2010 Winter Games Live Streaming Requires Silverlight

Just when I thought the internet was headed to good pasture, I check out what internet streaming is going on for the 2010 Olympic Winter games here in Vancouver. What shall I find? But low and behold.. And I mean low. They are streaming using Microsoft Silverlight.

Until now I have refused to install it, I’ll probably end up installing it just for this and uninstalling it right after. But hey, they are streaming in 720p HD which is not bad. And I believe it’s even using H.264 so not a Microsoft specific codec. But still, I just don’t like it! This is bad for the open web, and bad for the non-Microsoft web. I know very well what Microsoft’s plan was for the internet. Thanks for the likes of Mozilla, Google, and Apple their plans have been thwarted. I just hope it continues.

The family was telephoned and urged to leave

The destroyed Abu Askar family house was used to store Grad rockets. The family was telephoned and urged to leave before the house was shelled. – The Goldstoning of Israel.

I feel compelled to write this short post, hopefully to help spread the information for anyone who even thinks about believing the goldstone report. Those who wrote the report had made their decision before even beginning the inquiry.

It’s anti-Semitic, and intentionally sides with the terrorists.

Going back to the first sentence in the post, what other army in the world, let alone the small pocket of the world called the middle east, would call their target allowing them to escape, before launching the attack? Something Israel has done countless times in an mind boggling effort to save civilian lives.

“The Goldstone Report was born in bias and matured into a full-fledged miscarriage of justice.”

Who Else Thinks So?

• Goldstone Report is Deceitful
  IDF chief says army began investigating itself before “we heard of Goldstone.”
• The Case Against Goldstone Report: Study in Evidentiary Bias
  Read the full text of Alan Dershowitz’s highly detailed rebuttal of the Gaza war report.
• Deputy Chief of Staff: Goldstone Report a Trojan Horse
  The Goldstone report is a Trojan horse; it gives terrorist organizations
  legitimacy to fight us from urban populations.
• Livni: Probe will legitimize distorted war report
  The IDF is a moral army that avoids hurting civilians. The Goldstone Report is one-sided and supports the position of Hamas, who fired Qassams at Israel’s civilians.
• The Case Against the Goldstone Report
  The Goldstone Report is much more scurrilous than most of its detractors (and supporters) believe.

Those are just a few.

ESET Antivirus (NOD32) for Mac OS X Update

On December 6th I wrote a short little post about ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 Beta for Mac OS X. On January 08 2010 they released an updated build which has the following changelog:

- Fixed GUI failure that had occurred in some cases during configuration imports
- System font warnings no longer display
- Added advanced “About” window and “Splash” screen
- Added information windows about detected and cleaned infiltrations
- Support for selection of multiple items from lists

So compared to my last post, have any of the issues I addressed changed? No they haven’t. So let me go through my experiences with this new build.

USB and Other Removable Drives

When attempting to eject (or unmount) a removable USB drive, you get a message saying “The disk “XXXX” wasn’t ejected because one or more programs may be using it.
To eject the disk immediately, click on the Force Eject button.”

The you can either Cancel or Force Eject.

This issue only occurs when running NOD32, otherwise drives work just fine. Also in certain situations the mounting of drives including network shares can be quite time consuming.

TrueCrypt

I am a heavy TrueCrypt user. When attempting to mount a TrueCrypt volume (I mostly use container or file based volumes) the following error message occurs:

“hdiutil: attach failed – Permission denied”

I also mentioned this error in my previous blog post, and also submitted a ticket to ESET about this. No response.

More…

Of course there are other things we could talk about as well. I still strongly desire that there be a way to remove the system menu icon. There’s already a Dock icon and there should be a way to disable either one of them. At least a way to disable the menu bar icon as it just takes unnecessary space.

Also disabling the real-time protection still does not require administrator authentication. Even if you are logged in as an administrator user you should still be prompted for your password to disable real-time protection.

And one more thing, the uninstaller is not user friendly. Which of course I was forced to do again as without TrueCrypt I’m toast. The uninstaller actually launched a command line script and you’re prompted for your password from a terminal window. This is not something I would expect a normal user to do, and it would be a 15min task to bundle that script into a package just like the installer. Even an applescript bundle is better than that.

