The danger of working with languages that you don’t understand is that you might do something silly. Like, for example, building a road sign that says, “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”
That’s what the Welsh in this sign says. According to a story on the BBC, the top part of the sign is correct, but the bottom part was just someone’s e-mail signature.
Apparently, the sign was taken down pretty quickly.
I discovered the “Despair, Inc.” store in 2003, and have since purchased several of their demotivation products for myself and for friends.
One of their newest products is pictured. Isn’t it perfect?
“Blogging” is only available at this time as a desktop sign and in calendars. Many of the company’s products are also available as posters. Let’s hope they release a poster-version soon.
I’ve received many of these clever phishing messages, as usual coming to addresses like webmaster@, info@, privacy@, and so-on. They pretend to be from Microsoft, giving you a chance to opt out of MSN commercial messages.
However, the links go to a Web server based in China. Not only does the domain attempt to phish for information, but by merely clicking on the links confirms to the spammer that your address is legitimate.
Needless to say, they’re not from Microsoft. Don’t be trapped!
Subject: Best Sales 2008!
You are receiving this e-mail because you subscribed to MSN Featured Offers. Microsoft respects your privacy. If you do not wish to receive this MSN Featured Offers e-mail, please click the “Unsubscribe” link below. This will not unsubscribe you from e-mail communications from third-party advertisers that may appear in MSN Feature Offers. This shall not constitute an offer by MSN. MSN shall not be responsible or liable for the advertisers’ content nor any of the goods or service advertised. Prices and item availability subject to change without notice.
©2008 Microsoft | Unsubscribe | More Newsletters | Privacy
Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052
Recessions and other tough economic climates often hit marketing budgets pretty hard. That was certainly the case when the bubble popped in 2000/2001. However, according to the Association of National Advertisers, more than a quarter of marketers plan to increase spending despite downturn.
According to a recent ANA survey, marketers responded:
How will you adjust your current marketing and media plans to account for the recent downturn in the financial markets?
• Spending will be reduced (33%)
• Spending will be constant / marketing mix will be reallocated (33%)
• Surprisingly, we will spend more (27%)
• No changes, we will keep everything status quo (8%)
How does your CEO view your marketing efforts with respect to growth?
• As a brand-building investment (56%)
• As an unaccountable but necessary expense (21%)
• Not sure (15%)
• As an unnecessary expense (8%)
As you look toward 2009, how much do you plan to spend on marketing vs. 2008?
• Increase spending more than 10% (26%)
• Increase spending less than 10% (13%)
• Hold stable (28%)
• Decrease spending less than 10% (14%)
• Decrease spending more than 10% (19%)
See the full results for more data.
This one’s hard to figure out. The message originated from an ISP in India and came through to one of our info@ addresses.
There was no response to my query when I wrote back to “Sarah.” What do you think the deal is? My guess is that they’re going to solicit up-front funds to pay to ship the probably non-existant van and equipment.
Subj: Donation Inquiry.
Hi,
My name is Sarah Collins and I own a veterinary clinic where I practice both exotic and companion animal medicine.
We recently acquired new medical supplies and a new mobile van and now offering to donate one ultrasound, autoclave and a pre-used mobile van.
Please give me detailed information about your work and let me know if these contributions would benenfit your organization.
Best Wishes,
Sarah Collins
B.S., Veterinary Science.
D.V.M.,Veterinary Medicine.
Ph.D.,Veterinary Physiology.
While I’ve been on a short vacation from blogging, it’s only because I’ve spent two weeks on the road, most recently at the EclipseWorld 2008 conference in Reston, Va.
EclipseWorld 2008 truly is a great conference. The energy of the speakers and the attendees is tremendous. The highlights were the keynote talks, first by Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, and then by Ivar Jacobson, one of the biggest thinkers in software development. I’ll be writing more about Ivar’s funny and thought-provoking talk soon.
And now — onto our next big conference project: SPTechCon, the SharePoint Technology Conference! It’ll be held Jan. 27-29, here in the Bay Area (at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, near San Francisco Airport). Check it out at www.sptechcon.com.
Hope to see you there!
