Archive for July, 2005

MSN Virtual Earth vs. Google Maps: Vegas

Monday, July 25th, 2005

MSN has just launched their mapping service, Virtual Earth, a direct competitor to Google Maps.

As I will be heading to Vegas early September (w00t w00t!), I checked out the Bellagio Hotel on both services.

See for yourselve:

  • MSN Virtual Earth: Bellagio Hotel
  • Google Maps: Bellagio Hotel

    Not only is the google one “full” color, it also is much more up to date*, in fact the MSN one is showing the Bellagio when it wasn’t built yet.

    On the other hand, MSN’s Virtual Earth is much more responsive, and my scrollwheel works nicely inthere.

    * Based upon a sample with n=1

    • Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »

    Zylom Games Player: not spyware

    Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

    *sigh*
    Due to Microsoft basically removing Java from their browser, nowadays most browsergames are ActiveX (don’t get me started about Flash). This however requires you to install an ActiveX object, to allow downloading the games and play them in your browser. We spent quite some time creating a good loader object which works onder IE and Firefox (Wintel). This loader object is required to play (our) ActiveX games.

    However, each and every day I get google alerts regarding postings on forums with hijackthis logfiles, and other people suggesting to those people to remove the Zylom Games Player. Then afterwards they contact our support that “suddenly the games stopped working”, when ofcourse they never changed a bit (except for removing our player)…

    So if you see a line like
    O16 - DPF: {BFF1950D-B1B4-4AE8-B842-B2CCF06D9A1B} (Zylom Games Player) http://../zylomgamesplayer.cab
    in you hijackthis log, don’t worry, it’s not spyware. It’s our game-extension and is required to play the games.

    See the zylom help as well.

    Posted in Internet, Games, Raves & Rants | No Comments »

    Survived Extrema Outdoor 2005

    Sunday, July 17th, 2005

    Just back from Extrema Outdoor 2005, an outdoor dance festival. Sun was shining and hot, beer&wodka was cold :) Spent WAY too much money (4 EUR/bottle of beer), but it was (once again) good.

    Went to a private afterparty after that, partying till my brains shut me down.

    Have fun!

    Posted in Dutch, Raves & Rants | 1 Comment »

    GMail Phishing Protection

    Thursday, July 7th, 2005

    Just noticed the GMail Phishing Protection.

    Everybody will have received those phony eBay, Paypal and Citybank emails every once in a while, and I must admit that sometimes it’s hard to tell if they are real or not (just look at the source).

    Today I got my first phishing email on my gmail-account, which is kinda strange as I keep that email-address kinda secret, I only use it for webshops / orders and registrations on (to my believe) trustworthy sites. Somehow however they got to my email (or are just randomly spamming).

    But what suprised me most was the big, red bar above the message, warning me for a possible scam. All links where disabled, no picture-load button. Very nice, as ofcourse it was a scam (looking at the original message), but this really will help all nitwits (i.e., > 90% of the public). I’m impressed.

    Posted in Internet, Remarkable | 1 Comment »

    LIVE 8

    Saturday, July 2nd, 2005

    Have been watching LIVE 8 all day, didn’t expect to watch it. Was zapping around this day, and saw the first minutes. Haven’t turned my TV off since then, though must say I’m not that actively watching, but more a background music screen.

    Raised my head a bit ago, when Madonna said ‘fuck’, wondering “Is this broadcasted live in the US ?” Who the fuck cares, btw.

    Posted in Raves & Rants | 1 Comment »