Fuck this world

Fuck You All!

Running out of ways to run,
i can't see,
i can't be,
over and over and under my skin,
all this attention is doing me in!

Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,
Don't belong, don't exist,
don't give a shit, don't ever judge me.

Picking throught the parts exposed,
taking shape, taking shag,
over and over and under my skin,
all this momentum is doing me in!

Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,
Don't belong, don't exist,
don't give a shit, don't ever judge me.

And don't you fucking judge me!

I gave you all my love, livin' in your own hate,
Drippin' hole man, lost step, no fate,
Show you nothin'but i ain't holdin' back,
Every damn word i say is a sneak attack,
When i get my hands on you,
Ain't a fucking thing you can do,
Get this coz you're never gonna get me,
I am the very disease you pretend to be!

I am the push that makes you move x4

Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,
don't belong, don't exist,
don't give a shit, dont ever judge me. x2

Credit: SlipKnoT

Geek Jokes

After writing serious stuff for 7 continuous days, I feel like writing the funny side of IT today. Let me start with a real conversation that happened between a Netscape technical support guy and a female customer.

Tech: Internet Technical Support this is so-and-so speaking. May I have your username please?
Female Customer: Yes I want to speak to the person in charge immediately!
Tech: Speaking. What can I do for you?
Female Customer: I want to complain about the pornographic bookmarks your company put in my web browser!
Tech: We didn't put any pornographic bookmarks in your web browser.
Female Customer: Oh yes you did! I'm looking at them right now!
(Tech remembers the Netscape history list and grins to himself)
Tech: Where exactly are these "bookmarks" located?
Female Customer: In Netscape!
Tech: And where exactly in Netscape would that be?
Female: In that little list that comes down when you click the little down arrow!
Tech: The one right above the Net Search button?
Female Customer: Yes that one!
Tech: Miss, that's the Netscape history list. Netscape keeps the past ten links you typed in that box. The only way to put an address in that box is for someone to physically sit at your computer and type in a web address.
Female Customer: Well I certainly didn't type in those X rated web addresses!
Tech: Well somebody did. Who else has access to your computer, and uses the Internet?
Female Customer: Just me and my husband!
(Several seconds of silence pass ... Hey! I wasn't going to say it!)
Female Customer: ........ oh ............. OOOH! ... Thank you.
(She quickly hung up)

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Microsoft to sell ad space in error messages:
This is another dig at my favorite software company, Microsoft. The following news is definitely not true.

Microsoft announced that it is selling advertising space in the error messages that appear in Windows. Acknowledging for the first time that the average user of their operating system encounters error messages at least several times a day, Microsoft is trying to take financial advantage of the unavoidable opportunity to make an ad impression.

"We estimate that throughout the world at any given moment several million people are getting a 'general protection fault' or 'illegal operation' warning. We will be able to generate significant revenue by including a short advertising message along with it," said Microsoft marketing director Nathan Mirror.

The Justice Department immediately indicated that they intend to investigate whether Microsoft is gaining an unfair advantage in reaching the public with this advertising by virtue of its semi-monopolistic control over error messages.

Office buzz words:
BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

CHAINSAW CONSULTANT: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

SITCOMs (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage): What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STARTER MARRIAGE: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPED OUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

TOURISTS: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

TREEWARE: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

CHIPS & SALSA: Chips = hardware, Salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the heck out of an electronic device to get it to work again. (Try not to dent the case.)

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

CLM (Career Limiting Move): Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

DILBERTED: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've been Dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located. "Don't bother asking him ... he's 404, man."

Leave your comments.

Spam King pleads guilty

Spam King pleads guilty:
The notorious spammer Robert Soloway whom authorities dubbed "the King of Spam" is facing a possible 26-year jail sentence after pleading guilty in Seattle on Friday to charges of fraud and tax evasion. Robert Soloway, 28, had already been found guilty of spam charges in several civil cases -- Microsoft won a US$7.8 million judgment against him in 2005 -- but had avoided paying fines in those cases. The criminal charges to which he pleaded guilty on Friday followed his arrest in 2007 by the U.S. Justice Department.

