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Last Bytes March 2005 • Vol.3 Issue 3 Page(s) 108 in print issue |
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  If you enjoy optical illusions, then you definitely owe it to yourself to visit the SandlotScience Web site (www.sandlotscience.com). On this site you'll find literally thousands of optical illusions arranged in various categories. Spread throughout the site, you'll find interactive explorations of optical effects, projects you can download and perform at home, games you can play online, all kinds of intriguing puzzles, and much more. Almost all of the animations are designed with Macromedia Flash or Java, so they will work flawlessly in just about any Internet browser. However, before you visit this site, make sure that you have a lot of free time on your hands because you're sure to get caught up in all the fun and totally lose track of time.  Exploring ASCII Art Before there were color monitors or fancy graphical user interfaces, early computer enthusiasts who wanted to create images on their computers were forced to improvise with nothing but the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters available on the keyboard. Akin to cave paintings, the earliest renditions of this art form were pretty crude and very simplistic. However, as time went on, the artists gained more experience and honed their craft such that they were able to create some truly amazing images. So much so that their work became known as ASCII Art. With the advent of more sophisticated computer graphics, ASCII Art sort of fell by the wayside. However, the art form still has a fringe following, and you can find some remarkable examples of ASCII Art on the Web. You can begin your exploration at such notable sites as the ASCIIArtGallery.com (www.asciiartgallery.com) or Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection (http://chris.com/ascii). There's even a newsgroup dedicated to ASCII Art at alt.ascii.art. Microsoft Software Code Names As you may know, Microsoft's code name for the next version of the Windows operating system is Longhorn, and you may remember that the code name for Windows XP was Whistler. Here are a few other Microsoft software code names from the past: Astro Microsoft DOS 6.0 Janus Windows 3.1 Utopia Microsoft Bob Snowball Windows for Workgroups 3.11 Daytona Windows NT 3.5 Chicago Windows 95 Frosting Windows 95 Plus! Detroit Windows 95 OSR 2 Nashville Internet Explorer 4 "Desktop Update" for Windows 95 and NT Cairo Windows 2000 Pegasus Windows CE 1.0 Memphis Windows 98 Millennium Windows Me Ozone Pocket PC 2003 Freestyle Windows XP Media Center Edition The Legend Of Micro-Kid With each new product release, Microsoft's PR department crafts snappy advertising campaigns along with easy-to-remember catch phrases. After all, who among us doesn't recognize the phrase "Where do you want to go today?" However, not many of us would recognize the catch phrase from Microsoft's very first advertising campaign "Microsoft: What's a microprocessor without it?," which touted how Microsoft's line of programming languages could be used to create software that would take advantage of the early microprocessors. The first advertisement in the campaign appeared in a 1976 issue of a microchip journal called Digital Design and featured a four panel black-and-white cartoon titled "The Legend of Micro-Kid." The cartoon depicted a small microchip character as a boxer who possessed speed and power but quickly tired out because he had no real training. The other character, a trainer complete with a derby on his head and big stogie hanging out of his mouth, related the story of how the Micro-Kid had a great future but needed a manager, such as himself, in order to succeed.  Now That's A Strong Password Policy As you can imagine, users of Windows 2000 systems that were logged onto an MIT Kerberos realm were flabbergasted when they attempted to change their password and were informed that the new password must be 18,770 characters long and must be different from their last 30,689 passwords. Fortunately, the error wasn't that common and Microsoft corrected the problem in Win2000 Service Pack 3. by Greg Shultz |
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