I came across this article that talked about how Linux was declared 'Hack proof.'  Naturally, I had to read the article.  It recounts the three day contest and how the Mac was brought down, via an exploit in Safari, in two minutes and Vista on the next day via a 'java bug' that allowed the developer to circumvent Vista security.  Now, the other articles I've read pointed the finger at Adobe Flash.  Whatever.  But the article points out that several attendees to hack Linux and could not while others did find bugs in Linux code, but 'many of them didn't want to put the work into developing the exploit code that would be required to win the contest.'  So...they WANTED to do so with Mac OS, they WANTED to do so with Vista, but NOT with Linux?  I can only wonder why.  Could it be image?  That would be my guess. 

Yep, if you have been dying to play those games on your smartphone, well, now you can.  PocketStella is a Windows Mobile version of the classic Stella 2600 emulator.  You can download it here.  Installation is easy: Download the zip file and unzip to a temp directory.  On your device, create a 'PocketStella' directory and copy the executable file to that directory on your device.  Next, in the PocketStella directory, create a directory called 'ROMS' and copy whatever games you might have there.  Then, on the device, run  the PocketStella program.  You'll get a menu listing all of your games.  New in this version is an option to rotate the display so you can view the game comfortably.  It supports most screen sizes.  On the Moto Q, the up/down/left/right is backward.  Changin g the assignments in the options seems to have little effect.  I suspect it is a bug or I'm just stupid and am doing something wrong...very likely.  Of course, I have to say that downloading and copying commercial ROM images is, in most cases, illegal.  There are, however, a number of free and legal games you can download and play.  Among them, the excellent Tetris2600 homebrew.  You can  go to AtariAge.com and discover a wealth of NEW and very good Atari 2600 games that you can download for free or a small fee.  There is a large and very active Atari 2600 homebrew community.  The quality of those games is excellent and, in fact, several were included in the Atari Flashback 2.0 game console that Atari sold a couple of years ago.  The Flashback was a 'real' 2600 and can be hacked into a cartridge based console. 

You can go here for a list of currently available NEW homebrew games on Atari Age.

PocketStella is but one emulator for WinMo.  There's an Intellivision emulator, though I've had problems with it and there's a number of dedicated game emulators.  Emulation can be a great way to experience these wonderful (and not so wonderful) games of our youth.

Ekopapers has some really nice home screens.  I decided to change mine again since I've stuck with the same one for weeks now.  Time for a change.  The one I picked has a Vista flair, of course. It requires FACADE.  This site has lots of cool wallpapers, home screens and color schemes. Looks like it is all free, too.  

I've also been playing around with making some of my own, but get bogged down in details that I just do not have time to master right now.  There are tons of things you can do, especially with something like Facade installed.  I'm toying with writing some kind of designer that can incorporate Facade's settings, but, again, time is a problem.  Anyway, check out this site.

Since I've not been overly kind to Apple for  the last few posts, I thought I'd show Apple some love and share a letter to DDJ that I found from 1976.  In the letter, a reader shares his story of purchasing 'an Apple computer' that developed a problem.  He wrote Steve Jobs (yes, he was very accessible then) and explained his problem.  The reader got his computer back within two weeks, fully repaired and functioning.  According to the reader, he also got an explanation from Steve Jobs about an error that Steve found in a program written by the reader.  It is an interesting letter and speaks volumes about the level of service of the then small Apple Computer Company.  It is fairly indicative of the lovefest that Apple will enjoy later in it's life.  This reader's experience is a far cry from this one.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

On the third and final day of the CanSecWest's 'PWN TO OWN' competition, contestants were allowed to install third party applications.  This time, Adobe Flash was installed on the Vista SP1 laptop.  It took seven and a half hours, but Shane McCauley was able to hack the Vista laptop. He wins $5,000 and the Fujitsu laptop that he hacked.  Spin time:  As with the Macbook, the operating system itself was not hacked.  In this case, it was a zero day flaw in Flash from Adobe that allowed access.  Again, as with the Apple, the appropriate parties have been notified of the breach.  That it took much longer to breach is certainly a bit of good news both for Adobe and Microsoft.  Let's hope Adobe will plug the hole before the genie escapes.

