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:: Watching The World ::
Saturday, January 25, 2003
| To keep track of the things that
I'm gonna do and get in Australia, I've converted the wish well into a list
of all that. |
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-DeltaV
3:21:02 PM
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Tuesday, December 10, 2002
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I've just finished drawing
a digital version of my Jukebox 3. It's there, in the Digital Art page.
I spent a lot of time on it. Making the iPod was a piece of cake by comparison.
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original interfaces. Maybe even a Winamp skin ... or a Flash skin for the
site ... Hmm ... |
-DeltaV
9:26:27 AM
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They only gave my mod 8.6 out of 10. It's
all the way down to number 34 on the top ten list.
Of course, just being on the top ten will mean that lots of people are
gonna try it out now, so I guess that's cool ... but still ...
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-DeltaV
9:24:18 AM
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Sunday, December 08, 2002
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I didn't have a digital art
page!
I've been using Photo-Paint and Photoshop all my life and I didn't have
a digital art page!
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I set up a site with my mugshots and sketches
and everything and I didn't have a digital art page!
Well, I've added one now!!!!!!
....
I didn't make anything worth showing!
I've been using Photo-Paint and Photoshop all my life and I didn't make
anything worth showing!
Well, just wait!!!!!!
....
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-DeltaV
1:55:12 AM
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Saturday, December 07, 2002
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I've activated the Rants system
and posted a couple of old rants that I wrote a while ago. The links will
be up in a few days. |
I've also removed the Assassin zip file from
the site and instead, added a link to the NW Vault where my mod is located.
So far I've got a thousand downloads and 8 votes. Two more and it'll be
listed in the Top Rated list with a score of 9 out of 10.
I'm also going to use these cool emoticons until I replace them with
a characterized version of myself! |
-DeltaV
7:42:19 AM
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Saturday, November 09, 2002
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Man, I'm glad
I don't live in China. Those guys block so much of the Internet
that even web-based email sites like Yahoo and Hotmail are restricted.
China is up to the third version of it's firewall technology, right
now. And most of that technology comes from American companies.
Unlike here, they shoot down user-end countermeasures with alarming
efficiency.
Congress have made it their business to combat this by founding
the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China in 2000. Don't ask me why.
I mean, they're looking at it from a human rights perspective,
but when all's said and done, it's their country. I'm all for free
information exchange and everything, but shouldn't this be handled
at the diplomatic level, instead of chartering a commission that
develops technologies to circumvent China's firewall?
It's like a proxy war. I'm sure the Chinese government doesn't
want the US to try and punch holes through it's digital-defenses-against-thought,
so they are going to buy/develop more technologies to counter that
effort. And the US are going to develop techniques to counter that.
So for how long is this going to continue?
Of course, it might not actually come to that, considering how
slow things are moving in the US. The latest thing is the Global
Internet Freedom Act that happened in October. Basically, it's
fund-raiser to help private companies develop
anti-censorship software to be aimed at all governments that censor
parts of the Internet.
It looks like "freedom of speech for all" has taken the
place of "communism is immoral".
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-DeltaV
1:24:31 AM
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Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Monday, November 04, 2002
Ok, right now I'm supposed to be working on my next big update
for Assassin. But I've updated the blog, instead!
I subscribed to Blogger Pro and I also added a little JavaScript
that renderes the names of the months in lieu of all that "01/11/2002 -
30/11/2002" stuff. It also flipped the order of the original blogger archives
so that the latest month is shown first.
I think I'll beef-up the vault next. Maybe add some links, too.
-DeltaV
5:07:52 AM
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Sunday, November 03, 2002
Saturday, November 02, 2002
Sunday, October 20, 2002
While working on Assassin, I've completely forgotten about
the guestbook. I only remembered it when I saw the blog entry about what I'm
gonna do with it.
Anyway, I finished migrating it over to the SQL, and I also implemented
the page views. I used ADO's page views, through the recordset. It's not the
fastest option, but it is the most elegant. To do it any other way (like in
the SQL itself) would limit the functionality of the views and could also
be considered over-efficiency.
Why am I so fixated on efficiency anyway? It's not like I get
a million hits a day or anything. I could use the slowest possible ADO connection
with query strings instead of a stored proc and it wouldn't make the slightest
difference!
Well, except maybe in the comment system. That thing hits the
DB with queries for every comment box on every page. I'm not even using a
recordset with it. Instead, I'm using a single predeclared parameter that
gets it's feed directly from the SQL's stored proc. I can't make it any faster
than THAT even if I wanted to.
