Anti-Microsoft

I guess with any monopoly, there are always the haters of those monopolies.  Microsoft is considered a monopoly, and they have their shares of haters.

BadVista.org is one of them.

lovin Vista myself - TMS

Robot Rights

Anyone watch the move Bicentennial Man?  It starred Robin Williams and was a really well done movie about robots and the rights as a self aware individual.

Well maybe one day this concept could become a reality!

The BBC wrote and article on the rights of robots in the future.  You can read the article here.

Very self aware - TMS

Paying for gaming lessons, what?

I think I’m getting a little old.  As I am reading my daily sites, I find an article about a 15 years old gamer that is charging for lessons.  Intrigued, I read the full article on Wired.com.  Though the article was very well written and kept me interest throughout, I am baffled at how serious people take gaming these days.  I enjoy playing games probably more then most 41 year olds do, but would I actually pay for lessons?  No. 

Maybe  I am too old for today’s generation.  I would like to think that I am hip or cool.  I can relate to my kids very well, understand their quirky nuances and I feel that I am rather open minded about today’s "different" looks and styles.  But to me, gaming is fun.  It's a way to blow off steam from the work days frustrations,  to get away for a few and leave the real world behind.  It's not a serious adventure.  I don’t care that I get beat by the computer or a 15 year old kid. It's still fun to lose myself in a game for a few. To actually pay someone to teach me how to play a game better and become an elitist?  No, I don’t think so.

You can find the article I read here.

Trying to keep a good perspecticve.  TMS

deader than a door nail

I know deader is not a real word, but it fits.  My computer started hard locking while I was playing my one game.  LOTRBFME.  Then it started not wanting to boot cleanly, hard locking during the loading of Windows.  Eventually over the next day or so, it just would not boot at all, not even POST.

While all this was happening, I decided to load ASUS probe and watch the temps of my system while I was gaming and such.  What I noticed was my CPU reaching it's temp threshold while I would be in the middle of gaming.  I have a Intel 3.0 ghz Prescott that has been the earmark of stability since I put it in a few years ago.  I feared the worse.  It was dying from over heating too many times.

Newegg to the rescue!  I bought a new CPU, waited over the Thanksgiving holiday for it to arrive. and when it did, eagerly replaced my dead prescott.  No POST.  :-(

Newegg to the rescue!  I bought a new motherboard.  I had a ASUS P4P800SE that I have had for about 4 years, originally purchased with a 2.4 ghz prescott.  I guess it was old and tired.  O purchased a ASUS P4S800D-X which looked to be about the same mobo but with a SIS chipset insetead of an Intel chipset. Bliss!  I now have a new 3.0 ghz prescott cpu and a new ASUS mobo.

In all this hoopla of finding the bad guy, I now have a good 3.0ghz prescottt CPU.  Since the mobo only cost 53.00 from newegg, I think I will buy another one and upgrade my stepsons older AMD system. 

happily computing - TMS

OK when is stupid just plain stupid?

The MPAA (Music Picture Association of America) is planning to try and push congress to pass a law that would make home users with home theater systems to "register" their theater system and pay a $50 fee.  More details here.  Totally retarted.

Wathcing movies in the privacy of MY home - TMS

Alternative OS on new machine = refund?

Apparently if you choose to use an alternate OS such as Linux and decline the EULA for Microsoft Windows on a new machine purchased from a major play such as Dell, you should be inclined to get a refund for the cost of the operating system you purchased, but are not going to use.  Full article here.

alternately operating - TMS

Microsoft's Zune OMG!

Microsoft's answer to the iPod is Zune.  It not suposed to go on sale in the US until Tuesday 11-21, but a Best Buy did, and a few people took advantage or were taken advantage of!!  Read more.

tuning out the world - TMS

Found another great freebie

A few post ago I talked about a fre free programs to help your computing life, I found another antivirus program that gets great reviews.  If you dont have an antivirus solution yet, then check out Clamwin!

