As a TabletPC fan, I read the blog jkOnThe Run which was part of the Tablet PC podcast on TPN that is now being done directly form the site.

I was happy to see that the site picked up and linked to a "ruggedized" Tablet PC segment I did for Tech Tidbits Daily on 26th of Oct05.  So I went to the site to get a URL via my iBook so I could link back that they had linked to me! 🙂

So, I typed in the URL: http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/ in Safari, and LittleSnitch (which I reviewed for Tech Tidbits Daily on 20th of Oct05) came up with a message (link to the picture):

Safari wants to connect to planetlab-5.cs.princeton.edu on TCP Port 8090

I said no, and I then quit Safari.  Launched it again, went to a couple of other sites, and then back to jkOnTheRun blog, and the message came up again.  So, I then sent James Kendrick an email saying "FYI … this popped up when I went to your site, maybe there is something embedded in your site?" 

James wrote back with a pen email (only the very serious Tablet PC geek sends back written emails) saying "Strange … not that he knew of … does it only happen in Safari?" …. so I tried it in Firefox and I got the same kinda of warning from Little Snitch (link to the picture):

firefox-bin wants to connect to planetlab1.cres.utexas on TCP port 8090

So what is going on? Definitely a different server, but same TCP Port.  What is PlanetLab? Is it spyware?  Is it something normally installed on Mac OS X or on the blog server?

Any thoughts?  Curious minds would like to know!