Display Modes: Help
All: Full / Chopped / Footer / None
Works best with Mozilla/Firefox or IE 7.0+

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Ethereal Ethereal

Ethereal:
1. Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; intangible.
2. Highly refined; delicate. See Synonyms at airy.
3.
a. Of the celestial spheres; heavenly.
b. Not of this world; spiritual.
4. Chemistry. Of or relating to ether.

No, that is not what I am talking about here, but rather, the slickest network protocol analyzer I have ever used.

The way it works is that it taps all the traffic on one adaptor on your computer - in my case, usually an ethernet adaptor, and captures all the traffic over that adaptor until you stop capturing. It then analyzes all the protocols in that captured traffic, in this case, above the ethernet, including IP, UDP, TCP, POP3, SMTP, HTTP, etc. protocols. And it then displays them in a form easily understandable to someone understanding communications protocols.

I was first turned on to Ethereal by Mark Russinovich (in his Sysinternals blog) when he used it to detect some of what the Sony DRM rootkit code was doing a couple of months ago. (As a result of this detection, Sony BMG was sued by a number of parties and has now apparently settled its class action suits).

Ethereal is a must have when debugging Internet problems. I am in the process of rearranging email accounts, and moved my main forwarding address last night to point at a different account. But Mozilla wouldn't download the messages from that account. I never did figure out exactly what was wrong, but ultimately found that it did work when I duplicated that account in Mozilla. But before that, I had watched what happened when I accessed it from Eudora, as well as when I accessed other POP3 email accounts of mine. So, by then, I had a pretty good idea of what should have been happening and wasn't.

Except when accessing my local email server, Mozilla first uses DNS to find email hosts. That wasn't happening. It then utilizes POP3 protocol to download email. That too wasn't happening with this account. That Mozilla wasn't sending out the DNS query made it obvious that the problem was with Mozilla, and not how I had it configured. We never got to the POP3 protocol, so POP3 configuration problems were obviously not the issue. So, no surprise that when I duplicated the configuration of the mailbox, things worked perfectly.

Ethereal can be found at Source Forge.

Labels:

10:28 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Monday, January 23, 2006

CJR: My Plame Problem -- And Yours CJR: My Plame Problem -- And Yours

Obviously quite liberal journalist moaning in the Columbia Journalism Review about what has happened to a reporter's privilege against testifying in the Plame case.

But what the author doesn't mention, given the dates involved, is the upcoming Libby criminal case. There, by all evidence so far, the prosecutor is going to have to utilize a lot of reporter testimony to make his case, and that leaves open for the defense to depose even more reporters. And, of particular note, the questioning by the special prosecutor, Fitzgerald, was often quite constrained, and, indeed, often not done under oath. This will not be the case for Libby's lawyers. They will put all those reporters under oath, they will be asked a lot of very intense questions, and they will go to jail if they refuse to answer (and if they do, Fitzgerald won't be able to use their testimony in court against Libby).

My view is that the MSM got what it deserved. They wanted blood, and they are getting it. Unfortuantely, they wanted it from the Administration, and will get their own instead. In retrospect, they were absolutely stupid to try to swing the election for Kerry this way by asking for the special prosecutor. They got him. He indicted Cheney's Chief of Staff. And now, they are going to lose even more of their precious privilege.

Labels:

9:54 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

TG Daily interviews AMD: "Intel's new architecture is too late" TG Daily interviews AMD: "Intel's new architecture is too late"

Intel is starting to get a bit worried about AMD, which apparently made advances against Intel in most sectors this last year. All this despite that Apple has shown its first Intel based Mac.

Part of why AMD is taking business away from Intel is that it provides the best buy in a number of areas. In particular, it sells server based on wattage. Higher wattage processors run faster, but take more cooling.

Intel should have seen this coming. After all, for many applications, absolute MIPS is not as important as other attributes, and, indeed, two processors at half the wattage can often outperform one at the higher wattage.

One interesting fact is that AMD is doing this despite being a year behind Intel at 65 nm.

Labels:

7:13 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Nigerian email scam from Russia Nigerian email scam from Russia

An important moment in email scams - I just received my first Nigerian email scam letter putitively from a Mr Igor Dmitriev at igordv00@yahoo.it. Now, yahoo.it is, of course, the Italian site for Yahoo. But that really doesn't detract from the fact that the scam has now gone worldwide.

Labels:

12:06 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

BBC NEWS: Sex difference in aspirin effect BBC NEWS: Sex difference in aspirin effect

"Taking aspirin can cut the risk of cardiovascular disease in both sexes - but seems to work differently for men and women, research suggests.