My wife is very, very proud of her old secondary school, Shawlands Academy, which was named the United Kingdom’s greenest school.
According to a story in the Evening Times,
Shawlands Academy in the South Side of Glasgow is celebrating being named the UK’s greenest school.
Staff and pupils, who describe themselves as “the next generation of pollution fighters”, were given a special award for environmental sustainability.
Judges were particularly impressed by a cycle rental scheme, where youngsters can pay £30 a year to rent a bike and cycle to school.
Another innovation is a scheme that rewards students for choosing healthy options at lunchtime.
To conserve energy, sensors control the lighting system and the toilets.
Shawlands Academy was also the UK representative in an international project that saw it working alongside schools from Sweden, Cyprus and France on a number of green projects.
Here’s the “PR pitch of the day,” which came to our newspaper’s info@ e-mail address.
Guess how much time, rounded up to the nearest nanosecond, we’re going to spend compiling a list of “technology stories” that our reporters are working on, just so that Jackie can match them up with her clients?
If you guessed any positive integer, you overestimated.
Subj: Upcoming Tech Story
It’s Jackie with _________; how are you? I was just wondering what, if any, technology stories you’re currently working on. I have a few clients that I thought could be of interest to you, but I don’t want to waste your time with an irrelevant pitch.
I hope all is well and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Thanks,
Jackie
Nobody does aluminum like Apple.
Apple’s new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks, introduced a week ago, are drop-dead gorgeous. That’s about all you can say about them, compared to the older models.
The prices are the same as the previous generation. The size is about the same. Weight is actually higher. Sure, the new entry price is $999, but that’s for a white polycarbonate plastic MacBook model that’s essentially a leftover from the previous product line. The new aluminum models are just as pricey as the old ones.
The under-the-hood modifications are a new NVIDIA graphics chip set that blows the socks off the old Intel chipset, and a next-generation set of Intel processors that seem to boost speed by about 20% on the MacBook, and 5-10% on the MacBook Pro. That’s all good.
One techie friend claimed that I was underwhelmed because I hadn’t seen the machines. However, I had seen them. Yes, the new machines are beautiful. But that’s not a reason to go ooh and ahh, as much of the media seems to be doing.
Apple also gave us LED-based screen lighting, which is nice. Battery life might be a little better, but it’s too early to tell. A 128GB solid-state hard disk is available on the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
But what don’t we have?
• A new 17-MacBook Pro. If you want 17 inches, they still sell the old model. Rumor is that the 17-inch one using the new design will appear in a few months.
• Blu-ray optical drives. Not sure if there’s demand, but they’re already showing up in Windows notebooks.
• A 500GB internal hard drive option. I was sure we’d see that.
• A really significant gain in processor speed. While the MacBook got a decent boost, the Pro didn’t gain much at all.
And what have we given up?
• A standard DVI connector on the MacBook Pro. External monitors now require an adapter.
• FireWire 400 connectors on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. That means no more Target Disk Mode, and terrible support for external drives and cameras. USB 2.0 is not a good substitute for FireWire 400 for high-bandwidth connectivity. (There’s still FireWire 800 on the MacBook Pro.)
• A left mouse button. The new models have a solid glass trackpad. You click by tapping the trackpad. I wanted to gain a right mouse button, not lose the left mouse button!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see anything, beyond the beautiful aluminum case, to get excited about, and much to be disappointed in. If you want a MacBook or MacBook Pro, try to get a deal on left-over inventory of the older models.
The U.S. Presidential elections are being fought in Main Street, on Wall Street — and on Broadband Avenue. YouTube, blogs, RSS feeds… those are all just as important as televised debates, robo-calls and TV advertisements.
Every four years, we see new technologies and new attention being given to the Internet. It’s easy to forget that despite the particular domains and file formats in Election 2008, this has been going on for better than a decade.
If you read (or re-read) Wayne Rash’s seminal book, “Politics on the Net: Wiring the Political Process,” published in 1997, you can see how far we’ve come. You’ll also see that much hasn’t really changed in the past few elections.
Sadly, Wayne’s book is out of print. You can still find used copies, or take it out of your local library.
