Plum Crazy

Dear Everyone

Use Firefox instead.

Love,
Lesley

Dear Everyone

Please rewrite your websites.

Because we have a patent dispute.

Love,
Microsoft

Let's Pretend

Let's pretend that RIM loses the suit against it by NTP. Let's pretend that Blackberry service gets shut down.

What's the big deal? So people won't be able to receive their e-mails instantaneously unless they're at their computer? I don't know, we all managed to live just fine that way, oh, say, three years ago.

I Heart the Federal Trial Court in Chicago

A federal trial court in Chicago has ruled recently that the ancient legal doctrine of trespass to chattels (meaning trespass to personal property) applies to the interference caused to home computers by spyware.

I'm glad to see the law catching up with what the rest of us have known for some time.

Via The Daily Pundit.

It's Not A Bug. It's A Security Feature.

Sure, the latest critical patch from Microsoft might lock you out of your PC or empty out your network connections folder. But not to fear, says Microsoft. After all:

Even if users experience PC trouble after installing the patch, they will still be protected against any attack exploiting the Windows flaw, a Microsoft representative said.

Which, you know, if you can't get onto your PC or access the network, would be pretty much true. Although maybe not in precisely the most user-friendly fashion.

Bizarre

I just tried to send an e-mail via Yahoo and received the following failure notice:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

:
68.165.142.179 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 User unknown
Giving up on 68.165.142.179.

Um, this is some kind of joke or spam thing, right?

Yesterday's Moment of Duh

Air conditioners work a lot better if you clean the filters.

Firefox Users Take Note

Mozilla has issued a security patch and work around to fix a bug that could enable a hacker to execute code on your computer if you're viewing a website that doesn't use Latin Alphabet characters in its name. The patch can be found here.

Genius

I am in a meeting last week when my cell phone goes off. I ignore the call and silence the ring. The cell phone goes off again, but a different number. Once again, I ignore it, but this time, I turn the ringer off. The phone then goes off again, same number, and then rings yet again, the number from the first call. I answer it this time to get rid of this pesky person who clearly has the wrong number. He asks for Courtney. I tell him he has the wrong number. On Sunday, the second number calls me twice without leaving a message. Finally, the number calls again this morning. Determined to get rid of this second pesky person, I answer, only to discover it’s the same fool. He says, “Jon, this is Michael,” as if I know him. He only knows I’m Jon from my voice mail message. He then proceeds to ask for Courtney again, after I told him once there’s no Courtney at the number. So I tell him again. I really hope that this bastion of brilliance gets the idea this time.

Update: He called again. Either he is really stupid or is harassing me. I think it's the latter. Time to report him and change my number.

Update 2: The number change isn't cheap - $36 - but it takes effect as soon as I power my phone off and on. Won't have to hear from this yutz again.

Windows XP Is Making Me Nuts

Does anyone know how to disable that most annoying of features in Windows XP: if you hold the cursor over an item for a couple of seconds, the item is selected? Please tell me you do. It's driving me up the wall.

Going Mobile

A while ago, I bought a Dell laptop as a second computer. Something that I could use to surf the web wirelessly and be able to compute outside on a nice day. In reality, I have barely used it in the few months since I purchased it. All that is now changing.

About three weeks ago I went to install updated virus software on my desktop. The program hung during the install, and the desktop started acting flaky. I wasn’t able to use certain key programs. Lesley was kind enough to give me a souped-up surplus desktop she had lying around, and the plan was to migrate over to that. No luck. The operating system wouldn’t install. So instead I decided to have my desktop fixed and upgraded to Windows XP. I let CompUSA do the work, but made an under the table deal with the tech and paid him directly in cash for a discount rate. Well, he didn’t do it right, and I still can’t use certain key programs on the desktop, not to mention XP is taking up too much space on the hard drive.

The upshot of all this? I am going to use the laptop exclusively and am in the process of migrating over. Thanks to the help of Lesley technical support, for which she is kindly not charging, I imported my e-mail profile from the desktop last night. I also transferred everything that’s in My Files except for pictures, which I’ll probably do tonight. Lastly, I am getting a port replicator from Dell so I can hook the laptop to the printer. Then I will be all mobile.

