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Microsoft AV for Free (sort-of)

Not much for logos, that Microsoft    Microsoft hasn’t heavily marketed Security Essentials, probably because they don’t want to provoke Symantec, AVG, Eset, Sophos, McAfee, AntiVir, et al.

    But, in case you didn’t already know, Microsoft offers anti-virus/anti-malware product free-of-cost to Windows XP and Windows 7 users in the form of Microsoft Security Essentials. In fact, its been available since late 2009, and the current version is pretty good. Microsoft’s AV technology, acquired in the purchase of the Romanian software company GeCAD way back in June of 2003, is offered in a commercial package as “Forefront Client Security.”

    Now, it isn’t exactly free; if you are using it for business purposes and have more than ten computers, Microsoft requires that you purchase Forefront or use some other solution. Likewise, it isn’t to be used on a Microsoft Windows Server Anything. But, if you use Windows XP or Windows 7 as your primary OS, and aren’t getting an antivirus program through some other means (Comcast subscribers get Norton 360 with their subscription, and perhaps you masochistically enjoy the tender ministrations of Symantec’s bloated offering) then I encourage you to try it out. Microosft Security Essentials (Google search).

Posted in free, internet culture, microsoft, random, security by SafeTinspector on August 21st, 2011  |  0 comments

List of Things I Don’t Believe In, Not Even a Little

  1. Big Foot
  2. Ghosts
  3. Loche Ness Monster
  4. Chupacabra
  5. The Fabulous Cities of Gold
  6. Harry Truman
  7. Rush (the prog-rock band)
  8. The Third Season of Buck Rogers
  9. Your Uncle’s first Car
  10. Numbers with leading spaces or non-standard punctuation distributed via caramel mocha trading cards or mimeograph

None of these exist, and if you say otherwise then I also have available for sale a certain bridge to Brooklyn in Florida for sale.

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on June 5th, 2011  |  0 comments

An Idea

    I would like to build an “out of context narrative generator” that would grab random assortments of contiguous sentences from alphabetically selected dictionary word searches upon Google.

    I’d likely be amusing.
Posted in random by SafeTinspector on March 7th, 2011  |  0 comments

The Disaster of the UnSafeTinspector

    So my web site was down, as I said, and now its back, as I said. I also explained how diffcult the repair was, but did you know that the site is no longer a VM (virtual machine)?
    For the last few years SafeTInspector has been WordPress running on a Debian virtual machine at my office. It was corrupted by a SAN crash and was not bootable. In order to get it up and running in fairly short order I placed it inside the mind of this little fellow:Single drive NAS     This is what looks like an external hard drive, about 8 inches tall. The clever engineers at Buffalo Tech, Japan, placed a little distribution of Linux on the thing along with a pre-installed and fully functional copy of Apache and MyPHP. A little bit of work and now it is the SafeTinspector server.

Time… marches ON!

The biggest negative side effect is various images that were lost (all of which are recent uploads) and all comments from after June of 2009. I don’t know as there were that many to begin with, but feel free to place them back when you get a chance.

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on December 25th, 2010  |  1 comment

Technical Difficulties

Well, folks, the web site was down for several weeks. Did anyone notice? Davecat, I think, was the only one.

If a site goes down in and no one is there to view it is it really down?
Would your answer be the same if the site had a continuous loop of a single hand whiffling past a microphone?

In any case, its back up. What happened:

My Debian virtual server LVM group was corrupted.

I had to attach the virtual disk to a OpenSUSE VM I had handy on my PC and run file repair on it.

This mostly got it back, but the OS was no longer bootable.

I extracted the web site files to tar.gz and did the same for the WordPress MySQL database file.

I found out the database was corrupt in ways that prevented it from running, but luckily the posts table looked OK.

I restored a backed up copy of my databases from 2009, dropped the tables I wanted to bring in from my salvaged November 2010 database, imported those tables in and voila!

You may notice some missing graphics. Those are the places where Jesus was carrying us. Or possibly where the files were eaten in the conflagration that eliminated my web site from the face of the earth in the first place. Either way, its a miracle!

