Musicovery : interactive webRadio

Musicovery offers a novel, colourful and fun way of finding, listening to and buying music.

By clicking on the panel on the remote control you can choose the mood of the music - energetic or calm, dark or positive. You can also select the tempo and danciness of the tunes, and limit your music by genre or when it was released. Have a play with the hit/non-hit/discovery modes too!

Scale Model Of The Solar System

An eye-opening perspective of the sheer lack of anything out there in our solar system.

Drive-By Pharming

Symantec has an excellent flash animation explaining drive-by pharming, a technique by which attackers can steal your personal information and credentials by subverting your DNS settings in your router.

The attack is triggered by visiting a malicious web site which hosts some Javascript code. This code attempts to login to your home router using the default username and password (but you changed that, right?). If it is successful it changes your DNS settings to those of a DNS server controlled by the attacker, allowing them to redirect your traffic to servers they control. They can make a website that looks like your bank, then using this technique, when you try to visit your bank online you will actually be visiting their server, and there will be no visible sign that this isn't your bank.

They can then perform a man-in-the-middle attack, taking your login details and passing them onto the reak bank, acting on your behalf, performing transactions as you request, and any of their own while they are there.

To protect yourself from this attack you should make sure you have changed the default password (and username if possible) on your router, and stay away from the shadier parts of the web.

Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey - Lyrics

This is brilliant! Heard this on Net@Nite.

Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey - Lyrics

Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very dilligent
But his output stink
His code not "functional" or "elegant"
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud

Code Monkey like Fritos
Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew
Code Monkey very simple man
With big warm fuzzy secret heart:
Code Monkey like you

Code Monkey hang around at front desk
Tell you sweater look nice
Code Monkey offer buy you soda
Bring you cup, bring you ice
You say no thank you for the soda cause
Soda make you fat
Anyway you busy with the telephone
No time for chat
Code Monkey have long walk back to cubicle he sit down pretend to work
Code Monkey not thinking so straight
Code Monkey not feeling so great

Code Monkey like Fritos
Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew
Code Monkey very simple man
With big warm fuzzy secret heart:
Code Monkey like you
Code Monkey like you a lot

Code Monkey have every reason
To get out this place
Code Monkey just keep on working
See your soft pretty face
Much rather wake up, eat a coffee cake
Take bath, take nap
This job "fulfilling in creative way"
Such a load of crap
Code Monkey think someday he have everything even pretty girl like you
Code Monkey just waiting for now
Code Monkey say someday, somehow

Code Monkey like Fritos
Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew
Code Monkey very simple man
With big warm fuzzy secret heart:
Code Monkey like you

AOL implements OpenID for all AOL Screen Names

I feel the news that AOL has enabled all screen names as OpenIDs is a good enough reason to taint my website with a link to AOL. ;)

Well done AOL!

You can find out more about OpenID at http://openid.net/.

Steve Jobs on DRM

Apple's Steve Jobs talks about DRM and the joys of a world without it.

MySpace User? Change Your Password!

Just a note to anyone using MySpace: Change your password.

Not only were 34,000 MySpace passwords compromised in a phishing attack in October, now 56,000 email addresses (login names) and passwords have been phished and posted to the Full Disclosure Mailing List.

This means that if you use the same password for MySpace as you do for your email then your email is compromised too. In fact, if you use that password anywhere you should change it immediately, especially in a corporate environment.

Also, if any of your passwords are mentioned in the Wired article then change them too.

If you have difficulty remembering 'tough' passwords, I recommend PasswordSafe.