Robert Soloway is known to brag a lot in public. In 2005, when he raked in more than $300000, he posted on a public forum "I've been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars and have had my business running for over 10 years without ever paying a dime regardless to the outcome of any lawsuits". Soloway has avoided fines in the past, but this time around he may not be so lucky. In addition to the jail time he now faces, he has also agreed to discuss his financial assets while being monitored by a lie detector.

Though several cases have been registered against spammers, this is the 1st case where criminal charges were laid to deter others from spamming.

Well, if you spam and pool in money, then shut the fuck up and enjoy the money instead of bragging about it in public. Spammers and hackers should NOT be attention-seekers, FFS.

Intel comes with Quad-core:
For those of you who think that your dual-core processor is cool, think again. Intel has said that it had developed quad-core chips for laptops and will ship them later this year. The chip will be released after Intel's Centrino 2 platform, code-named Montevina, is launched in the second quarter. Montevina is an upgrade to the current Centrino mobile platform that puts WiMax and Wi-Fi networking capabilities on a single chip. Montevina will include processors based on the Core 2 microarchitecture and the quad-core notebook processor could be included in the platform.

But they make laptops heavier and are not recommended for MacBook Air. Gaming enthusiasts will be interested in these chips, as quad-core combined with a separate graphics card gives a top-notch performance. The initial quad-core processors will strain battery life and may first make their way to the high-end gaming and workstation notebooks that require heavy processing power.

Red Hat buys Amentra:
Linux developer Red Hat has purchased Amentra, an IT consulting firm with an open-source expertise to sell its JBoss Java infrastructure to enterprises as the basis for SOAs (service-oriented architectures). Amentra, a privately held systems integrator that specializes in SOA and business process management, will continue business as usual as an independent company owned by Red Hat.

Amentra is a certified JBoss systems integrator that has a solid reputation among enterprises; ExxonMobil, Pfizer and Merck are among its clients. The company also has been recognized for its expertise in providing open-source and SOA services by research firm Gartner.

Red Hat purchased JBoss in April 2006 and, like its Linux OS, now has two versions of the software -- a community ".org" version that is free for everyone to use and an enterprise version that has fees and maintenance tied to it. The company is hoping to use JBoss as a springboard to become successful beyond its enterprise Linux business and quiet critics who claim the company can't make a multi-product portfolio work.

Hmm, no entertainment news for today. You can check some cool posts here. If you've read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, then don't miss to read The Last Supper one. I happened to read a great article on Surface computing. Check the article here.

Trend Micro attacked by hackers

Trend Micro attacked by hackers:
Security vendor Trend Micro has fallen victim to widespread Web attacks that were reported by McAfee recently (check yesterday's post). As discussed earlier, the pages are infected with malicious code that tries to install a password stealing software on the PCs of people who visit the sites. Reportedly 20,000 websites have been attacked.

Researchers are still not sure how the attackers are managing to hack these Web pages, but the pages all seem to use Microsoft's Active Server Page (ASP) technology (Oh, not again, screw you Microsoft!!!), which is used by many Web development programs to create dynamic HTML pages. A software bug in any of those programs is all the attackers need to install their malicious code.

It's embarrassing when security vendors fall victim to the attacks they are supposed to prevent, but Trend Micro is not the only company to have had its Web site hacked in recent months. In January, parts of CA's Web site were infected with a very similar type of attack.

My last appeal to Microsoft: Please develop more softwares rather than more bugs. Huh, when will you people understand??

Microsoft buys Rapt for its Ad management tools:
Days after Google made a deal with DoubleClick (check previous posts), Microsoft buys Rapt, of San Francisco. Rapt sells advertising yield management tools for online media companies. The tools are designed to predict demand for advertising and optimize the price and placement of ads, improving revenue. Microsoft plans to incorporate Rapt's tools and consultancy business into its Atlas Publisher Suite. That will allow it to offer publishers an integrated service to manage advertising sales, it said.

