I'm running Microsoft Windows Vista - Business Edition on this Tablet PC because it's the OS of choice for this thing, and because I paid the extra cash so I can get a high class Tablet. (Let's hope I don't learn to regret that one)

Now that I'm working in a security paranoid company (well it wouldn't do good to be electronically compromised if your business is providing security for other people.)

One of the key things we do at Nullcube is make sure all laptops have full encryption installed. This means that:

1. When the machine starts, even Windows cannot start without you knowing the humoungously long password I've used.
2. Even if you take the hard drive out of my cold dead hands, you can't get to the data (it's all gibberish without my passphrase)

Since I don't have Microsoft's sanctified OS SKU (Stock Keeping Units) that comes with Microsoft's HDD Encryption tool (bitlocker) I have to look around for some other solution. In my case it came down to looking at two Open Source projects, primarily because they were FREE and been around for a while have hopefully had someone qualified looking at their code.

I've installed both FREE OTFE (On the Fly Encryption) but chose to use TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org) Both tools are great, but TrueCrypt 5.01 supports full disk encryption of the System (boot) Disk. As per above, this feature means that you can't get into my computer unless you put pliers to my fingers and ask not so nicely.

There are however some serious gaping holes with TrueCrypt that is one of the banes of security. Security is not a product. Windows has this great feature called Sleep mode, where the laptop will go into a rest mode where you can shut the screen throw the thing into your backpack run off to your meeting and open the laptop up to see it staring at you with all those applications still running. Great feature, saves you time of waiting for the inevitable 10 minute boot cycle for Windows.

If you have sleep mode on when someone steels your laptop (and presumably the backpack may have a battery charger with it) then you've just given the thief full access to all that 'secured' data.

Presumably, in a corporate setting your Network Administrator will intrusively get into your Group Profile and set it up so the laptop cannot go into sleep and must power down (whoaa, so much for that feature.) Another intrusive but not so intrusive solution would be for laptop policies to allow sleep mode, but with requiring authentication on un-sleeping. Obviously there still is the problem that your Windows password may not be all that good, but with the newer laptops including biometric authentication mechanisms, this might be more secure?) Of course, if you steal my laptop and cut off all my fingers you can probably get in as well.

LIghtning/Sunbird 0.8 has been released and I wanted to try it out, since it has great potential but didn't really work for me last time (probably because I don't really have a life to calendarise?

I kept getting error messages for calendars that were installed in previous versions of lightning that I couldn't access, so I couldn't remove it.

Short answer:

Storage.sdb

The calendar information seems to be stored in a file called storage.sdb and since I was starting from scratch, it was just a matter of deleting the file to get a working Thunderbird/Lightning again (well, actually it was working previously but with too many annoying error messages.)

Now I have to get the kids calendar back online et. al.

We can sometimes get ahead of ourselves, as techno-geebs. The solutions people generally want rarely needs new flashing lights with special coolant, our priorities should be solving problems, not installing new technologies.

Re: [OT] Pursuing Management to adopt OpenBSD

Chris wrote:

> I been trying (rather unsuccessfully) to convince various clients and
> employers to adopt OpenBSD. Most people, I find, are resistant to
> change and would not use anything they are not familiar with. Others
> would say that if I leave the job, it would be hard to find people who
> can use (or even heard of) OpenBSD and in some places Management never
> heard of OpenBSD and have very little clue as to how good or bad it is
> compared to Linux/ Solaris and Windows thus they will just knock off
> the proposal in 2 seconds.
>
> Is there any way I could convince these people to make the move to
> OpenBSD? Suggestions, tips and tricks along with real life examples
> would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Got a message from Google (you know, those guys that do the search thing on the INTERNET) and they're letting people set up their websites using Google's services (well, we've known this for a while but they've added a few more services.)

Services that Nomoa.com are making use through Google include:

Start Page  http://partnerpage.google.com/nomoa.com

The Start Page lets you create a unique, dynamic place to preview your @nomoa.com Gmail inbox, your Google Docs files and your Google Calendar, collect relevant information from your organization, and search the web. You can customize the layout and content, choosing from thousands of handy Google gadgets.

Chat / GTalk

Google Talk provides a free and simple way to connect instantly with your contacts with instant messaging and free PC-to-PC voice calls anywhere in the world. You can even exchange files with your contacts using Google Talk, with no file size restrictions.

