CNET News.com

Starbucks ditches T-Mobile for AT&T | The Social - CNET News.com
"Ubiquitous caffeine conglomerate Starbucks has ended its Wi-Fi partnership with T-Mobile in favor of one with AT&T.

Under the earlier plan with T-Mobile, Starbucks customers needed a paid subscription to access the in-store Wi-Fi service, and T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers will continue to have access to Starbucks Wi-Fi thanks to an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile. But the new AT&T plan allows all customers 2 free hours per day, with a $3.99 fee for additional 2-hour chunks of time. Monthly subscriptions will cost $19.99 and will enable access to other AT&T hot-spot locations in addition to Starbucks."
This was one reason I selfishly regretted not participating in the OLPC program, a free year of T-Mobile. I know, I know... sorry.
Starbucks ditches T-Mobile for AT&T | The Social - CNET News.com

And its official. Yahoo rejected Microsoft, saying the bid was undervalued.

h/t to Twitter

--MissM (I'm on twitter too, fyi)
P.S. Note to fellow bloggers, I'm going to back up the blog (this week), and update it to try some things :)

Game makers hit out at Apple

I wonder if this little article doesn't give the real reason why the Mac has never been taken up as a serious gaming platform.

Lately stories of the iPhone and other Apple hardware being so tightly controlled have popped up over and over and all of them lend credence to this article.

I guess Apple needs to wake up.

Jack

Microsoft Research's InkSeine coming this Friday

The most likely reason Tablet PCs (as envisioned by Microsoft) didn't take off was/is the lack of a "killer application". Well, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. There just was not a compelling reason to go out and buy one.

But Microsoft is a big company and at times very secretive about their researches, so we don't get to see what their developers and planners are thinking about and working on much of the time. Now up pops InkSeine, what looks like the basis of the killer app for the Tablet. It is not hard to see Microsoft's release/non-release of this as testing the waters to see if this generates any buzz at all among developers. If it does, I'll bet the little "research project" blossoms into a product development project faster than you can say "Steve Ballmer talks too loudly".

Be sure to follow the link to the features list. I found reading that really whet my appetite for a tablet. That has happened before, but this time things look more or less lined up to give us a really forceful argument for buying one. I hope they continue to develop it and bring it out as an add-on for Vista or as a stand-alone Tablet PC version.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 02-10-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 02-10-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) For starters, this week I thought I would begin with an article possibility related to global warming. When one thinks of venomous critters, the first thing that comes to mind is usually spiders, and snakes. However if you want nasty it is hard to beat the box jellyfish when it comes to a threat to people. Seems it takes about 180 extremely painful seconds to kill a human being. The climate change is creating some serious problems with them, among several other species. The jellyfish has an especially effective survival mechanism it seems if you kill them off, their defense is to, immediately start a breeding frenzy in the billions. Here is the link to an interesting story, documentary movie coming out on the 12^th in England, I hope to find it on the net soon after, if I do I will post a link. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Another example is the yellow jacket wasp, seems they usually die off in the winter, or at least they used to, the average size of a large nest has been about the size of a basketball. Not they are living through the winter and some nests have been as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. Story link here http://www.tuscaloosanews.com

2) This link is one of those about free energy that caught my eye. Woods Hole Oceanographic has a thermal glider that has been operating since December 2007, and still should have another six months left. Has been traveling through the ocean continually for thousands of miles, using zero fuel of any kind other than a couple of alkaloid batteries to operate the computers, and guidance system. Shows the answer to our problems is exercising our creativity. A very cool tool, and a good read http://www.whoi.edu

3) It is about time for a little U.F.O. as I have been rather quiet about the subject for a while. Although, I have been wanting to ask Jack if he has seen anything odd in the Texas skies lately. There have been several stories about sightings in Texas in the news lately with titles like “U.F.O’s and the Bible belt collide”. Anyway, the link I put up is not about that. this is from a Canadian paper about President Eisenhower’s meeting a U.F.O. back in February, 1955. It is about one of those items that came out during the disclosure project recently. http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com

4) On a lighter note, here is a little video on someone who setup an obstacle course for squirrels, smarter than they look. If you have a vending machine at work, you might consider one as a pet, and save a couple of bucks. http://www.youtube.com

5) This is one of those over my pay grade geeky things, but I got it in an email the person who sent it was excited about it in a geeky kind of way. I rather grasp some of it, but not enough to make any sense to me. Anyhow, I am posting it for your consideration. It is about googling your forgotten passwords. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/

XP needs to live until 2009

I'm not sure what is going on here, but I have little doubt this is one step in some sort of carefully scripted dance designed to reinforce whatever decision Microsoft has made regarding whether or not they will actually keep XP alive in deference to the apparent wishes of a large number of people or kill it off in favor of their bottom line. I'm pretty sure I can guess where that one will end up, but I can't see why they might bother to go through the song and dance just to leave corporate policy unchanged.

The dilemma for Microsoft is to either please the segment of their customers who don't want Vista over XP and lose money or forge ahead with forcing Vista on everyone, whether they want it or not. The company risks becoming significantly less respected than they are. All the good work they have done with Vista is being lost sight of. And make no mistake; there is good work there.

I expect this will "resolve" to whatever MS has decided in a month or two. The company will announce that "after careful reflection" they have decided to (fill in the blank). Until then, this is at least entertaining.

Jack

Performance Results Mixed with Vista Service Pack 1

PC World tests the final code for Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). The results are generally favorable, though the performance improvements are not as great as many might wish. The article is an interesting read, though I would wait on more tests by other organizations and researchers before drawing any firm conclusions. It's one of those "your mileage may vary" deals, to be sure and even PC World calls their results "informal" and "preliminary".

Still, it's well worth reading. I enjoyed it, too.

Jack

Apple updates QuickTime security

This happened yesterday and I missed it. Sorry about that.

It's an important update, as one can tell by reading the Apple advisory that accompanies it. The security flaws fixed here are both critical and actively being exploited, though there is disagreement on how widely. They affect both Mac and Windows users.

So, if you have Quicktime installed, patch it. It does not matter whether or not you use it. The application needs patching or you can be compromised. Period!

Jack

Truecrypt 5.0 is out and it's free

For Windows, Linux and now for the Mac OS X!

I've been recommending Truecrypt since Gail convinced me to give it a try, a couple years ago. It did not take long to convince me of Truecrypt's utility. This is the good stuff, folks. Not only does it work, but it saddles the user with the absolute minimum of extra steps through which she/he has to go. Check it out.

Jack

Spotted in the Wild: Rogue Microsoft Update Site

I guess it had to happen, but here is yet another trap for the regular (read clueless) user.

Jack

Why Search in Vista is a Farce

I'm going to start a thread in our newsgroup about this, too. I'd like to hear what you all have to say about it.

Personally, I am against Vista's search for the amount of resources it takes. However; I have not had any problems with the results obtained. I was surprised to see this post and find some others like it.

So, jump over to our newsgroup at news.oncomputers.info and discuss it.

