Between blotch and blok

O rly?

Ya rly.

When the second Trojan of the year hit last night, just after the Windows updates installed, I read up its features and those of related Trojans. Some of these messed with files with particular extensions: .doc, .xls,...

Phew, I thought. The last thing I do before submitting OU work is change from OpenOffice formats and extensions to MS Office. And back up manually (there's a daily task that runs automatically too) beforehand. So, hooray for open source. And hooray for the fact I hardly have any files with any extensions, let alone MS ones, sitting on the laptop at all. Mainly Framemaker files, actually.

My stuff's in:

• LiveJournal
• Google Docs
• Del.icio.us
• LibraryThing
• Mindmeister
• Ravelry
• formatpixel
• Twitter...

Backed up at:

• Storegate
• Box
• Google Mail...

I can, and do, read my mail via a web interface when away from home.

OK, if the information's really sensitive, it's backed up on other media at home. But, mainly....

And, yes, it's irritatingly not fully integrated, and TagsAhoy isn't quite there yet. And that's not integrated with tag2find. And I want my tags consistent (phrasal tags, eh, del.icio.us? even lj does that).

And, yes, for many and generally silly reasons I've more than one ID on those sites. One day, I'll rationalize, maybe.

No, I don't have a task list, calendar and scheduler anywhere except in paper diaries, paper calendar on the wall and daily todo lists on small squares of paper. Paper's still amazingly neat technology. Possibly the best gadget in the world (ever tried launching an aeroplane carefully folded from your latest electronic outpouring?).

Address book? Paper, too. (Ring bound for longevity.)

But, yeah, there ought to be a lot of empty space on my hard drive. So why was I still monitoring the AV sweep at 3.00 am this morning?

I don't usually steal entire sections from publications, but this, from New Scientist is priceless:

Paperclip philosopher

FEEDBACK is surely not alone in detesting "helpful" computers, reasoning that their entire purpose is to be obedient, not to second-guess their owners. Adonis Patrikios, in contrast, decided to test just how helpful and friendly the Microsoft Office Assistant - usually incarnated as a supremely annoying paperclip - could be.

"Who am I?" No response.

"Who are you?" No response.

"Why are we here?" At last: Would you like to add a diagram?

No, thanks. "Do you even love me anymore?" Justify Text. OK then, he thought, I'll justify it: "I want to know if you really care, or is this just a job to you?" How to speak to a computer. Perhaps he was getting somewhere."Do you really want me to speak to you or are you just being polite?" Start an unscheduled online meeting.

This sounded to him a lot like an invitation to a rendezvous...