Tuesday Morning TWITs

Tuesday, in the a.m., listening to my PSP RSS feed of Leo Laporte's TWIT (This Week In Tech) podcast review of CES 2007. The TWIT Website describes the proceedings thus:
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January 15th, 2007 TWiT 84: Hahn, I'm Home! Hosts: Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Robert Heron, Hahn Choi, and Cory Doctorow Our CES post-mortem
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HD TV's was the main focus of the CES recap and that included the Sharp 108-inch LCD HDTV.

Holy Hannah!!!

Picture from ENGADGET website on top.

The Code Searchers:

According to LJ (Linux Journal): "In Journalism, three examples create a TREND and in Business Schools, professors teach that three competitors create a market category. These two tropes now apply to CODE SEARCH..."

Google, the number 1 search engine has spun off a searcher just for Coders (Hackers), called Code Search.

But Google isn't the first search to Kater to Koders (yeah, I'm going to replace a lot of C's for K's here...:).

THIS market category was started three years ago by Koders.com .

Sometime later, Krugle joined in with their Code Searcher, called Krugle.com (don't ask me why).

The big deal about Google jumping on the bandwagon is that it draws attention to a category of search that we might not know about.

These wonderful programs we run by clicking a button or icon, don't come out of thin air.
Real hackers, sometimes working on their own in the wee hours, create this magic.

And I for one think, that helping them with these Code Search Engines, is a REAL GOOD IDEA.

wingman out.

2006 Christmas Photos (Part 1)

Jacob Pensive
Judy Cheers
Heffner Girls
Hacking The PSP
Jon The PSP Wizard

Melissa
Breaks

Lydia's Christmas Table

A Blogging We Have Gone (in 2006)

This YEAR'S (2006) POSTINGS:
MY BLOGS:(54 Postings, 1 short story fragment)
Media Circus 2 (http://mediacircus2.blogspot.com/)

Posted Blogs: I AM "the Person of The Year..."
The GIG is UP (Again)
Brain Stretchers
WEBSITE Evolution and CMS Software
A Great Couple of Weeks For OPEN SOURCE!
It's A Game of Numbers
Starbuck's, Ipods and Marketing
The Circus Comes To a Town Near YOU
A Bad (rajump) Worm in Apple's Video IPODS
Getting Enlightenment: The Hard Way

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Mass Media Course Correction (http://mycordiunnot.blogspot.com/)

Posted Blogs: Counter-Culture And YouTube
The Replacement Killers
YUM, Yum, Yum!
PSP 2.6 and waiting for an Exploit...
UCLA: March Madness
Guilty by Association
What's It All About? Alfie
The Wonders of Wiki--A Work in Progress
The Rant That Rages
From Oxnard to Shangrila

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Written by ELO (http://theletterselo.blogspot.com/)

Posted Blogs: Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Post Keep Coming. Ideas in the Works:
Tidbits and News Bits (November 17, 2006)
A Writers Blog not BLOCK!
Going Up the Country, Got to Get Away
Tools in the Toolbox
Going UP the Gibson
A Picture, Still Worth A Thousand Words?
Gibson, French Maids and IPOD wagging Apple
It's Only Words...
Blogging the Writer

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Dos Possos (http://elosblog.blogspot.com/)

Posted Blogs: Hitting The Gibson Brakes
Online Books
Feeling Disconnected: No Wires attached
One Step Forward, TWO Steps Back
Digital Memories are made of This...
The Light at the End of The Virtual Tunnel
I Hate the Word PROJ
First On the Block Syndrome
Two Steps

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PSP On Steroids (http://psphardwired.blogspot.com/)

Posted Blogs: The Homebrew Game
PSP Podcasts and Other Links
Waiting for Exploit 2.6

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THE PAINT BUCKET (Ontario) BLOG
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The Painting on The Wall (http://paintbucketontario.blogspot.com/)

Posted Blogs: The PC's are up and Running in Ontario
Paint Buckets and CAT 5

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MY Media Circus 2 WEBPAGE (Drupal Driven)
(http://mediacircus2.com)

Posted Pages(blog-like) It IS a BLOG Life!
Test For Google Maps API
Topics And Details (T.A.D.)
Old is NEW Again
IDORU Done
Tapping "Drift" Technology
Adding URL/Filter Modules
Adding Content BLOCKS for New Modules
Drupal's Modules
November 9, 2006
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Posted Short Stories: Pocket Change
(Part of a Short Story Collection called: Subject To Change)
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I AM "the Person of The Year..."

I knew All-my-blogging would lead to something, I (okay, WE) made it to the cover of Time magazine as the "Person Of The Year".

Yeah, right. According to John C. Dvorak (on Leo Laporte's TWIT Podcast), it WAS a cop-out.

