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Before I was interrupted…

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Hmm, as I was saying before I was interrupted, I’ve been learning more about DocBook, and as should be obvious to anyone following this blog or my microbloging outlet, I have also been learning XSLT.

DocBook is a good format, it seems to have all the attributes from LaTeX and troff that I desire, it’s as easy as HTML (in which I am generally fluent), and just like it, is available in XML-based variants ;). Personally, I consider RST the easiest method of preparing documents. The principal problem with RST, being the available formatters: it works good for generating HTML output for the web, but not quite ready for manual pages just yet.

Some people might have issues with writing in XML/SGML like markup languages, but I do not; in fact, I feel more comfortable with DocBook, because there is *no* real presentational crap bloated into it, not to the level that HTML has been mutilated beyond permanent scaring… so yeah, I like it. Even better is being able to use DocBook with XSL/CSS related data to control the outputs. I’m a freak, I like to have central sources for documents, that I can keep under version control, unlike Word docs; and preferably a document that I can read, either in my text editor, a document viewer (ala PDF & PostScript), or copy/paste into a web page. DocBook is a very highly structured way of describing the contents of a document, which further mates well with my insane mind.

Likely I’ll be writing new HOWTO, guides, manuals, reviews, and so on in DocBook; any pertinent documents in existence now, will likely be converted over to DocBook. I will probably write suitable stylesheets for creating posts on my Live Journal here, and forum posts in BB Code.

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Today has been a fairly nice day, managed to get some stuff sorted on the net; helped a friend with her blog; finished reading an article on DocBook. Along the way, I also found a cool page on creating rounded corners in CSS, and remembered to add A List Apart to my feed reader, after stumbled across it again.

Ahh, foooooood time!!!!

Just how safe is SHA-1?

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Q: How hard would it be to find collisions in SHA-1?
A: The reported attacks require an estimated work factor of 2^69 (approximately 590 billion billion) hash computations. While this is well beyond what is currently feasible using a normal computer, this is potentially feasible for attackers who have specialized hardware. For example, with 10,000 custom ASICs that can each perform 2 billion hash operations per second, the attack would take about one year. Computing improvements predicted by Moore ‘s Law will make the attack more practical over time, e.g. making it possible for a wide-spread Internet virus to use compromised computers to mount such attacks as well. Once a collision has been found, additional collisions can be found trivially by concatenating data to the matching messages.

— source

I dunno about everyone else on planet earth, but I feel safe enough with that probability, at least until Independence Day arrives.

Outsmarted again!

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I sneezed and Willow took off, as usual lol. After a while I looked and she wasn’t back on the bed, our the couch, so I started looking all over for her.

Checked under the step stool, in ma’s bedroom, under the dining room table, in the kitchen, the bathroom, next to the couch, on ma’s couch, heck even under the Parakeet! Guess what!!! Willow was under the covers on my bed, and that was the first place I had looked…. even moved the covers! Yet, sure enough when I walked back into the room it was her head looking quizzically at me, as if to say what the heck are you looking for idiot!

Oy vey!

gdesk? Hehe

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Well, as something that’s been on my eventually to get around deciding; I’ve setup Google Desktop Enterprise Edition on SAL1600.

Earlier during the last reformat, I had opted into trying a newer Windows Desktop Search, yet found it to be just as useless as the old style search technology that had shipped with Windows XP back in 2001 :-(. In point of fact, I would much rather use GNU Find and skip the useless window dressings >_>.

Googles Desktop search, is not what interests me. In fact, nether does Strigi or Beagle – the only search program that would interest me, is a sexy wrapper around GNU Find (or equivalent) that mates it to a easily scriptable plugin system (think customized grepping) that would enable it to be come aware of any program you choose (think searching chats for pidgin, docs in google, news feeds in pan, blah blah) without having to rely upon someone to code it for you—just write a little shell script ;).

So obviously, I’m a power user who learned how to organise file systems very tightly, although I think that will become a mark of the dinosaurs before Windows 11 >_>.

What did attract me to Google Desktop, is the Gadgets system. Right now I have the sidebar up with time and temperature—never turn the TV to the weather channel lol. Since the only use I really have for Windows main panel, is the integrated system tray and clock, I’ve now set the panel to minimal height. I run much to many programs to be able to use a “Taskbar” without feeling like I’m dancing with a cement kimono!

The sidebar from Google Docks is also displaying Calendar & Mail gadgets making my life easier, plus Talk is docked for extra value. Since my desktop is never free of having a command prompt and web browser open, the Win+G shortcut for the search bar doesn’t matter any 8=). Ok, so I’m a whore for tools that speed up my work time instead of increasing it ;).

Intently interesting me, is whether or not the deskutils/google-gadgets port on FreeBSD works reasonably. While Google Talk lacks a version that’ll run on BSD, I don’t need it—since I rely upon Pidgon, and wish I did not need Xfire on the windows machine…. since integration would make life easier. It’s so funny how I actually have a more integrated system under FreeBSD, then Windows <_<.

OSX, KDE, and Vista have made greater emphasis on the desktop widget/gadget concept in recent years, but to me, it is just very much the modern incarnation of the old as gold dockapp.

It’s so funny how new innovation is often an upgrade to the last generations revolution.

Interesting tidbit: Microsoft Links Malware Rates To Pirated Windows

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Shared from Google Reader

Microsoft Links Malware Rates To Pirated Windows—Slashdot

I’ll believe this when Microsoft releases all versions of Windows as Open Source under the GPL, and only makes a profit by selling support contracts—fat chance of that happenin’ and you can bank on it.

In the past near-decade of using Windows based computers, the machines in my care probably have one of the lowest infections, compared toanyone I know, who is an “Average, gullable, luser”. Do stupid things and your box is trashed, it won’t make a difference whether or not you paid for it.

Hmm, if people are going to start blaming outdated pirated copies of windows for the spread of malicious software: how about Microsoft try ditching the pseudo-worthless WGA garbage and making the Windows and Native APIs more restrictive in what they can tamper with?

Oh yeah, just blame other people, real s.m.r.t. idea.

Interesting tidbit: Man accidentally ejects himself from plane

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Shared from Google Reader

Man accidentally ejects himself from plane—The Guardian World News

Oh man, this guy is never going to live that down! Sheesh, how stupid do you have to be not to know what’s going to happen if you yank the ejection rip-cord seated between your legs? Haha, that just sounds so wrong in of it self!

Here’s to narrowly evading the receipt of a Darwin Award, one lucky son of a bitch at a time !!