Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Antivirus software is generally crud. I say this as a computer programmer with a degree, and over a decade’s worth of experience in cleaning viruses off computers. I would never pay for antivirus software for my home computer (at work, possibly). In fact, I haven’t had to pay for AV software yet. I became jaded years ago while reading VMyths by Rob R. He confirmed what I suspected - that the AV update system model is broken, and not the best that programmers can offer customers.

Here are some free AV products (that aren’t always easy for novices to find):

• AVG Free - and yes it’s still free past May 2008, using their free Version 8.0. You just have to look past the Trial version.
• Avira AntiVir is also free.
• ClamWin is based on ClamAV for Linux.

Also required when using a free AV product, is a free Spyware detector/remover. Spyware is a mean (malicious) bit of softWARE that may not spread like a virus, but ruins your computer at least as well as a virus. Antivirus companies tend to charge for spyware detection (which is stupid, since spyware breaks a computer just as well as a virus, and it can be detected in much the same way as viruses are), and it’s how they convince more people to pay for “premium” products. Why bother? There are volunteers out there who don’t charge anything, and ask only for what you can afford to pay them at your discretion.

I’ve only had one virus infect any of my own computers or disks since I started back in 1984. (It’s possible some got through, and were never detected, but that’s VERY unlikely because they are usually easy to spot due to poor programming or intentional destruction/extortion/bragging caused by the well written ones). I’ve downloaded music and TV since the late 1990s using a variety of services, mostly P2P. And the only time a virus infected my computer, it was from surfing to a malicious webpage with an insecure version of Java installed on my computer. AVG detected it in an automated daily scan, and I was back to normal, feeling slightly more vulnerable, but in reality unscathed.

/End bragging

(more…)

This is just too cool. If you have one of these Canon cameras, and ever do more than just point-and-shoot, you’ll want to get this free enhancement. My 6 year old Canon is too old, but I may be replacing it this year… most certainly with one of these models.

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Hat tip to Photojojo

This story almost stunned me, and what’s even more surprising is that it’s about 150 years old!
Imaging a solar flare so bright, that you could SEE the sun getting brighter. Would you be a little concerned? Well, how about if your [telegraph] started to power itself?! These are things that happened in 1859, and could happen again at any time [assuming you have a telegraph or enjoy cell phones, TV, radio, computers…], with as little predictability as an earthquake. Quebec Hydro got a taste of what could happen in 1989.

And how would you like to lose 8 LINES of pixels on your digital camera? Imagine if it’s in space and there’s no way to fix it except with fancy image editing? Not many weeks after that happened, these aurora were photographed by me. Imagine most of the world’s satellites being disabled in a day?

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Now, on to something NotSafeForWork fun(ny). Imagine designing a logo, and not having someone giving you a hand with it? OGC in the UK did that apparently, and almost copied the ‘hand not connected, yet still phallic’ OGC in B.C.
If you don’t get it, turn your head to the side when viewing the logo, and pretend you see a penis somewhere.

The jokes about government employees being wankers, are perhaps appropriate at least in this case.

==

And did you know cavemen used Powerpoint? Me neither. How me plug in projector? Me not know F7 + Fn keys.

I’ve got nothin’.
Actually I have a link to an explanation of power usage in Ontario, or “hydro” as they call it there. It’s interesting if you like that kind of thing.

Saturday I watched the B-movie (literally on the B side of double sided The Arrival DVD) “The Arrival II” [3/10]. The acting wasn’t up to par, the writing wasn’t very good, the sci-fi had obvious errors in it, and there was a plot hole someone noticed, but besides all that it was about as good as could be expected for a sequel to a Charlie Sheen movie.

I’m at the UofR at the Microsoft “Heroes Happen Here” conference/presentation. I’ll include updates throughout the evening from my XO Sugar-Linux laptop.

6:30 - Right now my former graphics professor is giving an introduction.
6:40 - Will Craddock is giving a 41 slide presentation from 80 originally.
- IIS 7 is a completely new product over ver. 6.
- Server 2003 install was “arduous”, and 2008 doesn’t need an admin password set until you start it up.
- Single Management Console is improved.
- PowerShell is a new addition (was in Exchange 2007).
6:45 - Group Policy runs as a service for a user, giving new ways to make changes without reboots.

Vista not well installed in Regina in corporate workplaces… heheh.

6:50 - Demonstration of the MMC
6:57 - Talk about Windows Server 2008 Core and adding a GUI for it from www.petri.co.il

7:04 - Firewall more intelligent than Vista pre SP1.
- Protection Features - Network Access Protection. NAP, I want that right now (didn’t get enough sleep last night).
- AD Rights Management - File permissions could be network based, so files can’t be taken home to be opened. Note that this is essentially DRM for the corporate world!

7:17 - Virtualization still not as “robust” as VMWare, but moving in the right direction apparently.
-Hyper-v virtualization
-Virtualize applications to run legacy software.

7:23 - Ruby and PHP have worked better on Apache.
7:27 - MS Silverlight is their “Flash killer”. MLB is using Silverlight to stream games online.
First session wrapped up.

SQL Server is the next presentation. I just showed off the OLPC XO-1 to Will and one of the surprisingly few women in attendance at the event.

7:57 - Security discussion.
7:59 - The projector quit! What does a room full of computer geeks do when a computer in a presentation stops working? Panic, of course ;-)
Actually, a restart of the equipment fixed the problem 4 minutes later.

8:13 - Speaking of crashing (no this isn’t a set up to a Microsoft joke) my XO locked up after trying to browse for a photo I took of the SQL presentation! I pressed CTRL + ALT + Erase and X shut down and restarted in under a minute.

8:34 I’ve been trying to figure out where to find the photo files, and flickr crashed the Mozilla browser (or maybe Flash) again, and Photobucket.com might have worked, but I didn’t figure out the non-Journal file system fast enough.

8:44 The presentation is wrapping up a bit late. The other session(s) has wrapped up. I spent time trying to upload the photo to my blog, but WordPress had trouble with the “browse” just about like Flickr did. I had to restart the browser after it was stuck doing nothing.

There are prize draws…
8:49 Some more people in the crowd including professor Yang were looking at my XO laptop.

8:53 Another appeal from CS Dept. for industry to work with the UofR.

8:55 Enrollment in CS around North America is down 75% from the 1990s, but industry is picking up in demand. There’s no way to meet the demand - we’re being asked to influence kids to have them study Comp. Sci.

8:58 It’s too bad Yang had to give his full speech twice. It’s not bad, it’s just too long for how late it is getting. I heard some people complain about not having good parking options when they arrived. The room was also advertised wrong as “Education Classroom” which was confusing because there is an Ed. Building, and Classroom building.

9:03 Will’s repeating a speech for CIPS and guest speakers coming up including a MS employee from Estevan, SK.

9:06 Prize draws starting finally? ;-)…

I won nothing.

10:10 Moved the photos easily off the XO onto my USB drive by:
1- Plugged in USB drive.
2- Went to Journal
3- Selected Photo
4- Pointed to the copy option, and clicked on the picture of the USB drive
- The photo copied to the USB drive then.
5 - Back to the previous screen and repeat as required.

Worth the 6 minutes of your day to laugh at some cats, and the engineers who love them.

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Hat tip to Ashley

Just watch out for planes up there, because blinding a pilot isn’t cool. But creating lightning would be, if you’re inside a Faraday cage.

Bob McDonald is coming to Regina on Saturday Apr 12th at about 4pm.
I may miss it, but maybe you don’t have to.