Earth Hour 2008

I was a bit late getting home, but the moment we arrived it was time to celebrate Earth Hour. So once in, and the cats got their tuna it was time to go around and make sure all the lights were off and the power bars were switched off, that way all non-essential items, such as computers and peripherals were off.

I can report that most homes in the neighbourhood also followed suit since many were in darkness, with only the soft glow of candlelights shining through windows.

All this proves is energy conservation is a grassroots movement and can be accomplished. Perhaps this is not the end of global warming, but it is a start and everything great has to start at some time and some place.



The good news, it appears a lot of people decided to get involved, according to the The Toronto Star, energy consumption for the hour dropped in the Province of Ontario. The total for the province was a decrease of 5.2%. Perhaps this is not overly incredible, especially when we put ourselves beside the cities of Australia and New Zealand where consumption dropped by over 10%. Still considering this is the first year, its a good start.

With candles, flashlights, the LED type, the darkness wasn't all that bad.

FORTUNE: Apple 2.0 Karl Rove loves his iPhone «

FORTUNE: Apple 2.0 Karl Rove loves his iPhone «

I'm debating if this is the sort of news that Apple should be proclaiming loud and proud.

Karl Rove loves his Apple products.

He has the iPhone and the MacBook Air.

Just in case you don't remember who Karl Rove is, read his wikipedia entry.

It might be easy to call him the Prince of Darkness, or the Personification of Evil, but that might be too lenient. Just go down the wiki and read all about his involvement in ruining people's lives or his heavy handedness, or the fact he took great relish destroying lives and reputations.

Now he like Apple products.

Perhaps Apple should change one of their mottos from "Think Different" to
"Think Evil".

The Canadian Press: Mounties zap details from Taser reports as firings soar across Canada

The Canadian Press: Mounties zap details from Taser reports as firings soar across Canada

Operor non Tase mihi Frater

Forget A Mari usque ad Mare. Canada needs a new up-to-date Latin saying. One that reflects the cultural ideals of our society.

After reading the above article may I suggest the one in the heading.

It means "Don't Tase me Bro'".

Appropriate don' you think?

The Storm of '08

The news this morning is all about the Storm.

It was quite a solid all day affair yesterday.

Here are photographs of the aftermath, as people start to clear their property.

Now this is an Amazing Linux Ad

Watch this Ad:
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It is any reason Linux is an amazing operating system.

With this being the end of February, or close to it, we now under two months to the launch of the new version of Ubuntu, Handy Heron.

The Alpha 5 release has been available and in a number of weeks, hopefully the Beta version will be out and then starts the exciting countdown to the new version.

This site gives the dates.

Looking forward to the 24th of April, or I may wait a few days.

End of the Skiing Season?

So I went out today for my weekly Cross country skiing time. The point of launch was going to be around the Mohawk Chapel park. The thought was to go along the Gordon Glaves Memorial Trail to the river. I've done the trail by bike and so it was going to be a re-visit. I had hoped to do it last week, but ended up going to Mohawk Park and then starting the Hamilton-Brantford Rail Trail. Believe it or not, I actually saw skiers along that trail!

Okay this week, there had been some new snow but generally sunny skies, which meant that combined with the cold temperature there was thaw and then freezing. What that meant was parts of the trail were snow bare and the rest was icy.

I didn't ski as far as I wanted because of those conditions.

Which probably means the ending of the season.

It was a good skiing season really. Very enjoyable. Hopefully there be as much snow next year.

Go Ask Alice, when you see her on The Bridge

Came across this video on YouTube

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Now I'm not saying the song is suggesting that was any consumption of controlled substances on The Enterprise, but it does make you think.


By the way, what did the Dormouse say?

Tom Cruise on Scientology

It's making the rounds, see it before its gone.

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Creep doesn't begin to describe it.

By the way KSW= "keep scientology working"

Wikipedia has information on the cult

Of course it has inspired parody:
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And Scientology wants the parodies removed.

Hey good luck on that one.

I'm seeing if I can blog with my Dell Axim x3i. If you can see this, then it is successful.

