the baseblog

Talking about Immigration

baseface — 2006-05-14T18:12:05+02:00

What if the Pilgrims... (found on youtube.com)

Pretty Girls make Graves

baseface — 2006-05-01T09:54:15+02:00

At least the dog is a nice person ;-)

George W Bush doesnt like black people

baseface — 2006-04-22T13:47:42+02:00

Intimate Confessions

baseface — 2006-01-13T22:40:10+01:00

That were some fertile talks for sure, just sad while they had so much fun they totally forgot to talk about human rights and abducted german citizens.

Happy New Year! (belated)

baseface — 2006-01-05T11:13:48+01:00

I know I treat my english-speaking website like a stepchild lateley, but I do promise to improve update-frequency. As a good start I put some new photos online showing snowfalls and lights during the season. Enjoy!

George W Bush gives the flag to victims

baseface — 2005-12-22T18:50:10+01:00

George W Bush decided to bring the flag to each and every victim of his familys crusades. With over 30000 Iraqis killed, 2100+ heroes dead and an unkown number of collateral damage during the last Iraq War alone. This journey is reported to be Bush´s final one, as he promised not only to bring the flag, but to pay all funeral costs and 1 million dollars US to the families the victims left behind. Since this travel will take quite a while, Bush is not expected to return during his lifetime, elections will be on January 1st, 2006. baseface.com says: Great Job Mr. Bush!

Apple chickens out on mobile Industry

baseface — 2005-12-18T13:17:02+01:00

As The Register reported Apple ditched the ringtone segment from their iTunes Music Store. What a coward´s move there Steve Jobs, I submit you would have stirred up the entire ringtone market for sure, but you missed that opportunity. Ringtone market in Europe has always been a big cash cow for mobile service providers, kids paying up to 3 Euro for one single ringtone. With that argument given it´s easy to understand why Steve Jobs didn´t take the challenge, it would have been hard to explain, why you could buy a song for 99 cent, but had to pay 2 or 3 dollars/euro for a ringtone. On the other hand, selling ringtones at a price like 50 cent, which I would regard as sufficient, would make some maybe important future partners like eg Vodafone mad at Apple and it would have spoiled furture business possibilities. However, shareholder-value wins over value, again.

GW Bush and his iPod

baseface — 2005-12-16T15:55:12+01:00

After baseface.com got wire of George W Bush using an ipod, there was no way I could stop special investigator "laylow" from finding out what´s on the playlist of the most powerful man in the world. I cannot explain how he managed to get the results as I do protect my sources und if you wanna know, sue me, I will be the one carrying the heavy wooden cross in the courtyard. George W Bush´s top 10 tunes on his iPod. 01. The Chipmunks - Whistle while you work 02. Phil Collins - Against all Odds 03. Gunshot - World War 3 04. Suicidal Tendencies - War inside my head 05. Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK 06. The Ink Spots - I don´t want to set the world on fire 07. The Chipmunks - Ragtime Cowboy Joe 08. Cranberries - Zombie 09. Paul Hardcastle - 19 10.

Good Percentage, Soldier

baseface — 2005-12-12T23:03:17+01:00

Howdy Partner, that was some grrrrreat shooting out there. I know it is digusting to put up a deathcount, but facing 2140 Victims on US Army side, this war seems more like a butcher´s job. Regarding these 30 k dead people only count the victims since 2003 invasion, another landmark I wish I had never seen during my lifetime.

Sista speaks

baseface — 2005-12-07T16:45:55+01:00

A creative virtual reality.

Bush´s new guy in PR department

baseface — 2005-12-06T20:54:38+01:00

After getting into some trouble about kidnapping a german citizen. The President of the United States hired a new Chief in Charge for his Department for PR and Misinformation.

Apple issues and the future [again]

baseface — 2005-12-02T21:22:56+01:00

The K-10 form filed by AAPL concerning the the review of the past financial Period points out clearly where Apple is heading. The filing said: "[Apple] is currently focused on market opportunities related to digital music distribution and related consumer electronic devices, including iPods. The company faces increasing competition from other companies promoting their own digital music products, including music enabled cell phones, distribution services, and free peer-to-peer music services. "These competitors include both new entrants with different market approaches, such as subscription services models, and also larger companies that may have greater technical, marketing, distribution, and other resources than those of [Apple]." I see no need to comment on this as it is exactly my point all the way, Apple has turned into an audio company rather than a company building computers for creative people. At the same time AAPL is reported to leave the path of high price, high performance machines towards cheap products for the mass market. Shareholder value wins over value.

Home Sweet Home Mr. Bush

baseface — 2005-11-29T23:31:28+01:00

Baseface.com managed to get a mini-cam into GW Bush´s bathroom. Though his dad claimed he was not even fit to sit on the throne, baseface.com proves daddy was wrong. Nice interior, Mr President!

GW Bush eaten by Cow

baseface — 2005-11-29T10:24:23+01:00

It was about time the cows fought back and ate the cowboys. (Picture by LLL - thank you)

Bush and the Magic Door

baseface — 2005-11-28T12:27:37+01:00

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs in x86 Hell

baseface — 2005-11-24T15:39:34+01:00

Not much going on concerning Apple, Steve Jobs and Macintosh. Rumor Sites keep spinning on Intel-Macs and those problems regarding OS X on generic x86 hardware. Its all leaking to the net like mad... it cannot be stopped anymore, even if Steve Jobs now told the world, "it was all a joke, we won´t change", it is too late. The moment the first OS X version ran on an intel machine, no matter developer or hacker, the fight was lost in fact. It is not important how much money and time AAPL will spend for securing their OS from being pirated and installed anywhere, Steve opened Pandorra´s box and now he has to deal with the results. I dont care about imaginary patens or whatever TCP,PCP,or TMCIA chip can be found inside the new Intelmacs, it will be cracked. Maybe Mr Jobs did never get to this point, but he is not omnipotent and Apple alongside isnt either. Maybe it is not his fault but the cultists fault that made him their leader, maybe he did not even want things to come to this. Nevertheless things do change very fast when it comes to AAPL at the moment.