I agree. YouTube would have been a better choice.

I beat Time-Mag to the punch with my Post on Media Circus2 webpage: I Blog, therefore I AM. (the real importance of having an online identity.

I also came up with music videos back in the sixties, but that is another story.

More will be coming on the significance of the TIME piece.

The TWIT's also related the release of IPHONE.

Picture at right.

It's been released, BUT Not by Apple. It from Linksys. Legal battle, anyone???

The Gig is UP (Again!)

Let's UP the Ante..
New Sony/SanDisk DUO leapfrogs to 64 gig.
Yes, I know, everyone was waiting for the 8 gig chip and wondering why it was taking soooo long to come out. Well, folks, It Was Sure Worth The Wait.
Bang!
Move over 8 gig, Here Comes the 64 gig chip.

Sweet!

Brain Stretchers

NEWS Notes:
DAS-3 Project (Netherlands):
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A recent article on a project called DAS3 in a Dutch Graduate School that may be on the verge of creating a Super-GRID. Capable of turning the Web into a Linux Cluster. The Article called: "The Wide Area Cluster" appeared in the November issue of Linux Magazine.
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Real Dangers in Virtualization:
Steve Gibson (Spinrite) recently warned on Leo Laporte's podcast, that hackers have introduced a virus into the code of the new Intel Processor that was created with built-in virtualization hooks. The virus stays dormant until an OS is installed on it and then it becomes a pre-installed Root-kit that can take over the system.
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WEBSITE Evolution and CMS Software

Webpages are evolving into modifiable BLOGS, and with the Trend, the Content Management Software (CMS) is poised to deliver us from the evil of HTML coding. Sure, you can hack away with HypeText Markup Language, but why bother? The Content is the important part. The means of getting it on the page is: Whatever works Best For You.

I usually juust use a simple Linux Text Editor (qedit) and just paste it into my Blogger page. Like THIS:

Blogs are short, clean, and work well with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which give websites a very professional look.

The next step is, of course, audio and video streaming content.

Remember the hoopla about cable being the great democratization of MEDIA, it appears that the WEB is the form that will deliver on the Promise.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

Stay tuned.

A Great Couple of Weeks For OPEN SOURCE!

Last week Microsoft entered into a unique agreement with Novell. It paid Novell XXX Million dollars for the Windows to work (communicate), with SUSE Linux.

This Week Sun Microsystems let their JAVA out of the proprietary bag and released it under GPL licensing.

The General Press was busy paying attention to the Release of Game Consoles from Sony and Nintendo, but the real long-term impact event was these two giant steps toward Open Source.

This is HUGE!

It's A Game of Numbers

The World Series just ended this last weekend. The team with the lowest number of wins in the regular season, Won IT All. Baseball, they say is a game of Numbers. Lately, my digital centric world has been telling me the same thing. So let me throw a few Numbers at you.

Many, many years ago, Bill Gates tried to sell us on an idea that seemed blatantly unrealistic at the time.

A (meaning 1), computer in every home.

He was wrong, and by the way, he's retiring soon.

I won't mention Vista.

But you can't keep missing the ball and keep playing.

Seems, nowadays, most homes have two and more computers. There are a least 10 in my house, 5 being used most of the time. And only 3 with Windows. The rest are Linux boxes, mainly FC (Fedora Core).

I am teasing Bill, after all the Cell-phone pundits made the same mistake in the 1990's. They said it would take 10 years for cell phone to reach x-million units. It happened in 3 years.

However, the restrictive licensing agreements that Bill began ranting about in the early computer clubs, is still in force, should suggest making his headstone read: EULA, Rest In Peace.

Germany and Finland aren't buying it. Britain and the US Should Be Next.

I have an Idea.

Why don't we have the OS (say Knoppix Linux), online. The Network IS the computer, with no licensing restrictions on copies and use.

Think about it.

Google, are you listening?

The Game isn't Over.

Starbuck's, Ipods and Marketing

Do we really need a shopping channel that is really a 24/7 commercial?

Do we really need a coffee that doesn't "taste" like coffee?

Do we really need a portable music player that holds our favorite "15,000" songs?

What has happened to our collective sense of judgment?

The answer is really pretty simple: Marketing.

We've been sold a "bill of goods". And the Marketing Prophets have said:

"Follow Me, and we can go to the Promises Land, sipping a frappachino and singing to Rap/Hip-Hop/Pop Trash."

Welcome to Huckster Nation, the New America. If we stop and think about it, we win.

Don't BUY the Hype. This is a Full-SPIN cycle zone.

Sizzle instead of steak.


Okay, the coffee in the Next Booth DOES smell better. So what?

Is it worth the BIG $5.00 with a dollop of "internet access", with a surcharge, of course.

