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An amazing security hole found in Windows XP. Arguably the largest security hole in an OS ever. Merely connecting to the internet puts your entire computer and all its contents at risk. But I no longer see the point in mentioning these stories. It really isn't news. Now if Microsoft ever made a secure product - that might be news. But until that happens I'm not going to mention these reports any more.
- jim 12-22-2001 8:09 pm [link] [add a comment]

OSX 10.1.2 is out. Mozilla 0.9.7 is out.

I've noticed (at least in 10.1.1, we'll see if .2 fixes it) that when I try to connect to other machines on the appletalk LAN in the office, 10.1.1 won't see any machines that are asleep! That's not very convenient. In 9.x (and 8.x) you could hear all the machines wake up automatically when you look for available machines in the chooser. This isn't so bad for me since all the machines are physically close. I can just walk over and wake up the desired machine from its keyboard, but still...
- jim 12-22-2001 4:27 pm [link] [2 comments]

The second part to Lawrence Lessig's slashdot interview has been posted (the first part was the questions, these are Lessig's answers.) If you don't know Lawrence Lessig is a Stanford University law professor much embroiled in the great copyright debates. Influential - albeit on the losing side - in the Napster case, the DeCSS DVD decoding case, and the anti-trust case against Microsoft. Probably the foremost legal thinker on the diverse matters of law being turned inside out by the digital age.
- jim 12-21-2001 10:19 pm [link] [2 comments]

Bill posts the scoop on the fabled Christmas tree deep inside the PATH train tunnel under the hudson river between NYC and NJ.
- jim 12-21-2001 6:19 pm [link] [add a comment]

My plan was to toil in relative obscurity here, and for the most part that has really worked out for me. I know some of my friends here read this page. And I think maybe my Mom and Sister do sometimes too. Otherwise things are pretty quiet around here visitor wise.

But then a few weeks ago someone linked to me from their page. It didn't produce a tidal wave of hits, but I have a feeling the steady trickle coming my way is of the highest quality. Too high most likely. And there's the problem. While I couldn't be more pleased with the link, I can't help wondering what caught his attention. He sure isn't picking up any programming tips. I keep reminding myself that his sidebar links aren't really an endorsement, but just a list of recently visited sites. I figured I'd be rotated out of the lineup in a hurry. But every day when I click over to read his previous nights entry I see my link is still there. This makes me feel very good, but also adds a little pressure. "You mean people I don't know are reading this?" I think it's one of the more interesting things about the whole weblog world that I actually care about this. It's somehow more important because I don't know him. Too bad he's not in NYC or I'd offer to get him a table at the restaurant.

I wasn't even going to mention this at all. But then today I noticed another person I've come to respect through reading his page has also added my link. Seriously? Wow. I'll have to start dropping some Shulgin references or something. Again, not a deluge of traffic, but I don't care about that. It's the quality I'm after. So if you're coming here through either of those fine pages, welcome, have a look around, but don't hold it against them.

How long does 15 minutes last on a 400 mhz G3?
- jim 12-20-2001 8:54 pm [link] [9 comments]

I haven't had as much time lately for posting here. Things are very busy on the home front plus my recent venture into OS X fanaticism is taking a lot of my time. I think I will be swallowed by the project builder monster if I'm not careful. It's much to Apple's credit that I would find myself with the courage to even open up such a program. But this introduction to Applescript on OSX was just too tempting. "You mean I can make cocoa programs with Applescript?" That's something even a not so sophisticated PHP scripting philosophy major can probably deal with.
- jim 12-20-2001 3:51 pm [link] [add a comment]

Doc Searls: "Hotel California Lists, or HCLs, are my new label for email lists you can check out of, but never leave."
- jim 12-20-2001 3:19 pm [link] [add a comment]

Wow, this is going well. OSX has restored some of the excitement I remember from my beginning days on the web. Two thumbs up. Proselytizing will now begin in earnest, so watch out if you have to spend any time with me in the near future.

It turns out I didn't have the latest (10.1.1) version of X. I grabbed that this morning after Chris, from the on hiatus mors.ante.servitium, reminded me.

I'm running this on a 400 mhz G3 iMac and speed is not too bad. But it is slow at times, especially when resizing windows. I only have 128 megs of RAM in this machine, so perhaps bumping that will help. I'm sure a G4 would do better, but this is what I have for the moment. In any case, I use Mozilla as my main browser, so I must not care too much about blindingly fast user interfaces. It's funny how if I like a technology on a theoretical (philosophical? ethical?) level I am willing to cut it a lot of slack. Probably there is some loose thinking in there, but that's how it is. On the other hand, the first time I was annoyed by Microsoft or Real I banished them from my world forever.
- jim 12-17-2001 5:53 pm [link] [add a comment]

Back upstairs on the dialup now. Seems to work fine. This is what I had problems with in the public beta. I could never get PPP to stay connected. Needless to say, they've come a long way from the pb to 10.1. Nice work. Cheapest new computer I've ever gotten.
- jim 12-17-2001 1:17 am [link] [add a comment]

Long day of downloading. For no good reason I'll say what I did.

Backed up a couple of gigs off my home machine (graphite iMac) onto one of the Mac towers in the office. Did some actual math and discovered we only get about 5.5 Mb/sec over the LAN. I'll have to look into that.

Wiped the single partition on the iMac. Made two new partitions.

Installed 9.0.4 (off CD) onto the smaller partition.

Downloaded 9.1 updater from Apple. Installed over 9.0.4.

Downloaded 9.2 updater from Apple. Tried to install - corrupt. Couldn't go back.

Installed 9.0.4 again off CD. Updated again to 9.1.

Downloaded 9.2 updater from Apple again. Installed sucessfully.

Downloaded 9.2.2 updater from Apple. Installed.

Installed 10.1 (off CD) onto the larger partition.

Downloaded developer tools (200+ Megs!) and installed.

Writing this from mozilla 0.9.6 running on OS 10.1. Feels good so far. I got a consistent 60 K/sec from Apple on the DSL. Still, that's not so fast for over half a gig of downloads. Started around noon and am just finishing up now.

I've meant to make this upgrade for some time, but I suspected it would turn into an all day adventure and so I had been putting it off. Glad I finally got it done. I traded emails a few weeks ago with mors.ante.servitium and his OS X enthusiasm sort of shamed me into finally doing it. Thanks. Everything is working well so far. I'll keep you informed on how it goes.
- jim 12-17-2001 12:50 am [link] [add a comment]

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