| Tuesday, September 17, 2024 |
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https://www.cyberark.com/resources/threat-research-blog/a-brief-history-of-game-cheating
It's been a while since I've made anything. I miss it.
This is a fun tool: https://confuseit.net/ I𝞃 𝖈𝙤ǹῡḛɽ𝙩𝖘 w𝚑𝖺𝙩𝙚ὖӗɽ 𝔶ὂǚ ẗ𝔶ῥȅ ĭṇȽ௦ 𝘴ΐmῑ𝓁𝒂ṙ 𝑼𝔫ⅈċṓ𝖽ℯ 𝖼𝚑агăϲȽ𝓮𝚛𝘀۰
... and I need a vacation. Only 141 days 'til Christmas!
...it's just not evenly distributed yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQacCB9tDaw&t=535s
I've probably posted this before, but I love it so much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppET8N_-zos
I try hard to avoid paying for web content. One of the few things I splurge on is the Bits about Money newsletter, which is so well-written I can't help myself.
https://david-fong.github.io/detect-devtools-via-debugger-heartstop/
👀 https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/23-big-bucket-list-adventures/ Eric Hmmm.... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/09/world/americas/aconcagua-mountain-expedition-photos.html
+ Comment
I've begun posting the journal of my trip up Kilimanjaro; I have nine more posts to go.
Todo: Read
I did an interview.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/
The simple question of "Who said it?" usually isn't. For example: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/04/never-happened/
I moved over to Microsoft's Security Division last year. The numbers (revenue, attacks) are bananas.
https://www.timdbg.com/posts/fakers-guide-to-assembly/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/opinion/charity-holiday-gift-givewell.html
With the ongoing implosion of Twitter, I'm starting to play with Mastodon.
I recorded this a while back. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eric-lawrence/id1589875016?i=1000564882806
https://ericlawrence.com/whs/WHS1996SeniorWills.pdf
Commits: 288 Eric That's a lot more than I would have guessed. When I stopped working on Fiddler, it amounted to ~38K lines of C# in total, although I'd probably added and removed somewhere around 3-5x that much over 14 years.
+ Comment
https://github.com/bibanon/bibanon/blob/master/Stories/American-Dream.md
From the highest echelons of tech to the Amazon Warehouse. Philip is a great writer.
I don't need a time machine to know that I'll be sending people this link in the future. https://textslashplain.com/2021/10/01/practical-time-machines/
Ancient memories from my 2nd Microsoft Internship https://web.archive.org/web/20010207161711/http://www.ericlawrence.com/Summer2000/whatsup.htm
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200817-the-batman-effect-how-having-an-alter-ego-empowers-you
https://textslashplain.com/2020/11/16/objectively-the-best-cat/
These videos remain among my favorite content on the internet: https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Jonathan+Brenner%22
I presented as a part of a panel on web browser privacy at the Enigma 2020 conference.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/registerProtocolHandler
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/net/docs/life-of-a-url-request.md
https://www.usenix.org/conference/enigma2019/program Emily Stark's talk covers a bunch of the work our team did around URL display.
Historically, CTRL+Shift+V in Office was "Paste only formatting", while in Firefox and Chromium-based browsers, it means "Paste without formatting." You can customize Word to behave more like browsers using Office's powerful macro system: https://t.co/9Khdv0ArqV
RS1: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.79 Safari/537.36 Edge/14.14393 RS3: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/58.0.3029.110 Safari/537.36 Edge/16.16299 RS4: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.140 Safari/537.36 Edge/17.17134 RS5: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.140 Safari/537.36 Edge/18.17763 Win10 1903 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.102 Safari/537.36 Edge/18.18362
+ Comment
It's finally here!
This site is amazing. Pick a problem and see it solved in many different languages. For instance: https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sudoku
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/books/review/personal-libraries.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytbooks
How Congress really gets elected
Want a reasonably up-to-date (2017), mostly accurate set of documentation about how modern browsers work? See the two browser security whitepapers that Google funded. Also be sure to check out the four part (Sept 2018) series of figure-rich articles: Inside a Modern Browser.
From a guy who knows lots about RFCs: How to read an RFC
https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/corb-for-developers
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-man-who-created-the-world-wide-web-has-some-regrets
My fourth NEO was today. Lots of feelings.
https://twitter.com/MicroSFF/status/996449011426037761 "Fight me," the knight called.
https://www.openhub.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest/languages_summary
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. -Eisenhower, 1953
You can take a screenshot of a website from the command line with Firefox with:
You can also use Chrome/Chromium with the same syntax:
h/t https://twitter.com/botherder/status/995277119818293248
https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/
https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/reaching-peak-meeting-efficiency-f8e47c93317a
https://nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/03/magazine/money-issue-iowa-lottery-fraud-mystery.html
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh278941.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
A remarkable, glorious achievement is just what a long series of unremarkable, unglorious tasks looks like from far away.
At some point, posting here started working again. That's good, I guess? Does editing work from Open Live Writer? Yes.
https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/getting-around-the-chrome-source-code
https://dev.to/amit_merchant/build-a-full-fledge-markdown-app-with-electron
http://webdbg.com/test/204/204.aspx http://ericlawrence.com/dl/alert.exe
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/pavely/2017/05/09/packinging-apps-into-single-files/
http://mattwarren.org/2017/03/23/Hitchhikers-Guide-to-the-CoreCLR-Source-Code/
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/05/quantum-up-close-what-is-a-browser-engine/
The current You isn’t the real You. You are currently the past, less-awesome version of the future, final, real You. https://www.facebook.com/notes/philip-su/on-career-growth-and-insight/10150804625079981/
JavaScript for old devs: https://trackchanges.postlight.com/modern-javascript-for-ancient-web-developers-58e7cae050f9#.oqze622c3
In which I again remind myself to read everything at https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-thomson-postel-was-wrong-00
I wrote about my first year working on Google Chrome. The post ranges from personal stories to arcane Chrome command line arguments. (Guess which people found more interesting?)
A big, interesting project, aims to ensure that a fully-pwned render process cannot attack arbitrary sites. Video
Switching over to TinyMCE for the editor here. Let's see what it can do! This is nice. Right?
http://littlesvr.ca/apng/
var saved = localStorage.getItem('__keyName__'); if (!saved || saved === '') // <-- why is the second test needed?
No link, Image Only 
HTTP Link HTTP Image
HTTP Link HTTPS Image 
HTTPS Link HTTP Image 
HTTPS Link HTTPS Image
It's the Dell WiFi driver for the Dell 1560 802.11ac card. Uninstall it and fallback to the inbox Broadcom driver.
"As long as you're alive, you have an obligation to strive, and you're not dead until you've seen the face of god." -Joe Biden's mom https://youtu.be/opVaEC_WxWs?t=7m26s
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
I threw together some notes for someone doing a presentation about Fiddler. News · Fiddler 2.5 should be out shortly. Most of the “new” goodies are in 2.4.9.9 but are yet to be discovered by most users. · Hopefully, the second edition of the Fiddler Book will be out in the next month. Things to consider talking about Please ensure that everyone has the SyntaxView Inspector installed. It’s by-far the most useful extension for Fiddler. The ImageBloat extension, of course. The Content Security Policy rule generator add-on
This menu item resolves ~40% of Fiddler support questions:
They’ve been there a while, but Fiddler can import/export Packet Captures (from Wireshark, Message Analyzer, Netmon, TCPDump) and HAR (HTTP Archive files, from browser dev tools):
It’s been there a while, but Customize Columns is possibly the top-requested feature and it continues to get more powerful
Tools > Configure AutoSave…
Direct Filters on the Context Menu
2.5 will introduce built-in WebSockets UI
Support for WebP and JPEGXR throughout the product
Composer now has a Request Log for easy reuse of past requests
Fiddler’s built-in Certificate Maker can generate iOS-compatible certificates using the Cert Enroll engine
“Multi-year projects in a highly political arena with changing personnel contributes to a loss of focus.”
Raymond Chen agrees, Mickens is a must-read: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/12/24/10484402.aspx He's also a must-watch: Mickens on JavaScript, w3c, and frameworks
I think my dad would get a kick out of these.
Sebastien Lorion @ 24.53.56.154 Nice article, but another way would be to use classes such as SafeString and UnsafeString (or even simply one of them) and it would not even compile if one is used in the wrong context. Or to be even more nice to fellow developers, the library could have implicit conversion from one type to the other, thought that has its drawback in terms of knowing what the code does just by looking at it.
SL Showing my IP address publicly when commenting on your blog ... really ?? + Comment
http://books.google.com/books?id=1hCo61dbB6QC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=Umberto+Eco+toilet+olive&source=bl&ots=lTuV1gt_b_&sig=A2hbyn9m19B7ZTNHE3dZstQtFLE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eBLzU8idLZGqyATW_oIY&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Umberto%20Eco%20toilet%20olive&f=false
April 01, 1999 QuickRun has generated Bayden's first $0.42 in revenue, a sales commission from Amazon.com's affiliates program. An unknown purchaser bought "The Art of War" for $8.40... 8-) What an incredible start this software company has had!!! We've generated almost half of a dollar in our first 16 months of operations. We're destined for great things, I tellya. Anson That's roughly equivalent to how much my phone apps have generated, except that I also bought some sounds for the games and ads only pay out if you make more than $50. So never mind about the equivalent thing.
+ Comment
Android user?
From: Eric Lawrence Howdy, Jeff--
I know CEOs are never the first to read their email (if they ever read it
at all), but I’m willing to play along if you are.
As you can see below, I today received an email from Amazon that I don’t
feel lives up to the standards you’ve set for yourselves. In particular,
announcing that you’ve made a mistake and are charging the customer for it is
one thing, but adding “This e-mail was sent from a notification-only e-mail
address” on the end is simply rude. I mean, I’m sure that there’s some web form
somewhere you’d prefer the victim use to plead their case, but you omit that
information entirely in this message. And, of course, it probably wouldn’t take
any of Amazon’s thousands of tech wizards more than a few afternoons to build a
gateway that could carry an emailed response into such a system.
Now, I’m sure this isn’t a huge priority for you since Amazon so rarely
makes mistakes. I mean, it’s been over 13 years since I ordered a pan and you
sent me a vacuum cleaner instead. And I’ve ordered thousands of dollars worth of
stuff from you guys every year since then.
You might ask: “But how do you know that we received your return? Maybe it
was lost in the mail or something?”
And I’d note that it’s probably a good idea for y’all to look at your UPS
logs. But in this case, you needn’t even do that, since I returned two items
from the same order, in the same box, and you properly credited one of the two.
This could have been a lovely conversation that I could have conducted with one
of your Mechanical Turks in customer support.
I don’t particularly care about the 14 bucks, because Amazon kindly sends
me quite a bit of money every month (I’m an affiliate, and a writer you
publish). But I’m also a stockholder, and I know that part of Amazon’s sky-high
valuation is based on having legendary customer service, the better to leave all
of your competitors in the scrap bin of history. So I really hope that you fix
this and avoid alienating anyone who’s less of a loyal customer than I have been
and will likely continue to be.
I’m sure you’re busy, but if you too think that Amazon should stop flipping
off customers with un-replyable emails, would you mind sticking one of your
infamous “?”s at the top of this mail and forwarding it off to the folks who
handle Amazon’s notification emails?
thanks a bunch!
-Eric
After hearing about a recent bug (https://cxsecurity.com/issue/WLB-2014050050) I created a C:\program.exe app to show me if some other applications might also have the same problem. On Windows 8.1 Update 1 with all updates, after using the “Close program” gesture to close Immersive IE, I see my program.exe application runs with the following output:
This link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=846365 suggests to me that the invoking code might related to the PLM system used for Metro suspension. Repro:
Observe: Program.exe is executed. Arguably, this isn’t an important security issue because writing to the root requires Admin and the program is only executing with user-level permissions, but historically we’ve seen this sort of mistake used as a stepping stone of other exploits. The affected codepath may also allow repro for ANY Immersive browser (not just IE) which could have unknown security impact.
DO NOT PRINT
/FORWARD THIS MAIL ITS AGAINST THE LAW
This e-mail, including any attachments,
is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 10 U.S.C.
2510-2521
[FBI logo]
ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONETARY CRIMES
DIVISION
FBI HEADQUARTERS WASHINGTON DC
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS J.EDGAR HOOVER
BUILDING
935 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW WASHINGTON, D.C.
20535-0001
Ref: FBI/DC/25/113/13/2014
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/executives/director
Your attention is needed
immediately
We have been informed through our global intelligence
monitoring network that the sum of $10.500, 000.00, has been released from a
bank in Africa bearing your name as the beneficiary without dist certificate to
clear your name and fund from every terrorist or drug or money laundering
activities
We sincerely apologize for sending you this sensitive
information via e-mail instead of a certified mail, phone call or a
face-to-face conversation,We will also send you a certified email later it is
due to the urgency and importance of the security information needed. To
checkmate financial recklessness, illegal gambling, racketeering and considering
the effect of the global financial crisis rocking the United States, our
government with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I)
Washington, DC and the internet crime complaint center (ic3),alongside the CIA
signed an agreement with U.K police for an immediate release of all overdue
funds presently logged in their treasury and to ensure it is disbursed to the
rightful beneficiaries in all parts of the world. If you the beneficiary would
adhere to our instruction it will help you receive your payment immediately
The bank knowing fully well that they do not have
enough facilities to make this payment from any part of the world to your
account directly, used what we know as a secret diplomatic transit payment
(s.d.t.p) method to make the payment. direct transfers are difficult and secret
diplomatic transit payment (s.d.t.p) are not usually made unless the funds are
related to terrorist activities and we ask why must your payment be made in a
secret transfer if your transaction is legitimate.
We do not want you to get into trouble as soon as these
funds reflect in your personal account, so it is our duty as an international
agency to correct these little problems before this fund reflects into your
personal account.
we advise you to contact us immediately, as your funds
have been stopped and are being held in our custody, until you are able to
provide us with the dist certificate within 3 days from the country that
authorized the transfer to certify that the funds that you are about to receive
are terrorist/drug free or we shall have cause to impound the payment and
subsequently prosecute you for cross border terrorist financial
activites.
based on our findings, our investigative department
wish to warn you against some miscreants, hoodlums and touts who go about
scamming innocent people by claiming to be who they are not and thereby
tarnishing the image of this wonderful country. By sending out fraudulent emails
without our official logo and emblem we shall release your funds immediately we
receive this legal document and we will ensure that you receive your payment
without any further delay.
Note
We decided to contact you directly by email to acquire
the proper verifications and proof from you to show that you are the rightful
person to receive this fund, because of the huge amount involved. Be informed
that the funds are now with a top bank in the united state in your name and
under the monitoring/custody of the FBI. At the moment, we have asked the bank
not to release the fund to anybody that comes to them, unless we instruct them
to do so, and only if we receive the dist certificate this is to enable us carry
out a comprehensive investigation first before releasing the fund to
you.
hence, you are to forward your dist certificate to us
immediately if you have it in your possession, if you do not have it, then let
us know so that we will direct you to the appropriate authority to obtain
the certificate then you are to send it to our office. And thereafter, we will
instruct the bank holding the funds, to go ahead and credit your account
immediately. If you fail to provide the documents to this office, we will
prosecute you and take appropriate action against you for not proving the
legality of the funds.
Finally if you truly want to receive this funds without
F.B.I troubles then reconfirm the following below
Name………………………………………………….
Address………………………………………………..
Sex………………………………………………………
Age.....................................................................
Contact number………………………………………..
Country of origin of funds……………………………..
Yours Faithfully
Robert J. Holley Special Agent
151 Patton Ave
Room211 Asheville N.C.28801
FOR FBI DIRECTOR
JAMES B COMEY
cc: general intelligence department
(GID)
cc federal bureau of investigation
(fFBIi)
cc .internet crime complaint center
(ic3)
cc: Asia pacific group on money laundering (APG)
cc: international monetary fund
(IMF)
cc: international organization of securities
commissions (IOSCO)
cc: international banking security association
(IBSA)
cc: world customs organization
(WCO)
cc: inter-American development bank
(IADB)
cc: national white collar crime center
(NW3C)
cc: bureau of justice assistance
(BJA)
cc: supreme court of South
Africa(SCA)
LEGAL NOTICE:
Unless expressly stated otherwise, this message
is confidential and may be privileged. It is intended for the addressee(s) only.
Access to this e-mail by anyone else is unauthorized. If you are not an
addressee, any disclosure or copying of the contents or any action taken (or not
taken) in reliance on it is unauthorized and may be unlawful. If you are not an
addressee, please inform the sender immediately.