-DeltaV
6:06:18 PM
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Saturday, October 19, 2002
I have just updated Assassin to version 1.1. Here are some of
the things it addresses:
* Fixed castle door behavior.
* Added better ending. PC can now survive.
* Fixed some NPCs that were hostile.
* Romar now correctly tells you where Sarah lives.
-DeltaV
8:02:29 AM
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Saturday, September 28, 2002
Well, I've uploaded some music files onto the site, coz I just got sick of waiting. When I do it right, I might make an album on mp3.com, but it looks like that'll have to wait for quite a bit.
-DeltaV
7:14:32 PM
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Google has cast its magic yet again by expanding the news section of its search engine to include over 40,000 publications on the net. The service is still in beta stage, but it's looking real good, collecting up to date news from hundreds of sources worldwide and relating them together.
This is the first instance of meta-news that I have seen. The Google engine actually evaluates the articles on a number of criteria and returns the most popular ones to you.
Happy birthday, Google!
-DeltaV
6:58:58 PM
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Sunday, September 22, 2002
I finished scripting the plot in my Neverwinter module, finally.
Now comes the fun part of adding the NPCs, treasures, traps and hostile encounters.
I'm thinking of releasing a public beta and ironing out whatever bugs people
send me.
Most mods on the net are pretty boring as far as basic settings
and plots go, but mine's gonna be different! It's linear, only because it's
my first mod and scripting more than one path is a drag. But its very concept
is pretty cool, not to mention the title! Simple, yet fresh. We'll see what
people think of it once I release it.
On another note, I want to add page views to my guestbook. The
thing is, I don't know how to do it in MS Access, which is what the guestbook
is using. If I can't work it out, I'll just migrate it over to the SQL server
and set it up from there. I think I may do that anyway, eventually. Of course
I can always just send the whole recordset to my ASP and have the script handle
the views, but that would be inefficient. I'd prefer some sort of database solution,
before the recordset reaches the script. We'll see.
-DeltaV
7:59:03 AM
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Friday, September 20, 2002
The spotlight is on. It seems that some people are taking a recent interest in online censorship in Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries. But it looks like the original credit for this attention goes to China.
Wired has the story, and two people at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School made an impressive study about censorship in Saudi Arabia. There's also an article on Cnet that looks at the issue from a larger perspective.
-DeltaV
6:19:32 PM
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Signal lights. Their purpose is to make sure that everyone on the road knows what everyone else is doing. That's why I use them. So whenever I want to change lanes, I signal, only to watch the driver in the other lane accelerate to fill the gap and cut me off.
Happens every time, without fail, like clock-work. So what I do now is keep my lane-changing-plans a secret when I see a gap. I just wait for it to reach me, then make my move! Like a snake ready to spring at an unaware victim, turning it into dinner. It's the only way to drive.
-DeltaV
6:19:09 PM
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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Well, I'm back after another blackout. Right now I'm working on a mod for Neverwinter Nights. It's halfway done, but I won't give away any details yet.
I'll be posting a few web items in the next few days and maybe some old wave files in My Music. I still don't have an adapter for my RP300 so I can't record anything. I may even upload DV wallpaper and login screens when I get around to it.
-DeltaV
7:30:34 PM
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Saturday, June 08, 2002
Oh, man. My local SQL server bit the dirt. I tried reinstalling
it but it didn't work. MMC seems to crash every time I start it up. Guess I'll
have to reinstall Windows.
The thing is, I don't feel like reinstalling all of those programs
that I've become cozy with. Although, all of my data is on a different hard
disk. So I guess I'll just get up do it, after a while.
-DeltaV
11:06:55 AM
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Friday, June 07, 2002
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I've been busy customizing Windows XP for the
last few weeks and I've downloaded nearly 40MB worth of themes.
I have also managed to "DeltaVega" stamp everything
from the boot screen to the login manager. Hmm ... maybe I'll
post those here.
Anyway here're some links that'll help you do
the same.
First of all, we have the skins. Windows XP
has a built-in skins engine that Microsoft has neglected for
some reason. You don't need WindowBlinds to wrap your UI in
something pretty. Just downloading and double-clicking on
the skins is enough. But you might want to try Style
XP, since it can manage all of your skins, wallpaper and
login screens with ease.
ThemeXP
is the best site for getting the skins and logins themselves,
plus their collection of wallpaper is great.
