Places to get desktop wallpaper images…

Posted on August 12, 2005 by ericgharrison
 
There are a million other places of course, but these are the two that come to mind, and that I don’t want to lose.  If you’ve got a good source, please add a comment, and I’ll extend the posting.
 
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I bet Cisco wishes they had just fixed the problem…

Posted on August 4, 2005 by ericgharrison
This is a good read.  I hope that everything works out well for Mike Lynn.  He had a lot of courage to quit his job and risk legal hell to do what he felt was the right thing.
<span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> Computers and Internet | Leave a comment

The amazing progression of hard drive pricing

Posted on July 9, 2005 by ericgharrison
I got started with computers about the time the TRS 80 Model 1 came out. Yes, that long ago.  Back then, pretty much only mainframes had hard drives and they stored very little data – perhaps 20 megabytes.  In the mid 80’s, I got my first hard drive for my Tandy 1200, which was a Tandy "clone" of the IBM PC.  It was 5 megabytes before formatting, it was 4 megabytes after.  A few years later I got an 80 megabyte hard drive for roughly $500.  So in the late 80’s, it was something like $6.25 per megabyte.
 
Today, I’m looking at buying a couple of 400 gigabyte hard drives.  Each one will cost roughly $260.  Or about $.07 per megabyte.  Wow.
 
So for $780, if I wanted to, I could purchase roughly a terabyte of storage space.  I might just have to do that!  "Are you happy to see me or is that a terabyte of storage in your PC?"
 
 
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Why not sue the author of the Sasser worms?

Posted on July 8, 2005 by ericgharrison
Sven Jaschan has been found "guilty" of writing the Sasser worm and turning it loose on an unsuspecting world.  His sentence is a joke.  30 hours of community service and a 18 month suspended sentence.  In other words, he caused millions upon millions of dollars in damage, and he stays out of jail and picks up litter for 30 hours.
 
To top it off, he apparently has a job at a German security firm.  Fine.  Good for him.  He gained notoriety by causing tremendous disruption, and now he’s profiting from it.
 
So, why don’t some of his victims sue him for his actions?  Granted, MS released a patch for the security hole that Sasser took advantage of a month before its release so it could be argued that the victims are at fault here, but that doesn’t mean he should get a free ride, right?  If someone takes something out of my car because I forgot to lock the door doesn’t make him any less of a criminal.
 
Heck, even people sued by the RIAA for sharing music files end up paying thousands of dollars out of pocket.
 
I dunno.  It seems attorneys could do some good here by making his life difficult and perhaps helping to pursuade other "l33t h^ck3rs" that their energy could be directed to doing better things.  I can’t imagine how pissed I would be if any of his worms had caused me any grief.
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BMW Motorcycle vs. C6 Corvette

Posted on July 4, 2005 by ericgharrison
I think I’m going to start a "somekind of vehicle vs. C6 Corvette" trend.  In my posting over at my ‘old’ blog, I wrote about a guy in an Audi TT who wanted to race my 2005 Corvette.  Go read it for a chuckle, and to understand that these things aren’t really about racing…
 
A few days ago I was driving up a street near my house on the way to some errand or another (don’t you love how I set the scene?).  I was going about 40 mph in a 40 mph speed limit zone (IOW not speeding).  I was surprised when a BMW motorcycle, that was waiting for me to pass him before he pulled out of a driveway, suddenly pulled out in front of me – AND THEN STOPPED!  This was the kind of situation which you have all probably been in before – your thought process is "whoa, there’s not really a lot of room between us buddy so make sure you…<slam on brakes!>" which actually happens in a split second and isn’t the nice chat over tea that it might seem like.
 
I didn’t stop to talk to the guy, but I did slam on the brakes and stop a few feet before smashing into him. That’s how I knew it was a BMW motorcycle.  I was reading it off the bike. He had pulled out onto a busy street and apparently stalled his bike while trying to sprint across in front of me.
 
Thankfully, I was paying attention and managed to stop a few feet short of hitting him.  I waited while he restarted his bike, rather than going around him – that way I could ‘protect’ him with my car which people were much more likely to see than his bike.  He got started and waved a few times and away we went.  I shudder to think what might have happened if I hadn’t been paying attention, or driving my other car, which doesn’t stop as well as a Corvette.
 
I was just one of those "Holy cow, that guy could have died" moments.  An honest mistake on his part, followed up by an honest mistake on my part could have resulted in a really bad situation.  Fortunately, it all worked out.  It does server as a reminder of the importance of paying attention while driving and not dinking with your phone or iPod.
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I’m conflicted about MSN Spaces

Posted on December 18, 2004 by ericgharrison

Right now I’m running my blog on .Text, which is fine and dandy, but sometimes I think that it would be nice to not have to deal with worrying about backing up the server, making sure it’s upgraded to all the latest code and whatnot.

One thing that would be nice to know is if we can determine just how many users have visited my ‘space’.  Also, I’ll have to check this out under Firefox, as I hate using IE for just about anything anymore.

One other thing that needs to be resolved is MSN’s terms of service which pretty much claim ownership of everything I put up here.  I understand what they were trying to accomplish (protecting themselves and allowing them to make backups and such without being worried about someone claiming that they’re stealing someones stuff – exactly what they’re being accused of now!), and they need to fix their agreement asap.

Oh well, that’s enough of an incoherent ramble, I’m off to learn more about MSN Spaces!

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