An analysis ... found aspirin can cut the risk of heart attack and stroke in healthy people.

However, the drug seemed particularly to cut the risk of heart attack in men, and stroke in women.
"

Amazing that we continue to find these sex differences.

Labels:

11:08 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Reuters: Republicans propose Congress ethics reforms Reuters: Republicans propose Congress ethics reforms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans proposed a tightening of lobbying laws on Tuesday in the wake of a mounting influence-peddling scandal that threatens their ability to retain control of Congress in November's elections.

A lot of us think that the Republicans in Congress have sold out after winning the House in 1994. They ran on a platform of cleaning up Congress, and, once in power, have followed the Democrats into corruption. They need to clean this up.

Labels:

11:06 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

ZDNet UK News: Firefox 'passes 20 percent market share' in Europe ZDNet UK News: Firefox 'passes 20 percent market share' in Europe

Mozilla Firefox has achieved an market share of over 20 percent in Europe, according to the latest figures released by French Web metrics firm XiTi.

I have been a Mozilla fan for a long time. Partly it is because I moved to Netscape after Mosaic, and Netscape utilizes Mozilla's Gecko rendering agent. Essentially, they are fairly close together. I still prefer Mozilla over Firefox (browsing) and Thunderbird (email) because it is integrated. However, I did run Thunderbird for awhile because it automatically rebuilds indices and switching back and forth between Mozilla and Netscape over the years made a number of local files unreadable due to screwed up index files. But, I am back to Mozilla.

I prefer Mozilla over Microsoft's IE because:
- Much better security. Whenever I run IE, I can expect to pick up spyware/adware almost immediately. The latest version of IE does have a popup blocker, but I don't know how well it works yet.
- Tabbed browsing. I typically run two or three browser windows, each with up to maybe eight tabs open at once. Much easier to organize this way. Plus, you can collect and save open documents, and then reopen all of them at once later. I thus have one button that opens up the eight web (mostly blog) sites that I follow closely.
- Personal tool bar. This is much superior to the IE favorites button, which everyone and their grandmother tries to update whenever you install software, or even, sometimes, view web sites.
- Ease of extension. I have some dozen extensions installed. They are easy to install, and add nice functionality. One I use is "mouse gestures" which translate mouse movements into whatever you want to do. The standard ones are such things as reloading windows, going to the next tab, etc. Also, I have the IP address in the lower right corner of the browser window, and can do a "whois" on it very simply. Makes it easy to check to see if sites are who they say they are.
- Ease of maintaining cookies, passwords, etc.
- Ease of modifying configuration. Not just the standard parameters through the preferences menus, but all of them using "about:config". I used to edit the javascript containing them, but about:config is so much easier and cleaner. Plus, you can find documentation for them. Also, it is easy to move configurations between machines, profiles, etc., and then update what you want (the javascript is easier for mass file name changes). I should also note that this allows me to actually share configurations, etc. between users and computers. I currently use the same configuration, mail files, etc. between several users on three different computers. Since there is only one of me, this is rarely an exclusivity issue.
- Mozilla deserves to win this one. Their browsers, etc. are free and open, supported by a very dedicated user community. As a result, I think it is a better product. Also, it reduces MSFT's monopoly power.

Labels:

11:02 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Monday, January 16, 2006

Multitasking on multiple computers Multitasking on multiple computers

A lot of people think that I am crazy having four computers. But today, I am actually using all of them at the same time. As background, I reinitialized my hard drive on my laptop last night due to problems encountered when I take it down. It runs XP, and this seems to be required every six months or so.

What are the four doing?

D (Old Desktop) - Downloading XP SP2 from MSFT
E (Laptop) - installing things
F (New Desktop) - Browsing, blogging (like this)
G (Server) - what servers do: email, FTP, and Web

Update: It took over an hour to download Windows XP SP2 to system D, but less than a minute to move it from that system to the laptop (system E). It turns out to be some 272 mb, or about 1/4 gb, in size, all in one file.

Labels:

11:50 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Sunday, January 15, 2006

gapingvoid: top ten blogger lies gapingvoid: top ten blogger lies

A lot of lies we tell ourselves when no one is looking at our blog and some others are so successful.

