Blogus Magnus

Yahoo Mail Beta Cannot Load - LaunchTAE14 (Google Chrome)

2011-05-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

When trying to login to my Yahoo Mail Beta account, I encountered the following error on my system (Windows 7, Chrome):

"Yahoo Mail Beta Cannot Load. Error code LaunchTAE14."

This happened only on Google Chrome 11. It worked fine on Internet Explorer 8.0 and FireFox.

I tried basically everything suggested on the web, nothing helped.

Finally I found a solution for this problem:
I uninstalled the Skype Toolbar. This appears to have solved the problem.

How to uninstall Skype Toolbar (on Windows 7):

Close all open browser windows.
Press the WINDOWS (Start) button
Type Uninstall on the search bar.
From the results, choose "Uninstall a program"
Search for the Skype Toolbar
Click Uninstall.

That's it.

Let me know if this worked for you.

Another Illustrated Wedding Invitation

2010-09-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

A couple that saw this wedding invitation that I drew asked me to draw them a similar invitation. So I did.

Drawn using a Wacom tablet, in Photoshop CS5.

If you like this caricature and want your own caricature from a photo, I'll draw one for you.

Rome Total War - Vengeance Video

2010-04-28T04:36:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Rome Total War (RTW) on and off for several years now. RTW is a turn based strategy game taking place in the early days of the Roman Republic. The game also includes real time strategy battles, allowing a player control armies from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and other empires of the ancient world.
Recently, I ran into this hilarious video record of a Rome Total War online battle. One player was challenged by one of the most experience RTW online players out there, and virtually kicks his butt. The video is accompanied by his cynical commentary, it's pure comedy! :-)

The Google Toilet - by SuperNews

2010-01-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

From the same guys who brought you "Twoulbe with Twitters" comes this hilarious video.

Hilarious at first sight, scary on second sight. Oh wait, scheisse, this film is hosted by Google's YouTube... and I'm using Google's Blogger to write this... Nice Google.... Niiiiiice Google...

Birthday Party Invitation

2009-11-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

A birthday party invitation I drew for a friend.

ImageShack Hacked

2009-07-11T02:23:00.000-07:00

I discovered today that several of the images I store in ImageShack were hacked. The images were replaced with a new image, bearing the following message:

Imageshack

Proudly presents...

Anti-Sec. We're a movement dedicated to the eradication of full-disclosure. We wanted to give everyone an image of what we're all about.

Full-disclosure is the disclosure of exploits publicly - anywhere. The security industry uses full-disclosure to profit and develop scare-tactics to convince people into buying their firewalls, anti-virus software, and auditing services.

Meanwhile, script kiddies copy and paste these exploits and compile them, ready to strike any and all vulnerable servers they can get a hold of. If whitehats were truly about security this stuff would not be published, not even exploits with silly edits to make them slightly unusable.

As an added bonus, if publication wasn't enough, these exploits are mirrored and distributed widely across the Internet with a nice little advertisement embedded in them for the crew or website which first exposed the vulnerability to the public.

It's about money. While the world is difficult to change, and money will certainly continue to be very important in the eyes of many, our battle is that of the removal of full-disclosure for the purpose of making it harder for the security industry to exploit its consequences.

It is our goal that, through mayhem and the destruction of all exploitative and detrimental communities, companies, and individuals, full-disclosure will be abandoned and the security industry will be forced to reform.

How do we plan to achieve this? Through the unrelenting, unmerciful elimination if all supporters of full-disclosure and the security industry in its present form. If you own a security blog, and exploit publication website or distribute any exploits... "you are a target and you will be rm'd. Only a matter of time."

This isn't like before. This time everyone and everything is getting owned.

Signed: The Anti-Sec Movement

No images were harmed in the making of this... image.

Here's a screenshot I took of the Imageshack Hack Message.

It's still unclear who did this and why. There have been more and more reports of this across the web in the past several hours, but still no official statement from ImageShack. I'm also still not sure whether the images hacked are recoverable (in case ImageShack backs up their servers) or are they lost forever...

Did you happen to come across this issue? If so, post a comment.