Chat with colleagues from within your start page Now you can chat with colleagues and friends from right within your Google Apps start page. The new Google Talk gadget also allows for multi-person chat, so you can schedule a meeting or get input from multiple people without switching back and forth between chat tabs. If your administrator has activated the start page, add the gadget by clicking on the "Add stuff" link on the top left corner of your homepage, open the 'Google Apps' category of gadgets, and click 'add it now.'

Web Pages http://web.nomoa.com

Sites http://sites.nomoa.com

Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.

Email http://mail.nomoa.com

Email with up to 6 GB of storage per email address, mail search tools and integrated chat, powerful search to find messages as fast as you can search the web, and instant messaging built right in. The Gmail web application is accessible from anywhere, and you can even sign in from your mobile phone. Or if you prefer, you can access email from your favorite mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird using POP or IMAP at no additional cost.

Straight Google GMail, but using @nomoa.com as your base address

Calendar http://calendar.nomoa.com

Google Calendar helps individuals and whole organizations manage their time. Not only can you organize your personal calendar, invite others to meetings and events, and keep track of RSVPs, but you can also create shared calendars that multiple people can view or edit. You always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publicize events to the world. The Google Calendar web application is accessible from anywhere, and you can even sign in from your mobile phone.

Google Calendar gallery Many organizations and individuals choose to share their calendars publicly through Google Calendar. Now Google Calendar users can access these calendars through an easy-to-browse gallery. You can find all sorts of interesting public calendars that you can overlay on top of your school or business calendar, so you can keep track of your favorite basketball team's schedule, know when your favorite TV show is a repeat, or follow your favorite band's concert tour. To see the gallery, click the 'Add' button at the top of your list of calendars and choose 'Add a public calendar'

Docs http://docs.nomoa.com

Google Docs makes creating and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations simple. Not only can you create and edit your own docs, but you can also have multiple people view or edit together. With Google Docs, you don't have to manage multiple versions of the same attachment from different people. You always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish docs to the world. The Google Docs web application is accessible from anywhere, and you can even sign in and view docs from your mobile phone.

Localisation?

And, what does this all have to do with Talanoa Oceania 2008? Well, you can now go to a new Talanoa site @ Google specifically for the event http://sites.google.com/a/nomoa.com/talanoa/Home . The simplest URL is the generic Nomoa.com sites hosted by Google at http://sites.nomoa.com

Talanoa Oceania 2008 - http://sites.google.com/a/nomoa.com/talanoa/Home

Talanoa Calendar of Events - http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/nomoa.com/render

Of course, you're not going to see anything on the Calendar until you page through to September ~ October.

I'll try to keep the Talanoa Calendar and Talanoa Details/Site up to date. When the event goes, we'll hopefully have some interesting information (videos?) we can put up on the 'NET for the rest of the world to see.

Weird tangents in time ? This laptop hard-drive just couldn't be resurrected anymore (three trips to the refrigerator worked fine, but sooner than later it wasn't going to work anymore.)

I took the machine in to the shop for the guys to replace the hard-drive, they couldn't ghost the hard-drive, so they reinstalled all the base software which included Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and Microsoft Office 2003.

As some one who has dutifully been 'beta-testing' Open Office since version pre-1.0 and have recently downloaded the current 2.30 release I was just arriving at the stage to reinstall my Office Productivity Software.

I subscribe to Planet OpenOffice's News Feed and this morning caught up with some sad indicators of where Open Office is not heading.

Michael Meeks- 2007-10-02- Tuesday 

Very disappointed to read Kohei's blog. Sun re-writing a contributor's code because they refuse to accept the licensing terms they give to other people: the LGPL; saddening. Sun chooses the licensing for OO.o; why choose a license they won't accept themselves ?

...

What we don't like is the insistence that all and any contributed code, shipped at OpenOffice.org must end up being owned by Sun. In this case, the solver is a nicely separated, individual shared library UNO component and completely de-coupled from OO.o. I'm personally a fan of the LGPL, and OO.o (and StarOffice) contains lots of non-Sun owned modules including several LGPL modules, in it's core: eg. Daniel Velliard's nice libxml2 library. Due to static linking, there is even pure LGPL code floating outside the 'external' project. So - why is Kohei's nicely separated, working, specified, UNO component not acceptable purely under the project's license: the LGPL ?

and then

Kohei Yoshida- History of Calc Solver

I’ve been trying to avoid writing a piece like this simply because if I wrote one, there would be a lot of bitterness involved, and I don’t like to put a blame on anybody. But when I saw a lot of confusion over the state of my Calc Solver in Barcelona (not the least of which is Louis’ announcement on Calc Solver for 3.0 during his keynote speech, which was truly a bad surprise for me), as well as this statement by Stefan Taxhet (st) in the issue page outlining Sun’s intention to duplicate the entire work I did (for free), I felt like it was time for me to explain what actually happened surrounding my effort to write an Optimization Solver for Calc.

