| Blog Posts |
41
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Time Travel with Notes 7.0.2  
Thu, Nov 20th 2008 4:43a Christopher W Linfoot
I have an email here from a reader in Australia. In my personal email client (which is Mozilla Thunderbird, not Notes) it currently sits at the top of the in-box with all newer email below it. The in-box is sorted in descending order by date, so that new messages are at the top.
Thunderbird is reading the date stamp on the message as 16:13 UTC on 20th November 2008, which is in the future at the time of writing.
Why?
My first thought was that the sender had set the wrong time zone in hi [read] Keywords: notes
email
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21
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A virus? In a British hospital? 
Tue, Nov 18th 2008 7:52p Christopher W Linfoot
I thought they specialised in bacterial infections. You know, like MRSA or C. diff, and yet here we have a very nasty virus outbreak.
A computer virus has infected the Barts and The London computer system. The Trust’s well rehearsed emergency procedures have been activated to ensure that key clinical systems continue while network access is being established.
Way to sound like professionals, guys. So you have well rehearsed emergency procedures, do you?
How about robustly enforced [read] Keywords: best practice
network
security
virus
wiki
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73
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Off topic: Any LCD TV recommendations? 
Tue, Nov 18th 2008 4:50a Christopher W Linfoot
Does anyone know of an LCD TV that has decent integrated sound and can be used without an external home cinema system. Home cinema systems are not wife-friendly, but I do like to hear sounds the way they were intended to be heard when watching a movie. [read] Keywords: |
78
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Has spam volume really dropped?
Mon, Nov 17th 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
About 5 days ago an outfit named McColo was disconnected from the Internet when the two ISPs, Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing which had been providing McColo with connectivity, both pulled the plug.
McColo was estimated by some to be the source of up to 75% of all spam.
Given that we keep detailed logging of email delivery, including rejections, such a large drop should be clearly visible in the stats for the past few days, so is it?
Short answer: Yes, but the drop is nothing lik [read] Keywords: email
security
smtp
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27
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What price identity?
Mon, Nov 17th 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
The Beeb carries a report entitled "UK identities sold for £80 online".
Internet fraudsters sell complete financial identities for just £80, according to an online safety group.
The details packaged and sold online include names, addresses, passport numbers and confidential financial data such as credit card numbers.
With six out of 10 people now managing finances online, experts say the public needs to do more to prevent e-crime.
So, how are these Internet fraudsters obtaining comp [read] Keywords: document
email
profile
security
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29
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From the Department of Unusual Juxtapositions
Sun, Nov 16th 2008 7:52p Christopher W Linfoot
The words Robert Kilroy Silk do not often find themselves at home in a sentence which also contains the word favourite and yet here they are.
I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! may not have started yet but Robert Kilroy-Silk is already favourite to be voted off first. [read] Keywords: |
33
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Sixty
Fri, Nov 14th 2008 4:50a Christopher W Linfoot
Prince Charles is 60 today and you can hear him * on the Today Programme reciting a list of his 60 presents to mark his 60 years in the style of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire.
Chocolate orange, argyle jumpers, anything from Anne Summers...
Now there's a mental picture I just didn't need.
* OK, not really Prince Charles but John Culshaw does sound a lot like him. [read] Keywords: |
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Shooting Fish
Thu, Nov 13th 2008 7:56p Christopher W Linfoot
Microsoft bashing seems to have become far too easy these days with posts like "Microsoft admits to wasting 2 hours a week on upgrades alone!" proving popular with readers over at Planet Lotus, for example.
There's no sport in Microsoft bashing anymore. It's just too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel.
I'm going to stop doing it myself. Really. Tomorrow, probably.
However, just for today, there is a small amount of sport to be found in asking the question, why did Microsoft wait 7 yea [read] Keywords: lotus
applications
bug
exchange
exchange
microsoft
network
outlook
planet lotus
security
server
wifi
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25
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Which cat ate the ISPs' homework?
Wed, Nov 12th 2008 5:23a Christopher W Linfoot
Why, the security cat, of course!
We've finally found the lame excuse reason for the total lack of effort by ISPs globally towards the implementation of IPv6.
At vnunet.com we read - ISPs fear IPv6 security threats
Over half of internet service providers believe that new threats could emerge with the deployment of the new Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), according to the latest annual worldwide Infrastructure Security Report from Arbor Networks.
The survey polled around 70 IP netw [read] Keywords: application
network
security
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26
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What's up at Virgin Media?