Jack

Holes in numerous ActiveX controls

ActiveX is a grand idea, but Microsoft's execution of it has been plagued since it started with security issues. While that is not terribly surprising, what IS surpising is that Microsoft has not been able to tighten things up, at least enough to stop this seemingly endless parade of alerts. I guess it is as flawed a technology as it's critics suggest.

US Cert is telling users to disable ActiveX, at least for now. You can do that, but it will keep you from getting automatic updates to Microsoft operating systems or other products, such as Office. You also have to enable ActiveX to use Windows Update or Microsoft Update, but once you are done updating, disabling ActiveX is recommended. See this article at Computer World's site.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 02-03-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 02-03-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Geek Meet 2008 in Las Vegas April 11-13

If you are coming to keep watching GeekMeet.OnComputers.info for more information.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) Well it looks like we have survived TU24 last Tuesday. That means we can start planning what we are going to do in the future. I ran across something on the net that has me daydreaming about a future vacation. It seems there is a company in France planning to build something called a manned cloud. Essentially, it is a 700+ foot long blimp shaped like a whale, with a luxury hotel for a gondola. Complete with restaurants, library, fitness room, and spa. There will even be a sun deck on the top of the helium-filled envelope. Wow! Can you imagine having cocktails at sunset, on top in the open air at about a thousand feet in the air, or how about stargazing with a nightcap before retiring for the night? Check this out it is very cool. http://www.dezeen.com

2) This next site reminds me of something I saw when researching Craigslist. There are groups that do public stunts, like a hundred people accumulating at a mall, everyone entering as individuals mingling with the crowd, then on cue they all start barking like dogs, or something. They just do it for fun; I remember reading an old Sci-Fi book about the concept of flash crowds. The premises was based on teleporting booths, like a phone booth, you could just dial your self any where you wanted to go, every time something was happening on the news, large crowds of people would teleport to the scene. This site is about a group that stages events using groups of people, the one featured here was a couple of hundred people freezing on cue,for five minutes at Grand Central Station in New York. There is video of people’s response, interesting how the uninformed public reacted. http://www.improveverywhere.com/

3) This site covers some of the subjects discussed on the show, I am not sure if it is news to the group, but I decided if some of you are unfamiliar with it I should post it as a source of information. Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Oxford University’s Internet Institute are leading this initiative with the support of several prominent tech companies, including Google, Levono, and Sun Microsystems. Consumer Reports WebWatch is serving as an unpaid special adviser. They are a “Neighborhood Watch” campaign aimed at stopping “badware” on the net.http://www.stopbadware.org/

4) This is another “Geek” site I ran across I remember Jack talking about the MacBook Air, so when I saw this I thought it would be a good fit here. The title sort of says it all “Man buys MacBook Air, pulls it apart, takes pics. There is a link to ifixit’s step-by-step disassembly, complete with pictures and instructions, I guess handy if you need to replace the battery. http://www.reghardware.co.uk

5) Have you wondered where the Dot-com pioneers are now? I ran across this article thought it was something that you might be interested it, who is still around, who has disappeared, and who bought who. http://www.webware.com

6) The last one is about the plans to bring broadband to the entire United States; the article is quite current from Jan. 31, 2008. Talks about just how far behind the curve the U.S. is in relation to the world, when it comes to broadband. Discusses what we need to do, and why we are in the situation of loosing ground, what it will mean for our future. The article seem to me to be a must read on the subject, so take the time to check it out. http://arstechnica.com/

Technometria: Ajax Security

"Billy Hoffman gets excited and scary while discussing how as Web sites and traditional desktop software are rapidly moving to the Web via Ajax, the transition is being made with reckless disregard for security. [runtime: 01:09:08, 31.6 mb, recorded 2008-01-23] "I found this very enlightening, and scary at the same time. As more and more websites become user configurable, aka "ajaxy," this is something that those of us on the bleeding edge of surfing web 2.0 need to be aware of. --MissM

read more | digg story

Smart 'Lego' conjures up virtual 3D twin

No IT angle here, folks. But there are times when stuff turns up that is just too neat not to share. This is obviously one of them.

I could think of a number of real-world uses for this sort of device. As the article points out, though, the first thing that seems to leap to the minds of readers is games. One way or another, I hope this triggers your imagination. It sure did mine.

Jack

A tour of Google's new Experimental Search. Verdict: awesome

"Stuff" is happening at Google. Besides all this new search stuff, helpfully collated at Ars Technica, they are working up to previewing new offline capabilities for Google Apps. Just the search stuff is enough excitement for me, this week, but there is apparently more to come--soon.

Jack

Software Tool Strips Windows Vista To Bare Bones

Using vLite, you can reduce Vista's footprint on disk by 50% or more. That still won't make it as small as XP Pro, but it is a grand start. Of course, that begs the question of whether or not Vista needs to be as small as XP Pro on disk, but evidently some folks think it at least needs a starvation diet for a while.

The appearance of vLite is just the first page in this story. I predict there will be several more tools available to do similar modifications on Vista before long. Microsoft also is saying they will make succeeding versions of Windows much more modular to allow installation customization, though as this needs to be done at the installation and MS is now restricting the number of installations one can do under their activation scheme, this may benefit only those who buy the top version(s), which plays into Microsoft's hands, rather than serving the consumer.

We will be following this one.
Jack

Microsoft : Windows 7 STILL in planning stage and will take approximately 3 years to develop.

While hardly a surprise, this is contrary to the rumors we have been hearing about Microsoft rushing to complete Windows 7 (or whatever they end up calling the next version; I vote for "Windows Recoup") in order to sort of "pave over" the problem child that is Vista.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what actually happens.

Jack

Geek Meet 2008 will be the weekend of April 11-13 2008 in Las Vegas.

Geek Meet is ON!!!!

Here is the tentative hotel information. We have not yet signed the contracts, so please do NOT call to make reservations yet. This web page will be changed as soon as the contract is signed. (Later this week)
AlaskaJoe

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 01-27-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 01-27-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Interview with Jeremy Hague

we had an interview with Jeremy Hague from www.CallBurner.com a program made to record Skype calls. This is a very cool and easy to use program.
Jeremy has set up a coupon for us:
"CallBurner Skype call recorder (www.callburner.com) special offer: Save 10% off CallBurner (www.callburner.com) & CallBurner ExtraHot! (www.callburner.com/extrahot) when you use this special OnComputers.info coupon.

