Friday, December 28, 2007

LimeWire Not as Popular as Recent Reports Suggest

Today several news sources again reported that 36.4% of all PCs have Limewire installed. The reports are based on a press release published by Digital Music News, who misinterpreted their own data. The acual install base is less than 18%, 17.92 to be exact.

read more | digg story

Thursday, December 27, 2007

(I feel your pain) Are You Missing Empathy?

A great number of people suffer from EDD. (empathy deficit disorder) People who suffer from EDD are unable to step outside themselves and tune in to what other people experience. Unlike sympathy -- which reflects understanding of another person's situation, but viewed through your own lens -- empathy is what you feel when you enter the internal world of another person. Without abandoning your own perspective, you experience the other's emotions, conflicts or aspirations. That kind of connection builds healthy relationships -- an essential part of mental health.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

"Gotta Digg" The official Digg song! Super Bowl Finalist

Kina Grannis, has made a song about Digg and its really good! She's one of the top 10 finalists competing for a chance to be signed by Interscope Records and have her music video be played during the Super Bowl! You can watch the video here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoHzuLY1lcM. Vote for her at www.crashthesuperbowl.com

read more | digg story

Asus, your best defense against crossbow attacks.

A Russian durability stress test video for an Asus LCD. The salesman hits the monitor with a hammer and then shoots the monitor with a crossbow and it still works!

read more | digg story

Thursday, December 20, 2007

At $1 per Watt, the iTunes of Solar Energy Has Arrived

A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar shipped its first solar panels -- priced at $1 a watt. That's the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal. Curious that this story is not on every front page. How did Nanosolar make this breakthrough? While other companies have been focusing their efforts on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, Nanosolar took a different approach. It focused on manufacturing.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

First look: Firefox 3 beta 2 officially released

Mozilla has announced the official release of Firefox 3 beta 2, the tenth major development milestone for Mozilla's next-generation web browser. Ars looks at what the second beta brings to the table.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

$8,000-per-gallon printer ink leads to antitrust lawsuit

HP paid Staples $100 million to stop selling third-party ink cartridges, according to a lawsuit from a disgruntled man tired of high printer ink prices. The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating antitrust law to keep third-party cartridges off the shelves at Staples stores.

read more | digg story

Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Secret of the Time Machine-Assisted Hard Drive Swap

There's never been a better time to void the warranty on your MacBook and upgrade to one of those sweet 2.5" WD Scorpio 320GB drives. That was what made me throw caution to the wind and attempt a Time Machine-assisted swap. The good news is, it works as billed.

read more | digg story

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Who REALLY Needs Your Social Security Number

"Requests to provide our Social Security numbers have become so common that many people just assume they have no choice but to hand it over. That's actually not true, but having that knowledge is only half the battle. The real challenge is convincing the people who automatically request it that you really don't have to give it to them." But you may spend hours trying to convince them and in the end if your not able to speak to someone who is not an idiot you may have to talk your business elsewhere. What's really interesting is why do they require this information from you but they no not require it from an illegal alien?

read more | digg story

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

20 Terminal Commands for Hidden Settings in Leopard

One-line Terminal commands for changing hidden preferences in Mac OS X Leopard. Change settings for Spaces, Stacks, iCal, Spotlight, Dock, Finder, Safari and Time Machine that aren't accessible through the application or system preferences. All are easily reversed using a different Terminal Command.

read more | digg story

Windows XP Speed Boost Coming with SP3

Running an Office productivity test suite on a preview version of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, Devil Mountain discovered a 10 percent performance boost over the current version of Windows XP, the company reported on its blog. "Vista's biggest competition isn't Apple or Novell or Red Hat; it's Microsoft itself, it's XP," Benjamin Gray, an analyst at Forrester Research, said about that survey. With SP3 due for release in the first quarter of 2008, many enterprises are interested in extending the lifecycle of XP for quite a bit longer before taking the plunge into Vista.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The Apple Digital Lifestyle

There is now a web site called The Digital Lifestyle that offers 24 hour video coverage of every thing Apple. You will see computers, iPod, iPhones and any thing else they can find that deals with Apple products. So I did a brief checkout of the site and they seem to have 100 viewers most of the time. I hope they will last!