Am I A Really Big Geek Yet?

Today I created my very first bookmarklet to search Fandango.

It works in both Safari and Firefox, although not in IE. The bookmarklet doesn't work 100% the way I would like it to, but I don't really understand Javascript sufficiently to get it to work right. What it does is allow you to highlight a word or phrase on a website and click the bookmarklet. It will then bring up a box asking you to confirm the search word or phrase. Once you do, it brings you to Fandango with a list of movies that meet the search term. If you don't highlight a word or phrase, it brings up a blank box that you can type a search term into. But it works close enough to what I want for it to be useful to me.

What I'd really like it to do is to just bring you directly to the Fandango results page if you highlight the term, but bring up the blank box only if you don't. If any of you real geeks out there can get it to work, let me know!

If you want the bookmarklet the way it is, just drag the Fandango link to your bookmark bar.

Saved

I have this habit when working on an update to documents or spreadsheets. I call up the previous version, save it with a new name, and go to work. Well, last week, I forgot to save a document with a new name and wound up overwriting the existing documents. Whoops! But thanks to the magic of computer back-up, the lost version is back on my system. My appreciation to the IT folk.

Coming Soon to a House Near You

At least one part of the Jetson's future is coming true:

(Click for large, futuristic size.)

Now where the hell are the flying cars, dammit?!?

I'm Officially A Freaky Mac Cultist

As I sit here blogging from my new 12" Apple Powerbook, it occurs to me that I have officially turned into a freaky Mac cultist. Sure, I was heading down that road with my initial iPod purchase. I managed to stave off the Mac cravings for several years though. But no more.

Listen, though, if I start lighting candles in a shrine dedicated to Steve Jobs, just have me committed. Okay?

Because my shrine to Bill Gates is taking up enough space.* What do I need with two shrines?

*No, I do not really have a shrine to Bill Gates. What kind of freak do you take me for? He's a necessary evil. My shrine is to Tino Martinez.**

**Okay, I don't really have a shrine to Tino Martinez either. But I bet some of you believed that for a minute, didn't you?

Carefully Inspect All the Contents

I am blind as a bat. I purchased me a new Dell laptop (refurbished Inspiron 1000) some weeks back. When it came, it only had the half of the AC adapter kit that plugs into the wall. Or so I thought. Just now when I finally got around to tossing the box, I found the other half. Whoops.

In a Flash

Dell tech support tells me that a USB 1.1 flash drive isn't compatible with USB 2.0 and vice versa. The latter I know to be true since my USB 2.0 key won't work with my desktop. Is the former true as well, that a 1.1 won't work with my laptop, which has USB 2.0? Say it ain't so. I don't much feel like adding a PCI card to my desktop.

I Have Been Phished

Just how stupid do these people think I am? I receive an e-mail from American Express (wink wink) with the subject line "Update Contact Information." Right, and next, there's a bridge right here in NYC that they'll want to sell me.

How About Smart Use?

The most recent issue of Infoworld has an article on tools to assist IT departments in complying with all the security regulations that have popped up. There's a sidebar on the "Top 10 Ways to Fail a Security Audit". Number 10: make sure you have a fair-use policy to let employees what they should and shouldn't do with their PC. After all, "[h]ow should employees know that downloading MP3s is forbidden if you don't tell them?" Um, let's see, they could use common sense? I don't need a policy to know that certain things are no nos. The PC, after all, belongs to my company, not to me, not to mention with all the viruses floating around, why would I do anything that increases the risk of placing a virus on my machine?

Welcome to Quicken 2005. . . 2006

Once upon a time, Intuit bundled Quicken and Turbotax together. Thus, whenever it came time to do my taxes, I would buy the bundle and update Quicken. For some fool reason, they stopped doing this, and I stopped updating Quicken, using Turbotax on-line instead.

Well, now Intuit has come up with another way to force sell Quicken upgrades to users. "We're no longer supporting older versions," they announce. Fine, I go ahead and do the update to Quicken 2005.

Problem is it took so gosh darn long to do the update - seven, count them, seven steps, including asking me at the very end whether I really wanted to start using Quicken 2005 (just in case there was any doubt) - that Quicken 2006 came out before I started using 2005. Time to upgrade again, by which time. . .