ONCOMPUTERS

For help on how to use this coupon, please see www.callburner.com/coupon.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) I was sent this link, I feel the need to put in a small disclaimer here; These links are for your information only, if you feel the need to perform any action based on them you do so at your own risk I am not responsible for any damages incurred as a result of that action. Okay enough of that, this first link is how to make fire with water, a chemical reaction that would have pleased me as a teenager, also might have put me in jail. I am often surprised what subjects can be found on the net how to make an atomic bomb would be included in that venue this is not that bad, or maybe worse, due to availability of ingredients. So if you choose to watch this please be responsible. http://www.instructables.com

2) The disclaimer in the last link would also apply here. This is a how to for an entertainment trick on how to play with fire, as in part of an act a fire-eater, or magician would do on stage. Learn how to juggle and impress your friends at your next party; just try not to impress the local fire department as well. http://youtube.com

3) On a little grander scale than just destroying the house and/or neighborhood lets move on to the latest in warfare. I was reading a story on advanced sight for small military robots. Article linked here http://www.networkworld.com an interesting article. As a small aside here the iRobot company listed as being licensed for the landar technology is the same company that makes the Roomba automatic vacuum, just incase you might have a few extra bucks to throw into the stock market. Anyway, this article led me to a link on the latest military technology. This site is put up by the Israeli’s, on international defense technology. Some very scary stuff here, but informative if the subject is your cup of tea. http://www.defense-update.com/

4) Okay we have covered the house, neighborhood, and the country, what is left? How about we take out the entire planet, and do it in the next two days or so. This one has me hoping there will be a show next week. Have you heard about TU24? Probably not, I know it was news to me, I had often heard the question “If there was an asteroid going top hit the Earth would the government tell us about it?” This could be an alarming wake up call to answer that question. I put up a link a while back about the comet Holmes becoming the largest object in our solar system, even larger than the Sun. It seems that was due to a rather newly discovered field of research called a plasma discharge. Sorry it is one of those subjects not listed in my pay-grade description. It appears TU24; an object about the size of the Sears Towers will be missing the planet next week, but will be passing close enough to enter our magnetosphere, if TU24 is a negatively charged object it could trigger a plasma discharge, causing an unknown amount of damage. http://www.tu24.org/The site is one that was put up only to disclose information about TU24, I found the most information in the FAQ section, you need to navigate from there to “The Real Danger from TU24”, the go button takes you to forums, try the “Real Danger” link first.

5) Last up for the week is a link about the former planet Pluto, and the mission to visit our far-out neighbor. Seems the first photos of Pluto are in, not much to look at, but I found the article about the mission a good read. http://www.planetary.org

KDE, not just for Linux anymore?

KDE, on your Windows, on your OS X, on your OpenSolaris... And the intent appears to be the ability run software intended for other OSes, on any of the OSes, in the near future. It sound very ambitious to me, but since most new desktops and workstations being sold today, are now on some flavor of x86 CPU, it sounds more plausible today than it did in January 2006, just before Job showed off the Mac on Intel hardware in his keynote.

I don't see it has being stupid simple in the early days, but we may be able to pick and choose our software by our preferences, rather than our OS some day soon.

IE7 Auto-Rollout, Fact and Fiction

Ars has a good, short, bit about the IE 7 push. It will answer all your questions.

Microsoft's decision to treat IE 7 as a security update, rather than an application update, makes a lot of sense and no matter how you feel about IE 7, it really is more secure and treating it this way allows a lot more people to download and use it, making them more secure. And making US more secure, by logical extension.

Jack

JAVA 1.6 Update 4

Roger's Information Security Blog has a short piece on the new Java update, v4. The real attraction is the links, which centralize information and opinion on it for your convenience.

No one is sure whether or not this update is all that important. In such a circumstance, I tend to install quickly, as if it were important, to err on the side of caution. I guess you should, too.

Jack

IBM Will NOT Open OS/2 Source Code

To have OS/2 released to a development community has been the fond hope of many OS/2 fans and a lot of developers. It's not going to happen. I'm sure it could, but IBM is not going to pay for the legal legwork needed to stay out of patent and copyright hell. There is no reason for them to, in light of their already expensive and extensive committment to Linux and AIX.

Nevertheless; various communities have been trying to get IBM to release OS/2 for years. Now we've had a second answer to a petition asking just that. The answer is a resounding "no".

Jack

AT&T, P2P Filtering, and the Consumer

Now here's an interesting idea; the ISP as content filter. And this after AT&T led an all-out, expenses be damned campaign to add the "safe harbor" clauses to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protected ISPs from just that responsibility.

Before you get too worked up reading this, remember it is just a trial balloon floated to see what happens. Still, it raises more questions than it answers and I'm sure AT&T's motive at this point is to see whether or not this could lead to angry mobs in the streets. Any less of a reaction and this might become real, but the possibilities are still slim.

Jack

ARS Technica Review of KDE 4

KDE 4 debuted this past week. Details are just coming out and, frankly, this looks like the spectacular and powerful desktop Linux has been in need of.

Version 4 has been redone under the hood and in all the visible spots. While not all new, enough of it is that just mentioning it all and tossing in some nice images takes 7 pages in the ARS review. The new version is buggy and not quite feature-complete, though it looks to me worth installing and working with right now. For that reason version 3.5, the current stable release, is still fully supported. I suspect it will take a while for the various distributions that offer KDE to switch over. That's okay.

The review is definitely worth your time. It's pretty well written and will give you a great overview of what is to come. As to whether or not you want to jump into version 4, you'll have to decide that for yourself.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 01-20-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 01-20-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Geek Meet 2008

Geek Meet 2008 MAY be the weekend of April 11-13 2008 in Las Vegas.

We have received the final contracts for the hotel for Geek Meet. However, in the event that we do not fill the 10 rooms we have requested be blocked, the rate will be going up for each night. As of January 19th, we do not have a commitment from you, our listeners, that we will fill 10 rooms. As such, we have not signed the contract yet. If you are planning on coming to Geek Meet, considering coming to Geek Meet, thinking of coming to Geek Meet, you MUST send us an email to geekmeet08@oncomputers.info. If we do not have a firm commitment that we can fill the 10 rooms by next Saturday, January 26th, we will be considering canceling Geek Meet.

OLPC review, by Buzz!

Jack posted this in the news group and I felt there was enough interest. And I assume more read the blog than the newsgroup? (If I'm wrong please let me know in comments). A great, in depth review of the OLPC, One Laptop Per Child machine. But wait! There's more! ;) I was reading a blog about hacking the OLPC, and found a "tutorial" on installing Opera on it. Enjoy!

--MissM

OLPC

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) Okay, first up for the week something you will not see from me often, some links regarding football. The first is a Youtube link showing an unbelievable play in college football. http://youtube.com The second is an audio of the coach prepping the team on the play http://www.slatev.comI was most impressed with the sportscaster being able to get the calling of the action right. Any way I thought it was interesting, even though I know nothing little about the game.

