2008 August 19


A Computer in Every HomeRemember when that room was kept air-conditioned and food and drinks were not allowed inside? Well, that was before the personal computer changed the world. In 1977, Apple, Commodore and Radio Shaft all came out with versions of a home or office computer; they were usually called microcomputers.  They held a maximum of 64K of memory and used floppy disks.  On this date, 1981 August 12, IBM launched its first personal computer, the IBM 5150, operating under Microsoft's MS-DOS.  It came with a one- or two-floppy-disk storage system. In today's terms, it would take 10 floppy disks to hold one MP3 song's worth of music.

Quote: "Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window."Steve Wozniak


Big pictures from space
MSNBC - Apr 25, 2008


Pictures from outer space are among the biggest crowd-pleasers we have to offer here, and we're fortunate to have so many to choose from this week.
Galaxies go wild BBC News · Science/Tech

Hubble Turns 18 Enews 2.0

 

Fifty-five years ago, 13 April,  Ian Fleming's first 007 novel, Casino RoyaleCasino Royale, was published
by Jonathan Cape.  
In the book, James Bond does, in fact,
introduce himself as “Bond — James Bond.”
But the car was a Bentley, not an Aston Martin or a BMW;
and the drink was not a martini, shaken OR stirred;
it was 3 measures of Gordon's Gin, one of vodka and half a measure of
Kina Lillet (an apéritif wine).   His game was baccarat.
There were no clever gadgets, no Q and very little humor or witty banter.  In America, the book was released as You Asked For It, starring secret agent Jimmy Bond.

Quote: “Casino Royale is the definitive Bond story.”Barbara Broccoli

 



Google announced the launch on Monday night of its long-awaited, Web-based competitor to PowerPoint.  Google Presentations, which is free,
is part of the company's online office suite, Google Docs.


 


Google wants in on the Wikipedia game.
On Friday, the search engine announced the creation of  “Knol,”
a project that allows users to create their own Wikipedia-like pages on specific subjects.

C|Net News article on Knol

 

 

w00t” was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007

“The origin of the term is widely disputed.  Some claim that word originated in
competitive online gaming as an acronym for "we own other team".
Others trace the current usage of the word "w00t" to hackers in the
early to mid-'80s who used it as a term of celebration for gaining root access
in Unix systems; see leet.  Still others attribute the term to players of
Dungeons and Dragons as being shorthand for "Wow, loot!"
Regardless of the origin, the term has been adapted to mean a general expression of elation.”

 


Last year, the phone and cable companies convinced the Federal Communications Commission and the Courts to change how the Internet is operated, making a few unelected officials responsible for a decision with billions of dollars of impact for millions of Internet consumers.

These decisions reversed the safeguards that made the Internet so great – the freedom known as “Net Neutrality,” which allows you to go anywhere you want to go on the Internet. The Internet was designed by American universities, and made available to the general public over an open platform that required phone and cable companies to treat all traffic in a neutral manner.

Now, however, the phone and cable companies boast that they will create premium lanes on the Internet for higher fees, and give preferential access to their own services and those VIPs who can afford to “pay to play.” They have already blocked certain services and have the power to block or degrade any service that competes with them:

  • Do you want the phone and cable companies to block online movies or cheaper phone service over the Internet?
  • Do you want the phone and cable companies to decide which blogs or political sites you can access?
  • Do you want phone and cable companies to give preferential Internet access to companies who pay more for “premium” delivery?
  • Do you want phone and cable companies to keep new innovations off the Internet?

If you answered no to any of these questions, then

Congress needs to hear from you.



The man behind the Commodore 64, Commodore founder Jack Tramiel gives a rare
interview at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of his signature creation,
on which he still plays Pac-Man.  Photos: The C64 celebration





Mac Trojan prowls porn sites






Leopard
: Apple's new bloatware operating system on sale

“.Mac remote has firewall glitches”

“See through menus make no sense”

free Bootcamp is CRAP (compared to Parallels Desktop for Mac)

“eye-candy”, “a prettier .... ”, blah, blah, blah

“While Time Machine can perform backups over a network, the backup destination can only be a hard disk connected to a Mac running Leopard.”

“The Dock's new Stacks feature is a mess”

“way-cool arcing feature doesn't work - all you get is the grid of icons”

Peer Review: Leopard's secret flaws revealed!


