Internet Explorer 7 released: A non beta, non Release Candidate "Final Version" is now available from Microsoft. Download it here.

Followup : Less than 24 hours later, Security Flaw identified. And soon another.

I HATE SPYWARE : Yet many of the most "reputible" Internet Sites stick your computer chocky fulll of spyware in the form of "Tracking Cookies" so they'll know where you're going. They don't ask permission, they just do it, and in addition to violating your privacy, it slows your Internet connection down. Luckily it's easy to stop it all. Just configure your browser to not allow "Third Party Cookies", and that will stop Yahoo and others from their perfidy. Instructions here . I think all Browsers should as a default block 3rd party cookies; the only one I know that does that is Safari. Ironically, the Washington Posts' (home of the just linked instructions) web site is one of the worst offenders for sticking you with third party cookies (and tricks your browser into accepting some even when 3rd party cookies are blocked!) aka tracking cookies, aka Spyware, so make sure you clear your cookies after setting your browser and leaving that website; Instructions here. Cookies can helpful for a website, for instance to retain information as you navigate within the website, i.e. what State you live in, that you're already authenticated, etc. Therefore some websites won't work if you blocked all cookies. In theory websites could block you if you refused to accept third party cookies. Any such website, you shouldn't be visiting anyway.

Running MS Windows Vista RC2 on a Macintosh: Not too hard to do on a MacPro. Runs fast, doesn't seem all that different or better from Windows XP. In fact:
MS Windows Vista is likely to be the most insecure Operating System ever published.
Two main reasons.
1. Microsoft wants a piece of the antivirus program market and has locked competitors out of its Security Control Panel in Vista. Symantec and McAfee are playing chicken, and refusing to release a Vista compatible AntiVirus product. Not easy finding antivirus software for Vista RC2.
2. For security reasons Microsoft makes the user confirm EVERYTHING whenever you run an executible or download a plug-in. It's so annoying that quickly a user will likely blindly click OK for everything, thus totally negating the benefit of Microsofts' planning.

Running Windows XP simultaneously With Mac OS X: Parallels is the software that provides for this. They just posted a "Release Candidate" that works on the MacPro. Parallels has many defects remaining. USB grief, won't work (for me) with both of my DVD-RW drives, Sound still not working correctly, but installing the included "Parellels Tools" helped a lot. I can share my Fat 32 partition with my OS X paradigm, and I love the way the cursor goes in and out of a Windows XP Window as you move it in and out of the Window.

It took far too much time to get it in a usable condition, but it does now do all I need it to. I can run MS Money, MS Access and IE 6 (which some websites require because they never learned about anybrowser.org). FrontPage 2003 provided authentication grief with Microsoft, they sure know how to alienate customers, but a barely intelligible CSR in India finally provided a code. Working just fine for the apps that I need most, I'll be using Parallels in preference to Boot Camp, (and Parallels never has a SATA slowdown, like Apple's Boot Camp 1.1 does without hacking your Windows Install CD), so I orderd a copy of Parallels (through MacInTouch at Amazon) at a discount.

The 15 day trial copy is a great way for folks to evaluate software. http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/

Amazon thinks it's iTunes. Amazon has launched a new "service" UNBOX, which provides downloads of TV shows and Movies. Only issue - you can't burn them to a playable DVD. So it's hardly like an unboxed commercial DVD. It reminds me more of the failed Circuit City DIVX. Take a known service and provide extra restritions on the use, and expect people to pay the same price.
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Beware new AOL free client: Leading Industry watchdog at Harvard labels the free version of AOL 9.0 as badware. Full story here.

Turnabout is fair play ! Microsoft has been trying to minimize the Google monopoly on search function. Now Google is going to do the same for Microsoft's big cash cow, Microsoft Office. Story here.

I love my new MacPro ! The new Mac Pro is a great Workstation PC. It uses 2 high end dual core Xeon Processors, fast SATA Hard Drives, and fast ECC Memory. Since it uses Intel processors, in theory one should be able to run Windows on it. Apple in fact has made that easy with their "BootCamp" software. I created a 32 Gig Partition and formatted it with FAT32 to simplify transferring files between Windows and Mac OS worlds. Software exists to run both OSs simultaneously, but a version that works with the new MacPro hasn't been released yet, so for now, switching requires a simple reboot; and that reboot is relatively fast with this fast machine.

Dump Windows Update and WGA - How to is here.

Microsoft retreats (a little) - Microsoft's WGA spyware no longer checks daily allegedly. Story here.

