Announced late last night at Wired.com is an awesome new photography contest, whereupon the subject is the elusive and oft-captured shadow. The contest trounced across my computer screen and into my head just a few hours later and I have not been able to forget about it! It's like a song you hear on a television commercial and cannot get out of your head, nor can you fill that space with another song. I have been shooting regular (as opposed to unleaded?) photography for a couple of decades and stock photography for a few years. I have become accustomed to the fact that the shadow will, on the norm, kill a good stock photograph. Kill it! That has not deterred my fascination, neigh obsession for capturing the shades of gray human form, nor has it allayed my desire to do so, but there has, fortunate for me, not been that many opportunities to suspend the aforementioned form in a digital format, as I shoot in a digital format. The fine print entails that the submitted photograph be one that you shot, the bigger the better (800×1200 is the accepted minimum), and a description of the image to include exposure, employed hardware, along with whatever else you would like to include. It must also be hosted on a Web site and the link submitted to enter the contest. The winning image will be selected by popular vote. The top ten of those will be displayed on the Wired.com homepage. Here is my chance! Here is your chance! And this is our chance to shine like the brightest photographic stars that we are. So, go! Rush out into the streets, the alleys, the caverns, the piano mills, and the shopping malls. Aim for the gray, the other side of the road, defy the wind, the rain, and the obnoxious and go for the gold! This is your chance.
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January 20, 2009 - 12:36 am
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Looking for a new form of poker to start playing? Interested in playing one of the few forms of poker where you play merely against luck, not the house or other players? Interested in prepping for Vegas, but without any large risk? If so, then the new game from Avalinx is the perfect game for you. Let‘Em Ride PRO is yet another quality release in Avalinx’s PRO series of iPhone Games. Play against Lady Luck as you attempt to earn as many pixelated chips as you can. With controls over every single aspect of the game, from the looks of the cards to the style of the shuffling, you can get this game to be exactly what you want. Let’Em Ride PRO can do all of this, and more, for only $4.99. Let’Em Ride PRO has several nice features that make it well worth your money. The interface of the application — with its smooth renderings, vibrant colors, and changeable looks — makes this game ideal for everybody. Additionally, the overall layout looks exceptionally clean and is well planned. You can navigate and play without any problems using your fingers, even if they are as huge as mine. All of the options are also exceptionally easy to find. Similar to all other games in the PRO series, Let’Em Ride PRO feels as polished and perfected as something Apple would put out for the iPhone. My favorite part of Let’Em Ride PRO is the actual game play. While the interface is nice, this part easily steals the attention. From betting, to riding/bringing down your bet, the game play is well done. It actually feels almost natural (save for the fact that you are holding a three inch long rectangle), and it does emulate the actual dealing style quite well. Plus, if you don’t quite know what to do, the PRO series offers an ‘ask the dealer’ option, which should help you out in those tricky situations. The graphics, which can normally distract from an otherwise great game, are of no concern here as they are flawless and vibrant. Another good part of Let’Em Ride PRO, and all of the PRO series, are the extras. By clicking on ‘Master the Game’ in the main menu, you can then learn quite a lot about the real Let Them Ride poker game. There is the ‘Rules and Terminology’ section, which is great for new players or people used to playing with other gambling platforms. The ‘Strategy’ section, which teaches you when to Ride, and when to Bring Down, helps you prepare for your trip to the local Indian Casino. Lastly, there is the ‘Payouts’ section, which, very simply, tells you the payouts. All of these sections are a nice addition to the game.
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January 17, 2009 - 6:33 pm
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Is there a way to compress the already frenetic Jeopardy television game show into something just under six minutes and retain its most important elements? Yes, and the increasingly popular Minisode Network – the network that streamlines entire episodes down to five minutes of straight-to-the-plot video – was bound to figure out how. Some would say that the broadcast version of Jeopardy would benefit from giving Alex Trebek less time to make clumsy jokes, often playing off awkward contestants. Now, those who thrill from the answer and question portion of the show, and who twitch uncontrollaby while time stands still during Final Jeopardy, can stop being ashamed of their impatience and go straight for the candy. I watched an entire Jeopardy College Championship final (two episodes) while eating lunch and still kept to my normal, self-imposed, twenty-minute break. Jeopardy is just one show on the vast Minisode Network menu, pulling from Sony Television's immense media library of memorable meat and potatoes shows such as He-Man, Married with Children, Charlie's Angels, Square Pegs, and so many more. The network distributes its condensed streaming programs through the sites you are probably already used to browsing: YouTube, Crackle.com, Hulu, and Joost, to name a few. The only drawback is that it takes some commitment on the part of the would-be Minisode Network junkie to find the programming they want. From the network's home page, I had to jump to one of the other portals mentioned above where I was often forced to search for something to watch. Of the portals available, Crackle and Hulu offered the best organized format for me to easily browse shows and episodes. I would have tried out the mobile minisode content available to Sprint and Verizon subscribers, but my phone wasn't capable. Having quick content available on my phone would certainly improve the quality of time sitting in the dentist's waiting room, though, so an upgrade might be worthwhile. There is certain to be something on the Minisode Network for everyone, so take a few moments to check out the content for a quick fix of television gold that won't interfere with any other plans.