AVISO LEGAL:
Salvo que se indique lo contrario, este mensaje
es confidencial y puede ser privilegiada. Se pretende a su destinatario
(s)solamente. El acceso a este e-mail por cualquier otra persona no estб
autorizado. Si usted no es un destinatario, cualquier divulgaciуn o copia de
lacontenidos ni de cualquier acciуn realizada (o no) en la dependencia en que no
estб autorizado y puede ser ilegal. Si no son unadestinatario, por favor
notifique al remitente de inmediato
DO NOT PRINT
/FORWARD THIS MAIL ITS AGAINST THE LAW
This e-mail, including any attachments,
is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 10 U.S.C.
2510-2521 Dave Worse at punctuation than I am! What value is this: $10.500, 000.00
I know some locales use ',' and '.' differently in numbers, but how can you go from delimiter1 to delimiter2 then back to delimiter1?
not fooled obvious scam ???? just received and will try to get my 10.5 million dollars. + Comment
I charged and turned on my Surface2 for the first time in a week or so last
night. I manually kicked off an update check which failed with error code
80072F8F. I rebooted and left it alone overnight but the error persisted into
the morning.
The UI assured me that more information on this error was available online;
the link took me to a MSFT troubleshooting page that assured me that no further
information was available.
Plugging this code into a real search engine immediately suggested that I
check my PC’s clock/date and sure enough, the Surface thought it was 3/29 for
some reason. After fixing that, the update check proceeds.
This raises a few questions:
1> Why isn’t Surface automatically syncing the clock from the Internet
time servers? My internet connection is fine.
2> Why is there no information on this error code on the troubleshooting
website?
3> Why do I even need to go to a website for this? Why doesn’t WU
recognize this code and force-check the Internet time?
4> How is it that we’re in 2014 and the WU error experience is as bad as
it was in 2001?
This entire experience was, as they say in Redmond, “An Apple
Commercial.”
 Anson You could do that, but if you want people to understand what you're getting at you should make the shed's roof black. We can all agree that almost all sheds have a black roof.
Anson Btw - installed fiddler the other day and couldn't find it because of the icon :) Anson You can have any icon you want; that's the point. Eric ^^^ oops. Max Power You can also have any name you want. + Comment
When your pager goes off, it’s typically after midnight, and the crashing process has been loudly spewing a stream of inscrutable 0x80004005 HRESULTs for a minute or so. Your task is to fix the process without restarting it. WinDBG’s symbols never resolve, so you’re debugging blind. The fact that you wrote half the spec less than a year ago is of little help since the code is polymorphic and it's already evolved since you debugged it last night. The most trying aspect is that, no matter how heroic and valiant your efforts may be, if you can’t get the process quiescent, your boss, the Magnificent Original Maintainer (MOM), is going to swoop in make you look like a putz. She usually does so by merely attaching one of her specialized hardware debuggers. Either of these devices will unfailingly resolve the problem, no matter the root cause. Dave '... wrote half the spec less than a year ago'. Is that what writing specs is like? I should've been a PM
Eric Hehe... It actually should have said "just over a year ago." But anyway... + Comment
Launching unelevated apps http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/11/18/10468726.aspx
"If you’ll allow me: the interior life is a sphere of thoughts and implications zapping around, and it’s so chaotic in there that we learn to limit the sphere’s radius because to do otherwise is to let everything we encounter, from broken nestlings to broken dates, reach the level of “why does anything exist?” We spend years working out that perfect radius: rein it in too tightly and life is mechanical, let out too much slack and life is paralyzing."
Julian Great find ! I was unaware interacting with a another process can be so easily done. I should spend some time to read more about C#.
+ Comment
Dear Sir/Madam, I am so glad send email to you. We are a manufacturer in China produce CAR RECORDER. The attach model is a very popular car recorder,with very good night vision,very high definition.Many car driver need them.Because it can recording any traffic accident,and by it can know who are responsible for the accident. For this one the sample price is 63$.Maybe you think it is expensive.I would like tell you a story: One day,when David drive his car go to have a important meeting,when he drive through a traffic lighter,a man by a motorcycle on front of his car,and this man drive the motorcycle slower on purpose,then let the motorcycle fall down on purpose,then roar David let David stop his car,say:"Your car hurt me."David said:"No,I am so slow,have not hurt you."But the man insist let David pay him some money for medical expenses,insist said David have let him bleed.David in order go to for the meeting on time.He pay the man 100$.Then the man permit David leave. It is a real story happed in our coutry.I think if David have this product,he no need pay 100$.He only need pay 63$ for the car DVR. The price for car DVR depends the IC and definition,like the DVR19S,the price for sample only need 26$.For mass products only need 16$. If you are a car supplier,it is a very good promostional gift.
With some interesting points on they different factors that skew numbers. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/windows-8-vaults-past-vista-ie10-continues-to-surge/
WMPlayerPlayStateChange fires as the state changes in the Windows Media Player control. What's your most likely action in response to getting wmppsMediaEnded? Play the next song, right? Except that if you do this (by setting the .URL property) from the WMPlayerPlayStateChange callback, the song will begin to play... for about a microsecond, before another event from the prior play comes in and wipes everything else out. You have to use wmppsMediaEnded to instead queue a callback timer that plays the next song a little bit later, after the original songs events have finished firing. Dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division Dave What a bargain!
Jim I know people fall for some seriously stupid things, but this one would take some serious stupidity. + Comment
I have an idea for a new reality show; it'll be called "How Hard Could It Be?" The show will feature everyday people approaching straightforward (but new to them) tasks, for instance, minor home repairs.
For instance, in the kickoff show, a software developer will be faced with filling a gap introduced in his front porch when a professional replaced an exterior door. To make it more interesting, we'll have the work done on the highly-visible front porch, and we'll have the man's wife be pregnant to ensure a steady flow of family and friends visiting over the next few months.
The show will start with the man rubbing his chin and looking at the gap. "I know", he'll say, "I can fill this with concrete. I mean, 'How hard could it be?'"
We'll follow our character as he researches by watching assorted videos on the Internet, wherein a wide variety of workaday joes install concrete successfully in a wide variety of projects.
Confirming the ease of his project, he'll drive over to the local home depot, grab an 80lb bag of concrete, a few stirs, a 5 gallon bucket, and some red concrete dye. That's right, dye. The dye serves two purposes: One-- to attempt to match the final result to the nearby brick and other décor. Two-- so that the viewers at home (and any passers-by) can easily see all of the unintended places that the concrete ends up. To up the ante a bit, this project will begin late on Sunday morning (ensuring that only one day can be spared for the work) and we'll film on a May day in Austin with afternoon temperatures in the mid-90s.
Reading the bag of concrete mix, he'll scoff as he reads "Do not let concrete dry in your hair" and feel confident that this project is going to be trivial: "How hard could it be, if the package needs to warn the typical user of such things."
As the afternoon proceeds, we'll watch our hapless hero increasingly drenched in sweat, as he learns valuable lessons like: 'Why you don't want to pour concrete mix without a facemask', and 'Why do professionals mix concrete in wheelbarrows instead of buckets.' A counter on the screen will track the skyrocketing obscenity count as the afternoon proceeds toward dusk.
The show will end with our red-tinted grimy hero and his very-pregnant wife on the porch looking forlornly at the final lumpy, off-color result.
She'll look on the bright side. "It won't look so bad after we cover it with the welcome mat."
Okay, that's funny. https://twitter.com/dakami/status/336748825723166722/photo/1/large
There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.
http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2013/04/22/whats-so-quantum-about-that/ Lots of interesting ideas in here. My favorite was "whiplashing"-- making products oscillate between free and pay.
New Parent Idea: 1. Take pictures of you pulling baby out of spacecraft in forest. 2. Hide pictures in attic for kid to find when he's 10.
Someone mailed me off my old IEInternals blog to ask me about IE10's move from index.dat files to the WebCacheV01.dat database file. They had a number of questions and it occurs to me that this probably isn't written up anywhere else. So, for posterity (and with the caveat that I can't speak for Microsoft): Q: Why the change? Why are browsing artifacts are still present in other locations? A: The old index.dat files represented a cross-process memory-mapped index
file for the internet cache entries. This index was designed for optimal
performance on common computers of the mid-1990s; for instance, the data
structures it used were designed to fit in the on-chip cache of a 486 processor.
Since then, processors have grown far more powerful, with larger caches, etc. As
a consequence, the old cache index code was no longer very efficient (especially
for operations that proper databases are good at, like running multi-condition
queries). By moving this cache to a proper database, it simplified code,
improved performance, and enhanced durability/reliability. When you say “why are browsing artifacts are still present in other locations,” I can only assume that you’re referring to the cache files themselves? Keep in mind that the new database and old index.dat are simply an index to those files on disk. You may wonder why browsers store the response bodies in files rather than inside the database itself—this is done for both performance and compatibility reasons. Q: Why is this file loaded when Windows starts even before IE loads? A: The cache is an integral part of WinINET, a core networking component in
Windows. WinINET’s cache isn’t just the browser’s cache—it’s also used by most
Metro applications, Windows components, and tens of thousands of other
applications that rely on WinINET. That’s why, for instance, when you uninstall
IE from Windows, WinINET and its data stores remain on the system. The database
is loaded by the cache service in order to handle requests from applications
that depend on WinINET. Deleting the database would be very bad from a privacy
point of view, because the database tracks which files need to be deleted when
you use the Delete Browser History / Clear Cache commands. If you were to
obliterate this index, these files would be orphaned and present a privacy
risk. Q: Why is there a delay in writing to the database after the browser closes? A: I’m not sure what specific “delay in writing to the database” that you’re referring to, but I assume this is simply related to how most databases work—there’s an in-memory representation that is periodically flushed to disk for both performance and hardware-durability reasons (most SSDs have a limited number of write-cycles, for instance). Q: Why is the extension .DAT instead of .EDB which is used by other Ese databases. As to why the extension is .DAT, I don’t know, but I assume that this is
probably a historical artifact related to the fact that WinINET’s cache indicies
have always been named *.dat.
Q: Do IE10 on
Win7 and IE10 on Win8 cache data in the same way? A: I think the answer
you’re looking for is “essentially.” The one caveat is that Windows 8’s Enhanced
Protected Mode feature uses AppContainers for isolation of content; this
feature is an evolution of the Protected Mode feature introduced with Windows
Vista. Mike Appleby Hi,
Is it possible to flush, close the webcache and terminate the processes correctly so no information is lost?
Thanks,
Mike.
doug diehl Am thinking of EXCLUDING THIS from my PC Backup tool since it changes all the time, is unique, and is very large. Can you think of any (common or likely) scenario where you would want a copy of the .dat file? + Comment
Great talk on fixing America's democracy. http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
http://techland.time.com/2013/04/02/an-interview-with-computing-pioneer-alan-kay/ There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating. We can contrast this with technologies that do have learning curves, but pay off well and allow users to become experts (for example, musical instruments, writing, bicycles, etc. and to a lesser extent automobiles). [Douglas] Engelbart’s interface required some learning but it paid off with speed of giving commands and efficiency in navigation and editing. People objected, and laughed when Doug told them that users of the future would spend many hours a day at their screens and they should have extremely efficient UIs they could learn to be skilled in.
One of many chuckle-inducers: In response to last week's exceedingly polite Canadian Supreme Court ruling on text message privacy, EFF will print a limited edition run of "Sorry if this is a bother, but I'd really prefer if you returned with a warrant, eh" stickers for Canadian mobile devices.
I saw an advertisement that the Microsoft Store at Austin's Domain Mall was running a "SmartPhone buyback" program through the month of March, so I figured I'd stop by and see what I could get for my old WP7 LG Quantum and Jane's old Samsung Focus. I didn't have a great experience last time I was at the store, so I was curious to see whether it has improved over the last few months. On Sunday afternoon around 4pm, Jane and I walked in and looked around. The tables were nicely organized in the front of the store although it inexplicably smelled a bit funky. Within 30 seconds, we were greeted by a 20-something guy who asked how he could help us. I explained what brought us in and he seemed excited to help out. So far so good. We walked to the back of the store where the big desk is (Microsoft apparently decided they shouldn't have traditional cash registers since the Apple store doesn't). Unfortunately, there's no obvious place for customers and staff to stand, a problem exacerbated by the fact that a customer was getting his new Dell All-in-One set up by a staff-member, and his 4ft by 3ft by 1ft cardboard box and the associated packing material were littered around. Our sales guy rummaged around under the desk for a solid 90 seconds before finally pulling out a laptop, clearing some space on the edge of the desk, and putting down a leather pad underneath the system. Finally, he fired it up. Windows 7. Interesting. He chose one of the 5 logged in accounts and typed a password. On the desktop, he found the IE icon and clicked on it. IE8 appeared. The first-run wizard appeared. He considered for a moment, then clicked "Ask me later." He then tried to navigate to http://storeportal or some similar address. "Page cannot be displayed." Hrm. He clicked in the tray to check the WiFi, which claimed to be connected to MSFTINET. Hrm. He clicked IE's "Diagnose connection settings" and waited for it to do its thing. Eventually, the web page appeared. He worked through some cumbersome login process, then opened Word 2013, opened a document, scrolled to the bottom, and copied a URL, username, and password individually from the document into the browser. He spent a minute trying to find the model number for my phone and after I took it apart and read it off to him, he got the buyback offer. $8.90 without the charger, and $9.90 with it. I decided that for under $10, I'd just keep it as a backup. Jane's Focus netted an offer of just under $20, and considering her love for her iPhone, we agreed to take the offer. He tried to print a document, but didn't have a printer installed. We waited for him to browse around the network (going through yet another "Troubleshoot connection problems" sequence, then ask a colleague which printer to use, then install the drivers, and finally start the print job. IE8 locked up at this point and he clicked around fruitlessly for 30 seconds ("ding ding ding") and walked to the printer and back a few times. He apologized for the hassle and noted "this is an original i7 which is six years old and I don't know why we use it anymore." (Note: The first i7s were released Nov. 2008). He then said "Sorry if I seem frazzled. There are only 7 of us in the store today and there are supposed to be 15. I don't know where everyone else is." Considering the relative dearth of customers, the store didn't really seem understaffed to me. Finally, Windows offered "Your job has been sent to the printer" and he walked off to get the document, which turned out to be a signature form whereby you promise that you're not selling a stolen phone, etc. I looked at the large LCD signature pad on the counter and idly wondered what it was used for, if not tasks like this. After agreeing to the terms and conditions, we got a shiny plastic gift card to use on our next purchase. On our way out, I stopped to check out the Surface Pro with the Type keyboard. It was warm to the touch but otherwise looked like a great machine, and I played with it a bit. Across the table, a sales guy was pitching the Surface RT to a 40-something woman. "But this won't run my software, right?" she said. "No," he conceded, "but you can install apps, like Facebook." She seemed unconvinced. I didn't envy him-- the sales guys at the Apple Store have a much easier job, asking their salivating prospects simply "Do you want black or white?" As a former employee, I'm depressed. As a shareholder, I'm angry. Steve @ 24.114.62.154 There's a Microsoft Store opening up in the mall near me too. I'm curious how it will compare/compete with the Apple store less than 250 feet away.
If the staff were trained better, they'd be able to sell the features of Windows tablets/devices and deflect honestly (& provide a balanced counter feature) any omissions.
It's sad that the windows phone didn't provide much in return but I'd like to believe that Microsoft could do a better deal providing $50-100 discount towards a new windows phone?
I've gotta ask though... as someone that knows networking and IE so intimately it must kill you to hold back and not just grab the PC and try to fix the issue... kudos for not taking over.
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...while everybody is talking about high class exploits and cyberwar, four simple stupid default telnet passwords can give you access to hundreds of thousands of consumer as well as tens of thousands of industrial devices all over the world.
My new car logged its 4444th mile today on Route 2222. The Fiddler book has sold 1320 paper copies and 1416 electronic copies.
Snail-mail phishing scams? Cute. My scam letter from "United Airways" and was signed "Juli Cae" at 1-866-318-0557
JustDecompile 2013.1.225.1 public bool IsAbstract
Reflector 8.0.2.313
Eric The trick here is that the code is really just testing for Zero, which is defined *four* different ways in the TypeAttributes enumeration.
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If you can read this without gnashing your teeth, you're probably on valium. http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/ It's an important article, and Democrats and Republicans both need to understand how they're obstructing improvements to healthcare.
The window panes in the Telerik high-rise are literally squealing in pain.
