Category Archives: General

Yesterday, at midnight, Harry Potter’s newest adventure was on the shelves, available for the masses. Eleven hours later, Harry Potter’s newest adventure was on BitTorrent, available for the masses.

For the cost of $5-$10 for a legal download of the e-book, I’m pretty confident that the organized pirates who committed this act of pure evil would have skipped the 600 page scanning and piecing together process. But people for some reason resist change and technology. I guess that’s the way the microchip crumbles.

Looks like that new Microsoft operating system that we’ve been talking about for so long(horn), has been named. I was under the impression that we would just keep calling it Longhorn, although I did read that “Longhorn” was just a cover opps prerelease name. Windows Vista is the new Longhorn, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing about Vista for a long(horn) time. I mean, I remember upgrading to windows 98 in the year 2000.

(and don’t these guys look excited, this is what happens when geeks drink too much coffee and rename operating systems)

The atom bomb of podcasting was dropped by Apple when they incorporated podcasting support in iTunes 4.9. Wired.com interviews ‘self-proclaimed tech geek Brian Reid” who hosted “Sex Talk”, a podcast. “Apple counted more than 1 million podcast subscriptions through iTunes in the first two days alone, according to a company press release.” “Paul Saurini, whose Denver-based Barefoot Radio podcast focuses largely on news items with some white-trash element to them, had to suddenly upgrade his server bandwidth package from $25 a month for 100 GB to a $300-a-month package for 1,200 GB after the new traffic exceeded his limit.”

And I admit, I’m also huge on podcasting. I added Rocketboom.com (my favorite vlog) first, and then worked on some more music, news, and entertainment. Podcasting is new new black.

There comes a time in a grown man’s life when he realizes that it’s time to throw away the 8-track player and move on to something a bit more up to date. That time has come for most adults if we’re talking phone lines. Mobile phones seem to be the way to go (duh). As a young adult, I ditched my landline in the year 2000. IM’s, emails, and night/weekend minutes were the only means of communication I needed. Fast-forward 5 years and it’s only gotten easier to rely on just one phone. With $50.00/month, with any carrier, you are going to have enough minutes to do all of your necessary calling. If you have a significant other that like to chat all the time, unlimited in-network calling is you way to go. It’s not rocket science that land lines are becoming obsolete. Heck I’d cancel mine if the DSL didn’t need it.

I’m a self proclaimed uber geek. Carrying 3-4 battery operated devices at a time is not unusual. Getting goose bumps on the way to Fry’s, Best Buy, or the local computer show is a normality. But Star Trek is where I draw the line. I’ve never been a “Trekkie” if that’s even how it’s spelled. All I know of the 55 season long television series is as follows: Starship Enterprise, Captain Kirk, Spock –pointy ears, and “Beam me up Scotty”!

Scotty, James Doohan, passed away at the age of 85. Leaving behind a 53 year old wife and a 5-year-old daughter. His ashes are headed out to space along with the other Star Trek stars. I would have pictured their ashes been spread over a television studio, as I don’t imagine these actors ever went to the real outer space.

What happens when you mix a tax attorney with a Dutch composer? Give up? A website devoted to Beethoven’s b-sides and bootlegs. The duo of Mark Zimmer and Willem Holsbergen came up with the idea to kick start a classical revolution, of classical music. They have scoured the earth in search of anything written or played by the mastermind composer, and posted it on their site. Even some of the crudest works are put up. I don’t know how excited I am to listen to some MIDI produced Beethoven reject song. He’s good, just as all famous composers are, but all famous composers also have crappy songs and these maybe shouldn’t be resurfaced? I guess real loyal fans want the good, bad, ugly, and MIDI produced of their favorite artist.

Back in the 90’s Netscape Navigator was the browser king of the hill. I used to watch those stars fly by the blue ‘N’ for hours while waiting for web pages to load on my mom’s dial up connection. Then our buddies at Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows and blew Netscape to pieces. Today, Firefox is making a steady gain on Internet Explorer’s given ground. I read somewhere in a forum that browsing the web with IE is like having sex with a third world ‘sex worker’ with no condom, you’re going to get a virus. This person was pro-Firefox. I don’t know if I’d take it that far, but then again, I think I just did.

One of my personal favorite blogs of all time, Gizmodo, of the Gawker network has been going thru a couple of changes. First of all Joel’s last day was a few days ago, we’ll miss his 12 minimum daily posts. Second of all, which is all of the all, the site has had a facelift. Don’t worry boys and girls, the same fun and exciting gadget news and insight will still be force fed to you the way you like. Things can and always do end up changing, I’m calling these changes good and look forward to more Gizmodo goodness.

Google is a second nature reaction for anyone who knows what a mouse and keyboard are. What’s the Burmese Capital? Google it. But google isn’t just search anymore. They provide email, blogs, and a few soon to be features like a digital library and payment service. With all of this information stored up under one company’s roof, the potential for massive information theft is a ready concern. Google has been infiltrated before, but nothing catastrophic has happened as of yet (at least not to me and my precious gmail account).

Here’s just some of the ways Google can collect data on its users:
-One of Gmail’s selling points is its ability to retain e-mail messages “forever.”
-Google’s program for scanning library books sometimes requires usernames to protect copyrights.
-The company is testing software for making Web pages load more quickly; the application routes all Web requests through its servers.
-Google also provides driving directions, photo sharing and instant messaging, and it is developing a payments service that critics say could add billing information to user profiles.

I am a fan of logos. I love logos. I go to certain stores and restaurants simply because of their attractive logos. Palm’s old shiny metallic looking logo has been scrapped for a new young vibrant orange logo. I’m happy with the change, but there sure are other people are not. You can analyze, scrutinize, and ostracize the new orange Palm logo. But in my observations of logos there are only two things you can ultimately do with the logo: A.) like it or B.)dislike it.