Entries for Cairo

Windows is the devil [Windows is the devil]

Cairo — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:13:43 GMT

I really have trouble finding my 'happy place' when Windows decides to reboot due to updates and toss out what I've been working on. It thinks it knows better than me, such arrogance.

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Who is Jason Weber? [Who is Jason Weber?]

Cairo — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 22:40:54 GMT

Has there been a video of him on here? He's having a spat with Jamie Cansdale.

in reply to Who is Jason Weber?

Windows Mobile outlook and shared calendars? [Windows Mobile outlook and shared calendars?]

Cairo — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:26:06 GMT

My company puts on events several times a year. The floor staff needs to have a shared electronic calendar to keep the schedules straight. I was thinking of issuing them cheap-ish PDA-phones, like the Moto Q, and configuring the phones to use either a single exchange account, or somehow use a (public folder) shared calendar, if it allows that.

Anyone have advice on this?

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What would cause a fresh, brand-new IE7 installation to behave this way? [What would cause a fresh, brand-new IE7 installation to behave this way?]

Cairo — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:47:04 GMT

IE6 worked fine a few moments prior to IE7 being installed. It looks like IE7 is *sorta* working, because the tab title changes, favicons show up, etc . -- but the content area is completely blank, and the window cannot be closed (I have to kill it in task manager, even though it's not hung). Additionally, typing an address into the address box causes a popup that says "<address> is not available". The alt key also doesn't show the menu bar.

Any ideas?

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Mac Office 2008 beta? [Mac Office 2008 beta?]

Cairo — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:39:08 GMT

"We're in private betas right now" confirmed Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MacBU), during an exclusive interview with APC magazine.

How can I get in on those "private betas"? Anyone from MacBU here?

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Block WGA from phoning home [Block WGA from phoning home]

Cairo — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:43:33 GMT

EWeek article:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1979756,00.asp

Utility:
http://www.firewallleaktester.com/removewga.htm

Features
* Tell you if the WGA notification tool is active on your system
* Allows you to remove the WGA notification tool from your system
* Accept the "-silent" command line parameter to silently check if the WGA notification tool is active on your system, and popup only if it is found (usefull for checking automatically at startup for instance)

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Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft [Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft]

Cairo — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:38:20 GMT

Jim 'I should have hired Scoble' Louderback wrote:

Gates Steps Down

In an emotional press conference Thursday, Bill Gates announced his intention to step down. It's the longest transition ever - two years, but he really is going to move away from day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft. But he's not going away for good. Check out our news story, with details on the press conference, when Bill's heading out, and what he's working on for chapter two of his life. Plus we've got chapter and verse - literally - on what Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates said to calm the troops. Read the memo here.

Looks like Jamies gets one of his wishes. I wonder what kind of "research" a blowhard like Mundie will be doing.

The PC Magazine Article wrote:

Bill Gates let his emotions get the better of him as he tearfully announced his pending resignation in a press conference on Thursday afternoon. As of July 2008, Gates will transition from his day-to-day role as Chief Software Architect and Chairman of Microsoft to just being the Chairman. Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of Chief Software Architect and begin working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities while Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie will immediately take the new title of Chief Research and Strategy Officer.

And here's the memo:

Steve Ballmer wrote:

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 1:31 PM
To: Microsoft and Subsidiaries: All FTE
Subject: New Era of Technical Leadership
I wanted to share some important news with you, and talk a little bit about some of my top priorities in the coming months.
Today we are announcing the news that – effective July 2008 – Bill will transition to a part-time role at the company. While this is significant news, it's important to note that for the next two years Bill will continue full-time as Chairman, and that even after July 2008 he will continue as Chairman and an advisor on key development and business issues.
This is not a decision that either Bill or I take lightly. We have a solid transition plan, and Microsoft is well-positioned to make this transition given the depth of senior leaders we have, and our strong pipeline of products over the coming year.

As Microsoft has grown, Bill also has taken on another challenge – the amazing work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to confront critical issues like global health and education. The Foundation's efforts have begun to have a major impact, and there is growing need for him to spend more of his time on Foundation activities.

Bill and I have talked over the years about scaling the company's leadership and about succession planning. Our efforts to expand the company's leadership and delegate more authority to meet the challenges of our expanded scope of innovation are well underway.

... and from the Billness himself:

Bill Gates wrote:

From: MSBILLG
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 1:41 PM
To: Microsoft and Subsidiaries: All FTE Subject: My Transition Plans
I wanted to take a moment to share some of my thoughts, as well.
As Steve's mail indicates, I've decided that two years from now, in July 2008, I want to devote more time to the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Right now and for the next two years, my full-time job is here at Microsoft, and my part-time job remains the Foundation. Beginning in July 2008, I will switch that, to be full-time at the Foundation, while remaining involved with Microsoft as Chairman and an advisor on key development projects on a part-time basis.

