The computer experts in India does things differently for sure. They use Windows Media Player to locate people:
What Windows Media Player Can do
Windows Media Player is sure no average tool.
This is Google’s response for informing all their users that every site on this world wide web is harmful to their computer. “Very simply, human error,” they confessed. It’s a huge mistake and definitely shaken people’s confidence a little. But by being truthful about the whole incident without using the word “whoops” (like Dreamhost) is good PR still.
“This site may harm your computer” on every search result?!?!
What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for webmasters to remove their site from the list.
We periodically update that list and released one such update to the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes. (Source: Google Blog)
I was a little troubled yesterday and had to use Yahoo for searches but I wasn’t too concern. Here’s StopBadware’s side of the story.
Google went nuts right now! Google starts identifying every single web page as harmful to my computer. Take a look:
(Wikipedia may harm your computer.)
(Google thinks Google may harm your computer.)
This is hilarious. Somebody’s getting into trouble over this.
Back in the days of the army – actually that was just 2 years old but I like to make it sound real long ago – we always had different courses to attend, different software systems to use. And they always have these crazy contrived acronyms that would sound nice (some failed). I always imagine a bunch of people brainstorming a name for the product, then subsequently spend 5 times longer to figure how to have the long form fit the acronym. And one would go, “how about COURAGE?” Then a bunch of people start writing down what can COURAGE possibly stand for only to get rejected one by one and move on to try PRIDEST or something. The whole procedure is iterative.
So much time spent on a contrived acronym. And everyone chipped in. I give the silliest acronym as much of my interest lies in finishing my program, my book, my whatever, just anything but the acronym. I can’t be bothered. I think Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition Service Pack 1 is fine. And I think calling (EDIT: I fell asleep here.)
Oh I digressed too much. Anyway, CAPTCHA actually stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.
Ubuntu destroys someone’s college dream:
US woman says Ubuntu can’t access internet
According to WKOW TV, Abbie Schubert recently ordered a Dell laptop, expecting “your classic bread-and-butter computer.” But when she unboxed the $1,100 machine that arrived, she didn’t find bread and butter. She found Ubuntu.
WKOW TV called Ubuntu “an operating system for your computer similar to Windows that runs off the Linux system.”
“It’s been a mess,” Schubert said. “I regret ordering the computer.”
She had never heard of Ubuntu. So she called Dell. Dell said there was still time to replace her Ubuntu. Then Dell told her not to. “The person I was talking to said Ubuntu was great, college students loved it, it was compatible with everything I needed,” she explained.
So she kept Ubuntu, then decided that Ubuntu doesn’t always work like Windows. Her Verizon internet wouldn’t load. She couldn’t install Microsoft Word. And she said without Word and the internet, she couldn’t take online classes at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
So she dropped out of the college’s fall and spring semesters. (Source: The Register)
She’s quite unresourceful it appears. First time I heard someone accidentally buying Linux. Never purchase a computer without knowing what you’re buying. Get a friend who at least know something.
Want to know the story behind Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start? It’s sometimes referred to as Konami code and is implemented in many games, even those not from Konami.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A
First executed on an NES game (not Contra!) developed by Konami in 1986, the Konami code (and slight variances of it) can now be inputted in more than 125 different computer, video, and arcade games—some of which aren’t even developed by Konami, the company that created the code in the first place!
Because Contra was one of the more popular NES titles in the day and basically required the Konami code for the average player to complete (the code granted 30 lives from the start, instead of three), most people associate the code’s existence with it. In reality though, the Konami code first appeared in Gradius in 1986, two years before Contra.
In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty on PS2, entering the sequence at the end of the game has the main character, Snake, barking, “STOP FOOLIN’ AROUND KID!” At the end of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for PS2, Snake confirms “One More to Go…” referring to the fourth and final installment in the series on PS3.
There are a number more of hilarious consequences for using the code, like it causing your main character to self destruct in Contra 4 if you use the code more than once per level to power-up your guns or in the Dog-developed NES title 3-D World Runner, a message pops up that exclaims, “I AM NOT KONAMI.” The code can even be used in Google Reader of all things, enabling a different background color for the left-hand navigation and updating all unread counts to 30 (a homage, no doubt, to Contra’s 30 lives). You know the code has reached pop culture when Google starts using it. (Source: Game Informer)
There you have it, this is what happen in Google Reader, you get a ninja and your unread count becomes 30. Refreshing will return your unread count to the original value. Pretty cool I say.
(Press Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A in Google Reader and get Ninja!)
The code is even in a song by The Moldy Peaches – Anyone Else But You (of Juno fame).
RFC 1178 is Choosing a Name for Your Computer. RFC stands for Request For Comment.
If you so believe a computer name ought to be perfect (or maybe even standardized within your organization), consider reading the document:
Read RFC 1178.
Status of this Memo
This FYI RFC is a republication of a Communications of the ACM article on guidelines on what to do and what not to do when naming your computer. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify any standard.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
In order to easily distinguish between multiple computers, we give them names. Experience has taught us that it is as easy to choose bad names as it is to choose good ones. This essay presents guidelines for deciding what makes a name good or bad.
Keywords: domain name system, naming conventions, computer administration, computer network management
Choosing names of computers are quite important. My netbook used to be called AspireOne and every time I use the school network, there’s someone with the same name. Then there’ll be this annoying pop up box informing me someone is already using that name.
Today, my netbook’s name is “IMTHE1ANDONLY”. Don’t copy cat.