I’m Asian, dorky, and male. All those things combined might suggest that I would want an Iphone. However, truth be told, I do not.
I don’t know when or why, but I’ve lost all interest in new technology. I was sad when Firefox automatically updated me to the latest version of their browser. I was disappointed when Microsoft finally released Windows Vista, and all its 6 different flavors—each equally indecipherable from the next: Windows Vista Home Media Version, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Poor-man’s edition, Windows Vista Poor-man’s edition Professional.
Is this the first road sign to Geezerville? Am I really only a few miles away?’
When and how did Myspace lose my interest, and gain my scorn? When did the Internet seem so prosaic? Haven’t I seen this site before? Haven’t I read this commentary already? Or at least a dozen like them? Why should I upload my photo’s to this site? Do I really want the whole world seeing them, does the world even care? Oh look a dancing baby, now isn’t that stupid. Forward this to 15 friends? I don’t HAVE 15 friends! Or at least I wont anymore if I forward this to them. And forward this back to the sender to confirm that we are indeed friends. Are you kidding me?
Give me a newspaper any day. I don’t care if the providence journal is free online. “Ahead of TIME: read it online before it comes in the mail”. Clever email title, but no thank you. I’ll wait.
You mean I can change my policy on the website? Wait, does this mean you’re not going to do it over the phone? Hello? Do I have to press “1” for you to keep listening?
… hello ?
(dial-tone …)
I work with a lot of textbook inventories at work, and we had a recent issue with the new ISBN13 standard. The internet had no really good tools out there so I created my own little one.
Unfortunately, it is only really useful for a very small group of people—but useful nonetheless. It is an ISBN10 to ISBN13 conversion tool. As you most likely don’t know, the standard for ISBN numbers have changed. They are no longer 10 digits, they are actually 13 digits (whoa!). Now, all the old ISBN10 numbers need to be retro-converted to ISBN13 numbers—which is a fairly simply process, but requires a little algorithm.So, reaching into the interminable wellspring of my largess, I created a free online tool that will do the conversion for people, for free. You may ask, “aren’t there already online tools that could do this?” To this, silly question, I reply, “Of course!” The Internet has made it such that every good idea you come up, someone else has already thought of it, implemented it, and Google has already allocated funds to buy it.
However, in this special case, I defer to the “mine is better” clause. Most of the tools I saw online can only do one number at a time; mine can do a whole slew of them!
Hopefully, “someone” will find this useful.
Here’s the Link! FREE BATCH ISBN-10 to ISBN-13 Online Converter Tool.
Who said you need a Mac to run Mac OSX?
I was able to install Mac OSX Panther on top of Windows XP the other day using an amazing little tool called PearPC. It’s not really a “tool” per se (Mardigan’s a tool) it’s more of an emulator that mimics the PowerPC ISA on an Intel machine. And, as an obvious consequence, running Mac OS X this way is pretty slow– but still usable.
Spam–the mosquitoes of the Internet. Since I planted my new site on some fresh soil, it has become almost a part-time job for me to try and contain the build-up of Spam from overrunning my site. Every new comment, that has something to do with Texas Holdem, or Poker, or Viagra, or that may contain a slew of links, all to sites that serve no purpose other than surreptitiously installing spy-ware on some unsuspecting victim (who is not using Firefox), and flood their computer screen with a dozen pop-up advertisements for things no one has an interest of purchasing– it has me seething at the teeth.
There are two people I would like to meet in the Spam Market. First, the filthy hoodlums that write the life-giving code behind Spam. Second, the idiots that are actually purchasing this stuff. I imagine they exist? I mean, if spammers weren’t reeling in a few pigeons for all their efforts, would they even bother?
One day I was looking for naked pictures of former attorney general Janet Reno on Google, and I clicked on this link that seemed promising. Lo and behold, about 20 windows started to pop-up, one after another. I’d close one, two more would appear, asking me to install things, and I kept saying “no”. And not the polite “no”, it was the loud and colorfully languaged “no�. Then, after clicking “no” about a dozen times, and seeing that the sea of questions were no way relenting, I did the vulcan live long and prosper on my keyboard to get it to just terminate my web browser. But, it was too late. After I restarted my computer, all of sudden it had become a nesting ground to a gross brood of various new programs that surreptitiously installed itself –like “Bargain Buddy”, and “Cool Web Search”, oh, and the ever popular and bitch to remove “Home Search Assistant”.
