Remember Dirty Dancing? I just saw it on TV and I had forgotten how hot Jennifer Grey looked. That is, if she was 18 when they recorded the movie, otherwise she’s just pretty.
They sure played “I had the time of my life” a lot for years after that. It even inspired the local girls to shake their hips in a seductive way (occasionally blushing), which is an effect that can only be applauded.
Patrick Swayze, however, stirrs up mixed emotions. He’s not a bad dancer, true, but he gives me the creeps. That strange face, the exaggerated muscles, the way he does his ‘cool walk’ down the aisle in the final dance scene. And somebody please stop him from singing!
So back to the important stuff. What did Jennifer do after that movie? Mostly TV, it appears. In 2000 she played in “Bounce” (a Ben Affleck/Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle) but I can’t recall her appearance there. Judging by the pictures, there’s a reason. Mrs Grey did not age too well. So I’ll leave you with the 1987 picture. When she had the time of her life.
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Moore’s Law in the strict sense states that
(from Intel.com)
In the broadest sense, it can be used to say any computer hardware grows exponentially at some rate (As Moore said: “if Gore invented the Internet, I invented the exponential”). It seems to be true for CPU speed, hard disk capacity, network bandwidth, RAM size … With some imagination it could even be true for laptop batteries: they double capacity every couple of decades (if we’re lucky). Eventhough some claim Moore’s Law is no longer valid, let’s just assume it still is.
In an effort to keep track of the effect of Moore’s law on our own desktop, I will list the typical 2004 Christmas computer. The computer we are talking about is not a budget PC (you can get a Celeron-based PC for less than 700€) nor a nec-plus-ultra workstation with SCSI disks, 2 Itanium processors and 4GB of RAM. It’s rather what would be listed as a ‘performance’ PC. Spending 1500€ (about $2000) this Christmas would get you:
- Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or Athlon 3200+
- 512 MB RAM (e.g. DDR PC3200)
- 128MB or 256MB graphical card (e.g. ATI Radeon X600, nVidia GeForce 6800)
- 160GB S-ATA hard disk with 8MB buffer (e.g. Maxtor Pax Plus 9)
- CD/DVD writer
- 6 USB 2.0, 1 FireWire
- 5.1 sound card
- 7-in-1 memory card reader
- Gigabit Ethernet
- 350 watt power supply
- 17″ LCD monitor (1280×1024)
- Windows XP Home
- Wireless optical keyboard + mouse
(from pcmagazine.be Dec 2004)
Blast from the past: 3 years ago (Jan 2002) a ‘performance’ PC was more like 2000€ and looked like this:
- Pentium 4 2GHz (17% increase per year)
- 256MB RAM (25% increase per year)
- 64MB graphical card (25% increase per year)
- 60GB hard disk (40% increase per year)
- DVD-ROM + CD-RW
- a 56K/V92 modem (!)
- 100Mbps Ethernet (these things go in steps of 10X)
- Keyboard + mouse with(!) scroll-button
- 17″ CRT monitor (same size, only now they’re thinner)
- Windows XP Home (yes, it’s that old!)
(from pcmagazine.be Jan 2002)
If anyone can come up with numbers for Christmas 1998, that would be great!)
So let’s see what Santa brings us for Christmas 2005!
Philippe Decoene, a Belgian politician from the sp.a feels the government should provide all Belgian citizens with free software tools to protect their PC against threats from the Internet.
He sees 2 ways of providing free software for everyone:
- government creates a task force of Belgian top-notch developers and develop/adapt software for the Belgian surfers.
- government buys someone’s product/service through a public tender, and Belgians can use it
In my opinion, the latter is a bad idea, and the former is a very bad idea.
While I agree that too many surfers with too little understanding make the Internet a paradise for rogue hackers, I don’t think it’s the government’s responsibility to provide people with software.
Dear politicians, if you’re wondering what you should do:
- Inform the public: make an advertising campaign about spam and spyware that people remember and talk about (sex sites, breast enlargement pills, herbal viagra, get rich quick, …; agencies like DuvalGuillaume, LG&F and Mortierbrigade could do wonders with this stuff!). Consider what BIVV did with the BOB campaign.
- Educate through school: make sure no one leaves high school without knowing the difference between antivirus and firewall software. Unprotected sex is not intelligent, and neither is an unprotected PC.
- Educate through media. We already have Kijk-Uit for traffic education, why not have a weekly program that covers computer security for the layman. Explain what a hoax is so everyone stops forwarding them.
