And to think your parents thought being a “hacker” was a bad thing.

Federal authorities aren’t looking to prosecute them, but to pay them to secure the nation’s networks.

General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could “think like the bad guy.” Applicants, it said, must understand hackers’ tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems.

This is a position just about anyone could qualify for. You can be a hacker whether your are male, female, skinny, or require diet-pills. No matter your shape or style, if you can hack it, they want you to try. Be all you can be!

This amazes me.

Microsoft Corp posted quarterly results that missed Wall Street expectations, announced it would cut up to 5,000 jobs and said it could no longer offer profit forecasts for the rest of the fiscal year.

Shares of Microsoft fell 8.5 percent in pre-market trading.

Microsoft posted a $4.17 billion profit, but they still felt the need to cut 5,000 jobs. Absolutely insane.

What is up with Yahoo? Are they trying to make us all think they can do real well by themselves? First they announce a deal with CBS, and then another one with Wal-Mart. What’s up with that?

CBS Corp said on Wednesday it reached a deal to allow its Web videos to be carried by Yahoo Inc, part of a broader plan by the media company to add new outlets for its television shows.

Two different deals completely unrelated to each other, covering two different aspects of Yahoo’s business. I am very impressed that they have mustered the courage to step forward.

Yahoo will sell display advertising for Walmart.com and will become the exclusive portal to resell Walmart.com’s display inventory, Yahoo said on Wednesday.

Microsoft is so going to love having a hand in Wal-Mart and CBS.

– Powered By Stuffr! –

I’m posting this as I head out to the back deck to take in a few shooting stars.

Looking for some dirt-cheap entertainment tonight? Look up in the sky.

The annual Perseids meteor shower is caused by flying dirt, tiny meteors that will hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speed and then leave streaks as they burn up.

Some folks call them meteor showers. Others call them shooting stars. But astronomy experts agree that this weekend’s show should be extra special because there will be little or no moonlight to wash out the display.

The Perseids always peak in mid-August but are visible for several days. This year, the optimal viewing hours will be late tonight and early Monday, when there’s a new moon or no moon.

The Perseids should also be visible Monday night, although the shooting stars won’t be as abundant.

Pretty awesome schtuff if you ask me.

Earlier today my wife discovered talkr.com.

Talkr.com is a free service which takes your text based blog and creates an audio podcast feed so visitors can listen to your posts rather than read them.

Each post on this site will have a link to listen to the post, and I will be adding a subscribe button in the sidebar as I get time.

For now, you can subscribe to the audio feed with this link (subscribe)

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.

 
There are an estimated 170,000 people in the United States and Europe who are in need of organs. Many of them face a very dark future and may die if they don’t receive the organs they so desperately need. Over 70,000 people in the United States alone are waiting for kidneys and deceased organ donations are not keeping pace with the demand.

There is a growing need for live donations, and Matching Donors is working to fulfill that need. Matching Donors helps match those willing to donate an organ with those who are so desperately waiting to receive one.

Living donors can safely donate a single kidney, part of their liver, a single lung lobe (out of the five they have), and portions of their pancreas, bone marrow and instestines.

Take a moment out of your day to visit Matching Donors and learn about live organ donation.

While the main focus of this blog will always be technology, computers and software in general, there will be times where I will offer reviews and other “related” posts. They may be personal, then again maybe not. But from time to time you will notice links within the posts that point to a product or service someone is offering on the internet.

Smorty is a service that connects advertisers to bloggers, and allows bloggers to get paid for blogging about all of the topics the would be blogging about anyway. By participating in Smorty, I have been able to remove a majority of the graphical ads which were running in the sidebar here on Alligator Pit. Better yet, I will earn more in one post blogging for money through Smorty than I have earned in the past two months with those static ads.

It will be nice making some extra cash to help pay server costs or for that new gadget I have been wanting for so long. If you’re looking for a way to get paid to blog, you should check out Smorty too.

Over the course of the past few months, I have been thinking of what direction to take this site.

At first, I thought about canning it, but it serves as a great repository for the applications that I have developed over the years. Then I thought about the domain name. I love it. I just can’t let it go. So…

I have decided to start blogging on this umm… blog. I will limit my posts to topics related to programming and computers in general, as well as web technology and schtuff like that.

I am looking to expand the blogroll as well, so if you have a techy, computer type blog, let me know and I’ll add you.

Stuffr 0.7.6 will be released sometime tomorrow. It will include support for multiple categories and trackbacks.

(This post was made with Stuffr 0.7.6, posting in mutliple categories and pinging two other sites)

Over the years, this has been the place for me to showcase the applications I have written.

While my software is still available for download, I have decided to expand The Alligator Pit to include reviews, opinions, tips, and information about software in general.

So, welcome, to the new Alligator Pit.