Microsoft has Installed Spyware on your PC - Brian Livingston, author of many "Windows Secrets" books and normally a mild mannered person, takes Microsoft to task for their WGA beta program, which they secretly have "phone home" - thus it is spyware. Full story here:

This TiVo could live forever: My son bought a lifetime contract (for $250) 3 1/2 years ago when he got a 140060 SA TiVo. Monthly fees would have cost him $543 by now. He was upset when his TiVo "died" last month.

I told him: Let me try and fix it, it's probably just the hard drive", and if he decided to stay with the Comcast DVR he got in the meantime, I could sell it on eBay for him. Frys had 300 Gig Seagates for cheap to use to replace/upgrade his OEM hard drive so I got one.

When I got the unit, I plugged it in, and despite lighting up, nothing to the TV screen, upon opening it up, the Hard Drive wasn't spinning up. I tried a different hard drive, and it too lay dormant. I went to the Weaknees.com site where it confirmed my suspicion that the Power Supply was bad, so I ordered a replacement from them. It came today, and I swapped it in, and voila : TiVo LIVES. Then I restored the 3 1/2 year old OEM 60 Gig HD onto the new 300 Gig HD, which saved all my son's settings and recording (took about 90 minutes). His TiVo now has ~ 370 hours recording time, and still has its Lifetime Subscription. Instructions here.

My son wants it back, telling me his Comcast DVR only recorded 80% of what he told it to.
I own a DirecTv unit with TiVo, so I have no need for it, and it's being shipped now.

It's nice to be able to do things for ones' children.

Can you hear me now? Allegedly a high frequency ringtone has been making the rounds in Great Britain. Teens can hear it, adults can't so the story goes. I'm not aware of any cell phone that has the capability of producing such high frequency sounds, so I'm skeptical. Story here:
Download the ringtone here.

I knew, do you know? Five things you should know before trying to Install
Windows Vista, Beta 2. Story here.

Five other things you should know.

1. GHOST your hard drive before installing Vista.
2. Create a new partition for Vista so you can dual boot.
3. Download your Soundblaster Drivers from Creative Labs.
4. Turn off Energy Savings on your Network Card. Turn off Vista Sidebar.
Configure settings for your Domain/Workgroup.
5. Firefox 1.5.0x works great, use it.

Microsoft is too cheap to buy enough bandwidth from Akamai. Anyone can now download a beta of Windows Vista here. In theory anyway. Try it Thursday morning, June 8, 2006, and you get this message:

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista Beta 2.

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand and cannot process your request at this time.

Please check back later for availability. We apologize for any inconvenience.

FOLLOWUP: Luckily third parties have mirrored it. You may have more luck downloading it here. Don't forget to get an install code from Microsoft. Thanks to that mirror I downloaded it quickly. Read one opinion of installing Vista in the June 8 posting on a blog here, and here .

Glad I didn't buy an HP Digital camera: Cause they might burst into flame they're being recalled. Story here.

More cut and paste from Press Release disguised as news: Forbes has news (which is 100% wrong) that Microsoft launched its first Macintosh keyboard. Forbes baloney here.
The reason I know it's baloney is this April 16, 2002 Microsoft Press Release announcing that the Microsoft keyboards work with Macintosh.

Writing by committee ? PC World has an interesting list of 25 Worst Tech Products. Problem is they seem to have three separate criteria for inclusion. With some products only meeting one of the criteria.
1. Doesn't work as advertised or not fit for purpose.
2. Way overpriced.
3. Commercial failure.

Interesting discussion topic, however

Surprise, surprise, NOT - Microsoft admits Vista may slip past its' January planned release. Of course you read that here 3 weeks ago.

Free download for MS Office 2007 Beta: Click here.

Worse than SPAM: SPIM: Don't click on unexpected links while using Yahoo Messenger, or you'll be a victim. Story here:

Windows VISTA requirements: Microsoft makes official what one needs in a PC to be able to run VISTA (the new version of Windows, now due out next year). Check it out here.

Industry expert predicts next version of Windows will be LATE: Microsoft claims the public will see Windows Vista in January, others say April if you're lucky.

Add-on for Sony Digital Camera: I got me a Sunshade for the LCD screen on the back of the camera. Found it locally for 20% less than the web price. See it here. Buy it here.

Sony has wonderful digital cameras: I decided to sell off some of my Canon SLRs on eBay and use the proceeds to buy a new digital camera. My current Canon G2 is a great camera, but these days, newest models have higher resolution, smaller form factor, and can take pictures under lower light conditions (i.e. effective ASA of 800 or higher).

A good friend of my son has a Canon S2, and produces remarkable pictures for her website, but the S2 is about to be replaced by the S3, and such cameras are larger and heavier than I wanted, as is a soon to be available Sony H5 . I wanted one of the new under 8 ounce models. The small form factor camera will be great as I go on land excursions from a cruise this summer. A 2 gigabyte memory stick now costs less than a 128 Meg memory card did 4 years ago.

