Oct 24
- GMail adds IMAP functionality - Woooo! I heart you google. It will be interesting to see how they handle IMAP inboxes considering they preach “Don’t delete your email!”
Oct 23
- Yahoo Caught Cookie Stuffing - They again remind me why I don’t use their search.
- KDE 4 Screenshots - Ooooo… Purty.
- There are now more US World of Warcraft players than farmers - Can’t say I’m shocked, mostly just an eye-opener.
- How 9 tech companies burned through 2 billion dollars - etoys.com, pets.com, kozmo.com, go.com, etc… represented just about everything that was wrong in the early web. Glad you provided (costly) learning lessons for the rest of us.
- Pissed off customer calls Dell Tech Support - I think we all share his frustration.
Google’s Purchase of Jaiku Raises New Privacy Issues (NY Times)- Would you people shut up? This is all we’ve been hearing over the last couple weeks. Don’t you fear-mongers say this about every Google purchase? How about you focus on AT&T providing illegal wire-taps, Comcast making a boatload off wire-tapping, and the Bush administration seeking retroactive immunity for telcos which it admits have been breaking the law (why seek immunity if they haven’t been?). I trust Google a hell of a lot more than I trust our own government. That aside, Jaiku rocks, the only information Jaiku & Google will have is the information you choose to give it. Worried about privacy? Don’t use it. That simple. - Just a link to some themes for a new Wordpress blog I’m thinking about starting
- BitTorrent Gets More Social with AllPeers - Social Bittorrent? This could get interesting. And hey… anything to make BT easier for the masses is great for the technology cause I cringe everytime I have to explain what it is or how to use it to a novice.
- Social.FM Signs Microsoft Deal, Launches New Client - Just came across this service. Free music + Smartphone client = me likey.
- List of 4-letter domain names - Sadly anything pronounceable is long gone, but there are still a few thousand left.
Oct 17
Oct 09
One of the reasons why I don’t find myself blogging too much is I think I’m just too lazy sometimes to go to my site, log in, go to the post page, use a crappy WSYWIG to create the blog entry, and hit post. Not a lengthy process, but one I get annoyed with. But I just came across Windows Live Writer, which is a Microsoft desktop app that hooks into your Spaces, Wordpress, Blogger, Livejournal, etc… blog and allows you to create a post in a very rich and intuitive interface. The biggest surprise is that it actually downloads the CSS sheet and mimics what your post will look like while you are editing it!
So, props to Microsoft for coming out with a pretty slick app, and especially allowing users to connect it to something other than their Spaces blog, which no one has.
Alright, gotta post this to see what it looks like.
Nov 10
Paul Roberts reports on EWeek that Microsoft is considering ‘taking action’ against Sony with regards to its rootkit that has been all over the news recently. This comes on top of Microsoft claiming Sony’s next-gen DVD format (Blu-Ray) is “Anti-Consumer.” Anti-consumer? Pot, meet kettle. How many anti-trust lawsuits has Microsoft had slapped against them in the last few decades? Still, I’m totally with them. The Blu-Ray DRM is waaaaaay over the top.
“Bricking” your Blu-Ray player for tinkering with it?
Dynamically updated copy protection schemes
Discs locked in to one specific Blu-Ray player making it even “borrow-proof” between friends?
I’m not going to sit here and defend anyone’s right to copy intellectual property, but I’m not going to defend a companies right to have a monopoly over innovation, break my analog equipment (here also), and make the process of being entertained by watching a movie a nightmare of making sure my Blu-Ray player is hooked up to the internet before I am able to watch a movie so it can download the latest copy protection schemes, and renting a copy of a movie I already own just so I can watch it at a friends house.
Maybe it is just the geek in me, but watching Microsoft v. Sony throwdown would be entertaining as hell. People seem to think Microsoft is a mindless power & money hungry corporation, but Sony is 10 times worse. When was the last time you heard about Microsoft suing people for pirating their $200-$300 software? Ok, now when was the last time you heard about Sony & the RIAA suing people for pirating $.99 songs? Oh wait, $.99 is too little now for the RIAA .
