Merry Christmas!

So what was on your wishlist for Christmas this year? Did you get it? I did not put much in the way of technology on my wish list this year. Everything I want is too expensive. If I didn’t have a limit here are some tech things on my wish list:

• Dual-Quad server with 64GB of RAM, ESX server, and at least a couple TB of fast RAID10 disk.
• Flatscreen TV for bedroom and computer room
• Netflix Roku player, or alternatively low energy media PCs to attach to my TVs
• DSLR Camera:Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens

If you run a blog you’ve most likely come across spam comments like this: Submit your comments to millions of sites with the ***** submission tool. Generate backlinks, etc etc. Ok, two reasons why this is stupidly funny. First, if you have such a bad blog that you need to spam to get it viewed then you likely wouldn’t read comments on your blog to find this information. Second, the product doesn’t pass through the default Akismet install for Wordpress. Why would you buy something that obviously doesn’t work?

While I’m on the subject of spam, I noticed another tactic recently. Generic reviews on services such as MyBlogLog. These reviews say “Great Site” and nothing more. Looking at the user shows they have reviewed dozens of sites in the space of a few minutes. Does this stuff actually work?

UPDATE: Ok, I posted this and viewed the page and the first thing that I saw was a Monty Python advertisement. Hilarious!

Image via Wikipedia

Dr. Pepper made good on a promise to give everyone a free Dr. Pepper when/if Guns N’ Roses finished Chinese Democracy, started in 1994. They opted to use their website to hand out free coupons for Dr. Pepper. Well, the website crashed. They extended the free Dr. Pepper through 6pm today, but even today I wasn’t patient enough to keep trying the website, so no free Dr. Pepper for me.

By crashing their website they probably saved thousands of dollars in free Dr. Pepper, but at what cost to advertising? Actually probably very little. I’m sure their website is still getting many more hits than are normal.

It’s an interesting thought though. While many businesses rely on their websites to make money, others only spend money on their website, so the more time down, the more money saved. The question was, was this an intentional oversight? I’m sure they could have hired a 3rd party to handle the registrations had they been sincerely interested in giving everyone a free Dr. Pepper.

This is some good stuff. I downloaded the DirecTV2PC beta recently and have been using it to watch recorded shows in other rooms of the house. Read on for a full review with screen shots. Read the rest of this entry »

In the USA we just went though a time change. The majority of the world does not do daylight savings time, however some of us are still stuck on legacy systems.

The most common answer to why daylight savings time was used is that it was good for the farmers, however this answer is largly mythological in nature. Farmers will get up and work regardless of what time the clock on the wall says it is. Another answer is to save electricity. Factories used to use daylight to augment or replace lighting during the day, so if the factory works during daylight hours, it is then saving money.

These reasons are not valid reasons anymore, if they ever were.

Read the rest of this entry »

Job Market

It would seem to me with the massive numbers of people being laid off that there would be plenty of tech workers around looking for work. Why is it then that we can’t find anyone to fill a slot we have? Frustrating!

Stock Market

Sounds like we’re about to have another massive drop in the US markets today. I think people forget that companies with little to no debt can continue to make profit with little risk even in a down economy. Panic seems to be the word on the street, and while some people stock their freezers with meat, other people are investing. Its my opinion that a balanced approach is the right approach. If the first rule is buy low, sell high, then why are so many people selling when the market is down some 40%? Should be an interesting day, and I hope to get so busy at work that I have no time to look at the market.

Grocery Market

Milk prices have fallen recently by a good deal. I was looking at some tech products a few days ago to see how they were doing. Locally there does not seem to be much of a change in technology products. I expect that to catch up soon, so if you are pining for a new computer you may want to wait a few months longer.

Credit Market

It is a great time to borrow if you have decent credit. I negotiated a deal on my new used fuel efficient Corolla dropping over 1.75% off what the dealer wanted to charge me in interest. I also found a 0% credit card deal among the standard deluge of pre-approved credit card offers, and I keep getting letters in the mail from companies wanting to refinance my home at some outrageously low APRs.

Economic Market

If the economy is doing so poorly, then why are the parking lots at shopping malls still filled all the time, and how do people find the money to drive around all day on Saturday when they are not going to work?

My thoughts

If I did not own any stock, did not listen to the news, and did not pay attention to my 401k I would think that everything was going wonderfully. Gas prices hit $2.58 here yesterday. Milk prices have fallen by about 80 cents. People are offering credit at heretofore unheard of rates. Both candidates for President promise tax cuts. I still have my job.

I posted yesterday about the potential for a new worm similar to Blaster. Please download patches and protect yourself and especially your business. Blaster and other worms have cost businesses millions of dollars, and now is not the time for businesses to absorb yet another cost.

Sorry to stray off topic a bit. There are some technology bits in there for you to byte into. Have fun! Oh, and I’m getting closer to my hundredth non-spam comment. Taking a hint from a fellow blogger at nukeit.org I will be paying out Entrecard credits to non-spam comments number 96-100. I will also donate a 125X125 advertising block for 2 weeks to the 100th comment.

The latest techie buzz word seems to be the word Quantum. It is the end-all-be-all of computer technology, the savior of the computing universe. Right.

“Quantum” is used to define the momentum, state, and energy of the elementary particles of an atom, or basically any subatomic particle. It seems like every day someone comes out with a new quantum something that is supposed to solve all our problems. I saw an article wednesday on quantum cryptography now supposedly unbreakable. I read the article and it does seem that they have developed something that would be impossible to intercept in such a way that it could be deciphered simply due to the fact that an interception would be detected in the quantum state of the stream which could then be stopped. It is interesting stuff and reminded me of a bad book I once tried to read.

Read the rest of this entry »

Even though this blog is fairly new, I’ve seen some interesting incoming search strings. Do any of my blogging visitors ever look at theirs? Let me answer some questions that I know people who have been here recently have been looking for.

Yes, it is possible to get caught breaking into someone else’s email account. You shouldn’t do it.

If your toaster smells like burning electronics you should stop using it and bring it back to the store immediately.

The Inspiron Mini 9 has a VGA port on the right side.

Speaking of breaking into email accounts. I did something almost as amazing as that uber hacker that got into Palin’s recently. There was a guy who was ordering merchandise on a credit card and with credentials that I didn’t think were valid, so I tried his email account (yahoo) and the password “password” and it worked. I called the FBI who forwarded me to a different government agency. It ended up being more trouble to report it than it was worth, and I don’t know if they ever caught the guy, but it was difficult explaining how I got all that information off the guy since I had “hacked” into his email account. Twas fun, but not hacking or cracking.