They’re doing what they can at Microsoft to put to rest the notion that IE7 won’t make drastic strides in CSS compliance. One of the fronts they’re pushing is this detailed listing of CSS fixes that will be found in Internet Explorer 7 when it is released.
Category: General Web/Tech
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Skype and USB phones….
I’ve seen skype I just haven’t used it personally until very recently. In fact there was a place (dialpad?) that I had used once upon a time for a few free long distance calls online. It was neat, but had some limitations (delay). It quickly became non-free and frankly the microphone I have hooked up to the PC fell back in the corner beside the desk and I haven’t dug it out in quite a while. A few weeks ago though my Dad discovered Skype and ordered a cheap ($17) “phone” that plugs into the usb port of the pc and can be used with skype and a variety of other services. (in fact, it works as a generic usb sound card so… there might be other possibilities for using it to record wav files directly, etc.)
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The stratellite revisited
NO, I didn’t mean to type satellite. Stratellite. This is an idea that I’ve written on before and I think it has some interesting possibilities. The idea is to positition a large airship (helium balloon of sorts) in the stratosphere. Put it above the steering currents of the jet stream and equip it with the ability to stay in a fixed place for months at a time. Also, put antennas on it. For what? Whatever you need…. cell phone coverage… a wireless internet transceiver of some sort? etc.
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Mythtv based hardware available from monolith
The title really says most all, it looks like you can get a preconfigured mythtv box starting at $695. Prebuilt, preconfigured no muss/no fuss. (No subscription fees like the tivo’s…)
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Google Coupons and improving Picasa
There are a couple of stories on the “Google front” today. First up Coupons tied into Google location searching (maps.) More details at the Adwords blog. (BTW, this is open to US businesses, an Adwords account is not a requirement.) It looks like they’ll put up printable coupons for businesses. There seem to be quite a few possibilities for extending this idea. (More coverage here.) The next item puts to rest a rumor from some time back. It seems as though at one point in time, Google was interested in Riya, who specializes in image recognition (hey – that’s Bob in that picture.)
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Real time Global strategy game using Google Maps?
Some time back, there was a Risk clone using Google maps which was interesting, but taken offline due to a legal letter. Well, I have had a long interest in strategy games…. (Risk/Axis&Allies and variants as well as the civilization/freeciv variety and Age of Empires/etc….) Anyway… saw this last week… Online strategy game using Google Maps. Upon visiting, I found out the site has moved under heavy load to a new location…. Here’s the new site gmworldwar.com. I don’t know, I’m not terribly eager to strategize world war right now – it seems a bit too much like reality seem to be shaping up for right now… Anyway – it’s called Endgame and uses Google Maps as the back end. It’s currently limited to beta testers due to high demand so, the general public will have to wait.
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Other MS patch news as well as a Yahoo vulnerability?
Or lack of currently available patch as the case may be. From the previous link it appears that there was at least one previously announced vulnerability that was not addressed in the recent patch day from Microsoft. From MS…
“this is a DoS only issue that was not addressed in MS06-040, but will be addressed in a bulletin.”
Not timeline yet on when… There are also public exploits out for (possibly related to MS06-046) which is related to the MS Help system.
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RFID Passports
Looks like RFID passports are coming very soon for the US. It was probably just a matter of time, but in light of some of the risks in the current implementation, I thought it might be delayed. The most disturbing of the security risks (as if cloning of a passports rfid is not concerning…) is the possibility that the unshielded rfid could be used to trigger the detonation of an explosive. Since RFID is relatively short range, this means that it would be possible for terrorists to target Americans specifically by using an RFID trigger that was looking for the specific earmarks of a US Passport.
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Google search results catching up…
Some time back I complained about the Google indexing of the site after the Big Daddy upgrade. For a good while before Big Daddy, there was usually about a week delay between me posting and there being a full crawl of the posted page which was fairly impressive. Post Big-Daddy the coverage of even previously indexed articles was lousy for a good while. As recent as a week or two ago there were only 900-1100 pages (including feeds which are of arguable value for google to index (maybe I should block those to googlebot?…hmm…) Anyway, I just noticed that they’re up to 1600 pages (still including those rss feeds.) It seems spotty still, but they’ve finally got a post-big daddy article. The inurl feature is still annoyingly buggy though.
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Photoshop and news pictures…
There was a time when people looked to shape images for political benefit. (I mean political in most ALL senses of the word whether it’s domestic or international or issue oriented politics etc.) By this I mean, “Framing the picture” the right way, in front of a banner, cropping tight on a speaker so you don’t see wacky signs and the best “message” can be put forward. It can mean having a “photo op” in front of an impressive symbol or it can simply be the way an image of a landscape is framed that can tell an amazing story. Yes, I know this still goes on, but I have to wonder if the “organic” ways of “controlling the message” conveyed by a picture have become a thing of the past. This weekend, late Saturday night to be exact, I saw the beginnings of a blog-storm over a Reuters photograph of the aftermath of some of the activity in Lebanon.