Blogs

As pervasive as it is, I truly hate the term Blog. It inspires insipid faces of trendhopping, teens posting thoughts which, in any other forum, would be considered excessive; Of note is the advents of things like Technorati and the superflous numbers of services coming around. Whats interesting to note is what people use it for. To some its an online journal, or a method of advertisements, to others its a way to transmit their travels. Its entertainment and as with all forms of entertainment there is quality and there is crap.
What scares the powers that be out there is that its unfiltered. One can gauge issues of the day, opinions or popularity simply by reading. Its a raw information source thats truly devoid of spin. The downside is large portions of it are filled with teen angst, bile, anger and pettiness. Then again, that doesn''t really differ it from the regular news, does it?


Microsoft has come out with Sumthin
No new IPOD? Damn.
Yeah I hate Charlie Brown Too

Intrusions of several types

Invasive, obnoxious, petty and dumb. Malware engineers have had to fall back on other methods of intrusion thanks to the current iterations of popup blockers being built into practically everything. The most notorious workaround being the ads built to resemble windows error messages. Said ad warns the reader they are compromised and offers Paid-per-fix solutions; a new low. It makes me wonder if its possible to criminalize being sleazy- which candidate is running on THAT platform? Then again, if this were so, the vast majority of guys in bars would have been fined into financial ruin.

The good senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, has given us all a good laugh with his concern of us sending 'internetz' to each other over our analgous systems of tubes. But the real issue remains. This gentleman is in charge of regulating Internet Commerce for the United states and his cumulative knowledge of the internet in a dead heat with my 5 year old nephew. Currently the good senator will try to push his anti-netneutrality bill through during congress' recess. One wonders how ISPs forcing all traffic exclusively to their partners will help anyone but the senators cheif campaign contributors.

Dont get me wrong, there are problems everywhere in this debate.

Well CRAP

Given that I only played through it once last year, I sought to reinject myself with some good old fashioned Sam Fisher Fury until THIS was released: I reinstalled my copy of Splinter cell: Chaos Theory. BOY was that a mistake, as a matter of fact- the sucker crashed my computer. Though the game itself ran (note to Ubisoft my copy didn't come with a single player key regardless of WHAT you say), slowly but surely, all other programs STOPPED working, the system began to lurch. Programs would barely run, and installs froze. Everything kept hanging- then this morning POW the sucker wont even start up. In essence, I cant play my own copy of this game- Ive wasted $30. Its official- Starforce sucks.

This game was also responsible for destroying my DVD burner, but that neither here nor there.

Of nlite and Men

While I’m not usually one to cry foul, it’s been fascinating to watch both sides of the NSA spying issues roll out in front of the American people. I especially enjoyed the press conference when we were literally told, “its not illegal- trust us”, before he patted us on the head and told us to head back to the jungle-gym. Regardless of the side of the issue you reside, you should probably make your voice heard- Keep in mind writing a letter has a lot more power than sending an email.

A whole career with an unnamed wireless carrier has come and gone in the time between my last post and present. Considering the grueling hours and the insane customers, this was (virtually) a thankless job. Admittedly, I didn’t have the freedom some people do when dealing with the ‘public’, so I couldn’t tell them to fuck off. My last day there was a hideous conglomeration between sassy-entitled-college-girls and senior citizen who insisted the phone hardware was scheming against them At any rate, I left without giving a 2 week notice, since this would defeat my primary goal of getting-the-hell-out-of-there. I’ve worked retail before, but never have I met so many people who truly believed they had a right to be abusive. Several claimed to have problems with their equipment that haven’t been seen since radios inception.

On a completely different Tack, I’m done with Windows Vista. I was excited to join the Microsoft Windows Vista Consumer Preview Program, which came with legitimate key and legal use until June 2007. Unfortunately, without 2gb of ram, the system was extremely slow, halting, and crashing erratically. Despite numerous sources, compatibility was still a problem with the majority of software I usually run. You would think a public beta would have less bugs, but they made no guarantees. Besides, the information they gathered from the public was ten times their internal testing staff.

Nlite- a fantastic utility for creating an unattended install of Windows XP. The benefits of this are simplicity, removal of useless software at the base level and integration of almost anything you want- preinstalled.


