And Which Are You?

In response to Are You Stuck posting Which Are You here's something that makes my operating system of choice look a little better.

Space Sounds

Although sound can't travel in space, this site has some intriguing "sounds" captured by space craft. In particular, I got a kick out of the "noise" generated by Jupiter's magnetic field and the sound of dust particles striking the antenna of Voyager II as she passed through the rings of Saturn. Oh, don't forget to check out the Lion's Roar on Earth...

Check out spacesounds

SETI Found Something!

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is an organisation set up to search for off-world intelligence. SETI@home is a project where anyone can share their computer's spare time helping to process radio waves from the universe. You install a SETI screen-saver, and your home PC picks up some data from SETI, and analyses it for patterns that may indicate intelligence or communication.

Presumably, if some little green men are doing the same thing 35 light years away, they're watching M*A*S*H for the first time right now.

I love SETI@home because it allows me to mercilessly take the p*ss out of my work colleagues who installed the thing. As far as I'm concerned, there is no E.T. except for those caught on film during the making of Men In Black. So I'll laugh at these guys now. I'm gambling that if they do find some slimy seven-legged exo-brain critter around Alpha-Centauri, SETI fans will be too excited or freaked out to notice I've stopped laughing.

So imagine my surprise when I read that SETI@home has found something! Actually a guy running SETI@home found something even less likely than Borg on Betelgeuse - he found his wife's stolen laptop!

When the hot-fingered new 'owner' turned the laptop on, it contacted SETI giving clues to it's new location. The rightful owner figured it out and gave the cops what they needed to recover the laptop.

"I always knew that a geek would make a great husband," she said. "He always backed up all my data, but this topped it all... He's a genius - my hero."

3 Column Blog

Here is one way to convert a blogger template with one side panel so that there is a panel on each side. In this example, I've taken the "Minima Lefty" template by Douglas Bowman and Darren Delaye.

I've widened the template and added another column to the right.

You can adapt this procedure for other blogger templates. My own blog is currently an adaptation of the "Demim" template by Darren Delaye.

First, to answer some basic questions:

1. Is this easy? Well, it's intermediate. If you've edited HTML before, you'll be fine. If not, you'll just need to be bold. I think it's equivalent to re-wiring a plug without the risk of executing yourself.
2. Can I screw up my blog template trying this? Yes, but you'd need to make a lot of mistakes to achieve that! We'll start by making a backup, so you should feel confident that you can always undo any mistakes.
3. Can I loose my posts? No, we won't be touching them.
4. Can I follow the instructions exactly step by step? Not exactly. Every template will be slightly different. But you should recognise the sections ok. I did pretty much the same procedure with this very blog.
5. Are there any guarantees? Only taxes.

Well, I've done my best to put you off. Any intrepid bloggers still reading... here goes.

Step 1:

Go to your blogger Dashboard.
Under the Template tab, select 'Edit HTML'.
Copy the full content of the large Template box.
Paste it into a text editor like notepad or gedit (not Word).
Save it on your computer (perhaps call it MyTemplate.txt).
Make another copy to edit (so that you keep a copy of the original).

Step 2:

Open your template in your text editor.
Scroll down to find a section like this:

/* Outer-Wrapper
----------------------------------------------- */
#outer-wrapper {
width: 660px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
text-align:left;
font: $bodyfont;
}

#main-wrapper {
width: 410px;
float: right;
word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;
}

#sidebar-wrapper {
width: 220px;
float: left;
word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;
}

Copy the #sidebar-wrapper subsection and head the new copy #rightbar-wrapper
Increase the outer-wrapper width to 850.
Decrease the sidebar-wrapper and the new rightbar-wrapper to 180.
On the rightbar-wrapper, change the float from left to right.
Also, rearrange the subsections so they are in order, from left to right.
(I moved sidebar-wrapper subsection above the main-wrapper subsection.)
Add to the main-wrapper section the line "margin-left: 30px;"

The section will look something like this:

/* Outer-Wrapper
----------------------------------------------- */
#outer-wrapper {
width: 850px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
text-align:left;
font: $bodyfont;
}

#sidebar-wrapper {
width: 180px;
float: left;
word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;
}

#main-wrapper {
width: 410px;
margin-left: 30px;
float: right;
word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;
}

#rightbar-wrapper {
width: 180px;
float: right;
word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;
}

Note: You can adjust to different widths. If your side, middle and right bars (or columns) do not fit comfortably within your outer wrapper, you will find that one column may start below the bottom of another column - stepping too far down the page.

Step 3:

Find the Sidebar Content section.
Copy and paste another copy immediately below it.
In the second copy, change all the occurrences of 'sidebar' to 'rightbar'.

