2 posts tagged “it”

Excerpt from an email from the head of our IT department at work:

To ensure security of your system and the corporate network, do not open any email unless you know the individual and can trust the person or content. DO NOT open eCards or click on any website links in an any email. Even emails from known individuals can be suspect, especially if they themselves have been hacked. So make sure you are aware of the emails and websites you are accessing.

For more information on this vulnerability, please visit:

http://www.symantec.com/security_response/threatcon/index.jsp

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4274

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-021.mspx

 

In other news, India is about as much fun as I remembered it being, and the 12-hour workdays are killing me.  By the time I get back to the hotel room, all I want to do is sleep.  So I doubt I'll be online very much over the next month.  I'm drafting entries piecemeal so I may/may not have a post up about once a week, depending on my level of productivity.

    Book: Show us a book that you like to give as a gift.

    Submitted by Ross.

As a kid, I was a bonafide bookworm.  I know that there were a number of times that I got in trouble in school for reading during class.  And not only would I read voraciously, but I was not very discriminating in what genres and styles of books I read.  I remember reading my first Stephen King (It) and my first science fiction novel (Interstellar Pig, by William Sleator).  Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were in my library stack, as were the Encyclopedia Brown and Great Brain series.

All of these make great gifts to children/young adults, but there were some that have stuck with me even more than these, and they're ones I love to suggest as gifts for people (and have even given a few times myself.

1) Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - Probably my favorite story as a boy, I was entranced by the childhood story of Bill Colman and his discovery and eventual love for two hunting coonhounds.  Every time I read it, I could imagine myself walking alongside of Old Dan and Little Ann, and the first few times, the ending brought me to tears.  Still today I consider this one of my favorite books of all time.

2) The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper - Starting with The Dark is Rising (2nd book in the series, but the first to really engage you), this series recounts the struggle between the forces of good and evil (known as The Light and The Dark).  Regular children become caught up in the battle, searching for Things of Power, or even becoming "Old Ones" to help fight on the side of The Light.  I was entranced by the entire series, even struggling through the unfamiliar geographies of Cornwall and Wales that set the locale for some of the stories.

3) The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein - Reading this as a kid set me up for the Lord of the Rings series when I was 11 or 12.  The imagery, the characters, the story - all are magical and enchanting and I cannot help but push this on all kids who have been excited by the Peter Jackson movies but have never read the books.

I've got many more books that I like to suggest or give as gifts, but if I wrote them all here, it would compose a book itself...So I'll cut it short with these three, and save the rest for another day (or days!)