...

But I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love to be proven that Sun still are willing to work with us, to make OO.o truly a wonderful product as well as a project attractive to prospective code contributors. But there is nothing I, as a single insignificant mere mortal can do to influence the behemoth that is Sun. It’s impossible to make an even slightest change in how the project is run, even after countless hours of coding and more than 10,000 lines of code generation (which I received no compensation for and involved quite a lot of personal sacrifice). In the end, I made no difference at all. Sad, truly sad.

To make a long story short, OpenOffice as a project is starting to find holes in the facade of its openness.

IBM Support for OpenOffice

IBM currently ships what is almost effectively FREE Office Productivity Suite called IBM Lotus SmartSuite (being that sometimes you can get it in OEM bundles for very little.) This suite in 1999 handled tables in wordprocessing documents a lot better than OpenOffice in 2007 (that's not comforting.)

When IBM recently announced that they were going to contribute code to OpenOffice it made me smile, just like they contributed code to Lotus Notes and took the premier Messaging, Groupware product to being unknown overnight, or their contribution to Lotus 123 a fully functional spreadsheet numerical analysis tool that historians recall having somewhere hidden in the IBM hallways. There was once a competitive word-processing program at IBM DisplayWrite which as I recall was second only to WordPerfect at one time. Sadly, it now only sells for their MVS/CICS platforms?

Lotus bought the 1st Windows WordProcessor Ami Pro --> Word Pro at its time, this was a superior word processor to Microsoft's Windows Word 1.x 2.x.

IBM in PC Software is just weird, and with a very poor track record. I would not use their involvement as a great measure of success, but potential danger of causing a software system to fail. If you remember OS/2 and Tangent/PINK, they are very huge PC Software developments that lauded success and IBM can share significant blame for their failures.

Microsoft Office

The weird thing about the reinstallation of this laptop, and the disaster that is unfolding with the mechanics of servicing OpenOffice non-Sun developers, is that I was already being pushed to use Microsoft Office anyway.

OOXML and ODF is a waste of time for me, for the foreseeable future all my friends are on Microsoft Office and conversion tools are coming along to convert documents to the 'next(tm)' format.

Microsoft Word works for me, Office Write is a struggle to do what I want to do on a daily basis (inserting tables from the spreadsheet is a major dysfunctional event with Open Office.) I deplore users of Powerpoint, but have no real preference between it and OO Impress.

Firefox, Thunderbird, GTalk, WL Messenger, WL Writer are my communications packages, and they are not dependent on OO nor MSO, although 3 of 2 are dependent on MS Windows.

Conclusion

I'll most likely try out OO again when 3.0 release candidates come out, but by then I'll probably be embedded in Microsoft Office 2010 to much care.

I walked there, and remembered I needed to look at that list again, then went searching for it and found it again.

Jeff Atwood in his Coding Horror Blog has nicely collected some sage advise for wanna-be programmers, and wanna-be sleeping at night type programmers. Now, I have to link to it so it's bookmarke'd and in my list of lists.

Top 6 List of Programming Top 10 Lists

Jerry Weinberg: The 10 Commandments of Egoless Programming

Dare Obasanjo: Top 10 Signs Your Software Project is Doomed

Omar Shahine: Top 10 Tips for Working at Microsoft (or Anywhere Else)

Michael McDonough: The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School

Andres Taylor: Top 10 Things Ten Years of Professional Software Development Has Taught Me

Steve Yegge: 10 Great Books

On my wanderings through the web I'd come across Dare's Top 10 Signs Your Software Project is Doomed and Omar's Top 10 Tips for Working at Microsoft (or Anywhere Else) and believed in the relevancy of these criterias for the average programmer, but now with the list of lists, advise needs to be noted and remembered, worked upon.

Reminder to Self: Checklists are guides, in and of itself it doesn't create a solution, it's the human brain behind the driving that is the danger and solution.

