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February 01, 2004
February 26, 2004
Bidding for Nothing
By
Brad Shimmin
at 05:20 PM
Proving that there's not enough sunlight to go around Albany NY in Winter, one of the local residents has posted an auction on eBay this week for "Absolutely Nothing." That's right. Nothing.
You are bidding on an auction who's sole purpose is to offer nothing. Bidders will recieve absolutely nothing upon winning this auction, save the usual emails alerting them that they have won and instructions for payment
Worse, this Serotonin Shortage seems to have spread, as there are now seventeen bids on absolutely nothing, pushing the selling price up to eleven dollars.
Good luck folks!
Posted here at 05:20 PM in
February 25, 2004
Nuclear power makes you smerter
By
Brad Shimmin
at 07:24 PM
From my inbox comes this delicious promotional tidbit:
Conventional wisdom says people who work in nuclear power are smart. But
employees at one nuclear power company are about to get a whole lot smarter.
Nuclear Management Company (NMC) - operator of six nuclear power plants in
the Midwest - is implementing an enterprise software solution to
strategically manage employee training...to gain new efficiencies in human
capital management and regulatory compliance.
Ok obvious Homer Simpson jokes aside, does it strike anyone else as slightly demeaning that the vendor refers to worker-bees (nuclear or otherwise) as "human capital?" Sounds like a euphemism straight out of Soylent Green.
Posted here at 07:24 PM in
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February 23, 2004
New Content Online
By
Tom LaSusa
at 10:49 AM
Howdy-Do, Folks.
The second half of our February 19, 2004 issue is online. Here's a peek at some of what you'll find inside:
A Review of Performance Management Software -- A system-performance manager can provide a complete overview of how your OS and apps affect system resources like memory and storage. We tested five products; Quest's full-featured Foglight shined.
A Workshop featuring Smart Antennas -- A new generation of smart antennas promises better wireless performance and broader coverage.
A sneak preview of Avocent LongView -- Introducing the industry's first wireless KVM device.
And of course, you'll find Quick Takes, Reader Letters, Buzzcuts, Columns and much, much more!
As always, you can find these and many more stories via our RSS feed with ease.
Posted here at 10:49 AM in
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February 19, 2004
Intel to Aid Linux WiFi
By
Brad Shimmin
at 08:40 AM
Well at last Intel appears to be doing something right by Linux. The company yesterday took a major U-turn with its Linux software policy, promising to release hardware drivers for both the Windows and Linux platforms simultaneously. According to Intel, the major sticking point and stated reason for this change of heart is the lack of support for Intel's Centrino chip. For over a year now, Linux users have had to resort to wrapping Windows code to enable the chip's WiFi services. By the end of this year, users should begin to see such drivers in their native form.
Just don't expect to see any GPL nonsense. These drivers will remain proprietary.
Posted here at 08:40 AM in
February 18, 2004
"I Was a Teenage SPAM Zombie"
By
Tom LaSusa
at 10:47 AM
Thanks to the SoBig and other viruses, which were designed to create proxies for sending SPAM, your home computer may now be...at this very minute...a SPAM ZOMBIE! (Insert chilling horror music here)
These soulless, mindless creatures have one purpose -- to send out a a barrage of viagra, penis-enlargement, and other "wonderful" emails, all without your knowledge.
It may look innocent enough, sitting there on your desk with it's happy, high-speed internet access. But deep in its dark recesses, it's become a monster. A thing of evil.
How can you tell if your home PC is now a SPAM Zombie?
Garlic and Crosses won't work. But one sure fire way you can tell is if your internet access is abruptly cut off.
I can hear Adam West as Batman right now, "Those diabolical fiends!"
Posted here at 10:47 AM in
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February 17, 2004
New Content Online
By
Tom LaSusa
at 04:39 PM
Greetings Folks,
Hope you enjoyed the extended weekend, compliments of our past Presidents. Best of all, the work week is one day less!
In any event, we're pleased to present to you the first half of our February 19th, 2004 issue. Some of the excellent articles you'll find inside include:
Our Latest 'On Location' Feature spotlighting the University of Florida Gainesville. The University's Icarus P2P-blocking software has clipped students' file-sharing wings. But do the school's policy-enforcing capabilities go too far?