I'm sure, too, that the Linux contingent will strut around, pointing to Windows and Mac OS X and say how insecure they are and how everyone needs to switch to Linux.  Baloney.  The thing is, none of the three operating systems are really any better than the other.  Sure, we have our favorite and we all like to ping the others.  I, personally, love to tweak my Mac friends. They are so naive.  But, the one's who can be even more smug are the true Linux faithful.  Anything other than a command line and some two hundred character, cryptic command line is just for kids and newbs.  I digress.  I think the bigger reason we do not see many Linux exploits is because of the open nature of the operating system and the speed with which changes can be placed into production, so to speak.  The reality, though, is that even though such changes can be made public very quickly, corporations using the operating system still work the same, no matter where the software comes from.  Changes need to be tested and confirmed and not cause more problems than they solve.  So, in this case, it is no different than Microsoft or Apple-if they had a significant business presence, that is. 

That Vista was hacked is disturbing, but not surprising.  Microsoft has spent a great deal of time beefing up Windows.  I'd be curious to know if the exploit generated a UAC dialog box. Or, perhaps, if it would have pre-SP1.  One of the changes Microsoft made to SP1 is a reduction of UAC prompts. It would be interesting to know if the exploit would have generated one before but does not now.  A definite step back, it it would have.  Personally, I don't mind the UAC prompts.  I also find it funny that when the latest Ubuntu major release came out, it prompted me the same way that Vista had, but somehow, that was acceptable in Ubuntu and not in Vista.  Funny how that works.

Please read the article about the last day of the contest.

There was this 'conference', see, called CanSecWest.  During this conference, there was a hacking contest, see, called 'PWN2OWN'.  The first person to hack one of three devices, won the device.  There was a Macbook Air, a Linux machine and a Vista machine.  The first day of the competition was uneventful and none of the machines were 'PWND'.  Man, I really hate 'leet speak'.  It is the dumbest thing. Anyway, on the second day, rules were 'relaxed' , allowing email and browser exploits and other such things.  This is where it got interesting.  Three guys, Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff and Mark Daniel got a zero day exploit to work on the Macbook Air...specifically, the Safari browser running on the Macbook Air.  Now, at first glance-and as a Vista user-I would be inclined to think 'well, they finally got theirs.'  However, when you examine it more closely, it is just is not all that significant.  Presumably, the exploit COULD work on any browser.  However, the 'hack' itself, not all that.  Yeah, it allowed control over the machine.  No, the significant thing about this is the SPIN put out by the press and some of the Macnation.  The spin included things like 'Apple will quickly patch this' (maybe, but it has taken them, historically, months and months to patch things, often longer than Microsoft has been accused of taking) to things like 'well, Mac users are smarter and would not click on such links.'  Oh, man.  That one really got me.  I've been listening to a variety of Mac oriented podcast's for a long time now and the thing that I've learned is that...yes, they will click away.  They are, mostly, so confident in the Mac OS that they do not worry about things like virus' and vulnerabilities.  They should.  While a Mac OS virus is far less likely, those vulnerabilities are there. Now.  And with Apple marketshare on the rise, you can bet that more will be targeted right at Apple products.  I suspect the iPhone will be the first to really be hit hard.  At least, Safari.  Many, if not most, Mac users are a very smug group when it comes to the computer.  I do not mean that in a disrespectful manner either.  I mean that when it comes to things computer wise, they feel a superiority over all non-Apple products.  An application that exists for both Windows and Mac will only be good on a Mac.  Microsoft cannot do the Mac justice.  If it is from Apple, it has to be great because they pay attention to detail. And so on.  Smug.

Now, I don't want to get into a mine is better than yours argument.  However, the most interesting aspect of the competition was that, at the end of the day, the Vista laptop and the Linux laptop weathered the storm.  Neither of them were hacked.  It took two minutes to bring Safari down.  TWO MINUTES.  So much for IE 7 being so insecure.

You can check out an article here for more.

