A Vast Category
As recently noted here, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been getting a lot of bad press as of late. Even though the much-hyped Windows XP Service Pack 2 is due out this week, security holes have already been found.
Yes, you should install Service Pack 2, because it does patch a lot of known holes. However, you should still Browse Happy and Get Firefox.
Have I drilled this point home yet?
Today the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (known as the “activist court” by conservatives who get upset when they interpret the law correctly) ruled that Grokster and Streamcast are not liable for the illegal swapping of files on their networks since there are no centrally located servers that house the files. This is a good thing.
Why? Not because I condone the illegal trading of music and other copyrighted material, but because a technology that allows people to communicate and share information has not been shut down. There are plenty of legitimate uses for such a network, and some day, we might just see them take the forefront over the illegitimate uses.
The fine people at the Red Ferret Journal have collected a list of sites that offer free music for download. There are over 1,000,000 songs available – all without a hitch!
So grab your iPod or whatever device you store your MP3’s on and head over to the WikiM.
Feel like reading some heavy material? Check out the next big (or is it little?) thing: Quantum Computing.
What’s that? You like the free stuff? If you are in the US, you paid for the Hubble Space Telescope, so why not take advantage of it and grab some cool Hubble Wallpaper for your desktop. There are some really neat images of Thing In Space.
And this is just too weird to pass up. I’m not entirely sure this is sanctioned by Burger King, but you must check out the Subservient Chicken. Type in some instructions and it will do what you ask. This is just…well, eerie.
In continuation of the Free Music theme, I found a link to the 100 Song CD. This CD contains 100 songs, an amazing feat in and of itself. True, they happen to be short songs, but they are by good bands.
You can even download the cover artwork and jewel case inserts to print out.
And in other news, as soon as I figure out how to upgrade to gdlib 2 on my web server without screwing up every site I host, I will have the new picture gallery up and running. Anyone have any suggestions?
By way of Scrubbles I found this absolutely terrific site called the 365 Days Project.
One MP3 a day… for one year.
The MP3’s offered are something else. From two unknown women singing irritatingly close to in-tune with each other to Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians (who?) singing “Fo Fum Fi Fee”, this collection of found songs will be keeping me entertained for some time.
And from Kevin Rose I found some ways to search Google that bring up loads of open directories containing MP3’s for download, among other things. I found that entering the name of an artist/band before the search string will tailor the results to your liking. I was suprised to find mostly unheard of artists and music rather than directories full of pop tunes. I am betting the RIAA knows this trick too.
I can’t count how many viruses, worms, and security patches it has taken for this to occur, but the evidence mounts against Internet Explorer. The buzz all over the internet this week is that security experts everywhere are recommending people use a different browser.
Read about it at IT Week, Business Week, Microsoft-owned Slate.com, and even the Department of Homeland Security’s US-CERT site.
I know that this all seems great for the efforts of Firefox, Opera, and other browsers to regain a piece of the browser market pie, but I’m afraid it will take a lot more than this for the average user to stop using something they are used to. Many people don’t even know that alternative browsers exist. It may take something as drastic as a virus that erases or disables Internet Explorer for anything to really change. I’d like to think not, but it may.
Update: Here too 😀