Our 'On Location' series continues with a look at Implementing Icarus P2P-Blocking Software. Icarus put the kibosh on University of Florida students' P2P play with a collection of PERL scripts paired with a MySQL RDBMS. As a bonus, the flexible app squelched Welchia by dynamically quarantining infected machines.
Our Interactive Buyer's Guide features SOHO Hardware and Appliance-Based Firewalls. Our latest guide
highlights hardware architectures supported, support models offered, as well as supported Linux distributions to help with your product selection.
Of course, there's plenty more in the form of our Sneak Previews, Career Coach advice, Buzzcuts, Columns and more!
As always, you can find these and many more stories via our RSS feed with ease.
Posted here at 04:39 PM in
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Paul Allen's Vulcan Mind Meld
By
Brad Shimmin
at 03:41 PM
 From Demo2004 comes perhaps the ugliest and yet somehow appealing Windows laptop: the Vulcan FlipStart, an always on, sub-pound Windows XP PDA/Laptop/thingy. I wonder how long it will take the Linux hoard to get a proper OS on this puppy.
Posted here at 03:41 PM in
Amazon glitch cuts both ways
By
Brad Shimmin
at 10:06 AM
Whether homespun or shrink-wrapped , today's content management systems, are nothing if not efficient. Take Amazon.com, for example. According to a NY Times article (yes, you must register), the Canadian edition of Amazon.com experienced a minor hiccup last week, revealing the true identity all book reviewers.
I'm sure the hapless soul who flipped the switch in the code has been punished for enacting such a large breach of the company's privacy policy (reviewers can request anonymity). The real problem here, according to The Times is that many of the reviewers, especially those handing out 5 star ratings, turned out to be the authors of the books under review.
Still, I worry more about the reviewers who panned their helpless victims. Is there such a thing as a "Reviewer Protection Program"?
Posted here at 10:06 AM in
February 13, 2004
We're all in this together
By
Brad Shimmin
at 12:02 AM
Apparently for the techno-savvy among us, those who fell prey to the MyDoom Worm deserve more than what they got. If the recent NY Times article (yes, requires registration) reflects any sort of reality, the technophobes out there should either "figure it out" or get off the Net.
"It takes affirmative action on the part of the clueless user to become infected," wrote Scott Bowling, president of the World Wide Web Artists Consortium, expressing frustration on the group's discussion forum. "How to beat this into these people's heads?"
Well Scott, if history is any indication, the House and Senate will gladly forge a hammer in the form of half-baked legislation. Dumb enough to get a virus? Pay a small stupidity tax. KaChing.
Posted here at 12:02 AM in
February 11, 2004
X-Ray Penguin Wallpaper
By
Brad Shimmin
at 11:15 PM
 Sorry for the delay in posting...our very own Tom LaSusa is out with his wife having a baby (two actually), throwing our entire mom-and-pop shop operation into utter chaos. Good luck Tom!
We'll post more strangeness and ill manners for you tomorrow, but for now perhaps I can interest you dear readers in a little tidbit. From our current special issue on Linux, you may have noticed a certain see-through penguin on the cover image. Well, our kind illustrator has given me the green light to create a set of wallpapers for your enjoyment. I'll have the full set up over the weekend, but for now, you're cordially invited to download and freely enjoy a 1356x1024 sampling.
Posted here at 11:15 PM in
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February 06, 2004
Overheard: Darl McBride
By
Brad Shimmin
at 01:14 PM
SCO's CEO, Darl McBride:
"I wasn't brought in to have warm fuzzies with Slashdot," he said. "I was brought in to increase shareholder value."
Well at least that's sorted out.
Posted here at 01:14 PM in
DDOS: Who pays the price?
By
Brad Shimmin
at 10:58 AM
There's an interesting post on Kuro5hin this week, in which simul recounts his experience with the FBI over recent Distributed Denial of Service attacks. The FBI, of course, is after the pimply faced teenager responsible for the lost revenue and increased ISP traffic charges, but as the author points out in his response to the FBI, the government should perhaps look instead at the service providers, who are unflinchingly charging the victims of these crimes and not doing anything to prevent their own networks from doing harm? As Simul points out,
So why haven't ISP's implemented endpoint egress filters? The problem with DDOS security is this: if you implement DDOS security, it does not protect your network, it merely prevents your network from harming others. Why would an ISP spend extra time and effort implementing a security protocol that was good for everyone else... but not for them?