2) This is a geek thing I ran across basically a clickable cartoon strip for geeks, if everyone has already seen it I apologize it was new to me, thought some of you may have missed it so here it is. http://www.ageeklikeme.com/

3) I have no idea how many of you are familiar with dowsing, this is a favorite subject of mine, but I am usually reluctant to bring it up, when I do I get those funny looks. Well this just seemed to be the time, so here I go. It was several years ago when I ran across this subject, I had off and on heard mention about water witches. One day I decided to look in to it, was surprised to read it is a serious subject; many municipal governments use them, also mineral, oil, and gas companies. When I read about pendulum dowsing, I decided to try it. I expected nothing, thought it was bunk just a lot of hooey. I was surprised when I got results, and I mean immediate results worked first time, every time. While I am still confused about the how and why, not sure about the quality of the answers I get, it is not always correct. Then there is that bit about correctly asking the question, you need to be careful about ambiguities, avoiding those questions that can be interrupted differently. I find that just the fact it works to be completely amazing. This is the best link I have found for a beginner to investigate the subject. Try it for yourself; I think that you to will be surprised, by the fact that it will give you answers to your questions. This link gives you the choice of language, and HTML or PDF http://www.lettertorobin.org/

4) This is for those who used to be so much better than I was with a yoyo; you deserve this now you will know how I felt. I was lucky to get it to come back up the string more than once. Any yoyoist (pardon) types out there should really like this video. He is the best I have seen, ever. http://toocoolvideos.blogspot.coml

5) I just thought I might put up a vacation destination for the Art Bell types out there, the brave ones any way. I found this while looking around for places I might like to relocate to, it is just one of those pipe dreams I occasionally think about, moving to a rural area. Well Southern Colorado; and Northern New Mexico were areas I was looking into. Then I found this I may have to check this area off my list, as it seems I would have to have nerves of steel, or brains of wax to consider moving here. Then again, it may be interesting, trouble is it might be to damn interesting. There are two parts, separate links. Part one: http://www.cyberwest.com Part two: http://www.cyberwest.com

Need a Mac Support Tech? Find a Linux Guru

It seems as if once a person is familiar with the fundamentals of Linux, or any other system that is built on the Unix philosophy (which the Mac OS X is, too) they are half-way or more to being able to work confidently on a Mac from the command line, which is where most corporate IT support work is done.

I'll call Steve Jobs right away and tell him, in case he wants to distance his company from the unwashed masses like me who use Linux.

Jack

A Lesson in User Failure: Investigating the Serial ATA Connector

Ryan Smith over at Anandtech has an interesting take on SATA connectors, with which I have to agree, though I had not thought of it that way until I saw this article. The piece is short, despite being posted on 3 pages, and very readable. I think you will find it food for thought.

Jack

Streaming radio causes new threat in Winamp

I know a lot of you are Winamp users. My wife and I are, as well. So I thought I had best post this. Winamp 5.52 is devoid of the vulnerability and I think upgrading is a critical matter.

Media players in general are taking huge security hits of late. This is because if such a player makes the use of more than one format possible, it also aggregates vulnerabilities. I am not at all happy about the problems in media players. They affect Free Software and open source players, as well. I seem to be upgrading my Linux players at about the same rate as I have to do with the Windows ones. Problems are evidently endemic to the type of application. Wonderful news, eh?

Jack

Why I’ve stopped reporting bugs to Ubuntu

You all know I'm an Ubuntu fan. However; this complaint by Matt Chisholm agrees with my experience and, frankly, it is a huge drawback to those like he and I who are able to coherently report bugs and willing to do so.

The pace of development at Ubuntu must be frantic, judging by the 6 month release schedule. Combine that with some cultural problems within the Ubuntu organization and (to some extent) the community and you have an atmosphere that is somewhat unfriendly to those reporting problems. Not really unfriendly. Nothing like that. But unresponsive and at times acting as if the bug were something personal the reporter accused them of.

I think once made aware of this, the Ubuntu folks will change their ways. That is what has happened at every turn when their users have called for change. It might take them some time, but that is just human nature.

Jack

Bot detector by Trend Micro

Now here's an interesting concept. It's free to try, right now, and I recommend trying it as soon as possible, especially on Aunt Sally's PC, if you know what I mean.

Jack

ULTRA Stackable

Now here is a development that threatens to remove one of my cat's favorite pleasures; the exploration of the cable nest under my desk. Only God knows what she thinks of it, but she always looks very satisfied when emerging alive from the clutter.

They're stackable peripherals. Not printers and such, but media readers, external storage; all sorts of stuff. Victor Wu has done a good job of reviewing this stuff over at Bjorn3D. The article is a bit "rah-rah" for me, but still, the gear is indeed enticing. Check it out.

Jack

Four critical vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime

You've got to feel sorry for Apple over this, which comes on top of other, as yet unfixed critical vulnerabilities in Quicktime. Some of them require only a visit to a specially crafted web site, so they are really serious problems.

For right now, I would simply uninstall any Quicktime versions on my machine and do without until I knew for sure it was safe. Apple is apparently working frantically on the problems; they released four fixes already. Still, the application is not yet safe.

Jack

HP provides an update about WHS woes

Our good buddy Paul Thurrott has a post about Hewlett-Packard's MediaSmart Servers running Microsoft Windows Home Server and data corruption problems.

Now when you read this, keep in mind that these problems are completely avoidable and do not affect your backups made with Windows utilities and most others. It is nowhere near as bad as it sounds. Plus, as I reported last week, at least one team of dedicated researchers has been unable to reproduce the problem. The problem is real, but not the end of the world. And you can easily dodge the bullet.

Jack

NSA Must Examine All Internet Traffic to Prevent Cyber Nine-Eleven, Top Spy Says

From wired:
In order for cyberspace to be policed, Internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search. "Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation," he said. Giorgio warned me, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

Mass web infection leaves researcher scratching her head

Here is [yet] another security story to follow as it develops. If the researchers cannot make head nor tail of it at this point, we surely cannot be expected to. I am sure all will be made clear as the researchers get a grasp of what is going on. Until then all I can do it worry about my clients.

Jack

Unwanted remote configuration for home routers

This story has been developing for a few days. It's still not clear which routers and system configurations are vulnerable. Right how, the fix is to disable UPnP, which of course applies to Windows systems. It seems the problem may well be larger than that, though, and apply to all sorts of systems as the UPnP referred to is in the router, not the PC. I will attempt to keep either this post updated or post again when more info is available.

Jack

10 Strange Keyboards

This was on Slashdot, this morning. I found it a bit entertaining and I saw a couple there I wasn't familiar with. So, for your amazement and amusement (and as a relief from being on hold with Direct TV or whoever you are calling today) here they are.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 01-13-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 01-13-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) Sometimes, something comes along that makes you smile, feel good, and affects you at a deep level, leaving you knowing there is a lesson to learn, some kind of message involved. Well this little video is like that, almost like one of those Aesop’s Fables from childhood illustrating a basic moral with a story. Except this is real life, not a story made up like a fairy tale. This shows how the world could be if you eliminate the predator / prey relationship from an encounter between individuals even as diverse as a cat and bird. We are after all a predator species, and we show it in so many ways. It seems to me that I see it in the conflicts between nations, groups of people formed into organizations like unions, businesses like insurance and loan companies, individuals as in criminal behavior, right down to the local used car sales man. Check it out this one will make you smile I guarantee, it might even hit you at a deeper level, like me. http://youtube.com

