Hackers

Is it just me or has there been a massive increase in websites going down for extended periods due to hacker activity? In the past 2 weeks 3 of my favourite sites (all of which are non-commercial) have been hacked for no apparent reason other than they could. One site didn't have any meaningful backups and was effectively destroyed.

I've no idea how these bastards go about it or if my host is in danger but it's got me worried. I don't backup any of this nonsense up and would be no loss to anyone except to me but I feel uneasy about it. I've seen stories of major companies getting hacked and that would led me to beleive there is no real security you can apply and if the script kiddies or Russian Mafia gangs want to target you they will. Do commerical ISPs backup your data, do they have multiple layers of security on their(our) servers? Questions, questions.

Category:

• Computer
• Data
• Hosting

Child of the sixties

If you're of a similar vintage to myself you can literally waste hours of your life trawling through the TV Cream site. All your favourite programs from the autobiographical genius of Grange Hill, to those strange stirrings down below you felt after glimpsing Jenny Hanley's nipples poking through her unfeasibly tight sweaters on Magpie. Happy days indeed. Sweets you didn't know you can't get anymore (Mine and Kim's favourite topic of conversation... it's a fecking Marathon, right!), fizzy drinks, comics, theme tunes they're all there... but it's like a museum! Am I that old?

They've now added the top 100 toys of yester-year, see how many you owned, or wanted to own, and then get yourself over to ebay and buy them all. Sigh... kids today, it's not like it was in my day.

Category:

• TV

I'd like to thank

Voting has opened for the 2005 "Bloggie" awards. It's complete rubbish of course, nobody asked my 3 readers if this site should be nominated. Just jealous, that's it, they're all jealous.

Some of the categories are laughable..."Best American Weblog"?!!? What's that all about? Where's the "Best Weblog written in Scotland by some guy with M.E. from Norn Iron" category, eh? Also, the nominations for "Best Design" have obviously been chosen by the blind.

Well worth a look though if only to steal ideas and look down your nose and sniff that awards are so common.

Category:

• Internet
• Blog

Did you know?

Apple have a discount refurbished online store in the UK? I didn't until I chanced upon it while fighting the urge to buy a Mac Mini. It's only open on Wednesdays from 10:00 in the morning.

It sounds like a similar set up to Dell's Outlet store where they refurbish, discount and sell customer returned items. Remember how successful I was picking up the Beast from Dell? Give it a few weeks and I'm sure there'll be a few discounted Mac Mini's floating about. Woof!

Category:

• Computer
• Apple
• Dell

Feeling brave?

The new peer-2-peer system championed by the sadly departed suprnova torrent listing site is now available for public download. Give it a go if you think you're hard enough. I'll install it on a standalone windows box and take a shoogle at it later.

Category:

• Suprnova
• Exeem

Song

Roger Waters performed his Pink Floyd classic, Wish you Were Here, for The Tsunami Aid, A Concert of Hope. This was a 2 hour show broadcast on NBC and across the world on various satellite channels in the small hours of this morning. Repeats can be found on some channels so check your listings.

You can view a clip of Roger's performance here. He appeared with his great friend Eric Clapton and his usual backing singers, Katie Kissoon, Carol Kenyon and the fantastic PP Arnold.

Category:

• Roger+Waters
• Pink+Floyd
• Charity

Dickhead

Prince Harry has been, for a long time, regarded as the intellectually challenged brother of the pair, which is really saying something, but this stunt really takes the biscuit. The few that have come out in his defence have all made a big thing out of the fact he's "only" 20. A 20 year old who's about to join the army to train as an officer and who is so obviously stupid, immature, unaware, drunk, stoned, did I say thick as pig shit? that he really shouldn't be anything other than a politician. Be gone the lot of you.

Category:

• Royalty

Deplorable

Maybe it's because I had a glimpse of the education system before bitch thatcher became Education Secretary in 1975 (thatcher the milk snatcher as she became known by ending free milk for school kids) or when she became Prime Minister in 1979 and destroyed the entire country but I can't stand this text speak which now invades everyday life. Just look at the text message I got today from a number I didn't recognize.

Rich.ur dad hs had suces 2day

What the hell does that mean? Eh? I think it has something to do with my Father ("dad" the only bit that makes sense to me) as I found out last night that he was back in hospital and giving cause for concern. So I called the number to see who sent it and what it meant. Imagine my surprise when my Mum comes on the phone and says "did you get my message?" She's 70 years old for feck sake and sending SMS messages like Vicky Pollard "yeah but, no but".

Apparently it means;

Richard. Your Dad has had success today.

Why couldn't she just have said that then?... kids today... hurumph!

Oh yeah, and the reason I didn't recognize the number is because she got herself a brand spanking 3G phone. What the feck does a 70 year old want with one of those? Next she'll be telling me about her new 42" plasma screen (because "her eyes aren't what they used to be").

Category:

• Personal

Style over substance?

