Europe's answer to ThinkGeek

Finally!

Over the past year or so, since when I decided to actually sign up for a ThinkGeek account instead of just drooling over the product pages, I've been, yes, drooling over the product pages and filling a wishlist full of items which amounts to at least $927.04¢ USD. Which is currently about half that in GBP.

Then, added to the dodginess of importing it from the US (and with some items not even being legally shippable outside the States) added to the taxes added at government-level, plus the extra shipping costs added at merchant-level, it's not really ideal unless you have a friend in the States who'll take care of your order and send it on to you as a Gift (apparently this makes it easier to get through customs, or cheaper, or something like that).

Enter one Nerdorama. The ThinkGeek of the EU. It's based in Dutchland (which is what I always call 'Holland' when I can't remember that things that are Dutch come from Holland) and due to one thing and another, you pay no extra taxes (except of course the murderous VAT) on your order.

The site was recently Slashdotted, so I guess it's been initiated into the world of Geek acception.

I'll add the equivalent items from ThinkGeek to my Nerdorama wishlist/basket, and let you know how I get on price-wise.

And again on the germs of the Internet...

I don't know why I let myself get bothered by all this, it's not as if it's a problem for me.

But, I just received an e-mail, apparently from the folks at NatWest, a UK bank. A UK bank of which I am not a member, by the way. But of course, it's not really from the bank. The way this one works is a bit of social engineering mixed in with, I guess, a phishing bug. The entire e-mail is just one image file, so text filters cannot rule it out as spam or another form of e-mail nasty. It also tricks you (or at least, tries to trick you) into thinking that it is genuine, by providing the official URL for the bank's login page (The same scam is affecting all major UK banks - they all have their personalised scam-mails). So you can safely click that link and not be caught by a browser phishing bug.

Except you can't - it's all an image remember. That blue, underlined text, isn't actually a link. It's just a series of pixels on a GIF image. The actual image is linked to a page on some obscure IP address, whereupon you will happily inform 'Your Bank' of your credit card number, account number, and other such wonderful details.

By the way: It's not very likely that any competent bank (or any sort of corporation at all, really) will require you to give your details after a software upgrade. And even if such a case did occur, it would likely be done in person, or over the phone.

I'm not ranting, unless I'm ranting about the stupidity of people to actually believe this kind of thing as genuine, in which case I am. But given the (reproduced, below) text of this e-mail - would you trust any kind of corporation with your business, after receiving such infantile non-English?

Message text follows:

Dear client of the National Westminster Bank,

As the Technical service of bank have been currently updating the software, we kindly ask you to follow the link given below to confirm your data, otherwise your access to the system may be blocked.

[Link to login page]

We are grateful for your cooperation.

Administration of the National Westminster Bank Bank

*** Please do not reply

I'm tempted to say that this is just Natural Selection at work, but that's just crass.

You n00b! Why don't you...

...install a firewall
...install antivirus
...install system patches
...install service packs
...install a better browser?

Now, before, I'd more or less assumed this to be an easy, yet mundane task to do.
Get a firewall; antivirus. Keep them updated. Fine. When I ran Windows, I did. I also, occasionally, reluctantly visited WindowsUpdate too. And of course, for the past two years or more, I've been using Opera Software's flagship browser as a replacement for the monstrosity that is Internet Explorer.

Today, I managed to get a hard drive, clunk it in my spare machine, and install a variant of Windows on it, as has been necessary to develop games for it, which is to be a small hobby side-project for me, but more on that later. I opted for Windows ME, because there doesn't seem to be as much activity surrounding it on the Virus 'scene' anymore - it's all focussed on XP (XP is built on the technology that ME and its home-OS predecessors weren't - NT, and as far as I can make out, this is where Microsoft want to go in the future of their operating systems; Longhorn, et al - plus apparently, XP is statistically, the most-widely used operating system, worldwide).

However my version of ME is OEM, thrown together on a strange and obscure bootable archive CD package-format kind of setup, which is bust. Thus that idea went straight out the Window.

So I dragged out my XP disc, and with a sigh, reluctantly installed it. When I eventually got the disc up to the task of doing its job, it had installed by 11:10PM. And it's now 1:10AM. During the two hour period, I have barely had the chance, using dialup (for complicated reasons involving my dynamically assigned broadband IP address, my favouring to serve my main machine and the fact that the spare Windows machine is hardly going to be online), to download and install my anti-virus of choice, download and install my firewall of choice, and download and install a decent browser. I've also barely had chance to download updates for the former of these programs, and run a scan on my brand new installation.

And by the way, in only two hours of low-level online activity (read: Downloading anti-virus and firewall software), my new installation of Microsoft Windows XP has at least seven viruses. Now, seven is not all that much, you may argue. But that is the lax way of thinking Microsoft likes its customers to take. I've had my Linux box installed for.. *checks*...16 days, 6 hours and 15 minutes.* And I trust it enough to run it, comparably, 'unprotected'.

* This is actually the time elapsed since my last reboot. And I downgraded from a newer Linux release quite some time ago. I've probably been running Linux on this machine 'unprotected' for a month or more, before which time I casually hopped between running it partitioned as a dual-boot OS with XP.