Home computers sell for under $500 dollars. Do we really need a $500 dollar plus "music player", or a $400 dollar plus, "super-razor thin" Cell phone?

"Well yeah, " the super-kool Apple guy talking to pretty uncool Windows man, "how else would you carry your FAV 5,000 songs (at 99 cents a pop)?"

How else indeed?

Wake up. Smell the coffee.

The Circus Comes To a Town Near YOU

Advance notification of My NEW Web Page:


MEDIACIRCUS2.COM, (hmmm?) I wonder where that came from?

Well it'll be my home for the forseeable future, having outgrown these wonderful Blog Pages.
Too much to Say, too little Time.

Yeah, I picked GoDaddy in respect for My Father.

Still working with the default webpage templates, but even on a Windows Server, my Linux Box FC5 (enterprise), can generate some pretty spiffy content.

Stayed tuned... the glittering elephants are coming into view, and I think I can hear the Band.

A Bad (rajump) Worm in Apple's Video IPODS

Just a matter of percentage points...

Apple revealed Tuesday that a worm that infects Windows users was shipped in a FEW Nano IPODS in September. Not a big deal, because it should only affect about 1% of Windows PC's.(1)

The percentage is interesting because 2% is the number given in June (this year), of Apple's share of the PC Market (down from 2.2%). (2)

Anyone who follows the industry knows that Apple's main Cash COW is the IPODS (I've call them the Tail that WAGS the Dog: Apple, a few times).

A goodly portion of IPODS are bought by WINDOWS PC USERS (gasp). How does Apple respond to this situation?

Exactly the same as the PC-Apple Ads.

Aloof and Too Cool to Care.

This is part of Apple's statement about the incident (quoted from Apple Matter's Blog:)(3)

Apple’s response was terrible. They said:

As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses.....

To Me, that leaves a rotten spot on what was a shiny white Apple.


(1)security focus announcement.
(2)market share.
(3)Apple Matters Blog.

Getting Enlightenment: The Hard Way

Why Yum and Repositories are So Important

One of the main joys of Linux is being able to try out new programs.
Taste, if you will, the latest cutting edge stuff. But the chief bane of this newness is having to walk through the mine-fields known as Dependency Hell.

A recent linux magazine article touted the wonders of Enlightenment 17. Not a Desktop enviromment, but a new breed of file-manager and Desktop Shell.

Sounded good. I decided to try it out. The CVS download was pretty straight forward and downloaded a ton of files in various subdirectories. So far, so good.

Before installing the program, the magazine said, you should compile the Libraries it would need in a particular order. There were 14 plus Libs. Each one in its own directory and each one had an autogen.sh file. Simple enough.

All went well until the 11th library. It was missing something, and would not configure. 3 stinking libraries shy of Enlightenment.

That is why I find YUM and Apt-Get and similar rpm installers so powerful and necessary to the advancement of Linux. It HAS to be that simple.

It was the reason I switched from Open Suse 10.1 to Fedora Core 5, and though still not perfect, I'm staying there until things improve at SUSE.

Wingman out.

Player Pianos, Podcasts and Internet Radio

I remember listening to Chick Hearn broadcast the play-by-play Laker games on the radio. The high mountains around the city where I moved to, prevented getting a good TV signal. But radio, and Chick, did just fine.

Earlier, I would listen to KPFK radio on friday nights and listen to "Hour 25 with Mike Hodel--The Hour That Stretches", a very good radio talk show that covered All-Things-Science-Fiction. When Michael passed away, the show lost its focus. And it too had a tough time going over the mountain ranges that blocked radio content from the Big Cities and stations with the limited power of public radio.

If anyone has talked to me about computers recently, they would quickly see that I am not a big fan of Apple or the IPOD. I can't honestly believe anyone needs to carry around 15,000 of their favorite songs. Now, really!

I'm not anti-music.. I Like music! Heck, I even like radio, when they're not trying to sell me something. I even like Podcasts. You don't need an IPOD to listen to them. They are mostly just MP3 files.

Well my latest toy, the PSP (Sony Playstation Portable), with firmware 2.6, has podcast reception over WiFi. My PSP has recently been HACKED to HomeBrew statu.

Letting it run all kinds of Homebrew Apps, including Internet Radio (also Wifi). For times when I'm not within range of a WiFi signal, I have on the memory stick a few prerecorded mp3 songs and LQRadio Podcasts. One of the songs was the Maplestreet Rag by Scott Joplin. My PSP had become a New Incantation of a Player Piano. The Tech Podcasts are a new version Hour25, a place between There and Here and going someplace Else.
A book title by Hemingway springs to mind: "A Moveable Feast".