I remember a funny Dilbert cartoon series where the Pointy-Haired Boss’s company won the contract to redesign the U.S. air traffic control system. Dilbert and his colleagues immediately invested their life savings in a bus company.
That brings up the question:
Do you trust your architects, your designers, your programmers and your testers — and their management — enough to fly on an airplane running software written by your team? Would you bet your life against the quality of your code?
That’s the question asked by Edward J. Correia in this week’s edition of Test & QA Report. You’ve gotta read the story.
Microsoft shipped Silverlight 2 today, sort of. While the company said that the software was “released” today, Monday, Oct. 13, it won’t be available for download until tomorrow, Tuesday, Oct. 14.
According to Microsoft, these are the highlights of Silverlight 2:
• .NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.
• Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more.
• Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.
• Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.
• Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems.
• Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.
• Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences.
• Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support.
• Vibrant partner ecosystem. Visual Studio Industry Partners such as ComponentOne LLC, Infragistics Inc. and Telerik Inc. are providing products that further enhance developer capabilities when creating Silverlight applications using Visual Studio.
• Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.
One area where Microsoft is definitely breaking new ground is in its indirect support for an Eclipse project. Here’s what Microsoft says about tools:
Microsoft announced plans to support additional tools for developing Silverlight applications by providing funding to Soyatec, a France-based IT solutions provider and Eclipse Foundation member, to lead a project to integrate advanced Silverlight development capabilities into the Eclipse IDE. Soyatec plans to release the project under the Eclipse Public License Version 1.0 on SourceForge and submit it to the Eclipse Foundation as an open Eclipse project.
Microsoft also will release the Silverlight Control Pack and publish on MSDN the technical specification for the Silverlight Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary. The SCP, which will augment the powerful built-in control set in Silverlight, will be released under the Microsoft Permissive License, an Open Source Initiative-approved license, and includes controls such as DockPanel, ViewBox, TreeView, Accordion and AutoComplete. The Silverlight XAML vocabulary specification, released under the Open Specification Promise (OSP), will better enable third-party ISVs to create products that can read and write XAML for Silverlight.
“The Silverlight Control Pack under the Microsoft Permissive License really addresses the needs of developers by enabling them to learn how advanced controls are authored directly from the high-quality Microsoft implementation,” said Miguel de Icaza, vice president, Engineering, Novell. “By using the OSP for the Silverlight vocabulary, they further solidify their commitment to interoperability. I am impressed with the progress Microsoft continues to make, and we are extremely satisfied with the support for Moonlight and the open source community.”
Beyond funding development in the free Eclipse IDE, Microsoft currently delivers state-of-the-art tools for Silverlight with Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio 2. In addition, support is now extended to Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, which is a free download.
This morning’s mail brought an official-looking message with an European Union Taxation and Customs Union banner… addressed to our info@ email account. It claims to be from the europa.eu domain, but the message actually originated from the pelayanweb.com domain, which is a hosting service in Malaysia.
The message is a straightforward phishing attempt, offering a faux tax refund as bait to snag your bank-account info. Don’t be scammed, don’t be fooled!
Dear Financial Customer,
This is in reference to your account with a financial institution in one of the participating EU Countries, in light of the 2008 Tax System relating to the EU Savings Tax Directive. We believe you have over the years been charged Taxes on your account which normally should not apply to your status as a non resident.
The Directive is an agreement between the Member States of the European Union (EU), which require each Member State to exchange information with each other about EU residents who earn interest on savings and investments in one EU Member State, but live in another.
To avoid withholding Tax/ double Taxation on your non-resident SAVER, BROKERAGE AND INSURANCE ACCOUNTS, since you are non EU resident we will require you fill a simple confidential Tax form that will be sent to you by fax or email upon your response. We advice that you provide a confidential fax number or email so our office can forward to you immediately the Tax form
We will require you to fill/sign and return to our office through our confidential email or fax numbers below before the 3oth of October 2008. Once we receive and review your application any unlawful Tax on your account since the inception of the EU Savings Tax Directive in 2005 will be refunded to you with interest. Please submit separate forms for your checking, savings and fixed deposit accounts
László Kovács
Commissioner
Today’s new phishing scam is an attempt to steal your Google AdWords account information and/or a credit-card number. I received two identical messages today, sent to email accounts that most definitely aren’t set up with Google AdWords.