Monday, November 26, 2007

Stop Dressing Your Daughter Like a Prostitute

This is an interesting story from The New York Sun. " The princess had just graduated to a size seven when everything went to hell. We headed for our favorite department store, ready to take that leap into the world of 7–16. Bye-bye, 4–6X, I thought to myself with a tug of sadness. My baby was growing up, and apparently into a prostitute. "There must be some mistake," I said. "These are, well, slutty-looking. I'm talking about clothes for a little girl in first grade." "That's all we've got." "But these look like things a hooker would wear!" She smiled sadly. "You have no idea how many times I hear that every day."

read more | digg story

Desktop Evolution: Windows and Mac OS Comparison (PIC)

Since Windows 95 dropped more than a decade ago, our desktops have evolved to no end. Having recently had a fresh Leopard install on our Macs, we at Gizmodo thought we would take a look back, with a side-by-side comparison of Windows and Mac operating systems. All the major releases are here, and it is interesting to see the general progression made. Jump for our ridiculously large and awesome image.

read more | digg story

Monday, November 19, 2007

Top 15 Leopard Hints

It’s been almost a month since Leopard was officially released, and in that month we’ve had some time to play with the OS and get to know it. Here are the Top 15 Leopard Hints we’ve come across this past month.

read more | digg story

How to take a course at MIT free -- at home

"You may not have the grades, the money or even the means to get to a physics class with one of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's best lecturers.But if you have an Internet connection anywhere in the world, you can watch a video of the Dutch-born physics professor, Walter Lewin, swinging on a cable across the front of a lecture hall in his "Classical Mechanics" course to demonstrate that weight doesn't affect the time it takes a pendulum to complete a cycle of motion. And you can do this for free."

read more | digg story

The Tao of Dilbert

Most IT people and they will agree that many times Dilbert reflects their life at the office. How many times have you read the comic and said to yourself oh that sounds like so and so at my office?

 Amazon started selling Kindle an electronic book, newspaper, and blog reading portable device for $399.00. Now at $400 bucks would you buy it? I mean that's the same as buying another iPhone if you have one. Do you really hate carrying around a paper book so much that you would spend $400 bucks???

PC Magazine recently pointed out the Microsoft's Zune can't win when compared to the iPod. I agree and I think they should spend their efforts on oh lets say fixing all the problems with Vista. Really I think the big problem with Microsoft (other then stealing ideas, squishing competition) is that they lack focus. If they put all their effort into a few core area's then they might actually produce some great products.

The tinfoil hat groupies were busy this week tossing out conspiracy theories about how Apple is tracking you via the iPhone and in the end their claims have been found to be bogus

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Bad Security?

It seems like a never ending cat and mouse game between the hackers and the software programmers. To be sure much if the holes boil down to bad programing habits and also lack of imagination as it why on earth would some one do that? 

Microsoft Windows XP is a very popular OS and its very common so no surprise this week when "a Microsoft executive calls the ease with which two British e-crime specialists managed to hack into a Windows XP computer as both enlightening and frightening." It very common for an novice computer user to buy a computer and toss it on the Internet with out patching it. "After all who has time for that I have work to do!" I have been told my more then one manager the he was frustrated that I was always patching systems. "After all I can just go down to the computer store an buy a computer from the store and it's ready to go!" Scary right? Well all too common a mind set that IT Pro have to deal with.

This week a hacker found over 492,000 unprotected Oracle & Microsoft SQL database servers connected directly to the internet an not even protected by a firewall. True even with a good firewall it's possible to use an SQL injection attack to nuke a database. But IMHO some security is better then none at all. 