Recently, I was rummaging through some junk and found a stack of old Dr Dobbs' Journals from 1976 and 1977.  As I glanced through the magazines, lots of good memories sprang up.  That was an exciting time for me. I was getting to know my Dad-who for various reasons-had not been in my life much before then.  He was an engineer and what was called a 'hobbyist', though we would now just call him a geek.  My Dad was a tall man-well over six feet-and lanky and fit the modern definition of 'geek' nicely.  He was very smart, but not very successful.  He had many health issues and always seemed to have the worst luck.  He was an engineer at several local television stations and, eventually, a local paging equipment manufacturer (a place I worked as well, until I was laid off.)  1977 was an especially momentous year.  We got a VHS tape machine, I got a video game (the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey I-already obsolete,) Star Wars was released, and...most importantly...I attended my first 'hamfest.'  For those who do not know, a hamfest is a swap meet/yard sale for 'hobbyists', ham radio operators and anyone selling junk.  Oh man, this one was in Manassas, Virginia and was big.  I saw many things that I had never seen before.  Computers that could draw pictures.  Amazing.  Mind you, my experience with computers at the time, consisted of an Intel 8008 based thing that we had to toggle switches on it's front panel just to get it to start up.  It had like 512 BYTES of memory.  I think we could play NIM or something on it.  After that hamfest, though, my Dad built up another computer that connected to a video screen and had four or eight times the memory and--I could program it.  I think this computer had either an 8080 or a Signetics 2650 CPU. I don't remember which.  He eventually built several computers using both of those processors.  The 2650 was an oddball processor.  I think it was a quasi 16bit CPU.  My memory fails me here.  Anyway, that new computer he built had something called 'tiny basic'.  Tiny Basic was a subset of Basic designed to fit and work in under 2k of RAM. Dr Dobbs''s Journal was the main backer of the tiny basic movement.  My Dad subscribed to this magazine and we both eagerly awaited each copy.  Of course, he got it first and took what seemed like an eternity to read it.  I'd scour that magazine from cover to cover, soaking up all I could.  I learned about so many things just from that magazine and bonded with Dad by being able to talk about what he was doing, even though I understood little.  DDJ, along with Byte Magazine helped build my relationship with my Dad. Sure, the amusement park trips, movie trips and vacations all helped, but those two magazines did more than anything else.  By being able to talk on his 'level', we could carry on for hours.  I got to play with the toys he built and would stay up way past my bed time trying to figure out that thing called a computer. The two of us figured it out.  It took us thirty years and dozens of computers to do so, but we did.  Along the way, he remarried-twice.  I graduated, went to work, began a career in programming, got married and had a child.  My father passed away a couple of years ago due to one of those health problems.  These magazines are a gold mine of memories that I'll treasure for a long time. 

DDJ is still around:  DDJ Portal

Alas, Byte is no more.

So I have this nice camera and am still learning how to use the bloody thing.  However, I've been taking photos with a digital camera of some kind for almost nine years now.  Organizing all of those photos has never been a priority, until now.  I'd like to have all the photos of my son's early years in one album/forum/folder/whatever, Kings Dominion photos in another, etc.  I'd also like to be able to sort them on year, category, camera used, etc.  However, as you know, I am a cheapskate.  I don't want to pay a lot of money for this since it is not something I INTEND to use a lot.  Recently, as you can see from the collage photos I've show, I re-discovered Google's Picasa.  Picasa does a rudimentary database system whereby you can tag your photos and it will sort them accordingly.  Sounds much like Windows Photo Gallery.  Photo Gallery is pretty good and serves most of my needs.  So much so, in fact, that it is my primary tool.  However, Picasa does a few things that Photo Gallery does not.  Those collages, for one. It also has a rudimentary but functional photo enhancement tool, special effects, etc.  You can order books from Picasa and upload photos to several photo sites, including Picasa's own service.  However, the one cool thing that Picasa does is this whirly graphical search, sort of like Coverflow, but predating Coverflow by several  years.  You can view slideshows, create DVD's, etc.  Picasa is great and FREE tool. 

However, it is not the one great tool I am looking for to replace Live Photo Gallery and other similar software that I use.  Any suggestions?  Please remember I am cheap and Windows only (not that those go hand and hand...I'd be a cheap Apple fan too.)

Here are some items that caught my eye...in no particular order

• Microsoft released Vista Service pack 1.  The update, currently not available to everyone, got a wider release this past week.  You may see it in Windows Update IF:  you've not ever installed a previous release of the release candidate or any of the betas; have on of several flagged device drivers installed or fail to meet some other random criteria.  If you have a previous release installed, then you must uninstall it first. If you fall into one of the other categories, you can download the update from the Windows download site.  So far, the update is working great. I've installed it on three of four machines with no problems at all.  The fourth machine gets updated this week.
• Apple in hot water over Safari for Windows.  This is so not a story.  Someone saw that Safari was included in the Apple Software update and had a cow.  Get over it. If you don't want it, uncheck the bloody option.  Geez.
• Adobe is going to release Flash for iPhone.  Only, they aren't.  Adobe's president made the remark earlier in the week...only to have it pulled back later in the week.  Apple's SDK eula apparently forbids such an application (along with a Java runtime and, presumably, Microsoft's Silverlight.)  Bye bye rich web applications.
• '70s radical back in prison.  In a stunning move, the California Department of Corrections released Sara Jane Olson a whole year early.  It took them FIVE days to realize that someone could not add.  They arrested Ms. Olson and put her back in prison, where she will serve the remaining year.  Chief Deputy Secretary Scott Kernan called it 'an aberration.'
• VP Cheney visits Iraq.  Yawn.

