Category: Kim Blog (English)

Personal blog. Thoughts, conspiracies with a danish twist etc.

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WWJD 3 – Results! – Engadget

WWJD 3 – Results! – Engadget

Engadget asked it’s readers to come up with some suggestions for “What Would Steve Jobs Do”, before the Feb-28th “fun” products event. Well I think the readers came up with some very funny, and even credible suggestions. I like the sleek iPod Talk concept, that promises to bring back the dial-phone by emulating a dial using the click-wheel – wow!

The MacBaby is too cute, and the OiPPC (One iPod Per Child) promises to deliver the first sub 100$ iPod LOL!. I think that the most ground-breaking mock-up is the Nintendo inspired MacBook DS (Dual-Screen), replacing the keyboard with a touch screen that can be reconfigured so that it could display a music keyboard instead of a regular keyboard.

Take a look for your self, and see if you, like I, agree that some of the artists should be hired by Apple.

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Tux-shaped computer runs Linux

Tux-shaped computer runs Linux

This is too cute, imagine a server farm run entirely by Tux Penguins. Sounds like something out of Gotham city? With this new computer case from the Italian computer manufacturer, Acme Systems, you could make it a reality. I want one!

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Blogs Bookmarks Kim Blog (English) Open Source Technology

Manu Cornet’s website – PCJacking – make the Open source world advance

Returning to fUSION Anomaly, the site also features an Anomalog, and I found this great tip, that I want to pass on, courtesy of fUSION Anomalog: The tip first surfaced on the web-site of Manu Cornet PCJacking.

Quoted from the article PCJacking on the fUSION Anomalog, http://fusionanomaly.net/anomalog/node.php?id=1809 (accessed on the 1-Mar-2006):

PCjacking is sticking Linux Live CDs in computers located in popular department stores, to let the customers know that something other than Windows exists. If you think it’s an useful thing to do, try it yourself ! PCjacking is totally safe for the hijacked PC, and leaves it completely unaltered.

[…]

Here’s how to do it :
1. Get a Knoppix CD image, or another Linux Live CD [added by Kim Bach: e.g. Ubuntu], and burn it to a plain CD-R. Make as many copies as you need to perform your pcjacking.
2. Write something on the CD so that people working in the store understand what this is for, and how to get their Windows back.
3. Take your CD and a camera to a popular PC seller, and look for your prey. It can be a desktop or a laptop, but you need to be able to access its CDROM drive, and hopefully, its keyboard.
4. Before inserting the CD, take a look at the screen resolution in Windows settings. Set the sound volume to its minimum, so that the Windows “byebye” sound won’t be heard in the whole store. Then put the CD in, and reboot the computer.
5. When the Knoppix startup screen appears, you need to let it know the screen resolution it should use (this might not be necessary, but I found that using the default boot options sometimes leads to a “out of range” message on the screen, the guys at Knoppix need to raise the default value or provide a better detection of the screen). For example, type “knoppix screen=1024×768”. Careful if you don’t live in the US : the keyboard layout is the US one here. Then press enter.
6. Go a few meters away. You’re safe now, even if somebody notices, they won’t know it was you. Wait one or two minutes for the system to boot, then take out your camera and take a few shots at your masterpiece. Who knows, maybe you don’t have anything to do with this, but you happen to know Linux, and you found it funny to see it running there, so you just wanted to take a few pictures 🙂 Leave the CD inside the PC, and leave the store with an innocent face.
7. Put your shots on a web page somewhere, and send an email to pcjacking@manucornet.net to let me know, and I’ll link to your pictures from this web page.
8. Enjoy having made the Open source world advance, even if only a tenth of an inch !

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fUSION Anomaly.

fUSION Anomaly.

I just stumbled upon the fUSION Anomaly site and it is an intriguing site, I found my self being sucked into the Anomaly. So how did I stumble upon this site, well it was caused by random surfing, and I decided to document the strange trail that let me there. It was triggered by a picture of the Aurora Borealis that was posted on the macnyt.dk web-site, I then surfed to the web-site of the person who posted the picture, and discovered that he had misspelled “Aurora Borealis”, so I went to Google to confirm that it was misspelled, and this let me to the fUSION Anomaly Aurora Borealis page. The page caught my interest, with the reference to James Gosling and the Isis satellites. The pure mention of Isis was enough to send me on a surfing safari of the fUSION Anomaly site.

The site has a lot of interesting and strange content, and is filled references to science, science fiction, the occult, mysticism, literature, technology and lot’s of other things.

