I came across (or to be precise, was given) this condensed kid’s version of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.
Despite being 2 pages long, it summarises 100 A4 pages of waffle very succinctly. It has to be said, the style the play is written in… reminds me of someone… 
Click to download the full PDF! (90kb)
Happy reading!
I might transcribe it into a blag post or a text document when I have time, but for now, a PDF is your present.
Yay! This blag is PCI certified…
WTF, is probably what you are thinking? More on this to come later…
I do like fancy meaningless certificates, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. All I have to do now is slap it on every php and static html page I can find and surely, my e-peen will grow in size – much more quickly and cheaper than using the snake oil sold by the charlatans over at AMI, with their nasal spray technology bullshit.
Edit: So what is PCI DSS? It is a set of requirements for a certification given to a website to guarantee that it has made attempts to enhance payment/transaction data security, or simply – there’s no blindingly obvious security holes that allow the website to be hacked and your particulars accessed. You can read about all this waffle and the requirements at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss.shtml . (Was it really necessary to use https 256-bit AES encryption for a public website? I’m detecting more e-peen wagging here.)
PCI DSS certification services range from $1.95US (Nate McFeters promises not to hack your website), to McAfee’s HackerSafe service for $250USD to Qualys for $1000USD. They’re supposed to verify the integrity of your website and show visitors that it has not been compromised, but in practice, they are about as effective as placing smiley stickers on your server to ward off script kiddies.
Well, I wanted to get in on some of this uber certification action but can’t afford to pay some corporation for the privilege for having their logo plastered on my website. Enter Scanless PCI – http://www.scanlesspci.com/. PCI DSS certification for free! How could I resist… 
Bleh, no point creating 4 separate posts for 4 small issues so here they are amalgamated into one:
1) As is the inevitable fate of all blogs, Russian spammers have found Blag 
Akismet has been installed to filter out SPAM comments… (Those Russians really need to try harder – “nice blog ————- (url to mp3 website) – by default, most blogs should block their comments anyway, without the need to install anti-spam plugins but no harm done beefing up security)
2) Coles, the supermarket chain owned by Wesfarmers which supports terrorism has stopped selling “Pacific” branded 50-pack made in China ultra unhealthy packed with MSG spring rolls
3) Looks like the 301 redirect worked! Google, MSN/Live, Yahoo, Netcraft and Alexa have started crawling this new URL
4) Wiki’s are so freaking annoying to set up and maintain!!! Especially mediawiki (what Wikipedia uses), being one of the most un-user friendly pieces of software ever created by man.
Disclaimer: In this current climate of media hype, political correctness, and hysteria on the part of bored housewives with nothing better to do than whinge and annoy the f*** out of everyone, I shall hereby state that the title of this blag post makes reference to no particular religious god and if the reader feels compelled to, he/she can drink cyanide and die.
But myes, quite a good stash so far.
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure
as they say
Found a set of 3-way Marantz speakers lying by the side of the road – fine specimens, albeit with a thin coating of grime and sawdust, but restorable otherwise. Ok, so they weighed about 16KG each, it was 38*C and I had to make 2 return trips over a hill to carry them back to my house (perhaps I worked off the fat gained from guzzling the can of coke afterwards?)
Brief listing of acquired good over the past 2-3 eyars -
Speaking of cheap shit, our neighbour’s couch has visited every median strip on the street to date. Scavengers keep taking it, finding out it’s a useless piece of crap, and forget which strip they picked it up from so they dump it on anyone’s doorstep.
Funnily enough, some poor person saw my old school bags lying there and thought that they could recycle/re-use them. Poor person is now the owner of 5 fungal colonies, and about 4KG of rotting biological matter.
Welcome to blag’s new home at www.theparanoidtroll.com/blog
Accessing blag via the old Oz Techeducate adress will redirect to this new location. Pleas update all bookmarks or RSS feeds – they should redirect automatically, but one or two links may be broken.
Now to wait for Google to re-index the site 
Blag is coming! This will be the new home of what was formerly www.oztecheducate.org/WP.
Check back soon…
Blag is moving home!
From the 2nd of February 2009, it will be hosted at www.theparanoidtroll.com
Access blag using the navigational pane at the top of the site, or go directly to www.theparanoidtroll.com/blog
All search engine requests, page vists and RSS feeds should automatically redirect to the new website from tomorrow onwards.
It’s massive! It’s as attractive as the fecal matter ejected from the rear end of an elephant! What a monstrous…
Oh wait, he’s just wearing a NV Smart Phone wristwatch.
The nicest looking two in the range?
NV touts it as the latest in mobile phone technology. Sleek, sexy, functional (insert marketting waffle here). And in 10-20 years, it shall replace the traditional large screen mobile phone. The NV Smart phones aren’t cheap – they range from $399 to $999 AUD and come with a 1 year warranty. Good thing they come with a butload of extras – USB cable, headphones, bluetooth headset, 2 batteries as the iPhone looks much more attractive. The extras still don’t compensate for the tiny screen, pathetic battery life and the fact you look like a complete tool walking around with talking to your wrist. I can see lawsuits coming up here…
So not only do we have snobs walking around talking seemingly to nobody (read bluetooth headsets), we can now talk to our wrists!
Oh yes, all these phones are sourced direct from the sweatshops of China and rebranded. But wait! There’s more!
Models include -
which all come in various colors. NV also produce “tranditional” mobile phones with the -
The only thing going for their traditional phones is the ability to use 2 SIM cards. They do include standard features though – camera, mp3, mms, expandable storage, bluetooth etc).
As for NV’s website…
The website is entirely flash, hence the semi-retarded screenshot.
Whoever designed the website is useless f***wit. It’s entirely in flash and the streaking comets in the background are annoying. What’s interesting, is that the store locator tells you that the phone actually isn’t available for sale anywhere in Australia yet – probably because most retailers are smart enough to realise only rich bitches and only the most hardcore impulse buyers would even come within a 2KM radius of their products. As far as I can tell, the phone sells purely on the bling/novelty factor.
The company profile is complete waffle, the FAQs are an amusing read, and the “investment opportunities”… well, I’m not sure about that really, as they’re not ASX listed as far as I can tell? Site map doesnt work, and their environmental policy is a pathetic attempt at jumping on the green bandwagon.
Check it out: http://nvphones.com.au/ and CNET Australia’s dubious review http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilephones/phones/0,239025953,339294659,00.htm
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