Link of the Day: JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank
Just for the reader reviews alone, note the Red Sox fans story...

On "the Metro"

It’s especially amazing to me to look at the state of the pamphlet they themselves loosely call a ‘newspaper’; The Metro. On a regular basis, I find grammar that could only have been minced by a brazen unregulated spell-check. Keep in mind a near 50% of this product is full page ads, and that’s not including the half and quarter page ads the actual content is on (seriously 14 out of 30 pages).

I’m pretty sure there’s no consideration between content and the ad that sits beside it. Witness the dating page section (page 15 for today May 4th) hosting a picture of a happy couple clad in dripping wet bathing suits, man holding woman up in his arms, both embracing in profile- staring at the camera caught in an ecstatic mid laugh. Next to this picture in 32 pixel font- “NO MORE CONSTIPATION HEMORRHOIDS OR GAS!”

What worries me is that this shill of a paper is consulted more often than not, that some won’t see it as the trashy biased piece of …. Digression. I have yet to count the number of times “call now for your risk free drug trial!” appears but I’m positive it’s over 30. What I’m trying to say is hey, its ok to read the Metro just don’t READ the metro, realize its not real news. Free is a great price, until you realize you’re getting what you’re paying for. I mean they ARE giving it away arent they?

Dinner and a movie...

Recently the White house Correspondents Dinner held on Saturday night had a speaker who is close to my heart. I speak, of course, of Steven Colbert. Don’t worry, through the modern marvel of the internet, you can still download it, (no transcripts yet!). Colbert covered a surprising variety of topics; Fox news, new press secretary Tony Snow, boxing a glacier, Valerie Plame, just to name a few. It takes an inscrutable amount of balls to bring material like that to such a room. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he covered the same things in his speech that he did in his show- but I was. Probably because, most of the issues he mentioned are still being avoided rather than answered.

In other things-you-dont-want-to-know™ I saw Lucky Number Slevin this weekend, It might be worth your time. Its not your usual Hollywood crap, (unless that's your thing).

On Apple...

........Now that its possible to boot a new Mac Book Pro into Windows, there is great speculation as to gamings future on Apples flagship products. People have their own notions as to what a ‘Mac gamer is’, not that PC gamers have anything to be especially proud of. What’s to stop a developer from just saying hey, buy windows if you want to run our games, we’re not going to bother. Of course no game studio would come out and SAY that., but there cant be much incentive to port a game. In the past I always thought Apple just needed to focus on certain niche forms of gaming like Nintendo and Sony did. Those companies go after an experience not just a game title, when was the last time you saw a Sony hit title release on multiple consoles within a year?

........I can only hope there is a method to this madness that is Apple, I would hate to see them disappear. By they way they are not going into the software business anytime soon.

New things to waste your time with

.......Flowflow is a beautifully rendered time waster that is as much art as it is a game. It starts a bit loud so, unlike certain individuals, you know what to do.

……..While I normally put the term ‘podcast’ in the same category as ‘blog’ and ‘hacker’ (that being abhorrently trendy and ultimately meaningless language), I’ve discovered the Ricky Gervais Show via Itunes podcast. Pretty funny stuff. Though most people know Ricky from his creation of the Office, Ricky has created a dynamic between himself, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington of near zealot-like following.

………Karl’s awkward view on life is one of the things generate attraction to the program. (Picture the Naive acquired knowledge 9th grade high school student: competent but by no means worldly). I’ve spent several hours listening to him in an effort to diagnose him a person or character. In the end, this is pointless as I would be disappointed if he were a character and appalled if he wasn’t.

………Is everyone’s internet slow? Our cable modem is been slow if not inactive the past week, so much so that I’m posting from the Diesel Café; which is having the same result. The Internet 2.0 hasn’t kicked in yet, (despite the inevitble crapfest) so I wonder if it’s just my bad luck….? There are reports of internet providers trying to stifle certain programs luckily there are ways to circumvent it.

