I recently started on a research project on network visualization, particularly how it pertains to attacks and intrusions. I was surprised today to see that the creator of one of my favorite net comic strips, xkcd, did a Map of the Internet. I’m not familiar with the fractal mapping technique he used; that gives me yet another topic to read up on!
Yearly Archives: 2006
My Mac Pro has arrived… almost!
I received word last week that my new Mac Pro has arrived, but our IT group is a bit backed up. It will probably be next week before they finish staging the system.
They’ve at least unpacked the beast — I recently discovered a monstrous, empty Mac Pro box abandoned in the hallway as I skulked around their lair.
I’m really excited to give the new Parallels Beta with Coherence a try. I downloaded it and installed it on my MBP, but I had a lot of beta-esque crashing of apps and had to back it out until after my classes are over for the semester. With the new machine I’ll have a little more freedom to experiment with the functional MBP as my backup.
Blog the Cheerleader, Blog the World
How’s this for a crossover:
http://www.myspace.com/clairebennet
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, you probably will recognize Claire Bennet, one of the central characters in the new NBC series Heroes. While this isn’t the first time TV shows have crossed over onto the Internet (Push, Nevada anyone?), I’m really impressed with what they’re doing with this one.
Talking about this with a colleague brought up the whole topic of alternate reality gaming as a means of creating engaging experiences. In this case, the goal was to create a more interesting entertainment experience, but the same techniques can (and have been) used to draw students into richer educational experiences.
Microsoft VirtualPC is Now Free
I came across an amazing fact today. In a blog entry about how to do cross-browser testing on Windows with multiple versions of Internet Explorer, I found a note that Virtual PC for Windows is now free. Sounds like a good deal to me.
I’ve been using VPC for IE 5/5.5 testing for a while now — Win2k Pro and Server run great in a VM. Hopefully, more people will be willing to test their sites in more than just the browser they themselves use.
I haven’t seen any indication of a generally free Macintosh version, but since I’ll soon have all Intel-based Macs, I’ll just be running Parallels Desktop.
Going (Mac) Pro
Hoping to cut down on the amount of hardware on (and especially under) my desk, I managed to requisition a new Mac Pro workstation. I’ve adjusted fairly well to the “Intel Inside” brand of Mac-living — I’ve had my MacBook Pro since May. I’m generally pleased with Windows running under Parallels Desktop. I think I can finally decomission my Dell Dimension WinXP box and go completely virtual.
It’s also a lot harder to bruise your knees on a virtual machine.
Though several key vendors have yet to ship Universal Binary versions of their software, I’ve managed to muddle through okay thanks to the wonders of Rosetta, Java, and the Open Source world.
Since this system is a new start, I’m planning on blogging my efforts to get my development environment — ColdFusion, Parallels, SQL Server, MySQL, Eclipse — migrated from my trio of systems (Dell Dimension / Dual-G5 PowerMac / MBP) to the new box. Hopefully this will generate enough breadcrumbs to help blaze the trail for others who come after me.
Better Web Indexing with Sitemaps
Google and Yahoo! have apparently gotten together and penned a new standard way to provide metadata on Web site architecture to search engines.
Details are at sitemaps.org.
The nice thing about using a content managment system is that it will be child’s play to generate this for our college Web site.
Fighting Email Harvesting
I stumbled upon this in a Slashdot thread:
http://www.projecthoneypot.org
It’s a project to fight email address harvesting by spammers. I think this is the first project I’ve seen where legal recourse is actually a component of the strategy.
Microsoft IE 7 is now available, but so is Flash Player 9 for Linux
Internet Explorer 7 is finally available for Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server. Time to start taking it seriously I suppose.
In unrelated news, Flash Player 9 (good for Flex 2) is now available for Linux.
Which pill will it be, Neo?
Vegas, Baby!
I’m finally going to attend Adobe MAX! This year it’s being held in Las Vegas at the Venetian — I can’t wait!
Quote of the Day
From a Slashdot signature file:
“Information wants to be anthropomorphized.”
Here’s some related reading…