April Fool's Pranks

What is it about geeks and April Fool’s Day? Manipulating hardware and software for fun and pranks has long been a favorite geek pastime so when society dedicates a whole day to it, what else did you expect?

Some of the old-time pranks will still work, especially with newbies, but are getting boring. I mean how many times can you rename one of those open the CD/DVD drive door files and send to a co-worker? So the drive jumps open. Oh boy.

There are a bunch of pranks for smart phones but since many are device specific, I’ll let you search for them.

I posted 4 easy pranks that you can try on your pals on the 1st.

Just be prepared for revenge – and they may not wait till next April 1st.

Security Quiz

Can you figure out which is the real site and which is the phising site when you see them side-by-side? It's not as easy as you may think.

The site is created by Verisign who wants to sell you high-end certificate services but it does a good job and may open some eyes.

Try the quiz

We're # 43!

Not sure if I should be happy or sad that Cleveland was ranked #43 (out of 50) in the Norton Top 10 Riskiest Online Cities Report.

Is it because we are safe or that we have low access and usage like #50 Detroit?

Seeing as the Top Ten has tech hubs, I think it's not good news to be 43rd.

1. Seattle
2. Boston
3. Washington, D.C.
4. San Francisco
5. Raleigh, N.C.
6. Atlanta
7. Minneapolis
8. Denver
9. Austin, Texas
10. Portland, Ore.

The Great Lakes Geek reports more.

New Nun Shoes?

I don't know why I got a kick out of this but I did.

I was walking across the street for some fried rice for lunch. A nun was crossing the street (Payne) next to me - coming from Dave's.

She was up there in years and wore the traditional habit. Good for her. But then I noticed that instead of the basic black shoes that I remember all sisters wearing, she had on a pair of black Crocs.

Probably a lot more comfortable than the old sensible boats they had to wear but the incongruity of the situation gave me a laugh.

Saint Patrick on Saint Patrick's

Last year I attended Mass at St. Colman's on St. Patrick's Day. St. Colman's was scheduled to shut down and merge with other nearby churches.

Fortunately, the Bishop reconsidered and St. Colman's is still open.

Yesterday I attended Mass at Saint Patrick Church in West Park. It is scheduled to close this spring and merge with 2 other churches. Maybe they will get lucky as St. Colman's did.

St. Patrick parish was founded on March 17, 1848. It is the oldest Catholic parish in Cuyahoga County.

Check out photos and videos from St. Patrick parish and St. Patrick parishioners at the St. Patrick's day Parade.

Pi Day

March 14th is Pi Day and the real celebration is at 1:59:26 p.m.

At that time, the numbers will be 31415926 and of course Pi starts off as 3.1415926.

If that's not geeky enough for you, here is how PI starts off so you can memorize and amaze/annoy your fellow geeky friends.

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028
841971693993751058209749
4459230781640628620899862
80348253421170679 8214
808651328230664709
38446095505822317253
594081284811174502841
0270193852110555964462294
895493038196 442
8810975665933446128475
6482337867831652712019091
45648566923460348610454
3266482133936072602491
41273 72458700660
63155881748815209
20962829254091715364367
8925903600113305305
48820466521384146951941511609...

More info including a mnemonic sentence tool to memorize the first digits of pi

Win free International Film Fest Tickets

ClevelandPeople.Com is proud to be a media sponsor of the 2010 Cleveland International Film Festival.

We have a bunch of tickets to give away to the film of your choice.

Enter the contest and in the Age field, type in Blog and we will give you an extra few chances to win.

Top Tech Titans in Town

So how do you come up with a list of the Top Tech Titans in Town? That's what I did for my March column in Inside Business magazine. The January issue listed the most powerful Business people in town and I thought Tech needed its own list.

Read and hear the rationale behind some of the selections and the categories. By popular request I also publish the Top Ten in the the popular vote.

And I include the Up and Comers category which got cut from the magazine version.

Alice in Wonderland

I have always been a fan of Alice in Wonderland - but maybe for different reasons than most. In college I was exposed to the mathematics of Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass are loaded with logical puzzles. So are the the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky."

Dodgson was a pretty good mathematician, and not just in logic. He also did good work in geometry and matrix algebra.

A professor at King's College in Pennsylvania has just published a chapter asking if Alice is a good role model for young women.

I don't have an answer for that but the upcoming movie looks interesting and Dodgson/Carroll's mathematics was robust.

And how can you not like Jabberwocky? Especially when it has been so brillig lately.