MacWorld 2008 - No Drive To Power ???

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The REAL Story?

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Analysis of the announcements at MacWorld,
and My Take, on What, if anything, it really means:

===========================

Some of the Tidbits were triggered by reviews given
by MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte at
MacWorld MacBreak Weekly Panel
Podcast #72
Keynote anaylsis
Panel:Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay, Andy Ihnatko, Chris Breen, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, Justine Ezarik, and Jason O'Grady MP3 Podcast available at:
http://thisweekintech.com/mbw

===============================================================
First Big Slide to NetFlix to Oblivion?

The Really Big News was Apple's move into the TV and Movie Delivery system via iPod Store. What Apple Did for Music and Cell Phones They Think They can Do for TV and Movie Rental and Purchase content.
Can They? You bet!

Who can stop them? Right Now, nobody....

What about the Cable Guys and Amazon and the Movie Stuios?

Well, they better wake up because Apple isn't there to be second.

The subtle Linux Killer??
No Optical Drive or Ethernet connector on the MacBook Air is one way to stop Live installs of Linux Distros. Remember they dumped Motorola for Intel and effectively killed Yellow Dog Linux on the Mac at the same time.

Yeah, things are heating up...
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MacWorld 2008--To Air Is Human?

The New Apple Air unveiled at MacWorld >>->
===================
Link to Picture:

======================================
Even with Bill Gates Last Keynote Address
at CES 2008, most pundits saw the Annual
At-A-Boys in Las Vegas was D-U-L-L even by
CES Standards.

Even TWiT standard Bearer, Leo Laporte didn't
attend, saying he could Glean more info about
what really-mattered at CES 2008 from Engadget
and Gizmodo and other On-Line Reporters.
Leo Was at MacWorld in San Francisco the whole
week, and was delivering Podcasts daily!

I foolishly tried to grab Steve Jobs Keynote
Address (never available Live) with Linux, but
the proprietary Quicktime Player is still
crappy on Linux, and much too Big to snag
on my Sony PSP.
=============================
MacBreak Weekly has Coverage:
=============================

MacWorld 2008

Both Engadget and Gizmodo will carry
--Steve Jobs Keynote Today--
===========================================
LIVE!
Engadget
Gizmodo
===========================================
And a recap of CES 2008 for each is HERE:
Engadget
Gizmodo
===========================================
Remote prank at CES by Gizmodo
a very dumb idea:
A Gizmodo Blogger used a remote device, called TV-B Gone, as seen on THINKGEEK, to turn off a number of CES Demos.
The Affected Vendors were NOT amused...
===========================================
Filed Under-Here We Go Again:
The Death of HD-DVD???
Warner Bros. and now sister company New Line's announcements
this weekend that they will go Blu-ray only???
---------
Warner Bros To Exclusively Release Hi-Def DVDs In Blue-Ray Format
Sunday, January 06, 2008; Posted: 10:23 PM
---------
Google News Search on HD-DVD abandonment:
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Filed Under: But WAIT!
Paramount (part of Warner Bros.) denies Blu-Ray defection.
---------
More is Sure To Come.
Stay Tuned.

Kool Hunter Picks At CES 2008

Gleaned from DL.TV CES 2008 video podcasts (1,2,and 3) on my Sony PSP:
-----------------------------
DL.TV Link: http://dl.tv/
-----------------------------
Skype on the PSP
-----------------------------
Skype internet phone comes to the PSP with next
Firmware update was announced by Skype at CES 2008.

Well, don't you need a keyboard (for text messaging) and mike for that?
(Skype also showed a slide down keyboard, camera with mike and a headset w/ mike).
Hmmm...
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Curve Computer Monitor for Gaming by AlienWare
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Big One: 150" Screen
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Hitachi's 1.5's
Monitors 1 1/2 inches thick from Hitachi
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Links to the 3 Video Podcasts from DL.TV are Here:
Day One:
http://dl.tv/2008/01/dltv_ep_212_we_have_products_g.php
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Day Two:
http://dl.tv/2008/01/dltv_day_two_of_ces_2008_cover.php
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Day Three:
http://dl.tv/2008/01/dltv_episode_214_wrapping_up_a.php
-----------------------------------------------------------------

How to "Get Things Done" (GTD).

The GTD explained in Wikipedia STYLE
http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Monkey_GTD

There is the story of a very famous todo list "IDEA" sold for 1 million dollars.

Here's a set of Current TO-DO List type Programs:

IKOG.py a python script to list and edit to-do lists. Works in Firefox for Windows, the Mac and Linux.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/ikog/

MonkeyGTD a TddlyWiki based todo list that is easy to learn and keep online. Keeps everything in One HTML File.
http://monkeygtd.tiddlyspot.com/

ThinkingRock
http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/

A Cluster in Your Pocket

That's the unbelievable claim from the team from the University of Northern Iowa, that is maintaining BCCD, A "Live" Bootable Cluster CD.
(donwloadable here).

