I’ve been a fan of the network consulting group Netcraft for something like ten years now. I’ve been following their web server surveys for ages, and at one time I managed to get tcp.com into their most requested sites list. One of their newer services is the Netcraft Toolbar which is designed to warn you when you visit risky sites, and also blocks known phishing sites.

When they recently released their Firefox version, I installed it. As a test I pulled up some recent phishing emails and tried it out. Most of the sites were detected, but a few were new enough that they weren’t. I then noticed that it allowed you to submit new phish sites to them. After submitting a few I got an email saying that if I was first to report a phish site, I’d be eligible for a prize. I submitted a few where I was the first reporter and Netcraft asked me for an address to send me a prize.

It’s been a bit busy, so I had almost forgotten about it. Today I got a package from CafePress which had me scratching my head wondering who was sending me something. I opened it up and found a nice mug with a Netcraft logo emblazoned on it. This will be nice for making nice steaming cups of hot chocolate as the weather grows cold. Thanks Netcraft!

(I also got the October/November issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine today.)

The Assign Blame blog has officially opened it’s doors. You’ll find some of my writings over there occasionally.

Back when Napster was king, and the only legal online music stores either had an eclectic selection (emusic) or hopelessly restrictive DRM, I was convinced that if someone could just come up with a comprehensive, easy, and non-cumbersome way to buy music that it would be a hit. Then Apple came a long and did it, and legal online music finally took off.

Over the past couple of years the online piracy battle has turned to movies and TV episodes. I’d been thinking again along the same lines I was thinking about music 5 years ago that if someone could just come up with a way to get current TV episodes available for sale at a modest price, that legal online TV episodes would take off. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it turns out that Apple has done it again.

Apple has now made current TV episodes available in iTunes Music Store. The selection is a bit dismal, but it’s a good start. Current hits Lost and Desperate Housewives are two of the series on offer. The other three series are ones I’d never heard of: Night Stalker, The Suite Life and That’s So Raven. OK, so it’s a bit slim pickings for now, but hopefully it’ll get better. Individual episodes are priced at $1.99, though they have the same price for both hour long and half hour shows which is a bit weird.

Now for the downside: Unlike their audio offerings, currently Apple does not allow you to burn video episodes to DVD. This is unfortunate as watching video on a computer often isn’t as nice as watching on a TV. I’m hoping for them to lift this restriction in the future. I haven’t actually downloaded a video yet, so I’m not sure about the video quality either.

Some suggestions for Apple:

1) Lift the burning restriction!

2) Offer a “season pass” subscription where one can subscribe to the entire current season and have new episodes downloaded as soon as they are released.

3) Beef up the catalog. Here’s some suggestions I think would really get noticed: 24 and Battlestar Galactica. Personally I’d also like to see the Law & Order series, and West Wing.

4) Along the lines of the free songs promotion, make deals with new series to feature a free episode per week.

Since June I’ve been making an actual effort at losing weight, and it seems to be working. Mostly I’ve been trying to walk more places instead of taking the bus or subway, and also reducing snacks and sodas. Otherwise I haven’t modified my diet much; no counting calories or fat content or anything like that. I also got a treadmill in August because Taipei weather is often not very conducive to walking. (Too damn hot in the summer, damp and drizzly in the winter.)

I started in June at 106kg (for those of you using archaic measuring systems, multiply by 2.2). Before our US trip I was down to 102.2kg. I’d lost enough weight that two strange things happened that I hadn’t experienced before: 1) my belt became too big 2) I could fit into my old jeans that are a size smaller than my current ones without them being tight. I was worried that I’d lose ground on vacation, but I’m down to 100.8kg now, so I guess there was enough activity on the vacation to keep things on track.

I don’t really have a goal as such right now, but I figure if I can make it down to 90kg that’ll be pretty good progress. My goal is to do the equivalent of about 3km of walking per day, either on the treadmill or through actual walking. For actual walking the Google Maps Pedometer lets me trace my route on a map to see how long it is.

Until recently, Windows XP could only handle one language per installation. This is fine if your household only uses one language, but it gets to be a hassle for those where multiple languages are commonly used. To further aggravate the situation, it’s hard and expensive to get, for example, an English language Windows XP in Taiwan or a Chinese Traditional language Windows XP in the US. And even if you did manage to get versions of the languages you need, you’d have to set up a cumbersome multi-boot system to be able to use both on the same computer.

Other OSes, such as MacOS, Solaris, and many Linux distributions have been localized with multiple languages, and allow a single computer to offer a localized login with different languages for each user account. That way you could set up one account for English, and the other account with Chinese Traditional, and then everyone could get all the menus in their preferred language without all the hassle.

This capability is now finally becoming available for Windows XP. Microsoft has designed a four disk package called the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) which allows you to add on a couple of dozen different localized language packs to your Windows XP system, including most of the world’s major languages.

Until recently, the MUI was only available to corporate users with Volume Licensing contracts. Now it is available to OEM system builders as well. Although OEM versions of XP are supposed to only be sold with a new PC, it is possible to buy them alone through some dealers. The MUI is not yet available as a separate product, so you have to shell out for another license of Windows XP. The product number for XP PRO SP2 OEM w/ MUI in the US is E85-04057 and should cost US$150-160 by mail order.

I recently bought a copy of this, and installed the Chinese Traditional package on my desktop system. After installing it, I went into the Control Panel and clicked on Regional and Languages Settings. Under the Languages tab was a new menu for choosing the language for the account. I left my own account with English, and set the Guest account that my family uses to Chinese Traditional. After logging out and logging back in, all the menus in the Guest account were now in Chinese. This will certainly make it easier for them to use my computer.

I know a few of your who read this journal are either multilingual yourselves or are in a multilingual household. I highly recommend getting a copy of the MUI for your computer.

We’re back home in Taiwan now. After some rest I’ll post some updates of what we’ve been up to the last three weeks.

We’ve been busy on our vacation so I haven’t been posting here in a while. You can go look at some pictures of our trip so far.

Seen in emails being forwarded around:

Question: How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to change a light bulb?

Answer: TEN.

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed,

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed,

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb,

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness,

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for a new light bulb,

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner “Bulb Accomplished”,

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally “in the dark” the whole time,

8. One to viciously smear #7,

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb-changing policy all along,

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

And after all is said and done, no one will notice that they never actually managed to change the light bulb.

I recently installed MediaWiki software on my server so that I’d be better able to coordinate our vacation schedule. I had found a bug in it, and found a bug report that matched what I was experiencing. I updated the bug report with additional information. A mere 18 minutes later one of the developers updated the report with a suggestion, which solved the problem.