So, as usual, I've spent too much time on my bike to actually have time to post anything interesting. However, I thought the few of you who glance at this blog from time to time might be interested to know that I'm going Skydiving this weekend. It should be a lot of fun. Once I get back, I plan to start updating this little blog more often but I make no promises.

Update: Due to inclement weather, we were forced to cancel the skydiving trip. I hope to reschedule ASAP.

So, I went out and purchased a 2006 Yamaha V-Star 650 a couple of months ago and now the free time I used to spend blogging is spent riding. Don't expect much in the way of updates here, at least until the weather gets too cold to ride. I'll probably still throw a few links into the "Top Links" category each day as they are directly tied to my bookmarking system anyway and I *might* start discussing my bike on the blog if the mood strikes. I did just get new saddlebags...

The Fishbowl has an interesting article on a recent Washington Post screw up that may have allowed an anonymous source to be identified. The problem revolves around metadata attached to a photograph used in the article. Apparently, the photographer who took the photograph or someone at the post entered tracking information that included the small town the individual may live in. Essentially, they accidentally exposed that information to the world via the picture itself.

Quick read and definitely worth checking out.

A Blog over at MSN has a great story on how Geeks make great fathers. For my geeky friends, which is most of you, send this to the women stupid enough to date you.

My favorite reason has to be number 5: The beautiful thing about having a Geek for a parent is that you aren't wondering what your children are doing online. You *KNOW* what they are doing online and you can limit it if necessary. It's fabulous peace of mind.

Thats the same reason my fiance can't keep the photos of her in her wedding dress in digital form. It should be said that many of the qualities listed in this article could probably be negatives in some situations, but lets not mention that part to our wonderful women.

That blog has a few other great articles. Check out this one about being married to a geek and this one about geeks as friends.

Microsoft users are once again being asked to install a patch for the (overly) popular Microsoft Office productivity suite. At issue this time is not yet another security issue, but rather a
patent case Microsoft recently lost to a Guatemalan software developer.

From an email Microsoft sent to customers: It was recently decided in a court of law that certain portions of code found in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003, Microsoft Office XP Professional and Microsoft Access 2002 infringe a third-party patent. As a result, Microsoft must make available a revised version of these products with the allegedly infringing code replaced.

What does this mean? Customers have to spend their own time and money downloading, testing, and deploying a match that actually removes functionality they paid for in a product they legally own or be at risk for both patent lawsuits and security flaws as future patches may require this patch before they will properly install.

Perhaps this would be a good time to check out OpenOffice, an excellent completely free alternative to Microsoft's Office product.

Adrants.com has an interesting story indicating that Windows Vista may, in fact, be adware. The controversy centers around Vista's "Welcome Center" which a Department of Justice Filing indicates may contain advertisements placed by Microsoft and other OEMs.

From the filing: Plaintiffs have received a complaint regarding the ability of OEM's to customize the first-boot experience in Vista, and in particular concerning the Welcome Center, a new interface that presents the user with various setup options and commercial offers (presented by Microsoft and OEMs) at the end of the initial out-of-the-box experience.

This is very reminiscent of the issue MS ran into a few years ago with desktop icon placement. Just another reason to be glad I run Debian Linux.

It appears that Microsoft may have accidentally leaked the Windows Vista release date. Apparently, a website setup to allow certain individuals to guess the launch date of Vista contains an obvious flaw. It provides "early" or "late" hints based upon the date entered. I wouldn't call this behavior a bug since its clearly by design, but I have to wonder what Microsoft was thinking if this is the actual release date and what impact the flaw will have on the contest's integrity if it's not.

Yahoo News has an interesting article on the transition away from paper money by younger individuals in Japan and America. The article discusses whether or not we are approaching a point where paper money becomes unnecessary and virtually all transactions are handled electronically. As someone who uses my debit card for the vast majority of my purchases, such a change doesn't seem too daunting. However, the article does fail to account for one issue which prevents many from supporting an entirely electronic economy: Privacy.

Currently, I can go to an ATM, withdrawal some cash, and make a purchase with absolutely no identifying information being left with the retailer. If paper money is eliminated, that simply will no longer be the case. To me, thats a real concern.

The city of St. Louis, MO is considering enacting an insane new sound ordinance which prevents cars from having even remotely advanced sound systems. I understand that obscenely loud stereos can be a nuisance in densely packed urban and even suburban environments. This new bill, however, goes well beyond preventing nuisance and well into restricting the freedom of reasonable individuals to enjoy complex music at enjoyable volumes. First, the bill itself uses a ridiculously subjective standard of banning music at a "louder volume than is necessary for convenient, normal hearing." Additional inappropriate provisions included in this bill:

• Police could seize cars violating the ordinance.
  This is a bad idea for any number of reasons. The subjective standard would give the state the power to seize any car it wanted.
• Speakers with diameters larger than 12" are banned.
  14" subwoofers are popular in SUVs and other large vehicles that need more sound to create full, deep bass.
• Having two or more speakers 10" in diameter or larger is banned.
  Even smaller cars often call for dual 10" speakers to achieve satisfying bass and this bill would ban that. The additional danger here is that some factory-installed systems would be in violation of this part of the ordinance.

Vitalsecurity.org has an interesting article on how users respond to different on-screen alerts. They compared an older version of a firewall alert (which created some legal problems) with a much longer new one. The result? Users don't really pay attention to what a message says. Rather, they let inane qualities such as the amount of text influence their opinion as to the severity of the alert. Guess I'll have to start making my code output long, lengthy, prolonged, protracted, dragging (and just a bit redundant) error messages.