Month: November 2007

Cars vs. Cows! “Bessie” is Doomed!

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Bessie the CowSo… what is the bigger polluter? Your gas-guzzling SUV, or “Bessie?” (If your car is named “Bessie,” then I am sorry for any confusion!) And, confusion, it seemed, reigned at a recent UN panel. Everyone was perplexed that the lowly cow was a bigger polluter than our favorite environmental villian, the car! I figure there will now be wild gangs of environmentalists massacring cows! Meat prices and milk prices will rise! Oh, the humanity!

UN panel: Cows emit more greenhouse gases than cars

OK, OK, I know that this is off of our usual tech news fare… but it just struck me as kinda weird and funny! And, it is still kinda “science-y.” Sorta.

Geek Software of the Week: CoffeeCup Free DHTML Menu Builder!

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DHTML Menu BuilderA commercial company (CoffeeCup Software) giving away free software! Pretty cool. This is a Dynamic HTML Menu Builder application. Great for the “budding” Web Designer that wants to add cool, drop down menus to their sites!

CoffeeCup Free DHTML Menu Builder

“Create professional looking DHTML (Dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language) menus for your Web site, without writing a single line of code. (No HTML knowledge required.) You will make great looking professional DHTML menus for your Website in seconds flat ! Make professional looking drop down, or side-step, menus. You can completely customize the colors, fonts, borders, alignment, padding and much more. It’s so easy to make your DHTML Menu match the look and feel of your Website. And best of all, it’s FREE! DHTML Menu Builder is able to create both horizontal “top menu” and vertical “side menu” navigation systems. You can create multi-level, or tiered menus with great ease. The Menus work in all browsers and even support frames. Your DHTML menu is totally customizable. You can adjust fonts, colors, borders, padding, alignment, even adjust the arrows for the sub-menus. Lots of features and options puts you in full control of the layout and design. Using the DHTML Menu Builder is fast, easy, and fun. Plus, it’s FREE!”

C-Net UK’s Top Ten WORST All-Time Tech Products!

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Check them out:

Number One) Sinclair C5
Number Two) Barcode Battler
Number Three) The Squircle
Number Four) Gizmondo
Number Five) Tamagotchi
Number Six) Apple Puck Mouse
Number Seven) Atari Jaguar
Number Eight) Amstrad E-m@iler Telephone
Number Nine) Sony rootkit CDs
Drum roll please… Number Ten) Windows Vista

Gotta love that! Read the whole article at the link below:

History’s Top Ten WORST Tech

As I write this, this story has gotten 3187 Diggs. Ouch! You gotta know Microsoft is squirming!

The “Day the Data Died” Edition of Dr. Bill Podcast #112

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:05 — 8.6MB) | Embed

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Dr. Bill Podcast – 112 – (11/25/07)
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Dr. Bill bemoans his recent system crash issues. A LAME Gamemaster segment… tech news, and a great Geek Culture song: Loose Bruce Kerr’s parody song based on Don MacLean’s “American Pie!”

In a Fair and Even Trial – Internet Explorer Still Stinks!

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Yep! Internet Explorer still sucks! (But we knew that!)

In All Fairness … Internet Explorer Still Stinks

“This is the story of how SitePoint tried to give Internet Explorer a fighting chance … and it lost anyway.” The web site “Site Point” is putting together an “Ultimate Reference” to CSS…. and decided to test web browsers! Yike! IE was the big loser. Surprise, surprise!

Geek Software of the Week: DiskInternals Linux Recovery!

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OK, this week’s GSotW is WAY geeky! As I have mentioned, two of my Linux web servers chose this week to die. And, die spectacularly! So, I searched for disk recovery software for Linux. And, I found some cool stuff! Sadly, nothing was able to recover my stuff… but that was because my data was too far gone. It got back the directory structure, but the files were 0 byte (not there!) Sigh. So, the recovery continues… I am at about 98% recovered… not too bad. The lesson, kids? Good, current backups. Linux is truly solid and reliable… but hardware has a limited life… and when it dies… it can make for a bad week! (Like mine!)

DiskInternals Linux Recovery

“DiskInternals Linux Recovery is a handy no-cost utility that runs under any version of Windows and designed to recover the erased or damaged information that is kept on Ext2/Ext3 partitions. DiskInternals Linux Recovery might come in handy on a number of occasions when due to the unforeseen contingencies there was a loss of important data stored on Ext2/Ext3 disks. DiskInternals Linux Recovery can recover both the files you just accidentally deleted and the files which have been erased long time ago. It is also capable of restoring corrupted files and can read and recover the information located on an inaccessible drive. The files you restore can be saved on any (including network) disk, which is visible to the host operating system. The utility also allows you to repair a corrupt or damaged partition table and attempt to restore a disk after a serious crash, so you’ll have a chance to repair a serious malfunction right away. In case you noticed that you lost a piece of valuable information only after you formatted a partition, DiskInternals Linux Recovery can unformat the disk and it will be up and running again.”

Geek Project: Build a “Hackintosh Computer!”

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Hackintosh PCWanna do something radical? How about building a “home-grown” Mac? “Not possible!,” you say? Well, here’s an article from someone that has “been there, done that!”

Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

“If the high price tag for Apple hardware has kept you from buying a Mac but you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and get adventurous, you can build your own “Hackintosh”—a PC that runs a patched version of OS X Leopard. What?!, you say. Apple’s move to Intel processors in 2006 meant that running OS X on non-Apple hardware is possible, and a community hacking project called OSx86 launched with that goal in mind. Since then, OSx86 has covered major ground, making it possible for civilians—like you and me!—to put together their own Hackintosh running Mac OS 10.5. Today, I’ll show you how to build your own high end computer running Leopard from start to finish for under $800. Right now the cheapest Mac on sale at the Apple store is a $600 Mac Mini sporting a 1.83GHz proc, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. For $200 more, your Hackintosh can boast a 2.2GHz proc with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB drive, and a completely upgradeable case for expanding your setup in the future. Building a DIY Mac requires some work on your part, so be ready to dedicate time to this project. To make things as easy as possible, I’m going to lay out how I built my Hackintosh from start to finish, from the hardware I used to the final patches I applied to the Leopard install. If you can build a Lego set and transcribe text, you’ve got all the basic skills required.”

By the way, add to that $800.00 price tag a LEGAL copy of OSX. We are not advocating stealing here! It is quite possible that a Mac Mini would be more cost effective at this point… but it is an interesting article!

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