HPC or High Performance Computing is based on one thing, working with "Clusters".

This program opens a "FastTrack" for schools interested in teaching the cutting edge in their computer lab work. Working with Clusters with minimal cost makes this technology available to ALL school districts.

This Blog will follow the work of this very important program.

Stay tuned.

Koolhunter is Born! At the Inkscape Board...

Created with Inkscape and converted to BMP by the GIMP program.

Adding a MIRO to the Video World

My son introduced me to a new program that he downloaded while testing Fedora 8. Since I'm still in ol' FC6, I thought there should be a repository for me too, Right?

Well, yes there was, in a manner of speaking, the REPO was for FC4 but I added it to my repository list and did the Yum dance. I typed yum install miro, and like a good little yellow dog puppy, yum went out there snapped up the miro RPM file and asked if I wanted to install it? I said yeah and quicker than you can say sweet yummy repositories the program was installed to my Distro.

So What the Heck Is Miro?

Miro is an open source video search engine and downloader and player.

As I type this The African Queen Trailer (1951) from the Charlie Rose Show, Explorer 1 -- JPL and the Beginnings, What's Inside from WIRED Video Podcast and Perfect Water, also from WIRED Video Podcast and Living Tomorrow: TV (What will your television look like in the future?) are all being downloaded for playback on my computer.

It's like Internet's version of Netflix, without the mailbox.

I'll do an update on the video quality and download speeds later.

Staying Tuned couldn't be Easier....

Wingman Out.

GMA's Best Books for Giving:

Best Books This Holiday Season

Mellody Hobson Tells You

Which Books Would Make the Perfect Gift

(From ABCTV GMA)

'Leadership Is an Art'

Max Dupree was the visionary CEO of Herman Miller, one of the largest office furniture manufacturers in the world. I say that and you say to me, "That does not sound interesting."

But this is a phenomenal book about timeless values. What he talks about is how Herman Miller became a really great company by emphasizing strong character, conviction and high ethics. It's a book about respect and how to treat people.

For example, when he talks about diversity, he talks about how you can use differences to strengthen a company and give people in the organization a voice, which ultimately makes the company better. So this is a great book.

'The Tipping Point'

There's humor in the book, but the thing about this book is it talks about social epidemics. This book is actually terrific perhaps for a teen, believe it or not. It will help them understand why they want the things that they want.

'Poor Charlie's Almanac'

I am fascinated by Warren Buffett. I read anything he writes, anything that's written about him. And this is by his best friend who's worked alongside him as his sidekick, for 46 years.

It's like a catalog of their lives. It's a coffee table book, and it has pictures. It has quotes. He has great stories to tell.

If I had to characterize this book, it's a book about smart decisions. And that could make it a great book for perhaps a grandparent, a parent, an aunt or uncle.

'The Black Swan'

Everyone on Wall Street is reading "The Black Swan" right now. So I have caveat here. This is for the hardcore thinker in your family. This is for the know-it-all in the family. This book is about probability.

That in and of itself may sound very intimidating, but it's not because it's beautifully written.

But the idea is that there is no way to predict random events in life. So it's not worth trying.

The other idea in the book that's so important is not following trends, and not getting sucked up into the idea that you can predict what's going to happen because you can't.

'The Giving Tree'

This is one of my favorite books of all time. What better thing to give during Christmas, when kids especially are thinking about what they will receive?

This is a book about selflessness, and it's a book about compassion. For that reason, I think it's one of the best books that was ever written.

============================================

What about Books for Sophia and Aiden???

Oh, didn't you know?

Those are the Top Girl and Boy's Names for the Year 2007.

The rest of the LIST is HERE:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071213/aqth048.html

Wingman out...

What Do You Think About CLEAVAGE?

Well according to Global Language Monitor, it's the eighth most popular word in the English Language in 2007.

Here's the rest of the List:

The Top Ten Words of 2007
===========================

1. Hybrid – Actually Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV). Chosen to represent all things green from biodiesel to wearing clothes made of soy, to global warming to living with a zero-carbon footprint. (From the Latin hybrida, a variation of ibrida for "mongrel," specifically "offspring of a sow and a wild boar,")

2. Surge - The controversial political and military strategy of winning the war in Iraq.

3. Bubble – As in housing bubble, bursting. Also, Credit crunch.

4. Smirting – The new-found art of flirting while being banished outside a building for smoking.

5. Pb – The symbol lead, Atomic No. 82. The culprit in innumerable toy recalls this year.

6. Ideating – Latest in a long line of verbalisms: the descendent of concepting and efforting.

7. Ω-3 (Greek letter omega-3) -- Also written as Omega 3; the healthy fatty acid.

