I've been looking for a good list of the music tracks to the Mitsubishi car commercials for a while... I found one.
A few favorites:
"Days Go By" / Dirty Vegas
"Just Breathe" / Telepopmusik
"Start the Commotion" / Wiseguys
"Spybreak" / Propellerheads (this track is widely known from The Matrix lobby scene)
While on the subject of music in commercials here are a couple movie trailer music favorites:
"Absurd (Whitewash Mix)" / Fluke
"The Eyes of Truth" / Enigma (jump to time index 4 min 9sec for the good part, or time index 2 min 46sec on the Radio Edit version of the track)
Monday, March 27, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Microsoft: November 2006 now means January 2007
Windows Vista Delayed again - marketing speak and financial implications ensue.
So much for those 2006 Holiday sales. Maybe we'll see a Vista/Halo bundle to compensate since MS is crippling the upcoming PC version of the game to not run on XP. Will this extra time mean WINFS will now be included in Vista? Nope.
So much for those 2006 Holiday sales. Maybe we'll see a Vista/Halo bundle to compensate since MS is crippling the upcoming PC version of the game to not run on XP. Will this extra time mean WINFS will now be included in Vista? Nope.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Caste System Internet (or is it Tiers?)
I think that the average internet user is likely to be hurt by the mafia-like idea of slowing down pages for those who don't pay "protection money" very soon. The equal playing field is starting to disappear.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, creator of slashdot, recently wrote:
'I like to think of the phone companies as basically being gangsters showing up at Google and saying in their best fakey, mobster accent, "Ya know, Sergey, we were just talking to our buddies over at Yahoo! yesterday, and they agreed to pay us a million dollars to make sure that their customers get 10ms ping times to their servers. If you pay us $2 million, we'll give you 8ms ping times. Oh, and if you don't pay up, it sure would be tragic if your customers started dropping packets and lagging out. I heard there's going to be a lot of construction in the Midwest. It sure would be terrible if your backbone got cut by a backhoe somewhere."'
pipes.txt . Caught In The Web . April 2006 . Vol.6 Issue 4 . Page(s) 86 in print issue (Full Article)
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, creator of slashdot, recently wrote:
'I like to think of the phone companies as basically being gangsters showing up at Google and saying in their best fakey, mobster accent, "Ya know, Sergey, we were just talking to our buddies over at Yahoo! yesterday, and they agreed to pay us a million dollars to make sure that their customers get 10ms ping times to their servers. If you pay us $2 million, we'll give you 8ms ping times. Oh, and if you don't pay up, it sure would be tragic if your customers started dropping packets and lagging out. I heard there's going to be a lot of construction in the Midwest. It sure would be terrible if your backbone got cut by a backhoe somewhere."'
pipes.txt . Caught In The Web . April 2006 . Vol.6 Issue 4 . Page(s) 86 in print issue (Full Article)
Saturday, March 18, 2006
OS Design Priorities? Security, Maintenance, and Backups
I love reading Alex St. John's monthly CPU articles...
"Microsoft has shipped how many OSes since 1995? Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, and Windows XP SP2, and rather than getting better with each major OS release, security problems for consumers have gotten worse! With each promise of a more secure OS, we’ve ended up with a less secure one."
"Security, maintenance, and backup and recovery are the most fundamental OS services that any OS should provide, and you’d think that Microsoft would concentrate on getting these fundamentals right before worrying about all the junk it ships with the OS that we don’t need. This, of course, has never been the case to such an extreme degree that Microsoft has created a multibillion dollar industry for such companies as Symantec and McAfee to clean up the mess it makes with each new OS product."
Computer Power User . April 2006 . Vol.6 Issue 4 . Page(s) 14 in print issue . Irony . The Saint by Alex St. John
"Microsoft has shipped how many OSes since 1995? Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, and Windows XP SP2, and rather than getting better with each major OS release, security problems for consumers have gotten worse! With each promise of a more secure OS, we’ve ended up with a less secure one."
