Toms View of the World

This is not a post about servers (for those who got here by searching for “Blade Server” :D)…

Recently I saw an ad at the cinema for an electric razor, but done as a parody of the “mutli-blade” razor ads from the likes of Gillette, but this one has 15 blades for an extra close shave - superbly funny the first time…

Found a link to it: http://www.quintippio.co.uk/ - and some of the “quotes” on the parody website are genius “Less Hair = More Ladies” for example (never worked for me) - and the razor itself looks fairly deadly…

I’ll say now, I normally use an electric razor (by coinceidence the type featured in that advert), but only resort to foam and sharp metal blades (and only 3 of them) when I haven’t bothered for a few days, however this post is not supposed to be a rambling essay on the finer points of shaving…

Apparently, in the US Gillette have now launched a 6 blade razor (aorry, 5+1) - the “Fusion” (website is a little heavy on the flash… I think my 1Mb broadband is too slow for it…) - and I’m trying to figure out how this can possibly shave any better than a “standard” 2 or 3 blade razor… Shaving is not about how many blades you have, it’s all about the technique you use (apparently).

Also, why would I want a vibrating razor - surely that’s a recipie for blood…

From some of the other post’s I’ve been reading, the reviews are not particularly positive…

Especially the $40 replacement blades… which is the main reason I went to an electric in the first place - far cheaper to use! It’ll be interesting to try if/when it’s released over here - but I can’t see it being something I’ll use regularly… no doubt there’ll be some special offers when it’s launched…

I’ll stick to the electric thanks…

A new article on the “How To” wiki claims to tell you how to have a healthy relationship.

My only comment on this is to mention that the article makes one assumption - that you are already in a relationship of some kind. It does not tell you how to get a relationship in the first place.

Oh well… another opportunity missed thanks to a poorly written title - maybe it should have been titled “How to make sure your relationship is healthy”

The steelwork is now arriving and being assembled for Oakwood’s new coaster “Speed”.

See the latest construction photos at 97 Degrees.

I’m waiting for the ride to start going vertical, so we can see the scale of that drop…

Speilberg does it again.

Munich is the story, not of the 1972 massacre at the Olympics, but of a group of Israeli’s tasked with finding retribution against the organisers.

An interesting film, thought provoking, and very much presenting the impression that there are no “good guys” and “bad guys”, just “people” fighting for their cause.

PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE

Every couple of months, a knock on the door and some guy from a local double glazing company tries to sell me double glazing - now, my house is a relatively new build (and as a result has double glazing) - this fact never deters them, and when this little observation is made, then tries to sell me a replacement front door, and a conservatory.

Their persistance in the face of obvious failure (given that every house on the estate already has double glazing) is admirable, but in the event I ever need the services of such a company, I will be taking into account the nuisence factor of having had countless evenings disrupted by their sales staff… and they won’t even be called.

The story of Johnny Cash, from farm boy to music superstar through drugs, mariage, divorce and a lot of great music.

Very enjoyable film!

Several high profile security analysts are now coming out and expressing their concerns regarding the “Search accross PC’s” feature of the latest version of Google Desktop - echoing my post from a couple of weeks ago.

Silicon.com is reporting that Gartner and the Electronic Privacy Foundation are now both advising that this software should not be used - or should be “locked down”.

In my opinion, all companies who are concerned over Google having copies of their confidential documents, should ban the use of the Desktop Search on PC’s connected to their network, and should take steps to prevent the software sending documents “home” if a user should install it against company policy. Certainly your firewall needs to block all traffic to the Google servers where the data is transferred to.

I have yet to identify the server in question, but it should be possible to install the software on a “clean” test machine, set a couple of “dummy” documents, and watch the network traffic that the search tool generates when it sends those files home, however I’d suggest that concerned network admins contact Google via the link at the bottom of this page and ask something like “what rules should I apply to my firewall to prevent PC’s within my network which have Google Desktop installed on them communicating with Google’s servers?”

I’m not sure that it isn’t going too far to call this tool “spyware” - although if you read the agreements it’s not hiding what it’s doing, and you can turn on and off the feature - but even so, how many people are really going to take the time to configure this properly, the earlier versions required little configuration at all to be very useful, will this version require very little configuration to be a security risk?

I’m not going to install it to find out.

Update - Apparently Google agrees that it’s a security risk, but their only advice is “use the Enterprise version” - which apparently allows the feature to be switched off as a global setting - however there’s still nothing to stop end users downloading the personal version - or provide information to help sysadmins configure their network to prevent this.

Unfortunately it’s well know that users are the weakest link in computer security as was proved a couple of weeks ago when “free valentine” CDs handed out in street managed to bypass a number of companies security rules and procedures and “call home” from office PC’s across London - proving that despite many large companies having policies on installing unapproved software on desktops - they’re routinely ignored by a percentage of users.