A Clean Install and 66 Critical Updates

A nice clean install from an XP service pack 2 disk and I am left downloading 66 critical updates, you’ve got to love this. Perhaps it’s time for service pack 3.

Progress …

I found this awesome quotation onTristen’s Blog:

“Let me briefly sketch a picture of modern society. At the top there are priests engaged in the traffic of sacraments and religious ceremonies, soldiers selling secrets of a so-called national defence, writers glorifying injustice, poets idealising ugliness, shop-keepers giving false measure, industralists faking their products and speculators fishing for millions in the insatiable sea of human stupidity. At the bottom there are building labourers without homes, working tailors without clothes, working bakers without bread, millions of workers beaten down by unemployment and hunger, families heaped up in slums, and young girls aged fifteen forced to earn money by enduring the sweaty embrace of old men or the rapacious assaults of the young bourgeois.”

Written in August 1891 by Sebastian Faure

It’s nice to know how far we have come in the last century.

Windows Let Me Down Again

This is a rant, be warned.

I am hard on computers, of this there is no doubt.  I write computer software and as such have a lot of things installed and running at any one time.  I also try out new tools and pieces of software in the hopes that they make development for myself and those I work with a little easier.  However I am continually disappointed with how badly Windows lets me down.  It has become a standing joke in the office, that little bit of snickering mirth, the dirty thorn of humour that twists in your side every two months or so.  It is a downhill slide beginning with a clean install that degenerates into slow patchy performance, slower and slower boot times and eventually multiple explorer crashes daily.

Today was such a day however I was prepared, or so I thought.  I have disk images you see - zooty Acronis disk images that in theory would allow me to return to a “clean”, pre-1000 tool install panacea.  However today the tech-karma was against me.  Acronis left my sata harddrive spinning like some tarenteric nightmare, the machine literally sounded like it should belong in the NASA propulsion labs and promptly crashed.  Now I begin the slow reinstall nightmare that leaves me scratching around for a XP install disk and an unused key.

 I am really so happy, if we didn’t do so much MS dev I would have uBuntu on this machine in a flash! 

Snake Oil Science

In life there are various shades of gullibility and naivety. There are those people who need not take precautions in life because bad things only happen to bad people. Then there is the category of person who is taken in by the “because it’s science” argument. Advertising loves this particular type of person which is why we see every fat pill on the market endorsed by a nameless person in a white lab coat. “Gee if that clever looking scientist person says it’s all right then it must be…….”.

Marketeers love wrapping the latest snake oil in a veneer of science. I came across this website today – Biopro Technology. These polukers sell you little round disks with “chips” in them for an exorbitant price. These little chips will protect you from the nasty effects of electromagnetic frequency (EMF) or electromagnetic radiation (EMR). Some particularly bad and naughty devices need more chips (more is best for protection …) – please see oh so comprehensive table label led “How Many Harmonizing Chips Do I Need?”

Pick up your 6 pack of Harmonising chips for a mere R1,250.00 – be protected, feel safe …..

Snapback Tesuji of Note

This online game, diagrammed below, has had me (white) battling every step of the way. An incomplete joseki left me with awful shape on the left, my opponent has a huge moyo at the top of the board and my invasion of the center almost left me cut off from the safety of my right and bottom groups. However a niftily (if I do say so) crafted snapback sacrifice with play 28 captures the black group marked with 17,19,21 and turns the tide of the game.

the Bat! and POPFile – Sheer Magic

I have finally found the mail / anti-spam combination that just works. The bat! is incredible, handling my multiple profiles with ease and their updated signatures (quick templates) are wonderful, allowing me to respond easily to family, work clients and friends with different and personalised signatures. Popfile is now almost at 100% spam filtering – even though we run spam assassin on the server, spam came flooding through (see below)

Now the odd one or two creep through and POPFile makes it a breeze to learn from them. POPfile lets you know what it’s accuracy rate is and this has been steadily climbing every day.

All in all, after years of mail flip-flopping I have found a robust, flexible solution that works for me

More Pink Floyd Lyrics

Awesome, taken from the wall.