- Warn for calamities: the BIPT already has an early warning service, but it looks just a tad amateuristic (for one, it needs a decent web designer, creating web pages in MS-Word is a bad idea). The disclaimer for its SMS-alert service is funny:
Het BIPT is echter niet aansprakelijk indien zijn sms-dienst door derden wordt misbruikt om informatie te verstrekken of in geval inbreuk op de privacy veroorzaakt wordt door een virus.
(The BIPT is not liable if its SMS-service is abused by a third party to provide information or if a virus causes a breach of privacy)
As for the 10 free tools mentioned in the title:
- 1. WINDOWS UPDATE
- Indispensable. You should run the Windows Update program once a week, or once a month at the very least. It will automatically look for bug fixes, security patches, driver updates and install them. When you get a new PC, run this several times (some stuff cannot be installed together with other patches) until all critical updates are done.
- In Internet Explorer: Tools/Windows Update - on your desktop: Start/Windows Update
- 2. PERSONAL FIREWALL
- Indispensable. From the moment your PC goes on-line, it will take less than 24 hours for it to be probed by ‘hostile’ computers for vulnerabilities. To make your PC invisible to other computers and protect it against these attacks, you needs a firewall. You might already be protected by a company firewall, or a WiFi router, but install a personal firewall anyway, certainly if you have a laptop.
- Try ZoneAlarm (free for home use) or Kerio (free for home use) or Windows XP Service Pack 2
- (Remark: you cannot use 2 firewall programs at the same time!)
- 3. ANTIVIRUS
- Indispensable. A program that will check every file just before you save or use it and see if it holds a virus. This kind of software uses a database of virus signatures (i.e. something unique about each virus that allows its detection) and new viruses are born everyday, so this database needs to be updated regularly.
- Try AntiVir (free for home use). An alternative is HouseCall (free), but you need to be on-line to use it (it works inside your browser).
- 4. SPYWARE REMOVER
- Indispensable. Websites, emails and hardly-legal software (like Kazaa, Morpheus, Emule, eDonkey, …) will try to install spyware or adware on your computer, so that they can take over your homepage, your search page, or just pop up advertisements on your screen every now and then.
- Try Ad-aware (free for non-commercial use) or Spybot S&D (free)
- (You can have both programs installed on the same PC, they each find stuff that the other doesn’t. Run them once a month.)
- 5. POPUP-BLOCKER
- Indispensable. If you ever were to browse an X-rated site that keeps on popping up new windows filled with undressed women in uncomfortable position, and there seems to be no way to stop this from happening, and your boss is approaching your desk, you would know why these come in handy.
- Try the Google or MSN or Yahoo! toolbar. It’s a question of taste.
- 6. SPAM FILTER
- Indispensable. Estimates are that 60 to 80% of all email is spam (Unsollicited Commercial Email). If you do not receive spam yet, it might be because you don’t have an email address. If you’re gonna be leaving an email address on sites (dating, classifieds, job site, …), get a Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail address just for that. If you receive spam on an address that you cannot easily change,install one of the following spam detectors.
- Try Popfile (open-source, free) or Spambayes (open-source, free)
- 7. BACKUP
- Essential. We all know we should take backups, but we seldom do. And once that hard disk crashes: agony! Forget backup on floppy, tape or CD. Get a 2nd hard disk or an external one (they cost $1/GB). Disk-to-disk backup is fast and requires no manual intervention.
- Try the Windows NT Backup program (included in Windows 2000 and XP Pro, and available on XP Home) or SimplySafeBackup
- Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Backup
- 8. SAFER BROWSER
- Nice to have. Since most people use Internet Explorer, most hackers concentrate on that browser. Does the word ‘Hotbar’ ring a bell? But there are good alternatives.
- Try Firefox (open-source, free) or Opera (free)
- 9. SAFER EMAIL
- Nice to have. If you’re on a corporate Exchange Server, you are obliged to work with Outlook. Since it is the most popular email client, and not the safest one, it is the most under attack. But at home, you have other options!
- Try Outlook Express (included with Windows) or Thunderbird (open-source, free)
- 10. SAFER MESSENGER
- Nice to have. MSN, AOL and Yahoo Messenger are very popular, but can be used for letting unsuspecting recipients install stuff they are not aware of. If you chat a lot with family, friends and fools, consider install one safe messenger client that connects to all your accounts at the same time.
