People usually humor the slightly insane.
I've
learned to use this to my benefit.
Hi Y'all,
Microsoft is withdrawing the last remnents of support for Windows 95 on December 31, 2002, the official day of its death. If you've been delaying your visits to Windows Update because the downloads take too long, make your updates now or kiss them goodby.
There are forty-one 30×30-inch LandSat-7 photos selected for their artistic appeal on exhibit at the Library of Congress through July 27, 2002. Much smaller 500×500-pixel versions of them are available online at the U.S.Geological Survey. Seven or eight of those are also available in three rectangular sizes for Desktop backgrounds – check out the Lena Delta!.
To better appreciate the "artistic appeal" of some of the pictures, you really need to see more detail. 1224×1224-pixel versions of all 41 pictures are available online at NASA – it may be slow going with a dial-up connection, but I discovered that some of the 500-pixel ones for which I initially reacted with a "Eh" became a "Wow" at 1224-pixels. They will produce 8.5×8.5-inch prints if printed at 144ppi. NASA don't offer any Desktop sized ones, but there's nothing keeping you from saving (in .bmp format for Windows users) one of these large ones and cutting a Desktop sized piece out of it or resizing (squashing) it to Desktop proportion.
NASA has packaged 10 of the pictures into a Windows-only Screen Saver. Warning: it does *not* make itself your current screen saver - go into Display Properties | Screen Saver and choose "Landsat 7" when you're ready to use it. The first time it runs it will check a NASA site to see if there are any additional pictures to download, and will check once a day thereafter the first time the saver is run on that day. During installation you'll be asked whether you want a Desktop icon for it. I recommend that for dial-up users. You can click that the first time you go online during the day and it will trigger the new picture check. Upside: The pictures are some of the prettiest ones. Downsides: No option to not make a new pic check; no option to ignore mouse movement.
Way back in grade school some teacher said something along the line of "Well, boys and girls, we adults have one more confession to make. You know now that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were fairy tales. Today it's my job to tell you 'the earth isn't round; it's roundish' - it's really kind of fat in the middle. The shape of the earth is 'oblate', not round." I had to wait until college to find out why. It appears "fat in the middle" because it's compressed top and bottom from the weight of all the ice build up during the last Ice Age.
When the Ice Age ended the earth has begun ever so slowly getter rounder as the now ice free compressed portions "rebound." Instrumented satellites have been around long enough that scientists have been able to make acurate measurements from space of the rate of reduction in oblateness. Suddenly in 1997 or 1998 there began a rapid increase in oblateness that continues to this day. It took a few years to figure out what was going on, but now (December 2002) a group of Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists say it's "caused primarily by a recent surge in subpolar glacial melting and by mass shifts in the Southern, Pacific, and Indian oceans," but it's just a temporary reversal. The earth itself is continuing to get rounder, but the oceans are buldging more than usual rught now. They are more concerned about what affect these causative factors might have on global climate in the immediate future.
See Science Magazine (free registration required to read abstracts), How Our Planet Shapes Up, Ref 2, Ref 3.
It won't be advertised until sometime in 2003, but you can now get bare bones "unlimited" EarthLink dial-up ISP service for $9.95 instead of the $21.95 they presently charge for their cheapest service. "Bare bones" means just ISP service and an e-mail address – no spam or pop-up blocking, no Web space, e-mail only support.
Check access numbers to make sure EarthLinks's available where you are, then E-mail service@earthlink.net to ask about the $9.95 service.
I don't know anything about EarthLink other than you have to install their dial-up program. EarthLink users, please help me out here! Are you just forced to their Home page when you dial-in but use your own browser and e-mail program, or is it an AOL or MSN type of service whch tries to keep you locked into its own little world and makes you use its own barely functional e-mail program?
The creator of the Bigfoot myth, Roy L. Wallace, died November 26, 2002 at age 84. Of course the true believers don't believe it.
This happened in Denmark, but it's setting a precedent and may portend a future trend by the recording and movie industries here in America.
From CBS MarketWatch, Nov 11, 2002:
LONDON (CBS.MW) -- Alleged music and movie pirates have been billed $133,600 for downloading copyrighted materials through the Kazaa and eDonkey networks, according to Reuters.
The Danish Anti Piracy Group monitored file swappers and their activity. "The top 10 computer games, music and movies -- it's all there," said Morton Lindegaard, an attorney for the group. He said the accused were billed based on the amount, and type, of files shared. The evidence collected was presented to a judge, who ordered the users' Net access services to reveal billing addresses.
The following companies (there may be more) offer free online virus scans on Windows systems. They require a minimum of Internet Explorer 4 or 5.0 with ActiveX and Scripting enabled.
Actually, I think all online scans continue sucessfully offline once the downloads complete and the program starts. But Panda is the only company to state that explicitly. Just try it and see what happens. If the program complains, reconnect to the Web page and start over. The downloading has already been done, so the program should start up instantly.
Online scans are never a first line of defense, but their virus signature files are updated at least daily whereas your AV (AntiVirus) program may offer only weekly updates. They should be used for a "second opinion" about something your anti-virus program found, or didn't find when you suspect you may have some sort of virus/worm/Trojan horse, or just as a check you really are virus free. Always "disable" your AV program and close your e-mail and other programs (but not firewall) before starting an online scan. ActiveScan and HouseCall have options to Report Only - use them.
If an online scan reports something your anti-virus program missed, it may be a false positve or it may be brand new and got by your AV program because its next signature file update won't be released until next week; run another scan using a different online scanner before taking any action on it.
The same holds true if your AV program suddenly discovers a "virus" that's been on your disk for a few weeks. It hasn't trashed your system (at least not yet) so you have time to get a second opinion. Some of the online scanners, such as Panda's, will let you examine just a particular folder or file you select, so will run quickly.
Macromedia issued a security fix to Flash Player to prevent bad people from including unknown (to the user), unseen, immediately executed programs within Flash content. Update your Flash Player at www.macromedia.com/downloads/.
The RealOne Player has been updated to fix a slough of serious security problems. Click its "Tools | Check for Updates" button.
Eleven Texas Screensavers at TravelTex.com.
AOL is issued Patent No. 6,449,344 for Instant Messaging. They aren't saying (yet) whether (or how) they intend to enforce it.
'Til next time,
Pete