2) This new invention made me think about that song that went "In the year twenty-five / thirty-five your arms will be hanging limp at your sides". However, it is really a very cool tool and I would like to have one. There would be no more aching back in the morning, I can think of a thousand things I would like to try with this one. I thought rather than a war machine, it would have more potential for the disabled than anything I have seen come along for a very long time. I suppose it is just another example of that predator nature of ours, war first because we seem to think it is much cooler than compassion. Any way you really should check this one out, I liked it a lot. http://www.liveleak.com

3) Have you ever wondered how Google came up with their name? Or, what is the meaning of the word? I have run into many people who had no clue about either. I found this last week by accident, it is from Carl Sagan’s COSMOS series during the early eighties, I remember seeing it on T.V., and I have quoted it often over the years. He talks about a Google, and a Googolplex, the origin of the number, and an example of just how big a big number can be. On the T.V. show, he was relating how big the numbers in astronomy are, and how difficult it is for the human mind to grasp those concepts. http://www.youtube.com

4) I seem to have a lot of video this week well this is one more, sent to me by our friend in Southern California (and, no it is not necessary to send the kids out of the room). It is a slide show of an annual event in China done with snow and ice, almost on a Disneyland scale. We could never do it here the cost of labor would put it over the top. But, it is very interesting what can be accomplished using just snow ice and lights. http://community.webshots.com

5) Last, but not least something green, this one sent to me by Gary another friend who often listens to the show. An article from Scientific American Magazine about ethanol seems corn is not the way to go. Seems there is a prairie grass that has much more potential than corn, with a higher yield using marginal land. One of the problems I had with corn for fuel was using land better suited to grow food, somehow I did not like that trade off. This looks like the way to go to me, check it out, maybe you will agree. http://www.sciam.com

Microsoft preps Vista to thwart rogue gadgets

Now here is an interesting post on Paul Therrott's Super Site.

I think MS is on the right track, here. At least some resistance to malware has to be built into the operating system, if for no reason that it complements your security software (AV and such).

Jack

Spamming printers from the Web? Researcher shows how

Just the kind of news I needed. To top it off, so little skill is needed to pull this one off that by using the proof of concept code, with only the slightest modification, I can do it here and at a neighbor's house.

Printer spam will no doubt start arriving soon.

Jack

Shuttle's $199 Linux PC

Compared to the Everex $199 offering, the Shuttle one is a bit, ah, thin on features. Nice case, true, but no optical drive, which seems like a poor trade-off. I suspect the difference in features at the same price is made mostly of Windows XP, though details are at this time very hard to come by.

Right now; my money would go towards an Everex machine, weaker processor and all. It's more like a "traditional" PC and the Linux on it serves just fine, by all accounts. XP is something of an unneeded option in this class. Potential be damned. Real capabilities count for more.

Jack

Sony to sell unrestricted music downloads on Amazon

As promised, I forthwith eat my unkind words about Sony from the other day. Evidently the premium gift cards are just that and not the only way that Sony is going to sell digital music. I still think they have made a pricing mistake with their gift cards, but that's just my opinion. I say buy the CD if it is going to cost just as much. I can then rip it to any bitrate and/or format I want.

Now we don't know the price, but Sony would be well advised to not charge more for their a la carte MP3 than the other labels. That is generally between $.79 and $.99 apiece. In light of the rootkit fiasco in 2005 (that seems to still be mentioned in every article about Sony DRM, this one included) there is still a lot of hate and discontent towards the company amongst the CD buying and MP3 buying public.

This time I'll wait and see what they do before I rant. I just hope they don't screw it up.

CES: Asus to super-size the wee Eee

The sub-sub notebook market is booming, thanks in no small part to Asus. Now it seems they are filling the niche in the hopes of having something for everyone, especially those who found the EeePC just a bit too minimal.

Besides Asus' models, there are several others, including the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO device, combined in almost instantly giving legitimacy the market segment.

I think it is fair to say that sooner or later a lot of us are going to be looking at this type of device for ourselves.

Jack

New rootkit hides in hard drive's boot record

The most interesting thing about this rootkit is that it attacked systems unpatched for about 2 years. That's how long ago Microsoft patched the flaw being used as the attack vector. If you are up to date on patching, this really isn't a problem for you.

Once again; the moral is patch, patch and patch.

Jack

Here comes Origami 2.0

Paul Thurrott's Super Site has some thoughts on the second iteration of Microsoft's "Origami" initiative. The first one was a real yawner, though I found reason to be optimistic over it's possibilities. Since then, Microsoft has obviously been hard at work to counter all the competing schemes, such as Nokia's Internet Tablet and the Asus EeePC.

Microsoft is not going to take the success of those other sub-notebook devices lying down. They're obviously on a war footing over this one and I think they might just put out an OS and software for some compelling machines this time around.

Jack

AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter

"Network-level filtering means your Internet service provider – Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright."

I don't engage in the kind of activities that would be filtered but this is scary to me, none-the-less.

What's a Widget Worth?

Advertising, advertising, advertising. I'm a little sick of ads cluttering up everything I do on the web, but the link will take you to a fascinating article at Business Week's site in which they discuss monetizing Facebook and other such sites. It really is interesting and short enough to be worth your time.

Jack

Welcome to Open Voices

It is the Linux Foundation's new podcast. Naturally, the first episode is an interview with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. I'm downloading that now and looking forward to hearing it. But the real attraction to this series is that over the next few weeks, they will do interviews with a number of open source and Free Software luminaries, including Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth.

This is definitely one to keep an eye on.

Jack

Apple's flash sub-notebook rumours fuelled

Not really being of the rumor-monger sort, myself (please; no comments that might shatter my fragile self-esteem) I can't really understand why this rumor grabs so much mindshare with me. I guess because if Apple does it, the new "sub-sub-notebook" idea gains complete legitimacy in the market. That would please me greatly.

Anyway, here's a bit of gasoline tossed on the spark.

Jack

» Geeks.com not so ‘Hacker Safe’ | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

"On December 5, 2007 that customer information, including Visa credit card information, may have been compromised."
If you’ve been a Geeks.com customer in the last year you may want to monitor your credit report.
This is the company we have a link to on our web site.

AlaskaJoe

Sony Offers DRM-Free Digital Downloads?

If this is the only way Sony is going DRM free, this is crazy! Do they think people only download to get an mp3? People download so they can get the single they want, to get instant gratification and to get a price break. Sony, pure baloney, again.

(If in the near future they do offer DRM free downloads as singles at reasonable prices, as other labels are doing, I will take the above statement back.)

Microsoft admits Office 2003 'mistake'

This is a follow up to what Jack posted on this matter last week.

Have you ever noticed that when Corporate America decides what is best for consumers, they are usually proven decisively wrong?

CES: BitMicro preps 832GB solid state drive for launch

Veeery Eenteresing!

Because of service life issues, I'm not sure I'm ready to accept large flash-based drives, but there is no doubt others are and that they are coming. This is just the first announcement in a long string, I'm sure. But this sort of device is coming.

Note that they didn't mention price at all.