Go Phish

In an eye-opening article about "phishing" - the practice of using scam e-mails to lure people to bogus websites and reveal sensitive account information - InfoWorld revealed a method that is truly frightening. Called "rewrite and redirect", the method takes advantage of vulnerabilities in Windows Scripting Hosting essentially to commandeer your computer and take you to fake websites even without clicking on a hyperlink. Merely opening the e-mail is enough. The recommended solution is to disable Scripting Hosting, or I suppose to bag Windows all together. Either way, it makes me think twice about signing up for legitimate e-mail from the different institutions I transact with.

O Solo Mio

Inspired by Lesley's conversion to Firefox, I decided to try it myself. I believe I am ready to abandon the experiment in favor of Opera.

Firefox is a good brower, better than IE, and I could never go back to IE now, but it has some annoying quirks. At least on my machine. For some reason, I can't use the middle mouse button to "wheel" up and down through pages, and it constantly struggles when opening links in new windows. They hang, take so long to load that I give up thinking they've hung, or it puts some crazy javascript:newwind extension in front of the web address, making a blank page load.

I am testing out Opera as we speak, and indeed it seems better. No more problems with opening links in new pages. It is a little more cumbersome - for example, control + click doesn't work to open pop ups, and instead you have to click on another link - I can't find "bugmenot" software, which enables me to bypass registration for annnoying sites that require registration, and it has banner ads unless you pay. Yet, I am impressed enough right now to continue using it, and maybe eventually to pay for it.

It's Adorable

I speak of the new Mini Mac that Apple unveiled yesterday. It's the size of a CD box set. Beats even a laptop for portability.

Go California!

California has beat the federal government to the punch in protecting the property rights of PC users by setting fines for the manufacturers of spyware.

The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California.

...snip...

The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer.

It also requires companies and websites to disclose whether their systems will install spyware.

Well, hefty means up to $1,000, which isn't all that hefty on an individual basis. But if enough Californians avail themselves of this, then it could get pretty hefty. As for banning the installation of software that takes control of another computer and requiring disclosure if the systems will ban less-malicious software, I'm all for it.

This is one area where I think legislation is completely appropriate and, in fact, needed. A computer is private property. It is the job of the government to protect our property rights. It should be illegal for a third party to modify my property or someone else's property without our express permission. If I walk into a store, no one would think it legal and most people wouldn't even consider it acceptable to stuff a tracking device in my purse or pocket without my knowledge and/or against my will. At least by forcing disclosure on websites, online consumers can assess whether they are willing to accept the tracking device in exchange for whatever value they think they will receive from the website.

Regardless, though, I will continue to utilize my anti-spyware tools and to not use IE whenever possible. I scan regularly with Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Hijack This.

Which reminds me. Time for the weekly scan.

Firefox Rules

I stopped using Internet Explorer some months ago because I was sick of being constantly clogged with spyware, adware, and browser hijacks. Even though I regularly scan with Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Hijack This, I just got tired of constantly cleaning up. So I switched to Netscape. Which was fine. Until the recent update, Netscape 7.2. Suddenly I could no longer make Google my default search engine in the toolbar, being forced to use Netscape search. I don't like Netscape search. It doesn't open up to a clean URL from the search results page, instead carrying through the Netscape referral information. Screw that. I wanted to use Google. But there is no Google toolbar for Netscape, only IE. A quick websearch, though, did turn up a mock Google toolbar for Firefox (which Netscape 7.2 does not let you install). Add the inability to use Google as a default toolbar search to my existing frustration about not being able to use the browser menu to open Yahoo! mail. So what the hell, said I. I'll try native Firefox.

What a far superior product to Netscape. It gives you tabbed browsing functionality, which I really like. It also gives you a sidebar function, like Netscape, although the Firefox sidebar is a bit more limited than the Netscape one (no ability to have multiple sidebar tabs you can switch between from the sidebar). However, there are multiple fabby extensions you can download for Firefox. I now have an RSS aggregator in my sidebar (Sage), the ability to control iTunes from my browser (FoxyTunes), a "Google" toolbar, and the ability to use my browser menu to check my Yahoo! mail (WebmailCompose). I had none of this in Netscape. I also downloaded the Tabbrowser Preferences extension, which gives me the same tabbed browsing functionality Netscape comes with (e.g., Add New Tab icon by tabs, open home page in new tabs, etc.).

