You've probably noticed that Google's logo changes on certain days, like anniversaries, national holidays, Christmas even, etc.
Did you know that Google also has some hidden pages, with different flavours like the Easter eggs, Microsoft, Mac, Linux, Uncle Sam, in latin, in klingon (the language in Star Trek), the hacker's version ?
Slashdot reports that Microsoft has acknowledged that portions of Windows 2000 and Windows NT source code were illegally made available on the Internet
The leak would allegedly come from some third party groups, which were participating to the Microsoft Shared Source Initiative, a program launched by Microsoft to provide portions of the source code of its (hardly) operating system in the scope of some business partnerships.
I'm wondering what's really new in that, since we know the core of Windows was already available a few years back.
I can't resist but to make it available again in this weblog, at the risk of being tracked down by Microsoft...
/* Source Code Windows 2000 */ #include "win31.h" #include "win95.h" #include "win98.h" #include "workst~1.h" #include "evenmore.h" #include "oldstuff.h" #include "billrulz.h" #include "monopoly.h" #include "backdoor.h" #define INSTALL = HARD char make_prog_look_big(16000000); void main() { while(!CRASHED) { display_copyright_message(); display_bill_rules_message(); do_nothing_loop(); if (first_time_installation) { make_100_megabyte_swapfile(); do_nothing_loop(); totally_screw_up_HPFS_file_system(); search_and_destroy_the_rest_of-OS2(); make_futile_attempt_to_damage_Linux(); disable_Netscape(); disable_RealPlayer(); disable_Lotus_Products(); hang_system(); } //if write_something(anything); display_copyright_message(); do_nothing_loop(); do_some_stuff(); if (still_not_crashed) { display_copyright_message(); do_nothing_loop(); basically_run_windows_31(); do_nothing_loop(); } // if } //while if (detect_cache()) disable_cache(); if (fast_cpu()) { set_wait_states(lots); set_mouse(speed,very_slow); set_mouse(action,jumpy); set_mouse(reaction,sometimes); } //if /* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.1"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.11"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows 95"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows NT 3.0"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows 98"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows NT 4.0"); */ printf("Welcome to Windows 2000"); if (system_ok()) crash(to_dos_prompt) else system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp",O_CREATE); while(something) { sleep(5); get_user_input(); sleep(5); act_on_user_input(); sleep(5); } // while create_general_protection_fault(); } // main If you're looking for a DVD player, whatever OS you are running, have a look at VLC.
Not only this piece of software will read any DVD, regardless of the region code, but it also runs on all sorts of OS like Windows, Mac, Linux, BeOS, Solaris, Zaurus, etc..
Even better: it's not only a player, it can also be used as a source to broadcast video over the LAN (or at least a network with large bandwidth capabilities) via multicast!
Oh, and did I tell you that everything is free?...
Check out the video gallery on Discovery Channel's site, about the Xtreme Martial Arts.
The moves are quite impressive and the digital effects are especially nice, as always with Discovery Channel.
After HP announced that it was going to license Apple's iPod technology for its own MP3 player, Microsoft's answer was:
General manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division David Fester has suggested that iTunes' emerging dominance would be bad for consumers, because it would limit them to the iPod.
He told journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: "Windows is about choice - you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."
Yeaahh, riiiight ...
Check the original article on Macworld UK for more details or the reaction of slashdot's readers.
Last time Microsoft killed me with that kind of stupid declarations was last month, when they decided that manufacturers of flash memory card using the FAT filesystem should pay Microsoft $0.25 for each unit, because Microsoft introduced the FAT filesystem back in 1976 (seen on dpreview.com)
I've recently enabled SpamAssassin on my mail server and it's incredible how efficient it is.
The filter will run on the mail server itself and not the mail client on your machine and it basically gives 'points' to mails depending on the criteria they match.
If the threshold you set is reached, the mail is classified as spam and you can either delete it on the server and you won't even see it in your mailbox, redirect it to another mail account or receive it but with a tag (***SPAM*** is added to the subject).
I personally find dangerous to delete the mail directly if you are worried about false positive (mail being detected as spam while it's not), although it never happened to me.
Instead, I use my mail client to move the mails tagged as ***SPAM*** directly into a folder, so that I can delete everything at once.