Earlier in the week, Adobe says 'we're bringing Flash to the iPhone' and that they were going to use the iPhone SDK.  Not so fast there, Adobe.  The eula for iPhone SDK prohibits things like interpreters and multitasking.  Apparently, the iPhone can handle such things-as can the SDK-but Apple does not want to permit them.  So...that means Adobe cannot distribute any Flash runtime they develop unless Apple blesses it, and given Steve Jobs' apparent dislike for Flash and Adobe, it looks like Flash is still a no show on iPhone.  This brings to mind a much bigger issue.  Well, several issues.  First, it means that many web sites will remain useless or less useful for iPhone users.  More importantly, the eula knocks out of the ball park an entire segment of applications, including Java, program-it-yourself tools (like a 'tiny basic' on iPhone, onboard C, etc,) rich database applications (like an iPhone version of Access or Filemaker,) many types of games (pretty most games based on the Doom engine and it's subsequent offspring.)  And how about something like Silverlight?  Surely, Microsoft would want to port this to iPhone as well. I wonder how willing Apple will be in assisting/permitting Silverlight on iPhone.  At any rate, with Apple so controlling what and how third party app's get on the iPhone, I wonder how long it can sustain itself.  One of the major reasons why Palm got to where it was was because of the third party support.  Ditto Windows.  Third party support is a must if iPhone is to survive.  Choking those who want to support and, indeed, make the iPhone succeed is not a smart thing to do.

I was very excited when I watched the SDK intro and was eager to start working with the SDK.  My excitement quickly died when I saw it was Mac only.  I guess that just makes sense, but they'd do better by coming up with a Windows SDK.  But, that's another story.  Now, though, I'm not sure I'd be so willing.  The restrictions placed on what you can do are very tight and I'm not so sure it is going to pan out for Apple.  (For the record, some of the restrictions make sense and understandable.)

Today, I took Chase to Kings Dominion. This weekend was also opening weekend for KD as well as BGE.  The park was pretty deserted.  I figured that not many people would be there today partly due to the weather, partly due to it being Easter and, perhaps, the college basketball games.  (For reasons that escape me, people seem far more interested in college hoops than the pros.   It escapes me.)  Anyway, pulling up to the gate and one can see the new rollercoaster at KD.  Called Dominator, this thing towers over the park.  It is visible from just about everywhere in park except for areas in Old Virginia that are blocked by the trees.  Cedar Fair has clearly left it's mark on the park this year.  While evident last year, the changes they have made during the off season are even more dramatic.  New paint, signage and a more festive atmosphere all combine to make the KD experience much nicer.  While nowhere near Busch Gardens level, the cleanliness and general look of the park are up several notches over previous years.  I admit to being a bit saddened that the movie tie-ins are gone.  I much prefer 'Tomb Raider' over 'the Crypt' but that's just a nit.

We had a great time and look forward to going back.

March 21 was the season opening day for Busch Gardens Europe.  We got there around 3:30pm or so and had a real surprise:  the park was packed.  In the past, opening day at that OTHER park we frequent was slow and not very crowded.  Indeed, Kings Dominion usually has light business until about mid-May.  Busch Gardens, it seems, is busy from day one.  Wait times for the big coasters, even Big Bad Wolf, was 35-50 minutes.  While that may not seem long for people who are used to waiting twice that long, it is long for us. 

Wait times aside, we had a great time.  The weather was a tad overcast and, as the day wore on, chilly.  The trip gave me a chance to try out my new Nikon D40x as well.  I learned that I don't have a clue when it comes to real cameras.  I did manage a few good shots and a couple inadvertently cool photos. 

Since we are now in spring break mode for the next week, we'll be hitting BGE and KD a couple of times during the week.  BGE's quality never ceases to amaze me.  The overall appearance, theme and cleanliness are top notch.  The biggest surprise, though, is BGE's ability to keep lines moving.  The wait time clock for Griffon had 30 minutes listed and that is exactly how long it took Chase and myself to ride the coaster.

The Loch Ness Monster had a slight mishap while we were there:  The coaster appeared to be stuck on the second smaller lift hill just prior to the second loop. We sat and watched for about five minutes.  I don't know how long it was there when we got to that part of the park, nor do I know how long those people were stuck there.  We saw the coaster in action about an hour later.

