December 2007 Archives
Maybe it's just me. But ever since Vonage's stock price plummeted from the get-go of their IPO, I've been thinking about why and how they could bring it back.
It's not that it's a bad business. It's great. They're cheap, and they're taking on businesses that I really couldn't care less to support because frankly, I hate being ripped off as a consumer. And Vonage provided me with a service that I didn't feel like I was being ripped off in.
But with their stock price teetering around two dollars, you have to wonder what shareholders are thinking and how they could change it up. And I know that it's difficult with the two lawsuits that cleaned Vonage's clocks, but features is where their market is at. And that's how they should approach their entire business.
You see, depending on the type of business you're in, there are some methods and strategies that just work better than others because of the niche. For a service type business like Vonage, they have to provide a feature rich environment at low cost, that would not raise their overhead. That is where software innovation is so incredibly useful.
And it's where Skype could come in. Why? Skype has two things Vonage doesn't have. One, they have hardware manufacturers jumping at their software product. That's pretty useful in the long run for this one thought I've been toying with but bear with me a bit before I get into that. Skype also has an incredible user base and their video and soft lines could be not only a great gimmick, but they could help each other out on the rates for international calling (ever compare Vonage out with SkypeOut?). But I tell you where Vonage could really strike fear.
Text messaging.
Sound stupid? Ahh, but is it? The immediately younger generation is caught up in text messaging. Amazingly so that you can't even begin to wonder how fast people can type on a numbered keypad until you've seen it done. I'm not so shabby myself, in fact. In any case, it's become the instant messenger that keeps you on the move. Via mobility. But the one terrible thing about text messaging is that your mobile has a finite source of power before needing recharge. So why couldn't you transfer your text messaging to your home phone? Why can't you text message from you home phone in the first place? There's nothing stopping anyone from doing it except the limitations of hardware, and Skype already has the manufacturers developing all sorts of things for them. Skype even already has SMS implemented for their product.
And for Vonage, they get to combat their competitors with something that would be just out of this world. Used by the younger generations, and even jump starting the older gens.
If you ask me, this is one single useful feature that really could put a dent in the armor of the giants. Irregardless, Vonage really needs to built out their feature repertoire. If they can allow users the option to many tools such as landline to mobile type integration, then this could be the beginnings of a brand new Vonage.
If you're looking for an open source email client for MacOSX, Correo could be what you're looking for.
It supports IMAP/POP, and MacOSX Address Book integration and your usual mail client abilities. What I love about this is that they have IMAP Enhanced support in. This means that you can actually use subfolders in your mail account without having to download all the mail messages. Makes it handy for synchronizing mail with multiple devices. Correo is also planning on implementing portable device synchronization such as PDA mail and some other very useful features. Currently the version dictates that this project is very young, but it basically blends both of Mozilla's projects in Thunderbird and Camino together.
If anything, this should remind you why Outlook takes the cake for much of the email client market, and why others upon other operating systems are starting to come up with certain features that are corresponding to the mature Windows email client.
I'm actually not really surprised.
At reading this complaint from Consumerist about how FedEx doesn't follow instructions. I had a similar issue with them with the local regional office which took me over two weeks to get a package that just would not get delivered because they claimed no one would sign for it (my complex signs for everything for tenants). Two weeks for what was supposed to be two day shipping.
Interestingly enough, the only issues I've ever had ever has been with FedEx. Even where it was specifically noted to not have the package left unless someone was there to sign for it (paid for in that manner), the FedEx guy would drop it off and say that someone released it.
Sorry, but I refuse to work with anyone that also only uses FedEx as the only shipper. Their customer service, at least in the local regional office sucks and they couldn't care less. While I know that all shippers have their horror stories at the loading docks, UPS has never failed to protect my packages and follow instructions. I even asked the UPS guy that works my complex to leave my packages instead of having people sign for it, and he said that it's against their policy to do so since it increases theft. Good for you, UPS.
As most people know, outside of regular system files that are recovered on a crash, journaling file systems don't really help you out on actual file deletion recovery in linux. Not usually anyways. giis changes this with ext2 and ext3, by making files in /root and /home available for recovery and the ability to dump by location, or file type.
