We’ve had little issues with our hosting provider over the last few years, so I guess it was all a matter of time. I was impressed with their blog/twitter updates keeping customers apprised of the situation, though.

I had a cool post about the recent “here you have” virus that is ripping through Windows user’s machines, but it was lost during the outage so I’ll just paraphrase.

At my place of employment we have a monthly Java Users Group meeting to discuss industry topics affecting development within our organization, and today the topic was malware/virus intrusion. The meeting started at 1:30pm, and shortly before I hopped in the elevator I got this rather suspicious looking email. Since I don’t have an extra chromosome or chase cars, I certainly didn’t click on it. Within seconds other employees popped their heads our of their cubes stating they received a similar email. Sounded like a good old fashion email worm found its way in, just moments before I sat in on a discussion covering the very topic of concern. Irony at its finest.

During the discussion the presenter stepped through the process of a few well known bot-net attacks and how they took over a user’s Windows machine. I kept my tongue bit until he was finished, and then had my hand in the air ready to ask a question.. or should I say, begin pointing out the obvious that Linux would be impervious to this attack. To my surprise another attendee who got the mic first beat me to the punch. Between the two of us we quickly had the guy circling around typical Windows fanboi jargon, shooting him down at every twirl. He had that look in his eye that said, “crap, Linux folk, Ballmer save me!”

It was then that I realized something.. something that, now that I look back over the years, I’ve known all along but was just too blind to see. Those in the IT Security business LOVE Windows as Microsoft is practically guaranteeing their job security! After the quick spread and proliferation of this latest worm, it would seem the market for Windows security staff solidified a bit more.

Since we made the move to the new server hardware on our web host, we can now take advantage of Ruby on Rails. The install is complete, now I just need a good purpose and/or reason to get a RoR site up and blazing. Thoughts?

So far the game is excellent. It kinda feels like FFXI but with a host of game play improvements. The graphics are stellar and smooth, and crowded areas do not lag one bit. The interface is a bit cumbersome with little customization allowed, but there are rumors of future patches to allow users more freedom in tweaking the UI. Quest mechanics are confusing at first but they become second nature quickly. Battle interaction is very sluggish right now but again, this is a beta release.

I love the leveling system. You can redefine your character’s class simply by equipping a different Main item. Want to be a miner, just grab a pickaxe. Want to be a spell caster, find yourself a staff and get casting.

I’ll get some screenshots up tomorrow morning, but for now I must get back to my mining quests

Douche it down a notch

About a millennia ago, Mr. Allen and his now defunct corporation, Interval Research were awarded a handful of patents that he now claims have been infringed upon by the likes of Google, Apple, eBay, YouTube, Netflix, Office Max, and Office Depot.. and has officially filed suit in Washington. Apparently being worth over $13billion just isn’t quite enough for some people, but that’s assuming this is all about money. Really poor Paul here is just sad that no one is pointing the camera in his direction any more and he’s resorted to the tech industry’s version of a “secret leaked sex tape” move. Classic.

Like Oracle’s bout with Google, I hope this is another lawsuit that blows up violently in their face. I’m talking fat frog in a microwave kinda boom-splat. Instead of competing in the industry with innovation and talent, these companies are letting their lawyers compete instead.

Just another reason why I love the FOSS community and mentality. Certainly do not have to worry about this crud.

About two handfuls have already been harvested and I couldn’t wait to turn them into something. I decided on a very basic yet very concentrated hot sauce base, something that can be added to those sissy BBQ sauces and score you some man points. This is super easy and practically fool-proof.

What you’ll need:
Apple Vinegar – 3 cups should do it, depending on the number of peppers
Brown Sugar – 1 Tbs
Kosher Salt – 1 tbsp
Ketchup – at least 1/3 cup to be safe..
Peppers!!

1. Grab a handful of peppers. You can use any pepper really, depending on the level of heat you want to obtain. We grew cayenne peppers this year so our sauce turned out borderline nuclear. How hot, is hot?
2. Cut the lids and stems off the peppers, toss the peppers into a sauce pan
3. Pour enough Apple Vinegar into the sauce pan to cover the peppers by 1/2 inch or so. You’ll be simmering this for awhile so you can be generous with the vinegar, you can always pour off excess
4. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes. Be sure to open a window or two… its vinegar for gawd’s sake.
5. After 30 minutes remove the lid and pour off any vinegar so the liquid level is slightly lower than the peppers
6. Pour the peppers and vinegar into a food processor (the Magic Bullet is great for this) but don’t turn it on yet!
7. Add the following to the food processor: Tablespoon of brown sugar; teaspoon of kosher salt; and 2-4 Tablespoons of ketchup to start
8. Blend this all together until you have a slightly watery paste, kinda like bar-b-q sauce but just slightly thinner. If necessary add ketchup to reach this consistency.
9. Refrigerate overnight before mixing into your victim, I mean, sauce of choice

Let’s get to the goodies. This first screen shot is of my current open windows. At first you may not notice much difference, but check out the top toolbar. Activities hmm? We’ll get into that in a minute, but that’s where all the magic happens. The clock/calendar has been moved to the middle of the tool bar while the Notification and User Switch Applets remain in the upper right corner. Somewhat unexciting so far but hold on to your Spongebob undies.

