Geek Stuff category archive

The weakest link in security: the Problem Exists Between the Chair And Keyboard.

The moral of the story: Whatever OS you use, do not go online without a firewall and an anti-virus.

Bloomberg:

Corporate fascination with Twitter, a blend of instant messaging and blogging known as “micro-blogging,” is intensifying as companies seek new ways to reach consumers in the recession. Twitter users post 140-character “Tweets” about whatever’s on their mind, giving companies a unique opportunity to pounce on consumers right as they express an interest in buying something, said analyst Charlene Li.

“It’s the ability to tap into somebody’s interest at the moment it’s expressed,” said Li, founder of Altimeter Group, a San Mateo, California-based research firm that specializes in social technology.

Todd, in a recent podcast, stated that he had learned the GoDaddy, one of his sponsor, has started providing tech support via Twitter, in addition to using more traditional methods.

Man, when I worked support, I would have loved to limit some of the callers the 144 words.

In their latest podcast, Free Linux Help Line explodes the anti-Linux old Windows’ wives’ tales.

To downadup or not to downadup:

Malicious software that has infected millions of computers across the globe failed to wreak havoc on Wednesday as some feared, but researchers warned the powerful Conficker worm could still strike.

Also known as Downadup or Kido, Conficker turns infected PCs into slaves that respond to commands sent from a remote server that effectively controls an army of computers.

The fears of an attack, however, may have been a windfall for anti-virus software makers, who warned consumers about the worm, industry analysts say.

In my Linux world, we do not have to worry about this stuff.

I’m too lazy to write it twice, so read about it at Geekazine.

This is really neat. It’s a map of the locations of TLLTS listeners who choose to sign up are located.

Read more »

Twitter decides to try to make some money.

I broke the screensaver.

Then I fixed it.

Upgrading the OS on the laptop.

Addendum:

I wasn’t able to get my Favorite LInux Distro on the box. Slackware is a three-CD set and, after the first CD ran, the CD drive opened and would not remount for the next CD.

This is definitely a hardware problem. The Slackware CDs have been tested in another machine.

The CD drive in this box has been acting weird for over a year. Sometimes it mounts and sometimes Dell throws a message that it “cannot detect the device in the modular bay blah blah blah.” Pressing the CD drive more tightly into the machine and rebooting solves the problem.

I’m not springing for a new CD drive for an almost-five-year-old laptop.

So I went with the Debian web install, which is a one-CD install, but pulls down three CD’s worth of software.

I’m now running Debian 5 with Gnome. Debian, like Slack, is a rock-solid distro that just works. It does not have Slackware’s elegant simplicity, but, what the heck.

It was tough fight, but I wrestled the computer into submission. (I always do.)

The firewall is working, the AV is working, the network is working, the theme is configured to my liking, and Opera (which includes my email database) and Pan have been restored from backup. Total time from install boot to full functionality: Two hours.

Here. If you use a computer (and, if you are reading this, you do), read it.

When someone logs into a Slackware computer at the beginning of a session, the computer displays a saying, a joke, or anecdote. It’s a Unix thing. Today, my computer told me to

Behold the warranty–the bold print giveth,
the fine print taketh away.

Some nice, mostly funny pictures here. (To understand some of them, remember that the Linux symbol is Tux, the penguin.)

My favorite is below the fold.

Read more »

Here, via GNC.

I took down the “Torture Awareness” bit on my sidebar.

Torquemada is no longer in the government.

I replaced it with a link to Geekazine, where Jeffrey has been letting me fly my geek flag.

Websites that play audio or videos without asking permission.

I updated this page with a picture.

Read more »

Not all bigots are stupid.

Just most of them.

Honest to Pete, the modern Civil Rights struggle started over 50 years ago. Why haven’t bigoted white folks figured out what they can say in public yet?

The long-sought “average computer user”:

Then I realized that for two weeks straight, she never even realized she was using my computer and not her own. Yes, hers runs MacOS X. Yes, mine runs only Fedora 10 + KDE 4.2 …and yet, she never noticed the difference.

“If you are an average Windows user, you probably don’t understand what the registry is. The sad part is, Microsoft doesn’t either.”

(More on the registry here.)

“Everything is a just few hundred clicks away”:

Commentary here.

Via Andrew Sullivan.