Anthony's Web Site

While I have no great interest in getting a GMail account, there has been a great deal of talk about them on the web. Keith Robinson has posted an article asking What's The Big Deal With Gmail.

Well my guess is the big deal about GMail is that it is currently by invitation only, and somehow being recognised by the world's leading search engine make people feel important. Just like appearing first in the Google Rank and the new web sites forming that work on membership by referrals only.

logged by Anthony at 11:03:37 PM Link

You can read Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities in weekly serialized form, which I might add sounds very appealing as it would be a great way to manage time but still get some quality reading in. Via rebecca's pocket

Discovering Dickens - A Community Reading Project

With this project, we invite you to reenter the world of serial publication and of family reading circles. Stanford is once again proud to share with you many of the fine holdings of its Special Collections, as well as to invite you to share in Dickens’ lively meditation on the human and the historical – words that ring startlingly true today, though they were written 145 years ago.

logged by Anthony at 11:01:50 PM Link

A virus, called Cabir, has been found on Mobile phones. Cabir infects the Symbian operating system that is used in several makes of mobiles, notably the Nokia brand, and propagates through the new bluetooth wireless technology that is in some new mobile phones.

Via ABC News Further information at Symantec epoc.cabir

logged by Anthony at 10:05:26 PM Link

Tim Berners-Lee the father of the web, to whom we all owe a great deal, recieved the first $1.25 Million Millennium Technology Prize.

W3.org

logged by Anthony at 10:02:06 PM Link

Finally, there is a story about using waste to satisfy demand for another product that uses non renewable resources. Not just using waste to create new products. A researcher is hoping to be able to use plastic bags to make steel. As both are made from Carbon, and at the molecular level there is little difference. This would not only clear up waste plastic bags but also reduce our consumption of coal to produce steel.

Source Sydney Morning Herald

logged by Anthony Yager at 12:55:10 PM Link

A company in the US has developed a DVD player with a subscription service that allows users to play back DVD with offensive scenes edited out. So people can watch a movie without violence, language, and sex scenes. I do not have a problem with the idea of censorship in this issue as it is all about self censorship. However movies house and directors are looking to ban the product as it distorts the artistic product they produced. From an artists point of view I can see how they feel offended. Their movies were created with certain scenes in them to express the story. Some movies however you would have to say have the extra scenes added to get higher ratings so maybe there needs to be a middle ground where they all work together to develop a product with the directors/producers input to allow the true value of the movies to be retained.

Source ZDNet Australia

logged by Anthony Yager at 11:21:32 AM Link

I'm sure that it won't be too long before we start to see DVD movies available on Flash RAM as the barriers are pushed out now Pretec have a 12 GB CF card. Mind you it cost $USD15,000, so no rush to sell the DVD player just yet.

Via DPReview

logged by Anthony at 7:39:53 PM Link

Welcome on board today's flight and we hope you enjoy your flight with us today. Please ensure that you wear your seat belt at all times. Next stop SPACE.

Well that could be what you hear in the near future. Space.com is carrying a story on the approval of a spaceport in California's Mojave Desert. The article talks about issues they had in getting approval, like endangered tortoises.

Spaceport to Rise in California's Mojave Desert

logged by Anthony Yager at 1:21:13 PM Link

The Australian International School in Singapore has implemented a smart card technology to monitor students more closely. Including SMS/emailing parents when students are absent and controlling what children can buy at the canteen. I thought this joke was quite relevant.

More...

logged by Anthony at 1:12:20 PM Link

You need to be careful not to damage the top or bottom of a CD. Most people know that DVD's and CD's are read from the bottom, so if you scratch the bottom you can't read it. However the top of a CD protects the aluminium disk that reflect the light, and if damaged, the disk can "rot" much like rust. So protect the top and the bottom of your CDs.

DVD's are made by sandwiching two plastic layers together, which makes them more robust, unless you bend the disk getting it out of a case. If you bend it the glue can come apart making part of the disk unreadable.