To prepare for this change, we have a well-thought-out transition process. Again, I will continue at Microsoft full-time for the next two years, but over the course of those two years, my day-to-day responsibilities will shift to a team of incredible technical leaders who are already doing amazing things at the company.
I feel very lucky that we've got extraordinary technical leaders at the company, like Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie, who can step up to assume the roles that I've played. I've known Ray for the last 20 years, and he has created some of the most important developments in the industry.

in reply to Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft

Recycled/refurbished PCs [Recycled/refurbished PCs]

Cairo — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:35:04 GMT

Anyone know of a (reputable) place that sells Windows 2000-capable recycled or refurbished PCs?

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XP service pack 2 and mup.sys [XP service pack 2 and mup.sys]

Cairo — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:49:26 GMT

So what does one do to find out why a machine running XP Service Pack 2 reboots shortly after loading mup.sys?

I know it's not mup.sys itself, it's the next thing in the list (whatever list it's using), but the machine reboots before I can see any name on the screen.

Running "disable mup.sys" from the recovery console doesn't help. I still don't see the next item loaded -- only the previous ones (ntfs.sys and ndis.sys).

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So... who bought an "Origami"? [So... who bought an "Origami"?]

Cairo — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:21:35 GMT

They've been out for a little while, but I've not gotten to actually touch one. Have any of you used one, or bought one? What's it like? It seems like the hype/news on these things just disappeared.

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Toasted Traffic Cameras! [Toasted Traffic Cameras!]

Cairo — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 11:16:47 GMT

Warms my heart...

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm

in reply to Toasted Traffic Cameras!

ActiveSync for the Mac? [ActiveSync for the Mac?]

Cairo — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:21:52 GMT

Microsoft should provide support for PocketPCs on the Mac. Either an iSync plugin (ideal), or a Mac version of ActiveSync (workable; I presume it would work with Entourage).

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"sysprep" a ghosted machine? ["sysprep" a ghosted machine?]

Cairo — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:05:29 GMT

I have ghosted the hard drive of one machine (a Dell Optiplex) to another (a similar Dell Optiplex). We have corporate versions of XP and office, and open license agreements to cover this activity.

The second machine boots XP, but the keyboard and mouse are both disabled by XP as soon as it boots. I can imagine that behind that "please log in" dialog is another dialog reading "found new hardware! HID device: keyboard!". Too bad I can't get to it to click on "yes, please 'install' that". Neither PS/2 nor USB mice or keyboards work on this machine past the booting of NT.

I was thinking that I could fire up the machine with a BartPE CD-ROM and "sysprep" it somehow... or otherwise just get the stupid thing to admit it has a keyboard plugged in.

Any ideas on either front?

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Microsoft: "How about we bundle Flash Player" [Microsoft: "How about we bundle Flash Player"]

Cairo — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:08:01 GMT

(MJF alert)

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1971047,00.asp

Microsoft has offered Adobe the opportunity to have its Acrobat PDF reader, Flash and/or Shockwave technologies bundled into Vista, Heiner said. Microsoft also has extended to Adobe an offer to include in Windows Vista their own "Save as PDF" plug-in. Adobe is still considering the PDF reader, Flash and/or Shockwave integration, but is not interested in the PDF-export technology deal, Heiner said.
"We wanted to address every concern they have. We want them to be a happy ISV (independent software vendor)," Heiner said.

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3D composited desktops [3D composited desktops]

Cairo — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 02:53:08 GMT

Just saw this on Digg:

http://osvids.com/files/page3-1036-pop.html

I'm pretty amazed at how far the XGL folks have come in so short a time.

OSX, Vista and Linux all have 3D composited desktops.

I'll bet those Amiga folks are starting to feel left out.

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Weekend coding project: replacement "EyeHome" software [Weekend coding project: replacement "EyeHome" software]

Cairo — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 01:02:33 GMT

This weekend, I wrote a replacement for the server software for the "EyeHome" device.

The Eyehome is really a somewhat generic "Syabas" media thingy. I think the DLink and Netgear units are also really Syabas. I got my Eyehome for $99 (refurb).

The server software is a Tomcat-hosted java web application. The ElGato version is wrapped up as a Mac application, and depends on (is linked to) the Mac-native Bonjour (zeroconf) libraries. You can't simply scrape it off the Mac and run it on a Linux server.

I used Ethereal to sniff the traffic between the Eyehome and the official server software to figure out what it's doing.

I have a 1TB file server onto which I've placed MPEG-4 (Divx plus MP3) versions of my DVD collection.

Then I wrote an application (cleverly named "MyHome") using Ruby on Rails and Apache to replicate the functionality, and add some features I wanted in there. I wrote a companion Mac desktop application to get movie info from IMDB and do two things: (1) rename the an AVI movie file with the "IMDB long name" (example: "Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta (1986).avi") and (2) save a "plist" xml file with the same name (example: "Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta (1986).plist"). If the server app sees a plist, it will read the additional info out of it, so that the Eyehome will display "movie details" including the IMDB box shot, MPAA rating, plot summary, etc. Otherwise, it'll just display the file name minus the "avi" part as the movie title.

