We all know things get messy when the shit hits the fan. Well now you can travel prepared.
I found this on Firebox today, and it made me laugh so much. Its just great, check it out here.
Flat-packed, the Shit Box pops open to become a rigid but comfy loo into which you can drop your fudge, again and again, without making a mess or gassing everyone within a 5 mile radius. That’s because it comes with 10 biodegradable poo bags. Genius! Simply pop one inside, lay your cable, remove the whole shebang, tie up the bag and shove it in your best mate’s sleeping bag… sorry, we mean dispose of it responsibly.
Microsoft have released the much anticipated Service Pack 2 for the Vista and 2008 Server OS.
You can download this directly from MS here, and get additional information from Technet here.
A few improvements are supposed to be apparent, such as faster launching of applications, improved wireless functionality and faster shut down times.
It is also worth noticing that a tool is available to clean up once you have installed SP2, so that it can remove some of the previous SP1 clutter. Simply run compcln.exe, and you should hopefully see some Windows Folder shrinkage.
I read about this, but I obviously never got around to it.
So the basic understanding that the government have been working with Microsoft to define a standard build for Windows XP, that is more hardened and secured.
Some of the specific information is abit patchy, but I imagine the build is just fully patched, disabled services and ports etc.
The Reg posted more info here.
Wolfram|Alpha
Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.
Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.
Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.
I have stumbled across the excellent site of Audit Experts.
They have posted some information on a free PCI Self Assessment Tool, using a combination of OpenSource kit.
I highly recommend you take a look if your working in an environment working towards PCI compliance.
Google has released its new search engine power, using technology they are calling “semantic web technology”.
This essentially give a couple of improvements to its search results. From what I understand you can now give longer and improved search queries, and as a result the results snippets also contain more information. Apparently these snippets might even give you enough info so you dont actually have to visit the page to get your answer. The other improvement is the results may also contain information related to your search criteria.
Googles Example is as follows “The search query “principles of physics.” The related searches offer will include terms such as “special relativity,” “angular momentum,” “big bang” and “quantum mechanics.
Check out Googles Official Blog for more information.