Leopard = BFD

 updated




Mac Trojan prowls porn sites






Leopard
: Apple's new bloatware operating system on sale

“.Mac remote has firewall glitches”

“See through menus make no sense”

free Bootcamp is CRAP (compared to Parallels Desktop for Mac)

“eye-candy”, “a prettier .... ”, blah, blah, blah

“While Time Machine can perform backups over a network, the backup destination can only be a hard disk connected to a Mac running Leopard.”

“The Dock's new Stacks feature is a mess”

“way-cool arcing feature doesn't work - all you get is the grid of icons”

Peer Review: Leopard's secret flaws revealed!


Leopard = BFD


InformationWeek gPhone Slideshow

Inside The GPhone: What To Expect From Google's Android Alliance ==>

“ While the GPhone won't be revolutionary
-- the very existence of the Alliance implies it'll use currently available technologies
-- it will connect the pieces in pleasantly new ways.
  Expect the GPhone to be a handset in Web 2.0 clothing,
with a friendlier and more integrated approach to mobile computing
than even Steve Jobs has envisioned.
  Here then are the eight technologies we can expect to see in the GPhone (or phones) due sometime in 2008:

  1. A Chic Euro User Interface
  2. Call It The 'GPS' GPhone
  3. Really Lightweight Web Browser
  4. Deep Multimedia Capabilities, Via TI's OMAP
  5. Beyond Voice Dialing: Real Speech Recognition
  6. iPhone Imitation Department: Gliding Touch-Screen
  7. 'Push' Search, For VCAST-Like Music And Video
  8. Handheld-Gaming Quality Graphics

Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project


SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5 — Google took its long-awaited plunge into the wireless world today, announcing that it is leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers that could accelerate the convergence of computing and communications.



The "Lunar Legacy" program comes from the X Prize Foundation,
which has teamed up with Google to offer a $30 million purse for anyone able
to land a privately funded rover on the moon by December 31, 2012



PRoComputing webpage ==> GoogleDom


npr The Elements of E-Mail Style

(both in text and audio)



Verizon Wireless sets its customers free

Voyager, the operator's new "iPhone killer," will be its first consumer handset to let users roam the Web freely.




The Vanity Ring, a project by Markus Kison, is an update of the ring as a status symbol.
Basically it keeps a running tab on the number of Google hits your name gets.
You personalize the ring using some custom software,
and every night you plug the little sucker into its docking station
and it updates your hit count.  Great idea, if you're famous and vain as hell.
But if you're anything like me, the counter will never pass the number you do yourself unless
you change your name to “nude pictures”, “free porn”, or “hot singles ready to have sex in my area”



insect-sized flying spies.  A number of people reported what appeared to be flying mechanical insects, larger than dragonflies, over an antiwar rally in Washington DC last month.  The reporter got mostly no-comments from the agencies he called trying to pin down what it was they saw.  Only the FBI said through a spokesman: "We don't have anything like that."  The article describes work on insect cyborgs as well as purely mechanical flying spies, but quotes vice admiral Joe Dyer, former commander of the Naval Air Systems Command now at iRobot in Burlington, Mass., as follows: 
"I'll be seriously dead before that program deploys."  The article also mentions an International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, held in Switzerland in August, at which Japanese researchers demonstrated radio-controlled fliers with four-inch wingspans that resemble hawk moths



Zamzar
is a free online file conversion service.  Supporting a huge number of file formats, you can make any file into just about any other type of file.  Select your file, choose the type of file you would like it converted to, and pull the trigger.  The source file is uploaded, and within several minutes, or an hour at most, you will get an email with a link to download the resulting file from Zamzar's server.



Windows XP SP2c Release to Add New Product Keys

More product keys are needed to support the continued availability
of Windows XP Professional through the scheduled system builder channel end-of-life date of January 31, 2009.  Service Pack 2c (SP2c) will be released to provide system builders with a new, extended range of product keys. System builders who use imaging must create new
Windows XP Professional images with SP2c when shipping product keys;
otherwise end users will not be able to complete installation.



Google released a major update for its Earth application, introducing a spectacular view on the sky, allowing users to zoom into distant galaxies and stars – and learn about phenomenons such as red giants, supernovae and how stars are born.


