sorinmustaca.com – Sorin Mustaca – personal blog. Security software, agile development, scrum, programming and more

With a huge surprize I’ve read here that McAfee is teaching people how to play with Malware.

I do not think that everybody needs to know this. Already too many script kiddies are doing this with catastrophic effects.

http://www.mcafeefocus.com/focus09/sessions/GroupMeetings.aspx#avert2

Avert Labs — Malware Experience
(By appointment only)
Tuesday, Oct. 6
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
You’ve often heard that the Internet is a dangerous place and you’ve probably read about threats such as botnets, keystroke loggers and drive-by installations of malware through rigged Web sites. But what is malware really? How do cybercriminals launch their malicious attacks? McAfee is offering you the chance to find out with the unique and exclusive McAfee Malware Experience.

Join experts from McAfee Avert Labs and have a chance to work with a Trojan horse, commandeer a botnet, install a rootkit and experience first hand how easy it is to modify websites to serve up malware. Of course this will all be done in the safe and closed environment, ensuring that what you experience first hand doesn’t actually go out onto the Internet. To sign up, contact Shiva Mandalam at shiva_mandalam@mcafee.com or 408.346.3866.

McAfee, do not consider that just by using a “safe environment” the problem doesn’t exist. Those guys who enjoy the feeling will repeat the experiment… maybe outside of the safe environment.

And then what ?

IMPORTANT:
I AM NOT A JOURNALIST, JUST A BIG FAN !

I wanted to attend the festival because I love Manowar !

So, I drove 5h30min to Loreley on 18.07.09 to see and hear Manowar.

Here is my (bitter) experience:

1. The location was badly chosen
Why ?
In order to go there you must definitely have a car.
Yes, there is a train station, but to reach the festival you need to go there by car. You can forget the bus …

2. We had to pay the parking for each ticket, not for each car.
So, I bought two tickets, I paid the parking place twice (2x 10euro). That’s not fair !

3. Where are the official merchandises ?!
Manowar had a problem with the organizers and they installed their shop (a tent) near the camping ground. Nobody knew about it and nobody said anything about it …

4. Everything was already sold out
I wanted to buy some things, as a true fan
But the only answer I got was: we have only these sizes… And of course nothing fit me
Come on guys, Germany is the country where you have most of the fans.
Bring at least more (bad quality) products !

5. Very bad quality of the merchandise
I tested a couple of articles to see if they fit (and they didn’t), so I could feel and see the quality of the very expensive products (30 euro a long sleeve, 50 euro a jacket).
I don’t mind to pay twice as normal for a product with Manowar on it, but at least make it last at least 2-3 wash cycles.

6. Lack of respect for the fans
Their show was planned to start at 22.30 and they showed up at 22.55h. However, they sang as planned, until 01:00h, so we lost 25 minutes of concert.

Shame yourself Manowar !

This is how you respect your fans ?
Manowar DID NOT even say “sorry” that they came so late.
Of course, I hooted a lot together with the rest of the angry fans.

and now, in the end, the quality of the sound :

IT WAS JUST TERRIBLE !!!!

The pour Eric Adams (vocal) had a very hard time to just
make himself heard. The music was great, only the sound was bad !

The guitar (bass) was so loud that the loudspeakers couldn’t render the sound, so they made some BUZZZZZZ which nerved us. I have been to three concerts of Manowar and this is the first time I had to plugin some ear plugs. The sound was just causing pain in my ears and not because it was loud (I was expecting this)
I have seen a lot of people near me getting such ear plugs.

Manowar, do your homework better next time !

You’ve made a lot of fans very unhappy with this festival !

Considering the amount of fans that showed up, approximatively 3000 persons, I think that this is not the first time such a joke takes place. Joey de Maio asked everybody to look around and see how many people were present just because he knew that everybody will say that there are too few spectators.
The open air theater was almost full… in the last rows there was enough place to sit relaxed.
Compared to their shows in the last years, this was peanuts…

Conclusion:

Manowar seems to have forgotten that they are now great because of their fans !
And for keeping those fans it is not simply enough to sing great, they need to respect their fans.
My impression was that now they only want their money …

Here are some pictures I’ve made during the concert.:

Manowar at the Magic Circle Festival

I own a Dreambox 500S which is in fact a box with a 250 Mhz PPC processor. It runs, of course, Linux, kernel 2.6.9.
Because it is so small, so power efficient, I plan to use it to make some cron jobs

So, here I start with some links:

http://penguinppc.org/embedded/#toolchain

http://kegel.com/crosstool/

http://kegel.com/crosstool/crosstool-0.43/doc/crosstool-howto.html

I’ll post here the steps later.
Until then, I think I need to get gcc 3.4.3
My Open Suse 10.2 has gcc 4.1.2.

Lately, I have become another Flickr addicted. This happen before becoming a Pro. Pro is a paid account and I received it as a present for by birthday, from Mihaela (my wife).
Each time I open my browser, my mouse goes automatically here:  Comments On your Photos

If I see comments, and I usually do,  I feel the urge to .. respond and of course, to reply the comment.

I am addicted … to Flickering