Technically Speaking

Well, I am a proud owner of a new laptop. I have finally broken one of my computing rules; “Never buy a prebuilt computer from any major manufacturer.” I have looked into building my own laptop but it turns out to be a better deal buying one already made. The reason I wanted one was for its portability. I really get tired of being confined to a room to use the computer. With that said, wireless had to me a must. This is not a main computer so having the very best money can buy was not necessary. So I started looking around and found some pretty good deals. I posted about the eMachines widescreen notebook a while back, so I went to check it out. Frankly, I didn’t feel comfortable with it. I went to 2 different locations to checkout the machine and in both locations the machine wasn’t working. That was 2 strikes and I wasn’t going to look for the 3rd. After going to a few more stores I started to get into the Compaq notebooks and that is the manufacturer that I decided to go with. I picked up the Compaq Presario 2175us for $1349.99 at Best Buy. There is a $250 rebate on this notebook which sweetened the pot for me. Today is the start of the Georgia Taxfree weekend, so in addition to the rebates, I saved about $100 in sales tax. If you live in Georgia, you must take advantage of the taxfree weekend. Here is a brief description of the notebook I borrowed from Circuit City because they have a better description than Best Buy.

Get working wirelessly! This Compaq Presario notebook PC comes integrated with a 54g wireless LAN, so you can network, share files, and start surfing the Web wherever you like right away. While enjoying your wireless freedom, you’ll also get to burn custom CDs, watch your favorite DVDs, and delight in awesome and realistic ATI Radeon M6 graphics. The 15″ screen, 40GB hard drive, integrated Ethernet, and an array of peripheral ports are sure to give you an amazing computing experience.

If you would like to know more about this machine, checkout the Best Buy or Circuit City links.

Are you in the market for a Carputer? Xenarc Technologies is dedicated to move you into true mobile computing. This system they designed, the XENARC CP-1000, seems to have just about everything you need to accommodate your normal computing needs.

This In-Dash, In-Vehicle Personal Computer opens up the world of in-vehicle entertainment! Couple this In-Dash multimedia PC with our fully-motorized In-Dash Touchscreen Computer Monitor (To be released soon), you got yourself a system that is capable of GPS navigation, MP3 playback, in-car theater, in-car gaming, and in-car office. This PC even has two PCMCIA sockets good for wireless communication. Our Carputer (Car Computer) is a full-featured PC that fits conventional car stereo one-DIN slot in the vehicle which gives you a clean installation and factory look.

I’m not sure how it will function as a car stereo. There are no car stereo specifications, such as, “how many audio connections are there?”, “does it integrate with satellite radio?” and “what is the base power output?”. Perhaps these specs are not shown for the unit is not to be used in that manner. Well, then it may need to incorporate some car stereo abilities if it is going to replace the stereo in dash.

Ok, time for an experiment. I have noticed sites getting great amounts of traffic for innocent acts. I would like to see if I can do this on purpose. The traffic is routed to these sites via search engines. To give a few examples of what I am talking about, check this out.

Michael at Move the crowd, found info about nude pictures of Rapper Eve. Now this post was to question whether she did what the nude pictures say she did. The photos were not posted here.

Kevin at WizBang and Glenn at Hi, I’m Black, both posted about an “accident” that happened on Cat Schwartz’s site, involving a mix up in some photos. I’m sure that these will generate traffic because from what I understand, Cat is one of the TechTV girls and she even has an article called Get Your Blog Noticed on the TechTV site. This “accident” wasn’t one of the tips in the article.
This morning, I saw a site that talked about the pictures of Uday and Qusay dead bodies. The innocent thing about it is that the names were spelled incorrectly and the post talked about how wrong America was for showing the pictures. They got an unexpected traffic spike for that. (If it is your site that this happened to, please let me know.)

I don’t know how long it takes for the traffic to bump but hopefully I will soon know. Let me kick around a few more names that might generate some traffic.

Bob Hope dead at age 100
Kobe Bryant’s Accuser Is Colorado Woman
Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy
Former roommate Carlton Dotson
Celia Cruz “La Reina de la Salsa”

I think that should do it. Let’s see what happens. I’ll enter a post of success or failure in a few days.

Astronomical data, computer graphics and the emerging field of “conformal geometric algebra” are giving researchers a clearer picture of the shape of the universe, according to Anthony Lasenby, a professor at Cambridge University and the keynote speaker at Siggraph, an annual conference sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery that highlights advances in computer graphics.

“The universe is actually pretty close to flat at the moment,” Lasenby said Monday. “We may be close to understanding the geometry of the universe.”