IBM: (8/12/1981) introduced its first PC, which contained an
Intel chip and Microsoft's DOS operating system (1981)

(from Answers.com “Today in History”)




Google to unveil phone of its own by next year


Laser Printers Emit Indoor Pollution
(Researchers See Potential Health Hazards If Particle Concentrations Are High)


iPhone Owned by Hackers

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

“Looks like the first reported iPhone vulnerability is a doozy, they said they can read the log of SMS messages, the address book, the call history and the voicemail data, and they can take control of the iPhone and dial phone numbers, send text messages, or record audio (as a bugging device) and transmit it over the network for later collection.

Three security researchers claimed Sunday that they have found the first exploitable vulnerability in Apple Inc.’s iPhone, a flaw that allows them to steal any data from the device or even turn it into a remote surveillance tool.

According to a paper posted by the three, they rooted out a vulnerability in the iPhone’s version of Safari using “fuzzing” tools and wrote a proof-of-concept exploit that can be delivered from a malicious Web site or using “man-in-the-middle” tactics to trick users into connecting to a malicious wireless access point. Source: ComputerWorld

We Say: The hackers gave Apple until August the 2nd to fix the vulnerability as they will release the vulnerability and exploit at the upcoming Black Hat 2007 security conference, that opens next Saturday, July 28, in Las Vegas.



iPhone in depth: the Ars review

Another iPhone feature -- it crashes!
(Macs crash “(For examples, see here and here.)  And iPods --
if you've never crashed your iPod, you've never used your iPod....”)

Activation problems plague iPhone debut

"I Take the iPhone Home" by Lev Grossman



Available NOW
==>

USPS Forever Stamp
Forever (Liberty Bell) ND Doublesided Book of 20 @41¢/each
= Self-adhesive Price: $8.20

In 2007, the U.S. Postal Service will issue the Forever stamp, which will always be valid as First-Class postage on standard envelopes weighing one ounce or less, regardless of any subsequent increases in the First-Class rate.



USPS Rate Change==>May 14, 2007

“ All large envelopes (flats) will be required to be rectangular in shape.
This includes square pieces.”


“A square is a degenerate rectangle with a==b”
mathworld.wolfram.com





Dell goes Ubuntu; "Windows tax" is $50 according to pricing


N.Y. sues Dell over sales practices ==> Yahoo News



Apple Wouldn't Repair It: The RIGHT Way to Handle MacBook Repairs ==>

YOUTUBE VIDEO



One million complaint filed with FBI-run complaint center

Infoworld story



Crave is a new CNet blog about “gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff.”




“Spotlight: Twinkies! Can junk food get any sweeter?

Twinkies are comfort food; they're sweet and light and easy to eat.
They have about 145 calories apiece.  Everyone makes fun of them.
Very few people will admit to it, but someone in the U.S. is eating an awful lot of them.
Hostess (owned by Interstate Bakeries Corporation) sold about ½ billion Twinkies last year.
First invented on this date in 1930, Twinkies became a lunch box favorite
and were a snack food of choice to satisfy the need for a mid-afternoon sugar fix.
In 1999, US President Bill Clinton chose a package of Twinkies as one of the "enduring American icons" to be preserved in the nation's millennium time capsule.”

from ==> http://www.answers.com/topic/friday-april-6-2007



"Wiki" wins a place in Oxford English Dictionary


“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough
or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism.
We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it,
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire.
We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer (bartleby bio here)

from refdesk's (2007-03-20) ==>
http://lists.refdesk.com/mailman/listinfo/thought-of-the-day







Do you want to develop computer games without spending countless hours
learning how to become a programmer?  Then you've come to the right place.
Game Maker allows you to make exciting computer games, without the need
to write a single line of code.  Making games with Game Maker is a lot of fun.

Using easy to learn drag-and-drop actions, you can create professional looking games within very little time.  You can make games with backgrounds, animated graphics, music and sound effects, and even 3d games!  And when you've become more experienced, there is a built-in programming language, which gives you the
full flexibility of creating games with Game Maker.  What is best, is the fact that Game Maker can be used free of charge.

You can do anything you want with the games you produce, you can even sell them! Also, if you register your copy of Game Maker, you can unlock extra functions, which extend the capabilities of the program.  Game Maker comes preloaded with a collection of freeware images and sounds to get you started.

 


James Gray
, founder and manager of
Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center
in San Francisco, won the A.M. Turing Award — the "Nobel Prize of computer science" — in 1998, has been missing since Sunday (28 Jan), when he sailed from San Francisco Bay with his mother's ashes aboard
the 40-foot vessel Tenacious, intending to scatter the ashes
near the Farallon Islands.