Wed, Nov 12th 2008 5:08a Christopher W Linfoot
No, I'm not talking about those 2,200 job cuts.
I'm talking about the broadband upgrade that turned into a downgrade.
You see, Virgin Media decided to upgrade all of their 4Mbps customers to 10Mbps a while ago and the change was implemented on my connection perhaps a couple of weeks ago.
Since that time connectivity to some web sites has been patchy at best. Some - for example Wikipedia and some Yahoo! services such as parts of Flickr - do not work at all. How are the kids to do their h [read] Keywords: network
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40
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You can't beat them, but don't join them.
Tue, Nov 11th 2008 7:52p Christopher W Linfoot
At the Beeb we read - Study shows how spammers cash in
Spammers are turning a profit despite only getting one response for every 12.5m e-mails they send, finds a study.
By hijacking a working spam network, US researchers have uncovered some of the economics of being a junk mailer.
The analysis suggests that such a tiny response rate means a big spam operation can turn over millions of pounds in profit every year.
It also suggests that spammers may be susceptible to attacks that make [read] Keywords: email
network
networking
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32
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From the in-box
Tue, Nov 11th 2008 7:52p Christopher W Linfoot
Hi Chris,
Hope you don't mind me introducing myself! I'm from [redacted], a
viral video seeding company in London. I noticed that you'd run a
video about interactive screens on your site, and thought you might be
interested in a video campaign we're running for [redacted], featuring
a programmer explaining how newly-developed inventive applications can
run on [redacted]'s interactive screen.
Viral video seeding company?
That's right out of the SEO school of interweb ethics.
Isn't the [read] Keywords: applications
viral
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55
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Truth in spam
Tue, Nov 11th 2008 5:40a Christopher W Linfoot
Here's the subject line of a recent spam.
IT is the modern, fastest and safest way to solve all your male problems.
I agree.
Men used to waste all of their spare time fiddling with old cars or motorcycles, getting their hands dirty and putting themselves at risk of serious injury through the injudicious use of power tools.
Not any more.
We just muck around with the latest Linux distro and try aimlessly to find drivers for some ancient * WLAN adapter, all in the comfort of our centr [read] Keywords: linux
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Star Wars Star
Sun, Nov 9th 2008 6:56p Christopher W Linfoot
First Born asks - "Dad. Who played the voice of Darth Vader?"
"Well, son. It was ... "
James
Earl
Jones. [read] Keywords: application
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Clarkson - The Game
Fri, Nov 7th 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
Continuing that save Clarkson theme, if you're one of the few that were actually offended then don't get mad.
Get even.
And, now that you've got that out of your system, can he please keep his job?
Top Gear's the only reason I pay the license fee.
See also: Campaign to save Jeremy Clarkson [read] Keywords: application
enterprise
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Campaign to save Jeremy Clarkson
Fri, Nov 7th 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
OK. Jeremy doesn't really need saving. I'm sure he's quite capable of looking after himself.
It's just that some MP * named Molesworth has written to the Beeb demanding that Jez be sacked for things he said on last week's Top Gear programme.
"Jez Clarksun is an uter weed and pane. The merders in my constitchencey were horiffic and NO joking mater as any fule kno," Mr Molesworth wrote.
"For Jezza to mak lite of merder must be a dismissble ofence or a lest he shud get the KANE and early b [read] Keywords: wiki
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Don't click here
Fri, Nov 7th 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
This is what you might see if you follow a link in a spam purporting to have some kind of scoop on Barack Obama.
Of course, you need to install some new media player or an upgraded codec or some such in order to view the alleged video.
You know. You need to install some untrusted software from an untrusted source. What could possibly go wrong?
On the other hand, if you want to be safe, just watch the video here - and this one will work without needing to download any more software provi [read] Keywords: linux
mac
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18
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Prague in the Autumn
Thu, Nov 6th 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
Early evening - looking across the Vltava from Dětský ostrov (Children's Island) towards the Národní Divadlo (National Theatre). [read] Keywords: |
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On chain letters and the credit crunch
Thu, Nov 6th 2008 5:21a Christopher W Linfoot
I've seen a couple of very similar chain letters recently. The first was reported to me by a user (1) and the second trapped by a mail rule which is designed to stop phish. The gist of the chain letter is below and no, it's not real, so please don't even think about passing it along if you see one.