I finally chose a Sony DSC-W100 over similar Canon models, due to a lower cost, 8.1 megapixels instead of 7.1, higher effective ASA, and a good protective shield over their LCD screen on the back of the camera, which I proceeded to further protect with a Belkin PDA screen protector sheet (which Belkin apparently no longer sells). Reviews of Canon models tell of grief with failing LCD screens, and Canon's refusal to cover such under warranty. The Sony comes with Windows software, but none for the Macintosh, so I was pleased to discover that despite not being on the list of supported cameras, Apples' iPhoto software works perfectly with the W100, plug in the camera, turn it on, and "## pictures ready to import" pops up on the computer screen.

Dell slows down their PCs with all kinds of superfluous software: Took me weeks to get all the stuff off, but now others as unhappy about Dell's selling out as I have done something about it. Free software - called "Dell de-crapifier" removes all that stuff from a new Dell PC. It's available here.

Vote Early, and often: The state of Washington had an online poll to allow folks to vote amongst three proposed designs for the 2007 Washington State quarter. They just happened to make it trivial to stuff the ballot box. Read about it here.

Run Windows XP on an Intel Macintosh - or If you can't beat them, join them !

Apple Computer has now released software to allow anyone to install Windows XP on an Intel based Macintosh. Download here.

Of course I'd like it the other way around. I want to be able to run OS X 86 on my Dell PC.
One set of instructions for doing that is here.

Followup: PC World tests out Apple's XP Install, and finds it works great. Read the review here.

Do you REALLY need a laptop : When buying a new computer, some folks are tempted to buy a laptop. But unless you regularly travel out of town, or have to work in multiple locations daily, the disadvantages of a laptop may make you regret buying a laptop:
In order to lighten weight and squeeze in components, a laptop:

1. Is typically one year behind a desktop in technology on day one, but costs more anyway.

2. Has less capacity in terms of memory and storage;
and costs far more and/or be more difficult to upgrade either.

3. Typically has a battery life of half of
what the manufacturer may claim.

4. A used laptop likely may have a (or a new laptop after 2 years)
"geriatric" battery that when it fails will
- be expensive to replace
- may be difficult to find immediately

5. Will have a smaller screen with less resolution than a desktop.

6. With exception of a couple of specifically designed models
a laptop is exceedingly fragile and subject to major damage
from a minor "bump"

7. Is susceptible to theft or attracting a mugger. Never
carry one in a case with a big bold label of the
computer company. It's the same as having a badge on it
saying "STEAL ME FIRST" .

Bye-bye movies on disc for the Sony Portable Playstation : Underwhelming sales have studies stopping production of movie releases in the Sony format. Story here.

More Microsoft security issues: Here is exactly the reason why I use Firefox, like right now as I compose this. Read here.

FOLLOWUP 3/29 : Why wait for Microsoft to do the right thing? A program developed outside of Microsoft is discussed here. Turns out it's BLINK, an overly agressive firewall, that I quickly uninstalled. Next to try. IE 7 beta isn't supposed to be vulnerable. Get it here.

Followup 4/6: I quickly gave up on Internet Exploder 7 beta 2.

It's Official: Dell buys Alienware. Here's their memo to their own employees about it.

Two Great Free programs to protect Your Windows System !!!

1. Siteadvisor - Download a plug-in or Firefox and/or Internet Explorer that will warn you about websites that will install Spyware. Review here.

2. WinPatrol - Realtime protection against having your Windows taskbar clogged up. Basically a user friendly version of msconfig. They sell a $25 version with a great database thats ommitted from the free version. Review here.

Dell and Alienware: According to reports Dell has already/is about to swallow up Alienware, maker of high end PCs for folks that mainly use their PCs as a Game machine.

I love my DirecTv with TiVo: TiVo is awesome. It saves ever having to look at a TV listing in the newspaper. It does the work for you. Some people however do get carried away. Story here.

Sales of Motorola RAZR phones halted: Both and Cingular and T-Mobile both! Story here.

Microsoft isn't this bad ! Long time readers of this Blog may have discerned I tend to have a low opinion of Microsoft, its arrogant ways, and wish it HAD been broken up. But even though Microsoft Excel years later is buggy, and still tends to fragment memory on quitting, I wouldn't call it a virus. McAfee did on Friday March 10, 2006.

How smart is Microsoft?: I had nothing but grief from PC Relocator. It would crash with no error message if it ran into too long (for it) a path name. It have difficulty updating itself. It transferred things it shouldn't (bits and pieces of programs that had been uninstalled), and thus created an unstable new system. I returned it under their Money Back Guarantee, only to discover Microsoft has just bought the company, and will incorporate the program as a downloadable extra for Vista. Job security for phone support I guess, and a deep pocket to finance refunds.

