I recently dusted off my trusty Compaq Evo and loaded the latest beta copy of Microsoft’s Windows operating system named Vista. Though I’ve only been running it a few hours, I can already tell that there have been a number of changes. There are certainly some improvements, but there are also a few things that make you scratch your head and say, “why did they do that?” I started a new article to chronicle my experience with the new OS. I’ll be updating it over the course of the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Windows back door rumor is bunk | The Register

Thomas Green all but calls Steve Gibson a blathering idiot in his latest article. I have to admit, I feel a little silly having bought into his conspiracy theory. Green makes several good points about the vulnerability and why it’s unlikely to be intentional. It seems Stepto was right on the money regardless of his position at MS. Looking back on this, Gibson seems more and more like the character “hippie” in The Abyss who thinks everything’s a conspiracy.

It’s been a while since I’ve worked on the HTPC (Home Theater PC) project. Lately I felt the need to finish the project as there were still a few areas that needed polishing. One major bug was getting analog TV working. I found a helpful article in ATI’s knowledge base that helped solve the problem. Once that was set, I could finally run GuidePlus. (a program guide that also allows you to schedule recordings.) I’m going to test it out on Conan tonight and on BSG (Battlestar Galactica) tomorrow and see how it goes.