So that’s it. I still say good on ESET for doing this, but c’mon, listen to the people who actually use and sell your product.

Update [2010-01-18]

Just got a response from ESET on these issues, and quoting it here:

Thank you for your feedback on our EAV4 beta version for Mac OS. The updates installation package was released to quickly address some most important issues. It is not meant as the next beta version release which will contain more fixes.
Several issues mentioned in your articles are already known to us (dock and menu icon, TrueCrypt error) and will be fixed in the future.
…..

Thanks for the response, and hopefully once the TrueCrypt problem is fixed I can continue testing the product.

2010

Yes, it’s been 2010 for a little bit. And yes, I do just want to write a short little blurb about it.

2009 was good.      BUT we can do A LOT BETTER!
And so my hope is that’s what 2010 will be about. A focused direct energy on something that is extremely important. Much like a laser beam. And we’ll see what happens.

Francois Carr Revival Preaching – November 2009

Francois Carr was over at our local church for a few evenings and a couple mornings of revival preaching. I will be posting one video a week (there’s a total of 5) starting with this one.

Session #1
http://www.vimeo.com/7873271

Session #2
http://www.vimeo.com/8002082

Session #3
http://www.vimeo.com/8174344

Session #4
http://www.vimeo.com/8277898

Session #5
http://www.vimeo.com/8450885

Mexico Videos

Recently went to Mexico with a few other great folks, here’s a couple videos I put together a week ago.

The Internet – FamilyFriendlyNet.com

We’re introducing Family Friendly Net. A simple and easy way, yet effective to block inappropriate content on the internet from reaching your home or home business.

ABC Peanut Butter Chocolate Chippers (aka ABCPBCC)

Yes, it is time…. to post the only recipe I ever wrote, and at that the best one I ever wrote.
All the others have not made it down to the written text yet

I put this together at about 12 years of age or so, and since then each time I’ve made them it’s been a family event.

So here it is for your enjoyment! Just remember, these cookies require a personal touch. Don’t look at the recipe as a law book, but only as something to guide you in the right direction.

Main Important Ingredients: Chocolate Chips, Peanut Butter, Brown Sugar.

Cooking Time: 10 minutes a plate at about 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Author: Arthur Wiebe Revision: 20,051,122

Full List of Ingredients:

4 3/4 cup Flour
1 1/4 tsp. Salt
1 3/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
3/4 cup Peanut Butter
1 1/4 cup Softened Butter
2 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup White Sugar
2 tbsp. Vanilla
2 tbsp. Corn Syrup or Honey
3 Medium Sized Eggs
4 tbsp. Whole Milk or Light Cream
3+ cup Chocolate Chips
1 1/2 cup Walnuts or Pecans (Optional)

Instructions:
1. In a mixing bowl, mix Flour, Salt, Baking Powder, and Baking Soda.
2. In a larger bowl mix Peanut Butter, Butter, Brown Sugar, White Sugar, Vanilla, Corn Syrup, Eggs, and Milk.
3. Now stir in the mixed dry ingredients into the mixed wet ingredients in 3 intervals.
4. Slowly stir in the Chocolate Chips and Nuts.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-11 minutes.

Once out of oven, wait 7 minutes for cookies to cool and bond.
Copyright 2005-2009 Arthur Wiebe (Do not use for illegal purposes, and do not sell it without giving me some revenue)

Enjoy the Ride. There is No Return Ticket

Imagine If….

Dasient and Nerds On Site Partner to Offer Web Site Malware Protection

Nerds On Site and Dasient have partnered up to provide web site malware protection:

“Every day, thousands of legitimate websites are infected with malicious code, and the speed, scale, and complexity of these attacks makes it difficult for website owners to identify and address the resulting infections,” said Dr. Neil Daswani, one of Dasient’s three co-founders. “Now more than ever it’s important for site owners to deploy defenses that can operate at the scale and speed required to deal with the problem.”

NerdMobile Parade at Delaware Speedway

For three years now Nerds On Site has taken part in the Delaware Speedway and done a parade lap at the beginning of the race. Here’s a video I took yesterday, or at least a few clips. I know the video is a little rough but hey you get the idea!