Marks & Spencer (2), in conjunction with Persimmon Homes (3), are giving away free vouchers. Marks & Spencer's are (4) trying word-of-mouth advertising to introduce its (4) products and the [read] Keywords: email
server
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Magical Mystery Tour
Mon, Nov 3rd 2008 7:53p Christopher W Linfoot
Here's a lucky find.
Early last week we were just pottering about at the western end of Karlův most in Prague when we happened upon a little office in a courtyard, where a sign in the window advertised guided tours of the city on Segways.
We booked the tour for Friday morning and it was probably the highlight of the week.
Riding (is that the correct verb?) a Segway turns out to be very easy indeed - only a miserable failure could possibly fall off - although I guess it may help jus [read] Keywords: google
office
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32
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IPv4 dead, but it won't lie down
Mon, Nov 3rd 2008 5:39a Christopher W Linfoot
A couple of stories at Heise On-line caught my eye last week.
The first was Last IPv4 blocks are given out
The last remaining IPv4 address blocks have been allocated. IP address administrators (the Regional Internet Registries or RIR) of all five regions (AfriNIC, APNic , ARIN, LacNIC and RIPE) have agreed on how the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) should allocate them. The last five blocks available are to be allocated one each to the five RIRs. This was the conclusion reached [read] Keywords: document
community
development
microsoft
vista
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17
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Just back from Prague
Sun, Nov 2nd 2008 5:52a Christopher W Linfoot
Window box
Fridge Magnets [read] Keywords: |
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OOO: Backscatter isn't the only unintended consequence
Sun, Nov 2nd 2008 5:52a Christopher W Linfoot
At the Beeb - E-mail error ends up on road sign
When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.
Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".
So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.
I have explained before why OOO is a bad idea. [read] Keywords: office
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You can rent this space for 30 days. Interested?
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Gmail's solution to sender's remorse
Fri, Oct 24th 2008 8:55p Christopher W Linfoot
Earlier this month, Google announced a new feature for Gmail which they are calling Mail Goggles.
When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?
In other words, if you're too drunk to be able to calculate the sum of two small numbers you should probably not be sending email.
B [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
email
google
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From the Don't Try This At Home department
Wed, Oct 22nd 2008 8:52p Christopher W Linfoot
According to the New York Times:
REDMOND, Wash. — In a windowless room on Microsoft’s campus here, T. J. Campana, a cybercrime investigator, connects an unprotected computer running an early version of Windows XP to the Internet. In about 30 seconds the computer is “owned.”
Maybe if he'd tried this in a room with windows, things might have turned out differently.
Or perhaps not. [read] Keywords: microsoft
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46
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RFC2821 is obsolete
Tue, Oct 21st 2008 8:55p Christopher W Linfoot
RFC821 and its successors define SMTP, the transport mechanism for all Internet email. Similarly, RFC822 and its successors define the standard for Internet email content, often called MIME although MIME encoding is not mandatory - plain text will do fine.
In the years since 2001, when RFC2821 obsoleted the earlier RFC821, many people simply never got into the habit of citing RFC2821 when discussing the behaviour of MTA software. Indeed, many people seemed simply to ignore RFC2821 completely [read] Keywords: email
smtp
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51
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MIME to CD conversion crash in Domino 8.0.1
Tue, Oct 21st 2008 8:55p Christopher W Linfoot
A Domino server here started an endless crash and restart cycle earlier today, somewhat reminiscent of an HP PC after an XP SP3 upgrade.
We suspected a corrupt message in one of the server mail boxes, so moved that mailbox out of the way and restarted for what turned out to be the final time - it was indeed that message that was causing the problem.
Using Lotus Notes Diagnostic to analyse the crash, we were able to establish that it was the router task that was crashing and that it was fal [read] Keywords: document
domino
ibm
lotus
notes
rich text
bes
blackberry
email
enterprise
google
server
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46
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From the Suspicions Confirmed department
Mon, Oct 20th 2008 4:44a Christopher W Linfoot
At ISPreview.co.uk, we read:
BT has shockingly confirmed that its new 21st Century Network (21CN) infrastructure does not support the crucial IPv6 protocol, which is kind of important because it's now a well established fact that existing IPv4 addresses are in decline and could run out entirely by 2011.
Let's just pause to let that sink in.
BT's flagship infrastructure project, 21CN, does not support IPv6.