Apple OS X webkit security problem

baseface — 2005-11-22T19:08:49+01:00

There we go, OS X legendary security has been open to manipulation all the way. Secureosx.com reports on a problem in Apple´s webkit technology which allows to fool the user into believing to eg visit a trusted website while in fact the user is already trapped in a phishing setup. This is some serious threat, I just hope Apple will solve this problem quick. With Apple-cultists searching for excuses rather than solutions I doubt the fix for this problem is soon to be expected, stay alert !

Defeat Sony DRM and Apple twice

baseface — 2005-11-21T19:40:29+01:00

Surprise , Sony´s bad rootkit DRM technique seems to be easily defeated using a piece of tape. The user can simply apply a fingernail-sized piece of opaque tape to the outer edge of the disc, rendering session 2 - which contains the self-loading DRM software, unreadable. Reminds me of those times you could trick DRM CDs with a marker pen. Two not to friendly news came up for AAPL today, as they have been sued again over patent infringment which seems to concern the itunes application. The other news Apple-cultists and investors won´t like is OSX 10.4.3 for INTELmac has been cracked and will be available on filesharing-networks for sure. I am still sure there are even more news on the leaked 10.4.3 to come - some country´s ZDNet will testrun it for sure, those guys seem to be on Apple´s "green list" to violate EULA.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Parody on SNL

baseface — 2005-11-20T14:35:41+01:00

Have a little sunday´s laugh, a real funny parody on Steve Jobs and his ever changing ipod products has been reported by ipodgarage.com. You can watch the clip from the show here or in facebase media archive. Have Fun!

Q&A on Sony rootkit,WOZ and a big thank you

baseface — 2005-11-19T16:55:21+01:00

I feel it is getting boring but it is to start off with Sony again. The Seatle Times has published a Q&A on Sony´s rootkit and possible security threats. The Q&A is not too detailed and a lot of questions remain unanswered, but the author welcomes readers to send questions via mail. Steve Wozniak will recieve a honorary degree from Kettering University. Congrats WOZ ! If I could, I would give a honorary degree to brandcenter.de for always designing and creating the little pictures I need so desperately for my web projects. Thank you!

Sony, Open Source and Apple

baseface — 2005-11-18T11:11:41+01:00

Is there a day to pass without a news or a blogpost about Sony? This Company got some serious technical problems for sure. Technical means in all fields of the trade. Not only do they use stolen code from open source MP3 application/codec LAME, but they had to put up a list of 52 rootkit "infected" music cds, because Sony´s Uninstaller did cause more trouble than the rootkit itself. Remember to report the eff.org in case you own one of the cds and/or ran into trouble with it. Meanwhile in Cupertino,silence, but rumor sites keep Apple fans in motion reporting about new gadgets like the never-forgotten idea of an iPod PDA. Harry McCracken for PC World´s Techlog sums up the things to come. I really hope those Intelbooks will be released soon, I cannot wait to see the all new benchmarks that will paint a beautiful picture of how superior the x86 is over the PPC. The PPC which is, as Steve Jobs wanted to make us believe many years before, more powerful than any x86. Do the facts really have changed from one day to the other? If that is the case, why do the other companies like Microsoft or Sony switch to PPC platform? These questions will be answered as soon as the Intelbook finally arrives, or new lies will be told...

Sony DRM exploited by hackers

baseface — 2005-11-17T18:03:35+01:00

Lets start right away with the fun news. Sony busted on distributing and installing spyware-like DRM rootkit on you PC, strikes again, this time the Uninstaller Sony itself offered is used by Hackers to exploit the rootkit DRM and take over computers or log personal details. Silicon.com reports some took the malicious Uninstaller off their websites. Even defaced and hijacked online Uninstallers are reported. Thats a big one for sure and its fully ok for Sony to have loads of trouble coming up on their dirty tricks.

EMI,Warner and Sony BMG to push iTMS prices

baseface — 2005-11-16T23:31:21+01:00

Music Industry knows how to do some bad timing thats for sure. Today Forbes.com reports Alain Levy, boss of EMI group, said, he expected Steve Jobs to offer new pricing models to the users of the iTunes Music Store. What does that mean for the consumer? EMI,Warner and Sony have been pulling strings to make Apple move away from their fixed-price system (0.99 $US) towards a more flexible one. They would love the Music Store to sell older tracks for less while selling the new stuff at a price higher than 1 dollar. Seems like music industry started an internal race for the "scare-the-consumer-away" championship.

Steve Jobs scores 2nd place

baseface — 2005-11-16T13:50:31+01:00

Steve Jobs reaches a respectable 2nd place in Steven Levy´s " Can´t we all just get along " awards. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is awarded with 2nd place for keeping people from playing their legally bought iTunes Music Store tracks on any hardware or portable player other than the ipod and/or itunes application. At the same time the consumer cannot play their DRM tracks from other online stores on the ipod, so AAPL got their product locked up nice and tightly. This years winner was AOL for limiting their AIM services as a closed community. Strange... Sony´s rootkit mishabits do not appear on that list...coincidence? Personally I would have had Steve getting first price, not for the dirty tricks, but for the ability to make his followers believe even the biggest lies.

