Katrina Aftermath

As everyone probably knows by now, hurricane Katrina has swept through New Orleans causing mass damage and costing hundreds of lives.
Seeing some of the images of the devastation caused my thoughts are with all the people involved in the tragedy.

This major tragedy is being covered by the major news organisation, but is once again showing how the blogosphere can help get information out to people about what's going on. For example Technorati is already tracking over 40000 posts about the hurricane, and Flickr has thousands of photos listed.

Other people are trying to use Google Earth to track the devastation, by using image overlays, eg here and here. Also check out this post for before and after shots of the breeches.

The storm chasers video provided here gives some examples of the aftermath of the hurricane. The images seem more like shots from a disaster movie, and this looks like it was before the massive flooding started!

This page on wikipedia provide a good summary of the current situation, and really shows how the community editing process can work!

There is also some worrying details on the reporting, that seems to be using racist stereotypes to describe the same action: black people loot, where as white people 'find'.

Some other comments that I have found really interesting revolve around the evacuation plans, or lack of them. My initial thoughts on seeing people being rescued etc, were why didn't they evacuate when they were told, but I think these were very narrow minded views.
From reading information (eg here and here) it seems to suggest that the whole evacuation plan consisted of people getting in their cars and driving away. This is fine if you've got a car, but there are apparently 100,000 or so people in the city who don't drive, and so had no choice but to stay, or try and use the emergency shelters. It's sure to be an especially hard few days for them!

Google Talk

The other release by Google last week was Google Talk. Their much speculated IM application.

I have not tried this personally, so can't comment directly on the software, but judging by the initial reviews, if they were hoping to take the market by storm like they did with GMail they may not make it!

The difference with Google Talk compared to GMail is that they are not offering anything new or different to what's already available (just plain IM and VoIP), and by the looks of it they missed out some basic things (no emoticons for example).

They are making a big thing about using an open standard, unlike MSN for example, which is a step in the right direction, but you cant use the talk features with anything but their own client, and according to this Slashdot post they are not being completely open.

I think everyone would agree that the IM space needs to be sorted out! Why should I have to sign up to multiple accounts just to talk to people on different networks? Why don't file transfers just work? etc. However, by the looks of it so far, Google don't want to be the people to sort it out!

From discussions at work, I think the real interest with Google Talk is in what they do with it.
Will they add tailored adverts based ion your IM chats? How about processing your VoIP calls to give tailored adverts? Would people be OK with that? Probably not unless you got something in return.
What about free calls to standard phone numbers, paid for by targeted adverts from your conversations? That would give people an interesting dilemma...

Google Desktop 2

Google have been busy this past week, releasing two new products.

The first of these was the beta of Google Desktop 2, the new release of their desktop search application. I never tried the first version, but heard good things about it, so I thought I would give this new release a go.
One of the main new features about this second version was the addition of a sidebar showing all sorts of information. I've been using the Desktop Sidebar for a while now so I was very interested to compare the two!

Initial Thoughts - Desktop Search

I've never tried a desktop search tool before (excluding the standard windows stuff) and was surprised by how quick it works! I love the QuickFind feature that shows the matches as you type - very neat! I also like the way it searches everything, my Gmail inbox, my outlook email, my web history, and all my files!
The way it integrates into a standard Google web search is also pretty good, in that you can search the web directly from the desktop search box, and any web searches you do will also show your desktop search results!

It did take an awful long time to index my machine initially however as it only does this while the machine is idle (ie when the mouse hasn't moved for 60 seconds). As I was trying this on my work computer I tended to be using it when it was on, so the indexing wasn't getting very far! I ended up leaving the machine on over night for a few days to complete the process. This is only a once of though, so not really an issue.
There is also no option (that I've found) to restrict the area it searching. For instance, if I know the file is located in a certain directory, why cant I restrict the search to just that directory? Instead I end up having to make the search terms more specific to filter out the unwanted locations!

Overall I think the search feature is very neat, but I wonder how often I will be using it!
For example, If I'm searching source code etc, I think I'm still gonna use the search features of the editors like jEdit even though they are slower! This is because they are more advanced in terms of regular expression matching and replace options for example.
I'm also not sure what performance hit the automatic indexing has, but anyway, I will be keeping it installed for the time being to see how/if I end up using it!