So I’ll try to clean this mess up a little when I locate the images and put ‘em back (they’re mostly backed up)

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on December 22nd, 2010  |  0 comments

The HANDS

    An impartial survey of single housewives between the ages of 23 and 35 via parcel post was performed in the waning days of the 20th century. Researchers were surprised to find a strong trend towards static mouse cursors with no anthropomorphic properties in this coveted demographic.

    In the ensuing carnage, which saw the senseless slaughter of the galloping horse, the ghost-riding drum-roll, silenced metronome, and both the yellow AND blue marching dinosaurs, it was believed that all breeds of MS Hands were likewise wiped from the face of the puhblic Darpanet. The housewives rejoiced, and Microsoft finally made inroads into the home market where IBM’s WaRP had previously held the lion’s marketshare*.

    Some objected on cultural preservation grounds, believing that there was a place in this world for even the tackiest digital castoff. Dancing baby, tumbling football, rolling eyeball: each were snatched from the brink of extinction and given natural habitats in places like the Florida Panhandle’s “Hello World Farms” and “20 GOTO 10,” a Pheonix area refuge.

    I joined the roster of volunteers and, in 2009, I followed an anonymous tip to a crumbling crack-house in Pontiac, Michigan and there I located the last working copy of Windows XP Professional in Michigan. I inserted the cartridge into my Atari and, casting glances over my shoulder at the mean streets outside, began a frantic search through the archaic Windows folder.

    I shook, eyes a-wobble, as a full glove** of White Man Hand cursors were found huddling together, surviving on temp files and abandoned installer logs. They were sad, having either become separated from the rest of their kin having eaten them in desperation.

    Originally, there were Black Man Hand cursors, Black Girl Hand cursors and even White Girl Hand cursors. While I still search for these other lost glove-mates, I am still proud to announce that I made it out of Pontiac with this charming glove of White Man Hand cursors.

    My wife and I hosted a successful stud program avoiding the dangers of in-breeding, and when combined with a custom INF file and a ZIP file, we are adopting out gloves of these proud critters to anyone willing to give them a home.

The MS Hands
Right-click and save this:MS Hands Cursors

Unpack it somewheres. Open the resulting “Hands Cursors” folder, right-click on the Install.inf file and select “Install”. Now you can find the hands in the pointer section of the Mouse settings on your computer. This wouldn’t be necessary if you were running Windows XP, but there are no more Windows XP computers anymore.

* He and his pride collectively hold a 34%, non-voting share
** Crows travel in covens. Shopping carts travel in wobbles. Hands travel in gloves.

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on October 13th, 2010  |  2 comments

The 6th! Annual Retelling of the Real Story of the 4th! of July Story Story

Now! Even more accurate accuracy with Amazing Accurate Additions!


    There are those who believe that we as a society have lost track of what’s important in life; further, those say, we’ve have lost sight of what made us what we are. And ‘those’ are a quartet of elderly ladies I stood behind at the drug store this morning, sharing the cost of a paper between them and ruefully wagging their heads at the 4th of July iconography. It is in their honor that I begin this, my 6th annual retelling of the True Story of the 4th of July story story.

     On the 4th of July in 1776 America declared independence from its oppressive colonial masters. The surviving humans of the North American slave colony of New Jersey discovered, with the help of Ben Franklin and the then time-traveling Theodore Roosevelt, the fatal weakness of our alien masters, the D’Aret Krang.

     Ben Franklin’s research had revealed that the D’Aret Krang, a race of beings so genetically pure that they shared a single set of chromosomes, collectively suffered from a genetic propensity for epileptic seizures when exposed to bright, flashing lights. His rudimentary experimentation with electricity had failed to yield reproducible results, so Theodore Roosevelt was summoned from his time crypt once again to assist in finding a weaponizable source for blinky-blinkies.

     Unfortunately, Theodore Roosevelt’s time-travel machine had only one seat and this, combined with Thomas Edison’s homophobic fear of sitting on the manly lap of the massive Roosevelt, led the rebels to conclude that Edison could not be a part of the solution this time. Without Edison there was scant technology available to the desperate slaves of the time to take advantage of the newly discovered weakness.

