Monthly Archives: December 2004

Current Events, Tech

Microsoft Punished

Since the United States Department of Justice and our Current administration wimped out on punishing Microsoft for being an illegal monopoly (and abusing it)

Its nice to see that at least one Justice system in the world is willing to stand up to Microsoft. You remember waaay back in March when the European Union found Microsoft guilty of abusing its monopoly power to stifle competition right? And unlike the US, they actually delivered a sentence that comes closer to being real punishment! At the time, they were told to open up some of the Windows Server protocols so that other companies software would run on Windows Server, and they were told to release Windows without Windows Media Player installed (do you think they could have been forced to release a version of windows that doesn’t suck instead?)

Microsoft, of course, appealed the decision and hasn’t complied with the sentence yet. Yesterday. a EU court informed Microsoft that they must comply with the decision, even if they are appealing it. So, it looks like some lucky (well…as lucky as you can be if your a windows user) European Windows users will be able to get a slightly less sucky version of windows for Christmas!

Current Events

Another Stupid Lawsuit

I saw this on CNN yesterday, and no matter how many times I see articles about stupid people suing because they (or their family) did something stupid…it never stops pissing me off

I mean… come on! The daughter committed suicide.. it is NOT Walmart’s fault, the gun maker’s fault or anyone else’s fault except the daughters. Period. I can’t belive this woman is dumb enough to think that walmart (or any reseller) should

A: Break federal HIPPA (Health Information Privacy Protection Act) laws by going through the pharmacy records to see if anyone has a prescription. News flash… I’d be willing to bet that if Walmart did break the law and go through pharmacy records this lady would be suing them for violating her daughter’s privacy!

B: Ask why someone is buying something? C’mon your daughter LIED on the background check form.. which means she comitted PERJURY… Besides, have you ever actually shopped at Walmart lady? It takes for ever to get through the checkout lanes anyway, can you imagine how much longer it would take if they had to ask why people were buying things?

Walmart Cashier: “Nice bottle of bleach, why are you buying it?”

Customer: “To brighten my whites”

Cashier: “Oh, this is a nice set of steak knives, what are you going to use them for?”

Customer: “Ummm… to cut steak with.”

Repeat 50 times for the other items in the cart.

So, I hope that whatever judge hears this case, has got enough common sense to just throw it out, and hopefully, Walmart will counter sue for the lady for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

Current Events

Car Shopping

Janice and I need to replace the mini-van in the next year.. so we’ve started doing some research and window shopping

With the gas prices going the way they are (further and further up) I’m seriously considering getting a Hybrid this time around… my big concern with that is, I remember reading somewhere that the EPA estimates for MPG are not accurate for hybrids.. and that most people don’t get that kind of mileage… but, then again, I don’t know that many people who get near the EPA estimates for mileage on their ‘normal’ cars either..

Because it does occasionally snow here in Colorado, we also need something that will do well in most any weather condition (Guess that means we won’t be picking up a Ferrari). I’m interested in Ford’s new Escape Hybrid which looks like a decent compromise between fuel efficiency and power. I tried to go through Ford’s ‘build your Ford’ thingie…but it won’t let me build and price an Escape Hybrid, just a ‘regular’ Escape, so its really not that big of a help. From what I’ve seen online, it looks like the Hybrid is running about $3,000-$5,000 more then a similar ‘normal’ Escape. Not sure if I can justify the extra $$ right now… granted, if someone wanted to give us an Escape Hybrid, we wouldn’t turn it down. But, since we have to pay for it…I don’t think we’ll end up with the Hybrid this time around..

I’m interested in hearing from anyone that owns a Hybrid as to what their experience has been, was it worth the extra $$?

Apple, Site Stuff

.Mac Affiliate Program

So a little while ago, Apple introduced a .Mac affiliate program, similar to the iTunes affiliate program I’m a member of (Click on the iTunes graphic, or one of the songs on the right to buy from iTunes Music Store and help me earn a little commission)

And I figured since the list of ‘requirements’ to join the .Mac affiliate program were similar to the ones for the iTMS program, I’d go ahead and join up…. The other day I get an email back from the .Mac Affiliate Program.

Telling me that I have not been accepted into the affiliate program. The email goes on to state “The reason for this decision may be as follows:

* inability to access web site

* Web site not yet live

* traffic levels to low

* inappropriate material on site”

So..since the top reason they listed was inability to access web site…. how would they know if there was inappropriate material on the website (I wonder what material they thought was inappropriate?) And since the page is hosted on .Mac (I didn’t register it under either theteppers.net or kaelkicksass.com) wouldn’t the .Mac affiliate program people have known if there was some kind of systems issue preventing access to the .Mac servers…and then tried again later?

Oh well… overall..no big deal, it’s not like I’m raking in the dough from the iTMS affiliate, so I don’t think the .Mac program would have made that much of a difference.

Apple

iPhoto’s Enhance Feature

I realize that this feature was talked about non-stop in all the reviews of iLife ’04 when it came out

But.. I still think its one of the coolest features in iPhoto (Yes.. now that I’ve said that, Apple will release iLife ’05 at MacWorld January..and it will have something even cooler). What it does, is take your picture, run it through a bunch of magical formulas..and automatically adjust brightness, contrast, etc… with pretty good results. take this before picture

Before

Notice how ugly the snow looks..really..the snow in Denver is white when it falls! I Promise!

Same picture… after clicking the enhance button in iPhoto:

After

Look at how much more snow like the snow looks! and thats just one example of the enhance feature. If you’re not a professional photographer, or graphic designer who knows Adobe’s Photoshop like the back of your hand… iPhoto is still among the easiest to use of photo manipulating (as long as your editing needs are basic) and its great at storage/organization of your photos.

Tech

Laptops Bad For Fertility

And all this time, I thought that what was stopping people who spent alot of time on the computer from having babies…was the fact that they didn’t have girlfriends (or boyfriends)

Turns out… according to a bunch of researchers in London… it actually has nothing to do with the computer user’s ability to date… apparently, all us laptop users are roasting our fertility away…like chestnuts on an open fire (awww..wasn’t that a sweet christmas’y thought?)

See this article which says that without even turning your laptop on, you’re warming up the little guys by a balmy 2.1 degrees Celsius (umm… I was going to convert that to Farenheit, since I’m American and don’t use Celsius…but… I don’t remember how.. maybe I should have paid more attention in school?) and when you fire it up… it goes up by another 2.8 degrees C… making your crotch down right tropical apparently!

So..apparently, spending significant amounts of time on the computer (provided its a laptop) is an effective method of birth control! =)

Tech

And There Goes IBM

It was rumored for the last week or so…but today it was official

IBM has left the personal computer industry that it helped pioneer waaaaay back when. If you haven’t read about it yet… here’ s the link to CNN’s article on the sale. If I were a windows user, this might have more impact on me..but.. as long as big blue keeps making the PowerPC chip.. I’m not overly concerned about what they do with the rest of their business. I’m just surprised that it wasn’t Gateway, or Acer, or one of the other money losing PC companies that sold out first. Giving IBM credit though, this is a smart move for them business wise, the margin on desktops/laptops is very small…this will let them make more money off of servers/software/chips/etc… which is good, because then they can put more money into R&D and make faster Power series chips..which eventually become PowerPC chips for faster Macs…

It’ll be interesting to see if any other PC manufacturer’s take this way out of the game…