Dumped McAfee (morfed into serious bloatware). Never even touched Symantec with plyers (bloatware re-invented, well still behind RealPlayer I will happily admit). Switched everything to AVG. It’s free.

As for security, for whoever cares, this suite suites me really fine, it’s all excellent, high quality software.

• Anti-Virus: AVG Free
• Anti Spyware: SpyBot Search and Destroy
• Anti Adware: Ad-Aware
• Encrypted storage of data: TrueCrypt

Note that since I switched to Firefox, added Ad-Block Plus and kill all but a few selected cookies when I close it, has more or less nixed the need for spybot and Ad-Aware. A scan per two weeks is fine.

FactCheck.org claims to sift claims from facts in the US political arena, in a non-partisan way. I can’t vow if this is true or not. But they do have a vid-cast now, so pulling it in Miro is a piece of cake!

OpenOffice.org 2.4 has been released. I am a strong promotor of using ooo as it is called. It is a free, complete office suite (text, spreadheet, presentation, etc. etc.) already used by millions of people. Personally, I find it easier to use than Microsoft Office. One of the many nice thing is a simple “Save to PDF”. Oh, and it’s free.

For those already using it: what has really improved is the uber-easy switching of languages. Probably not a big deal for US based reader, but for me, writing in my native language, but often using English quotes, this was a dearly needed feature.

The 110 MB download can be found here, but if you have a P2P client, it is sweeter to use that, as you will “give it back to the world”. Considering this release is just out, my P2P download, using Miro, was a blaze at 4 minutes.

France is munching on boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympics, given the state of things in Tibet.

Belgium is munching on not going at all to the opening ceremony either.

Good on them, seriously. My prediction: A couple of fine words from the Chinese, a temporary withdrawal of some troops, happy games including the French and the Belgians, I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to Beijing eh, and then, more charges. Cynical? Yes.

Added April 5th: It was stated by a member of the French administration that mr Sarkozy will not attent the opening ceremony unless some serious changes re. Tibet are implemented, including an investigation into the recent unrest and a serious dialog with the Dalai Lama. Overruled. No conditions set.

I don’t know who Andy Rooney is and what sort of show he runs, but this sure made me smile.

 60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it’s usually more interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her. Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”, here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Scheckler is a German drugstore chain. In the city of Fulda, the building where the Scheckler store is located, is owned by the catholic church. Based on some article in the lease contract, the church has (succesfully) banned tge store from selling condoms, defending itself they “cannot oppose contraceptives and allow the trade at the same time on their own premises”.

This makes my blood boil. The good lord, interpreted by the bishop is of course happier with pregnant teens and STD infected kids. Oh but wait no, they shouldn’t have sex at all, right. Well, I will not make nasty remarks about priests and kids. Idiots. I am glad it is a big fuzz.

At age 90 not really died in his infancy, Arthur C. Clarke, author of amongst a lot of other fantastic works, “2001, A space oddyssey”, left this world. What a loss.

FlickrVision is supposed to take a snapshot of a randomly just uploaded photo on flickr (redflag: soon-to-be-Microsoft) and display it on the globe, every second a new one.

Currently it seems to take the location from the uploader’s profile (I saw alpine skiing in my country, yeah sure), but suppose it would take GPS coordinates, that are embedded as tags in jpg’s sooner than later? And almost real-time uploaded to services like flickr? Oh but wait, didn’t I write earlier about that? Oh, and now Yahoo (flickr) is going to be Microsoft’s soon eh?

Still, pretty cool I’ll admit.

Earlier on the nest: The world of pictures revisited, The world of pictures.

Roland Arnall, the former US ambassador in my country, suddenly died. He returned to the US only a month ago as his son was deteriorating. What happened is still unknown. Note that Arnall, a major sponsor of the king, made his fortune with Ameriquest, agressively selling choking loans to people in an already troublesome financial situation. The senate withheld his installment a few times but folded in the end.

I praise the city of Seattle. They imposed a ban on bottled water. What a simple and yet fantastic idea. I don’t know how plays out legally, but for any place with a good water supply system, it should be a grand example. In my country, the controls for the quality of water are much strickter on tap water than on bottled water.

I often carry a bottle of (tap) water, but I should also stay away from the coolers-with-a-container. Noted. Will do.

Thanks Envirovore.