Phoenix + XFT Good site with builds of Phoenix compiled with Anti-aliased Font Support, as well as instructions on how to build it yourself, if you don't use RH8 (the binaries for linux require libc 2.3.x). Windows/Mac also available.

MT 2.51 Release Saw on movable blog today that MT has released version 2.51. Mostly bug fixes, but a couple of new features as well.

AmphetaDesk News Feeds AmphetaDesk is a nifty perl program (mac/win/linux) that will grab your favorite blogs, newsfeeds, or whatever, and create a nice page for you locally to look at.

From the site:

AmphetaDesk is a free, cross platform, open-sourced, syndicated news aggregator - it obediently sits on your desktop, downloads the latest news that interests you, and displays them in a quick and easy to use (and customizable!) webpage.

Quotage In my travels I found some Voyager Fanfic Quotes that are amusing.

E-Card Trojans This securityfocus story shows one more reason why you should use a browser that is non-activeX. There's a nice (and authentic-looking) trojan that poses as an e-card greeting requiring you to install a greeting card plugin that feeds porn ads to you.

The e-card porn Trojan is the latest advancement in an industry known for pushing the envelope.

Galeon 2 Install Instructions I know there was a post about this not long ago, but Marco has posted complete instructions on how to get galeon 2 going from start to finish. Good stuff!

Quotes from the Prez The Very Curious Language of George W. Bush. Oh wow...

Mr. Cranky Reviews "Punch Drunk Love" As always, his review is just about right. My thoughts exactly.

Did I use "Sandler" and "act" in the same sentence?

But you really have to read it for yourself to get the full impact

Reminder Apparently it's the end of daylight savings time (or is it the start?) Either way your clocks should now be set an hour back, where applicable, except in Newfoundland, where you'll set them back 38.5 minutes :)

Xandros Review A very cool review from a guy on our LUG list. Robert has been under NDA until now, but since Xandros has shpped, he has some tantilizing tidbits on this new distro, some very very cool. The highlights:

• resize NTFS and FAT during install
• switch user function
• crossover plugin and office fully integrated
• auto lilo config on install of another os/distro
• putting in an office cd and the autorun works

Read his full review here.

Galeon 1.3 Marco has put a tarball of Galeon 1.3 up on ufies. This is the first unstable release of Galeon 2 (the gnome2/gtk2 version). Anyone who is on the galeon-devel list knows there's been a lot of heated discussion about the direction that galeon2 and gnome2 are going, but I encourage everyone to download and check this out, and see what you think. Marco writes "You will need gnome 2 libraries and a patched gtk2 mozilla.The instructions to compile mozilla are in the INSTALL file inside the package."

PS/2 For Dubbya The campaign to Buy Bush a PlayStation 2 is about a third of the way there! The scary thing is that the reasoning behind it is pretty sound.

For those who have served JD threw up something for those who have been, or are in, the military.. head here to read it.

Best 404 Ever! I agree with /usr/bin/girl, no one should spend this much time on a 404... glad they did though!

How to Kill MSN Messanger This post tells you how to get rid of MSN "lets just shove it down their throats" Messanger, and how to prevent it from loading automatically. I love flipping bill the bird.

Programming is like... My buddy Brad was good enough to forward a great post from alt.humor.best-of-usenet on how programming is like sex. Read on for more...

"Rick C"  wrote in message news:...
> "Khorne"  wrote
> > Tragicznego dnia Sat, 19 Oct 2002 06:06:57 GMT, someone4you@wowmail.com
> > rozwar�[a] paszcz� i wykadzi�[a]:
>
> > We, programmers are not interested in sex, don't you know?
> 
> Bite your tongue!

Actually I always thought that programming was quite similar to sex.
The first time you do it you have no idea what you're doing. It seems
like men think about it more than women. Doing it in a large group
makes things far too complicated, since no person will know exactly
where their part is supposed to fit, though some people claim that
it'll give you better results. Doing it by yourself is what most
students end up doing. It will take a lifetime to master it. There's
no one right way to do it, but a number of wrong ways. People who have
never tried it think that those of us who practice it daily are
deviants. It's fun. It takes a lot of energy. It can keep you up late
at night. It can make you miss classes. Do it too long and you'll go
blind. Finally, once you get it on your mind, it's hard to concentrate
on anything else.

Tron20.net Silv threw up a link to tron20.net, a very funky site for the new Tron game/movie.... very hax0rish, very cool, all flash :) Check 'er out and let us know what you think!

Linux Game Programming Book Available Online According to a /. article the entire text of Loki's book Programming Linux Games is available online in pdf and LaTeX format.

Sniper Tips [fark] A gem from fark, in poor taste of course, and I'm sorry for that, but it is funny/ironic: [Ironic] Tips to prevent you from being a sniper target (but exposing you to every other crime).

The Turing Tarpit The One, The Only... TURING TAR PIT!

This is the dying place of strange, unusual, and strange and unusual computer languages.

Additional link from Cuv: The Quines List: a collection of self-replicating programs.

O.J. No longer "100% sure" of his innocence Oh man do I hope that this article is a fake, and it's really April 1^st again.... Thanks to tig for the link.

Red Dwarf DVD News Yay! Some more details on the Red Dwarf Season 1 DVD are in! Sure, it's just the box cover art, but it's something other than "wait a little while longer for news please" :)

Debian Unstable Libc6 Upgrade To anyone who runs debian, beware, unstable just upgraded to libc6 2.3.1-2, which causes some problems with at least one package that I know of, that being php, which prevents apache from loading.

To reverse this, go to /var/cache/apt/archives and look for libc6-dev_2.2.5-*, libc6_2.2.5-* and locales_2.2.5-*, and do a dpkg -i on them, then restart apache and all should be good again.