Rhino Man - Caricature

2009-06-24T08:46:00.001-07:00

A Caricature of a Rhinoceros Man, done as a tribute to Joe Camel's cigarette commercials (especially the ones portarying Joe as James Bond). Painted entirely in Photoshop using my Bamboo Fun tablet, it took approximately 3 hours of work to complete.
This painting was done as part of "The Weekly Challenge" in Aviv Or's blog.

Flickering LCD Screen? Try Changing The Cord

2009-06-19T09:35:00.002-07:00

A few months ago my LCD monitor started flickering. I was surprised as it was a rather new (1+ year old) Samsung SyncMaster 932 series monitor (see image), which are usually considered OK.

The monitor would start to flicker especially on grey and blue background, and it wasn’t consistent. One day it would flicker like crazy, at other days it would flicker only a bit. After trying the obvious things (adjusting the refresh rates in the display settings, giving it a bit of a rest, hitting the monitor like crazy), I started browsing through various technical forums to find a solution. Most forums suggested to distance my monitor from other electrical devices. So I tried that, but it still didn’t fix the problem. Eventually, I ran into one solution which sounded weird. This guy wrote about how he took the monitor to a technician, and the technician tried everything, but eventually what worked was changing the electrical cord.

I tried it myself, and voila, it worked!

I’m no electrical engineer, I don’t know why a certain cord would interfere with the proper functionality of an LCD monitor (probably has something to do with the magnetic field of the current or something like that), but I do hope this post will help you save a few dollars on technicians if you encounter the same problem.

Wedding Invitation

2009-06-08T13:17:00.001-07:00

This is a wedding invitation that I drew for one of my colleagues. The idea of the bride chasing the groom with a net was his - his wife didn't fancy it at first, but she liked the drawing so much that she decided to go with it :-)

If you like this caricature and want your own caricature from a photo, I'll draw one for you.

Solution Management Caricature

2009-06-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

A caricature of some friends of mine. They all belong to a group called "Solution Management", which should explain my usage of the idiom "You're either part of the problem, or part of the solution..."

Anti Americanism At Its Best (or Worst)

2009-04-07T01:17:00.001-07:00

Not sure whether to laugh or cry after seeing this one. This video shows an official Egyptian state TV broadcast calling to boycott Starbucks. The reason? You gotta see this video to find out...

So this clown claims that "The Starbucks siren is really Queen Esther, thus by buying Starbucks coffee you perpetuate the Jewish domination of the world"... WTF?!
Today's lesson, my friends, is this: There are three things that always go hand in hand: Anti Americanism, Antisemitism, and stupidity.

Mow the Lawn

2009-04-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

In response to the Wilkinson Sword Bikini advert, comes this hilarious video featuring three esthetically aware women that just love to mow their lawn. With more than 70,000 views to date, this is sure to become the next YouTube hit :-)

The REAL Process of Making Webcomics

2009-03-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

In one of their latest strips, the guys from PVP comics reveal the truth about how PVP webcomics is made. Check it out here.
Being a webcomics artist myself, I can more than relate :-)

The Problem with Twitter

2009-03-22T10:44:00.001-07:00

From the animated TV series SuperNews! comes this hilarious bit on Twitter.

Check out http://current.com/supernews for more!

One small step for my comic...

2009-01-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

My webcomics series, called "My 25 Percent", has just got its small share of publicity. It was mentioned (in a few words) in an article by Ynet, one of Israel's most popular news portals (if not THE most popular). Those of you who can read Hebrew can view the article here.

The publicity made the trick, and the amount of traffic that I got in the day the article was published was amazing. According to my Google Analytics account, around half of the visitors that browsed my site took interest in more than just the front page (a good sign), and I also got some nice ratings (through my Outbrain widget) for some chapter by a few of the visitors (a really good sign!).

Eventually the effects of the article will wear off, and traffic rate in my webcomic site will return to its regular, mediocre size. But the feeling of achievement is still there. Being an amateur artist, the ability to make it to a leading news portal is a real confidence booster.

It's one small step for my comic, one giant leap for my confidence as an artist!

Terrified Self Portrait

2009-01-06T12:00:00.001-08:00

This is another work I drew for one of the weekly challenges in Aviv Or's blog. The theme this time was "Terrified Self Portrait". I thought about what would scare me the most, and came up with the conclusion that meeting Dan, a comics character based on me, would definitely do the trick.