Even if you use a smart phone you may not be totally safe. Before Apple released the iPhone 1.1.2 patch there was a security hole that users we using to add software to their iPhone. The Fast Company recently published a story about how it might be possible to hack an iPhone. Click here to see the video.


Digg!

Friday, November 16, 2007

Apple Store Black Friday Sale

Well it's that time of year where there may be deals to be had on computers so if your computer is feeling a bit slow then swing by Apples online store on November the 23rd and see what they have on sale it might save you a few dollars on your next computer purchase. While you may be a PC person now I strongly suggest you take a few moments and see what Apple has to offer (really its the best of both worlds). If you need additional help Walt Mossberg has a great FAQ.

This week Apple has released a number of patches and updates some of the most notable are the Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.1 and Safari for Windows updates. In both causes I recommend you NOT use software update and go directly to the Apple web site and download the combo updaters. Don't be thrown for a loop only the Tiger update is listed as a combo updater however if you look at the leopard update you will notice that it's much larger then the one offered via software update so it's a combo update. 

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Vista Death Watch

So what can Microsoft do to improve things with Vista? Here are three suggestions:Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP because Vista has simply not shown any life in the market. We have to begin to ask ourselves if we are really looking at Windows Me/2007, destined to be a disdained flop. By all estimates the number of Vista installations hovers around the number of Macs in use.1. It can give up on the stupid variations and lower the price on the one good Vista, Vista Ultimate. I’d say $99 would be a price everyone can live with.2. Microsoft can scuttle the entire product. Why not? Work on a whole new OS starting today with one team and work on SP3 for XP with another team to keep users on Windows.3. Roll out Vista 2.0. Figure out some way to add some nifty features, perhaps stolen from the next version of the Mac OS. Bring in some outside designers if you have to. Oh, and lower the price on this one, too.

read more | digg story

Why English isn’t the only language you should know

"Although English is spoken by almost 500 million people around the world, it is impossible to deny how countries such as China, Japan, Russia and India are becoming increasingly important, both in the world of politics and the world of business. Here are some reasons to expand your horizon and learn a new language." Chinese & Japanese are not that easy to learn. Spanish is much simpler at least for me in California as even if you don't want to learn its almost impossible not to pickup some thing. However as for myself I am working on Russian. IMHO think China & Russia offer good opportunities for business now and in the future.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

iPhone selling like hot cakes in Europe

Well The iPhone is selling well in Europe and despite the inclement weather in the UK many waited in long lines just like in the USA while some stores reported almost no lines. There are reports that O2 sold iPhones at the fast and furious rate of 4.2 per second across all authorized outlets for around 70,000 units and O2 said that the iPhone has been the fastest selling device they have ever sold.

StarWars HelpDesk


There are reports that Apple is working on a new ultra-light notebook. The notebook will ship with Leopard and may even have a NAND Flash drive. However the rumor mills can't seem to find out if the 12" or 13" or if it will have a internal optical drive or an external one.

If you have a Mac Pro tower with PCI-E a slot and you want the best performance from your computer. Then check out the Expansion Slot Utility located in /System/Library/ Core Services. Once you have your optimum settings selected you will need to save them and reboot.

Monday, November 12, 2007

The SNL iPhone sketch that never aired

Gizmodo.com has posted a very funny Saturday Night Live iPhone sketch that was never aired for some reason. The tipster who filled us in on the real story behind the hacked iPhone that appeared on Saturday Night Live also linked us to this video which never aired that night, cut for another sketch. In fact, it may be the last in the series ever produced given the recent writers strike.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Leopard spanks Vista!