I’m not sure what to make of it, but a lot of the content is music related, and I seem to share some music preferences with the author – Atomjack.

The site is filled with interesting hyper-links, and it’s only natural that fUSION Anomaly also features a Wiki – it has inspired me to do the same, just to see what happens.

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Apple launches new Intel Mac Minis, iPod Hi-Fi | CNET News.com

Apple launches new Intel Mac Minis, iPod Hi-Fi | CNET News.com

In a much hyped event, where some “fun” new products had been promised, Apple has announced the first Intel based Mac minis, as well as a set of powered speakers called the iPod Hi-Fi, and some Apple branded leather iPod cases.

The web had been overflowing with rumours regarding the possible “fun” products, but this clearly was intended to be a small announcement.

Continue reading “Apple launches new Intel Mac Minis, iPod Hi-Fi | CNET News.com”
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Kim Bach’s Google Home Page

Kim Bach’s Google Home Page

I’m usually not promoting new Google services – since they promote themself – but Google has just launched a promissing new service, called Google Page Creator. Using Google Page Creator you can quickly create and maintain your own, simple, web-site.

All you need to get started, is a Gmail account, and a modern browser, and you’re ready to log in and start creating your home page, and with 100MB of storage you have a lot of freedom. Google Page Creator has the look and feel of all the other Google services, so you should feel at home if you’re familiar with, for instance, Gmail.

Continue reading “Kim Bach’s Google Home Page”
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DMCA axes sites discussing Mac OS for PCs | CNET News.com

DMCA axes sites discussing Mac OS for PCs | CNET News.com

As it might have caught the senses of Apple watchers, a number of sites have been discussing, and recently posting detailed information on, how to circumvent the security protocols built into OS X, making it possible to install and boot OS X on non-Apple, Intel based, hardware.

Well, Apple has taken legal action against these sites, claiming that they’re violating the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), by even publishing links to circumvention techniques.

So why is Apple so protective, wouldn’t it be better if Apple started to offer OS X to everyone?

Continue reading “DMCA axes sites discussing Mac OS for PCs | CNET News.com”
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BBC NEWS | Technology | Malicious worm aims to bite Apple

BBC NEWS | Technology | Malicious worm aims to bite Apple

A Worm, or rather a Trojan, called Leap-A, has reared it’s ugly head on OS X.

Apple has labelled as malicious software rather than a worm or virus, and this is correct, since it doesn’t propagate by itself.

But…This was bound to happen. I too often hear Mac users talk about the immunity of the Apple platform, and I agree 100% with the comments made by BBC commentator Bill Thompson in January. Bill Thompson is a long-time Mac user, and he points out that Apple users have been ‘too smug’ over security .

I’ve repeatedly pointed in Internet forums, out that writing malicious software for Mac OS X, should be at least as easy as it is on Windows, due to the high level of ‘programmability’ that is possible with Mac OS X.

This should be a wake-up call, but I’ve noticed that the people that always argue that Mac OS X is invulnerable, are extremely quiet these days.

So do you need to install anti-virus software on Mac OS X? I’d strongly advise that you do that, a good reason is that it will stop you from unknowingly forward infected files, that are targeting Windows, to your friends.

So far I’ve had the ClamXav recommended. ClamXav is based on the Open Source anti-virus progam ClamAV.

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Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps! on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps! on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

This sent me LOL…Guess I was seduced by the Apple marketing hype as well, with my “ODE to the shuffle” from last week.

Now…I don’t think that I’d cry if Apple should decide to drop the shuffle, or even fit it with a screen. What I’d miss is the auto-fill feature and the 5 button user interface, which I love.

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Wired News: NeXT Fans Give Up the Ghost

Wired News: NeXT Fans Give Up the Ghost

Guess what…More on the NeXT. The Bay Area NeXT Group (BANG) finally disappeared in 2005.

The NeXT computer was a groundbreaking pc design, pioneering things like optical drives, large displays.

One amazing aspect was the system came bundled with a huge amount of software, including software development tools and a soft library that included the complete works of William Shakespeare.

NeXT computer struggled selling less than 50,000 units, and they stopped producing hardware in the early 90-ies. The operating system NeXTSTEP lived on, and was ported to the Intel platform. Finally NeXT was acquired by Apple, and NeXTSTEP became the foundation of OS X.

NeXTSTEP also lives on in the Open Source project, GNUSTEP. A very interesting project, and there’s no doubt that the NeXTSTEP frameworks and development tools are very good and productive, but the GUI is definitely showing it’s age.