- Try Trillian Basic or Gaim
Like the iTug, iDom, iBuprofen, iSlug, YogaMac or the exclusive Steve Jobs Altar:
davidmccandless.com
(via Ief)
Update:
and this one’s for real: Playboy iBod
(via Engadget)
Yahoo just announced that they now have live traffic information on their mapping service:
In a milestone for Internet-based traffic services, Yahoo! has beefed up its existing mapping services to allow customers to plot a route from one local destination to another, and overlay traffic data such as road speeds and potential delays.
(via cnn.com)
When you live in a city like Brussels, you know how unpredictable and unnerving traffic can be. Here in Belgium we also have some services that give up-to-date traffic info:
- radio1.be gives some info on Brussels and Antwerp in text-format (not much really)
- verkeerscentrum.be gives an map of Flanders and traffic condition for the main arteries
- vab.be shows the traffic map info of the whole of Belgium, based on police information.
- wegeninfo.be also gets info from the Federal Police and show it in a blog-like text-way (reverse chronological).
In France they have something much better: on parisrhinrhone.com they have 10 webcams watching the Paris/Lyon/Dijon motorways and anyone can see the live feed. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words!
William Beaty has his theory on how defensive driving helps solve traffic congestion.
That’s the whole point. We WANT people to merge ahead of us before that other lane comes to an end. If I fear that someone will leap into the space ahead of me, or if this makes me resentful or angry, then I close up ranks and prevent everyone from merging. If I try to become the “vengance police” and punish the cheaters who zoom ahead, then I close up ranks and stop all merges. Closed ranks create traffic jams. “Cheaters” don’t trigger traffic jams, it’s the people who try to punish the cheaters who do it.
Lane-jumpers are not the real problem. Traffic jams are commonly caused by people who attempt to punish the lane-jumpers by eliminating all spaces! In the merge-jam animations, the goal isn’t to maintain the empty space under any circumstance. The goal is to ALLOW PEOPLE TO MERGE AHEAD OF US! Closing up the ranks is what produces that jam in the animation.
(from amasci.com)
To see an accurate simulation of how a traffic jam is born at an highway entry, check the Martin Treiber java application.
Published by Peter on December 10, 2004
in spam.
UPDATE: I received a cease-or-desist from DRoA in March 2006 about this post.
Just received a letter in the post from ‘Domain Registry of America’ (DRoA), urging me to pay them for renewing my domain name. The paper, with a London address on the back, looks like a bill and tries to scare the reader with “Your registration will expire on May 10, 2005. Act today!”
The issue is: it’s a scam. There is no need for me to renew now, and certainly not with DRoA. I know exactly who manages my domains and I am quite happy with them. But I can imagine this trick works quite well with people who have no clue how DNS works, or in accounting departments of companies. These guys have been fooling people since at least 2002, as the Domain Registry of America, of Canada, of Europe and of Australia.
Who’s behind it?
- The letter I received has a UK address: 56 Gloucester Rd, Suite 526, SW7 4UB London. This happens to be the same address as Mail Boxes Etc, so it’s probably just a mail box.
- The letter was shipped from “Jamaica, NY”, which seems to be the USPS post office in John F Kennedy Airport. The address on the DRoA site says “2316 Delaware Avenue #266 - Buffalo, New York”, which apparently is again a “Mail Boxes Etc” location.
- A legal document of the Federal Trade Commission (Dec 2003) places them in Ontario, Canada. I found a “PO Box 4577, Markham, Ontario, L3R 5M7″ address on their Canadian site. Again no ‘real’ address.
- A search in Canada’s WHOIS comes up with: droc.ca was registered in Aug 2001 by a Mr Pearl Bitton. A search in Canada’s 411 phone directory gives us one Mr. P. Bitton in Thornhill, Ontario - about 15km away from Markham. I can’t be sure it’s him, of course.
- The FTC final judgment of Dec 2003 mentions a Daniel Klemann, President of DRoA. Mr Klemann must be seing a lot of court rooms, because he was already convicted in Canada in June 2002. So this man has been told twice by a judge that he should stop his practices, but still continues. What a hero. There is a D. Klemann living in Markham and in Toronto.
- His partner in crime, James Tetaka, equally popular in courtrooms, was convicted for similar facts in May of 2004 and described as a Toronto-area man.
- The company under which they operated is “1473253 Ontario Inc”, which is run by Peter Kuryliw, also from Toronto.