CNN.com - CDs, DVDs not so immortal - May 6, 2004

logged by Anthony Yager at 2:14:39 PM Link

LegionONE has developed a technology to allow entry to trade exhibits by sending SMS. The SMS is a bar code that the person shows when they arrive at the exhibit. I could see how this could then be used to allow entry to a concert maybe even movies!

Delegate Registrations made easy with Barcodes via SMS

logged by Anthony at 5:07:50 PM Link

Do you need a good reason to study maths. Well at the Inquest into the bushfires that burnt part of Canberra last year it appears the initial estimate of the size was only 10% of the size due to a mistake in maths. Now I feel some credit need to be afforded to the person, but while in a helicopter above the fires he estimated the blaze to be 100 metres by 50 metres. However he reported the size of the blaze as 500 square metres not the 5000 square metres it was.

What worries me is that when I hear of school children not learning how to do maths by hand, because they can always use a calculator, this is the sort of stuff so say why we should keep the education basics in the curriculum.

Inquest hears Bendora blaze grossly underestimated

The Canberra bushfire inquest has heard how a senior emergency services member grossly understated the size of a blaze at Bendora last year.

On January 8, 2003, David Ingram was sent out on an evening helicopter flight over bushfires at Gingera, Stockyard Spur and Bendora to determine their size and location.

The inquest saw Mr Ingram's notes taken at the time which estimated the Bendora blaze measured 100 metres by 50 metres.

When calculating the fire's total size Mr Ingram made a mistake, calculating the size as 500 square metres and relaying this figure to the operations centre. Fire crews were pulled out from Bendora that night.

Today, Mr Ingram admitted that measurement should have been 5,000 square metres, however he stood by the following morning's report saying the Bendora fire measured 750 square metres, apparently much smaller than the previous night.

Mr Ingram said he noted down only what he saw of the fire from the air.

The former head of the department overseeing ACT emergency services has told the inquest he recalls little about bushfire emergency discussions.

Tim Keady told the inquest that discussions about electricity infrastructure rather than the threat to urban areas had stuck in his mind.

Mr Keady told counsel assisting the coroner he cannot even recall if he was present at some planning meetings during the bushfire emergency.

He later gave a detailed recollection of discussions about power infrastructure at the cabinet meeting.

When the nature of his memory was questioned he admitted it may sound a bit eccentric to have a so-called island of recollection from that meeting but said the discussion about electricity supplies had stuck in his mind.

Mr Keady also testified that he never discussed last year's bushfire emergency with New South Wales fire authorities.

Chief fire controller Peter Lucas-Smith already testified that on January 15 that he told Mr Keady he was concerned the New South Wales Fire Commissioner had described the fire situation as the worst in decades during a media interview.

Mr Lucas-Smith said the media comments were not consistent with what Commissioner Phil Koperberg had told him earlier that day.

The inquest heard Mr Keady was due to discuss the matter with Mr Koperberg, whom he knew well and considered a good friend.

Mr Keady testified that conversation never took place.

Source ABC News

logged by Anthony at 5:05:44 PM Link

Slashdot have an article that appeared on Good Morning America about a liquid that does not make things wet. The Slashdot contributor suggest you could run computers in it for the ultimate in cooling. Click to read the Slashdot article

logged by Anthony Yager at 12:58:39 PM Link

While talking about new search engines. A child friendly search has been launched in Australia. Kids.net.au - Search engine for kids, children, educators and teachers - Searching sites designed for kids that are child safe and clean.; It does allow you to limit your searches to your own country, not just Australia.

logged by Anthony Yager at 10:44:11 AM Link

Amazon have launched a search engine that allow you to search the web and the contents of books at the same time. It appears to have an even cleaner interface than Google has, which has always been one of Google's strengths. If you read the bottom it says it is enhanced by Google so it will never replace Google, however it has some extra features, so that if you log in you can look as past searches. Give it a try A9 - Amazon search engine

logged by Anthony Yager at 10:24:27 AM Link

Looks like for once the law is ahead of society. The local government is looking to prepare guidelines on how to punish students who use SMS for bullying.