Hockey News for Friday

It appears the Toronto Maples Leafs may be changing their logo in the near future.

They might go from :



to:



The news on The Score is that Russian Billionaire Alexander Shnaider has approached Larry Tanenbaum about purchasing MSLE, which owns the Leafs, the Raptors, Air Canada Centre, BMO Field and Toronto FC. Of course he is only one part of the MSLE puzzle, the Teacher's Pension, CTVGlobemedia are also part of the ownership mess.

It might be interesting, after all leadership of the Leafs have meant, nothing. No playoffs, no Stanley Cup, no nothing except baskets of money every year, because it they ain't spending anything on making a winner.

This might be interesting.

Of course, there are a few things to consider:

the main owners, the Teacher's Pension and CTV may not be interested in selling.
however, Tanenbaum might be, which means this Shnaider might get his foot in the door and if that happens watch him gain majority and then sole control.

There is one interesting fact, the long time owner Harold Ballard hated the Russians.

Can you hear him spinning?

First Blog of 2008

As the title says, the first blog of 2008. No pressure but I've got to come up with something good, that will set the tone for all blogs of the future.

So here is what I'm thinking on the second day of 2008; is anyone at all interested in the US election? Be honest haven't these people been running since the last election in November 2004? Tomorrow starts the first of the primaries and although Iowa is officially a 'caucus', it's still the start of something the MSM will call interesting as if to justify the money that has been spent and all those reporters running around the back roads of Iowa in search of a story.

The end result will be someone will get the caucus which means:

The Iowa caucus is an electoral event in which Iowa residents elect delegates to the county convention to which their precinct belongs. (There are 99 counties in Iowa (as of 2008), therefore, 99 conventions.) These county conventions then select delegates for both Iowa's Congressional District Convention and the State Convention—these eventually choosing the delegates for the National Convention. The Iowa caucus is noteworthy for the amount of media attention it receives during U.S. presidential election years: Since 1972, the Iowa caucus has been the first major electoral event of the nominating process for President of the United States. It has served as an early indication of which candidates for President might win the nomination of their political party at that party's national convention. The next Iowa caucus is on January 3, 2008.

So in other words, what happens tomorrow is Iowans will elect the delegates who will elect the delegates to attend the various National Conventions that will take place in the summer of 2008. All I can say is 'thank you' to Wikipedia for explaining that to me. If I can further sum it all up it means, precisely nothing but has meant a lot of service industries in Iowa has done well with all the reporters, candidates, candidate workers going throughout the 99 counties of Iowa.

Hey, more power to Iowa.

In other news: Lake Superior State University located in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan has come up with its lists of banned words. Now this is not a suppression of First Amendment Rights rather a desire to remove words and phrases that have overstayed their welcome. They are overused, hackneyed, trite and generally annoying, the by-product of people parroting the 'cool' phrases of the day.

The full list is here. The banned word/phrase of the year is Perfect Storm. It started out as a book and later a movie. The premise was the convergence of a number of conditions that would bring about a perfect combination of absolutely horrible weather. Now it's used to describe any and everything that could be possibly bad.

But all is not doom and gloom, there is good news. First and foremost, you can now order your very own CrankyGeeks T-Shirt. That is true, after months of teasing and promises, Jinx has designed and put out for purchase a t shirt dedicated to one of the better vidcasts out there, CrankyGeeks with John C. Dvorak. Buy yours now.

The only other bit of news is the Dell Axim X3i is working well, it's recharging in its very cool cradle for both charging the battery and syncing it with the computer.

