I am continually finding myself more and more annoyed by admins, websites, etc that force you to make a 'secure' password. Now don't get me wrong, I am security conscious, and I applaud efforts to prevent easily guessed passwords, but making password requirements such as "must contain 1 uppercase and 1 lowercase letter and 1 number" are the most frustrating.
Why? Well, because it forces you to have 37 different passwords, guaranteeing you will forget it or write it down, thus defeating the 'security'. Furthermore, by making rigid requirements, they also limit what a brute force attack would have to go through to find the password. Strongly recommending such requirements would be better than forcing the user to write down the password on a stickynote.
I like GNU's password 'requirements' of "this isn't a secure password, are you sure?"
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Serving who?
This article makes me mad. And I'm not even affected by it! Virginia is now charging the custodial parent (i.e. the parent owed) a $25 fee to help the parent (who obviously needs the child support or they wouldn't care) to 'help' collect the owed child support.
Justice?
Here is a better (and much more practical!) idea: all deadbeat parents in the state would have their license revoked until they pay the child support due, or at least work out a payment plan, AND they pay the $25 fee for forcing the state to go after them, and they also pay the full and normal fee associated with loosing and reapplying for their license.
Now, this plan won't help much with deadbeat parents out of state (or who suddenly decide to move out of state, but with a little encouragement, the other states might be willing to implement similar plans. I mean, if the Passport office can recoup money from deadbeat parents, surely the states can use similar means to get the owed money back.
Honestly, what deadbeat parent doesn't need a driver's license? Justice should be served, not padding pockets. JUSTICE!
Justice?
Here is a better (and much more practical!) idea: all deadbeat parents in the state would have their license revoked until they pay the child support due, or at least work out a payment plan, AND they pay the $25 fee for forcing the state to go after them, and they also pay the full and normal fee associated with loosing and reapplying for their license.
Now, this plan won't help much with deadbeat parents out of state (or who suddenly decide to move out of state, but with a little encouragement, the other states might be willing to implement similar plans. I mean, if the Passport office can recoup money from deadbeat parents, surely the states can use similar means to get the owed money back.
Honestly, what deadbeat parent doesn't need a driver's license? Justice should be served, not padding pockets. JUSTICE!
Friday, June 1, 2007
Google StreetView
I just noticed Google released a new feature on Google Maps. It appears to me it was released less than an hour ago even. [Correction: Google StreetView has apparently been out for a couple days now. Thanks you Ilker from The Thinking Blog] Reviewing it I think Google is off to a great start. Admittedly, there is still a long way to go, but it is a glimmer of what is to come, and what can be done.
Presently, the images are clear only to a few feet at any detail, i.e. it appears each shot is equivalent to about a 3Megapixel camera; you can make out faces on the side of the road if they were standing 2 steps from the vehicle. On one hand, for privacy concerns, this is a good thing for those who were passed. On the other hand, detail is desirable. I will note however, that this is obviously an early stage in the feature, as only a few hundred roads in major cities are available, and these are primarily major roads. Given a few more years, I think it is certain Google will be able to obtain higher quality images and of more roads, probably even your road soon.
Right now what you see has a lot to be desired. You can get a good idea of the road if you are a visual driver, but with trucks on the side of the road and people walking around, a lot is blocked. Later, I speculate Google will recapture many of the busy streets so they can edit out people, vehicles, and construction. Yet having people and vehicles in the picture gives the images a life of sorts, makes them interesting, rather than appearing to be ghost towns/cities. The images as they are presently, with people in them also gives a glimpse into the buzz and the life of the city or town.
There are other interesting possibilities opened up with the new StreetView. With all the images captured thus far (and soon to be captured), Google can create 3-D views of buildings beside the road, as they have captured at least 3 angles of the building on one face. Google can use this 3d model and the location to place a label, ex: Lincoln Memorial or the US Mint (neither are presently viewable in StreetView). Furthermore, as Google has phone listings and website listings, they can link the phone number or website to the view of the building. Imagine you are driving past a shop that has had problems with vandalism in the past and you heard in the news the owner is offering a reward for information that helps stop the vandalism. You drive past and notice a vandal in the act, but you don't know remember phone number. You grab your phone, go to Google Maps, and select your current location (provided by GPS; this is something privacy advocates hate but it appears rather inevitable, and Google will love it as it aids in providing their context based advertising), and you are able to get the phone number (and even the linked news article regarding the reward) and call the shop owner to report the vandalism in progress, and even take a picture for proof (with the built in camera in your phone).
