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October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween
Usually this is a place of technical babel but today is Halloween and it wouldnt be cool to forget about it. Hopefully everyone had a good safe night of candy and costumes.. and pumpkins.. this one actually took a good long time and a dremel. :) Anyone else have a good pumpkin? Why not share it here?
Posted by Dustin at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)
Leopard vs Vista not as easy a call as you might think security wise
Considering my oft stated opinions on Windows Vista you might think that any comparison between the Mac OS X Leopard would be as lopsided as last week's Patriots Redskins game. Well according to Ryan Naraine at ZD Net that isn't true, at least not in the area of security:
The new firewall in Leopard isn’t the only security feature being pooh-poohed by security researchers. According to Thomas Ptacek (right), co-founder of Matasano Security, Apple’s implementation of memory randomization in Leopard doesn’t make the operating system immune from virus and worm attacks.
After you read the whole thing you might consider some of the aspects such as the firewall issue as overblown as it can be tweaked, but there is an important thing to consider.
The days of computers being the providence of geeks is gone forever. The computer is an appliance in the house no different than the PC or the microwave. This means that like most other appliances:
The customer expects to turn it on and have it work.The customer is unlikely to keep let alone read the manual.
This is not so much a rap on the customer as a result of the successful efforts of very good programmers who took us from the command line days to the graphic interface days to making the use of a computer easy enough for everyone.
Because of this default settings are in my opinion critical. The natural instinct is to make things as easy as possible, you don't want thing people want to use blocked by default but I would submit that this is wrong. It is much easier to allow something accidentally blocked than to remove something nasty that is accidentally allowed in. A customer might be annoyed by having to permit things in the UAC of vista, but they will be much more annoyed by a worm or virus.
Remember Apple doesn't have some magic immunity from virus' and worms. It just has a market share so small by comparison that the Windows OS is a more profitable target. (Not to mention the Microsoft "evil empire" rep that Apple loves.)
You pay extra for the Apple OS a comparable computer with the Apple OS you should expect better.
(And yes I know there have been a lot of sports references lately.
What can I say; we are in Boston and Boston teams are on a roll!)
UPDATE: Looking at the comment below Alan was quite correct, the base OS price if you are just buying an OS is comparable or even cheaper than buying most flavors of Vista. But I was referring to a personal computer with the OS installed vs the OS itself, a fact that I didn't make clear thus the correction above.
However if you look at those computers with the OS installed the point is easily made. As a base comparison lets take a look at the apple store first:
The low end Mac is the Mac mini they are $600 or $800 dollars. I'm not much for the smaller sizes due to heat issues but they seem a neat little machine. That price doesn't include a monitor which is not so odd but it also doesn't include a mouse or a keyboard.
The Next jump is to the Mac Laptops the ibooks. Those start at $1100 and are a pretty little machine. But again $1100 is the low end.
Now lets look at Office Max (a company that HiWired has a relationship with) when you check you their page you see this.
You will note that you can pick up Several models for a pretty good price. There is not a model on the page above $700 and both the Acer and the Gateway models come with Monitors (and all come with keyboards and mice whoo hoo!)
On the laptop page there is only one model listed for above $930 dollars and that is a high end system.
All of this doesn't mean that these computers are better than the Mac. I'm sure that Mac lovers can fill the page with comments stating how satisfied they are with their machines and more power to them. I'm just suggesting that as you are going to pay more for a Mac and as the OS is kept in house that one would naturally expect more attention to some details like the one mentioned above.
Posted by Peter at 10:48 AM | Comments (2)
October 30, 2007
Red Sox Parade today HiWired open normal hours
Today is the Parade celebrating the Red Sox Victory in the world series a National State Local holiday.
HiWired will be open its normal 24/7 hours.
I on the other hand have the day off. HA!
I did expect Colorado to take at least two at home, but our young players really stepped up and put them down every time they came up. I like the look of Colorado and suspect with the young players they have we will see more of them.
Personally I would have given the MVP to Ellsbury but that's a minor quibble.
Its no surprise that we win a title with guys like this on the team:
To Red Sox Nation we’d like to offer our deepest and most profound thank you for making the last four years some of the greatest moments personally and professionally, of our lives. Much like the fans in Philadelphia, and Arizona, you always treated my wife and my children with respect. You were far better to me than I deserved at times, and never worse than I deserved at others. The only thing I know I can say without a doubt is that I took the ball, every single time, and never ever left anything in the tank.
Personally I'd give him a one year deal to work with the young pitching and perhaps hire him as a bullpen coach.
Anyways congrats to the Red Sox, let there be dancing in the streets:
And more dancing!
Posted by Peter at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2007
Fun with technology
What kinds of interesting things can you do with technology? You can take a closer look at one of the worlds great treasures:
A new high-resolution picture of Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper has been posted online, exposing the artist's finest brush strokes to conspiracy theorists across the internet.
The high resolution image allows viewers to see the finer details of the masterpiece.At 16 billion pixels, the image is 1,600 times stronger than those produced by a typical 10 million pixel digital camera.
The high-resolution allows art lovers to view details of the 15th century painting as though they were centimetres away from the work.
Details of the painting that can now been seen include traces of drawings Leonardo put down before the painting.
These are the type of things that you don't think of when you think of technology but they are there and they are cool.