8. Cleavage – As in ‘woman of cleavage,’ a touchy campaign subject.

9. Amigoization -- Increasing Hispanic influence in California, the Southwest and into the Heartland.

10. Bluetooth – A technology to connect electronic devices by radio waves.
================================================================================
According to the Global Language Monitor we are just 4,884 words away from 1,000,000 from the estimated number of words in the English Language.

The GLM was one of the items on REFDESK Site of the Day which was YEAR IN REVIEW. Link here: http://www.refdesk.com/2007best.html

Also on the list of Year In Review are the following LISTS:

1. Amazon: Best Books of 2007
2. Consumer Reports: The Best Cars of 2007
3. Google: Year-end Zeitgeist for 2007
4. Merriam Webster: Words of the Year 2007
5. Nielsen Ratings: Most popular trends among Americans during 2007
6. PC World: The 100 Best Products of 2007
7. PC World: Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007
8. Popular Science: Best of What's New 2007
9. State of the States 2007
10. Time Magazine: 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 - The powerful, the profound, the painful and the peculiar: These are the most noteworthy news events of the year.
11. Time Magazine: Best Inventions of 2007
12. Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007
13. Top 10 Baby Names of 2007
14. Global Language Monitor: Top Ten Words of 2007
15. USNews: Best Hospitals 2007
16. World's Worst Polluted Places 2007
17. Yahoo: Top Searches Trends in 2007
18. More >>

Have Fun!

This is why Refdesk.com is One of My Favorite Websites...

Wingman out.

Happy Birthday Transistor!

You are 60 years Old Today, Dec.16, 2007.

A tip of the Media Circus Hat to the three physicists (William Shockley, John Bardeen and William Brattain in picture above) who at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J. built the first transistor. The story bounce comes originally from Forbes.com link here:
(I snagged it from Slashdot.org News)
===============================================================
Filed under: Online Video.
-------------------------------
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA has created a new YouTube channel for videos of their lecture series. Newest is the Dec 10 panel on the 25th Anniversary of the Commodore 64.
Currently there are 23 lectures available and the 7-minute Museum overview.
===============================================================
Filed under InSecurity Report:
--------------------------------
from slashdot.org:
"The feed brings us this NYTimes story giving new details on the telecom carriers' cooperation with secret NSA (and other) domestic spying programs. One revelation is that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers. Another revelation is what exactly the NSA asked for in 2001 that Qwest balked at supplying. According to the article, it was access to the company's most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls."
====================================================================
Filed under: Advertising.
-----------------------------
"What's that? Who's There?" The female voice whispering in your ear is coming from a speaker system Seven Stories above the street, advertising (Billboard included) the A&E televison series "Paranormal State". The technology comes from Audio Spotlight by Holosonics. Kinda Phillip K. Dick-ish (remember "Minorty Report"?).
==========================================================================

This is The News Filter
by ELO

====================================================================

MySpace Central Plumbing

Made the Hyper-Jump to the Myspace Community Today. A Day that will go down in Infamy. You can reach me there with this link >>--->
Find me on MySpace and be my friend!

Pretty sweet, Huh?

There's something to be said about being a Joiner. Too bad I can't think of it right now.

Later.

The Good, The Better and the SCARY

Early in the year, Motley Fool said: Google was the Worst Stock to own in 2007.


What Fools!!!

In March, Google was selling for $440.00 a share, the lowest for the year, but still GOOD.

It's IPO, quite a few years ago, was around $80+ a share.

That might have been the report that Motley saw that precipitated that faulty advice.

However.....Just a few months later, the tide turned. And everyone was feeling peachy when it saw the good numbers for Apple and even Microsoft, last week.

Then the other Google Giant SHOE hit the Fan...

Today 10/31/2007, in after hours trading, Google hit 707.48 a share as of 6:48 PM ET.

During the day, most analysts were slack-jawed at the year-end closing performance of Google stock. But some hinted that it could cross the $900.00 mark before the end of the year.

How about that as being pretty Scary?

Why Does SuSE 10.2 Look as Lame as Windows Vista?

Because It's Not Ubuntu.

Being use to using MC (midnight commander) from the console for most of my filing chores, I typed mc in the console and SuSE "burped": What the heck is That?

After a couple of minutes of looking for the Softaware Updater in the morass of window-like boxes for program selection, I FOUND IT!.

Of course I tried YUM and Apt-Get and Synaptic first, but got the same lame response as I got looking for the very-basic utility MC.

openSuSE 10.2 "burped:" again, "Don't know about those tools, Dude..Remember, I'm pretty much lame out of the Box."

How do you stand it Miguel?

