Hacked GMail Filters

If you, like I do, use GMail, then you need to do yourself a favor and check your filters. There was a vulnerability, which has since been fixed, that would allow a user to add a filter to your GMail account if a user visited a malicious website while logged into their GMail account. In this case, a filter was created to forward all e-mail from this users domain host to an account for the purpose of stealing his domain, which the hacker successfully did and then held his domain for ransom.

WARNING: Google’s GMail security failure leaves my business sabotaged
Now my domain name was being held to ransom, and the hacker was taunting me. What I had spent more than a year building into a sound marketing plan had been severed at the knees.

As I said, the vulnerability has been fixed, however, if the filter already exists in your account, then e-mail could still be leaving your GMail account without your knowledge. Do yourself a favor and check your filters today.

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The Ultimate Christmas Tree

This must have been one fun project to work on.

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Pretty Big Story

A couple of mornings ago, as I was listenening to the radio in the morning, I was affronted by what is wrong with society. Yes, driving in my car, I realized where everything that is wrong with human nature stems from. One of the morning dumb jockies that theElderSon likes to listen to as I drive him to school, was doing her daily impersonation of a news reporter. In her bit, she broke down news of the wildfires that are raging in Southern California, and she described the tragedy that is currently happening as a "Pretty Big Story".

A story? That is the number one problem with this country, everything is just a story. I would like to go on record to correct the dimb jockey and call her "story" what it really is. A Tragedy.

Just for the record, a story is a piece of fiction written by an author meant to amuse or entertain in one way or another. The word story most likely started being used by the ahole media to unhumanize the event in order to report it. Over time, the worse the tragedy was, the better the "story" is. But let's not forget that what is happening in Southern California is not a story...It is really happening. There really are people that have had to evacuate their homes, leaving all their possessions behind, only to have everything they own burnt to nothing. It's not just a "Pretty Big Story". No you idiot, it's so much more.

Email Post

This is a test.  This is only a test.  Had this been a real post, I may have actually written content that the reader would enjoy reading.  Instead, I'm test sending this from my mobile gmail on my phone.  Please feel free to continue on about the day in an orderly fashion.  Thank you and have a wonderful day, even though the Indians could not clinch the World Series birth last night.

Turtle Lovin, Havin a Blast

theWife, theDaughter and I took a trip to the Zoo yesterday, compliments of the WDOK slot machine. We were dual cameraing, so there are tons of pictures to post, which I will do a bit later. I had to share this first.

We were walking up to the aquatics and cats display when we past the giant turtles. As we were watching, one of the turtles started getting a little frisky. We laughed, but walked off to the cat exhibit leaving the turtles to have their privacy. When we came back out of the exhibit, however, we realized that this turtle was not interested in privacy. Of course, theWife got video and of yeah, it's not safe for work:

I don't know what disturbed me more, laughing at the sound or the thrusting motion that big old horny turtle made. All that was needed was a "If this pond is rockin', don't come a knockin'" sticker on the fence.

Now Hear This

The oft fabled Swamp Thing has been found to have produced offspring. Proof has been found of this mythical creature in, of all places, Iowa. This myth has come under much scrutiny in recent years, but finally putting it to rest theElderSon holds his evidence for every one to see.


It comes in the form of a 37.5 inch, 27 pound, pond catfish caught on a bass lure to boot. Yes, that's right, it was found in a pond, proving the Swamp Thing has been reproducing in this area. For your own safety, theElderSon is a trained professional, please do not attempt to approach or catch Swamp Thing or it's offspring, or even go out at night if you find yourself near Iowa ponds. Thank you, now back to your regularly scheduled Saturday.

Prank taken WAY too far

Anyone who knows me, knows that I lurve me some prank TV. This one however has taken it too far, even in my book. In no way shape or form is this work safe. You've been warned.



Source: read more | digg story

Treatment Effects?

I have heard of side effects. The often hilarious rambled through possible effects of drugs heard at the end of a pharmaceutical advertisement can be very funny. This is going a little to far though. From myalli.com about the new weight loss drug:

What are treatment effects?

alli™ works by preventing the absorption of some of the fat you eat. The fat passes out of your body, so you may have bowel changes, known as treatment effects. You may get:

• gas with oily spotting
• loose stools
• more frequent stools that may be hard to control

What to expect

The excess fat that passes out of your body is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza. Eating a low-fat diet lowers the chance of these bowel changes. Limit fat intake in your meals to an average of 15 grams.

Learn more about following a reduced-calorie, low-fat diet.