The thin ice

Momma loves her baby
And Daddy loves you too
And the sea may look warm to you Babe
And the sky may look blue
Ooooh Babe
Ooooh Baby Blue
Ooooh Babe
If you should go skating
On the thin ice of modern life
Dragging behind you the silent reproach
Of a million tear stained eyes
Don’t be surprised, when a crack in the ice
Appears under your feet
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
With your fear flowing out behind you
As you claw the thin ice

http://www.pinkfloydonline.com/lyrics/thewall.html

Why Vista will mean the end of the Microsoft monolith

John Naughton
Sunday September 10, 2006

Well, the long wait is nearly over. Microsoft’s elephantine parturition has produced an heir. Last week the company distributed ‘Release Candidate 1′ (RC1) of Vista, the new incarnation of Windows, to about 5 million favoured customers. Think of it as the final beta of the software. Microsoft says it is still on course to deliver a version to corporate customers in November, followed by a consumer release to high-street dealers in January.

Microsoft also released details of US pricing for the new operating system. The ‘Home Basic’ version will cost $199. ‘Home Premium’ comes at $239. ‘Vista Business’ is priced at $299. And ‘Vista Ultimate’ weighs in at a whopping $399. Security vulnerabilities come free with all versions. There is also to be a ‘Vista Starter’ edition which will be marketed to
people in poor countries in a futile attempt to stop them pirating Vista Ultimate and selling it on the streets of Shanghai, Bangkok and Singapore for a dollar a pop.

There will be a predictable (and expensive) PR campaign to coincide with the final release of the software. But in Redmond, Washington, the Microsoft campus, the only sounds to be heard are of people muttering ‘Never Again’. For the Vista story has turned out to be an interminable corporate nightmare. The system is two years behind schedule, and in its released version will be only a shadow of what was envisaged when it was first given the code name ‘Longhorn’. It has left behind it a trail of corporate wreckage and prompted a major reorganisation of the company’s senior management.

Jim Allchin, one of the company’s most hardline ideologues (and the guy whose internal memo about ‘leveraging’ the Windows monopoly probably triggered the anti-trust suit in 1998), announced that he would go when Vista shipped. And even as RC1 was released, it was announced that Brian Valentine, Microsoft’s operating systems chief, is leaving to join Amazon.com. According to the Seattle Times, Valentine’s departure is amicable, but his exit signals the end of an era.

More …

Spamihilator Axed, Popfile under review

Spamihilator didn’t make the grade.  It was very promising however I found it too slow to filter my email and there were still quite a few spam coming through.  I turned to this list of software, I have found the reviews to be comprehensive and have in the past found a wealth of information on this site.  The best spam filter for advanced (pat pat!) users is apparently one of the oldest, a program called popfile.  Let’s see how it pans out.

At the time of writing, Popfile is number one on the following reviews:
1. Top 10 Free Windows Spam Filters
2. Best Free Spam Filter for Experienced Users

The POPFile website is here

GO Promotion

After my win in South Africa’s 3rd quarter Internet Go Tournament, my rank is now 15 kyu.

I’m slowly knocking those kyu digits down …. I love this game!

Heaping More Praise on “the Bat!”

I have used the Bat! for just over a week now and am very very impressed. It takes a little time to tweak the various features (like email templates) to work just so but it was time well invested. We have had some nasty power fluctuations in the area this week and until we managed to replace a faulty UPS my pc was on and off repeatedly without a clean shutdown. To the immense credit of this great piece of software my inbox was not corrupted unlike a recent bit of misfortune with thunderbird where I lost a few weeks worth of email. I am also very impressed with this client’s ability to handle large amounts of email with ease. The integrated search is very sophisticated allowing me to rely on it rather than having to fall back on 3rd party destop search software.

I found another very good review (including the obligatory screen shots) on the Bat! here.

Snotty Firewall eMails

I am tired of receiving automated emails from big corporates telling me know they do not approve of the contents of my emails. I sent my brother in law an email this morning and received this email:

This notification has been sent to inform you that a message has been quarantined

That is it! No “Stuff you and have a nice day!” Nothing …..

