Category Archives: Tech

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…

Tech

Gmail Invites

I’ve got 4 to give away… first four comments with an email address get them. While I still don’t think Google’s ever going to go public with the service (and why should they? look at the demand for invitations from people) I’m willing to pass out the invites I get…

Tech

Gmail

Its still all the rage, everyone seems to want a Gmail account..

And, now, thanks to Judi over at Mom at Home Design, I’ve got one to play around with. The service does seem to be stuck in perpetual beta, and I’m not sure how thrilled I am with the prospect of Google’s software scanning all my email to deposit ads in there. The least they could to is provide commission off of any sales generated by click-thru of those ads. Oh well..if nothing else, given some of the topics my friends and I talk about via email…. it ought to be real interesting to see what ads they decide to stick in.

I’m hoping that services like Gmail, along with Yahoo and Hotmail having expanded what they offer for free to everyone will help push Apple to make a few changes to their .Mac service. Granted, I’ll keep using it without any changes, since its so easy to use for publishing pictures of Kael, and this blog… while I know I could learn what I need to know to host the server myself (assuming I ever get an ISP besides Comcast) its much faster and easier to let Apple do all the work.

Site Stuff, Tech

iTMS Affiliate Program (Take 2)

Got my reply back from the iTunes Music Store folks…

And as you can see by the pretty little iTunes icon on the right side there… I’m now an official member of the iTunes Music Store affiliate program.. so, either I’m more popular then I thought… or the iTMS folks have got some pretty low standards! (just kidding iTMS guys! I’m sure you have some amazingly high standards for what sites you let into the program!)

So.. if you were planning on making a purchase through the iTMS, I’d ask you to make it by clicking on the link to the right, which lets me get the commission for any purchases you make within 24 hours of clicking on the link. If nothing else, I’d like to try and make enough to pay for the registration fees for the kaelkicksass.com and theteppers.net domains… who knows.. if someone follows that link and buys one of everything.. I could get a decent start on Kael’s college fund

Tech

Buy.com Sucks part 3

The saga comes to a conclusion! (I think)

So.. I started the dispute process with my bank on the 2nd. This morning, buy.com finally posted the credit to my bank.. which I suppose means I should call my bank and let them know the dispute is no longer needed, since the merchant finally managed to figure out how to issue a refund.

On the plus side.. I appear to have found the secret to getting buy.com to actually do something.. if you want your order to ship, cancel it.. apparently in buy.com speak ‘cancel’ translates out to ‘begin shipping process’. If you want your money back… go through your bank and dispute the charge. I suppose, that if I were ever going to buy anything from them again, this would be useful information.

Not surprisingly, given buy.com’s incompetence, I have yet to receive the much promised ‘hey..your credit has been approved’ email that I was repeatedly told would be sent as soon as the ‘request’ for a credit was approved…. figures..they can’t even get an auto-generated email correct!

I’m glad the whole deal is done.. and I’ve definitely learned my lesson.. I’ll never buy anything from buy.com again! (Nor will I allow any friends/family members/people on the street to buy from them)

Just Stuff, Tech

TiVo & Netflix

An interesting rumor is making the rounds…

Both companies are denying it..but, according to Newsweek, Netflix and TiVo are about to announce a partnership that will allow people who subscribe to both TiVo and Netflix to download the movies they want to watch, instead of having to wait for them to be mailed out…. if its true…its the perfect couch potato subscription…

If it’s true…it’ll be interesting to see how they work out the details (how long do you ‘rent’ the movie for…how do you ‘return’ it, how many times can you watch it.. etc..)

Now…if TiVo would just release a stand-alone HDTV unit… I’d get one and be a happy camper…