When I installed the latest version of 7-Zip (an open-source program for dealing with compressed file formats like ZIP and RAR), I was surprised to find that the default locale was set to Danish! Luckily, fixing it was relatively simple:
Open the Værktøjer (Tools) menu and select Indstillinger (Options).
Select the last tab, entitled Sprog (Language). Change [...]
Besides John Garang's death, the other major news story of today is the death of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. I would argue that the latter is actually far less important (despite the fact it has replaced Garang's death as the lead story on both BBC News and Google News), since the King's half-brother and [...]
Last week, reporters at all of the major newspapers wrote articles about Zimbabwe's close relationship with China. These articles were prompted by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's visit to China (although it is useful to note that the Christian Science Monitor was writing about this at the beginning of July). Luckily, there is some good news [...]
If you have been keeping up with the Michael Lynn-ISS-Cisco saga, this Wired interview is a must-read. My favorite part:
Lynn: Yes, they did, actually. And I didn't know what it was, so I didn't thank him properly…. This was a really funny story. (Right after my talk, this) guy walks up with a very, very [...]
As previously stated, Gregarius is the online RSS aggregator that I use. Read about the new version on the Gregarius development blog.
After some careful consideration, I decided to switch web hosts last night. It took a number of hours for the DNS settings to propagate, during which time I played around with the Wikipedia account I created last August but forgot about and got a few hours of troubled sleep.
When I woke up and transferred my [...]
I found the op-ed "Switched Off in Basra" a particularly good read, so I was a bit dismayed to find that its author, Stephen Vincent, was murdered yesterday:
Mr. Vincent and Ms. Tuaiz [his interpreter] were kidnapped around 7 p.m. Tuesday, as they left a moneychanger's shop in downtown Basra, by at least two men dressed [...]
I found this Washington Post article about the American military's attempts to entice recruits by allowing them to get rid of part of their service obligation by serving in the Peace Corps (assuming, of course, their application is accepted by the organization) interesting, especially since while opposition to it is just beginning, the program was [...]
The "disengagement" of Israel from its settlements in the Gaza strip is less than two weeks away, and virtually all of the articles in Haaretz are focused on what might be a pivotal event in the history of both Israel and Palestine. While I thought the televised cursing of Prime Minister Sharon so that he [...]
I fully expected South Africa to give Zimbabwe the loan it is asking for, so the news that the South African cabinet agrees with the loan "in principle" is not really news, as far as I am concerned. Earlier I wrote about my hopes that South Africa would use this opportunity in ensure that Zimbabwe [...]
Martey discusses Sufjan Stevens - with himself. In schizophrenic interview format.
I previously wrote about my fruitless search to find the file format of iTunes Music Library files, and how I was able to use the iTunes COM Windows SDK to bypass this lack of knowledge.
If you do a search on Google for "hdfm itunes", my COM story is the first result. The third result, however, [...]
Although I spent most of yesterday asleep, I have spent most of my waking hours reading and thinking about Hiroshima, which was attacked by a nuclear bomb 60 years ago. Over the past two weeks, the British newspaper The Guardian has released a number of articles about the blast, including edited versions of the interviews [...]
Dreamhost, my new webhost, seems a bit strange compared to the other hosts I have been involved with. Their feature set is different than other webhosts. Not only do all of their plans come with ssh access, but they also include Jabber instant messenging. When you add ample amounts of space and bandwidth (which increase [...]
Some weeks ago, a entity going by the alias "righthand" posted a comment asking several questions about Blackspot Sneakers. That comment appears below, unedited:
how are these sneakers now do they hold up well is the quality good craftsman ship was it a good purchase. how is the stock or share older thign going is it [...]
Yahoo!'s announcement that it has indexed over 20 billion documents might give you the impression that it could deliver better results than Google, but how does it actually compare? Martey Dodoo puts it to the test.
SWAT 4 is the 4th iteration of a computer game where you play the leader of a SWAT team. The game is a member of the "tactical first person shooter" (FPS) genre; unlike normal FPS games like Doom or Quake, tactical FPSs encourage the player to move slowly and carefully, as being shot by one [...]
Via the Spam Kings blog comes the news of AOL's "Spammer's Gold" sweepstakes, which offers normal Internet users like me and you the chance to win a spammer's ill-begotten cash. From Spam Kings:
The AOL Spammer's Gold Sweepstakes runs from August 10 through August 19. According to the official rules, the Grand Prize is the [...]
I was pleased to see that the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its earlier decision that email messages intercepted by procmail (an Unix program for filtering and sorting email) are not covered under 18 USC 2510, colloquially known as the "Wiretap Act." The case which started this issue is US v. Councilman. The [...]
From an article by Alex Slack in last Friday's Crimson:
The stakes are too high. The embarrassing amounts of money that we’ve burned through at school in Cambridge should and must lead us, in the eyes of outsiders, to professional bliss, and this entitlement paralyzes us. It paralyzed me as well, until I attended a conference [...]
An essay on three issues (corruption, democracy, and identity) in today's Russia.
Update early, update often, update visibly.
Freedom in an information economy does not mean free information.
If only cheerleaders were more like the musk ox.
Source: An Animal Planet show explaining how in recent years, NFL football players have had less broken bones than NFL cheerleaders. The football players have helmets which "reduce the force of tackles" in a fashion analogous to the thick skulls of musk oxen.
The IBM Thinkpad has always been a good choice for Linux users who want a portable computer. Support for its integrated biometrics and hard drive protection could make it an even better fit.
Online banking websites like Bank of America should use SSL login pages, as non-SSL pages are not secure.
As expected, Google introduced their new IM service today, Google Talk. Interestingly enough, I wrote about speculation that Google would utilise the open-source Jabber IM protocol to create their own IM network exactly a year ago today. Unfortunately, I find myself a bit underwhelmed by it. While I like their commitment to keeping the network [...]
A security problem found in the strings are handled in the Windows Registry could mean big problems for those looking to clean up after viruses and spyware.
The Wikimedia Commons "Featured Pictures" is an excellent place to find photographs and other artwork that are in the public domain or have lenient licenses. Using a photograph of MIRVs re-entering the atmosphere during the test of a nuclear missile, I was able to create beautiful wallpapers.
Robert Cringely complains about Google and has pipe dreams about Apple, suggesting that they will give old versions of the Mac operating system, OS X, for free. This does not seem likely, due to the importance of the "Apple Experience."
Per Mr. Malik's request, SleepTune now provides the option to "wake up" iTunes after a specified period of time. You can download SleepTune 0.2 (along with source code). Please note that like SleepTune 0.1, it is licensed under the GPL. There may be errors in the code, since sleeping is something that I have not [...]
Since I was already thinking about iTunes, this post on Engadget about slurping tracks from your iTunes library to a PSP through WiFi got me into a pensive mood. While the howto that Engadget linked to is centered around a Mac-only shareware application called Dot Tunes, it occurs to me that the Internet community would [...]
It occurs to me that I promised to release a transcription of the lyrics for Tarkio's song "Eva Luna" back in January and again in April. Despite a small but steady stream of people visiting in hope of finding such lyrics, nobody had the guts to call me out on this oversight. As I noted [...]