Two-step (geotags in the HTML)

::: {style="display:none" geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wsg84_pos#"} 19.423791 -155.91163 :::

Dan Gillmor wonders if there's an effective way to battle scam e-mails. Here's a thought: banks, eBay, CC companies, etc. provide a Web site or Web Service that provides an array of fake userids and passwords that are identified in their back end as “fraudulent.”

• A savvy person receiving a …

Well, that's a little disappointing. Microsoft's new SyncToy is 3/4 of a great utility, but it requires manual intervention to run, rather than syncing every x minutes or on reconnection to a wireless network. It also does not synchronize directories with PDAs or SmartPhones.

Well, that was quick. According to Hilton Locke, the TIP is now available for installation in the Vista beta. Maybe I will install Vista on the M1400 after all...

SyncToy Beta 1 is now available:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0fc1154-c975-4814-9649-cce41af06eb7&displaylang=en&Hash=4GB5TM

Boy, I hope by November 7 the IntelliSense parser doesn't “helpfully” replace “T” with “ThreadStaticAttribute” all the time.

I'm not prone to game “addiction,” but I lost 2 hours to Planarity yesterday and am trying to keep myself from clicking through right now...

One wonders what the rationale is for changing the names of programmer-level layers from fairly memorable brands to utterly forgettable TLAs.

Well, there's a nice coincidence -- a brand-new (well, used, but not by me) M1400 and the Longhorn / Vista beta. In the words of the immortal James Doohan, “How do they mix? I'll let you know...”

Update: Microsoftian Hilton Locke warns “many of the user interface items (read: Tablet PC Input …

Loren speaks of hardware driving the success of the Tablet PC, and Iggy agrees, going so far as to say that “computing with a pen is unnatural.”

“Computing with a pen is unnatural.” Okay, I can agree with the words, but only to the extent that it's tied to “computing …