There's a lot of Voice over IP (voip) companies that are offering US telephone numbers to international users. (You know, where you pick a US Phone number and when someone calls it, the phone in your hut in Tonga rings instead.)

Well, something that is more interesting (?) would be having a US Shipping address so us internationalised people can get in on the huge number of sales that start and end in the US (of course, depending on the product the sale might begin and end in Europe, or Japan, or even Fiji?)

There have been a huge number of products that we've wanted to get our hands on that are not available in the local Australian market (let alone available in Tonga.) In particular, the products that are a necessity in our household are the LeapFrog.com products for the kids. Of course, dad would have loved to get in on the action of the Zune.

This month I've been shopping around for a replacement for an old computer backpack and its not looking good. So, I walk back to the online store where I bought the back http://www.ebags.com and they don't ship internationally but they pointed out a site for a freight-forwarding company that organises a "US Shipping Address."

Access USA offers our members an exclusive U.S. mailing address. With their address, our members are able to receive any number of catalogs and magazines in addition to merchandise shipments. Access USA repackages and forward these items to our members.

Access USA provides our members with a street address, not a P.O. Box. You will receive a complete street address with a unique suite number. Here is an example:

John Smith
1903 60th Place E.
Suite M9999
Bradenton, Florida 34203

All U.S. shipping companies will be able to deliver to your Access USA address.

Now, that has potential. Amazon here I come.

We were in the Strathfield Library with Ma'ata Ngalo'afe and while we were browsing her book section two kids were on the Library computers having a go for it. Ma'ata eventually got around to wanting to get on the computers to do "work" so we wandered over there (and she told me to go get my own computer 8-).

Well, those two kids were browsing the Internet and more interestingly they were playing a game on http://www.runescape.net which is a Role Playing game. I got on there later in the evening to see whether it would be useful for the kids.

I haven't been much into Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, although I have played a fair bit of offline RTS with Dune 2000, World of Warcraft, but I found this game responsive and fun.

When you sign in, create your free account, you get a little training in the new world which initially starts with how you can feed yourself with the rudimentary woodsmen stuff (e.g. chop wood, light fire, net prawns) and then you graduate up to meeting a baker and learning how to bake bread.

If you've got plenty of time, but no dough, get on down to your local library and login to http://www.runescape.net and have a go.

I also believe that it is RUNE (space) SCAPE, not RUN (space) ESCAPE, but it is an interesting play on words for a website (don't you think?)

If you like this site, sign up! RuneScape hosts thousands of players every day. Thats alot of quests, trades, battles, pk-ing, mining, smithing, arrow shooting, magic casting, fishing, and just about everything else in between! We hope that some of those players will enjoy this forum and seek help from our admins and haven in our chat areas. SO have fun, enjoy the site.

The documentation on the website seems quite thorough, although just diving in and clicking through seems to be just as easy.

Walking around the Search Engine http://surch.com  when I came across the sponsored results:

The Friendly Islander Hotel (Tonga)
http://friendlyislander.com/ - Affordable accomodation, friendly service, memorable experie...

The creative thing about the Friendly Islander Hotel website http://friendlyislander.com is that it isn't a 'regular' website, nor a myspace.com website.

It is essentially just a Blogger.com blog site, that doesn't actually blog but just has the advertisement laid out pretty well.

I know it isn't that new, and quite a few entrepreuners have already done this thing before, but I'd never seen it for a Pacific Island business.

Wow, they get heaps of FREE bandwidth, FREE redundancies, FREE advertising.

I certainly hope more Pacific Island companies get a hold of this new 'website' system and get themselves up with high upfront cost, but seemingly no-maintenance regular costs. Once its up, you've paid your consultant, you can just leave it.

Other blog engines that you can work with include:

http://www.bloggar.com

http://www.wordpress.com

http://spaces.live.com

http://myspace.com

And we're all wondering what value we can get out of that Zune that we're not buying ?

It would seem that if you wanted to be the latest hip music store in town, or even latest "it" place for dorks with money to hang. Get a vending machine from Microsoft that will beam legitimate songs for people to listen to, and give them some way of to put the actual tracks to digital media (like a USB stick or similar) Charge $0.50 more for the service.

Have the vending machines spew out the latest promotional pictures, so we can commune with it.