Sony CDs pulled back and accused again

baseface — 2005-11-15T22:45:50+01:00

Stormy weather for Sony and Sony BMG nowadays. Sony BMG is reported to not only to pull DRM rootkit CDs from sales but also to exchange already bought DRM rootkit CDs for free. Thats at least one sign of interest in consumers wishes. But thinking again, if Sony really cared about people buying from them, Sony would not have put up that nasty DRM system in the first place. I am definitely not going to buy any Sony BMG product in the future or more brief until they change their ways for good. The mother of BMG on the other hand is not doing any better. Sony is reported to have taken part in a cartel to fix prices for internet retailers. A complaint by major online-discounters has been filed to the Office of Fair Trading. Things are not working out too fine for Sony that is for sure. I have to submit, I love the idea of seeing that giant tumble and fall. Maybe just one of my morbid phantasies, maybe a colorful metaphor for the things to come.

AAPL, MSFT and SNE earn on DRM

baseface — 2005-11-15T14:06:17+01:00

Who´s bad? Those who always thought Microsoft was the source of all evil and DRM in the world you were proven wrong for sure during the last weeks. Sony got busted for installing rootkit DRM on users machines, Microsoft takes action on removing the rootkit, considered as a possible security hole. In fact first viruses/trojanhorses/worms whatever you call those exploits have already been spotted taking advantage of Sony´s rootkit to hide themselves. So Microsoft seems to be that knight on the white horse protecting the user, well you will have to pay for their help in one way or the other for sure. Finally there is Apple, a company run by an ex-hippie, but do you think Steve Jobs ever imagined things coming to this? I am positive he never did, even not in his wildest acid dreams. So were does Apple stand? On the one hand they made big deals with record industry for sure, one the other hand DRM is in fact already built so deep into OSX most users do not notice until they try to burn a cd with something else than iTunes(DRM music can only be burned on a mac using Apple´s iTunes application). It seems the user got only to choose bad from worse. I have never been a LINUX geek and in fact I have made some folks from the LINUX community mad at me by some comments on certain sites, but when it comes to freedom there is no half-step solution. So I will have to reconsider operating systems no doubt. Quo vadis?

Forget the iPod - go for a "PEZpod"

baseface — 2005-11-14T15:22:33+01:00

Pat Misterovich presents his homemade mp3 player. Remember PEZ candy? Sure you do. Now imagine an ipod shuffle in a PEZ dispenser. PEZmp3 is a fully licensed product, that means the PEZ company set up a deal with Pat Misterovich, who is a stay-at-home-dad assembling the PEZpods. So if you like the idea of supporting this surely great idea you should hurry up since its a limited edition. Make sure to check the features site its full of those little details, like popping the players head back as if you wanted a PEZ for turning on the music. I am sure these thingys will score high cash on ebay as soon as "official" sales are over.

iPod phone logical next step?

baseface — 2005-11-12T00:19:16+01:00

Does one really need much to imagine an Apple mobile phone based on the iPod nano? How about Apple´s friendship with Motorola? Does Apple really want to spoil expections with that lousy ROKR mobile? Or is it more a testrun for the real deal? How about a joint venture in the field of hardware? How about installing one of those small phone devices into the iPod nano? The backside of the nano would be just perfect for phone mic and speaker. C´mon Apple give the crowd what it wants...

Apple and bogus patents

baseface — 2005-11-11T13:08:22+01:00

As I blogged 2 days ago a patent filed by Apple describing how to protect OS X from running on gerneric x86 hardware, suddently popped up from the big nothing. Today Andrew Orlowski of channelregister.co.uk put up some interesting facts from the patent and the things happening around it. Especially the wrong spellings and unclear descriptions of the technique make engineers wonder if that patent will be accepted in the first place, they even wonder if it will work at all in the second place. Looks like AAPL filed some imaginary friend there for ensuring stockholders there would be no whatsoever danger for the company´s most valuable piece OS X. Though I reject any kind of TCPA and DRM , I should certainly hope there is some substance behind this patent, for Apple´s sake.

Sony BMG to be slapped for DRM

baseface — 2005-11-11T00:45:42+01:00

A big feature on Scurityfocus.com reports about the whole story about Sony´s just discovered DRM technique.This informative and richly linked article gives a perfect insight in the things going on. Numerous lawfirms are reported to have filed complains.Jason Schultz of EFF looks out for victims of the rootkit DRM technique. This whole thing is another disgusting episode in music industry´s fight for profit and even worse control.They still dont see that they do scare people off their products,they still believe they are right, but how can they be right,installing software on your computer without letting you know or control it like some cheap spyware rat? Maybe those well dressed guys and girls at Sony should get their behinds to the streets and listen to what the people want. Music Industry has to understand they cannot simply do whatever they like. Before I forget... if Sony BMG sales go down from now on , its not the people´s fault but their very own,but again I am sure they will blame the consumer for their mistake. This makes me sick!

OS X on Intel facts

baseface — 2005-11-10T17:36:04+01:00

A very interesting article on OS X on Intel has been published on eweek.com.The quite long text points the reader towards numerous interesting links to gain insights on "Marklar" and other milestones from Apple´s road to Intel. After reading the article I somehow came to the conclusion, Intel chips may only be found in consumer products rather than in pro series(bye,bye Intel Powerbook?!).On the other hand news on Intelmacs rush in like crazy,which supports the idea of early Intelmacs in Q1/2006. Times do change,unfortunately in some cases.

