::: NEW YEAR 2012/ Oh dear/ Time is a-fleeting,/ The countdown begins,/ A brand New Year/ Is upon us to mess up in./ Too many things to do,/ Family and friends to visit/ Too many to count - / There's a whole slew./ But here I am/ Getting back to you,/ With thanks in my heart,/ Straw in my head,/ At least I am alive -/ Not yet quite dead./ With my wishes for you/ May your year be blessed/ Free of wants and undue stress./ Peace and good health/ And all of my best./ Thank you for the friendship,/ All the year through,/ I hope that you feel that way too./ I'm may be no poet,/ Darned if I don't know it,/ But this is the end./ ~ The End ~ ::: (c) 2012 - Gwen Beauregard

::: ::: IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR...::: December 24, 2011 ::: To each and everyone a huge "Thank you" for all of your kind thoughtfulness in remembering the good times we have shared with each other over the year as we look towards new beginnings in 2012! ::: My thoughts and prayers go out to each of you, wherever you are. Let us be thankful for the small things in our lives that make life more bearable in these troubled and difficult times as we struggle to keep our boats afloat. Just keep paddling. I'll be paddling right alongside you. ::: God bless and keep you safe. ::: Remember: Hold your pets close, and your family even closer! ::: I send you my love, Gwen Beauregard :::

::: THE CAT WHO WALKED BY HERSELF :::

::: “So many faces in and out of my life; some will last, some will be just now and then. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again.” ::: "Goodbye is not forever." ::: And all places were the same to her. :::

::: “We can never turn back the pages of time, though we may wish to relive a happy moment, or say good-bye just one last time, we never can, because the sands of time continue to fall, and we can't turn the hourglass over.” ::: Santiz :::

::: “Didn't I tell you, Don Quixote, sir, to turn back, for they were not armies you were going to attack, but flocks of sheep?” ::: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - 'El quijote' :::

::: GOODBYE IS GOODBYE SU :::

::: Do not look for me there for I am gone. ::: He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves. ::: Nietzsche - Thus Spake Zarathustra - (1885) :::

::: MARK TWAIN ::: His comment on visiting Montreal: "You can't throw a rock in this city without breaking a stained glass window." :::

::: Une prière spéciale pour que Noël soit très heureux pour vous. Pour ma famille, mes amis, et tous les etres qui me sont chers, pour Noel de bonheur, d'amour et de paix. ::: Beauregard

::: One very self-confident kitten. Photograph sent to me by a friend. :::

::: OH, CHRIST! ::: There are words that are are so egregious that they cannot be excused in any context, never less so than when put into a personal letter. Words that I have never used in reference to another human being. Not ever. Not even by mistake. Words that, when used, coming out of the mouth of a self-styled "Christian" strike one immediately as being a reflection of who they really are in their self-revelations. ::: Not to be confused with a sudden lack of decidedly 'un-Christian' lapse of even the most perfunctory of respect for another human being. ::: Perhaps more confounding is that I thought I knew at least 'something' about this person, and cared about them to the degree that one can say one cares about someone one has never met in the flesh other than through a number of years of correspondence, only to suddenly be squarely faced with such a low opinion, if not outright hatred of women, which said - in a few choice words - more about the person than their very public claim to being Christian. ::: I did not respond, albeit tempting. Based on experience with abusers, I rather anticipated that a follow-up letter might be one containing excuses. Sure as God made little green apples, the very next day it arrived, complete with rationalization and blame. Not a shred of an apology. ::: It had seemed antithetical to anything remotely Christ-like, who had a temper, as do we all at times, wasn't at all fond of the Pharisees, the money-lenders in the Temple, had a few choice words for the goings-on in that house of worship and promptly marched out of the premises. If one is to believe in the literal story, as told in the Douay version of the Bible. ::: But, he respected women, at least one of whom was his Mother, and the other one of his best friends. ::: Honi soit qui mal y pense? ::: Now is not good for the Christian's health to rile the Aryan brown, for the Christian riles and Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down....::: The last person in the world anyone needs in their lives is a verbally abusive "friend". Abuse is abuse whether it be physical or verbal, either or both. The first can, on a continuum, lead to the latter. That is as inexcusable as it is unhealthy to any relationship. Never try to rationalize it. Words have power and meaning: first it's a word, then a slap, then a punch, then a blow - too late. Trapped. Get out! Don't even bother looking backward, you might turn into salt. ::: ...and the end in sight is tombstone white, a Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East. :::