Amazing to me how fast

It's truely is amazing how fast hackers can hack their way into an OS.  Vista has not been released a week yet, and it's activation scheme has already been hacked.  Copy of the software is already available for download on torrents.

I understand that this is truely the most advanced operating system Microsoft has released, but with the cost of owning the OS in upwards of 500.00 plus, your average "joe" is not able to buy it.  Heck even I cant afford that kind of money for an operating system when Windows XP works just fine for me.  I have a feeling more young people will be downloaded pirated copied of Vista due to the cost.  If Microsoft had put the cost more in lines with XP (200 and up), people would be more inclined to purchase the OS legally.  Instead, they have put it in a price range that most people either cant afford or dont want to afford, the latter being my case.

Wishing I was rich - TMS

AVG Antivirus for Vista?

It appears that Microsoft is doing something a little out of character.  They are playing nice woth a third party vender that directly competes with Microsoft.

Hmmmm.....  Interesting.  Click here for article.

Cold medicine for Vista - TMS

Fake Science

Awhile back, I discovered the record label Ultimae records.  I had found a couple of albums by Solar Fields and Aes Dana that I really enjoyed.  After a little research I found Ultimae records and found a plethera of new very cool music.  While meandering around the Ultimae website, I read that they have directed music sales to Fake Science.  Fake Science is as they put it "Fake Science is something spiritual and unquantifiable - an alchemic equation, like the i-ching or tantric sex. No one knows exactly why it works, but it does."  The guys that run the site are members of some of the bands listed on the site so they really have a good feel of the music they sell and the industry in which they work.

If you like downtempo/Chillout/Ambient Trance music, you really need to check out Fake Science.  I dont think I have seen anything for sale there for over 5 dollars.  All albums are downloadable in .zip format and contain very high quality MP3's.

Chilling out - TMS

Outsourcing

Corporate America as I see it..........

Not too long in the future, unemployment in the US will be HUGE.  Just you wait and see.  I say this not without any underlying basis of proof.

Why will the US be unemployed?  Heres why....  Many companies are outsourcing business.  This helps the company financially.  Outsourcing in itself is not a problem, as long as the outsourced labor is still kept within the US borders.  When the outsourced labor is shipped over seas to countries link India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and so forth is when we have problems.  Why you ask again?  With companies sending work to foreign soil, that is work that could be done by an American citizen.  Example:  I work in a company that is doing just that.  They are outsourcing work to India.  When a person leaves the company or is let go for valid reason, we no longer hire an American.  We hire an Indian from India, who works remotely from India.  They are paid considerably less due to economic reason in their particular country.  Cost of living being much less and not having to provide insurance are a couple of reasons.  That is not such a bad thing from a financial point of view.  The company is saving money and therefore more profitable.  But when the company gets greedy, as mine has, they take it to another level.  Instead of just replacing jobs with overseas labor, jobs are actually being lost to over seas labor.  Meaning American people are being laid off so the company can hire cheaper labor.  Not only are these people being laid off, but in many cases they are asked to actually TRAIN their replacement from over seas!!!!

OK most people are thinking, "That sucks" and "OK whatever".  I did too until it started to affect my coworkers and me.  We are currently facing our jobs being sent overseas.  We are even asked to provide assistance to our "replacements" if needed.  All while the company is planning on reducing the US based staff of 7 down to 4.  There is a problem with this that goes beyond financial savings for the company.  First and foremost is quality of service.  I work in a service oriented industry.  Users call a helpdesk when they have problems on their computer.  My area provides the support.  What has happened is all software support is now being handled from India.  Meaning an end user here in the US may have a problem with Microsoft Office.  No longer will they get a "real" human to talk to and relate to, they will get a person on the phone that has trouble with the English language and cannot physically visit that person’s desk to resolve the problem.  Second and probably more important is that another person in the US is in the unemployment line looking for a job.