Jack

McAfee throws some FUD at the GPL

This strikes me as the funniest thing in computing since Bill Gates said no one would ever need more than 640 kilobytes of system memory. Really! I think you will find it so, as well.

It seems McAfee is like some other companies and confuse software licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL) with software in the public domain. There is a world of difference. It also seems as though McAfee appropriated some of this code and is now being held to the terms of the GPL, which require someone who distributes such software to return any improvements or changes they made to the code to the community and to publish the source code. (The two are usually one and the same.) The company is just now getting around to admitting this and, seeing as they are legally bound to the terms of the GPL (no matter they say it has not been tested in court, which is a widely held assumption and totally false) they've thought to disparage the license with that and other falsehoods.

This is a quick read and about as funny as it gets.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 01-06-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 01-06-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) I thought I would do a little bit on predictions after all this is the first show of the New Year. Let us start it off with a little humor with a geek bent. Enough said it is a short video clip, there are a lot more there but this on is predictions for 2008. http://www.allanjosephbatac.com

2) Next up, here are the top ten predictions from a stock market guru on the likely trends for the up coming year. Sort of wish I had something to invest in other than an hour at the casino, okay maybe a half hour. Any way this is just one of several I read through, I am just interested in the expected trends. http://seekingalpha.com

3) This one is a look back at last years C.E.S. show and how well the predictions of the show booth people came out interesting. http://www.itworld.com

4) Okay enough of that how about scientist finding alien DNA in humans here is a very interesting article about it. This one made me say hummm maybe, sounds good to me, why not. We had to come from somewhere why not the cosmos, seems we had to originate there, the only question is how we wound up here. http://ancientx.com

5) The other evening I was sitting here shooting the bull with Riley, we were toying with several subjects when one of our topics reminded me of something I wanted to look into. Several months ago, I was going to take a bus trip to L.A. I wanted something to listen to on the bus. So I made a disc of a couple of old Art Bell shows, one of them was an interview with Terence McKenna mostly about time, and a theory he developed called “Time Wave Zero”. What struck me was the reference to the Mayan Calendar I am about to launch myself into some comparisons. This first link is to a site with lots of material on Terence, lots of audio. I would suggest starting with the Art Bell show from 5-97 about a third of the way down http://www.rinf.com this is the show where he discusses Time Wave Zero. This very much relates to the Mayan Calendar even though he created his computer models prior to his learning about it, they both end on the same day. This link is to the best explanation of the Mayan Calendar I have found, the comparisons are amazing. http://video.google.com

Death of DRM Could Weaken iTunes, Boost iPod

Here's a story you've probably already heard, but the ramifications for the iTunes store may be interesting as are the possible reasons the music industry is doing this.

I've used the Amazon MP3 downloads and they are quick, easy and show up in iTunes automagically. The are also DRM free so you never have to worry about losing them as long as you keep backups against disaster. There is no reason that I can tell not to use Amazon's DRM free MP3s. The are 256 kbps so are pretty high quality and ususally much less expensive than buying the physical CD. You also get nearly instant gratification.

Be aware that the DRM free downloads are probably watermarked and can probably be traced back to you if you share one with a million of your closest friends. But putting them on the several computers on your home or sharing them on your LAN (check your settings to make sure you aren't sharing with the Internet) should be no problem.

I've done some comparisons and in most cases Amazon costs less than iTunes, however sometimes iTunes includes bonus tracks or materials for the same price. Check it out both places before you purchase and weigh the pros and cons if you are using an iPod. If you use several different players DRM free is the way to go besides buying the CD and ripping it yourself.

500-fold increase in space communications leads SETI@home to call for help

The story is at NetworkWorld's site. You can also read official press release.

Lots of our community did Seti@Home for a long time, but lost interest when the official client started keeping count of work done in a way that made direct competition to do more than the other guy harder to guage. I, personally, have kept it up, on at least a couple machines.

I would like you to reconsider lending your spare computing cycles to the project. I think it is important scientific work and hope you will, as well.

Jack

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for January 2008

Patch Tuesday is coming! Patch Tuesday is coming!

That said; there appear to be only two patches of significance this month. Details at the link above.

The critical patch applies to all operating systems Windows since W2K. The important one just to those before Vista. Nice to see Vista doesn't require at least some of the patches.

Jack

Antitrust Lawsuit Charges Apple With Monopolizing Online Music

I'm not sure what to make of this, except that maybe some of the lawyers involved have too much time on their hands. Enjoy,

Jack

Information about certain file formats that are blocked after you install Office 2003 Service Pack 3

Should you be considering installing Office 2003, Service Pack 3 (SP3), you should know that a number of previously accessible file formats will be blocked by default. This Knowledge Base article (#938810) tells you which ones and how to unblock them, should you need to. I'm posting this here because I'm betting that a number of you will need this knowledge for yourselves or others whose computers you work on.

Jack

The Sears "Community" Installation of ComScore

It's good old Ben Edelman again. A researcher from Computer Associates, Benjamin Googins, discovered this and covered it thoroughly. Edelman's researches confirm everything Googins said and offers an informed opinion as to the legality and so the morality of the Sears site's behavior. As SHC, the company that controls Sears seems also to control what is left of KMart, I think it safe to consider their site compromised, as well.

Jack

iCali | My Top 10 Gadget List for 2007

I thought this was a great list, and everything is on my wish list ;)
I'd put the drobo (though its expensive) and the evolve wireless speakers as #1 and #2.
A video version of this list can be found at GeekBrief.TV Cali's daily vidcast.
As an added plus (like you really need one :P ) there's a link to hulu invites at the link below.

--MissM


iCali |My Top 10 Gadget List for 2007
4BAY Drobo Fully Automated Sata Robotic Storage Array USB 2.0 (This is an Amazon associate link, but I plan on sharing any revenue with the bloggers here.)
EVOLVE WIRELESS Speaker system FOR IPOD,MP3 Player (same disclaimer as above)

US-CERT warns of flaw in latest RealPlayer

As if we needed more reasons not to install RealPlayer!

At least this hasn't shown up in the wild. Yet. To their credit Real is checking it out. Hopefully, a patch will come soon.

The art of software murder

It's a rant against software bloat, and a particularly good one. I suppose we've all read enough of those, but I post this one because it mentions, indeed centers upon, Paint Shop Pro, of which Gail is an enthusiastic user. She was worried when Jasc sold out to Corel. I reassured her. Now it seems that I was wrong.