Fact is, had I just left the machine online and ignored its existence, it would just happily download all these viruses without need for me to do anything, anyway. Wouldn't it?

No, actually. Not since Sasser manages to sprawl onto your fresh, unprotected XP box after no more than 30 seconds of online activity, shutting down your machine as it pleases.

But given that it's taken me, who knows what the hell he's doing; knows where to find a good, free firewall, and likewise antivirus, at least two hours to protect my machine, is it really any wonder at all that there are so many clueless newbies out there who infuriatingly, run their machines without a firewall, without an antivirus setup, happily surfing the Internet Explorer wave of destruction, doom and death?

You n00b! Why don't you install Linux?

Warning! Best Displayed With...

I've just been casually surfing random sites in Google, and found one that presented me with the following message; Oh, and I'm running on Linux without the Codeweavers' IE Plugin, and whatsmore I'm set on using Opera for 100% of my surfing, anyway. The checks behind the message were totally crass.

Click to enlarge

For YEARS there have been stupid Webmasters who design for the majority of web browsers first, rather than developing for the standards with which we're all supposed to comply, but that's not the issue here. Partly the reason people do this is because obviously they know their trade, and they know that the majority own x-browser, but usually because they're amateurs (at that) and x-browser (IE) is pre-installed on their machine.

In this case, the site displayed a small message on its homepage, it didn't restrict access if it didn't detect Mozilla Firefox, like some other sites have done for IE in the past (even when the alternative browsers WOULD work, but the webmasters refuse to test their site in those browsers even when they're free to obtain. [With the only acceptable exception being Netscape. Hell.]). So it wasn't all that bad.

But does this mean Firefox is now well on its way to becoming the Majority? I read somewhere that Microsoft are even considering whether or not to discontinue development of IE further, (even patches? Sounds like they're throwing in the towel) and word of mouth is a powerful thing. I wouldn't be surprised if, long by Longhorn's release (whenever it's going to be now), Firefox pwns the browser market.

And I'm saying that as somone who thinks Opera is better.

---

Update: 28th Sep 2004:
I've now officially used Firefox for a decent chunk of browsing - after having it replace IE on the XP machine I installed yesterday, and I like it. It has true potential to totally 0wn the browser market, and I wish it good luck, and enjoy using it. BUT, and this is nothing against Firefox, it still r0x0rs as it is, I still prefer the environment that Opera gives me. It's like comparing a sandwich with a three-course meal. I'm hungry for all the extras like native RSS compatibility and e-mail reading. Plus, could I ever give up Mouse Gestures and quick Google searching with the 'G' key?

Hitchhikers: Tertiary Phase

I've just heard a trailer for the Hitchhiker's Guide Tertiary Phase on the BBC site, via Slashdot - and Hell. The sound. The thing about HHGG is, it always had a kind of low-budgety-but-still-great-besides-y feel to it, but now... It's like the audio production of Terry Pratchett's Mort in terms of sheer professional sound.


Marvin: Think of a number... Any number.
...?: Uhm.. Five.
Marvin: Wrong.


The trailer is around 4:10 minutes long and I could've sworn they used old clips of Peter Jones' voice as the book on it. [The initial 'This is the story... is an old clip of Peter Jones. I know that bit is.] William Franklyn may have been Peter Jones' friend, but was he also his audio clone? It's sad though, because at the end of the trailer, it seems they used the original theme music and apparently the original annoucer (these BBC announcer types - they all sound the same), and you expect him to say...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... By Douglas Adams.
[pause]
...Starring Peter Jones, as the book.


But of course, he doesn't say that second bit.

Going by the professional sound of just the trailer, the new HHGG (Read: Tertiary Phase, Movie) is going to get all those interested who previously, having saw the TV series or heard the radio series laughed and thought, 'You're kidding me, aren't you?'. I myself like the old sound and feel, but the few people who may've been easy to enlist into the HHGG appreciation cult, never had it catch onto them; Probably because of that less-than-allstar-hollywood feel.

And although I am looking forward to the new breed of Hitchhiker-ness [Given also that I haven't read the books from the Tertiary Phase yet], having the Show Go On without the active input from Douglas Adams and Peter Jones seems so disrespectful... Even though, perhaps this extra radio series, certainly the movie (!) would be something of a great, eventual 'Oh, finally!' achievement to Douglas, going by what I know.

PHP with AIM...

How have I not come across this yet?
http://phptoclib.sf.net

The stuff that would certainly power Pandorabots, if it used PHP. Perhaps I'll create a web-UI for AIM. Maybe. Given the time once all the major projects are out of the way. I should also probably put links down the side to important PHP stuff like this. The Google API PHP Class included. I'll do it later.

And now, I must stop blogging for a bit. I think I've established that I'm actively using this blog, so... I can cool off. I'm blogging an average of 2.5 posts a day. :-| You'd think I had something interesting to blog about!

I dunno...

Do I want this...


Click for specs

...or this...