GMAIL goes down - Tonight 3/8/2206 6:15 PM CST it presents:

Server Error

We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes.

Atari in trouble: Story here. But the story understates Atari's effect in home computers. For a brief period in the early 1980's Atari outsold Apple. Then Atari (which had it's own version of Visicalc) concentrated on games and ignored productivity software. And then they made matters worse by concentrating on games for their game systems rather than their home computers. Eventually they were sold off by Warner to the founder of Commodore Computers who later in the 80's introduced the first mass computer with a full megabyte of ram, back when ram was $300 per megabyte.

MovieBeam - DOA - Again? With Cable, DirecTv, Echostar, Netflix and Blockbuster; why would you pay for a set-top box that will only store the newest Disney Movies, and then charge you to see those movies. Whats wrong with Moviebeam?
1. You have to pay for a set top box.
2. You have to pay an activation fee.
3. You have to pay for each movie you wish to view. Currently $3.98 for new releases.
4. Only Disney Movies are available as current releases. Some older Warner titles also available. At present no Sony movies are available. Other studio movies
will be available later, as they are released to Pay-per-view.
5. "Upto" 10% of 100 movies stored on Moviebeam are replaced each week,
if it's one you rented POOF, you can't watch it anymore.
6. You can watch a rented movie as many times as you want, but only for 24 hours.
7. If you live out in the stix, you can't receive OTA datacasts to update the box.
Elsewhere, hopefully the antenna will work OK.
8. Will they leave you holding the bag when they shut down again?
9. Why does the 800 number on their website not work?
10. CNN panned it on their morning news show on 2/14.
11. Why does 100 movies seem like less than 50,000 of Netflix?
12. Only some of the movies are HD format, and their rental currently is $1 extra.
13. You have a 14 day trial period, during which you can opt out and return the hardware, BUT there's a $39.99 restocking charge in the fine print.

Great cell phone: I ended up with a Sony/Ericsson w600i to replace my Motorola v600 which at 20 months age started having reception issues. The Sony phone is mahlvelous.
Sony calls it a Walkman phone, but its everything an iTunes phone should have been but wasn't. Only shortcoming is you can't add memory.

w600i .......................................v600
256 Megs Memory .................5 Megs Memory
400 Hours Standby ..............175 Hours Standby
.....battery Life .............................battery Life
Infrared
18 bit color screen ...................16 bit color screen
1.3 Megapixel Camera ................VGA Camera
Flash for Camera
FM Radio
Supplied USB Cable......................USB Cable extra cost
Supplied software .......................software extra cost
for PC transfer

Firefox minor fix out. Firefox 1.501 is now available, even in custom builds for Macintosh G4 or G5, available here. For the rest of you folks, it's here.

First report of running Windows XP on an Intel Mac: Someone has figured out how to do it. Whether its an easily reproducable technique is another matter. In theory, it should be easier to run XP on the new Macs, than run Mac OS X on a PC. Story here:

Fake MSN phishing web Pages shut down : Guess they weren't bribing enough. Bulgaria shut down some scammers. Story here.

New Firefox Browser for Intel Macintosh : Read about it here. Download it here.

Outrageous fear mongering : A storage "Expert" with perhaps a vested interest in Backup Tape solutions warns that CDs can have a 2 year life span, maximum 5 years. Story here. Silly me, despite the lack of credibility of the story, I pulled out some 5 and 6 year old CDs, and they were ALL perfectly 100% as readable as one created yesterday.

Google Earth - The Killer App for 2006. Totally awesome. And free for the Basic version. With the $200 add-on for the $400 Pro version you could plan a trip, make a video of the route, export it to a wmv, and then to a Podcast? Get the software (Windows or Macintosh) at earth.google.com

Same Tune, different verse - I'm sorry, I'm underwhelmed by new "Intel" Macintosh computers with Intel Dual core processors. If I thought it was bogus talking how much faster these processors make your computer before, it's still the same if they're in a formerly single processor Macintosh. Folks with an iMac tend not to be the one's doing commercial movie editing where (when it comes out in March) there's a high-priced application that can take advantage of the dual core Intel processor. Indeed, for now, most Macintosh applications are in worse shape. Not only don't they take advantage of the dual core processor, they don't even run directly on the Intel processor, but have the added overhead of "Rosetta" which translates PowerPC apps for Intel on the fly. It was sad watching Steve Jobs trying to double talk his way through using Photoshop that was struggling on a new Intel iMac. And of course forget about "Classic", as there's now no way of running OS 9 aplications on the Intel Macs. Real Soon Now, however, you will be able to run PC apps on such a Macintosh.