::: MARCEL THE SHELL ::: ::: Darling, je vous aime beaucoup. ;)

::: The Sentry ::: The quiet sentry looks/Making not a sound/As he walks on velvet feet/Surveying all around./He feeds on mice and birds/His natural predatory prey/He would much rather curl up/In your lap by the warmth/Burning in your fireplace./That's all he prays for in his lonely state of mind./He walks on velvet feet leaving only footprints in the snow/To tell us he's been there./This quiet sentry,/Master surveyor of a full square mile, his domain.:::(c) 2011 - Gwen Beauregard :::

::: That's essentially what it's about: the Festival of Lights. ::: Because it's a festival, and not a religious feast, it is a merry celebration of rejoicing in freedom. ::: You can put whatever connotation you want to the word "Freedom" ::: Light a candle - or eight. And rejoice! :::

:::Quote: "I detest bigotry." ::: Mmm.. I did not write, let alone claim, the statement, but am willing to test it's veracity. ::: Setting up the scenario:- Parents, white anglo-saxon, protestant, middle-middle-class. The challenges: Challenge 1: An 18 year old daughter comes home and announces to her father that she just got engaged to marry a North African - Muslim. She is of legal age to marry anyone she chooses. Just so happens she is (your) 18 year old daughter. What might father's reaction be, in this circumstance? ::: Challenge 2: A single 20 year old daughter comes home and announces to her parents that she is pregnant. The father of the baby she is carrying is African-American, Southern Baptist, employed on commission, at the local electronics store - Future Shop. The 20 year old daughter plans on keeping the baby after it is born. She will not be able to hold onto her minimum paying job at the local hamburger joint once she is in the her third trimester of pregnancy. She is not married to the father of the baby. ::: Not a great future, it would appear. Our twenty year old is of the age of majority, as is her partner. What might the parents' reaction be? Do they even have a say in whatever decisions the two make regarding the situation? The daughter will without doubt require financial support of her parents, that is clearly a realistic possibility. You are one of the parents in this scenario. ::: As I look towards my 80th decade, should I survive it, it does not escape me that with age I have become more burdened by my prejudices than I ever did when I was in the full bloom of youth when it mattered not a whit what colour of skin, what religious belief held, what socio-economic class, what schools one attended or didn't, not even what gender one was. Like Kipling's cat, all places were the same to me. At least philosophically. Have I grown sour with age? I haven't changed that radically, but I am far more wary now than I was when young. Or perhaps I am just more self- assured, less loosey-goosey in my values, thanks to a lot living and patina of time having turned the copper to a verdant green.

::: Artist: Barnett Newman/ Title: "Voice of Fire" (18 ft.)/ Medium: Oil on canvas/ Genre: Abstract Impressionism/ Owned: National Gallery of Canada/ Purchased: 1970 - $1.76 million./ ::: I liked 'Voice of Fire' by Newman almost immediately, but before concluding anything about it I needed to see it in person at the National Gallery in Ottawa. I was not quite prepared for the pure power and emotional intensity of the piece, within context of how the Gallery chose to display it. 'Voice of Fire' is affecting when seen at a distance as it dominates the entire room with such an exquisite display of lighting, both natural and artificial, that bounces off the canvas at various times of day leaving an oddly contemplative almost Zen-like state of unmistakable calm./ There was a kind of reverse snobbism going on with Newman's painting by pretending that any child could have painted it. So could an elephant, or a cat. The fact is that it was Newman who did visualize it, chose the medium, its volume and mass, its strength, its mathematical exactness doing a piece of work that challenges anyone viewing it up close and personal to also challenge one's ideas about what constitutes "art"? ::: By my own admission, I am not a huge 'fan' of abstract art by any definition. As with some forms of Jazz, the subleties and nuances of colour in abstract art at times escape me. I have never understood Jackson Pollock's work, but then to be fair, I have never seen any of his art work in person. I suspect that I could never achieve the kind of lack of emotional restraint and the freedom of physical movement that a Pollock or a Rothko exhibited. I'd have named the work these people do "liberation art" rather than than "impressionism". ::: Out of curiosity, I wonder how much the stretched canvas and the oil paint cost given it's eighteen foot dimensions? That's a lot of canvas and a whole lot of paint that didn't come out of the Sico paint company. Just what "red" and "blue" are they? They aren't accidental. Why eighteen feet? Things get a little more complicated. Voice of Fire is an arresting piece and I love it. :::