I have created an email signature these poor employees can use from now on to warn family and friends of their fate.

Become a GMail Stud

Google blew the competition away with GMail web mail.  Those who’ve tried it love it and those who love it want to do more with it.  I found some interesting articles on the web that pertain to getting more from your GMail.

Have a look at the GMail Tips and Tricks Moster Round Up and a nice list of GMail keyboard shortcuts

Mass Extinctions Coming …

Norwich – Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of
temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the
extinction of up to half of all species, a scientist said on Thursday.

Not only will carbon dioxide levels be at the highest levels for 24
million years, but global average temperatures will be higher than for
up to 10 million years, said Chris Thomas of the University of York.

Between 10 and 99 percent of species will be faced with atmospheric
conditions that last existed before they evolved, and as a result from
10 to 50 percent of them could disappear.

“We may very well already be on the breaking edge of a wave of mass
extinctions,” Thomas told the annual meeting of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science.

More…

Spamihilator

I get spam, a lot of it – every day I sit and have to sift
the Viagra and penis enlargement operations from my regular email.  To say
it irritates me would be an understatement.  We have spam assassin on the
server but it still seeps through.  Outlook and Thunderbird had built in
filters but every day little stunted fu@##$%$%kers are working round the clock to ensure that their latest efforts beat them. 

Now in an effort to fight back the never-ending
deluge of rubbish and advertising I am trying a program called
Spamhilator.  It is easy to set up and configure and sits between the
server and my mail client.  So far I am impressed, we’ll see in the
morning when the spam tide rises somewhat.

Get it here: http://www.spamihilator.com/

Recommending the Bat!

I have a pathological inability to stick to any particular email client. I am not sure why this is however I regularly run the gamut, having used Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, Opera and the spectrum of web mail offered by Yahoo and GMail and still I am left unsatisfied …

After scouring the NET for a new choice, one option, previously untested by me possibly due to it’s very 90’s cheesy name kept popping up. The candidate is The Bat! by RiTlabs.

So far I am very pleased, I now have all my email accounts, both work and personal in a slick, clean and very tweakable interface. The Bat! comes with a number of very nice additions including consolidated address book, reply templates and an email ticker. It successfully sucked all my information out of a combination of Outlook, Eudora Pro and Thunderbird all of which I now have under one roof again.

Could this be the email for me? Time will tell but the signs are promising.

Review of email clients

I find reviews like this refreshing and able to temper even the most restless tech spirit. May just give The Bat eMail client a try.

What’s black, white and can stump computers?

The gangly professor finally stood up and went downstairs where two of his students had just started working in the computer lab. “We’re beating Jacqueline,” Drake announced, explaining he had spent the past 12 hours reworking a key algorithm in their Go-playing computer program, Orego.

For the past four years, Drake and his students have tried nearly every novel approach out there: neural networks, cellular automata and genetic algorithms. Their victory with this ingenious algorithm marked a turning point for Orego and was the latest application of a promising new strategy in artificial intelligence.

More here

The Buildings are Alive

A new breed of architect are working to create buildings that are able to alter their physical structure depending on conditions like varying wind, changing light conditions and the number of people moving through them.  The buildings will use a system of rods and wires manipulated by pneumatic muscles forming the framework of the buildings walls.  Connect all of this to “intelligent systems” and the structures will be able to change their shape quite drastically with little energy expenditure. Let’s hope those intelligent systems aren’t prone to viruses.

More here

Dafur, Genocide continued…

Genocide, Continued

SUDAN’S DIPLOMATS have sometimes had the gall to describe the killing in Darfur as a problem of underdevelopment. Poverty creates desperation and violence, they plead; rather than blaming the Sudanese government for the suffering that results, the United States and its allies should show that they care about Africans by offering practical assistance. Well, last week Britain and the United States circulated a U.N. Security Council resolution that would get about 20,000 peacekeeping troops and police officers into Darfur; if such a force were actually deployed, it would represent the greatest step forward for Darfur since the killing started. But Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, seems determined to frustrate this offer of assistance….(cont../)