Hackers 'aid' Amazon logging scam

I think I work with computers too much, as I assumed this news article was about an online scam involving Amazon.com customers and logging their activities!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7783257.stm

Cool computer demo...

Thought this was worth a look at: Minority Report Style OS -
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/14/oblongs-g-speak-the-minority-report-os-brought-to-life/

Whoops, haven't posted to this blog in a month... well, more important things to do!

Handy Citrix tips: Number 1 - free replacement for Citrix EasyCall

Citrix has been marketing some quick call feature available on their 'Platinum Edition', called Citrix EasyCall.

Now obviously not many customers are going to fork out for Platinum licenses just for one convenient feature. So, assuming you already have a soft phone of some description, what do you do?

Easy, use an AutoHotKey script to achieve the same thing. Simulate copying the selected phone number to clipboard, opening up the softphone application, bringing up the 'call number' facility and paste it in! Nearly every application supports copying a number to clipboard using Ctrl+C (Outlook, Internet Explorer, workflow systems, etc) - and this is really the only function you need.

Without further ado, here's my example: -

^!p:: ; Ctrl+Alt+P

ClipSaved := ClipboardAll ; Save the entire clipboard

Send ^c ; Copy current selected text - hopefully a valid telephone number

IfWinExist, Phone Manager Pro

{

WinShow , Phone Manager Pro , ; Display phone manager if hidden

WinActivate , Phone Manager Pro , ; Activate

WinWaitActive, Phone Manager Pro ,

Sleep, 300

Send, {F1} ; F1 brings up the Call box

WinWaitActive, Call ,

Sleep, 200

Send, ^v{Enter} ; Paste and call

Sleep, 500 ; Give it a chance to execute before restoring clipboard

}

else IfWinExist, Phone Manager Lite

{

WinShow , Phone Manager Lite , ; Display phone manager if hidden

WinActivate , Phone Manager Lite , ; Activate

WinWaitActive, Phone Manager Lite ,

Sleep, 300

Send, {F1} ; F1 brings up the Call box

WinWaitActive, Call ,

Sleep, 200

Send, ^v{Enter} ; Paste and call

Sleep, 500 ; Give it a chance to execute before restoring clipboard

}

else

{

MsgBox Error - you must be running Phone Manager for this to work!

}

Clipboard := ClipSaved ; Restore the original clipboard.

ClipSaved = ; Free the memory in case the clipboard was very large.

Sleep, 100

return

Obviously this will require substantial editing with the aid of the HotKey recorder and Window Spy for different softphones.

By the way, anyone know an efficient way to paste code into Blogger - this was time consuming!

Links: http://www.autohotkey.com

Cloud Computing...

Now everyone (well, at least Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Yahoo and IBM) is working on the next generation of 'cloud computing', it's amusing to see some of the first attempts - Netscape Constellation and MS Active Desktop ".
http://www.byte.com/art/9703/sec6/art3.htm

"Whoever prevails will probably determine the face of computing for the next
decade. "

this article gushes.

"Microsoft's Active Platform -- manifested on a PC as Active Desktop --
leverages the market dominance of Windows by blending the user interfaces of
Windows and the Web. "

If there's anything to be learnt from this, it is to disbelieve marketing hype and look for future development somewhere other than 'game changing' pet projects from big companies.

Facebook: Don't ever leave the family!

Once on the Facebook network it's extremely difficult to leave. Ouch!
http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200802/ij_02_13_08a.html

Having a laugh

One of my least favourite features of Vista is the slow start up times and the stupid messages when rebooting - so have a nice wallpaper!

Now all organised with iGoogle

That's better, now I have set up an attractive iGoogle home page, and added links to all the services Google should have links to from the home page!
Now I can open a new blog post page with 1 click from my home page I should be in business (Of course, even better I could set this new post page as a second home page in Firefox)
At the moment this is for meaningless rants I don't add to FaceBook, but in future I might put something informative on (e.g. Citrix admin tips, etc).

It worked

It worked, but then asked to install 3 more updates! It then forced a reboot and said
"Configuring Updates Step 3 of 3 0% complete
Please wait..."
And I had to wait another minute!

Is this supposed to be a fun OS to use?

Windows Vista

I'm so annoyed, I'm writing a blog post!
Here's the low down:
1) Windows Vista working fine.
2) Asks for updates to be installed - decide to reboot it to check they install fine (I had installed Adobe Professional 30 day trial and a few other things so I thought it wise to reboot to be on safe side)
3) Vista reboots 3 times! So much for restart manager. You get "Configuring Updates" then "Shutting Down..." yawn. What was wrong with the old fashioned ways of Windows XP and the single reboot?
4) Boots up fine. One of the updates failed. Never mind
5) Shut it down and it tries to install the update again. OK
6) Next morning, Mum uses PC - no problem
7) When it shutdown it tried to install the update again. OK
8) Younger brother switches PC on
9) No boot, no safe mode, just "Following file is missing or corrupt: \Windows\System32\winload.exe"
10) We have only a Vista upgrade DVD, which is not bootable! Gah!
11) Install Linux!
12) Write a blog post
13) Copy \Windows\System32\Boot\winload.exe to \Windows\System32\winload.exe
14) Let the world at large know if it worked...

The crazy thing is this could happen to anyone. Most users would be stumped, and even if they had the Windows DVD would probably end up losing all their work.

Good night