September 2004 Archives

I know I've ranted about this before (Max Clark: Receptionists), and I will probably rant about it again, but here it goes... Companies exist to sell things. When you want to buy a product or service what do you naturally do? You call the company and say something like, "Hi, I would like to buy product x from you". Why do some companies make this so difficult to do?

From Jeremy Zawodny New My Yahoo Beta, Featuring RSS and Atom Let me start off by saying how much Yahoo has impressed me lately. Their Yahoo! Local search has completely won me over, and I am starting to use Yahoo! Search over Google. This new Beta launch of My Yahoo! looks to re-capture me as well. I attempt to disseminate a large volume of information on a daily basis. The creation of RSS feeds was a blessing for me, allowing me to subscribe to more and more content. However there was a pitfall, I have not been able to find a windows based RSS reader that I like, and most make the task more difficult than before. I am hoping that the new RSS features in My Yahoo will give me what I need. Sanity.

Not a day goes by that I don’t have a firewall conversation with somebody. There is a general assumption that once you install a firewall your network/servers behind it are secure. Firewalls aren’t a magic cure for security holes.

A firewall limits what traffic is allowed to traverse its interfaces, if you have a vulnerable system behind a firewall that you are allowing traffic to the firewall won’t do anything for you.

I firewall is only one of a series of steps that you have to take to protect your network. I found this slide funny, I hope you do to.

See: Windows Upgrade, FAA Error Cause LAX Shutdown I will let this one speak for itself.

"The recent shutdown of LAX due to an FAA radio outage was apparently caused by a Windows 2000 integration flaw, possibility related to an old Windows 95 bug. An article at the LA Times claims that the outage was caused by human error, as the system will automatically shut down after 49.7 days (related to this Windows 95 flaw?), and a technician didn't reboot the system monthly as he should have. This happened after an upgrade from Unix to Windows. I don't think blame should be assigned to the technician who missed the task; rather, it seems a gross oversight for the FAA to guarantee that such a critical system will crash after only one missed maintenance task. Who's really at fault?"

See: Fed Raises Rates for Third Time in Row

The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates on September 21, 2004 by a quarter percentage point as expected, the third straight rise in a bid to keep a lid on inflation pressures despite some signs of economic softness. The unanimous decision by the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee moves the benchmark federal funds rate -- which influences credit costs throughout the economy -- to 1.75 percent. The Fed lifted rates by matching amounts in June and at its last policy session on Aug. 10, spelling an end to a lengthy period of super-low rates.

Christina and I constantly find ourselves in this debate with friends and real estate investment strategies. Let me explain:

I have 6 gmail invites, first come first served.

Oh happy day. I just received an email from Amazon letting me know that they just shipped out my copy of the original star wars trilogy. I have been waiting for these dvds to be available ever since The Phantom Menance hit the big screen. Now all I have to do is buy a new tv... Which reminds me, the other day I was in Best Buy and a saw something that has left me completely confused... This 50" "Projection LCD" had an amazing picture, and at $3,000 it seems way to cheap to be true. So now I have been searching trying to figure out what the difference between the LCD/Plasma/DLP/Projection LCD sets are, and what I should really be thinking about spending my money on. Argh, I think my brain just likes the endless projects to keep me occupied.

In my never ending quest of tangents I have been in the process of re-arranging my home office. Since this includes the removal of a home server (which in turn necessitates the migration of my websites to my co-located gear) I figured I would upgrade MovableType (and experiment with alternate options). There are a lot of new features in available, one of which is comment reviewing, so starting today comments are back on.

The audio on this one is priceless... kungoops.mpg