Useful? Definitely. It's one of the few things that linux has never had. Of course, this also teaches users not to be careful. But in any case, it's definitely useful for your average user looking to switch to linux. Another fail-safe.
Well, maybe not exactly that, but I can tell you that this girl has one amazing voice. This beautiful twenty-two year old out of Southern Cali is not only beautiful, but has a voice to match. The original songs are actually surprisingly good on her albums, but I must say that the first "singing" I ever heard of hers came from a cover of I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for a Cutie. And along with the sweet three piece harmony with her sisters, you really couldn't ask for anything more. Most of her tracks are the same as far as just her guitar, her singing, and a little bit of background harmony.
You can find her original works on her site, or on 
.
Comment Subscribe is a MT4 plugin that allows you to ... well, subscribe to comments. This basically sets it up so that if you're trying to track a conversation but you don't have time to keep hitting refresh on a certain post, then you're notified by email when someone posts.
Pretty useful unless you happen to give the wrong email. Then I could probably see some issues happening. In any case, definitely worth while. I've seen this implemented in a number of custom blogs, but nothing quite like it for Movable Type.
I have one really big annoyance when it comes to nonprofits and community work.
All meetings seem to happen at the most inconvenient times. They expect community leaders to come together usually for times more than an hour, not including commute time, and usually schedule the meetings around mid-morning, or mid-afternoon.
And that really annoys the hell out of me.
Why? Because I like to stay involved. No, I don't like to go to meetings that don't accomplish anything. In fact, if you have me go to one, and it doesn't accomplish anything, I refuse to go to another. There's precious time in the day for this guy, and I got a lot better things to do. But in reality, my job, and I'd imagine that most jobs don't let you just prance out whenever to "take a meeting".
Who the heck has time to take off between nine and eleven? That's the entire morning. So basically, community efforts force me to take vacation for half the day. And that just sucks. Believe you me, if it goes nowhere, they'll regret losing this outside-the-box thinker.
And are we even surprised?
I mean seriously. This has taken a... very long time, but anyone that has been a long-time linux follower has had no doubts. The determination letter took into effect December 27th, and many linux supporters are probably rejoicing that another chapter in the book closes.
I personally would be curious as to how Microsoft is taking this internally. Remember that there was some contraversy some time ago about how some of the money traced to the SCO group actually came from the Redmond giant.
Linux is definitely here to stay.
In any case, Zodiac
Perhaps a spoiler below.
Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) was a cartoonist that eventually got caught up in the trying to solve the Zodiac killings forgoing his family, friends, and everything else. This obsession lead him to one particular person but he could never prove it since there was other evidence that exonerated that particular man. What's interesting is that this man died in 1992 without having charged pressed against him, so no one will ever know if he was the one behind it or if it was someone else.
I have to say though, in reading some of the professional critics reviews, i realized why I never read those anymore. If it isn't artsy or what not, there's always someone that like to critique the movie like they're supposedly the biggest best moviegoer ever. Some thought the movie was too long, and others thought that the movie's main characters wasn't "good enough" and others thought it was one of the best movies since Se7en.
Regardless, I thought that this was one of the better movies I've seen in a while. Definitely a worthy murder mystery that not only is based on reality, but something that we will probably never know the truth.
Another great Movable Type plugin, Simply Threaded allows you the luxury of having comments that are threaded together. This means that if someone is responding to a comment, they can respond directly to the comment and have threads within the comment section instead of having to reference comments and not know where the conversation is going. This helps keep track of to whom each person is responding to and where the responses go without scratching your head and thinking... "huh?"
Hot Date is this great Movable Type plugin that you can use to disable the seconds, and use a 12 hour clock (not that military time isn't great, but some people don't like thinking in 24 hours). You can also update the time of the post to the current time which helps immensely since sometimes you're working on a post for a pretty long time.
You know.. the whole thought process thing. Other's call it "writer's block". Whatever. In any case, the plugin comes in handy and supports MT3+ and MT4.
You know the types. In any case, if you're looking for a bit more romance type of music and you got a country gal, then this is probably a pretty good fit. It wouldn't make you freak out either if you've not cared for any country music before.