The one carrier which could really make a difference to the take-up of IPv6 in [read] Keywords: network
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47
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ORDB is dead, but it still won't lie down
Mon, Oct 20th 2008 4:37a Christopher W Linfoot
Header seen in a phish against HSBC over the weekend:
X-RBL-Warning: ORDB: "ordb.org was shut down on December 18, 2006. Please remove from your mailserver."
The mail server about which ORDB is rightly complaining is yet another one of those servers used to support some cloud based e-commerce solution which seem so often to be used to transport phish.
It seems to be looking up the IPs which connect to it to submit mail in a variety of DNSBLs, then looking for a TXT record in cases where [read] Keywords: server
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On Google, SaaS and Schadenfreude
Fri, Oct 17th 2008 4:52a Christopher W Linfoot
Volker links to a page describing some recent trouble with Google Apps.
A prolonged, ongoing Gmail outage has some Google Apps administrators pulling their hair out as their end users, including high-ranking executives, complain loudly while they wait for service to be restored.
At around 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Google Inc. announced in the official Google Apps discussion forum that the company was aware of a problem preventing Gmail users from logging into their accounts and that it expe [read] Keywords: collaboration
lotus
workflow
application
applications
bug
email
enterprise
exchange
exchange
google
microsoft
planet lotus
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Big Brother may or may not be watching you
Thu, Oct 16th 2008 7:59p Christopher W Linfoot
In those rare and all too brief lulls in the otherwise incessant media coverage of the inexplicable evaporation of global capital, at least one other story has actually had some press.
I refer, of course, to the British government plan to eavesdrop on all of our communication.
The Beeb covers it here.
One factoid about the proposal which is slipped, unquestioned, into this and most other news stories on the subject is:
Details of the times, dates, duration and locations of mobile pho [read] Keywords: database
email
google
mobile
security
smtp
web 2.0
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33
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Ego surf du jour
Thu, Oct 16th 2008 6:30a Christopher W Linfoot
[read] Keywords: |
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A River Runs Through It
Tue, Oct 14th 2008 8:53p Christopher W Linfoot
[read] Keywords: |
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Potato, potato, tomato, tomato
Tue, Oct 14th 2008 3:40a Christopher W Linfoot
See also:
Two nations divided by a common language
Two nations divided by a common language - again [read] Keywords: facebook
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What's the population of Iceland?
Fri, Oct 10th 2008 4:21a Christopher W Linfoot
320,169, according to Wikipedia.
And how much money was deposited in Icelandic banks by British local authorities, other public sector bodies and charities?
£946.8m, according to the Beeb.
Where's that calculator? Let me see. Nine hundred and forty six million divided by...
That's £2,957.19 for every man, woman and child in Iceland.
Now, what about all those private investments? How much are they worth?
£4.5 billion - and that's just Landsbanki (OK, I got that figure from th [read] Keywords: wiki
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144
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The top five reasons why Windows Vista failed
Tue, Oct 7th 2008 5:36a Christopher W Linfoot
At ZDNet - The top five reasons why Windows Vista failed
IT departments are largely ignoring Vista. In June (18 months after Vista’s launch), Forrester Research reported that just 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide were running Vista. Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to have put Windows 7 on an accelerated schedule that could see it released in 2010. That will provide IT departments with all the justification they need to simply skip Vista and wait to eventually standardize on Windows 7 as th [read] Keywords: enterprise
microsoft
vista
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48
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Don't Panic (1)
Wed, Oct 1st 2008 8:51p Christopher W Linfoot
Bart reminds me that Vint Cerf made a very small media splash last week by opining publicly on the end of IPv4 and the slow take-up of IPv6, which purists like myself like to argue should replace it.
Here's the report from our very own The Times, sometime newspaper of record.
The world is about to run out of the internet addresses that allow computers to identify each other and communicate, the man who invented the system has told The Times.
Vint Cerf, the "father of the internet" (2) a [read] Keywords: network
wiki
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65
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Yes. No. Cancel. What?
Wed, Oct 1st 2008 8:51p Christopher W Linfoot
At the Beeb we read - Fighting the scourge of scareware
Microsoft and Washington State's Attorney General filed lawsuits against scam artists who frighten consumers into buying useless software.
"Scareware" merchants are accused of tricking computer users into clicking on pop-up alerts that claim their device is "damaged and corrupted".
My favourite part?