Alternatively, you are driving around a city you have never been before, and Google Maps is providing you live view of your step by step driving directions (which is accounting for the construction and accidents provided by Traffic), and you are able to go to the museum while your kids are surfing the website planning what all you they want to do there--and your decision to go was spur of the moment. After you picked up your kids, you just told Google Maps you wanted to go to the Nature museum, and Google knew where that was based on your location and the data available.
And the nice thing? All this is available now, or could be in coming months.
Presently, the images are clear only to a few feet at any detail, i.e. it appears each shot is equivalent to about a 3Megapixel camera; you can make out faces on the side of the road if they were standing 2 steps from the vehicle. On one hand, for privacy concerns, this is a good thing for those who were passed. On the other hand, detail is desirable. I will note however, that this is obviously an early stage in the feature, as only a few hundred roads in major cities are available, and these are primarily major roads. Given a few more years, I think it is certain Google will be able to obtain higher quality images and of more roads, probably even your road soon.
Right now what you see has a lot to be desired. You can get a good idea of the road if you are a visual driver, but with trucks on the side of the road and people walking around, a lot is blocked. Later, I speculate Google will recapture many of the busy streets so they can edit out people, vehicles, and construction. Yet having people and vehicles in the picture gives the images a life of sorts, makes them interesting, rather than appearing to be ghost towns/cities. The images as they are presently, with people in them also gives a glimpse into the buzz and the life of the city or town.
There are other interesting possibilities opened up with the new StreetView. With all the images captured thus far (and soon to be captured), Google can create 3-D views of buildings beside the road, as they have captured at least 3 angles of the building on one face. Google can use this 3d model and the location to place a label, ex: Lincoln Memorial or the US Mint (neither are presently viewable in StreetView). Furthermore, as Google has phone listings and website listings, they can link the phone number or website to the view of the building. Imagine you are driving past a shop that has had problems with vandalism in the past and you heard in the news the owner is offering a reward for information that helps stop the vandalism. You drive past and notice a vandal in the act, but you don't know remember phone number. You grab your phone, go to Google Maps, and select your current location (provided by GPS; this is something privacy advocates hate but it appears rather inevitable, and Google will love it as it aids in providing their context based advertising), and you are able to get the phone number (and even the linked news article regarding the reward) and call the shop owner to report the vandalism in progress, and even take a picture for proof (with the built in camera in your phone).
Alternatively, you are driving around a city you have never been before, and Google Maps is providing you live view of your step by step driving directions (which is accounting for the construction and accidents provided by Traffic), and you are able to go to the museum while your kids are surfing the website planning what all you they want to do there--and your decision to go was spur of the moment. After you picked up your kids, you just told Google Maps you wanted to go to the Nature museum, and Google knew where that was based on your location and the data available.
And the nice thing? All this is available now, or could be in coming months.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Outrageous idea
I've been thinking about this idea on and off for a while, but now I think I'll publicize it a bit.
People are competing to build the largest structure all the time. We awe at the incredible feats engineers accomplish. We become more confined in our homes and communities. We try (or so the claim is given) to be more environment friendly.
All around me there are suburbs popping up, where the people only have to walk a block or two to have most everything. We dream of one day living on Mars, at first in a giant community, and later, possibly on the planet. For long periods of time, there have been thriving communities underground, in caves, etc. Space is slowly becoming in demand as populations grow. How large can a city get?
The Mile Cube. Yes, a cube that is a mile wide, a mile long, and a mile high. Or for non US folk, that is 1.6 kilometers, approximately 264 floors. It would be a huge feat to accomplish, but is it an unrealistic idea? Would people move in?
First of all, this idea is quite challenging to wrap your mind around. If you have seen skyscrapers up close, the world's tallest is around 1800 ft or 620 meters high. A mile is 5280 feet or 1600 meters.
What challenges would there be? Well, I'm not an engineer or anything of the sort, so I am undoubtedly missing a lot, but here are some I see:
Cost. It costs in the billions of dollars to build current skyscrapers, so something 4 times higher and at least 20 times wider, the cost is going to be in the trillions. Not even Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world can afford that presently.
Escape. What happens if there is a fire? Fire regulations will definitely play a huge role in if it is even possible. The building could be made of non-combustibles, but that only limits the damages.
Gases. Fresh air, stale air, carbon dioxide, other gases (methane), they all need to be moved up to 0.5 miles, and quickly. Otherwise, they need to be filtered, and recirculated. Trees could be planted in the building, but they can only convert so much so quickly. Perhaps having every other floor growing nothing but plants would help offset things.
