Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Dewd! Check out this video… it rocks! This is an early beta, but… wow! I am looking forward to trying it with my Ubuntu laptop!

The plugin is: Stackswitch. Rock on!

I’m not kidding… that is the headline in a story in a Seattle newspaper! I kid you not! Vista is, indeed, the lamest OS ever… and I have used Windows Me!

Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer

“Regular readers may recall the story of Charles Walling, the retired Seattle warehouseman whose struggle to get his printer to work with Windows Vista was documented in our story marking the Microsoft operating system’s first year on the market. Charles Walling prints from his Windows Vista PC. Well, it’s working now — but not without some help from a Windows test manager. The underlying problem reflects the huge changes Microsoft made from Windows XP to Windows Vista, and the need for hardware makers to adjust. At the same time, the experience may provide a good reminder for PC users making an upgrade. Here’s the back story: After the article ran, I received e-mails from a couple of people inside Microsoft who were curious about the cause of the problem. With Mr. Walling’s permission, I directed them to him. Tom White, test manager for documents and printing in Microsoft’s Windows Experience group, visited the Walling household on multiple occasions, figured out what was wrong, and ultimately got the printer to work. Here’s what White figured out: When Mr. Walling bought his new Windows Vista machine, he initially used the installation disc that came with his Dell 942 All in One printer that he had been using with his previous PC. That disc was meant for Windows XP. The problem: Dell’s printer driver for Windows XP did install on Windows Vista. But it didn’t work. And it couldn’t be easily removed.”

This just in! The number is 8 million! Rock on!

Firefox 3 downloads clear 8 million mark

“Mozilla, which is behind the open-source Web browser, was trying to set a download record for the software. The 24-hour period lasted from 11:16 a.m. PDT Tuesday to the same time Wednesday, and Mozilla said it’s waiting for the Guinness Book of World Records to review the results. The download rate, which peaked at 14,000 per minute Tuesday, was still going strong at more than 6,000 per minute Wednesday morning. Next question: will it make a difference? Mozilla fanned the fanboy flames with its download record attempt, but it’s likely the majority of those who downloaded Firefox 3 at this stage will just use it to replace Firefox 2, not a competitor such as Microsoft’s still-dominant Internet Explorer or Apple’s third-place Safari. There’s also a big difference between downloading Firefox, installing it, using it, and switching to it as the primary browser. One early sign shows at a minimum, though, that Firefox 3 usage is significant at more than 4 percent share, according to Net Applications. And don’t forget the error bars: it’s impossible to say how many of the Firefox 3 copies were installed by enthusiasts trying to goose the number. And while 8.3 million might well become an audited record, Adobe blogger and evangelist Ryan Stewart pointed out that Adobe gets 8 million installations of the Flash plug-in on an average day. Don’t let my note of skepticism detract from the occasion, though. This might have been just a PR stunt, but the fact that Mozilla’s Download Day drew as much attention as it did indicates that Firefox is more than just a piece of software. It’s a movement people want to belong to.”

Dewd! I SO want one of these! An all-electric motorcycle/scooter that runs for a penny a mile, and looks cool doing it! Put me down for one! Now, anybody want to spot me the $9000.00 to buy it? I can SO see myself riding this to work every day… and I would get to “stick it” to OPEC at the same time… how cool is that?

Check it out… the Vectrix ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicle). The nearest dealer to me is in Kentucky (or, Georgia, depending on your preference.)

Vectrix Website

Watch the YouTube video and dream with me! “Cool people ride electric!” All right!

Over a million downloads! Wow! Servers were slowed, people had to be patient, but there was between 5,000 and 14,000 downloads per minute at the peak! But, Firefox 3 got over a million downloads in just four hours!

Firefox 3 exceeds 1 million downloads in under four hours

“Firefox 3, the long-awaited update of Mozilla’s open source web browser was released earlier today. The download counter, which is projected on a large display screen here at Mozilla headquarters in Mountain View, CA, has been churning numbers at a rapid pace all morning. The display shows that Firefox has now exceeded 1 million downloads, with between 5,000 and 14,000 downloads per minute. The rapid pace at which the downloads are occurring makes it difficult to compute an exact total. The counter appears to be lagging behind the actual count, and Mozilla’s statisticians say that the number could be as high as 3 million just four hours after Firefox’s official launch. Users can follow along at home by watching the counter at the official site. Firefox 3 downloads have already exceeded the total number of downloads that took place in the first 24 hours after the Firefox 2 release. This is a significant milestone for Mozilla, which hopes that Firefox 3 will set the world record for the most software downloaded in a 24-hour period.”

The final count isn’t in… a later Betanews article says that we are at 1.6 Million!

Mozilla: 1.6 million downloads and counting

Join the attempt to set a new world record for downloads by downloading Firefox Version 3.0 today! The site is being “slammed” as people try and download… but keep trying! The “Spread Firefox” site is intermittent because so many people are trying… so hang in there!

Spread Firefox!

Let’s set a record and annoy Microsoft as well!

Here’s the direct link for the download:

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%203.0.exe

The official release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is next Tuesday… and I will be upgrading ALL my PCs immediately! Yes, it is THAT good! It will not, however, have the “private browsing” feature enabled. See the link below for that story:

Firefox 3 won’t have ‘private browsing’

At least one security feature won’t make it into the final release of Firefox 3 on June 17, Mozilla confirmed again Thursday. The feature, Private Browsing, would have disabled all caching, cookie downloads, history records, and form data used during the current session. In essence, you could surf the Web and leave no fingerprints.