Accept: */* Accept-Encoding: identity, peerdist If-Unmodified-Since: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:04:31 GMT Range: bytes=32768-40638 User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.6 X-P2P-PeerDist: Version=1.1 X-P2P-PeerDistEx: MinContentInformation=1.0, MaxContentInformation=1.0 Connection: Keep-Alive Host: fg.v4.download.windowsupdate.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/octet-stream Last-Modified: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:04:31 GMT Accept-Ranges: bytes ETag: "804173f0b54ce1:0" Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:44:12 GMT X-CCC: US X-CID: 2 Content-Length: 59694909 Via: 1.1 ironportau.telerik.com:80 (IronPort-WSA/7.1.3-021) Connection: keep-alive GET /msdownload/update/software/crup/2013/02/windows8-rt-kb2811522-x64_58d9bb426d11ced4cd7408710fb4e3a6ce99ba11.psf HTTP/1.1 Accept: */* Accept-Encoding: identity, peerdist If-Unmodified-Since: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:04:31 GMT Range: bytes=32768-40638 User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.6 X-P2P-PeerDist: Version=1.1 X-P2P-PeerDistEx: MinContentInformation=1.0, MaxContentInformation=1.0 Connection: Keep-Alive Host: fg.v4.download.windowsupdate.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/octet-stream Last-Modified: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:04:31 GMT Accept-Ranges: bytes ETag: "804173f0b54ce1:0" Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:45:08 GMT X-CCC: US X-CID: 2 Content-Length: 59694909 Via: 1.1 ironportau.telerik.com:80 (IronPort-WSA/7.1.3-021) Connection: keep-alive GET /msdownload/update/software/crup/2013/02/windows8-rt-kb2811522-x64_58d9bb426d11ced4cd7408710fb4e3a6ce99ba11.psf HTTP/1.1 Accept: */* Accept-Encoding: identity, peerdist If-Unmodified-Since: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:04:31 GMT Range: bytes=32768-40638 User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.6 X-P2P-PeerDist: Version=1.1 X-P2P-PeerDistEx: MinContentInformation=1.0, MaxContentInformation=1.0 Connection: Keep-Alive Host: fg.v4.download.windowsupdate.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/octet-stream Last-Modified: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:04:31 GMT Accept-Ranges: bytes ETag: "804173f0b54ce1:0" Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:46:04 GMT X-CCC: US X-CID: 2 Content-Length: 59694909 Via: 1.1 ironportau.telerik.com:80 (IronPort-WSA/7.1.3-021) Connection: keep-alive Eric It's like BITS can't handle the fact that it's getting back a 200 instead of a 206 and just retries over and over...
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Perhaps claims more credit for Google than due, but nevertheless thorough and informative. http://www.igvita.com/posa/high-performance-networking-in-google-chrome/
In a lot of ways, our new house is great-- it's much newer than our old place (built 1993 vs. 1968). However, at twenty years old, a number of components are due for an upgrade. First and foremost, we had a water heater that was original equipment and it was loudly demanding retirement. Since it was going into our attic, and the thought of having 40 gallons of hot water overhead was sorta creepy, we felt justified in upgrading to a Rinnai tankless unit. It cost a bit more, but between utility company rebates ($600) and US government tax credit ($300) we figured that it was probably worth it. Our last (traditional-tank) heater cost nearly $2K installed (mostly due to work getting the location up to current code). Next, we upgraded our downstairs thermostat to a 2nd-gen Nest unit.
It was a simple install, and while it's pricey, they claim it will save ~7-10% on our energy bills, which would pay for it in the first year. We'll see. If nothing else, it's way less ugly than the ancient Honeywell ChronoTherm III unit it replaced. The website and mobile apps are pretty neat, although they don't yet have a Windows Phone 8 app:
Lastly, I'm obsessed with lights. I've been trying to hold off replacing all of our recessed lights until next winter, because LEDs are rapidly going up in brightness / efficiency and down in price, but I couldn't put it off for two locations: our fancy new master bathroom and in our stairwell. I'd been trying to make due with CFLs in the bathroom but they took too long to warm up and the existing trim was pretty ugly.
The bathroom installs were easy. The stairwell was another matter-- it's extremely hard to get up there (~12 feet over stairs, hard to place a ladder) and I never wanted to have to replace the light. Getting the lights installed in the bathroom was trivial, but the stairwell was another matter. It turns out that these cans were never supposed to be buried in insulation, but naturally the last owners dumped about a foot of loose insulation over them and that had ended up melting the thermocouple that was supposed to prevent fires for their old incandescent bulb. So, I spent a harrowing 40 minutes atop a 6" ladder stripping the wires out of the thermocouple and rewiring it into the new LED. Ultimately, I survived, and the light looks great. I put another LED in the entry as well for comparison purposes (the one over the stairs is 650 lumen while the entry is 575.)
Eric More on LED lighting: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/business/leds-emerge-as-a-popular-green-lighting.html
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You know your system is in trouble when even CTRL+ALT+DELETE doesn't work... ---------------------------
The new Fiddler beta has an improved ImageView extension, which exposes (often surprising) metadata in image files:
http://www.ubasics.com/dighole/
Austin's local "upscale" mall ("The Domain") has both an Apple store and a Microsoft store; I went to both this weekend. The Apple store had perhaps 50 shoppers and a selection of covetable updated hardware, most of which I would be delighted to buy the moment any of my current device fleet breaks. Despite owning three tablets (Kindle Fire1, Nexus7, IPad3), the only thing stopping me from getting an iPad Mini are the rumors that the Mini2 will be out this spring. The Microsoft store was quieter, with perhaps five shoppers walking around and looking at the new hardware. Notably, every device in the store was Win8 and Touch-enabled, which was great from the standpoint of being on message, and terrible from the "appeal" standpoint, since most of the 3rd party hardware is very clearly "v1" targeted and not nearly as compelling as the slick Ultrabooks that have been out for a year. I took a quick look at the Surface in the front of the store, and it sadly didn't leave me with a good impression. The touch cover was falling apart at the seam (literally) and launching IE led to an immediate modal error message (http://twitpic.com/bs8fcv) before leaving me on a white screen. I fired up the new PenguinMark benchmark to find that the Surface scores 0. Zero. Zip. Nada. The iPad Mini (running Apple's older tablet processor) scored better than that. It was a pretty depressing morning. :-( Rob Thanks for the heads up Eric. I've forwarded this along to the Store folks.
Hope all is well man. Miss you around the poker table.
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http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html Although, I really liked my econ class.
Conclusion: The crypto errors I have been complaining about occur if the Private Key in the RSACryptoServiceProvider changes on disk while HTTPS handshakes are taking place. This happened in Fiddler because it was trying to use the same KeyContainerName for all of the private keys for all of the certificates. When the LSASS.EXE process tries to complete the HTTPS handshake (this is always out-of-process to your application), it finds that the private key is unable to decrypt the data sent by the client, which was encrypted using the original private key. Lesson learned: While it's called a KeyContainer, it can only hold one exchange key at a time. If you want multiple keys (e.g. for multiple certificates) you need multiple containers.
2:31:41:4782 !SecureClientPipeDirect failed: System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: A call to SSPI failed, see inner exception. ---> Eric Note: The "Session ID" in the screenshot above actually ends one line before. It's 32 bytes, not 40.
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As mentioned, I've been fighting with this stream for the last week or so.
12:31:41:4782 !SecureClientPipeDirect failed: System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: A call to SSPI failed, see inner exception. ---> System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The specified data could not be decrypted Eric @ 67.79.7.98 Conclusion: This is what happens if the Private Key in the RSACryptoServiceProvider changes on disk. When the LSASS.EXE process tries to complete the HTTPS handshake (this is always out-of-process to your application), it finds that the private key is unable to decrypt the data sent by the client, which was encrypted using the original private key. Lesson learned: While it's called a KeyContainer, it can only hold ONE exchange key at a time. If you want multiple keys (e.g. for multiple certificates) you need multiple containers.
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Anyone have any idea why this call: _httpsStream.AuthenticateAsServer(cert, _bWantClientCert, CONFIG.oAcceptedClientHTTPSProtocols, false);
Might occasionally fail thusly: A call to SSPI failed, see inner exception. < The specified data could not be decrypted The same call with the same certificate succeeded earlier during the process' lifetime; after it gets in the "bad" state, it will continue to occur until I use a new certificate. If I take the cert object's private key, I can successfully .Encrypt and .Decrypt data with it. The clients in this case are all major browsers, so this is definitely isn't the client's fault. If I enable Crypto-NCrypt logging, I see the following in the event log: Cryptographic Operation failed. Anyone have any tips for debugging this? Alexey What you see in CAPI2 log?
Event Viewer\Applications And Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\CAPI2\Operational?
Eric @ 67.79.7.98 No errors, although a bunch of operations on .CER files that were apparently generated within(C:\Users\lawrence\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\X509Objects) matching the self-generated certificates. Kinda odd to see them there, since those certs weren't generated via CAPI (used BouncyCastle). Eric Oh, actually, those .CER Files correspond to those received from the upstream server, so they're not related to either the certs or private keys my code is generating... + Comment
The magic of software is that you can do stuff like this: catch (UglyTrimException) In real life, running the above code takes several hours and requires a $600 trip to Home Depot.
Dave I would have expected more HTML encoding attempts - or does me not seeing those mean they worked? =)
Eric I think they're more interested in getting root than a boring XSS. I fixed the last XSS bug a few months back. + Comment
Jane and I went to a Country bar last night. Observations: 1> Country bars are awesome. 2> Jane can pick up any dance in like, 2 minutes. 3> Jane dancing to country is awesome. 4> I can't dance, regardless of genre. Anson Did you wear a cowboy hat?
Eric Alas, no. Maybe someday. W Did you play the fiddle? Eric Current plan is to let one of the kids learn to play and then call it good. I've never been musical at all. ???? SomeCustomInjectedHeader:injected_by_wvs ???? ../../../../../../../../../../windows/win.ini ???? &dir ???? undefined ???? undefined ???? http://some-inexistent-website.acu/some_inexistent_file_with_long_name ???? ) ???? c:/windows/win.ini ???? |dir ???? ZGLihHh3 ???? 1some_inexistent_file_with_long_name ???? print(md5(acunetix_wvs_security_test));die();/* ???? !(()&&!|*|*| ???? ../../../../../../../../../../windows/win.ini ???? 268435455 ???? undefined' and sleep(4)=' ???? http://testphp.vulnweb.com/acunetix_file_inclusion_test? ???? ${@print(md5(acunetix_wvs_security_test))} ???? ^(#$!@#$)(()))****** ???? À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯windowsÀ¯win.ini ???? 1e309 ???? undefined" and sleep(4)=" ???? ${@print(md5(acunetix_wvs_security_test))}\ ???? ..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\windows\win.ini ???? undefined ???? '"'");|]*{%0d%0a<%00> ???? undefined' or (sleep(4)+1) limit 1 -- SomeCustomInjectedHeader:injected_by_ undefined ???? /.\\./.\\./.\\./.\\./.\\./.\\./windows/win.ini ???? undefined ???? acunetix_wvs_invalid_filename ???? undefined" or (sleep(4)+1) limit 1 -- ???? ../..//../..//../..//../..//../..//../..//../..//../..//windows/win.ini ???? 1' ???? add.asp ???? undefined'=sleep(4)=' ???? ../.../.././../.../.././../.../.././../.../.././../.../.././../.../.././windows/win.ini ???? À ???? add.asp ???? undefined"=sleep(4)=" ???? @ 108.172.102.220 unexisting/../../../../../../../../../../windows/win.ini.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\.\ ???? 1" ???? add.asp/. ???? undefined'; waitfor delay '0:0:4' -- ???? //www.acunetix.tst ???? À¢ ???? undefined"; waitfor delay '0:0:4' -- ???? JyI= ???? ¿'¿" &dir undefined ???? ð''ð"" |dir undefined //www.acunetix.tst undefined http://some-inexistent-website.acu/some_ undefined ) undefined 1some_inexistent_file_with_long_name undefined print(md5(acunetix_wvs_security_test));d undefined !(()&&!|*|*| undefined http://testphp.vulnweb.com/acunetix_file undefined ???? '" ${@print(md5(acunetix_wvs_security_test) undefined ^(#$!@#$)(()))****** undefined ${@print(md5(acunetix_wvs_security_test) undefined ???? '"()&%1<ScRiPt >prompt(947375)</ScRiPt> ???? <!-- ???? OTAzMzYw ???? undefined ???? undefined 268435455 undefined 1e309 undefined '"'");|]*{%0d%0a<%00> undefined '" undefined ???? undefined <!-- undefined acunetix_wvs_invalid_filename undefined add.asp undefined add.asp undefined add.asp/. undefined ???? undefined 1' undefined À undefined 1" undefined '"()&%1<ScRiPt >prompt(933140)</ScRiPt> undefined À¢ undefined OTg0Nzgz undefined JyI= undefined ¿'¿" undefined ../../../../../../../../../../windows/wi undefined ð''ð"" undefined c:/windows/win.ini undefined ../../../../../../../../../../windows/wi undefined À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À®À¯À®À® undefined ..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\windows\win.ini undefined /.\\./.\\./.\\./.\\./.\\./.\\./windows/w undefined ../..//../..//../..//../..//../..//../.. undefined ../.../.././../.../.././../.../.././../. undefined unexisting/../../../../../../../../../.. undefined 1 undefined 2 undefined 1 and sleep(4) undefined 1 or (sleep(4)+1) limit 1 -- undefined 1' and sleep(4)=' undefined 1" and sleep(4)=" undefined 1' or (sleep(4)+1) limit 1 -- undefined 1" or (sleep(4)+1) limit 1 -- undefined 1'=sleep(4)=' undefined 1"=sleep(4)=" undefined 1; waitfor delay '0:0:4' -- undefined 1'; waitfor delay '0:0:4' -- undefined 1"; waitfor delay '0:0:4' -- undefined + Comment
Attention:!!!, Behold, you are reading a letter from your President Barack Obama. Finally, I have received lists of the names of people that are involved in money laundry and terrorism which your name is among the names that was submitted to me and I have ordered to release arrest warrant to the IPA to quickly carry out their duty and make sure that they get you arres ted and summon you to the court immediately which they will be on their duty on Thursday morning as assigned since you are trying to play ball with me. You have failed to comply with them after all the warning and instructions given to you, but since you are also among the terrorist we are facing in the country, I will personal make sure that I wipe away the crime in the state and I promise you that you will definitely pay with your life because I am here to protect the interest of my people and not to put them in shame, you suppose to support this government and not to spoil it. Since it has been confirmed by Nigerian government that this fund actually belongs to you and here the law demands that it cannot be release to you unless you provide the certificate which is AWARD OWNERSHIP CERTIFICATE that is what the IPA has been demanding for a very long time now. For your own good, I am giving you last chance t oday to tell me as the President why you have failed to provide the certificate and why do you fail the IPA that is working under my instruction which you know that once you disobey them you have disobeyed me as well. Do note that if you failed to get back to this office within 24hours, you will be apprehended and charge to court immediately for involving in money laundry and terrorism and there you will see my face. You will only be free if you get back to my office by promising that you will provide the certificate within 48hours otherwise you will be in soup, BE WARNED!. I will advise you further on what to do once they hear from you in other to resolve this matter amicably. Contact unitedbnkafrica.plc@msn.com Kindly respond to this message. From the desk of the President. Barack Obama. Dave The first line makes me lol. First 'behold' and second 'your'.
???? My name too is-Eric Lawrence and you are a disgrace to the name Eric No, ????, your name is ????. + Comment
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh367887(v=VS.110).aspx
Lots of great quotes as well. http://evilbrainjono.net/blog?showcomments=true&permalink=1094
How could I not have known about this valuable service? ua Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us; Silk/1.0.22.79_10013310) AppleWebKit/533.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16 Silk-Accelerated=true
+ Comment
Yay. 81,107 words made up of 541909 characters spread over 329 pages. Total authoring & editing time, just over 7000 minutes.
From: Rae J. Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 3:09 AM Subject: Fiddler Did Not Work for Me and Made Internet Browsing Worse! Hello, I installed Fiddler 2.0 software yesterday at the recommendation of Microsoft Zune personnel and it made my situation worse. I am extremely disappointed! Not only can I not log on to my Zune profile, my other Internet browsing activities are damaged by my having to check certificates for each and every site! This was completely not worth it. I cannot even uninstall this lousy software! If I cannot find a way to uninstall Fiddler 2.0, I'm taking my laptop with me to work ([Elided]) and having someone from IT figure it out and then I will post a caveat on my social media outlets publishing the instructions I received from Microsoft Zune personnel, posting your http:// address and detailing the nature of my resulting problems to warn others away from ever trying Fiddler 2.0 and to speak out against it should they have also come across the same disappointing experiences. [Full name Elided] [Title Elided] [Address Elided] [Email Elided] [Phone number Elided] Dear Rachel, I’m sorry to hear that you’re frustrated. No one likes to be frustrated. Having said that, I think you should talk to your Mom or Dad about proper behavior when you’re frustrated and how to get help from people you don’t know to use tools that you don’t understand. Perhaps they can help you understand how to remain polite while frustrated. Alternatively, they might suggest that if you’re going to threaten someone you don’t actually know, you probably ought not do so in an email that contains both your private email address and your phone number. That’s just not a good idea. Fiddler uninstalls like nearly every other piece of software on Windows—through the Add/Remove Programs control panel. Simply Select Fiddler and select Uninstall.