Cooling. Keeping the temperature regulated in such a structure would be quite the challenge. Heating wouldn't be as much of an issue, as electronics and people give off heat. Even the coldest weather outside would be of little to no consequence as the building would be large enough heat from the inside would readily keep things warm. Cooling can't be done in the traditional manner--each home having a cooling unit, nor in the commercial manner--the business having a huge cooling unit. It would probably take most of a floor to house the equipment to keep the temperature cool.
Structural support. I imagine having a cube rather than a skyscraper is easier in some respects, but the building would weigh in the millions of tons, so assuming no foundation issues (which may be assuming far too much), the supports for the building would have to be massive, or new ways of supporting things would have to be devised. Think biology.
Layout. Each housing area would have to be close to a job and other necessities.
Transportation. In a compact city like this, gas emitting vehicles would be out of the question, as they would more than double the required gas evacuation. So it would need a all electric transport, or people walking, or biking. However, as some people might want large items such as refrigerators, pianos, etc in their 'house', there would have to be some sort of transport available capable of carrying large and/or heavy items. And keep in mind, this would be up and down as well as to and fro. The transport system would have to transport all of the inhabitants at a rate comparable with present speeds. And none of this even addresses getting out. The structure could be sunk 0.5 miles (half way) to ensure foundational stability, and also to ensure the furthest anyone has to travel to get out is 0.7 miles (0.5 miles up and over if they are in the bottom or top center).
Utilities. Electricity, water, phone, internet... all of those would need to be brought in and taken out, or would need to be addressed in 'house'.
Health. Would the engineers be able to effectively replace natural sunlight with artificial sunlight? Would they be able to offer healthy fresh air indoors? Would they be able to prevent or minimize disease spread (and, even pests who carry disease)?
Willingness. Would people be willing to live in a giant building they would probably never leave, or only leave maybe once a year. Would people be willing to have indoor parks, artificial sunlight, no or artificial breezes, and no weather?
Again, I undoubtedly missed some major things, but most, if not all of them could be addressed, with the possible exception of the cost. But is a single building comfortably housing approximately 3.5 million people in 1 cube mile going too far? If not,
what is to stop us from going 2 miles instead? We don't have to go up or down this much, but we could go out by this. We could have an airport on the top of such a building, and the planes could almost have no runway as they would be high enough up, they would simply need to drop off the building to gain airspeed. Of course no one would like this idea, they prefer long airstrips. But the room is there for a decent airport. Is there any benefit to something like this? Well, cities are trying to deal with how compact they can get, how populated they can be, this allows for tremendous increases over present means.
One day, we may be living like this, but that day is probably beyond our lifetime.
People are competing to build the largest structure all the time. We awe at the incredible feats engineers accomplish. We become more confined in our homes and communities. We try (or so the claim is given) to be more environment friendly.
All around me there are suburbs popping up, where the people only have to walk a block or two to have most everything. We dream of one day living on Mars, at first in a giant community, and later, possibly on the planet. For long periods of time, there have been thriving communities underground, in caves, etc. Space is slowly becoming in demand as populations grow. How large can a city get?
The Mile Cube. Yes, a cube that is a mile wide, a mile long, and a mile high. Or for non US folk, that is 1.6 kilometers, approximately 264 floors. It would be a huge feat to accomplish, but is it an unrealistic idea? Would people move in?
First of all, this idea is quite challenging to wrap your mind around. If you have seen skyscrapers up close, the world's tallest is around 1800 ft or 620 meters high. A mile is 5280 feet or 1600 meters.
What challenges would there be? Well, I'm not an engineer or anything of the sort, so I am undoubtedly missing a lot, but here are some I see:
Cost. It costs in the billions of dollars to build current skyscrapers, so something 4 times higher and at least 20 times wider, the cost is going to be in the trillions. Not even Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world can afford that presently.
Escape. What happens if there is a fire? Fire regulations will definitely play a huge role in if it is even possible. The building could be made of non-combustibles, but that only limits the damages.
Gases. Fresh air, stale air, carbon dioxide, other gases (methane), they all need to be moved up to 0.5 miles, and quickly. Otherwise, they need to be filtered, and recirculated. Trees could be planted in the building, but they can only convert so much so quickly. Perhaps having every other floor growing nothing but plants would help offset things.