Initial Thoughts - Sidebar

There are some things to like about the Google sidebar, but in the main it seems to basic to me. After using Desktop Sidebar it feels like a step backwards!

I like the idea of automatically adding feeds from sites you visit, and I like the idea of trying to aggregate the top news stories etc, but there were a lot of things that I wanted but couldn't find.

For example:

• No way to scroll the feed entries without opening up the extra panel.
• No way to order the feed entries - it seems to randomly change from recent stuff, to posts a few days old!
• The system Monitor plugin doesn't show the details of running processes, ie what's using the CPU, memory etc.
• Can't hide the panel titles
• No skin support
• I couldn't find a way to get the news panel to show more UK relevant news. It seemed to be mainly American stuff.
• The clock panel (TimeWarp) is not very good, and has no way to show the date

You can probably guess I didn't keep the sidebar on for long :)

Having said all that though, this is only a beta version, and given the resources at Google, they could easily fix these things if they wanted to!
They have also made the APIs open, and given the number of people who will want to work with it, I can see a whole host of sidebar plugins appearing very quickly!

So although I'm not using their sidebar for now, I'm not writing it off for ever!! :)

Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena

This site contains 57 Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena that are worth checking out.
I've not looked through them all yet, but some of the first ones are pretty interesting!

Thanks to BoingBoing for the original link.

The fight against splogs!

If you have ever done any 'next blog'ing (clicking the 'next blog' button at the top right to see random blogs) you will know that so many of the blogs out there are full of junk. Often the blogs have just been created to generate more links to company sites to try and increase their ranking on Google!

These blogs are called spam blogs or splogs, and Blogger is apparently one of the worst offenders!

To try and stop this problem they have introduced a couple of new features to Blogger.

The first is the 'flag' link on the top navbar. This allows users to flag objectionable content, and I guess if a blog gets lots of flags they will look at removing it!
The second feature is trying to stop spam comments. You'll now have to enter the string from one of the verification images, so that automated systems wont be able to add comments.

More info here on blogcritics.org.

These both seem like good features to me (especially as I've already had to delete spam comments from this blog), but I think it's probably just the first steps on the road to removing the spam completely!

And by the way, don't you go clicking my 'flag' button :)

Feedster top 500

Feedster released their list of the top 500 blogs for August recently, and it caused quite a bit of discussion across the blogosphere about who should and shouldn't have been in it!

The thing I find most interesting is that it shows the type of blogs people are reading.
In this case there is a whole load of IT and technology related blogs in there, with engadget being top of the list!
So I think its still the mainly the tech savvy using these technologies!

Smart light bulb texts you when it dies

I have to wonder about some of the inventions that people come up with!

Engadget is reporting that scientists in Japan have come up with a smart light bulb that texts you when it dies.

I can't really see the point of this though! Light bulbs tend to go when you turn them on, at which point it is blatantly obvious that the bulb is dead because there is no light!!!
Also how would this work - would you need to connect each bulb up to a phone line? And how would you no which one? Most people have a whole load of light bulbs - do you give each one an identifier of some sort? Just seems like a stupid idea to me!

I have to agree with some of the other comments. It would be a much better idea to tell you the bulb is about to die, or even better, for them to create bulbs that last a whole lot longer so you don't have to worry about them dying in the first place! :)

There's a lot of planes up there

Given the couple of plane crashes recently, people's perceived risk of air travel can be increased.
That's why I think videos like this one from NASA are good, as they show how many planes are flying at any one point (over the US in this example). It looks pretty busy up there :)

However, if you do want all the morbid details, the Aviation Safety Network Database contains details on all the plane accidents that have occurred. This could really put you off flying :)

Flash Earth

Following on from my posts on Google Maps / Virtual Earth, this Flash Earth site provides a flash based application that lets you easily compare the two sets of data.
In some ways its better, with scrolling and zooming a bit more like Google Earth, but it's a flash application which I'm not so keen on, and it provides no kind of search option, so will be no use long term.

Nevertheless, it does make it very easy to compare the quality of the satellite imagery from the two companies!

Weird Pointless Website

Ok, so that title may put you off, but this Bubble Woman site is worth checking out!

If she gets stuck, just use the mouse to drag her around :)

ARGs : Where do you draw the line?

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and the whole idea of viral marketing (wikipedia links) are becoming quite popular lately with the success of things like Halo 2's ILoveBees and Burger King's subservient chicken.

