Ricky smiled again, and shrugged. “Hey,” he said. “It gets the job done.” Those kettles in the next room were indeed tanks for controlled microbial growth. But Ricky wasn’t making beer—he was making microbes, and I had no doubt about the reason why. Unable to construct genuine nanoassemblers, Xymos was using bacteria to crank out their molecules. This was genetic engineering, not nanotechnology!

That was an excerpt from Michael Crichton’s Prey, a sci-fi novel, and an excellent read, published in 2002.

That particular quote was in reference to the protagonist discovering that a R&D company was using bacteria (in his case "Theta-d 5972 […] A strain of E. coli.") to grow nanoparticles, which in turn built nanobots. I am a lover of sci-fi novels, the more plausible, the better. Michael Crichton is a physicist, and his novels tend to be incredibly beleivable… Just read on!

Continue reading →

PIRT (Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination) is making headlines around the web, but take their plans with a grain’s worth of salt for now. For those of you that haven’t heard or can’t be troubled to follow the links, PIRT is a non-profit organization comprised of volunteers, dedicated to tracking links in spam to phishing websites and concentrating their efforts on "shutting those sites down." It may sound like a valiant and praise-worthy effort, but our researchers are unearthing more details that may cast a shadow of doubt on this organizations methods and goals.

PIRT’s methods for "shutting down" sites aren’t too clearly defined, their homepage mentions contacting hosts and ISPs and requesting their cooperation, but as Netcraft reports, most phishing schemes launch from the same netblocks repeatedly:

Fraudsters will often host their sites in developing countries with limited law enforcement resources and incentivize the hosting company to keep the site running as long as it possibly can. Indeed, some unscrupulous hosting companies actually promote fraud hosting as a service. Some hosting companies offer fraud hosting as a service whereby they are incentivized to keep the site up as long as possible, and this necessitates more extensive action.

Continue reading →

Everyone says Linux is harder to use than Windows. I’m not disputing that, Windows and Mac are most certainly simpler operating systems and easier to get used to for the computer illiterate, but just read on for ten important reasons why Linux is easier…

10) Easier to Get: It’s Free!
If you have a cable or DSL modem (and a subscription..) you’re all set! No need to stop by Best Buy and pay a visit to the “Geek” Squad or work extra hours to save up for Macintosh and its required hardware.. Even if you are still on dial-up there is hope for you: most popular distros have year-long or special occasion releases of free CDs.. and I really do mean free CD, free shipping and handling, free support, its all there!

9) Regular “Full” Releases
Not all of us know how to 7) download the latest kernel and compile, or how to update to that new shiny version of KDE (the one with the blue bars.. come on!) or how to upgrade OOo.. If you use a good distro, chances are a new version will be out with all these and more from 6 to 12 months after the last release!

Continue reading →

Well, its official, its out.

We’ll have screenshots soon as we download the build… Till then! 

Update!:
Here in the middle of nowhere and in the land of no internet the download has just finshed! Should have some stuff up soon! =) 

[Support Forums] [Feature List] 

Ramblings of a Computer Guru, and more importantly, NeoSmart Technologies is back on stage.
Before I say anything else, a word of advice, if you are looking for a host, and are expecting any form of traffic, don’t go with ZestHost unless you are willing to pay 2500 a year for slow servers, crappy support, and outdated technology.

That said, NeoSmart Technologies has been offline for a week, but we are back up and running as of today. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.. We are taking this opportunist to write a custom download center script for our main site, redo the design there, on the forums, here on the blog, and on our brand new wiki… Oh yes, the wiki.
We decided that no site as rich in resources and talented members as this is complete without an ideal way of sharing that content in an easy to use and easy too update manner.. and a wiki fit the bill!
We will be using mediawiki (who isn’t??) and hope to get guides, comparisons, walkthroughs, and reviews in it.. we are open to any and all suggestions at this time, feel free to leave a reply here, post in the forums (up soon!), or send us an email…

Sincerely,
Computer Guru
Founding CEO

Finally. It has been 3 days of nonsense, starting off with a no-name site trying to get some traffic: smarthouse.com.

I didn’t believe it, but this blog was down, and I had no other place to throw my rants.. But now from the depths of Microsoft, we have the word of Robert Scoble that this is nonsense. Shame on the big names in the industry that were so quick to grab this and post it as front page news. There is no XBox team working on Windows, there is no code rewrite, there is no failure.. not yet.

The sad thing is, the minute it appeared on The Inquirer there was no one left that didn’t quote it.. What The Inquirer needs i- a law suit.. something big to stop them from spreading rumors, libel, and lies…. something to put an end to all this. /rant

Thank you Robert….. :)