It works! Muhahaha!

I plan to add virtual directories (based on the list of genres for each movie) and parental controls (kiddies get a separate list of movies after "logging in" using the remote).

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"One Laptop Per Child" demo (video) ["One Laptop Per Child" demo (video)]

Cairo — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:30:03 GMT

Here: http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2006/06/first_video_of_.html

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Congratulations, CyberMagellan! [Congratulations, CyberMagellan!]

Cairo — Fri, 26 May 2006 16:21:00 GMT

Your company is "#1".

:P

in reply to Congratulations, CyberMagellan!

Picasa for Linux [Picasa for Linux]

Cairo — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:22:12 GMT

Yes, really...

http://picasa.google.com/linux/

Here's a shot of it running remotely from a Fedora Core 4 box. It took about 10 seconds to install and start. Apparently it uses Wine (meaning it's a winelib recompile of the Windows app), and Gecko.

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Entourage is really slow [Entourage is really slow]

Cairo — Mon, 08 May 2006 16:58:22 GMT

The Entourage mail client is really slow. It beachballs, can't keep up with typing, etc.

Entourage is all-new code, I thought. Why would it be so slow?

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DRM shortens player battery life [DRM shortens player battery life]

Cairo — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:03:51 GMT

http://www.mp3.com/features/stories/3646.html

Take, for instance, the critically acclaimed Creative Zen Vision:M, with a rated battery life of up to 14 hours for audio and 4 hours for video. CNET tested it at nearly 16 hours, with MP3s--impressive indeed. Upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks, the Vision:M scored at just more than 12 hours. That's a loss of almost 4 hours, and you haven't even turned the backlight on yet.

We found similar discrepancies with other PlaysForSure players. The Archos Gmini 402 Camcorder maxed out at 11 hours, but with DRM tracks, it played for less than 9 hours. The iRiver U10, with an astounding life of about 32 hours, came in at about 27 hours playing subscription tracks. Even the iPod, playing back only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3s by about 8 percent.

Yet another thing DRM doesn't improve.

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"Fruit Cake Lady" ["Fruit Cake Lady"]

Cairo — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 20:51:30 GMT

If you have not yet seen this, it's a riot:
https://home.comcast.net/~jfmelnick/fruitcakelady.wmv

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"Patch Regularly, Patch Promptly" ["Patch Regularly, Patch Promptly"]

Cairo — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 20:03:04 GMT

"Patch Regularly, Patch Promptly" -- it's good advice.

Article link.

Among the other data in Symantec's report are new "time to compromise" figures that try to gauge how long an unpatched, unprotected computer would last before it has snatched by a hacker.

Windows XP Professional, said Symantec, stays safe just one hour and 12 seconds, while the Windows 2000 Server (with SP4) made it an hour and 17 minutes. An unpatched Windows Server 2003 system lasted somewhat longer.

In contrast, unpatched Linux installations of both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SuSE Linux 9 Desktop were never compromised during their month-and-a-half exposure to attackers.

Patched Windows systems, however, remained untouched throughout the test, backing both its and Microsoft's advice to patch regularly, and patch promptly. "Applying patches in a timely manner is an important component of an effective security strategy," the report read.

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Second Mac OS X security penetration competition [Second Mac OS X security penetration competition]

Cairo — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:42:35 GMT

http://test.doit.wisc.edu/

The response has been very strong, and the test has illustrated its point.
Traffic to the host spiked at over 30 Mbps.
Most of the traffic, aside from casual web visitors, was web exploit scripts, ssh dictionary attacks, and scanning tools such as Nessus.
The machine was under intermittent DoS attack. During the two brief periods of denial of service, the host remained up.
The test machine was a Mac mini (PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4.5 with Security Update 2006-001, had two local accounts, and had ssh and http open with their default configurations.
There were no successful access attempts of any kind, including during the 38 hour duration of the test period, nor have their been any claims of success. The host is still the same host and configuration used for the test.
The site received almost a half a million requests via the web.
There were over 4000 login attempts via ssh.
The ipfw log grew at 40MB/hour and contains 6 million events logged.
Several social engineering attempts were received, including one purporting to be from the government of Sweden, which apparently uses GMail. ;-)

in reply to Second Mac OS X security penetration competition

Widescreen, meet "wide touchpad" [Widescreen, meet "wide touchpad"]

Cairo — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:39:14 GMT

http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/11145/

Interesting idea. They can apparently figure out when the touchpad is being used as a palm rest, and when it's being used as an input device.

On another note, Jonathan Ive needs to teach "hand drawing" at Apple.

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