Toybox: Polished Firefox 3.0 not always up to speed

Toybox: Polished Firefox 3.0 not always up to speed
But Firefox 3 adds a host of welcome improvements

Digital Strategy 2.0 builds on broadband push
Content clusters and digital hubs to break out across the land

Fronde inks deal with Google
Will represent Google Security, Compliance, eDiscovery and Apps

Apple forgets to fix iPhone passcode bug
The bug also affects the iPod touch

FryUp: Gag fail
The Herald and Stuff publish suppressed names online, Tech Ed and true blue Ocker broadband

Apple faces monopoly charge from clone maker
Case asks for 'illegal' tie between the Mac operating system and Apple hardware to be broken

Jaycar - Please open a shop in the Hutt!

Consumer electronics (Kitsets and so forth) still exists.  But if you went into any store of DSE then you'd be hard pressed to get any assistance.

Just one of those stores in question being DSE Lower Hutt.  I thought I'd expand my brain cells a bit with a bit of a project.  Problem #1, kitset I wanted not available (that, I could accept).  Ordered 2x LED Level Meter Kits from OZ to do the job.  Went into DSE Lower Hutt to try to get some LED's (A common component by most standards) and going through all their parts bins only 1 or 2 LED's to be found.  Sad.  Couldn't find any IC sockets or PCB mounts either.  Very Sad.  One of the un helpful assistants was raised after waiting for some time with the response being 'try Jaycar in Wellington'.

Sad DSE, very sad.  You used to be great, but I will now have to save up my gadget/parts shopping needs for one trip and go to your competitor in Wellington.  You've lost a once loyal customer.


So this is my plea.. Please, Plleeeessseeee Jaycar.. open a store in Lower Hutt.
The site of your catalogues causes me to break into joy and dribble with delight over your kits, electronics parts and gadgets!

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More than once now, have I found myself shaking my head at the morons otherwise known as "on-the-spot" TV journalists.

I can well imagine that an exhausted athlete, sweat pouring from their brow, could well do without being asked a question like "Do you think you tried as hard as you could have?!?"

Lets take a moment to consider the possible responses:

1) Why yes, yes I did!

2) No. For some reason, I just lacked the motivation to fully capitalize on the last 4 years of intense training that all led up to this single critical moment in my life. A moment I will probably relive in my dreams and nightmares for years to come. Nay, a moment I will in fact relive again and again on the couch of my mental health councillor while I fight to rediscover my own self-worth as a human being.

3) I really couldn't say for sure, what do you think?!?

And it's not like it was just one isolated incident. These idiot women who don't know the first thing about what it means to be an Athlete have been let loose on these poor unsuspecting souls, just like a truck-load of ankle biting Chiwawas. Only the chosen few are in the joyous position of not giving a flying sh!t how stupid the questions are, because you guessed it, they won a medal. The Sky could be falling in on their heads and they would probably still have a stupid grin on their faces.

But what was the alternative, Tony Vietch?

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Mysterious Mac clone maker for sale for US$50K

Mysterious Mac clone maker for sale for US$50K
Company selling name, website, trade secrets and press contacts in one package on PayPal

Survey Results from Blackhat
The Blackhat 2008 security conference was held recently in Las Vegas. Along with the RSA Security conference held in San Francisco at the beginning of each year, Blackhat is one...

Google may let users comment on, rearrange search results
New functionalities to be available to any user, not just those signed in to their Google accounts

Toybox: Polished Firefox 3.0 not always up to speed
But Firefox 3 adds a host of welcome improvements

Microsoft Surface at Tech Ed Australia 2008

Microsoft Surface at Tech Ed Australia 2008
Oh! The Australians will have the chance to see - and touch - the Microsoft Surface table according to the TechNet Australia blog.

Lucky folks...

... (more in the full post)

Mindscape at Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand 2008
If you follow the folks at Mindscape, then here is a list of sessions they will be running at this year's Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand:

[quote]

Overview of SQL Server 2008 (DAT302) - Monday 2:15pm What's New in WPF 3.5 and 3.5 SP1 (DEV... (more in the full post)

Using Fedora Red Hat Enterprise? Check the security announcements
From the Fedora announce list comes the information about unauthorised access to Fedora servers and the news that the unknown intruder was able to sign some packages related to Red Har Enterprise Linux 4.

