Sun, 21 Feb 2010

Taking the plunge

In my pursuit of experimenting with as many virtualization options as possible, I'm upgrading my box to Ubuntu 10.4 (yeah, it's only Alpha at the moment) so that I can try out the Eucalyptus and Xen offerings. If I disappear for awhile, it's probably a safe bet that I've done something horribly wrong to my rig. More later. joat: 10:13:32 21 Feb 2010

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Sat, 28 Mar 2009

What it ain't...

Having just listened to Steve Balmer's speech (it wasn't an interview) on the Gartner podcast, I offer this in response: you should notice that no one is saying that 7 is rewritten from the ground up. That's right kiddies: when you line up to buy 7, what you'll be getting is Vista with various stuff scraped off (but not the DRM). Could this be why MS is still going with the six different versions? Don't get me wrong, 7 Beta runs wonderfully. However, you should be paying attention to what's not being talked about by the marketing department (i.e., there's stuff there they'd rather not discuss). I imagine that the Home Basic version will still suck royally and that MS will expect a few hundred (if not more) bucks for the upgrade. It'd be nice if we could get out of the Vista morass for $99 (flat). I'm not holding my breath though. joat: 00:46:52 28 Mar 2009

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Thu, 01 Jan 2009

Wait! Wut?

So the official fix for your dead Zune is time (i.e., wait until the new year starts)?! I guess MS expects you to not have your Zune when the next Leap Day rolls around. If this issue can't be fixed via firmware upgrade, this will be a PR, technical, and logistical nightmare (think: having to repair devices without losing DRM'd music). Mark your calendars kids! If this doesn't get fixed, and you still have your 30GB Zune on December 31st, 2012, it'll probably be dead again. joat: 23:21:30 1 Jan 2009

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Sun, 28 Dec 2008

Retroactive change?

One more reason to be extremely careful about what you do or say on the Internet, especially if you think you're hidden behind "anonymous": retroactive changes to privacy policies. MS surely isn't winning points this week, what with this policy change and announcing the per-hour Office subscription. joat: 16:39:27 28 Dec 2008

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Fri, 09 May 2008

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Chris Soghoian's post, "IRS web site opens door to phishers" prompted me to visit the web site. In attempting to connect to the secure site, Firefox spit up the warning below. Note to any IRS webmaster: this is NOT how it's supposed to be done! joat: 05:53:33 9 May 2008

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Sat, 26 Apr 2008

Yeah! Wut?

Either Alec Saunders is completely ignorant about his former employer or he's playing at being a troll. His post entitled "Microsoft's Contribution Was TCP/IP" lacks a serious amount of "clue". Actually, the TCP/IP stack was "borrowed" and then implemented poorly. I think that by using the phrase "by ensuring a relatively bug-free implementation of IP", it's a indication that Alec: wasn't there, was in marketing (and therefore ignored anything the programmers said), or is just a clueless journalist A little research shows that he was actually a director of marketing, meaning that (at best) he knew the features but not the bugs. Windows 95 had a secure TCP/IP stack?! Buahahahaha....[**gasp**].hahahaha.... For some reason, Alec has no memory of the horrendous amount of crap and pain we (as network operators) went through in the late 90's and early 00's. Could there have been that much separation between the various MS departments at the time? joat: 09:34:11 26 Apr 2008

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Thu, 20 Mar 2008

Goolag redo

Okay, so I got the description of Goolag wrong. Mostly, it's my fault for not realizing that I'm supposed to download a binary executable from a known hacker site (yeah, that's a smart move). That from a page where the main focus is a search bar and the download link is formatted so that it appears as a "feature" on a page titled "Goolaq". A little bit of design knowledge (instead of "adapting" formats) and visitors might not make the incorrect assumption. Mixing what is supposed to be a legitimate link for a download into what is supposed to be a parody leads to confusion such as this. It's like your pastor telling a dirty joke during a sermon. At best, it leaves people scratching their heads. Again, my apologies for the confusion, especially to Corey Nachreiner. To the guy calling himself "ass", I won't "moderate your comment up". You've yet to say anything constructive. I've posted this retraction instead. Please realize that I've never claimed to be a "l33t h4x0r" like you. In any case, from this humble n00b, thank you for your input! joat: 07:01:00 20 Mar 2008

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Thu, 28 Feb 2008

Goolag

Corey Nachreiner, over at WatchGuard, posted that the cDc has created Goolag as an aid to Google hacking (the term of using Google to find vulnerable devices or programs). Corey's declaration is a bit off of the mark in that Goolag is actually only a custom interface to search the cDc kruft space. In other words, you get to search all of the web for stuff that's related to (or at least mentionds) the cDc, not the all of Google's "discoveries", as evidenced by the following to screenshots. Either one of those searches should have turned up hundreds, if not thousands of references to web cams. You can reproduce this "research" by going to Goolag and typing in "view" or "web cam" and then comparing it with a similar search via the normal Google interface (actually, Google will most likely block your search as an attempt at Google hacking, but it will report millions of hits). joat: 06:25:21 28 Feb 2008

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