One came from the spoofed address email hidden; JavaScript is required, and had the subject line “Please re-submit your payment information.” The other came from the spoofed address email hidden; JavaScript is required, and had the subject line, “Your ads in this account are not running.”
Beyond that, both messages were trying to get me to click on a link that looked a Google URL, but actually belonged to a non-Google server. Don’t be fooled! Don’t be scammed!
Here’s what the message said:
Hello,
Our attempt to charge your credit card for your
outstanding Google AdWords account balance was declined.
Your account is still open. However, your ads have been suspended. Once
we are able to charge your card and receive payment for your account
balance, we will re-activate your ads.
Please update your billing information, even if you plan to use the
same credit card. This will trigger our billing system to try charging
your card again. You do not need to contact us to reactivate your
account.
To update your primary payment information, please follow these steps:
1. Log in to your account at
2. Enter your primary payment information.
3. Click ‘Update’ when you have finished.
In the future, you may wish to use a backup credit card in order to
help ensure continuous delivery of your ads. You can add a backup
credit card by visiting your Billing Preferences page or visit the
AdWords Help Centre for more details:
Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to
providing you with the most effective advertising available.
The Google AdWords Team
Here’s a big shout-out for the Eclipse Foundation, which is throwing a an attendee party at EclipseWorld 2008! They’ve hosted parties like this at previous EclipseWorld conferences, and they’re always great.
This year’s Eclipse Foundation Party is on Wednesday, Oct. 29, from 7:00-9:00 PM. It take place immediately after our Afternoon Keynote (Ivar Jacobson) and Opening Reception.
A number of the Eclipse project leaders and committers will be on hand to demo their projects and answer your questions. Come early to chat and network with some of the leaders of the Eclipse projects.
See you there!
Here’s a notice that I received from Netflix today:
Dear Alan,
As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies. As a result, we’re going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.
The additional charge for unlimited Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for $1 a month more, you don’t need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.
If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
Let’s do the math, starting with a brand-new release, Iron Man. (Great movie.) I’m sure that Netflix can do better than Amazon.com’s pricing, but let’s use that as a guideline.
• Iron Man “Ultimate Two-Disc Edition” Blu-Ray: $25.95
• Iron Man “Two-Disc Special Collectors’ Edition” DVD: $24.99
There’s a about dollar difference, retail. Probably Netflix will pay a lot less. Given how many times Netflix is going to rent that disc, it hardly seems justified to pass that dollar cost along to the consumer.
I must thank my friend PJ for this wonderful framed poster, dating back from the mid-1980s.
It now lives in a place of honor at BZ West. What a great gift!
Got Facebook? If so, join our new social group, SD Times Readers. We’d love to have you!
Social networking is an interesting phenomenon. Some social networks that I belong to are super useful. Some are completely worthless. Some work great using low-tech solutions like e-mail lists. Others are thriving thanks to the latest technology. We’re in a period that combines extreme experimentation with high-speed evolution. It’s fascinating to watch, but even better to participate in. Social networking is one sport that doesn’t play well from the sidelines.
We’re dipping our toes into the water with our Facebook group. What’s it going to look like a month from now, or a year from now? I have no idea. We might have 100 members. We might have 1,000 members. We might have 100,000 members, bringing together subscribers to SD Times and its newsletters, as well as everyone who visits SDTimes.com. There’s no way to predict.
What’s going to happen in the SD Times Readers group? Again, it’s hard to know. We might have technical discussions about multithreaded development. We might have in-depth discussions about the best Java application server, or the best .NET grid control. We might have software development managers sharing their family photos. With your help, we’ll have all the above.
So, what are you waiting for? Come join the SD Times Readers group and take part in the fascinating social networking revolution.
