General Discussion

phishing for ebay

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:08:11 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

I just got this message in my gmail account.

Dear eBay User, you have received an Unpaid Item strike

You were the winning buyer on eBay item #5237202437, 2.1 GB Hard Drive pulled from a Presario 1220 +CADDY . The seller, chdem has informed eBay that payment for the item has still not been received, or that the two of you were not able to come to agreement. As a result, you have received an Unpaid Item strike. 

If you would like additional information regarding the item in question, please review the dispute details page.

Remember, repeated Unpaid Item strikes may result in your suspension from eBay.
Here you can check the status of this transaction: 5237202437.

You can appeal this Unpaid Item strike if you believe it is not deserved. First, read the requirements for appealing the strike. If you meet them, you can submit your appeal on that page. If your appeal is successful the strike will be removed.

If you have recently paid for the item or have otherwise resolved this dispute, you can ask the seller to remove the Unpaid Item Strike.

Regards,

eBay

At first it looks legit but there was an image in it with a src URL of tmp/. Not to mention I logged into Ebay (from a different browser window - very important) and I haven't been there or attempted to buy anything since 2002! And my email address on file is my old yahoo one which hasn't been used since about 2002. That shows you how much I use Ebay eh? In 2002 the stuff was actually cheaper than buying it brand new, now it's not.

So be aware, they're phishing out there. Interestingly enough gmails phishing software caught it.

Grant

Computer interface revolution?

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:47:58 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

Did the computer interface just change? We've been interacting with computers the same way for 25 years but this multi-touch touchscreen looks like it could change everything. Too bad they're probably a billion dollars each (or maybe a gazillion!).

See the video here

Grant

Google does it again!

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 11:16:45 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

Google keeps changing the way we work and think.

Google talk plus email

Grant

Re: "updater" script

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:51:04 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

Password protection in a client side scripting language - right... Keeps the honest people honest.

Grant

Re: "updater" script

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:44:32 PST

by Spencer Thomas.

It reminds me of my, what I thought was advanced password protection using javascript.

It went something like this...

var a = prompt ('enter the password');

var q = 'p';
var b = 's';
var e = 'w';
var j = 'd';
var l = 'o';
var k = 'r';
var z = 'a';

if (a == q+z+b+b+e+l+k+j)
{
document.write ('welcome to the password protected area or something.');
}

else
{
while (1=1)
{
alert ('bad password, youre doomed to click ok for ever');
}
}

In other words, it's just annoying to decode, but it's possible.

Re: "updater" script

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:38:50 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

The language they have experience in is "Lunacy". What kind of crap programming style is this? They've variablized everything. I don't see this as being very readable or maintainable. It looks like someone wants to write "code" and be impressed with themselves. This is not a good example of code structure and shouldn't be copied you any of you. I think the reason they've made it so cryptic is the script could be about 5 lines long and they wouldn't feel like they accomplished anything if they only wrote 5 lines. The way they did it they have 28 lines of comments and variables and 14 lines of cryptic code.

Tell me this isn't more useful. It does the same thing.

#!/bin/bash
# This script has no purpose whatsoever....

method='--wget'
uselect='--auto-select'
uoptions='--auto'

# Below is the actual script itself

echo "Mandrakes automatic software updater"
echo "We will update your urpmi, software mirrors, installed software, located database and menus"
uprmi.update $method -a
urpmi $method urpmi
urpmi $method $uselect $uoptions
updatedb
update-menus
echo "Done, I hope not too many things broke"

Grant

"updater" script

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:38:07 PST

by Cameron MacDonald.

I've attached a script that auto-magically updates urpmi, etc.,but it'swritten out and formatted strangely (to my eye). I'm just curious if someone can tell what programming background the writer of this script has. Is this a good way, or bad way, to do it?

I haven't actually run the script yet.

Cam

Easy Linux Install

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:47:54 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

This is a really cool new technology. You go to a website, select which distribution you want, select some options and it creates a boot cd image for you. You then download it and after rebooting it will finish installing by downloading the software from the net!

Easy Installer

It will create Fedora, SuSE, Debian and Ubuntu boot cds.

Grant

Re: Googles New Ads

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:27:27 PST

by Cameron MacDonald.

Does everyone have to jump on the "ads" bandwagon?? Apparently so! Thank goodness for Privoxy!

Googles New Ads

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 10:49:21 PST

by Spencer Thomas.

Turns out ever since the whole AOL thing google is now starting to do IMAGE ads.

https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats#image

I seriously never mind Google text ads, or anything like that, especially because they have been relevant, but now image ads?? I can't say I agree with google on this one. Next we'll find them doing popups and animations.

IE 6 with all patches applied still has 21 vulnerabilities!

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 01:03:50 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x with all vendor patches installed and all vendor workarounds applied, is currently affected by one or more Secunia advisories rated Highly critical

http://secunia.com/product/11/#advisories

Firefox fared better with 3 unpatched vulnerabilities.

http://secunia.com/product/4227/#advisories

Grant

Re: Maxtor hard drive...

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 00:28:49 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

Yes, you probably want to put the old harddrive in and set up a task or batchfile or something to copy her stuff over every so often. I can't believe Sony set up a raid0 from the factory. I guess they don't have to replace data if the drive dies though. At least she has another year left on her warranty. What a lot of people don't understand is the warranty isn't from the time they buy the harddrive but from the time it's manufactured. Most manufacturers add a grace period to that date in order to give the retail stores time to get it on the shelf. If you go to somewhere like Frys and buy a drive on a killer sale you may notice that the warranty is almost up when you get it. I just had my first Maxtor drive die (out of a lot) and it's such a small failure that if I hadn't been trying to include it in an array I wouldn't have noticed. I could fdisk and format it fine but smartctl failed it on a test. Anyway I just looked at the warranty date on it and it says Nov 6 2003. I bought this drive from Frys a little over a year ago so the warranty was almost up when I purchased it.

Grant

Maxtor hard drive...

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 13:24:10 PST

by Spencer Thomas.

My mom had a 1 ghz computer that froze all the time. So today her and my dad bought a new one. It's a Sony Vaio... First thing I do is open up the case to see TWO hard drives. The box advertises 320 gigs. So I thought maybe Vaio did something smart and did a mirror raid array. But nope. Its stripe. So double the risk of corruption. Then I looked up the warranty on the drives

Serial Number Drive Type TLA NumberWhat is this? Status/Message Expiration DateWhat is this?
(mm/dd/yyyy)
L39CHLKG ATA 6L160M01372BA Please contact the PC manufacturer for warranty support. 01/26/2007

That means it's the low end of maxtor drives, that have a higher risk of corruption. So it's a high risk, then you double it. Her old computer had a 120 gig hdd, so should I just put that in and use it for backups?? Or what?

Oh and it's sata, if that makes any difference

Re: Open Source Enterprise Data Magazine

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:30:55 PST

by Grant McWilliams.

Thanks James, I hadn't heard about this. I'm downloading it now.
Here's a clickable version so you don't have to copy and paste the URL. o3magazine

Grant

Open Source Enterprise Data Magazine

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 21:10:15 PST

by James Schroer.

Here is a free (downloadable) magazine I found recently about open source
http://www.o3magazine.com/