     Fortunately Dolly Madison had an extensive collection of aesthetically pleasing incendiary devices gathered during her youthful journeys in the orient as a silk-trading ninja. A deployment of this technology was quickly organized by Paul Revere and El Quakerudo*, one which culminated in the simultaneous detonation of approximately 50 metric tons of saltpeter, gunpowder, and ‘fireworks.’

     The D’Aret Krang fell as one to the ground in a jiggly, hooting mass of alien flesh. George Washington and Nathaniel Hawthorn led bands of men in dragging our quivering former-masters into the very space craft that brought us our hateful overlords. They then programmed the ships to dive into the sun and America celebrated as the fleet of invaders burnt itself to cinders in the heliosphere if our favorite star, Sol.

     So join us in celebrating our victory, planet Earth! Thanks to our American forefathers (and a time-traveling Teddy) humans have been free to oppress themselves in peace ever since.

FREEDOM IS OURS! -peace out.

* Quakerudo is a musical group made up of youthful Quakers. As they discover their degenerate suxuality** they are replaced with fresh-faced and prepubescent replacements. There are always more fresh-faced and prepubescent replacements…

** I know what I said.

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on July 4th, 2010  |  0 comments

Sports

    Its common knowledge that someday an element of fatal force or weaponry will be added to one of our socially acceptable sport pursuits.
    Soon after that the newly endeadlified* sport will become a replacement for war and international diplomacy**.

    Until then, I’m going to continue to be that dick you know who finds the idea of watching sports to be unfathomable and tedious.

    I can understand the enjoyment of actually playing a sport, though I tend to get carried away and hurt myself or others when I try to participate. But seeing a gaggle of overpaid meat-heads run around on the same patch of dirt for an hour or three when the outcome will surely do me neither harm nor good is a waste of video-game time. Fact***.

    But, sadly, this is not a view shared by my lovely wife. Heather has always loved hockey, and I’ve gotten used to the months of hockey games taking up our evenings and influencing our schedules. I consoled myself with the fact that Hockey would end come spring-time and we would get our nights back.

    In recent years she’s added baseball to her body of interest, night games of which now extend the sports season in our house through the summer months. I’m ok with that, too.

    But now we have this world cup stuff going on and, while such occasions passed without note in years past, I now find myself watching still more wealthy men running around a patch of dirt for hours. Only now it is all while plastic trumpets blare their hornet calls through our screen door to passing bugs. The insects are incapable of playing soccer/football.

    Speaking of which, I found a fish fly on a front window. Reminds me of my early years in St Claire Shores, where the harmless nuisances would die their little deaths all over your car at a moments notice.


* Adjectives are like Legos, there’s no wrong way to build one.
** I’m hoping for Ultra Ping Pong or Maxi-Mini Golf
*** Subjective fact, possibly.

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on June 16th, 2010  |  3 comments

D-Bag training tips

    IN the interest of generating an easy and natural sense of empathy toward your fellow humans who happen to have chosen douche-baggary as a lifestyle, I now give you a few exercises you can perform that may help you understand just how difficult life as a douche can be, and how seductively powerful the just-douched feeling can provide. Hopefully, when you are done you’ll be able to interact with douche bags with the respect they deserve.

The Ize Have It:For 24 hours, every time you find yourself using a verb ending in “ate” or “y”, change the ending to “ize.
    Nullify = nullifize, gravitate = gravitize.
Also, randomly add “ize” to common nouns to turn them into verbs.
    Tator Tot = Tator Totize, Pencil = Pencilize
Conversely, you should replace the ending of any verb that naturally would end in “ize” with “ate”. (Do not use “y”, as it is too short and doesn’t sound quite so self-important and douchey.)
    “Democratize” should now be “Democratize” and “illiminate” becomes “illuminize.”