Coffee in California, or at least in the Bay Area, doesn’t taste right. One reason, of course, is because when I’m on the East Coast, I frequent delicious Dunkin’ Donuts coffee shops. But even when I make Dunkin’ Donuts coffee at home (we order the beans online), it doesn’t taste as good as it should.
Why? Because when you’re on the East Coast, if you ask for cream in your coffee, you really get cream in your coffee. Not half-and-half. Light cream, aka coffee cream. Here in the Bay Area, the best you can put into your coffee is half-and-half.
Half-and-half is about 10-18% fat.
Light cream is from 18-30% fat.
Coffee tastes very different with light cream than it does with half-and-half, just like it tastes different with half-and-half than it does with milk.
For example, Oakhurst Dairy, in Portland, Maine, offers both half-and-half and light cream for putting into coffee.
You might think that light cream is bad for you, with too much fat. It’s not, because you don’t have to pour much into your coffee to make it yummy. Compare Oakhurst’s light cream against its half-and-half:
Light cream (serving size 15mL, or one tablespoon):
Calories: 30
Calories from fat: 25
Total fat: 2.5 grams
Half-and-half (serving size 30mL, or two tablespoons):
Calories: 40
Calories from fat: 30
Total fat: 3.0 grams
So, while light cream is indeed richer than half-and-half, it has less fat and fewer calories per serving, because you use less. Plus, it tastes better!
This email just came in… it’s a scam.
The message contains a link that looks like it’s from amazon.co.uk, but actually goes to to a doramail.com Web server that mimics the Amazon.co.uk login page. Don’t be fooled!
From: “Amazon.co.uk”
Subject: Amazon Marketplace Items Canceled
Dear member,
Per your request,your listings for the following items in the Amazon Marketplace have been canceled. You were assessed no fees.
(link is here)
Your items no longer appear in the Amazon catalog, and cannot be purchased. You can review the details of your cancelled listings, including the price, condition, and seller comments for each individual listing.
In a keynote address to nearly 43,000 OpenWorld attendees, Oracle Chief Executive Officer, Larry Ellison unveiled the HP Oracle Database Machine, a system designed for extreme performance data warehouses…
Thus begins a press release from Oracle. I had thought about writing a blog entry that makes fun of the name, “the HP Oracle Database Machine,” but that would be too easy, far beneath my dignity.
Instead, I’ll just sit here in front of my Dell Liquid Crystal Display Machine, which is connected to my Apple Notebook Computing Machine, while listening to songs playing on my Apple Portable Music Playing Machine, and think about something else to write about.
Kidding aside, HP and Oracle have come up with a pretty impressive system. The Database Machine is a full 42U rack filled with with eight HP ProLiant DL360 servers running Oracle Database 11g, along with 14 HP ProLiant DL180 servers (aka “Oracle Exabyte Storage Servers”). Total capacity: 168 terabytes.
Here’s a “supporting quote” helpfully supplied by Orcle’s media relations team:
“For the first time, customers can get smart performance storage designed for Oracle data warehouses, that is ten times faster,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
I’m a big fan of singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega. That meant a major disappointment last May, when she came to the IMAC Theater, within walking distance of our Huntington, N.Y., headquarters office, to kick off her most recent tour… but on a date when I couldn’t be in New York. Dang!
“Tom’s Essay,” Suzanne’s blog post in today’s New York Times, describes the history of her song “Tom’s Diner.” It also discusses how that song may be the driving impetus for the creation of the MP3 audio standard. Fascinating!
“Tom’s Diner” is the lead song from Suzanne’s 1987 album, “Solitude Standing.” She wrote a blog post about “Luka,” the other big hit single from that album, for the New York Times back in June.
Elation when the Large Hadron Collider went online. Sadness when a major glitch caused a helium leak, because now the system won’t be back online until the spring.
The LHC is huge. I mean, I’ve toured the Stanford Linear Accelerator, which is an impresive 2 miles long. The LHC has a circumference of 17 miles. That’s seriously big.
Wondering what the LHC is all about? Want to know why smashing counter-rotating streams of hadrons (large subatomic particles made up of quarks) into each other at temperatures colder than outer space is important to physics?
