Goodbye Sygate, Hello Comodo

 It was finally time for my beloved Sygate Personal Firewall to go.

As the pipes I have access to got fatter, Sygate’s CPU utilisation was getting unacceptable, up to 15% sometimes.

It was also getting long in the tooth (Symantec stopped development after taking over. Damn you Symantec!). Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but being a closed source application, the possibility of unpatched vulnerabilities is a concern.

And so, off on my quest. My criteria were simple.

  1. Cheap, free is even better
  2. Simple, as in “stop trying to do everything”
  3. Perhaps most importantly, effective

Unfortunately effectiveness can only be judged by reviews and tests as I have neither the means nor the desire to see for myself.

The popular candidate would be Kerio, but I do not like that it does web filtering, or that it nags you to register when the full version trial is over.

Happily, I decided to give Comodo Personal Firewall another go.

I have tried it before, maybe a year ago. Back then it had the obnoxious “Comodo LaunchPad”, and was bloody “chatty” with the warnings. Glad to see the LaunchPad is gone, and the sensitivity maybe tuned down somewhat.

Very nice, Comodo. Thanks.

Jimi Hendrix – Little Wing

This is the song that made me want to master the guitar. The video quality is atrocious, so just close your eyes, listen to the music and fly away.

Surely Jimi must have been channeling the music from somewhere not of this earth. That bit about me mastering the guitar? Still working on it.

Published
Categorized as Music

CS 2.1 Optimised CSS

I decided to hand optimise the default CSS that came with the CS 2.1 package, both for the mental exercise as well as to derive a less verbose set for me
to customise any future CS projects from.

The totaled file size is reduced from 179 KB to 140 KB, not too impressive but I’m sharing it anyway in the hopes someone might find it useful.

CS2.1 Optmimised CSS v1.1

Note that there should be no changes at all, visually.

Update: Ran the files through CSSTidy, down to 103 KB.

Brad Delp 1951 – 2007

There is really only one thing I can quote:

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away

R.I.P. Brad, and thanks.

Update: It was a suicide. Damned shame.

Published
Categorized as Music

CONSPIRACY! BRIT TEAMS KEPT APART! (or not)

The draw for the quarters and semis of the Champions League is out. The first legs of the QFs are on the 3rd/4th of April, the second a week later. The semis are on for the week of the 24th/25th of April, with the reverse tie a week later. Teams listed first play the first leg at home.
 

Quarter-finals 

AC Milan v Bayern Munich
PSV Eindhoven v Liverpool
AS Roma v Manchester United
Chelsea v Valencia
 

Semi-finals

AS Roma or Manchester v AC Milan or Bayern Munich
Chelsea or Valencia v PSV Eindhoven or Liverpool

 
Very accomodating of UEFA to give us all the dull grinders on one branch of the draw to the finals, and all the attacking sides on the other. The neutrals should be pleased.

Kuniaki Haishima – Grain

“Grain” is dark, atmospheric, chilling, surreal. It reaches for the sacred while wallowing in the profane. It is like nothing else I have heard. It is perfection.

Monster OST 1 - GRAIN (opening theme)

It is also the opening theme for Monster, one of the best fictional work I have ever experienced, in any medium. Highly recommend, even for, to use a cliché, people who hate cartoons.