Kerry: I Love My Illegal Chinese Assault Rifle (Miscellaneous)
09/27/2004 11:29 | Comments: 0
"My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam. I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."
John Kerry in Outdoor Life's October issue. Kerry blasted President Bush two weeks ago for failing to push for an extension of the assault weapons ban. While Kerry has denied owning the rifle, campaign spokesman Michael Meehan told the New York Times the rifle is one of two guns owned by Kerry.
Reason #5941 to stop using Internet Explorer (Technology)
09/24/2004 00:07 | Comments: 0
According to C|Net, Microsoft has announced that future security updates to Internet Explorer will only be available for the Windows XP operating system. The millions of users with older computers and operating systems will simply have to "upgrade to XP and SP2 as quickly as possible."
I have a better idea: drop IE once and for all and switch to Firefox, Mozilla's lean, mean browsing machine (sorry!) Firefox includes a popup blocker, tabbed browsing (no more multiple browser windows cluttering the desktop, a download manager, intelligent bookmarks, and dozens of additional features. Switching is a breeze as Firefox has a built-in wizard to copy your existing settings from Internet Explorer. Want to dump Outlook while you're at it? Try Thunderbird, Firefox's companion email and newsgroup reader.Finally, this "You Might Be An IE User" list was developed by B-nadolson on response to John C. Dvorak's recent column on Firefox.
You Might Be An IE User If...
- If your email address is listed on your business cards as "www.joesmith@yahoo.com", you might be an IE user.
- If you actually think you will get $50 for "punching the monkey."
- When someone tells you to restart your computer and you turn the monitor off and back on, you just might be an IE user.
- If someone tells you to go to "www.whatever.com" so you go to Google and search for it, you are probably an IE user.
- If someone tells you you need a firewall and so you go to the store and buy Norton firewall in a box for $70, you might just possibly be an IE user.
- When you get a popup ad showing a Windows-like warning and you think it is a Windows warning box, you might be an IE user.
- If you web browser has 8 search bars and you don't even know how they got there, you might be an IE user.
- If you get pop-up ads and you aren't even using the Internet, you just might possibly be an IE user.
- If you have mysterious charges on your card because you received an email from "E-Bay" saying your account would be suspended if you didn't update your credit card information by clicking "this link", you must be an IE user.
- If, while reading this list, you are receiving the message "NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM will shut down in 60 seconds", you might be an IE user.
Memogate: Jayson Blair Speaks Out (Miscellaneous)
09/23/2004 10:04 | Comments: 0
No. 1, it was not news that George Bush was wild as a young man. He has pretty much said that himself. No. 2, it was not news that George Bush came from a family that had influence. What would be shocking would be if he did not use that influence. He has three-and-one-half years and two wars as President and if [someone] can't make a judgment on that, as opposed to his personal life three decades ago, then there might as well not be elections.
Jayson Blair on Rathergate.com.
How to identify phishing scams (Technology)
09/22/2004 17:43 | Comments: 0
Can you tell the difference between a legitimate e-mail from your financial institution and a fake one from scammers looking to steal your personal information? To tell the real correspondence from the bait, consider the following:
- Type Web addresses directly into your browser window instead of following links contained in the e-mail. This will help you avoid fake sites linked to the message.
- Give an incorrect password at the first prompt. Copycat sites will accept a fake password, while real Web sites won't.
- Check that you're submitting information over a secure Web site. You should see an unbroken key or a lock at the bottom of your browser.
- Double-clicking on that icon will display the site's security certificate. Check that the company name matches that of the site you're visiting.
- Call or send a separate e-mail to the institution. Use contact information that you know to be accurate.
Click here to become infected (Technology)
09/22/2004 17:37 | Comments: 0
Users should be wary of pressing the 'click here to remove' link on spam messages because it serves to confirm to spammers that junk mail messages are being read. Such email addresses can be sold at a premium to other spammers.
That's reason enough to simply delete spam messages, but a junk mail message doing the rounds today provides an even more compelling reason. Selecting the 'click here to remove' link on messages blocked by MessageLabs today triggers an attempt to load malicious code onto potentially vulnerable Windows PC.
My Dad, the Modern-Day Bard (Family)
09/15/2004 13:08 | Comments: 0
I stumbled across this article about my father in Bucknell World, Bucknell University's Alumni magazine.
In Memoriam (Miscellaneous)
09/11/2004 06:00 | Comments: 0
Hurricane Ivan (Family)
09/09/2004 21:50 | Updated 09/12/2004 17:21 | Comments: 0
It's still too early to tell how badly Hurricane Ivan will affect Florida, but its safe to say it'll dump quite a bit of water into areas struggling to handle the current flooding. Mom reports that a short 1-hour storm this afternoon caused water to rise halfway up the driveway. Anymore rain and the house is gone so my family's not taking any chances. Mom, Dad, Connor, and three cats will evacuate to George in the morning. Mary Beth plans to be on the road by 5pm. She'll spend the night in Leesburg with Dave and Mandy and will join the rest of the family in George on Saturday.
Meanwhile Lauren is in Florida with Progressive's Catastrophe Team. Progressive is going to decide what to do tomorrow at 9:15 EDT. If they decide to evacuate Lauren and her co-workers will head for their offices in Tampa where they'll leave for Atlanta by chartered plane or busses.
Keeping track of Ivan has been tough. Half of the projections I've seen are suggesting it'll stay just off the West Coast of Florida while the other half have it running right up the middle of the state. Those are the 5-day projections, which are a little bit of a black science. We'll have a much more accurate projection of its path in the next 36 hours.
Update 9/12/2004 Storm path projections over the last three days have pushed Ivan's predicted path further and further west. Lauren's gone from evacuating to Atlanta, to evacuating to Florida's East Coast, to now staying in the Tampa area. Meanwhile, flood watches have been cancelled for Charlotte County. Several days of sunshine and deacreased storm predictions have eased fears of rising waters in the Punta Gorda area. My parents, Mary Beth, and Connor are thinking of heading home on Tuesday. The delay is to allow traffic to die down a little.
Oliver North Snaps John Kerry (Miscellaneous)
09/07/2004 17:45 | Comments: 0
"I only have two Purple Hearts, though. I turned down the others so that I could stay with the Marines in my rifle platoon."
Oliver North in an open letter to John Kerry.
Florida Disaster Information (Miscellaneous)
09/07/2004 11:20 | Comments: 0
The best source of information on Hurricane Frances I've found is the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
