3D NMap Very cool.... Scanmap3D is a java program that displays nmap information in a 3d format. The screenshots look pretty nifty. Also check out nmap3d which is I assume, a similar program (though no screenshots so I can't assert it's niftyness).

NewMonster Now Free Very cool. Just saw on blogzilla that NewsMonster, a news aggregator for mozilla (built into the sidebar) which used to be a for-fee project is now free! Go on and download it now and check it out.

Visual Studio .Net 2004 Screenshots Wow, lots of MS stuff here today, I must be coming down with something :) Anyway, here are some VS.net 2004 screenshots found over at Dylan Greene's blog. This is from the next version of Visual Studio .NET 2004, or at least, that's the rumor.

Some of the stuff looks nifty, some is pretty obvious. I don't develop under windows though, so they don't excite me a whole lot. I know some do though, so chime in to what you think.

Gas Price Investigation A company did some research into gas price jumps and discovered some interesting things. Course, I haven't had time to read the full article yet, but I'm sure it's good :) Linked from LMB.

How to Tell if You've Grown Up 25 signs you've "grown up" makes me realize just how much I wish I hadn't :) My favorite is of course:

18. You realize that you will never have as many dogs or cats in your life that you want.

More stuff here.

Longhorn Screenshots Over at NeoWin.net there are some leaked screenshots from Longhorn PDC Build 4051. It doesn't look any cleaner than before, but it does look different. Of course, that said, the release is more than two years away (at least), so I'm sure that these have as much relevance as the early leaked shots from WindowsXP. This was linked from a story on the register regarding whether this leak is just another way to get hyped about Longhorn early. Anyone remember the two years or so leading up to Windows 95?

Sucking Up to Microsoft Marc has a funny post on how to suck up to Microsoft.

Linux Enhanced SMB Sharing I haven't heard of Linux Enhanced SMBFS (CIFS) before, but it looks pretty cool. It's an alternative to NFS as a networked filesystem. Basically it works to remove some of the limitations that SMB has (lack of understanding users and perms properly for example).

SMBFS allows Linux to mount a remote SMB share but until now it did not act like a UNIX file system, even if the remote host was Samba running on a UNIX or Linux machine.

GTK2 Version of XMMS == Beep Someone has done a port of the much loved xmms (or "winamp for that linux thing" for those who don't know), and calle dit Beep. Looks pretty funky. Because it's running under GTK2 it has access to all the anti-aliasing, font smoothing, and other nifty things that GTK2 provides.

Office 2003 Pricing Hmm.... should I spend $400+ on Office 2003 or download Openoffice for free. Oh the agnoizing decisions!

Doom 3 Preview There is a Doom 3 Preview over at Computers and Video Games daut calm. Sounds pretty nice. One of the features they talk about is per-polygon hit detection, which means that now you have to actually aim, lest a shot goes through someone's legs, or under their arm. Cooool. Thanks sCary.

Cartoons For a Monday A couple of things that made me laugh my ass off this morning. The first is of course, our own userfriendly (to explain a bit further you have to read at least this previous strip from the current storyline). The next (and I know it's blasphemy) is todays Penny Arcade.

Working with a bunch of mac-heads just drives this one home for me :) Well, that and waiting in eager anticipation of the new 15" powerbook which is coming any day now, yup, it's ordered, requests have gone through... honest, it's coming.... really soon now....

Microsoft Advice on Music Services This Q&A Choosing a Digital Music Service for Windows Users has to be the funniest thing I've read all day. Basically MS dude is bashing iTunes and AAC because "windows users like choice" and goes on to say that (basically) it's crap because it doesn't play WMA, because WMA is the best because it's on WIndows Media Player 9, and it's the best.

Hmm.... first of all, he's incorrect on a couple of counts. iTunes will play mp3 and AAC files from anywhere that happens to distribute them in that form. Right now there aren't any (?) music stores using AAC except for the iTunes music store, but there are some dealing with MP3. iTunes doesn't play WMA, Microsoft's propriatory music format, it plays AAC, Apple's propriatory music format. Big shock.

Big shock, Microsoft is advocating a music format that only plays in their propriatory music player (WMP9) (or devices that have licensed the technology from them) and not Apple and their propriatory music player (iTunes).

Personally I wish that iTunes would support other music formats, .ogg specifically, but if they want to throw WMA in there as well, so be it. Heck, anything that'd put .ogg support onto the iPod would make me happy.

That said, personally I look forward to competition. Competition is good. Right now the iTunes music store is the only "real" music store out there (no, eMusic and mp3.com aren't real because I can't find Johnny Cash or U2 on them). If a bunch more services start up along with the bad of getting DRM more firmly embedded (I don't like the idea of DRM personally), we'll get cheaper prices, more interesting features, and companies trying to give more reasons for using their service.

Maybe this would help force the music industry to change the way they do things, and stop (or at least slow down) screwing the artists.

