Over one year, 5 months, 14 days, 16 hours, 34 minutes and 31 seconds ago, Microsoft went live with a service called MSN Encarta Instant Answers. Not only did it give answers, it liked to chat. We've had some good and some bad times together, and now we're friends enough to allow for me posting some of our chats here at Deep Thought. Think of it as a way to see inside the mind of one geek.

[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: Oh, hello there
encarta@botmetro.net : Welcome back, ModusOperandi.
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: I like what you've done with the place. Is that new carpet?
encarta@botmetro.net : Let's try looking in Encarta. =>
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: Why would we want to do that?
encarta@botmetro.net : It's just one of those things, you know.
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: I'm sorry, I don't.
encarta@botmetro.net : K, no prob.
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: You know, sometimes I think you should elaborate a bit more.
encarta@botmetro.net : Well, I just hope you won't get mad at me.
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: I'll try if you'll try.
encarta@botmetro.net : I hope it's something you really want to do. I will be there when you're done.
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: Oops, I forgot you have short-term memory loss.
encarta@botmetro.net : Let's see what Encarta can tell us. =>
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: Sigh
encarta@botmetro.net : What's wrong?
[GFAQ]ModusOperandi: You're completely stupid
encarta@botmetro.net : I am sorry if I was not able to answer you correctly. Here are some questions you can ask me:

* What is the capital of Italy?
* When was Leonardo da Vinci born?
* What is…
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With new graphics card setups like SLI and Crossfire coming out, a lot of lower wattage PSU’s are being tossed into the unholy pile of obsoleteness. When I built my computer I wanted a power supply that was equally quiet and cool. I ordered a silent one from Newegg, but it was DOA and I returned it (kudos to Newegg for their great customer service). I then remembered a little case modding site called Xoxide, which has some of the best products that you won’t find anywhere else. I found my current PSU there: a Casegears X-plug modular PSU, the perfect choice to go in my rig.

Stability Testing

Topping out with only a 450-watt rating, the X-plug is not the most powerful PSU out there. However, it is one of the few honestly-rated ones. Because of the cables being as they are (pre-bundled), I couldn’t use a meter to read the actual voltage. So I found out some people have used ABIT EQ to monitor the stability of their rails. I have ABIT EQ so this seem like the way to go. The rails are actually very stable in their wattage, more than most PSU’s that I have seen. There is a slight drop on the 12v CPU rail, but otherwise most of the readings remain stable at high loads. To test high loads, I ran 3DMark 2006 with After Effects and Cinema 4D rendering movies in the background, all while I had my overclock setting cranking my 2.2Ghz Athlon64…
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There’s a new bug uncovered and it’s a doozy! Correction, there are two closely related bugs; both are doozies.

The Month of Kernel Bugs site (MoKB for short) discovered a flaw in the way Mac OS X handles “corrupted UDTO HFS+ image structures” (that is to say, disk images with formatting issues; MoKB uses the example of bad sectors), which can lead to a denial of service. MoKB notes that “Although it hasn’t been checked further, memory corruption is present under certain conditions (in this particular case, unlikely to allow arbitrary code execution.”

The other was discovered yesterday, and also has to deal with disk image handling. MoKB says, “Mac OS X com.apple.AppleDiskImageController fails to properly handle corrupted DMG image structures, leading to an exploitable memory corruption condition with potential kernel-mode arbitrary code execution by unprivileged users.” Secunia considers this flaw to be ”highly critical."Okay, that’s not good. [UPDATE: Secunia has downgraded the flaw to Not Critical after developer Alastair Houghton further analyzed the bug. Read more about this issue.]

Proof-of-concepts are available for both if you’re curious. Being the intrepid sort, I decided to test the two proofs-of-concept on my secondary machine, my iBook G4. I recommend against trying the proof-of-concepts yourself unless you have a secondary machine, have no unsaved work open, or are slightly amused by watching your otherwise-stable Mac temporarily become a useless pile of electronics. It won’t infect any data, but it will be annoying. I know this information is available elsewhere, but I have little…
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Okay, here’s a quick one…

I decided to download Cha-Ching 0.3.1 and give it a go. It includes some new features and bug fixes, but also has some notable user interface gaffes. I plan to get more in-depth in an upcoming article, but I’ll show one grating UI flaw today.

What’s wrong with this screenshot?

I’ll give you a hint: it has absolutely nothing to do with the non-standard window style or UI widgets. I know that the purists reading this are probably yelling into their computers, “What do you mean it has nothing to do with that??”. These same purists may already have an idea of what else is wrong.

I’ll give you another moment.

Okay, ready?

The dialog is modal. I can’t move the main window. I can’t resize or minimize the main window. It’s possibly a bug, considering Cha-Ching is still in development, but I just have to ask, why? What’s wrong with a sheet, or better yet, inline editing a la OS X’s Address Book?

I know it’s still early in development, and from what I can tell from my usage of version 0.2, they’ve changed quite a bit in version 0.3. Here’s hoping the developers can get the UI sorted out before it reaches 1.0..

And maybe I’ll write a less-critical article soon.

Now this is downright scary and sad.

CNET editor James Kim and his family are missing. Last weekend Kim and his family were headed to Seattle from the San Francisco Bay Area. They have not been seen since Saturday evening in a hotel in the area of Gold Beach or Portland, Oregon.

They were last seen driving a silver 2005 SAAB station wagon with Califonia license plates reading “DOESF”.

I you have seen the Kim family or know anything about their whereabouts, you are urged to immediately call the San Francisco Police Department at 415-558-5508 (after hours please call 415-553-1071) or Portland Police at 503-823-4000.

All of us here at Deep Thought hope and pray that James and his family are safe and sound and that we’ll hear from them soon.

UPDATE:As has been reported elsewhere, Kati Kim and the children were rescued Monday.

We learned not long ago that James Kim’s body has been found in the Oregon wilderness. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Kim family.