I don’t know what you mean about “having to check certificates for each and every site” but Fiddler literally does nothing when it’s not running. If you don’t want Fiddler to capture your traffic, simply close it. Just click the Red “X” button:
I hope you have a nice day, Rachel. -Eric
It's amazing how much effort goes into some things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw Quite funny though.
[Window Title] [Main Instruction] [Content] Can you wait a little longer? If you leave before your connection is restored, the last action you took might not happen. [Leave this page] [Stay on this page]
Beyond the "Don't make a hotkey CTRL+ALT+something" an important lesson here is also "Don't check (e.Control && e.KeyCode==something)" because that will also fire when an international user hits AltGr+Something.
The internet is a wonderful thing.
-----Original Message-----
From: Account/Alert
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2011 12:59 AM Subject: Re: Personal Information?
Release order of your income
Account owner, The higher authorities that is in charge of international
transaction has this morning declared you promo to receive all your
transaction from Africa,This Notice is brought to you from FBI World
Fund Discovery management, this Bureau was set up by the World Bank and
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over the world through unclaimed Lotto inheritance Email.
The arrangement was made this morning and the Federal High Court Of
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only
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Dear Confidant/Scam Victim,
From: Act Against Fraud®
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 10:38 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Notification On Your Email Account Dear Internet Users,
There is a current upgrade going on as the internet has so many scams going on this days and we are trying to wipe out all fraudulent activities.You may be a victim of fraud.
Please click this link below and enter the required information so you email account will be free from internet activities as Microsoft and AOL with all internet bodies are putting head together to wipe away this activities caused by fraudster.
We are sorry for the trouble and wish to applogised to those whom have loss alot from it.
Regards,
Mrs. Lillian Burton
Interpol/Microsoft
Fraudulent Monitor Dept Dave @ 131.107.0.87 Microsoft, AOL and Interpol have determined that the Internet upgrade will consist of replacing the Internet's existing plastic tubes with new fraud resistant copper tubing. Do not connect your PC to the Internet during the upgrade since the tube replacement will result in pressure changes that could tear your PC inside out.
???? @ 203.122.14.226 Hey, thanks a lot to provide this information; I think being attentive and aware in this regard is highly important to avoid any risk; thanks for this warning. <a href="http://www.usbdrivedatarecovery.com">restore usb </a> http://www.usbdrivedatarecovery.com barcode software This article is really the one that I needed. I really learned a lot by reading the whole content. Thanks for this. free barcode http://www.generate-barcode.com + Comment
Dear Member,
I got a battery to replace the DVD drive, and added in a 80gig Intel 310 mSATA and 4 more gigs of RAM. The capacity for the physical size is pretty amazing: I'm self-hosting daily Windows 8 builds on the SSD, but wanted a “safe” drive for booting to Windows 7 when I need to get some development done. I got another Intel 510 Series since it was working so well in my old X200. Alas, when I went to pull out the puny 320gig hard disk, I found that the SSD was too tall! It's a 9.5mm enclosure, and the T420s only has a 7mm tall drive bay. I naturally realized that I could take the SSD's cover off, so it's just a bare 2mm thick circuit board, but that seems a bit risky-- rattling about in the bay, it's bound to short out or detach from the SATA connection. Hrm. One of my reports pointed out that making this work was a "good project" and shamed me into thinking about how I might secure the board. Seven bucks at Home Depot later, I was ready to embark on the task. I'll admit, it's not the usual equipment you need to install a SSD :-) ... So, I was all set to do some crazy mounting to get the drive secure when I realized that I probably should have spent some more time thinking about the problem first... It turns out that if you take just half of the SSD's case off, and screw the HDD's sliding cage over the other half, the SSD neatly slides into the bay. Fortunately, the cage is shielded electrically so I'm pretty sure there won't be a short, and since the dimensions match the old HDD, it's not going to rattle loose. I'm mildly worried about the thermal implications of losing the 3mm of airgap clearance, but, well, we'll see. When I was done, I had the bare 320gig 7mm HDD (I'll throw that in an external enclosure) and half of the SSD case left over: Now, off to install all of the software I need to make using Windows comfortable...
The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft. Except her own plane. So that was the plan.
Being married to the USB PM rocks. :-)
Nice to meet you sir, i got your Email from your Fiddle in a not shell sir i need you help sir on how to make use of your software and how to hack host smtp rdp admin login database and others please With the name of God you are serving sir please give me a response sir Thank very much Best regard Dave I'm confused. Did they find a reference to Fiddler on a hacking howto but couldn't figure out how to use it?
Eric I assume that's what happened. + Comment
Who designs these customer experiences? Are major tech companies simply infiltrated by their competitors, agents who sabotage decent products with moronic "features"?
I actually donate to FactCheck, but I’m sad to see the sloppiness here: http://www.factcheck.org/2011/08/romneys-run-in-on-social-security/
He said payroll taxes take 15.3 percent "out of your earnings," but only the self-employed pay that rate. All other workers pay half of that, with the other half being paid for by the employer.
Anyone with even a basic understanding of economics understands that it doesn’t matter whether a tax line is printed on your paystub or not, it’s still coming out of your pay.
Say the government cleverly decided: “Hey, Americans don’t like paying taxes. Let’s just institute a payroll tax on the employer for exactly the same amount as currently paid by the employee, and stop taking any money from the employee directly.”
In that event what do you think would happen to the employee’s take-home pay? If you think it would go up, you should probably find a new line of work.
It’s not an accident that the Social Security tax-rate on the self-employed is the full amount.
I was particularly interested in doing this because I wanted to see how well Apple's "Network boot of Lion" feature works. It turns out that it works fine, but the user-experience is pretty bad-- so bad that I assume they must have done this on purpose to scare off the newbies and force them to bring their Mac back to the store for help. After installing my new SSD and powering the Mac back on, I got the infamous grey screen with a folder icon and a blinking question mark, no text in sight. After searching a bit, I learned that you have to hold Option/ALT while restarting to get to a useful screen. Okay. So I do that. Now I get a dropdown box which my mouse can just barely reach (it only moves vertically for some reason now, wtf?). In the dropdown, I get a list of WiFi access points. Err... okay, my machine is plugged in via CAT6 ethernet cable, but okay, I pick my WiFi network. Only now do I see some text "Network recovery" or something. Cool. I pick that. After a 10 minute download or so, I come to a screen with four options. "Restore from Timemachine" is first. "Install MacOS X" was the second. I click that. After some more downloads and such, Mac shows a screen: "Select hard drive to install Lion" with an empty box. Sigh. I assume that I must have hooked the SSD up incorrectly. But it looked right... Alas, I can't back out of the screen at this point, and I don't have time to reboot and go through the whole process again. The next morning, I repeat the process, this time, reading ALL of the options on the screen. After "Install MacOS X" there's some other option, and Disk Utilities. I click that, and go into a disk manager, and there's my SSD. I click "Make partition." Now I've got a partition, and I can back out and go into the install. There we go, now everything works. I'm amazed and amused that Windows XP (!!!!) has a better-designed user-experience for installing on a freshly installed disk. But, it all works now and I've got a pretty fast Mac on which to play with XCode. Which, hilariously, is absurdly complicated compared to Visual Studio, which is NOT a simple environment. Ah, the joys of new platforms. :-)
ANZ {{Loyal|Valued}} Customer Security: A-Z Review {{As part of|Due to|Regarding our latest additions to}} our {{security|protection}} measures, we {{regularly|often}} {{screen|monitor}} activity on the ANZ.COM Online Banking system. Sign-In to Online Banking -- to {{ensure|preserve}} your {{safety|security}}, please only use this link. Security AdvisorRemember, ANZ is committed to your security and protection. To find out more, take a look at our Security and Privacy statement on the website. Australia and New Zealand Bank. "We Live In Your World." В© Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) 2011 ABN 11 005 357 522. ANZ's colour blue is a trade mark of ANZ.
This message is from the Database Information Technology service messaging center, to all our e-mail account holders. All Mailhub systems will undergo regularly scheduled maintenance. Access to your mailbox via our mail portal will be unavailable for some period of time during this maintenanceperiod. We shall be carrying out service maintenance on our database and e-mail accountcenter for better online services. We are deleting all unusede-mail accounts to create more space for new accounts. In order to ensure you do not experience service interruptions/possible deactivation Please you must reply to this email immediately confirming your email account details below for confirmation/identification. _____________________________________ 1. First Name & Last Name: 2. Full Login Email Address: 3. Username & Password: 4. Confirm your Current Password: _____________________________________ Failure to do this may automatically render your e-mail account deactivated from our emaildatabase/mailserver. to enable us upgrade your email account, please do reply to this mail. Thanks. Upgrade Team
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138576167/when-patents-attack
I am Ms Justina Oge. A computer scientist with central bank of Nigeria. Jim ....
Dave The only thing I will need to deliver these funds to you is a special JET SKI and SPORT BOAT. If interested please send funds immediately. + Comment
I went to the Post Office this morning to send a package.
So, I wait patiently for fifteen minutes or so, filling out one of the two types of customs form (neither of which indicates why you’d choose one over the other) and wait for the lone service person to get through the 5 people in line before me. I finally get to the counter and hand over my parcel. “Ground to Canada please,” I say.
“We don’t send to Canada” she says, pushing the box back across the counter to me and looking over my shoulder for the next customer.
You can imagine the incredulous look on my face. “You don’t send mail to Canada.” I repeated.
“No.” was the terse reply.
“Since when?” I sputtered.
“Today.” she replied.
I stood there dumbly. She saw that I wasn’t going anywhere, so she offered “They on strike.”
Ah. Sigh. Ravi Rao Yeah, see this for more information: <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/06/15/canada-post-strike.html>
+ Comment
ritika this is just fantastic.
i have had the most awful experiences with bing maps in recent times.
+ Comment
In other news, tomorrow is my 10 year anniversary at Microsoft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0sCCJFkEbE&feature=player_embedded
33. Intel® 5 Series Chipset and Intel® 3400 Series Chipset Not Responding to Cx Request when USB Async Advance Door Bell is Set Eric Intel has updated this errata to claim that this problem only happens with "one proprietary GUI application." Unless by that they mean "Windows", they're lying.
Eric Note: Someone on the USB team in Windows provided me with a script you can run in the debugger to unset the bits that enable the buggy feature. Email me for details. + Comment
I lived here for three years and I don't recognize anything in the entire video. Weird.
Someone from the Oregon Tourism Board was trying to win a Truth-in-Advertising prize:
I wonder where the VHS tapes went. :-) Eric too true: "They have learned to retain massive amounts of trivia that will last them through college before disappearing into the storage locker of things they once knew" :-D
+ Comment
 Sheesh Dear Apple. Multithreading is a hot new technique that makes software suck less. You should really look into it.
mango Is sweet! + Comment
The personal details of your Halifax bank account has engaged error which made your account suspended. <link elided> Thank you
Eric New Fidelity form 3922 makes calculating compensation income for Qualifying Dispositions somewhat simpler. You must still keep track of which lots you're selling and wrestle with Wash sale rules, however. http://www.fairmark.com/execcomp/espp/qualifying.htm
+ Comment
Eric Amusingly enough, today I got a non-spam message starting with "Dear Friend" from a real person who wasn't just reacting to this post.
Keylogger Interesting post, These two words are very common to see in the beginning of the email. http://www.keylogger.in Download keylogger + Comment
Rachel I can't tell if ericlawrence.com is slanted or if I am :-)
Eric You must be running IE9! :-) I did this to make IE crash for a while, but we fixed that bug a long time ago. I need to switch it back... Dave You really do need to switch it back =) Eric You can now click on my face to make the page crooked. Eric I've added an SVG Gradient to the page. Fun! + Comment
I've got a can of Coke in my office from the 2008 Olympic Games; the label is written in Russian which I thought was sorta neat. The can was sitting atop my wall-hanging bookshelf for the last few years. At some point over the weekend, this can sprung a leak, drizzling coke all over my books and a computer sitting underneath. The keyboard's a total loss, and I'm afraid to turn on the monitor which has a broad array of ventilation holes on top.
getComponentVersion says you are running Internet Explorer 9,0,8110,16414.
getComponentVersion says you are running
I'll summarize: "Problem: If we told your browser what we do with our cookies, it would block them automatically. Solution: We won't." Problem solved. sigh.
No thank you. -Eric
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/
Eric Some other goodies here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/technology/personaltech/30pogue.html
+ Comment
Hi, I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,sorry I did not inform you about our trip.I actually made a quick travel to SPAIN and unfortunately attacked and mugged at gun point on the way to my hotel,all cash,credit card and cell were stolen off me but luckily I still have my passport with me. I`ve been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and my return flight leaves anytime from now but am having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave until I settle the bills. Am freaked out at the moment and need help. Help Bill
Poor Bill. He was so flustered he didn't even provide me a Western Union account number to which I could send him enormous piles of money. Eric The day prior, it was Jack who was in the UK for a previously-unmentioned surgery and he lost his wallet. My Hotmail inbox is enormously entertaining as I get a front-row seat for all of the scams. My favorite was the assassination/extortion scam.
+ Comment
 andrewb whats all that white stuff on the ground? I know Ive seen it in movies ... ;)
gktpro nice view! test test + Comment
http://www.zillow.com/blog/homes-of-titans-who-rule-the-tech-world/2010/11/03/
Last week, my lovely wife was singing along... "Take me down to the paradise city, where the girls are green and the grass is pretty..." :-)
andrewb I saw a demo of something similar from Phillips in 2000 where they took the soccer ball out of the coverage of a soccer game in real-time. To see the ball you had to pay a fee.
+ Comment
Eric http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/lift1.html
andrewb Admittedly Im yet to see a 747 fly upside down. Therefore, my parents are santa claus. + Comment
Please you are to follow the Below information to Validate Your Mailbox And Increase Your Quota. First Name: Last Name: Username/ID: Password: Date of Birth: Failure to follow this process to Validate Your Quota may result in loss Of important information in your Mailbox/Or Cause Limited Access To It. *Important* Please provide all these information completely and correctly otherwise due to security reasons we may have to close your account temporarily. We have been sending this notice to all our email account owners and this is the last notice/verification exercise. Thanks HelpDesk Support.
After proper and several investigations and research at Western Union and MoneyGram Office, we found your name in Western Union database amongst those that have sent money through Western Union to Nigeria and this proves that you have truly been swindled by those unscrupulous persons by sending money to them through Western Union/MoneyGram in the course of getting one fund or the other that is not real, right now we are working hand in hand with Western Union to track every fraudsters down, do not respond to their e-mails, letters and phone calls any longer as they are scammers and you should be very careful to avoid being a victim to fraudsters any longer because they have nothing to offer you but to rip-off what you have worked earnestly hard to earn. In this regard a meeting was held between the Board of Directors of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and as a consequence of our investigations it was agreed that the sum of sixty thousand US Dollars (US$60,000.00) should be transferred to you out of the funds that Federal Government of Nigeria has set aside as a compensation to everyone who have by one way or the other sent money to fraudsters in Nigeria. ***Please note that we will no longer be liable for any loss, cost or expense whatsoever, suffered or incurred by You in connection with the fraudsters. Be warned! We have deposited your fund at Western Union Money Transfer agent location EMS Post office Lagos, Nigeria. We have submitted your details to them so that your fund can be transferred to you. We have paid the Registration and Transfer fees and for security reasons we have also insured your fund to avoid misappropriation. Contact the Western Union agent office through any of the email addresses stated below; wu_nigeria@info.al Yours sincerely, Micheal Randle, Investigation Officer. ****************************************************************************************************************** Please note that e-mails, letters and phone calls are currently been made to unsuspecting persons by fraudsters claiming to have access to their funds. Everyday, people throughout the world are falling victim to scams of one way or the other. It could be an unexpected prize draw or lottery win, or a chance to invest in an exciting new money-making or investment programme . In the circumstance, we unreservedly advice you to dissociate yourself from all correspondence and transactions entered into based on evidently fraudulent and fictitious claims. *****************************************************************************************************************
adimcev I did not use Safari in a while, but I think they complain about not being able to do a CRL check or something(you did not show if you MITM yourself or not)...