Yep, that is pretty much what it is, and Radio will never be quite the same.

The Tube Choosers

TV just took a hard left and ran into the WEB.

The Network Suits are frantic to Webify their CONTENT. Old USA network showed them how harness the audience of web-surfers that want to vent about their favs. Even the likes of movie drivel like "Snakes on Planes", showed how Web Buzz can make something out of nothing.

Give Apple a nod here. They showed that a market exists for the 99 cent Store.

For $1.99 you can download an episode of "Lost". And even PBS's Charlie Rose has Program Videocasts that are downloadable. Free, of course. It is PBS.

The Big Frog in this Dippy pond is YouTUBE, which was nothing until Bill the star-maker, mentioned them in that fateful article in the WSJ. That unsolicited annointment brought channel surfing to the mass audience of Looky-Lous.

And coming to a cell-phone real soon.

Waiting for Geedot?

The more things change, , the more they stay the same.
I remember, back in the dark ages, when I ONLY had dial-up to the Web, that I saw DSL access as nirvana.
Gosh, when I get to that level of SPEED, watch out!
Well, I've had IT (dsl) for sometime now and guess what? I'm still waiting on downloads, just like in the Old Days. The connection IS faster, it's just that the downloads are humongous. Some of the files I'm getting now are so big (how big are they?), that they have to be broken up into smaller pieces.

Okay, a lot ARE iso images, for Linux Distros of course, but everything is bursting at the seams. And a goodly portion of these goodies are going to go into our ever-growing hand-held devices. That's a lot of crap for a small bag, if you'll pardon my french.

I have a better IDEA.

If All of this software is pretty-much standardized, or better yet, open-sourced, why don't we just download the stuff that changes. I would guess that 70% of web traffic is repeated data. Why?

I'll give you an example: TEXT. How many times do you think the word "the" gets transmitted? A number should replace "the". Maybe, 1. That's 1/3 smaller. We saved 66%

Example 2 GRAPHICS: Remember Christensen's animations in the early days of computing. He suggested the same thing for animated drawings (I'm not talking 3D movies here). In a screen with X by Y dimensions only a small portion of that screen changes. Don't redraw the whole screen, only redraw the pixels that change. Good idea. Made for really snappy animations.

This is not rocket science. 1 is better than 3. A portion is better than the whole. Traffic savings is huge. And a better way to included the hand helds that are begging for lush media. Because of propriety restraints, I suggest that open-sourcing these ideas and tools is a better way to solve the problem.

Wingman.

The PSP Era

Joined the ranks of the handhelds with the purchase of a Playstation Portable. Picture at right >--->

Heck of a lot of TECH in this baby:
Wireless Internet Access
RSS Feeds
UMD movies and Games
Photo Browser
Bluetooth Connectivity
MP3 and WMA playback
USB connection to the PC. Windows or LINUX.
And being hacked by a group of underground HOMBREWERS to expand its capabities, including programming it with LUA language and LUA PLAYER (game developer or IDE).

Call it an IPOD on Steroids.

A Magazine Partially Loaded

The English Publication "Linux Format" has been my favorite magazine since I discovered it 5, maybe 6 years ago. On top of the excellent articles on "Things Linux" it came with a CD or DVD of Linux Software.
I've always been a fan of this method of "playing with the system software". I began using monthly magazine software since the days of Tandy's (Radio Shack) Color Computer, when I was receiving a monthly CASSETTE called "Chromasette". Linux Format has dutifully produced a CD version and a DVD version for the last few years, and always wanting more for my money, I usually grabbed the DVD-version at my local B&N bookstore. Sometimes, being in too much a hurry, or for smaller Boot Distros, I'd get the CD-version. I did this this month and grabbed the CD-version by mistake.

The CD does hold a lot, compared to the 60-minute cassette that came for the COCO, but a DVD holds tons more.

Well, it turns out that the June Issue of LFX will be the Last One to come with a CD-version. The End of an Era.

I've been forced to migrate, because of technology, from cassette to CD to DVD.

I also upgraded my storage from 80 gig to 160 gig, trying to stay ahead of the curve.

One Shiny Moment, quickly Dashed

A couple of weeks agao I read a newsfeed that I felt was going to send shockwaves throughout the Server Sector. Sunmicrosystems had a NEW Processor that was multi-core and multi-threaded. It promised to stem the trend of Server Bloat that necessitated the ever increasing size and space for Servers. The New Core would knock down size of the Server by 60% and increase performance by 80%. And an additional benefit was less power and heat.

All this sounded too good to be true.

I wondered what kind of a "hit" linux servers would take.

That was a couple of weeks ago.

Today, on the morning business update, a report came out that Sun Microsystems was cutting 5,000 jobs.

What is the back story?

Stay tuned.