I wonder how long before Microsoft goes into the online music store business. MS and the RIAA, working together. Sounds like hell to me. If it took Apple to get the record industry to see what would happen with selling online music, I wonder what MS could do?

Spiderman 2 Trailer Description Fresh from japan comes a description of a Spiderman 2 trailer. Only text, but sounds pretty nifty. To be released in December apparently. Thanks random(foo).

Movable Type Under Apache::Registry Note to self: set up MT so that it's under Apache::Registry sometime.

Another view of the iTunes for Windows Release Downhill Battle thinks iTunes for Windows and Mac iSbogus. Basically it seems their point is that of the $0.99 that people are buying songs for, that gives them the warm fuzzy feeling that they are legit, legal, and everything is good, still has the majority of the payment going to the RIAA and not the artist.

This may be right, but the thing is I doubt that iTunes could exist without the "blessing" of the RIAA. Like the godfather, if the big buys that basically control what music we hear every day don't like it, it doesn't happen, and they have the $ to try to sue anyone out of existance (they have lots of $ of course, from years of exploiting artists). So is no iTunes store better than one that lets the artist continue to be screwed?

Personally I say that no, iTunes is good. Artists still may not get the compensation that they deserve, but with the infrastructure in place subversion can start. Maybe apple can start introducing independant artists, giving them the FULL cut of the profits (minus the Apple take of course), or adjust artists vs record company cuts. What would happen if [random artist] decided to cut loose from their RIAA handlers and move to being independant, and have the support of iTunes? Suddenly they'd be getting a lot more per song then they do being in the shackles of servitude to the RIAA. Could it work?

Well, in my opinion it might or might not, but there'd be no way to try without a large and established infrastructure such as the iTunes store, which now that it's available to Windows users, will no doubt start increasing.

It's an interesting page anyway, I've seen it before, but never really read through it. Make your own call.

Thoughts on Windows Security Some ideas on how Microsoft could do better with their handling of security were written out here in Brian Sullivan's webblog. Some good thoughts on how to deal with the problem currently, hopefully the "fix the problems for the next release" were implied :)

Ideas like making patch CDs freely available at computers stores etc would be useful, as well as having OEMs release fully patched versions, as that would have made the latest eXPerience Silverstr had a lot less painful.

Michael Moore On Michael Moore Michael Moore has a page in response to critics of Bowling for Columbine and Stupid White Men. Basically it looks like he's sick of bad, incorrect or completely wacked out information about himself and his movies, and wants to set the record straight.

Of course, if you have already decided that Moore is a wacko, an unpatriotic american, someone who should be stripped of his awards, or perhaps sent to some foreign land (Greenland maybe?), don't bother reading, your mind is already made up and nothing anyone says, be it from the horses mouth or just another persons opinion, is going to change your mind. For others, it's an interesting read.

More information and links to the pages on both sides of the issue can be found in this kuro5hin story.

Net Confessional at Grouphug.us Khensu threw me a link to grouphug.us which appaears to be a place to anonymously and virutally confess to anything that might be on your mind. Interesting site, and posts. Come on, you have that weight of guilt, let it off!

Start of the End of DNS Problems Looks like this mess might finally be sorted out. Today I convinced NSI to tell me where their host record editing was hidden, and the ultradns.net admin removed a record taht was pointing to the old IP. So now finally the root nameservers are responding with the right answers, and hopfully within 72 hours the changes from my registrair will take hold, and things can finally begin propagating through the net properly. Thanks for all ya'lls patience.

Nameserver "Glue" Records This page on dyndns.org has about all the information you could ever want about "glue" nameserver records.

Star Trek Apartment on EBay Wow, for some reason I think it'd be really cool to own this apartment. Not sure I can afford the $2m that he's asking for it, but it does look pretty swanky.

This is an apartment for the ULTIMATE Star Trek Fan. Originally a Studio Apartment but after just over 3 years it has been transformed into the interior of the starship Enterprise. Designed and built by interior designer Tony Alleyne the Star Trek Apartment has made world news and been featured on many television and radio shows around the world.

A CDR Collection Wow, I'm sure that this consists of all legal backups. I thought I had lots of burned CDs with a spool or two. Wow, this guy is my new king.

Managing DJBDNS ANK_djbdns is a web based manager for DJBDNS systems. Looks swanky, too bad I use bind. Anything similar out there for that?

New MusicBrainz Tagger (0.10.0) Released A new version of the MusicBrainz tagger is available for download (win32 version). This version fixes some bugs and adds a bunch of new features (a "saved" tab, ability to have a different filename mask for music by Various Artists...).

MusicBrainz is a tool that allows you to identify and tag mp3 and ogg files based on a generated ID, not relying on existing ID3 tags. So all that music you have that has tags that aren't necissarily accurate, pop them into the mb-tagger and let it go and figure out the correct tags for them, then let it save them into a nice directory structure for you.

Where Did Mario Go? A funny cartoon curtesy of Foot_Note.