If so, their statement is correct from a security point of view(although is not an EV cert), is the Windows CAPI that shows the cert as valid.
Thanks,
Adrian
+ Comment
"lick here" was my favorite part of this mail. Although the explanation of why they cannot deduct the $210 fee from my $7.5 million dollars was sorta funny. As is the fact that the Prime Minister of the UK is sending me American dollars.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FBI Seattle Division
1110 Third Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98101-2904
Payment Code: R5109176K
Reg No: 132731593
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has discovered through our intelligence Monitoring Network that you are eligible to receive the sum of $7,500,000.00 USD
regarding to an over-due Inheritance/Award payment which was fully endorsed to be paid in your favor.therefore,the FBI Seattle Division in conjunction with the
United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Has screened through our various Monitoring Networks and has been confirmed and notified that the
transaction you have with the Financial Institution is Legal and you have the Lawful Right to claim your due fund.
The Prime Minister His Excellency David Cameron the United kingdom Prime Minister(UK) has given us the final approval to pay your fun to you within the next 72hrs,
Your fund valued $7,500,000.00 USD has been deposited into a Gold smart Card number: 5179 1234 5678 personal identification is ATM-7997 this card will enable
you buy and withdrawal cash anywhere around the world this is done for your own security, with this card you will not have to take the risk of sending us your personal
banking details online as you have been strongly advise by your local bank not to send your banking details to anyone online.
For more details lick here http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6793E420100810
What you are required to do now to Pay the fees of $210.00 USD for the shipment
of your Gold Smart card to your choice location, $210.00 USD is the only fees
that has been approved by both the FBI and the Bank that you are to pay as cost
of Delivery of your Card to you by the courier company.Once the fees is been
paid your ATM CARD will get to you in the next 2-3 working day.
Note: Your funds are protected by a hardcover insurance policy, which makes it
Impossible to deduct any amount from the money before it can be remitted to
you.this means that the above charges cannot be deducted from the Funds and
hence must be provided by you before your fund is transferred to you.the payment
for any of the above options should be sent via Western Union Money Transfer in
the name of the Head of accounts Mr. Justin Brown
Find below the payment information.
Name of receiver: Justin Brown
Office Address: 45 Gresham Street London United Kingdom UK (EC2V 7QA)
Text Question: In God
Answer: We Trust
Name of Sender:.....................
Address of Sender:..................
MTCN#...............................
As soon as we receive your payment, he shall proceed with your fund transfer
immediately.We anticipate your prompt response. If you need to contact me at any
stage please do not hesitate to call (+1-206-984-0470)
Sincerely,
Steven M. Dean (Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge)
cc Robert Mueller (FBI Director)
Mr. Levi Edward
Eric They spent an extra 300$ on the "Nickel" finish instead of the "Chrome" finish. I don't think our fancy shower head was more than about a hundred bucks!
Erin It's Jason's father's day gift....Shhhhh....don't ruin the surprise...... + Comment
Hello, Anson Your spam is way more interesting then mine. The best one I received recently was: "I have an investment proposal of $23,995,720.00 for you". Obviously $24 mil would have been over the top.
Tick Tok. Tick Tok.
andrewb its so hard to find a trustworthy reliable hitman these days ... canary you don't follow instructions very well... Eric Indeed, I am a terrible mark. Joe Surprisingly, I received that same message yesterday! Eric Hehe: http://www.scamorama.com/prolite_agnes_hitlad.html + Comment
I finally finished installing the window A/C unit last week. Naturally, the weather is going to be in the low 60s for the foreseeable future. :-P
Sigh. I'm sure this will all be sorted out in 6-8 months. Turns out the DisplayPort standard was just ratified in December.
Later… After disassembling the console, it’s clear that the problem is there’s a stuck line in the membrane keypad. I wasn’t able to surgically fix that, but I determined which of the 8 control lines was stuck and simply unplugged that one. So, now the 1 and 4 button don’t work at all, but all of the other buttons do—including the increase/decrease buttons, which allow me to easily get to 1 and 4 anyway. The ProForm folks aren’t willing to replace/sell me just a membrane keypad—they will only sell a whole new console (>$300). Rats. In fairness, doing a little bit of hardware hacking was sorta fun.
First, a bit of contrast. Your Stock Awards (part of your annual review) are pretty easy to deal with tax-wise. The vested award's value appears on your W2 in Box 1, and shows on your paystub as "Stock Award Spread". Taxes on the award are automatically withheld, and those also appear on your W2 in the appropriate Federal, Social Security, and Medicare tax boxes. They're listed on your paystub as "Stock Award taxes." Easy enough. Of course, you still have to figure your Capital Gains (or losses) when you sell the awarded stock. We'll get to that in a minute. ----------------------- Compared to Stock Awards, the tax rules for ESPP are quite complicated. They're also hard to follow because of how Fidelity and your W2 do recordkeeping. When you actually "buy" ESPP at the end of the offering period, there are no taxes to pay. Great! Unfortunately, when you sell, the world gets very complicated. The first thing to understand is that, depending on when you sell, you either have made a "Qualifying" or "Disqualifying" Disposition. For Microsoft ESPP, if you sell the ESPP shares within 21 months of buying them, it's a "Disqualifying" Disposition. Now, "Disqualifying" sounds bad, but it isn't necessarily a problem and actually makes your taxes a fair bit simpler. When you make a DQDSP sale, you have to account for the "Compensation value" of your ESPP DISCOUNT as "ORDINARY INCOME". For Microsoft, that discount is 10% of the purchase price of the shares. Microsoft keeps track of the DQDSP "Compensation value" on your W2; it appears alone in Box #14, and the value is also added to Box #1. Being in Box #1 means that DQDSP's "Compensation Value" is counted as a part of your taxable income automatically, which is good. The bad part is that Microsoft doesn't withhold taxes on that taxable income, however, which can lead to unpleasant surprises come tax season. In contrast, when you make a Qualifying sale (QDSP), your "Compensation value" / ORDINARY INCOME is the lower of: 1> The Discount you *would have gotten* on the stock, AS IF it would have bought at the *start* of the offering period (aka 3 months before it actually DID buy) Depending on how the stock price has moved between the start of the offering period and when you sell it, a QDSP could provide tax advantages OR disadvantages over a DQDSP. Surprising, eh? It gets worse... ** WARNING **
The "Qualifying" or "Disqualifying" nature of the Disposition controls how much "ordinary" income you have received from the ESPP discount. But when you buy or sell stock, you also have to report the Capital Gain or Loss. To do that, you calculate the proceeds of the sale minus your BASIS cost. Critically for ESPP sales, your BASIS cost IS NOT what you *actually* paid for the stock-- it's what you paid for the stock PLUS the "ordinary" income you reported for the discount. This means your Capital Gain on ESPP shares is smaller (or your Capital Loss larger) than what Fidelity reports on your year-end statement. ** WARNING ** To calculate the CAPITAL GAIN OR LOSS for DQDSP: 1> Use the FAIR MARKET VALUE of the shares purchased (e.g. what you paid PLUS the $ discount) as your BASIS COST To calculate the CAPITAL GAIN or LOSS for a QDSP: 1> Determine how much ORDINARY INCOME you paid on the QDSP sale At this point the record keeping is getting pretty hard, huh? Because you cannot trust the BASIS information reported to you (because it doesn't account for the "Compensation Value" treated as ORDINARY INCOME) you must understand which specific shares were sold as a part of each sale, so that you can properly compute the BASIS. It gets worse. ----------------------- For instance, say you buy 212 shares on March 31st, and sell 212 shares on April 5th. You might logically think that your April 5th sale represents the shares that you bought on March 31st. But if you didn't pick specific shares to sell, and already held any shares before March 31st, it's likely that some or all of those other, earlier shares are what actually sold. So, your order to sell 212 shares might actually be selling shares you bought last year, or whatever. If you sold shares at a loss, it gets worse. ----------------------- In the example above, you failed to specify the exact shares to sell in your April 5th sale. You're not selling the March 31st shares, and hence your March 31st ESPP purchase means that you've acquired "substantially identical" stock (http://www.fairmark.com/capgain/wash/wsreplac.htm). So if your sale of those older shares results in a loss, you don't get to claim that loss directly due to the Wash Sale rule. Now, it's not the end of the world because the Wash Sale rule says that you get to use your loss to adjust the BASIS (price and date) of the new stock that you've acquired. But this means yet more accounting on your part. But it gets worse. ----------------------- And that's a freakin' disaster, because as mentioned 3 sections ago, Fidelity fails to properly adjust the BASIS price of shares ESPP sales, meaning that you have to do it yourself. But since Fidelity has already "helpfully" changed the BASIS price and DATE to account for the WASH SALE, it can be virtually impossible to figure out WHICH shares were actually sold, meaning it's virtually impossible for you to properly adjust the BASIS to take into account the ORDINARY INCOME you recognized. Oh, and keep in mind that the change of the BASIS DATE means that your later sale may be changed from a SHORT-TERM transaction to a LONG-TERM transaction. Confusing. ---------------- Now, the easy answer for all of this is to just give an accountant $300 bucks and a binder full of your documents and submit whatever tax return they prepare for you. But given the utter insanity of the math and the "lossy" record-keeping on Fidelity's statements and the W2, it's hard to imagine that a professional accountant would get this all done correctly either. It's enough to make me wish for a flat tax even if I were to end up paying a lot more. Thoughts for the future: 1> Always specify which tax lots to sell. Even if I choose "wrong" and don't have the best tax outcome, at least I won't spend 9 hours trying to figure out which shares correspond to which transactions. D I thought I was crazy when I figured out that the tax basis on the Fidelity statements was wrong a few days ago. Surprisingly there isnt a lot of hits when you search for this topic specifically for MSFT employees. Thanks for your post, kind of helped me confirm that I am not crazy. I am a CPA and I have to now go back and sort through 5 years of transactions to get the returns corrected. Way to go, Fidelity!
Sharon so is there anyway to know from your fidelity statements which lots you sold or you just have to guess/work it out based on the cost basis that fidelity is reporting? Eric Sharon: The Fidelity statements will typically break your transaction down into the lots you sold with a "Acquired" date on them. The problem is that if you have any WASH sales, they will auto-adjust the Acquired date for you, which makes it hard to tell which shares exactly they were. Hence my advice to keep track of which lots you're selling manually. Tom Nice to know I'm not the only one who feels like an idiot trying to figure this out Don't forget another problem; sometimes the 1099-B just says "various" for the acquired date on some sales :) Selecting "view lots" from the MSFT dropdown when on the "cost basis" positions tab gives a better breakdown. DK What happens if Fidelity sold the shares FIFO? Is there a way the sale with specific lots come tax time? TS If you choose an "accountant", double check the work. A couple years ago, when I sold a bunch of ESPP stock all at once, I went to H&R Block to avoid this mess. The result is that they said I owed IncomeTaxRate * NetProceeds, completely forgetting both (a) short-term vs. long-term, and, more importantly, (b) COST BASIS. W Shouldn't there be an app for that? Dheeraj Yup, I had to deal with all of this this year also - many ESPP lots that were also wash sales. And lucky me - I happened to sell all those fractions of shares dating back all the way to 2003. So I had to put in many, many entries (and do many calculations), for .32 shares, .68 shares, etc. What makes me feel better is that I independently came to the same conclusions as you did in your post :) Brad Further, Fidelity does not let you specify specific lots when you are selling your stock via a covered call option. Those are always FIFO and there is no way to specify a particular lot. You can find the record of which shares you specified (if you entered it on the sell transaction) on the individual trade confirmation slip (available as a PDF on Fidelity's site.) Eric http://www.fairmark.com/execcomp/espp/qualifying.htm is helpful. S Thanks for your very helpful post. This year, I have all of the above including the covered call assignment. When I called Fidelity to inquire, the rep told me the "12/31/2009w" would imply the stocks in the ESPP period ending 12/31/2009. This didn't seem right as my calculations for DSQDSP didn't match what is reported on the W2. Only after reading this post, I realize fidelity "helpfully" tries to adjust the Date acquired too and the rep gave me incorrect information! SS @ 71.132.140.118 Eric, I was wondering what would fidelity do to "Date Option Granted" in case of Wash sale adjustment. Does that get adjusted too like Date Option exercised? If only the date exercised is moved back as basis adjustment but date Option granted is not, there could be cases where the sale may remain DQDSP. Example: you sold ~ 3years old stock for a loss, then got another lot within 30 days which you sold in next month or so. So if Exercise date moves back 3 years but date granted does not, this is still DQDSP though per general wash sale rule, this should have become long term loss. What do you think? mw Awesome! Thanks Brandon Zahl Eric, thanks so much for this advice! I'll be passing it along to people at work. I suspect nearly all of us are "blindly accepting" fidelity's numbers. Brad @ 174.61.170.166 Eric - thanks for this super helpful info! Just wanted to add that Fidelity now adds an extremely helpful "Supplemental Stock Plan Lot Detail" to your 1099 Tax Form (which I can get to from the website). As far as I can tell, this has done the calculation perfectly for my Qualifying dispositions - it has the ordinary income computed with the share price at the beginning of the offering period and the cost basis calculated with that value plus the purchase price. Eric Indeed, the Fidelity Supplemental Stock Plan Lot Detail info they added is useful. Another great resource is http://joshmaher.net/2013/03/19/reporting-espp-taxes/ + Comment
… if the man upstairs doesn’t want my parents at my wedding…
<spam> Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division Fbi Headquarters In Washington, D.C. Federal Bureau Of InvestigationJ. Edgar Hoover Building935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001 ATTENTION: SIR/MADAM. For your information, we have been authorized by the President Barrack Obama to get everyone who is involved in money laundry and terrorism; this was as a result of what happened by a Nigerian man with reported links to al-Qaida tried to blow up a US airliner with a new type of explosive device Friday before being tackled by passengers in what officials said was an attempted Christmas Day terror. Now your name has also been included in the list of terrorism and money laundry because you have been taking this matter for granted since but now we have started taking our legal action because no one is above the law and we can not allow anyone to bring shame to our country, since you have decided not to cooperate with us by furnishing us with the required certificate, we have therefore forwarded your name and information including your picture to the office of the Presidency as he required and right now he has warned us seriously and ordered that we should get everyone arrested and charge them to court immediately because this is not a childish play. The best you can do right now is to forward to us the certificate that is FBI Identification Record, Tax Clearance and Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer (DIST) so that we can forward it to the President and tell him that you earned the fund legally and not a money laundry or for sponsoring terrorism because this is what we are going to charge you of course you know the penalty and our government will not tolerate it any longer. For your information, you have only 3 working days to provide it otherwise you will be arrested immediately and hand your case file over to the presidency. The ball is in your court, note that the person you will contact that will help you to get the certificate is Barrister Kayode Dalhatu an attorney to ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIME COMMISSION (EFCC) Nigeria or Executive/Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. (EFCC) Mrs. Farida Mzamber Waziri, we are now back and ready to take up this case to any level because seat down and watch not only foreigners but also our own citizens to involve in illegal action, especially in money laundry and terrorism. Be warned and don’t fail to get back to us immediately otherwise you will hear our knock on your door with hand-cuff, on your return to this message, we are going to confirm the email address of Barrister Kayode Dalhatu so that you can contact him for the issuance of the certificate. We look forward to hear from you today. THANKS FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION. ROBERT MUELLER WASHINGTON DCAnti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division Fbi Headquarters In Washington, D.C. Federal Bureau Of Investigation Brandon Wow, email is so useless now. All I get is crap like this, advertisements where to sell my textbooks back to and the random "how the heck am I getting this newsletter" email.
MiName "><h1>xD</h1> + Comment
This step may sound daunting at first, perhaps a bit like reading “remove roof, set aside” as step 1 on the instructions for remodeling your house
Merry Christmas!
http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-is-rsd-making-my-suteki-shop-to.html The WebLog API http://www.xmlrpc.com/metaWeblogApi
Uninstalled the drivers and I'm back to a good state. It's sad that the ecosystem is still shipping junk that makes us look bad. Sigh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/arts/16iht-design16.html?_r=1&hp Dave "Quiz: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?"L <http://www.ironicsans.com/2009/09/quiz_so_you_think_you_can_tell.html>
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Eric My fortune cookie today read: "Next week, you will find your lost item." I'm kinda hoping I don't, since the HTC Tilt2 should be coming to AT&T in two weeks. :-D
tariq iPhone? + Comment
Domino was deeply interested in the remote control helicopter. Or, more precisely, deeply interested in killing it.
If you can't take it down in-flight, take it out on the launchpad!
Jane and I visited the Japanese Garden in Seattle last weekend.
Jane and I went to "Wicked" last night, thanks to a great gift from a real-world friend (thanks, Nick!). The music was amazing and it was a great show. Rachel Wicked is such a great musical! Have you read the book?