Labels:

6:46 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

PM: 15 New Tech Concepts For 2006 PM: 15 New Tech Concepts For 2006

Popular Mechanics lists a lot of interesting technologies that are supposed to become available this coming year, including:
- Driver-Monitoring System
- Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
- Metadata - to be used to help searching
- Nanoparticle Batteries (recharge in a minute)
- SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony)
- Coal Gasification
- Perpendicular Storage - increases HD capacities
- Fiber-To-The-Home
- Blind Spot Detecion (again for your car)
- Mobile VoIP
- Modular Pebble-Bed Nuclear Reactor
- Mobile WiMAX (WiMAX on the road)
- Mobile Satellite Video (again for your car)

Labels:

9:53 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Space propulsion breakthrough new spacecraft ion engine tested Space propulsion breakthrough new spacecraft ion engine tested

Some engineering changes to ion engines for spacecraft have significantly increased their efficiency, up to four fold over older modules. A lot of work still to do, but this could be the wave of the future for space flight.

Labels:

4:07 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Saturday, January 14, 2006

BBC NEWS: Thousands dial up hearing test BBC NEWS: Thousands dial up hearing test

Fairly slick invention - apparently you call a number, listen to the phone, and provide responses via keyboard. The result apparently is the early detection of hearing loss.

Labels:

11:58 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

The Observer: Want to boost your brain power? Just have a baby The Observer: Want to boost your brain power? Just have a baby

"New American research shows that pregnancy and child rearing enhance mental capabilities".

Labels:

11:03 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition

Great blog: SiteAdvisor blog. This article looks at all the extras that you sometimes get when downloading things like screen savers. The extras are often exactly the sort of thing that adware / spyware programs detect and delete.

Labels:

11:01 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

AP: Champ Bailey Knocks Off Defending Champs AP: Champ Bailey Knocks Off Defending Champs

Denver beat the two time defending World Champion NE Patriots tonight at Invesco Field 27-13. Congrats for the local team here in CO. I typically don't watch their games, but still root for them as our home team.

10:04 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Common Malware Enumeration (CME) Common Malware Enumeration (CME)

'CME provides single, common identifiers to new virus threats to reduce public confusions during malware outbreaks. CME is not an attempt to solve the challenges involved with naming schemes for viruses and other forms of malware, but instead aims to facilitate the adoption of a shared, neutral indexing capability for malware.'

Scary that they had to set up an organization for providing common names to malware outbreaks.

Labels:

9:50 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Whitedust: Future Trends of Malware Whitedust: Future Trends of Malware

Dancho Danchev at White Dust talks about different types of Malware and what he expects to happen in the near future. Scary stuff. There is a lot going on there on the Internet that most of us don't realize is happening - and may inadvertantly be a part of.

Labels: ,

9:42 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

CNET News.com: Telemedicine slashes hospital stays CNET News.com: Telemedicine slashes hospital stays

"A British telemedicine project has halved the time patients spend in the hospital by enabling doctors to monitor their condition remotely.

The project involves giving a "telemedicine monitor" to patients, thus allowing them to measure their own temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, electrocardiogram and blood pressure. These results are sent via a phone line to a secure server, where they are saved as an electronic patient record, which can then be accessed by doctors or nurses.
"

Labels:

9:20 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

BBC NEWS: Mental skills 'worse after sleep' BBC NEWS: Mental skills 'worse after sleep'

"A person's thinking ability may be better after being awake for 24 hours or being drunk than it is following a good night's sleep, a study suggests..."

"The most severe effects of sleep inertia generally dissipated within the first 10 minutes, although its effects are often detectable for up to two hours, they added."

Labels:

10:37 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Slate: Microsoft vs. Computer Security - Why the software giant still can't get it right. Slate: Microsoft vs. Computer Security - Why the software giant still can't get it right.

'Four years ago, Bill Gates dispatched a companywide e-mail promising that security and privacy would be Microsoft's top priorities. Gates urged that new design approaches must "dramatically reduce" the number of security-related issues as well as make fixes easier to administer. "Eventually," he added, "our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it."

Microsoft customers haven't stopped worrying.
'

The author, Adam L. Penenberg, suggests that the problem is that security has never been a priority with Microsoft, and that good security testing should have shown many of its products' vulnerabilities before being shipped.

My view is similar. Microsoft doesn't seem to develop code with the fact in mind that it is the dominent software vendor in the world today. The tools needed to significantly raise the quality of their software have been around for a decade or so now, and they apparently aren't using them, or, if they are, not enough.