"This study demonstrates how easy it is to fool people on the web," said co-author Dr Michael S Wogalter, professor of psychology. [read] Keywords: microsoft
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Strictly Confidential
Fri, Sep 26th 2008 4:02a Christopher W Linfoot
Dear Friend:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 700 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a S [read] Keywords: facebook
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58
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What's the difference between education and training?
Mon, Sep 22nd 2008 5:42a Christopher W Linfoot
I finally got around to watching that Microsoft commercial which briefly caught the limelight when someone noticed that it was made on a Mac (thanks, Volker).
The ad features sound bites from diverse people all claiming to be a PC, and the last such sound bite is from a wrestler who looks directly at the camera and asks, "you got a problem with that?"
Well, at the risk of incurring the wrath of that wrestler, as a matter of fact I do have a problem with that, though it may not be the probl [read] Keywords: document
mac
microsoft
office
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Credit Crunch
Sat, Sep 20th 2008 8:56p Christopher W Linfoot
Credit CrunchTM is made from the dried tears of a thousand sacked investment bankers...
More > [read] Keywords: |
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Google, dude. That's really heavy.
Sat, Sep 20th 2008 6:54a Christopher W Linfoot
[read] Keywords: google
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Life without Sonos
Fri, Sep 19th 2008 6:49a Christopher W Linfoot
Volker is always bashing on about Sonos - and with good reason. Sonos is very good stuff. And there's no credible competitor.
If you have a lot of digital music, or use Internet radio *, and you want to distribute it around your home, you want to control it easily, you care about sound quality and you don't like wires, there's really nothing else.
I'm not a Sonos user and probably never will be, however. I don't need the ability to distribute to multiple rooms - one room will do fine - and [read] Keywords: google
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Ils sont fous, ces Américains.
Tue, Sep 16th 2008 4:04a Christopher W Linfoot
Over at ZDNet, we read: Spammer walks as court says state antispam law is unconstitutional
The Virginia Supreme Court said the conviction of super-spammer Jeremy Jaynes is unconstitutional (PDF), The Washington Post reports.
How so?
Yes, it's in violation of the first amendment, apparently. That old chestnut!
Specifically:
Jaynes has standing to raise a First Amendment overbreadth claim as to Code § 18.2-152.3:1 (1). That statute is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because [read] Keywords: document
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14
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DRM and GaaS
Mon, Sep 15th 2008 4:58a Christopher W Linfoot
Volker has been reporting the issue of DRM in the new game from EA, Spore.
Electronic Arts has released the much anticipated game Spore, and customers are balking at their DRM regime. Kernel drivers you can't uninstall, mandatory registration, you name it, they have it.
In fact it isn't just Spore that is hobbled in this way.
PC games are very often protected using DRM techniques. If find this interesting, because games typically retail for £20-£40 where a lot of software that I use pr [read] Keywords: laptop
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Revealed: Early draft of Family script
Sat, Sep 13th 2008 5:52a Christopher W Linfoot
[read] Keywords: |
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I like Bill. I really do...
Fri, Sep 12th 2008 4:26a Christopher W Linfoot
... but Bill is not Microsoft.
This new Bill and Jerry Show is much better than the first (though I didn't hate that one as much as some people), but neither makes me want to buy Microsoft products, or like Microsoft any better.
It's all harmless fun to be sure but, if the aim of the exercise is to make Microsoft more likeable, then it won't work. [read] Keywords: microsoft
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Live webcams at the Large Hadron Collider
Thu, Sep 11th 2008 8:06p Christopher W Linfoot
More >
(Thanks, Ben) [read] Keywords: |
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Mine is the last voice that you will ever hear...
Wed, Sep 10th 2008 3:25a Christopher W Linfoot
... Unless you are reading this any time after 07:30 UTC on Wednesday, 10th September 2008 *, in which case the Swiss conspiracy to reduce the universe to strange matter, or to suck us all into a black hole, has failed.
No charges are expected to be brought against the conspirators, however, as it is unlikely that a jury would accept the case that the experiment was, in fact, a wilful attempt to bring down airliners.
* In the future at the time of writing. [read] Keywords: |
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Angry Virus
Tue, Sep 9th 2008 8:05p Christopher W Linfoot
This email just in:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am tired of receiving messages containing malicious computer programs (viruses) from your e-mail address!!!
If within 1-2 days you do not stop sending messages to my e-mail address, I will have to address this issue to the Police!...
Today I received a hard copy of your data logs from my Internet service provider. The copy contains your IP address, logs of sending malicious programs and your e-mail address details...