Learning how to manage treatment effects is an important part of being successful with alli. Here's how to take control:

• Start trimming fat from your diet now, even before you begin taking alli. Then pick a day to begin taking alli, such as a weekend day so you can stay close to home if you experience a treatment effect. Make the timing work for you. If you're getting ready to travel or attend a social event, hold off on starting with alli until the event is over
• While no one likes experiencing treatment effects, they might help you think twice about eating questionable fat content. If you think of it like that, alli can act like a security guard for your late-night cravings
• You can't "save fat grams" from lunch and "spend them" at dinner. Spread your daily fat gram allowance of 15 grams on average per meal over the whole day
• You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work
• You may not usually get gassy, but it's a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens
• You can use a food journal to recognize what foods can lead to treatment effects. For example, writing down what you eat may help you learn that marinara sauce is a better option than Alfredo sauce

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It Twas....

The Bushman of San Francisco that was missing people. How could you not know that?

More Bushman can be found on YouTube.

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Guess That Location

Can you tell what's missing in this photo?

I've been having some amount of fun lately with the new Street View feature of Google Maps. So much so that I decided I have to share with everyone. I found this familiar location, which if you can guess where it is taken, besides what city it is in, and tell me what's missing, you will win a prize.

It's that simple, tell me what is missing from the Street View photo and win a prize. Leave your guess in the comments and I will notify you if you win.

In Focus

Since winning another digital camera, and having theWife use that one exclusively, while I continue to use the one we currently had, we had managed to snap off roughly 3 weeks of pictures on two cameras without transferring any of the pictures to the computer. I finally got the chance to do that yesterday morning, and saw this shot that I took. Doesn't theDog look so happy there in the sun. One of the rare moments he's not running away from us, chasing geese in one of the neighborhood ponds or general causing havoc. Either way, it's a cool picture, even if I have to say so.

I Wish I Was A Little Bit Taller

I Wish I Was A Baller

I wish I had a better rhyme with Baller than "Impaller" (meaning Impala?).

I heard that song this weekend for the first time in years. I got a chance to reminisce about all the good times I had years ago making fun of it.

I'm writing just to write this morning, so do not make the mistake of looking for a rhyme or reason in this post. I haven't written in months. I haven't posted in about as long either. I simply have not had the time to plan a post and write it. So this morning, I'm not planning, just writing.

I went to New York City a handful of weeks ago and spent a work week there training. It was my first trip there, and I never made it out of lower Manhattan. I was still extremely impressed by the massiveness of the city. Just for the record, massiveness did not come up in my spell checker so it must be a word. I took a bunch of pictures from my walks around and posted them on my google web albums:

20070413 New York

Speaking of pictures, I recently went to a HP sponsored seminar which introduced their new desktop and laptop lineups and won a new camera. It's an HP Photosmart r927 for those interested, and theWife has been having a good deal of fun with it. Maybe she'll start posting more pictures on her Flickr site. I'm sure as soon as she gets the time to do so, she will. There's that whole concept of time again, and how neither of have any, but I'm sure that holds true with most people.

Speaking of my luck, I also recently won a couple of Indians tickets from a local radio station. Not just any tickets either, but I will have a shot at $50,000 while I'm there. theWife and I will be sitting in a section of seats with other "finalists" who all have the same chance. If a foul ball gets hit into our section, and one of us catches said foul ball in the air, and it is then verified by an Indians representative, that person will win $50,000. Hopefully my luck continues, and all things come in threes. A third win for me would bring me that foul ball.

My rise hour is just about up, so I will wrap up this rambling incoherent nonsense I'm weakly calling a post. One more update, it's been 133 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes and 28 seconds since either theWife or I have had a cigarette. You may now leave your praise in the comments.

Pet Peeve

I do not have any "Pet Peeve"(s). At least I like to claim that I don't. For the most part I think that a pet peeve is fairly useless. What is it but a thing for which upsets a person that can not be dealt with? Most of the time when someone with a pet peeve witnesses that pet peeve being performed, they do not do anything about it, but complain, or become generally irritated. And someone who gets irritated over something they have no control over is really a pet peeve of mine.

Right about now, you're asking yourself where this is going, what's up with the picture of the escalator, and what's up with the midget? Ok, so maybe you weren't asking yourself about the midget, it's just a reference I like to use every once in awhile (if you can tell me where it's from I'll award you with bonus points and much respect). But I digress. Over the past 6 months of working in my new job, I have come to realize I do have a pet peeve. It gets so bad at times I just want to run through people yelling at the top of my lungs. What causes me to want to act like a screaming mimi, tearing through crowds and causing a commotion? People who stand on escalators.

