Heather Madrone has an interesting question.

My 13-year-old daughter downloaded some software this week. I asked her to check with me next time, so I could show her how to scan it for viruses before she installs it. Then I thought, “Now wait a minute. Can you still get viruses from downloading software?”

Back in the bad old days, viruses infected programs, and were handed around on diskettes or via download. When they infected your system, they might hitch a ride on another piece of software. I haven’t heard of a virus propagating itself that way in years.

So what’s the scoop? Does it still happen? Or is email such a superior tool for virus propagation that virus creators have given up on slipping viruses into software? Are download sites too well-protected for a virus to slip by their defenses?

Columbia Newsblaster cobbles together phrases from various news sources to generate summaries of top stories. The result can be surreal:

. . . Congressional Republicans are using a government – paid videotaped message from President Bush to parry Democratic attacks against them concerning Social Security and prescription drugs for Medicare. The Libertarian Party is looking to spoil a few good elections. Max Cleland (D – Ga.), Max Baucus (D – Mont.) and Tim Hutchinson (R – Ark.) and Reps. Why? The lawmakers, now in recess, can show the videotapes to constituents in town hall meetings.

Mesh Radio. The idea is to link subscribers to each other with multiple tiny dishes, rather than all to a central station. I hope it works: existing schemes lack redundancy at the consumer end.

Later: It has been pointed out to me that each relay introduces a delay.

Save me from software that tries to outsmart me!
( . . more . . )

Yesterday my Linux box crashed and I spent all evening trying to bring it back to life, with – as they say at NASA – partial success. Argh.

Later: In desperation, I tried ^C when the boot process says “/1 contains a file system with errors, check forced.” Interrupting the check of /1 (whatever that is) lets the boot proceed normally. A temporary solution, but better than nothing.

Linux: Not Ready for Prime Time.

Still More Banner Ads We’d Like To See

(thanks to Paul Hsieh)

How to change the time zone?

Since I reinstalled Red Hat yesterday, it somehow thinks we’re in +8 (Japan) rather than -8 (California). Apologies to anyone to whom my mail appears 16 hours delayed.