The whole idea of ARGs is to blur the lines between games and reality by creating a story that appears to be real and that people can get immersed in. I have been following the Perplex City ARG lately (although the idea of buying 'puzzle cards' is putting me off).

This brings up interesting questions of how far companies can go in making their reality appear real.;
BoingBoing is reporting a story involving a new ARG set up by the BBC. It looks as if people from the BBC have intentionally set up pages on wikipedia about a character and group that only exist within the ARG.

As the whole point of wikipedia is to provide an online encyclopedia, for its credibility it is inportant for the articles to be true. Therefore, I think if the reports are true, and the BBC have created these pages, then they've crossed the line!

This gives an interesting question with everything on the web, which is only being highlighted by ARGs deliberately creating false information:

How do you know what you can believe out of all the information you read online?

I cant see an easy solution to this problem....

Funny 404 page

I was trying to look at something from the DougWeb site, but accidentally got the addres wrong, bringing up a 404 not found page.

Unlike most however, this made me laugh!

DougWeb: 404

I wonder if there are any other funny 404 pages out there :)

SG:1 Alliance cancelled?

I think that Stargate SG:1 is one of the best things on TV, and so I had been quite looking forward to playing the associated computer game Stargate SG:1 Alliance.

However it now appears that this game might not come out at all, with the publishers (JoWood) saying

the title in its current form... does satisfy neither our quality requirements nor the fans expectations. We will not release anything that does not do justice to this well known license.
In recent months we have invested a lot of time and resources in helping Perception finish the development, but we now simply have lost confidence in their ability to finish this project in time and sufficient quality.

which doesn't sound good at all!! :(

They have now pulled the developers (Perception) of the project, which to me seems quite a drastic step for a game that's been in development for a while!

Oh well! I guess I'll just have to wait a while longer to get a Stargate themed game, especially given that legal proceedings were brought against a fan based HL2 mod to stop that in its tracks!

More Free Games

There's a new feature on 1UP listing 102 free games to download.

Admittedly about half of these are addons to existing games that you must already have, but there looks to be some good ones in the other half.

I've not tried any yet, but I think I will do when I get the time! :)

First Vista Virus??

So the first Windows Vista beta has been out for a week or so, and already there's loads of talk about the first 'viruses' having already been discovered. (eg zdnet, vnunet, register)

It turns out however that this has all just been overhyped by the media, and it isn't really a virus at all.

First off, the so called virus affects Monad, which is a replacement to the cmd or command shells in current windows, and this isn't even part of the Vista beta.

Secondly, all the 'virus' actually is is a script that, when you run it, changes some files on your system. It makes no attempt to spread itself automatically and cant be installed without knowing. The user has to actually run the script!

There's more info about this on the blogs by Adam Barr and Lee Holmes who work on Monad for Microsoft.

This isn't a new problem, the media are just trying to pin something bad on the new OS. For example, if you create a windows bat file with the following contents, and run it on a current windows system it will probably do a lot of damage, but is this a virus?? I don't think so!

rmdir /S /Q c:/windows

I think this comes down to users needing some level of common sense. If you don't know what a file is why run it?
It's the same as walking across a road without looking - if you get hurt you've only really got yourself to blame!

First Comments - Woohoo!!!!

I've just got my first comments, so someone is reading this after all :)

(Cheers Andy!)

Brute Force Attacks

As some of you may know (if anyone actually reads this :) ), I've been running a MythTV box for a while now as a PVR / media centre.

As part of the setup, I have opened up my firewall for two services the linux box provides, firstly the included web server so I can see what's on and schedule recordings remotely, and secondly for remote ssh access.

Having read some posts on security lately I decided to look at my auth.log file, and was pretty scared by what it contained.

It seems as if my box is been trageted by brute force attacks trying a whole variety of different users to try and gain access! I don't think anybody has actually gained access (although I've changed the passwords just in case!) but it scared me into looking for a solution!

A bit of searching brought up sshdfilter which seems to be the answer. This continually monitors the ssh access, and anytime an illegal user is requested, the corresponding IP address is automatically blocked. This should stop the problem, as all of my attacks have been coming from just a couple of IP addresses.

I'd recommend checking this out if you have an exposed linux box as it might help prevent attacks, which can only be a good thing!