ACT moves to prevent electronic bullying Source ABC News

logged by Anthony at 2:23:48 PM Link

I've said this before and now Microsoft has become a victim of their own technology. This guy has found downloaded heaps of documents showing how Microsoft has edited out quotes or provided quotes for companies to give about their software. See my previous commentary.

logged by Anthony at 2:11:32 PM Link

with the release of Snoopy Linux 2.1 and Goober Linux 1.0, the number of Linux distributions finally surpassed the number of actual Linux users. Source BBSpot

This also has information on some new versions of Windows.

logged by Anthony at 1:51:23 PM Link

In a recent Israeli technology test it was proven that a new PEI transfer protocol was faster than ADSL. The PEI transfer rate

was significantly larger that that available through commercially available ADSL broadband Internet connections: about 2.27 Mbps (Mega bit per second) as compared to 0.75 – 1.5 Mbps

As for usability PEI is

indifferent to the type of Operating System, and accommodate Windows and Linux equally. The technology doesn't suffer from electricity interruptions. It is naturally rechargeable by the carrier itself, using commonly available materials. Scalability is achieved by natural reproduction.

So when will we see this new technology. Well there are some issues to be resolved PEI is

susceptible to hacking, they are also subject to interference from cellular towers.

Google is also interested in the new technology and has exploited it for it search engine.

A New Israeli test confirms: PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL via Slashdot

Google use low cost PC (Pigeon Clusters) to get data

logged by Anthony at 12:02:52 PM Link

Well I guess i will just have to get over my wireless network security concerns. An Aust company has launched wireless ATM. Using Mobile phone Technology with added security it allows ATM's to confirm balances and dispense cash. I just hope they encrypt the information well enough. I don't want some one to pick up

logged by Anthony at 11:31:36 AM Link

AOL is going to raffle a Porsche Boxster S that is acquired through taking a spamer to court. Hopefully this sort of action will start to mark the decline in spam, but hey who knows why they do it. Spammer's Porsche up for grabs Source BBC News via Boing Boing

logged by Anthony at 1:23:17 PM Link

I came across this article on ZNet about Mini DDoS attack. I must admit, any person concerned about security would check their system against the Shield up Service, You just need to make sure all your ports are set to stealth.

From my personal viewpoint I can happily say I have up Smoothwall on my firewall. I dropped the idea of install a CD-ROM and instead setup a personal web server on my LAN and had Smoothwall download the install from the web server. It was quicker downloading the install using the web server than it was copying it from the CD-ROM to the HDD for the server. I thoroughly recommend Smoothwall to any one considering setting up a dedicated firewall.

logged by Anthony at 10:04:01 AM Link

I found these two articles on ZNet and together they make an interesting observation of market forces.

Aust IT salaries poised to rise talks about future increase in IT salaries in Australia. However the main thrust appears to be in IT staff wanting an increase in job security, not just looking for the next big pay increase.

While Will India price itself out of offshore markets? talks about increases in salaries for IT people in India. The increase in outsourcing has produced double digit salary increases.

More...

logged by Anthony at 9:53:48 AM Link

It looks like a Japanese company has developed an emergency robot, that can rip open cars. Controlled by a human the robot is able to lift steel girders with one hand.

logged by Anthony at 2:11:52 PM Link

IBM has put together a 'road map' for converting network administrators from Windows to Linux.

logged by Anthony at 12:15:46 PM Link

This article discusses some new technologies that extend our human memory giving us "Removable Media For Our Minds". Examples are

• SenseCam and werable camera with extensive sensors to take pictures of room you enter, people you see.
• MyLifeBits which is a storage device to capture all these photos.
• Nokia's Lifeblog which is a mobile phone version of MyLifeBits.