Just watch this five-minute video. It’s Educational! It’s Science! It’s the Large Hadron Rap! (It was written and produced by Kate McAlpine, aka Alpinekat, a researcher on the ATLAS project at the LHC.)
My friend Phil Spiegel has written a wonderful book, entitled “Triumph Over Tyranny: The Heroic Campaigns That Saved 2,000,000 Soviet Jews.”
The hardcover will come out on Oct. 10. You can pre-order the book from Amazon.com right now. In the meantime, you can check out Phil’s Web site for the book. As he writes,
Shalom Chaverim,
My book, TRIUMPH OVER TYRANNY: The Heroic Campaigns that Saved 2,000,000 Soviet Jews, is now being printed and will be released by Devora Publishing of Jerusalem and New York on October 10, 2008. I invite you all to visit the book’s new website, www.triumphovertyranny.com.
The site will enable you to:
• See the book’s cover and a list of its chapters
• Read an overview of the book, my bio, and Natan Sharansky’s foreword
• Check out reviews of the book
• Find out where and when I’m doing book signing events
• Order signed copies of the book
• Link to websites from organizations who support Jews from the FSU
• Learn about the “Unsung Hero of the Month”
Please join me in supporting Phil’s diligent scholarship. “Triumph of Tyranny” has been years in the making, and I hope you’ll agree that he has done a tremendous job of documenting important history and genuine heroism.
Some more about Phil:
Philip Spiegel and his wife, Carolyn Kommel Spiegel, traveled to the Soviet Union in 1985 and 1987 as participants in the Moscow Marathon. They also visited and befriended refuseniks in Russia,Armenia and Azerbaijan. When they returned to California the Spiegels gave numerous talks about their findings in the Soviet Union and organized letter writing campaigns supporting resfuseniks and prisoners of conscience.
From 1985 to 1995 the Spiegels served on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews. During this time the author was chairman of the Social Action Committee of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto and represented the congregation on the local Jewish Community Relations Council.
During his professional career in the electronics industry Spiegel authored technical papers, marketing materials and training courses. In 2000 he wrote and published Remembering Ottynia, a 64-page book about his parents’ hometown in Ukraine. Copies of the book were donated to several Holocaust museums in the United States and Israel and the book was accepted by Yad Vashem as a Yizkor (memorial) book.
Since 2002, Spiegel has researched the history of the international Soviet Jewry movement and interviewed over 200 activists, political leaders, former refuseniks and prisoners of conscience. He has presented several lectures on his research and in 2006 he developed and taught “The Journey of Soviet Jewry,” a five-session course for Lehrhaus Judaiaca, the Adult School for Jewish Studies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
You’d think that when an airline makes a change to your itinerary, the change would make sense. But no! Sometimes it doesn’t.
Later this year, I’m making a quick trip from San Francisco to Tampa. My return flights were as follows:
1. United #1531, departs Tampa at 11:00am, arrives Denver at 1:00pm
2. United #98, departs Denver at 4:30pm, arrives San Francisco at 6:10pm
But today, were told that the flights were automatically rescheduled by United. Apparently, the Tampa-Denver flight was canceled. Here’s what United put me on:
1. United #1581, departs Tampa at 11:20am, arrives Chicago at 2:51pm
2. United #679, departs Chicago at 3:42pm, arrives San Diego at 6:06pm
3. United #746, departs San Diego at 7:00pm, arrives San Francisco at 8:35pm
What type of crazy algorithm is that? Why did United’s automated system route me from Chicago to San Francisco via San Diego? That makes no sense.
A quick call to United straightened it out. The agent said, “Oh, no, that’s not good,” and quickly rebooked me onto:
1. United #1581, departs Tampa at 11:20am, arrives Chicago at 2:51pm
2. United #149, departs Chicago at 3:42pm, arrives San Francisco at 5:46pm
I’m happy: This is an even better itinerary (later departure, earlier arrival) than my original flights via Denver. But what in the world was United thinking?
The Adventures of IP Man is the new comic strip put out by Broadvox, a VoIP company. Designed, of course, to promote the benefits of Voice over Internet Protocol Technology, the strip is cutely drawn, but shallow and unsubtle.
