My prayers have been answered, mostly, by Apple. My soon-to-be favorite browser, Safari apprently now has tabbed browsing. You can read the Slashdot post for more information.

Tabbed browsing in Safari isn’t quite primetime yet, but it does the basics. It offers tabs and you can open links in new tabs by ctrl+click, which is pretty standard for a tabbed browsing experience. My main problem with it so far is that you can’t drag links to the tab bar to open new windows, but I shouldn’t expect much considering this is a round about hack of a leaked development version of Safari.

It was with great anticipation that I finally activated my Sirius Sattelite Radio. Once I did get it up there were a few things that stuck out that I liked, and a couple of things that I don’t like. First off the things I do like. There are a crapload of stations that, at first glance, offer a lot of content. I also like the fact that all of the music comes through in digital quality. Being able to view the station name is cool as well.

The two things that piss me off royally are as follows. First, the radio cuts out when you are under anything, this includes pulling in for gas, pulling up to the ATM, etc. The second, is that they advertise 100% commercial free, when in reality they advertise their own services on many of the stations. The commercials aren’t frequent by any means, but it irks me that they advertise 100% commercial free.

The upside to this whole story is that I got the Kenwood MP522, which not only is Sirius enabled, but also plays MP3 formatted CD’s! You can break up the cd into folders and it displays folder name (aka album name) and file name (aka song name) on the display. Overall, I think the MP3 enabled CD player is a must have, but I’m holding out on a final decision on Sirius radio. At first glance commercial free, digital radio seems like a great thing. Maybe I set my hopes to high. And one more thing: They don’t have an up-to-date channel guide anywhere, which sucks really bad.

I read a decent editorial on the almost certain demise of Sun Microsystems. My favorite quote in the article is as follows …

Even Java is becoming superfluous. Java is the Dan Marino of software. Just as the former Dolphins quarterback, Java affected the world so much that history cannot be written without its mention. But nonetheless, neither Java nor Dan ever won the big one.

The author makes some good points and I believe that he’s right. You can read the whole article here.

I find this article funny in that it points out what Java is – a loser of a language. Every recruiter and company on the planet asks, “Do you know Java?”, as if the language is the king. I have news for you. Strict typed languages shouldn’t be used for web based applications. Sure if you plan on making a cross platform GUI application it may be right for you, but it’s basically an interpreted compiled language if that makes any sense. My hopes are high that Java dies when Sun does.

Apple’s recent addition to its software library, Safari, is another victory in the company’s battle to conquer the digital hub. I’ve dabbled with the browser, but have yet to actually take a close look at it. Until now.

The most glaring hole in Apple’s browser is the lack of tabbed browsing. I was so upset about this fact that both my girlfriend and I both submitted bug reports. Today I signed the petition. One Apple enthusiast proposes a very cocoa tabbed browsing alternative, which looks interesting. I also came across this review, which compares Chimera and Safari. If you must have tabs you can try Safaritabs.

The two things that stand out in my eyes is Safari’s speed and the fact that it spell checks automatically within textarea’s. The Google bar is a decent edition as well.

Slashdot is running a great interview about Kevin Mitnick. I’m only half way through it, but so far it’s a great read. My favorite quote thus far:

… security is not a product that can be purchased off the shelf, but consists of policies, people, processes, and technology.

I totally agree with the above. At my current place of employment I was brought in for two reasons: research, purchase, install, and configure a scalable server farm and to rework the current security policies and methods.

I’ve since removed access from most servers for anyone who is not an administrator, created a DMZ, put firewall rules into place, closed ports and services, etc. The thing that amazes me most is that some of the coworkers have complained about the new measures I’m taking. I guess laziness and lax security go hand in hand.

YAMSWKTI (Yet Another Microsoft Worm Kills The Internet). The patch was issued in July … JULY FOLKS! Who the hell hires admins like this? To block this port (if you aren’t already blocking all ports on your firewall) execute the following command as root:

@@@SMARTY:TRIM:PRE@@@

After you’re done with that sit back and laugh at the stupid NT admins who don’t patch their servers. I think MS should just force the security patches down to the servers.

Debris.com has a great editorial about the dot commers who accelerated the buble bursting. Expect no mercy. I came into the boom just as it was fading and stuck with the company I started with until school obligations became too much. I agree with his view that people should show a little courtesy and not job hop every other month.

I’ve been researching various mods for my upcoming MythTV box. Mainly I’ve been looking for ideas to silence the box. There is a great aritcle at QuietPC about how to silence a computer. It’s not a cheap process, but it will be well worth it for those quiet nights on the couch watching TV.

While looking around for silent parts I’ve noticed an absolute explosion in the amount of pc modification sites out there. I fondly remember the days where PC mods consisted of a few stickers and a missing side panel. *sigh*

I found a link to the MythTV project. It boasts TiVo like PVR abilities, MP3/Ogg ripping/encoding/playback, MAME, and photo slideshows. Not to mention it’s themeable, works from the free XMLTV feeds, and, with version 0.8, will run in client-server mode. I’m already pricing out a machine that I can use to make something like this. Imagine an Athlon 2100, wireless network, and an 80GB hard drive! Combined with Samba and it’s web interface you could have a really awesome digital entertainment center.

I found a simple comparison chart between 802.11a/b/g at debris.com. After MacWorld I’m sure many people are wondering the difference between all of these standards. Don’t forget the other up and coming wireless standards BlueTooth and RFID.

BlueTooth is a promising technology that enables you to create PAN‘s easily so that your various devices can talk to each other wirelessly.

RFID‘s on the other hand pose a possible threat to personal security. They are small wireless chips that can be embedded in fabric, packaging, etc. that will be used to track inventories for companies. The problem is that manufacturers haven’t decided if they are going to disable them at time of purchase. This means you could walk into your favorite store and, once the store had scanned your various RFID’s, bombard you with specials based on percieved preferences. Example: You walk into Express for Men with a pair of their dress pants on. The computer recognizes this and immediately alerts a clerk who goes over to you asking if you’d be interested in purchasing a few dresh shirts, all this while the computer automatically lowers the prices of dress shirts as you walk by. I’m sure from here you can think of other more devious uses. Example: I could reference which RFID’s were purchased with your credit card and then track you as you walk from store to store (or any RFID enabled “hotspot”). Scary.