- So they first ran a scam as Yellowbusiness.ca, then as Internet Registry of Canada (IRC), and now they are basically active all over the world. Global scumbags.
Other mentions of the scam:
asa.org.uk
compudave.blogspot.com
coofercat.com
domainavenue.com
domainregistrationtips.net
drbacchus.com
seowebsitepromotion.com
theregister.co.uk
webhostingtalk.com
wellho.net
So you want to blog? Blogger is by far the fastest and cheapest way to go. Here’s how to set up a full-fledged new blog in 10 steps (for a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots on how to do the basics, i.e. step 1 and 2, check out preetamrai.com or casweb.ou.edu):
- Pick a good blog name
make sure the name is distinctive and/or representative. If you want to make a blog about football, you could call it ‘Football News’, but there are more than 80 million Google hits on ‘football’, and 1,4 million for ‘football-news’. Chances you ever end up in the first page is zero. If you choose ‘Funky Football’, there are only 550 hits in Google now. Watch out for words that are difficult to spell (’phootbal’ has only 7 hits, but chances someone gets it right the first time he hears it are nil).
- Pick a good blogspot domain-name
If you have some webspace with FTP access and flexible domainname management to your disposal, go ahead and publish on ‘whatever.mydomain.com’. But if you prefer a no-brainer, go for the ‘[whatever].blogspot.com’ hosting. Make sure the domain-name is also distinctive and/or representative. ‘football.blogspot.com’ might be free (it’s not, actually) but way too popular in Google. If you choose ‘funkyfootball.blogspot.com’ (still free, go for it!) - there are only 103 hits for ‘funkyfootball’ in Google now. There are actually no hits for ‘cxqqyh885pk’ in Google, but honestly, who would remember a blog URL like ‘cxqqyh885pk.blogspot.com’?
- Make an RSS feed
Google does not have an RSS feed, only Atom (not compatible). Your Atom feed will be published on [whatever].blogspot.com/atom.xml. So you will want to convert this Atom feed with Feedburner and its ‘SmartFeed’ option (free). Choose the feed name as http://feeds.feedburner.com/[blogname] or something close (if the name you like is already taken). If you want to make a Podcast, use the Smartcast option.
- Get a page counter
Get it from a service like NedStatBasic or BelStat (free). To be sure, take both (they each have their own PROs and CONs). Copy/paste the HTML for each counter into a text document you save on your PC, so you have it handy when you start editing your HTML template (see 9.).
- Updating content: music
to have easily updateable music playlists in your blog, use Webjay (free). You can insert a playlist into your blog by adding some JavaScript to its HTML (see 9.), and you can then edit the actual playlist using Webjay.
- Updating content: photos
if you are serious about using nice, fast picture albums in your blog, use Flickr (free), Smugmug ($30/year) or Pixagogo ($50/year). If you have a .blogspot.com domain, you cannot host your pictures on blogspot.com, you need an external service. They’re all different, pick the one you like most. You want:
a) a URL to each of your albums (to be used in a <a href=…> tag),
b) a URL for an individual picture (to be used in a <img src=…> tag)
(disclaimer: I am one of the founders of HyperTrust, that runs Pixagogo).
- Updating content: links
to insert a blogroll and/or link-list, use the services of del.icio.us (free), Furl (free) or BlogRolling (free). They allow inserting lists of links (your blog buddies, other football sites, …) via JavaScript.
- Decide on your copyright license
if the stuff you will publish might at some point be somewhat creative (you post the storyline for a new movie, a recipe for duck-a-la-banana, a new name for a egg-shaped chair, …) decide on the license you want to apply on the content of the blog. Check Creative Commons for more details on the options you have.
- Edit the blog HTML template
If you’re not familiar with HTML, you might wanna ask a friend who is. You edit the template through the Blogger ‘Template’ tab. You need to add the Feedburner feed chicklet, the web counter HTML, JavaScript/HTML for the music/photos/links and the Creative Commons license. You might want to decide to change/delete your Blogger Profile, add a disclaimer on the bottom, change the color of your bullets, …
- Get a publishing client
for most platforms, you can get a Blogger client that allows you to create your post locally on your PC, and then publish it when it’s ready. Advantages: you do not need to be on-line to write your blog posts, only to publish them, and you do not lose your article if your network or the Blogger server crashes. On Windows, use w.bloggar.
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