It’s been a rough week already. Luckily my dad brother sent me a video that just made my inner IT smile. NSFW, but well worth a watch if you work with computers, or ever have to call IT for help..
http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/salesguy.html
Archive for July, 2008
Some Mondays are Better than Others
Posted by presson on July 22, 2008
Posted in Fun Stuff, Main, Technology | 1 Comment »
Thin Film Dye Boosts Solar Cells by Order of Magnitude
Posted by presson on July 17, 2008
Scientists US have multiplied the power output of solar cells by up to ten times using organic dyes to concentrate sunlight. This, along with other discoveries, could be able to make solar cells competitive with fossil-fuel power generation. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/34992
Posted in Main, Technology | Leave a Comment »
DNS exploit – does your PC no longer connect to the Internet?
Posted by presson on July 16, 2008
If you have zonealarm installed, you should get the patch, or if you have no connectivity on another PC, uninstall the product. The problem manifests itself as the ability to ping servers (I have always used www.ford.com), but IE or Firefox will not be able to connect to any website. You should enable windows’ firewall at least if you choose to uninstall zonealarm, or get something to protect you in the interim, as it can take as little as four minutes to compromise an UNPATCHED windows box with no NAT or firewall.
Posted in Administrator, Main, Technology, Useful info | Leave a Comment »
Hubble Scan of Milky Way Lucky to Find Distant Star Cluster
Posted by presson on July 11, 2008
A team scanning the Milky Way happened upon a rare glimpse of a distant galaxy. What is perplexing is the star’s red-shift is much higher than expected for the distance and age of the stars. Either there is something wrong with the model used currently, or there is something different about these stars.
It still amazes me the pictures and discoveries the Hubble telescope has brought us to digest. I look forward to the next generations of telescopes!
Posted in Cool, Main, Photography | Leave a Comment »
Internet Design Flaw in DNS puts most systems at risk
Posted by presson on July 9, 2008
“Dan Kaminsky from IOActive Inc. discovered the flaw, said he hopes the patches will be broad enough that hackers won’t be able to reverse-engineer them.” http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/09/Experts_discover_major_Internet_flaw/UPI-83691215616576/
What is even more interesting is the collaborative effort that was put into getting patches released for all platforms at the same time. I don’t recall a collaborative effort going so far for anything on the Internet. Check out this link, and note on the sidebar is a way to check if your DNS cache is vulnerable to poisoning.
Posted in Administrator, Main, Technology | Leave a Comment »
President Bush Pardon’s Self Against Possible Warcrimes
Posted by presson on July 9, 2008
This is too incredible to miss. recent bill has buried a provision to pardon President Bush and his administration of any possible crimes relating mistreatment of detainees going back to 2001. These crimes are in some cases punishable by death. This is simply insane. I for one can’t wait for our next president. I have my pick, but overall EITHER candidate would be better than what we have now.
Technorati tags: politics
Posted in Main, politics | 1 Comment »
Wii Nunchuck used for Motion Capture on 3d Studio
Posted by presson on July 8, 2008
A quick read/video showing how a Wii controller can be used as a crude motion capture device. http://www.hackaday.com/2008/07/07/wii-nunchuck-used-for-mocap-on-3d-studio-max/
cool stuff!
Posted in Main, Technology | 1 Comment »
Follow-up: AVG next release disables web-flooding
Posted by presson on July 6, 2008
The initial release of AVG had a feature that would pre-scan websites you search. AVG finally agreed to disable the ‘feature’ which significantly 
increased Internet traffic. In a post from their team, “The latest update for AVG free edition has addressed and rectified the issue.” whirlpool.net.au was one of the hardest hit, and their independent testing shows the latest release fixed the problem. I for one am still unimpressed with the added bloat-ware AVG 8 is now. I would recommend looking at Avast instead.
Posted in Administrator, Main, Technology | Leave a Comment »
