DNStunnel.de – free DNS tunneling service

DNStunnel.de – free DNS tunneling service

This is really interesting. I may need to try this at Black Hat.

Dearly Departed: Companies and Products That Didn’t Deserve to Die

Dearly Departed: Companies and Products That Didn’t Deserve to Die – CIO.com – Business Technology Leadership

Okay- this is a moderately good article, however- I am drawing attention to it as it is a prefect example of an annoying trend that seems to be taking place on Web sites, especially news and special interest sites like this.

Breaking an article into 20 “pages” consisting of roughly a paragraph a piece just so you can get more ad views is annoying as hell and really turns people off. The page load time is terrible because one has to wait for the ads to load.

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

It’s The Onion- so it’s obviously a parody. Definitely funny though.

Apple – Get a Mac

Apple – Get a Mac

I guess the iPhone has Apple too busy to produce any new Mac vs. PC commercials.

RIM Launches Dual-mode BlackBerry 8820

PC World – RIM Launches Dual-mode BlackBerry 8820

Well crap… T-Mobile just rolled out two phones that do this last month, but the phones themselves suck. As I’ve already said- I HATE AT&T, which is one of the reasons I won’t get an iPhone. This would beat the iPhone as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully T-Mobile will pick it up too. My RAZR is starting to die and I’m really excited about these new WIFI cell phones.

If You Own An ATM, You Probably Want To Change The Default Password

Techdirt: If You Own An ATM, You Probably Want To Change The Default Password

DUH!

This has been out for YEARS. Why are people so frelling stupid? The first thing you do with ANY piece of equipment that has a login is change the password. Why is that so difficult for people to grasp?

Hackszine.com: Play ripped DVDs with VLC

Hackszine.com: Play ripped DVDs with VLC

VLC is amazing! I’ve been using it to play DVDs I previously saved to my hard drive for a couple of months now. Makes sitting in an airport or on a plane a lot more enjoyable, without having to carry a bunch of DVDs with me. It’s fair-use (I own the DVDs I have copied), so it’s legal, despite what the MPAA would have you believe.

You can also use VLC as a media streamer/server for your home theater system.

Ted Stevens Wants To Switch Between Phones “As I Ride My Motorcycle”

Oh my…

Audio: Ted Stevens Wants To Switch Between Phones “As I Ride My Motorcycle” – Consumerist

This guy is one of our countries “leaders”. I knew he didn’t understand the Internet, but phones? I’m scared.

Is Microsoft crippling XP?

Since this most recent “Patch Tuesday”, my Windows XP machine has been suffering from lag, lock-ups, Windows Explorer crashes, and three “Blue Screen of Death”s. Not that it hasn’t suffered from these at various times in the past, but never to this extent in this short of a time frame.

When Windows has actually detected the problem- it reports that it was caused by a “Device Driver”, without actually indicating WHICH ONE. I should also note that I haven’t updated any of the device drivers on my laptop recently.

There has been some chatter/buzz online in the last day about problems with a .NET update causing a lot of problems, although none of the problems reported seem to match the issues I’ve been having. I’ve also had problems with my Windows 2000 Server machines since the updates as well.

This all leads me to ask: Is Microsoft (intentionally or unintentionally by not devoting enough testing to their patches) crippling Windows XP, and possibly Windows 2000? While I don’t believe anyone has ever proved anything malicious- this has seemingly happened in the past. Windows 95 and Windows 98 quickly became unstable and unusable (more-so than usual) after Windows XP came out. Of course Windows ME was an unstable POS from the day it was released and never was fixed.

Microsoft really has no incentive to actually fix things in XP or Windows 2000 anymore, and even if big corporations are having issues- they can cop-out and say: “We really can’t find a reason for your problem. All we can say is it doesn’t seem to be an issue in Vista (or Windows Server 2003)…”

I, for one, found a good alternative for Dreamweaver for my Web development work (Zend Studio), which was my last hurdle before moving to Ubuntu Linux as my primary desktop OS at work. I’m going to install XP in VM-Ware on it so if something comes up where I HAVE to use it- I can, and at least BSOD and other crashes won’t matter.

FCC tunes in on Sirius-XM merger debate

FCC tunes in on Sirius-XM merger debate | Entertainment | Music | Reuters

This kind of pisses me off. For the record- I am a very avid Sirius fan, and was an early adopter (I probably had one of the first 100 or so receivers sold in the Denver area). I personally hate XM (after listening to it in a friends car on a 20-hour road trip) but that’s just my opinion and obviously a lot of people like it.

At this point, both Sirius and XM are in trouble. They are both scraping by and I don’t believe (although I’m not into investments) that either of them is profitable. They want to merge because it is likely the only way satellite radio will survive more than a few more years. Neither of them has enough of a subscriber base to sustain themselves. By merging- they can combine their subscriber bases and consolidate their operations and (hopefully) become a profitable company.

I find it kind of funny that the National Association of Broadcasters is the biggest critic of the merger. Gee- I wonder why? Maybe people are tuning out broadcast radio because they are tired of 10-minute blocks of commercials and lame nationally-produced programming. With satellite radio- they can listen to commercial-free music they actually like! They even have a slew of talk stations (with commercials, unfortunately) in just about every genre possible.

The broadcasters are also probably bristling at the dismal failure of “Digital” and “High Definition” radio. Why would anyone buy a $300 receiver to listen to the same crappy radio programming and commercials they are listening to now, when they can pay $79 (or less) for a satellite radio receiver. Plus- with satellite radio you can listen to the same stations nationwide. Sure- you have to pay $12.95/month for it, but at least for me and something like 14 million other people- it’s worth it just to get an extra 5-6 songs an hour with no commercials or crappy DJ “shows”.

The bottom line is- almost everyone who tries satellite radio never goes back. I know some people who have switched from XM to Sirius and vice-versa, but I don’t know of anyone who has ever said- I don’t really like this whole satellite radio thing, so I’m going back to listening to WKRAP and their Whacky Morning Crew. Broadcasters are losing serious money because of satellite radio- and they want it to fail and die a horrible death.

Satellite radio also reaches virtually everyone in the continental US. (If you live in a cave or some deep canyon- you might not be able to get it without a really long cable or a repeater.) This includes farms, ranches and rural communities not served by local radio stations and unable to get regular radio reception. I know personally from years of road trips all over the country that often the only radio station you can get in these areas, if you can get one at all, is either a “praise the lord” or “twangy country” station. So- satellite radio gives these folks a broad spectrum of news and views, and music choices they have never had.

Okay, end of rant.