Thanks to the guys in #debian for pointing me in the direction to fix this. Sadly this shows the downside of debian.... to get the new stuff, you gotta be in unstable, but in unstable, you run the risk of being bitten if you don't pay attention :)

Cool Blog Format of the Week [foz] chicks-dig-unix.net has a very different, and cool, format that's just not seen every day in the age of blogs. The question of whether it should have been done or not is still in the air. Thanks foz for the link.

GPL Blogging Advogata has a good article on the search for GPL Blog Engines. Personally I'm quite happy with Movable Type, and don't really care about the whole "not really free as in speech" thing... IMHO, it works, if it does break the code is there and I can fix it, and that's all I'm really concerned about.

Hunting Season [staticred] Good commentary over at screamingmedget.com on the state of the world, entitled Hunting Season

Feeny the cat And you thought I was wierd for having a cat page on my website, Feeny has a whole domain to himself! There's a question and answer, photos, and a journal.

A 40MPG SUV Say it ain't so! The technology exists to do such a radical thing, but auto-makers are pretty slow to do anything about it. Why Not a 40-MPG SUV? examines this issue in a bit more detail. What do ya'll think?

More Anti-Spamming FAQ: Teergrubing against Spam

What does a UBE sender really need? What does he sell?
A certain amount of sent E-Mails per minute. This product is called Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail.

How can anyone hit an UBE sender?
By destroying his working tools.

Open Letter to Ballmer OSNews has a link to an article with an open letter to Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from Micheal Robertson of lindows.

Legit uses for Kazaa There is a story about how an independant file studio is using kazaa instead of suing it (gosh, what a concept eh?). They are releasing trailers onto the network despite the fact that some of their shows are traded illegally through kazaa.

Anti-Telemarketter Script [fark] Someone has gone and created a very cool (and amusing) anti-telemarketter script. I can't say I'm anxious for them to call now, but I wouldn't mind trying it out sometime!

Perl-fu Stuff like this make me realize how far I have to go as a perl programmer. "Wow"

Compiler Flags ... and from the same site as the last link, a good run down on which compiler flags to use when optimizing a linux source distro such as gentoo (or even just compiling any program I suppose).

QT vs. MFC Programming Phil, of freehackers.org has written a nice article on his experiences with programming in MFC vs Qt. A bit biased of course, coming from a site devoted to QT and KDE programs, but interesting nontheless.

Be Stupid for a Day From Kasia's blog: You can't expect me to be brilliant all the time.

I think we should all do that. Everyone who can sympathize with this issue, I call on you, be stupid for a day. For what purpose? Who cares, but it should at least make you feel a bit better next time you're expected to give a brilliant answer in under 5 minutes to a question you have no time to research.

What Platform to use for a MySQL server Jeremy Zawodny's blog has a good little writeup entitled FreeBSD or Linux for your MySQL Server? A good read.

Quake 3 Point Release Released I see on the shack that the Quake 3 1.32 point relase (29mb) is out. Mostly a bugfix release it looks like, but hopefully now games like UT will be able to release their new versions.

Rubber ducky, where did you go wrong? This is a rejected LOTD, sent with the following info:

You won't believe it until you see it! Rubber ducky's still the one, who makes bath time lots of fun -- especially now that he's a vibrator....

See him here.

Beware! Beware when driving through puddles. Think about this poor Suzuki. Thanks Fred.

The Door Server The Door Server, another useless use for a cuecat and perl. Via the post on perlmonks.

SliMP3 Review on Tomshardware Tom's Hardware has a nifty review of the SliMP3, a very cool hardware mp3 player unit that sucks music via ethernet from your collection. The unit itself is tiny, and well, "slim" :) If anyone's buying for my birthday, I'd sure love one of these!

Cool person test Not sure there's much to say about the cool person test. Thanks raskal for the link!

VB Love Did I say "love"? Damn, I meant "loath"! Thanks to Brad for passing on an article on Thirteen Ways to Loathe VB.

Corporate Lessons The following was sent to me by Fred, of tdiclub.com.... read on for some morning giggles. Corporate lesson 1

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings. After a few seconds of arguing over which one should go and answer the doorbell, the wife gives up, quickly wraps herself up in a towel and runs downstairs.

When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbour. Before she says a word, Bob says,"I'll give you 800 dollars to drop that towel that you have on." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her 800 dollars and leaves.

Confused, but excited about her good fortune, the woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets back to the bathroom, her husband asks from the shower, "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbour," she replies. "Great," the husband says, "did he say anything about the 800 dollars he owes me?"

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk in time with your stakeholders, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

---

Corporate lesson 2

A priest was driving along and saw a nun on the side of the road, he stopped and offered her a lift which she accepted. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to open and reveal a lovely leg. The priest had a look and nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealth fully slid his hand up her leg. The nun looked at him and immediately said, "Father,remember psalm 129?"

The priest was flustered and apologized profusely. He forced himself to remove his hand. However, he was unable to remove his eyes from her leg. Further on while changing gear, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, "Father, remember psalm 129?" Once again the priest apologized. "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the nun got out gave him a meaningful glance and went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to retrieve a bible and looked up psalm 129. It Said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story:
Always be well informed in your job, or you might miss a great opportunity!

---

Corporate Lesson 3

A sales rep, an administration clerk and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke.

The Genie says, "I usually only grant three wishes, so I'll give each of you just one."

"Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Poof! She's gone. In astonishment, "Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of pina coladas and the love of my life." Poof! He's gone.

"OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of story:
Always let your boss have the first say

Purdy Ooooohhhhh..... nice moon shot.... photoshop enhanced, but still purdy!

Porn Dialers From the reg: Porn diallers and Trojans - the new face of malicious code.