Mac OS X on x86 reviewed

baseface — 2005-11-10T16:10:26+01:00

Mac OS X on x86 reviewed by ZDNet´s Jason O'Grady -- It's been proven that OS X can be hacked to run on Intel's x86 hardware platform, but is the performance going to suffer? -> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=33 So ZDNet submits to have violated Apple´s EULA by stating "crazy Brits" from ZDNet England would have installed an OS X Intel developer version on a generic Toshiba Notebook, well I take it there will be some lawsuits soon. - Somebody dropped the dime...

Quicktime,OS Wars and Cultists

baseface — 2005-11-09T11:57:58+01:00

The more Apple´s operating system gets into the focus of security companies, the more possible security holes seem to be found.Zdnet Australia reports about a security problem in Quicktime that could allow an attacker to remotely run code on others machines. Did anyone really think Mac users wouldnt be target for (virtual) attacks? Sad enough, yes, there are people who will tell you "there is no need to worry, there are no whatsoever security problems on Mac OS". Apple gears up for Armageddon, thats not much of a new thing to me,again an "Apple insider" claims, Apple would have no problem making sure future software products only to run on Apple hardware.The fun part is, they talk about a patent there, so its not even sure it has been built yet. BTW. talking about patents, a way to travel the universe, with no need for more energy than the amount powering a flashlight, in the speed of thought - details later... Usually Mac users are counted among the better-off and better educated, but that doesnt mean there are not spoiled fruits in the basket.Especially when it comes to stock market, AAPL shareholders seem to have some problems with people having other opinions, they even tend to get personal in such cases.

AAPL downrated - Sony busted

baseface — 2005-11-04T13:45:27+01:00

Now how can this happen? Isnt growth eternal? It seems like it is not.Even at forbes.com they are busy discussing the reason for that rebelious broker house to cut expections. A reader of the baseblog(this website) pointed me to another blog about Sony installing cloaked DRM software on peoples computers.While Sony tried to downplay the situation ever since they were busted with the smoking gun - they seem to have changed their politics now and offer advice on removing the illegally installed DRM software. If you are interested in this field of knowledge you should check slyck.com every now and then.

RIAA vs the people

baseface — 2005-11-03T16:23:48+01:00

There is the grandfather who is ordered to pay a 600k $US for his grandson downloading four movies via iMesh(which the grandson owns legally in the form of DVDs - well more a MIAA case) and this is only one of the numerous cases you can find in this blog by a New York Lawfirm. While I do not in any way support infringement of copyrighted material, the guys on the right side of the law seem to have no guilty conscious about illegal and half way professional ways to get people sued. If MIAA,RIAA and whatever all those IAAs are told, keep on their rude and frivolous habits in pushing people into lawsuits, there is no surprise in people rejecting their rules and denying reason.

DRM, the worm in the Apple?

baseface — 2005-11-01T21:08:05+01:00

Apple: Not a DRM monopoly yet, but behavior is monopolistic by zdnet's David Berlind : "In another blog entry that I published earlier today regarding how something as simple as the playback of one track of a music CD can result in the surreptitious installation of a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) Trojan horse on your system, I also discuss how the DRM technology found on certain CDs is incompatible with [...]"

Time to slow down, thug poetry

baseface — 2005-10-29T15:56:11+02:00

I am the snow, I come silently over the land, I cover everything under my wings, being cold, I still protect the weak (plants) from bad frost, I bring silence, I swallow sounds and thoughts, then,when spring comes, I fly into the sun.

Steve Jobs Halloween Mask

baseface — 2005-10-27T23:20:49+02:00

Maybe Halloween is getting a little bit of a hype in here but there is another fun article that caught my attention.A satirical Forbes.com article by David M. Ewalt features full size Halloween masks(designed by James Hickey) of Steve Jobs (aka Darth Vader),Alan Greenspan (aka Yoda) and others. Though the article is a humorous approach towards Steve Jobs personality, the metaphors used are not too far fetched.

Laser keyboard but not for Mac

baseface — 2005-10-27T16:34:24+02:00

Just like old times.If an innovation doesnt come from Apple the user of such machines are often locked out from the product.A new example of such unfair product philosophy is the Virtual Laser Keyboard. Everything seems fine,pricing,supports BlueTooth,compatible to all PDAs all PCs,even design,but it doesnt work with all the PCs... they do not support the Mac.I hope there will be drivers for OS X soon. People say Mac users get all the gadgets, I say, then question is "when".

Slackoff till Halloween

baseface — 2005-10-27T12:37:06+02:00

OK, lazybones here is the killerapp you ever waited for.Busy Bee makes your Mac look as if it was doing some very important jobs to allow you to expand your coffee break, flirt with the boss secretary or simply sit around and look out of the window.You will never have to worry if somebody is looking over your shoulder again.Do not underestimate the possiblities that this app offers. Close to Halloween all kinds of screensavers,spooky desktop pictures and soundsets are ready for download.Pumpkin is one of of the funny but useless gimmicks. Beware its Scareware!

2000 GIs dead in Iraq? Not quite.(update)

baseface — 2005-10-26T16:50:03+02:00

Iraq war comes to another sad landmark.Senate keept silence for a minute to honor the casualties. No matter how sad it may sound to everyone concerned directly or indirectly, this landmark is nothing else but another try to blurr the ugly face of reality.While President Bush vows "not to rest or tire until this war on terror is won" the body count of civilians died in Iraq war tell another story. So its very disturbing President Bush´s vow sounds more like a threat than a promise. UPDATE: I apology for giving incorrect description for the link to the body count, NOT american but civilian casualties were counted.Nevertheless the numbers of casualties on both sides should make every sane person think of another solution but continued war in Iraq.