Anyway to make a short story LONG, I found the Software Installer and typed in MC in the search for software box. It found it in the time most other Distros would have installed it.

I clicked OK to install. It needed root authorization, so I had to ask to give it to me. It churned for a few more minutes and then "burped": It needed the installation DVD in the drive, before it could proceed.

Why?

I put in the DVD with openSuSE 10.2 on it, in the drive and the installer smiled a smug smile of dubious control.

Anyway, after more than 10 minutes, the "Installer" said the softeware (MC) was installed. What a pain in the TOOKus!

I wrote this Blog entry in the time openSuSE 10.2 took to install One Application: MC that should have been available at the start.

No wonder Ubuntu is winning the Distro Game.

Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be MORE openSuSE 10.2 pratfalls.

I-15 Traffic Cameras

============================================================
I-15 Traffic Cameras from inlandempireliving.com Website:
============================================================
I-15 FREEWAY
====================================================
These links will direct you to inlandempireliving.com and their links to Cameras on the I-15 so Please be respectful of their bandwidth. Thank You.
====================================================
I-15/215 at Devore
I-15 FREEWAY CAMERA



I-15 Freeway at 215 Freeway
(sample shot from CalTrans Camera)
I-15 at Glen Helen
I-15 at Sierra
I-15 at Summit
I-15 at Cherry
I-15 at 210I-15 at Baseline
I-15 at Foothill
I-15 at Fourth
I-15 at I-10
I-15 at Airport
I-15 at Limonite
I-15 at Magnolia
I-15 at 91
I-15 at Temescal
==================================

The Digital Age

Did you hear the Death-Nell for analog last week?

I didn't either, since the Televised News Orgs prefer to ignore News with a capital N. Business Week had a story about it, but that nearly passed my attention span as well, being conditioned to take bite-sized snacks of news-fodder.

Anyway. here's the story: Best Buy stopped selling analog TV's on Wednesday, by making sure ALL Analog TV sets were Out of their Stores.

Haven't you been paying attention to Apple lately? We're in the Age of Digital. iPod this and iPod that.

Listen up, Digital is IN, Analog is OUT.

Okay, what does this mean? Are we not going to be able to see Desperate Housewives Tonight, or Heroes Tomorrow?

Settle down, commercial television won't let that happen Just Yet.

But on February 18, 2009, broadcasters will stop transmitting ANALOG Signals. Non-digital television sets that are not attached to a cable or satellite service and not equipped with special converter boxes will no longer work.

More than 60 million U.S. households fall into this category.

Since the government mandated this change, they have a deal or no deal for the 60 million desperate households.

After the first of the year, the government will be making available to each household two coupons worth $40 each that can be used to buy two converter boxes. Best Buy will sell coupon-eligible converter boxes starting in early 2008.

Aside from that, go get a Digital TV.

The Age of Digital is Here.

From Ubuntu to Fedora- A tip of the Red Hat

I did a silly thing the other day by trying to reset my screen resolution from 1024x720 in Ubuntu. It was because I was

following a website that told me how to
GET-MORE-OUT-OF-UBUNTU.

Long story short: I screwed up my Ubuntu settings and had to reinstall Ubuntu. But I forgot that a new setup of Ubuntu only gives you User Access to the OS, not a place to login as ROOT.

Crap! Or as Peter Parker's Editor would say: Major Crap!

After trying Ubuntu in different distros (I have plenty) and since my son has been happy with Fedora Core 6 for a while, I said: "What the Hey..."

Well for the time being I'll be living in FC-6 land.

I'll probably go back to Ubuntu on my Notebook computer (the Acer with the 64bit AMD).


But for now, I'm Happy!

How to Find Me

MY BLOGGER BLOGS:

=======================================================
http://koolhunter2.blogspot.com/ aka koolhunter2 "A View of the latest KOOL stuff"
http://mediacircus2.blogspot.com/ aka Media Circus 2 "What the Tech Media is Doing?"
http://tvjeebees.blogspot.com/ aka TVjeebees "TV or Not TV, that IS the Question..."
http://theletterselo.blogspot.com/ aka Written by ELO "Bonafide writings by ELO"
http://psphardwired.blogspot.com/ aka PSP On Steroids "Hacking (homebrewing) the PSP"
http://vistavectors.blogspot.com/ aka Vista Vectors "Windows Be Wares"
http://mycordiunnot.blogspot.com/ aka mass media course correction "WWW Course Correction"
http://thursdaysave.blogspot.com/ aka thursday we save the world "The famous Tech Chat"
http://elosblog.blogspot.com/ aka dospossos "About Writers and Books of Note..."

http://paintbucketontario.blogspot.com/ aka paint bucket blog "A PB corporate Blog."
http://elosopensources.blogspot.com/ aka Elo's Open Sources "A Open Sources Credo site/"

The Blogs are out and Running....
=======================================================
I'm also at Twitter and Jaiku. Two simple "where are you at" Apps.
=============================================================
I wrote about twitter at my blog on www.koolhunter2.blogspot.com, and mentioned the app called: Twittervision for a look see.


