Things are Stirring

Deep in the creative resources of the weblog tool-makers, things are stirring. Six Apart, the company behind the increasingly-popular Moveable Type, has introduced a new product, TypePad. Full details and prices of the hosting programme have yet to be announced, but click onto the relevant web-site in the right-hand column and register for details to be sent. Rumours are rife that Blogger, recently taken over by Google and ready to be exposed to millions of search-engine users, will be launching a comparable device to make designing a doddle.

Computer Security

An old joke outlines the perfect answer to security in datacentre computing in the 21st Century. Soon a staff of two will be all that is needed - a man and his dog. The man is there to feed the dog and the dog is there to bite the man if he steals anything.

Immune Increase

It is not news to reveal that tea - particularly the green or unfermented varieties - has cancer prevention qualities. The robust defences that it raises against bacterial infection have been further boosted in research undertaken by Dr Jack Bukowski at Harvard University. However, he sees the process not in terms of a miracle cure or preventative panacea, but as part of the vital nature of fruit, vegetables and tea in having health-boosting features.

Observe Dr Johnson

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) made many observations on life. Here are two of them:

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Ten Years On

It was ten years ago (during the penultimate week of April 1993) that a piece of computer code, known as Mosaic, allowed ordinary people to read information on a fledging academic network, the World Wide Web. The battle of the browsers started and came to a head with Netscape's product and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Now the latter dominates with 95% of the 500 million users who access the Web, worldwide.