Cooling. Keeping the temperature regulated in such a structure would be quite the challenge. Heating wouldn't be as much of an issue, as electronics and people give off heat. Even the coldest weather outside would be of little to no consequence as the building would be large enough heat from the inside would readily keep things warm. Cooling can't be done in the traditional manner--each home having a cooling unit, nor in the commercial manner--the business having a huge cooling unit. It would probably take most of a floor to house the equipment to keep the temperature cool.
Structural support. I imagine having a cube rather than a skyscraper is easier in some respects, but the building would weigh in the millions of tons, so assuming no foundation issues (which may be assuming far too much), the supports for the building would have to be massive, or new ways of supporting things would have to be devised. Think biology.
Layout. Each housing area would have to be close to a job and other necessities.
Transportation. In a compact city like this, gas emitting vehicles would be out of the question, as they would more than double the required gas evacuation. So it would need a all electric transport, or people walking, or biking. However, as some people might want large items such as refrigerators, pianos, etc in their 'house', there would have to be some sort of transport available capable of carrying large and/or heavy items. And keep in mind, this would be up and down as well as to and fro. The transport system would have to transport all of the inhabitants at a rate comparable with present speeds. And none of this even addresses getting out. The structure could be sunk 0.5 miles (half way) to ensure foundational stability, and also to ensure the furthest anyone has to travel to get out is 0.7 miles (0.5 miles up and over if they are in the bottom or top center).
Utilities. Electricity, water, phone, internet... all of those would need to be brought in and taken out, or would need to be addressed in 'house'.
Health. Would the engineers be able to effectively replace natural sunlight with artificial sunlight? Would they be able to offer healthy fresh air indoors? Would they be able to prevent or minimize disease spread (and, even pests who carry disease)?
Willingness. Would people be willing to live in a giant building they would probably never leave, or only leave maybe once a year. Would people be willing to have indoor parks, artificial sunlight, no or artificial breezes, and no weather?
Again, I undoubtedly missed some major things, but most, if not all of them could be addressed, with the possible exception of the cost. But is a single building comfortably housing approximately 3.5 million people in 1 cube mile going too far? If not,
what is to stop us from going 2 miles instead? We don't have to go up or down this much, but we could go out by this. We could have an airport on the top of such a building, and the planes could almost have no runway as they would be high enough up, they would simply need to drop off the building to gain airspeed. Of course no one would like this idea, they prefer long airstrips. But the room is there for a decent airport. Is there any benefit to something like this? Well, cities are trying to deal with how compact they can get, how populated they can be, this allows for tremendous increases over present means.
One day, we may be living like this, but that day is probably beyond our lifetime.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Bribes for the recalcitrants?
In a news article today, Microsoft is trying to bribe your IT guys at work to make you use Microsoft Live Search, as it is rather dead. For those who prefer another search engine (Say, maybe Google?!?! Though Yahoo is higher in rank than Microsoft), Microsoft sees such people as "recalcitrant'. Yeah. Recalcitrant, according to dictionary.com " Stubbornly resistant to and defiant of authority or restraint."
Yeah, Microsoft (or at least Mr Sohn who was speaking for Microsoft) thinks people who use a *ahem* superior product are defiant of authority (uhm, who?) or defiant to restraint. Makes you want to rush out and use Microsoft products, no?
In better news... EMI is seeing the light! You will soon be able to buy *high quality* *drm-FREE* music. And by high quality, think 256Kbps over the normal 128.
And Dell is soon to be selling Linux pre-installed. Hopefully for a lower price (no Microsoft tax).
The future is looking pretty good for consumers in charge, and a bit poor for Microsoft: Search is dead, DRM is dead, and tax is dead. Vista was still-born, and with all of it's DRM focused kernel and media player, and other performance/compatibility, etc issues... And the XBox is still selling at a loss (hardware), but with DRM dead, the point of locking down the hardware becomes rather, ... moot. Might Microsoft be on their last chapter in history? Time will tell...
Yeah, Microsoft (or at least Mr Sohn who was speaking for Microsoft) thinks people who use a *ahem* superior product are defiant of authority (uhm, who?) or defiant to restraint. Makes you want to rush out and use Microsoft products, no?
In better news... EMI is seeing the light! You will soon be able to buy *high quality* *drm-FREE* music. And by high quality, think 256Kbps over the normal 128.
And Dell is soon to be selling Linux pre-installed. Hopefully for a lower price (no Microsoft tax).
