Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Killer robots are coming

Serious - no shit, killer robots, run, take cover - Samsung is producing a robotic killer for the South Korean army who plan to deploy it all along their border with North Korea. Actually don't bother running - they can't move, just don't go *anywhere* near the border!

Kim Jong-il, movie fanatic that he is just has to be crapping himself - every movie-goer knows robots never miss, so this probably scuppers any plans he may have had to stroll over the border (you know aside from the fact that there's a guard post every 50 metres at the moment, with half the male population of South Korea nonchalantly polishing their rifles behind them)


ED209 not too keen on stairs SGR-A1 not too keen on North Koreans


The SGR-A1 (and you just know that's not hacker for SuGaR) has the capability to be equipped with lethal and non-lethal weapons, (no prizes for guessing what they'll be using), and has one mode which waits for a human controller to decide to fire and another where the robot makes the decision itself.

Decision making killing robots - whatever will they think of next?

Bombs for babies?

Have they never seen Terminator?

Apparently the robot is capable of differentiating between human and non-human targets by itself (cue commando raid in pantomime horse) and the South Koreans have basically made the decision that if its on two legs and coming from that direction, its probably not going to be selling cookies

On the plus side for the Koreans is the hope that this will reduce the amount of mandatory military service currently required from their citizens just to police their border. However you have to ask yourself whether you'd want to be the one approaching it with a screwdriver when it blows a fuse

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

How to add digg and delicious icons to Blogger

This whole blogging thing is pretty new to me (the writing of one not the reading and adding inane comments). Being the geek I am, I have spent the past week messing about making the whole thing pretty rather than actually write anything (yeah it actually took a fair amount of my spare time to create the crapulent mess on the right)

That said I wanted to see if I could get the now ubiquitous 'Digg this' type icons all over my blog without having to resort to the huge graphics they usually come packaged with

I found the basic code for a few buttons at the Techwrap blog (thanks), but unfortunately these were written for the old style blogger and not the new template so I updated the code slightly, then added buttons and all the usual stuff

The code

The buttons at the bottom of this post were added using the following two pieces of code:

1) The style tag - basically this stops the images from having the standard 5px border or whatever your template style is for images in the post section.

<style id='SubmitButtons' type='text/css'>
/*
-----------------------------------------------
Designer: Enrico Suarve
URL: http://waronstuff.blogspot.com
Date: 07 Mar 2007
----------------------------------------------- */

.submitbuttons {
}
.submitbuttons img {
border: 0px solid #FFFFFF;
}
</style>



2) The buttons

<span class='submitbuttons'>
<a Title='Submit To Digg' expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=3&amp;url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt=' Digg ' border='1' height='16' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKCbWXsUhvmXIw8h4mfZAi4VNgNJa2ap2myHX1ovVNj0sIYmozWW2z8YnOEtk5mVPHv_y740BIQ628KamCgMG-U5qaHfyJf0Q3TMPLhZDDh_3cAlKUDJ03fRgb5IahOkh2pGj_5g/s200/SubmitDigg.gif' width='16'/></a>

<a Title='Submit To Del.icio.us' expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt=' Del.icio.us ' height='16' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfBOWpEOgTJHfmHyGWYQYNrc7hGmVC_MMhNYnNaSEbkUweLwjmgETjyFuRlf6i-RprL9wfi6KKI9ppB6eMEnShaQi_fHpcTZq9TqpjuCKWq-hXg4LC9q1679FNr3WXxOfv3xSOjw/s200/SubmitDelicious.gif' width='16'/></a>

<a Title='Submit To reddit' expr:href='"http://reddit.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url' target='_blank'><img alt=' Reddit ' height='16' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdE_ynzmI7OrH9qRfl1ATpiVBI5be2SBAoILg8QMQl2RenZlLkF2UTkotS0yUQjwzKnP_4EM8G6j5_biaLz1JrNO3m6EemvCivkLXk8L04zC2dke_Zj9cM4K4I3O8HAoa3D_4i3A/s200/SubmitReddit.gif' width='16'/></a>

<a Title='Submit to SlashDot' expr:href='"http://slashdot.org/bookmark.pl?url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt=' SlashDot ' height='16' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgks9_-sMgYKkfOPJiVZCanuCCiWfQ4V43bsYF8wfJDnBx6iQBpqmfDxChGUNpivj4lDr2lVa_Cbi-YkvdM4qnlm8pAny8QDwmRIxkxai0O5RjqnBnrWNeEO3jLSk5G116bHQYlFQ/s200/SubmitSlashdot.gif' width='16'/></a>
</span>


How to add this to your template


Adding the buttons to your code is done by going into blogger, clicking on the template tag at the top, and selecting the option 'Edit HTML' from the choices beneath this. This should bring up the code for your blog in an XML format in the large window beneath, make sure you tick the option 'expand widget templates' above the text box and you're ready

Copy and paste the style code just before the line "</head>", this will place it in the page header. It's important it goes just here at at the end of the header, so that when the time comes any style you write for the image overwrites the existing img styles in the rest of the header (don't worry it will only overwrite for the submit buttons)

Next look for where to insert the button code - the template I use has a few points that look logical but I found that in some of them the buttons only appeared on individual blogs or only on my homepage, its worth experimenting. I found the best place (in my opinion) was right after the quickedit pencil code...


