Published on January 26, 2005
I’d like to link you to an article written by Matt Moen on News Forge. In the article, Matt shares his experiences while trying to find which Windows viruses are most Linux compatible. He uses the Wine application to run a copy of Windows inside of Linux, and then subjects the installation to 5 different viruses he grabbed out of his logged e-mails. Each virus “supports Linux” to a different degree, and Matt breaks it down using a 5 Penguin scoring system, based on how thoroughly a particular virus hoses Linux.
The article doesn’t really say anything new, but it’s a very funny read.
Read the article here:
Running Windows viruses with Wine
By: Matt Moen
Thanks to Alan Hoyle for the link!
Published on January 25, 2005
I’m not sure exactly when Google went live with this, but they have a new web service in beta called Google Video. Google has been archiving the text from closed captioning text that’s broadcast along with shows on a few channels since December 2004. Along with the archived text, they are also taking screenshots of the show at random times. Google Video gives you the ability to search through broadcast television based on actual content. When you search for a broadcast you get a summary page that has snippets of content in the form of text, along side the corresponding screen capture. Here’s an example search done for The Simpsons. While this doesn’t provide you the video yet, it does provide you with an easy way to recall which episode of a show you saw the other night. It’s also handy for picking out one-liner’s from your favorite comedy such as Family Guy.
video.google.com
Bold text denotes speculation.*
* Only valid in lower 48 states, on days that end in “y”.
Published on January 24, 2005
Mozoogle?
Of course not, at least there are not direct implications of such a merger here, though one could argue that the groundwork for such an event has been established. Ben Goodger, the lead engineer for the Mozilla team, has been hired by Google. He will remain at Mozilla and he says that his role in the effort will not change, but his source of income has. You can read his blog post and get the full details.
I am, personally, excited to see the worlds of Mozilla and Google come closer together. I use Mozilla products, including the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client exclusively on my Windows machine. I also use many Google services, including Gmail, Google Desktop, Picasa Photo Manager, and of course Blogger for this site. Should we expect a Google browser any time soon? I’d say no. However, I do imagine we can look forward to some additional Firefox/Thunderbird support from Google in the form of service plugins. I’d love to see some official Blogger, Picasa, and Gmail integration in the form of Firefox extensions. (If they’re already out, please let me know, because I didn’t notice)
Published on January 21, 2005
It was bound to happen. All of those “Free Gift” sites that promise to send you hot electronics for signing up for online offers have latched onto the latest product from Apple, the Mac mini. The FreeiPods sites are what really started it all from what I can tell, and we all know of forums that were swamped with referral links. I was pretty mixed on the whole thing, and stayed out of it. It became hard to resist though, as people I knew started getting iPods in the mail. Thankfully, I love my Rio Karma to death, so the temptation never grew strong enough to warrant joining into the chain.
However, I figure I might as well give the Mac mini offer a shot (Yeah, I’m a sucker). So I have signed up with freeminimacs.com, a reputible company who has given out many ipods in the past. I’m not expecting anything out of this, but it doesn’t hurt to put a link up here for anyone who reads this blog. I’m not going to do mass e-mails or forums spamming, I’m only going to put my referal link here on my own blog, in my own little part of the internet. If you feel like you want to give this a shot, help me out by using my link to join. If I end up getting a Mac mini, I’ll play with it for a week and then give it to my Mom, who is in DIRE need of a new computer.
I’ll tell you that the best offers seem to be the $1 trail memberships at the bottom of the list, I did the Buyer’s Advantage trial, where they send you a $20 gift card to Circuit City for signing up. You can cancel within the first month and keep the card. I recommend doing the same trial.
Sign-up Link: Here
I may be shameless, but at least I’m not malicious about it. 
Published on January 20, 2005
I’m not sure how long this feature has been implimented, but I noticed yesterday that Quicksilver now has a triggers feature. This allows you to assign hot keys to trigger any operation you could accomplish through Quicksilver. I have yet to realize the full power of this feature… so far I have setup a trigger to IM my girlfriend, open the Flickr website, and open the Bluetooth preferences pane. Quicksilver development continues to amaze me. This is one of the applications I use the most, and I’m not sure how I could survive life with my Powerbook without it. If you have an OSX machine and you haven’t tried Quicksilver out yet, please do so ASAP.
Quicksilver Website at Blacktree.com
