This week in ridiculous tech

Yeah, in case you may be wondering, I have watched the entire Back to the Future trilogy recently, and may be a little obsessed with the movies, but this will pass in time. In celebration of this event, I would like to release the post of Linux Dood of the Week (inspired by none other than Mac Girl of the Week and thought up by our very own Adam “Stuntman Mike” Kovic). This week’s dood is happily upgrading your ram as we speak, and will soon be in your fridge stealing your food.

Also this week in technology: GameSpy’s contemptible server service that is ruining my online fun with Command and Conquer 3. Please fix this EA. I really do dislike being disconnected from my game or not being able to see a lobby or room in order to start a game. Maybe the Linux Dood can help you guys fix your servers.

More after the jump!

Speaking of broken things, if you’re like me, you probably have a good rotation of passwords for several different sites, games, programs, etc., and may even wonder how secure your valuables really are. Worsethanfailure.com posted an informative and clever article earlier this week regarding password security (specifically, the ironically insecure and poorly implemented storage system for passwords of customers from an antique market program). The best part? How about the fact that customers can’t have the same password, or in better words:

No, I’m not kidding. Passwords had to be unique throughout the system. And judging by lists of user passwords I’ve seen, many users probably encountered this issue when trying to use a password of “password.” The password field of the user table was also the primary key field making it impossible to have duplicate passwords, and they were stored unencrypted to make the verification process easier.

In other news, Microsoft has called it quits and jumped ship from the Xbox 360, the Zune, and Windows Vista in favor of purchasing startup company Coyote Enters Quiznos Subs and Sits in Cooler. No, actually not. But, shortly after Apple announced that they were doing away with DRM on their iTunes music, Microsoft decided that they would start phasing out DRM protected songs as well.

Sounds like the Gates Army has really gotten serious about taking the iPod off the top of the list for portable media devices. Good for them.