I've been telling myself "Self, you have to get up off of your butt and start writing again!"
Well, I finally listened to me, and here we are. ;) I even have something to blog about. Mozilla v1.71 has been really bugging me for a while; the first time after I turn on the computer and enter a URL, Mozilla just goes librarian-poo and eats up most of the CPU cycles while resolving the DNS. After that it's fine.
Then there's the multimedia files it won't play (but Firefox will quite nicely), the time it takes to save even a single image, the occasional random "Mozilla starts hitting 98% CPU usage" hijinks. Feh. Not to mention the fact that it Just Won't check email until I've sent something to someone else, or specifically told Mozilla to check by clicking on the "Mail and Newsgroups" button. I didn't get email for nearly a week at one point until I realized what was happening.
The Mozilla Foundation has (for me) created in Firefox 2.x an entirely acceptable browser. And, yes, I'm picky. Opera is nice, but they changed too many "default" keystroke commands such as Alt-D for the address bar.
Anyhoo, I used to resist Firefox, as I felt the look & feel was toy-like, and customization seemed limited. This is no longer true. About the only thing missing are the mail/newsgroup settings which have been moved over to the Thunderbird email client. It's true there's a small learning curve. For example, I had to figure out my passwords were no longer in Tools/Password manager as in Mozilla, but are now in Tools/Options/Security instead. But it seems all the important tweaks are there.
Migrating from Mozilla to Firefox and Thunderbird was quite painless as both include import tools. Shortcuts, history, and passwords for Firefox; and not only email/server settings for Thunderbird but the learning rules for the spam heuristics so I don't have to "train" my client all over again. Very nice.
One little detail: I have a question for the more experienced Firefox/Thunderbird users out there. I would like to have some sort of resident system-tray-like utility which regularly checks for mail just like Mozilla used to do. Or will I be forced to click on an icon every time I want to check for mail? My personal preference is for a local daemon to alert me when new mail is available.
UPDATE: for some idiot reason, MT isn't showing anything in the comment pop-up window when you click on "Comments." If you go to the permalink you can enter a comment there. Don't bloody ask me why, but if there's an MT 3.33 guru out there, I'd appreciate knowing. The bloody .cgi script is where it's supposed to be, it has the right bloody permissions now (had to fix that - don't know why as it used to work, but the frame pops up with a blank window. Feh.
...which refers to the following link, as well as my disrepect in not linking to Lisa for forever and a day!
Anway. Lisa, who is a real pro with the sticky web-stuff, brings up a vulnerability which affects just about every engine except Internet Explorer. Go figgre.
And here I thought Open Software was invulnerable. Looks like someone dug up some Kryptonite...
Now. Before some MS-vocates start spewing bilge 'bout how "everyone's vulnerable"*, I'd like to point out that Firefox/Mozilla is still safer, and more stable, than IE. And that Firefox/Mozilla will likely retain that laurel for rather a while.
But (as the great captain says) "Don't get cocky, kid!" Firefox/Mozilla users should keep an ear peeled for odd chances such as this. Maybe they should add an exploits link to their homepage?
Food for thought...
*Suggested new MS ad: "Hey, the Other Guys suck too!tm!!"
From a friend:
I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that Drinking Buddies runs fine as long as Girlfriend is ran in background mode and the sound is turned off.
Unfortunately, I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. Therefore, I have to run both of them separately. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some form of timing incompatibilities.
I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right, as soon as I purged my cache, and realized that no one in their right mind is installing new token rings, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.
Shortly after that, I installed Girlfriend 3.0 beta. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the program and the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time I used SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of Girlfriend and communicates with it in some way. This results in the immediate removal of both versions.
The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality.
Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts and I have never liked how GirlFriend is “object-oriented.”
A year ago a friend of mine upgraded his version of Girlfriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space: He can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it supposedly came bundled with a feature called FreeSex Plus.
Well, it turns out the resource requirements of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I told him to trying installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install because of insufficient resources.
P.S. Watch out for the K-I-D-S virus because they have an insatiable appetite for memory and CPU time over and above everything else above.
My good friend Dean Esmay has been pestering everyone to try Firefox. Now me, I prefer Mozilla, but that's like arguing about whether you prefer a 911 or a 920; they're both still Porches. :)
In any case, the Mozilla/Firefox people are trying to get the word out about their excellent new browser, so I took Dean's advice, and put a button up on the blog. YOu can see it quite clearly in the upper-left column.
No matter whether you like Firefox, or Mozilla, they're both head and shoulders above Internet Explorer. Faster, more features (like, skins or tabbed browsing), and -best of all- none of the huge security holes of Internet Explorer!!. Finally you can browse the web without worrying whether your browser will help a hostile hacker harass you!
Er, sorry about the alliteration. :)
Seriously. Go here. Check them out. You'll be glad you did.
P.S. Be patient. Looks like a lot of folks had the same idea I did... ;)
Wow. There's even a Super Bowl for hackers now.
Well, if you're a member of the one of the military academies, there is.
StrategyPage.com reports that "The fourth annual Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX) was held on April 19-23, 2004."
(snip)
"CDX originated over beers and bragging down at Texas A&M between Army and Air Force personnel as to who had the better cadets and developed into a formalized event by 2001, due in large part to the efforts of West Point instructors and the NSA. Each participating military academy is tasked with putting and keeping on line a set of Internet services on a network, including e-mail, a database, and on-line chat room. NSA organizes the event and provides a Red Team to attack and crash services, as well as operating a secure VPN (Virtual Private Netwotk) to connect the academies for the exercise."
Apparently there's some folks at West Point who would like to expand the competition to include public universities for a "NCAA-like tournament."
Speaking as a true geek, that would be truly cool. Speaking as a citizen, I'm happy that our armed forces are stroking their cyber-talents, especially in view of the computer-militaristic views in China these days.
I've been irked, for a while, about how the blogroll javascript works, and how one is charged money if want to divide your blog links in special ways.
Now, today, I can't even get to blogrolling.com! Yurk.
Ok, back to manual! I can cut'n'paste with the best of them.
However, if someone notices I'm missing a link that used to be up, please let me know.
So you're bored. You've become the Mickey Mantle of the penguin-homerun crowd, and hitting 'em out past 330 yards just doesn't do it for you anymore.
My friend, I have the answer: YetiSports - Orca Slap.
This one's a bit different: you don't use a bat to hit the penguins, and it's a timed game. The trick is to nail ten penguins in the shortest time possible.
Mucho fun. But I'm still waiting for a Linux-lover to do a shockwave of Tux knocking MSYeti into a snowbank. Heh heh heh...
For Linux fans, the MyDoom worm has a silver lining. Worm-infected computers have knocked the SCO company website off the net with a DOS attack today.
I gotta say it: it couldn't happen to a nicer guy (er...) company!
But the fun's not over yet. A newer variant, called MyDoom B, seems to be targeting MicroSoft as the next victim.