IBM doesnt care about Apple-Intel switch

baseface — 2005-10-26T15:37:46+02:00

Shockingly real!

baseface — 2005-10-25T23:06:02+02:00

Right in time for Halloween NASA offers free downloads of sound recordings from latest Saturn mission. http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/sounds/ Spooky!

AAPL skyrocket - executives cash in

baseface — 2005-10-25T19:14:34+02:00

Troy Wolverton from thestreet.com reports about Apple executives scoring big cash with AAPL trading so high. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer alone made a fine $32 million when he sold 750k options last week. This could be the first piece of evidence for a soon to come stagnation of share price, due to the recent law suits, a yet unkown problem in the field of sales or even due to executives share sells itself as stock exchange is a very sensible environment.

Intel Mac pricing, another approach

baseface — 2005-10-25T17:43:17+02:00

In his article "PowerPC, x86 and Apple pricing" Paul Murphy takes a very interesting approach on Intel Mac pricing, he draws a not too bright picture as mac sells might "fall through the floor" when the first Intel Macs arrive.

Steve Jobs gets sued again, now at Pixar

baseface — 2005-10-25T16:38:15+02:00

After Apple got sued over the ipod nano, it is reported that just another law suit has been filed against Steve Jobs.Inside Bay Area reports a handful of Pixar top managers including Steve Jobs would have distributed misleading information about the company´s financial performance. To make a long story short, earnings from Pixars movie "The Incredibles" were not as high as predicted.

Little Snitch 1.2.1 finally more secure

baseface — 2005-10-24T21:27:10+02:00

Objective Development´s Little Snitch got updated to prevent the application from being "killed" in OS X Tiger (10.4) or being manipulated using GUI scripting. Check Little Snitch release notes for details.

ABC see future in iPod vids

baseface — 2005-10-24T12:52:13+02:00

Steve Rubel reports the Disney owned ABC to broadcast (or better "vidcast") their local news (WABC-TV New York and WLS-TV Chicago - itms links) via iTunes Music Store for free.

Apple´s future media-dominance

baseface — 2005-10-24T00:50:02+02:00

Being among America´s 25 Best Leaders Steve Jobs seems to hold all the trump cards necessary to rule home media centers all over the world. The machines (iMac G5, Mac Mini and iPod) are all available, and the market is sure hungry for another approach from Apple to take over the livingroom. Another approach? Yep, the idea with the all new iMac isnt so new after all. But no need for whining folks, its Apple who "stole" Apples own idea, as reported on lowendmac. APC describes how iMac, Mac Mini and ipod combined with the knowledge Steve Jobs gathered around himself by recruiting the head of TV recording company ElGato will enable Apple to become the leading company in home entertaining. While Apple iTunes is de facto standard for digital music sales and storage, the TV market seems to be the new target for Apple. Having nice contracts for music videos, some series like "Lost" and of course fine Pixar clips, it seems to be just a little step towards complete dominance of home entertainment. Another not often mentioned but very obvious fact is that the power that drove so many innovations during evolution strikes again. Sex! Believe me, there will be loads of movie-on-the-go sites which offer adult material for video ipods soon.

Merom, Intel-Powerbooks and Viruses for Mac

baseface — 2005-10-23T12:26:27+02:00

Though Apple is very silent about new products, especially new processors, the new friend and supplier Intel doesnt really care about Steve Jobs love for secrets. So Intel Corp speaks in the open about the new mobile processors coming out in mid/end 2006. Memron is reported to be a dual core cpu and would fit so nicely into the new Intel-Powerbooks. I would love to see Stevie jumping up and down on that action, sleep with the dogs and wake up with fleas, as they say. Another quite weird thing I came across is this article ,not because another journalist joins the chorus, buys a mac and lives happy ever after, but because of real strange things the author points out. "About 20 percent of Mac users reported in a 2005 Consumer Reports survey that they had found a virus on their machines in the past two years compared with 66 percent of Windows users who said they had." This , to me completely unknown, statistic won my interest and I am busy searching the web for it, so in case you can help just use the comment function or send me an email via "contact" - I want to see the Mac viruses! Or then again were the sightings of Mac viruses , made by 20 % of the Mac users just Windows exploits from office documents etc, so a serious statistic would have counted the percentage of working exploids for the Mac.

Flock - new browser for OS X, Linux and Windows

baseface — 2005-10-23T00:12:40+02:00

Based on the Mozilla source code. Flock takes a twist in the browser game, fresh new interface and a growing group of developers supporting it. So speaking of rendering, ease of use and security the user will have to deal with Mozilla standards, but Flock developers stir things up for a big shot(Flock-Roadmap). Get Flock and see for yourself if this new project in reorganizing the Mozilla code will outlive the other competitors in the browser game. The start looks very energetic, lets hope they can keep up that pace.

iPod nano scratches - OS X shining

baseface — 2005-10-22T18:12:15+02:00

While things about the scratchy iPod nano get hot and wild not not only in online-discussions but also in court as consumers filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple. Apart from cheap materials on the hardware side, the software side, to be more precise the operating system OS X gets a good review concerning security from Steven H. Wildstrom(BusinessWeek online).But at the same time Wildstrom points out, the reason for the missing exploits for OS X would be the much lower marketshare of mac computers and the resulting lower expection of a financial gain. Maybe he should check the story I had a while back and check the great pieces of visionary coding I created, I wasnt in it for the money, it was all for the fame. However, I am still waiting for the first virus to seriously attack OS X, I am still sure it is out there. BTW the idea to use Automator for creating some "bad apps" seems to have inspired some very interesting people.