That person may be me in the near future.

standing in line - TMS

I can't help it

I am a music lover.  99% of the music I have is legally purchased, I admit that there may be a song or two that I really dont know where I got it from and probably cant tell you when I received them.  But, the RIAA is becoming a laughing stock of the music industry instead of what they want to be.  A feared force against illegal music sharing.

Another article here.

Freebies from Microsoft!!!

Microsoft has released several freebies to help your computing life.

Windows Defender is Microsoft’s answer to spyware/malware.  It is one of the best and is free!  If you do not already have a solution for removing spyware, or dont even know what spyware is, I highly suggest downloading and installing Windows Defender.

Windows Media PLayer 11 is the latest and greatest of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player.  If you are still running the old outdated media player 9, then you should upgrade to 11.  Too many new features to list.  Those of you on media player 10 probably won’t notice too much different.

SyncToy is a nifty tool for synchronizing folders between your computer and a different computer or external HD or even a network share.

Windows One Care is Microsoft’s answer to the ever popular Norton and McAfee.  It's still in beta, but worth the download if you do not have antivirus and spyware protection.

Of course let’s not forget Internet Explorer 7.  As mentioned below, IE7 provides a far superior internet experience than any of Microsoft previous browsers.  Get it.

Happily downloading new software....TMS

Free software to help your computing life

I am writing this article because many of my friends and colleagues do not know that there are many free alternatives to what most people call "essential" software.  Things like MS Office and Antivirus.  There have been many articles written about this and I am sure there will be many more.

Anyway, on to the article......

I have always been a proponent of free software.  This dates back to the early 90's when I was first getting to PC's heavy.  I have always tried to help the small guy that would release his software for free in hope of getting feedback and make it better.

Times have changed, and the free software available today has changed.  There are now companies that have fully developed, very finished products that are free for personal use.  This is great news for those that wish to save a few dollars and still have decent software that is comparable to the big guys that charge mega bucks. 

The first free alternative I want to talk about is Open Office.  Open Office has been around for many years.  It will open the most current MS Office documents with the exception of the Beta Office 2007.  If you are used to MS word and MS Excel the window views are very similar.  So for a great alternative to the extremely expensive MS Office, give Open Office a try.  You may find yourself saving a bunch of money.

The second free alternative is the must have antivirus software.  there are three free candidates that offer great protection.  First would be Antivir Personal Edtition.  This requires registration via email.  They do not sell your email address.  It will perform automatic updates without user intervention.  Has a small enough memory footprint that it will not kill your machine.  There is also Avast!.  Avast! also requires registration.  But Avast! has a larger memory footprint than the others.  Still works great.  Lastly is AVG.  AVG is basically the same of the others, but does not automatically update itself, you have to initiate the update manually.  For some this may be a pain.

The third free alternative is Anti-spyware.  There are two that I like to use and they can be installed together if you find that you want that type of setup.  Spybot S&D and Ad-aware SE.  Both products clean spyware/malware from your system adequately.  Both have their advantages.

njoy and happy safe computing!

TMS

IE7 is it for you?

Internet Explorer 7, its here! I suggest you Get it!

Alot of people do not even know that are more then one web browser to view the internet.  Amazing as it may seem, I find this more true today than ever before.  More people are getting online.  People of all ages.

This weekend I went to work on fixing a router for a friend of my sisters.  The people have never had a computer before and bought a package deal from Dell.  A new laptop and wireless router and a DSL package from the local phone company.  These people were as nice as could be, but didnt know anything at all about the internet.  They use IE as it is what came with windows.  I am sure this is the case for many people.

Anyway, I would suggest getting IE7.  It's worth the download.

new blogging tool

I'm trying out Windows Live writer to see how it works in uploading and formatting entries into this blog.  It's still beta, but hey, the MS word plugin is not working well anymore, so lets try another way!

Vista again? When will he stop!

