A lazy/better JQuery way to do CSS Image Rollovers

When it comes to development, I’m a firm believer that laziness is a virtue.  If I can write code to do what I need done in as little lines as possible, not only am I doing less typing, but my code is probably going to be more efficient (either that or it’s going to be really hacky).

In the course of web design, I find myself coding rollover images often.  I’m a big fan of pure CSS image rollovers, which are quicker to load and don’t deal with JavaScript.  However, if you’re dealing with many links that all need a rollover, your css quickly becomes bloated.

JQuery to the rescue!

Read more

Trojan Targets Critical Infrastructure

Last Friday, Microsoft issued a security advisory about a trojan that infects computers by exploiting how Windows loads a shortcut (.ink) icon.

Once a malicious icon loads on the desktop, you're toast

Once the PC has been compromised, the trojan will infect any USB device that gets plugged into the computer. The trojan spreads on USB devices and through shortcut icons sent across some types of network.  Either way, once Windows loads the corrupt shortcut icon for the USB device or network link, the PC has been compromised.

Read more

Telegraph Roulette

After Prince declared the internet dead (and Kenny G declared the internet not dead), I wondered where we, as humanity, would go next in terms of connectivity.  Holomovement?  The Mer-ka-bah?

Barring a massive leap forward in consciousness, I thought up the idea of Telegraph Roulette.

Read more

Comments on repairing comments

After a weekend of shooting overnights, I checked the e-mail linked up to my WordPress to find a bunch of lovely comments and trackbacks for my post about Al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine.  Being the first post to this blog, I was ecstatic!

But before I had a chance to approve them, my server crashed.

Read more

Media Tidbits

The new James Bond movie is “canned“.  Not in the can, but delayed indefinitely until MGM can raise some money.  Some lenders are pressuring MGM to sell their rights in “The Hobit“.  Warner Brothers offered 1.5b for the studio in its entirety, but considering the last back of Tolkien movies grossed about 3b, I think MGM was right in rejecting the offer.  On the other hand, MGM is 4b in debt right now.

Motorola launching a “Grab Life by the Calls” tie-in campaign with Discovery’s Dirty Jobs show. The slogan sounds  like Dodge’s “Grab Life by the Horns“, retired in 2007.  It also sounds a bit like “grab life by the balls”.  Motorola also has another (much worse) tag line, “Slap Mother Nature in the Face“.  BP joke, anyone?

How do M. Night Shyamalan Movies keep making money?

I have no idea.  But here’s a graphic:

He just keeps making money.....

And with a projected holiday weekend take of 70m, The Last Airbender (called a hate crime against film lovers) has grossed almost half its estimated 150m budget in the first weekend.  Who’s ready for the sequel?

The Economist joins the “cyber-war” bandwagon

As a new subscriber to The Economist, I was always excited to get my issue on Friday, read the whole thing over the weekend, then take The Economist’s “well red” quiz on Monday evening (I’ve never scored above 6 out of 10).  But I was really disspointed by this week’s cover story on Cyberwar.

I’ve yet to read an article that describes the threat from cyberwar in non-analogous terms.  The Economist’s article is about “arms control on the Internet”–whatever that means.  There’s mention of a “cyber-attack” on Estonia and the denial of service attack on Georgia during the start of the Russia-Georgia war (an attack which anyone could participate in, BTW).  But beyond that is nothing but fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Read more

What are those scrambled pages of Al-Qaeda’s English language magazine?

They’re a list of the best cupcakes in America.

Last week, a .pdf of “Inspire” magazine, an alleged English-language publication from Al-Qaeda, appeared on Jihadist message boards.  The magazine’s table of contents boasted of a letter from Osama Bin Laden, a section on “open-source Jihad” (which I actually wanted to read), and the infamous “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” article.

An Inspired Hoax

The posting of the .pdf got press in the New York Times, the Colbert Report, and The Atlantic, just to name a few. (The original is available on Archive.org)

Read more