ODAY I was reminded why, despite the fact that I never set my hands on Windows machines, they still manage to hinder my work. I was ready to upload experimental data to personal Webspace, in order to have it transferred to a colleague down in London. I was then faced with a hot red warning message saying that the large ZIP archive appeared to be a virus (merely based on file size and file type). Renaming the data file and changing its filetype would not help. I was forced to send to the entire lump of data (4 GB, yet compress) to a different computer and then FTP it, which is a really time-consuming PITA.

Why was I presented with a prompt saying that the file may be a virus in the first place? Allow me to generalise this question. Why is it that there are terms such as “trusted sites” or “dangerous, malicious E-mail”? Yes, Windows is still severely flawed. Windows is insecure by design and this has led society to take system crashes for granted and assume computer security to be a top-priority risk factor (not accidental data loss or physical, hardware dysfunction). Since everyone is assumed to be using Windows, everyone suffers.

Another impact on Windows of my life are the endless heaps of SPAM. A Symantec study has shown that 80% of all spam, which is the majority of the entire world’s E-mail traffic/volume, is being despatched from Windows zombies, i.e. Windows computers that are compromised, hijacked and controlled remotely, passively sending mail, requesting files, and scanning port. To add to this pain, I was on several occasions the victim of DDOS attacks. That broken Windows was virtually, if not practically, attacking my Web sites en masse, which I think is unacceptable.

A shrimpy yet fully-functional USB drive

Here are a couple of fun lists which I have recently come across:

• Top 10 Strangest Custom Gaming Systems
• Ten Products Google Should Develop (hypothetical)

Some even contain videos.

‘Satanic’ day is marked today as “666″ our calendars will indicate. It is not quite so often that a date such as this is reached. It may take another 100 years, as a matter of fact and, even then, a zero will be lost (2006 becomes 2106).

So, enjoy Devil’s Day! Just don’t be mischievous!!

A KDE pager containing eight virtual desktops

KDE is a powerful and versatile desktop environment, which I have raved about for as long ago as I had known it (read GNOME vs. KDE, for example). Apart from its augmented support for virtual desktops, it boasts an almost infinite number of features that make it highly extensible. Here are some examples of things that any user is able to achieve with KDE.

• Open a particular program, let us say the Web browser, consistently in desktop 8, always in shaded mode with opacity level 80% (20% translucent). These per-program features were added around version 3.4 of KDE.
• Without any extensions, KDE enables the user to download fresh wallpapers off the Internet (primarily through kde-look.org), all with a single click. Then, the user is given the choice to select multiple wallpapers from the collection, revolve them (as in a slideshow) every number of minutes, with separate wallpapers assigned to different virtual desktops, at different changing intervals, and with effects like hue shifts applied to them ‘on the fly’.
• Move and resize windows without reaching for their edges and corners, simply using the mouse pointer and the keyboard. Moreover, window focus policies, as well as new window placement, is highly customisable.
• KDE supports XGL (or conversely so, as well GNOME, of course). XGL is hardware-accelerated nice ‘eye candy’, which does not necessarily enhance the pace and productivity of work.

So where is the competition? KDE appears to be best bar none, in terms of function. Many consider it user friendly since its look-and-feel is assimilated to that of Microsoft Windows.

Related items:

• KDE Pushed to the Limit
• Wallpapers Obsession
• Desktop Environment Freedom
• KDE and Ease-of-Use

S part of the recent crackdown on piracy on the Web,American corporations are using politics to subvert international laws and ethics. Firstly, they ‘invade’ Sweden owing to government approval . Then, they also pose conditions to the Russians, due on Web sites that they harbour, or turn a blind eye to. Bear with me as I justify my view on this.

“How is this related to Linux or the general theme of this blog?”, you might ask. As many people have said, it’s a demonstration of the growing trend where governments assist businesses, or get manipulated by them. As one commenter in Digg said (typos corrected):

There are many who say that “they deserved it because they are violating copyrights”. We could debate for ages on copyrights… but the reason for the demonstration is not all about the copyrights. When a cooperation has the ability to manipulate a foreign governments law enforcement and government into raiding a legal business (it may not be legal in the US but US law does not apply outside the US), then theres reason to be worried. Cooperations are getting greedier and worse as time progresses. In the last decade they’ve been trying to make as much money as possbile with spending as little money as possible. In the next decade we will likely see more corporations attempting to persade governments into taking serious actions (legal or not) for their benefit, and we’re already seeing the very beginnings of this trend.

I hope this post is not perceived as redundant. Linux/Open Source is often boycotted by corporations, even with government’s assistance (through direct action or legistlation). The GPL does not serve the interests of money-making, long-standing software vendors.

HE potential AUT strike is keeping everyone occupied, so I have embarked on final persistent push to write and complete my thesis. This began on the 2^nd of the month and it primarily involve piecing together some past publications, elaborating where suitable, and glueing them sensibly.

When I first joined this scene of academic research, I was somewhat surprised to reveal that genuine and original content (as opposed to gross re-use) is not only perceived as acceptable; it is sometimes encouraged, as a matter of fact. I was truly disappointed to come to grips with this mentality, wherein peers say that good text should better remain unchanged and in most cases evolve or have some fine, cosmethic changes applied. If further progress is made, it can be appended to the existing text. This robs many people out of artistic integrity, in my humble opinion. It also leads to duplication and repeatability, which can make us feel like parrots.

ANY Webmasters may have already noticed (or been informed) that Google’s greatest and latest, the 64-bit “Big Daddy” datacentre, had experienced a major error. The Web developers community is humming over the consequnces whilst very few clues are selectively being delivered by Google spokesmen (and spokeswomen).

More information on the issue of page dropping, “Big Daddy” anomalies and general impact on inbound links:

• Google Changes its Link Ranking in Big Daddy
• OK so you’ve lost 100,000 pages in big daddy
• BigDaddy, Missing Pages In Google & Is The Big G Out Of Space

The public is kindly requested not to panic. Google results pages may have degraded (including invalid, irrelevant and broken links), but all in all, this degradation is not radical. Google remains best bar none in terms of quality search results.