I'm looking forward to a season of coastering fun with my son.

Click here to see a slideshow from our trip.

...only, it is not doing so.  Apple is making the browser AVAILABLE via it's update software.  Actually, since the early Safari for Windows beta, they have done this.  I think it is a non issue, however, since it is now showing up for people who never participated in the beta, people have mistakenly installed it. That made it an issue, apparently. People get conditioned to install anything that an 'update notice' tells them.  Yeah, they should read more carefully, but that does not excuse the fact that Apple quietly did this.  Tom Krazit wrote in a CNet column defending Apple, that people should 'spend their installation capital wisely.'  C'mon.  I'll bet that if Microsoft had put IE8 in an update for it's .net package and people were used to only getting .net updates, he'd have a field day with the move.  It is yet another double standard.  That aside, Krazit makes a few good points.  You DO have the option of installing Safari or not.  I agree with what Krazit says, in general, but the constant spin he and the tech press on the whole, put on Apple is just absurd.

As for Safari on Windows, I kinda like it.  It is far from the best browser and it does crash.  Alot.  But, it renders really fast and is more standards compliant than Firefox or IE 7 and below.  It does not hold up well to IE8, however.

I actually pulled down the update the day it was available, but did not have time to install it until yesterday.  It took awhile to install, mainly because it took awhile to uninstall the release candidate that I was running.  Once the beta was uninstalled, it took about an hour and a half to install the update.  That's about twice as long as I had read, but it was ok with me.  Installation was pretty uneventful and pain free.  The machine rebooted twice (that I know of, anyway.)  Once the installation was complete, I logged onto the box and...it seemed to be the same.  For a minute, it seemed like a let down. But, then I remembered that I had already been running the update for several months and had gotten used to the speed.  On some things, like copying files and navigating the file system, the system seemed just a bit more responsive, but not overly so.  The beta had sped things up quite a bit and I was pleasantly  surprised that there was just a tad more speed in those operations.  Internet Explorer 7, though, seemed to have degraded just a tad.  Not sure why and it may very well be my imagination.  Once I made sure all was working as it should be, I grabbed IE 8 dev preview.  This installation was interesting and I suspect that SP1 had not actually completed it's installation.  IE 8 installed and, of course, rebooted the box.  When Vista started up, I was greeted with the same 'installing: part 2 of 3  75%' message I had already seemed.  It took about ten minutes before the system was usable.  I am thinking that the IE 8 installer did something that made Vista think it had not completed SP1's install. OR...it just could have been the IE 8 installer.  I'm not sure.  Everything is fine and IE 8 runs great.  IE 8 renders pages mostly correct.  You can definitely tell when a page has mangled to work in IE 6.  UGH.  I was surprised with sights that worked well (like my companies' web page) and those that don't work well at all (the Apple Phone Show.)  IE 8 runs fine on SP1.

SP1 has been solid, so far.  No incompatibilities and install was smooth. This weekend, however, will be it's real test.  I will upgrade the remaining three Vista machines in my house. The laptop and eMachine should go well. It is my son's computer that I am worried about: it is a homebrew beast with a hodgepodge of hardware.  I will relay my experience.

Lately, I've been reading about the possibility of Apple doing some kind of subscription service with iTunes.  Today, I listened to MacBreak Weekly and heard Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko, and Alex Lindsay all talk and nearly praise the notion.  Now, except for Leo, I'm pretty sure the others were poo-poo'ing the idea when it was being discussed with Zune.  Now, suddenly, Apple would be brilliant to offer such a service and, perhaps, it is time since the 'old model' is, well, old.  The idea of a subscription service is somewhat appealing.  You could get as many tunes as you want.  Everyday. See a new song?  Download it.  Want to try a new band, grab an entire cd worth.  The problem with this model is that when you stop paying, you lose it all.  EVERYTHING that you downloaded under the subscription is gone.  Want to keep that song you downloaded? You have to pay for it again.   Ditto that cd.  While the subscription model works well, it does nothing for you when you want to actually purchase a track or tracks.  You get no discount.  I'm not sure that is a bad thing, but it is a hard sell and even Apple will have a hard time convincing people to pay for something again that they think they already paid for--and that's the rub.  People will have a hard time separating the two ideas.  I think education is key and as long as you are aware of the downside, then the upside looks even better.  I'm thinking of giving the Zune subscription a go.  I really have a hard time, though, justifying the 15 dollars a month when my primary use of the Zune is podcast listening.  Of course, Apple could charge twice that a month and, with a convincing ad campaign, would 'do it right' and make the others look childish.  I'm exaggerating, of course.  But, if Apple could pull this off, educate people up front, this could be killer for them.  The iPod line is stagnating.  Apple needs something big to give it a shot in the arm.  Subscription music COULD do it.