"Security, maintenance, and backup and recovery are the most fundamental OS services that any OS should provide, and you’d think that Microsoft would concentrate on getting these fundamentals right before worrying about all the junk it ships with the OS that we don’t need. This, of course, has never been the case to such an extreme degree that Microsoft has created a multibillion dollar industry for such companies as Symantec and McAfee to clean up the mess it makes with each new OS product."
Computer Power User . April 2006 . Vol.6 Issue 4 . Page(s) 14 in print issue . Irony . The Saint by Alex St. John
Star West to Honor Business Warranties for Defunct Totally Awesome Computers
Looks like Star West will be offering warranty support for business customers of Totally Awesome Computers, a Utah company that just disappeared. If you were a former business customer of TAC, I'd call Star West very soon - before they change their mind. Maybe this will slow down possible litigation from folks who paid more for their computers in order to receive "lifetime service and warranty". Looks like the home users are Totally Awesome screwed.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Gadgets & Technologies to Keep an Eye On
Gadgets & Technologies to keep an eye on:
USB over wireless w/o software - Belkin's $130 CableFree USB Hub
Indoor signal strength repeater for cell phones - Spotwave Wireless' $400 Zen system
RGB LED television - AKAI PT52DL27L and PT42DL27L
The beginning of the end of DLP TVs?
http://www.audioholics.com/ces/CEStechnology/LEDdisplaytechnology.php
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1909038,00.asp?kc=PCYH105129TX1B0001084
Combine a live CD with a USB hard drive as a "persistent home", the excellent hardware detection abilities of Knoppix, but choose your own desktop. That is GRML Linux.
Here's what I did:
Created a spare 6 GB partition on my USB external hdd at the end of the drive
Booted off the CD
ran:
apt-get update
apt-get install grml2hd
grml2hd /dev/sda2 -mbr /dev/sda
Sometimes you're on a *nix box & have no idea what kernel version and/or distribution it's running. The following commands should help shed some light on the matter:
uname -a
cat /etc/*release
cat /proc/version
echo $OSTYPE
Xubuntu
Put those old pentiums to use... Xfce4 is a nice thin desktop.
"The aim of the Xubuntu community project is to provide a nice Ubuntu desktop experience (even on older hardware) by using Xfce4 as the desktop environment and GTK+ 2 applications wherever possible."
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu
Fast-booting Knoppix LiveCD does it in 60 secs
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5205752428.html
1 U, 400GB RAID 1 for less than $1500
(Turns out this wasn't _real_ hardware RAID - yech. I ended up using software raid with Debian.)
https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=1925792&WishListTitle=lars%2Dut+file+server
Overview of dmraid source package
"has not yet entered testing"
http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/dmraid.html
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/55097/
http://www.madtux.org/livepc.php
$199 - only moving parts are fans. See the link at the bottom of the story.
I spent $144.97 (including shipping) on some parts from newegg.com...
An Antec mid-tower case w/450w psu & old faithful NEC DVD burner...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129155
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152058
Security, Windows Vista, and the Consumer
"If you, the consumer, have purchased an application for your computer that Microsoft breaks in the name of security, it will be your responsibility to recognize that this has happened, seek out your publisher, figure out how to manually download and install the necessary patch, and prove that you’re a legitimate owner of the software. Why? Because Microsoft prevented your software publisher from automating any of this for you. Microsoft is relying on your fear of security threats and ignorance about how legitimate software needs to work to deter you from trying to consume non-Microsoft software and services."
http://www.computerpoweruser.com/email.asp?emid=137986
Computer Power User March 2006 • Vol.6 Issue 3 Page(s) 14-15 in print issue Bronx Cheer For Vista Security! by Alex St. John
Additional interface for crossover cable on Gigabit ethernet card:
ifconfig eth1 inet up 192.168.5.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.5.255
route add -net 192.168.5.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.5.1 dev eth1
Windows XP/2000 Commands and Tools
http://www.networkclue.com/os/Windows/commands/index.aspx
Configuring Apache for Maximum Performance LG #123
http://linuxgazette.net/123/vishnu.html
I revisited my allofmp3.com music account & charged $15 to the balance. That ought to tide me over for a few months. allofmp3.com uses a pay-by-the-megabyte pricing model and offers more formats/options for downloading my music tracks than iTunes. I usually pay 12 to 18 cents per song for variable bitrate 192 Kbps encoding.
