Geek On The Mountain

Did you know that when you delete a file, all the actual data is still available and easily retrievable, even though you can’t see the file by conventional means? This is pretty basic computer info, but I don’t think that most people realize that it is the case.

So deleting a file doesn’t actually delete the file? Rest assured, it does….. the confusion comes when what most people think deletion means what a computer thinks it means.

Here’s what actually happens when you delete a file: The file gets marked as deleted and the space is considered to be free and hence OK to write data to. That’s basically it. All your data is still actually on the disc until some other piece of data gets written on top of it. With the right software, you (or anyone else) can recover part or all of the files (parts of deleted files may be overwritten by new data, so they may not be fully (or at all) recoverable). (Read the article)

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About a month a go I picked up a copy of Endless Blue’s self titled album. I usually stick to metal almost exclusively (though I do like many things), so this is a bit out of character for me. They seem to put themselves into the genre of trip-hop, which I had never heard of (seems it’s been around since the mid 90’s though). It’s basically electronic with a heavy beat and generally a somewhat slower, mellower pace then what I’d normally think of when music is described with the above qualities. It doesn’t hurt that, imo, the singer’s voice has a somewhat mesmerizing quality in general.

I first heard this stuff while watching an episode of The Scene. Endless Blue’s music is played in the third episode. Two of the featured songs, 99 and Down, can be downloaded from their site. Those are two of the best songs on the album….I also find the first track, September, quite catchy.

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I know what a malware infested computer is like now. It’s not fun at all. It (almost) amazes me what some people will do to try to make a buck… I used to fix/upgrade/build computers at a little shop when I was in high school, and thankfully that was before all this crap started happening. I imagine that repair shops get a lot of this stuff now. Your average user doesn’t stand a chance against this stuff. It’s not hard to deal with if you know what you’re doing (obviously), and even if you don’t all you need to do is show some initiative, google for your problem, and follow the directions available on numerous websites. I don’t think your average user is capable of doing that though.

Someone I worked with said their computer was running slow. I said I’d take a look at it, because what could be more fun? I figured it was full of spyware and crap. I was right….

Once I got the thing started up, I was immediately assailed with programs saying that there was spyware found and I should click here, here, and here to remove it, register the program, etc. I didn’t recognize the programs so I went ahead and googled them and found that they were all fake, or at least too fake for my liking. Several of these programs were what some would call extortionware…..they want you to buy their program, but it’s really them that’s creating the problem in the first place. It’s no wonder how they all got there though. Some popups would show up prompting you to download some program. Clicking on cancel or closing the window (presumably if clicked on OK it would too…) would cause it to try to install the program anyways. Thankfully, IE has a security check, so you have to OK it, but if you have no clue what you’re doing you might just click OK and let it install…

It did need some help though….saying it ran slow would be a bit of an understatement. As soon as I opened up IE, everything went to hell. (Read the article)

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The most popular posts are in the sidebar now. I can’t say as though the list is particularly better now than it was a few days ago though….

When I first installed Popularity Contest the popularity was based completely on the number of comments that posts had (I have a grand total of about 3 trackbacks, so even though they’re calculated, they didn’t do much). This lead to some strange things. My number 2 most popular post was Finally I know, a post from a long time ago where I took a quiz to find out just exactly what kind of lesbian I am. The quiz told me that I am a tomboy. Go figure…. I’d totally forgotten about the post. Very few people stumble across this post through searches I’m quite sure, so it’s probably not really that popular, but it had a lot of comments, so it scored high and looked that way.

Fast forward to today. That post is now quite a ways down the list and won’t make the top 5 to show up in the sidbar. It’s not even close. (Note the funny thing here though is that by mentioning it and linking to it, at least a few people will undoubtedly click on the link and it’s popularity will climb up a little again ). Instead, the Why You Should Use Firefox post is #1. This posts popularity is bolstered by a high number of home page views (#2 is also a recent post bolstered by homepage views, btw). The post that should (and eventually will, I believe) be #1 is the current #3, Unknown Symbols or possibly #4, Gummi Bears. Both of those posts get a lot of views from searches. Despite permalinks being worth 5 times as much as homepage views when scores are calculated, recent posts with a few comments to bolster the scores still win out.

Given a few weeks it’ll even itself out though. Those really “popular” posts will drop off the homepage and receive relatively little attention while the posts that get lots of search hits will continue to rack up the points. Furthermore, since all the scores are relative, as time goes on and those latter posts get more and more points, the points that posts initially get from homepage visits won’t be worth enough to make them seem really popular. For now, I could always adjust the point values so it looks more like reality, but I’m not going to. Probably the best reason for this is that I think the way it scores right now looks fair in the long run, and if I change something there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll forget to put it back later. Besides, it’s fun to watch in the mean time…

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In case you missed the news, Sony BMG has admitted to giving payola to radio stations.
Eliot Spitzer says it best:

…instead of airing music based upon the quality, based upon artistic competition, based upon aesthetic judgments or other judgments that are being made by radio stations — radio stations are airing music because they have been paid to do so in a way that has not been disclosed to the public. This is wrong, and it is illegal.

Basically, Sony BMG was paying radio stations to play their artist’s music. They even went so far as to have interns and outside firms that they’d hired call in and make requests to boost their artists.

I know how you feel here. I too was shocked to hear that one of my favorite, consumer oriented, and just all around caring record companies would participate in such an activity. (In case you haven’t been following the record company’s anti-piracy efforts over the years, it’s quite evident that they really, really, don’t care what they do and who they do it to in order to get their way. )

At least they’re being fined $10 million for their troubles.

Oh, and don’t forget the radio stations as well. It’s hard to say what ones were involved (since I haven’t bothered to try and look.. ), but they’re pretty much just as bad. Any station that was involved in this proves that they don’t care what their listeners want to hear.

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