The future is looking pretty good for consumers in charge, and a bit poor for Microsoft: Search is dead, DRM is dead, and tax is dead. Vista was still-born, and with all of it's DRM focused kernel and media player, and other performance/compatibility, etc issues... And the XBox is still selling at a loss (hardware), but with DRM dead, the point of locking down the hardware becomes rather, ... moot. Might Microsoft be on their last chapter in history? Time will tell...
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Annoyed!
When I set up Automatic updates on my Windows XP Pro machine, I chose to 'download and prompt me to install'. I did this because I know some updates Microsoft pushes break things, and I prefer not to have to scratch my head over what happened, and then suddenly realize it is post 'Patch Tuesday'.
For the past few months (or is it longer... I've lost track), whenever I get notification of updates being ready, I click of to install. However, after dutifully installing updates, my sound mixer has gone MIA. A simple reboot fixes the issue. But wasn't XP touted as "fewer reboots"?
Ok, let me explain (seeing as this is my first post)...
I am a bit of a power user. I normally have Gaim open and at least one chat, and Firefox with dozens of tabs. And that is what I almost always have open. I have more open that changes from time to time. And, yes, I am into open source, Linux and FreeBSD even. But I have also used Windows since 3.11. I can do near anything a savy user can do in either of said OSes.
So, whenever I install updates from Microsoft, I, like everyone else get these annoying popups demanding I restart my computer every 10 minutes despite my constant click of "remind me later". There are supposed to be ways to increase the 10 minutes to several hours, but they haven't worked for me. Instead, I found System Internals' Process Explorer (now Microsoft owned) nicely shows what svchost is running, so you know which svchost is running the windows update program (wuaclt? I don't pay much attention). I found it works quite well to kill the program, and the annoying popups stop. Simple. So I go about my merry business until I am ready to restart. Keep in mind, computers are about serving the user after all.
That works fine. No issues. However, while going about my merry business, I notice sound does not work. Investigation reveals I have no mixer installed. But I was listening to audio with no issues just before the update occurred! A simple reboot has been found to resolve this issue. But again, XP was supposed to reduce the number of reboots needed. My Linux machine (running Fedora Core 5 ftr, and needs to be updated to FC6 or Gentoo) doesn't have to be rebooted except when I alter the kernel. Hmm. And this Linux machine IS my primary machine. Similarly my FreeBSD machine (6.1), which isn't used as actively, but is still used doesn't need rebooted unless I need to alter the kernel. Yet my XP machine needs to be rebooted at least once a month, if for no other reason, "to get sound" back.
True, I could refuse the updates, as I don't use IE (and I refused the IE7 update), and I don't go to sites that pose a danger, and I am properly firewalled, etc. But updates are supposed to fix problems. At least they do with Linux/BSD. Yet consistently, Microsoft updates break something forcing me to reboot, which is usually a hassle. Windows still doesn't re-open tasks that were previously opened, which Linux (KDE) does. So, why exactly does updates intentionally break the sound card? Well, that is an issue I need to look into next time, as I failed to this time. However, upon investigating post-update, I had more issues.
Yes, the updates are almost certainly to the Digital 'Rights' Management code to ensure I don't pirate music. Not that I listen to music really anyway.
I have IE Tab in Firefox. I use IE once in a blue moon due to some websites forcing me to. I intentionally set IE to be very annoying and request permission for everything it is requested (by the site) to do. That includes accepting cookies and running javascripts. I know I had this enabled a month or two ago. Yet, today when attempting to investigate what patches Microsoft admitted to have pushed down, I went to Microsoft's website and browsed to the security and updates section. I see they have recently left the straight html webpages on the site. I was surprised to note I was receiving no request for anything. I noted this yesterday, in fact when I was filling out an application that insisted I have IE (just why I use IE tab, for the few who have ridiculous requirements). Opening IE directly, I confirmed this. All my security settings were changed. Yet it is still set to the 'custom' I set it to. I do recall Microsoft trying to push IE7 on me recently, but that can't be related, can it? Nearly every setting I had in IE was altered to a much more permissive level than I would ever allow.
And during this, ... rant, Windows decided to drop the candy theme on the task bar. *Shrug* What's new? Windows being Windows. Needless to say, I'm thinking of dropping Windows completely in the near future. Cheaper, easier (for me), and less headache. Linux does everything I want anyway. If I need a Windows box, I have a (Legal!) copy running in a virtual machine. A little slow, but it works, and I can even roll it back if I need. Now there's an idea.
And, yes, I feel slightly better after having complained. Now to shut things down and reboot so I can have audio again. Or should I just format and install Linux. Tempting....
