Silicon Asylum

Yes I'm posting March notables in April, but I've been sitting on these for a while. Crooked Souls : Crooked Parkers - Your soul is in question. Great site, print their citations and put them on windshields of those that park like asshats. Hopefully they save their souls by making a charitable donation. I also came across this image and it had some meaning to me so I thought I'd pass it along: More to follow.....

Monday, September 16th 8 p.m. - Bones ( Global ... wiki ) 9 p.m. - Sleepy Hollow ( Global ... wiki ) Tuesday, September 17th 8 p.m. – Anger Management (( CTV (2?) ... wiki ) Sunday, September 22nd 10 p.m. - Hostages *NEW* ( CTV ... wiki ) Monday, September 23rd 10 p.m. - The Blacklist *NEW* ( Global ... wiki ) Tuesday, September 24th 8 p.m. - NCIS ( Global ... wiki ) 8 p.m. – Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. *NEW* ( CTV ... wiki ) 9 p.m. - NCIS: LA ( Global ... wiki ) 10 p.m. - Chicago Fire ( Global ... wiki ) 10 p.m. - Person of Interest ( New to CTV ... wiki ) Wednesday, September 25th 8 p.m. - Revolution ( CityTV ... wiki ) 10 p.m. – CRIMINAL MINDS ( CTV ... wiki ) Thursday, September 26th 8 p.m. – The Big Bang Theory *One-Hour Premiere* ( CTV ... wiki ) 9 p.m. – GREY’S ANATOMY ( CTV ... wiki ) 10 p.m. - Elementary ( Global ... wiki ) Friday, September 27th 8 p.m. – MasterChef Junior *NEW* (CTV) 10 p.m. – BLUE BLOODS ( CTV ... wiki ) Su...

It's funny, it's simple, check it out: Teach Parents Tech Use it, enjoy it. While Let Me Google That For You is good for various online forum replies etc, it isn't "really" family friendly, whereas Teach Parents Tech could be considered so.

So the upgrade Microsoft recently forced from old hotmail.com to outlook.com has been pretty ok in my books. The interface is clean and pretty snappy performance wise. One thing I have found that I dislike is the new auto-login to web messenger. I don't need to chat with people, this is my email interface. Some people suggest blocking via hosts file, however that didn't seem very user friendly. I did however come across this solution which uses ad-block (or ad-block plus) and custom filters in Firefox and seems to work nicely. I didn't go to the step of customizing styles via stylish but I mostly use hotmail from large monitors where giving up 5% width isn't an issue. Great Instructions - Disable Messenger auto-login on hotmail or outlook.com web mail interfaces

I'm a big fan of Keyboard shortcuts, you'll notice a number of posts previously on my blog regarding such. I don't have Win8 yet but was just reading a review: Idea Man: Paul's take on Windows 8 . I figured it would be a good move to record the following for future use/reference: Charms Win+C: All charms Win+Q: Search charm Win+H: Share charm Win: Start charm Win+K: Devices charm Win+I: Settings charm Search Win+Q: Search apps (tip: an even easier way to search apps is to just begin typing from the Start screen) Win+W: Search settings Win+F: Search files   Apps (Metro) Win+Z: Get to app options Win+.: Snap app to the left Win+Shift+.: Snap app to the right Alt+F4: Close an app   Desktop Win+D: Open Desktop Win+,: Peek at desktop Win+B: Back to desktop Other Win+X: Open system utility settings menu Win+PrntScrn: Take screenshot and save to Pictures Win+Tab: Open switch list Win+T: Preview open windows in taskbar Win+U: Open Ease of Acce...

This is an older cartoon, but I was pruning bookmarks today and came across it. I'm going to add it here because it's one of my favs.