Yahoo said that they are considering the new $44.6 billion offer from Microsoft (check below) and Rapt will work along with Yahoo if there is a Microsoft-Yahoo merger. But if there isn't any merger, then Rapt will be a stiff competitor to Yahoo's online ads.

For the sake of outgoing MS chief, Bill Gates, I want the Yahoo deal to be done. But $44.6 billion is too much. Screw Yahoo!!!

Talks between Yahoo and MS?
A month after Yahoo rejected its $42 billion deal, Microsoft has approached Yahoo again with a new $44.6 billion deal. Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo and Microsoft executives met this week to discuss about the latest cash and stock bid from Microsoft.

According to me, there are several advantages of this merger and it can give a competition to Google's supremacy in online search. I personally don't like the way Google searches the content. Too much of useless pages and it takes hell lot of time to finally locate what we need. Screw Google!!!

What's your view, should the deal be done or not?

Snippets:

• Companies rarely use the 802.1x access protocol in Wi-Fi connections and thus leave the door open for hackers.
• Red Hat Linux tests its new Linux update.
• IBM unveils its SMash technology to secure software mashups.
• Boston Acoustics announces two new PC speaker systems.
• Although Apple updated its MacBook Air this week with a fix for the laptop's fan, some owners of the ultra-thin notebook continue to report that their machines overheat.
• Sustainability and other energy matters are priorities in many firms, but the cost is stalling progress, a survey says.
• A new software from UK's Access Accounting calculates carbon footprint.

Today's blog is dedicated to the three giants of the software industry, namely Microsoft, Google and Yahoo;)

Hackers attack Web yet again

Password-Stealing hackers infect thousands of web pages:
Hackers looking to steal passwords used in popular online games have infected more than 10,000 Web pages in recent days. These attacks have originated mostly from China and were first noticed by McAfee researchers 2 days ago. Within hours, the security company has tracked 10,000 web pages infected on hundreds of websites. As so many sites have been hacked in a very less time, the attack must have been an automated one.

The attackers use search engines to track websites with weak security measures and use them to spread the malicious code. The attacked web sites look no different from normal ones, but they contain an extra JavaScript code inserted into them, that re-directs the browsers of the victims to China-based servers from where invisible attacks are launched. Most of these attacks contain a data-collecting software that runs in your system, once your system is attacked. Depending on how much valuable information your system contains, the loss varies. If yours is a individual desktop PC used for mostly home needs, then the damage may not be big. But if you are a top official in a business organization, then there can be a huge data loss.

Most of these attacks are identified and the patches are released. So, if you play online games regularly, don't forget to install the patches released by your anti-virus vendor, most importantly the patches of ActiveX controls and JavaScript.

Gates asks for more H-1B visas:
According to Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates, US is driving away the best incoming talent by reducing the number of H-1B visas every year. More than half of the computer science students in US universities are from foreign countries and by reducing the number of H-1B visas, not many students can stay in US after graduation and are forced to leave.

In his own words, "We provide the world's best universities ... and the students are not allowed to stay and work in the country," Gates said. "The fact is, [other countries'] smartest people want to come here and that's a huge advantage to us, and in a sense, we're turning them away." These comments represent his long standing views about immigrant workers in US companies.

But there is an alternate argument that nearly 150,000 Americans have lost jobs because of foreign workers since 2000 and by limiting the number of H-1B visas, unemployment among Americans can be reduced. Gates says that these arguments are flawed. According to him, the big companies aren't giving jobs to Indians and Chinese just because they are foreign. According to him, Indians are getting jobs because they are more eligible than US citizens. So, if people who call themselves as US patriots are worried of this, then they should ask the Americans to have better qualifications.

You get a job not because you are a White or a Black or a Brown or a Yellow or a Red, but because you are qualified and are eligible for the job. A fitting reply to so-called patriots, Mr. Gates. We love you (except for the part that Microsoft manufacturing more bugs these days than software).

