Norton Anti-Virus Exploit

There is a buffer overflow problem in Norton Anti-Virus. It exist in both Windows and OSX version of the product. The ironic thing is, in essense your OSX is only vunlnerable to this attack if you install Norton. So installing Norton Anti-Virus for OSX actaully makes your OSX less secure.

Python's Father Is Now A Google Employee

Guido has started his new job at Google. So now Google has both the Right Hand of Java and Father of Python. I think Ruby guys can give up their dream of Google switching to Ruby.

Fake Santa Visit On IM

Santa IM worm is out visiting people on AIM, MSN, and Yahoo. It installs a root kit, not a very happy Santa.

ThinCRT Has Landed

Finally, Samsung's Thin CRTs are here. They are now under the brand "SlimFit". That took a while, I still remember the prototypes from Jan 2004 in CES.

Gmail For Mobile Device

Finally, Gmail now has a version that's been optimized for mobile devices. Point your cell phone or what not to http://m.gmail.com

Trails, Rail The Java Way

Want to try Ruby on Rails, but you prefer Java? Try Trails The development is being hosted here

Java Overtook C++ in SourceFroge

On November 24th, Java overtook C++ as the most popular language for SourceForge hosted project.

Microsoft Office Format A Open Standard?

Microsoft in an effort to fight off OpenOffice's format being adapted by a lot of organizations and countries, has attempt to create an open version of their file formats and submit it to ECMA. “Additional standards give you more choice over a period of time,” Alan Yates, general manager, business strategy with Microsoft’s information worker group, said Wednesday. “Governments should be open to both [Open XML and OpenDocument] and whatever else is rolling down the street. Choosing both is really wise.” Yes, it's so wise that really, I wish everyone uses two different versions of HTTP, TCP/IP, SMTP, SSL, etc. Besides, As Andrew Tanenbaum once said, "Standards are great because you have so many to choose from."

Widgets The Google Way

Only took a day for Google to repond to Yahoo Widgets. They are taking the remote widget idea a step further. All widgets are stored on remove server. Your Google homepage is the Widget Plane. Unsure how I feel about this yet.

Yahoo Widget 3.0 aka Konfabulator 3.0 Released

Yahoo Widget formerly known as Konfabulator has been updated to version 3.0. Now before you start saying "It's just an marketing upgrade", please read version history. I've been a firm believer of intergration via a bunch of smaller applications instead of a single big application. I much rather using a Calender Widget to view my Yahoo Calendar, instead of using a single application which integrates Email, News, everything. Yes, I'm talking about Google Desktop. I prefer smaller unit apps these days. There was a time I thought the Mozilla mega suite approach was the way to go. But I've come around to the Thunderbird/FireFox/Sunbird's way of thinking.

Yahoo Stays On Top

Yahoo is number 1! Yahoo is number 1!

Mediaplay Closing

So I stopped by Mediaplay tonight, which is part of my routine. I normally stop by at least once to twice a week, sometimes more. There are so many nights where I go "Oh, it's 9 PM, if I hurry, I can still make it to Mediaplay." I found out tonight that Mediaplay is closing national wide. All 61 stores, including the 4 in Columbus Ohio will be closed by January. So many of the people there were like "Oh, I'm going to miss seeing you." This has been one of my hangouts since the mid 90s. It will leave a terrible void. I feel bad for the people there. They didn't find out till yesterday afternoon. And the news hit this morning in Columbus Dispatch. The liquidation sale starts tomorrow morning at 9 AM. So long, you’ll be missed.

The Mediaplay I've spent countless hours in.

Cyber Merc, for Hire

Yet another sign of the Information Age upon us. Someone is trying to auction off his research on an Excel vulnerability.

Gmail RSS Reader

Gmail's RSS Reader is now live. Good example of AJAX usage.

The Sorry State of US Patent Laws

If there ever was a case that point out how US Patent laws and US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is so broken, this is it. After 4 years of this, USPTO goes "Oops, you know, the patent probably shouldn't be issued in the first place"?! I mean, this has gotten so bad that India is creating a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library which compiles the country's traditional medicine in an effort to stop people from claiming them as their own and patenting them.

Sony Root Kit Saga Part 2

Sony needs to stop patching. Their patch is making the problem worse every time. Frankly, if you are one of the people who got hit by this, reinstall, it's the only way to be sure. Meanwhile, in at least two states, lawsuits have been filed against Sony by the State government. Hopefully this will deter other big companies from doing stupid things like this that step all over consumer's rights.