[via CNET News.com]

One of the leading theories of the 20th century was that the universe is spherical. Thinking about how an explosion on earth behaves, the blast radiates out from the source, thus making a sphere. The theories goes on the predict that once the universe slows and eventually stops expanding it will collapse in upon itself. Implode!

Right now, radiation patterns indicate that the universe–which got its start 14 billion years ago with the big bang–is fairly planar. That’s good news. If the universe were spherical, we would likely be facing the “Big Crunch,” or complete implosion, in a few billion years.

The planar shape, however, won’t likely last. In a purely flat universe, the expansion of the universe would be slowing down. Instead, it is accelerating, Lasenby noted. This data indicates that the universe may be curling up into a cone, which would lead to an infinite universe. Some data also indicates that a small portion of the universe is finite, he added

I will have to do some studying to get this concept.

I was visiting Tiger’s site today and noticed that he was having some problems with his Movable Type ping notifications. I have had these problems and still do on occasion. A couple of weeks ago, I was doing my midnight surfing thing and I came across a post that addresses this problem.[Solution of the behavior is in the comments section of the post.] The post clearly explains the situation:

There are two perspectives on the update ping. One perspective is that of weblogs.com and one perspective is that of your MT system.

When weblogs.com receives your ping it does a number of things. It visits your site to see if you have in fact updated since the last ping, it adds your blog name to its “recently updated” list, and then it sends out a response to you. If it’s able to do all of these things, it considers your ping to have been successful.

But here’s the thing. Let’s say that it takes weblogs.com 60 seconds to go through the whole process. Your MT system may only wait 30 or 45 seconds for that response. If it doesn’t get the response in that time, it assumes that the ping failed. Even though your blog shows up at weblogs.com as having been updated.

The fix is very simple. You have to go into your mt.cfg file and adjust the “PingTimeout” entry. Now, if you never played with this file, then you will have an example entry in there. You could either uncomment the entry and adjust the number or add an entry and give it a number. I have mine set to 60 and it seems to work well. I have fewer errors with that.

From Techdirt: In-flight Internet Retooled After Slump

A popular topic at Techdirt recently has been the sudden hype surrounding “internet in the sky”. The News Tribune has a good profile of Boeing’s Connexion offering that seems to be losing out on deals to its rival Tenzing in the US domestic carrier market. The Connexion system seems superior in every way, however - from the full internet access (Tenzing gives you very limited internet access) to the flat rate fees. Connexion even says that the pricing is designed to be customer friendly - unlike their rivals. What has surprised me is that no US carrier, so far, has been willing to sign on with Connexion, and has instead, gone with Tenzing. The reason they’re going with Tenzing is they’re all looking for ways to save money - and Tenzing doesn’t charge them to set up the system. However, the Connexion system is so much more useful than Tenzing’s that it’s not hard to imagine a plane with Connexion getting much more revenue out of the system. Connexion does say they’re close to a deal with at least one US carrier, and suggests that it’s a “smaller, more technologically savvy” airline, rather than one of the big guys. My guess would be JetBlue, which keeps saying they’re going to offer internet in the sky, but hasn’t done much to offer it.

My original post: Emailing at 33,000 feet

If your fear is that the RIAA is coming for you, you can either relax or start looking for a lawyer. The EFF has provided a way for you to find your subpoena.

File sharers can check a new online database to see if they are wanted by the recording industry.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a site where users can plug in their file-sharing user names. That name is checked against the list of those subpoenas filed in the Washington, D.C., district court.

If you do find a subpoena waiting for you, I truly hope you don’t, The EFF has also included means for you to find a lawyer.

For those who have been subpoenaed by the RIAA, a list of attorneys and other legal resources are available at the Subpoena Defense Alliance website, a joint effort between the EFF and the U.S. Internet Industry Association.

I trust this info will be useful to someone.

Source: Wired.com

I have come across some very interesting and not so well-known facts about our planet at Space.com. Their article, 101 Amazing Earth Facts, answers questions ranging from ” What makes thunder?” to “Can rocks float?”. Here are a few examples.

Q. What is the hottest place on Earth?
A. El Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 — the hottest ever measured.

Most people would have thought Death Valley but the highest temperature recorded there was 134 Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913.

Q. And the coldest place around here?
A. 129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

No surprise there!
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I just want to give a quick Happy Birthday to my younger(I like to call him my little brother) and only brother, Michael.(Don’t call him Mike. Even though I do!) Mike, don’t waste the day blogging, go do something with that Bday present I gave you.