Dan is the star of My 25 Percent, the comics series I've been drawing for some time now. I'm slowly but steadily acquiring fans, and the series has managed to become a hit among quite a few hi-tech employees (and average webcomic readers), mostly in Israel, The United States, India, and Germany (at least according to my FEEDJit stats…).

Programming Languages as Religions...

2008-12-17T07:48:00.000-08:00

Why is C considered the Judaism of programming languages? And what's the connection between C# and Mormonism? You can find out the answer in the a funny article I ran into today -titled "If Programming Languages Were Religions"... It's programming humor at its best, undoubtfully a must read!

Crazy Drawing

2008-12-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

I've been practicing my drawing a lot lately, especially ever since I got my new Wacom Bamboo Fun graphic tablet. This particular piece, a kind of caricature in the fantasy art theme, was drawn for one of the weekly challenges in Aviv Or's Blog. It depicts a crazy dwarf, riding naked on an irritated ogre, who doesn't seem too pleased about it.

You can check more of my new art in my online comics series. It's amazing, for me at least, to see how much I've progressed with my drawing in the past 6 months. But that, my friends, is a tale for another post...

Outbrain Security Breach Solved

2008-11-22T06:24:00.001-08:00

I just got an e-mail from Yaron Galai, CEO of Outbrain, regarding Outbrain's security breach I reported earlier in my blog. As expected, Outbrain reacted immediately to the issue and it was solved promptly. Yaron also commented on the issue in my blog.

As promised, I will write about the Outbrain rating widget, which I have found very useful, in one of my future posts in this blog.

Security Breach in Outbrain?

2008-11-21T22:29:00.000-08:00

Recently, I installed the Outbrain rating widget on my blog. Outbrain is a great tool that enables readers to rate each of your posts, and suggests relevant posts to them depending on their rating history. I'll write more about Outbrain in one of my upcoming posts, as it is one of my favorite widgets. But as I discovered today, Outbrain still has its flaws - and today I think I found a serious one.

Earlier today, when I checked entrances to my blog using my FEEDJIT widget, I saw I got an entrance from a URL in the Outbrain domain (www.outbrain.com). When I clicked that URL (as I often do, curious to see who's referring to my Blog), I saw that it was actually some kind of testing website of Outbrain, containing information about blogs that recently installed, updated, or uninstalled the Outbrain widget. Nothing extraordinary so far... However, by further browsing in the page, I found out that the site also contains some personal information, like registered users' e-mail addresses, or statistics which I think should remain only with the registered user, like how many outbrain clicks he got so far...

I won't expose the specific URL I'm talking about here, as I don't want to increase the potential damage from this security breach. I will however share a partial screenshot of the mentioned site (blacking out all personal data, of course).

On discovering this issue, I immediately contacted Outbrain's CEO and one of their support employees (with whom I'm familiar from previous support sessions). Past experience proved me that Outbrain's response is usually prompt and efficient, and this was also the case now - after approx. two minutes I got a response from the CEO, saying they're looking into the matter ASAP. I'll update this blog once I get an official response from them.

Update: The issue described above was quickly solved after I reported it to Outbrain, and I got a reply from them confirming it. Please find more information in the following post.

New FEEDJIT Version Launched

2008-11-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

FEEDJIT launched a new version of their service yesterday (17/11/2008). Up until now, FEEDJIT allowed you to view a live traffic feed of visitors to your blog, providing the visitor’s location, operating system, browser and landing page, plus some interesting statistics such as popular pages per for each area. FEEDJIT’s new feature now allows you to view what are the most popular and relevant blogs in your area (or any area in the world, for that matter). You can do it by browsing to http://www.feedjit.com . FEEDJIT calls this service “Geoblogosphere”. If your blog is popular in your town/area/country, it will appear in the Geoblogosphere for your
area. You can access your local Geoblogosphere by going to the FEEDJIT homepage.

Blogs appearing in the Geoblogosphere can be sorted by two categories : Blog popularity and Blog Relevance (Check out this screenshot). Blog popularity, simply put, is measured by the number of visitors to your blog. The Blog Relevance measurement is a bit more tricky: Blog relevance measures how relevant is your blog to your area. If you come from the San Francisco area, and you write an article in your
blog about tourist attractions in San Francisco, there’s a good chance that your blog will be with a high relevance rating, even if it’s not a popular blog that receives many visitors.