Network Bastards

HAPPY EASTER

.......To say my fantasies have gone downhill in my old age is an undersatement. Nowadays a daysdream consists of kicking the crap out of the obnoxious teen who floods my wireless network. He's a bastard, but I call him a Noid because thats about how annoying he is. He repeatedly bombards my 802.11 g network with ip requests, flooding and eventually failing the network. He is obnoxious and irritating, but at least I know he exists. I finally ironed out the other bugs with some firmware updates (who knew linksys had incompatible problems with its own products? only linksys apparently). WEP security is a problem simply because who wants to 'maintain' the protocols by sending out new keys every week? The other alternative is to just stop broadcasting the network name, (SSID) a temporary solution at best.
........2hotspot came up with an interesting answer. With their software I set up my wireless router as a 'hotspot' and required people to log in. Think of it as a Starbucks hotspot for your house. Pretty badass for me let alne the average non corporate coffee house.
........Finally, I've decided, my next computer will be an Apple. Since they have boldy bridged the gap between gaming and themselves I feel its only a matter of time before I find a laptop with enough graphical horsepower to satistfy my needs, Command shell ease, and, lets face it.... eye candy.

Starforce update

I do not want to get to wrapped up in this sort of banter as it just winds up looking fanatical, but this bears addressing.

I must admit, It takes a large pair of 'cahones' to build a fake web site that simultaneously praises your own product and denounces all problems as the ramblings of hackers and pirates. The site lists other programs that have similar permissions as Starforce, note the majority are antivirus programs.
Until this point I honestly had hope that the idea behind Starforce being run by a collection of jackasses was only a possibility. Hopefully companies like UBISOFT will realize the type of mistake they have made in endorsing that POS that is STARFORCE. This type of behaviour truly benefits no one and, in the end, screws the user that much more.
What really gets me is that, even in their own forums, customers are chastized for calling shenanigans on the devs of this company. They still completely deny their product has ANY incompatibility, they simply respond with 'where is your proof?' or 'I went to school so my product is beyond reproach'. This type of ridiculous circular bullcrap is the norm in politics right now, I can see it catching on to other industries as well.

Ugh, to say I'm disgusted is an understatement.

Game copy protection (Star-force)

This article ticks me off immensely. The author works for Star-force and writes mainly in his anger with software hackers who espouse pains when dealing with his companies particular copy protection. I have no problem with what he said about pirates, their self indignation is false. Dennis unfortunately said, in essence, anyone having trouble with their game copy protection is a hacker.

“….user that run in to compatibility problems are beginner level hackers….”

Huh? A blanket statement like that is dangerous and reckless, especially as a figurehead for your company. What is he THINKING? I, like many other people own starforce protected games, and have had numerous problems with it. Aside from random crashes; the program gradually slows your disk/cd/dvd drives down to PIO mode, something akin to speeds in the DOS game days. Usually the only solution is to reinstall the entire system, how many casual gamers know how to do that? According to the article,

“…Compatibility problems do occur with any protection system, and the statistics of Starforce lie within a standard.”

The problem is no one knows what this standard is. Starforce forums regularly delete posts asking for help or expression of anything but glee for their products. It’s not uncommon for the Admins to accuse the customers with a problem of piracy, and theft. Got a problem? You are a pirate. Random computer behavior? You were trying to circumvent the copy protection. It sounds Cliché’ to say it, but in Starforces eyes you are 'guilty until…' well you're really just guilty. Unlike every other copy protection scheme on the market (safedisk, laserlock, tages) and unlike hardware vendors, the folks at Starforce haven’t even listed compatibility errors- not a single one. Despite the complaints, according to them- every piece of hardware is 100% reliable. Makes one wonder what ‘standard’ is being touted and compatible. I wonder what percentage of gamers built their computer themselves. Moreover, wouldn’t they like to know what hardware is incompatible?

What’s going on? Regardless of the real reason for problems with Starforce, it is not making any friends, with its closed policy and shoot first forums, this is simply not the behavior of a company with nothing to hide, A simple piece of PR her eand there and a compatilibility list would go a long way to repairing the damage they have done to themselves. Regardless of their tactics and regardless of 'the real story' - I would love to know how to speed up my DVD drive again.

please register to use this feature

RANT mode on:

Nothing irks me more than the near compulsive need of more and more web sites that demand my personal details. I have no desire to register just to access a friends link about a tap dancing cat. As frustrating as it is, this is indicitive of how much 'they' want from us.