Scientists end search for friend

A high-technology search of waters off Northern California for engineer Jim Gray,
a highly respected Microsoft Corp. scientist, has been called off by Gray's friends,
the Associated Press reported Saturday 2/17/2007.

Computer scientists from Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft and the University of California at Berkeley and other universities created custom
software, assembled satellite imagery, collected weather conditions
data to search waters as far away as Oregon and Mexico.


Missing scientist's contributions are legendary



 15 Gadgets for Artists
(from WIRED Gadget Lab)


10 Top Tech Towns (from WIRED Magazine)



Astronomy Picture of the Day
“Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured,
along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.”
Archive



"I can spend as much time as I can doing what I like to do,
which is to work with computers and schools and kids."
from ==>
rg



CNet on CES2007 (Jan 8-11)

Official CES Site

Gates tells what a geek wants

Gallery: Ugly Gadgets at CES



After first saying they'll charge $4.99 for the 802.11n update to Core 2 Duo MacBook & MacBook Pros and then changing that to $1.99 it is now FREE!
The download patch is available today



UFO HACKER TELLS WHAT HE FOUND..........

“The search for proof of the existence of UFOs landed Gary McKinnon in a world of trouble.  After allegedly hacking into NASA websites -- he says he found images of what looked like extraterrestrial spaceships.”  [free]
(from Shell Extension City.net Daily Update)




NASA is asking people to choose the best photograph
taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it
approaches its second anniversary at the planet Saturn.





Scientific American magazine presents their'Ask the Experts'page
arranged by topic: astronomy, biology, chemistry, computers,
environment, geology, mathematics, medicine, and physics.

     


2006 Foot-in-Mouth Awards



am-computer
“A fragment of the 2,100-year-old Antikythera Mechanism,
believed to be the earliest surviving mechanical computing device,
is seen at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.”
by NICHOLAS PAPHITIS/The Associated Press


upcoming




Bill Gates (2006 Dec 15): “People should just buy a CD and rip it. You are legal then.”


“Al Shugart--the man who founded Seagate Technology, convinced his pet dog to run for public office, and favored Hawaiian shirts over business suits--has died at age 76.

The California native passed away at a hospital from heart failure Tuesday, a Seagate representative said.

Al Shugart Shugart played an integral role in the development of the hard-drive industry. He was part of the original team of engineers at IBM that developed the first hard-drive storage system, which came out 50 years ago this year.”




Many last-minute shoppers procrastinate because they aren't sure what to get their loved ones. For the undecided, this site is a godsend.  It offers an eclectic array of gift ideas compiled from hundreds of Web sites and broken down by personality type (Dreamer, Likes to Talk Politics), style (Works Too Much, Aspires to Savoir Faire), hobbies (Quilter, Spacenik), occasion, and more.  Each item's description comes with links to online stores where you can make a purchase.  Innovative categories like Has Everything Already (wall-mounted aquarium) or Lives in a Small Apartment (zero gravity spice rack) make finding a gift for even the hard-to-buy-for a breeze.  Categories serve everyone from the single moms (babysitting service) to gadgeteers (James Bond stealth camera).


Doctors using Google to diagnose illnesses

“Misdiagnosis is still a common occurrence in the medical profession despite all the tools available such as the blood tests and state of the art scanning equipment.  Studies of autopsies have shown doctors seriously misdiagnose fatal illnesses about 20 per cent of the time.  So millions of patients are being treated for the wrong disease.  And the more astonishing fact may be that the rate has not really changed since the 1930s.”

CNet Article


I want a Freeware Utility to ... 450+ common problems solved.
Extremely useful free utilities that do specific jobs really well and save time and money.


Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.
Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited
by a total of 1,517,472 people from around the globe.




thx to [TAa]

http://thefairest.info/top.html




NASA will send a team of astronauts to repair the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, extending its life to 2013 and ensuring more discoveries about distant galaxies.
(story)


Satellites Launched To Spy On Sun
Twin Spacecraft Will Record Videos Of Solar Explosions In 3D
“(AP) Twin spacecraft blasted off on a mission to study huge eruptions from the sun that can damage satellites, disrupt electrical and communications systems on Earth
and endanger spacewalking astronauts.
The two observatories will provide scientists with the first-ever three-dimensional
view of the sun by working in tandem, like a set of eyes, in different orbits.”(story)



Firefox 2.0 released 2006 October 24
Still unable to show test link ==>
http://procomputing.org/tools.htm#internet

Wikipedia represents one of the closest expressions ever seen of genuine anarchy -- a "self-regulating cooperative of free thinkers acting voluntarily for a greater common good."  Their motto is "out of mediocrity, excellence."