Talking Virus

I wonder when someone was gonna do this. I mean, I remember back a few years ago I piped Eliza to AIM to fool J into having a conversation with it/me. And of course, let's not forget AOL's latest push with their own official bots.

Linux Unified Desktop hit next milestone

The effort to unify Linux desktop has hit another milestone. Portland project is now officially a go.

The world finally realize AMD cpus are better.

ZD Net did a dual core shoot out here. AMD totally blow passes Intel. Maybe the general public will finally realize what most of us know for sometime. AMD chips are cheaper faster, and more efficient.

Apache 2.2 released

Apache 2.2 has been released. This is a major step for me, because this means no more messing around with mod_jk2. While mod_jk2 was nice, too many people felt it was too complex. So it was abandoned. Now we have mod_proxy_ajp and mod_proxy_balancer built right into apache itself. Will make setting up load balancing apache+tomcat so much easier.

FireFox 1.5 released

FireFox 1.5 has been released. Use it, embrace it, love it. FireFox and ThunderBird has a new home too. It's now mozilla.com instead of mozilla.org. It's all grown up, ready to be a commercial entity.

New iMac is here

The new toys have arrived. Two 20 inch 2.1ghz G5 500gb SATA iMac arrived this morning. Here is me opening them. Had to get two, because otherwise fight might break out in the house. Here is a picture of the iMac next to my 24 inch LCD. The only problem is, I think I'm running out of desk space. My office now looks like Lain's room.

Quake 2 ported to Java

Jake2 is a port of the GPL’d Quake2 game engine from id Software to Java. It uses jogl for 3d, joal for audio. Runs on Windows, Linux, and OSX. It performs at about 85% to 105% of the original C code with current released JDK 1.5. Yes, Java is slow, I can tell. Here is a local hosted screenshot.

Hello Kitty everywhere!

My friend A just got This. I so want one! It's a mp3 player that can also record sound into wav format. It comes in 256 mb, 512 mb, and 1 gig version. The feet are for both volume adjustment, as well as skip forward and backward on play list. The right hand is power on and play button. The left hand is hold button. The connector below the left ear is both for head phone as well as USB syncing.

Top 10 reasons Intel won't accept AMD's dual-core duel

AMD challenged Intel to a dual-core duel last year. As expected Intel won't do it. So AMD came up with the top 10 reasons why. Top 10 Reasons Intel will not Participate in the Dual-Core Duel 10. Tried to follow their own roadmap to get to the duel 9. Decided to take the "front-side bus" to the duel; got stuck in a bottleneck 8. The "Intel Inside" stickers they used to package the cores together keep melting 7. Too busy rearranging the deck chairs on the Itanic 6. "Hey, we don't expect anyone to actually buy these things!" 5. Didn't want to compete when they realized that the duel would involve actual "rules" of fair competition 4. They couldn't get a permit from the fire department to emit that much heat 3. No systems available yet - protective clothing used by manufacturers only safe for up to 149 watts 2. Dell told them they weren't allowed to participate And the number one reason Intel won't accept the dual core duel: 1. Moore's Law has been replaced by "Paul's Paradox": the number of canceled products per year at Intel will double every year after the introduction of the AMD Opteron processor.

Rootkit, or what they pass off as DRM

This is by far the best summary of the entire event. It's rather sad really, so many users were harmed in the process all in the name of a large company doing what they figure they can get away with. And doing it with support of the companies we are all suppose to trust and depend on. I think I'm done buying Sony music.

Flash security problem

This is bad. You will want to update your Flash player ASAP. I wish I can get away not using Flash player. In fact, I purposely don't install it on my Linux Desktop. Problem like this tend to be cross platform. Not to mention Flash is the #1 way to get around Popup blocking. AJAX is rapidly becoming the tool of choice for dynamic website anyway. Just look at Gmail, Google Earth and the new Yahoo Mail Beta. No doubt that makes Macromedia very happy, NOT.

Yay for due process

The UK's new anti-terrorism legislation failed. The bill allow suspects to be held without due process for 90 days. Glad to see that civil rights fend off legal attacks.

Pay more, get less

CBS and NBC jumped into the game, not wanting to be left behind by Apple and ABC. On the surface, it seems cheaper, after all it's only 99 cents instead of $1.99. Here is the problem. You buy it, download it, and it self destruct after 1 week. Great, basically I'm paying to record the show, watch it, then it's gone. Instead of either recording it myself, or buy it from Apple, and keep it forever. Why do companies keep coming up with products that cost more, give you less, and control how you view it at all times?