You can read more about the new features in the Geoblogsphere FAQ page and also in the FEEDJIT about page.

Self Portrait (Sketch)

2008-11-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

Here is another sketch I did with my new Wacom tablet. This time, a self portrait.

My New (And First) Graphic Tablet

2008-11-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

I just got my new graphic tablet. I'm a bit embarrassed to say, but it's also my first graphic tablet (and I've been using digital art tools for several years now). I decided to buy one a couple of months ago, when I realized that this tool is a must for any serious artist. After talking to some friends in various art forums and reading some review sites, I decided to go with the Wacom Bamboo Fun - it's professional enough to give professional looking artistic results, yet simple enough to make it affordable. The medium sized one cost me just below 200$ in Amazon (October 2008 prices).

After a quick installation, and a half hour basic tutorial, I went for my first challenge - draw my first artwork using the Bamboo. I decided to draw Dan, the main character in my comic series
"My 25 Percent". It took me around 5 shots to get it right (around 45 minutes), but finally I got a nice black-and-white sketch of Dan, all with the Bamboo. I'll continue experimenting with it, and hopefully soon I'll publish a comic strip that will be done entirely with the Bamboo... I can hardly wait!

Dear Ben

2008-11-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

Recently, I launched the second season of my webcomics series, called My 25 Percent. The comic series tells the tale of a young software engineer, who one day found himself working in a large software company, called CRAP.

A new recurring character in this season is Benjamin, a member in CRAP's senior management board. Benjamin takes charge of CRAP's recovery plan, in light of the latest economy crisis , and launches a series of harsh reforms. I decided to draw Benjamin in the image of former prime minister of Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu also served as the Minister of Finance in Ariel Sharon's government, and was known for his Thatcheristic reforms, not unlike Benjamin's reforms in CRAP.

I decided to share with you a glimpse of Benjamin's appearance in the new season. For reading the comics, you can visit the My 25 Percent Website.

Google SearchWiki

2008-10-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I tried to Google my comics website (as I often do), I encountered two new icons near every result in the Google search results page: Promote and Remove. Promote allows you to move a result to the top of your search page, so that next time you search the same keyword, that result would appear at the top of your page. Remove allows you to remove a search result from your search page, so that next time you search the same keyword you won't get that result.

Searching the web for more info on this new feature revealed to me that it's a new Beta service that Google launched recently, but only to a part of its users (selected randomly), and it may be available for a limited amount of time. The service is called SearchWiki, and its purpose is to optimize search results for each individual user.

Several things to note:

Some of you may not have this feature. As mentioned, it's experimental and only available for (randomly) selected users.

You must be logged into your Google account to have this feature activated.

Quoting Google: "...The webpages you...promote...along with the user nickname...may be viewed by other Google searchers also in the experiment..." - so be advised, Big Brother is watching you.

Life Beyond The Line

2008-10-27T14:14:00.001-07:00

Living in Israel, it's hard to find a good comic book to read. Israel does not have a mature comic culture, to say the least, and there are only of handful mainstream comic artists regularly releasing new material in Hebrew.

Therefore, I was more than happy when I bumped into a new comic book last week, while browsing through my local bookstore. After some hesitations I bought it, and immediately started reading it. It was so good that I finished reading it in 30 minutes, and couldn't help reading it again the next day.

The comic book is called "Beyond the Line", by Shay Charka. It is the story of a comic artist, called Charter, who decides one day to migrate, along with his family, from the suburbs of Tel-Aviv to a small village (a.k.a a Jewish Settlement) in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a the turbulent West Bank). All of this is hinted by the title of the book, "Beyond the Line", the line referring both to Charter's drawing lines, and to the Green Line, distinguishing Judea & Samaria from Israel's so-called "internationally recognized borders".

Charter soon finds out that life in a Jewish Settlement is not easy, especially for an "outsider" like him. His new neighbors find him too liberal in his opinions, while his old friends from Tel-Aviv think he's an extremist. He regularly drinks coffee with an Arab shepherd from the neighboring village, and both of them are sure that if it were up to them everyone would live in peace (as long as the Jews convert to Islam and the Palestinians relocate to Jordan). An annoying TV reporter is constantly trying to portray him as a fanatic zealot (the press in Israel, as in the rest of the world, tends to be extremely liberal). If that's not enough, the settlement is regularly observed by an American satellite, and even Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush take personal interest in it.

