From the Chicago Tribune, via ThreadWatch, via Digg:

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)

If you use any of these, shame on you. And don’t be surprised when your online bank account is suddenly emptied.

While using Google Reader to peruse some RSS feeds, I clicked on “Home” and got this:

Yeah, thanks. Not even a suggestion to reboot?

Anyone notice that trying to go to the CIA World Factbook with IE7 results in a security certificate error? It may just be me, but I find that rather humorous.

The Ultimate List of Free Windows Software from Microsoft, compliments of the Road to Know Where.

There’s some pretty cool software here, like an Alt-Tab replacement that actually displays a preview of the app instead of just the icon (handy for multiple Explorer windows). It’s not as slick as the built-in functionality in Vista, but it’s pretty slick.

There’s also a couple of upgraded calculators, some great media tools and utilities like Fiddler (“. . . an HTTP Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data.).

Ah, the things you have to research for work when you’re in charge of the portal initiative. For instance, who are the biggest players in internet search traffic? According to a website called Search Engine Watch:

According to ClickZ, the majority of Internet searchers use multiple search engines. (I’m one of those.)

And in the stupidest search engine factoid ever generated, 7% of doctors recommend Google, 4% recommend Yahoo! I don’t trust my doctor to get my diagnosis right. Why would anyone take their recommendation for something so far outside their field?

Technorati tags: Internet Technology, Search Engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask.com.

Google is cracking down, telling people to stop using “google” as a verb, as in, “He asked me out and I googled him to see if he was a crackpot or something.”

Most people would have the same reaction as the bloggers quoted in the CNET article linked above, but there are reasons to try and take steps to protect a trademarked word. Remember Aspirin?

Aspirin (with a capital “A”) was trademarked by Bayer (along with “Heroin“, a pain reliever that Bayer thought had a better future) in 1899.

But the German company Bayer teamed up with BASF and Hoechst to manufacture clorine gas for use during the First World War. In retribution, the Treaty of Versailles included a provision to strip Bayer of its patent and trademark in Britain, France, America and Russia.

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While researching project methodologies today, I came across a study performed late last year: The Impact of Offshore Software and IT Services Outsourcing on the U.S. Economy and the IT Industry.

Commissioned by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) [a group that consists of 375 corporate members -- including Microsoft and IBM], the study researched more than just America offshoring IT jobs, but rather looked at global sourcing of programming and services.

The findings include:

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Microsoft made it’s LiveWriter WYSIWYG tool available to beta testers today (download here).

It’s a fairly massive download and can install much more than just the blogging tool (like their new Desktop Search), but the installation was painless and error free.

This is my first post using it (hence the lack of any meaningful content) so I am playing with things like inserting pictures:

This is Bubba, whom I named because he is a little bit fat, a little bit lazy and a lot smarter than he lets on.

In this picture Bubba is engaged in his second-favorite activity. His first favorite involves a lap and a hand that can be coaxed away from the laptop which he displaced when jumping up on the lap.

So far, the user experience of LiveWriter is very favorable — if you can use Word then you can use LiveWriter. On the other hand, there are some things I don’t like, but I’ll wait to write about those after a few days testing when I can make a good analysis.

Gartner has released the 2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle in which three “key technology themes” are identified. These are “new or heavily hyped technologies” that are expect to mature and have significant impact within the next ten years.

Predictably, the list starts out with Web 2.0 and includes AJAX. On this one they are undoubtedly correct. On the others, I’m not so sure.

For instance, the hype about Unified Modeling Language (UML) being used to create platform-independent applications sounds awfully familiar. Anyone remember the promise of CASE tools and how they were going to change the software industry? Probably not. That’s because the reality never lived up to the hype.

HT to NeoBinaries, who also informs us that the second beta of release of Firefox 2.0 has been delayed until the 15th of August.

Technorati Tags:
Technology,
Geek Stuff.

According to Mapquest, it is just over 15 miles from the middle of a small town called Millington (population 10,433 in Y2K) to my front door. Driving time is estimated to be 21 minutes.

So you can imagine my incredulity when I ordered a printer and watched this unravel:
 

The package was shipped using SmartPost from FedEx, which I have used once before. That time it took two weeks for a memory card (about the size of a half a book of matches) to get to me from California. Bad enough, but eight days to go 21 miles and instead it traveled about 1,755 miles?!

Ain’t modern technology (and free shipping) wonderful?