The comments on other applications are equally dark.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 12-30-07

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 12-30-07. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) I was reading an article titled Heathrow Airport to get first Personal Transport System next year. This of course got my Google juices going. It was necessary to look into this subject a little deeper. I am posting two links the first on the Heathrow story, http://www.ananova.com and the second to a link site on personal transit in general, enough information to satisfy your curiosity if you are interested in learning more about what will most likely develop into our future. http://faculty.washington.edu

2) I was looking through my books the other day, thinking I would like to start a novel to read off an on, but could not find anything interesting. And so, I thought I would look around for something new. I found an author I was not familiar with, although maybe well known to a lot of you out there. Vernor Vinge referred as “The Online Prophet” how could, that! Not grab me. Evidently, in his Sci-Fi novel “True Names” he predicted the internet in 1981. I am going to look around for it on Ebay; here is a link about the author. http://www.salon.com

3) This is an interesting site for the DYI guy, or gal out there who likes to try building things, especially the off the wall type projects. I like this one quite a bit, because I am a tinkerer at heart. You can build; a solid wood clock, a welder from an old microwave, Tesla turbine from old CD’s (something to do with those AOL’s), a marshmallow gun, well you get the idea. Check it out at http://www.instructables.com

4) I was talking to someone the other day who did not know what the Hubble deep field was, that surprised me so I thought I would put up a very good link for anyone else out there who might not be familiar with the subject. Check out the video it puts things into perspective. http://www.deepastronomy.com

5) This is a link sent to me by Riley a few days ago, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Wow does this site transport me back in time to an era that defined a very large part of my life. The sounds of Viet Nam songs, and radio broadcast that were recorded there, and sent back to the states. It is funny how sounds, can trigger memories of days gone by. Give it a listen even if you were not around then, it was the best of times and the worst of times for a lot of us. Thanks again Riley I enjoyed the site a lot. http://www.manchu.org

Divine Disorder on the Desktop

It's an article in Technology Review about "revitalizing the tired old desktop metaphor". Now, while it probably could use a good revitalization, I'm not about to pronounce the desktop as we know it dead.

I've been reading a lot of this sort of thing of late and I find it interesting. I hope you will, too. Please either follow the link in the article to "Bumptop" or use this one.

I also found a sort of history of interactive desktops and/or Graphic user interfaces (GUIs) here that I think you might find both interesting and thought provoking.

Jack

AOL pulls plug on Netscape Web browser - Yahoo! News

I don't many true Netscape users anymore, but it is still sad to see this coming.

HP EX470 Windows Home Server Easter Egg

Kudos to Paul Thurrott for pointing me to this. It's ridiculously cute. Besides; Windows Home Server needs a bit of good press now.

Jack

Open Source Living

I don't know how many times someone has asked me to look for an open source or Free Software app for them because they hate navigating SourceForge. (I LOVE navigating SourceForge, which is probably something I should use to build geek cred and not admit in public.)

Open Source Living is an index of the most popular and proven open source and Free Software applications around. Listings are for Windows, Macs and, of course, Linux and while not separated by OS, the listings are easy enough to get around in and understand. At least that's the mission statement. I note that the site carries a very Google-like beta tag. Still, it works fairly well and I urge you to have a look at it.

Jack

Microsoft's Windows Home Server corrupts files

Man; Microsoft certainly did not need this one. Windows Home Server has had a rather lackluster launch (to put it mildly) and though many, including myself, see a huge future for it, MS seems to be doing everything wrong.

I wonder what happened to product testing at MS? First Vista comes out half-baked and now this? Maybe they're all off shining Ray Ozzie's shoes?

Jack

Have a great holiday!

Peace on Earth is my wish. Happy Politically Correct Celebration.



--MissM

IE's Acid trip back to conflict

Here is a short explanation of why one reporter sees Internet Explorer 8's passing of the Acid2 test as important. Basically, it says what I said on the show, Sunday. However, I think the author, Phil Manchester, does a much better job of putting it into perspective than I did, which makes this worth reading.

Jack

Pics of Deepak's Grandchildren

Not only pics of Tristan Jack Midha, the newest arrival, but some of Sophia Helen, who just turned 2.

Enjoy,

Jack

Serious Windows Home Server concerns [Updated]

Now here is one to follow. In my very limited experience with WHS, this hasn't come up. However; it may well be device related, so don't dismiss it until we know.

Jack

Antivirus protection worse than a year ago

This will scare you a bit. The full report won't be out for a while, but the preview/peeks are bad enough.

Jack

Serious Flash vulns menace at least 10,000 websites

Your alarmist Uncle Jack has been negligent. It seems any of us who use Flash, regardless of underlying platform (here that Mac folks?) are in danger here. For now, the only thing I can think of to do is disable Flash.

There will doubtless be more details in the next few days. Expect protection from AV companies and workarounds from Adobe, if not an actual fix. (Everyone in the know seems to be betting on a combination of both, as the problem lies in something Adobe can't control; the tools used to build Flash sites.) Isn't the Internet grand?

Jack

Microsoft fixed borked IE update

A few people I have talked to have taken issue with Microsoft's timeline on their issuing a fix for this problem, but it is out there, it is automated if you have Automatic Updates on or it can be gotten manually. Anyway; it seems to fix the problems entirely.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 12-23-07

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 12-23-07. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Geek Meet 2008

Hi all.

As you know, Geek Meet 2008 is scheduled for April 11-13 2008 in Las Vegas, NV.

We have started to look into the arrangements for Geek Meet this year, and due to the proposals being received, we are considering instituting a registration fee for Geek Meet this year. Please let us know your thoughts by responding to our polls on whether or not you would pay a fee, and if so, how much you would be willing to pay.

Unfortunately, if the response is that people would prefer not to pay a fee, we might be forced to find a new location.

Thanks.

Aaron

Are you willing to pay a registration fee for Geek Meet 2008?
	Yes
	No
Free polls from Pollhost.com

How much are you willing to pay?
	$10
	$11-$20
	$21-$30
	$31-$40
	$41-$50
Free polls from Pollhost.com

*Note: Any fee collected will be used to cover the Geek Meet expenses such as T-shirts and the cost of the meeting room for the show.

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) I thought with Christmas only a day or two away I should find a good “Geek Gift” somewhere out there, and while I suppose a little late to get it on your list you might buy one of these with the Christmas money aunt Mary put into your Christmas card. You might have to add a few bucks of your own, well maybe quite a few, anyway check this out. The 914-PC-BOT is the first general service robot designed for digital life in the home. It is a host computer, it is a web server, it has an 80 Giga hard drive, and a Gig of Ram, and, you can program it with Linux Umbunto, or Windows XP, and there is a lot of other stuff above my pay grade. http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com

2) This is a revisit to the one laptop per child site. They have extended the give one get one program through the end of the year. Therefore, if you want to participate you have 10 days left before they change it. It would be a very nice thing to do in the holiday spirit. You might even know some one to give the one you receive, double your pleasure, double your fun, not to mention your karma. http://laptopgiving.org

3) This is a wiki site on free energy. Many (hundreds) of online free video links to sites dealing with free energy, every thing from home videos of people showing off their inventions, to professional videos, and news releases. Even crop circles displaying how to build inter-stellar space ships, analyzed, and explained if you want to build one. Being a person who likes conspiracy theories, I liked the videos on suppression. They made some good points, those who control how we get our energy, control everything. I put up a site a while back on a person running his car on water, I was wondering what happened to him, there are references here to other people doing the same thing, and they also disappeared. This site is amazing if you are into the subject, it is all here, so check it out. http://peswiki.com

4) If you are a fan of Google’s Sketchup program, this tutorial site that is very interesting, for instance you can watch someone design a tractor from scratch, step-by- step, at an accelerated rate. It is very interesting for anyone who has wanted to play around with a cad program just for fun, or design your new home for real. You could even design your own free energy system. If you have not seen it, Google’s program is worth checking out. http://www.youtube.com

5) To end the links for the week something for the space buffs out there, I ran across an article that took me by surprise. Formerly the Sun was the largest object in our solar system. Now, comet 17P/Holmes holds that distinction. An interesting read, and printed up it might even win you a bar bet, or two. http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu

Plexiglas-like DVD to hold 1TB of data

Finally! Someplace for John B. to put all his penguin pictures in one place!

