Well I'm off to Kuala Lumpur to live tomorrow morning. Therefore vis-a-vis ergo wysiwyg there probably won't be any more Rubenerd Blog posts until I arrive there tomorrow night.
See you there.
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Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2
And make sure you don't exceed these, they charge SG$20.00 per kilo over the limit. Ouch!
Economy: 20kg
Raffles / Business: 30kg
First: 40kg
I'm going Business because I just have so much damned stuff… and only because we have enough Frequent Flyer points (ahem). If I was flying under normal circumstances I wouldn't bother with Business mostly because I'm fairly skinny and the extra seat space really seems wasted. Only big advantage for me is the length of my legs, in Business I can sit down and actually stretch my legs out!
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“If you talk to God you’re religious. If God talks to you, you’re psychotic.”
– Dr House
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I'm sure if you're really interested in iTunes and Apple software releases you'd already know about this but I thought I'd just do a quick review of iTunes 7.
I was really dissapointed with the iTunes 5 to 6 version update (it seemed fairly redundant) but in version 7 the interface has really been polished even futher.
In particular I really love the new tune views that let you see the album lists with artwork or even the cover art being displayed as a slideshow (I remember seeing the latter view in a third party utility though. Guess they pulled another Konfabulator).
The scrollbars have been changed: yet another non standard interface change by Apple. When will they stop doing this? Also the newly redesigned library is far less screen efficient (albeit more "stylish").
But the thing that really tarnishes my experience somewhat is the convenient button for the equaliser is gone. Why I ask?!
In order they are: iTunes 6, iTunes 7 album view, and iTunes slideshow view.
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Do you have a retro Ericsson phone from the late 1990's and have always wanted to create your very own custom monotonic ringtone for it? Well if you use Mac OS your prayers have been answered (since 1998)!
This little utility allows you to write melodies for your Ericsson GSM phone. It works on every Macintosh from system 6.0 to MacOS X, includes hundreds of sample melodies to get you started, and costs only $5 !
If you order it now from Kagi Secure Pages, and you will receive it in your emailbox as soon as I receive confirmation!
And who says this blog is useless? Don't answer that.
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It seems that the Russian song download site AllOfMp3 has inspired another Russian song downlaod site: GoMusic. They even have audiobooks and are going the Web 2.0 route and giving their site "beta" status ;).
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My feedback to Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte for the Security Now! podcast.
G'day Steve and Leo!
Long time listener but first time emailer. Just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoy your podcast and look forward to it each week. I'm in my first year of uni doing Computer Science and Economics in Malaysia and Singapore where my nuclear family live as expats and its comforting to hear native English speakers above everything else too… I'm an Aussie ;)
In regards to your latest Q&A episode I took great interest in your brief discussion of Smoothwall and have since deployed it for my family. More than anything else it's a great way to occupy a Pentium MMX machine that would otherwise just sit in a closet. I'm a Mac user and tried it out first in Parallels Desktop and was very impressed with the installation, and the built in DHCP server also works like a charm. Like you said Steve I think these programs are great for people who want to get their hands dirty rather than just purchasing a router. Thanks for the tip :).
Also in regards to your latest episode regarding to the culpability of Microsoft when it comes to Windows security, I do take slight issue. I think it's easy to blame problems with Windows on its large user base, but one of the favourite comparisons I see when this issue is raised is the Apache versus IIS exploits. Despite the fact Apache is installed on many many many more machines, it appears IIS continuously has more issues. If that is a result of people targeting evil Microsoft versus open source I guess is a matter for debate! Again this could be showing my lack of knowlege in this area, but I think it's hard to ignore.
I had a quick question I thought you might know something about: one of the subjects this semester I'm studying is internet technology. An interesting point that was raised in a class last week was about a "processor monoculture", now that Apple has moved over to Intel processors and even Sun offer alternatives to their SPARC architecture, do you think this poses a security risk? My lecturer was comparing computers to biology in that ecosystems with a variety of organisms are more resilient to disease than than ecosystems with less biodiversity. Now that it seems we're all moving towards a universal chip architecture with (mostly) the ubiquitous Windows operating system, are we actually moving in the wrong direction and making ourselves more vulernable? A Wintel virus thesedays can cause enourmous havoc across the planet, but a modern Amiga Workbench virus launched on the net would have very little effect. I hope I'm making sense!
Anyway awesome show, looking forward to next episode. In regards to Amber McArthur Steve, at least you did get to hug her, unlike some of us ;).
Cheers,
Ruben
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I can't imagine how any rational parent these days could be against legislation to criminliase the act of smacking children in all the states in Australia. Smacking is an antiquated, crude, mentally-scarring and ineffective method of persuasion that teaches children that violence is the answer to problems… sound familiar in this world we live in at the moment?
My parents didn't smack me; and I sure as hell wouldn't ever smack my kids if I were to have any; but apparently some people think physical abuse in this day and age is socially and morally acceptable:
Smacking ban too extreme, Family Association says.
he foundation’s chief executive, Joe Tucci, says while there has been a decline in support for physical punishment, there is obviously still a large section of the community using it.
The Australian Family Association says a ban on smacking children is going too far. The Australian Childhood Foundation says it would like physical punishment against children to be banned. But Australian Family Association spokesman Damien Tudehope says the current laws are adequate.
“We have some concerns about introducing laws which have the potential of turning parents into criminals,” he said. “Certainly we don’t advocate any circumstances where it’s appropriate to leave permanent marks on children and to use discipline in a way where it becomes an assault on children. “But to introduce laws which mean the Government has a role to play in deciding who and who isn’t a good parent, we think that’s going too far.”
Oh okay, so legally we protect people from harassment in the community, but hey physically abusing children who haven't even fully developed is all well and good. Come on people, grow up yourselves.
Ourmedia article by User:publik
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The *.DAA file format is a type of proprietary disk image created using the PowerISO program for Windows. DAA stands for Direct Access Archive. Unfortunately the only way to open these files on Macs is to install PowerISO on a Windows box (or Windows emulator on your Mac) and convert them to ISO files.
It's downright silly and utterly pointless that such a format exists I would think, it just makes life more complicated! ISO files are good enough I would have thought.
If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: proprietary file formats are evil. Microsoft Office files, these DAA files… they're all evil!
Sorry if you're disappointed by the lack of good news, but I thought I'd share my experience to prevent similar frustration.
UPDATE: A lot has changed since I created this post two years ago. Without me realising it there’s been a fantastic conversation going here, and since 2006 there have been some utilities created to read DAA files. View the comments for more info.
Cheers! — Ruben
With all the gloom and doom thoughts surrounding this ominous day in history, I thought I'd take the opportunity to shine a brighter light on today's proceedings:
Happy Birthday Ben Lee :).
Ben Lee (born September 11, 1978 in Sydney, Australia) is an Australian musician and actor. Lee began his career as a musician at the age of 14 with the Sydney band Noise Addict, but focused on his solo career when the band broke up. He appeared as the protagonist in the the Australian film The Rage In Placid Lake (2003).