Lines from 'standard' blogger template
<!-- quickedit pencil -->
<b:include data='post' name='postQuickEdit'/>

I started pasting the button code here
</span>
<span class='submitbuttons'>..............



The syntax
If you want to add buttons of your own my advice is to manually submit pages to sites like Digg and spot what the URLs are doing, or see if the site shows you how to construct the URL. For reference the URL to submit to Digg is '"http://digg.com/submit?phase=3&amp;url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title'

NOTES
  • The entire URL should be encapsulated in single quote marks (') and the hard coded text pieces should be encapsulated in speechmarks (")
  • data:post.url - this is the permanent link to the post (NOT your homepage)
  • data:post.title - this is the title of the post
Please feel free to use this in your own pages and link to it - I'd be really interested in anyone has any improvements ;0)

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Virus checkers compared and Microsoft found lacking

Independent Anti-Virus testers www.av-comparatives.org have published their findings for their latest run of tests here

AntiVirusKit (AVK) by G DATA Security was the winner out of the 17 Products tested

Perhaps most interestingly was the fact that Microsoft's OneCare scored so poorly it did not even warrant a rating in the results. This alone should be vindication for the EU who slapped an AntiTrust suit on Microsoft to prevent them from locking off their kernel, thereby reducing the effectiveness of other AV products - thank god we aren't forced to rely on OneCare!

Also tested were

AEC - TrustPort AV WS
Alwil Software - Avast! Professional
AVIRA - AntiVir PE Premium
Doctor Web - Dr. Web
ESET - NOD32 Anti-Virus
Fortinet - FortiClient
Frisk Software - F-Prot Anti-Virus
F-Secure - F-Secure Anti-Virus
GriSoft - AVG Anti-Malware
Kaspersky Labs - Kaspersky AV
McAfee - McAfee VirusScan
Microsoft - Microsoft OneCare
MicroWorld - eScan Anti-Virus
Norman ASA - NormanVirusControl
Softwin - BitDefender Prof.+
Symantec - Norton Anti-Virus

Monday, March 05, 2007

Spammer stung for £1300 by trail-blazing scotsman

According to the register Gordan Dick from Edinburgh managed to pursue a spam company (Transcom Internet Services Ltd) through the small-claims court in the UK and sue them for £1300 (including costs)

This is only the second time in UK history this has been achieved but significantly on this occasion it was not settled out of court, showing that these cases can be brought to term in the UK and fully prosecuted, it is worth noting however that it is still only possible to bring cases against companies operating from the UK themselves

Mr Dick has set up a website scotchspam.org.uk to share his hard won knowledge with others looking to do the same. It includes sample mails to send to spam companies warning of legal action and steps to take from then on

Nice one Mr Dick

Saturday, March 03, 2007

UK petition against Vista pricing

Hi - this is my first ever real blog

I have no idea how this whole thing is going to turn out - perhaps it will turn into an embarrassing travesty of a sham or perhaps this will be a turning point - who knows and who cares

I have no direction for my blog in my head yet and kind of hope one will come to me later, but one thing I would like to try and achieve is helping more people to become actively involved in issues that effect them - yeah that would be nice, its going on my list and everything

That said an interesting article in Techdirt caught my eye - Microsoft are charging an amazing 80% more for some versions of Vista in the UK as in the US, same program, same version, hell probably even the same barcode

Compare these prices on the .com and .co.uk Amazon sites:
In the US RRP is $399.95 (£205.78)
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-Vista-Ultimate-VERSION/dp/B000HCTYTE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/002-8357043-9917641?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1172846584&sr=8-3
In the UK RRP is £369.99
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Vista-Ultimate-PC/dp/B000KCIA5A/ref=pd_ka_4/202-3306029-8626215?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1172846652&sr=8-4

Why?

There are several comments on the Techdirt posting regarding how that’s 'just the way it is', and how people can always buy from the US then ship over themselves, but the average consumer is probably not going to know to do this and will be royally ripped off

A petition has been set up on the Downing Street website to ask the government to intervene and I would suggest any UK citizen who is tired of being charged more for the same goods in the UK, to sign (it's easy and pretty painless). I would encourage people to do this even if they have no intention of ever purchasing Vista - it’s the entire principle which is at stake, hopefully we can highlight public opinion to our government and strengthen trade legislation in general

Anyhow that’s it for a first post (shit that was dull) - rant over

Enrico