Dude I got a New Dell

After owning one for about 6 years I decided to recycle my old Axim X5 for something a littler newer. So I decided to search the pages of Ebay to discern what was out there. I looked around and discovered there was a very nice Dell Axim X3i. You can read a review of it here. It has

# Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 software for Pocket PC, including Pocket versions of Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel, Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player and more
# Intel® XscaleTM Processor at 400MHz or 300MHz
# Brilliant 3.5-inch TFT 240x320 QVGA 65K Color Transflective LCD
# 64MB SDRAM or 32MB SDRAM
# 64MB or 32MB Intel® StrataFlashTM ROM
# 1 Secure Digital IO Slot
# Consumer IrDA port
# 950mAh Li-Ion Removable Battery with integrated rechargeable Backup Battery
# Optional 1800mAh Li-Ion High Capacity Battery
# Built-in Microphone & Speaker
# Backlit Power Button / Indicator Light
# Optional integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b capability
# Weight: Axim X3i w/ standard battery: 140.4g (5 oz); Axim X3 w/standard battery: 136.5g (4.8 oz)
# Dimensions: Axim X3i: 122.4 x 14.9 x 77.2mm (4.82" x 0.6" x 3"); Axim X3: 117 x 14.9 x 77.2mm (4.6" x 0.6" x 3")
# Power Button, 4 Application Keys, 5-way Navigator Button, Scroll Dial, Wireless On/Off Button, Record Button, Headphone mini-jack
# USB Cradle with 2nd primary battery charging slot

What is impressive is the smaller and lighter size, in comparison to it's older brother the X5. As well, it has integrated WIFI which can be turned off and turned on so as to save battery life. As you may know, WiFi can be a battery drainer so it's a good feature to have.

The original news release is here.

As you can see, there's also a nice looking cradle for both syncing and recharging the battery.

The WiFi antenna is quite good and gives a good range for the needs of surfing the Net. What also makes it different from the X5 is there is only a SD card slot rather then an SD and CF card slot. With my X5, the CF slot was filled with a CF WiFi card, so it's no big one.

As for the Axim X5, Jeremy got it. He got the Axim, the WiFi card and a blank SD card. I hope he enjoys it.

More Photographs of a Winter Landscape






Took an hour to go out, do some skiing and take some photographs

Here's what is happening in Brantford.

The weather news was for a storm and as you can see by these two photographs, the forecast was correct.





Needless to say, it has meant the cancellation of church this morning and the postponing of the Christmas Cantata this afternoon.

What this also means is;

relax in the morning and

Cross Country Skiing in the Afternoon.

I'll bring my camera.

LOLCAT Thursday

I am certain I had some serious topic for this blog. Something profound and moving. Then I went to the LOLcat site and saw this:


moar funny pictures


Cats dressed in bunny suits with that "if looks could kill" look. Truly this is why the Internet was created.

No serious, this is why the Internet was created.

A few thoughts for Wednesday



In the mail today was a new package from Canonical, it was the new CD's for Gutsy Gibbon. I went to gthe Shipti page and ordered some discs of the new OS. Now you know from previous blogs that I download the new distro around the time its available, so what would be the advantage of getting the CD's? There is a very good reason and that is it is a excellent backup.

By this I mean should I have an problems with Gutsy I can simply do an install using the discs. I had to do that very thing with Feisty a couple months after it came out. For some reason the computer started to act very badly- slowing down and generally not responding. I was having problems with both wireless and wired broadband, but I had ordered some discs. So it was simply a matter of installing straight off the CD and everything worked well. Of course by that I mean as good as Feisty was, personally there were a number of problems which have been addressed by Gutsy.

Plus there is the matter of the stickers that come with it, perhaps a few could end up on my bike, my older one that is.

I also finished watching Crankygeeks and this episode was quite interesting. First of all, I don't think at any time did John C. Dvorak give the plug for his blog. Now that has to be an absolute first since he plugs that address everywhere, just listen to a few episodes of TWIT to see what I mean. Also it featured an all geek girl cast, including everyone's favourite roving reporter from geekentertainment.tv, Irina Slutsky. It was a lively show with the ladies going off on what was John's topics, but they added a new dimension to the show and it was very good. It is well worth a watch.

On the topic of crankygeeks; they are coming out with a t-shirt. I can't wait to get the news and information as to ordering said t-shirt. It will be a proud part of my collection.

Speaking of t-shirts:



If any one knows where to order this, please let me know.

I just went back and discovered that I have been using Ubuntu for nearly a year. I'll have to write a blog about my experience.