I am sending you the cop [read] Keywords: document
archive
email
virus
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18
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Off road and amphibious are not the same thing
Tue, Sep 9th 2008 5:40a Christopher W Linfoot
Here's a little clip captured on someone's mobile 'phone at the weekend, not far from where I live.
There is a ford crossing the river Cole which may usually be passed safely, even by very low slung cars, as it is typically only a few inches deep. It has been raining here recently, however.
Last weekend, the water was perhaps four feet deep and somebody decided to cross it in a new Mitsubishi 4x4... [read] Keywords: application
google
mobile
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Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers
Fri, Sep 5th 2008 6:19a Christopher W Linfoot
Here's newsworthy.
Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers has been crowned the oddest book title of the past 30 years. In The Bookseller's online poll to find the "Diagram of Diagrams" , Derek Willan's comprehensive record of a sector of Greece's postal routes gained 13% of the public vote. Gary Leon Hill's People Who Don't Know They're Dead finished second (11% of the public vote) and John Trimmer's guide to avoiding maritime mishaps, How to Avoid Huge Ships (10%) finished third. [read] Keywords: |
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Feedburner users please support this help request
Fri, Sep 5th 2008 6:04a Christopher W Linfoot
I have just posted this over at the Feedburner General Services Google Group:
I am a user of an aggregation service called Planet Lotus.
Planet Lotus is an aggregation of blogs and related content to do
primarily with IBM Lotus software. There are currently 293 blogs
aggregated by Planet Lotus and a large proportion of them use
Feedburner feeds.
Recently, Planet Lotus has been suffering significant delays acquiring
updated content from Feedburner feeds. These delays can be several
[read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
google
planet lotus
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Our Father, Which art in hadron...
Fri, Sep 5th 2008 4:28a Christopher W Linfoot
"Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot..."
-- George Harrison
There's been some speculation among those of us with brains smaller than planets (yes, I am ashamed to admit that does include me *) that the imminent commissioning of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN may yet have unintended consequences.
Those potential unintended consequences are said to include the accidental creation of a black hole by the LHC and the creation of strangelets, which could convert the enti [read] Keywords: foundations
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On babies and bathwater
Thu, Sep 4th 2008 7:59p Christopher W Linfoot
Did Volker or I inadvertently start an anti-Feedburner backlash?
There have been issues recently with Planet Lotus being very late picking up Feedburner feeds.
So far, I have read two posts by people who have fixed the problem by reverting to non-Feedburner feeds.
Could it be that the rapid arrival of posts at Planet Lotus, where they will remain somewhere near the top of the home page for perhaps thirty minutes, is so important to some publishers that they have forgotten why they switc [read] Keywords: lotus
pearl
planet lotus
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11
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SEO and link spam
Thu, Sep 4th 2008 7:59p Christopher W Linfoot
A while ago, someone wrote to me asking if I would be interested in selling text link ads on this site. I ignored him and forgot about it until he emailed again last week to remind me.
Perhaps I wasn't thinking clearly, but I wrote back seeking clarification. What, exactly did he mean by text link ads?
He replied with a list of pages on this site in which he wished to place links and saying that the links in question would be included in custom written paragraphs to be included anywhere on [read] Keywords: document
domino
show-n-tell
email
google
integration
iphone
linking
server
smtp
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Google Analytics reports Chrome as Safari
Thu, Sep 4th 2008 4:46a Christopher W Linfoot
[read] Keywords: google
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Has the shine come off Chrome already?
Wed, Sep 3rd 2008 7:59p Christopher W Linfoot
At ZDNet - Google Chrome vulnerable to carpet-bombing flaw
Google’s shiny new Web browser is vulnerable to a carpet-bombing vulnerability that could expose Windows users to malicious hacker attacks.
Just hours after the release of Google Chrome, researcher Aviv Raff discovered that he could combine two vulnerabilities — a flaw in Apple Safari (WebKit) and a Java bug discussed at this year’s Black Hat conference — to trick users into launching executables direct from [read] Keywords: apple
bug
google
java
security
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Promoting EV SSL
Mon, Sep 1st 2008 8:00p Christopher W Linfoot
This just in - an email promoting the virtue of Extended Validation SSL.
Just one problem.
It's a phish.
I guess I should have predicted that. [read] Keywords: email
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Alpha testing SP3
Mon, Sep 1st 2008 5:39a Christopher W Linfoot
Don't try this at home.