::: Just be careful of what you wish for. You may get it. :::

Windows Secrets Newsletter Issue 317 2011-12-08 TOP STORY Carrier IQ: A privacy tempest of what size? By Woody Leonhard A YouTube video by Trevor Eckhart documents a litany of privacy-busting transgressions made by Carrier IQ, a software program factory-installed on mobile phones. Almost every news outlet in the U.S. seems to have run the story about Carrier IQ as if 1984 had finally arrived, with Big Brother (in large, corporate form) working the phones — our smartphones in this case. But is that view accurate? It's not surprising that Trevor's allegations generated an extraordinary level of press coverage. It's an attention-grabbing story: Carrier IQ produces a data-gathering program used by telephone companies to retrieve information from specific smartphones, including models made by Apple and many Android phones from Samsung, HTC, and other manufacturers. The software is installed on more than a 100 million phones at the request of service providers, including AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. The brouhaha catches the attention of the U.S. Senate; Senator Al Franken demands answers. And newly minted mobile-device experts opine on every conceivable aspect of the controversy. Amid sometimes wild allegations and threats, class-action lawsuits loom. It's grand drama, indeed. Frankly, I'm astounded that nobody publicized the Carrier IQ data activity earlier. In use for years, the software (info page) is supposed to help phone companies keep track of problems with their networks. Carrier IQ claims its software runs on more than 140 million smartphones. So is there any substance to the allegations of widespread and irreversible privacy abuse? The real picture of the Carrier IQ controversy is just starting to emerge. Permit me to explain why I think this frenzy in the media is mostly sound and fury, signifying very little. The factual foundation, sans flights of fancy There's no question that Trevor uncovered startling behavior by Carrier IQ's software. He conclusively demonstrated that the Carrier IQ program watches every single key press on the phone — even sensitive key presses, such as passwords entered when you're using a mobile Web browser on an HTTPS secure site. It tracks your location, even when you've instructed the phone to not provide location information. It watches the contents of every incoming message as it arrives on the phone. Trevor also demonstrated that the Carrier IQ program doesn't act like a normal program. It doesn't show up on the app screens. It starts whenever the phone is turned on, and you can't turn it off by using commands such as Android's Forced Stop option. You can't delete the program, either. In fact, unless you've rooted your phone (hacked it to gain control over the operating system), you won't even see Carrier IQ running. Trevor also showed that the Carrier IQ program periodically phones home collected data. Those are facts ably demonstrated in Trevor's YouTube video, "Carrier IQ Part #2." Since the video was posted, several more facts have fallen into place. Here are the particulars: As mentioned earlier, the Carrier IQ program is installed by phone manufacturers at the request of service providers. In most cases, the information retrieved by Carrier IQ doesn't go to the phone manufacturers or to Carrier IQ — it goes to the service providers. Apple has confirmed that Carrier IQ was baked into iOS 4. According to an AllThingsD story, Apple stated, "We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update." In an msnbc.com report, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile confirmed that their sold-in-the-U.S. phones use Carrier IQ. All three companies claim that the software is used to improve system performance. AT&T says it doesn't track any user data. Sprint says it "cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool." T-Mobile says it "does not use this diagnostic tool to obtain the content of text, e-mail, or voice messages or the specific destinations of a customers' Internet activity, nor is the tool used for marketing purposes." Verizon, U.S. Cellular, and Vodafone say they don't have Carrier IQ on their phones. RIM and Nokia both claim that they don't put Carrier IQ on any of their phones, but that claim is disputed by Trevor. Microsoft states that no Windows phones have Carrier IQ. A tumblr.com device analyzer app turned up no Android phones (of 5572 tests) outside the U.S. and Puerto Rico running Carrier IQ. And it seems that no non-U.S. carriers will publicly admit to using the software. Those are the facts at this time. Everything else is speculation and interpretation. Carrier IQ reacts with the big-stick approach Trevor is convinced that Carrier IQ looks and acts like a rootkit. He says so on his blog. Other commentators have called it "a spyware rootkit" and "malware" and "wiretapping." I guess it all depends on how you define the terms, but from what I've seen, I don't think any of those characterizations applies. In any case, Carrier IQ overreacted to Trevor's revelations, with CIQ lawyers firing off a cease-and-desist demand that defies belief: CIQ demanded that Trevor take publicly available documents off his site and "cease and desist all false allegations." The CIQ lawyers further demanded that Trevor send out a public press release "on the AP wire" containing a statement — dictated by the attorneys — saying, among other things, "it is clear that while [CIQ] inspect(s) many aspects of device performance, they are not in fact recording keystrokes or providing user tracking tools and have no intention of doing so." Yes, the lawyers wanted Trevor to vouch for Carrier IQ's intentions and pronounce the company free of sin. They threatened to