Posted by Peter at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2007
The pubishing group currently known as idiots
Idiot might be a harsh word but what do you call a company that makes copyright infringement demands over this:
The back story is here:
Twenty eight people, mostly friends and family, had viewed the YouTube video by June, when mom Stephanie Lenz said she received an e-mail from YouTube informing her that her video had been removed from the site at the request of Universal Music Publishing Group, the recording industry's largest label, and warning her that future copyright infringements on her part could force the Web site to cancel her account.
After getting over her initial worry she like any sensible person got angry:
But Lenz was angry, and she said she wasn't ready to let it go.She contacted a leading cyber rights legal organization called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and filed a civil lawsuit against the music publisher, claiming they were abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by sending out reams of what are known in the industry as "take down notices" to Web sites like YouTube, claiming their artists' copyrights had been infringed upon -- when in fact, sometimes they may not have been at all.
Yeah lets anger our customer base, give the video national and international attention and make ourselves look foolish. I'm sure this is just what the stockholders were looking for.
Posted by Peter at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
The first sign of trouble
What is a sure sign that things that internet freedom are in a place is getting iffy? When the Kremlin decides to take a peek at what is going on there. You have to give them credit rather than just closing site down they are manipulating the net with style; just look:
Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old Putin supporter and blogger whose online icon is the fearsome robot of the "Terminator" movie, works for a political consulting company loyal to the Kremlin. He said he and his team, which included people from a youth movement called the Young Guard, quickly started blogging that day about a smaller, pro-Kremlin march held at the same time.They linked to one another repeatedly and soon, Danilin said, posts about the pro-Kremlin march had crowded out all the items about the opposition march on the Yandex Web portal's coveted ranking of the top five Russian blog posts.
"We played it beautifully," Danilin said.
I've always argued that the cure for speech is more speech. It looks like the Kremlin has really taken it to heart with a sneaky twist.
Posted by Peter at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2007
Yes i know its been a week
I know I know the blog templates still haven't been updated.
Our developers will be on it as soon as possible but the posting will continue.
Posted by Peter at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2007
These are the people in our workinghood...
The Boston Globe has a nice little article concerning some of the internals of our business.
That's why some progressive bosses are counterbalancing the diffusion of the digital age with innovative efforts to boost face-to-face and real-time connections. They're mandating no travel or no e-mail days, or making flesh-and-blood connections a new priority. The results are sometimes surprising - less stress, more learning, even better balance at home."We embrace chat and e-mail and collaboration tools," says Singu Srinivas, copresident of Needham's HiWired, a technology support start-up with 60 employees. "Those are additives to face-to-face relationship building, but they can't be a replacement for it."
Read the whole thing to get an idea of how things are done in the digital age but with a personal spin.
Posted by Peter at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2007
These are a few of our favorite links
A study ranked the most informative blogs out there:
A recent Carnegie Mellon study used higher mathematics to answer the question: if you want to be informed about what the entire blogospohere is talking about, but you can only read 100 blogs (out of the millions available), which blogs should you read?
There is a reason why we link to Instapundit so much. I just don't see how he has time to do other things like oh I don't know, Teach, eat, sleep etc...
Posted by Peter at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2007
Game 1 at Fenway
This blog wasn't here in October of 2004 so the World Series didn't come up. But our company is in Boston and the Boston Red Sox are our team so we will be blogging on the topic of the World Series a bit over this week.
The Rockies Keys:
Clutch Hitting
Colorado has managed to get the hits when they need them. If you look at their games this post season you see a pattern of coming through and holding on. Their victory vs San Diego to make the playoffs was one of the most improbable half innings since Dave Roberts scored from 2nd to tie Game 4 vs the Yankees in 2004.
Catch the Ball:
Its often forgotten that baring rain you need at least 27 outs to win a baseball game. Colorado's defense has been ungodly. A spectacular defense give a lot of leeway to pitching that isn't overpowering. To win this series this has to continue.
What me worry?
It would seem odd to have to tell a team that has had such a run to stay loose, but this is the biggest part of the big show. I'm reminded of the 1985 pre-Brady Patriots who during the Super Bowl dropped easy passes in the first quarter as the receivers seemed star struck. Their job is to win 4 before losing 3. Keeping a win streak alive is not the primary mission.
Red Sox Keys:
Patience:
The Red Sox are one of the most patient hitting teams you will ever see. That patience needs to remain in play. If you are going to get a ball past that kind of a defense you need force that pitcher to give you something good to hit.
Run baby run:
Colorado's catcher has a great rep for calling a game, not so great in throwing out runners. The Red Sox set a record for grounding into double plays in a series against Cleveland. Facing an even better defense they need to exploit that weakness when their speed is on base.
Starting strong:
This team is going to score a lot of runs, the key is going to be the 2-4 starting pitching. It is Vital that the Game 6 Schilling and Game 7 Matsuzaka show up rather than the game 2 & 3 model, (In fact I'd like to see more that 5 innings from Matsuzaka for a change). The loss of Wakefield due to injury is a big loss as the Rockies are not used to the Knuckleball so Lester is going to have to pick it up.
On paper this series should be no contest however games are not played on paper. (for reference see Fausto Carmona and C. C. Sabathia) I don't see this series going less that 6 games and seven games is a distinct possibility. Depending on how the series goes I would actually consider resting David Ortiz in game 3 or 4 at Colorado. It would be very nice to be able to bring him up as a pinch hitter in a clutch situation as opposed to a pitcher looking to get around him.
As for tonight I like the Red Sox. Colorado did well against Becket in the regular season but he is a post season monster. Also Manny and Mike Lowell feast off of left handed pitching so the match-up is very favorable today. If Colorado manages to take game one that all bets are off.