I've long been of the opinion that Apple products are vastly overpriced for what they actually are but that's exactly their marketing ploy. "Buy Apple and you're somehow more superior than those that don't". Fair enough, it works, nobody forces these people to shell out for overpriced product just because they look better and give a more satisfying glow of ownership.

So, I've set up a quick comparison based on the base level Mac Mini costing £339. I wanted to see how much a self built Windows machine would cost based on the same specification wherever possible. Naturally, you need to add a monitor, keyboard and mouse but they could be common for either machine.

The base level machine consists of;

Processor: 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
Memory: 256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SRAM, supports up to 1GB
Graphics: ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM with AGP 4X support
Hard drive: 40GB Ultra ATA1
Optical drive: Slot-loading Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Operating System: Mac OSX
Total cost including VAT and delivery: £339

As the Mac Mini is a Small Form Factor machine obviously the Windows version should be the same so I've based it on the cheapest Shuttle case I could find.

The alternative machine consists of;

Processor: 2200+ AMD Sempron (1.5Ghz clock)
Memory: 256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SRAM, supports up to 2GB
Graphics: ATI Radeon 9200 with 64MB of DDR SDRAM with AGP 8X support
Hard drive: Maxtor 40GB Ultra ATA1
Optical drive: Sony Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Operating System: WindowsXP Media Centre Edition
Case&Motherboard: Shuttle SK43G
Total cost including VAT and delivery: £340 (ebuyer)

Wow! Practically the same speced machine for the same money. Yes the Mac Mini looks a million times better, the OSX operating system is more secure and arguably better, it's quieter, smaller etc. This isn't the full story though. The base Mac Mini is woefully underspeced for the multimedia applications the OSX operating system was created for. By the time you add say 1Gb ram, the wireless option, a faster processor, the bigger hard drive, the matching keyboard and mouse, the obligatory DVD writer et al, the cost becomes obscene. A similarly speced self built Windows machine could be up to half the cost.

As a low cost introduction to the Mac OSX a base Mac Mini is perfect for Internet, e-mail, MP3, watching DVD's, general office tasks, etc as a second machine in the livingroom or bedroom. I still want one, but I'll never buy. The power of Apple's Style over Substance will and does work for many.

Category:

• Computer
• Apple

Want one

Don't know why, just do. Read all about the new Mini Mac here. Gorgeous. At last a computer you can have in your living room on display or hidden away. All the necessary ports and connectivity goodies. Certain to fly off the shelves.

Category:

• Computer
• Apple

Surprise, surprise

Like I said a couple of weeks ago the scum responsible for the violent bank robbery were almost certainly our very own friendly deviant murdering scum. I'm pleased the Chief Constable has come out and said so publicly and went out of his way to dispel any myth that this was some sort of jape but a violent crime with terrorised victims and their families.

The political wing of the deviant scum's reaction was also laughably predictable. It's become clearer in the last few years that these bastards now believe the crap they spout as well. It used to be made primarily for the idiot American audience and the plastic paddies but now they take their own utterances as gospel too, with never a smirk of irony.

The frantic back peddling of the media, as it dawns upon them, that the law abiding citizens of Norn Iron are not the intransigent bigots they have portrayed them to be for the last 10 years and are not the sticking point to peace and fair Government in Norn Iron. That honour lies with the deviant scum with the weapons and explosives.

Category:

• Northern+Ireland

Freebie

Hailed as the greatest game ever, Half-Life 2, you can now download a free demo of the game consisting of the opening few levels and a couple of the later levels found in the full package. It's 751Mb so be warned it'll take a couple of hours on a standard broadband connection.

I've never been into computer games in a big way since my Amiga days as my brain just doesn't seem to work at the speed required for the modern FPS genre. I dream of a Battle of Britain flight sim with a fast modern game engine backing it up with photoreal graphics. Online games are even worse, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die... and so on. I had the original Half-Life but lost interest half way through and gave up. I must say from the opening minutes of the new version it's certainly a leap forward in realtime graphics ability and is a pointer to the future when our machines will be so powerful it will be increasingly difficult to tell reality from fantasy. Ohh, The Matrix is coming, The Matrix is coming...

Category:

• Computer
• Games

New Year

The obligatory Happy New Year post with included resolutions, hopes and dreams. I've never been a fan of celebrating the passing of an old year and the dawn of a new one, all a bit pointless if you ask me. Anyway, 2004 has gone and good riddance to it. The United States' ongoing "War against terror", as it is laughably called, is suffering huge problems in Iraq. Perhaps that is a good thing as it seems to have tempered Bush's warmongering activities as it's over a year and half since he declared war on a country and invaded unilaterally. The disaster in the Indian Ocean continues to shock with it's devastating outcome.

On a personal level for 2005 I hope to continue the progress I have made in the past couple of months with my health. There have been times recently where I have noticed improvements. The fog has occasionally lifted from my brain and allowed me a glimpse of a life that I feared was lost forever. This is really the first sign of encouragement I've had in the past 5 years of suffering from ME/CFS. Fingers crossed.

Category:

• Personal