Monthly Archives: October 2008

Volunteering at the Food Bank

By | October 31, 2008

This afternoon I volunteered at the Alameda County Community Food Bank with some Voxify co-workers as part of a work sponsored event. We processed 2500 pounds of food and were able to completely sort and shelve 1500 pounds of that total. It was a great experience and I highly recommend helping out, especially this time… Read More »

Skype Chat Spam

By | October 27, 2008

Just got malware spam in a Skype chat claiming that “Security Center has detected malware on your computer” with the affected software listed being all the recent Windows flavors. It assures me that my “system IS affected, download the patch from the address below …” That would be, of course, my OS X system. Best… Read More »

Guinness + Cola = Kvas?

By | October 24, 2008

We had another huge potluck lunch at work today. I made pastalaya with chicken, andouille sausage and pork shoulder. A Russian at work brought a few bottles of Kvas, a fermented, mildly alcoholic beverage. It tasted like a pleasant blend of Guinness beer and a carbonated cola drink. Maybe that doesn’t sound all that tasty,… Read More »

Forget the Free Laptops

By | October 20, 2008

Over the past few years some universities and colleges have provided incoming freshman with free (well, bunded into tuition and fees) laptops, and even more recently, iPhones. The Times reports that now some schools are making bicycles available for free or inexpensive rental. The University of New England spent $50,000 on bikes, helmets and locks.… Read More »

Biker Bailout Plan

By | October 15, 2008

The $700 billion bailout plan was amazingly extended beyond wealthy bank CEOs to include bike commuting schlubs like myself via the Bicycle Commuter Tax Provision. However, I may be out of the money because I don’t regularly use my bicycle “for a substantial portion of the travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment.”… Read More »

United Excruciating Update

By | October 8, 2008

I got an outbound notification call from United this morning about a change to an upcoming flight. When United introduced Easy Update years ago, I was a big fan. I even sent email to United customer service to find out which vendor implemented it for them. Today’s call was more like Excruciating Update, though. The… Read More »

SIP Security

By | October 4, 2008

The main security blog I read is Matasano Chargen, which is educational and amusing. Today Wes Brown posted a basic intro to SIP and SIP security issues in the context of a story about Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi and Bowser. Fear the turtle.

Dimond Oktoberfest

By | October 2, 2008

This Saturday there’s an Oktoberfest celebration in the Dimond district from 11 am to 6 pm only about 6 blocks from our house. Obviously, we’ll be there. Local brewers Linden Street, Pacific Coast Brewing, Trumer and Triple Rock will be pouring their beer, plus there will be beer from New Belgium and traditional Bavarian brewer… Read More »