Minor Changes I took this lovely sunday to do a bit of housekeeping around here. This was prompted by a bunch of comment spam that this and my other blogs and sites have been recieving. I ranted about it (caution, naughty words) and then spent some time doing something about it, and then summarized things here. I also took the opportunity to kill off some old links from the main page, add a "donate" button (now I'm paying for bandwidth, I don't mind begging for some help in that department), update the core MT files, and other little things, the biggest of all was killing off all the comment spam. Throw me an email or comment if you find something missing or busted.

Protect Your Computer A great tale of a guy who protected his computer and it's data with concrete.

A Linux User Reviews Windows I'm not sure if this article is humor or not, but it is funny, but true, in a funny way. A windows-free for 5 years linux user reviewed his first experience using Windows XP. People seem to see linux in a "second class citizen" light, but this review turns things around. Some of it is a bit off, but for the most part accurate. IE: no middle mouse button to paste (though I think if you download software you can set it up), no productivity software included, etc...

PayPal SPAM Warning This one is new to me and I figured I'd pass it along to anyone else who may have gotten a nice authentic looking email from support at paypal dot com. It's an email that claimed that my paypal account had been flagged for "routine security measures" and asked me to click on a (fake) paypal.com link to confirm my information. It looks like the sites real, de-obfuscated address (http://218.38.212.194/pp/processing.htm, which then jumps to http://218.38.212.194/pp/update.htm) is responding, though some browsers (galeon) refuse to load it, so be careful!

If you do get one of these you'll want to contact Paypal by their Contact Us page, and probably throw an email to spoof@paypal.com, including the full headers of the email.

Minor Mail Changes I've made a couple of minor changes to the Postfix UCE Control settings here on UFIes.org. Looks fine so far, but post here if anyone sees any sort of a problem sending or recieving mail.

New Doom 3 Shots This interview with id Software's Todd Hollenshead and Tim Willits has some more info on the game and a couple of new screenshots.

How To Make Windows Suck Less Dylan Greene has a good list of how Microsoft could stop spyware and adware with Longhorn. I personally like the way that OS/X does it with an integrated sudo type system (the reasons for this I left in my comment on the article). Maybe MS can do better? Course, chances are it'll be some half assed system that you need to connect software B to software B, while not uninstalling software C that no "normal" user (ie: those hit most by adware and spyware) would ever do.

Course, we'll probably have to wait till 2005 or so before it comes out, but on the upside, we'll have from enduring hype, hype, hype from october 26th till the actual longhorn release to convince us it's the right and only way to do it.

Hopefully they'll design an OS that isn't so userfriendly in it's installing of software. Think that'll happen?

HL 2 Delay and STALKER Shots Well according to ShackNews due to the stealing of some of their source code, Half Life 2 could be delayed till april. That suckes harshly, as I have a new system with spanky new video card all ready to go for it, and was counting down the days. Guess a Sept 30^th release was just too good to be true.

On the upside of this I guess is that by that time other games will be out and we'll be flooded with new titles. I know Max Payne 2 just went gold (can't wait to try it out... demo please!), Doom III should be out by then (hopefully) and other games should be at a point of release as well. For example, the latest S.T.A.L.K.E.R. shots look awsome!

My Love/Hate Relationship With Debian This bug is why I have a love/hate relationship with Debian. This server runs unstable due to the fact that long, long ago I decided that unstable was stable enough and running unstable got me the latest packages so I wasn't a year or two out of date.

Since then things have been mostly stable... mostly. 99% of the time everything is just dandy. I update to the latest packages and everything goes great. The 1% of the time however, I'm completely fubar. Due to the aformentioned bug, mod_perl has been shut down on this box completely, pending new packages. It's stupid. It's also my fault for going with the unstable debian tree instead of stable or testing. However, with no easy access to the physical server anymore (ie: it's not sitting on my bedroom floor) and now a strong desire for server availability (with the tdi messageboard and it's rampant viewers ready to go for blood anytime the server goes down :), means that a re-install isn't really possible.

If anyone knows a safe way to go from unstable to say, testing, without screwing things up even more, I'd be interested in hearing it.

And yes, I will stop updating things that are working :\

Demon Raisers I have to thank cruel.com for pointing me to darkpaganism's livejournal, it really lightened my mood at 45 minutes to going home time on a friday.

I was what many people would consider a magical prodigy. I was summoning demons to visible apparition before I was out of elementary school. It killed at least two before I managed to figure out how to bind it.

Strangely enough, this magical guy spends most of his time updating his livejournal with "you are...." quizzes.

Best Pics Some of these photos you'll have seen already, some not. They range from cute animals to space to airplanes ti people, but they are all fantastic. Thanks bluesnews.

The Worlds Best BLOGs The world's best blogs sadly does not include this site. Oh well, better luck next year :)

Bill Gates Song The Bill Gates Must Die song (3.5meg mp3)