Geek Stuff category archive

Also posting at Geekazine.

Via James Hicks, who reports that the hardware includes

150 HP DL165s dual quad-core AMD 2354 processors 2GB-4GB RAM
50 HP DL365s dual dual-core AMD 2218 processors 4GB-16GB RAM
5 HP DL185s dual quad-core AMD 2354 processors 4GB RAM

Not to mention switches, routers, firewalls, and heaven knows what else.

One of the things I like about my new MP3 player is that, if I shut it down in the middle of a podcast and later turn it back on, it gives me a chance to pick up right where I left off with two clicks.

I just discovered that Comcast’s On Demand does something similar, except that it takes three clicks. I paused a show, then went downstairs to fight with Windows (Windows put up a titanic struggle, but I wrestled it down to the electrons for three falls) and came back to find the On Demand main menu screen on display.

But I was able to restart my program at the 27 minute mark.

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine and a French vessel have been damaged in a collision deep below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Apparently, both the French and the Brits use Windows for Warships.

At the Tech Scoop:

Today, Friday, February 13 at exactly 3:31:30 PM (PST) Unix time will equal 1234567890. The world will celebrate this milestone with global 1234567890 parties.

I predict that this will be as successful as Microsoft Bob:

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday hired a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to oversee the development and opening of the software giant’s first retail stores.

’nuff said:

The economy is so bad that even the company behind “Guitar Hero,” the hottest video game franchise in the world, couldn’t muster a profit in the holiday quarter.

In Austin, Texas.

Via the Outlaws.

Geek style.

Via Dave Yates.

Via the Outlaws.

In my quest for a media player that supports OGG (the open source audio format) because some of my favorite podcasts no longer do mp3, I finally settled on an iRiver E200 from JR’s via Amazon. I stuck it in my shopping cart at Amazon to think about for a couple of days and, in that period, the price went down 25%.

I have it working under Linux. Here’s how.

Geeky Details below the Fold

El Reg reports (emphasis added):

Staff at hospitals across Sheffield are battling a major computer worm outbreak after managers turned off Windows security updates for all 8,000 PCs on the vital network, The Register has learned.

It’s been confirmed that more than 800 computers have been infected with self-replicating Conficker code. Insiders at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust said they suspect many more machines are affected but have not been reported to IT.

The Trust told The Register it now has the outbreak under control and is engaged in “clearing up” remnants. Non-urgent appointments in the medical imaging department had to be cancelled while its computers were disinfected. A Trust spokeswoman said no other direct impact on patient care was known.

The decision to disable automatic security updates was taken during Christmas week after PCs in an operating theatre rebooted mid-surgery. Conficker was detected on December 29.

Of course, turning off Windows updates is a bad idea, because Windows security is so fundamentally flawed that fixing it is a career, not a task.

I set my Windows boxes to download updates and let me decide when to install them. That way, the updates can’t install themselves while the user is, say, committing surgery.

Running around and manually installing updates on 8,000 computers, either directly or remotely, would be a daunting task for the IS folks, but it sure would be better than rebuilding 800 computers that have been conflicked up.

Everything goes digital:

Beginning Feb. 1, the Coast Guard and other service and rescue personnel will respond only to digital 406-MHz Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons, or EPIRBs, for distress calls.

They will no longer respond to older-model analog EPIRBs that transmit at 121.5 or 243 MHz.

The digital beacon’s signal is 50 times more powerful than the 121.5-MHz beacon. This better enables satellites to detect it, shrinking the search area to about 100 yards and allowing rescue crews to reach victims within minutes.

Oh, my.

Here.

I played once and got 9.55 (lower is better).

Via Gene Weingarten.

Via the Beez.

I’m waiting for my rowboat to come in; I’m in the market for a new MP3 player, one that supports OGG Vorbis (the open source audio format). Two of my favorite geeky podcasts have stopped doing MP3s and are exclusively OGG now.

One thing I really like about using my cheapo Radio Slum clearance sale MP3 player with Linux is that the device mounts just like a harddrive or a memory stick.

I plug it in and there it is.

I can copy files to and from it using the standard copy (“cp“) command; I can change directories (“cd“) to it just as if it were any other directory; I can delete files from it with the standard remove (“rm“) command.

No proprietary software; no “syncing”; no crap.

So I decided to see whether I could do the same with an iPod, which lives inside of Apple’s Walled Garden.

I could.

Testing Details Follow

Todd has been at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.

Frankly, I’m not particularly interested in learning what the new toys are quick like a bunny; I’ll learn about them soon enough and decide that most of them mean nothing to me.

But his description of the equipment that he took along so that he could report on the show–now that’s something else. When he refers to his traveling studio, he ain’t kidding:

For the best coverage of CES, go to Geek News Central.

Thank heavens!

Microsoft has officially released the first Windows 7 beta. While it’s been one of the web’s worst kept secrets, Microsoft was still keeping quiet about the details and timing of the final release at the time of writing.

Prediction: Lots of favorable teaser articles from persons who think Windows is computing; followed by a much-ballyhooed release; followed by massive fail; followed by rumors of how the next next Windows release, codenamed Passaic or Fresno or something or other, will fix all the problems; followed by . . . oh, never mind.

Addendum, the Next Morning:

Typical Microsoft Bletch and Switch tactics.