Living with Gutsy Gibbon

I've been living with Gutsy Gibbon, the latest Ubuntu release since the release of the beta in late September. It has been an interesting experience going through the experience of a beta release, the first thing I noticed was the last of introduction music. I wondered if Ubuntu was going to go silent, but when I downloaded the full version, the sounds have returned, so as the brown background.

On the 18th, I fired up and downloaded what was left of the upgrade. The problem with downloading on the day of release is all the servers get very busy and the download is a crawl. Fortunately with all the upgrades before, there was only a few files that were required to bring my OS to full release glory.

Now, what was my opinion. It is a delightful upgrade. A number of the problems with 7.04 are fixed.

Let me give the list of what I like:

I can use my Canon Printer. I have set up the Canon as the network printer and 7.10 found it and found the right printer. Now I can sit anywhere in the house and print any document I want printed. As well, when I plug in my HP Printer, it is found as well. I can make either one the default printer for this laptop.

An interesting feature is that at the first usage, it checked the battery and stated it was an older battery with limited time. The battery is almost 4 years old and is the NI type.

The problem I had with the microphone headset have been fixed. With Feisty, the mike did not work well at all. The problem was when I used Skype. I would try and it wouldn't work. In fact Feisty became very buggy in late June for some reason.

The search deskbar applet is a good feature. It allows you to more search engines then Google and allows you to search files for the same name. Couple this with the Tracher Search Tool nothing will get lost, ever.

True plug and play. I plugged in my camera and it was found. As well to unmount is straightforward and again, it is identified correctly.


My one drawback, and this is more the age of my laptop, I can't used any of the enhanced destop features or visual effects. I have seen them on the older desktop, but with the laptop, its not possible. Although this is more due to the fact the video is not supported or cannot support Linux. Still as I said, it's an older machine and it's one of the drawbacks I have learned to accept.

Wireless again is a breeze, simply plug in the wifi card and it connects.

The other features that are mentioned such as the quick change from one user to another is not a feature I will use since I'm the only one with this laptop.

F-Spot, the photo is not only a simple photo editing tool and it allows fast upload to flickr and a number of other photo hosting sites. It's a very nice feature of Ubuntu.

Pigdin, the multiple platform messenger tool. It is GAIM with a new name.

It has the latest Firefox and the Open Office Suite.


With all this, it's going to be a good six months and then 8.04 will be released and if it has more enhancements, it will be great. Of course the added feature of the next upgrade will be the long term support.

I'm going to upgrade until the machine can't take it any more.

New Apple Trojan Means Mac Hunting Season Is Open

New Apple Trojan Means Mac Hunting Season Is Open

It was only a matter of time. So there is now a trojan that is Mac unique. To sum up, it goes this way, a person with a Mac want to watch a video, a box pops up and informs the person they have to download a special codec to watch. When they do that, a trojan is installed on their computer and their secure machine is now compromised.

As you read the article you will note that experts in the field argue whether or not this is an exploitation of a hole or exploits human weakness. May I suggest it doesn't matter, because trojans, malware are where its at when it comes to security. For the most part the classic virus is a thing of the past. The good days when you open up a email, or stick in a infected floppy and infect your computer is probably a thing of the past. I will not say there are no virii, because as long as a person can download the Virus Laboratory and make your own, it will always be the case.

However it is the trojan that has the potential of turning a computer into a zombie machine that becomes a means of pumping out spam and other nastiness is where it is.


One comment:

Unlike many Windows-based attacks, the Trojan doesn't exploit a hole in Apple's software, and it can't install itself. Instead, it relies on social engineering, tricking users into downloading the codec, and requiring that they type in the administrator password to install it.

.

This is true but consider this, it's got to start sometime. Once the hackers realize there is a vulnerability they will become more aggressive.

Now there is someone who disagrees with all this:

But Carl Howe, an Apple analyst at Blackfriars Communications, disputes the security researchers' theories. He thinks that OS X's Unix heritage makes Apple systems less vulnerable to attack than Windows-based platforms. He argues that even if hacking Macs hasn't been profitable in the past, attackers would have done it anyway if they'd been able -- just for the attention.