Eric No. But it probably wouldn't sing to me, which seems like it would be a rather big disappointment. Rachel Well, if you're ever interested, you can borrow my copy. It's a great book and it's VERY different from the musical (you won't get bored). :) Eric Well, if it's good, sign me up! :-) + Comment
Go Mariners. :-)
Why software developers hate software: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001289.html
Also a reminder that her birthday is coming up. :-) Of course, I always mix up the b-day date with the Apollo landing date. Doh! Dave NASA has released new restored footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing: <http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/16/nasas-new-restored-f.html>
M I would prefer it if you mixed up how many birthdays I've had with how many anniversaries Apollo 11's landing date has had! :-) Eric :-) + Comment
These days, I have a lot less time to spend working on SlickRun and other stuff. But, now that I know how to actually debug code (instead of slamming my head into the wall for days), the time I do spend is spent far more efficiently. :-) weinelb For a workaround fix see your problem report. Sorry for the delay, but I just noticed your problem. --weinelb
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In related news, we're going to Counting Crows at Marymoor on July 16th. Should be fun! (We saw Rent last night at the Paramount... I'd forgotten how much of the music I like.)
Eric I have the same birthday as "House"... who knew?
Eric And "Pacey" is exactly one year older than me! :-) + Comment
Dave Link to the bug?
Eric oh... http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2803622&group_id=22049&atid=373085 + Comment
When the graphics drivers for my Intel 45 graphics driver (Lenovo X200) are updated to stop constantly corrupting my display, I think I'll be ready to give Win7 a wholehearted recommendation. It feels like the end of a long, grating depression. ;-)
The Microsoft "Campus Commons" area is beautiful and shiny, although if I worked closer to it, I can guarantee a >10% increase in personal mass.
Eric Sadly, I think I'm one of the nerds in this spoof. I /liked/ the new movie, but I didn't /love/ it.
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This is pretty cool.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/nethistory/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/187_(number) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untouchable_number
Factoids on the effectiveness of the F-15 were pretty neat.
Dave Is this going to come with Windows? I miss QBasic shipping with DOS -- my second programming language. What do we ship with in Windows now: JScript, VBScript, XSLT, PowerShell? Not really anything for beginners <http://kuoi.com/~kamikaze/read.php?id=200>
Eric I don't think so. it's neat though. One difference vs. when we were kids: it's a lot easier to get new languages onto the system now. + Comment
Our master suite remodelling is almost done; we painted, had millwork installed, and completely remodelled the bathroom. It's looking good! :-) Jane and I are getting married in less than a year! :-) :-) :-) Mark I just found out. Congratulations!
Ran into Jim and he told me about the wedding and that I should check out your site.
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Benny I am testing, I am testing, you don't need to count
Eric I do, I do! mbt sandals clearance The ground must be hard to walk in the <a href="http://www.mbtou.com/">mbt sandals clearance</a> city people to create a similar Korean paddy fields or the East African savannah state of soft ground is not flat, after years of painstaking research and development <a href="http://www.mbtou.com/specials.html">mbt sale</a> price finally enter the market in 1996. MBT shoes blue, the most popular casual shoes in 2010. MBT shoes to give large initial feeling blue is ugly, maybe you <a href="http://www.mbtou.com/featured_products.html">mbt shoes outlet</a> are confused why someone would be so like the MBT shoes blue. Well, now I want to tell you the blue mbt masai shoes sold some detail the design, simulation of the beach <a href="http://www.mbtou.com/mens-mbt-shoes-c-201.html">mens mbt shoes</a> walk. MBT shoes blue is a multi-level, the only curve to complete the creation of a natural, but the uneven walking surface. World we live in a wide range of <a href="http://www.mbtou.com/womens-mbt-sandals-c-310.html">mbt mbt sandals clearance The ground must be hard to walk in the [url=http://www.mbtou.com/]mbt sandals clearance[/url] city people to create a similar Korean paddy fields or the East African savannah state of soft ground is not flat, after years of painstaking research and development [url=http://www.mbtou.com/specials.html]mbt sale[/url] price finally enter the market in 1996. MBT shoes blue, the most popular casual shoes in 2010. MBT shoes to give large initial feeling blue is ugly, maybe you [url=http://www.mbtou.com/featured_products.html]mbt shoes outlet[/url] are confused why someone would be so like the MBT shoes blue. Well, now I want to tell you the blue mbt masai shoes sold some detail the design, simulation of the beach [url=http://www.mbtou.com/mens-mbt-shoes-c-201.html]mens mbt shoes[/url] walk. MBT shoes blue is a multi-level, the only curve to complete the creation of a natural, but the uneven walking surface. World we live in a wide range of [url=http://www.mbtou.com/womens-mbt-sandals-c-310.html]mbt sandals womens[/u + Comment
Dave Why should I trust the article, or what I read on your blog for that matter?!
Eric You shouldn't! + Comment
http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0811132 http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/29/trustworthy-browsing-with-ie8-summary.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/27/ie8-security-part-vii-clickjacking-defenses.aspx
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16496-cheap-superefficient-led-lights-on-the-horizon.html
http://edge.technet.com/Media/IE8-Deployment-and-Setup-PM-interview-and-RC1-is-live/
Apparently, there's going to be an online version of Zork. That might be fun.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10110987-1.html
Hehe… someone was playing Space Quest 3. J
Outsouced: Funny, cute, and interesting.
I disagree with the implication that instant messaging / twitter is really the answer here, but there's a fine statement of the problem.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16126-nanotech-clothing-fabric-never-gets-wet.html
hour Anson I think weird is a weird word. Shouldn't it be wierd? And what about bizarre? Shouldn't it be bizzare?
Rachel My weird word of the day was spasticity. Weird. Eric Spasticity is actually a weird word though; you don't have to stare at it. :-) Rachel you do when it's on your master's exam :) 12345 12345 + Comment
Version 2.0... I'm waiting for you! :-)
One of the odd things about Malaysia is that they always give you a plastic bag, no matter what you've bought. Roll of Mentos? Into a plastic bag. A bag of popcorn? Into a plastic bag. A soft drink in a paper cup with a plastic lid? Into a plastic bag. It was pretty ridiculous, frankly. CDenman What about a plastic bag? Does that go in a plastic bag?
Eric When I bought a scarf, that went into a plastic bag. That plastic bag was then put into a plastic bag. + Comment
Eric Butler (elbpdx) Do you use copilot?
Eric Yeah, I've used it to work on family computers from cross-country. Eric Butler (elbpdx) Ahhh, good idea! J Eric, You've not seen CrossLoop yet, have you? CrossLoop is free all the time... Although, personally, I like LogMeIn IT Reach a bit more. It's somewhat expensive, though. But RDP over LMI Hamachi or RDP over IPv6 works well, too, and for cheap! + Comment
Don't forget to vote! :-)
2We've designed Windows Live Hotmail storage to grow with you, but at a reasonable pace. That means you should have plenty of storage unless you suddenly want to store the planet Jupiter on Hotmail, in which case we'll send you a nice e-mail asking you to please not try to store planets on Windows Live Hotmail (although gradual storage of moons and asteroids is ok).
Zoom in close enough and you might see me in the pool. :-) Dave From the title in my RSS feed I was expecting you to be enacting this <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY>
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Of course, I'm the idiot watching the Discovery Channel while half a world away from home, but hey, it was a long day... :-)
Eric Sitting in a free internet lounge outside the Hello Kitty lounge in the Taipei airport. What a strange world it is half a world a way. And yet, less strange than I would have thought...
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Lots of interesting stuff in the world of browser security. I'm headed to Kuala Lumpur for a security conference in a few weeks. Should be very interesting... although I suspect the 17 hour flight is going to be pretty brutal. :-)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition17/chess_earthvsspace.html
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/tech-tips-for-the-basic-computer-user/?em
I'm reading a fun book called "The Undercover Economist" which is thought-provoking and makes me look at the world in a different (or more informed, at least) way. I've really got to stop buying books though; I've probably got two dozen to read that have accumulated over the last few years. Jane and I are watching the Showtime show "Weeds" on DVD after enjoying the Dexter series greatly. While I wouldn't say that Weeds is as good as Dexter (and it's not much like it either) it's a guilty pleasure. Speaking of guilt-- I haven't been making it to the gym nearly as often as I should. Oversleeping is the usual culprit, since I'm not exactly working hard when I do make it to the gym (watching Prison Break on DVD while I spend an hour on the treadmill). Anyway... just some random thoughts today. I can't tell you how often I'm drifting off to sleep or showering and feel like I ought to be putting thoughts to paper (or keyboard, I suppose). I'm pretty sure that if I was born before the computer age, I'd probably end up a writer of some sort. I suppose it's fair to say that I am a writer, considering what percentage of my day is spent writing specs or email. Jason & Erin We love Dexter! What season did you watch? We need to watch Season 2. When did it come out do you know? Check out the show on fx called It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Danny Devito.
Eric We have Dexter Season 2 on DVD if you want to borrow it. Season 3 just started on Showtime. Jason & Erin Thanks for the offer but we have the monthly pass at Blockbuster. We can rent as many movies as we want as long as we bring the movie with us to trade in. We are already on the second dvd of Dexter. + Comment
Funny 404 pages: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/siggraph/eoh_projects/eoh2002.html
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds. Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson
Dave I first saw this as a delicious link to a Google search for Clbuttic and was totally freaked out when I couldn't find a definition but it had huge number of search hits. I like this quote from a car forum: "Cbuttette tape tray broken(thank god for cd's {not good for clbuttic cbuttettes)."
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Jane posted a ton on Facebook, but here are a few for the non-Facebook crowd...
Eric It amuses me that this layout is so broken in IE but looks fine in Firefox.
Mom These pictures are beautiful. Can't wait to see more! + Comment
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
For those of you unfamiliar with Buzzword Bingo, here’s what you do: · Go to the site, let the card scramble, click to stop it, and print out a bingo card. You can refresh the page and print several. Bring these to the meeting. · Throughout the videos and presentations, if you hear a word on your card or see it on screen, mark it off. · If you get five in a row, stand up and yell “BINGO!”
Dave I like the interview with Gold Helmet Segway rider <http://www.microspotting.com/2007/11/the-golden-helmet>
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Rachel Just wondering...what was it you liked about Derek's segment in particular?
Eric "Play that as if Mozart was playing it." And he did. That was cool. + Comment
BANK OF AFRICA COMPENSATION UNIT, IN AFFILIATION WITH THE UNITED NATION. Attention: How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family?, You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having a meeting for the passed 7 months which ended 2 days ago with the the secretary to the UNITED NATIONS. This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$500,000. This includes every foreign contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc. We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed. You are advised to contact Mr Jim Ovia of ZENITH BANK NIGERIA PLC, as he is our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your Cheque/ International Bank Draft of USD$500,000. This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose ok? so he will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice. Therefore, you should send him your full Name and telephone number your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you.Conatct Mr Jim Ovia immediately for your Cheque: you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place. Regards, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
Rescue Pro software provided by Sandisk crashes on startup due to a false positive Data Execution Prevention. To avoid the crash, go into the Windows Data Execution Prevention configuration dialog and add rescuepro.exe to the exception list.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?s=int&q=eric+lawrence+microsoft&m=text
This cracked me up! Paris responds to McCain: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d
http://www.hulu.com/watch/28343/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog
M Thank you very much for remembering my B'day. And thanks for not telling everyone how old I am! :-) Love ya!
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http://wherethehellismatt.com/videos.shtml
Birthday dinner was tapas at the Tu Tu Cafe... there was a roving magician who dazzled our table with some close-quarters illusions that were pretty impressive. I had a blast! Unfortunately, vacation is nearly over; I need to finish up my deck for the Velocity Conference next week!
Eric Lies, damn lies, and misleading charts: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/security/
Look at the year they're comparing. :-O
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There's going to be a Dead Like Me movie. Neat! It should not be 54 degrees in June. Mom It's in the high nineties on this side of the country. By the way, it is 12:30am June 11th so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Galina Dear Eric, We wish you a very Happy Birthday! May all your dreams come true! From Russia with Love! Jason & Erin "Happy Birthday to you" See you next week! Enjoy Disney! Ride the haunted mansion ride for me. + Comment
Yahoo&Microsoft Lottery Incorporation 7 Prauge Palace.Brixton Hill London SWZ SED. REF NO: MSW/56B-672GH/L Batch: Mcs/989/989/#34
The prestigious Microsoft and Yahoo has set out and successfully organized a Sweepstakes marking the new year 2008 anniversary, we rolled out over 4,500,000.00 (Four Million Five Hundred Thousand Great British Pounds) for our end of year the Anniversary Draws. Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage.
You have been approved for lump sums pay out of 450,000.00 GBP (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great British Pounds Sterling) in cash Credited to file REF NO: MSW/56B-672GH/L and winning number 23-76-06-54-42-100. Selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection machine (TOPAZ) from a database of over 1,000,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world.
The online draws was conducted by a random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of 29,031 E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet. No tickets were sold but all email addresses were assigned to different ticket numbers for representation and privacy. This is to encourage our prominent Microsoft Internet Explorer users all over the world, and for the Continuous use of E-mail.
Your fund (Certified Cashiers Cheque) has been insured with your REF NO: MSW/56B-672GH/L and winning number 23-76-06-54-42-100. To claim your winning prize, you must first contact the claims department by email for Processing and remittance of your prize to you.
Mr. Andreas Georgetown. Email: <snip> Foreign Transfer Manager. Yahoo&Microsoft Lottery Incorporation
You are advised to contact your Foreign Transfer Manager with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications:
VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE FORM. 1. FULL NAMES: 2. ADDRESS: 3. SEX: 4. AGE: 5. MARITAL STATUS: 6. OCCUPATION: 7. COMPANY NAME: 8. E-MAIL ADDRESS: 9. TELEPHONE NUMBER: 10. STATE: 11. COUNTRY: 12. YOUR PREFERRED METHOD OF RECEIVING YOUR PRIZE (From Below)
Mode Of Prize Remittance.
(1)Cash Pick-Up (You coming Down to United Kingdom Personally to Pick Your Prize).
(2)Courier Delivery Of your Certified Winning Cheque Name and other Winning Documents safely to you.
The Yahoo&Microsoft Lottery lottery has discovered a huge number of double claims due to winners informing close friends relatives and third parties about their winning and also sharing their pin numbers. As a result of this, these friends try to claim the lottery on behalf of the real winners. The Microsoft lottery has reached a decision from headquarters that any double claim discovered by the Lottery Board will result to the canceling of that particular winning, making a loss for both the double claimer and the real winner, as it is taken that the real winner was the informer to the double claimer about the lottery. So you are hereby strongly advised once more to keep your winnings strictly confidential until you claim your prize.
Congratulations from the Staffs & Members of the interative Lotteries Board Commission.
Sincerely, Dr. Vick Abraham. andrewb Hey congratulations! Dont forget to give them your SSN also so they get the money to you quicker.
Anson Wow! You won as well? What are the odds? You violated the strict confidential clause though. You may end up with a double-claims situation. Your best bet is to reply quickly and hope! + Comment
andrewb I recently finished portal on PC. Brilliant game - I like games that make you think rather than just bash buttons. Let us know when you get your cake!
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 Rachel I'm trying to figure out what assignment this was for AP English...hmmm :)
Eric There was some all-senior requirement for "drug/alcohol education" Rachel ha ha ha....we had to do that as sophomores :) Mary High school project, bah! That's just a useful tool. I wanna carry one around like a pocket calculator and use it to dissuade idiots from driving. + Comment
Eric ...and scary.
andrewb ... and unreliable : http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=738043873 + Comment
Dave What is the deal with the circle in webpage transition? Also, whatever happened to the awesome counting?
Eric The circle is awesome. The counting was really annoying to folks on non-IE browsers. + Comment
Daniel Wang Take care, buddy~
Are you "ericlaw" who is talking to me about Drive-by attacks? :)
Eric Yes. :-) + Comment
 Mom Lawrence Happy Birthday to Jane from the Maryland Lawrences! Have fun!
Rachel Happy Birthday! + Comment
I'm not a Facebook hater per-se, but this cracked me up... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZzP_69ZTFk
Dave Cory Doctorow has an article deriding it: <http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204203573>
"I'm inclined to think that these systems are subject to a Brook's-law parallel: "Adding more users to a social network increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance.""
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdQj2ohqCBk Dave Teh Kittehs!
<http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/11/17/truth-in-advertising/>
<http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/02/07/funny-pictures-even-softer/>
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Includes speculation on the malformed "Connection" header I see a lot.
