"Rolling Stones: Steel Wheelchair Tour"

The title for the last entry, "I can fluff your Garfield, if you know what I mean... (No, I don't know what you mean)", is again from Whose Line is it Anyway?. The cast was doing this game involving "clichés and over used statements". I think it's called "If you know what I mean". They come with stupid lines that don't really mean anything followed by "if you know what I mean". Well Colin came up with the Garfield thing. You can attach whatever innuendo you like to it :-)

Today I received a Network+ book and the third book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing reading either one of them but I definitely needed them. Network+ is similar to an A+ certification only obviously has to do with networking. I need that certification to help in getting a job. Which I still haven't found yet. So many books I'd like to read, so many games I'd like to finish and only a little while left in the summer. What a boring person I am! All the ambition I have is to read several books and finish several PC games? That's a successful summer? Besides getting a job that is. Of course I could do other things for money. I was going to really develop a website, get enough visitors and try out an Amazon affiliate and maybe make some money. But do I really want to pay for a domain and hosting if I don't know I can at least make that much back from it? I'm not one of these people who's just going to pay for the hosting and do the website for the fun of it.

Now I'd like to slightly correct something from the last entry. Apparently this Justin Blanton of who was nice enough to link me from his visited blog informs me he is in fact (or was in fact) a Linux enthusiast, as described in this blog entry of his (new window) (oh look he's obsessive compulsive too!).

For a moment I'd like to talk more about MS Windows. Specifically Windows 2000 Professional is simply a fantastic operating system by an standards. Actually I should mention I got addicted to NT 4.0 and am currently using Windows XP Pro (2k is 5.0, XP is NT 5.1) but I'm still going to spout the wonderfulness of Windows 2000. NT 4.0 I had to use on my home computer because when I built a computer I didn't have an operating system and a friend of mine who used Linux happened to have a cop of NT 4. That operating system is so incredibly stable and can take so much abuse. I just loved it! Had I had access to 2000 I would have installed it but I didn't feel like spending the $130US over at E-bay for it so I stuck with my NT 4. Windows 2k on the other hand is just as stable but has all the nice Windows features of Plug-and-Play, DirectX 8+, USB, as well as features that should have been in NT 4 from the beginning like mounting new partitions in subdirectories, encrypting individual folders, not to mention all the new incredibly useful network features. In fact I used to know some one who actually switched from Linux to Windows 2000 (he was at least as anti-Windows/Microsoft as Justin. The main thing about 2000 is how everything actually works, the compatibility both with hardware and software both new old and yet the incredible power, flexibility and stability. It is literally the first and last operating system you could ever ask for.

But I'm using XP. Why? I figured it would be supported by Microsoft that much longer and the differences are so relatively slight XP essentially is Windows 2000, just with that annoying Luna fisher-price interface attached (which I always turn off immediately). In fact I turn off EVERY stupid feature like that. You can find a list of settings in the System Properties Advanced tab in the Performance settings. I unchecked every check box. I turned off all my stupid event sounds too. Hey this is the perfect saigway to...

Changes to Settings Windows Users Should Make as Soon as Possible!

First of all there is one feature I will be officially dubbing ... Eeeee-vul...

The feature I am referring to is called "hide extensions of known file types" and can be found in the Folder Options of the Tools menu in Windows Explorer or My Computer. ALL WINDOWS USERS SHOULD UNCHECK THIS. There is absolutely no reason for this stupid setting beside which it's very dangerous. This was just a stupid feature Microsoft put in Windows 95 to make Windows more like Mac OS. Only it doesn't work because so many file types have different icons, icons that change when you install a new program that doesn't ask if you'd like it to change the association or not and it's very annoying not really knowing what type a particular file really is.

Here is an image of what the option looks like:



But most of all mere normal computer users who (for some reason) use Outlook or Outlook Express may see an attachment that looks like a plain text file which is supposed to be safe to open but actually it's .txt.vbs or .txt.js which are both executable file extensions. You click those and you just infected your computer and probably sent the virus to everyone in your address book.

This is actually a neat little-known feature. I think Microsoft came up with this as kind of a mimic of AppleScript or any number of graphical shell scripting found in UNIX/X-Windows. But no one seems to know about this feature, called Windows Script Host. And since it installs by default and scripts with .vbs and .js execute by default they can do a lot of damage. Many of the recent Windows viruses spread via Outlook and file attachments have propagated this way. And it's due in large part to hiding file extensions and Window Script Host. Now you can do a lot of neat stuff with Windows Script Host if you are a system administrator and want to automate repetitive tasks. It's sort of like QBasic from back in the DOS days. JS stand for JScript by the way, VBS is VBScript. Very similar to the client side browser scripting languages but with functions and facilities specifically for dealing with folders and modify the registry.

Well I guess this is all for today's entry.

  ¶ 1:45 AM