Thursday, May 19, 2005

Tsunami fund drive

The lovely folks at pamie.com, Pamela Ribon and Daniel Blau, started a drive to reach out to the people affected by the tsunami. They had an initial goal of $3500 which they hit in two days [May 15]. They are now trying to hit $7000, or '1400 kids, more than half of the 2400 in need'. And they are getting close! From pamie.com :
I contacted the good people at Asha for Education and asked if we could help. They were thrilled.
I'm proud to announce we're sponsoring the villages of the Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu that have suffered from the effects of the Tsunami.There are about 2400 children in fourteen villages who need help with books, school bags and uniforms. The cost of one educational kit, sending one child back to school with everything he or she needs is 200 Rupees. At the current exchange rate, that is $4.61 USD. That's $5.76 Canadian. 2.47 UK pounds (more currency conversion here).
You can send a kid back to school with everything he or she needs for less than your fancy cup of coffee. For a third of a CD. A quarter of a hardcover book. This book drive always makes a huge impact, but this year it could be stunning.
To donate, go here, scroll to the bottom and click donate.

Update: There was a mistake in the earlier version of this post wherein two lines of quotation from the web-site ('I contacted the good people at Asha for Education and asked if we could help. They were thrilled.') ran in with the pararaph I wrote resulting in an unfortunate error. I apologize for the error.

Second Update: I just checked the site and they have hit their second goal of 7000 as well. And that's just spectacular! To infinity and beyond! :)

[Cross-posted to Zoo Station]

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Firefox upgrade

Hope you guys have upgraded your Firefox browser. From Yahoo News :
The Mozilla Foundation has released a security patch to plug two security flaws in its popular Firefox browser.The flaws were found last week by security firm Secunia who deemed them "extremely critical." Mozilla recommends users upgrade to the latest version, Firefox 1.0.4, which is primarily a security update.
From Secunia :
Two vulnerabilities have been discovered in Firefox, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks and compromise a user's system.
The fix : download and update to Firefox 1.0.4 from here. Updating is quick and simple.

Update : there is some excellent information from Firefox on browser security and the security benefits of the Mozilla architecture here.

[Cross-posted to Zoo Station]

The Art of Science

[From Crooked Timber]

Check out the wondrous online exhibition at Princeton University entitled the Art of Science . What an amazing world we live in!

[Cross-posted on Zoo Station]