2003 March

You would think that the major Antivirus vendors would include Anti-Spyware detection algorithm’s. It’s a logical step in the evolution of protecting consumers from unwanted commercial spyware applications from spying on us. I personally think that it is more than likely a liability issue. As the AntiVirus Vendors would be eliminating others companies tools that [...]

Attention Major League Baseball fans: The 2003 MLB schedule has been posted for download. This site takes the pain out of adding sporting events (and holidays) to your Outlook calendar by putting them into a PST file for you to download. The instructions tell you to import but I just open it within Outlook and [...]

“‘google’ is a command-line interface to Google Search. It uses Aaron Straup Cope’s Net::Google library, which in turn, is an interface to Google’s SOAP API. You can download google-1.3 from your nearest CPAN mirror. To be able to use this tool, you first need to create an account with Google. It is free.”

Disney/Go/whatever-they-are-called-this-week has had inquiries about the search technology and patents left over from when they acquired Infoseek. According to the article, the last time the Infoseek spider did an index crawl was over two years ago. So while the search technology is useless, there’s probably something in the patents that Infoseek holds that might interest [...]

Gretchen’s Hypochondriac’s Calendar was close to the truth. The folks at Tech TV sent an often-used keyboard to the folks at UC Berkeley School of Public Health for testing. The results? While it didn’t have any E.coli or salmonella growing on it, it did have bacteria that could have included staphylococcus.
I can only imagine [...]

Fearing backlash and reprisals from consumers, several recording labels are planning on introducing Copyproof CDs to the US Market. These CDs have been on the market overseas for some time even though the copy protection scheme is flawed has been bypassed using some rudimentary techniques. These CDs have also been known to damage some CD [...]

“Microsoft is expected to announce on Friday that Windows Server 2003 has completed testing and has been certified final, or gold, code. Release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Server 2003 code clears the way for next month’s product launch event in San Francisco. RTM also means that computer manufacturers can begin selling systems with the [...]

“In this time of extraordinary global turmoil, investors have unsurprisingly flocked to safe havens … Internet stocks Amazon.com (AMZN), eBay (EBAY) and Yahoo! (YHOO). Shares of eBay are up 32.9 percent year-to-date. And it’s the slacker. Amazon.com has surged 47 percent and Yahoo! has soared more than 50 percent. Since the Nasdaq’s Oct. 9 nadir, the three [...]

“Free peer-to-peer music file-sharing has become larger than the multibillion-dollar recording industry, with a growth trend that has become “fundamentally unstoppable,” a state Senate committee exploring Internet piracy has been warned.”

“So your page is now totally pimped out. You have gads of content on your sidebar, you’ve used ScriptyGoddess know-how to have comments and extended entries pop out like magic, and you even have some entries to take up some space between all the gadgets. The problem? The code on your page is now weighing [...]

The game that has spawned thousands of followers, websites, game servers, and gaming clans has KINDA released BETA 1.6. It’s still hard to get because you have to use Steam.
Installation:
Steam, in my opinion, is very glitchy and very unstable. Yet, I pushed on because I had to have 1.6 for my LAN party this [...]

MobileMag.com reports that the Seiko Epson Corp. of Japan has developed an ultra-small Bluetooth-controlled robot about the size of the tip of your thumb.
“The new robot employs three 1.7-volt zinc-air batteries connected in a series for driving power. The three batteries weigh 4.3g in total, whereas the robot weighs 12.5g. The exterior package weighs 2.5g. [...]

ZDNet’s Jason Parker has compiled a sweet list of three streaming audio rippers for both the Mac and Windows platforms.
“With a good (internet) connection speed, the sound quality is close to indistinguishable from a downloaded or ripped MP3.
Here are three downloads you can use to listen to and record streamed music from almost any [...]

NTT’s Wristomo is a fully functioning cellphone that also sends and receives e-mails, browses Web pages, and has GPS capabilities.
“The futuristic gunmetal gray device is among the first examples of a wrist-worn cell phone making its way to market decades after being envisioned by the creators of 1940s comic book gumshoe Dick Tracy. Samsung, IBM [...]

CNet has posted a pretty good roundup of 802.11g wireless routers. “The Belkin 54g 802.11g wireless router is finally a step in the right direction. See how it stacks up against the rest of the competition.”

Those of you who loved the first Tomb Raider movie, I think you’ll get a real kick out of the next installment in the series that’s coming to a movie theatre near you on July 25th, 2003. This time, Lara (once again played by Angelina Jolie) goes in search of Pandora’s Box, jet skiing, [...]

An AP article posted on today’s Philly.com reports that free peer-to-peer music file-sharing has become “fundamentally unstoppable”, according to a state Senate committee. According to the report, P2P has become even larger than the multi-billion dollar recording industry.
“The free downloading habit among 61 million Americans and millions more worldwide is “cemented,” with only 9 [...]

Now mind you this is not for the weak of heart because the guys at [H]ardOCP already managed to fry a 3Ghz Pentium 4, but if you have to have the ultimate in power and don’t mind spending quite a bit of money, I’m sure you could get your PC running this fast; however, your [...]

“A California antispam bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, a first step toward the passage of a law that would give people the right to sue spammers. The bill, introduced by Sen. Debra Bowen, a Democrat, allows any Californian who receives an unsolicited ad via e-mail to sue the sender in court for $500 per [...]

“Hackers on Thursday replaced the English-language Web site for Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera with a U.S. flag and the message ‘Let Freedom Ring.’ The hackers, calling themselves the “Freedom Cyber Force Militia,” briefly hijacked Internet traffic destined for Al-Jazeera’s Web site and redirected it to a different Web page on computers operated by Networld [...]