Now if you want to make your own skins, check
out XP-erience's tutorial.
They also have a tutorial for making login
screens and boot
screens. Although modifying boot screens can be a hassle.
That's why you might want to try BootLogo,
which asks you for a single bitmap with certain properties
and takes over from there. If you still want to do it the
hard way, here's another
boot screen tutorial from The Tech Guide.
Finally, we have the program that started it
all, StyleBuilder,
StyleXP's parent, it would seem. It's quite advanced and you
can change just about anything you see on your screen in Windows
XP. If it has a problem, it's the fact that there's just so
many things to change, you quickly get discouraged from making
your own Ultimate Skin. I tried and then I uninstalled the
program. Long way to go, I guess.
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-DeltaV
10:25:11 AM
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Tuesday, May 14, 2002
I've just had the busiest two weeks for a long time. I've had
to make two websites for my sister, take five exams and play Freedom Force which
didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. If only they had used a control system
similar to Vampire, things would have been a lot better.
Also, the old Delta skins, Neo™ and Rust™, are back!
The layout is different, what with having a different site structure and all.
Otherwise, Neo™ hasn't changed much. Rust™ on the other hand received
a complete overhaul including a new, old Rusty™ logo!
-DeltaV
6:47:33 PM
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Sunday, May 05, 2002
Monday, April 29, 2002
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
The default Explorer scrollbar looks ugly next to the CarbonV
skin so I added a CSS scrollbar to it. I think I'll leave PlatinumV as is. Dunno
about Shore though... ahh ... it looks fine, forget it.
-DeltaV
12:42:21 PM
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Some people have have been using the net for a while and they
don't have a clue about what is really is.
My sister wants my help to design this project site she's making
for school, and the links and headers she gave me read like a book.
I had to explain site maps and cascading categories to her and
spend two hours going through the DOC file she gave me, cutting and pasting
paragraphs and trying to turn unrelated articles into a coherent whole.
Of course, I'm just writing this here coz I realized that I haven't
updated the site for a few days!
I doubt I'll be drawing anything and since I can't record any
songs, the only thing I've got is my keyboard. I haven't even publicized the
site yet. And I won't until I have something to show for it.
-DeltaV
12:31:17 PM
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Friday, April 19, 2002
Wednesday, April 17, 2002
Monday, April 15, 2002
I've installed a time vault in About Me that I will use to send
messages to the future. I rigged it to open on my 30th birthday so that I can
take a peak at my past.
Childish? Maybe, but I like the idea.
-DeltaV
5:33:15 PM
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Saturday, April 13, 2002
Rot has settled in I'm afraid. That whole Anime marathon has left
me too lazy to do anything.
Right now, I'm passing the time by reading Foundation's Fear,
and avoiding everything else. I've got an 11 page essay to write and a flash
site to make, and I'm delaying both.
I'll just give it a few days, ease myself back to reality.
-DeltaV
9:14:44 AM
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Thursday, April 11, 2002
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Joe Satriani kicks ass in San Francisco! I saw the guy do it and I still
don't believe it. Satriani's genius isn't in his technique, it's in his
composition. But his technique is pretty damn impressive for a guy that
can't even alternate-pick properly.
But everyone seemed to hate the bassist, though. I don't see why. He's
a perfectly functional bassist, not broken or anything. He played a cool
solo that people cheered for precisely 5.39 seconds before they started
hating him again. Maybe it's the way he swings right and left when he's
playing. Kind of like a tire wobbling on a beat-up road.
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Anyway, I finished Cowboy Bebop and Trigun and now I'm watching Gasaraki.
I think I'm dangerously approaching irreversible brain damage. Man, if
I'm gonna be a potato I'd better get me a couch. One that used to walk
around on four legs before they slaughtered it, skinned it, stretched
it, dried it and dyed it.
It could hit us any day, and we're just asking for it.
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-DeltaV
6:52:26 AM
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Sunday, April 07, 2002
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They say that Ed is a three-year-old seven-foot-tall basketball player
drag queen mutant alien hacker. And yet, genetically, Ed's not a guy,
but a little girl.
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In reality though, she's a cross between a swamp lizard, a hungry terrier
and too much cough medicine.
Where'd I get such notions? Cowboy Bebop, of course!
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-DeltaV
6:05:16 AM
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Wednesday, April 03, 2002
I've uploaded the MegaDeth resources. I have to say, when I'm
done with the recs I don't know what I'm gonna do next. I think I'll just make
a few skins untill I can record my songs.