Windows Vista license agreement explained.  Again.  (

Article: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_licensing.asp

Happy reading!

make me invisible please

Remember the Harry Potter movie where Harry get the cloak of invisibility handed down to him from his father?  Well…….  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6064620.stm

Really neat stuff!

Slow Saturday

Haven’t done much of anything today.  I did however, bring in the enormous amount of music CD's i had in my car to try and sort through them and determine which ones I truely listen to when in the car.  I counted them.  47 CD's.  Some in CD holders other stacked in a open space below my head unit (the stereo).  Okay, I admit that is a bit many music CD's to have hanging around in the car, and I also admit that I dont listen to all of them hence me bringing them into the house and sort through them.
I am a music freak, I love new music.  Notice the keyword, NEW.  I have, probably, over 1000 cd's in my collection, and this does not mean that each CD has one album, most of my CD's are mp3 CD's and contain more than one album.
It all started in early 2000.  I discovered MP3.com.  The now defunct website was a buttload of new talented artists trying to get noticed.  They posted their music on MP3.com for free.  I started downloading all kinds of music.  at the time, most of what I was getting was Downtempo/Triphop.  Don’t confuse Triphop with the now popular Hip Hop.  They are vastly different.  I am now a member of http://www.emusic.com.  I discovered them in 2003.  I pay $20.00 a month and get 90 downloads.  Most every month, I use all my downloads.  That is 1080 songs a year, and I have been doing it for 3 years.  You do the math.
Anyway, I hope to sort through my 30 + CD’s from the car and dwindle them down to approximately 15 or so.
Listening to my music.
TMS

bored

Slow days.
Waiting on nothing to happen.

WIndows Vista (a rant)

I finally did it. I finally went ahead and installed Windows Vista on my home machine as my primary OS.  With the release of RC1, I thought It would be a good idea to go ahead and take the plunge and see what it had to offer as a main OS instead of a dual boot thing that I never booted into.

I am impressed with the visual aspects of Vista; I am not impressed with the operation of Vista.  After searching the net and several trial and error runs, I finally have it to where I can operate the OS without 500 prompts to allow something.  It’s not a good thing when you have to respond to 3 prompts to delete and icon from the desktop.  3 prompts!  All I want to do is delete an freaking icon!

One of the most frustrating things I have encountered is trying to locate where functions that I normally like to use are now located in the new GUI.  I use the move to and copy to quite a bit, and these two functions are not available to me in the default GUI settings.  The normal file menus are also not visible in the standard GUI.  Instead Microsoft presents you with a new, and in my opinion, convoluted explorer navigation system that lists the favorites over the normal file tree on the left.  It took me a few times before I discovered that I could list the normal file tree over there by grabbing the slider bar and sliding it over the favorites view.  Now I am able to browse my directory tree and drag and drop files if needed without an excess of menu navigation and button pushing.

The forcing the use of certain applications is a major pain.  Windows defender, Security Center, UAC, IE’s phishing filter.  All of these I can do without.  I am a power user and know how to protect my system without Microsoft’s help.  I do not get spyware on my machine as I know how to manage cookies and how to not download crap.  I don’t get virus’s on my system from the same manor.  In Vista, however, Microsoft has decided to make it extremely difficult to disable the above items, in a since forcing the majority of users into using those applications whether or not they want them.  Windows defender continued to block the system tray icons for my etrust antivirus software.  I would receive a popup asking my permission to run them.  Then stating that I should allow the blocked programs within the Windows Defender application itself.  Well, upon researching this, there were NO BLOCKED application there to enable!!!  Therefore I was forced into allow the system tray icons every time the system booted.  If I disabled Windows Defender, the Security Center would then become annoying by telling me that my system was vulnerable and I should enable the Windows Defender application.  If I disable the security center, then I would get another notification stating that my system was not secure because I was not using the Security Center!  User Access Control.  Wow, let me see, where do I start?  It sucks.  It’s not nearly as nice as Linux.  As stated above, 3 prompts to delete an icon is way overboard.  Why would UAC even care if an icon was deleted?  Does not the Recycle bin prompt give you enough notice that you are deleting something?  Asking me for access to choose properties on My Computer, to open the services.msc, to open computer management, to open device manager, to install a game or any other application for that matter, and, I am sure not the last, for autorun to initialize on a CD I inserted into the CD drive!  How many times do I have to tell it that I want to do something?!?!?!?!  It reminded me of the game Mother may I.  I have since totally removed the Security Center, permanently stopped Windows Defender, turned off IE’s phishing filter, and permanently stopped the UAC.  I now have control of my OS again, and am able to do the things I need without constant bombardment from Microsoft.

