Category: Technology


New Years

When I was eight, Prince released 1999. This song suggested New Years Eve 1999 was going to be something for the story books. We would usher in a new century, and in the process, we would send off the previous one with a party unparalleled. I was (to quote Paul Simon) “born at the right time” — when 1999 rolled around I’d just be hitting my mid-twenties.

In the eighth grade I decided that I wanted to be an engineer. Initially, I thought chemical engineer, but after I discovered computers it quickly changed to computer engineer. In college I got hooked on programming and networking. It became clear I wasn’t going to be mucking about with circuit level design — Unix, routers, and programming was the life for me.

This proved to be a fateful decision. … Read More »

– Jamie @ 1:11 PM on Dec 31, 2008

Apple’s Coming Around

Way back in 2006, I wrote (here and here) about Apple’s stance on viruses for the Mac.

It seems they are starting to come around.

Update:

I guess I spoke too soon. It appears Apple has pulled the tech note. They also released this statement:

The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.

– Jamie @ 6:57 AM on Dec 2, 2008
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Wii!

So Ali and I bought a Wii a few weeks ago — this thing is absolutely amazing! It comes with Wii Sports, which has golf, bowling, tennis, boxing, and baseball.

So if you haven’t heard, the thing works via natural movement using an accelerometer and motion sensors. When playing sports, you actually perform the movement you would just as if it were real. This last sentence just popped a reference to War Games into my head:

David: Is it a game… or is it real?
Joshua: What’s the difference?
David: Oh wow.

This dialog is very apropos. With the Wii, what is the difference?

One of the biggest benefits of the natural motion thing is that Ali is on a somewhat level playing field with me. In the past she has shunned games because she isn’t very good at them. … Read More »

– Jamie @ 10:08 AM on Aug 17, 2007

Back / Forward

One of the browsing habits I’ve formed over the years is using the right-click (or context) menu for back and forward navigation, i.e. to return to the previous page I was on. I’ve found this to be fairly efficient; I don’t have to care where my mouse points is — I just right click, and then click ‘Back’.

I switched to Firefox a couple of years ago, and I’ve been really happy, except … There are certain times when the ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ options disappear from the context menu. The biggest annoyance is when text is selected on a page they get removed. I would often go to a page; using find to search for text on the page; get what I need; then try to right-click to go back only to find the option was gone. … Read More »

– Jamie @ 7:45 AM on Aug 17, 2007

Apple Vulnerabilities

I ran across an interesting article on ZD Net talking about the month of Apple bugs (MOAB). Some interesting bits were “Apple’s 2007 patch count is an eye-opener. Seven updates, 62 vulnerabilities.” and “in Apple’s public bulletins, the company is making it clear that many of the MOKB/MOAB flaws were “high risk” issues that could lead to arbitrary code execution attacks. Very serious issues.”

In my previous posts on Apple here and here I posited, “a likely reason there aren’t viruses circulating for Macs is due to the lack market share. It’s certainly not that they are invulnerable; it’s just that no one is motivated to fool with the platform.” The MOAB proved this true showing that a couple of security researchers were able to turn up a lot of vulnerabilities in just a month, many of which were … Read More »

– Jamie @ 7:10 AM on Mar 21, 2007