I was mortified by this. I think it irks computer science guys even more when stuff like this happens to them–because (arrogantly) we’re better than this. Anyway, today I finally got rid of all my spyware, without having to reinstall windows. I had one particularly pernicious one that couldn’t be removed by conventional means and proved to be quite disabling. It caused my AIM to crash, and slowed my computer down significantly; it went by the name “Home Search Assistant”.
If anyone has this listed on their “Add/Remove” programs list, and having trouble removing it, there is a great step-by-step tutorial online here that will help you out.
Anyway, I finally went Mozilla Firefox all the way now; you won�t catch me dead using Internet Explorer. I recommend you do the same if you happen to like your computer– download it: www.getfirefox.com
FYI: I was obviously kidding about looking for naked pictures of Janet Reno
(It was really for Ruth Ginsberg )
We all hate those pathetic internet scammers. Have you got the one about inheritance money in Nigeria?
Anyway, Andreas, a friend of mine from my csc436 class pointed out this neat website run by a group called Artists against 419′ers, solely dedicated to fighting back internet scammers. The way it works is pretty clever, from a computer science perspective, and it�s not very hard to understand, let me try and explain:
See, when you purchase hosting from an internet site, like my website for example, you pay for something called bandwidth. My website provider allows me to have 5 GB of transfer a month, meaning every time you load this site it takes away from my 5 GB allowance. Now to put these numbers in perspective, a visit to my site will deduct about 45k or .00042915 GB from my 5 total–which as you can see, is tiny, and with my current modest readership, there is just no way in hell I will ever exceed 5GB. But, if for some reason, I get a million people reading my site, instead of, well… 5, I just might go over this allowance.
Using this same idea, this anti-spam group has created a website that you can go to that will keep reloading websites of known spammers. You simply have to go to a website (make sure you internet cache is disabled) and when enough people do this, the websites of these spammers will eventually exceed their allotted bandwidth, bringing their websites down.
Ah yes, sweet revenge.
Here�s the link
A preponderance of useless icons on top a black conformist background–i’d have it no other way.
Does your desktop look as disgusting as mine? Send me a screenshot!
Envious that all the cool people have gmail accounts and you dont? Wish someone would invite your sorry ass? … well, I have a few gmail invites, comment with your email address and ill send one your way, free of charge.
Derick, why all the philanthropy? I guess I’m just a nice guy, what can I say.
So for my CSC320 class (Social issues in computing), I had to pick a topic in computers that has social implications and write a short essay on it. Let me tell you, picking a topic was sooo tough, expecially when he threw in the “something that interests you” limitation. Because…frankly, nothing in computers interests me anymore. With that said I decided to write about Everquest: (may be interesting to a select few) (a very select) …
Everquest
Video Games have never ceased to amaze me. It would seem as though my generation has seen the rise and fall of so many various flavors of video game consoles; and like monarchs, they are all eventually abdicated from their thrown by the next more powerful console, boasting the absolute latest technology at its disposal. At the current stage of the video game evolution, we are starting to remove the limitation of playing a game with those who you know and are locally present, to those who you don�t know and are as remote as different continents. Video Games are starting to go �online� and are polarizing the gaming population into small communities, each with their own kind of language, dialect, and rules of etiquette.
One game in particular that has highlighted the effects that online gaming can have on our society is called Everquest, an online digital world with millions of residents made up of all your fellow players. This game is so much like reality that for some, it has taken its place. There have been reports of divorce and various domestic and social issues that have stemmed from this game alone. Money acquired from within the game has actual worth outside of it as well, as users sometimes trade actual dollars for Everquest money or equipment. The popularity of this game, along with the copious hours that players invest in it has incited some to apply rather negative labels to it such as �EverCrack� and �NeverRest�, implying the game as more of a vice than a form of entertainment.
The social implication of this game, and all other�s that follow in its genre are obviously severe. Should this game be allowed for purchase? Sounds like a silly blatant infringement of our most basic rights, but is it really that silly? The effects of Everquest have been compared to those produced by most narcotics, and those are illegal. Can the makers of Everquest be held liable for a divorce caused by this game? It is a hard decision to make. Most of this may reside on whether we can trust society to exercise the discretion needed to prevent such a game from becoming an addiction. But a larger question is, do we have this right?