Soup Talker: For one week, eat lunch at Panera Bread. Halfway through eating, carry on a loud, obnoxious, business related conversation with your soup. Gesticulate** using your spoon when making self-important points so that hapless passersby will be sure to be impressed with your awesome intellect.

Omniscient Interruptor: For a period of time no less than eight hours, do not allow anyone you speak with to complete a declarative statement. Interrupt at around the half-way mark of any sentence you hear by stating “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was talking about..,” and then follow with an anecdote that can’t be easily applied to the discussion at hand.

Bob: “And we decided that Dad had to go into a home because Judy can’t possibly-”
You: “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was talking about with Chad yesterday when he told me he didn’t want to pay for the premium kennel to take care of Kratos when he went to Houston. It’s gotta be hard, man.

Opinion Contrarian For 48.5 hours, any time someone begins to tell you about something they like or love, take the earliest opportunity to tell them that you are not into it, and the reason you are not into it is because you tried it once, and concluded that only a tasteless philistine would be fool enough to get into it.

Bob: “I don’t think I’ve ever missed an episode of “Enigma 2000,” that show just really gets under my skin.”
You: “Yeah, I watched an episode. I thought it was way too derivative and, really, poorly written. I pretty much just drink spring water and read Cigar magazine during that timeslot.”

Bob:”I drive a Volkswagon Golf. Just picked it up, and it’s a load of fun to drive.”
You:”I test drove one of those during a sneak-peek at the Troy Motor Mall. It was OK, I guess, if you like rattles and don’t care about quality car audio. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure its fine for you, but it just isn’t my kind of car.”

Popped polo collar: Pop your polo collar.

While these may all seem pretty tough, they represent some of the few exercises* a lay-person can easily perform without having properly prepared his or herself for douche-baggery. Just imagine the mental gymnastics a real douche-bag must go through in order to maintain all the douche-mannarisms necessary to maintain their

* Exercate?
** Gesticulize

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on June 10th, 2010  |  3 comments

Meat Board

so it seems I’ve been invited to attend my 20th high school reunion this summer, and I’ve been asked to speak in my official capacity as a member of the Meat Advisory Board.

(sigh) So… I’m being dragged back into the life I’ve worked so hard to escape; Meat.

I thought I’d left Meat far behind, and these days I hardly ever think about my Big Meat lifestyle anymore, but I knew this day would come.

So I climbed into my attic and opened that old box, and took out the advisory binders, the pamphlets, the cattlemen branded rolodex cardfiler…

There it was, same as it was so long ago. safe handling guidelines, cooking directions, storage strictures, phone numbers of questionable people who I’d once used as sources of rare flavorings and tenderizers. Even a soft plush Meatie doll, which could easily double as a pink pillow if it weren’t for the Styrofoam tray and cellophane wrapping.

I carried them all down and lay them out upon the bed next to the invitation to my reunion.

I’ll admit my heart raced at the chance to once again speak before a crowd on the dangers of cross-contamination and the virtues of steak and pork tenderloin. I paced back and forth for minutes, crossing and uncrossing my arms, imagining cold animal flesh draped across my open and willing palms. I reorganized the binders, half-planning my agenda, but….

No.

No, I will not do it again. I made my peace long ago, and I’d vowed I would never lose another friend to Meat; I’d go as a civilian if I went at all.

In no time I’d tossed all my Meat paraphernalia back into the box from whence it had come, closd the attic and went downstairs to eat dinner with my family.

As I looked across the table at my little girls, I happily considered that they would have no memories of their father the Meat man, that they’d never know the fear that Daddy might not make it home tonight because he’s out on a dangerous speaking engagement.

My knife sliced through the breaded pork chop, and I dipped another fork-full into the apple sauce.

Posted in random by SafeTinspector on April 3rd, 2010  |  0 comments

Links

DaveCat - Shouting to…

That’s So Dos - Spock IS Enough

Kim Ayres - rambling beard

Zuba - A Practicing Moomin

Lyvvie’s Limelight - “Turn on your lime light!”

For the Love of Rocks - Maja in AU!

Mission Statement

It is not the relish that makes this hot-dog so delicious, it is the zeal!