The interesting part is this final quote

"Computers have reached the point in which continuous, verbatim recording of an individual's life experiences is technologically feasible," Vemuri writes on his Web site. "The challenge now is turning vast repositories of such recordings into a useful resource while respecting the social, legal, and ethical ramifications of ubiquitous recording." Source The Feature

logged by Anthony at 10:35:33 AM Link

China have banned the use of Movable Type and blogger.com blogs Source GLUTTER via The Road to Surfdom

logged by Anthony at 10:14:26 AM Link

A TV milestone: Colour sets mark 50th anniversary

logged by Anthony at 10:04:40 AM Link

I've been following the developments in the virus wars. Things are looking bad. It appear that the authors of MyDoom, Bagle and Netsky have been trying to outdo each other. By launching variants that kill the others and some that contain messages to each other. From our point of view it just means more virus updates and more spam mail. Source ZNET UK

logged by Anthony at 12:04:20 PM Link

The US government has apparently installed and is happy with a Ram disk installation they recently completed. Specific details are sketchy of course, but The installation in three full height rack cabinets creates a 2.5Tb Ram drive with data rate to 36Gb/sec Source TechWorld via SlashDot

logged by Anthony at 1:14:14 PM Link

Check out this 'thinking' shooting game. It is a sort of cross between space invaders and the 'Life' game. Bubble I'd also to hear from anyone who can translate the Belgium instruction into English.

logged by Anthony at 4:02:28 PM Link

SCO has been caught out in it plans to sue the Bank of America in its claim to intellectual property in Linux. A word document that had track changes activated was sent out and reveals that the Bank of America was replaced with DaimlerChrysler. Always take care when distributing electronic documents. Source CNet via Slashdot

logged by Anthony at 10:41:00 AM Link

Now I guess you are aware that Microsoft are producing operating systems for everything from Car Stereos to Mobile Phones, but now they are going to be the standard for your next generation DVD player. Microsoft's new DVD format has been selected as the industry standard. Source ZDNET carried by Optusnet

logged by Anthony at 12:22:55 PM Link

This web site lets you create your own avatar by using a idenitkit like interface. Use the flash program to create your Avatar then copy do a screen dump and copy and paste it into some thing Paint to crop down to just the avatar. Here's mine. Thanks to kadyellebee

UPDATE: I've also found a similar one to create your own South Park Character

logged by Anthony at 4:40:38 PM Link

Well I have to say that I must be getting close to be classified as a fully fledged nerd. I have my own web site. I have my own domain. The number of computers I run at home is now up to four. I have one workstation/server as our main computer, I then have another workstation if it. I look after the standalone in my son's bedroom. All these run Win. Now I have fourth that is my firewall running Coyote Linux. I'll admit it is a fully complied distribution and it all runs off a floppy, but I need to play with CDROM drives to run Smooth Wall.

logged by Anthony at 10:02:04 AM Link

Fontifier is a web service that allow you to create a font from your very own hand writing. It is pretty simple, just print off a template page and use a black felt pen, ball point does not work very well, to write the alphabet and some symbols. Then scan it back in, at 72 dpi and upload the file and the font is then available for download within seconds.

logged by Anthony at 1:18:14 PM Link

See live updates to Blogs as points on a map of the world at this web site. I love finding stuff like this through my referrers list.

logged by Anthony at 12:17:21 PM Link

Check out the Sesame Street U.S. Terror Alert System

Geek and Proud

logged by Anthony at 12:28:17 PM Link

The W3C has presented the US patent Office with evidence that Eolas patent is invalid and that embedding content into web pages is prior art.

logged by Anthony at 9:46:34 AM Link

Amazon, the bookshop has introduced a new feature to allow you to search for words in the text of a book. They have catalogued 120,000 containing 33 million pages. It forms part of the normal book search and results on titles and contents are displayed inline. See How to Search in a book here.

logged by Anthony at 9:41:46 AM Link

Check this out, because Microsoft has allegedly infringed on a patent that describes how to run programs interactively in a web page, Microsoft will update IE to ask users to press a button to get the content to run. So web page designers now have to run Javascript files that create the snippet of HTML to get avoid the prompt. What a shame Micro$oft won't pay the licence fees.

logged by Anthony at 12:36:27 PM Link

The computer revolution has taken valve driven computers that filled warehouses and put them into microwaves, watches and telephones. The next revolution will take today's warehouse sized computers and put them into your desktop.