There's been news on the 'net recently about the closure of Tower Records, what I recall of the franchise, they used to have large outlets all over the areas of America I visited. No more racks of vinyl, cds to wade through. Although I'm sure those racks are still kicking at half-price books.

Instead of listening to the 'clips' of music at the store, why don't you just go ahead and book yourself the whole album (or even more depending on your 100GB -vs- 30GB Zune.) Listen to the sound 3 plays or 3 days, and if you really like it drop in the memory key to the 'man' and get the thing for a buck-fifty.

Think of all the 'independent music' that people can listen to, instead of just getting whatever elevator music is running the loop at the store. I for one can never find the clips I want to listen to on rackmounted listening posts. Now with the latest Zune enabled store, every zunester can listen to the whole catalogue while they're looking in the meat section.

You can even find the songs you want faster, because it's all cataloged and menu intuitive to find.

Video clips ? Instead of waiting 30 minutes for a short video clip, maybe next firmware upgrade will let you get those at the local shop as well.

Interesting thought. Could target and walmart really drive the sale of this product, or take a huge share in the after-market value of the Zune by selling songs for a buck ? I mean, the costs for those juke-boxes are going to be high to start with, but how many would you need to serve out all the albums in the store ? 1 ? (doctored to get a 150GB HDD, or 32GB Flash Drives)

Of course, Zuny would have to sell a truck load of Zunesters before this whole idea is 'economical' but isn't it interesting how a whole new landscape of music buying is now technologically possible and feasible?

Tupou College Band - Natural Band from the Vaotaataa (11:41)

Another film clip from 2001. The Tupou College students use various 'home' remedies and natural items for their instruments to provide a rendition of In the Jungle, and In the Mood.

Various items used for instruments include:

• Helu - combs
• Va'a Lesi - Pawpaw tree leaf stem
• Nge'esi hina - bottles
• Nge'esi niu - coconut shells
• Korn Shells

Enjoy, and if you want to know more about the school, you can visit their site at http://www.tct.to, Tupou College

The FWC Education Office has a "get-together" social function each year for the Tongatapu college/high-schools where students prepare and perform various skits and traditional programs.

In 2001, Tupou College students performed the traditional "Lakalaka" dance to the tune of Hindi Music. The theme of the choreagraphy revolves the continuing conflict between Tupou College and another college (Tonga College)

A very creative effort by the boys, and staff. Congratulations Tupou College and you can read more about the college on their website @ http://www.tct.to

'Asili ai 'ete no read the book mo e to e fakatotolo pe ki ai.

Ko e invite eni 'e tolu 'oku 'ia au he taimi ni ki he website ko e http://www.ebible.com 'oku ne index 'a e paaki 'e 6 'o e tohitapu, Tikisinali 'e 3, 'Enisaikolopetia 'e 8, Komeniteli 'e 6. Ko hono fakalea 'e tahaa ? ko e tokoni'i atu aipe ho'o ('eta?) fekumi ki he ngaahi fakamatala, potu tohi 'i he folofola.

Ko 'ete fakatokanga'i, 'e hoko 'a e website ni ko ha fu'u tokoni lahi 'aupito ki a nautolu 'oku nau malanga pe fai ako-tohitapu mo e 'alaa me'a pehee. Tuku kehe atu kitaua 'oku masiva he 'ilo folofola ka e fie 'ilo ki ai.

Hange ko e fakamatala 'i 'olunga, ko 'ene tu'u he taimi ni, ko e tohi 'e 12 'oku lolotonga index, pea mahalo 'e 'alu atu pe 'a e taimi mo hano fakalalahi.

Bibles

New Century Version
The Message
King James Version
New American Standard Bible
English Standard Version
New King James Version

Tikisinali 'e tolu (2 FREE, 1 optional)

Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(optional) Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary

Encyclopedia 'e 8 (3 FREE, 5 Optional)

(Free) Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary
(Free) New Naves Topical Bible
(Free) What does the Bible say about
(Optional) Where to Find in the Bible
(Optional) I Never Knew that Was in the bible
(Optional) MacArthur Topical Bible
(Optional) Nelson's Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations and Quotes
(Optional) Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs

Commentary 'e 6 (1 FREE, 5 Optional)

(Free) Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary
(Optional) Believer's Bible Commentary
(Optional) King James Bible Commentary
(Optional) Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible
(Optional) Jon Courson's Application Commentary
(Optional) Thru the Bible

Kia kimoutolu 'oku anga maheni mo e 'u topical search engines hangee ko 'ete 'alu ki he http://www.amazon.com ke te fekumi ki ha 'uu tohi pe ko e www.ebay.com kapau ko ha'ate fekumi ki ha 'uu auction 'e tokoni 'a e website ko ee http://www.ebible.com ki he'ete fakatotolo ki he folofola he 'e tu'u ange 'a e ngaahi tali ki he "search" ki he sio fakatohitapu ki he ngaahi fo'i lea 'oku "search."

