March 7, 2003

Windows Update keeps tabs on all system software

SecurityFocus: “Evidence obtained by German hardware site tecChannel suggests a list of software installed on an XP machine is sent to Microsoft when users run Windows Update.” (via BoingBoing)

I’m not really surprised by this, because technically this is how I thought Windows Update works. However, I’d have to read MSFT’s privacy policy for Windows Update to actually get a handle on what they intend to do with this information, but at least they are encrypting the data before it hit the wire.

March 6, 2003

Command line web services with REST

Les Orchard “Now I just have to write a shell that treats URLs as executable commands.”

March 6, 2003

Video Blogging

Slashdot thread discussing the MSNBC article on Video Blogs.

This quote from the thread from PyroMosh sums it up for me: “Of course Video Blogs aren’t the wave of the future. At least not the near future. It would be high bandwidth instead of low, it wouldn’t be easily searchable or easy to catalog. It’s an order of magnitude harder to do with no tangible benefits except for a little bit of “cool factor”.”

March 6, 2003

Slashdot subscriptions

Slashdot is offering subscriptions

March 5, 2003

WiFinder Hotspot Directory

Wow, this is the most comprehensive Wi-Fi Hotsport directory I’ve seen.

March 5, 2003

Data transfer via Light

Wired news article about Using Visible Light for Data Transfer.

“Ultimately this technology will make it possible for households in small communities to reach an enormous amount of information, at the speed of light, of course.”

More interesting discussions about this on Slashdot (Thanks for the links John)

March 4, 2003

Hacking via Google

An interesting story on Wired news about finding open web-based databaes using Google (via Scripting)

March 3, 2003

RSS News Aggregator on MSDN

Dare Obasanjo of Microsoft posted a a C# .Net News Aggregator on MSDN.

“The application utilizes XPath, XSLT, XML Schema, the DOM, and XML Serialization in the .NET Framework.” (via Don’s Spoutlet)

March 2, 2003

Google News to RSS

Julian Bond has a neat little PHP hack that will turn any Google News query into an RSS feed. I’m having a few encoding issues on my server, but for the most part it works well! Thanks Julian!

Update: I made a modfication to Julian’s hack and posted it here

March 1, 2003

Joltage Wi-Fi service ceases operations

Ahh, this is too bad, but I suppose no one is surprised …

“The high-speed wireless Net service, which launched less than a year ago, ceases operations because of slower-than-expected demand.” (via CNet)