Every day I have to go up and down a couple of escalators on my way to my office. Worse than the people who stand on them is the people who stand on escalators in pairs so I can't walk by even if I tried. Think about it, standing on an escalator is just plain lazy. They were invented to get us where we wanted to go faster, not to be lazy. If it were meant for us to just stand on, it would be an elevator. Now you want to stand there and talk to your coworker/friend and block my way, causing me to be inefficient as well.....Can you see why this frustrates me? I just want to get where I'm going, now. Is that so wrong? At least stay to one side so I can go about my merry way efficiently. Is that too much to ask?

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Tech Toys

Although I am currently striving to be financially independent and work for myself someday soon, I enjoy my current job. Yes, it's corporate and there are politics I must put up with, but I get to play with toys. We currently work with blackberries, but are looking at Windows Mobile devices. So when the Blackjack came out, I was one of the first to try it out.



Yesterday, I saw an online ad for the new Blackberry 8800 and started thinking about trying that out next. But then I read that it didn't have a camera. That may not be important for true business use, but then again it might. A coworker recently sent me a snapshot of the network rack they mounted in a remote office so that when my employee is there, he will know what he is looking at. This to me is a very efficient use of the camera phone feature that can be a great tool.



Of course, not all pictures taken can be considered "Business Efficient". For example, if one day you happened to be in an elevator that had a mirrored ceiling, and you happened to be like me, you might take something like this:

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With a Banjo on my Macchu Pichu

I have a module on my Google Personalized Home Page that shows me a daily "See Before You Die" sight complete with a picture. It's at the bottom of my page, so I tend to not see it every day, but most days I do, and I get a glimpse of somewheres I've never been. It was right about the time I saw today's however, that I realized I may have played one too many video games in years passed. So here is a test that I failed. Let's see if anyone else fails this as well.



Look at the picture on the right and tell me what place comes to mind:

1. Macchu Picchu, Peru OR
2. A scene from the Nintendo 64 game Banjo Kazooie.

I thought of Banjo Kazooie, which is why I fail. In fact, you can not tell me that the picture is not from the video game that I spent many an hour with while playing with theWife and theKids. I guess it truly is time to go see the rest of the world, though. I'll add Macchu Picchu to my list of places to go.

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No-Rad

Have times gotten that bad? Or is this a leftover from the Cold War that went unpurchased and forgotten about? Or maybe this is necessary for family safety when living near Lake Erie? I have heard about two headed bass swimming around and being caught, but this is ridiculous.



Whatever the reason for it's existence, theWife and I walked into a local Health Food store looking for something for our pets, but walked out prepared for a nuclear strike. As it turns out, this product is sold at a good deal of Health Food stores, including ones online:



No-Rad Anti-Radiation Potassium Iodide tablets | HerbShop.com

Peace of Mind in a Changing World

Be Prepared! Protect your family against the absorption of radioactive iodine after a nuclear emergency!

Ok, so maybe we didn't purchase any, but it's good to know that we could have. One never knows when the next nuclear emergency will take place.

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In the human body, which organ is in charge?

All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was in charge.



The brain said: "I should be in charge, because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen."



"I should be in charge," said the heart, "because I pump the blood and circulate oxygen all over the body, so without me you'd all waste away."



"I should be in charge," said the stomach, "because I process food and give all of you energy."



"I should be in charge," said the rectum, "because I'm responsible for waste removal."



All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, and the blood was toxic. Eventually the other organs gave in. They all agreed that the rectum should be the boss.



The moral of the story?



You don't have to be smart or important to be in charge... just an *sshole.

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Still Not Smoking

theWife and I are still not smoking.  How good are we?  I mean really, you just can't beat us.  It's been 73 days and 8 hours, and neither of us have had a cigarette.  So it's funny that I find out now that someone has invented a way to enjoy the tobacco and nicotine, without any of the ill effects of standard cigarettes:

Wired News: Smoking 2.0 Give Lungs a Break

The NicStic is a cigarette-size plastic tube with a rechargeable heating coil that vaporizes tobacco instead of burning it. Pop a filter on the end of the tube, and in seconds it is warmed up enough for a nicotine fix without the smoke. Because it has no smoke, it also has none of the tar, arsenic, cadmium and formaldehyde of regular cigarettes;

So, this article is telling me that I could have all the benefits provided by the nasty smell of tobacco and addiction to nicotine without having to worry about the whole dieing thing.  Sounds good no?  Actually, no...thanks but I'll stick to not being addicted or stinking like ass, which is what the article says these smell like.