Wikipedia has been around since 2001, which gives it whiskers in Internet terms.  It is now the largest encyclopedia in the world with articles on more than 5 million subjects in 229 languages -- and an average of 1,515 new articles posted every day this month.  It's also one of the most popular research tools on the Web; last month 33 million people used it.

Not bad for an organization with just one staff member.  The rest of the work is done by thousands of nerdy anorak devotees -- self-confessed wiki-maniacs -- dedicated to the hubristic project of trying to assemble "the sum of all human knowledge." ”

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/NyFHST90nnbQ4h/Wikipedia-and-the-Trust-Factor.xhtml



On the morning of November 8, the planet Mercury will pass directly in
front of the sun.  This rare event, called a "transit," will start at 9:12 a.m.
HST and last about five hours.  University of Hawaii astronomers will
use special telescopes at the summits of Haleakala and Mauna Kea to
transmit live images of the transit over the Internet as a “Mercury
Transit Hawaiian Style” webcast.
[thx SBa]

http://astroday.net/MercTransit06.html

mirror site==> http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/hilo/MercTransit06.html




http://www.web2con.com/



Magnitude 6.7 (“Strong”)
Date-Time Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 17:07:49 (UTC)



http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/us/101506hawaiiquake


[similar, subterranean slip/shear
common for CA, uncommon for HI
October 17, 1989 (17 years ago)==>Loma Prieta, CA ]




The X-Prize foundation
has announced the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics — for the first privately financed group to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days.  The motivation is to create an incentive for faster, cheaper genome seqeunceing, heralding the era of preventative personalized medicine.  The winner will also receive an extra $1,000,000 for sequencing the genomes of 100 additional people; among them Larry King and Stephen Hawking.  Apparently this is the largest medical prize in history.”


SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 12 — Moving to quell its boardroom upheaval, Hewlett-Packard said today that its chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, would step down in January and would be succeeded by Mark V. Hurd, the chief executive. ...

HP Boardroom Scandal Timeline (Forbes)

Dunn to step down as HP chairwoman in January
(San Jose Mercury News)

HP scandal revives 'pretext' legislation

After initial interest subsided, politicians turn their attention
back to dealing with accessing other people's phone records.

What Congress isn't doing
House plans HP hearings



'Star Trek' returns to TV with digital facelift

CBS digitally remasters all 79 episodes,
airing Saturday to mark series' 40th anniversary.



'Star Trek' props live long and prosper

From Oct. 5-7, Christie's is helping celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original "Star Trek" series by holding the first official studio auction of memorabilia from all five "Star Trek" television series and ten movie spinoffs

Life imitates 'Star Trek' (CNet)

Star Trek Auction Fetches $7.1M for 1,000 Items (
CNN)


Explore Banned Books


For more information about Banned Books Week (September 23rd-30th), visit http://www.ala.org/bbooks.

Is a book being challenged or banned in your community?  The ALA can help you do something about it.


To Kill a Mockingbird.  Of Mice and Men.  The Great Gatsby.  1984. 

It's hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools.  In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned.


(especially for Nancy)



You go, girl gadgeteer (c|net)



Seconfig XP
Freeware security configuration utility for Windows.

One tool to close (not just shield) most Windows security holes.
Can close ports 135, 137-139, 445, 1025 (used by file and printer sharing, Windows domains, other LAN-like access and widely exploited by worms, hackers etc.), 1900, 5000 (used by UPnP) and other....
Can disable most dangerous Windows services.
Can configure many hidden security related Windows TCP/IP settings.
Works only with registry (no files, services, drivers etc.).
Includes two easy to use presets for average home (standalone) and LAN (Microsoft Windows network member) computers.
Certified to be malware free by Softpedia.


Freeware Utilities to 450+ common problems solved.
Extremely useful free utilities that do specific jobs really well and save time and money.




BumpTop aims to enrich the desktop metaphor with expressive, lightweight techniques found in the real world.