We describe lots of interesting protocols, including NTLM and FPSE, in all of their gory glory: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216517.aspx swati valecha @ 162.158.23.76 Hi! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you recommend any other <a href='https://sauvewomen.com/fashion-write-for-us/'>Fashion Write For Us</a> blogs that go over the same topics? Thanks a ton !
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http://billhillsblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/never-just-fonts-dont-pirate-them.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902617.html?hpid=topnews
Jane and I saw Defending the Caveman at the Kirkland Performing Arts Center on Friday. Very funny, highly recommended. Dave I blame whatever crazy stuff you're trying to sync. I sync my MCE TV shows via podcast on a regular basis with no issues.
Anson Rach has had zero problems with hers - clearly user error :P Brandon Anson, if the product is designed right, user error is impossible... andrewb I love sweeping generalisations! If I drop my mobile phone and it stops working, is that a failure in the product design? If I place a pancake in my DVD player, is it bad product design that means it stops working? I would suggest in both cases its a result of user error. Eric Mmmm.... pancakes! andrewb Ah now we know why the zune crashed. Its not pancake compatible! tariq get an iphone... andrewb Yes, the iphone is fully pancake compatible. I believe it also handles bacon and eggs. + Comment
Part 2 is even funnier.
Brandon I hope Microsoft keeps the brand, keeps the search, keeps yahoo answers. Yahoo competes in so many spaces with Yahoo, their products are better, they should keep them, and keep them Yahoo.
andrewb Apparently it pays big time to lose out at your core business. + Comment
Dave IE Blog readers have a new value of X to put in 'Yeah whatever you just blogged about is fine but when are you going to implement X?'.
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Dave lol
andrewb After I saw that movie I figure not only have I atoned for past sins, but most of those I will comnmit in the future. + Comment
http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2008/01/16/1464725.aspx
Leila ClearType made my Slickrun font look funky... ?
Leila Does anyone else have this issue? It only happens in Ghost mode... ? + Comment
Heh... This is hilarious!
Chris Can haz count? <script> var i = 0; setInterval(intervalFun, 1000); function intervalFun(){ i ; window.location.hash=i.toString(); } function doReload(){ setTimeout("window.location.reload();", 100); } </script> + Comment
Chris No more counting :(
Dave Hey yeah! I liked the counting. Bring back the counting! Rachel The counting was awful! It was as if the webpage was judging you based on how long you stayed on the page. Dave So you're saying you got low scores? That's no reason to punish the rest of us by denying precious counting! Rachel I find it amusing that all the girls seem to hate the counting, but the guys seem to love it. It's a battle of the sexes! Who will win? :-) Leila I'm sure you're still counting in the background, right Eric? ;) who has the highest time? i suspect it's me... is it? Eric Heh. Nothing nearly so interesting, I'm afraid. Rachel I was convinced he was still counting in the background too :-) + Comment
Eric These are the same guys that directly ripped off some Fiddler UI, making a typo in the process. http://www.ieinspector.com/httpanalyzer/images/hs_request_builder_l.gif
Rachel Grr...can you make your website stop counting? Leila I also dislike the counting, but go up to the url window and erase the counting part, or the whole thing if you want to. it also makes a very messy history. Dave If I have to pay for their product it must be superior in some fashion. Rachel I erased the whole thing, but as soon as I click on something else on Eric's page it shows back up again...and it's been counting the whole time! Leila When erase just the numbers the whole thing goes away for good :) but of course it may be secretly counting Mary Not working for me either. I hadn't even looked at the url. With all the clicking noises I just assumed Eric's page had turned into a timebomb and was about to blow! Eric It only makes history messy on Firefox. :-) + Comment
Mom Back atcha buddy bear. I hope the new year brings you lots of love and happiness!
Jim Happy New Year! Come play EVE! :) + Comment
Happy Holidays!
EricLaw Better yet, a video interview: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=367207
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I bet all that nonsense about math and "googols" is just a cover story. :-)
Leila Clint has two of your Lost and Dawson's Creek sets (which are also available from the library for free as complete season sets ;)). which dvds are you missing?
Jason Do we have any of your movies? I doubt it since we only have a HD dvd player. What movies are you missing exactly???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Still waiting on pictures of your Thanksgiving trip.................................. + Comment
In the process, I got the following numbers from the TV's status report: 6806 Total Hours On That seems like a lot of TV, although it's over 4 years and does include the watch time of roommates and when we just have the TV on one of the music channels.
Congratulations IE team at continuing to improve while still maintaining your awesome audacity at sucking. Brandon I'm pretty fond of Ie^2.079, though they should carry that out more to...2.07944154.
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I won't bore you kids with the story of upgrading my Pentium 90 from 8 megs to 24 megs, at the bargain basement cost of $175.
But the deadline to file was 4 days ago. Damn you Murphy.
SteveSi doesn't believe in brevity. :-)
For now, a much needed vacation. Expect plenty of pictures shortly! Brandon Well, I hope the IE is working hard, a lot of people think IE8 will never show up, or will show up 3 years from now. Bill Gates did state a 9-12 month cycle between browsers, yet there is no public beta of the next IE yet, it just makes you wonder....
Anyways, when I go to your blog, I hear a clicking sound and I see the URL count up http://www.ericlawrence.com/eric/#74 75 76 77.....
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http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/IOfficeAntiVirusInCSharp.asp Dave You've figured out all the appropriate COM interop magic to get this to work in C#. Yay! Will this go on CodeProject?
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Prison Break: Season 2 has been great so far. I've been watching it on the treadmill. We got our water heater replaced. Getting the installation up to code and filing for the permit cost roughly as much as the tank and install. Sigh. Vacation can't come soon enough!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/338623_transpo07.html
http://reddevnews.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2371
If you want an @live.com email address, you can grab them now... http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9812002-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Alas, this will be a weekend of catching up at work. Eric Note to self: http://www.webshots.com/support/help/11540.html#4
Eric Note to my other self: This one is free, http://www.flickr.com/tour/upload/ Eric Of course, it's not the same thing... Dave Matt likes SmugMug <http://swannman.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/smugmug-web-part-for-sharepoint/> + Comment
Good speech and even better Q&A though, so I'm glad I woke up early for it.
Dave April 1st RFCs: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_RFC>
My favorite is still IP datagrams on Avian Carriers: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149>
andrewb Aww Dave are you saying thats not a real RFC? :) Eric Nah, he's just saying that there are lots of great ideas and coincidentally, they're posted on the first day of April. Eric Nah, he's just saying that there are lots of great ideas and coincidentally, they're posted on the first day of April. Eric Nah, he's just saying that there are lots of great ideas and coincidentally, they're posted on the first day of April. andrewb I heard you the first time :) Eric IE7Pro's ad-blocking MIME handler has a bug. + Comment
     
MS announced 27% revenue growth last quarter. Eric Of course, I should mention that the ~reason~ it went up wasn't our increased revenue, but rather that I sold all of my shares last week. Sigh.
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andrewb are they going to make VSTS a free download too?
Dave Was this targetted spam? =) Eric Vaguely. I probably subscribed to some development magazine at some point. I wrote to the author to tease him about it and he was very kind. + Comment
Leila What is the #1...2....3.... counter thing in the webaddress? :)
Eric A counter thing. :-) D In an internet cafe in a village in India...your page loads pretty fast for a < 56k connection. Leila what is it counting? Eric The number of seconds since page load. Leila Yes but why are you tracking this? :) It seems sneaky ;) Chris Make it not stop when i right click Eric Yeah, kinda funny that context menus block the script thread, isn't it? andrewb Make it not click each time the URL refreshes! :) Eric Pretty awesome, huh? :-) + Comment
Dave I think someone's messing up the curve
Dave http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/ Eric Ah, but they were not unnecessary at all! + Comment
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1190803943&count=1 Dave What an interesting idea. Now if my bank provided an authenticated RSS feed of my credit card transactions...
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We'll see if this really turns out to be one of the "Worst Jobs in Science" as Popular Science believes. :-O
Eric They launched it. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/boom/x wing-rocket-launches-disintegrates-mid air-307945.php
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Jane and I saw "3:10 to Yuma" last night. I was optimistic-- an action western/thriller with good actors, and plenty of nice scenery... but it's crippled by a simplistic and rather implausible plot that led to a quantity of laughter and shaking my head in disbelief usually only experienced when watching a comedy. Ah well. Season 2 of Prison Break has been good so far...
=5.1*12850 Dave Wow that's a good one. I thought this would just be demonstrations of floating point math producing results inconsistent with real math. But how do you accidentally get 100000 instead of 65535? Granted 65535 is a special number but where does 100000 come from? Try '=65535*2/2' and '=65535*2.1/2.1'
Dave Err... 1.1 not 2.1 above Chris Hmmm, they (http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/) say its a display issue and the calculation is really working on the backend. Eric Phew, that's a relief. It just ~looks~ like a bug. :-) + Comment
The re-released collection claims to be XP compatible, and naturally, it's not, bailing out on boot. But it wasn't too hard to do an in-place upgrade to the version of the open-source DOSBox that the re-release relies upon for the heavy lifting, and now everything is humming along quite nicely. Thank you, open source community, and thank you, Jim! Dave Cool! I got stuck replaying 5 some years ago because the arcade mini-game where you have to line up your shuttle with a port on a larger craft seems to run as fast as it can. When I had a 386 this was reasonable but now...
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 Leila Eric! Please help me! How do you get rid of the annoying click IE makes when you click on anything, or when you refresh? I am forced to use IE in an IE application and it refreshes every few seconds and it's driving me crazy :)
Leila I see your status is so very frustrated too :) hope you get less frustrated soon Eric Sorry about that. In the System control panel, choose "Sounds and audio devices." Click the Sounds tab, scroll down to "Start navigation" and set it to "None" Leila yay! thankyou!!!!!!!!! + Comment
andrewb I'd be very surprised if the DoD's PR dept had nothing to do with that. Maybe MSFT recruitment could try a similar ploy?
Adam Maybe it's me, but this seems to ring familiar with sounds of 72 virgins awaiting you in heaven. True to form, we want our rewards in this life. Perhaps they need something to combat the top 10 lies recruiters tell list that is floating around the net: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/62945/?page=1 Eric I think it's fair to say that "sex sells" all over the world... but it's probably a stretch to equate the two. + Comment
Jane and I had our first tango lesson last Tuesday. It was not as painful as I feared it would be (I suggested that Jane wear steel-toed dance shoes). That said, I must also note that I left the class newly confident that not only can I not dance, but my ability to walk is somewhat in question. We're going to miss session #2 since we're flying back to Maryland for Jason's wedding, but hopefully we can catch up in class #3. - Jane and I liked Ratatouille. Eric Apparently, the $200 nano costs Apple about 83$ to build. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2007/tc20070917_491032.htm
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Dave http://www.matasano.com/log/958/enough-with-the-rainbow-tables-what-you-need-to-know-about-secure-password-schemes/
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Now, obviously, there's a challenge here because screens have different densities, so there needs to be a way to calibrate the relative sizes; perhaps if there's the option to calibrate against commonly found objects (e.g. coins, 8.5x11 sheet of paper, etc)? While we're on the topic of useful useless applets, how about an easy-to-use game timer, dice, scorepad, and other gadgets for playing board games with long-lost accessories? Maybe I'll use these as an excuse to play with SilverLight? andrewb Its a quarter of an inch! For all the weirdness, imperial measurements are much easier to visualise. The metric system is so arbitrary.
Dave The applet should describe the size in terms of how bulky the MP3 player will look in my pants pocket. Leila I have a ruler!! this is why PDFs are so great. you can get a PDF of a ruler and print it out. Or you can use google in find "6.5 mm in in" or "6.5 mm in cm".. or you can use it to find other objects you are familiar with like coins.. for example 6.5 mm is slightly more than 3 nickel widths, or slightly less than the radius of a dime. Eugene Lee I personally think you should just learn the metric system :) Eric The problem here is that I don't really know how big a quarter inch is either. I mean, of course I know in the ~abstract~, but that's not what I want. Printing out a PDF is clever, but sorta defeats the "no new tangible objects" idea. Eric what is the "no new tangible objects" ideas? i think you have to relate the measurement to something you do know.. like your finger etc (check, one of your fingernails will be 1cm or 2cm then you will always have a cm with you :)). esp for when you don't have a computer with you Leila hmm why did i type eric for my name?? Rachel That's funny...I taught this unit to my third graders :-) Eric You taught a unit on Silverlight programming? That's fantastic! Leila yeah I was going to mention this is the sort of thing we try to teach as well.. students seem very resistive to it though, until they've had practice. maybe if they had learned it in third grade from you! + Comment
Albert Einstein's performance review is here: http://norvig.com/performance-review.html :-)
A trivial new version of SlickRun is now available; it resolves a few minor bugs and adds support for displaying the current IP address. Eric In the prior beta, I put in a counter on the SETUP screen showing how many commands had been executed. So far, my work machine has executed 10500 commands. Sheesh.
D Caffeine is good. Without caffeine I would get no work done. + Comment
Dave This sounds like a job for Jack Bauer
Leila We had one of them but I think we gave that back a long time ago? D I bet Nick has them Eric Alas, he did not. + Comment
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26pre.html
leila haha your browser hangs ;) (i must admit i have hung firefox on a few rare occasions, not at nytimes though)
Dave I knew them before they were in a picture on the NYTimes. Eric Yeah, it's sad. But the NYTimes did try pretty hard. + Comment
The Democrats are looking for feedback on their 2008 bumperstickers... http://www.dscc.org/slogan. I like one of them.
Why should you care about this update ? If you ever encountered performance issues running AJAX applications (e.g. Gmail), you should absolutely consider installing this update. This update includes an updated Garbage Collector that used to previously make AJAX appliications run pretty poorly. This update is available on Vista and we are now providing this to all supported OS versions (XP, Win2K, Win2K Server). You will see noticeably better performance on your favorite AJAX applications and with more and more AJAX applications coming on line, you will be very happy you did this. Eric Hrm. This might only be useful for IE6 users.
Eric Alas, yes, IE7 already has this goodness. Rats. + Comment
tariq where are you guys moving to?
Dave Are you getting a window? The spreadsheet I saw... Eric Yeah, I got a window. Sadly, it's a pretty crappy one (looks directly into the other wing of the building). Jane has a non-window office with a better view. Eric Tariq, we're moving to B50. + Comment
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?8dpc Heh Or maybe, as suggested by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, you should try to be as interesting as possible, on the theory that the designer is more likely to keep you around for the next simulation.
leila it's funny that they think having lots of processing power is all you need to code and run a simulation properly. simulations always have limitations Eric Ah, but as components of the simulation, we might not be aware of those limitations. It's sorta like raycasting; you only need to cast rays where the viewer is looking. :-) Leila I see what you mean but I was thinking along the lines of scientific simulations where the results only make sense on certain time and length scales... for example you make space discrete in the simulation. Dave The best part is what you should do differently if you suspect you are in a simulation <http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/even-if-life-is-but-a-computer-simulation/>: "If you might be living in a simulation then all else equal you should care less about others, live more for today, make your world look more likely to become rich, expect to and try more to particpate in pivotal events, be more entertaining and praiseworthy, and keep the famous people around you happier and more interested in you." andrewb Nick Bostrom is pretty whacky, in a totally cool way. I first came across his 20% chance of simulation idea in a book by Nicholas Fearn called 'Philosophy', which discusses this and many other ideas. Well worth a look. + Comment
http://www.google.com/services/local-business-referrals/repfaq.html
 Jane Hey, at least they did not charge shipping! :)
Eric Amusingly, they charge you $2.50 to print the ticket on ~your~ own printer, but they are willing to print them and mail them for free. Weird. andrewb You think all those electrons they send down the wire are free? + Comment
There's a lot of really interesting software out there.
Earlier this week, I was happy to have discovered "The Journal" from DavidRM Software. It's quite similar to Logbook, although much more powerful. Fortunately, it offers a smart "import" feature so I was able to utilize to import my 800+ Logbook entries directly. Let's just see if I can make time to start writing again... I was pretty good about writing daily in high school, and okay in college, but I haven't written much at all since I entered the real world...  Dave Its like a blog except no one reads it...
Eric You crazy kids, publishing your diaries all over the interweb for the neighbors to see. What are you thinking?! + Comment
Installation is slow, but totally worth it.
Dave -34.432175
Eric I'm pleased to see that my blog now comes up on top for that particular floating point number. :-) + Comment
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/does-a-darkened-google-really-save-electricity-104/ Eugene I think it makes sense that there are no tangible energy savings on LCDs. LCDs work by filtering out polarized backlight. So I would expect black pixels to consume roughly the same amount of energy as white pixels.