Today is also my parents wedding anniversary. So if they happen to see this post, I am wishing you a very Happy Anniversary.

I have been very busy this week and I haven’t been surfing much. But today I made an effort to find some interesting things. This is what I came up with….

Zombyboy is branching out. AfricaBlog is poised to be an artistic view of some of the rapidly vanishing customs of Africa. I hope it turns out to be very interesting.

Ith, of Absinthe & Cookies, posted The Green Fairy which is about Absinthe. She links to a site that gives some definitive answers about the infamous liquor

How to save the world points out some of the photoblogs that he admires.
GREAT PHOTOBLOGS

Concubine
Nukie
A Thousand Words
Photojunkie

Ron, of Bear Left On Unnamed Road, posted about Flash Mobs

If you have some time, checkout this interview on David Sifry creator of Technorati. Found at Daily Report I haven’t timed the interview but I think it is at least 20 min. There is some interesting things in it, if not all.

Venomous Kate posts a lengthy article titled What Do Women Want? One Woman’s Answer. She is voicing her opinion in response to an article by Fred Reed in which he rants about “the Chip” that American women carry on their shoulders.

Warner Home Video has announced the DVD release for The Matrix: Reloaded. Set for release on October 14th The Matrix: Reloaded will be a 2 Disc special edition released in separate Widescreen and Fullscreen editions both with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio and feature: ‘Preload’ – Get a behind the scenes overview of The Matrix Reloaded with on-location footage and interviews with cast and crew, ‘The Freeway Chase’ – a 30 minute behind the scenes feature showing the making of this amazing chase scene, ‘What is The Animatrix?’ A glimpse into the history and the intrigue of the Animatrix, ‘Enter The Matrix - a making of the video game and the groundbreaking technology used to create it, ‘The Matrix Unfolds’ – A review of The Matrix phenomenon and its amazing cultural impact, 2003 MTV Movie Awards Matrix Reloaded parody ‘Get Me An Exit’ and more! You’ll be able to pre-order The Matrix: Reloaded starting on July 25th at around $23.

Not too long ago, Archos released its 20GB Multimedia Jukebox, model number AV120, quite an impressive peace of electronics. Archos has now released the next generation of AV120, the AV320. This unit has a 20GB hard drive (40GB also available as the AV340), like the AV120, but it has a much bigger display screen. This unit is about the size of a hard drive, measuring 1.25 by 4.5 by 3.75 inches, weighs 12.5 ounces, and the display has been increased to 3.8 inches, from 1.5 inches. If that screen size isn’t big enough for you then through the provided connectors, you can view your media on a bigger screen.
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There is a buzz in the air that is of major concern to the IT workers of America. The buzz has reached the ears of our lawmakers and they are attempting to pass laws to help. Currently, in New Jersey, legislators are working toward setting a precedent.

Only recently, however, is such logic gaining ground with legislators. As the prospect of paying drastically reduced wages for qualified workers prompts a growing number of U.S. companies to shift technology and services jobs overseas, state and federal lawmakers are beginning to consider setting limits on outsourcing. So far, efforts have focused largely on contracts for government work.

So far, they think that this will pass if they apply it to government jobs. The ideology is that the taxpayers are paying for the government workers’ salaries so the money should stay here in the U.S.
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This is a little tip I got from WinXPnews.
[Tue, Jul 22, 2003 (Vol. 3, 29 - Issue 85)]

They claim that everyone knows this tip, but I happen to be one that didn’t.

1. Make a folder on the desktop. Call it anything you like, for
   example, Folder Toolbar.
   
2. Bring the mouse pointer over the folder and hold the left mouse
   button down. Drag the folder to the edge of the screen. Eureka - the
   folder turns into a toolbar!
   
3. Notice that the folder stays on your desktop. Anything that you drag
   to the toolbar appears in the folder and anything you drag to the folder
   appears on the toolbar.
   
4. If you want to make the toolbar go away, just right click the
   toolbar and click the Close toolbar command.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention how this knowledge could be of benefit. The need for the tip may not be apparent to most, but for me it is a little gem that may serve me well. The advantage of toolbars is that you can gain quick access to applications that you frequently use. Prior to this new knowledge (to me that is) I over used my ‘Quick Launch’ toolbar; it was overfilled with apps and my desktop is half covered with applications that I use on a regular basis. I can now group my apps, of common usefulness, in folders. So when I want to do some video editing, I can set the folder as a toolbar and get to work. If I want to add some post to my blog I can open that folder and get to work. When using many apps it is good to be organized and this little tip is great for organization.