Oh, and by customizing my Bookmarks toolbar, I'm now able to toggle between most of my sidebar options from there. Not quite as nice as doing it from the sidebar itself, but a small price to pay for the rest of the Firefox functionality.

Yo Netscape - Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye!

Who You Gonna Call?

It's a concept that was inevitable, but the execution (name and the funky cars) is great. Need help with your PC? Call the Geek Squad.

So What

In a licensing deal with Apple, HP has launched its own versions of the iPod. HP is selling 20 GB and 40 GB models. But there are no new bells and whistles, no innovations or variations, no difference in price. They are simply replicas of what Apple already sells. May I say, "Yawn."

21st Century Fox

I've decided to join the 21st century - I installed a USB 2.0 card in my PC tonight. Now I just need something to plug into it. Should I go for an external hard drive or an external DVD burner?

When Technology Attacks

For your technology edification, today we present good technology vs. bad technology.

1. This is an example of good technology. This is my iPod. The blue skin is a case I bought for it. It is a regular 20GB iPod, not a new iPod Mini. The iPod Minis, while looking ever so fabby, are simply too small with a mere 4GB of memory. iPods are good. They let you take all your music with you wherever you go (in my case around 8GB or 2073 songs). This is a happy thing.

2. This is an example of bad technology. This is my Blackberry. This means that even though I am taking the day off work today, I still have access to my work e-mail. Funny thing happens when you have access to your work e-mail at home - People expect you to check it. Day off? More or less. Fortunately still more than less. Still, working from home? Not a happy thing.

3. This is another example of bad technology. This is my RSA token. This allows me to access my work network from home. This means that if somebody sends me an urgent e-mail on my Blackberry with something that just can't wait until Monday (not that it really couldn't, but accessibility breeds tighter work-imposed deadlines), I can log onto the network and work from home. Still not a happy thing.

Wasn't there a time when you could really take a day off without people expecting you to be available? It's not like I'm a doctor or that people will die or be harmed if I'm not. Ah technology.

It's Official

Bill Gates really is the King of the Geeks.

Hat tip to Jim

Technology for Morons

I have read two articles over the last day that were so obvious they didn't need to be written. To whit:

Cameras, Not Phones, Seen as Photography Mainstay. Wow. Regular digital cameras, with a far higher pixel count, are preferred for taking important pictures than crappy phone cams. Even Nostradamus couldn't have predicted that!

Disk Drives Move Beyond PCs, Servers. Now that might actually have been an interesting article. Two years ago. iPods and TiVos are not really new devices anymore. The end part of the article, where they discuss the future of disk drive technology, is interesting. It's cool that Toshiba has now made a hard drive that could fit into a cell phone. They could have just centered the article around the future, with only a nod to the past as a set-up. But to spend so much time on something that is old news?

Either there are a lot of morons in the media, or they think that we're morons.

Screenprints From the Edge

A quick check-in from Uru. Fun, but frustrating. I've captured a screenprint for your viewing pleasure. From the Age of Gahreesen.

Uru

Your regular blogging program has been interrupted, while I am engrossed in Uru. We shall return you to your regular blogging program once I either finish the game or get so frustrated that I pack it in for a bit.

I Can See Clearly Now...

...the 128MB ATI Radeon 9200SE graphics card's installed.

Wow. What a huge difference. Who knew? The RAM upgrade yesterday definitely sped things up, but the new graphics card has sped them up even more. I tested Uru with it, and the motion controls work absolutely fine. They were slightly better with the additional RAM, but still not there. The new graphics card has really improved them.

Making the (up)Grade

Houston, Houston, we have 512MB RAM! Yes, that's right. I opted for the upgrade route, rather than the new PC route. So today I went out and bought another 256MB RAM and a 128MB ATI Radeon 9200SE video card. After a bit of a hiccup, wherein I did not firmly insert the RAM into the sockets, the PC is up and running faster than ever. Unfortunately I can't locate my screwdriver, so the video card update will have to wait until tomorrow.