sue him for copyright infringement (for Carrier IQ training manuals he posted), including damages to the tune of "$150,000 per work." Trevor hooked up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and, in an e-mail letter (PDF copy) sent by an EFF staff attorney, basically told the CIQ lawyers where they could stick their cease-and-desist demand. On Nov. 23, the EFF reported that Carrier IQ had dropped the threats and its CEO had apologized to Trevor. All these events unfolded in full view of the press. Initially, the technical press picked up on the YouTube video and statements about rootkits and keylogging. Then the mainstream press appeared, and a story with very precise technical boundaries turned into a massive slinging match, with relatively few facts in evidence. Make no mistake, the phone companies have data. Let's put this all into some useful perspective. The phone companies — the AT&Ts, Sprints, and Verizons of the world — know which phone numbers you dial and which numbers call you. They've been using that information to bill phone owners for decades. These days, the phone companies are also transmitting data to and from phones, giving them at least the theoretical ability to keep copies of SMS messages, e-mail, Internet traffic (such as websites visited), and the content of files uploaded and downloaded. They could also have the ability to record your voice and video calls. Even if you turn off location notification on your phone, the phone company still knows which cell tower you're using; with the aid of simple triangulation on three or more towers, they can pinpoint your phone any time they like. But why would a phone company want to monitor your keystrokes, your mail, your SMS texts, or your location using a program inside your phone? It doesn't make any sense. Working on data generated inside the phone is enormously inefficient and expensive as well as intrusive; it's difficult, both technically and legally, to make a case for it. As the controversy cools, it's becoming obvious that Trevor was indeed watching Courier IQ's program scan everything the phone was doing. But there's no evidence that the program was storing personal information or any other kind of personal data. There's also no evidence that the software sent sensitive information home to any of the carriers. According to its designer, Carrier IQ was specifically targeted at identifying problems with the mobile network — for example, what happens when a call gets cut off or the phone crashes. Everything I've seen to date confirms that observation. Security researcher Dan Rosenberg, who's been in the thick of the Carrier IQ fray since its inception, has published a thorough analysis of Carrier IQ running on one specific smartphone — the Samsung Epic 4G Touch. He watched everything Carrier IQ gathered and transmitted. His conclusions: Carrier IQ did not record SMS text bodies, webpages, or e-mail content. In this particular configuration, Carrier IQ recorded which numbers were being pressed to dial the phone but didn't record any other keystrokes. It could record GPS location data and the URLs of sites visited by the phone's browser, but not the contents of the pages. That said, it's certainly true that the program could collect compromising information. After all, it's watching everything, all the time. Carrier IQ has filed a patent application that might allow less-benign uses in the future. But then so could many other programs, including the operating system itself. Lessons from the Carrier IQ revelations Obviously — and most importantly — consumers have a right to know what's being sent from their phones. They should also have the ability to turn off the parts that aren't vital to connecting through the network. That said, chances are good that when you signed the contract with your service provider, you agreed to the data collection. (How many of us bother to read most user-license and service agreements?) Fifty years ago, telephone users probably didn't care that phone companies probably collected the phone numbers of all outgoing and incoming calls. But nowadays, with far more sensitive information flowing from phone to phone and between phones and network servers, consumers do need to be more savvy and skeptical. And carriers need to be more up-front about the kinds of data they're using — with opt-out options clearly available. There should also be some sort of third party involved in monitoring what information our phones are transmitting to our service providers. Nevertheless, the recent and widespread coverage of this story reminds me of the breathless stories three weeks ago about the Illinois water-plant pump "destroyed by Russian hackers." The FBI got in on that one — as did the Department of Homeland Security and ICS-CERT. The media jumped to the conclusion that America's infrastructure was under attack by Russian hackers, as if Russian hackers had nothing better to do than burn out a water pump. Wired has the full, sordid story. I think the best analysis of the situation comes from Galen Gruman, who has listed some real privacy threats in a Dec. 2 InfoWorld story. He says these hyped-up threats "are relatively benign compared to what people are not talking about: software and devices that not only monitor individuals but feed that data to insurers and others who could use it to determine rates, deny coverage, and otherwise control people's behavior." That's where the real problems lie. Woody Leonhard writes computer books, primarily about Windows and Office, most recently the award-winning Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies. He's a Senior Contributing Editor at InfoWorld, where his Tech Watch columns bring some common sense — and a jaundiced eye — to the latest industry shenanigans.

