Simple web design can delight
July 17, 2008 – 8:53 am
I’m on the move soon. I was checking out the site for Britannia removals.
Their regional branch map location page thing features photos of Britannia packing boxes nestling somewhere in each region. It’s not cutting edge design, it’s very much web 1.0 but it made an otherwise pedestrian set of pages that bit more entertaining. I found myself clicking round the regions to look at the other pictures (shame they’d missed some out).
I particularly liked the North East region page where they’d made it look like the Angel of the North was stood on a Britannia box.
I want Sandy…
July 10, 2008 – 2:27 pm
Sandwiched between my ever increasing list of bookmarks you’ll find a link to my new secretary, her name is Sandy. When I first heard about her, I wanted her, which makes the URL iwantsandy.com quite appropriate
Basically once you’ve registered for free, you can email Sandy with a message along the lines of ‘remind me to send Max a birthday card on 12th March, she’ll read it and send you a reminder email at the appropriate time the good thing is she can remind your friends too.
DNS is broken(ish)
July 9, 2008 – 3:30 pm
The BBC and other main stream media websites have been covering this issue today.
Dan Kaminsky found the issue 6 months ago and has managed to get the world’s biggest companies to work together to issue patches and fixes.
The “Issue” in question is a serious vulnerability in the world’s DNS system, as yet unpublished, which essentially meant that your requests for websites could have been redirected at will by hackers.
I’m desperately trying to highlight that this issue has been fixed, or is being fixed… and trying and not turn it into a Daily Mail style hackers-are-going-to-steal/knife-your-children post.
Dan Kaminsky’s niece manages to explain the issue rather well..
Getting back to Dan and his efforts. He was also able to convince Yahoo to publicly ditch an unpatchable system (BIND 8). Yahoo are the world’s biggest user of BIND 8 so this is a massive undertaking and highlights the seriousness of the issue.
Dan Kaminsky has not yet published the issue and to quote directly from his website he is asking for 30 days to get this in place.
…But I also want my family to be able to use the Internet in peace. I’m not asking for forever. I am asking about thirty days. I’ve done everything in my power to get the patches available, no matter the platform….
The family part of the quote in my mind cements the seriousness of the issue he has found.
He is also asking fellow security experts/hackers to not to try and figure out the issue and concentrate on fixing existing issues…another quote:
And so, I ask the open research community…assume I found nothing! Assume this is nothing but a stunt….
The last person to leave the internet please turn off the lights…
Why nuclear power is not a sustainable source of low carbon energy
July 8, 2008 – 12:31 pm
An interesting article by John Busby from a newsgroup I subscribe to : csrblokes arguing that nuclear fails as a sustainable energy source on 2 counts:
- To meet global energy demands today (let alone in the coming decades) we would need 20,000 new nuclear power stations, and there simply isn’t enough Uranium around to supply them with fuel - i.e. not sustainable
- Uranium mining and refining emits more carbon than it saves for all but the very purest of ores - i.e. not a low carbon energy source
It’s a pretty convincing and damning article and makes a farce of this government’s energy policy. Read the abridged version here:
http://www.depletion-scotland.org.uk/jb_nuclear.htm
and the full version here:
Another cracking site launched
July 4, 2008 – 5:38 pm
We’ve just launched another site this week. Premier Sports Group provide sports coaching, sports holiday courses, kit and tours for schools and parents. Their new site has a fresh design and they’ve got full control over the content they put in thanks to Contented.
Time for a traditional post launch pint.