Free is Good - Thank you Google: Google announced that it will give away free software to help folks with their PCs. Story here:

Intel trickery - Fast new dual core Pentium D chips allow parallel processiing. Too bad no extant software you are likely to use gets any benefit from the more expensive chip. Read here:

Where's the Beef? of VISTA Bill Gates gave a "keynote" speech at yesterday's opening of the CES. It was largely a commercial for the next version of Windows : "VISTA", which has already been delayed. Microsoft is now in a lose-lose situation. It's credibility is suffering by the continued delays in anticipated release dates for VISTA (not to mention patching serious bugs in Windows WMF files). Microsoft already has web pages urging people upgrade to this vaporware OS. Computer sales will soon start to slump as folks will hold off buying Windows XP loaded computer(s), but rather have a VISTA loaded computer, thereby saving $200 per machine. Very soon, if not already, it will be time for Microsoft to issue "Technology Guarantee Upgrade" coupons for free upgrades to Windows VISTA with each new computer loaded with XP.

Symantec doesn't understand how a calendar works. My Macintosh has one of their products installed, Norton AntiVirus 10.0.2, and today Jan 1, 2006, it says "Your virus definitions appear to be out of date", despite the fact their date is 12/28/2005.

Cables 25 years ago when a parallel cable was only available as a hand made item from the United States, it cost $40. These days, mass produced in China, even the best are under $10. So it amazes me that stores would charge (and get) $29.99 for a USB 2 cable, when they are also available at your local 99 Cent store for 99 cents.

FOLLOWUP: For 99 cents, its an "Office Essentials USB 2.0 Device Cable"; fine print on the back of the package says "Manufactured by Belkin Corporation", the very same folks who make the $29.99 cables others sell.

HAPPY FESTIVUS - If you forgot about Festivus remind yourself here.

DirecTv rollout of their own DVR - It's not going so well. Story here . DirecTv could break their arms patting themselves on their backs as they try to spin it that its going well, when even the DVR newbies are complaining. It's gotten so bad that if you buy the unit on their website it's now FREE. How good can it be if they have to give it away to get people to take it. Smart folks still ask for TiVo.

Problem with Apple Powerbook screens : New 15 inch screens on Powerbooks are (in a word) defective. Story here. I assume Apple will do their usual stonewall, and then after a month capitulate and do the right thing. I had the identical problem with a Sony 19 inch standalone LCD monitor and ClubMac took it back and gave me full credit.

New use for Cell Phones - As a wireless pong paddle. It's called Gesture-based technology.
Georgia Tech folks developed it using the cell phone's camera as a motion detector. Their link is here.

BellSouth uses strong arm tactics to try to stop New Orleans WiFi - The only way I know how to protest is to complain to Cingular, since I do not live in "BellSouth" territory. Story here.

BETTER THAN THE BEST - I've already decided that Firefox 1.5 is the best browser out there. I can finally check email at mail.com without the myriad pop-under ads they have appearing. hurrah! But now if you own a G5 Apple Macintosh, there is a "G5 optimized version" available here.

64 Bit Windows grief: Those on the bleeding edge of Windows technology with the 64 bit version of Windows XP Pro have been complaining about the lack of hardware drivers. Some help is available. An excellent compatibility chart is here.

JUST LIKE TiVo - The Houston Office a a Major DISH Network supplier now has radio ads incorrectly (and illegally) describing the DISH DVR as just like TiVo. We'll see what TiVo has to say about that. They already have a pending lawsuit against Echostar for patent infrongement.

No Christmas for Sony, they've been very bad : is what some people say after what Sony/BMG did with CD copy protection. They have an image here. Sony has yet to deliver the promised simple uninstaller for their rootkit.

Microsoft delays next beta of Windows VISTA: Now in 2006. Read about it here.

Excellent summary story of Sony's hubris in the CD DRM fiasco. Thanks to Cpt. Spaulding for alerting me to the story here.

Advances in Browsing the Internet: Firefox 1.5 is due out this afternoon. Get it here. Which sometime this afternoon (November 29, 2005) will redirect to the Firefox 1.5 download page. Available as of 3:30 PM CST here.

Followup: Installed, and loving it! I love the tabbed browsing! FAQ on Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is here.

Apple's future plans?: Apple has worked hard to prevent leaks, even suing some folks, but the "rumors" continue, usually pretty accurate. One of the best places to get predictions is here.

On the Xbox 360 front (glad I don't have one) more reports of their crashing are posting, and a possible solution. Some sources say its due to an overheating powersupply,
so put the large brick of a powersupply where its not on the floor.