I refuse democracy and security

baseface — 2005-10-21T14:32:26+02:00

If it looks like in Iraq Saddam Hussein trial. So the first lawyer of defence has already been executed , great job of providing a fair trial. Mr. Bush why dont you finally submit you dont have anything in control down in Iraq, but if you insist in having things under control, well then may I ask why you had Saddam Husseins lawyer executed? No matter how you turn the facts, the american authorities have just taken another bad hit on their reputation. Then again it feeds the fires to read about how the lawyer was kidnapped. Could another intelligence agency than one from Gods own country have set up such a plot in Iraq? And if there was another agency what would that tell the people about security in Iraq? No matter which way you put it, it was ok for US government to have Saddam Husseins lawer taken out, so either they pushed things to that direction or they couldnt stop the incident from happening. Both possibilities do not draw a too bright picture for democracy and security in Iraq. So please, if Germany should ever fall into the wrong hands, please my dear United States of America, do not "liberate" our country. You say they wont bother anyway since the cold war is over and Germany lost its strategic location between the blocks, I say hey we got like 20 oil rigs in Northern-Sea.

Overclocking Alu-Powerbooks

baseface — 2005-10-20T14:21:05+02:00

Since Apple didnt give too big new features for the new powerbook apart from stuff I would count among the range of goodies NOT real features. New audio and video i/o devices were needed for a long time so I wouldnt say "thank you" to Stevie but "good thing you made it". In addition to that there are no obvious new processors for protable macs, all the 1.5 + ghz processors are just overclocked in fact. So why not do it yourself? Check this article (link, french) , the powerbook was overclocked to a stable 1.83 ghz, in a result we might see another speed bump for apple powerbooks but made by apple and paid by the user. Its a shame they (ha!) didnt come up with a nice mobile ppc before doomsday ( doomsday = end of transition to intel) A word on the dualcore macs, it all sounds to good to be true, too easy to be true, too affordable to be true and what do we learn first in this world? Nothing is for free. Lets wait and see what will happen, as the first dualcore intel processors were in fact slower than a dual processor system. Keep in mind you are messing with a quite expansive thingy there when trying to overclock your mac.

Laserprinters and black helicopters

baseface — 2005-10-18T11:57:17+02:00

The crazy ones knew it all the time. Reality caught up with sience fiction finally. EFF ( Electronic Frontier Foundation ) claims to have found out and shows proof that intelligence agencies have put up a deal with major printer companies to include an color-encrypted code on every piece of paper coming out of the laserprinters. Other types like ink-printers were not checked but again why should they (ha!) focus on laserprinters only? "So far, we´ve only broken the code for Xerox DocuColor printers,"said Schoen. "But we believe that other models from other manufacturers include the same personally identifiable information in their tracking dots" Stunning, I take it even the most evil conspiracy theories didnt include this scenario, as a logical result I assume that everything written down or even only thought of when it comes to intelligence and counter-intelligence has already been done or will be done. Now if that tracking dot scandal is real, what else is real? Black helicopters, microwaves killing critics of the system, forced implants, EVERYTHING is possible. I am positive the people will again swallow the bitter pill of losing another part of their freedom, when told it was to protect themselves from the bad guys and if they didnt participate they wouldnt be good patriots. These are definately the last days.

Apple arrived in the livingroom

baseface — 2005-10-17T19:02:50+02:00

The new iMac G5 will be another step towards Steve Jobs goal to make Apple the new Sony. The iMac features among improved memory and a little more speed, built-in isight camera (VGA 640x480), infrared remote control(reciever hidden behind the apple logo under the screen),photo booth (a new "killer app" for easy manipulation of photos) and comes with apples new MightyMouse. So the whole package looks like a serious start into the world of home entertainment, together with the 20" display it should work fine as movie and music station.Alongside Apple abandoned the sale of the eMac to non-educational customers which I find a rather harsh way to push people into buying the iMac or an iBook, since the Mac Mini isnt an all-in-one product it may not be counted among the alternatives. But what is on the other side of the coin? I mean Apple does great in investing money and human resources in the developement of entertainment technology, while it has become very quiet on the side of "Pro" products. It seems Apple fell into deep sleep and decided to focus on consumer products and entertainment rather than serverving the users who do business with their Macs. Funny how things change when shareholder value kills management. So Apple arrives in the livingroom but leaves the office. Thats what I see and I do not like it.

The penalty for jumping off a building is death

baseface — 2005-10-17T12:51:21+02:00

Thats one of the funny laws from all over the world you find on dumblaws.com(link). It shows authorities ignorance in the world, people are dominated by stupid and mostly outdated rules. On the other hand there are laws that are fully understandable to me like this example from New York City : "Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business" Another intestesting aspect is, you can check "if you really wanna go there" before ending up with death penalty for walking the wrong way during your vacation. Plus, the website shows perfectly, how plain and understandable the laws in Germany are. Well, however : "It is illegal for ones car to run out of gas on the Autobahn" I have to submit I didnt know that law existed, so dumblaws.com(link) is the perfect place, to have some fun and learn some facts while doing so as they even explain why that rule was created in a lot of cases.

World of Warcraft - Spyware or not?

baseface — 2005-10-16T12:10:56+02:00

First of all, I do not like WOW. I hated the hype around this game from second one. I never tried this game, I dislike most of the people playing it, as it´s the same people telling you Unreal Tournament, America´s Army or Return to Castle Wolfenstein are bad and gory while busy grinding their battle axes in some WOW realm. Blizzard, which is the company selling the game, is known for taking sometimes quite harsh actions against cheaters, put a new twist in todays spyware discussions as WOW is reported to scan the machine its running on, for other running apps, windows names and processes. In Greg Hoglund´s Blog(link) the fire was started as he reported the spyware problems first. - BTW though its all concerning the Windows Version of WOW in the blog and discussions, I take it for granted that Mac version(s) are affected as well since Blizzard wouldnt let Mac users cheat but fight cheating on Windows. Plus, The EULA which is the same for all platforms informs you of the spying anyway , so if you actually play this game it´s all your fault as you accepted the nosy app by agreeing to the EULA. No whining please, read before clicking and you are fine.