Posted by Peter at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
An idea who's time has come? Manditory e-mail forwarding
As e-mail becomes the de-facto way of communication could this be in the future?
The post office forwards letters when a person moves, and telephone companies likewise forward calls. Should Internet companies be required to forward e-mails to customers who switch providers?There is no mandate governing e-mail forwarding, and industry officials say imposing one would be costly and unnecessary. But federal regulators are looking at the issue more closely following a complaint from a former America Online customer who claims an abrupt termination of service devastated her business.
Gail Mortenson, a Washington-based freelance editor, in July filed a six-page petition with the Federal Communications Commission, which opened a 30-day public comment period that ends Oct. 26, followed by another 30-day period for replies.
I don't think this can fly as the post office is a division of the federal government and the various e-mail providers are private providers, it might seem simple but I see huge liability issues over lost e-mails that would prevent it.
Posted by Peter at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2007
Microsoft's version of Ransonware
Well Microsoft has decided to stop fighting, pay the fines and open the code per the EU's order:
As part of an effort to smooth relations with European regulatory authorities, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said it has no plans to appeal a court decision that upheld nearly $1 billion in antitrust penalties against the software maker.The European Court of First Instance upheld the fines in a decision handed down last month. At the time, Microsoft hinted that it might appeal the ruling to Europe's highest court. On Monday, however, the company said it won't challenge the verdict.
"We will not appeal the CFI's decision to the European Court of Justice," Microsoft said in a statement.
The EU's European Commission originally fined Microsoft $613 million in 2004 following a five-year investigation sparked by a complaint from Sun Microsystems.
I'm sure the EU will wisely use those funds. And Sun will without a question use this opening to make high quality products at an affordable price.
Hopefully my sarcasm will prove unfounded.
Posted by Peter at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2007
Silly Internet Polls
Ever wonder why internet polls are always referred to as unscientific? Charles Johnson who has run his share of polls has the explains it all:
Most online polls, like the ones at CNN and MSNBC, don’t use IP addresses to block multiple votes. They set a cookie in the user’s browser; so to vote multiple times all you have to do is delete the cookie. Voila! Vote as often as you like.Some polls use a combination of IP and cookie, or the IP address alone; for those it’s a little more difficult. But most of the IP addresses I’ve seen voting for Ron Paul at my site trace to universities, which commonly use a dynamic IP allocation method for the school’s ISP. So again, it’s very easy to vote multiple times, simply by clearing cookies, then logging off and back on to the system — which allocates a new IP address. You can also do this by using a dial-up account, which assigns a dynamic IP address from a pool of available addresses.
Internet polls are fun but not very informative, take them for what they are.
Posted by Peter at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
Just needs a lick of paint
As you can see (unless you are reading this in the archives) we are in the transition period for the blog. Our new look has reached our main page but hasn't quite made it here yet.
Sort of like Annie's place which today reopened after she closed up a few months ago (under new management unlike us) we will have some cleaning up to do that will take place over the next couple of days.
But the posts will still be here and we will be working. After all we didn't close for Game 7 did we?
Bring on the Rockies!
Posted by Peter at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2007
Viacom sees the light
Looks like Viacom has figured out what others have not, YouTube can really drive the popularity of a show and if it is free so much the better.
Following up yesterday’s item that Jon Stewart has extended his contract to host The Daily Show until the end of 2010, Viacom has unveiled a new website that will offer every minute of The Daily Show since it began in 1999 — and for free.That’s 13,000 video clips in all, so the most avid fans of the satirical news show are unlikely to leave their computers for a very long time.
Even smarter is the new use of ads:
Viacom’s designers have been experimenting with ads that appear for two or three seconds at the start of a clip, recede, then emerge briefly from a corner of the picture like a network-TV promo while the video continues playing.
This is EXACTLY the formula that people have been waiting for.
Posted by Peter at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)
Not in front of your TV for Game 7?
Here at HiWired we are 24/7 so a fair amount of our staff missed yesterday's game 6 Victory of the Red Sox over Cleveland.
Today I will be one of the unlucky ones who will miss game 7 tonight. If you are in front of a computer and want to keep up with the game the best site on the net to keep up with this or any other baseball stuff is David Pinto's Baseball Musings blog.
You can be sure that I'll have that window open in the background.
(Frankly I think its a mute point, Unless the long rest has thrown them off Colorado can't be stopped, they are playing the best baseball I've even seen by a team. But if anyone can do it the Sox can.)
Posted by Peter at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2007
Bigger doesn't mean smarter
Looks like the #3 grocery chain needs to take some basic lessons in web smarts.
Supervalu Inc., the No. 3 U.S. grocery chain, has fallen prey to an e-mail fraud, nearly losing about $10 million after wiring money to bogus bank accounts, according to federal court filings.The fraud is detailed in a pair of forfeiture cases filed under seal earlier this year in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho.
The fraud began after the supermarket chain received two e-mails - one from someone purporting to be an American Greetings Corp. employee and another claiming to be with Frito-Lay, according to court documents. Both e-mails claimed the companies wanted payments sent to new bank accounts.
Now we've been advising people to be careful with their money online for years. If they had read us they would have been prepared.
Posted by Peter at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2007
Security Dump
There has been a ton of security related news lately. Just wanted to share a few.
Skype Trojan steals login credentials
US ID theft bill seeks redress for victims
Teen accused of hacking emergency 911 system
Pump-and-dump scammers debut MP3 spam
Cafe Latte attack steals credentials from Wi-Fi clients
Bad hair day for alternative browser users
Microsoft Vista has a memory problem
Fasthosts suffers hack attack
Posted by Hector at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)
Target Microsoft monopoly; lets play for a few more years
Looks like the soon to expire oversight of the Microsoft computer OS monopoly isn't going to expire soon.
In a nine-page court filing with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Thursday, officials in New York, Maryland, Louisiana and Florida said they were joining a group of six states, led by California, and the District of Columbia in calling for extending oversight on Redmond until 2012."An extension is appropriate to assure that marketplace participants have sufficient opportunity to establish positions to compete against Microsoft, an entrenched monopolist," they wrote, according to a document seen by CNET News.com.
I think the real solution is for a competator to create an OS that runs as many applications as Windows, as easily as windows and at a lower cost than windows. As long as Microsoft fits that bill, all the laws in the world won't stop people from buying it.
Personally I think the response to Vista is their best bet. If that doesn't break the Microsoft monopoly nothing will.
Posted by Peter at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
Net Neutrality or no.
Via Drudge MSNBC is reporting the latest news in the Net Neutrality debate:
The principle of equal treatment of traffic, called "Net Neutrality" by proponents, is not enshrined in law but supported by some regulations. Most of the debate around the issue has centered on tentative plans, now postponed, by large Internet carriers to offer preferential treatment of traffic from certain content providers for a fee.Comcast's interference, on the other hand, appears to be an aggressive way of managing its network to keep file-sharing traffic from swallowing too much bandwidth and affecting the Internet speeds of other subscribers.
AP's article on the tests is here a test of "biblical" proportions:
We picked the Bible for the test because it's not protected by copyright and the file is a convenient size.In two out of three tries, the transfer was blocked. In the third, the transfer started only after a 10-minute delay. When we tried to upload files that were in demand by a wider number of BitTorrent users, those connections were also blocked.
Not all Comcast-connected computers appear to be affected, however. In a test with a third Comcast-connected computer in the Boston area, we were unable to test with the Bible, apparently due to an unrelated error. When we attempted to upload a more widely disseminated file, there was no evidence of blocking.
My own opinion of BitTorrent, Limewire etc is no secret. There is no doubt that there are legitimate uses for the programs. There is also no doubt that the programs are used for not only a ton of illegal downloads but its my experience that their use by inexperienced users (read teenagers) rushing to download "cool stuff" lead to a lot of the virus/spyware issues on the web.
The meat and potatoes of the matter is this; Should there be a two tiered handling of net speeds and downloads? Much like a city that has different tax rate for business customers and residential customers. A fair argument can be made that since business customers pay much higher rates. It is those higher rates that support the residential customers and allow the rates they receive.
On the other hand there is the argument that the all downloads and data should be treated equally in terms of downloads and speeds. The customer has agreed to the rate and the service is offered based on that rate.
However the debate goes; the consumer will vote with their choice of providers. And that's how it should be.
Posted by Peter at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2007
Makeover coming
Well the blog is going to soon be undergoing our 2nd makeover along with our main site, as wild and we continue to move forward.
Due to the upgrade access and posting might be a tad sporadic for the next few days.
So keep an eye out and take in our new look, but with the same great service.
Posted by Peter at 06:21 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2007
Car pictures finally!!
Promised some car pictures but haven't had a good day to take them. I was either sick or at some family event on the few days we did have that were shinny. Well today caught another nice day. I couldn't do any close ups as my car is filthy and I had no time to get it washed up.
You can check them out along with some discussion HERE
There seems to be a size limit on the page thats cutting my images in half but if you right click on a image and select view image you can see the full picture.
Posted by Hector at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)
Well Amazon keeps its advantage....
The extension of the internet tax ban has cleared its first hurdle:
The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a four-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access, despite widespread support in both parties for a permanent ban.The tax ban, first passed in 1998, is set to expire on Nov. 1. The extension exempts some states that approved taxes prior to the original enactment.
This will likely pass pretty easy, I don't see a permanent ban coming because the ability to renew it gives political types an easy popular vote each time.
Posted by Peter at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
The battle of the Sexes PC style
I'm sure this has been around the net (in fact it is a fairly old joke on Spanish language sites) but I found it cute:
A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. "House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa." "Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz." A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?" Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
Follow the link for the reasons.
Posted by Peter at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)
Getting serious on copyright on YouTube?
Well supposedly Youtube's technology to remove copyrighted clips is all set:
The filtering tools are designed so the owners of copyrighted video can block their material from appearing on YouTube, which has become a pop culture phenomenon in its 2-year existence.They also give the owners of copyrighted video the option to sell ads around their material if they want the clips remain available on YouTube.
However this might not be as clear as it sounds:
YouTube now needs the cooperation of copyright owners for its filtering system to work, because the technology requires copyright holders to provide copies of the video they want to protect so YouTube can compare those digital files to material being uploaded to its website.This means that movie and TV studios will have to provide decades of copyright material if they don't want it to appear on YouTube, or spend even more time scanning the site for violations.
That could make Youtube/google the greatest library of copyrighted material out there. Some think that this misses the obvious.
"If there has been a clip from American Idol posted to the site by Joe Schmo in Oklahoma instead of Fox, you can be pretty sure it's not supposed to be there," said Rob Gould, vice president of marketing for Broadcaster.com, a rival video site.
It will be interesting to see how it all works out.
Posted by Peter at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2007
Remember Napster?
Looks like Napster is trying something a little different ( besides selling out and letting the RIAA make them become a pay service.. cough cough)
G4 the feed - Napster announced today it plans to lure in more customers by moving to a Web-based platform, allowing users to play their music from any computer without having to download additional software.
I think that this is a really good idea, The napster to go service was really good and I think that if they keep adding cool features they may some day take the lead over I tunes. Of corse they still need the ability to stream and movies would be nice.. and tv shows.. and games.. and, ok well I tunes is still #1 sorry Napster.
For more information please click the link below
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071016/wr_nm/napster_relaunch_dc;_ylt=aj8vxv3bo9uuhbwpzljqbwz6vbif
Posted by Dustin at 11:43 PM | Comments (1)
Some day they may be scarce
Wired reports that Google has reversed itself on a flap concerning rejecting ads at the request of MoveOn.org concerning ads placed by a republican senator in Maine:
Both MoveOn.org and Google late last week faced a barrage of criticism after an internet strategist for Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine complained that Google had blocked several re-election ads from the search engine's advertising network because the ads contained the trademarked term "MoveOn.org" in the text."Stop Moveon.org. More MoveOn money in Maine than anywhere else. Learn how to help," read one of the banned ads, which linked to Collins' reelection campaign site.
Under Google's trademark policy, owners can request that third parties' not be allowed to use their trademarked term in the text of ads -- a policy that far exceeds the requirements of trademark law. Lindenauer says that MoveOn.org withdrew from that policy on Friday after it heard about the brewing controversy over Google's termination of Collins' text ads using the group's name.
It speaks well of MoveOn that is didn't attempt to block an ad critical of them but in my opinion it was foolish of Google to be blocking said revenue. Right now they are the top of the heap, but remember AOL was once the top of the heap and this was in the news today:
American Online Limited (AOL), the world's leading interactive services provider, will be downsizing its workforce by 20 percent, eliminating some 2, 000 jobs.AOL, a subsidiary of Time Warner, is retrenching jobs as it shifts from a subscription-based business to one based on advertisements, Variety.com reported.
Time Warner has posted strong earnings, but AOL has been a blemish on the balance sheet, as it lost 1.1 million subscribers in the second quarter and overall revenue dropped by 38 per cent.
I wouldn't chase those customers away, someday you might need them; remember Captain Renault.
Posted by Peter at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
2007 Webblog awards; Yes I am electioneering
One of my personal heroes is John Quincy Adams 6th president of the US and only man that to serve in the Senate, The White House, The House of Representatives and be nominated to the Supreme Court and confirmed unanimously (He declined on the grounds that he felt himself unfit for the position). Adams was also the first president ever photographed although it was years after he left office. 40 years ago Historian David Jacobs wrote this on Adams who was running for re-election for president in 1828:
Naturally, Adams did not electioneer. Adamses serve but they do not campaign for office. Adamses also do not win second terms.
Well my name isn't Adams. The 2007 Weblog awards have come upon us. The nomination period ends on Wednesday. The categories are listed here. There are a couple of categories that we might qualify in. (There is unfortunately no category for best blog by a business).
If you enjoy the blog and find it useful or informative we would be very grateful if you considered us for a nomination. I haven't asked previous years but one of my other heroes is Tip O'Neill who told this story in his autobiography Man of the House. I quote it from a speech by John Hume:
This brings me to Speaker O’Neill’s second rule. The day before his first election his neighbor across the street, Mrs. O'Brien said, "Tip I am going to vote for you tomorrow even though you didn't ask me to". And Tip said, "Mrs. O'Brien I shovel your walk in the winter, I mow your grass in the summer, I didn't think I had to ask for your vote." She replied, "Let me tell you something, Tip, people like to be asked." That's rule number two. Because he had taken the votes of his neighbors for granted, Tip O'Neill lost that election. But it was the only one he ever lost. For the rest of his life, on every Election Day, for over fifty years, Tip O'Neill would leave his house to go to vote, but first would turn to his wife and say, "Millie, I'd like to ask for your vote". Her reply was always the same, “I will give you every consideration".
Well I'm asking.
Posted by Peter at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2007
George OU right but missing something
Geroge Ou takes those of us who have taken Vista to task over and over again. As usual he has some good hard facts on his side:
Even if a whopping 20% of computer buyers downgrade and revert to Windows XP for whatever reason, that still leaves 80% who stay with Windows Vista. That means hardware makers and ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) have to deal with Windows Vista now or later whether they like it or not if they want to stay in business. The fact that 60 million copies were sold in the first 6 months since launch pretty much confirms Vista will become the dominant OS by default.
He points out flaws as well:
On the whole, Vista is a bit on the bloated side for my taste compared to Windows XP and Microsoft should do something to streamline Vista and make it run smoother. Windows Vista SP1 seems to be on track to do some of this but Microsoft really needs to do more. This is why I tell people never to upgrade an older PC unless they’re sure it’s powerful enough and it has all the drivers available. The poor retail box sales of Vista pretty much prove this assessment is universal but it doesn’t change the fact that almost every new retail PC ships with Windows Vista and the vast majority of them will stay Vista.
The article is very much worth a read but I think he really misses a critical point. The reason why the inevitable trek to Vista won't be so inevitable is the fact that business don't CARE that the growth issues are not as bad as they seem. The reason they have the computer is to run the application not the other way around. As long as their business applications will do what they need they aren't interested in upgrading. That means money. And from a tech support stance, I've seen plenty of vista systems that are infected.
XP has been around for almost 5 years, applications for it are pretty stable and users and business' KNOW that their stuff works with it. The tech side might mean something to George or myself or guys who are into PC but until you can demonstrate an actual cost benefit to move to vista I don't see the big guns doing it. And If I was advising them I'd say the benefits just don't cut it, at least not yet.
I might be wrong and if George thinks so his arguments will be strong, but no matter how good that tech argument is the business argument will and the customer decision for now anyway will trump it. At least until the developers for the issue for their customers.
Posted by Peter at 10:27 PM | Comments (3)
October 14, 2007
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer.
First off I want to thank Hiwired for sponsoring me to walk for a good cause. 10,000+ showed up to raise money for breast cancer research and walked 4 miles inside Roger Williams Park in Providence Rhode Island. The event started with local singers singing inspirational music and a recap of last year’s donations. After a quick registration and a contribution I was off to the walk. I decided to walk this year for 2 reasons. A family member is a recent survivor of breast cancer and It was just the right thing to do. This is really a horrible disease and the fact that it’s likely to see a cure in my lifetime is worth my time and energy. At first I was thinking that there was no way I could actually walk 4 miles but once it was over I realized that it was nothing compared to what breast cancer victims and their families go through. This was my first walk and it will not be my last! It was allot of fun and you just can’t beat having a great time for a good cause!
Posted by Dustin at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
The difference between free and not
You know as a person blogging for a business I expect some limitations on blogging topics and content, however things have been pretty easy going around here.
However if you live somewhere that is not so free you have to take drastic steps to blog:
When 32-year-old Yoani Sanchez wants to update her blog about daily life in Cuba, she dresses like a tourist and strides confidently into a Havana hotel, greeting the staff in German.That is because Cubans like Sanchez are not authorized to use hotel Internet connections, which are reserved for foreigners.
It's pretty bad when you give preference to people other than your own.
She and a handful of other independent bloggers are opening up a crack in the government's tight control over media and information to give the rest of the world a glimpse of life in a one-party, Communist state.
Read the whole thing and be grateful that you don't have to jump through the hoops that these people do to say what they want to say.
Posted by Peter at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2007
Vista; Hell no we won't go.
The Dutch have had it with Vista:
The refusal has led Consumentenbond to call on consumers to explicitly ask for Windows XP when purchasing a new computer and for shops to provide free Windows XP packages to those dissatisfied with Vista.The meeting was initiated by the union after it did a five weeks investigation, where it received some 5,000 consumer complaints about Windows Vista. Most of the complaints revolved around application and peripheral hardware compatibility issues.
It just keeps coming.
Posted by Peter at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2007
Bad day for an old system.
Well this hasn't been my day. My system booted to a STOP error 15 min before the start of my shift. I keep an emergency system handy so I switched over to that while repairing my system. One of the great advantages of DELL systems is it comes with a true operating system disk so I was able to run the recovery console and a chkdsk rather than any kind of full recovery with the resulting loss of data.
It looked like I had beaten the computer gremlins but they weren't done with me since shortly after the system booted up I couldn't get to a necessary site (for once my Vista system was doing something that the xp system wouldn't) in safe mode it would. Well I discovered that my legacy Norton (I run avast but kept the Norton firewall) had blown up. When it works Norton is great, when it dies it doesn't want to die alone. So the Norton uninstaller was called for and it was stripped from the system.
Well i was back online and in business however since then my hard drive is making a constant clicking noise. This is a sure sign that the end is near. I'll be off to Jeromey to get a new hd and have the system ghosted since I don't want to buy a new one right now.
Its lasted 3 years which isn't bad for a laptop, if you want your laptop to last I would suggest our podcast on laptops, part 1 is here and part 2 is here.
Posted by Peter at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2007
I wish I was there
Computer world chronicles the conversation between Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer and a rather frustrated analyst Yvonne Genovese at the ITxpo conference:
"I'm one of those early adopters of Vista," said Yvonne Genovese, an analyst who was interviewing Ballmer along with fellow analyst David Smith on stage at a conference forum. "My daughter comes in one day and says, 'Hey Mom, my friend has Vista, and it has these neat little things called gadgets -- I need those.'"Said Ballmer: "I love your daughter."
"You're not going to like her mom in about two minutes," said Genovese, while the crowd laughed.
Read the whole thing. There is also some interesting back and forth in the comments.
Checked YouTube for the exchange, its not there.
Posted by Peter at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2007
The case against DRM
Business can always be a battle between giving away the store and giving the customer what they want. This is a basic truth of business both in terms of price and service.
DRM has been the biggest battlefield of this principle these days. If you give away the music there is no profit in making it, if you put up barriers for the customers they they don't want to do business with you. Via Slashdot the meat and potatoes of the argument are presented here by Ian Rogers of Yahoo:
But now, eight years later, Amazon’s finally done what was clearly the right solution in 1999. Music in the format that people actually want it in, with a Web-based experience that’s simple and works with any device. I bought tracks from Amazon (Kevin Drew and No Age), downloaded them, sync’d them to my new iPod Nano, and had them playing in my home audio system (Control 4) in less than five minutes. PRAISE JESUS. It only took 8 years.He skewers the alternative:
When you compare the experiences on Yahoo! Music, the order of magnitude difference in opportunity shouldn’t be a surprise: Want radio? No problem. Click play, get radio. Want video? Awesome. Click play, get video. Want a track on-demand? Oh have we got a deal for you! If you’re on Windows XP or Vista, and you’re in North America, just download this 20MB application, go through these seven install screens, reboot your computer, go through these five setup screens, these six credit card screens, give us $160 dollars and POW! Now you can hear that song you wanted to hear…if you’re still with us. Yahoo! didn’t want to go through all these steps. The licensing dictated it. (emphases mine) It’s a slippery slope from “a little control” to consumer unfriendliness and non-Web-scale products and services.
And the bottom line?
I won’t spend another dime paying engineers to build false control, making listening to music harder for music-lovers. I will put all of my energy into making it easier and making the experience better.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
Posted by Peter at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2007
Life is good
The RedSox have advanced to the ALCS. The Patriots are now 5-0 and I'm on a mini vacation.
What more can anyone ask? See you all on Wednesday.
Posted by Peter at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2007
Lawsuit over iPhone upgrade what a shock
The first class action lawsuit over the bricking of the iPhone.
California resident Timothy Smith on Friday filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the iPhone maker violated the state's antitrust law. The suit was filed on behalf of Smith by Damian Fernandez, the attorney who's been seeking plaintiffs for a class-action case against Apple over iPhone bricking.Specifically, Timothy P. Smith v. Apple Inc. charges the iPhone maker with violating the Cartwright Act, because, according to the court papers, "Apple prohibits iPhone consumers from using and purchasing a cell phone service other than through AT&T."
Via Slashdot. I see his point, after all how dare a company make specs for a product and warranty rules and not allow upgrades if we decide to break them.
Maybe its just me but I've always thought the best way to punish a company that doesn't take care of me is to not use them.
Posted by Peter at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2007
New Wheels
As you may have read some time back I had a few issues with my last car which all started from Pepboys working on it and went down hill from there. This was a 2000 Grand AM SE.
Recently I felt the transmission start slipping a couple of times. Decided that I needed to inquire on the cost of getting another car. I had done a bit of shopping around the year before but didnt find anything in my budget.
I would like to take a minute and give the guys at Boch Toyota South a shout for really working hard to get me something I would enjoy having and pricing down to something within my budget. Should you be in the area and in the market for a car I would recommend asking for Derek Goncalves who after explaining my situation and car issues put a lot of energy into helping me out.
I will be following up with some car pictures. Stay tuned!
Posted by Hector at 11:02 PM | Comments (1)
The $200,000 solution?
This morning we told you about a payment of over $200,000 that was awarded over free music downloads. We asked the question we've asked over and over: Is saving .99 cents a song worth the grief?
Well now there might be a free solution SpiralFrog! And how are things paid for?
SpiralFrog is an ad-supported Web site. We sell ads on our pages to advertisers who want to talk to you. And we give the majority of that advertising revenue to the music publishers and labels who own the music you're downloading.
Information Week shows that "free" music does come with a price:
This is where SpiralFrog's users will pay heavily. Once registered, you have to re-register each month to keep using the service. This process will not simply involve deciphering an image-based set of characters to make sure you're a human being, or having SpiralFrog send you an e-mail to make sure you're still around and interested. It also will involve answering "some questions about yourself" -- questions that, according to the site's FAQ, will be used to aggregate marketing information to increase advertising revenue.You don't want to re-register? Your choice -- but 31 days later, you will no longer be able to download music, and 61 days later, any songs and videos you've already downloaded will no longer play. (Remember the DRM?)
Hmmm lets see....
Register once a month;Violate the law and maybe pay $220,000
Register once a month;
Violate the law and maybe pay $9,250 per song.
Register once a month;
Deal with all the virus/spyware/security issues of standard p2p
Yup I can't see why anyone would choose register once a month. After all who wants free music that isn't illegal and doesn't create security issues when you have to fill out paperwork. DUH!
Posted by Peter at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
$222,000 to save .99
Well we knew this was coming sooner or later at least I did:
a federal jury in Duluth on Thursday found that a Brainerd, Minn., woman violated the copyrights of six recording companies and should pay them $222,000.The jury of six men and six women deliberated less than five hours before deciding that Jammie Thomas, operating under the user name "Tereastarr" on the Kazaa file-sharing network, copied or distributed all 24 songs for which the companies sought compensation, and it set damages at $9,250 per song.
Now you can make the argument that the law should be changed but until or unless it is changed; this is reality. The same 24 songs from iTunes would have cost $8.76. $23.76 (never blog when distracted). This doesn't even count the lawyers fees if she had won.
Its your choice of course and its your computer, but its also your money.
Posted by Peter at 08:44 AM | Comments (1)
October 04, 2007
$300,000,000? I'm in the wrong business
I'm surprised that Justin didn't get to this before me:
Halo 3 continues to fly off the shelves, with over $300 million dollars in sales in the first week alone.
Personally I'll stick with the Civ series, there are only so many hours in a life.
Posted by Peter at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2007
Maybe he doesn't get the picture
An interesting phenom was noted on a site called lostremote concerning the Drudge report:
I’ve noticed for the past two or three days, Drudge Report has not posted any photos. This could be for a variety of reasons, but I’ve always wondered if he owned the rights to the photos he posted or pulled from another domain.
I checked Drudge's site today and sure enough the only images are from the ads.
It was speculated that the site had been basically linking pictures that were hosted somewhere else. This adds up to the site (say yahoo photo) paying for bandwidth of people viewing the photo elsewhere, much like when somebody piggybacks off a wireless signal you have. This is considered very bad form in the blogging field.
Then again, a lot of those photos might not otherwise have been seen as Drudge the avg number of visits Drudge had over the past year was over 10 million per day. I don't know if I want to lose that kind of exposure if I'm the owner of the picture particularly since it means that a potential memorable picture will be seen and purchased by other important media players (such as newspapers and tv) who use Drudge as a resource.
Personally I prefer this lack of photos since it makes the page loads faster and leads to less gunk in my temp files but my view are unlikely to carry the day.
I'll be keeping an eye on his site for the next few days and see what happens.
Posted by Peter at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
Well I know what this means for my pc's
I've told many of our customers that one of the reasons why spyware is so hard to keep off a system is the fact that people make money off of it. More importantly it must be remembered that since money is being made off of it the people who stand to make said money are not likely to take losing that money lying down. Case in point:
As anti-spam technology improves, hackers are finding new vehicles to deliver their malicious code. And some could be embedded in online video players, according to a report on Internet threats released Tuesday by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center as it holds its annual summit.
Online video is very big, people go to it for various television clips, music videos, and a ton of funny parody stuff (which are fun but show that some people have much too much time on their hands).
The question really is, with the volume of video being uploaded are the sites able to filter out things that might be infected? Will it be a question of "mainline" sites with filtering and stricter upload policies vs freelance sites with more flexibility but riskier stuff? One thing remains clear as one side in the battle against spyware gets ahead the other will attempt to catch up as as fast as possible.
Posted by Peter at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2007
Civ IV Beyond the Sword Review
This is kind of late but I am finally getting around to writing my review of Civilization IV Beyond the Sword expansion.
Before I even get into it I don't get into the various scenarios so I won't be commenting on them.
A: Additional Civilizations
A whole list of new Civilizations , listed here, adds more options and the additional leaders give more flexibility to the array of players. When it comes down to it this is more chrome than a big change but chrome is a big part of making games more fun. So its more a question of is your favorite Civ included. I like the Dutch so I'll give it thumbs up.
B: Units
Several new units from paratroopers to guided missiles are now included, but most of them are units that were included in previous version of Civ. One interesting chrome change is the some of the existing units such as knights. Some of these units were tweaked based on their cultural source, thus a German Knight will look different than a Japanese Knight, this is a nice change.
C: Victory changes:
Two big changes are the inclusion of the Apostolic Palace (which looks suspiciously like the Vatican) as an early UN like wonder. This allows the chance of a diplomatic victory earlier in the game and also allows you make diplomatic move to your advantage.
The changes in the space race are a great addition. The ability to risk the launch before the ship is totally complete allowing one to try to win sooner at the cost of an increased risk of failure adds strategic options. The fact that instead of winning the moment the ship is launched the victory takes place when it arrives at its destination gives other players some options to still pull off a win, and keeps the space race player from being complacent.
D: New Features:
The expanded espionage rules and the addition of Corporation are big changes that can dramatically affect game play. The players are forced to consider diverting their resources to keep foes from gaining the upper hand intelligence. Of course your can decide to be proactive and use your spy to delay developments, foment unrest or even just explore what is going on.
The Corporation rules make a huge difference late in the game as they can provide not only cash but resources. This gives an option to avoid building colonies are away that can't be developed or supported easier. It gives another use for your great people and another direction to go.
You can even end up having your opponents split and grant independence to parts of their empire. This can create a whole new dynamic.
The Random events give add a bit of spontaneity to the game and the various reaction you can give to them can be steered to reflect the direction you want to go in.
Bottom line:
A very good game becomes even better if you don't already own this game, buy it.
Posted by Peter at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2007
Caramel Brie courtesy of Jane
We mentioned a few days ago how there are blogs for just about everything, well during conversation with a customer named Jane a few recipe blogs were pointed to and she volunteered this recipe, so Courtesy of your fellow customer Jane I give you Caramel Brie:
Take a wheel of brie, put in pie plate. Top with mixture of half a stick of butter and one half cup of brown sugar (and be sure to soften the butter before you mix it with the brown sugar). Pack on top and then add chopped pecans to cover. Bake for about 12 minutes at 400 then serve with water crackers--no other cracker will do.
My experience in blogs is once you start to talk about cooking and food it takes over the blog for a bit, lets see what happens.
Posted by Peter at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
Hope it works better than the Vista beta testing
Well it looks like Microsoft has reached the beta stage for their web based Office:
Microsoft has said it will begin accepting applications for beta testing its web apps later this year. There is one significant difference, however: unlike Google apps, Microsoft said users of its new service can only create or edit online documents if they have Office software already installed
Hey this is meant to keep the customer satisfied, not to chase people away from applications.
Posted by Peter at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)
Boy that advice just went south
I've mentioned that when it doubt on a web address its a good idea to do a google (or yahoo or whatever) search to make sure you don't end up on a phony site, in fact I was just telling a customer that yesterday.
And then I read this at slashdot:
The Google Watchdog blog is reporting that "Spam and virus sites infesting the Google SERPs in several categories"
The bottom line is pretty bad:
If a smart spammer has really found a way to game the Google search results with spoofed or cloaked sites, and Google still doesn't have a fix, this could be a major issue with the underlying infrastructure of the entire Google operation. I've seen hints that a significant infrastructure change is taking place; is this spam issue the reason? Could that mean that Google was actually hacked instead of someone spamming the index? If so, webmasters may be waiting a long time for the expected Pagerank update while Google fixes the leaks.
Remember big bucks are at stake on both sides. This will be interesting to watch.
Posted by Peter at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)