"Last week we discovered that some Fedora servers were illegally accessed. The intrusion into the servers was quickly discovered, and the servers were taken offline.

Security specialists and administrators have been working since then to analyze the intrusion and the extent of the compromise as well as reinstall Fedora systems. We are using the requisite outages as an
opportunity to do other upgrades for the sake of functionality as well as security. Work is ongoing, so please be patient. Anyone with pertinent information relating to this event is asked to contact fedora-legal redhat com

One of the compromised Fedora servers was a system used for signing Fedora packages. However, based on our efforts, we have high confidence that the intruder was not able to capture the passphrase used to secure the Fedora package signing key. Based on our review to date, the passphrase was not used during the time of the intrusion on the system and the passphrase is not stored on any of the Fedora servers.

But then came an errata:

"In connection with the incident, the intruder was able to sign a small number of OpenSSH packages relating only to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (i386 and x86_64 architectures only) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (x86_64 architecture only). As a precautionary measure, we are releasing an updated version of these packages, and have published a list of the tampered packages and how to detect them at http://www.redhat.com/security/data/openssh-blacklist.html

To reiterate, our processes and efforts to date indicate that packages obtained by Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscribers via Red Hat Network are not at risk. "

More information here and a commentary from the other side here.

If you are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux you should be reading through those notices. Now go and update your systems.

How to validate length of input into a multi-line textbox
You can validate the length of input of an ordinary TextBox using the MaxLength attribute.  However, this doesn't work if the TextBox has a TextMode of Multi-line.  In those instances, use this piece of code.

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">

   

    function MaxLength()

    {

        var txt = $get("<%=ResponseNote_TextBox.clientid %>");

        var msg = $get("<%=Message_Label.clientid %>");

       

        if (txt.value.length > 500)

        {

            SelectText();

                                                           

            msg.className = "Failure";

            msg.innerHTML = "* Response has more than 500 characters";

        }

        else

        {

            if (msg.innerHTML == "* Response has more than 500 characters")

            {

                msg.innerHTML = "";

            }

        }

    }

   

    function SelectText()

    {

            var txt = $get("<%=ResponseNote_TextBox.clientid %>");

            var rng = txt.createTextRange();

 

            rng.moveStart("character", 501);

            rng.moveEnd("character", 0);

            rng.select();

    }

   

    function RemoveCRLFs()

    {

   // debugger;

    var txt = $get("<%=ResponseNote_TextBox.clientid %>");

    var str = window.clipboardData.getData("Text");

   

    str = str.replace(/(\s*(\r?\n|\r))+$/, '');

   

    txt.value = str ;

       

    }   

       

       

</script>        

 

Page_load:

ResponseNote_TextBox.Attributes.Add("onblur", "javascript:MaxLength()")

ResponseNote_TextBox.Attributes.Add("onpaste", "javascript:RemoveCRLFs()")

 

The TelecomONE unconference
After attending this year's Kiwi FOO (1, 2) a few of the Telecom folks there decided to work and put together an internal unconference event.

TelecomONE Innovation '08 is running for three days of October in Warkworth, in the same venue used for the Kiwi FOO events before. About 80 Telecom people, both technical and business types, will get together plus a number of invited external participants - including myself. Like the FOO camp attendance is by invitation only.

Invitees are all doing interesting work and are invited to network, share their works in progress, show off the latest tech toys, and tackle challenging problems together.                                     

I am told Telecom CEO Dr Paul Reynolds is directly supporting this initiative.

Also like the FOO camp discussions you will find there's a rule - what happens there stays there. You might find some reports about the topics, but won't see many direct quotes or references. This is the norm, to encourage an open debate, even when it involves proprietary or confidential information brought in by participants - some sessions have very interesting topics and the openess brings a lot of proprietary and private information to the room.

I think this is a great initiative and I am really looking forward to be present and contributing to the discussion.

Finally: Persistent storage for Amazon EC2
Amazon has finally announced the general availability of persistent storage for EC2! This is long awaited news. Here is a also a writeup from Werner Vogels, the Amazon CTO.

Some background...

Amazon has offered a very nice cloud-com... (more in the full post)

Spread the world with the Unofficial Tech Ed blog widget
You can help us spread the world about the things happening at the Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand by using this widget:

You can just click in "Options" and use the code to insert it in your page or blog.

... (more in the full post)