Daniel Brand has released the source code for a Google proxy. Brand has been operating this proxy for about two years. Brand is upset by the fact that Google displays adverts alongside search results. His proxy eliminates the adverts. He strongly believes that search engines should be free of adverts.

Brand has come to the attention of net watchers before due to his Google-watch site. He also facilitates a non-profit public charity known as Public Information Research.

birds, originally uploaded by John Larkin.

Shao Ping and I were at the Kiama Blowhole some weeks back and we saw two seagulls on a fence. Each seagull only had one leg. That was amusing in itself. Then, in a random act, I cloned the seagull on the right and gave him three buddies. The seagull on the far left cannot believe it either.

Well, one of the rare things that irks in life is my wife’s use of the Windows based operating system. We have spent the last two days trying to ensure that the wireless LAN connection on her new laptop is not flaky. Drop-outs are frequent and the laptop is almost constantly attempting to “acquire an IP address”. Oh, Shao Ping, please let me buy you a mac next time. Typing Chinese (traditional) is easier on a PC however.

Surfed the web attempting to get answers provided some ideas. It also confirmed that we were doing the right thing. But we still had no joy. Speaking of joy, our exchange student, Joye also had problems connecting her laptop to the wireless network and we enlisted the aid of one of her fellow students. he is coming around tonight to assist us with Shao Ping’s new laptop.

Connecting the Mac to the WLAN was effortless. No problem. Easy. No stress. In fact I have connected the Mac to countless WLANS at work, friend’s places, hot spots in fast food joints, etc, no problem.

So, in the meantime, Shao Ping’s laptop is connected to the Airport base station using Ethernet LAN. That works.

I should not let it stress me as I am a bit of a stress head but when I start opening all of the countless ‘networking’, ‘properties’ and ‘advanced’ nested dialogue boxes in Windows (XP and 2000, etc) I feel like a proctologist performing a colonoscopy. There is so much crap inside the Windows OS. I wonder if Bill Gates needs to see a proctologist? Should be called Windows XPoo.