Beens' Blog

If you have not had a chance to check out Mozilla's Thunderbird email client, I highly recommend you do. I had been plodding along using Outlook Express for many years, and immediately made the switch to Thunderbird after checking it out. Download it from here , or check out its features here . [Update] An excellent user's guide is available at the University of Waterloo Computer Science website .

I have added an RSS News Feed to this blog. The address is http://www.beens.org/blog/beensblog.xml .

Major advance made in transparent electronics. Read more here .

Here's a hilarious article about determining if your son is a "hacker". I especially like the part about the "Lunix" operating system, supposedly written by Soviet hacker during the cold war(!).

Net Snippets has become one of my favourite programs since I discovered it, and I see that they now have a free version. If you're interested in giving it a spin for your Internet-based research, visit http://www.netsnippets.com/basic/index.htm .

I love Google's new Desktop search engine , but there are warnings about security in this and similar products. Read more here .

Imagine being able to read ALL books online. That is is Google's plan and they are starting with this .

Should family members get access to dead relatives email accounts? A marine's family in Michigan is trying. Read more here .

The debut of the full-release version of an open-source browser that can actually challenge Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been cause for celebration among open-source advocates. Read more here .

Sun has decided to change its business model and will rely more on service contracts and hardware sales rather than operataing system sales. This means it will be giving away Solaris for free. Here's an article about it.

Has anyone had a chance to play with Source-Navigator ? I'd like to know how it works as a Java IDE.

Microsoft wants to "out-google" Google. I'll bet that the anti-Microsoft backlash will prevent this from happending. MSN launches revamped search engine CNET News.com

Some of you have asked about hiding directories or drives from your little brothers and sisters. Here's a program I ran across, but I don't know what the shareware limitations are. It's called "Hide and Protect Any Drives" (how original!) and is available at http://www.softstack.com/hidedrv.html . Does anyone know of any other good programs like this?

A half a BILLION dollar settlement today. Merely pocket change for M$. Read about it here .

Welcome to my new blog. I have been experimenting with various blogging software in the past and was always reluctant to use blogger. But now that blogger does not post any advertising and it allows posting on my server (vs theirs), I thought I'd give it another try. Stay tuned...

Hundreds of Sympatico customers have had trouble accessing their e-mail since the Internet service provider introduced new services from MSN early last month. Remind me not to use Sympatico for Internet services... (Go to URL)

Bill Gates recently made some interesting comments about Microsoft's position on spyware and what they are doing about it.

We've been having trouble installing Mandrake 10 on our new server in class, so I'm downloading a different Linux that seems to have some positive reviews -- Libranet, available from http://www.libranet.com/ . It comes as two ISO files which I will burn to CD and bring to class to try. I may do a test installation here at home first. If interested, ask me about it in class or send me an email. (Go to URL)

MSN Messenger now has a web interface which means you do not have to download the program to chat with your buddies. For more info, visit http://webmessenger.msn.com/ .

blinkx changes the way you find and access all kinds of information, from anywhere in the world, without having to search endlessly. blinkx rapidly links you with the information you need from the web, from online news sources and files on your own PC. http://www.blinkx.com/overview_us.php

E-mail wll be checked to determine whether it comes from valid servers. Microsoft Corp. will soon put some bite into its Sender ID antispam plans by checking e-mail messages sent to its Hotmail, MSN and Microsoft.com mail accounts to see if they come from valid e-mail servers, as identified by the Sender ID, according to a company executive. Read entire article at http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/22/HNmicrosoftid_1.html .

Check this out... http://www.myjavaserver.com/~sscotties/media/anime.html

The Linux that was the easiest to install was Corel Linux, which unfortunately is no longer available. According to this article from 2001, Corel Linux was sold to Xandros , who now has a version of Linux called Xandros Desktop OS. The free, downloadable version has some limitations , but it still looks pretty good if you want to dabble with Linux. This may be worth experimenting with in my Computer Engineering classes...