The grief of being a Diabetic. Read this

Give yourself a stock market tip today: Drive by some retail stores and note which ones have full parking lots with people streaming out of the store carrying many items, and which ones have half empty parking lots with folks walking out empty handed. Call your cousin over 1000 miles away and see if the situation is the same by them.

The Bleeding edge: Some of those that had to be first with an X-Box 360, are paying the price. Reports are coming in of crashing units. The rest of you are advised.

Beat the Customer Service System: Major corporations are being penny wize and pound foolish by trying to cut corners on customer service. Most annoying is the difficulty getting past an automated phone system to a human being. One web site has a list a "secret numbers" to get past the system. Merely getting past the automated system doesn't help with most companies. The frontline CSRs have near zero authority, and have handle time limits, quotas on # of escalations, and quotas on upsells. Often they happily lie to you to get you off the phone so the phone call is short. Worse yet they may be in India, and barely speak understandable English.

One gets FAR better results starting at top, rather than at bottom. This is where GOOGLE saves the day. Google "name of company Executive services" or "Name of company presidents office", google both the web and groups.

FOLLOWUP: It's been suggested to me that it may not be appropriate to suggest harrassing executives. To which I reply and further explain:

The people I suggest getting to are most certainly not executives, just sometimes labeled as such, merely third level support people that often:

1. Do have the authority to ignore stupid guidelines, or grant compensation.
2. Are not subject to handle time limits.
3. Will take ownership of an unique issue.

The "top" I referred to is top of the telephone support chain, not top of company chain of command, I regret any confusion. And where did I say harrass anyone? Any more than talking to a support person when an automated telephone system might more readily find your answer isn't also "harrassment"???

TIME Magazine person of the year for 2005: My nominees:

1. GOOGLE
2. A chicken with the flu in China
3. ipod
4. Valerie Plame

Cardinal arguing against evoluton doesn't know squat about science: "Common sense tells us that matter cannot organize itself" says Cardinal Scoenborn arguing for "Intelligent Design". Since he apparently never took a collegiate class in Geology or heard the lecture in week 2 about minerals and crystals, he doesn't know that matter certainly does organize itself, and all the time. It's the very definition of a mineral "A substance with definite chemical composition and characteristic physical properties", or another definition includes "orderly internal structure" such as the organized way atoms arrange into molecules, and can be so identified by crystal shape, hardness, cleavage or x-ray. Some of us learned Moh's hardness scale: Talc, Gypsum, Calcite, Fluorite, Apatite, Orthoclase, Quartz, Topaz, Corundum, Diamond. Or for the layperson, how about how carbon organizes itself into the mineral "Diamond" ???? These aren't theories, they are established fact. And matter certainly organizes itself when DNA replicates.

Ban drugs with side effects?: If you really want to ban drugs with potential dangerous side effects like Vioxx, then maybe ban ASPIRIN too. Story here.

Just say no to Microsoft - How to ditch Microsoft and why it's not as hard as you think. That's the title of a new book, available at discount from Amazon.

Warning for Roadrunner Subscribers in Houston - You heard it here first. Warner cable is going after folks for theft of cable service. That is their right, problem is what will likely happen is their auditors will spot taps into their lines going to houses not subscribed to Cable Television Service, and they'll file legal charges against some folks that have Roadrunner and not Cable TV. Such situations are not new, and I guarantee some innocent folks will get hurt again this time.

OS X 10.4.3 upgrade grief: My Macintosh crashes
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x000E7FF4): vnode_put(371a108): iocount < 1
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x00095698 0x00095BB0 0x0002683C 0x000E7FF4 0x000E7FA0 0x000EE960 0x000EECE0 0x000EED80
0x002A9BF4 0x000ABE30 0x0043006F
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x2EEB2500)
PC=0x90021A4C; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x038B0018; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x918F7F7C; R1=0xBFFFF410; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.3.0: Mon Oct 3 20:04:04 PDT 2005; root:xnu-792.6.22.obj~2/RELEASE

_PPCModel: PowerMac7,3, BootROM 5.1.8f7, 2 processors, PowerPC G5 (2.2), 1.8 GHz, 1 GB
Graphics: ATI Radeon 9600 XT, ATY,RV360, AGP, 128 MB

Nothing I try works. Not either the Combo or Incremental Update to 10.4.3, not turning off Norton antiVirus, not deleting all third party widgets, not uninstalling Stuff-It Deluxe. 30 Seconds after a Boot-Up finishes, it crashes.