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January 16, 2009 - 7:47 am
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Music
With the shutdown of McColo by Internet Service Providers in November, global spam volumes dropped over 50 percent. Sadly, this appears to have been a short-term fix. According to a new Symantec report, the spammers have moved to new locations and the volumes are back up to 80 percent of pre-McColo levels. While spam originates from a lot of places, the United States is still in the number one spot, with 27 percent of the spam observed originating from there. China and Brazil tied for second place with 7 percent of spam originating from these countries. The report indicates that URLs in Canadian Pharmacy spam messages were noted as being top-level Chinese domains (.cn TLD). Could this mean that Chinese knock-off (counterfeit) prescriptions are trying to make it appear as if they are coming from Canada? Given the recent concerns of tainted and poisonous merchandise being exported from China, this might be a concern. Of course, I would think that buying prescription meds over the Internet should be a concern to most people, anyway. In another variation of recently observed spam, a user is invited to join a social networking site. The link goes to a real group, which was created on the social networking site by the spammer. The group then links to a free blogging site, which redirects the victim to the ultimate destination URL. At the destination URL, personal information is requested, which is probably used to sell to marketing companies or used in other spam campaigns. Please note, although not mentioned in the report, that some of these campaigns might have malicious intent or be scams. Also noted during the holiday season was a lot of e-Card spam. This spam sometimes comes with malware (malicious software) designed to steal personal and financial information or turn your machine in to a spam spewing zombie computer using your credentials.
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January 13, 2009 - 9:22 am
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Are you an aspiring amateur chef looking for a big hit with the family? Got a BIG dinner with the boss planned and have no idea what to cook? Kid tells you at the last second that you need to bring an appetizer to school that night? If you said YES to any of the above, or if you just want to have a nifty electronic cookbook, then Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner is the perfect iPhone or iPod Touch application for you. Dinner Spinner is a small (1.8MB) application for your iPhone or iPod Touch that accesses Allrecipes.com’s database of user-submitted easy-to-make recipes. You pick a type of course, a main component, and the cooking time (or scramble them if you wish) and it finds recipes for you. Take a look at the shopping list, hit the store, and then do some cooking. By connecting to Allrepcipes.com’s database of thousands of homemade recipes, Dinner Spinner is able to give you a large selection, or exactly what you want, in no time at all. Plus, it does this all for free. The Good One of the nicest features about Dinner Spinner is the interface. Simplicity is not only a goal of Feng Shui, but it seemed to be the primary philosophy of the application designers. The interface has three real options: a type of meal, a type of ingredient, and a cooking time. That's it, pure simplicity. The application works perfectly with both the touch features and the accelerometer of the iPhone. If you want to randomize one, two, or even all three parts of the selection process, just shake your phone. This interface along with the great way the application works within the iPhone makes it stand out from the crowd. Another nice feature is how the recipes are set up. You get a step-by-step guide on how to cook the meal (just like any cookbook) and you get perfect instructions on every aspect. You also will get a shopping list and the full nutrition information. This is helpful to both people at the store and those dieting. Also, there are ratings (as done by other users) that help you decide exactly what you will and will not like. Along with the ratings are user comments that sometimes tell you little hints or add-ins that make the meal even better and easier. Additionally, as all of these recipes are user-submitted, you can trust that they are easy to make and quite tasty.