Labels: ,

6:35 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Yahoo! News: Alleged Fla. Bank Robbers Flee With Last Hostage Yahoo! News: Alleged Fla. Bank Robbers Flee With Last Hostage

Interesting that after taking and releasing hostages, running out of a bank after the police used explosives to enter, stealing a car, and shooting at the police, they are still alleged bank robbers. Of course, by then, bank robbery is just minor charge against them.

5:58 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Viruses Viruses

I just got done running AntiVir on this computer, and was surprised to find that I had over a half a million files on it, with 16,000 directories. And after that, it only found one virus in one executable (restart.exe) replicated three times. It appears to be a Windows NT 4.0 systems file, and I guess I need to update that if I ever want to run NT 4 again.

Labels:

3:44 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Yahoo! News: Scientists Finally Figure Out How Bees Fly Yahoo! News: Scientists Finally Figure Out How Bees Fly

Scientists have finally figured out how bees fly. For years, they tried to understand them in view of helicopters and the like. Didn't work. This time, they took a lot of high speed digital photos and build a robotic model of a bees wing.

The Yahoo article spent a lot of time pointing out that this somewhat debunks Intelligent Design. I question that.

Labels:

3:40 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

CNET News.com: Microsoft's file system patent upheld CNET News.com: Microsoft's file system patent upheld

Microsoft has won in its reexamination of its File Allocation Table (FAT) patents. They had been contested by the Public Patent Foundation in April 2004 as lacking novelty. One problem that this raises is with Linux that utilizes this technology, esp. in view of its GPL licensing which forbids distribution if it contains patented technology requiring a license. Given MSFT's fear of Linux, this may be significant.

Labels: ,

3:36 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

CNET News.com: Macworld: Intel-based Macs built for speed CNET News.com: Macworld: Intel-based Macs built for speed

Apple has finally made the move - announcing its first Intel based Mac, in this case a dual core iMac laptop for just under $2,000. Jobs also announced that they had sold 14 million iPods last quarter, for a total of some 42 million sold to date.

This is truly the end of an era. Macs started on the Motorola 68000 (or maybe even 6800) microprocessor. But then, Apple pushed Moto to implement a RISC architecture. That turned out to be the PowerPC, in conjunction with IBM in what was called the AIM Alliance. I worked some on AIM when I was at Motorola. But then, when Jobs came back to Apple, he terminated all third party Mac licensing, and the biggest supplier outside of Apple for Macs was Motorola. The company ended up taking a major writeoff due to this, and rumor has it, there was a big shouting match between the then new Moto CEO Galvin, and Jobs over it. The relationship never apparently recovered, and as a result, Apple moved steadily towards IBM as its supplier for PowerPC processors. Moto meanwhile moved away from PowerPC microprocessors, and into embedded PowerPC chips.

And this is the final break with that tradition.

Labels:

12:33 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

CNET News.com: British Parliament members demand Wi-Fi access CNET News.com: British Parliament members demand Wi-Fi access

Wireless Internet access should be installed in parts of the Houses of Parliament to give its members access to information on the move.

So says a report by the U.K. House of Commons Administration Committee, calling for secure wireless access after it found that some new members of Parliament struggled to work before they were given office space.


Technology is catching up to the oldest deliberative body on Earth.

Labels:

9:36 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

IRAQ THE MODEL IRAQ THE MODEL

This blog is a must for seeing what is happening in Iraq on a day to day basis. Most of what the MSM tells us is with blinders on. They quote each other, and many of their reporters rarely, if even, leave the "Green Zone".

Notably, Zaqrqawi in his latest audio tape urged Iraqi Sunnis to abandon the democratic process and go back to the "right path". This is being roundly rejected by the Sunnis. 'The 2nd man in the Islamic Party Ayad al-Samarra’i stressed that the Party has no intention to abandon the political process. Salih al-Mutlaq is another Sunni politician who apparently feels that Zarqawi was addressing him as well. Al-Mutlaq has also condemned violence again today and stressed that “ending violence is the key to stability in Iraq”'.

This is indication that the divide between the foreign terrorists and the Iraqi Sunnis is growing larger every day. The foreign terrorists are still pushing violence, while the Iraqis are pursuing political power through democracy.

Labels:

9:11 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

News Feeds News Feeds

Awhile back, I started using a news feed reader (Source Forge's free feedreader ). I think that it is even more adicting than blogging.

What a feed reader is is a program that reads news feeds from various sources. It goes out every half an hour or so and sees what is new there. It turns out that all of the blog sites that I frequent have feeds, so I can monitor them all in one place. Plus, I get current event, business, and technology news on a regular basis. Also, I have been monitoring the Sony BMG DRM sites in order to keep my Sony BMG Rootkit blog up to date.