All this got me thinking. Why buy a new PC? Especially from those non-standard-motherboard-using no-goodniks at Dell? Why not build my own? I found a great Enermax case with a 350 watt power supply for $83. It has 7 expansion slots, 4 external 5.25" bays, 2 external 3.5" bays, and 4 internal 3.5" bays. It also front side slots for 2 USB 2.0 connectors, 1 firewire connector, and an audio in/out. Add to that an Intel P4 3.0 GHz processor with 800 MHz bus speed, an ASUS P4C800 Deluxe motherboard, and 1,024MB DDR SDRAM. I would cannibalize my existing 12X DVD-ROM drive, my CD-RW, my 40GB hard drive, and the new video card I just bought. My mom promised me that when I give her my old case with the processor, motherboard, and Turtle Beach Voyetra sound card, she'd give me her Audigy 2 Soundblaster sound card. Eventually I'd put a DVD burner on it and add a second, larger hard drive, but for now the system would cost me around $550. Although this isn't something I'd do until a few months from now. But still, yee ha!

To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade

That is the question. Whether tis nobler in the CPU to suffer the slowness and frustration of outdated technology, or to put dollars towards a sea of upgrades, and by spending mend them.

So anyway, here's the thing. My Dell PC is now 3 years old. At the time I bought it, it was smoking. It's a P4 1.40 GHz processor with a 40GB hard drive, 256MB RAM, 250 watt PSU, CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives, 4 USB 1.1 ports, a 32MB ATI Radeon DDR video card, a Santa Cruz Turtle Beach Voyetra sound card, 10/100 MBPs ethernet on-board, and a 17" flat panel monitor. I later added a 3-port firewire PCI card, so I could buy an iPod.

For nearly everything I do, this system is absolutely powerful enough. But (isn't there always a but) I recently purchased the new Cyan game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. I'm not really a gamer. I don't like shooting things, even virtually. But I have always enjoyed the Myst games, in large part because they have no violence. It's all about puzzles. I like puzzles. I have also recently discovered that there is a genre of games for people like me. Games like Syberia and Rhem. Games I would be interested in playing. Games where you don't got to kill nothing.

My current set-up does meet at least the minimum requirements to play Uru, and in some cases (okay one case) meets the recommended. The minimum requirements are for an 800 MHz processor, 256MB RAM, 32MB video card, and the sound card I have. The recommended calls for a 1.40 GHz processor (yay me), 512MB RAM, a 64MB video card, and a Creative Audigy 2 Soundblaster card. The sound works well enough for me, so I'm not all that hepped about buying a new sound card. However I have been experiencing difficulty with the motion controls in Uru. I have all the latest hardware drivers (with the possible exception of the mouse; it's a pretty new "Dell" Logitech OEM USB optical wheelmouse, and I'll be damned if I can locate drivers specifically for it on the Internet) and the most recent BIOS version. Oh yeah, I'm running XP Home Edition.

I figure the motion control issues boil down to a problem with either the RAM, the video card, or the mouse driver (or any combination thereof). I could upgrade the RAM for about $130 ($110 if I order it over the Internet). It's RDRAM, so it's a lot more expensive than DDR. I could upgrade the video card to a 128MB ATI Radeon 9200 for $100. However I'm quite sure that if I upgrade the video card, I will also need to upgrade the power supply, as I doubt the 250 watts will be enough. I could get a 400 watt FMI ATX power supply for $59.99 or an Antec 400 watt ATX for $79.99 ($61 on the Internet). I've heard really good things about the Antec PSUs, although one guy gave raves to the FMI also. So for about $315-337 (including sales tax), I could upgrade the thing, forgetting about the sound card.

The thing is, when you start talking about spending $300 or more on upgrading a 3-year-old PC, the mind quickly turns to thoughts of whether it's worth it, or whether it's better to go for a new PC altogether. Especially since at some point I will probably want to add USB 2.0. I priced out a new Dell, which would be a P4 2.60 GHz (800 MHz front/side bus with hyperthreading), 512MB DDR RAM, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, 80GB hard drive, 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card, and Audigy 2 Soundblaster card. It comes with 8 USB 2.0 ports (2 front/6 rear). I'd swap the firewire PCI card out of my old unit into this one and keep my 17" flat panel monitor. The whole thing comes to $1070 with tax and shipping.