A small chip company has developed a co-processor chip that is added as a PCI card that performs 25 gigaflops. Taken to a logical expansion and they say for about $25,000 you could create a computer equivalent to one of the worlds top 500 computer.

Source WIRED

logged by Anthony at 6:05:54 PM Link

No need to worry about the cancer effects of mobile's, that take too long to occur. Now start to worry about the phone exploding on you.

In the last few months, two Nokia phones have exploded on their users causing burns. In one case Nokia said it was the non Nokia battery, but the Dutch government has requested a full inquiry of Nokia.

Source AustralianIT

logged by Anthony at 10:18:36 AM Link

You have just got to read this poor guys story about re-install Win XP. I like his idea that each version of Windows has a half life before requiring a re install. Note to self: I must reinstall my windows.

Dive into Mark

logged by Anthony at 5:00:52 PM Link

The Internet Software Consortium produces a software product called BIND that is used to power 80% of the world's Domain Name Servers. It has announced an emergency patch to block the the Site Finder problem launched by Verisign. The main problem is that it is now difficult to see if spam mail has a spoofed address and every domain now has a web page.

Source Wired News

logged by Anthony at 4:41:11 PM Link

Sun Systems is on the tip of a discover to bypass circuits to move data between microchips. Engineers have found that data can be moved 60 to 100 times faster by placing the chips next to each other, thereby doing away with the traditional circuits.

Source CNet news

logged by Anthony at 12:54:20 PM Link

The first conviction for breaching the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been found in Los Angeles. A 38 year old man has been found guilty of selling hardware to access free satellite TV.

Source CNET News

logged by Anthony at 12:48:10 PM Link

Verisign has implemented a service where by any mistyped domain names ending .com or .net will be redirected to their Sitefinder web service. This will try to suggest the correct web site. Now given that Search engines like Google has been able to redirect users to the correct site for years, this new "service" looks to become the bane of users. More...

logged by Anthony at 1:10:23 PM Link

The latest thing to do is to mod the case of your PC so that it reflects more about you than the manufacturer. It a little like people who modify cars by adding Play Stations and DVD players along side mag wheels and turbo engines. Well it has become an extreme level when you check out these examples. Everything from V8 motors, kegs of beer and and an Atari look a like

PCs are a marvel of engineering on the inside

logged by Anthony at 11:53:28 AM Link

So much for tight security around airports and heightened awareness. It appears the good old social engineering trick worked again. Just look like you know what you are doing and you just might get away with it.

Sydney airport computers stolen

Australia's top security agencies are to conduct emergency damage audits following the theft of computers from Sydney Airport's intelligence centre.

Customs officials have told The Sydney Morning Herald the stolen computers held thousands of confidential files, including top-secret communications between customs investigators, Australian Federal Police and ASIO.

The newspaper reports two men of Pakistani-Indian-Arabic appearance presented themselves as computer technicians and were given unfettered access to the airport's top security mainframe room on August 27.

"Inside, they spent two hours disconnecting two computers, which they put on trolleys and wheeled out of the room, past the security desk, into the lift and out of the building," the newspaper reported.

"The Australian Federal Police and ASIO, the two chief guardians against terrorism, fired off angry memos to customs officials, demanding to know the extent to which their top-secret operations have been compromised."

The theft is being investigated by the AFP.

Source Yahoo

Customs computers stolen from Sydney Airport

Australian Federal Police are investigating the theft of computer equipment from the Australian Customs Service at Sydney International Airport.

It is believed two men were involved in the high-level security breach.

The AFP are investigating the theft of two file servers from a Customs building at the airport last week.