-DeltaV
10:54:43 AM
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I got in touch with Converse yesterday and he asked me upload
the songs we recorded to my site for him to download. As it turns out, some
of them are pretty big and I can't afford the space. So if your reading this
Con, I guess we'll just have to do the ICQ thing when we're both online.
I haven't listened to that stuff in a long time, and now that
I approach it with fresh ears, it sounds like ... well ... junk! Sure there's
some good stuff in there, most of the rythems are ok and the leads start off
badly but sink into it later on ... but it's still junk! Without anyway to re-do
the whole thing with propper recording equipment I don't see how I can remedy
that.
-DeltaV
10:54:31 AM
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Saturday, March 30, 2002
All right, I've activated the skin system, and posted two skins
besides PlatinumV.
CarbonV, which was actually the first new DeltaVega skin
and a new one called Shore. Its compliment, Wave, will be posted
later on. Also stay tuned for Neo (the old DeltaVega) and Rust.
As for Tabs and Midi, I'm working on MegaDeth and it should be
available in a few days.
-DeltaV
10:03:02 AM
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Thursday, March 28, 2002
I'm anxious to activate the site's skins system, but I don't want
to do that until I finish Tabs and Midi. Too bad, since I have 3 skins ready
to be used and ideas for at least 3 more.
The comics thing is going to take a long time to become reality
and I can't record my songs without an adapter for the RP300. So I guess I'll
just have to wait until I get one for the site to have any real content.
Well ... at least I've got my blog.
-DeltaV
7:23:13 AM
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Tuesday, March 26, 2002
I'm compiling a list of some cool web comics that I'm gonna put
in the Links section. And I hope to write my own web comics someday.
My first step it to practice drawing. I'm going to draw as much
fanart as I can manage. In the beginning, I'll just duplicate the characters
in their favorite poses, and later on I'll try to render them independent of
the reference material in different poses. I think I'll even post some of it
in a fanart section.
-DeltaV
5:23:08 AM
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Monday, March 25, 2002
Friday, March 22, 2002
Ok, I've made a few changes to the site for now. I've decided to just use one
blog, and to put it on the main page. So now, News, Watching The World and Looking
Within are all one.
Plus, I've changed that ridiculous story in About Me and posted some real personal info
instead.
I also plan to start posting regularly to my blog again. And I'm not gonna
worry about content when I do. Just like now! :)
-DeltaV
6:55:15 AM
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Tuesday, August 21, 2001
I stumbled on this blog called the Top
Ten Blog, and I like what the owners have done with it. Simply put, a
subject is declared, like " Top Ten Things To Do From A Hot Air Balloon",
and the blog team outdo each other to come up with the list.
Apparently, hot air balloons have a lot to be said for them. One of the things
you can do is:
"Recite the broadcast to the Hindenberg disaster in an amused tone. Set
fire to the balloon. Feign ironic distress. Die in flaming debris."
Witty, fun, and updated daily. Check it out.
-DeltaV
10:11:44 AM
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Cnet had a couple of insightful articles on web programming security. And it
struck me how easy it is to compromise a web server if you just stop and think
about it. The first
article pointed out a simple way to destroy a web server armed with nothing
more than some basic SQL skills. Querystring is evil! It's exposed, and can be
manipulated by the user. But sometimes it's all we've got.
The second
article exposes another vulnerability. And one that requires knowledge
of xp_ stored procedures in MSSQL. Going over the querystring in this article
had the effect of raising a smile on my face as I realized the consequences of
this weakness that even I employ in my code.
Desktop programmers don't usually have to worry about security. But it's just
part of the landscape for a web programmer.
-DeltaV
10:03:04 AM
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Sunday, August 19, 2001
Dotcom is dying! Well, that's old news. Here's the new. There's a site
that'll let you vote on what percent of dotcoms will wither, die, and drop off
by the end of the year. At least someone is taking it lightly.
-DeltaV
10:55:19 AM
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I talked about web worms and how stupid it is to open email attachments in
a previous post. It appears that Wired's
Jon Rochmis agrees with me. He wrote a piece
after thousands of emails hit the Wired servers containing Sircam junk. One of
Sircam's skills is sorting through address books looking for email
addresses and most popular web sites have been hit like there's no tomorrow.
Just in case you have Sircam, Symantec
has a tool
that will de-Sircam your system. Don't forget to read the Wired piece, it's got some
good stuff.
