Dragon's Eye News

Done with Art Rage 2.0

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not very fond of microsoft. Recently though I found a feature in Window$ that deserves Kudos.

Remote Desktop. It just works. Continue reading "Remote Desktop just works."

To cut to the end, this laptop is an excellent piece of work. It doesn't have all the flash that some other laptops have. It's not as good looking as the HP TX1120 but where it lacks in flash it more than makes up for with solid behavior as a tablet PC.

I won't reproduce the specs because you can find those with a simple Google search. Instead, I'll list the things I like about the laptop and a few of the things that I don't, in no particular order.

Continue reading "Fujitsu T4215 mini review"

What follows is a quick review of the HP TX1120. Others will no doubt put out extensive reviews with lots of pictures but I wanted to put out a quick review by someone who was looking to buy a new tablet PC without breaking the bank.

My requirements were:

1. A reasonably fast machine but not a desktop replacement.
2. A inexpensive as possible. I was going to have to convince wifey that I needed a new machine without breaking the bank. My older Averatec C3500 isn't entirely dead yet but it only gets an hour of runtime per charge and is showing its age.
3. An active screen, preferably Wacom compatible.

Continue reading "HP TX1120us mini review"

Why don't I hear more about this?

There are a few sites on the net talking about hidden messages in spam but most deal with steganographic images. It seems that the following spam could not possibly be a real sales attempt.

Greetings, XXXX lent creepmousy
I called him "the police officer". I called him a taxi.
Our company's overviews reveal you've been overpaying on your current payments. fibromyxosarcoma xylomancy
You have been accepted at much lower!supermalate oralize
That musician finds the book interesting. That bartender told them a joke.
http://geocities.com/minacupa
Does Amanda encourage Fred's wife to jump under the bridge? Virginia opened the door.
Take a sec. to review, and we will be in contact asap. acquaintanceship shamableness
They kept the room warm. Those librarians offered her a ride home.
Unsub => t a kem e o f f "AT" tou g h g uy"dot" n e t ichthyotoxin yawp
I found the book interesting. Those store clerks left her a ticket.
Best Respects, fugaciousness crowtoe
Rocco Philips untuned gallonage
Are the carpenters enjoying running nowadays? gastrostenosis

I can't imagine that even the dumbest person could be stupid enough to follow the link without being able to read what it's about.

If the many spam message I receive that look like this are hidden messages, why don't we (I) hear more about their real content?

Is nobody looking at these messages and decoding them or are the spammers really as lazy as these messages would suggest, if they aren't steganographic?

Ok, this has nothing to do with anything I normally write about but this is going in the "musings" category so you just have to deal with it.

I'm a fan of the Harry Potter books and they're now available for pre-order though Amazon.

Buy through the following link and I get a kickback

If you aren't a painter (I'm not, though I'd like to be) and have wondered what it takes to create a painting, go look at Kate's Studio

where she's documented most of the steps she went through to create the following.

Check it out

like little schoolgirls.

No, not real schoolgirls. Terrorists. Yeah, I know, that girl looks a bit like a terrorist but she probably just put a spider down someone's pants. I guess today that would make her a terrorist.

At lunch recently, a few of us were talking about flying and how the ridiculous restrictions limit law-abiding citizens (and non for that matter) a hell of a lot more than it keeps terrorists out of the skies.

I swear, the real terrorists probably wake up giggling and laugh all the way through each day.

Continue reading "They probably wake up giggling"

Ok, they aren't repeating themselves in the strictest sense but so far the people at Baen have shown themselves to be good people and with the passing of Jim Baen it appears that the company won't be falling into the profit pit that so many companies live in.

Now you're wondering what I'm going on about, aren't you?

The folks at Baen have started a program where they're giving away eBooks to the disabled. They began the program with the last Veterans day but it doesn't appear to be a requirement that you're a vet. This is cool, check them out.

Baen Books (www.baen.com), a publisher of science fiction, will provide its books to fans who are blind, paralysed, or dyslexic, or are amputees, in electronic form free of charge, effective immediately.

Baen Books is making this offer in recognition of Veterans Day, and all our disabled military veterans. Many Baen authors are veterans themselves, using a military setting as the setting of their tales. Right now convalescing vets might welcome an exciting, fast-action tale to pass the time.

Continue reading "Baen does it again"

What are you doing this election day? If you've already voted and you've got some time and a video camera how about joining Video the Vote and documenting what's happening at your local polling stations.

I started out this morning with camera and tripod in the trunk and geek badge around my neck and went to two of the polling places on the way to work.

Here in Plano, TX things started out very quietly near my house (where I would have voted if I hadn't already done so last Friday) and at the location I voted last week.

Continue reading "Video the Vote 2006"

40 years ago the Great Pumpkin was almost seen on TV for the first time when It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown aired. It'll be on TV again tonight but even if you miss that, take a look at some clips on www.peanuts.com.

Continue reading "Happy Halloween Charlie Brown!"

bookofjoe writes about a new installation at the Tate Modern in London which consists of five spiral slides.

Riders use canvas mats to slide their way down.

Cool.

Continue reading "I want one of these in my house!"

"Stiff" got bored one day and decided to fire off a list of questions to programmers he respects and actually got some good answers back.  Many of the answers are interesting as much for the context as the content.

Check it out.

Continue reading "Programmer answers"

Related to the entry I made back on June 5, it's apparently becoming increasingly easier for people to steal your information while you're shopping on insecure sites.

The Washington Post has a new article and related blog entry available showing just how easy it is for scammers to hack into some sites and retrieve your credit card information.

Be careful out there.

Continue reading "Be careful with your shopping"

I like to think that it couldn't happen here. The fact is that cameras are on their way to becoming as common in the USA as they are in Britain. Did you know that there's one camera for every four families in Britain? Can they even go to the bog without being watched?

The Daily Mail precently osted an article on a new development in people-watching by the British government with the addition of loudspeakers that allow the watchers to start talking as well as watching.

The Mail on Sunday watched as a cyclist riding through a pedestrian area was ordered to stop.

'Would the young man on the bike please get off and walk as he is riding in a pedestrian area,' came the command.

The surprised youth stopped, and looked about. A look of horror spread across his face as he realised the voice was referring to him.

He dismounted and wheeled his bike through the crowded streets, as instructed.

Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them.

Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother.

'But Middlesbrough does have a big problem with anti-social behaviour, so it is very reassuring.'

I certainly don't have much complaint with methods that reduce crime, but the Big Brother of 1984 is definitely settling in to stay over there.

How much time will pass before the cameras start appearing in people's homes? How often do the operators, or even more likely hackers, record video from those cameras and post them on the internet? What sort of controls are in place to keep the operators from behaving as though they can dictate lawful behavior?

I also wonder how long it will take before people who live and work in high traffic areas get sick and tired of the disembodied voice interrupting their lives. It's bad enough having to listen to people going by, talking loudly on their cell phones. What's it going to be like having to listen to a government loudmouth shouting at people all day?

Continue reading "Big brother is definitely here, well, there"