After ten years on the air, the former ZDTV/Tech TV show, Call for Help, has finally been canceled.  The show started out on ZDTV in 1998.  It has been hosted by Chris Pirillo and Leo Laporte.  The show has undergone several revamps, the latest version was called The Lab with Leo.  The show has not been seen on US television since Tech TV was sold to Comcast and merged with G4 TV.  It was the first casualty of that merger.  Rogers in Canada revived the show and has run it for the last four years. There was a brief run a couple of years ago, again, on G4, but they managed to kill it.  Low ratings in both Canada and Australia doomed the show.  You can go here to read more about it.  Leo does tantalizes us with:

"Call for Help is finally over.

Except, it’s not. I’ll talk about the next chapter tomorrow."

He's been talking of doing live streaming video. He mentioned it on TWIT and Macbreak Weekly.  Can't wait to see what it is.

Here are some items that grabbed my attention over the last week or so...in no particular order

1. Senator Obama's pastor...made some not so nice comments about white America.  Big deal.  Look, this is supposed to be a free nation.  The good pastor should be able to express himself any way he chooses.  Being part of white America, I was a bit put off by the remarks, but it was nothing I have not heard before and likely will hear again.  I am saddened that the pastor felt the need to lash out, but it is his right.  His right...something many fought long and hard for and something we should not hold against him either.  The senator did the right thing to stand up for his long time pastor and friend.  I'd be more offended if the senator had gone out of his way to distance himself.  The press pulled a tiny snippet of sound from over thirty years of preaching.  This, to me, is a non issue and it is time that this country toughen up and not be so damn sensitive.  I sincerely hope that comments like his will not be necessary in the future.
2. Microsoft and Yahoo talk. Ok...so now what?  And do we care?  I don't.  Do you?  Microsoft, if it does get Yahoo, will be walking a fine line for years to come.  They've managed to tick off the whole planet so they will tread lightly.  Too bad.
3. Shuttle Endeavor launches.  The shuttle launched on another trip to the space station.  They  deployed a cool robot...who will then gain autonomy and take...oh, wait, wrong story.  Seriously, they deployed a robot and used an iPod to listen to some tunes.
4. Wii continues to outsell Sony and Microsoft.  Amazing, after a year and change, the little console continues to sell out and remains difficult to find.  Strangely, PS3 remains abundant and more confusing in it's offerings. Now, is it 40gb or 60gb that's standard?
5. Vanguard 1, the first really useful satellite, turns fifty.  That's right, Vanguard 1 is fifty years old and is still in orbit.  It's two brothers are also in similar orbits.  While no longer functional, the satellite still proves useful.  It's tracking allows for many types of measurements and is still used for educational purposes.  There is even a remote chance that the satellite be retrieved from orbit and put in the Smithsonian.
6. Apple.  Nothing to say about them, but I have to provide an obligatory Apple item, so here it is.

Microsoft made available today the final release of SP1 for Vista.  Head over to Microsoft's download section and get yourself some SP1 goodness.

Busch Gardens Europe (AKA Williamsburg) had it's preview day for season pass holders on Sunday, the 16th of March.  Unfortunately, we were unable to go to the park.  We've been a bit under the weather and none of us were in the park going mode, sadly.  I'd love to hear from anyone who may have gone.  Please leave a comment and share your experiences. 

The park opens this coming Friday for the season.  My son is out of school and I have the day off. Hopefully, we can enjoy the park this weekend.

I missed this when it was new.  Ed Bott published a kind of rebuttal to Infoworld's stupid 'save XP' campaign.  In his article, Ed points out that Randall Kennedy, writer for Infoworld, tried to put down the whole 'XP was treated the same as Vista is now' argument.  He goes on to rationalize his thinking by discounting, totally, Windows 2000 and how HE said it was better than XP.  Well, Mr. Bott and his trusty traveling companion Google, found sound really interesting words written by the same Randall Kennedy.

This is a great article and really demonstrates just how much people hated Windows XP. XP did not really start to get any respect until the last couple of years.  I don't expect Vista to get such love any time, but it is nice to see someone in the more mainstream tech press treat it more fairly.