Bored to Death watching TV?

This was an interesting story: Man's body found in front of TV year after death.

Living alone myself, this makes me wonder if I died tomorrow, would anybody notice? You'd like to think so.

Cross-Blog

Ok, I went ahead and started (yet) another blog on Microsoft's Live Spaces:

http://darrell24401.spaces.live.com/

There really was no need to have another blog other than I just wanted to try out the new Live Spaces product. I still like Blogger a tad bit better.

Secure QuickTime for Windows?

As announced on this blog by Secunia, if you download QuickTime for Windows, you don't get the most secure version: http://secunia.com/blog/7/

However, there is a procedure for getting the security update on a Windows machine, it's just a little more complicated: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304989

Of course, if you're using a Mac, you get the patched and secure version. Plus, the OS X Software Update would have also updated your QuickTime automatically (if you have it set to do so).

Beware that Spyware Remover
Add to the list of "rogue" spyware remover programs: SpyWare Wizard

While visiting my parents over Christmas, I was told the story about how their Internet Explorer home page had been hijacked by a pr0n page (nothing new there, old trick). The new twist was that a popup window would encourage the user to buy "SpyWare Wizard" to remove the problem, which my parents did. Long story short and $49 later, their computer is infested with malware/spyware and Windows got completely corrupted. *sigh*

After spending an afternoon reinstalling Windows, I think their computer is back to normal (maybe).

Lose that PDF Password?
Here's a really handy utility for recovering lost passwords on your Acrobat PDF files: Guaranteed PDF Decrypter.

DTV will just have to wait
This was supposed to be the year all analog channels were to be retired. The new "firm" date is February 17, 2009.

Also in the works is a Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon program to help ease the transition for those that do not HDTV sets.

Read more about it here: DTV In The News (FCC sponsored web site).

Office 2007

This alone may make it worth upgrading to Office 2007 when it's released: Support for the PDF Format in Office “12”

Startup programs

Just saving this for future reference. Does a good job of covering how programs load at startup and what to do about it: Startup Program Loading

Buzz words

Amateurization - that's a new word (to me anyway). There wasn't anything on it on Dictionary.com, but there's this interesting blurb: (Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... (plasticbag.org).

We all know where the Web has been, but where is it going in this post-tech-bubble-burst world?

Hex Colors

I'm always searching for one of these charts. Might as well blog it so I can find this one again.

Web Design Group's RGB Values Page

Back to Blogging

So, I decided to get back to this blog's original purpose, keeping track of interesting web design and scripting sites.

I'm currently working on a page for accepting credit card payments. For developing the validation script, here's a good place to start: Credit Card Check Digit Validation.

Death of a Blog
Ok, I just don't have enough time for blogging anymore. *shrug* The reason for keeping this blog in the first place was so that I could keep track of interesting articles on web design and ASP. Which was fun for awhile, but now it's become old to me. What used to be new and exciting has become mundane and commercialized. I guess the blog comment SPaM was the last straw.

While I'm on a soap-box rant, Yahoo has become just plain evil in the pursuit of the almighty "click-thru" dollar. Google is heading down the same path.

Blog comment SPAM
Take a look at the comments on my previous entry - there are now people SPAMMING Blog comments! When I checked this morning, there were 13 different comments, all with a link to a web page (probably with a script for injecting malware of some sort too). Obviously, it's a program that searches for certain keywords on known blogging sites and then inserts the comments.

Guess everyone is going to have to turn off comments now. *Sigh*

Well, duh!

Here's an interesting quote from this article - IE7 being developed to resist spyware:

"When users run programs with limited user privileges, they are safer from attack than when they run with Administrator privileges, because Windows can restrict the malicious code from taking damaging actions..."

Uhm, didn't we learn that in Computer Science 101? Ok, I know not every computer user in the world has a degree in CS, but for crying out loud, shouldn't the software developers at Microsoft know this? I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the security problems found in Windows and Internet Explorer is because MS simply did not follow basic common sense.

Yahoo Messenger is just ... Evil

I've long suspected that Yahoo IM was bad, this article confirms it - Yahoo IM users get more than they bargained for.

Here's a quote from the article: "By accepting Yahoo's 'typical' installation of YIM with Voice, it will also download Yahoo's Search Toolbar with anti-spyware and anti-pop-up software, desktop and system tray shortcuts, as well as Yahoo Extras, which will insert Yahoo links into the Internet Explorer browser. The IM client also contains "live words," which will automatically show an icon when the user highlights words online and then hyperlink to Yahoo search results, definitions or translation tools. Finally, the installation will alter the users' home page and auto-search functions to point to Yahoo by default."

Ok, how is this different than any other Spyware? Including "anti-spyware and anti-pop-up software" is just a way to kill off the competition!

To me, YIM is just another trojan-horse spyware program. End of story.

Got Spyware? Part 2

I had mentioned this in a previous blog entry, but several so-called anti-spyware products advertised on Google are very suspicious. On this list of known "rogue" products, my suspicions are confirmed: Spyware Warrior: Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites.

This list is a good resource for those still struggling with spyware and trojan-horse infections.

New stuff

Ok, so I jumped into the iPod scene a little late in the game, but with the recent purchase of my Shuffle and upgrading to the new version of iTunes, I just discovered the wonderful world of "podcasting" - audio (sometimes video) feeds that you can get via RSS, and of course, on iTunes. Here's my favorite so far: The Dawn and Drew Show! - Podcasting from Wisconsin.

I'm now considering getting a better iPod so I can store more of these great indie broadcasts to listen to.

Blogging takes a strange turn...
This is just too creepy for words. I remember hearing something about this case on the evening news. Just one of those stories you listen to in the background while eating dinner.

Then I read this story online about how law enforcement had been monitoring this person through his blog. Check out the link in the story, Blogger is still hosting it:
Wired News: Cops Watched Sex Offender's Blog. Go back a few months and you can read all about his dementia.

I spent a few years working in forensics back in the 1980's. I had the bone-chilling job of reading through the journals found in a couple of cases, which had been entered as evidence. My skin crawled as I noticed some similar patterns to this guy's blog.

Access your data
So you've got a database and you need to get it out on the web. Well here's a good place to start:
ASP SQL Tutorials.

Then once you realize it's not working, try here: Why do I get database-related 80004005 errors?

That should keep you busy for a little while, at least. Later on, I'll be exploring the same techniques with .NET and ADO.NET - so stay tuned.

Free Software

These guys were always my favorite HTML Editor, now CoffeeCup is giving away free SiteMapper Software for a quick way to create a site map. These pages are a nice addition, especially for large web sites.