Phish with high irony content

Well, two weeks after installing Service Pack 2 for Office 2003, with its new Outlook anti-phishing filter, I finally received the first message that Outlook suspected might be a phishing attempt but didn’t move to the Junk E-mail folder. I didn’t notice the Info bar message at first, but when I clicked on a link in the message, this dialog box appeared.

Outlook 2003 phishing warning

That’s when I looked at the info bar and saw this message.

phish alert

Nice of Microsoft to protect me from those potential evildoers at microsoft.com! Of course, all I had to do was click to add this domain to my safe list.

add domain to safe list

This is the sort of stuff that Microsoft watchers like to point to as evidence that the company is clueless. However, I see this from a different perspective. In this case, at least, Microsoft doesn’t get a free pass. The algorithm might have tripped up, but the user gets to make the decision whether to trust this message or not. That’s the right set of defaults.

Still, the irony is noteworthy.

Media Center users, mark your calendars

The update you’ve been waiting for is coming on Friday. Details at Ed Bott’s Media Central.

Bleccchhh

From a press release received this week:

ANNOUNCING “THE BLOOKER PRIZE,” THE WORLD’S FIRST LITERARY PRIZE FOR “BLOOKS” (BOOKS BASED ON BLOGS OR WEBSITES) – LAUNCHES 10 OCTOBER, 2005

“BLOOKS” ARE THE FASTEST GROWING NEW KIND OF BOOK – AND THE HOTTEST NEW PUBLISHING AND ONLINE TREND”

Prominent Internet Figures Will Judge Inaugural Prize – For Fiction, Non-Fiction And Comic-Blooks

(blook n. blook. A printed and bound book, based on a blog (cf. web log) or website; a new stage in the life-cycle of content, if not a new category of content and a new dawn for the book itself. cf. The Lulu Blooker Prize, (“The Blooker”), a literary prize, founded 2005, for blooks. [der. Eng. book, a bound collection of sheets of paper; blog (abbrev. web log, an internet journal, diary or personal website)])

I want to blarf.

Amazon fun

Have a toddler? Want to make sure he’s prepared for an exciting career in security?

Try this smart educational toy:

It really must be seen to be believed. (Update: And as Chris Meller points out in the comments, you must, must, must read all the reviews.)

(Link via Atrios)

Speaking of Amazon.com, I tried out Chris Pirillo’s new gada.be RSS-based search service. Excellent! Except when I plugged in my own name, one of the results was an Amazon link to … well, see for yourself.

Harrumph. I have to admit, though, the price is pretty good.

(And at least part of the purpose of this post is to test a Firefox extension called CopyURL+, which works very well.)

More on Windows Vista versions

Rafael Rivera at Extended64.com poked around in some Windows Vista XML files and found this list of 20 version names. Before the ‘sphere starts shrieking that this is even worse than the seven versions we heard about before, let’s take a closer look. I’ve reordered the list slightly to make it easier to see the product mix.

Retail versions for the home market:

Windows Vista Starter
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Ultimate

Retail and VL versions for the business market:

Windows Vista Pro Standard/SB
Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent – VL Binding Service
Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent – VLGeneric
Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent – DMAK

OEM editions for sale with new consumer PCs

Windows Vista Starter Digital Boost – OEM
Windows Vista Home Basic – OEM
Windows Vista Home Premium – OEM
Windows Vista Ultimate – OEM

OEM editions for sale with new business PCs

Windows Vista Pro Standard/SB – OEM
Longhorn Enterprise Server – OEM

Longhorn Server versions (due in 2007):

Longhorn Enterprise Server (ADS)
Longhorn Enterprise Server – IA64
Longhorn Standard Server
Longhorn Datacenter Server

The ones that no one will ever buy:

Windows Vista Home Basic N
Windows Vista Pro Standard N

Speculate away. DMAK and Digital Boost are the ones that have me puzzled at first glance.

(Via bink.nu)

Microsoft, RealNetworks settle

Wow.

RealNetworks Inc. announced a legal settlement Tuesday with longtime adversary Microsoft Corp., ending the last major antitrust case against the world’s largest software maker.