FOLLOWUP:
email to Support@apple.com brought an automated form letter answer telling me to go away, but a Google search of "panic(cpu 0 caller 0x000E7FF4)" led me to the Ars Technica forum where a poster wrote that it was a "permissions" issue, so running Disk Utility from my backup drive to "Repair Permissions" on the crashing drive, brought 2 pages of repairs, and a reboot of original drive now works. With 100 repaired permissions, no telling which one(s) fixed it, but all is OK now.

New larger capacity Cingular SIM card: FREE: While I was on the phone last week with Cingular's "Office of the President" getting in writing the status of International Calling on my cell phone (I had it turned off so if my phone is lost or stolen, a multi-thousand dollar bill couldn't result from International calls), I complained about their somewhat dishonest commercials, which tell of the new improved Network resulting from the combination of AT&T Wireless and Cingular. In point of fact one needs to replace their 32K SIM with a 64K SIM to achieve the new improved coverage. Phones sold by Cingular before the merger had 32K SIMs, now they all have 64K SIMs. Oh, by the way, Cingular wants $25 for a 64K SIM if you don't have one. I suggested I should get one for free since the commercials said I had better coverage now, which I don't with my former 32K SIM, and it was agreed I'd be sent a 64 K SIM for free.

Digital output from DirecTv with TiVo units: These units record digitally but if you want to save or archive a recording, the output goes through a digital to analog conversion that adulerates the quality. Luckily with millions sold, and the TiVo boxes being programmed in Linux, some folks have figured out how to add software to their boxes to allow for "video extraction". And in some cases the procedure for doing so has been carefully documented, or even automated. A simple Google search can find it.

Is Sony finally getting a clue? Sony has now agreed to swap out its badly protected CDs for normal ones. Story here.

Arrogant Web Programmers: I go to pay my Car insurance on the web, and am presented with : "Sorry. The application is unavailable at this time. Please try again later. Click here to return to the our homepage." So I call their 800 number, and am told: "I am showing that the Auto Policy should be viewable and available for bill pay.", Well it wasn't. An hour later, I get an email telling me I must use Browser "Q". Why they would want to limit their customers that way is beyond my comprehension. It's certainly customer unfriendly. It's also obvious their programmers never visited http://www.anybrowser.org so they could learn simple programming techniques to make their web payment Browser independant.

DirecTv and their Bedbug letter: Tradition has it that the first boilerplate form letter was sent by a Railroad to a gentleman complaining about finding bedbugs in his sleeper compartment. Attached to the apologetic letter he received was the note: "Send this jerk the bedbug letter".

So when DirecTv wrote me back when I complained that after 2 months a promised call from the Presidents Office had never come, the letter contained:

Thank you again for contacting us, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Sincerely,

Jennifer
DIRECTV Customer Service


Thank you for writing. <<ADD EMPATHY STATEMENT>>.

Sony admits defeat (at least for now): Saturday - Sony announces it's stopping using copy protection on its Music CDs. Story here. Their copy protection really only hurt their honest customers, not the pirates selling bootleg copies on street corners.

Intelligunt Desine: In case anyone didnt realize it. So called Intelligent Design, another cloaking device for attempts to use a Christian Bible as a Scientific Textbook and force it into secular public schools, formerly under the guise of "Creationism"; Pat Robertson's over the top comments Thursday is proof once and for all, that its all about getting his brand of religion into secular schools.

Another "fun" cellular fact: Cell phone warranties are worthless. They sell you a phone with a 1 year warranty and a 2 year plan. That makes no sense to me. But if something goes wrong with phone it will almost always be labeled "Customer Abuse". Warranty stories are here, and here, and here.

Report from SBC conversations: SBC, still blaming Cingular for their problems, calls me and gives me the number to "The Office of the President" at Cingular. Problem is the number given me is busy 24 hours a day. So I Google "Cingular Office of the President", and come up with a variety of phone numbers. Seems Cingular still has not fully integrated all the pieces from when it was created by the merger of several local cellular carriers back in 2000; and every area (maybe Call Center) has its own "Office of the President". I am finally directed to the one for Texas, and actually on my third try get a helpful lady who agrees to put in writing that my account can not make or receive any International Phone calls. She seems to take seriously the issue of SBC incorrectly reporting Cingular cell usage on its combined billing web page. She looks up distance to a tower for my sons' new address, and she agrees to give me a free upgrade to a 64K SIM so my phone can better use the new "combined" ATT Wireless/Cingular" Network. Finally she pushes a new software roaming profile to my phone. It'd all be great if regular CSRs had this much authority, knowledge and freedom from handle time contraints without upsell quotas.

Anger at Sony continued arrogance builds momentum. Lawsuits. Trojans hiding behind Sony DRM software. Consumer group rallying.

Did you feel that? Distant major astronomical catastrophes generate gravity waves that scientists are now trying to document to prove part of Einstein's theories on general relativity.
Story here.

