The SoapVox

…and counting. For those that don't know, I'm getting married this Friday :) And yes, for those that know me and have heard/read my old I'm-not-getting-married-ever rants…I'll happyly eat my crow, because I think we'll actually manage to be happy together...as incredible as that sound coming from me :) So, if on Friday you remember, say a small prayer for me and my girl :)

So, as a good geek who gets hypnotized by pretty gadgets, I got myself a 3G iPhone :) Then I discovered that the WP people had put out an iPhone app, so...I had to test it...and this is the first post I write on it :) I still need to figure out a few things about how this thing works, so I may even start posting more often now :) Oh! It seems like I broke the categories for the blog when I upgraded WP to get support for the iphone app...I think they are all fixed now, let me know if something is still broken after you read this post

I know, I know, it's been months since my last post....but it's been nothing but work work and more work for months for me, and...well, that cycle has finally been broken this weekend. Friday night, the 22nd, Iron Maiden brought their show to Monterrey, for the first time in over 10 years (tho...the previous two times they were in town was in the Bruce-less era, which in my book doesn't count :) and it was everything I expected it to be and much more. I last saw Maiden live 20 years ago, when I was living in the US, and all 4 concerts were great, but...I finally understand why Edgar keeps telling me that there's no concerts in the world as fun as a concert in Monterrey...damn, it was the best concert I've ever been to, and I've been to many. For starters, Maiden decided to go right ahead and start without an ...

Freakonomics, one of the...most particular blogs out there, in which everything and anything gets analyzed with tools usually used to analyze economics, there's a very very interesting post from yesterday: Bruce Schneier Blazes Through Your Questions. It's a *long* interview, with several very interesting questions and even more interesting answers by Bruce...in his inimitably funny-but-ouch style, with jewels such as: users will always be a problem, and the only real solution is to limitthe damage they can do. (Anyone who says that the solution is toeducate the users hasn’t ever met an actual user.) I have to agree with him...users can't be fixed, only contained, like an epidemic. Go read the interview, it's well worth the time. If you really have time, read the links he posts too, well worth most of them, particularly the one linking to Bruce's interview of Kip Hawley, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)...if you are short on ...

I found an interesting article at Rands in Repose, a blog I hit now and then, with the catchy name "The Nerd Handbook". Now...I think of myself and most of my friends as geeks, and I see nerds as socially-inept geeks (yes, most geeks *do* have social graces...we just tend to be extremely choosy :P :) and I'm not really sure if I agree with Rands on the use of the word "nerd" for the stereotype that he's talking about...the mere fact that he's writing as if talking to the SO of a nerd makes me think he's more refering to geeks than nerds...and that's why I think it's sorta relevant to this blog :) I particularly had fun reading the section he titles "Advanced Nerd Tweakage", in which he tries to advice the SO about how to make it so she can use her nerd's quirks in her own favor, ...

I know, I know, it's been a while, but life's been busy as hell....tho I've been reading, actually re-reading, one of the best military SF series out there, and I'll have a review out some time soon...I won't promise when, but soon :) Meanwhile, I found this one through Cofradia, a mexican geek portal that some times even has good stuff, like this post. Go read it, do the whois mentioned there...funny as hell :)

Bruce Schneier found a very, very interesting series of articles on cio.com called Who's Stealing your passwords? Global hackers create a new online crime economy which, apart from the misuse of the word hacker (should, instead, be cracker)that has become so prevalent, is a pretty interesting and deep analysis of what malware has become and may become in the future. The article is made up of 3 main posts: Hacker Economics 1: Malware as a Service Hacker Economics 2: The Conspiracy of Apathy Hacker Economics 3: The Next Wave of Malware It's an interesting view of what the professional black hats are into lately...and it's scary as hell. There's also a few sidebar pieces that complete the set, from Key Malware Terms, to a view Inside a Hacker's Site: Screenshots...I think the whole thing is well worth a read, specially if you are responsible for the security of data for your company or even just ...

So, do you remember back a couple of months ago when Microsoft decided to sneak an update on everybody, even those that had configured their computers to ask before doing any updates, without a warning? Well, the scandal is back on, because said stealth update has provoked a serious problem for users. According to SecuritiFix's Brian Krebs, people who have used the Rescue option off their CDs after getting that stealth upgrade can no longer get security upgrades. Yup, no more upgrades for you. Brian's post Microsoft's Stealth Update Backfires for Some Users is worth a read, specially because he points at some workarounds for those that are affected by this problem. Now...you see why I love Free Software? :)

I found an interesting post on Groklaw today, called 10 Myths About Open Source Software Answered, by Carlo Daffara. Yup, it's a contributed article, not something written by PJ, but it's not the first time she invites somebody to write something interesting. And interesting it is. Carlo takes 10 very popular negative myths about FLOSS and then proceeds to trounce them, and trounce them good. Among the myths, he talks about: Myth #1: It's a Linux-vs-Windows thing. Myth #3: Big companies don't use Open Source software. Myth #4: Open Source software is hostile to intellectual property. Myth #6: If I give away my software to the Open Source community, thousands of developers will suddenly start working for me for nothing. There's, of course, 6 other myths, and there's intelligent and interesting debunking of each of the ten, including sources for data and all the nice stuff that makes for the kind of fun debate in which ...

Well, it seems like SCO decided to apply for Chapter 11...many of us who have followed the SCO saga believe that they did that just to get a stay on the Novell case and so they wouldn't have to return Novell's money to them...but I'm pretty sure that no matter what they try, they'll get what's coming to them....paying Novell and then Chapter 7 :) I know I'm a few days late for the celebration, but it's part of life lately . On the other hand, better later than never :) There's not much for me to say about this, mostly because Pam Jones and the other groklawsters have already said it all...go read about the whole deal there, there's several articles already: Texas Shows an Interest in the SCO Bankruptcy SCO Receives Nasdaq Notice Letter, Gives Tibbitts Raise and Bonus 1 Day Before Filing for Bankruptcy More Details On What Happened At the ...