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January 11, 2009 - 7:00 pm
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The Phishermen (and probably a few women) are always looking for fresh waters to hook some unsuspecting phish — so it should be no surprise that Twitter is their latest target. After all, e-mail, cell phones, and Facebook have already been phished, along with countless desktops and laptops. According to a Symantec blog post, Twitter users are receiving warning messages from Twitter command and control about this matter. The blog post by Marian Meritt, the Internet Safety Guru at Symantec, gives blogger Chris Pirillo credit for breaking the story on Saturday. According to the blog post at Symantec, the messages appear to come from someone you know at Twitter with a link to a malicious website designed to steal information. Twitter also put up a warning on their blog. It starts with a Wikipedia definition of phishing and then details how the phishing attack will come in the form of an e-mail message notifying a person they have a Twitter Direct Message. Thus far, the social engineering lures being used in the e-mail go something like this: "Hey! check out this funny blog about you…" and direct the user to click on a link to a fake website. They also point out that if you look at the URL you'll see that it is not the same as the URL for the normal landing page for Twitter. A trick to do this (without clicking on the link) is to hover your mouse pointer over the link. If you look at the bottom left portion of your page it will display the URL the link goes to. With all the malware people can get nowadays by just visiting (driving-by) a malicious page — this is a much safer way to go about it rather instead of actually clicking on the link to find out. Twitter blog picture showing where to look for a suspicious URL Authentic looking phishing sites aren't hard to create. Often the hacker merely copies the pictures of a legitimate site and puts them on a compromised (hacked) site so the activity can't be traced back to them. Hackers frequently seek out sites with poor security to compromise and put up their own (malicious) site. Also contained in the blog entry are instructions on what to do if you've been phished. Basically, they direct you to their password reset tool and a legitimate e-mail will be sent to you so you can change your password. Interestingly enough, Twitter also reported this morning that 33 prominent Twitter-ers were hacked over the weekend. Apparently, the notables included President-elect Obama, Rick Sanchez, and Britney Spears. According to Twitter, this attack has nothing to do with the phishing expedition into their waters. Apparently, someone hacked into some of the tools their support team uses to help people with their e-mail. They also pointed out that Mr. Obama hasn't been twittering lately due to issues with the transition.
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January 9, 2009 - 2:39 pm
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In my career as a software engineer, my job is always more a process of finding a particular solution in a particular context to solve a particular problem. Easy enough, right? Just have to have the right tools and the right parts to get from point A to point B. Well, you don't always have an easy time finding the right tools or the right parts. That's why I'm always on the lookout for books that can provide not only a set of tools I can use, but also describes the context in which a particular tool should be used. Algorithms are just one more tool in the toolbox for software engineers and people in other disciplines who write computer programs. The definition of an algorithm is simply a set of rules for solving a problem in a number of steps. When you were in school, teachers used algorithms (covertly or not) to provide a framework for solving problems in math, science, and even English. In Algorithms in a Nutshell from O'Reilly, George T. Heineman, Gary Pollice, and Stanley Selkow provide not only a range of algorithms to choose from, but a methodology for finding the right one and testing it once you have it implemented. In Part I, the authors explain why algorithms matter, ways to rate how a particular algorithm works in a particular context, and how to use patterns, languages, and algorithms together to solve a particular domain specific problem. Though the math in some cases was far above my head, readers with a firm grasp of statistics will have a better idea how to use some of the techniques and formulas to better apply these tools to their own problem domains. Part II walks through six chapters describing six different categories of algorithms: Sorting Searching Graphing Path Finding Mapping Network Flow and Computational GeometryMany of these algorithms have been around for a long time, such as the Quicksort, Bucket Sort, Binary and Binary Tree Search. But many others were quite new to me, such as the Graphing algorithm "All Pairs Shortest Path." Having never really needed path finding, network flow, or computational geometry algorithms, they were all new and interesting to me, but without an application to apply them to went over my head.
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January 8, 2009 - 2:44 am
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Who can blame the staff of Facebook for removing any photo of a breastfeeding breast wherein the least bit of nipple and/or areola shows? After all, it’s right there in the U.S. Constitution: neither nipple nor involuntary areola, except as a product of pornography whereof the party shall have been duly aroused, shall exist within view of the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. We may bear arms, bear our religion, and bear a fifth of whiskey; we may even use bears to block our doors so troops cannot quarter themselves in our house during peacetime; but at no time shall we bare the breast. Specifically we shall not bare the female breast; specifically we shall not bare the breastfeeding breast; specifically we shall not bare the female breastfeeding breast when an infant is in the picture, because most men find it inhibits their arousal. Think of the mayhem that would ensue if we allowed the female B-word out into the open. Just look at Europe, those threadbare heathens! Their car companies are on the verge of collapse, their currency is weaker than a spent whore, and only the richest have adequate health insurance. Oh wait — that’s America. My bad. Nonetheless, heretofore and whatnot, breasts are bad. Horrible, disgusting, inhuman even. The male of the species and those females who have never seen their own breasts have rightfully decided in what context a mass of mammary can be displayed -– and it ain’t to feed infants. Seriously, folks, why do you think God gave us formula? Am I right, China? The sole purpose of the breast is to be augmented, photographed in as unseemly a fashion as possible, airbrushed, placed on pages more glossy than a hooker’s lips, sealed in plastic, confined behind a barrier of particle board on a magazine stand (so children and men under 5’7” can’t reach it), and marked “Adult Reading Material.” A public show of the breast leaves nothing to the imagination. I know when I see a fully exposed breast on the train or at the playground the only thought running through my mind is “For cryin’ out loud, I might as well be looking right into the labyrinth of the labia.” Sure, it’s true that many people, both men and women, wouldn’t know a vulva from a Volvo; but while some think this is rank ignorance, I think it’s insuring the mystique of the female form.