My Pics are at Photobucket (not related to Paint Bucket) and the old Web 2.0 app Flickr.

9 million Wii's is heard around the world

Financial Times reports that 9 million Nintendo Wii's have sold as of July 31, surpassing the Microsoft XBOX 360, which was released over a year earlier than the Wii.

This puts the XBOX 360 in second place and the Sony Playstation 3 a distant third in the game console market.

This First Place, is a position it last held 17 years ago with the Nintendo and Super Nintendo consoles.

* * * *

<--- desklet clock. I've discovered a new scripting tool in Linux (Ubuntu). aDesklets is a simple Desklet creation scripting tool that has minimal overhead. The Web site is Here. I installed it in Ubuntu with Synaptic Package Manager.

What's pictured to the left is gDesklets, which has a more robust toolbox.
<--- desklet cpu monitor. What is a Desklet? adesklets is basically an interactive Imlib2 console, with one or two aditionnal features:

• When an X display is present, automated management of a single window
• Automated support for pseudo-transparency
• Management of long-running applets
• ( Taken from Documentation section of site listed above.)

It can be programmed with Python or Perl.

The NEW iPod Flavors

Among a "ton" of announcements by Apple on Wednesday September 5th was 4 New or Updated iPods.

First is the 1 gig Shuffle at $79 bucks.

Next comes the Nano, or what some reviewers are calling "The FAT Nano". 8 gig at $199.00 with dual screens and the ability to play videos.

Third is the Video iPod, renamed "The Classic iPod" (the one with a hard drive). For $349.00 you can get the 160 gig version. Yes, you can take all your stuff/crap with you.

The three above come in a new assortment of colors too!

And the Expected iPod Touch (or the phoneless iPhone) $400.00 for the 16 gig flash memory version. It has WiFi capabilities and internet browser and the famous iPhone touch flip-screen.

Along witha bevy of announcements was hidden that the iPhone would be availablee for $400.00, and ringtone snippets of songs you already own can be had for .99 cents. Nice.

Linux OS, in your Pocket?

My First Flash Drive was 128 Meg for $35.00.

Today's Fry's AD has a 2 Gig Flash Drive for $22.00 minus a $10.00 mail-in Rebate, making it $12.00.

Since today's modern computers can be told to Boot from a Flash Drive, a pretty sophisticated Linux Distro can be installed on that Flash Drive.

Meaning, Yeah, you CAN take it with you.

Years ago Klaus Knopper invented Knoppix as a rescue disk for problem-booting operating systems, like windows. From that the Live Distro was born. Live Distro CD's could boot a new OS without having to write the data to the hard drive. In the early days of Live Distros on CD, only so much real estate was available and only a limited number of programs could fit on roughly 640 meg of storage.

Then DVD's entered the picture, and even Klaus himself said: "You could put in everything AND the kitchen sink...on a DVD Live Distro."

The main Linux players saw the advantage of putting out a Live Distro DVD of their latest offerings.

You see what worked for AOL Online on CD's worked for Linux Live Distros on DVD.

You could buy a $15.00 magazine fron England called LINUX FORMAT and you get a free DVD.

One such DVD is TRIPLE BOOTING with SimplyMepis 3.4, Gentoo 2006.0 and even OpenSolaris BELENIX, another had FreeBSD 6.0, NETBSD 3.0 and OpenBSD 3.8. (Pictured above)

So what needed a DVD for storage, can now go on a $12.00 Flash Drive.

Yep, you can take your FAV Distro with you, on a Flash Drive.

1839 Patch Drive

There are many ways to install software in Ubuntu. Probably the best known is apt-get which has its roots in Debian (the same as Ubuntu).

Apt-get is console based and fairly easy to use, if the software repositories are set up right.

You use apt-get install Filename, and apt-get searches the repositories for a match and rpm address and it fetches and installs the program.

If you are skiddish about console commands, Ubuntu has a couple of Gui-based front end for apt-get. The first is under Applications/Add/Remove on the toolbar.

My favorite is under System/Administration/Synaptic Package Manager.

Synaptic is what I used to patch/install 1839 programs.

I wouldn't want to try that on a Windows machine.

A new Toy (Joy) DVD (Divx) Player

Having been "Under the Weather" (Sick) lately, I just opened my Father's Day Gift, (pictured left), a DVD Philips 5140 Player that plays, well, just about everything..

An online comparison of this Joy-Toy and a previous model by Philips shows the new model shines in almost every feature.