Buy puts on SBC !! At least based on my experience with them they are needlessly generating thousands of extra support calls requiring extra support personnel.

I had signed up for combined billing of Cingular and SBC "POTS" (Plain Old Telephone Service), and dsl. The web site promised $4/month discount. Previously I refused because you would lose the ability to track your Cingular minutes used if you went to combined SBC billing. But by now I have banked over 5,000 rollover minutes, so I no longer need to track the minutes.

Meanwhile today the Cingular site shows 5,929 Rollover Minutes available, the SBC site shows 404 minutes. a minor discrepency. Ask anyone at SBC, they say "Talk to Cingular". Ask anyone at Cingular, they say "Talk to SBC". Turns out SBC is now duplicating the effort of Cingular and they are BOTH showing the status of your Cingular usage. Too Bad the SBC effort is now superfluous, and needs to be shut down as it is pulling over the WRONG information. I got to a senior Customer Service Manager at SBC, and she still says "I'll call Cingular". Can you say "Lilly Tomlin lives"?

Luckily I follow my own advice: It's been said the three most important things you can do with a desktop computer are:
1. Backup

2. Backup

3. Backup

So this morning when a power glitch shut down my Macintosh G-5, I rebooted. Within 30 seconds after rebooting it crashed, and repeated that action after subsequent reboots. Two possible causes. Memory failure, corrupted system software. I had installed a 2nd Hard Drive and using Apple's provided software had done a "Restore" of one hard drive to another. So I rebooted from a backup clone of my Hard Drive (about 2 weeks old) and all is good. And with Gmail, saving all my mail to its servers, and just a few data files easily recovered from the original hard Drive, all is well ! !

Cingular, International Long Distance: So I was concerned about the $24,000 cell bill if your phone gets lost and the finder calls Guatemala a lot before you realize phone is lost. So I call Cingular Monday to ask if International Long Distance can be blocked on my cell phone. I'm told it can't. I ask for a supervisor, who then tells me "It already is". So which is the truth, and which CSR lied to me to keep their handle time down? I'll call again today, and call everyday, until they agree to put it in writing for me.

Sony to get sued, bigtime. Story here.

Cellular carriers back off if you go public : Unlike credit cards, that limit you to $50 liability if you lose it, and have some simple "Fraud Alert" software in place, Cellular Carriers love trying to rip you off if your phone gets lost or stolen and a large bill results. They lobby state governments to keep it that way, but know they are the bad guys as if it gets out, and the customer goes public, they waive the charges. Story here.

Sony DRM Decloaking Patch Might Crash Windows - Story here

Best story on Sony perfidy: Sony DRM is worse than you might think

Building out Wi-Fi coverage - Some colleges may have it for a department, or a floor or rarely even a building or Library. Some are needlessly paranoid about security. M.I.T. is close to having it everywhere. A map of their coverage (802.11a,b,g) is here.

More on Sony perfidy: Sony is backing down somewhat. Their patch to reveal the hidden software is here. Contrary to some reports, that "patch" only removes the cloaking, not the previously hidden DRM software. Sony falsely claims there are no security concerns. Indeed it is the security concerns that caused the uproar. Four solutions to keep Sony from messing up your computer. Any PC running the MS Vista beta gets royally messed up if the a Sony "protected" CD gets to do its thing.

1. Don't buy these Copyprotected CDs. Amazon usually indicates if DRM software is present.

2. Use a Macintosh

3. On a PC running Windows XP - Turn off CD Autoplay

4. After using the Sony patch, "according to Mikko Hypponen, director of research for Finnish antivirus company F-Secure Corp., users who want to remove the program may not do so directly, but must fill out a form on Sony's Web site, download additional software, wait for a phone call from a technical support specialist, and then download and install yet another program that removes the files."

If Sony needs such a HUGE FAQ to try to explain their copy protection, it's obvious at the very least that the copy protection is bad news and customer unfriendly. Further they deny the correct claim that their software is spyware. It is installed secretly with no way to uninstall. Fits most any standard definition of spyware/malware.

Here's a real world tale of what happens when a buyer is turned off by DRM on a CD.

"The cover-up is the crime": Wired.

Others suggest boycotting the Playstation 3 until Sony withdraws its DRM.

Firestorm erupts over Sony's Spyware! Sure to discourage folks from buying legal copies of music is Sony's over the top DRM software secretly installed on ones PC. First reported here.

My Inventions - Like Ralph Cramden I sometimes have "brilliant" ideas. One recent one, a cell phone for women with a built in Mace Sprayer. A device halfway there is now being marketed. A pepper spray in the shape of a cell phone. A bogus phone however, not a real one like my idea.