Posts

David Farber (of Interesting People fame) has been appointed chief technologist at the FCC. David Farber is a really clueful guy, and I hope he’s able to make a strong positive impact while he’s working with the FCC. Congratulations, Dr. Farber. (The link is to a New York Times article by John Markoff, there’s also an official announcement.) Looking for some early entries for your summer reading list? Why not start with the American Scientist’s list of 100 or so Books that shaped a Century of Science. It’s a list I’ll be referring back to when I find that I have some free time. ...

I need a Usenet news reader for my computer running Windows 98. I’ve been using Netscape Communicator, and it’s OK, but not great. I hate Agent and its free sibling. I loved ya-newswatcher on the Mac. Any recommendations are appreciated. (If anyone can make me as happy as Laurel Krahn made me by recommending Calypso to read mail, I’ll be much obliged.) An rc3.org reader has come through and recommended an excellent newsreader that I hadn’t heard of. Windows users will definitely want to check out Gravity from MicroPlanet. Great, great product. ...

I found out today that pair.com has mod_rewrite installed on its Web servers, so I’m going to try to create some stupid mod_rewrite tricks for this Web site. My theory is that with mod_rewrite and PHP3, you can create the equivalent of the Vignette URL scheme without the 6 figure investment. Cool, huh? Another big story I missed while I was out in the hinterlands is the nasty spat between Yahoo! and Real over server licensing costs (with Microsoft dragged in to make this a love triangle). A great example of business showing its ugly side. ...

Etoys.com seems to have thrown in the towel and decided to stop abusing etoy.com. Of course, they’re not actually dropping their suit (at least not yet), and the preliminary order by the judge barring etoy.com from using their domain name still stands (at least for now), so I wouldn’t clsasify this as officially over. The cynic in me says that etoys.com caved in because they knew that in a real trial, they’d lose anyway. ...

From Matt Haughey comes this walk down memory lane. Today is officially Matt Haughey day here at rc3.org. I found a link on Metafilter to a Microsoft Knowledge Base article that explains how to uninstall Linux and install Windows 2000 or Windows NT instead. The worst step in the process is when they stick that straw in your ear and suck out half your brain. This Forbes story is just one of the many news stories pointing out that the LinuxOne IPO will be a great litmus test of investor gullability. If the IPO succeeds, investors are even dumber than I thought. ...

From a mailing list: the new NSI domain name dispute policy. One story that rolled in over the holidays but didn’t get much play was the acquisition of Thawte by VeriSign. Both Thawte and and VeriSign are both in the business of providing certificates for secure Web servers. VeriSign just eliminated their only real competition. Bad news for us customers. For some reason, my Palm IIIx went from 66% battery life available yesterday to 1% this morning. Why? Fortunately, I got a sync in before the stupid thing crapped out. ...

If you were outraged by the whole Etoy debacle, this story submitted by a reader will really make your blood boil. In this case, a company in France is abusing the legal system to crack down on a scholarly non-profit organization. Now that the millenium is less than five short days away, I thought I’d try to figure out what I need to do to make sure that Windows 98 and Office 97 work after we ring in the new year. Heading over to the Microsoft site, I wanted hardcore technical information and found myself redirected to some stupid article on the MSN Computing Central Web site. I really appreciate it when companies leverage their inadequacy by forcing me to their portal site where I can view some annoying advertising. As a paying customer, don’t I deserve real support? As best as I can tell, if you want to find out whether you computer is going to work after 1/1/2000, you need this program. ...

Continuing the theme of great phrase turners from history, a reader sends a link to the online version of Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary. The Dover Thrift Edition of this book was the best dollar I ever spent. My favorite computer hardware vendor, The Chip Merchant, is now selling stuff online through a Yahoo! Store. My disdain for day trading isn’t unknown to the regular readers of this page. Robert X. Cringely’s most recent column offers hard data that confirms my preconcieved notions. According to the article, 11.5% of day traders make money, and 70% are likely to lose all of their money day trading. ...

The Internet should be creating the most efficient markets ever, right? According to The Economist, it’s not. In what I consider to be a bizarre round of deals, ISPs are teaming up with retailers to push each others products. The only interesting thing about it is the always amusing herd behavior that is the hallmark of this industry. Yahoo and Kmart, Microsoft and Best Buy, and AOL and Wal-Mart. Mindspring needs to hurry up and cut a deal with Service Merchandise or something before their stock gets downgraded. ...

Hey, there’s a buffer overflow in versions off sshd compiled with RSAREF2 support. This problem sounds worse than it is, because support for RSAREF2 is not included in sshd by default. RSAREF2 is generally used by people who want to use RSA encryption without giving money to RSA. (The Tao of Windows Buffer Overflow contains an explanation of what buffer overflows are and how to exploit them, if you don’t know already.) ...