If this debuts at reasonable prices, this puts a whole new spin on backups. Until it does, I'm staying skeptical.

Jack

Kaspersky false alarm quarantines Windows Explorer

"Stuff" happens. This highlights the problem with signature databases. As time goes on, they get so large that confusion rears it's ugly head. Kaspersky got on top of this one in a hurry, but some users were still affected; especially those with it set to delete rather than quaranteen files. A cautionary tale, that.

Jack

Download details: Standalone Update Package for Windows XP Service Pack 3

"Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate"
This is a public release of XP's SP3. This is still BETA it's very close to the full version. This is 336.1MB download and I would guess Microsoft will be mailing CD's at a later date.

Maybe it can fix some of the WUD problems.
AlaskaJoe

Patch Tuesday IE Update Goes Wrong

I ran into this yesterday, but did not attribute it to the proper cause and instead reinstalled IE, which seems to have fixed the problem, which is something you might wish to keep in mind.

However; This short article at The Inquirer will give you the basic info you need and steer you to the appropriate Knowledge Base (KB) article if you are having the problem.

It's hard to tell how widespread this is. However, it is starting to get a lot of press and may affect a lot of people or only a few.

Jack

QuickBooks update shreds Mac files

This story is still only about 12 hours old and is still developing in terms of what Intuit might be able to do to mitigate damage. Support is available. For now, don't install anything and hit the Intuit support pages for further instructions.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 12-16-07

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 12-16-07. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

Review: Windows XP

It's a Vista satire that I think you really will like.

Jack

Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) I just ran across this site looks interesting sort of like a cross between a verbal blog, personal talk show (you can host), a Socrates café, all wrapped up in one. I will need to check into it some more, but on the surface I think it might be fun to play around with. http://www.talkshoe.com

2) Next up a site that is in process of creating a web reference for every species of life known to exist on the planet, and then to keep up with the new discoveries as they come along. Sounds easy until realizing there are currently 1.8 million known, and we add several thousand every year. The problem is cataloging them before they become extinct. http://www.eol.org

3) This is another of those free online movie sites they currently have over four hundred available. Need to sign up, but it is free. They even had Rocky and Bullwinkle, used to be a favorite of mine, especially the fractured fairy tales, and Peabody the Dog, with the way back machine. They also have many classic movies, and you can share viewing, not sure, I understand why though. http://cinema.lycos.com

4) This is an interesting link on determining the meaning of your name, just type in a name and you will get a breakdown of who you are supposed to be. The readings are interesting, and surprisingly accurate. http://www.bostonuk.com/

5) One more for those who like ghost stuff, sorry I found this to late for Halloween, but rather than wait till next year I thought I would just throw it in. It is rather extensive there are many subjects, covered in depth. I am still browsing around the site, I hold most of this stuff at arms length, but am always willing to keep an open mind. http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/

A Few Words About Flash Memory Sticks

I've spoken on the show about durability of flash memory devices several times. Because I'm often questioned by listeners and others on this subject, I decided to write a bit about it for you and sort of put it all in one place.

Note throughout that this is just my opinion and based on my experiences and those of a few people I know. This base is fairly limited and your experiences may vary quite a bit. I do walk around with a minimum of 4 at all times, carrying Windows software, Linux distros and all sorts of tools for working on systems, not to mention how-to stuff and my own documents. I use them a lot at home, as well.

Still, I have gone through a number of these things now and I think I can state rather fairly that there are some problems that can affect them.

First and foremost is heat. These devices get warm. The longer they stay warm, the more prone they are to failure, in my experience. Not total failure. They will simply lose capacity. I assume a few transistors die and the system drops that entire block from the file allocation table. Neither I nor anyone I know has had one simply die. They just lose capacity, either in small or large increments, as they age.

Because simply leaving the memory sticks plugged in to the system keeps them quite warm, I have taken to physically removing them whenever I am not either actively reading or writing from them. (Just ejecting them or unmounting them from the file system is not enough. They will still heat up if left connected.) Since implementing that little policy, I have not had one lose even a tiny bit of capacity. Obviously, I do not recommend someone plugging flash memory devices in to take advantage of Microsoft Vista's "Ready Boost" feature. You can do it, but be warned that the boost in performance is not large at all and you're going to have to replace the flash device fairly often. And if you insist in giving this a shot, there are devices specifically intended to fulfill this purpose. Buy one of those. The price premium is because they are designed to take the heat.

And you've already figured out not to leave them in the car, right? That will kill them faster than a 3 year old with a hammer.

The second enemy of memory sticks is dust. It gets into the sockets and kills connectivity. I assume what happens is that the dust is sometimes conductive and crosses connectors, but I am not sure of this. I never buy a stick that folds into it's cover. I want one with a proper cap that fits rather tightly. That way it won't collect all the different dusts and particles that lurk in my pockets and in the bottom of my toolbox and purse. (Yes, guys. I carry a purse. I simply have too much junk to handle when I move away from my home to get along without one. I just make sure it's neither pink nor patent leather and no on says anything about it.)

The third area of concern as far as reliability goes is rough handling. This is kind of a "no brainer", but even the toughest sticks I have seen are prone to damage if they are crushed. It sounds simplistic, but when we chuck these things into a bag or whatever, if we pay just a bit of heed to storing them they will not be damaged. Personally, I just put them into a side pocket and go. Back pockets are a no-no.

I've had experience now with all sorts of brands and models. I have a few favorites. Tied for first place are Memorex and PNY brands. They seem to last the best and offer the best read and write speeds, regardless of whether you buy the fast stuff or just their run of the mill. Running relatively close behind them is San Disk and their Cruzer lines especially.

A word about PNY brand. In the early days of flash memory sticks, their stuff was average at the best. The ones they made early on were in sizes of a few megabytes, and that stuff failed repeatedly on me. Since then, and especially in the last 18 months, they have really brought up their game. I hear this from everyone and my experiences jibe with theirs. I used to avoid PNY like the pest because they were so unreliable, but now will spend my own money on them and gladly so. Even at that, I do steer clear of the older, smaller PNY units; those 256 MB or smaller. I have some and I use them, but only where a quick backup or replacement is at hand. I have learned not to trust them the hard way and they never leave the workbench. It is at the least embarassing to have one fail in front of a client.

I am not aware of a "bad" brand; one that you need to steer clear of.

Jack