Learning Aloud

I was at the “club” attempting to do my cardio for the day and watching CNN. The “breaking news” segment was about a new Internet worm that appears to be specific to Windows 2000. Half an hour devoted to a new worm is a pretty serious commitment for CNN so I assumed this must be a big deal.

I decided to go back to my office and see what was happening. The CNN article online now (see above) does not sound that bad, but CNN has added a new banner to the older post indicating more information will be available soon.

It has now been revealed that this worm shut down large numbers of computers at CNN, the New York Times, and ABC. I guess it makes sense it took CNN some time to update their web site.

Additional information on this MicroSOFT security problem, suggested fixes, and updates on the damage done by the worm can be found at the following sites:
Microsoft
CNN followup.
Slashdot
C|NET News
Washington Post

After several years, I have dropped my subscription to Audible.com. My subscription had provided one audio book and one “periodical/radio” program per month. It was really the daily access to a radio program (“All Things Considered”) that motivated my membership. Out of the blue, the NPR programs were gone. I contacted Audible.Com by email, but did not really receive an understandable explanation.

Today, I discovered a blog entry (Tim Lauer) that provides the information I needed. It seems NPR is exploring providing audible content via podcasts (NPR podcasts). I am not certain how the funding model is supposed to work. I assume that some of the money I paid to Audible.Com went to NPR and the immediate benefit to NPR of offering content without compensation is not obvious. “All Things Considered” is not presently available by podcast (although it is available at no cost from the NPR website), but some other NPR programming can be received via podcast.

It is amazing to me how quickly this option has developed and how many things I listened to via other methods 6 months ago are now available in this way.

File this in the “in case you are interested” category. I watch site statistics generated through log analyses programs. I started doing this with our book site to get a feel for what resources were being used and who was connecting. I purchased an inexpensive program to do the same for the blog site. While such information may not be of interest to the general public, you may find it interesting to learn what a system such as this can learn about you when you connect to their site. If you are a regular on this site, you might attempt to find find your address. Note that I do not log all possible information variables, but the analysis software identifies all information types that can be logged.

An article in MarketWatch examines the question of when a child should have a laptop. The article is intended to inform parents, but some arguments should also be considered by educators. In fact, one of the issues the author suggests parents take into account is whether or not the school will allow the use of a computer.

FCC changes (Media Law Blog) threaten your local ISP provider. The FCC has reclassified DSL as an information and not a telecommunications service. This change allows a DSL to deny ISPs access. Providers would seem to have the opportunity to function as the unique provider. The law is scheduled to be activated in a year and one would expect legal action to test this ruling.