DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER

There's a fun surprise in the header today (just let it load). And all the pictures I put on here can be enlarged by clicking on them. Enjoy.

Will Robinson was the lead character in an old television show called "Lost In Space". He and his family had somehow gotten lost in the outer regions of space. There was a whacked out robot that, without fail, would say at some stage of each episode, "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER".

Yeah, it was silly but it was harmless silly and tried to have a morality play with the play.

Anyway, Google (that means you and me, too) has a problem. Herewith the story.

Blogger hit with a Storm Watch Posted: 30 Aug 2007 10:39 PM CDT Storm Worm has begun attacking Blogger, littering hundreds of pages with juvenile messages designed to fool visitors into clicking on malware laden links. This worm has been around the block. Before attacking Blogger, it had recently been hiding in spoof YouTube email. A master of disguise, Wikipedia has a list of just some of the email titles Storm Worm has been hidden under. Not only well traveled, it is a virulent virus. Launched via email on Friday January 19, 2007 by Monday, January 22, it accounted for 8% of all virus outbreaks worldwide. Dan Goodin from The Register explains further: Storm has already gone through more lives than a pack of feral cats. It started out in January as an email promising information about a winter storm that was sacking Northern Europe. Since then it's offered sexy photos, electronic greeting cards and login credentials for various online memberships. According to researchers, Storm has infected more than 1.7 million hosts. So how has it gone from spoof emails to Blogger blog posts? Speculation is that the worm is exploiting Blogger's feature that allows blog owners to post to their blogs via an email. This feature does not require a login, just knowledge of the email address used to post. If you are a Blogger user who uses the email-to-blog feature (this author does!) make sure your email address is something unique. Watch for this spoof appearing in your blog comments as well.

And watch out for new commentators (I love that word) who drop in a link.

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Here's some "research" that I'm not too sure about. Especially since they only used 1,000 participants, only in the US, and are subscribers to their web pages. I wonder what they would have found out if the "survey" ran on YouTube? Or AOL? Or Microsoft, or Apple?

Survey: more women blogging than men as blogs hit mainstream Posted: 30 Aug 2007 03:05 PM CDT The blogosphere has hit the mainstream, according to a new survey, which reveals that 80% of Americans know what a blog is, 50% regularly visit blogs, and 8% publish their own blog. The survey also revealed that more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs having their own versus 14 % of men. The Synovate/Marketing Daily survey was conducted online with 1,000 adults in the US using Synovate eNation from July 30 to August 1. "Because anyone can start one anytime, blogs are not necessarily seen as legitimate information sources despite the fact that some bloggers are experts in their area," said Tom Mularz, senior vice president at Synovate. "However, as their prominence and influence continues to rise, this could certainly change." When asked about the types of information they get from blogs, 65% said they get opinions, while 39% get news and 38% get entertainment. About one in three people read gossip on blog websites while only 2% use blogs to catch upon news about family and friends. Loyalty to specific blogs is also fairly strong with 46% of blog readers saying that they visit the same blogs regularly versus 54% who instead usually surf for new and different ones. Awareness blogs strongly correlates to age, with younger people being much more active. Nearly 90% of those aged 25 to 34 know what a blog is, compared to just 65% of those aged 65 and over. Similarly, 78% of those aged 18 to 24 who are aware of blogs say they have visited a blog, compared to only 45% of older Americans. As blogs have gained in popularity, so has the frequency with which they're read. Though the majority of blog readers (39%) view them less than once a month, another 28% visit them monthly, 15% visit them daily and 5% read them several times a day. Of course, while blog usage continues to grow, so does their attractiveness as a potential marketing tool. In fact, 43% of blog visitors indicated that they had noticed advertisements on blog websites, rising to 61% among those aged 18 to 24. Almost one-third of consumers have clicked on an ad while reading a blog. But even though consumers are spending more time with blogs, they aren't necessarily replacing other media. Only 13% of blog readers say they spend less time with other forms of media (newspapers, television, radio) since they've started following blogs. The main reason people read blogs? Almost half of those surveyed say it's because they find blogs entertaining, and another 26% read them to learn about specific hobbies or other areas they're interested in. Only 15% of blog readers say they do so for news, indicating that the more traditional forms of news consumption still have a stronghold. Among those who said they have never read a blog, the main reason cited was that they're "just not interested". Another 15% said that they don't care about the opinions and ideas typically expressed in blogs.

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Would you like to be a pilot? Here's your chance, fellow blogger. Guess I'm going to have to download Google Earth.

Hidden Google Earth flight simulator delights technorati Posted: 01 Sep 2007 03:00 PM CDT It's a thought that's crossed all of our minds at one time or another, wouldn't it be cool if you could fly around Google Earth in a jet. Well, someone at Googleplex must have had exactly the same thought, because there's a hidden flight simulator built into the latest version ( 4.2 beta) of Google Earth. South African computer science student Marco broke the news of the secret flight simulator to the delight of the Internet community. "All-in-all I think it's a great feature Google has added to one of their top products," wrote Marco. "I still remember the days when Microsoft Flight Simulator was considered so cool and that you had to pay for! With a bit more work this has lots of potential to greatly surpass other flight simulators." Mashable's Pete Cashmore described the secret flight simulator as the “best Easter egg ever!”. Despite the general perception that this is something completely new, this flight simulator appears to be an improvement of the flight simulator mode that appeared in Google Earth (version 4.0) last year. To access the flight simulator you need to position Google Earth over the US. Then press Ctrl+Alt+A, or if you're on a Mac Command+Option+A. According to Marco some people have reported that Ctrl+A or Ctrl+Windows+A works when the standard Ctrl+Alt+A does not. A dialog window should appear that allows you to choose between a F16 or a SR22, and which airport you'd like to start at. You also have the option of enabling a joystick. While the flight simulator is quite simple, the real imagery makes for an a very cool visual experience. Google Earth can be downloaded free of charge. Instructions on how to control the flight simulator are available here.