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January 6, 2009 - 4:28 pm
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Fraudulent checks, bank drafts, money orders, travelers cheques and gift cheques seem to be showing up all over the place. While a portion of these are passed by professional criminals — who sometimes recruit people off the street to pass them — a lot of people are being tricked into cashing them because they believed a (too good to be true) money-making opportunity. Unfortunately — with the current state of the economy — people seem to be falling for the too good to be true scam opportunities more and more frequently. Even though the quality of these fraudulent instruments varies, many of these counterfeit items are now produced with magnetic ink that scans. High quality check stock complete with the latest security features can be purchased in office supply stores or on the Internet. This means they scan through most of the readers in point of sale systems at businesses. When used with a real account number, which is why counterfeiting works, these items can be difficult to detect as fraudulent. The increase in counterfeiting isn't limited to checks. Complete sets of counterfeit documentation are being presented at banks to open new accounts. A small amount of money is put into the account so funds verify on an individual check and then an area is plastered with a lot of checks. Sometimes this is done over the weekend and the funds put in to verify the checks are removed the following Monday. The identities used to pass these checks are often stolen. Since the identities and checking accounts are changed frequently to avoid detection, it's difficult to tie all the activity back to one group or person. Frequently, people who are down-and-out are recruited to pass these items after receiving a promise for a few quick bucks. If they are caught they are normally considered "expendable" by the people behind the schemes. Sometimes, they even do this using their own identities. It should also be noted that the groups opening fraudulent accounts and counterfeiting checks also set up phony numbers and even business addresses that get listed in 411 and on information sites fairly easily. Most people would be amazed at how easily they accomplish this because little to no verification is done by the companies listing these numbers. This is also done in a lot of the Internet-related scams and it is not uncommon for them to list a number to a financial institution that isn't real. When they set up these numbers, while the scam is active, they have people answering the lines. Often, if you listen carefully, it's pretty obvious that it is not a legitimate business and sometimes calls are forwarded to cell phones. Another growing phenomenon is that fewer and fewer banks verify funds when businesses try to find out if a check being presented is good. In this instance, privacy laws and fear of litigation probably have enabled the problem to get worse. A lot of businesses use computerized check verification services, but when stolen identities are used, the checks pass through these systems fairly easily. Even worse, after the check is determined bad and the data goes in the system, innocent people are pegged as passing bad checks.
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January 4, 2009 - 6:51 pm
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Dreamweaver is the Web development application from Adobe Systems and to get the most out of the program, it's important not only to master the application, but also to understand fundamental concepts of modern Web design. Dreamweaver CS4 Essential Training attempts to do just that. In this training series, James Williamson covers everything from site structure to the value of standards-compliant XHTML and CSS. He also shows how to create clean and accessible code in Dreamweaver, as well as how to publish compelling content. This course lasts 10.25 hours divided into 18 lessons. Lessons 1-3 cover the basics of Dreamweaver. This includes the theory of basic site structure, what is an index page, an overview of Web design practices, and explanations of XHTML, JavaScript, and CSS. You will also get an overview of the Dreamweaver interface, as well as a lesson on setting up and managing a site. Lessons 4 and 5 gets you started with the creation of new documents, what DOCTYPE declarations are, setting up new document preferences, and how to work with starter pages. You then learn the basics of adding text and structuring content, creating lists, getting text into Dreamweaver, and importing Word documents. Lesson 6, "CSS Foundations," now goes to the heart of the fundamentals of using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Understanding some simple rules of using CSS will help you create more efficient style sheets. Here you will explore the anatomy of a CSS rule, setting the preferences, understanding the selectors, and working with external style sheets. Lesson 7, "Controlling Typography," is important so as to have the ability to get your point across. In this lesson you will see the units of measurement that Dreamweaver will provide for you use. These include font sizing, weight, and style as well as line height, vertical spacing, padding, and alignment of text. Lesson 8, "Working with Images," begins with how best to manage your images. In Dreamweaver, these are called assets and it is very important for you to manage them so that you can find them when you need them. You will also see how to place them on a page, customize them via CSS, integrate with Photoshop, and even alternate Photoshop workflows.
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January 1, 2009 - 7:36 am
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