::: This, just in: (No names) "I think FF is all messed up...I think the whole internet is all messed up." / Response: "I think you are correct - on all counts."/ Ask me how fed up I am with the whole damned thing. It's "as if" everybody jumped on the same bandwagon: steroids or smoking wacky tacky. Very tacky, imho./ It seems to all have begun with Windows 7. At least that's where I first began to notice steroids inhabiting my computer. I feel like Leonard Cohen: (song) The Future: ...there's a crack in everything.../ Would you believe me if I told you that, other than business people, not a single personal friend of mine even owns a computer and does not want to own a computer? Some work with them all day long and thus have no desire whatsoever to come home to yet another computer, others hate the whole idea of them and wouldn't have one if it fell into their laps like Manna from Heaven? Call them cave dwellers, un-cool, not "with it", whichever insult one chooses, I think they are all onto something - smart friends! / I have very happy, well-adjusted, productive, sane, family and friends. Twenty years of experience convinces me of such. / As quaint as it may sound, I do miss Windows XP. The last time Microsoft actually had an operating system that was serviceable and made any sort of common sense. I'm being very kind at that./ StumbleUpon - how would you like to hear me scream? Despicable, imho. Just what I "need" - "60,000 Marketers" reading every click of my keyboard and mouse and giving me the hard sell to whatever evil products they want to brainwash me into purchasing. I am not conflicted, I am adamant. I'll fry in Hell before somebody tries to sell me anything I neither want nor need. / StumbleUpon's Empire is not the only culprit. I saw it coming when they installed Facebook and Twitter within their system. (No thanks, if I wanted them, I'd go to the source, not the underlings.) / Facebook and Twitter are ubiquitous and my blood pressure skyrockets every time I even see those two everywhere. Zuckerberg has only one ambition in life: to take over the world. That is is his self-stated mission in life. That kid is as predatory an animal as any American Bald Eagle. He never even heard of "Ethics". Gates or Jobs he is not. Make no mistake. / No. It's not your "imagination", dear Correspondent. / ::: This just in my email - something I subscribe to - though it is aimed at IT Pros.: / Among the browsers: Firefox endangered By Kathleen Atkins / In the wild landscape, foxes stay alert not only for their own next meals but also to avoid becoming a morsel for a bigger set of teeth./ In the tech landscape, Firefox might be endangered because it failed to follow either of those imperatives - according to growing number of blog and press reports.../ Surprisingly, Firefox seems to have both lost its primary life support and gotten itself entangled with a very big predator... etc etc etc.../ ::: So what do I do? CHROME. Uh huh. Been there before, and said to heck with it. Installed Chrome's latest foray into the browser wars. Somebody had asked me what I thought about Chrome. Said, I hadn't seen it in years, so couldn't give any opinion, one way or the other. Then this week...Chrome...oye vey. Thought I'd have a look at it. / Google is Google is Google is Google. Google everything. All the time. Pernicious. / I opined, to my friend, that in my decades of using computers and software that my favourite web browser had been - I stress "had been" - was the AVANT browser. Little known, by comparison, it was the fastest browser of them all. Lite weight, no bloat and not built on the Windows architecture. Whoopie! My kind of application. Well, welcome to the New World - I had another look at it last week, while doing Chrome - sigh. Sigh is enough, says it all. / Here's what I so intensely dislike about computer O/S and software today: the manner in which literally everything takes over my computer and instead of working for me, I am working for it. "It" being whatever poison chosen. Fed Up./ In the days of MS Windows '95 I used to have a tag line: / "This computer works for Microsoft." / I spend more hours in the day doing routine maintenance of my computer, trying to stay one step ahead of the Techno Wizards, than I do actually enjoying what I really want to do with my computer - which then at times I am tempted to put in the yard and tack a sign on a tree behind it: "PLEASE! Come and steal this computer." / My Sad Goat's Fillosofy is simple: / "IF I can't learn something in a maximum half hour, I don't have the patience for steep learning curves left to do it. Colour it gone. Next..." :::