I think it makes far more sense to sleep or turn off computers to save energy. Also, those 1700 lumens GE light bulbs consume 26W of power compared to a comparable 100W incandescent light bulb.
andrewb Things like blackle just prove that PT Barnum was right. + Comment
We donated about 500 pounds of stuff this weekend to various charities and took ~200 pounds of cardboard to the dump. The garage is slowly starting to get emptied, and the house is slowly starting to come together. The new dining room table arrives on Wednesday, and I'm scared of how much cardboard they might box it in... :-O Chris Anytime! It was fun! Next time though I promise not to make you guys sit through one of my poetry readings (^__^)
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Erin What a great website! Check out the Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap!!! I also like the customer action shots!
Dave I think you meant this alarm clock <http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/91f2/> Dave And writing of time pieces I think this is awesome: <http://www.elevatefilms.com/NOW_Watch_p/watch-001.htm> Eric Heh. Heh. Heh. 6/18/07 Eric said I'll try to post some photos from Vegas, TechEd, and Maryland soon. STILL NOOOOO PHOTOS!!!!!!!!!! Eric True that. + Comment
Eric Also, a web developer's handbook http://www.alvit.de/handbook/
David J Smith I've been using Cropper for a long time. I just stumbled across Fiddler and I'm excited to see which one I'll get more use out of. :) + Comment
I've been driving IE primarily through SlickRun for years. Eric Further discussion of interest: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/ui_breakthroughcomma.html
Leila YAY PINE! Dave YAY VIM! Eric YAY TLA! + Comment
 EricLaw and BillG at EE2007 Rachel Why are you not smiling?
Eric I'm thinking "don't drop the crystal, don't drop the crystal, don't drop the crystal." Before that, I was thinking "don't trip, don't trip, don't trip." andrewb Never mind photoshop - a razor wouldnt have gone astray for a big occasion ;) Eric Hehe... fair enough. I actually did trim a bit from the mountain man look I sported the day before. But my razor is sorta broken from my TechEd trip... need to go replace that. andrewb Getting an award photo with bill makes everything ok! Maddog Hmm.. you don't write what the award is for. It is intriguing. Picture is too small. Congrats anyway (I'll say it now, and again after I know what it is for :) Eric Fiddler won an Engineering Excellence award. This is an internal award at Microsoft given every year to teams (or individuals) that develop tools or processes that significantly advance engineering for us or our customers. + Comment
Chris Ahh, such fond memories...
Eric :-) We chucked about 10 boxes of stuff so far. Dave Let me know before you toss any PSPs, iPods, etc... =) + Comment
andrewb I dont see why people need an opensource alternative to a free tool. I suspect what happened is they built it and then someone said "oh, its just like slickrun".
Leila How do you feel about it? Chris Those thieving bas**rds! They weren’t shy about ripping it off were they? I personally think it’s a very cheap imitation. I'm surprised the "SlickRun" keyword didn't just link to your page. Anyway just consider it flattery; especially after the reviews still put you on top. Vicke Ld You now have competition, and more incentive to improve SlickRun. There's only one truly American way to feel about that: hatred! Buy them and cancel the project, or just make up some reason and invade them and kill them all! Eric Heh. I'm trying to decide whether or not to join them. Maddog LOL, hilarious. I guess it's not the best time to say that I'm building an open source alternative to fiddler. heh. Just kidding :) Eric Given the number of extensibility points it has, Fiddler's more of a platform than a product. + Comment
Jason Do you have a patent on that? You are going to make millions! Way to go bro!
Eric Alas, no millions. ;-) + Comment
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932716
 tariq waiting for your picture to show up like this with the lucky lady... :)
Eric :-) JAY & ERIN Make sure you put this picture in your basement to scare away the mice! Can't wait to see you guys in Sept. It'll be here before you know it. Oh by the way....you should move to Boston!!!! + Comment
   Mom Congratulations son, we are so proud of you! Enjoy, you earned it!
Dave Woo Fiddler! Go Eric! D I heard the news...congratulations!! tariq good job eric... you deserved it... Anson That's fantastic! Henry Congrats! A few months late... + Comment
Leila I would be careful with discounted name brand harddrives as they are probably an older generation that will no longer be produced and probably only have a 1 year warranty. what is your favorite brand? every single harddrive i have owned has broken except for the one that was stolen.
Eric That's a fair point, Leila. Leila What kind of backup system do you use? Eric I've got an external 320gig drive, and a mirroring RAID array as the primary drive. I back up my source remotely on a network drive and my web server. + Comment
It feels like it's 3 o'clock in the morning...
 Rachel I am SO excited!!!! :-P
Dave Pretty =) Chris That's bloody awesome! *goes to install latest beta and grins* Eric Alas, this won't be ready until v2.1... D Nice. + Comment
I'm sorta happy to be back in the office-- I've flown somewhere around 12K miles in the past month, and I was starting to miss my bed (and my cat!) So far, no more summer plans before I go back to Jason's wedding in September. I'll try to post some photos from Vegas, TechEd, and Maryland soon. Jane It's my Seattle birthday today... One year since I moved to Seattle and left Canada.
D Congrats! Chris & I are approaching our 5th MS year on july 1st...perhaps him & I should split the M&M's? ???? Still waiting on the photot to be posted from Vegas, Maryland, TechEd + Comment
http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/1B0D2AC5-96C0-4A16-9080-06E7D8F4E80C/0/XBLA_Montage.wmv
Eric Many years ago, I believe my grandmother worked in a bank and did something similar. The article in the paper said something like "Spunky teller foils robbery."
leila happy birthday! :) Rachel AHH! Happy Birthday! Jason & Erin Happy Birthday old man!! :P + Comment
It turns out that for the Engineering Excellence awards, they don't tell you if you've won until they announce it up on stage. I suppose it's more "exciting" that way...
 mike I would love to know what program prompts with that message
Eric Windows Vista's version of WordPad if you attempt to open a dangerous OLE package embedded within. + Comment
Please take note: Anson is my friend, and he is now famous because his name and article are on the cover of MSDN Magazine. Therefore, I am cool by association. :-)
leila do you have a del.icio.us account?
Dave You'd think that with all the links he posts on here that he should, right? How can you jump from blog to twitter without any other Web2.0 buzzword activities like link sharing? =) Eric What fun is it if you don't write your own code? + Comment
The photographer was good... Halfway through the shoot, she said "So, you're just a one-man show?" (most of these awards are for groups) to which I replied "Yeah," and she retorted "I guess that makes it easy to get along with your team!" I think she was just going for a natural smile and laugh, but she got it. Alas, the fun is over and it's back to the grindstone... my PowerPoint deck for TechEd 2007 is due at 5pm and I'm severely behind. leila you probably already know your page loads a lot slower because of twitter?
Eric Which browser? The Twitter script is behind a DEFER=TRUE, so it shouldn't actually impact loading of the main content body anymore... Eric I learned today that current versions of Firefox still block while downloading DEFER'd scripts. Upgrade to IE for better performance. :-) leila "upgrade"? ;) I did upgrade to firefox2 :) Eric Ah, but if you upgrade to IE, you'll get better performance. :-) Leila Websites should perform well on all browsers :) sorry, until firefox crashes on me/messes up i won't be using IE. even after that annoying runonce page with the new IE was resolved i still want to be able to put my bookmarks in any order i want, not alphabetical. + Comment
Jane It's too bad Fiddler did not win. These people don't know better. Who needs Apache Ant!!! :)
Mom Congrats! test 123 test2 456 test3 567 test4 4444 test5 5555 Mom Did anyone pass the test? Eric You did, Mom, you did! + Comment
andrewb Its too bad stocks dont have a "if you can find it cheap elsewhere we'll match the price" clause - you could save msft 2.5bn or thereabouts.
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Jane I like the one that says "Don't ever change! I always want to be better than you." LOL.
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It's a pretty big video, so be sure you have a few minutes to download.
If you haven't gone to Windows Update to install the regular monthly patch, you should do so. Lots of baddies in there.
The dentist pulled his assistant in saying "Check out these amazing virgin teeth!" which made me a bit uncomfortable, but hey, it's better than him calling up his financial planner to announce he'd just hit the jackpot. :-) After the x-rays, I had my teeth cleaned with a "Cavitron" a new ultrasonic doodad that replaces the old cleaning method. I gotta say, my teeth feel freaky clean. ERIN So how do you get your brother to go to the dentist before he loses all of his teeth before the wedding??? He hasn't been since he had temp. teeth a couple of years ago!!!! HE needs a new set of dentures before the wedding, please help...gummey the dummey.
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A SlickRun user was curious about whether or not he could post to Twitter from SlickRun. The answer, of course, is yes. So then I got to playing with Twitter. And while it's cheezy and lame, it's kinda fun. So, I've added a Twitter indicator to the top of this page. We'll see if I ever update it. :-D Eugene I actually like the idea behind Twitter. It is a way of officially separating out the kinds of blog posts that I *don't* normally want to read.
Eric hehehe... Dave (12:40am) Hmm... Twitter says you're sleeping right now that can't be correct... + Comment
Body: It is not allowed in. Dave On the next episode of Tek Jansen...
Eric I'm excited and amused and scared that my site is now the #1 google hit for the term "map spread on the frontal armor of a gigantic tank". :-D andrewb If I google for "slob with his hands in his pockets" guess who I find? :) Dave I'm not sure what Google image search is doing but Andrew's phrase has some interesting images there too... =) + Comment
andrewb translation : fiddler rocks!
Dave Doesn't the German language have a single word to express the notion of Fiddler rocking? Eric rofl + Comment
In pretty much every photo of me, I'm modelling the ever popular slob-with-his-hands-in-his-pockets look...
Tracksticks are tiny GPS location recorders capable of continuously logging their own location histories for extended periods of time. The Trackstick records its own location, time, date, speed, heading and altitude at preset intervals. Traveled routes can be viewed directly in Google EarthT. Includes GPX photo stamping feature for adding your favorite photos to you own maps., $169.00
andrewb Call me old school if you will, but I like how the first IE just had one simple toolbar and an address bar. Less is More!
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Slashdot Q: "Ever since Senator Ted Stevens used the phrase 'series of tubes' to describe his understanding of the Internet, I've noticed several stories and comments referencing how silly that is. What are your suggestions for a succinct layman's definition of the Internet?" A: Imagine a giant radish, like a planet sized radish. Now imagine that there's a bunny hopping to the radish, and it takes a bite out of it. But the bunny spits out that bite and kind of smears it back in place on the radish with a paw. Then it rains.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/FlashSSD/index.htm Flash SSD ----------- HDD ----------- 1.8” (2.5”) 2.5” 1.8” 1.0” Sustained 58/32 25/25 20/20 4.3~7.2 R/W (MB)
We went to Dave's on Sunday to see the classic computer geek movies AntiTrust and Sneakers... Anson and Rachel wimped out as usual :-(, but it was fun anyway. Rachel If by "wimped out" you mean "were responsible and stayed home to get work done" then yes...yes, we wimped out :-)
Eric And just who procrastinated in the first place?!? Leila I thought Anson and Clint were playing WOW on Sunday night? Eric BUSTED! + Comment
Jim Not really sure what to say about this game...apparently one character is irritable because of PMS
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Dave 'Where by “complementary” we mean “the two leading technologies that irritate people when they’re used in lieu of regular web pages.”'. Awesome.
Leila I must the only one who loves adobe and PDFs :( finding word documents in lieu of html is much much much more annoying. or powerpoint slides. Eric Ewww. PDF is evil, but ever so slightly better than Word docs. Leila See, everything I do ends up in PDF, my papers from latex to dvi to ps to pdf... my plots from eps to pdf and posters. I also do all my talks in latex and convert them to PDF. They are much more reliable and better looking than powerpoint slides. It is very useful for documents... so when I click on a link for a journal paper I expect it to be pdf and not html. I agree that pdf is annoying when used in ways it isn't really useful/intended for...especially when they make the file size unnecessarily large. but what other format would you prefer for papers and things? plus, i don't use adobe to make pdfs, it is free for anyone to make them without adobe involved at all. i'm interested in what you computer scientists are attaching to your emails :) andrewb For research papers, there has to be a pdf. A good practice is publish online content as HTML and have a "printer friendly" link to a pdf version. Naturally youre trusting the browsers to layout your html properly, but we all trust the browsers.. right? :) Eric All y'all academics and your PDF-lovin' ways... :-P andrewb I'm a PDF Handling Dude (almost). I like powerpoint when I have to distract people with diagrams in meetings. + Comment
andrewb Happy Birthday Jane, and congratulations to Eric on some impressive cooking!
Chris יום הולדת שמח Chris Yom Huledet Same'ach! Eric Unicode comments are “fixed”! Leila Heyyyy I just turned 25 too, what day is her birthday? Jane Happy Birthday Leila :) My birthday is on April 14th, what's yours? Erin Happy Birthday Leila & Jane My b-day is on April 26th!!!! Jane April Birthdays rule! :) Leila happy birthday jane and erin :) Mine is the 11th :) it falls on easter sometimes, yours must too? andrewb Apparently all the cool kids have their birthdays in april. Mom Not quite all! June 11, June 30, and Sept.14 blow Andrew's theory! :-) Erin Who has the Sept. 14th birthday? Erin: Duh! Jays birthday! But men don't count. This is for cool woman who have birthdays in April. andrewb and me! :P + Comment
http://portal.opera.com/startup/?tip=speeddial Also this page is neat.. Innovations by Opera: http://operawiki.info/OperaInnovations
Jane Jane Aw... Cute kitten... I particularly enjoyed "You May Pull Your pants up now" post. That's hilarious!
Chris One of these days I'm going to get shot, tazed, or beat down by the man. Jim That is indeed hilarious + Comment
http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html Eric ROFL: http://www.reluctantblogger.com/2007/04/how-microsoft-could-crush-google-in-one.html
Eric One of the best articles on software development, ever: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html Eric And one of the best on startups: http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html + Comment
After dinner, the five of us went to Seattle for dinner, drinks, and dancing, joined by Dave, Sarah, Leah, Amar, Mike, Kristen, Jen and Irena. It was quite a party! :-) Jane You misspelled a few names (Terris and Irina), but overall a pretty nice summary. :)
Eric Canadians! Jane Apparently, Americans are the ones that can’t spell! :-P Mary Jane is SO cute! And you look so happy! I haven't met her, but I like her. :) Rachel Dancing? =-) + Comment
Mary You suck. It was nice and warm here. Then it snowed.
andrewb Meanwhile here in Sydney we're breaking out our jackets because summer is over and its only just making it into the 70's. Brrr! D Did you do any yard work when the weather was good, Eric? Eric Of course not. ;-) + Comment
Eric ATI Radeon X1950 Pro with 512mb. I should have spent half the money to get the GT with half the RAM but 90% of the performance. Ah well.
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SlickRun in March: 5000+ installs, after the first updates in years. Venkat and I spent Friday in Texas working with IE's support team. Dallas in March is actually pretty nice, if you manage to dodge the tornadoes. :-) Everything is bigger in Texas-- the roads are huge, the street signs are massive, and even my $19 rental car was a Ford Edge SUV. Jane and I made it to the gym again this morning... three Sundays in a row! Of course, I'm not doing much more than jogging/running yet, but hopefully once my cardio's a bit healthier, I'll be inspired to branch out. Leila Aw I heard you couldn't arrange your flight to visit Austin on the weekend? i didn't like dallas much when i was there for a conference, very smogy like LA. we're smaller than dallas :)
Eric Yeah, the price to go from Dallas to Austin was like $400 more, and even just taking two extra days and driving would have cost $250 more. So, I'll just fly down for a weekend at some point instead? Leila Oh :( I thought it was a time issue because we could've driven up there :) yeah hopefully you can come down sometime :) + Comment
grelly not funny! j.k kiding i dont now what youre talking about when you say this one is funny but it is a nice car
grelly talk + Comment
andrewb I just saw this - what a crock that article is. I dont even know where to start pointing the nonsense.
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MSR just published a paper (http://research.microsoft.com/searchranger/) on blog spam and who profits from it. Their site shows how they used Fiddler to track spam back to those who profit from it. The paper got a nice writeup in the NYTimes and elsewhere.
This week... maybe try to catch Zodiac? Eric Quick plot summary of Zodiac: As dull as real-life, just with slightly prettier people.
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You can use this on your website to combat blog spammers too... see http://research.microsoft.com/asirra/installation.aspx Dave So when are you going to implement this on your site?
Dave How about this similar but non-cat based captcha system: http://www.hotcaptcha.com/ Eric Hehe... That's just wrong. + Comment
Dave Wow! (That was a Vista 'Wow' moment). Now I'm really going to use my Quick Launch bar.
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