2012-08-28 : Added Revolution. 2012-08-14 : Added linkage & Last Resort details. 2012-08-13 : This is a work-in-progress. CTV/CTV2 - http://www.bellmediapr.ca/ctv/releases/release.asp?id=15422&yyyy=2012 CityTV - http://www.channelcanada.com/canadian-channels/nets/citytv/citytv-announces-fall-2012-premiere-dates-and-online-previews   Global - http://shawmediatv.ca/press/read/?1764 Tuesday, Sept. 11 9 p.m. – ANGER MANAGEMENT *ENCORE SNEAK PEEK* ( CTV ... wiki ) 9:30 p.m. – Guys with Kids ( Global ... wiki ) Monday, Sept. 17 8 p.m. - Bones ( Global ... wiki ) 10 p.m. - Revolution *NEW* ( Revolution ... wiki ) Monday, Sept. 24 10 p.m. – CASTLE ( CTV ... wiki ) Tuesday, Sept. 25 8 p.m. - NCIS ( Global ... wiki ) 9 p.m. - NCIS: LA ( Global ... wiki ) 10 p.m. – CRIMINAL MINDS (New Time Period) ( CTV ... wiki ) 10 p.m. - Private Practice ( CityTV ... wiki ) Wednesday, Sept. 26 9 p.m. – LAW & ORDER: SVU *TWO-HOUR PREMIERE* ( CTV Two ... wiki ) 10 p.m. – CSI (CTV) Thursday, ...

I may update this with further thoughts later, but I wanted to get this up so people became aware of it.... Check it out, get a chance to have your thoughts heard: "When a domain name works with any character beyond the a-z alphabet, it's called an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN). CIRA is considering the implementation of French character IDNs so that .CA domain names can be written correctly in French. Find out more about IDNs and about our proposed launch policy." While I think this is an interesting idea I see lots of problems with implementing this change. Lots of software will have to be updated to accommodate the change (DNS server software, DNS client software, all kinds of security packages [AV, FWs, IDS, IPS, etc])... Adding other characters to DNS just BEGS FOR ABUSE. Think of the phishing possibilities using Domain Names with accented characters? The change requires user education that will NEVER happen. it's hard enough to get users to pay attention...

Firefox 7 is out now. One of the "fixes" is that Firefox now follows Opera and Chrome is hidding the http:// protocol portion of URLs in the address bar. As a security professional I enjoy being able to easily see what protocol my browser is talking (http/https/ftp) in any given tab/window. You can restore the previous functionality by navigating to about:config and setting: browser.urlbar.trimURLs = false

As some of you may have heard TLS1.0 got some bad news/press recently. Various details: One , Two , and Three or check this Technical Paper (pdf) . So please go over here -> Firefox : Bug 480514 - Implement TLS 1.2 (RFC 5246) and VOTE! If you're really ambitious you could also go vote for TLS 1.1 implementation (for the sake of maximizing compatability with web servers): Firefox : Bug 565047 - Implement TLS 1.1 (RFC 4346)

No my TV addiction hasn't ended :( Here's the 201 fall installment. I'm not going to bother listing times this year. Really most days have multiple shows plus most people have time shifting on their Cable or Sat. service so here are the dates that I've been able to find so far. I'll tweak and update as I find new details... (* = new show; CTV Two was formerly A Channel) 11-09-01 : Added "Up All Night" Sept 14th premiere. Tuesday, September 13 - 90210 (CW, Global ) [Global seems to have Season 3 info but isn't yet showing a premiere date/time on their online schedule] - Ringer (CW, Global ) * Wednesday, September 14 - Survivor ( Global , CBS) - Up All Night ( CTV , NBC )* Thursday, September 15 - The Secret Circle (CW) * Monday, September 19 - Castle ( CTV , ABC) - NCIS ( Global , CBS) - Hawaii Five-O ( Global , CBS) Tuesday, September 20 - The Biggest Loser (CityTV, NBC) - NCIS: LA ( Global , CBS) Wednesday, September 21 - CSI ( CTV , CBS) -...

So I saw this show recently on the Discovery channel in Canada ( Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe ). The show is hosted by Stephen Hawking, he's a pretty bright guy and the content of the show is very interesting. However, I'm EXTREMELY disappointed with the show and Stephen's conclusion. Their conclusion is that since time started with the Big Bang itself, there was no time prior to the Big Bang and therefore couldn't have been a being or entity to cause the Big Bang. The problem with this as I see it though is the fact that they assume a 3 or 4 (3 + time) dimensional existence. Yet numerous scientific theories suggest > 3 or 4 dimensions, in fact up to ten that I've read about * . So why can't the Big Bang have been created or started by a being or entity that lives outside of our 3 or 4 dimensions, something that lives or exists outside of our time dimension? * Imagining the Tenth Dimension ... Hmm I'm having problems with that one in...