Click for specs

The latter is sweet, but I still think the Ripdrive is better for its non-conformity to the current trend of Apple-ism - the 'sleek silvery roundy glossy' look. Or, in the case of the iPod, the sleek, white 'iMilk' look.

But it is around the same price as the Ripdrive, has about the same specs as the Ripdrive (20GB model) and the S/N is listed as 1dB higher than some reviews list that of the Ripdrive's. (Like I'm going to reach 97dB!) But the Ripdrive has a huge screen (it accounts for most of its large body) and thus a display clear enough to display text files. E-books, anyone?

If somebody has £~500, I'll gladly review both. ;-)

Random geek thought

Just installed the Modplug plugin for XMMS - as opposed to using MikMod - and hell, can you tell the difference.

MikMod is good I guess, but it just doesn't always get it right. If I could be bothered, I'd record the output of both XMMS plugins and analyse the differences, but I cannot. Modplug is probably the greatest tracking engine ever created anyway - if your MODs don't sound right in Modplug, start again.

Pity all you can get from Modplug for Linux is the player/engine. There have been extensive threads over in the Modplug forums, but it seems to be too difficult to port it to Linux (or indeed any other OS). Wine doesn't seem to like Modplug VST very well. It runs, but then it stops for breath.

Soundtracker is decent, but supports only MOD and IT files. Apart from that, there doesn't seem to be many worthy trackers for Linux. Ample players (You need only the one. See above), but not enough decent creation tools for the job.

Anyway, that's all. If anyone knows of a decent Jukebox/Library/Cataloguing system for XMMS and/or a decent Linux tracker, pass the link(s) on if you'd be so kind.

Necessary Reading:
If you've no idea what a MOD file even is, these would be a good start:
www.modarchive.com
www.modplug.com
Trackers' Handbook highly recommended, if you're going to start tracking

Showing off

So here's the Obligatory Here's What My Desktop Looks Like post.

I purposefully haven't tried to hide my IP address & hostname because that's pointless, since I host a server for generic things there anyway.

Yes, it's grey and silvery, and the Kicker ('Taskbar' to you native Windows types. I dunno what the hell Gnome people call it.) isn't transparent because my machine isn't a Mac, and what a Linux box isn't, is a Mac. Not that a Linux box can't be dressed up like a Mac. It can. But I digress.


Click to enlarge

News on the blog coding front:

Little crisis over with now, so quickly I couldn't even blog it. And the only person affected by this right now at this stage besides myself, I told about in IM anyway. But for some reason, a backup CD I made in the migration between operating systems decided not to work. It may have something to do with the 2.4 kernel, because in another distro, the CD worked fine, and that uses the newer kernel*. Certainly wasn't a device problem, or a KDE problem - I tried the disc in several of my spare drives on the same machine, and under different WMs.

* It may be worthy of note that I downgraded from a newer distribution of Linux to an older one.

But before this story gets too long you lose interest and/or are disappointed by the boring outcome, here is how I fixed it: My ISP gives you 30MB of FTP space to host a website on their servers, and there is a machine which runs Windows ME in the other room (Which isn't mine, else it would not run Windows.)**

So that's how.

30MB isn't that much though, especially if you want to backup two CDs worth of stuff. Not even file archiving and compression can help there. If I want to retrieve the whole 1.4Gb I've lost since two backup CDs won't run on this machine, I'm going to either upload zips of a few directories at a time, then download them with my machine, or wait until I can afford to buy this fantastic beauty of a machine...


Click for specs

...and use that as an external hard drive. Same goes for restoring my music collection, as half of that is on one of the phux0red discs. Gah!

** Also, the fact that the CD worked on Windows is not a testament to its superiority. Far from it. It was just another OS which the CD happened to work on. It worked on my DVD player, too. And of course it worked on Linux - just not my Linux. The reason it didn't work, I put down to an error message that came up in burning the disc, suggesting that not all filesystems will work with the structure of the disc. Something about dirtrees being too deep. I blame Roxio. Never use their software if you can help it at all.

Anyway. The important stuff has been salvaged. All the code in the progress of the blogging update is on my machine, as is a fairly recent version of PHP, MySQL, Apache and the essential phpMyAdmin. Now work can continue...

Uh, I'll do it in a minute.

Starting up again

This is just a post to signify the recommencing of activity - for anybody who stumbles across this page and who is interested, things have been going slowly, mostly owing to my ability to procrastinate and just jump into Unreal Tournament. I've now gone 100% Linux, as I've been wanting to do for quite a while now - I don't even have a dualboot with Windows, so there's no way I can play UT as opposed to doing some bloody work. (I lie, I could use Wine, or download the Linux demo, but I need to get in the frame of mind to work and get something done.)

So, being in a 100% Linux environment now means I have easy integration to the eventual server from the devserver, and have no distractions (Tuxracer runs a bit choppy on my machine. Probably a drivers issue, but that's nothing I'm prepared to chase up right now).

Seeing as though Natali has forced me to start using this again, I suppose I should start to blog things. So, from the next post on, this will become a kind of temp blog aswell as a research thing.