USB over wireless w/o software - Belkin's $130 CableFree USB Hub
Indoor signal strength repeater for cell phones - Spotwave Wireless' $400 Zen system
RGB LED television - AKAI PT52DL27L and PT42DL27L
The beginning of the end of DLP TVs?
http://www.audioholics.com/ces/CEStechnology/LEDdisplaytechnology.php
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1909038,00.asp?kc=PCYH105129TX1B0001084
Combine a live CD with a USB hard drive as a "persistent home", the excellent hardware detection abilities of Knoppix, but choose your own desktop. That is GRML Linux.
Here's what I did:
Created a spare 6 GB partition on my USB external hdd at the end of the drive
Booted off the CD
ran:
apt-get update
apt-get install grml2hd
grml2hd /dev/sda2 -mbr /dev/sda
Sometimes you're on a *nix box & have no idea what kernel version and/or distribution it's running. The following commands should help shed some light on the matter:
uname -a
cat /etc/*release
cat /proc/version
echo $OSTYPE
Xubuntu
Put those old pentiums to use... Xfce4 is a nice thin desktop.
"The aim of the Xubuntu community project is to provide a nice Ubuntu desktop experience (even on older hardware) by using Xfce4 as the desktop environment and GTK+ 2 applications wherever possible."
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu
Fast-booting Knoppix LiveCD does it in 60 secs
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5205752428.html
1 U, 400GB RAID 1 for less than $1500
(Turns out this wasn't _real_ hardware RAID - yech. I ended up using software raid with Debian.)
https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=1925792&WishListTitle=lars%2Dut+file+server
Overview of dmraid source package
"has not yet entered testing"
http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/dmraid.html
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/55097/
http://www.madtux.org/livepc.php
$199 - only moving parts are fans. See the link at the bottom of the story.
I spent $144.97 (including shipping) on some parts from newegg.com...
An Antec mid-tower case w/450w psu & old faithful NEC DVD burner...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129155
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152058
Security, Windows Vista, and the Consumer
"If you, the consumer, have purchased an application for your computer that Microsoft breaks in the name of security, it will be your responsibility to recognize that this has happened, seek out your publisher, figure out how to manually download and install the necessary patch, and prove that you’re a legitimate owner of the software. Why? Because Microsoft prevented your software publisher from automating any of this for you. Microsoft is relying on your fear of security threats and ignorance about how legitimate software needs to work to deter you from trying to consume non-Microsoft software and services."
http://www.computerpoweruser.com/email.asp?emid=137986
Computer Power User March 2006 • Vol.6 Issue 3 Page(s) 14-15 in print issue Bronx Cheer For Vista Security! by Alex St. John
Additional interface for crossover cable on Gigabit ethernet card:
ifconfig eth1 inet up 192.168.5.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.5.255
route add -net 192.168.5.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.5.1 dev eth1
Windows XP/2000 Commands and Tools
http://www.networkclue.com/os/Windows/commands/index.aspx
Configuring Apache for Maximum Performance LG #123
http://linuxgazette.net/123/vishnu.html
I revisited my allofmp3.com music account & charged $15 to the balance. That ought to tide me over for a few months. allofmp3.com uses a pay-by-the-megabyte pricing model and offers more formats/options for downloading my music tracks than iTunes. I usually pay 12 to 18 cents per song for variable bitrate 192 Kbps encoding.
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