The Major

Category: Technology

  • Eve Online

    Mark and I in Eve Online:

    We’re both looking forward to getting better ships.

  • Go Away!

    For the nine millionth time, Mr. Windows XP:
    – I don’t want to take a tour of Windows XP.
    – I don’t care that there are unused icons on my desktop.
    – I don’t want to activate.
    – I don’t care that my high-speed USB device is plugged in to an non-high speed USB hub.
    – I don’t care that my system may be at risk.
    – I sure as hell am not ready to reboot my computer yet after applying patches.
    – I don’t care that new programs have been installed and are now available for my clicking pleasure in the start menu.

    Leave me alone and let me use my computer in peace!

  • Web OS

    Operating systems are slowly becoming less and less important. We can perform more and more tasks through a web browser.

    I am rather picky about what applications I use, but even I have migrated some of my tasks to be web-based:
    email: Gmail
    IM: Meebo
    RSS: Bloglines
    Life Organization: Somewhat custom implementation using MediaWiki

    Having these things entirely online is great because it gives me a consistant environment to work with. I don’t have to worry about customizing every single computer that I work on. I can simply fire up a few web pages, log in, and I feel comfortable.

    And if you need to, there are a few more things you can do entirely in a web browser like word processing (Writely) and spreadsheets (Google Spreadsheets).

    I like the direction things are going.

  • Routing Protocols Comparison Table

    While studying tonight I found that I didn’t have a good listing of several characteristics of routing protocols to study from. So I made a table for studying, and released it under the GFDL:

    Comparison of Routing Protocols

    You will need to be able to read OpenDocument Text Documents to view the table. Open Office can be used to view such documents.

  • When Will Microsoft Learn?

    From a great Windows Vista overview on Tom’s Hardware:

    The first user defined during installation is automatically granted administrative privileges. Worse yet, the reserved account named Administrator is not required to have a password to log into the machine!

    When will Microsoft learn? I thought Bill Gates was now supposedly pushing security above all else. This horrible default settings shows exactly how committed Microsoft is to security.

  • ogod

    Seagate releases a 750GB hard drive.

    I am excited, even though I probably won’t be getting one. I am excited because this drives down the price of the 500GB drives, which is what I’ll be buying now instead of the 320GB drives. My current drives (for my main desktop):

    1 Internal 250GB: Windows, Program Files, Music
    1 Internal 320GB: Movies. Lots of movies.
    1 Internal 120GB: “Temporary” storage. Where I put my Bit Torrent downloads until I can organize them, and where I put my DVD rips until I can encode them, and then delete the huge temporary files.
    2 External 320GB: One has TV shows and software. The other is a backup of my movies drive.

    Actually when I get more drives, they’ll be used for backup mostly. And when I stick another internal drive in, I want to get a new power supply.

    It’s a damn shame that I probably won’t actually get to buy more drives for a while. *plays world’s smallest violin for self*

  • Secret Pictures of Phone Switches

    WARNING! Do not click on the below link if you are not a geek!

    Secret pictures of phone switches.

    I was studying ISDN when I read about these phone switches, and just had to see what they looked like. What a find. I can’t explain how great that is.

  • Observations from a Networking Nerd

    Here are a few acronyms, and what a networking nerd thinks when he hears them, compared to a normal person:

    LAPD
    Normal Person – Los Angeles Police Department
    Networking Nerd – Link Access Procedures, D Channel

    DDR
    Normal Person – Dance Dance Revolution
    Networking Nerd – Dial on Demand Routing

    ATM
    Normal Person – Automated Teller Machine
    Networking Nerd – Asynchronous Transfer Mode

    In other news, I am really glad I am interested in this stuff, or else I would go nuts trying to study it.

  • Ouch

    OK, I know that this is a good investment when you consider how it will help me get my certifications, but ouch, this hurts:

    Boson Netsim

  • Spanning Tree

    As I was telling William, I don’t really like poetry, but this is just too beautiful…

    Algorhyme

I think that I shall never see
a graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
is loop-free connectivity.
A tree that must be sure to span
so packet can reach every LAN.
First, the root must be selected.
By ID, it is elected.
Least-cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree, these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me,
then bridges find a spanning tree.

Radia Perlman

    *tears up*