Linux live, hack OS X and abuse NYT

baseface — 2005-10-15T15:43:48+02:00

As reported yesterday a new release of Ubuntu hit the web and today it had to hit my powerbook. I was really looking forward to this since I probably wont follow Steve Job´s switch to intel. So when Stevie started his " 2 year conversation to intel" I started my switch to linux roadmap that night. After some problems while stupidly clicking the link on ubuntu download site(link) without any result I upgraded to brain 1.01 and scrolled down a little to find a nice web directory. Well, there are the goods! I chose the live cd .torrent file(link) and off I went. Note : The .iso which is the result of the download can easily be burned using OS X built in disk utility application. A famous german hacker group called "Chaos Computer Club"(link), to be more precise it´s section from the german city called "Ulm" did some introduction in OS X hacking which may not only be interesting for the beginners but for the advanced audience as well. The video and the pdf supporting it can be found here(link), sound quality is crappy but since its german language that doesnt matter anyway. Even if you understand german its no gain in listening really as the things shown on the screen deserve the focus of the viewer anyway. Do those websites that try to force you into submitting your details like eg the New York Times get on your nerves? Whats behind conning your name and income out of your brain just for reading an article? I am not sure myself BUT I take it for granted it generates one huge mass of spam. Of course we all fake those entries, of course I dont because I use a nice and free service called "BugMeNot.com"(link) that provides the visitor with log/pass for all those odd and not-so-odd news sites.

Heroes of New Orleans and Badgers

baseface — 2005-10-14T12:39:42+02:00

Now that Germany got a female Chancellor, a Chancelloress , it is about time to make some fun on other countries again. Do not get me wrong it is more than just okay to me to be led by a female, but why did it have to be such an ugly and ignorant person? I take it its not my year and Chancelloress Merkel can be lucky I wasnt working in her opponents election team, I would have had her get her behind kicked out of the parlament on chancellor election day, she would never have gotten more than 50 percent of the votes in there. So it is great indeed there are the United States of America and the authorities leading God´s own country. Or like a German comedian put it : " It´s great how the USA and their president behave, just great, I mean back in the days everybody hated Germany, nowadays everybody hates the USA, thank you Mr. Bush." Strange enough, the things that happened after the floodings in southern USA, were so different from the things happened during the floodings in Indonesia just month before.On the one hand, people caring, helping, sacrificing theirselves for total strangers and on the other hand lootings,robbery,murder and rape. Now lets guess which of the two scenarios painted the picture of a so called third world country ? In New Orleans approx 50 % of all police quit their job during the floodings and went home to help their families or they went looting. This video(link to media archive) which was quite hard to find, as it was even taken off the major news sites on the web, shows the anarchy in the flooded areas. For something important, Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) (link) has been released, I havent found the time to test the live-cd yet, but I am really looking forward to this again, as OS X Finders is a piece of junk, speaking of usability compared to Ubuntu´s Gnome desktop. Free download of Ubuntu 5.10 (link)

Don´t Crac[k] 622 Music Videos !

baseface — 2005-10-10T14:22:53+02:00

Something new , something old and something borrowed, along with something blue and off you go for a nice wedding. How else should I get from fair traded audio software to the well known 622 music videos in one blog? Don´t Crac[k] (link) tries to interact between audio app developers and users. They offer numerous freeware audio apps plus an online shop with reasonable prices for commercial software. A little bit like u can buy fair traded coffee from third world countries, I didnt know the audio app developers had that much of problems but the freeware section is worth a visit for sure as it not only contains mac but also windows software. Granfaro Weblog(link) offers 622 music videos along with other blogs created to bring mp3s and other things to the interested audience. While I really enjoy the Granfaro music videos, I have to submit I dislike the other blogs offered there. But then I am sure others will see things different and know why this news is "old". Now thats about it for today, but hey, wheres the borrowed and the blue thing one needs for a perfect wedding? As for the borrowed thing its the design of this website for sure, for the blue thing, it´s B´s pondlife I just discovered recently.I take it all the details were given .... let´s call it a day.

Sunday´s EMU pains and gains

baseface — 2005-10-09T15:23:00+02:00

Did you ever clean up your computer mess in the garage? You certainly should and you may discover loads of Playstation games (psx games). If you are lucky you find a working playstation with that, but if you are unlucky you will have to find a working emulation app for mac ( OS X ) and if you are a real unlucky guy, you have to get such a handy app for OS X 10.4 ( Tiger ). My searches took my to this (link) very interesting but not very informative website. On that website you may download CVGS (which has become free/abandonware nowadays) along with all updates and patches, FlareStorm 2 and PCSX. While CVGS is an OS 9x app and didnt work for me in classic mode in Tiger telling me my cd-drive wasnt able to read cds and wasnt supported or something, the other two apps are advertised to run in OS X. To make a long story short, FlareStorm 2 didnt work for me at all, but is a nice little helper to "prepare" some older game cds for the working PCSX. Some older game cds mount two images as you insert them into your mac( one with the game another will be identified as a music cd), to run those games on PCSX simply fire up FlareStorm and insert the game. You will see it only mount the game just as you wished, now quit FlareStorm and start up PCSX - easy eh?