“It basically said to the browser: I would like what I’m about to do to not be logged anywhere,” said Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s ‘human shield,’ aka its security user interface designer. He described the private browsing process as this: you hit a button and everything past that point isn’t logged. Then, at some point in the future, you hit the button again and it’s as though what you just did never happened. One possible use might be when someone other than the computer owner uses the browser. ‘We looked at ways to do this, but the problem is that it touches a lot of code,’ Nightingale said. ‘Because there are such rich interactions with Web sites and mashups and things like that, we didn’t want to put in something that was half baked.'”

I have found the solution to my podcasting/sound card issue with my new laptop! Dewd! Check it out! A Zone-Tek External USB sound card that Intrex Computers is carrying here locally for $12.99! Plug it in, then set up a package I found called “Podcast Station” to recognize the USB sound card as the microphone source, and viola’! We are back in business! Check out Podcast Station at the link at the end of this posting… (the red “Podcast Station” box.)

I will be registering it very soon since it saved my podcast (at least doing it with my new laptop, see the posting a few days back.) Here’s the low down on it from the Podcast Station web site:

“Podcast Station is a Win 2k, XP and Vista program that will record, edit, mix and publish your podcasts. It’s like having a control console on your computer. Podcast Station provides an easy and fun way to create a Podcast from start to finish. Use your own mixers, amplifiers or compression/limiters or Podcast Stations built in options.

• One easy-to-navigate screen. Resize the window to add more carts and decks.
• Up to 30 on-screen deck buttons with crossfade sliders, countdown timers and the ability to pause and resume play of the file. Allows assignment of most common files types like MP3, WMA, WAV, AIIF ect. of any length.
• Up to 70 on-screen cart buttons can be assigned MP3, WMA, WAV, AIIF etc. of any length and can include sound effects, jingles, sweepers, liners, bumpers, interviews and any other kind of sound. Carts automatically re-cue when stopped, ready for play again instantly.
• “Pro” mode adds auto-crossfade and auto-segue functions to each deck button, as well as user-settable start and stop positions at each end of the deck progress bar.
• Loop mode allows any deck or cart to be looped indefinitely.
• Save deck and cart button configurations including assigned audio. If you produce several different podcasts that each require their own set of music, bumpers, etc., each configuration can be saved for fast recall later.
• Automatic gain control (AGC) – boosts the timid and limits the loud on either or both channels. Can be applied to the microphone input alone or to the carts, decks and mic together.
• Adjust individual volume on decks and carts with 3dB, 6dB and 12dB pads.
• VU meter (technically a peak program meter) displays playback and record levels over a 72dB range.
• Markers for marking locations and making notes while recording or playing back. Podcast Station shows a floating window with time line position and marker titles you have made. Text can be copied and pasted into RSS, ID3 and iTunes tags as desired. Ideal for long interviews when you want to mark important parts so you can come back and edit and assign to buttons to play back later.
• Zoom into the waveform with a 100X zoom feature for precise editing.
• Auto-fade to mute function on cart, deck and microphone sliders is activated with right click in the slider channel. Right-click again to restore level.
• Real time waveform scroll in edit window during recording. See your voice’s waveform move across the screen as you talk and record.
• User choice of folder location for files.
• Unlimited undo and redo for life of files.
• Keyboard map of all editing and transport commands under Help menu with roll-over definition labels.
• Effects:

-Adjust volume
-Bleep
-Fade in/out
-Insert silence
-Mute
-Noise reduction
-Normalize
-Reverse
-VoiceSlip
-Change Pitch
-Change Tempo
-Change Rate

• Additional effects available through the Advanced Effects menu:

-Chorus
-Compression
-Distortion (two kinds)
-Echo
-Flanging
-Parametric Equalization

-Reverberation (two kinds)

• Four sliders for controlling volume levels:

-Carts: master volume control for all cart buttons; can be linked to deck slider.
-Decks: master volume control for all deck buttons; can be linked to cart slider.
-Microphone: volume control for record input.
-Monitor: master output volume control.

• RSS publisher/editor with support for iTunes tags.
• FTP file upload manager built into the publication wizard.
• Import and export WAV, AIFF, WMA, MP3 and other popular file formats. Add ID3 tags to MP3 files.
• Export mono-right, mono-left, or two-track mono.
• Record in stereo, playback in mono or stereo.”

Me go see Incredible Hulk. Hulk smash! Dr. Bill like. Gamemaster come too. Gamemaster’s mom also come see movie. It be fun!

OK, OK… I am laying it on pretty thick… but I think this will be a fun movie… we are looking forward to it! Hey! I didn’t steer you wrong on Ironman, now did I? Go see “The Incredible Hulk!”

IMdb Summary of the Hulk Movie

“Depicting the events after the Gamma Bomb. ‘The Incredible Hulk’ tells the story of Dr Bruce Banner, who seeks a cure to his unique condition, which causes him to turn into a giant green monster under emotional stress. Whilst on the run from military which seeks his capture, Banner comes close to a cure. But all is lost when a new creature emerges; The Abomination.”

So we won’t have a “Micro-Hoo” after all… I can’t say that makes me sad!

Microsoft has closed the door, says Yahoo

“A statement issued by Yahoo this afternoon (yesterday) says that all talks with Microsoft over any possible combination of their businesses has effectively concluded, and that it wants to maintain its own search business. One final meeting between both companies’ executives apparently took place on Sunday. ‘At that meeting, Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo, even at the price range it had previously suggested,’ the statement reads. With that result, Yahoo board members determined that any business deal with Microsoft that would constitute less than a merger, would leave Yahoo without an independent search business that the company says is ‘critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders.’ This flies in the face of rumors circulating as late as an hour ago, stating Yahoo may have been ready to cede its search business or search capability to Google.”

Yahoo and Google are now talking about Yahoo using Google ads on their site to raise revenue. Wow! They must be a’hurtin’… because it would seem that they could do that themselves. But, we will see how that works out!