Once again my Yahoo! email address is attracting large numbers of ~150K emails containing the SWEN virus. Does this signal a return of SWEN? For those of you unfortunate enough to be using the world’s least secure (not to mention worst) operating system on your desktop or laptop machines, here’s some advice:

1. Run Windows Update/Bandage daily (hourly?). The best chance you have on a Windows box is to make sure all the patches are installed. Still won’t solve the problem as there are so many holes in Windows it would make a Swiss cheese jealous, but its the best option you have short of unplugging the thing from the world (choose either the power cord or the network one, and leave it disconnected ;-).
2. Stop using IE and Outlook/Outlook Express – these are the portals that virus writers most often use to get in, not using them prevents these two easy access gateways to your system. Instead, I recommend Mozilla which does a better job of web page rendering and email handling. It also includes, out of the box, popup blocking and a very effective spam filter. Upgrade now, and purge as many MS virus gateways as possible from your system. Software from MS has a proven track record of allowing these things in, so avoid using their poor quality code where possible.
3. Please delete emails with attachments, always. Especially ones that claim to be patches to any or all of the problems with Windows. We all know that there are so many holes in it that a single 150KB download is not going to be able to repair them all. I don’t think I’ve seen a single Windows Update download that small.
4. Download (or buy) the ultimate patch for Windows: a Linux installation CD. I’d recommend RedHat or Mandrake, though Mandrake can be a real pain to add anything to – most of the add-on packages are only available through their club, which is just another way of saying maintenance program.

Of course, you could always switch to an Apple platform… access to all the applications you’re used to (even the nasty browser from MS, though a very old version of it), with the added benefits of better security and a nicer user interface. It also happily displays X11 applications on the desktop, giving you access to all the unix graphical tools and remote display capabilities.

I meant to post a link to the photos I took in Taiwan a while back and never got around to it (can you tell it’s clean up day today ;-). They are on Ofoto which is my preferred service for digital photo sharing and printing.

Hope you enjoy the photos. I had fun snapping them as I walked around the back streets and the amazing National Palace Museum.

Well, my new laptop arrived at the office while I was in Taiwan, so this evening I have been playing with it. In particular, I have been listening to streaming radio over my 802.11 connection (wireless internet radio).

So far I have been mostly listening to Club 977 which offers commercial free 80’s music streamed at 128 kbps via the iTunes application. Even while downloading software for my new toy (like Konfabulator) it hasn’t dropped out at all. Very cool.

I’ll probably post more about the new laptop as I spend more time playing with it. Sometime soon I want to try creating a DVD with it and see how that works out. For now I’m just concentrating on getting my basic software installed, and the wireless connectivity sorted out too.

Well, congratulations to Ping for the correct location: I was in Taipei to drop off a board for a demo at Computex and make sure that it all worked correctly.

Apart from Computex, which was both huge in terms of the number of exhibitors, and packed (to the point that it was difficult to move around), I also went to a few other places.

Food & Drink

• China Pa – a restaurant/bar place that served the most amazing spicy food and any kind of drink you could imagine. All in an environment that included carved wooden furnishings, comfy chairs and live music.
• Naomi – a underground lounge bar with unusual decor, good snacks and OK cocktails (the Long Island Iced Tea was good, but I have had better – and worse). There was a fairly trendy crowd in and the video being projected onto the walls from overhead projectors was decidedly odd in places. Also, a little expensive – there’s even a cover charge.
• Champagne – just a few doors down the street from Naomi, but this one is at street level. Very impressive wine and champagne collection (with prices to match), but also a very good selection of every other kind of drink you can imagine. Well worth a visit.
• The Hyatt does a buffet that I’m told is amazing, but I missed it. Instead, I ate in the little lounge/bar area on the second floor, overlooking the lobby. They had a dim sum type thing going on, but extended to include bite-sized servings of foods from all over the world – for example, cucumber sandwiches made on a slices of bread about two inches square – with crusts, so not just larger slices cut down to size.
• The Brasserie at the Landis Hotel – this one was not so good, at least for me. The Singapore-style noodles I had were totally devoid of any spices, and the chilli sauce I requested was equally mild. That said, the pain au chocolat and croissants they served with breakfast are among the best I’ve had anywhere in the world, including France. The rest of the breakfast was excellent too – anything from Chinese style to full English cooked to cereals & fresh fruit.

Attractions

I only really saw one attraction in my limited time there (I don’t count Computex). That was the National Palace Museum, and it is well worth checking out, though it is somewhat large and perhaps a little overwhelming.

Well, it is not California. But for those who want to guess here are some photos. If you have any idea (and those who already know are not eligible to enter 😉 please leave a comment with your guesses…

 

One of my tasks for the day, and believe me I’ve been so busy recently with work that I had plenty of tasks to perform today at home, was to look into buying some theatre tickets for the Lion King musical at the Orpheum here in San Francisco early next year.

As with many of these things, the tickets are being sold online through TicketMaster. Sounds good? Well, the people that designed the TicketMaster booking system should be fired! The system, for those that have not tried using it, requires the user to guess which particular show will have seats left and then enter one of those words-in-a-graphic validation things. If you were unlucky in your guess, you get to go back to the beginning and guess again.

How much intelligence does it take to realise that what any user will want to do is specify the number of seats, the acceptable classes of seating and have the system present a list of dates that have matching seats available?

Finally, just to rub salt into the wound, if you do finally manage to find a date where seats that match your needs are available, they charge you what they call a convenience fee. How does this system rate as convenient? What definition of the word are they using?