Now let’s move the mouse to the upper-left corner (or simply hit ALT-F1 for those keyboard only chaps out there), and blam we get a Compiz-like effect. All enabled Workspaces, and I’ll explain what “enabled Workspaces” mean later, are shown along with the applications currently managed by said Workspace. From here your next action can be one of very many

1. Clicking on an app window in the Workspace(s) will shift focus to that app in that Workspace
2. Clicking one of the Applications in your favorites list will launch the app
3. Entering some keystrokes in the Find box will quickly display apps, documents, bookmarks, anything on your machine matching your search
4. Access the typical Home folders
5. Peruse your recently used docs

They’re your Favorites, so its only natural that you can customize the apps shown in your list! Each application on your system is available in this quick and easy menu, just right click on your chosen app and “Add to Favorites”

You can expand the Recent Items list for a zoomed-view of the documents so you can get a better preview, should you so choose. Or if you’re blind. Or you just like more eye candy. I’m the latter.

Now I’ve added more active (or “enabled”) Workspaces and I’m able to see each one. Better yet, I can drag and drop currently active apps from one Workspace to another. For those keyboard-only folks you can still CTRL+ALT+Shift+Left arrow | Right arrow the selected window to adjacent Workspaces as in Compiz, but you get a cool new switching graphic to remind you where you are.

There is an option to enable this.. sidebar thingy on the left side of the screen, but I can’t say I’m really impressed by it much. Once you enable it, any icons on your desktop are moved over permanently. When you mouse over the sidebar the icons actually move with the expanding bar. I can’t decide if I like this or not though. It feels like the ghetto version, maybe the quick-n-easy version of the real Gnome Shell menu? Perhaps this will never see the light of day once the stable release becomes available, which wouldn’t sadden me in the least.

There you have it. The GNOME-Shell screen shots I promised long, long ago. I did find a few apps that didn’t play well in the new window manager (FileZilla I’m looking at you….) but that can only be expected from a beta. Overall I’m pumped for the entire GNOME 3 project to hit the repos, but GNOME-Shell will do a fantastic job of keeping me content until that time comes.

Spoils to the victor, or not?

I admit, I was wooed by the glitz and the glamour of the iPhone and eventually convinced to buy one with my wife. Granted the ‘droid alternatives at the time were running Android version 1.ohDearGod_WeHaveSomeWorkToDoStill and were no where near measuring up to the 3G(S), so I can’t say I made a bad decision at the time. Over the last year or so my 3G has become sluggish, unresponsive, and crashing like that slave-gnome fetching the paper on an icy stairwell.. while in the same time Android has made leaps and bounds in feature offerings and carrier hardware improvements. Hell, last quarter Android based phones began outselling the iPhone. No one was was shocked though, wonder why?

Well this guy isn’t wondering one bit. The ease of app development for Android, the low barriers to entry for such development, and the rock solid platform that is the Android SDK were sure to catch up and surpass the iPhone’s stringent policies and control. Today, Android and ‘droid based phones scored what is surely to be an immediate game-turning blow against Apple when Adobe announced Flash 10.1′s availability on the Android Market. Yup, full fledged Flash on your Android phone. All those cool sites that run Flash that you can’t visit on your iDevice, well those now work in all their Adobe-patent-laden-Flashy goodness on an Android phone.

While I’m pumped for this announcement as it throws poo directly into Steve Job’s face, I’m also saddened because this is the one area of tech I actually agree with Jobs on. Flash is a bulky and poorly written crutch for which the Internet has hobbled along on for far too long. This will certainly sway those less tech headed folks teetering on the fence between an iPhone and a ‘droid phone towards the now Flash enabled device (good for Android!) but it will proliferate the acceptance of Flash even further (bad for patent loathing FOSS folks such as myself). I just don’t know what to feel on this one.

I guess I’ll take this as good news since it will help sales of Android phones, but I’ll take it with a large grain of salt for now.