It's also interesting to note that in my not-so-professional opinion, it's interesting that some country music is moving towards this route of more pop/rock music but still maintaining some of the twangs of country. Very interesting stuff, and it's a very good way to get people that normally would not give country a second thought, a look into that genre.
If you're looking to buy the album, it's everywhere including iTunes.
SyncTunes did something for me that a lot of other freeware for MacOSX could not. It can sync your iTunes to all sorts of devices, but for me, it was mainly my PSP. Why did I need my iTunes on my PSP? Beats. Yes, that lovely game needed more songs to play.
SyncTunes itself is actually in a pretty GUI and pretty easy to use. There are a couple things that I would have done differently. For instance, as far as I can tell you can't designate where the music is synchronized. There are predetermined places, but you can't customize a preference that I can tell. Also, there are AAC volumes currently that do not play for Beats, but do play on the PSP as music. The conversion from AAC to mp3 doesn't quite work for newer volumes unfortunately. It's also not very clear with keeping tracks on your device (Use Merge to keep, and Replace to change out all the music in that directory).
All in all, this version of SyncTunes is totally worthwhile mainly because it's one of the few freeware for synchronizing music and still has a decently easy GUI to work with. Definitely worth looking at if you're in need of some music love from your Mac.
NoobProof is like its big brother, WaterRoof, but it has a five step wizard that basically configures the ipfw firewall for your Mac. It doesn't quite have the options that WaterRoof has but it definitely makes it easy to set up security for those that are not very security conscious.
Open source for MacOSX.
As we step into this Christmas Eve while the markets are closed, I have to wonder.
Is there a stock market accreditation type thing that analysts have to go through? I mean seriously. Why do we give so much credit to what some one guy has to say when they obviously more often than not, have no clue what the company is doing.
I'll give you an example. Taking all of the relevant names out, I know of a CEO that has recently stepped down. What's interesting is that a certain product's credit was given to this CEO when in reality, only the launch of this product was done during the CEO's reign. The actual development and projects started a long time before this CEO even had placed his foot in the door of the company. So why did he get any credit at all? He didn't do anything. Sure, he lead the company, but not the product. Baffles my mind.
Yet, due to some guy on the market saying, this or that (which more often only has half the story), the market price rises or plunges because these people dictate where the market is going. Why?
When I go to my doctor, they have to go through rigorous training and acquire a license to actually give their professional opinion. When I go to my attorney, he also has gone through many years of training and licensed to give his professional opinion. Same with my accountant.
So if as just a general guy sitting here, wondering why my stocks are being effected by someone that doesn't even know the back stories about the companies they're talking about and yet the knowledge can be found easily, one have to wonder if they're intentionally gaming the system to their advantage or if there is truly accreditation for stock market analysis. If there is, then I'm saddened.
Why? If my doctor made judgments the way analysts make about the market, I would probably have taken medicine for the wrong type of illness since the doctor didn't look into all of the issues. It's like taking morphine for a headache. Very strange. Strange indeed.
WaterRoof is a MacOSX ipfw firewall manager in a GUI format. Open source, this advanced settings configurator can take care of pretty much everything from NAT, ports, watch the logs, and lots more. It even has a wizard for fast configuration, or you can just a predefined rule set.
Beauty of this is how many options it has and how easily to access the interface. Within minutes, you can change up your firewall on your Mac and be watching statistics. Beats doing it the old fashioned way via commandline.
My good pal, TD, found this little interesting thing to check if your blog is indeed "friendly" for families or if there is adult content.
It runs yours your site and I'm guessing filters out a keyword list. If you match to that keyword list, then you probably get the Adults badge. Go figure, LUX is family friendly! ha.
Besides going through a keyword list, I'm not really sure how this exactly authenticates that your site is indeed family friendly. I mean, it doesn't exactly know if there are mature rated pictures on there that I can tell unless there's some serious analysis code via PHP that I'm not seeing. And I somewhat seriously doubt it. I find the hosting site kind of amusing too.
Sorry Hillary.
There are some things that I can stand by, but you're just too much. It's okay though. Mitt Romney apparently is buddy-buddy with you on this same topic which doesn't give him a fighting chance in hell either.
Why? They both want to regulate the gaming industry.
Funny thing here. The regulation for games is on the same level as the regulation of movies and television currently. How many people see a lot more mature rated things on television and movies than a decade ago? Heck, the show Nip/Tuck is shown on prime-time.
If there is any regulation, it shouldn't be against the gaming industry but instead against the parents that buy these mature games for these kids. I actually remember a time in GameStop where some little kid was trying to buy this mature rated game and the employee stopped him and his dad just looked at his kid and then smacked him a bit for getting a game like that. Truthfully, I think the dad didn't care, but didn't want to look stupid in public.
If anything, this is a problem against parenting, not one for regulation by government. All games are rated, and they're clearly posted at every store upon every box. It's no different from buying a DVD, and I don't see people saying how we should be regulating horror films and protecting kids from movies like Hostel and the Saw series. Nothing wrong with these movies, but they depict some pretty crazy things that people could also go about doing something about. If you're mentally unstable or you weren't taught right, maybe you would go out and commit such atrocities too. So is the movie to blame? No.
Everyone wants to point the finger at the wrong places. Whatever happened to "it takes a village to raise a child?" Yeah. Thus, if Hillary wants to support regulation, then she doesn't get my support. And nor should she get the support of any other knowledgeable avid gamer.
Photo Credit: (Llima)
Yahoo! has recently released a WordPress plugin called Yahoo! Shortcuts into beta.
This plugin takes all that is beautiful from Yahoo! and places it within reach of your blog. Basically what it does is it allows you to enhance blog posts with pictures from Flickr, and the search and maps and other parts of Yahoo! itself. Then you can use that content to enhance your posts. Personally, I'm not fond of the whole Intellitext type links, but the embedding of images and useful information as badges is definitely a "fall in love at first sight" type of blogging tool.
I definitely recommend playing with this. Let me put it this way. It doesn't hurt anything and makes your posts a lot more user friendly. So why not?
What's interesting is not only the interesting interpretation to get The number of the Beast, but the seriousness that Carrey plays as Sparrow. At first, I wasn't too sure that I would actually like this movie because Carrey is known as a smart alecky funny guy. But after seeing this movie, it was definitely a turning point to show that he is also a very talented actor.
If you're looking for a good psychological thriller, The Number 23 is sure not to disappoint.
When you're looking for a great maintenance utility, never fear that there is one somewhere.
Cool OSX Apps directed me to this brilliant utility called IceClean. IceClean basically gives you a pretty interface that allows you to do all sorts of cleanup on cache and other types of maintenance type work. It also allows you to remove logs, and profile the system, quick/full cd/dvd erase, manage Spotlight, network interface...
*gasps for air*
So many things, that I can hardly mention them all. What's interesting is that many of these tools are already available, but IceClean just houses them under one roof. In any case, that makes it a lot easier to deal with when you need to get something done and you're not hunting and pecking for the right tool to use. Freeware for MacOSX.
Folder Size is a project that adds to the Windows Explorer, the folder size column. This provides not only useful information but it also lets you know if a folder has a lot of junk in it so you can do file cleanup a lot easier.
Explorer will automatically scan the folders and keep the sizes updated without manual interference. The background scanner will only run when other applications are not running (so has some sort of process priority). Pretty neat little open source project.
Have a puzzle solver in your life? Not sure what to get them for Christmas?
Why not get them The ISIS [affiliate]. This is one of the most difficult puzzles currently with movable bands that have hieroglyphs on them. You are given ten clues to deciphering the puzzle itself. Just line up the right hieroglyphs to unlock it.
What's crazy is that ... while the price of it is pretty steep (two hundred dollars), when you unlock it, then you have a chance to win something that could actually be anywhere between $1000 to $2000 in worth. Either way, it's definitely a fancy pants gift that the puzzle solver would forever appreciate.
jZip is an alternative compression utility for Windows. It can handle gzip, tar, and your usual compressions. It also extracts from RAR files and ISO images. Based on 7-Zip.
Basic idea of jZip is that while based on 7-Zip, it's trying to bring a more usable interface similar to WinZip to the masses. So when you offer something like this for free for any purpose, then you get a WinZip like thing that anyone can use.
And that's pretty dang... zippily great.
I'm proud of Sony. Finally. You can't tell how long I've waited for them to do something actually decent for once.
Beats is it. This is a rhythm game similar to the style of Dance Dance Revolution, or a very very similar homebrew game that those in the PSP scene would know about. The included music and graphics is very similar to the type of plasma graphics that you would have seen in the likes of Lumines and such as background. The music is actually pretty upbeat and very intriguing.
But for a five dollar rhythm game, that's not why it's so great. Let me tell you why. You can take music you already have on your PSP and create your own custom type rhythm games. You can create your own jam sessions and share them with an online community. For five dollars, there is actually an infinite number of possibilities for game play. And that makes it absolutely fascinating and wonderful.
You can even play ad-hoc cooperatively or competitively with up to four players. Worth every single penny and more. The question is.... will Sony be releasing more games like this? If so, then they might be back on track finally to take on the system lords of console online gaming community, Microsoft.
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) has stalled the FISA bill until January that would have retroactively made telecommunication companies that have spied on United States citizens, immune to privacy legal action due to "national security" measures.
This man took to the floor of the Senate for ten hours, before Senate majority leader moved to push the bill to January for reconsideration.
Hopefully they'll change the crazy wording of this bill. But in case they do not, don't hesitate to take a moment to take action.
Looking for a free image viewer? Perhaps ForceVision would suit your fancy.
It supports over fifty different file formats, conversions, transitions, and allows you to bork with the images with thirty plus filters. It even provides a slideshow feature, full screen mode, and thumbnail mode. You can also do file associations with the types of graphic extensions.
I personally don't use this mainly because there are other products that I've grown accustomed to but don't let that stop you. If you're looking for something new or never had an image viewer, perhaps this is your holy grail for image viewers.
Why should telecommunication corporations gain immunity for invading your privacy?
Well, that's the point. They shouldn't. But currently there is a bill that if passed through the Senate, will give them immunity with FISA and be retroactive. This means that the AT&T whistleblower about the NSA tapping the line that broke a while back? AT&T will be immune.
Is that what you want? It's not what I did. So fight it and tell your senator that their constituent refuses to support such actions.
In the recent few weeks, there has been a lot of trips to Sam's Club, the wholesale club for Walmart. Yes, it's the holidays, and you have to get packages of this, that or the other thing.
But the low prices that Walmart provides for its consumers through such bulk items got me to thinking about new strategic ways to make even more money in cutting costs for the corporation.
So crazy thought. Time is money, right? So when you think about the cost of bulk items that sit in storage and warehouses and refrigeration, then you can calculate the amount of expense that it takes to bring those items from manufacturer to consumer and the middleman's cost (in this case, Walmart). So what if they decided to do a pull up service? You pay by credit card ahead of time, and have all of the bulk items scheduled for pick-up at a certain day/time and it's sitting at the dock for you ready to go? This would mean the corporation would have to take less time in storage, and thus cut their costs. In return, you save your time instead of trucking around the warehouse in your little cart. Everyone wins.
What's even better about this is because, if the consumers can choose their products and pay for it ahead of time, then Walmart has better leverage with manufacturers. They can go to them and say... "We have this many customers that are ready to pay this amount of money for your goods, so give us this price." While this is already done, this also allows them to delve into more brands of products in bulk instead of what they currently stock and providing more range of items.
It might sound silly, but believe me. Months before Costco put in their current car washes, I had wondered why these bulk warehouses couldn't have done a nice car wash if they basically provide their customers with whatever they stock (and they stock the fluids for a car wash).
In an age where large corporations are slowing down in figuring out ways to grow, this might be something that a mature company like Walmart could actually pull off.
Just a thought.
PC Decrapifier is pretty much an uninstaller that goes in and gets rid of all sorts of trialware and it detects. You can actually select which software you want it to get rid of... and it'll just zap it for you.
Pretty awesome. This would work wonderfully for OEM computers where they load a bunch of "crap". It also removes desktop icons and also has a sortable database that it checks against.
Amusing.
KDE4 which is a windows manager system for Linux is reported to consume forty percent less memory than the previous version of KDE3.5 and this is without so-called "mini-optimizations" yet they have beefed up the look and feel of the windows manager. One of the developers even tested KDE4 on a 256M and 1Ghz machine specification to see if it could actually function decently.
Strangely enough, if you take the comparative Microsoft's latest "achievement" in Windows Vista, the look and feel definitely has increased but so has the consumption of resources.
In layman's terms, this basically means... linux can be used on older hardware without giving up the look and feel of newer software. How's that for change?
Yes, that's right. Linux is coming up in the world. Like we didn't tell you before.
But if you had any doubts in your mind, why not ask the New York Stock Exchange? They're going about replacing all of their Unix based HP-UX Proliant servers. It looks like with Opteron AMD servers. And if I'm not mistaken, there is another company out there that uses AMD servers. If I'm not mistaken... Google.
Go figure that. Server side, stability is key and if you've noticed that even the NYSE stands by Unix and now Linux. That should be something to be thought about.
For Windows administrators looking to backup single installs of Windows, or Office. ProduKey could be something that is useful in your arsenal.
What it does is, it looks up your current installs product Key. You can access all of it in a commandline prompt. This becomes useful if you have lost your media but you still have a running system and would like to back it up and reinstall the beast. Having done many reinstallations in the past for Windows systems, I can tell you that this tool would definitely come in handy at some point.
The Chinese are crazy. Yes. I admit it. I mean, where else would you find a seventy-one year old woman that dances to hip-hop? This lady can actually bust some moves like Jay Chou. What's amusing is that she doesn't have any clue what the music is about or what it says. Good thing she just dances to the beats eh? Instead of getting out your 9...
Ever get sick of Windows reinstalls? Have to reinstall all of those device drivers? Again?
Ick. Good thing DriverMax will say you the grief for once. What it does, is it copies all of your current driver set directly to another folder, or a compressed file. If you need to reinstall, just restore this set of drivers, reboot once, and bam! You have your devices back up and running.
Beats having to load a CD, installing, rebooting, rinse and repeat. This way, it's a one shot deal. And it's free.
Saiga apparently gets infected with a virus that basically enhances supernatural abilities within people that bastardizes what they love the most. For Saiga, since he was happiest when taking pictures as a war photographer, his camera would basically destroy whatever he took.
But there is an underlying story with Speed Grapher outside of the immediate surface layer. It also talks about the materialism and capitalism of the Japanese society and how wealth has corrupted the rich and the means that they go to in trying to keep up their lifestyles. The whole story is about how to uncover the dirty truth of the wealthy.
Some housekeeping business in order.
In order to make the blog a bit more friendly, I've gone and installed a couple new things. One basically threads the comments and allows you to reply specifically to certain comments. I've also gone and installed comment subscription so that users can keep track of certain comment threads. Enjoy.
Looking for a free email backup tool for Windows? Look no further than Amic Email Backup.
AEB actually goes in and takes the top nine email clients and backs up all of the necessary files so that all of the email is backed up including folders and settings. This makes it so that it's unnecessary to get other backup software if you just need your email backed up.
What's great is that AEB allows you to do it in an advanced mode, or a wizard, and it allows you schedule your services for whatever time you would like to do your backup, as well actually restoring the email database on another computer (synchronization). Overall, it's your email backup utility. For free.
Looking for another Windows music player? Maybe Media Monkey can attract a banana out of you.
Truthfully, this reminds me a lot of WinAmp 5. Not really that fascinating, although it does manage your music pretty well, and it seems to also allow a lot of portable devices to sync to it which is an immediate plus.
So if you are in need for a little something new, don't be afraid to take a shot at Media Monkey.
Need a free multimedia player for Windows, but you hate downloading codecs? So do I. Well, no problems with this lovely player. Gom Player plays pretty much all of your usual multimedia file extensions and have all of the codecs built directly into the player application.
And that really helps you out when you don't have Internet or what not to actually install codecs from.
Cons though? Building codecs directly into a player means that the physical footprint is probably larger than most of the other players. So something to think about when it comes to ttrade-offs.