Install Windows XP SP3 on your HP or Compaq PC, the one with the AMD processor.
Watch it reboot.
Watch it reboot again.
And again.
And again.
What's going on?
Microsoft's having a tough year with reboots. First it was a reboot ad infinitum in February, brought on by a flawed update to Windows Vista. Now the same thing's happening to some users who have updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3).
Microsoft is blaming HP.
Hewlett-Packard used the s [read] Keywords: document
microsoft
vista
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Lotus Connections and the DPA
Mon, Sep 1st 2008 4:50a Christopher W Linfoot
Volker points out a "show stopper" for Lotus Connections.
Once a person is entered into the Connections system they should never be removed. Doing so may invalidate the data's consistency.
One or two commenters on Volker's article mention the Data Protection Act 1998 as a prima facie reason why this is indeed a show stopper.
They are wrong.
The Data Protection Act is frequently cited as an excuse for doing (or not doing) something which, with hindsight, appears foolish.
Couple died [read] Keywords: connections
document
domino
lotus
notes
profile
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Thank you
Mon, Sep 1st 2008 4:33a Christopher W Linfoot
I am hugely indebted to Mark Haller and LogicSpot for taking on hosting of this site for me at very short notice.
Thanks, Mark. [read] Keywords: |
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Tourist attraction?
Sun, Aug 31st 2008 7:59p Christopher W Linfoot
Like the National Gallery or the Angel of the North, HR gets a brown sign now. [read] Keywords: |
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No longer optional
Sat, Aug 30th 2008 5:03a Christopher W Linfoot
Automatic update has started pushing XP SP3 to Windows XP users.
Until recently it was optional, though I have already deployed it on a small number of personal machines used by friends and acquaintances.
There's only one significant change for me. This no longer works.
It seems that very few people ever used the option to include an address bar in their Explorer bar. Perhaps it was misnamed.
It is was more than an address bar. It is was a command line. You can could use it to do [read] Keywords: server
vista
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So thats what they do onboard the International Space Station?
Thu, Aug 28th 2008 5:59p Christopher W Linfoot
They play Maple Story?
At the Beeb - Computer viruses make it to orbit
A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS).
Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG.
The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games [including Maple Story].
It's just as well that Wintel computers do not carry out any of the I [read] Keywords: virus
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Something old, something new...
Tue, Aug 26th 2008 8:40a Christopher W Linfoot
I'm busy requesting a new Thawte X.509 certificate and I find two features of the process interesting. One is old and the other new.
The old feature?
Lotus Notes R5?
How long has it been since that was contemporary?
The new feature?
Extended Validation SSL.
That green box to the left of the page address demonstrates the real life use of an Extended Validation SSL certificate, albeit one issued to itself by the party actually using it. *
Now if only your bank would get one [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
R5
community
email
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Friend of Dorothy?
Tue, Aug 26th 2008 5:09a Christopher W Linfoot
Some people evidently don't believe my assertion that signature based AV is no longer an effective part of a security strategy.
Allow me to demonstrate again why both signature based AV and email disclaimers are not always a good thing.
Here's a recent sample of what CA is calling Win32/Auraax.I.
It seems to be the latest variant of that malware I mentioned just the other day.
This one has passed through some corporate email infrastructure which both includes a signature based AV [read] Keywords: policies
email
security
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The return of the mass mailing worm, and why you no longer need AV
Thu, Aug 21st 2008 11:00a Christopher W Linfoot
You must have seen some of these by now.
These started as purported notifications of a similar failure to deliver a package via UPS, morphed briefly into some narrative about a contract pending signature and then switched to Fedex as in this sample.
Today, we are seeing many samples purporting to be e-tickets from a variety of airlines.
These all have two characteristics in common, alongside the obvious similarity in their looks.
They use time honoured social engineering tricks to e [read] Keywords: policies
email
office
virus
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Failing to see the funny side
Wed, Aug 20th 2008 6:51a Christopher W Linfoot
Over at the Grauniad Politics Blog, Andrew Sparrow notes that critics fail to see funny side of No 10's Jeremy Clarkson video.
Apparently, rightwing bloggers are not impressed by Downing Street's response to 'Jezza is a legend' e-petition (which called for Jeremy Clarkson to be made Prime Minister).
Andrew misses the point entirely.
Right wing? Left wing? No wing at all?