So, is it worth $700 more now to upgrade the whole thing (sans monitor) or not? I'd appreciate any thoughts.

I Don't Get Net

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but for the last couple of months, my web browser on my laptop was being hijacked by XML Overture's "Almighty Search Engine". Whenever I would type in a URL name and hit "Ctrl - Enter", which used to add the http://www..com to the URL and bring me to the page, I would be hijacked over to the "Almighty Search Engine". I finally got so sick to death of it, I did a little research. This issue is caused by a piece of adware called IGetNet. I found a way to manually deinstall it, and the problem is gone.

I hate spyware and adware. I believe that they violate my property rights. I never agree to have any of the things installed that pop-up on websites when you visit them (e.g., Comet Cursor or Gator). I have never installed, let alone used, programs like KaZaa. As such, I can see no legitimate way this got on my PC. I was given no warning that it would be. I was given no choice. Had I been, I would have opted out. If I visit a store to go shopping, the store-owner has no right to insert on my property something that will allow him/her to track my later movements and/or feed me ads at given moments. I do not believe that people should have the right to do that on PCs either, at least not without providing notice. I have not agreed to allow them to place their software on my property. I do hope that Congress passes a law to make this illegal. By and large, I don't want the government interfering in commerce, but this goes beyond commerce. This involves property rights. The government should be seeking to protect our property rights, not the rights of companies to violate them.

Budget Heck

Budget season hasn't been quite the same little slice of hell it usually is. In some part thanks to fabby technology. My laptop, wireless broadband connection, and a VPN have enabled me to work on the budget until the wee hours from the comfort of my very own couch. What more could a budget queen ask for?

Sadly, though, the lessening of budget hell to budget heck has dampened my inspiration to write budget haiku this year. All my budget haiku fans (I'm sure there's got to be one somewhere) will simply have to make do with last year's.

Why Bill Gates is a Better Businessman than Steve Jobs

Gates understands the concept of first-mover advantage and wouldn't be either so naive or arrogant to believe that a music-buying service would be "the thing" to get people to switch from Windows to Mac. Apple is finally introducing its iTunes for Windows online music store, months after it introduced the iTunes for Mac one. However in the interim, several competitors to iTunes have already gotten into the Windows market. This was thoroughly predictable, and there was nothing about Apple's technology that makes a fairly pricey technology switch worth it for the vast majority of consumers. Since the iPod for Windows works with MusicMatch, and MusicMatch will support any mp3 file purchased, Jobs doesn't even have that hook to fall back on.

Apple has great technology. Better technology than Microsoft. They package it beautifully. They just don't know how to market it. Fortunately iTunes won't make or break anyone, but it is another lost revenue opportunity.

Dear Spammers

Thank you so much for the lovely e-mails. It's so nice to know that so many of you care to write me, since about 75% of my e-mail is spam. But I have a few questions for you.

1. What possible purpose would getting big erections serve me? Write the guys I date.

2. I am sorry to learn that the assorted relatives and aides of Mobutu Sese Seko, Sani Abacha, and Jonas Savimbi have yet to find anyone to help them get their millions of dollars out of their countries. But do you think that asking me every other day is going to convince me?

3. What services do you think I offer that you are writing for more information on?

4. What would possess you to think that after viewing my site it would be a good place to cross-promote your client's aluminum siding business?

5. This is a website, not a TV show. How the hell are you going to bring it to Israeli TV? It doesn't even have a plot. Although if Israeli TV is anything like American TV, that might not seem like an obstacle to you.

Thank you. I look forward to receiving your detailed responses.

Baby You Can Park My Car

At long last, someone has designed a car for women. The new Toyota Prius can parallel park itself. Yippee! I hate parallel parking.

Pop-up Goes the Google

Those of you who use the Google toolbar, like I do, may have noticed recently that they upgraded it. They didn't ask you if you wanted to do it, they simply did it for you. Okay, it's pretty cool, so I don't much mind. I even decided to take advantage of its pop-up blocker functionality. I hate pop-ups as much as the next surfer. I was, therefore, highly amused to discover that the first time it blocked a pop-up, it gave me a pop-up window notifying me that it had blocked a pop-up. Sort of defeats the purpose.

Well, okay, it didn't do it the second time.

What Not to Do on Your Website

Write anything bad about the company you work for. I would have thought that was common sense. You never know when someone will accidentally run across it. And even if you think you're anonymous, well, you really just never know.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

The Senate Commerce Committee has approved a bill that would crack down on the deluge of spam e-mail that Internet users currently receive. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I hate to see increasing government regulations of private business. On the other, I hate receiving constant spam and am not sure why corporations ought to have the right to send me unsolicited crap. Television and radio commercials are one thing - I choose to watch TV or listen to the radio at certain times. There is nothing active that I choose to do that invites spam advertising, other than having e-mail (and, yes, I do feel the same way about unsolicited junk mailings).

It also bugs me that my personal information is valuable to businesses, yet I do not get to reap the profits of that value. It is completely out of my hands. Other people are making money off of my personal information. I grant that they perform a service by aggregating millions of bits of personal information into usable form. Nonetheless, it is my information, and it seems to me that I ought to be able to determine whether or not it gets aggregated and sold and, if I am willing, receive some fraction of the compensation the aggregator gets.

One part of the bill I have no issues with is increasing the penalties for hijacking user accounts. Sorry, no one gets to steal someone else's address and use it to send out mail. If you did that via the USPS, it would be mail fraud. It isn't any different just because it's On The Internet^TM.

In the meantime, could you do me egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam?

Diablo II Hazardous to Health

Remember how your mom used to tell you "Everything in moderation?" Some players of the computer game Diablo II apparently need to learn this lesson. Perhaps governments will now start requiring warnings on computer game packages. "Warning: Playing this game all night long can be hazardous to your health."

Link via duckboy & company

Building a Better Mousetrap

This is a really great invention - A smoke alarm that plays a recording of a parent's voice telling a child what to do in case of a fire.

Oh, That's What It's Called

Apple answers the question, what do people who are addicted to the internet have - an iLife.

I do love the Apple marketers. They really know how to target their market. They assuage the fears of the freaky Mac cultists (one of which I am now destined to become after seeing this). See, now when people tell them "Get a life," they can respond with "I already have one (even if Steve Jobs gave it to me)."

I Wouldn't Mind Living In This Car

Normally we think of people who have to live in their cars as unfortunate. But what if you had to live in a Cadillac that was "[o]utfitted with silk carpets, a crystal Bulgari clock, smoked-glass roof and a chilled-champagne compartment"? Got a spare $250,000?

Blogs in Newsland

Wired News has an article about how bloggers helped break several news stories in 2002. Although blog biggies Glenn Reynolds and Joshua Micah Marshall are both discussed, Meryl Yourish is also given a nod for having led the charge to bring the attack of a group of Hillel students at San Francisco State University by pro-Palestian protestors to national attention. Yay Meryl!

The article is a positive one. There is one naysayer, who will probably now rue the day she ever uttered these words to Noah Schachtman, as I've already seen them posted on several blogs:

"Bloggers are navel-gazers," said Elizabeth Osder, a visiting professor at The University of Southern California's School of Journalism. "And they're about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books."

She added, "There's an overfascination here with self-expression, with opinion. This is opinion without expertise, without resources, without reporting."

You know the difference between bloggers and friends who make you look at their scrap books? The difference is that no one makes anyone else look at a blog. You can choose to click and read one or bypass it completely. Harder to do that with your friends who invite you over to show you pictures of their fun-filled trip to DisneyWorld.

I was, however, previously unaware that there was a problem with us plain folk having opinions and expressing them. I thought we all did that every day in talking to our families, friends, and colleagues. What a horrible thing, to express them in a medium open to millions. You never know, you might actually learn something the media doesn't cover. Perhaps that's the real sin.

Am I Blue?

Business 2.0 has this article on why so many new tech devices are glowing blue. Yeah, I'm a geek.