My Cingular billing issues are nothing compared to this poor gentleman, who Cingular declared Guilty until proven innocent. Story here.

If Microsoft redesigned the Ipod, here's what the box would look like: See it here on YouTube

Forty Year Jail term for being in wrong place at wrong time. A substitute teacher was convicted because of pop-up porno ads in the room she was teaching that day; and the defense was prevented from explaining everything. Read this sad story here:

Followup: IT Manager sort of accepts blame. Story here.

The History of AT&T : Told here.

Cingular tried to CRAM my bill: Whoops charges, where when you call in they'll remove the charge, but is it worth the grief, and then they pocket millions. Three months ago they falsely charged me for using their 411 service, now at $1.79 per call. It's more like free if you use 1-800-FREE411. A phone call to Cingular's 611 and a short discussion got that charge removed. This month I got charged for using "data", which is nigh impossible, as I haven't subscribed to their data service, and if tried to use it, I'd get "Connection Failed", once again a call to their 611 number got the charge removed, again after some discussion with the representative, who is trained to be obnoxious. A call to senior Cingular management got an admission, that "Sometimes" errors occur.

I could like Seagate: I had two 300 Gig Seagate IDE Hard Drives die simultaneously on me. They were different batches, one made in China, one in Singapore. Seagate drives now come with 5 year warranty, and Seagate goes by serial number, no proof of purchase required. So I went to the Seagate website, got an RMA, sent the drives in. In less than 2 weeks I received back two refurbished Seagate drives. And they were 400 Gig models.

Steve over hypes again: The new iphone looks like a great gadget, but its not the 5 years ahead of everything Steve says it is. Looks like it could be only one year ahead of this puppy. And in the rush to get the iphone to market it has no GPS applications, which it should have the horsepower for.

Microsoft tries to buy good reviews of Vista: Read about it here:

Microsoft's lack of security really hurts them: Lately I've been getting daily emails offering me Microsoft Office at $300 off, and it must obviously be counterfeited pirate copies at those prices. So being a good citizen I forward such emails to piracy@microsoft.com. Minor problem. If the email has embedded graphics, Microsoft's email system rejects it. The error message says: Your e-mail was rejected by an anti-spam content filter on gateway (205.248.106.64). Reasons for rejection may be: obscene language, graphics, or spam-like characteristics.

AOL is Guilty !! : If you use their webmail, they stick tracking cookies on your Computer from Doubleclick. AOL sticks you with SPYWARE !

Effect of Dell buying Alienware ? As you may recall, the upscale PC manufacturer was bought by Dell last March. Now it turns out they've childlishly cut off a reviewer because they didn't like a review written. Not that it was wrong, just it pointed out a unit was overpriced for what it offered.
Details here.

More info on Firefox 2.0: All is not lost. Upgrading to 2.0 keeps your prior configuration, and if that was blocking 3rd party cookies, that functionality remains. That feature can be added anytime by the arcane method of entering about:config in the URL window, and hitting enter. Then set the key : network.cookie.cookieBehavior; the default value is 0 (all cookies allowed) you want a 1
(no 3rd party cookies).

Delay for Vista: Microsoft has announced that Vista will be delayed and is not shipping to computer makers at the end of October. It still has 500 known bugs. Story here .
Apparently the retail versions, to be released in January will be released on time ready or not. We can safely predict that as Microsft working with Computer manufacturers will provide upgrade coupons for Vista to anyone now buying a new PC with Windows XP installed. The coupon will provide a free or reduced price copy of Vista (when available). Story here .
What will be interesting is to see what happens with these coupons. Will they be counterfeited out of Ukraine? Will they, or can they be resold on eBay?

Whither Firefox 2.0: I can no longer recommend Firefox, and I will not use Firefox 2.0.
They have removed the ability to block 3rd party cookies/tracking cookies/Spyware.
Others have noticed this perfidy also. Read here: I will continue to use Firefox 1.5.0.7, and perhaps being open software, someone will add back the necessary feature Mozilla has removed from Firefox 2.0. The released final version of Internet Explorer 7 still allows blocking of 3rd party cookies.

No Salespeople Needed ? At a Macy's in Houston, TX, I happened across an iPod vending machine. Swipe your credit card, and select an iPod or any of a large variety of accessories. Strangely it was placed at the edge of the shoe department. Such machines apparently have been around for 18 months.
See here.

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.