View From the Balcony

Writers Block

2005-08-27

LongHorn Is Now Vista

After much hemming and hawing followed by years of
delays,  Microsoft has renamed Longhorn to Windows
Vista.  They finally released a beta version of Vista to
some testers during the last week of July.

It will be a while before you can get your hands on
this new Windows Vista software, as the original
release went out to some 10,000 testers to be followed
by a release to 500,000 people who are members of
MicroSoft's MSDN developer program or its Technet
program for corporate technology workers.

All of this great promise takes place August 3rd and
at the same time that was the official Microsoft
announcement of the renamed Longhorn to Vista.

The reason you cannot have a copy yet, is they are
testing the works to make sure it lives up to the long
awaited promises and if it holds up, you can put it on
your Christmas wish list for next year.

Vista is Hacker Heaven

Microsoft is including a tool called Monad that is set to
ship as part of the next echange e-mail sever release.
Monad, also known as MSH, is the replacement for the
simple command shell in the current versions of
Windows.  A shell, also called a command line
interface, allows a user to give a computer textual
commands either from a keyboard or from a script.

And therein lies the problem.  Already virus writers
have published the first examples of malicious code
that targets the upcoming command-line shell.

In Microsoft's haste to provide this tool or feature as it
will be packaged as, if enabled by default could open
the door to an outbreak of scripting virus.

Now whether they choose to release it as a part of
Windows Vista or offer it to you as an add on, it does
not much change the picture for vunerability. This 
new tool could allow the creation of both classic
viruses as well as e-mail worms.

Of course, you can always rely on the adage  already
being posted that the guidance on shell script viruses is
the same as it is for all viruses and malware - simply
protect yourself againt the point of entry.  That way
you can protect the amount of damage that the
malicious code can do.

Does not sound all that enthralling to me.   Linux is
looking better all the time.

I'm so excited over this release that I think I will take
a cup of coffee, go sit on the balcony and see if I can
count the number of rain drops that fall in a two
minute period.  Now that is something neither
Microsoft nor virus writers can alter.

2005-08-25

Profound Reading

READ THIS VERY SLOWLY.... IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.

Google Tool Bar Problems?

Do You Use Google Tool Bar?

2005-08-15

Late Night Phone Calls - The Pain

At 10:30pm the phone rang the first time, we knew it was my granddaughter Casara looking for her ride home from work. Thus it was expected.

Saturday night has become a ritual night to play the amateur version of Texas Hold 'em Poker. Family members gather round to show off their poker faces and bluff their fellow players.

It is an amazing situation to listen to a 12yr old point at the cards on the table and run off the percentage average of you having the type of hand that warrants that huge raise. After deciding the risk factor, he exclaims, " You're going down, dad," and matches the bet and adds a further raise.

The laughter is broken by the ringing of the telephone and the second late night call. This time all eyes look to each other and the phone is answered.

It is my daughter who lives in Saskatchewan calling. Our immediate concerns go to the safety of all there, and that is soon settled that all is well as to safety. The sigh of relief is followed with congratulations as she announces my grandson and his wife have made me a great grandmother for the third time.

Late night calls always create concern, and the news that is good soon builds the false euphoria that follows . If only the news would end with the good information. Not this time.

The real reason for this call, comes soon after, as my 40yr old daughter informs me she is in the fight for her life. They removed a huge tumor from her colon on Thursday and it is cancercous.

What do you say? What do you do in those first few seconds of mind blowing news like that? The only history of cancer in our famillies, is her paternal grandfather whom she lost to lung cancer, and me, her mother. I had a tumor removed in 1981, and am now undergoing facial treatment for skin cancer. I am a survivor if there is such a thing, and that gives her some strength to face this .

You laugh together because it is unfathomable shock, and you cry together as life is not always fair. Then you get on with living. That is what you have to do yet, and that is what you need to focus on. That is where we are today. Next Thursday she will know the recommended treatements and we will go from there.

Some times the view from the balcony is badly clouded by such painful life issues with no real answers.

2005-08-07

A Moment Respite for the Business Woman

It sure doesn't take long for time to pass when you are as busy as we have been this past week. Being a mom and a grandmother and the housekeeper of our abode, I understand so readily the threat to our sanity when it comes to keeping all ship shape. Thus in keeping with my frustration, I thought I would take this time to share a few nuggets with other business women.

Enjoy:D

To Moms:

Somebody said that a child is carried in its mother's womb for nine months.

Somebody does not know that a child is carried in its mother's heart forever.


Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby.

Somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, normal is history.


Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct.

Somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.


Somebody said being a mother is boring.

Somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.


Somebody said if you're a "good" mother, your child will "turn out good."

Somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.


Somebody said "good" mothers never raise their voices.

Somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her child hit a golf ball through the neighbor's kitchen window.


Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother.

Somebody never helped a fourth grader with his math.


Somebody said you can't love the fifth child as much as you love the first.

Somebody doesn't have five children.


Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her child-rearing
questions in the books.

Somebody never had a child stuff beans up his nose.


Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery.

Somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of
kindergarten.


Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back.

Somebody never organized seven giggling Brownies to sell cookies.


Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married.

Somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.


Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home.

Somebody never had grandchildren.


Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her.

Somebody isn't a mother.

To Harried Housewives

HOW TO START YOUR DAY WITH A POSITIVE OUTLOOK

1. Open a new file in your PC.

2. Name it "Housework."

3. Send it to the RECYCLE BIN

4. Empty the RECYCLE BIN

5. Your PC will ask you, "Are you sure you want to delete Housework

permanently?"

6. Answer calmly, "Yes," and press the mouse button firmly....

7. Feel better?




TO ALL THE KIDS - male and female - WHO SURVIVED the

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!


First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored
lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.


As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.


Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE
actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!


We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.


We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!


And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!


You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

Now that was the life!

Time for a cup of French Vanilla coffee, put my feet up and enjoy the view from the balcony - nothing beats the beauty and peace of a gorgeous sunset. Kind of makes being a woman, a happy place to be.