OK, will all that said, I still have it installed, and for the most part pleased with the stability.  I find slowness from time to time when opening certain applications, but can still live with the operating system.   I can delete an icon and not be read the riot act.  I can install a game and also have CD’s autorun when they are inserted.  So for now, time will tell.

TMS
beating the keyboard

Fall is here

Cold weather is closing in fast.  The days are getting shorter now, and the nights are much cooler.  I know a lot of people like the fall weather.  The air is crispier, the sky appears less hazy and the sun is much whiter and lower in the sky.  It’s a time of change.  Leaves get their fall colors, rain is cold and heavy, and a fireplace provides evening warmth.  
Those are the things that I like, but I really don’t like the cold.  I am a shorts and t-shirt kind of guy.  I crave the sun and the warmth it provides.

Just gotta say it!

Go Braves!!!

Mommy can I have one too?

The beer belly!  Just want I always wanted!

Beer Belly/

Jobless Professionals

I think there would be a lot of jobless professionals.  

read here

WOW

WOW, this is a very interesting article.  Ever wanted to know how crooks get your private information?  Read here

Music

If you love music like I do, you have to have a good pair of earbuds…

CLick here for article

My Space

My space is evil don’t use it.
Read article

Two things today

Two things today, one is for those of you who enjoy surfing the net with Internet Explorer and the other is a little quiz about spyware.

First the Internet explorer goodies site.

Internet Explorer Ad-ons

Second is the spyware quiz  n-joy!

Spyware Quiz

Have a great day!

Another bit about the recording Industry Association of America. (RIAA)

They just cant seem to get it right, they have sued a family in GA that don’t even own a computer, and now they have sued a dead grandmother.  These guys actually think a court is going to give them credit when they actually sue a person who owns a computer and is alive?!?!?!

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?show=localnews&pnpID=728&NewsID=713614&CategoryID=11575&on=1

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31229

And here they seem to have gotten somthing kinda sorta right.

http://www.nexbeta.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=28

WOW a new post

WOW a new post!

Ok, everyone know by now that I am the worlds worst at blogging.  Late posts, weeks, no months between posts.  Oh well, tis my nature to be that way so I will have to accept it.  

Anyway, today I wanted to chat a little about technology.  It seems that today there is a lot of talk about Digital Rights Management (DRM), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and what is right and wrong.

A little background on this for those of you who are not familiar with all this mumbo jumbo about music sharing, copying and stealing.

As defined by Wikipedia
Digital rights management (DRM) is the umbrella term referring to any of several technologies used to enforce pre-defined policies controlling access to software, music, movies, or other digital data and hardware. In more technical terms, DRM handles the description, layering, analysis, valuation, trading and monitoring of the rights held over a digital work. In the widest possible sense, the term refers to any such management.

The RIAA as defined by themselves

http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/default.asp

What I don’t understand is why the RIAA does not help support the digital media industry more than it is trying to destroy/hamper its growth and evolvement.  I think if they had embraced it from the beginning and help to grow the digital music industry, there would be less pirating of music and videos, and more legit paid for copies on people’s computers.

Anyway, just something to think about.

Listening to my music freely
TMS