RootKits & Sony Music

Quick note - Sony has agreed to stop making these CD's (not that they will stop forever or even pull the ones already out there from the market). Microsoft has stated that they will include something in their December 2005 update to their Anti-Spyware software to remove this rootkit if it has been found.

In the meantime, return those CD's to your retailer if you've just bought them. Don't give them to anyone else and be careful. The response from Sony in this case was pretty awful, even going so far as to say that most people don't know what a rootkit is so they shouldn't be concerned. The same could have been said of computer virii for some time. You may not have known what a computer virus was, but if you were infected, you cared quite a bit.

RootKits & Sony Music

While I don't really buy a whole lot of music from Sony, this article raised quite a few concerns about what Sony is doing to "protect" their content with DRM. As most of the comments agree, this is going way too far. The writer includes all of the steps he went through to remove the malware installed by inserting this CD into his computer. Another great argument against using Autorun on your machine. If you're using it now, disable it. Also, take a good luck at the CD's you buy and where you get them from.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

Eliana & the Sound of Music

Eliana's taken to singing songs from "The Sound of Music" lately. She likes Do-Re-Mi and the yodeling goatherd song. I understand that she went through Target today yodelling happily. She also keeps telling us that she's 14 going on another age that keeps varying.

Another musical feature lately has been her standing on a small box, whatever is handy, and conducting people based on the scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick van Dyke at the fair. It's pretty funny, though it also looks like a conductor. Only way we knew otherwise was when she kept telling people to "step right up".

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

While prepping for work the other day, Eliana came up to the other side of the door and knocked on it. Nothing unusual about that. She often tries to get our attention when we're not in the same room as her. This time she followed the knock with "Little pig, little pig, let me come in." Shortly after that, she repeated it in a higher, more urgent tone. (I was too busy laughing to respond initially.) I finally fed her the correct response and she told me that "I'll huff and I'll puff and blow your house down." After that she let out a large deep breath, kind of like trying to heat something with your breath.
She's a great kid. That made my day. She's been doing it on and off when the mood strikes her now.

Squirrels and some nuts

Squirrels!

AL, Amanda, Eliana, Emma, and Ethan all took a day trip down to Fort Worth to visit the Science Museum and have a picnic lunch @ the Botanical Gardens. Apparently the museum went well and they settled down after looking around the gardens to eat. Eliana picked up a stick and played around for a while. They eventually attracted the attention of a squirrel. Emma fed the squirrel out of her hand. Eliana joined in shortly afterwards. They tried to pet and pick up the squirrel with little success. The squirrel wanted a little more chex mix and reached out to get more from Emma's hand. That disturbed her a little bit to the point that she started asking Eliana where her stick was. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken and people with a camera came by a minute or two too late to actually get a picture.