Sony making final stand in Australia

Looks like Sony wasn't kidding when they said "We'll make our final stand against iTunes Music store in Australia". iTunes Music Store Australia launched without Sony, just like Japan. As J puts it best, "Australia is only like really important if you are playing Risk or something."

My screen is bigger than yours

A couple of years ago, people thought 17 inch LCD on laptop is too big to be a useful thing. Today, every vendor offers some configuration of laptop with 17 inch LCD. So it was only a matter of time before someone comes along and kick it up a notch. That someone is Samsung

OpenOffice 2.0 released

OpenOffice 2.0 has finally been released. This is a giant step for local mankind. Finally OO Calc can have same size spreadsheet as Excel. And the feature I miss the most from Microsoft Word, word count, is in OO Write. So download it, and at least keep it side by side with Microsoft Office.

Customized caller graphics

This is cool. Hopfully someday in a far far future we'll actaully have this in US. Heck, we don't even have ringback ringtones in US yet. Ringback ringtone is basically customized ringer for incoming caller based on caller id. Which is awesome, because I can then subject all my incoming callers to my "most likely to repeat" music.

AMD finally over takes Intel in retail

It's a long time in coming. But it finally happened. With this, we've finally come full circle. It started with AMD being the little guy, copying Intel's idea and technology. Providing slower but cheaper cpus. Then we have 3dNOW, and AMD64. Today, Intel makes CPUs that are AMD64 compatible (EMT64). And now for the first time, AMD sold more cpus in retail than Intel this past month.

Yahoo Podcasts goes live

Yahoo Podcasts is finally live. Enough said.

Everybody wants to rule the media world

Here we go again The ability to control what you can and can not do is just so important that everyone wants to rule it wil iron fist. Sony wants to prevent you from streaming, MS wants to prevent you from ripping. Both sides are pretending that the new format is due to lack of storage of the current DVD system. The reality is, they can't control the current DVD format effectively. So of course, the solution is, let's introduce more crap that's incompatible, but enable them to let you do less so they make more money. How did we go from using techologies to solve more problems to using it to let you do "less"and create more problems? The big loser in this is, sadly all of us.

Super Robot Wars J

Super Robot Wars series is another line I follow faithfully since Sega Saturn days. Take a bunch of mechas from famous giant robot series, throw in "save the galaxy" plotline, update them with mechas from the latest animes, such as Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, shaken, not stirred. Out comes an excellent SRPG. Bandai/Banpresto doesn't disappoint in this latest release. Right at the start, I have Chidori from Full Metal Panic yelling at me about how I better not destroy the school ground. I'm also very happy the latest release is for GBA. It's a good choice really, it's both the cheapest platform to develop on, and also I bet has best match to their fanbase. The three games I played for this are Devil May Cry 2 (PS2) still sucks this time around Chaos Legion (PS2) Bujingai: The Forsaken City (PS2) Gackt as the main hero rocked! a very underrated game

Civilization 3

I got Civilization 3 for OSX. I have Civilization 3 as well as both of the expansion packs for Windows already. But Civ is one of those games I just got to have it everywhere. The three games I played for this are Dynasty Warriors 4 Empire (PS2) Samurai Warriors (PS2) Samurai Warriors Extreme Legends (PS2)

Dungeon Siege 2

Got Dungeon Siege 2. I was very disappointed with how badly the multiplayer part of the game handled the story. In essense, only one player will ever get to read and hear about the story. So the only way for two people to really enjoy the multiplayer game is to either not care about the story or to have played through the single player once already, thus you already know the story. The three games I played for this are City of Heroes (PC) Sacred (PC) Champions of Norrath (PS2)

Nintendog

Got Nintendog, got sucked in, now I'm stuck walking the dog every day, I feel like this is Tamagotchi all over again. Three games that I played for this are Guild Wars (PC) Fallout Brotherhood of Steel (Xbox) World of Warcraft (PC)

A Video Game Experiment

Starting in September Y and I decided to try an experiment. Y and I have always talked about how they don't make certain games like they used to anymore. I was wondering if we were just jaded since we played so many games over the years, plus working on them and such. So I proposed an experiment. For every new game we get, we have to play three old games. This way, we'll know if we were just being nostalgic or the old games really ARE better. This is one of the reasons that lead to this blog.

The sad news is offical

It's the end of an era. The Windows Mobile 5.0 powered Palm has just been offically announced.