platforms.”
The “Neo” phone is open, and looks pretty cool!