I think there are champagne corks popping on both sides of Lake Washington today.

Worst. Reader. Ever.

Sorry, but I’ve wasted enough time on Google’s new Reader.

To put it as charitably as possible, it is an ugly mess. I tried to upload two completely different OPML files from two separate Google accounts. I get a reassuring message that says, “Your subscriptions were successfully imported! Your reading list will refresh momentarily.” And then … nothing.

Adding the URL for a feed manually results in a Preview window, where you have to remember to click the Subscribe button or your subscription won’t be added.

It takes dynamite to remove old posts from the reading list after you remove a subscription, and the reading experience is awful if you subscribe to more than a handful of feeds. Someone at Google has fallen in love with the elegance of their code and has lost sight of the user.

Yes, yes, I know it’s a beta. Isn’t everything from Google a beta?

My one and only baseball post of the year

When I was a kid, I was a huge baseball fan, practically obsessed with the sport. The 1994 strike drove me away, and when I came back, I didn’t have anywhere near the same passion.

Except when it comes to the Yankees. I’ll root against the damn Yankees anytime, anywhere. (Unless they’re playing the Dodgers, in which case I unplug the TV and don’t open the sports section.)

Watching the Yankees lose is even sweeter when they get close enough to win and pull up short. It’s happened over and over again in the past few years (last year’s collapse against the Red Sox was the stuff that dreams are made of), but it never gets any less sweet.

So, thank you, Angels! Here’s hoping you go all the way.

Update: Oh, and I am really delighted that Gary Sheffield and Bubba Crosby were unhurt in this crash, because I don’t have to feel any guilt over whooping and hollering at the sheer comic opera of this little pas de deux.

And one more thing … if you want to talk about unlikely names, isn’t Bubba Crosby at the very top of the list? Just sayin’.

Can we stop with the single-play DVD stories, please?

I know, I know. You’re as sick of this as I am, maybe more so. But The Inquirer amplified this weekend’s follow-up story in The Business, in which Tony Glover tried to defend his original report and only made it more muddled. And then Gizmodo picked up the Inky’s story, also without questioning it. Sigh. Both of those sites have many more readers than this one.

So, let’s see if we can put a wooden stake through this story, once and for all. Glover’s follow-up story hinges on this paragraph:

Alistair Baker, Microsoft’s UK managing director, told The Business: “Microsoft’s digital rights management [DRM] software generates a licence key to give the DVD content owner total control over how the content is viewed. This could mean watching a film only once, or over a limited period.”

He didn’t follow-up with Microsoft to see if he was drawing the correct conclusion from Mr. Baker’s remarks, so I put in a call myself. I got this reply from Marcus Matthias, Product Manager of the Windows Digital Media Division:

Alistair Baker’s comments broadly addressed the capabilities of WM DRM. These capabilities are focused on digital distribution within the PC ecosystem and networked devices, and more importantly, for content in the Windows Media format. They do not extend to today’s DVDs which use MPEG2. As to how this applies to next generation DVDs, it doesn’t — there’s no connection with WM DRM. To address the original premise of the story, Microsoft has no plans to create a cheap, disposable DVD.

This is confusing technology. I got a few technical details wrong in one of my earlier posts, which I’ve since corrected following some discussions with the people who actually designed the Windows Media software. The HD DVD format will use Advanced Access Content System (AACS), not Windows Media DRM, which will be used for downloading content and streaming it over a network.

Anyway, I don’t know how much clearer it gets. No cheap, disposable, pre-recorded DVDs. No story.

Can I see your license and eBay registration, please?

The Washington Post has mind-boggling news from the great frozen midsection of the United States:

North Dakota’s Public Service Commission is exploring whether people [who want to sell items on eBay] must obtain auctioneer licenses before they can legally use eBay to sell merchandise for others.

To get a North Dakota auctioneer’s license, applicants must pay a $35 fee, obtain a $5,000 surety bond and undergo training at one of eight approved auction schools, where the curriculum includes talking really fast.

Colossally stupid going once, colossally stupid going twice…