Archive | January, 2009

Netflix Greatest Kiss Challenge

Movie enthusiasts, couples in love, or just amateur actors from around the country are invited to submit their best video re-enactment of a kiss from an admittedly subjective list of the 10 best movie kisses of all time as compiled by Netflix. Or, participants may recreate any other movie kiss of their choosing so there is room for the Brokeback Mountain fans to get in the game.

Do You Have a Seagate Brick?

Seagate has announces, in its Knowlege Base, that the problem is a result of bad firmware and that drive owners can protect themselves by upgrading the firmware for the affected drives. The KB article assumes that you are a Windows user. They provide a tool to let Windows users scan their drives and discover the model number, serial number, and firmware revision. However, if you are a Linux user their Knowledge Base article is not going to help you. Fortunately, this information is very easy retrieve in most Linux installations. If you are using a Debian or Ubuntu install this method will definitely work.

Good Password Policies Help Fight Worm

A complex computer worm has infected corporate networks and has affected more than 10 million computers this week, experts say. Infecting computers in the U.S., Europe and Asia, the Downadup worm (Google News Query) – which focuses on Microsoft Windows – scans company networks trying to guess passwords in order to access corporate networks, experts found. If the password is guessed, the worm can then infect a computer and the entire network of servers it is connected to.

Windows 7 vs Linux – Two Perspectives

The smart money is on those who understand that this really only applies to the class of PC users who actually give a damn about which OS is running on their system. Sadly, at present, thats a tiny fraction of users. People use what they are given or what they used in school or at the office. Those of us who shuttle back and forth between multiple OS’s or even multiple incarnations of the same OS will continue to do what we always have and select the best tool for the job.

EXT4 Goodness Coming Soon

As more people use iTunes to download TV shows and movies or as people do more video editing the size of the files they work with get biggr and bigger. Ext4 addresses this problem and keeps Linux ahead of the curve for users who need to work with lots and lots of data.