The reviewer seemed to really like it, and in my limited testing, so do I.

Test Lighting Video

Animation Lighting Test:

Silly Photo adder

A Great Weekend for iPhone

Engadget tells us 500,000 iPhone sold in 3 days.

That IS a pretty good start for a new product. Other sites tell us less than 3% had problems with authentication issues.

A good recap of what a handful of knowledgeable New Users thought can be heard on Leo Laporte's TWiT Podcast of July 1, 2007.

My conclusions from various readings tells me the following:

1. Not anything really new is used in the hardware side of this wonder. But the implementation is what makes Apple APPLE.

2. The Cell Phone Bar has been reset by the iPhone, telling us that not very many people have been happy with the same-old same-old.

3. It's not just the technology, but how you FEEL about a product that can change everything.

iPhone: Browsing, An order of a magnitude SLOWER...

What happens when you hitch up the latest Gee-Wizardly Goodies to a horse and "Buggy" carriage?

You get web surfing on the wheels of a turtle-with-bad-knees.

The honest truth is: The IPhone is a bonafide thing of technological beauty.

The At&t network it has to work on for the next-two-years is worst than dial-up.

What was Apple thinking?

Hard to figure.

Harder still, to find a compelling reason to go out and buy this not-quite-finished product from Apple.

Surface ...Surfaces, from Microsoft

Now I know the reason for the TV series "Surface" being cancelled.

It was the name of a new Touchscreen "GIZMO" from Microsoft. Here's a link to Demo on Popular Mechanics Website.

(http://news.filefront.com/microsofts-surface-changes-the-way-we-use-computers/)

Link to Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel Remapping the Universe Demo



The Surface from Microsoft (codenamed: "milan") was demoed for Popular Mechanics (link above). It's touch screen "surface' can pick up multiple touch points and interact to items placed on the surface. Wireless devices can also 'communicate' with the "Surface" interface.

Kind of nifty, but at $10,000 a "Desktop" pop, rather put that into 5 state-of-the-art Linux boxes (3 Dual-Core, 64 bit Desktops running Fedora, Ubuntu and Open SUSE, and 2 similar spec'd laptops, running Ubuntu and Fedora).

Getting to look more like
Philip K. Dick's Minority Report all the time.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/

memorial day weekend:

In honor of Memorial Day I had planned to read an article in Wired Magazine, the one with Heroes' Masi Oka on the cover. The article: "Escape from Iran: Inside a CIA Covert Op."

But as you know, the Best Laid Plans...

Instead, I read about a Green City/Urban Development project near Shanghai, on the island Dongtan, by ARUP's Chilean architech and Urban Designer Alejandro Gutierrez.

Like a PBS show about a subject you know little about, it open my eyes to the problems of Urban Planning. A good Article, from one of "My Favorites" magazine.

I also did a bit of Online Programming Study on Python's number and list handling ideas.

And speaking about numbers, Jack Sparrow (aka Johnny Depp) took care of business on the holiday weekend with these numbers:

The Top Five

#1 "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" ($142 million)
#2 "Shrek the Third" ($69 million)
#3 "Spider-Man 3" ($18 million)
#4 "Bug" ($4.2 million)
#5 "Waitress" ($4 million)

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A handful of Heroes against Jack Bauer...

2007, the year when comic book heroes was King. The Big Screen is Boasting it's Best Summer EVER with back-to-back boxoffice megahits for Spiderman 3, Shrek, the Third, and the upcoming Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Carribean's THIRD installment.

Well, the Little screen has it's Heroes Too.

Two of which go head-to-head in season finales tonight.

Agent Jack Bauer gets sent off into summer hiatus with a two-hour cliff-hanger to end its award-winning sixth season tonight starting at 8:00 on Fox channel 11.

On NBC, channel 4, Heroes ends part 2 of it's first year with Sylar's explosion destroying half of New York, and band of fledgling heroes trying to stop it.

How to stop and exploding man on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988307/

The Hit series on NBC is set to spin-off a sequel about the histories of individual heroes next fall.

Comic books are alive and well on the big screen and the small.


Tune In to the FUN...
----------------------------------------------------------------

Old FUD's Ugly Head

Microsoft showed it's Ugly FUD Head again this week with an attempt to intimidate Open Source and Linux with allegations of Intelleectual Property Rights violation.

Now remember, I really hate the PC - Apple commercials that the Mac has been rubbing in our windows-faces lately.

Particularly since I remember, not that long ago, Microsoft helped Apple out with some loose change when the Mac seemed on the brink of extinction, again.

That Was nice of Microsoft.

This meaning, that I'm not an Mac or Windows Basher by preference. Only when then continue to "Do Stupid Things". But I guess, old bad habits die Very Hard.