Edit: Strange. A Real Audio stream I had open before updating (internet radio--I do listen to music sometimes, just not often) still plays. It's other sound sources (in this case, google video in FireFox) that doesn't Volume Control still insists "There are no active mixer devices available".
For the past few months (or is it longer... I've lost track), whenever I get notification of updates being ready, I click of to install. However, after dutifully installing updates, my sound mixer has gone MIA. A simple reboot fixes the issue. But wasn't XP touted as "fewer reboots"?
Ok, let me explain (seeing as this is my first post)...
I am a bit of a power user. I normally have Gaim open and at least one chat, and Firefox with dozens of tabs. And that is what I almost always have open. I have more open that changes from time to time. And, yes, I am into open source, Linux and FreeBSD even. But I have also used Windows since 3.11. I can do near anything a savy user can do in either of said OSes.
So, whenever I install updates from Microsoft, I, like everyone else get these annoying popups demanding I restart my computer every 10 minutes despite my constant click of "remind me later". There are supposed to be ways to increase the 10 minutes to several hours, but they haven't worked for me. Instead, I found System Internals' Process Explorer (now Microsoft owned) nicely shows what svchost is running, so you know which svchost is running the windows update program (wuaclt? I don't pay much attention). I found it works quite well to kill the program, and the annoying popups stop. Simple. So I go about my merry business until I am ready to restart. Keep in mind, computers are about serving the user after all.
That works fine. No issues. However, while going about my merry business, I notice sound does not work. Investigation reveals I have no mixer installed. But I was listening to audio with no issues just before the update occurred! A simple reboot has been found to resolve this issue. But again, XP was supposed to reduce the number of reboots needed. My Linux machine (running Fedora Core 5 ftr, and needs to be updated to FC6 or Gentoo) doesn't have to be rebooted except when I alter the kernel. Hmm. And this Linux machine IS my primary machine. Similarly my FreeBSD machine (6.1), which isn't used as actively, but is still used doesn't need rebooted unless I need to alter the kernel. Yet my XP machine needs to be rebooted at least once a month, if for no other reason, "to get sound" back.
True, I could refuse the updates, as I don't use IE (and I refused the IE7 update), and I don't go to sites that pose a danger, and I am properly firewalled, etc. But updates are supposed to fix problems. At least they do with Linux/BSD. Yet consistently, Microsoft updates break something forcing me to reboot, which is usually a hassle. Windows still doesn't re-open tasks that were previously opened, which Linux (KDE) does. So, why exactly does updates intentionally break the sound card? Well, that is an issue I need to look into next time, as I failed to this time. However, upon investigating post-update, I had more issues.
Yes, the updates are almost certainly to the Digital 'Rights' Management code to ensure I don't pirate music. Not that I listen to music really anyway.
I have IE Tab in Firefox. I use IE once in a blue moon due to some websites forcing me to. I intentionally set IE to be very annoying and request permission for everything it is requested (by the site) to do. That includes accepting cookies and running javascripts. I know I had this enabled a month or two ago. Yet, today when attempting to investigate what patches Microsoft admitted to have pushed down, I went to Microsoft's website and browsed to the security and updates section. I see they have recently left the straight html webpages on the site. I was surprised to note I was receiving no request for anything. I noted this yesterday, in fact when I was filling out an application that insisted I have IE (just why I use IE tab, for the few who have ridiculous requirements). Opening IE directly, I confirmed this. All my security settings were changed. Yet it is still set to the 'custom' I set it to. I do recall Microsoft trying to push IE7 on me recently, but that can't be related, can it? Nearly every setting I had in IE was altered to a much more permissive level than I would ever allow.
And during this, ... rant, Windows decided to drop the candy theme on the task bar. *Shrug* What's new? Windows being Windows. Needless to say, I'm thinking of dropping Windows completely in the near future. Cheaper, easier (for me), and less headache. Linux does everything I want anyway. If I need a Windows box, I have a (Legal!) copy running in a virtual machine. A little slow, but it works, and I can even roll it back if I need. Now there's an idea.
And, yes, I feel slightly better after having complained. Now to shut things down and reboot so I can have audio again. Or should I just format and install Linux. Tempting....
Edit: Strange. A Real Audio stream I had open before updating (internet radio--I do listen to music sometimes, just not often) still plays. It's other sound sources (in this case, google video in FireFox) that doesn't Volume Control still insists "There are no active mixer devices available".
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