Archive for February, 2005

Monday, February 28th, 2005

Carnival of the Capitalists

The latest Carnival of the Capitalists is up in a well organized post at Coyote Blog. You may find items of interest linked there.
It’s particularly cool that there’s a new way to submit entries to Carnival of the Capitalists and a ton of other similar roundups of topical links. It’s the “Carnival Submit [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Business by Marshall

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005

Zombie Story

This is a good description of cleaning up a zombie computer that had been completely taken over by trojans and malware.
I always tend to forget the hosts file as a factor in these situation. Then again, I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered one so bad that it was a factor.

No Comments » - Posted in Security by Marshall

Monday, February 21st, 2005

XP and Nero

I knew there was something else I encountered when building the computer that I wanted to mention here.
In XP, Microsoft incorporated some crude CDRW function native to Windows. I’ve yet to see it actually work, but it’s there, and was supplied by Roxio, an Adaptec spinoff.
Because Microsoft is what it is, and Ahead Software, [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Software by Marshall

Monday, February 21st, 2005

Outlook 98 Mugged By XP Service Pack 2

Had some fun setting up a new machine with XP Pro. Sadly, it was the latest, updated to include the dreaded service pack 2, which is so bad that in my house we have stopped doing Windows updates, and I have a client who can no longer update at the expense of losing functionality.
I’ve [...]

1 Comment » - Posted in Software by Marshall

Monday, February 21st, 2005

Carnival of the Capitalists

First, some catching up I need to do. As a one time host of Carnival of the Capitalists, it behooves me to link regularly as each week’s new edition comes out. Oops.
Oh well.
This week’s CotC, the February 21 edition, is at The Raw Prawn.
Last week’s, the February 14 edition, was at Weekend Pundit.
The [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Business by Marshall

Thursday, February 17th, 2005

Software Project Failure Even Happens To The Feds

Back on January 13, Aubrey Turner noted the failure of the FBI’s terrorism information sharing software project, after spending $170 million. His discussion of how and why software projects is essentially what I would say, so you should read that first and foremost.
I would add that it is well worth reading Rapid [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Programming by Marshall

Wednesday, February 16th, 2005

Dying Microsoft? Don’t Panic

Is Microsoft a dying company?
I’d say “dying” is a strong word for it, but my perception is of size and hubris problems enough to place them near their pinnacle of size and success before having to rethink themselves, and probably shrink, whether in a controlled, planned, voluntary way, or a more chaotic, seemingly unpredictable way.
Malone’s [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Business, Humor by Marshall

Monday, February 14th, 2005

Advice On Linux?

Andrew Cory, posting at Dean’s World, is looking for advice about what Linux distro to install, and has some related questions about functionality.
One of them I think is especially good:
I’ve had past experiences with Linux where there was no good way of doing file management. Windows Explorer represent the minimum level of functionality I am [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Geek Tips by Marshall

Sunday, February 13th, 2005

Google’s Latest Coolness

Via many other blogs, Google is at it again:
Google Maps

No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Marshall

Friday, February 11th, 2005

Pop Goes The PC

I have four old computer carcasses that ended up stacked in the office because they were “dead” for some reason or another. This almost always means the power supply died, and may or may not have taken out something else with it.
My objective is to build at least one working computer out of the [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Computers by Marshall