For the uninitiated, the NEW tactics of FUD (Fear,Uncertainty and Doubt) is so interwoven into the fabric of Microsoft that I must refer you the Wikipedia entry on the subject.

This seems to be Microsoft's modus operandi of late, when they feel they're losing mind-share.

These Peckinpah-Matrix slow-motion ambush shots hide the the Facts that if you can't compete technologically (vista), sick the lawyers on them.

FUD can obscure a multitude of innovation shortcomings.

This is not what someone who wants to be remembered as a humanitarian should be doing.

Stop it Bill.

It's not Open Source or Linux's fault it took five (5) years to push Vista out the door.

Belly Up On Fedora Core 6

Yeah, I know it's my fault for not backing up my data. And No the FC6 OS is Not completely gone. I still have Console access.

But timing couldn't be worse, after a hard week of fighting a MacNasty Cold (pun intended) and the Lakers almost being blown out of the First Round in the Playoffs against the Suns.

Thank goodness for stuff being available ONLINE. (I'll have blog about THAT as soon as I Feel Better)

I found out that a good part of my computing environment is Network centric, and that, I afraid can be done from anywhere...

Even ON my shiny new ACER that may have bad Sony batteries.

Yep, that"s the way the week has been.

(Hey, that might be a good title for Leo Laporte's TWiT's, That Was The Way The Week Was TWTWTWW....I must be really sick...sorry.)

In between coughs and sneezes, I Post.

Done on the new shiny ACER (which is working just fine).

Wingman out.

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PDF Slides for the PSP??

This link (in PDF Format) gives a Slide-Show history of HACKING THE PSP.


Lots of Food for Thought here.

World's smallest fully functioning PC runs VISTA?

Seen on Channel 7's Tech Bytes this morning check out the Website at: www.oqo.com

Tuesday Updates: April 3, 2007

Introducing a new feature on Media Circus 2,

the Tuesday Updates.

----------------------------------------------------
On Podcasts:

Since I've gotten into the habit of listening to Leo Laporte's TWIT podcast on Tuesday Mornings (roughly 4:00 to 5:00 a.m.), I'll present a review of the podcast (with Full-Links) that same day.

The TU's will also cover what I've been gleaning from the Linux Magazines and what I have just installed and what I'm testing on my Linux Box.
----------------------------------------------------
TWit 93: GMT

Hosts: Leo Laporte, David Prager, Robert Heron, Roger Chang, Veronica Belmont, Patrick Norton, and John C. Dvorak

The old gang reunites for a live appearance at the Gear*Media*Tech seminar. Look for video in the next day or so.

----------------------------------------------------
Dvorak pans the Apple iPhone as the wrong business to be in. Too many deep pocket competitors.

Anniversary of first email virus: Melissa (named after a Florida Stripper by the teen that created it.)

This is the heading of the article by CNET on that day in 1999.

=====================================================

Email virus spreading rapidly
W97M_Melissa exploits Microsoft Outlook's address book to send a list of porn sites to people who are likely to be familiar contacts.
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: March 26, 1999, 5:20 PM PST
Tell us what you think about this storyTalkBack E-mail this story to a friendE-mail View this story formatted for printingPrint Add to your del.icio.usdel.icio.us Digg this storyDigg this

A new virus is actively spreading itself across the Internet, taking advantage of users' email address books to replicate "extremely quickly," according to one expert.

The virus, W97M_Melissa, uses a combination of Microsoft Word macros and Microsoft Outlook to send a list of 80 pornographic Web sites. It works with either Word 97 or Word 2000, according to antivirus companies TrendMicro, Symantec, and Network Associates.

Link Location:

http://news.com.com/Email+virus+spreading+rapidly/2100-1023_3-223602.html

=====================================================
On Security (readings)
Port Knocking and Single Packet Authorization.
(Article comng)

On Database Comparisons (readings)
MySQL vs PostgreSQL.

(Article coming)
======================================================
Installing MONO on my Redhat CORE 6.

(Article coming)
===========================================================================
Links:

TWiT Website is here:

http://www.twit.tv/TWiT

Complete MP3 TWiT Podcast is here:

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://twit.cachefly.net/TWiT0093M.mp3

John C. Dvorak's Blog (be warned!)

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/


Want to find out where to put all your iProducts from Apple?

Check out this mock suggestion from MadTV VidCast which I found on Dvorak's blog.

The iRACK from Apple.


===========================================================================

Web Site of The Day (from RefDesk.com)

Today's (3/21/2007) Site Of The Day from RefDesk.com is just So Great I have to Put a Link to it Here:

GovStandard.com
Subtitled: (Your Legal Systems Resource)

Information on the legal system which includes legal history, systems, law practice, jurists, and advocates. Includes discussions of Roman, Greek, and Babylonian law.