-DeltaV
10:54:50 AM
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How smart are you? Or put another way, how do you like the taste of crunchy
numbers? If your answer is "Ahh ahh ... a lot!" then you might consider
this interesting: The RSA
is offering a prize
to the first person to factor a couple of large numbers. If you factor a 576-bit
number, you win $10,000. For the huge 2048 bits, you get $200,000 for your upcoming
lobotomy.
One guy who's not going to participate is Marvin
Minsky, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Coz he was busy giving a lecture
on why we don't have HAL yet. Good stuff. You can even get the lecture on audio.
Another would be Cameron Marlow, a PhD student at MIT's Media Lab, who is in
the process of making Blogdex.
Which is more than just a blog index site. The Blogdex will calculate which links
show up most often in the thousands of blogs on the Web. But it's still experimental
and needs some more work.
-DeltaV
10:54:19 AM
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Here's a question. Who would be the last people on the planet you would think
would set up a Web site encouraging you to eat whales? The People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA),
of course! And yet, here
it is. The premise is that one whale contains the meat equivalent of
1,200 pigs, and that eating the whale would spare the pigs a miserable life and
a mean chow. Crazy world goes for the gold Unbelievably Nutts award it seems.
-DeltaV
10:53:49 AM
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Saturday, August 18, 2001
Database access is still down. This is just taking too long. I guess my plan for
an ultimate personal page crashed and burned before it even hit the runway. Not
that anyone would know or care.
Spam ... I only had my Delta email for 2 weeks and already I'm getting spam.
Makes you angry doesn't it? Makes you think who in the world would fall for a
message titled "Make $10,000 from your home in 1 month!!!"? Truth is,
spam is free, not a single cent spent which means if the message was sent to
1,000 addresses and only 10 clicked through, they still win. Cnet
have a feature
that tried to find out how do spammers get addresses and how you can avoid them.
And a guy with a blog declares himself the Spam
Ninja.
-DeltaV
8:00:49 PM
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Microsoft have released a new service pack, originally called Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000 and it's basically a bug hunt. Quite a lot of pickings though cause the list of bug fixes is huge and spans four pages. Mostly it goes on about Windows 2000 Not Being Able To Read CD-R Discs Created With DirectCD and informs us that CPU Fan On An IBM ThinkPad Computer May Not Start. I don't know what an operating system has to do with the CPU fan, but maybe it's there to remind it of its job.
The Webby Awards are out! Although this year it's accompanied by some bad news. It's the dot-com crash boys and girls. It's killing the free internet. It's gonna make us pay! The L.A. Times said that only 28 out of 71 previous Webby winners are still operating and making profit. The rest lost, and sold out. Well why not? Even Deja.com, Salon, and Britanica.com sold out.
hardware providers? Well, Palm is not no.1 now, I know that. And their solution is to provide porn on PDAs. Great. That's all we need! Mobile Porn. As if all those porn sites that contributed to the net's down-fall aren't enough. To them it's just Cash-Money.
Microsoft heard this and got worried. So their solution is open source WinCE. WHAT? I know. I know. Give it time to sink in. Just like when your girl tells you she's pregnant. Or if your the girl, when your water turns blue. They're charging $31 for the source though. After all, this is Microsoft. Yah, the ones that charge you for public betas. Even if they do call them Release Candidates.
It's a corporate world.
-DeltaV
6:50:31 PM
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All right, here we go. Lets look at the world, baby.
I can't believe that a worm like the new Sircam has a chance to thrive. Haven't people learned anything from Melissa and I_Love_You? These are desktop worms after all. They won't affect you if you don't open them. It's true isn't it? A person is smart, but people are dumb panicking sons-of-bitches and they're gonna get us all killed.
Now, Code Red is another matter. It's smart. If ever a worm deserves to live this one does. It striked twice and now we're seeing Code Red II! But after the second dot com crash and renewal of the DDoS thing, the last thing we want is a worm that uses DDoS. The good news is that it's targeting the White House's site, and that's practically fair game.
-DeltaV
6:49:42 PM
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Saturday, August 04, 2001
Well ... Trying to get this site up has been hell. The site works locally but when I upload it I get all sorts of database and scripting errors that mostly have to do with converting dates. I think my host is using an Arabic system and that's wrecking my db. At least my blog is working now, so I can start typing ...
-DeltaV
11:17:51 AM
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Friday, July 20, 2001
This is the first entry in Watching The World (Oh really?).
Anyway, here's looking at you, world!
-DeltaV
5:16:28 PM
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