Katie with the hostesses Amanda, Kelli and Hannah These are pictures from Katie's bridal shower held at Kelli's house on Saturday, August 20.

Goodies for the shower

More goodies

Mimi and Rachel up front

Katie, Hannah, Holly, Nanny, Louise and Donna

Opening gifts

Sarah and Hannah

Katie and Tudi

Kimberly and Diane

K&B's Haul

Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked

AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy their serial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users to either buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'Genuine Advantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."

Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter:
javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')
It turns off the trigger for the key check.

Institute for Backup Trauma

Let John Cleese and the IBT help you find the solution to your nagging backup pain.

Borland open sources JBuilder and other news from The Register

JBuilder goes open source http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/22/jbuilder_eclipse/

Studio.NET 2005 slips, Borland helps with UML http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/21/micrsosoft_borland_together/

New CPUs throw kinks in license fees http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/22/ibm_dualcore_pricing/

Will the "platform for the next 10 years" even arrive in the next 10 years? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/22/ballmer_new_longhorn/

The difference between Longhorn and diarrhea? http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/03/18/microsoft_longhorn_indigestion/

Spam funnies

As everyone knows, the spamsters put a lot of irrelevent trash (irrelevent in the sense of "not part of the sales pitch") into their messages in order to slip them by the spam filters. For awhile they were using random words but now they seem to be providing the added service of various "quotes of the day" and poems to enhance your overall sales experience. Here are a samples from a few messages I got this weekend.

---

364 days of the year, parents tell their kids not to take candy from strangers, yet on Halloween, its encouraged! Why is that ?

Why is it when we laugh in school the teachers say do you find something funny? When obviously we do?

Why do you have to "put your two cents in" but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going too ?

Why do people call it an ATM machine, but they know it's really saying Automated Teller Machine Machine?

Why do people say PIN number when that truly means Personal Identification Number Number?

Why is Christmas colors red and green when Santa's suit is red and white?

Why do you DELETE something on the computer, but ERASE something on paper?

Since there is a rule that states "i" before "e" except after "c", wouldn't "science" be spelled wrong?

If the S.W.A.T team comes to your house and breaks down your door, do they replace it later?

If the handicapped bathrooms are for people who cant walk why do they put them at the end of the bathrooms ?

Why is it that on the back of a medicine bottle it says "adult" is 12 and above, but the adult age in reality is 18?

Why do most people put more effort into their wedding than their actual marriage?

---

If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?

If 75% of all accidents happen within 5 miles of home, why not move 10 miles away?

If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?

If a bus station is where a bus stops, and a train station is where a train stops, why do I have a work station on my desk?

If a case of the clap spreads, is it then considered a case of the applause?

If a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered bread always lands butter side down, what would happen if you tied buttered bread on top of a cat?

If a chronic liar tells you he is a chronic liar do you believe him?

If a dog sweats through his tongue, why does he have armpits?

If you were traveling at the speed of sound and you turned on your radio would you be able to hear it?

If a mute child swears, does his mother make him wash his hands with soap?

If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?

If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?

If inert is to be stationary, what is ert?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why does he keep doing it?

---

Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money. --Robin Williams

Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work. --Al Capone

It's better to live one day as a lion, than a hundred as a sheep. --Benito Mussollini

A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want.-- Madonna

I wish people could acheive what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not what happiness really is. -- Alanis Morisette

The key to immortallity, is living a life which is worth to be remembered. --Bruce Lee

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.-- Rebecca West

What luck for rulers that men do not think. -- Adolf Hitler

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you 50,000 dollars for a kiss and 50 cents for your soul.-- Marilyn Monroe

Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice; I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots.-- Tupac Shakur

I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see. -- Jimi Hendrix

---

If money does not grow on trees, why do banks have branches?

If you cut off a glowworm's tail would it be delighted?

How do you know which armrest is yours in the movie theaters?

If you say something is indescribable, isn't that describing it?

Do Dutch people always split the bill?

Can you sleep forever without being in coma?

Why is it called butterfingers when there is no butter or fingers in it?

If you shine a light into a mirror, do you get twice as much light?

How come it was called the Cosby Show when Billy Cosby's character was named Heathcliff Huxtible?

If a Truck is loaded with Helium, would it weigh less than when it was empty? Wouldn't it get better fuel mileage?

Why is the blackboard green?

Why do they call it a black light when it's really purple?

Why do hotdogs come in packs of 8 when hotdog rolls come in packs of 10?

What do you call male ballerinas?

How come the sun makes your skin darker but your hair lighter?

If you dig a tunnel straight through the earth, will you come out with your feet first?

Why are pennies bigger than dimes?

Did they have antiques in the olden days?

Are zebras black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?

If Pringles are "so good that once you pop, you can't stop" why do they come with a resealable lid?

Sculpture outside Arlington Museum of Modern Art

Obviously "EDS" doesn't stand for "consistency"

Looks like EDS veeps don't pay much attention to what their company does. The following is from a case study on the EDS site.

Our Approach

• Implemented Linux server environment to ensure stability and security while keeping costs low
• Implemented Linux-based messaging application that meets EDS' corporate security standards while enabling communication with users of other messaging software

. . .

The new Linux environment provides a level of security and stability unavailable elsewhere. Because it is open-source software, it also offers significant cost savings on licensing and allows EDS to provide faster, more responsive support because programming problems can be diagnosed and repaired more quickly.

Maybe ole Robb is channeling George "They've got WMD" Bush after all.

Is Dubya moonlighting for EDS?

A recent quote from EDS Global Alliances Veep, Robb Rasmussen, might make you wonder if you've ever seen him and George Bush together. Talking about why the Alliance members like Sun and Microsoft don't believe Linux is right for big business (Surprise, surprise!), Robb opined,

"A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying the environment. ... it could splinter into many different types of languages."

Well, about all I can think to say about that is HUH?

Jef Raskin

I just found out we lost one of the great pioneers of modern computing last week. While at Apple, Jef Raskin started the MacIntosh project in parallel with Steve Jobs' PARC-inspired Lisa. Raskin's Mac was character based and keyboard driven, far different from the final product produced after Jobs forced him out. His concepts were then used in the Canon Cat, a computer that didn't last long in the marketplace either because of its unique user interface or Steve Jobs' meddling.

The result of his time spent post-Apple is a UI he called The Humane Interface, about which you can learn more from The Raskin Center For Humane Interfaces. The link below is a Flash demo of the Archy UI that he thought would make computers as usable as humanly possible today. It's a remarkable vision incorporating ideas like the spacial indexing of stored information (it's easier to remember visually where you put something) that stretch back decades to his more recent ideas that you are better off directly manipulating information than you are doing indirect manipulation through proxies like icons.

http://www.raskincenter.org/main2/img/zoomdemo.swf

Winter daffodil

JNDI dns:// Provider in WebSphere

Newsgroups: ibm.software.websphere.application-server

Best I can tell, WAS (5.0 at least) does not have a JNDI Service Provider that can perform DNS lookups. I'm successfully using the Sun one from http://java.sun.com/products/jndi/serviceproviders.html, but I wanted to confirm that I'm not missing some other option in WAS.

I'm using this technique to do an MX Record lookup to validate an email domain. It's described http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/jndi/jndi-dns.html#USAGE and http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0452.html. Alternatively, if anyone knows of other methods to do this, I'm willing to consider that too.)