Happy reading.

Refdesk.com (my PSP homepage) was one of my Baker's Dozen Picks for Best Of The WEB on my KOOLHUNTER2 blog. Yes, Koolhunter WEBSITE is Still being worked on.

Wingman out.

Dad's Birthday

That's Dad, reading a book from Robert. His birthday is today March 18th.
Glad I got to see and talk with him yesterday. Louie too!

Too much distance for a family that was so much closer before the "rock", Mom passed away.

As the saying goes: It's not the years it's the mileage.

I've been thinking of posting these special images online. Either Flickr or Google Album, two good online Photo Hosting sites.

Digital cameras, even cell-phone cameras (with resolutions constantly getting better) make it easy to catch a special shot like this one.

But still don't compare to having the full size photograph.

We snap more and develop less. Of course, most of my photographs are in a suitcase someplace.

The book (by the way) is about Superstition Mountain and the Lost Dutchman's mine and gold. I'll put a link to the backstory about that below. Everything has a backstory, spoken and unspoken.

Happy Birthday Dad. I love you.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apache Junction Public Library webpage.

Kool Hunting

One man's Kool is another man's Booor-ring!

Kinda Kool is Wesley Crusher's (Wil Wheaton, the Geek), reviews of STTNG which is funny and found Here.

These sites are also KOOL:

Leo Laporte of TechTV days, is Now Podcasting like cRaZy.

Check Out the TWITs (which is a weekly TECH podcast), where he's joined by John C. Dvorak, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose (Mr. DIGG, to you), and even Spin-Rite's Steve Gibson.

Korean Zombies with German Accents!!!

Last Tuesday, 3 of the Top 13 DNS (Domain Name Servers) were attacked by Korean Zombies (DoS) Denial of Service robots (unmanned--code devices, also known as: Zombies). The Zombies were traced back to Germany (but they probably came from somewhere else--maybe China. Who Knows?). One of the three DNS sites attacked was almost completely shut down, but as far as the WEB was concerned, nobody noticed.

That was the scary part.

No payoff. No notoriety. So what was the point?

My thinking is: Proof of Concept. Testing the delivery system.

The Real Site will be Elsewhere.

Call me paranoid, but when some experts tell us that 1/3 of the web is infested with robots/spiders or zombies following orders, it's time to worry...

Particularly when Other Experts tell us, That 1/3 number IS TOO LOW.

Pipes, ANS Network and Bernice

Yahoo Pipes:
Yahoo came out swinging a big "pipe" last week to snag back some respectability from Search Leader Rival: Google.

Yahoo Pipes is a Web-based RSS "mash-up" tool that lets you graphically connect Source Information (from one or many rss-feed places), and add a bit of logic or filters and create a "New View" of the RSS data.

They say it's a tip-of-the-hat to Unix Pipes Tools, which for anyone running any recent distro of Linux knows, is alive and well in the Linux OS.

Scripting languages can do pretty much what Yahoo Pipes does, but the Web based GUI is a pretty big deal. It was supposedly developed by Yahoo In-House, and beats Google to a pretty nice New Tool.

REAL Competition IS Good.

==========================================================================
The BOOBs at Network News:

When oh when did they become PEOPLE Magazine?

CNN is now the ANS Channel.

You know what the letters stand for.

One of the cool and needed things you can do with Yahoo Pipes is grab the News RSS feeds and Filter-Out any mention of ANS.

Hopefully the "NETWORKS GONE WILD!" mentality will be over real-soon-now, before any more attention-starved nymphets shave their heads in protest.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bernice and Hair Bobbing:

"Huh! she giggled wildly. "Scalp the selfish thing!"

Quoted from Bernice Bobs Her Hair from the book Flappers and Philosophers.
New York:Scribners.1922.

A title of a short story from high school was "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", and it was mentioned at work recently. And Not having heard that title before I decided to "Look it up".

Wikipedia has become a very good place to start, and was so in this case too. I was surprised to find that it was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the same writer that gave us the "The Great Gatsby".

Sidenote: (also found on Wikipedia).

Louise Brooks of the film silent era became synoymous with the bobbed or flapper look of the twenties.

New MC2 BLOG: "Thursdays, we saved the World." Check it out.

Superbowl Sunday: On The SMALL Screen

Move over plasmas and LCD Big Screens, here comes PSP LIVE broadcast TV.

With the ubiquity of DSL cable and Wifi connectivity, higher bitrates can be streamed over the Internet with picture quality really close to HD. And what home appliance is capable of handling this Super Stream? Why Sony's PSP, of course...

The little screen Does Digital "live-casts" great. Even your PC, running VLC outperforms Most TV-tuner cards.

Go long....This Is A Touch Down!