Our superhero, IP Man, and his simian sidekick, Metoo, take on the evil Mr. Bellhead — a Darth Vader lookalike who loves circuit-switched networks — and his minions, Noise and Jitter. The strip has a few jokes, breaks the fourth wall (as Mr. Bellhead appeals to “Mr. Comicwriter Man” for an army of clones), and a 100% male cast.
Sadly, Broadvox made the implementation of the IP Man site far too complicated. It’s very “flashy,” which makes it slow and tedious to read the comic. Frankly, just displaying each comic book episode as a series of multi-strip HTML pages would be far more friendly. Oh, lose the cheesy background music, okay?
Our conference chairman, David Rubinstein, has finished moving all the classes around, and that means that we can open registration. Hurray!
SPTechCon, the SharePoint Technology Conference, will be held January 27-29, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency SFO, in Burlingame, Calif.:
For three exciting days in January, you’ll be eating, drinking, sleeping, talking and living Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services. The first day at SPTechCon is filled with intense half-day workshops, half in the morning, half in the afternoon. The next two days contain dozens of 75-minute concurrent classes that you won’t want to miss.
Are you an IT professional? Business manager or analyst? Systems administrator? Developer? If you said “yes,” then SPTechCon is for you.
Are you new to SharePoint? Have some experience, but are looking for more? An expert looking for advanced skills? If you said “yes,” then SPTechCon is for you.
We have eXtreme Early Bird rates through Friday, Oct. 17. It’s a huge discount — $600 off the full price for the three-day conference. Check out the conference site, or jump right into the registration system to sign up.
I think that’s what Microsoft wants. In any case, they are running a big promotion selling Office Ultimate 2007 for $59.95. The promotion is called “The Ultimate Steal.” The company says you can save 91% off the estimated retail price.
Isn’t Microsoft against stealing software? The company goes to tremendous lengths to stop Windows XP and Windows Vista from being stolen. The Genuine Advantage program, for example, has been known to arbitrarily decide that legally licensed versions of Windows are pirated, and it’s up to you, Mr. or Ms. Consumer, to convince Microsoft otherwise.
The Ultimate Steal is only for the Windows version of Office Ultimate 2007. There’s no comparable program for Office 2008 for Macintosh.
It’s also only for college or university students. “You must have a valid e-mail address at an educational institution ending with the domain suffix .EDU,” or attend one of a group of listed schools that don’t use the .EDU domain.
There’s a lot of stuff in Office Ultimate 2007. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Groove, Publisher, Access, InfoPath and even Accounting Express. It’s quite a “steal”!
Microsoft built some great features into its Zune music player. Not enough, apparently, to break Apple’s lock on the market with the iPod product family, it’s true. However, if someone just compares the specs of current Zune hardware and software against that of the Zune, the Zune ain’t so bad.
Yes, I mean the FM radio. That’s the one “killer” feature that Apple doesn’t include with the iPod. With most iPod models, you can add an external FM tuner, either from Apple or from third-party providers. Even so, I really wish that Apple had included a radio.
The other big plus is the Zune Pass subscription, which gives full access to the Zune store for $14.99/month. Says Microsoft:
For the price of just one CD a month, you can download and listen to millions of tracks from Zune Marketplace* whenever you want. The songs are yours to keep as long as you keep your Zune Pass valid.
Just get a Zune Pass that’s good for either one or three months at a time. Charge it directly to your credit card, or enter a code from a prepaid card.
Songs you get with a Zune Pass can be copied to up to three computers and three Zune players, but they can’t be burned to CD. If you want to do that, buy those songs with Microsoft Points.
On Sept. 16, Microsoft released a major upgrade to the Zune software. Version 3.0 is focused on making it easier for customers to buy software online. The biggest news is that customers can now download software “over the air” from the Zune Marketplace store.
The Zune 3.0 software also provides a feature similar to Apple’s new Genius. The “Your Picks” software suggests songs in the Zune Marketplace that are similar to those that are already loaded into your music collection, while “Channels” generates dynamic playlists based on your taste. However, Microsoft goes farther: You can also download dynamic playlists based on suggestions from radio stations and magazines.
