Test Drive of Safari on Windows

I downloaded and installed the newly-released Safari on Windows (available here in order to see for myself how Apple's venerable browser looks and feels like on my notebook.

The slick interface still has the same look and feel of the MacOS with these claimed features

1. Blazing Performance
2. Elegant User Interface
3. Easy Bookmarks
4. Pop-up Blocking
5. Inline Find
6. Tabbed Browsing
7. SnapBack
8. Forms AutoFill
9. Built-in RSS
10. Resizable Text Fields
11. Private Browsing
12. Security




After opening a few tabs of a news site, Safari crashed and generated Application logs I appended below.

Now, that's normal behavior for a product still i beta stage. Unlike the vaunted Windows Vista that I found too slow on my brother's new Toshiba Satellite notebook running on Intel Core 2 Duo.

For now, I just content myself on my Firefox browser that currently use MacFoxII add-on to look like it's on MacOS X :)



Application error log generated when my Safari crashed:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 6/14/2007
Time: 9:48:57 AM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
Faulting application safari.exe, version 3.522.11.3, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x0003426d.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The Prudential Life: Selling Insurance Shameless Way

This is a pathetic and unscrupulous attempt of some group on trying to sell you insurance by Prudential Life, not sure if officially sanctioned by Prudential Life
but the way they trick people in coming to their office is something that should never be done by normal people.

I'm publishing this as another friend of mine asked me if this modus operandi that she won something and must come to the same office (my friends know of the kind of work I do that's why they consult me about things like this)

You people behind this trick should be ashamed of yourselves.

I sent an email inquiry to the helpdesk of Prudential Life but fell on deaf ears and got no reply...I wonder why

to all readers, beware and spread the word!
the shenanigans behind this act use Social Engineering by declaring to come to their office and file within 24 hours plus the dubious and absurd requirement of presenting credit card as identification.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

we received a call informing us that we still file for a claim on a dead brother's Prudential life insurance.

our brother died in an accident several months ago.
this was a surprise as earlier inquiries told us that the policy had lapsed.

the caller said that:
- the claim must be filed within 24 hours;
- any relative may file the claim but must have valid IDs (company ID, sss ID, any CREDIT CARD);
- we must proceed to Prudential Life's RELEASING OFFICE at the 6/F RCI Bldg, Rada St., Legaspi Vill., Makati

at the supposedly RELEASING OFFICE, although the glass doors and wall had the the Prudential Life name/logo, the room didn't feel right:
- there was only a single office table with several chairs, a sofa and some side tables and a tv (several young men/yuppies were watching tv);
- the carpeting was dismal;
- very prominent was a stack of large gift-wrapped boxes (maalala mo talaga yung 'family first')

we became really suspicious and finally withdrew when, despite our insistence that we were there to file for a claim:
- they did not ask for any detail about the policy holder (not even the name);
- instead they filled out a green Prudential Life Personal Information Sheet with my info.
- they insisted on requiring that we present at least one CREDIT CARD for verification of our identity.

we were lucky to get out unscathed (we never presented a credit card, got back my IDs and the information sheet before leaving) pero ang masakit, namatayan na nga kami ay naisipan pa nilang gawin yun - sana multohin sila ng kapatid ko!

Philippines Still Lacks a Cybercrime Law

This is a reaction to the featured article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer titledPNP slams lack of RP laws against cybercrime in which the PNP through the CIDG lamented the lack of cybercrime law in the Philippines due to the propensity of our lawmakers-- congressmen and senators-- to quarrel, destabilize, and criticize one another instead of make laws which is their raison d'etre.

I personally agree that this country needs a lot of laws to be drafted, not like the Manny Pacquiao saying we have enough laws that only need implementing. He's right though on the latter part.

I know the people lobbying and drafting the proposed cybercrime bill still pending, and not surprisingly, will again be relegated as low priority by lawmakers who prioritize disbursement of their pork barrel. What always happen is that sponsoring senators and congressmen would call hearings and hearings then bring the proposed bill to the bottom of the heap for the nth time.

I've experienced working with both the NBI Anti-Fraud and Cybercrime Division and CIDG counterpart group on certain cases in the past, even saw the NBI's modern equipment donated by the US (that only a few men knew how to use properly)

The proposed bill should be prioritized. RA8792, otherwise known as the E-Commerce Act is not enough to pin down miscreants on the net, but it doesn't mean that its passage can really deter evil men from doing their thing.

JAP: Anonymity and Privacy on the Internet

Here's one of the new (relatively, that is) way to stay anonymous in the Internet by hiding your true IP address and instead show a single IP address shared by many users. JAP works more securely in anonimizing when there are more users of the system.


A simple installation is required where you configure the port number to be used by JAP to accept connections (default is 4001) then you point your browsers to use localhost and port as proxy.

There is an option to use a proxy for JAP (when you're forced or want another layer of proxy to hide) that is absent from another anonymizing technology TOR that I already blogged of here.

More information can be found at the JAP website plus links to the downloadable installer here.

Remember always: Anonymity is not a crime!