I just found this location a few weeks ago and have since been over twice and have another trip planned for later this week. Green Papaya (Thai Garden) "At the THAI GARDEN Restaurant, explore the Classic culinary traditions of Thailand, Buffet style for lunch and regular service for dinner." I've only been there for lunch and their buffet is great! Two soups, some salads, about 12 different mains (maybe even approaching 18) including: various curries, pad thai, spring rolls, two rices (to put your curries on) etc, and a few deserts. They make a red pork curry I really like, as well as a yellow chicken/potato curry that I've ordered from their non-buffet locations before and their soups are delicious. Price is decent ~$14 for lunch buffet (IIRC).

I got this forward this morning and have seen a number of blog posts about it: Example : "New gas protest circulating for April 15th, see following: What the heck, I’ll go do it! If running low, just get your gas the day before on April 14 or the day after on April 16. Every little bit helps In April 1997, there was a “gas out” conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight. On April 15th 2011, all internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $1.20 a liter in most places. If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000.00 (that’s almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companies pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on April 15th and let’s try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day. If you agree (which I can’t see why you wouldn’t) resend this to all your contact list. With it saying, “Don’t pump g...

Click the image to take the quiz for yourself. Created by Oatmeal

So for the last 3 (IIRC) years one of my favorite shows on TV has been " The Big Bang Theory ". I totally relate to this show, though the characters are more geeky than I. The things that come up with them are things that came up with my group of friends in college, the things that still come up with the people I work with, and are things that I regularly read about on slashdot , etc. The show is crazy funny and even my wife watches it with me....though I suspect this might be mainly because she just enjoys how much and how hard it makes me laugh :D Today I came across a great site that covers the science behind the science of the show... It's lots of fun so check it out if you're a science lover (even if you don't watch the show): The Big Blog Theory

Building on my previous posts: Keyboard Shortcuts (Part I) and Keyboard Shortcuts (Part II) Excel: - When you have a cell some kind of content and want to see the insertion point so that you can navigate the value and edit it press F2. - If you want to add lines to a cell (i.e.: enter multiple lines of text in a single cell) use alt + enter. General: - In most Windows applications when a dialog box appears the buttons can be activated ('clicked') by typing the first character or the word. i.e.: Save (s), Don't Save (d), Restart (r), etc. - In most Windows applications when a dialog box is showing you can use tab to navigate between the controls (buttons, file lists, etc.) - ctrl + tab > In a control panel or similar allows switching between tabs (combine with shift to go in the opposite direction). In web browsers/word processors/Excel this usually allows you to cycle through tabs or windows.

Same as other years, here's the premiere line-up for the fall. This list is a work in progress, let me know if I've missed anything notable. Update >12-Sept-2010 : Continued updates and Canadian'ization :) Update > 2-Sept-2010 : Canadian networks/carriers being listed as "CAN: Network" i.e.: "CAN: Space", updates are being marked with italicizes dates as they're added. Though the list was started based on a US article and details I do plan to switch things to the relevant Canadian dates/times. From what I've seen so far the Canadian premieres are usually within a few days of the US, so as long as you're setting timers etc a few days in advance you shouldn't have problems following this list. Wednesday, September 8 Hellcats - The CW CAN: ATV – 9/8c Thursday, September 9 The Vampire Diaries - The CW CAN: CTV – 8/7c [2-Sept-2010 CTV is not currently advertising a premiere date for Fall 2010?] Nikita - The CW CAN: ATV – 9/8c Sunda...

I just came across this bit about asteroid Apophis and the chances of it impacting earth . "NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth.. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields, and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036 for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated." So here's the bit that rubs me wrong: "four-in-a million". Why not say "one-in-250,000". If the authors are really stuck on the whole "four-in" thing then they should have said four-in-180,000 to start with. I really find inconsistencies like this baffling, I wish I knew the author and could understand what they hoped to gain by reporting the number in this way.

Here's a short list of shows starting this month that seem interesting. Returning: Burn Notice (USA) June 4 The title refers to the burn notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When a spy is burned, they are wiped off the "grid". According to the narration during the opening credits, the burned spy has no prior work history, no money; basically no identity. The television series is a first-person narrative (including frequent voice-overs providing nuggets of exposition) from the viewpoint of covert-operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan. After fleeing a Nigerian operation blown apart by the sudden and unexplained non-cooperation of his U.S. contact, Westen finds himself in his hometown[3] of Miami, Florida, attended to by his ex-girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne, but abandoned by all his normal intelligence contacts, under continuous surveillance with his...