Podcamp Hawaii Wrap Up



I am sitting here this morning in the beautiful Wyland Waikiki the day after Podcamp Hawaii reflecting on the past two days.. Roxanne Darling event organizer let me know last night that we had 339 people attend the event.

When we started talking about Podcamp Hawaii, I said if we were able to get 300 people to the event it would be a huge success. The sponsors that stepped up to support the event have my heart filled gratitude we would not be have been able to pull this event off.

I will some amazing video that I will be sharing with all of you soon. Because of Podcamp Hawaii I have officially decided to make the switch to WordPress I have contemplated this in the past but based on what Matt shared with us about the upcoming version WordPress 2.7 it has pushed me over the edge.

Over the next several weeks we are going to see a whole new breed of podcasters and bloggers starting to create content here in Hawaii. I welcome them to the party.

The three sessions I held were well attended and I hope that I was able to leave those that attended with some thoughts on what to do next.

I will be working on the Videos today and hope to share them with you soon.

Todd…


Reverted Back to Firefox 2



Man I really like Firefox & practically preached to the masses about FF3. My love affair with Firefox 3 has ended though amid several crashes. I like all the functions available with FF3 along with the many add ons but I have to try something different. I have reinstalled FF2 which I rarely had trouble with except when I had too many tabs open at once. But it seems like a daily or every 2 day thing since I upgraded. I guess I will try to use FF3 again & maybe it could be another problem with my computer but it sure seems like I only had trouble after the new release of FF.

I have Google Chrome which is functional but far from Firefox. It is a bare bones deal which makes it more stable but less fun to use. I have been using chrome about 35% of the time so if it had not come out I would have went backwards on FF versions before now. But Chrome allowed me to keep on working even when FF let me down. My fling with Google’s browser may go long term but I believe my old flame, Firefox will get straightened out so we can get back together for good. We’ll have to see but no matter what I am never going back to IE. That divorce was messy.


Get Those Updates!



Overnight, Microsoft issued a rare out-of-cycle patch for Windows systems that should be installed immediately. The vulnerability affects all versions of Windows and could have an impact similar to the 2003 Blaster Worm attack. If you’re not set to auto-update, be sure to go out and grab the update.

All of my machines do updates automatically, and the alert was present on all six of my family’s desktop machines this morning, and also on my laptop, which is running Vista. I have also informed my mother that she needs to get online this morning and accept any incoming updates. I’ll probably make sure my dad and stepmom do the same thing. Like any good geekgirl, I’m the family’s tech support, and I try to keep them safe.

Oddly enough, I was talking to one of my co-workers, who has said “no” to all installs of updates to her Vista laptop for at least six months. She doesn’t want to bother with waiting for it to download and reboot. I’m rather appalled, since she works in the IT department with me and should certainly know better.

Anyway, get those updates today if you can. It’s important. Geekgirl out.


Virtual Murder in a Virtual World



My mother called me this morning to ask me how a woman could be arrested for a virtual murder, and what was a virtual murder, anyway? My mother is 67 years old, retired to Florida, but because her daughter (that would be me) is a geek, she’s running a hot new laptop with ATT wireless broadband and a decent understanding of how the Internet and her computer are supposed to work.

But virtual worlds are outside of her understanding. So, I had her read me the article, and it turns out a woman was arrested for accessing someone else’s computer and using their password to access information that wasn’t hers to access. Aka, low-level hacking. She wasn’t actually charged with murder.

“Is this like Dungeons and Dragons?” My mother asked.

Well, sort of, I tried to explain. I told her that while I was not involved in any virtual worlds, that there were a lot of such places out there that people participated in, and that the woman was being charged with hacking into her virtual “husband’s” account and virtually “killing” him because he had gotten a virtual “divorce.”

She said that apparently some people didn’t have enough to do. I would have to agree. When a virtual world takes over your real world, and you commit acts of vandalism to further your mission in your virtual world, then you probably need to get a better grip on reality. Whether or not this woman should be prosecuted, I’m not sure. I’d have to do more research on her case before I could make an opinion about that.

But you have to wonder…where does common sense go in these virtual worlds? Or, because it is a virtual world, do people just think that real world rules shouldn’t apply, and they can do anything they want?

Interesting thought.


Scotch Tape Xrays



Who knew that an ordinary roll of Scotch (TM) tape could be used to create Xrays?

Apparently, the Russians did in the 1950’s, but it was never developed. Researchers at UCLA have been toying with the power that comes from peeling tape from a roll in a vacuum. In fact, a mere piece of tape can produce an enormous amount of power, which surprised researchers. In an article being published in the Journal Nature, researchers are suggesting that the finding could lead to the production of inexpensive and easy-to-use equipment that could be used by paramedics on accident scenes or for places where electricity is not available.

The researchers have applied for a patent to protect their work. In this new research, a machine was used to peel ordinary Scotch tape off a roll in a vacuum chamber at about 1.2 inches per second. This caused rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, to emerge from very close to where the tape was coming off the roll. And that is where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, As those electrons touched the sticky part of the tape, they slowed down, emitting readable Xrays.

So the question is, does this pose a danger for those of us slaving over wrapping paper this coming holiday season? Not so much. The research shows that this only works in a vacuum, and most of us are not wrapping presents in a vacuum.

So, no excuse for use geeks to not be wrapping presents this year. Dang it.