::: Saved one of those trees, just for you ::: See? I'm not that big a Grouch. ::: Made this card for you - all by myself. (Sure I did.)

::: Love those reindeer .... aii, aii, aiii, aiii...::: ::: Looks like Spring here. Feels like it too. ::: aiii, aiii, aiii, aiii :::

YULE LOG:::This ought to keep you out of mischief for a couple of hours::: ::: You don't even have chop, split, stack or dry the wood. Did it all for you. :D :::

::: Rudyard Kipling (The Naulahka):::Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,/ For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles/ and he weareth the Christian down;/ And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,/ And the epitaph drear:/ "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East." :::

::: A couple of reasons not to take your little children to the shopping mall to visit Santa. Scares a lot of them death. Take them out to lunch instead. ::: On second thought hire a babysitter, a good neighbour with children, a reliable teenager, anybody reliable, and leave the kids at home and get on with your business. Unless your children are extremely well behaved, shopping centres are no place to take little kids, and most specially babies. They get bored, tired, overheated, antsy, and suffer the same fate as adults do: sensory overload. "Gimme, gimme, gimme." Can you blame them when the adults can't even control themselves? Yes, yes, I know. Sometimes it's not possible, under some circumstances, to leave the children at home or in some other safe environment. Positively, never leave children in cars while dashing into some store for that last minute item somebody "forgot" to carefully plan for. Parenting is all about careful planning and organization. I still say, "leave the kids at home" - they'll be much happier and so will you and everybody else. :::

::: Life is like a bowl of chocolates, she says. ::: Another email from a friend. ::: Looks almost as lovely as it looks here this morning. The sun is shining brightly (I could get a sun tan just sitting here.) Unseasonably warm for December 1st. Thought November would never end. First thing you know it will be February. Not to worry, the "Big Snow Dump" will arrive when it does. Wait five minutes. :::

::: The Schadenfreude News ::: Received via email this morning from a friend in Stuttgart. Now doesn't this just make you smile? Did us. 72 times? Heck, we don't that have kind of luck. (grin) :::