Today Computerworld wrote that  "There's really no contest. Tiger is a better OS that Vista, and there are no long-term downsides to Leopard. Vista doesn't measure up. " I also found and interesting article about the myth that buying a Apple costs more then a PC. The author explains how that PC you are thinking of buying really will cost more then the an Apple Macintosh would. Looks like Apple is also working on 10.5.1 and it's said to have at least two dozen fixes. Also included are updates to Leopards FireWall. iLounge talks about the secrets & features of iTunes 7.5.  My odd bit of interesting news for the day was a Digg Story the spooky side of Scientology




Sunday, November 4, 2007

Interesting news from Europe & USA

There have been a flurry of articles on the net this weekend and I am sure more will follow this week talking about the iPhone (part touch iPod and phone) that will start selling in the UK this Friday. The iPhone is going to do wonders for Apples bottom line and so far the iPhone has been a total success even though it's not selling overseas yet un-lockers have been shipping them to needy buyers. But that's not all Macintosh sales have seen a strong increase and that's good news all around. Those of us in the USA who travel can now enjoy the new AT&T international plan with rates starting as low as $25! 

What about those rude cell phone users doesn't it make you crazy the way they yell into their phone and then give you the evil eye for daring to look their way? Some people it seems lack the common sense to step out side or if that's not possible talk in a whisper. After all do we really need to know what outfit your wearing in the morning or what an idiot your boyfriend is? Well now there is a solution, however lets just say it's not legal but oh does it sound fun! 

Not only those who are developers might find the article "Why Cocoa Bloat is Nonsense" an interesting read. 

I am sure you have all had a chance to hear about how Leopard is a security risk because they have an open firewall. Well that's in part true ipfw only has one rule that allows all incoming traffic but then it routes that traffic to a new custom Apple firewall. So its a bit of a mystery as to why Apple went the custom route for their firewall but I am sure they will be forthcoming with details soon.

Asus is shipping the Eee PC starting at $399. This PC is running a custom Linux install that is said to be very simple for new computer users to learn. However the Eee PC seems to suffer from a lack a space to store your documents or even install new programs. The Eee PC is very small and light but still even if Im a new user I want room to grow. This weekend I know I saw an ad in the local news paper saying they were selling an Acer laptop with Windows Vista for $399 so I am not sure what the advantage of buying an Eee PC would be? I hear if you buy the Eee PC in bulk then the price drops to $199. I think Id save my money for a MacBook.

Digg!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Tidbits from around the Internet

Time Magazine online has said that the Invention of the year is the iPhone. While I don't personally have an iPhone yet I want one! I have used Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm phones and they just don't stack up to the iPhone. I have yet to meet a person who owns and iPhone say they hate it.

Heros actress Hayden Panettiere recently was in Japan attempting in vain to save some dolphins  children should not click on this link (WARNING GRAPHIC). If you have a moment swing by her my-space page and well I learn something new every day as it looks like she can sing too!

Oh my gosh there is a new virus for OS X, NOT! There have been a plethora of articles on the Internet today all talking about security problems with OS X and a new virus. Nothing has changed and OS X 10.5 is still one of the most secure operating systems in the world not matter how much others might not like it. However nothing will save you on any OS if you download a program and double click it. So no there is no OS X virus but there is a trojan that can be found if visit porn sites. Even if that were to change remember as of today there are no Macintosh viruses and there is virtually no malware that is targeting Leopard and one new Trojan does not change this fact. So if it makes you sleep better to buy anti-virus software (there is a free option too) for our Mac then by all means do so. But its not required as in the Windows word. While we are at it here is short list of how to avoid a virus on your computer:
1) Don't go to porn sites!
2) Don't go to sites that offer pirate (stolen) software or music!
3) Turn on your computers FireWall software.
3) If you purchased anti-virus software don't be cheap pay for your updates. Outdated software is useless.

AppleInsider has written a very informative article not only covering the early origins of Apple Developer tools but all the new features of the Apple Developer tools for Leopard. Some have complained that Leopard does not have the most current Java 6, but really most corporations as still a version behind so it's really much ado about nothing.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

PC Magazine 'Leopard is “by far the best operating system ever written'

In his 4.5-star (out of 5) review of Leopard, Edward Mendelson (pcmag.com) maintains that Leopard is “by far the best operating system ever written for the vast majority of consumers, with dozens of new features that have real practical value.” Mendelson “found Leopard to be startlingly fast, brilliantly streamlined, and packed with conveniences.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Apple bits

All is well and good for Apple computer (yes I know they dropped the computer from their name but I still like the sound of "Apple computer" better then just Apple) as of today they have sold over two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard!  