Watch 7 min video in YouTube



Bill Gates Giving Up Daily Duties


Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates plans to relinquish
his daily duties in 2008 to work more closely with his foundation.

CNet story




The Windows Vista Customer Preview Program is
now closed for new participants.



$6 plus shipping+tax = DVD
or download (massive .iso file)



Google Spreadsheets



Create, store and share spreadsheets on the web





 

science@nasa

“This NASA web site indexes their various earth-based projects and outer space expeditions.  In addition to information aimed at adults, there is also a special section devoted to kids so that they can learn and explore the world around them.”

[from refdesk.com site-of-the-day]

 


MapMachine

http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/

National Geographic's redesigned online atlas gives you the world - your way.
Find nearly any place on Earth, and view it by population, climate,
and much more.  Plus, browse antique maps, find country facts, . . . .





Video: Gates on the PC ecosystem
(5 minutes 27 seconds)


The overall PC ecosystem is getting richer due to the variety of
PC-enabled devices, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said at the
WinHEC conference in Seattle on May 23.



Windows Media Player 11

Microsoft has put a new face on Windows Media Player by giving the application its biggest overhaul in years.  This beta version features a cleaner, Vista-like interface; integration with a new digital music store from MTV; and improved handling of large libraries and album art.

Version: Beta
Price: Free

Download Windows Media Player 11 now at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/11/

 


DMOZ

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive
human-edited directory of the Web.
It is constructed and maintained by a vast,
global community of volunteer editors.


Apple Store, Fifth Avenue, Opens Today (19 May):



The Complete Guide to E-mail

This site by Inc.com presents a complete guide to keeping your system secure, efficient, compliant, and affordable.  This guide outlines the biggest e-mail concerns, particularly security, compliance, and archiving.


Welcome to JetStream, the National Weather Service Online Weather School.  This site is designed to help educators, emergency managers,
or anyone interested in learning about weather and weather safety.


Microsoft's workplace of the future


More photo's from cNet


is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control.  With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

Example (2006-May-08):

 


PC World's Info Centers

Doing product research?  Wondering about spyware, Windows, and other major technology topics?  Provisioning your small business or home office?  Our Info Centers are your one-stop shop for everything you need: reviews, charts, how-to's, articles, downloads, and pricing info on the products and topics that most interest you.

Desktops
Digital Cameras
Digital Entertainment
DVD Drives and Recorders
E-mail-IM-VoIP
Games
Laptops
Macintosh
Monitors
Office Tools
PDAs & Cell Phones
Printers
Spyware and Security
Upgrade Center
Windows


Korea Unveils World's Second Android

“Korea has developed its own android capable of facial expressions on its humanoid face, the second such machine to be developed after one from Japan.  
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy invited some 60 children to the Kyoyuk Munhwa Hoekwan in Seoul to introduce Ever-1 to the public.  The name combines the first human name found in the Bible, Eve, with the "r" in robot.”


New virus “Troj/Ransom-A” freezes your computer, demands money

A new kind of malware circulating on the Internet freezes a computer and then asks for a ransom paid through the Western Union Holdings money transfer service.

ixQuick Troj/Ransom-A

 


Avoiding RSI

by Taraneh Razavi, M.D., GOOGLE Staff Doctor





Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone
to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.
  • No technical knowledge required.
    Build high-quality web pages without having to learn HTML or use complex software.

  • What you see is what you'll get.
    Edit your pages right in your browser, seeing exactly how your finished product will look every step along the way.

  • Don't worry about hosting.
    Your web pages will live on your own site at http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com





Join the creators of MAKE magazine, the MythBusters, and thousands
of tech DIY enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, and authors at MAKE's first ever Maker Faire!



Offers a single, discounted techno (geek?) product
at midnight (Carrollton, Texas - Central Time) each day



“ Stuff for Smart Masses”






Earth Day(April 22)





GetHuman Cheats

http://gethuman.com/us
/

Instructions for bypassing automated phone systems to get to a human as quickly as you can.  Major companies listed.



Microsoft Launches Specialized Search Engine

 

The San Francisco earthquake occurred at 5:12 A.M. on April 18, 1906. The source was a rupture of the San Andreas Fault.


http://www.vibrationdata.com/earthquakes/sanfrancisco1906.htm

 


Linux/Unix more flawed than Windows, CERT says


U.S. Government has reported fewer vulnerabilities were found in