Very clever. Will it be enough to boost the Zune? Probably not; Apple has too much of a head start, and the extra Zune features only appeal to those who are shopping by doing a feature comparison. I doubt that many new iPod buyers even look at competing technology, and once you’re into the ecosystem, the switching costs are high.
I received this email — sent to a “bcc” distribution list — from Tom Brennan, organizer of the OWASP 2008 conference next week in New York. OWASP is the Open Web Application Security Project.
The contents of the email are interesting and provocative enough to share them verbatim. (I’m not associated with the conference.) You can read more about clickjacking on Jeremiah’s blog.
———-
Subject: Microsoft/Adobe Researcher Talk @ OWASP
Below is a email from Robert Hansen concerning himself and Jeremiah Grossman of WhiteHat Security, being suppressed from speaking about a critical information security flaw that has been discovered and they had planned to uncover and discuss at the OWASP Security Conference event on 9/24.
As the OWASP event organizer, this critical issue does deserve your attention. I am sure if your browser, video and microphone was taken over by someone who wanted to conduct surveillance, industrial espionage or hack your system and use the vulnerability against you and millions of users you would want to fully understand the threat. Well this is in fact the situation described below and I believe that a information security conference with industry peers from around the world IS the place to discuss/debate topics such as these and they should NOT be suppressed by anyone.
Read below from the security researchers and speakers, you can contact me or the researchers below for more information.
BTW — This is not the only security person that will be providing breaking research, however this is the 1st that has been told not to talk about it thus far.
Brennan
—–Original Message—–
From: Robert Hansen
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2008 3:07 PM
To: Tom Brennan
Cc: Jeremiah Grossman
Subject: Clickjacking speech
Hello, Tom. I’m sorry to say, Jeremiah and I will have to pull our talk from the World OWASP conference. It turns out that the issue Jeremiah and I found expands over many different browsers and different vendors. Although clickjacking in some way or another has been known for a while as a possible attack vector, it was poorly documented and poorly researched. Not until recently did we begin doing research into other things it allows, and only then did we figure out exactly how dangerous it potentially was. Unfortunately we found this information out only days ago.
Even initially Jeremiah and I had a visceral reaction to our findings — and not much makes security guys cringe, which made us think it was a talk worth giving. Being concerned researchers, we contacted Adobe to warn them about one issue that affected them and their users. Although we didn’t believe it was their fault, they felt obliged to issue a patch, rather than rely on browser vendors. Only later did we realize we had found a separate flaw in their software. Successively we found other flaws in other software as a result of that research. It was a snowball effect.
Adobe asked us for more time, and we obliged. It’s good news for them, but unfortunately it means we won’t be able to do our speech. It was never our intention to harm any one vendor, but rather to show a problem in browser architecture as it stands today. So although Adobe’s request was unexpected, given our initial tenant, we feel obliged to honor it. We’ve been in contact with two browser vendors (Microsoft and Mozilla) and explained the problem. There may be small short term patches that will mitigate parts of the problem, but a better solution is probably not in the cards for the near future given the complexity of the issues involved.
During our communications with browser vendors it was initially thought to be a stand-alone problem that only affected Adobe, but after further analysis everyone concluded it is a more generic attack that may break some security measures put in place by websites. Users who want to protect themselves from the immediate issue need to disable scripting and plugins within the browsers, but because most users won’t know how to do this, we had to give Adobe some time to issue a patch. While that’s not a great solution, it’s the best we can offer at the moment. While the exploits we found are not the end of the internet, we felt it was best to work with the vendors and give them time to issue patches before releasing our speech to the security community.
We are obviously disappointed that we can’t deliver our speech, but we thought a neutered speech that left out critical details would diminish the message. And the message is — it’s pretty bad. If you or any of the other conference organizers have any additional questions feel free to contact either Jeremiah or I. Adobe’s PSIRT team also said that they would field questions at email hidden; JavaScript is required. I’m truly sorry!
Robert Hansen, CISSP
CEO — SecTheory LLC