The book elegantly portrays the complex (some may call it absurd) life in today's Israel. Charter's encounters with the various stereotypical characters found in Israel , be it the liberal TV reporter with the agenda, the Jewish settler, the Palestinian, the shrewd rabbi, the annoying peace activist, the journalist trying to put words in his mouth, or the violent policeman that is sent to evict him from his home, portray a grotesque picture of Israeli society. I couldn't help at laughing at most of the strips, but a few of them left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. As the saying goes, "I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad".

Mind that the book is not all about laughs, and a handful of the strips deal with serious issues. In fact, the book starts with a strip describing survivors from the Jewish Holocaust fleeing from their Nazi prosecutors and ending up in Israel, only to find themselves being prosecuted again, this time by their Palestinians neighbors, aiming at banishing them from their new home.

Although it is not an autobiographic story, Charka admits in interviews to the press that Charter's character is loosely based on him, and that the stories are inspired by true events that happened to him. Charka himself lives in Jewish Settlement, not unlike Charter's, and participated in the evacuation of Gush Katif, which was part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, considered by some to be one of the most traumatic events in the short history of Israel.

Charka's book is recommended for anyone wishing to explore the depths of Israeli society, although some of the jokes would be understood only by those already having this knowledge. The book is currently available only in Hebrew, but I hope it will be translated to other languages, so that non-Israelis could also get a glimpse what Israel really looks like, for better and for worse.

BEYOND THE LINE, by Shay Charka, 73 pages, Modan Publishing (Hebrew only).

Additional links: Shay Charka's blog

Crossing the Rubicon

2008-10-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

Being a fan of ancient history, and ancient Roman history in particular, I have read my fair share of history books. I seldom enjoyed the experience. While I always enjoy learning new historical facts, most of the books that I read were nothing more than a list of facts that, at best, were poorly spiced with some commentaries and author interpretations. When thinking about how best to describe such books, I recalled a quote from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". They were "like a piece of toast. No honey, no jam, just dry".

Recently, I finished reading a book which proved me that history books could be written differently, or rather, interestingly. The book is called Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, by Tom Holland (That's the book's title in the UK. In the US it's sold under the name Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic).

The book tells the story of the last years of the republican regime in Rome, focusing roughly on the last century of the republic. Rubicon is the name of the small river in Italy that Julius Caesar, along with his army, crossed in 49BCE. By this act he broke the Roman law, which prohibited the Rubicon from being crossed by any Roman army legion. The act of crossing the Rubicon marks the end of the Roman republic, as the resulting civil war ended with Caesar being proclaimed as a dictator.

In his book, Holland manages to tell the tales of this period in history as a story; Moreover, as an interesting story. Perhaps it is because he also has experience in writing fictional novels, or maybe it's just a gift. Whatever the reason may be, when you read this book you feel like you're reading a novel. You have character build-ups, you have conflicts, you have tensions build-ups, and finally a climax (which is followed by the next tension build-up, and so on).

Holland also manages to put the reader in the actual context of the events, feeling the spirit of the time and place in which they occurred. He even shares with you the gossips of the time (and gossip was a big weapon in Rome, much as it is today…).
Needless to say, this does not come at the expense of historical accuracy, as the book relies on an extensive list of sources. Whenever there is an uncertainty or controversy about a certain fact, the book bothers to mention it specifically.

Rubicon is also spiced up with historical quotes from the greatest personas that lived at the time (or several centuries after), be they historians such as Livy, poets such as Horace, or politicians such as Caesar and Cicero.

All of this makes reading Rubicon a fun experience, and this is no small achievement. After all, how many times could you say "history book" and "fun" in the same sentence?

Image: Gaius Julius Caesar. Gave the final killing blow to the Roman republic.

Welcome to Blogus Magnus

2008-10-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

Blogus Magnus is the personal blog of Yours Truly. As it name implies, it is a great blog, dealing with everything and nothing. This blog hosts articles about my various areas of interest, including: humor, history, politics, current affairs, software, programming, computer games, literature, art, comics, and much, much more.Hope you enjoy your stay.