So far there have been very few problems reported in the news about Leopard bugs. So if you are a user of APE you are sure of have some problems. I recommend that you uninstall the software before you install Leopard.

Recently there have been a number of articles written about how well Mac's do when compared-with PC's in the area of total cost of ownership (TCO). While the numbers are small Apple is growing in the corporate and small business worlds as a viable work tool. Have you noticed that Apples have less support calls then PC's so have many an open mined IT manager. But of course there are always those Apple haters in the world and to them I say hey if you enjoy working on your broken computer great I have real work to do.


Last but not least how many times must I be told that this or that user can't use a Mac because they don't have a second button? Check out an Apple Mighty mouse and if that's no to your liking well there are other options such as the Microsoft Intellimouse. Chris Pirillo as written a interesting article about this mouse myth

Apple will shortly be selling the iPhone in the Europe but how many will want them without 3G? I for one will be very interested in seeing what the sales numbers are for Europe are because there are rumors that Apple will be selling a 3G iPhone in the not too distant future. The heavy text users in the UK should keep an eye out for so called premium text services as they are not covered under the iPhone plan. One father had a rude surprise, when he received this daughters $10,000.00 phone bill? Some in Europe will are predicting that the iPhone will cause a crime wave but IMHO no more then any iPod has.



Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes


Digg!

Friday, October 26, 2007

Apples Leopard the death knell for Microsoft's Vista?

Last evening all Apple retail stores will start selling Leopard to the masses. However if your like me and you pre-ordered the software then you had the 10.5 hologramed box in hand by early morning. I would have to say that this is the best designed OS packing that Apple has ever shipped. Even the manual they have included is actually useful and really covered all the new features so that there is not need to run to your local book store and buy additional books on how to use Leopard unless you really want to.

Leopard very well could be the death knell for Vista. Well in short its every thing that Vista is not and should have been. While Leopard is slick and faster then Vista it's familiar easy of use is ever present and best of all it will not bog your older computer down or add useless copy protection onto your computer. Sorry Microsoft but why to I need to buy a new crazy fast computer just to run Windows at a usable speed and why must I spend hours trying to find the correct drivers so my system will work correctly? The computer industry loves Microsoft because they know most users will opt to go an buy a new PC rather then go though the pain of an upgrade. Another dirty industry secret is that Apples are really cheaper in the long run as they require less support and IT staff but you will never hear that from most IT folks because it might mean they would be out of work. You see if they implement a complex solution that the common users can't support then they have jobs for life. Why I even read that one IT person sends Mr. Gates a Christmas card every year thanking him for writing bad code and keeping him employed. Yes, Apple can be a viable computer in your home or office.

Leopard is boasting over 300+ new or updated features. While not all the features will be useful to everyone I am sure everyone will have their favorites that they like. The new email templates are a lot of fun! But most may not be excited by ZFS but you have to admit it is very interesting for the future. After extensive testing I have found that the new Leopard OS is every thing that Apple said it would be. However I do strongly recommend that you upgrade your computers memory to at least 1GB from RAM because while it will run with 512MB of RAM it's a bit slow. If you are using FileVault then you will have problems with Time Machine because it must back up (or restore) your whole home directory and you may not restore individual files.

I also thought it was worth a click for those interested in a bit of computer trivia to check out the fantastic articles recently from AppleInsider titled the road to Mac OS X Leopard: System Preferences, Parental Controls & Directory Services, Desktop, Media Features, Collaborative, Dashboard.



Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes


Digg!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Mac shows off its business side

Macs are not the standard in the corporate world, in part because of a false perception they are more expensive and offer fewer software choices than Windows PCs. "We run Macs and we don't need many people in IT. In fact, they have more problems fixing printers and peripherals than the computers themselves."

read more | digg story

Friday, October 19, 2007

Getting your Mac ready for OS X 10.5

Check for updates to all your programs so that you are sure that they will run under 10.5 as well as they did under 10.4. "Over time, most computers accumulate clutter, including outdated software, forgotten downloads, and files you no longer need. Not only can this clutter slow down your Mac and make it harder to find things, it can cause problems when you perform a major upgrade—incompatibilities may show up, or you may run out of disk space, for example."


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes


read more | digg story

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Apple now sells 1 in 12 U.S. computers

"Apple now sells 1 in 12 U.S. computers: Gartner says Apple's growth rate is eight times the industry average"

read more | digg story

Why Leopard rocks and Vista is a sleeper for older PC's

Don't get me wrong Vista is much better then Windows ME but is it better then Windows XP? Well much of that may come down to your preferences and if you own a new computer or not. The major problems with Vista is that in addition of the sucking sound of your CPU used by all the extra DRM that unless you do a lot of work making sure you have the correct drivers Vista is not a simple upgrade.

What is the average use to do thinking of upgrading to do? Well if you are going to by a new computer you might as well consider the Apple Macintosh running Leopard and of course the OS will work with most of the current Mac's as well. Leopard will offer 0ver 300+ new features that are sure to dazzle most users but not all. In my mind there are a few features that really jump out like much improved security, parental controls, automatic backup, and Unix! Yes, Unix and that is a major reason why OS X is so stable. Lets not forget that every Macintosh comes bundled with iLife 08 which I would say is a must have and there is no bundle software on the Windows side that you can even compare to iLife.

Another option for users of older computers who can't afford a new PC running OS X or Vista is Linux. There are many flavors of Linux and each has its plus and minus but if you have no preference then a very popular choice is Ubuntu. I was able to take and install Ubuntu on an antiquated dell laptop with no problems. The Ubuntu software recognized all the systems hardware and made the system feel almost new.

However these days do you even really need a full computer? If you are not a heavy Internet user consider the iPhone or iPod Touch. So far the iPhones have had very strong sales and I have yet to meet an iPhone owner who is sorry they bought it. Both devices ship all the software you should need to be productive and soon Apple will add third party software.


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes


Digg!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Secrets of Safari 3

A selection of tips for Safari 3 beta aimed at the average Safari user as well as more experienced users. Includes undocumented features that can be enabled through the Terminal such as the Web Inspector and the pie chart progress indicator. Also explains some more well known features such as merging windows and bookmarking all open tabs.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Mac OS X Leopard ships this month!

Apple will be shipping Mac OS X Leopard on October the 26th. A special event will he held at every Apple Retail Store from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m and if you’re one of the first 500 guests, you’ll go home with a special edition Leopard T-shirt.

Leopard will be the latest in the line of Apple OS X releases replacing Tiger (notice the cat theme) and it boasts 300+ new features. While I must admit it's becoming harder for Apple to wow us (and Microsoft for that matter) there are a number of useful features being built into the operating system that I am sure most will find very useful.

I have had the chance to run the Leopard beta and it seems pretty solid so I am looking forward to the new release on the 26th. Will you be upgrading? I will, but remember folks its always a good idea to backup your system before you leap.


Digg!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Interesting sites to visit today

Today I found four sites that I enjoyed visiting today and I thought I would share them with you:
1) Sanity check: 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT
2) How to track the original location of an email via its IP address
3) Review: Apple Wireless Keyboard (aluminum)
4) Want to be depressed? See your salary in real time!
I was very depressed when I found that I do not earn any money per second! I must find a higher paying job!


Digg!

LinkedIn?

Not long ago I use to be in the anti LinkedIn crowd but after losing contact with some coworkers from the past I began to see the real value of the LinkedIn. Now I never have to worry about keeping updated as old friends change jobs and email accounts as they do all the work for me updating their accounts. If you have not used LinkedIn give it a try I think you will be surprised at just how easy it is and addictive and much better then myspace or facebook!


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