BlogCritic that is! Mike has now become a BlogCritic and in support of him, I will now fly their banner on my site. He has just joined today and is already making waves. Check out his postings; 22 Greatest MCs and Chuck D is a Signifying Monkey? I Think Not!. These articles have been previously posted at Move The Crowd but they are sure to generate a new buzz. Follow them if you dare.

If you are using Mozilla, this ia a great feature. Nice Title is a tooltip/title format for your links. whenever you put your mouse over a link, the link info is shown the same way it is shown in the picture to the right. This extension works with the Mozilla browsers and only on your client machine. If you are interested in have a different look for your own Mozilla setup, download Nice Title. Make sure you close your Mozilla browser and reopen it after the installation is complete.

Now, if you want your site to display the titles in this fashion, you will have to do something a little different. This will allow anybody with JavaScript enabled to see the titles this way. It involves some JavaScript and a CSS file. Get the code here, under the “How does it work?” section.

TweakUI has been releaseed for Windows XP and Server 2003. If you have never used TweakUI before, THIS IS A MUST HAVE UTILITY. TweakUI provides access to system settings that are not easily found through the Windows interface. The settings are mostly registry settings but TweakUI manages them in its own interface. Easy to find settings can be set here too, such as; mouse sensitivity, the speed at which cascading menus open, among others. You will even have access to the start menu and it is easy to customize here, by adding or deleting programs that appear in the frequently used programs sections. There’s also a grouping tweak that lets you decide how you want applications to be grouped. Once you use this tool, you won’t be able to live without it.

Download it here: TweakUI

Are you looking for a new car stereo but you’re not sure what to look for? Well, do you want to play MP3s or WMAs? How about satellite radio? Why make a choice, have it all! Pioneer has put together one of the most inclusive car stereo systems around. Look at the long list of features and keep in mind that this is all for under $250.00. Crutchfield even has a $20 rebate offer on this, right now.

Key Features:

• detachable, fold-down face
• multicolor display
• plays MP3 and WMA files on CD-R and CD-RW
• displays MP3 text and WMA titles
• Supertuner IIID
• 18 FM/6 AM presets
• Easy EQ five preset EQ curves with 3-band parametric adjustment
• EQ-EX boosts EQ settings
• Sound Focus EQ
• loudness
• MOSFET50 internal amp
• XM radio-ready (XM Radio subscription, tuner, antenna required to receive the satellite radio signal) service is available only in the lower 48 states, not available in Alaska, Hawaii, or U.S. territories
• CD changer controls add a Pioneer changer to your receiver order, and save $$ with Crutchfield’s package discount
• front and rear preamp outputs
• low-pass and high-pass filters
• optional auxiliary input
• wireless remote
• clock
• 22 watts RMS/50 peak x 4 channels
• CD frequency response 5-20,000 Hz
• CD signal-to-noise ratio 94 dB
• FM sensitivity 8 dBf
• 1-year warranty

Source:Crutchfield

A biosensor is a device that detects, records, and transmits information regarding a physiological change or the presence of various chemical or biological materials in the environment. More technically, a biosensor is a probe that integrates a biological component, such as a whole bacterium or a biological product (e.g., an enzyme or antibody) with an electronic component to yield a measurable signal. Biosensors, which come in a large variety of sizes and shapes, are used to monitor changes in environmental conditions. They can detect and measure concentrations of specific bacteria or hazardous chemicals; they can measure acidity levels (pH). In short, biosensors can use bacteria and detect them, too.

[via Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)]

Biosensors are not new to us, they exist to help warn us of potential biological, chemical, bacterial and other imminent threats. Our medical industry use certain types of these sensors in much of their analyses, via “lab on a chip”.
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I’m back on my Media PC kick. I just know that Media PCs will be all the rave in the next few years. Here is a product that will bring entertainment from your PC to you TV or stereo system. Enter Prismiq!

The PRISMIQ MediaPlayer offers consumers a multitude of home entertainment options, with just a few clicks of the remote control:

• Present DVD-quality video in MPEG-1/2/4 or DivX format
• Play Surround Sound and CD-quality audio
• Stream a personal library of PC-stored MP3, and WAV audio files
• Play Internet radio on the stereo
• Display digital photos on the TV
• Browse the web on the TV
• Display live, personalized news and information on the TV
• Instant Message with friends and family on the TV

This is a very impressive piece of technology but it is still new and there is room for improvement. For one, the unit cannot send a DVD movie from your PC to your TV, due to DVD encryption. Something like this will need to be solved. There are other areas that seem limited, read the FAQS to get the complete picture.