Tag Archives: security

Recent Links: Comic Strips, Moon, Hotspot Safety, Flash Forward and More

Comic strips and art:

Sci-fi and fantasy:

  • Keeping Up With the Cardassians. For months, this is what I heard every time someone mentioned the Kardashians. (What can I say? My brain is more attuned to Star Trek than to reality TV.)
  • Author Robert J. Sawyer answers pointed questions about Flashforward and the TV adaptation, including what went wrong. I have to agree that it was really hurt by focusing too heavily on the conspiracy arc.

Coolness!

Tech stuff:

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Recent Links: Books, Comet Photos, Language and More

Catching up on linkblogging.

Comic Strips

  • I found a printout of this User Friendly comic strip while cleaning out my old desk last month. Ah, tech support! Help, I can’t send e-mail!
  • XKCD on spambots vs. constructive comments (warning: language)
  • Two comic strips about book collections: Wondermark and Girl Genius. I stumbled on the Wondermark strip at Long Beach Comic-Con (write-up should be done today is online) and it really hit home, between the fact that I grew up loving books for exactly this reason, and the impending arrival of the next generation. As for Girl Genius, I think Castle Heterodyne’s library could give the Beast’s a run for its money.
  • Fake Science explains the difference between regular and decaf coffee. Insert obligatory “It was ground this morning” joke.
  • C-Section Comics shows the difference between iPhone, Android and Blackberry users. For the record: Android user, picked up the link from an iPhone user. Hmm…

Photos

Other Stuff

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Links: Clouds, Scott Pilgrim, the Blue ‘e’, and Bobby Tables

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Check Your Plugins!

We can check your plugins and stuff

It’s a safe bet that your web browser uses at least one plugin, and probably several. Maybe it’s just Flash for viewing animations and video (think YouTube and Hulu). Maybe it’s Silverlight for watching Netflix, or Shockwave for playing games. You’ve probably got Java installed.

Just like your web browser, these plugins must be kept up to date or you’ll run into problems: missing features, instability, or (worst case) security vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, most plugins don’t update themselves.

Several months ago, Mozilla introduced a service called Plugin Check that will identify the plugins you have installed and tell you whether they need to be updated — and how to do it. At first it only worked on Firefox, but now it’s been expanded to all major browsers: Chrome, Safari, Opera, and even Internet Explorer.

It’s worth taking a few moments to check. Think of it as a pit stop for your computer’s web browser.

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1…2…3…4…5.

If Your Password is “123456″, Just Make it “HackMe” (New York Times). Security researchers examine a list of 32 million passwords stolen from RockYou, and the most common are…well…pathetic. Things like “123456″ (the most common), “abc123″, “password” and even “rockyou” (seriously!)

There’s been some slight improvement in the past decade, when the most common password was “12345″ (the kind of combination an idiot has on his luggage). Now it’s got a whole extra digit. (Whee.)

Hmm, I wonder where “Chuck Norris” appears on the list?

(via @dixonium)

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Links: WordPress Editing, Fandom, Gmail Recovery, Etc.

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Snow Leopard Problem & Fire Pix

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Adobe Vulnerabilities Everywhere

Uh-oh: 80% of web users running unpatched versions of Flash/Acrobat. These are being exploited, so check your system! #

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BOB This Way! & Reality Bytes

  • Sign taped to light pole: “BOB →” #
  • This doesn’t look good: major data breach claimed at T-Mobile. #
  • One day, someone will take a collection of popular songs from the 1990s and turn it into a nostalgia musical. #

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Amazon Annoyance, ATM Stupidity

  • Grr. Amazon wants to stop paying me because they think I’ve been buying search keywords to link to them. No, I haven’t. # Update: Two days later, they responded: it’s a bad form letter, and even if I were buying keywords, they’d only stop paying referral fees on those links. #
  • More concerned than usual about person sneezing in stairway. #
  • Bad idea: leaving your pay stub in the brochure holder by the ATM. WTF? Someone’s asking for identity theft. #
  • Good deed for the day: tearing it into tiny pieces and tossing the confetti in the trash. #

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