Archive | December, 2002

Post dated 2002-12-21 00:00:00

Saturday, 21 December, 2002



Winter Solstice is a favorite day, even though it is the shortest day of the year.

Woke up at 1:30 this morning and knew I was gettting better. Couldn’t get back to sleep until after 3. No problem. I’m a happy guy.

Check out http://www.blogcritics.org. Interesting reviews, commentary and just general stuff. Wasted an hour browsing the site, enjoyed every minute.

The Central NH Linux user group maintains their site at http://www.centralug.org/.

Intertrust Technologies is giving Microsoft a hard time on their ownership of key Digital Restriction Management patents, according to this story. Think Microsoft will just buy them?

Post dated 2002-12-18 00:00:00

Wednesday, 18 December, 2002



A new free software CD called GNUWin II offers a bunch of free / Open Source software in an easily installable package. The rebellion continues to grow…

Total Information Awareness

The government, lead by once-convicted (later overturned) Admiral Poindexter, has established a “Total Information Awareness” counter-terrorism project. While the goal of protecting our citizens through vigilance is laudable, the reach and potential abuses of the agency are frightening. The Cato Institute warns us here that ” [UPDATE: broken link http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-03-02.html] we shouldn’t always trust the assurances of the Pentagon”. Activists are illustrating the chilling amount of information available already, turning the power of the Internet on [UPDATE: link moved] Admiral Poindexter himself. Similar stories in the [UPDATE: dead link http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20021212-45129548.htm] Washington Times and [UPDATE: dead link http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/11/20/terror.tracking/index.html] CNN.

MSNBC has a scary report on [UPDATE: dead link http://msnbc.com/news/846795.asp] fake escrow services preying on online auction participants.

Post dated 2002-12-15 00:00:00

Sunday, 15 December, 2002

Day two going coffee-free, in an experiment to try to get better behaving bowels. The headache yesterday was miserable. Finally remembered to take some Tylenol, which gave some relief.

On the bright side, we got the Christmas tree up and will be decorating it this morning.

Post dated 2002-12-14 00:00:00

Saturday, 14 December, 2002



A new client yesterday, in a real rush to resolved errors with their SourceSafe database. Seems they are getting “Access to file… Loggedin\action.log denied.” The closest I could come to a matching MSKB article was this. indicating a likelihood of a security issue.

Nope, I got blindsided. A very custom installation. They’d turned on journalling, using a UNC path, and it was failing. Worked fine with, um, the other kind of path, whatever they call than, Non-Universal, maybe.

MandrakeSoft has a “Operating System Refugee” discount deal here. Seems like a clever way to get folks to try out the package. Who doesn’t have an OS disk?

Marc Andreessen seems to thing the next IT crisis is upon us. I’m not sure he’s not just selling whatever his company makes.

Dan Bricklin shares insights and hopes about yet another generation of Tablet PCs.

Post dated 2002-12-13 00:00:00

Friday, 13 December, 2002

Friday the 13th. No triskaidekaphobia here.

Interesting coverage of the trial of a young man in Oslo, Norway, accused of writing DeCSS, software that will allow “non-authorized hardware” (like Linux computers) to read and play back DVDs. The articles are in english, but the surrounding text and advertisments, in the native tongue, are almost as intriguing.

Tim O’Reilly makes some great points about piracy, copying and shoplifting of books vs. legitimate peer-to-peer sharing in this article.

Post dated 2002-12-12 00:00:00

Thursday, 12 December, 2002

Brother Joe is on his way to Guam as part of an emergency medical team to provide support after the island was hit with a big super-cyclone, wiping out the only local hospital. Good luck, Joe.

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