/* Sidebar Content
----------------------------------------------- */
.sidebar {
color: $sidebartextcolor;
line-height: 1.5em;
}

.sidebar ul {
list-style:none;
margin:0 0 0;
padding:0 0 0;
}
.sidebar li {
margin:0;
padding:0 0 .25em 15px;
text-indent:-15px;
line-height:1.5em;
}

.sidebar .widget, .main .widget {
border-bottom:1px dotted $bordercolor;
margin:0 0 1.5em;
padding:0 0 1.5em;
}

/* Rightbar Content
----------------------------------------------- */
.rightbar {
color: $sidebartextcolor;
line-height: 1.5em;
}

.rightbar ul {
list-style:none;
margin:0 0 0;
padding:0 0 0;
}

.rightbar li {
margin:0;
padding:0 0 .25em 15px;
text-indent:-15px;
line-height:1.5em;
}

.rightbar .widget, .main .widget {
border-bottom:1px dotted $bordercolor;
margin:0 0 1.5em;
padding:0 0 1.5em;
}

Note: you may have noticed the $sidebarcolor. Leave that as it is for now. That way the same colour schemes will apply to both side and right columns.

Step 4:

Toward the bottom of your template, you'll see a "div id='sidebar-wapper' " section similar to the graphic below.
Copy the whole section and paste another copy beneath it.

You guessed it, rename the 'sidebar' bits to 'rightbar'.
Arrange the sections in the order shown below: sidebar-wrapper, main-wrapper, then rightbar-wrapper.

Now, delete some of the widget lines so that each widget line appears only once in either the sidebar, or the rightbar section. A widget cannot appear in both. In this example, I have only two widgets, so I'll put the Profile1 in the sidebar and the BlogArchive1 in the rightbar.

Step 5:

Save your work!
Copy it back into the Blog, Template, Edit HTML text box.
Click the Preview button.
If it looks good, hit the SAVE TEMPLATE button.

Microsoft and Spam

Three years ago Bill Gates predicted that the problem of junk email would be solved by 2006. Well, he's got three weeks to go (giving him a couple of days off for the festive season). Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that spam email has doubled in 2006.

To be fair, most of us in IT don't really need Bill to provide the solution. We just want him to stop being the problem! We just want him to stop Windows PCs from being hijacked to spread spam.

From the NY Times article: "...by conscripting vast networks of computers belonging to users who unknowingly downloaded viruses and other rogue programs. The infected computers begin sending out spam without the knowledge of their owners." That's your machines, Bill!

Microsoft Word and Zero-Day

There is another zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Word. This means that the attacks are out there and there is no fix available.

Microsoft says the "Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution". In other words, slime-bags can write and run malevolent software on your computer. (Nothing new for Windows users.)

Microsoft's suggestion is that users "not open or save Word files," even from trusted sources. Not really an acceptable recommendation, is it. And comments from Microsoft such as "users should always exercise extreme caution when opening unsolicited attachments from both known and unknown sources" are not much help either. As a software professional, I'm not sure how to exercise extreme caution opening an attachment in Windows when there is no fix for the vulnerability available. Perhaps you close your eyes and cover your important bits with one hand while clicking the mouse with the other. Do any non-technical users out there have any ideas?

I exercise sensible caution by running Linux on my desktops - at work, at home, and on the kids' machine. (The kids' must see computers at school and wonder what all that windozy zero-day stuff is.)

UPDATE: 8/12/2006

Still no patch for Word scheduled.
Now another zero-day exploit, this time in Windows Media Player. Ouch!

World Heroes

I was interested to see Linus Torvalds (author of Linux) makes Time Magazine's heroes of the past 60 years. The programmer is listed among 'Rebels and Leaders' alongside Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher.

The rest of the list is peppered with the brave, the visionary, the busybody do-gooders and a fair number of names I didn't know.

Any other surprises in there?

Saturn, the Sun and Earth

This magnificent photo from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn shows a view looking back at the planet with the Sun emerging at the bottom. The Earth is visible just left of the bright rings (in the large image). This view is possible because the Cassini spacecraft is protected from the full glare of the Sun.Click on the photo for the full size image. (And make sure your browser is showing 100%) It's worth it.

From the NASA site: "Interior to the G ring and above the brighter main rings is the pale dot of Earth." A full explanation is here.

Cows, Garlic and the Environment

Burping and farting cows are the UK's single largest cause of the green-house gas methane. Methane is 23 times worse than the vilified carbon-dioxide. Apparently the problem is getting worse because cows don't chew their food properly anymore.

Among the solutions may be feeding them garlic to reduce the methane output. That's not my experience of garlic.

Why Run Linux on a Home PC

1. It's promoted by users, not marketing executives.
2. You get software written by people who love writing software.
3. Security vulnerabilities are fixed within days of discovery, rather than waiting months before the software company admits they exist.
4. You don't need anti-virus software and you don't get viruses.
5. You don't get spy-ware.
6. You can buy a better machine for half the price.
7. You get literally thousands of pounds worth of enterprise level software free.

Here are a few more thoughts on why you might choose to use Linux at home.

By the way, did you know that computers hardly ever crash? It's software that crashes. But Linux typically runs for years without crashing.