"I think the market-share thing has always been a myth," Howe said. "It's a good story to talk about."

It's a good thought but may I make a suggestion to this, I believe Apple has been able to enjoy it's hacker past for many years. After all Jobs and Woz were hackers, they were phone phreaks and all that good stuff, so it may have been an aura that surrounded Apple. "They were one of us", the hackers may have thought. While it's doubtful many hackers have a romantic view of the past, it may have been simple market share plus the cost of hardware. After all, to hack Windows, you needed a Windows computer and they price for a very good Windows machine is probably 1/2 that of Apple. But Apple Computers are coming down in price and their market share is growing. So if more hackers get their hands on Apple machines, they will begin to look around and try and find exploits. Once they start, they won't stop.

There's another reason, Apple is arrogant and complacent. While people are lauding Leopard, others are noticing there are problems. Is it the case Apple has a lot of irons in the fire. If you consider there has been the iPhone, newer and better iPods, all of which is taking time from developing secure software. As well, Apple has turned against the good hacker community, with their recent firmware upgrade which turned many iPhones into very expensive paper weights, some one is going to get angry and then figure out how to get back.

Remember, when Safari was installed on Windows, hackers had a field day. They know they can exploit the software, it will only be a matter of time.

Apple fan, get used to having Norton installed on your machine.

Apple now bigger than Big Brother : Good Morning Silicon Valley





Remember the Ad? Apple was the champion of freedom and choice in a world dominated by Big Blue, aka
IBM. The Corporate Entity known as IBM was stifling freedoms and forcing the world into the beige box of conformity.

Now we have this article from "God morning Silicon Valley", Apple is now bigger the IBM and this is the result



Apple, or perhaps we should consider calling them "Big White" has replace Big Brother with their brand of oppression. Now some may think, this is just another Anti-Apple Screed, think about this:

Apple has perfected the closed system. You to change your iMac, your iBook in anyway, you can, it's called 'buying a new one'. Yes everything is in one, try and put in a bigger hard drive. You want to mod, no way.

You want to hack your iPhone like you did the AppleTV, sure you can, and then Apple will screw you royally with a firmware update that won't simply remove all the hacks and third party apps, but stop it from working. Nice.

Oh and remember when you could install Linux on your iPod? Not any more.

Have a rumour? How about an inside tip? Want to post it on your blog? Expect a "Cease and Desist" letter from Steve Jobs.

What about IBM? They have embraced open source and Linux. As well, they have released Lotus Symphony, an open source Office Suite based upon Open Office. As well, this will be tied into their Lotus Notes platform with release 8.0. Again, another example of how the world is beginning to embrace Open Source while Big White remains closed behind walls of its own system.

1984 won't be like 1984?

The Ontario General Election
Meh

Says it all.

The result was as to be expected, the Liberals won, the Conservatives lost and the NDP hung in there.

I heard the final speeches on election night and they were interesting. The first leader to speak was Dalton McGuinty, the once and present Premier. I thought this was odd since usually the winner waits until everyone has conceded the election before speaking. His speech was as exciting as he, in other words dull. In fact all he did was repeat what he has said over the past 28 days, with the exception of talking about his family.

John Tory was next and he gave words of congratulations to Dalton, to Kathleen Wynne and then said the usual stuff defeated politicians say. If I can translate: "we lost, it was my fault, let's get drunk". Okay so maybe not.

Howard Hampton spoke last and just kind of rambled on, talking about people he knew.

The dullest election, the Seinfeld election is now history. Meh.


Although let me rant, the sad part of the entire election was the inability of the electorate to support the referendum. People stayed with the status quo and I think part of the reason was a lack of information. I mean, what did we know about the difference? Practically little. I don't understand why this was not covered more and why information was not given prior to the election. This was not a campaign this was a practical constitutional change, one that required more thoughtful discussion and information.

As for the Green Party; so close, so very close. Next time, for sure.