I think that part of the reason that it is so adicting is that you get the feeling that you are connected into what is happening in the world. If something happens, you know about it almost instantanously, and don't have to wait until the 5:00 news (which I don't watch any way).

Labels:

8:41 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Sam's Club Sam's Club

As most know, Sam's Club is part of Wal-Mart. I joined a couple of years ago to get cheap phone cards for my girlfriend when she was stuck in Las Vegas for most of a year taking care of her parents. Its costs $30 or so a year, and I have her on my account for free.

There are a lot of reasons to shop there, but the best I think is for big ticket items. Yesterday, I bought a Samsung 19" flat screen monitor there for under $300. This was most of my combined Christmas / birthday present from my father, who now gives me Wal-Mart / Sam's Club gift cards instead of presents for just this sort of thing.

But while I was there, I noticed that the wireless Microsoft keyboard and mouse that I had bought the night before at Best Buy for $105, was only $75 at Sam's Club. Since I am under the 30 days with Best Buy, I intend to swap it out for the same model from Sam's Club and save $30. That alone pays my yearly membership.

Labels:

8:31 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

CNET News.com: Chips, flat screens to drive up Samsung profit CNET News.com: Chips, flat screens to drive up Samsung profit

Reuters reported today that "Samsung Electronics is set to report on Friday that its fourth-quarter profit rose by about a fifth, driven by soaring demand for NAND flash chips and flat-screen panels for large televisions."

Yesterday, I finally bought my Chirstmas present from my father at Sam's Club, and it was a Samsung SyncMaster 916V 19" flat monitor for under $300. Anywhere else, and from probably any other vendor, this would have probably cost me $500 or so. It is beautiful. Reasonably fast, and very big. I am reading it right now without reading glasses.

No wonder they are on a roll right now.

Labels:

8:31 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Informit.com: Ten Things I Hate About Mac OS X Informit.com: Ten Things I Hate About Mac OS X

Interesting. Mac usage is somewhat akin to a cult. You are constantly hearing how if you would only use a Mac, you wouldn't have some Windows related problem.

But now we see that Macs have their own problems, and many of them have been solved in Windows.

Labels:

8:19 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

CNET News.com: IBM taps open source to improve patent quality CNET News.com: IBM taps open source to improve patent quality

IBM, for the 13th year in a row, is #1 is issued patents for the year. Actually, their total of 2,900 seems a bit down from previous years - when I was at Motorola, we did almost half of that. Not surprisingly though, given the amount of money that they spend on patents, they are trying to clean them up a bit, in particular, software patents, and are working with Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), an industry consortium that launched a "patent commons" for open-source communities in November 2005.

And this may have some impact. Historically, the USPTO didn't allow software patents based on some bizarre theory that software was like laws of nature, and thus, unpatenable. Then, the Federal Courf that oversees them, the CAFC, overruled them, and forced the agency to start issuing patents on software. However, during the decades that they had their head in the sand on this subject, they weren't collecting prior art, most notably patents (esp. since they thought software was unpatentable). The result has been that they haven't done that good of a job examining software patents for novelty and nonobviousness. And a good part of that problem is not knowing the prior art, as they do in most other art areas. The IBM initiative may help here.

Labels:

8:10 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Monday, January 09, 2006

USATODAY.com - Iraqis making connection to the outside world online USATODAY.com - Iraqis making connection to the outside world online

Before our invasion of Iraq, there were about 10,000 Internet users in Iraq. Now there are 200,000 dial-up users plus others using DSL, Internet cafes, etc. Just one of the indications of the changes in that country since our invasion.

Labels:

10:18 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Friday, January 06, 2006

Scotsman.com News: Sci-Tech - Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip Scotsman.com News: Sci-Tech - Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip

According to an article in the Scotsman.com News, we may soon be able to go to mars in three hours, and the nearest starts in a couple of weeks. Sounds like science fiction, but it would surely be nice if it worked. It appears to depend on cutting edge physics, depending on warping the universe to propel space craft. But it has enough plausibility that NASA has shown interest.

Labels:

7:59 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

EFF: Florida AG's Office Enters Sony BMG DRM Fray EFF: Florida AG's Office Enters Sony BMG DRM Fray

While a settlement for the private plaintiffs class-action suits has been propopsed, it allows for state Attorneys General to obtain further relief, which will be applied to all class members. The Florida matter is case number L05-3-1157, out of Crist's Tampa Economic Crimes office.

9:11 PM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None