Ko e me'a pe 'eni ko e kei 'i he lea fakapapalangi, but it's a start ?

Ka te ke fiema'u ha'o "invite" pea ke email mai pe ki he samt@nomoa.com, pea ka kuo 'osi pea ke kataki 'o fakahuu atu pe ho'o email address 'i he form ko 'ena he http://www.ebible.com na'a vave atu pe ha'o invite hangatonu.

Visit bTonga

Generally browsing when I come across this great interview by Meilir Page-Jones with Professor Sidney Dijkstra.

His views of programmers is 'refreshing?' and is inline with my current thoughts on the subject, and the needs for small organisations (and up to the largest) to be careful how they abdicate responsibilities to the IT/IS departments.

MPJ: I see that you' ve got to get going. Could I just get a quick summary from you, please?

SD: Yes. A good software team should have the hybrid strength of many different skills and personalities. The team should be an interlocking set of specialists held, together by a few generalists. It should never be made up solely of programmers. Or, to reduce this idea to a bumper sticker, as you American folks seem to like to do:

This is not the Dutch computer scientist Edsger Wybe Dijkstra renowned for developing the "Dijkstra's (shortest path) Algorithm"

Way coooool.

Have you got your @nomoa.com email address yet ?

I just found out that you/I can read my samt@nomoa.com mail by logging into http://mail.live.com, as well as http://www.hotmail.com. Isn't that just tooo coool?

I'm using the 'new' Windows Live Mail BETA layout, which is real cool/easy to read and respond to email. I'm supposed to be able to POP mail into my mail client (Windows Live Desktop Mail) but I haven't got that part working yet.

When you get your @nomoa.com account, to get the beaut look; login and then go to http://ideas.live.com where you can click on the Apply for Windows Live Mail BETA. Again, it's free and immediate. You might even get an invite for the new look email just by looking at your email inbox.

Visit bTonga

I'm still having problems with my installation, but there seems to be more and more people posting their approach.

DaveG has a nice rundown on his blog http://nepherim.lifehaiku.com/2006/installing-lyceum-with-clean-urls/

And the mailing list is full of helpful people assisting those wishing to try out Lyceum. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out what it is I don't understand to ask the right questions. It seems everyone else just install and it works.

It probably doesn't help that of the three install attempts I've done they've been on different OSs and different configuration/builds of Apache/PHP so I haven't got anything complete that I've learned.

Let's see, OpenBSD has change root'd Apache, FC1/Ensim now has a whoefully outdated PHP (insecure) and Debian Sarge(?) has some different mechanisms for virtual hosts. I dare not try it on Vista B2 since I've got enough beta stuff running as it is.

Visit bTonga

First I needed it under Beta2 so I could extract the files from the 5472 Build.

Now, I need it so I can check whether I can really make ISO image backups of my DVDs using DVD Decrypter ?

But you have to read between the lines for how to do the install, and thanks to Cygon's Blog, there is a way.

Visit bTonga

I'd noticed a little thing a couple of days ago, but it has hit me that it is something that I really like and is becoming quite useful.

Amazon's Search Engine www.a9.com has a great new feature, other than that little extra discount on Amazon goods.

Normally, to do a search on one of these search engines (e.g. Google, MSN, or Yahoo) you have to first get on the site  and then type in your search at the text box. New "Search text boxes" appearing in FireFox, Maxtor, Avant help the situation a little bit, but A9 have an extra featureset. Just type your query into your URL textbox.

So, instead of typing http://www.a9.com to get to the website, you can type http://www.a9.com/nomoa.com to get to the search engine with nomoa.com already searched.

Visit bTonga

http://www.amazon.com seems to be the referenced site for when you want to buy something on the internet, especially related to books.

There's a few "in-the-know" people who seem to be referencing http://www.abebooks.com who seem to even have a section dedicated to students (used textbooks.) Times are moving and this seems like a site that will definitely have to get some visits.

Visit bTonga