Star Wars Episode VII (Tydirium-The true Story)

baseface — 2005-10-07T12:23:00+02:00

The most expansive fan movie of all times is about to be availible on the internet... and only on the internet.Just like it´s counterpart(link) from the Star Trek universe, the ethusiasm of more than one hundred people made "Tydirium - The true Story" possible.Unlike Kevin Rubios "Troops"(link), Tydirium is reported not to be a kind of parody but a "serious"story located in the Star Wars universe. From TydiriumWebsite(link) : " Our story about the conquest of the shuttle Tydirium takes place somewhere between the liberation of Han Solo from Jabbas palace and the flight of the rebels to the forrest moon of Endor. " That sounds very interesting to me especially if they really followed the shuttle story and put the spacecraft in the middle of the plot which could result in a very interesting viewing experience. So you folks better stay tuned!

WiFi fun with a Mac

baseface — 2005-10-06T16:17:00+02:00

Wireless networks everywhere! No matter where you walk in the cities across the world, WiFi is already there.While WEP encryption, though useless, is still state of the art protection for home and business users, new safer encryptions like WPA(2) progresses are still at stake. Applications like Kismac(link) include a simple brute force attack mode(along with some other tricks) for entering protected networks(oops check your own network for security). Another way to add security to WEP networks was ( as in "is no more" ) simply to allow connections to known computers only by submitting ethernet ids of the individual computer. Now thats gone totally insecure as there is a cute little app(link) which changes the ethernet ip of an apple airport extreme card to a desired value. In case you are interested in what I did to secure my wireless network at home... I switched back to the cable-solution, oldskool but secure.

Limewire is dead

baseface — 2005-09-30T13:53:00+02:00

You didnt notice already? Well, as they keep things up nicely in front its no wonder most people didnt notice the heavy changes behind the scenes. Current versions of the filesharing app which use the gnutella decentralised network do already alarm the user not to download material of a questionable source. As reported here (link) future versions wont allow users to share material without a proper license. It seems as MIs fight against illigal distribution gains momentum, but looking again it only spoils companys who run a business on filesharing as open source applications to use the gnutella network do exist and are very commonly used already. So in fact Limewires switch to controlling the content shared with the application is the first step towards its end, just like Napster and other companys. BTW its about the same with the end of the eDonkey client, the client is dead but the network is still there and open source solutions like MLdonkey are still around to quench the filesharers thirst for warez.

Autumn Falls

baseface — 2005-09-29T22:35:00+02:00

The year nears itself to my favourite season. Nature slows down to renew itself, to gain strenght for the cold season and further to be reborn in the new spring. I will try to follow natures example and let the year fade out early this time. Not long to go and the first frost will come over the land, I am looking forward to this ...

Cheap Xploids for OS X

baseface — 2005-09-27T15:19:00+02:00

500 bucks for a virus that meets the conditions(link). Thats not a lot compared to the 25k bucks once raised on that topic. What is behind this? Well , most certainly people are not to sure about the security on OS X anymore, otherwise the bet would have gone up over time. So there are self crowned Macintosh kings who bet a lousy 500 US$ on their loved fruit. I mean, if they offered 500 british pounds, hey , there would be a lot of people joining the big game, but US $ ... What kind of great 1337 h4xx0rs will spill beans for that kinda loot ? They want cheap exploids? I certainly can provide them LMAO - great pieces of visionary macintosh exploids, made on a mac, made with automator. Allthough its all very basic and obvious, these scripts/apps could do harm to your data, do NOT run the things, if you decide to do otherwise its not my problem. You can find those cheap examples in download section - password to unstuff is " iknowimstupid " (no quotes - no blanks) The first little script searches for Adobe stuff on your drive then moves it all to trash, then it sends a little mail to me(RIP Adobe). The other one is a very lame and basic version of "iGetUrMail", it retrieves your mail, combines all your daily mail to one email and then sends it over to me again. I am positive some of you can do much better (maybe even I could do better), for example add a little "force empty trash" to the script, but it wasnt intended to harm anyone really in the first place. Please keep those stupid little apps/scripts in mind when wildy double-clicking everything you get.

the silence was kept too long...

baseface — 2005-09-16T13:41:00+02:00

I was sitting in silence all ever i first saw the pictures from southern USA and the floodings there. I thought, no this time you cannot put sarcasm and irony on Gods own country, it just wouldnt be fair. So I kept my mouth shut for about 2 weeks, hoping every night on tv they would proof me wrong, but what the world could see ( I really hope a lot of people saw this) was plain horrible. Thousands of people being trapped without any help from authorities, authorities led by a president who can attack ( sorry "liberate" ) each and any country in the word during 24 to 48 hours, but fails to bring water and order to his own people. It took approx 5 to 6 days for the first rations to arrive in the flooded area, it took one and a half week to make people at least believe to the lie of security and order spread by media. bush spends 80 billion us$ for iraq war expanses this year ( unregarded the "normal" expanses for "defense" ) - on the other hand bush claimed to spend 40 billion for the victims of the floodings, thats only half the way he walks for the enemy. bush prefers to spend money on killing strangers rather than give money to his own people in need. only thing that worked real fine mr president was censorship, was it only me who noticed the same images over and over again. me best thoughts go out to the people of the usa who not only suffer from the floodings but also from the ignorance of their leader.

Was this said before?

baseface — 2005-04-13T12:40:00+02:00

Wenn eure Realität nicht meiner Therorie entspricht, so muss sich NICHT meine Theorie ändern. If your reality does not correspond to my theory, then NOT my theory must change. In case nobody ever heard it around I now claim to be a philosopher ( easy eh ?