I normally don't like to post advertisement on my blog, but I need to get this done. Anyways, I'm selling my brother's internet webpad. He owes me big for this. In any event, I crafted a progear webpad page for it.

I would appreciate if any readers take a look and see if they or someone they might know would be interested. If anybody knows of some good forums I could post, that would help too. I already did the Yahoo Group. The price is not fixed and I am reasonable. If I don't get much response, then I will probably have to go to Ebay or something.

>> ProGear Webpad <<

Thanks in advance.

Posted in: Technology, Stuff,

They were selling pizza for lunch in the cafeteria today. When they announced it on the intercom system, my Indian co-worker came running to my cubicle section to ask my team member for some money. Then seeing me, he said "Hey! Mauriat has got to have some money on him, he's not married!". We all laughed. He was right, on both cases.

So then the day seemed to go on pretty long, I've been trying to work one issue out and was getting some help. A while after I would normally leave, my co-worker says to me that I can go home and that he'll work on it. I stayed knowing he was helping me not the other way around. I replied to him: "Don't worry. My wife won't complain and my kids won't miss me." We all laughed. And everyone looked at me and said "I wish I were you!" Hmmm ... not so sure on that one. I'm not saying I want either of those 2 things right now, but I do wish I had something more to look forward to, when I go home ... Money is good, but I know that some things are better.

Posted in: Life,

This post is a bit more technical, excuse the over-simplifications. Many geeks have been raving about Mozilla releasing Firefox last year. As wonderful as it all is, I'm still not impressed. Let me explain.

It will be 7 years on January 22 that Netscaped announced plans for an open source browser. It wasn't until 4 years later in June 2002, that Mozilla 1.0 was finally released. Prior in 2001 Netscape had about 15% of the browser market share compared to Microsoft's 75%. Lately IE's share has been dipping (from 95% to 90% possibly?), but it's a little bit too early to celebrate. That majority is controlled by more than simply what people choose to use.

Can everyone choose to use Mozilla or Firefox? Yes. Can everyone choose to not use MSIE? Not really. Due to Microsoft's intelligent design of making the browser component re-usable, IE runs in countless Windows applications. It can be seen in RealPlayer, Winamp, WordPerfect, and is critical to any application from MS. Not using IE thinking you are safer, more secure or for better privacy is flawed if you still use any of the countless IE embedded products. In fact it is virtually impossible for the average user to use Windows without using IE.

Back to Mozilla. Let me give some credit. Mozilla was also designed intelligently (or foolishly) in that the actual browser you are seeing is entirely rendered by the Mozilla-Gecko engine. That means the entire GUI, all buttons, menus, scroll bars, graphics, and EVERYTHING inside the window are being created by the internal workings of the engine. In comparison, IE, Opera and others use the native operating system libraries to render the GUI - which make them fast and less resource intensive. Mozilla is actually somewhat slower, and inherently takes up more memory and cpu. Looking at the flipside, by doing this they make the browser virtually identical in form and functionality on every different platform they can support (which is quite a few). So the development cost is minimal for each new platform. IE, Opera and others have to create special versions for each platform (if they even choose to support them at all). Even given all of that, the obvious majority of web surfering (~95%) is done through Windows and it is foolish to not prioritize Windows.

So when I'm in Windows, I use Firefox wishing it was a fully native windows based application. I know that won't happen, but I checked up on K-Meleon, a native Windows based browser using the Mozilla engine. I don't find it incredibly usable but it proves what "could have been". I downloaded version 0.9 and was impressed. It is fast (faster than FF, IE, Mozilla) and has a rich set of features. But but but but ... it is rough around the edges, will never gain critical market share and will most likely suffer a gradual death or at best a horribly slow growth like Mozilla.

Seven years later the enthusiasm has worn off.

Posted in: Internet, Technology,

I hope that some people don't label this as somewhat racist, but I feel that since MLK was assinated in 1968, his message has become somewhat perverted. It may not be intentional but I can't help feeling that irreverance and politics have take over.

I remember when I was in college many students complained that they would rather attend MLK rallies and events instead of going to class today. So to appease what I would think is a minority, the University gave the time off to attend such events. However the majority did the opposite, they slept or did whatever activities they would do on a day off. I understand the point of the holiday, but I would seriously question if it makes people anymore aware of what the slain civil rights activist stood for.

So last friday's news showed that a major automotive company had pledged $10 million to a $100 million project to construct a memorial to MLK. To contrast: $9 million was spent on the Vietnam Memorial. I may be comparing apples to oranges, but I am uncertain whether or not $100 million will help keep the "dream alive" across the world? Could it not be better invested into the communities and problems that plague the very people MLK was trying to help? I don't know, I may just be another ignorant person.

So I wonder. Does race based affirmative action go contrary to being judged "by the content of their character"? Is MLK's widow correct to question if non-violence would still work today? And is Bill Cosby's challenge to the African-American community correct to say "Forget about Dr. Martin Luther King. What would Jesus think?". I do not question what King stood for, I question if his legacy is pure to this day.

Posted in: Life, Politics,

About 2 days ago, I started to receive spam for mortgage refinancing. The thing that made it stick out was that it was sent to me with my dad's name and the actual correct address. I know it is not too complicated to do, but I was shocked at how it connected the name to the email address. After 3 or 4 hours of watching it come in nonstop, I researched the source daleqhay.biz and contacted the registrar (neulevel.biz) for that address. I said I was getting spam and I wanted the matter to be looked into. I gave the typical empty threat of possible federal action. Of course by the end of the day the spam was coming from herdarbr.biz

So I followed through the whois database search and saw a bunch of possible bogus email addresses, but I found the name: "Payperaction", out of Austin, TX. A google search showed some interesting information. Apparently there is a 22 yr old UofT student (Ryan Pitylak) who was sending spam exactly same as my situation. And I'm not the only one annoyed with this guy. Apparently this guy was one of the worst spammers out there.

So I was sitting there yesterday thinking how could I get back at this guy? I first fired off an angry email telling him that there should be some unsubscribe option (fake as it maybe) on his emails or the sites they link to. And then I thought I would cost him his bandwidth by running wget to archive one of his sites a few million times. Then I thought that wouldn't make a big difference. Then I decided that I would gather more info about him and submit it to some geek website like Slashdot, where some people have the guts to really get back at spammers like this.

Ahhh, but no need. This morning I read Slashdot and that Texas Attorney General is going after this student spammer.

I don't care that this guy was only 22, or that he was still in school, or that he used to live in Ann Arbor. I'm just glad that I only wasted my time typing this entry instead of doing all that work to get my revenge. :-)

Posted in: Internet,