Such considerations are irrelevant alongside that statement that critics fail to see the funny side, there being a [read] Keywords: notes
application
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IPv4 meets the exponential function
Tue, Aug 19th 2008 8:39a Christopher W Linfoot
Volker posted a fascinating video yesterday - Our inability to understand the exponential function.
If you didn't watch it yet, you should. It's long, but worth watching in full.
In it Dr Bartlett spends some time describing hypothetical scenarios in which, say, consumption or population grow at a steady rate until there's nothing left to consume or no space left for additional population. Shown graphically, we see a rising exponential curve, which stops abruptly and drops to zero.
Dr B [read] Keywords: javascript
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Failing to plan; part 2
Thu, Aug 14th 2008 9:17a Christopher W Linfoot
The brand spanking new Airbus A340-600 sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime.
Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how l [read] Keywords: |
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Failing to plan is planning to fail
Thu, Aug 14th 2008 6:02a Christopher W Linfoot
Over at CircleID, Patrick Vande Walle writes, with some surprise:
IPv6 Considered a Problem by Some Users. I have a Google Blog Search Alert looking for posts over IPv6 in my RSS reader. What strikes me is the number of posts explaining how to disable IPv6 in Windows Vista, MacOSX, Ubuntu and other flavours of Linux.
It looks like disabling IPv6 makes web browsing faster for a lot of people, independently of which operating system is being used. One guy even wrote in one of his posts "In [read] Keywords: google
linux
network
networking
vista
ubuntu |
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Is this a blue screen that I see before me?
Tue, Aug 12th 2008 6:09p Christopher W Linfoot
First we hear tales of faux spectators being bussed in to make the Olympics look full. Then we hear the shocking revelation that the cute little Chinese girsl who sang at the opening ceremony was miming, and that the recorded voice wasn't even hers.
But only now are the reports surfacing of the worst horror of the games so far...
Yes.
That is a Windows PC crashing horribly during the opening ceremony. [read] Keywords: |
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Cookery as art?
Mon, Aug 11th 2008 4:19a Christopher W Linfoot
On BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the chef Rick Stein says that cookery should be classed as an art.
Challenged to justify this, he explains:
"It's the piece of cod which passeth all understanding."
Delicious. [read] Keywords: |
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Debugging Domino Language Packs
Wed, Aug 6th 2008 10:53a Christopher W Linfoot
This is just plain infuriating.
We've installed some language packs on our 8.0.1 servers and expect to see this dialog on creating any new database application, using one of the multilingual templates. These, obviously, include mail8.ntf.
Trouble is, we don't see the language prompt when creating any new application based on one of these multilingual templates, and we just can't see why.
mail8.ntf, mysteriously, was not enabled as a multilingual database after the language pack insta [read] Keywords: domino
ntf
application
applications
database
server
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Dominative?
Tue, Aug 5th 2008 11:48a dominative
Don't ask... [read] Keywords: |
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Oxymoron du jour: Customer service
Sun, Aug 3rd 2008 1:05p Christopher W Linfoot
This is very odd. From The Philadelphia Enquirer...
This spring, the 69-year-old physician [Dr. Herman I. Libshitz] and his wife, Alison, were trying to upgrade the Internet service in their summer place in Rehoboth Beach, Del. They had dial-up. They wanted DSL.
When it was time to enter their user name and create an e-mail address, Verizon wouldn't let them complete the job.
This is how the doctor remembers it:
"We called their help line, and got a wonderful young man in the Philipp [read] Keywords: |
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Once bitten?
Fri, Aug 1st 2008 1:49p Christopher W Linfoot
This just in, from a sender who identifies himself only as "Foreign Affairs Minister" ZENITH BANK PLC / UNITED NATIONS 2007/2008 SCAM VICTIMS COMPENSATIONS PAYMENTS DIRECTOR.
ATTNENTION: SCAMMED VICTIM/$1,000,000 BENEFICIARIES.
REF/PAYMENTS CODE: 06654.
AMOUNT $1, 000, 000 USD.
I write to bring to your notice that I am the Nigerian new foreign affairs minister and an official delegate from the United Nations To Central Bank of Nigeria to pay 150 Nigerian 419 scam victims $1,000,000 US [read] Keywords: wiki
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Now there's a mental picture I just didn't need
Fri, Aug 1st 2008 4:34a Christopher W Linfoot
It is now not unusual to see spams with subject lines designed to fool the unwary into believing they are about to read some breaking news story or intimate details of some celeb's love life, or even to watch video of the same, but this?
I didn't deserve this. |
