I was all set to get lots of stuff done today. I still have a ton of music to Mikeify. I got another album by Peter Hammill today, so I was going to do that one and put it on the iPod. I ordered his 80s albums last week from Amazon.ca, and every single one was out of stock so I had to get them from 3rd parties.
So they will trickle in over the next week or two. I got dinged in shipping and handling fees, but it’s the only way to get them. No, I won’t download music by Mr. Hammill. I respect his work far too much for that. These are all releases from his own “Fie” label, so I feel even better about that.
One thing I wanted to mention on this blog a while ago was this interesting gif image. Click to see it in full size.
It’s from the good old Windows 98 operating system. I still have that installed on my very first PC, along with Ubuntu running LXDE. I use that Windows computer for old DOS games. Some DOS only emulators I have only work on that thing too.
Anyway, I don’t have an internet connection for the Windows partition. I’ve disabled all network devices in the Windows Hardware Manager. That’s some good security. What is being shown on that animated gif though is a classic example of Microsoft’s whole approach to security.
It’s an afterthought. Even now, after getting such a horrendous reputation for bad or no security in their software, they’re playing catchup.
The truth is that Windows was developed as a workstation OS. Back when PCs were not connected to any network, and all they did was take floppies and spit text. And sometimes clip art. Unix – and hence Linux – were always intended for network use. That’s why the *nix operating systems (Apple’s Mac OS included as it’s a BSD derivative) all have their strong security “baked in”.
Microsoft patches and patches again their “spaghetti code” until a new vulnerability is found, then they patch it again. The new kernel being used for Vista and Windows 7 is a great step in the right direction for security, but being MS, it’s still not secure at all under scrutiny.
I could go for some baked spaghetti. Mmmmmm.
I’ve mentioned before that I like using Linux and Windows XP. I still do. And on all the machines I have running XP, I either have disabled internet functionality or run them virtually with no important data or crucial applications running on them. And I’ve got the latest and best firewall, anti-spyware and antivirus applications running constantly.
I’ve had viruses and trojans before. One on Windows 98 and one on XP. Those were what made me decide to finally switch to Linux. Now, if I somehow got any malware at all on this virtual windows I run here, all I have to do is close VirtualBox and restore a previous backup of my .vdi file. That file is basically the whole virtual machine, so it’s better than any software fix could be.
There’s another interesting graphic I found a while ago. It shows that HP printer ink is more expensive than human blood:
I’ve had my rant on HP and other printer makers, so I won’t regurgitate the vitriol. It’s pretty sad to think of all the waste this industry produces, just to make a buck.
Anyway, like I said at the top of this post, I was all set to get lots done today. I have a lousy fucking headache though. I think I might even just go to bed now.