Boardmad

Sigh…here’s the reason I hate flash ! Got into a huge scrap at work with a colleague arguing our customer-facing offering needed to be Web2.0 and RIA and that flash was the way to go as AJAX wasn’t ubiquitous yet etc etc and I politely pointed out that I personally, on all the browsers I use at home, block flash content.

And here’s why and here’s the original PoC code. Nice bundled-up, serialised SOAP call over an embedded flash object using an XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) vulnerability and UPnP (Universal Plug n Play - it makes those tricky little apps like MSN Messenger and Skype slip through your hardware and software firewalls like a hot knife through butter).

So the ongoing rule is learn to use your hardware properly and configure ONLY those ports on your firewalls that you really, really, really, REALLY need open and go home this evening and make sure UPnP is disabled on your router.

You have been warned…again !

If this isn’t the final nail in the coffin of this abortive attempt to see off the Leopard advance I’ve no idea what is…

Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh as it’s been snappily entitled has now been released to a slightly wider audience that those bleary-eyed nerdlings initially supplied with the hyoooge service pack earlier last year.

I’ve got a Vista Home basic on my second laptop at home, it’s fine but I’ve yet to get used to the wholesale changes they’ve made to where everything now resides (maybe if I made the switch and just got on with it !) but this ma-hoo-sive SP is just beyond a joke. There’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that they rushed this codebase to RC1 last year to avoid a publicity meltdown as this scale of a Service pack is just taking the piss !

It ain’t going to be on my primary machine for quite some to come I can tell you…in fact I’m seriously, seriously considering this as my next machine.

I’m turning to the dark side…no doubt.

When Tammy Jean (40) married Michael in Texas in 2002 little did she know that Michael (56) had a secret.

Michael was an alcoholic.

Not an ordinary alcoholic but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor….well, rectally.

The Texan machine shop operator couldn’t ingest alcohol by mouth (apparently due to painful medical problems with his throat) so instead elected to receive his favourite beverage via enema.

Essentially the resultant effect was the same, however when the rest of us have had enough we simply stop drinking (or pass out), however when Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out), the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed.

Rather than dissuade Michael from ‘drinking’, Tammy assisted him in his pursuits… by supplying (in May 2004) not one but two 1.5 litre bottles of Sherry.

Michael was in for one hell of a party! More than 100 fluid ounces of sweet, sweet sherry….right up your old address!

Tammy performed her marital duties admirably, and ‘administered’ to her husbands every need. Unfortunately, when she awoke the next morning Michael was dead in the bed beside her.

A subsequent autopsy found that Michaels blood alcohol level was (wait for it..!!) 0.47% … 6 times the legal intoxication limit in Texas.