Badass Case
I love this case—its one of the coolest factory designs
I've seen in a while. It's got a retro/new age feel and it
just looks cool. If I buy a new stock system, it may be
this one. I'll at least consider buying the case.
They have a number of different colors and features you can add on to the case. You can even change the color of the lights in the air cooling (they lights are in the black groove pieces on the side—this picture doesn't show the lights on.) Check out Alienware's site for more info.
Alienware Case Specs
Microsoft Security Patch Slows XP Systems
Redmond is looking into a fix for security patch it issued late last week. The patch—which was designed to stave off a buffer overrun that could allow attackers to elevate privilege permissions on users' machines—ended up slowing some users' systems to a crawl.
Various Windows enthusiast sites on the Web have noted the adverse performance impact caused by patch 811493 on their Windows XP Home, Professional and 64-bit systems.
10th Anniversary of the Modern Day "Browser"
Well, the modern day "browser" is no officially 10 years. The first version of Mosaic was released 10 years ago today. Mosaic was written by several college students at the University of Illinois. Prior to the release of Mosaic, "surfing the web" was text-based only. Mosaic brought many of the common day functions to web browsing, such as: back/forward buttons, search, image support and the home button. Anyway, whether they knew it at the time or not, this little program affected the life of millions—including myself. I don't know what I'd be doing today if I weren't designing web applications.
On April 22, 1993, a group of students at the University of Illinois released a piece of computer code designed to get information from various public networks. Little did they know that their pet project, a humble application named Mosaic, would fundamentally change everyday life. While Web browsers with graphical interfaces had traded hands among academics years earlier, Mosaic was the first to be widely adopted and introduce the masses to the Internet.- CNET
Gadget-Heavy Audi Geeks It Up
... the 2004 Audi A8 L may look like a typical yuppie-mobile, it boasts computer gadgetry, smart sensors and video displays that will dazzle even the geekiest of nerds. Not since KITT, the talking car of television's Knight Rider, has so much silicon been packed around a transmission.
Where do I sign up? I want this car (or at least the features it has.) I'm not found of the steering wheel, but auto cruise control that you can set to keep you X car lengths away is way too cool. It's about time they started enhancing cars with technology.
Turn that old Atari/SNES into a portable gaming system!
I've read about Benjamin Heckendorn before—at least siz months or so ago. He takes old consule units like the Atari 2600 and SNES and converts them to portable gaming systems. Although a complete novelty at the price you'd pay for one, it would be cool to have a handheld Atari 2600 or SNES. I really like the look of his handheld units, they have a lot of personality.
Heckendorn has refashioned 39 units out of old-school hardware. His signature model, the VCSp, is based on the Atari 2600, circa 1977. "It's a way to honor the old games. It lets people revisit something from their past - kind of like when they're at a bar and they hear a Bon Jovi song," he says. "Besides, it's cool." Make that supercool in the realm of classic gaming, where Heckendorn, 27, has become something of a cult hero since single-handedly inspiring a new hobby. He's even sold his handiwork to fans for up to $600 a pop.
An interesting artcile on Microsoft's InfoPath...
PerfectXML.com posted the first part of a two part article on Microsoft's new InfoPath XML-based form specification. I've been reading a lot about XForms (W3C specification) and InfoPath (Microsoft's proprietary specification) lately. While I think both basic concepts are good—XML-in/XML-out—I believe it'll be a while before we see wide spread support of either. Although I don't like everything about the XForms spec, I'd much prefer to see an open specification (like XForms) being used over a proprietary solution. Anyway, if you want to see actual code from an InfoPath project, definitely read this article.
Microsoft InfoPath 2003 By Example
Y-Boxx: Ultimate Entertainment System
I think I actually like Yoshi's previous version better than this one, but the addition of the projector is kind of cool. The box reminds me a bit of the old projection televisions from the early 80s.
Yoshi's Latest Boxx
Encryption, Hashing, and Obfuscation?!?!
ZDNet recently published an article covering what the terms "encryption", "hashing" and "obfuscation" mean. If you're familiar with these terms, don't bother reading the article—you won't learn anything you don't already know. However, if you uncertain what the terms mean or simply unfamiliar with them, it does a good job of defining the words and provides some good examples.
Quantum Computing/Quantum Weirdness
A friend of mine (thanks Deron!) had forwarded me review. I've always found quantum science interesting, but I admit, it does make my brain hurt if I think about it too hard. :) The idea of "entanglement" is something I find extremely fascinating.
Quantum particles are said to be entangled when their fates are inextricably linked; if one is spinning clockwise, say, the other one has to be spinning counterclockwise.
Although not stated in the article, it's my understanding that once entangled, the particles can be seperated via both time and space and they remain entangled. This brings up interesting possibilities in communication.
The Future of the Web: Rich Clients, Rich Browsers, Rich Portals
Here's an interesting presentation on the future of many web-based technologies. The presentation, written by Gerald Bauer, covers XUL, XForms, Curl, Rebol—just to name a few. If you're a web developer, or just interesting in where the web is going, this is an interesting read.
Holes found in RealPlayer, QuickTime
The vulnerabilities have cropped up in RealNetworks' RealPlayer and Apple Computer's QuickTime. While unrelated, the weak spots could allow an intruder to execute damaging arbitrary code on a victim's computer. In both cases, updates are available to remedy the problem.
Run For Cover; It's Mozilla 1.4 Alpha
Mozilla 1.4 Alpha is out. This release features dynamic image and table resizing in Composer, smooth scrolling (see release notes for enabling this feature,) and usability improvements to spam filtering. In addition to these feature improvements, 1.4a also contains fixes for performance, stability, standards support and website compatibility. This is an alpha release so expect bugs, and don't use it unless you are willing to live with the risks inherent in such a release (ie. crashes, data loss, etc.). More information is available in the release notes."
doSomething Already!
I found a pretty cool Winamp Plug-in on oddsock.org today called "doSomething". The you can set the plug-in up to do a number of actions when Winamp changes songs—one of which is to perform a GET operation on a URL. Unfortunately, there appears to be a bug in the event handler that handles the actions when Winamp is either closed or a playing song has stopped. So, I had to create a hack to indicated when I'm offline by checking the length of the current song and when the song started. If no updates have occurred within that time, then I set the status to "offline"
Download the plug-in here: