Mother's ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista

Funny story about a mother @ the Gartner Inc Symposium ITxpo challenging Ballmer on Vista.

Mother's ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista

-ZB

KeePass Password Safe

This is my favorite cross-platform password database and generator program. Don't ask me for any of my passwords -- I don't know them... I use 64+ character passwords for just about everything and I don't write them under my keyboard (where else would I save my gum?). KeePass is THE king of apps -- lets you use a USB key as a physical key for your passwords, allows you to generate your passwords via keyboard and mouse actions and stores your information using strong AES and Twofish encryption.

KeePass Password Safe

Use it - love it!

-ZB

BetaNews | First Linux Patent Infringement Suit Comes from Familiar Plaintiff

*sigh* -- Microsoft is hiding behind a 3rd party to sue Linux distros for what seems to be virtual workspaces... Jeez, I recall seeing this in REALLY early HPUX boxes and early Linux distros way before I ever saw this in a Microsoft product (and it had to be enabled via an XP PowerToy).

BetaNews | First Linux Patent Infringement Suit Comes from Familiar Plaintiff

One word: "LAME" (not not the MP3 encoder ;-)).

-ZB

Ubuntu 7.10 Release Candidate | Ubuntu

We're getting closer and closer to the release of Gutsy Gibbon!! Ubuntu 7.10 is scheduled to be released on Oct 13th -- in the mean time, the Release Candidate has been pushed out the door.

Ubuntu 7.10 Release Candidate | Ubuntu

Enjoy!

-ZB

Small Business - Days of Dell Deals

uhm -- OK -- Dell sells computers and some accessories. I get it... but WTF is this?? They are now selling Vacuums, fridges and microwaves? Maybe HP (HPX) is kicking their but so they need to venture into the home appliance market???

Small Business - Days of Dell Deals

-ZB

PC World - Business Center: Microsoft Adds Event Planning to Live Services

Yawn -- I thought I'd put this here for those of you that use Microsoft's spaces or "Live" features. This is a neat idea but hardly innovative. evite.com and meetup.com have been around for nearly a decade providing the same functionality... *Yawn*.

PC World - Business Center: Microsoft Adds Event Planning to Live Services

-ZB

Sticking it to l'homme: Canadian co-op forms own ISP : Page 1

Pretty cool story about some guys in Toronto that have started their own ISP by renting out lines from a wholesaler (indirectly to Bell Canada) and reselling them on the condition that the clients share their WiFi connection. Interesting concept (until WiMax gets turned on).

Sticking it to l'homme: Canadian co-op forms own ISP


-ZB

Strong Canadian dollar means Canadians pay dearly for Xbox Live, PSN action

Strong Canadian dollar means Canadians pay dearly for Xbox Live, PSN action

It seems that Canadians are getting a "boot" (get it... a-boot) when it comes to buying online credits for gaming consoles... when will Canadians ever get to enjoy their strong dollar eh? Maybe we need to advocate for the Amero!

-ZB

New Study Says Sleep Deprivation Costing American Employees Work Productivity

I think many people in the IT field (and other fields) are trying to balance family life with an increased demand from their work life -- they are failing and / or reducing sleep cycles to increase their odds at balance. This is particularly difficult when you add the globalization trend which requires you to span your time across many time zones... The impact of these trends on productivity is interesting...

New Study Says Sleep Deprivation Costing American Employees Work Productivity

-ZB

Firefox extension: DownThemAll!

This is a GREAT Firefox extension - I use it just about every day... It adds advanced downloading capabilities to Firefox and increases download speeds.

DownThemAll!

Use it - love it!

-ZB

Toshiba Recalls AC Adapters sold with Portable DVD Players Due to Burn Hazard

Toshiba Recalls AC Adapters sold with Portable DVD Players Due to Burn Hazard

Please stop using your AC Adapter and follow instructions immediately if this affects you!

-ZB

Mozilla aims Firefox at mobile devices | Underexposed - CNET News.com

Interesting turn of events -- Firefox for Mobile :-) -- I can see some synergies with Google's forthcoming mobile OS.

Mozilla aims Firefox at mobile devices | Underexposed - CNET News.com

-ZB

Ubuntu Linux May be Preloaded on PCs - Yahoo! News

Canonical Ltd., the company that supports Ubuntu Linux, is trying to work out a deal with hardware vendors such as Dell Inc. to make Ubuntu available preinstalled on servers.

Ubuntu Linux May be Preloaded on PCs - Yahoo! News

-ZB

Tokyo 2007 Preview: Personal mobility from Toyota, i-Real concept - AutoblogGreen

This looks like a really cool new design for a wheelchair type of device. Very interesting design and engineering.

Tokyo 2007 Preview: Personal mobility from Toyota, i-Real concept - AutoblogGreen

-ZB

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Madonna Dumps Record Industry

Radiohead, NIN and now Madonna -- looks like the record industry will need to do some fancy footwork to maintain some semblance of a business model.

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Madonna Dumps Record Industry

-ZB

Download Winamp Media Player 5.5 - Download Winamp Media Player for Free

Happy 10th b-day WinAmp... I still remember the old WinAmp 2.x
They've sure come a LONG way!

Download Winamp Media Player 5.5 - Download Winamp Media Player for Free

"Winamp -- it really kicks the lamas ass!"

-ZB

Blazingly Fast Internet2 Gets 10x Boost: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Wow -- 100Gbps to the desktop :-) Now that is bandwidth!!

Blazingly Fast Internet2 Gets 10x Boost: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Disclaimer: Long LVLT

-ZB

Tufts research aims to 'read the minds' of computer users

I believe I posted about this a while back but it's so cool I thought I'd post up this article as well... Imagine a laser pointed at your head that studies what mood you're in and allows that PC to react to it. Makes me think of the ancient water torture... :-)

Tufts research aims to 'read the minds' of computer users

-ZB

Computerworld - KDE's Windows weapon: KOffice 2.0

Long live competition!

Computerworld - KDE's Windows weapon: KOffice 2.0:

"While the industry is distracted by the ongoing tussle between Microsoft and OpenOffice.org over document formats, the KDE project is quietly preparing the next generation of its own office suite, KOffice, for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X."

-ZB

VisualWget

I haven't tried this one yet but since it's based on wget (something I use quite a bit in the Linux world), I thought I would post this.

Home - VisualWget

-ZB

Microsoft Excel : Calculation Issue Update (Fix Available)

I reported a pretty serious bug in Excel a week or so ago. It seems that MSFT has fixed the bug and will try to get it into a future 'patch Tuesday' patch or at least in Office 2007 SP1. In the spirit of Patch Tuesday (yesterday) -- go git yerself patched!

Microsoft Excel : Calculation Issue Update (Fix Available)

-ZB

Meet the Google Broadcasting Company: AdSense video units are game-changing

Next gen AdSense... logical progression. Adds on video (sounds like commercials to me :)). I've toyed with AdSense on my site here -- I don't get enough traffic to make a dime off the ads. Maybe if some of you actually clicked on the ads to support me for a change! :-P *kidding*. I don't do this for money -- at least not yet ;-).

Meet the Google Broadcasting Company: AdSense video units are game-changing

-ZB

Starting salaries surge for computer science grads

We all had a hunch this was happening -- we've been seeing decreasing enrollment in the Comp Sci field for years now... Looks like the scarcity of laborers may be driving their price up... A step in the right direction for those of us that survived the dot com bust.

Starting salaries surge for computer science grads

-ZB

The Orange Box - 5 Games. One Box.

Now THIS is a deal! Anyone who likes FPS games knows HL2 and Valve. Half Life 2 has to be one of the most beautiful and immersive games ever. The game experience is amazing. If you're like me, you found Episode 1 much too short... Well Valve has released Episode 2 :-). As usual -- you can pick it up from the Steam console OR you can go to the store and pick up "The Orange Box". This has the original HL2, EP1, EP2 as well as two other games -- all for 50$. That is a sweet sweet deal if you've never played the HL franchise!

The Orange Box - 5 Games. One Box.

-ZB

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for October 2007

4 Critical, 3 Important... Patch early and patch often :-)

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for October 2007

-ZB

apache friends - xampp for windows

I've dabbled in web development on and off for years... I thought I'd toss out links to a few OSS projects that have helped me setup a rapid development ecosystem at home.

XAMPP and WAMP are very similar in what they do -- read up on them and pick the one you like the most. My experience is with WAMP but I've heard good things about XAMPP as well.

• apache friends - xampp for windows
  
• WAMP
  

-ZB

Put an Office in Your Pocket - lifehack.org

Those USB keys are often used to transfer files -- many people (including some at the office) have been using them as a portable office by installing many of their productivity applications, browsers, email etc onto the pen drives.

Put an Office in Your Pocket - lifehack.org

Here's another article on how to set yourself up in case you're interested in test driving it.

-ZB

National Post: City outraged over mint fee for one-cent campaign

The Canadian Mint must be bored... they are going after the city of Toronto for the use of an image of a 1 Cent piece.

National Post

-ZB

The Atari 2600: The Box That Launched A Million IT Careers - Hardware - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

A bit of nostalgia :-)

The Atari 2600: The Box That Launched A Million IT Careers - Hardware - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

-ZB

McDonald's Launches Free Wi-Fi in UK Restaurants

Bravo McDonald's -- let overweight people stay sitting for longer by providing them with Wi-Fi :-) *I know, I know -- it's a broad brush*. I suppose I applaud them for inching us forward towards ubiquitous Wi-Fi. Some hotels are still charging upwards of 20$ / day for access to Wi-Fi... silly.

McDonald's Launches Free Wi-Fi in UK Restaurants

-ZB

Mac OS X and Linux Fail to Compare to Vista - In terms of growth - Softpedia

A bit of a shock tactic heading to this article. It basically shows that there are some upgrades from XP to Vista happening and that Linux adoption rates have doubled this year but not enough to make a dent in the juggernaut's market share. Apple is making consistent growth but it's hard to wrestle the MSFT gorilla.

Mac OS X and Linux Fail to Compare to Vista - In terms of growth - Softpedia

-ZB

BBC NEWS | UK | Boy in court on terror charges

I'm not a fan of censorship or "Big Brother" watching over everyone... If you defend against everything, you defend nothing (you're spread too thinly). Some poor kid in the UK is in court for having a copy of the "Anarchists' cookbook". I don't condone violence or the promotion of hate material etc... but censorship is a fine line.

BBC NEWS | UK | Boy in court on terror charges

-ZB

With 'phone' project, Google has mobile ad dollars in its sights - International Herald Tribune

Good article on what has been largely speculated in the industry -- that Google is working on a phone OS. Interestingly enough - it seems that Google is not really trying to compete with the likes of the iPhone but really trying to increase its revenues in the online advertising space by extending ads to the mobile phone business. It is also increasing its rivalry with Microsoft by joining the list of phone OSes like Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

With 'phone' project, Google has mobile ad dollars in its sights - International Herald Tribune

All in all, competition is good for you and I :-)

-ZB