Google launches hosted ad management:
Google launched a free hosted service on Thursday that helps Web site publishers sell advertising faster and fill unsold slots on their sites. Ad Manager, which Google said has already been tested by a few businesses, is designed to streamline how ads are placed on Web sites and generate performance reports detailing how successful those ads are in reaching consumers, including click through-rates and revenue paid by the advertisers for those clicks.

Google said Ad Manager's purpose is to ease some of the problems that come with managing advertisements on a Web site, such as gauging available inventory and how to pick the highest-paying ads. The service is hosted on Google's servers, and Web site publishers can access it through a Web browser. Google's AdSense delivers text advertisements that are matched with the content of a Web site. Google will let publishers use Ad Manager in tandem with similar technology from other competing ad placement networks.

Ad Manager can also target ads at specific users. It is capable of delivering ads based on a user's domain, the brand of Web browser and language it uses, the PC's operating system and how much bandwidth is available on their Internet connection. That information may seen potentially sensitive, but it's automatically revealed when a browser visits a Web site. Increased attention has come around how Internet advertisers target ads to users and how they handle personal information.

Even this blog has Google ads. Check on top right corner of this page. Well, if you click that ad, I get paid. According to Google's terms and conditions, I am not supposed to directly ask the visitors to click those. But by now you must have guessed that I want you to click those. I really can't ask you. So, understand my position and do whatever needed (whatever I need). Huh, screw Google.

Snippets:

• Nintendo's upcoming Mario Kart Wii features 16 new courses, four control options.
• Intel CEO Paul Otellini defended the company's business practices at a two-day antitrust hearing in Brussels.
• Changes in software and computing over the next 10 years will affect all facets of life, says Bill Gates.
• Nintendo says errors encountered by some Wii owners playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl are linked to dirty DVD drive lenses.
• ZapMedia is suing Apple for "recklessly" infringing on its digital media distribution patents.
• The next-generation version of Windows (code name Windows 7) will face an antitrust review by U.S. regulators.
• Microsoft adds to its virtualization tool kit with the acquisition of software developer Kidaro.
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has started shipping triple-core Phenom processors.

• Mozilla's Firefox 3.0 is dramatically faster than its predecessor and rivals, benchmark tests claim.

P.S.
I was very very bored and out of the boredom have written a very very lengthy blog.

Security updates from MS

Security updates from Microsoft:
Microsoft released security updates exclusively for MS-Office this Tuesday. These include a fix for the bug in Excel that was being exploited by attackers ever since the related virus code was posted on net. There were four security updates released for Excel, Outlook, Office 2000 and Office's web. Although MS releases security patches for Windows or Internet Explorer every month, the recent updates are considered special as they exclusively focus on Office. Between 2006 and 2007, the number of attacks on Office were doubled. Malicious entities are looking toward Office as a vector for delivering malicious code.

The trust that business organizations had in MS is in decline these days. Considering the fact that Bill Gates is stepping down in June this year, these are tough times for Microsoft.

Say yes to wide screen displays:
A study found that wide screen displays boost employee productivity and achieve a production gains of 76 extra work days a year per worker. The study also found out that wide screen displays realize an annual cost savings of around $8500 per staff member working on an annual salary of around $32500. Other interesting findings are:-

1. Large wide screen or dual-monitor configurations are better suited for work that involves multiple documents or applications.

2. 24-inch wide screen displays are better suited for text editing than both single standard format (17-inch and 19-inch) and dual standard format (17-inch and 19-inch) monitor configurations.

3. Dual-wide screen configurations in 22-inches or larger are better for spreadsheet editing than single wide screen or standard format displays.

If my employers listen to this and give me a 24-inch screen, then I can chat and blog from a dual monitor configurated screen.
[See point 1. Blogging and Chatting come under multiple applications;)]

Ah, I'd love that.

Companies ban social networking sites:
A survey condusted in UK found that nearly 20% of UK companies have blocked social networking sites like Orkut, Myspace, Facebook, etc due to various reasons. These reasons include reduction in employee productivity and malware. These sites accounted for nearly 47% of usage of employee work time and companies feel that they are reducing the concentration and work levels of their employees.