Actually, before deleting them, I also like to read the mails themselves. Not really because I'm worried about false positive ones, but more because SpamAssassin adds the details of the points given to the mail and it's actually kind of fun to see what tricks the spammers use.
The highest score a mail got so far is 46.4, while only 7 are required to be classified as spam in my configuration!
As you can see in the list of tests performed on incoming mails, there is not much chance for spam to get through!
And if SpamAssassin is not able to detect the mail as spam, the junk filter on Thunderbird usually takes care of that 
The new version of blosxom came out a few days ago. For those who don't know what blosxom is, you can refer to an earlier blog entry of mine.
There are not really new features compared to the last release candidate version, but it just seems to run faster, with a more compact perl code (even more unreadable! ;-)).
The core of blosxom is actually so simple but at the same time so great (because it can be widely customized) that this is what I think makes blosxom's real strength.
On the other hand, the list of plugins is growing like crazy and you have tons of new features for your weblog all the time.
That's what is so great about the GNU Public license, there are so many people working on this that the product never stops growing in stability and in functionalities...
A friend of mine sent me a link to the site of a Japanese TV channel, where they have some best videos of TV shows.
Since I opened this link, I just can't help but watch the last video called Ping Pong over and over again! It's just so hilarious!
To me, it is so typical of Japanese humour, as you can see it on TV, where the comedians are just experts of making fools of themselves and really not take themselves seriously (you can see that a lot in commercials on TV, where they always make fun of the Japanese Salaryman and the oyaji, the average 40-50 year old Japanese man).
I think this video is especially brilliant because not only it's treated with a lot of humour, but it's also great visually speaking: it's almost a parody of the bullet time of the Matrix but still very well done, with low budget solutions, live on stage!
Just enjoy watching it again and again as much as I do! the other links are quite interesting too, but Ping Pong remains my favorite one!
I read in Le Monde today (sorry the article is in French) the story of a guy like anybody else, who was receiving spam like anybody else.
The only difference is that one day when that Scottish guy named Craig received 6 junk mails at once, he decided it was enough and started chasing down the senders of that kind of emails.
A famous one is the one where you receive a mail from the wife of an African dictator who inherited a huge sum of money but she cannot get hold of the money without your help. So if you agree to pay a few thousand dollars for the account setup fee or whatever, she agrees to give you a certain percentage of the money (I can't believe how much money I could have made if only I hadn't trashed those emails!).
Craig started to "play" with one of those emails, using a fake identity and some photoshop tricks to make the guy believe he had all the money required in cash.
The whole story was told in a weblog and every new step forward (mail exchange, comments from Craig, etc.) was a new entry in the blog, the whole thing with a certain humour, until the end when Craig finally met the guy reponsible for that scam at the airport of Dubai.
As far as I am concerned, I use Mozilla which filters junk mail, so I don't get too bothered.
However, I never miss a chance to have some fun and to record the email address of such junk mail (a unique oppportunity!) and to follow Scott Adams' advice (the author of Dilbert): whenever I receive some other junk mail where I am requested to input my email address, I look in at records to use the email address I had carefully kept away from deletion!
Shouldn't we help spammers to know each other better? 
Note that the article in Le Monde also mentions that "Le journal du Net", which started talking about Craig in France, reported that some less happy people than Craig believed the story and were robbed, kidnapped or sometimes killed after their arrival at the meeting point.
The 419 Fraud as it is called is also referenced on the website of the FBI, as well as other types of scam.
I've just bumped into this cool weblog called "Title n." and found out about this System Administrator Appreciation day, celebrated every last Friday of July.
Aren't you tired of your users saying "What did you do *again* ? It used to work fine until IT messed up with something..."
Wouldn't that be great if - for a change - your users came to you to thank you, to give you some chocolates or a small gift from ThinkGeek, like a Valentine Day for Sysadmin (since it's common knowledge that Sysadmins don't have girlfriends or boyfriends anyway ;-))?
The sysadminday website not only makes a lot of sense but it's also a great collection of links to funny stories like "Advice to employees on the proper use of the System Administrator's valuable time" or the famous "Techtales"!
Well, maybe you have to be a sysadmin or a complete geek to appreciate that kind of humour but I just love them, which puts me in one of the 2 categories, or maybe both !