Now realize what has me so worried. Ideas for what has been deemed 'internet 2.0' have surfaced as a near eventuality for some. The idea is to create a tiered internet, with services beneath premium that limit the data you download and sites visited. Some look at this as extortion while others see it as the next step.

Unfortunately it all comes down to money, and the telcos that run the pipes of the internet demand a piece of the pie. They own the pipes; how dare you have a business that generates traffic on them.
Consider, though, the impact this concept will have impact on the websites themselves. Websites will have to pay fees based on the amount of traffic they generate. If you hate giving out your information NOW, imagine how bad it will get.
-In an effort to wring any profit from your browsing as possible, sites will not only require you to register, but will probably ask to sell your data.
-Want to read that news story about your favorite baketball team? register or you cant see it, how about that recipe that google just showed you? REGISTER to browse the recipe list.

In essence, by destroying the ability to browse the internet without commitment, Internet 2.0 is shooting your fanbase in the foot, alienating the only thing that makes a website money- PEOPLE.

small update

Microsoft products for productivity are great, assuming you have the cash (anyone got a spare $400 so i can write a book report?). There are alternatives though, like open office. Ajaxwrite is a great idea, assuming it can be pulled off. Imagine an office suite that is avalible via the web, able to work on any platform (mac, PC, Linux etc.) , will work with current microsoft office standards, and is completely free. I'm sure the free part is whats pissing the most people off.

-stray

I tried to link a humorous clip on social networking but the best I could do is Demitri Martins video index. (click social networking).

Until recently I was a frequent visitor of the Daily Show; Comedy central has now become my nemesis. Their unfortunate move to 'secure' the website has left me, and others no doubt, frustrated. This new security gives us the viewers paltry load times and the outright demand I use Internet Explorer for their features. Comedy Central seems convinced someone is going to pirate all 5000-low-resolution-tiny-bit-rate video clips from the site.

WTF?
In browsing the latest headline I came a great new site. They even have a (god help me), 'blog this' button to redirect the link the story from your webpage. While this sounds interesting, the majority of the people who blogged on the subject just linked the story.... no hey this is awful or wow this is great, they just linked to the linking of the original story which was a link to begin with. The efficiency of this escapes me since no one offers a bit of commentary short of xxxx has the full story....

Lets all guess how long it'll take for the press to label this some dumb pseudowitty headline like Vice-President-shot-someone-in-the-face-gate...

Hmm Febuary, my most despised month. I could refer to the roots of this holiday or just pooh pooh the whole thing. Its all the same to me, but you have been warned.
Google has been making some crazy headway with their new features. So much of that makes sense to me, I'd rather not have to download another client, the last thing I need is something else to install. The last thing the US population needs is another facet of the internet to learn. (How this can be helpful if you cant ACCESS the internet I'll never know).

Recent missives in the leak department from apple have make me rethink my needs for a ipod, especially if its a pda. Since 90% of the images of this pda-psaudopod are phtoshopped mockups, I wont indulge linking to imposters.

To say I read stuff like this and became giddy is an understatement. Apple has unveiled an impressive bunch of hardware to debut onthe X86 hardware. Whats this mean? A whole bunch if you are a fan.

Plenty of new stuff to see at the CES show too, lots of Ipod and Ipod Video killers. in essence the more choices we have the better it gets!

If it seems like I am speaking russian right now, Im probably rambling too much... someone stop me....

We're seeing an interesting portion of evolution in the making regrading technology.

Engineers have, in the past, been tethered by what features we can fit where in say a handheld or laptop. Its getting to the point now where sacrificing function for form is a thing of the past. Smaller things do more, taking up less space, and the true ingenuity comes not from what can be packed into what; but what good that is to the average user.

Laptops can now be fitted with modular components ot be upgraded at a later time. Modems, video cards and soon sound cards are add ons where there was once a static use. With the advent of PCI-express, components have more than enough bandwidth and take less space.

The only limits are becoming (if not already) the minimal size a device can be and still retain its functionality. The Human hands are a factor that is not shrinking with the rest of the industry. How many devices can be fit with a QUERTY keyboard? Ideally we can see devices like the palmtops of the industry.

In the past there were laptops and htere were pdas, Whats to come when the laptops shrink to the size of a pda? or the pdas gain the funcitonality of a laptop? The blurring of these lines can only make things more interesting for the industry.

S