The survey also found that the usage of Gmail increased (this may be attributed to the cracked CAPTCHA of Gmail). But still Yahoo leads the way with 90% of spam generated from its accounts.

I was just wondering if the companies can allow social networking sites as well as install 24-inch screens. Social networking sites decrease productivity and wide screens increase productivity. It all evens out in the end (w.r.f this topic and the above one). My little grey cells must have been excited up there today.

Snippets:

• SanDisk introduced Sansa Fuze MP3 player, a competitor to iPod Nano.
• Microsoft to introduce 60GB XBox360 instead of the current 20GB model, by the end of June.
• Sluggish sales prompt Wal-Mart to remove $199 gPC (a Linux based PC) from its shelves.
• Security researchers say that a previously patched IE 6 bug can still be exploited (Ah!! bugs, bugs and bugs from Windows. Sometimes I wonder whether MS develops software or bugs)
  
• Hackers claim that they unlocked the Apple iPhone 2.0 software.
• Younger online shoppers are more likely to fall for scams and identity theft.
• Mozilla releases Firefox 3 Beta 4.
• A warning is issued that some security access cards that use RFID technology are vulenarble to hack attacks. RFID-Hack Hits 1 Billion Digital Access Cards Worldwide.

500 GB USB now!!!

Buffalo unveils 500 GB portable drive:
Buffalo Technology introduced a 500GB version of its MiniStation TurboUSB hard disk drive. The 500GB model joins other systems in the MiniStation TurboUSB line and costs US$329. The device features a plastic chassis equipped with shock resistant technology. The drive connects to a host Mac or PC using USB 2.0 and 1.1. The USB cable is built into the drive and wraps around the outside for easy storage. Inside is a 5400 RPM mechanism connected via a USB to SATA bridge. The drive measures 5 x 0.8 x 3.3 inches and weighs 0.42 lbs. It's powered over the USB interface. Software is included, but it's Windows-only. Regardless, the drive is Mac-compatible.

European Union approves Google-DoubleClick deal:
European Union approved Google-DoubleClick merger. After Microsoft failed to make a deal with Yahoo recently, this deal might thwart Microsoft's bid for Internet supremacy. In a statement released, European Commission rules that the Google-DoubleClick merger is unlikely to harm consumers in ad serving or online advertising intermediation markets.The E.U.'s competition regulator reached its decision after a four-month in-depth investigation of the US$3.1 billion merger, which received the approval of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in December.

A merger of Google and DoubleClick will not hurt competition because the companies are not competitors, the Commission said. The Commission also examined the risk of Google tying sales of its services to use of those of DoubleClick, or vice versa, to boost revenue. However, it concluded that Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL present sufficiently strong market alternatives that a merged Google-DoubleClick would be unable to exploit the link in that way.

BlackBerry Servers Ripe for the Hacking:
A penetration testing consultancy NTA Monitor has found that many companies running BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) with Microsoft Exchange were taking the path of least resistance by opening unencrypted ports from the heart of their network to service providers. The providers, in turn, opened a return back to the BES that would pass through firewalls without any policies being applied. This left the network open on several levels, including session hijacking, IP spoofing, or just the interception of unencrypted traffic.

"A hacker could potentially use this back channel to move around inside an organization undetected, removing confidential information or installing malware on to the network," said Roy Hills, NTA's technical director. The company recommends implementing a BES in a demilitarized zone (DMZ), which would isolate attacks against the sever from the wider network to fight back the security flaw. However, this added complexity, and added complexity added expense. So, companies now have to choose the combination between expenses and the security that provides the best possible results.

Snippets:

• Apple Updates Radeon HD 2600 XT Firmware
• Symantec's new Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection protects Mac OS and
  Windows partitions on Macs running Boot Camp.
• eMusic, the world's second largest music service after iTunes, announced Monday that its catalog now contains more than 3.5 million tracks.
• Verizon Business plans to start deploying a 100Gbps network over its major routes at the start of 2009.
• Microsoft and Sun expand their collaboration.
• Toast 9 Features Blu-Ray Video Streaming.