So it's actually good business to do unto your neighbor?
Posted here at 10:58 AM in
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February 04, 2004
How I PC'd an Apple G5...what really happened
By
Brad Shimmin
at 06:04 PM
For those of you shocked, horrified and outraged by last week's little "how-to" on ripping out the innards of a brand new Apple G5 to make way for (oh no!) some Intel hardware, rest easy. The author, after receiving thousands of desperate and damning emails, now admits the excercize was a semi-hoax. Here's what really happened:
Are the pictures real? Yes. Is it my own G5 case that has been cut and hacked? Yes. Did I give away two G5 2GHz processors (IBM PC 970)? No! So what happened? I got a free G5 shell from a buddy of mine and pulled a prank on a Mac loving friend...
If you think that was bad, just wait till I publish my "how to turn an Apple Newton into a hockey puck" tutorial.
Posted here at 06:04 PM in
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February 03, 2004
Time Flies...
By
Lori MacVittie
at 09:26 AM
It's already February and we haven't updated in a while, but we haven't been sitting idle.
NWC Inc. is running well with its new framework and is chugging along just fine. I'm working on a review of Enterprise Portal Systems right now within the infrastructure and that, too, is plugging along nicely.
Well, it has been going nicely until recently when everything seemed to fail during installation, but that's one of the things we have to do - struggle through and find the glitches so you don't have to.
Web Services Management software will be coming along soon, as well as mid-tier EAI solutions, which we'll be testing for use with NWC Inc. We'll see if we can once again get our shipping system hooked up to our order system.
I also had to restart the NWC Inc. Network camera - the logs show a lot of traffic that appears to be reminiscent of NIMDA. Not hurting the Axis, of course, since it's Linux based :-) but it is pushing a lot of traffic through the pipe.
Posted here at 09:26 AM in NWC Inc
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February 02, 2004
A Penny for your E-Mail?
By
Brad Shimmin
at 03:38 PM
Earlier this month in Switzerland (gosh it would be nice), Mr. Gates pronounced the impending demise of Spam, promising a two-year countdown to spam-free communications. Cryptic at the time, it now seems that the Chairman has a cunning plan. If people (spammers, corporate executives, or grannies) want to send E-mail, it'll cost 'em. Both Microsoft and Yahoo are working with a start up called GoodMail to charge a penny a message, but only for high-volume users, with the proceeds going to the recipient's ISP as sort of a pay to receive spam plan.
Certainly as Sherlock Holmes would say, stopping spammers "is a three pipe problem." But adding "friction" to email in an attempt to slow spammers sounds more like a pipe problem of an all together different tobacco. If we charge high-volume messengers, two things will happen. First, illegitimate messengers will start looking deeper and deeper and going to greater lengths to identify and obtain "targeted" recipients. Second, legitimate messengers will most likely give up on the medium (the business models are already not in the producer's favor) and turn to the Web.
Then again, life without E-mail...would it be really so awful?
Posted here at 03:38 PM in
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New Issue Online
By
Tom LaSusa
at 02:56 PM
Howdy Folks,
The first half of our February 5th, 2004 Issue is now online. This is a special Linux-centric issue, covering all the aspects of the open-source OS.
Here's a peek at some of the excellent articles you'll find inside:
Our Linux extravaganza begins with Lori MacVittie's Look "Inside Linux." The Penguin is taking the IT world by storm, offering enterprises an alternative to high-priced Unix and Windows systems. We examine Linux from top to bottom.
In "Where Does Linux Fit?" Don MacVittie helps you determine whether Linux has a role in your organization by sorting through the areas where the OS excels and where you should exercise caution.
Next up, David Joachim switches into high gear as he examines automaker Audi's decision to switch over to Linux, a move that's calculated to pay off.
In addition, you'll find Linux-focused content in our Sneak Previews, buzzcuts, and much more. Just check out our Table of Contents.
As always, you can find these and many more stories via our RSS feed with ease.
Posted here at 02:56 PM in
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