A spokesman for Customs Minister Senator Chris Ellison says extensive testing of the system is now being conducted to determine whether it has been compromised by the theft.

He says there is no evidence to indicate there has been any intrusion.

He says Customs has been advised the servers did not contain any information about national security.

Senator Ellison has requested a report into the incident.

Source ABC

logged by Anthony at 9:58:37 AM Link

Do you get lost on the web. Well TouchGraph LLC have developed a map of the internet using Google's search engine. Go to their page and enter a domain name to get a map.

logged by Anthony at 11:06:58 AM Link

Project Gutenberg is the brainchild of Michael Hart, who in 1971 decided that it would be a really good idea if lots of famous and important texts were freely available to everyone in the world. Since then, he has been joined by hundreds of volunteers who share his vision. Project Gutenberg is here.

logged by Anthony at 10:44:20 AM Link

In an attempt to overcome copyright laws an anonymous person has developed instructions on how to decrypt DVD in Haiku poetry.

logged by Anthony at 10:25:30 AM Link

Laser breakthrough promises longer CDs

Researchers in Canberra and Paris have combined to increase the amount of information able to be stored on CDs and DVDs.

Professor Claude Fabre from the University of Paris and Professor Hans Bachor from the Australian National University have worked for five years to produce the quantum laser pointer.

It is a device that provides much improved accuracy of laser light, and dramatically increases the amount of storage available on discs.

But, Professor Bachor says it could take another five years before the product can be produced commercially.

"At the moment we are too excited about the fundamental physics but it will lead to marketing, and we will talk to companies to take it up," he said.

Source ABC

logged by Anthony at 12:40:06 PM Link

Man on good behaviour bond after e-mail attack

A Canberra man has been placed on a good behaviour bond after he bombarded the computer system at the ACT Legal Aid office with more than 1,000 e-mails after he was knocked back for legal aid support.

The e-mails clogged the system and prevented staff from getting messages.

He pleaded guilty to five charges relating to improper use of computers.

His defence lawyer Darryl Perkins told the court he had admitted the behaviour was 'reckless' but it did not cause physical damage to the computer system.

Chief Magistrate Ron Cahill gave him a $2,000, two-year good behaviour bond. Edited Source ABC

logged by Anthony at 2:05:49 PM Link

Just to show how much of a problem a viruses attack can be, one recent virus that taunts Bill Gates. A quick search of Google for the key words "Billy Gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software" and as at the time of posting this article the virus had generated 420 news articles around the world within the last 24 hours out of a total of 464 since two days ago. Credit to CNET and ZDNET for being the first.

Click to see the current count

PS Get the patch

UPDATE: 9 Sep count now up to 1280.

logged by Anthony at 1:59:07 PM Link

Just to show everyone how close the world really is, University researchers have completed a study that demonstrates that everyone on the Internet are about five to seven people away. The study involved sending emails to a specific person with only a little knowledge about their occupation and the country they lived in.

From there participants sent chain emails to the people they thought would be closer and in five to seven emails the other person would be contacted.

Just six mouse-clicks apart

You can register on-line to try and send an email to someone you don't know.

logged by Anthony at 1:55:51 PM Link

How is this for the latest gaming server.

147-node cluster running at some 1.5 teraflops.

The new ac3 system will use dual 3.06GHz Xeon processors for each node. The supercomputer will also have 300GB of memory, 1.2TB of storage, and run Red Hat Linux with a 2.4 series kernel.

What a shame it won't be used to run games.

Advanced Centre plans Linux supercomputer

logged by Anthony at 1:52:40 PM Link

This is a Geek test. It takes a while as there are many questions, but there are some funny ones. I got 29.98028% - Total Geek.

See how you go

logged by Anthony at 1:47:41 PM Link

Google the search engine, has enhanced their toolbar to prevent pop up windows. It works very well and has a toggle on/off so you can disable it on command. You can also add sites that should always allow pop ups.

Get it here

logged by Anthony at 1:46:07 PM Link