To the Diet Coke creative honchos who dreamt this up: and your point is…?
Monthly Archives: September 2001
Because I Need a Laugh
President Bush and Bin Laden have an Instant Message conversation.
Patents Bad for the Web
Alan Cox: When patented W3C standards ensure there is only one web browser in the world, its owners will no longer have time for the W3C or standards.
Isolationists Everywhere Take Note
Brent Simmons quotes John Donne: (with the antiquated spelling intact)
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the lesser… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am invovled in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Big Bad West
The Economist:
Is there no limit to the crimes for which globalisation must be held to account? Not only does it oppress the consumers of the rich West, undermine the welfare state, emasculate democracy, despoil the environment, and entrench poverty in the third world; we knew all that already. In addition, we now find, it is a utopian scheme for global ideological conquest — like Stalinism, minus the compassion. Truly, the idea that people should be left free to trade with each other in peace must be the most wicked and dangerous doctrine ever devised.
Microsoft Increasingly Expensive
It will become increasingly expensive to use Microsoft. It will also be hard to operate outside their network, unless you use truly open protocols. The applications will become thick clients that increasingly mediate between the user and their data. So expect more frustration. And since monocultures are toxic to a network, expect more viruses that are more pervasive than anything we’ve seen so far. Businesses are going to have to get MUCH smarter than the current crop of execs who chase after any gee-gaw convinced it will finally make all their IT investments pay-off. If I was a business seriously interested in productivity through technology, I would stay away from XP and .NET.
McAfee VirusScan-induced IE Slowdown Fix
Some McAfee VirusScan users may notice that right-clicking in Internet Explorer slows down when the on-access scanner is active. Workaround: Open regedit, go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Network Associates\TVD\Shared Components\On Access Scanner\McShield\Configuration, and ScannerThreadTimeout to (hex) FFFFFFFF. (That’s 8 f’s). The usual disclaimers apply — editing the registry is dangerous, for advanced users only, blah.
Yahoo Messenger IMvironments
Yahoo’s new Messenger looks good. Mmm… IMvironments. Hope the fix all the firewall bugs with this one — they claimed the last version would do that, but I don’t think they did such a great job on that.
IE6 Full Download
HOWTO: Do a full download of Internet Explorer 6, suitable for multiplatform/network installs. Heaven only knows why there isn’t a straightforward GUI option for this in ie6setup.exe, though.
Tamim Ansary on Afghanistan
Can’t believe I haven’t read this in all this time. Tamim Ansary on Afghanistan.