guardian.co.ukI wouldn't bet against this deal though. The NFL is as bottom line as any other megacorp.... Some players have said they would not want to play for the Rams if Limbaugh succeeds. "I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of," the New York Giants footballer Mathias Kiwanuka told the New York Daily News...
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Downside of Rush's race baiting career
Nokia netbook exposes future AT&T wireless data plans
Nokia’s Netbook Comes With Marathon Battery Life - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
... At the event, Glenn Lurie, the president of AT&T’s emerging device unit, said he understood that a $60-a-month data plan puts the device out of the range of many potential consumers. He said that AT&T will introduce other data plans with lower prices before the end of the year, possibly including prepaid plans and those that charge users only for the days they are actually online...At $60/month AT&T is basically saying "don't buy this, you fool!". Their iPhone demolished network can't handle widespread netbook adoption.
Monday, October 12, 2009
This is why I don't do early OS X updates
But we won't go there.
That's not me. On the field of life I'm infantry. It's ok, I've got lots of company.
So I just know that this 10.6 bug would have whacked me ...
More on Snow Leopard deleting user accounts after guest login | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews
... The problem seems to happen only when guest accounts were enabled for login under Leopard before updating to Snow Leopard...It's quite a bug. It's a bit like a personal version of the
Regarding the "Guest" account data loss issue, the symptoms sound very similar to those affecting Leopard users until the release of 10.5.5. Given the similarities, one might suspect the reuse of buggy code.
The 10.5 flaw actually had two facets - one is that the wrong home folder may be deleted. The other is that the same flaw permits login to non-Guest accounts without a password. See CVE-2008-3610 here:
About the security content of Mac OS X v10.5.5 and Security Update 2008-006
Description: A race condition exists in Login Window. To trigger this issue, the system must have the Guest account enabled or another account with no password. In a small proportion of attempts, an attempt to log in to such an account will not complete. The user list would then be presented again, and the person would be able to log in as any user without providing a password. If the original account were the Guest account, the contents of the new account will be deleted on logout. This update addresses the issue by properly clearing Login Window state when the login does not complete. This issue does not affect systems prior to Mac OS X v10.5.Based on reports on the web, it appears that both aspects are present in Snow Leopard, and some users claim to have established the requirements for reproducibility. I don't have Snow Leopard so unfortunately can't test things for myself, but because of the implications, will refrain from posting a link to instructions. If confirmed, the key point would be that unlike Apple's assurances that it is something that occurs only in extremely rare cases, it may well be something that is guaranteed to be triggered based on a specific sequence of events, the likelihood of which may not be so "extremely rare" depending on an individual's habits.
Regardless, since the file deletion appears to be directly tied to the resetting feature of the "Guest" account, disabling GUI login for "Guest" should prevent that aspect from being triggered, and not having any passwordless accounts enabled (including "Guest") should take care of the other
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Fear the Cloud: Microsoft Danger was well named
White water and the end of prediction
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Growing jobs - my old stimulus proposal
Maybe it's time to think about my old National Small Business Generation Service proposal? Especially now that health reform is looking real.
Google good, AT&T and old FCC evil
FCC Is Probing Google Voice Service - WSJ.comCongress asked the FCC to look into this because they fear "for rural customers".
.... Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel, said in a blog post Friday that Google restricts calls to certain local phone numbers because "they charge exorbitant termination rates" and "partner with adult sex chat lines and 'free' conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic."
AT&T Inc. has said Google is violating rules designed to ensure that phone companies connect all calls. Earlier this week, a group of lawmakers asked the FCC for an investigation into the matter, saying the practice could hurt rural customers...
...The FCC rebuked AT&T and other carriers several years ago for blocking calls with high-access charges, saying common-carrier telephone companies can't pick and choose which numbers they will patch through and which they will block.
Friday, October 09, 2009
The file could not be found: The Decline of OS X
Gordon's Tech: The dumbing down of OS X (and Vista): indirection is too hardSince then OS X Snow Leopard has regressed to the metadata standards of DOS 2.1. Anyone else notice that shortcuts to files stored on OS X servers no longer work? They used to mount the share and open the file, now you have to mount the server yourself.
The Nobel for defeating the modern GOP
Thursday, October 08, 2009
How to present - the super-short summary
Amazon.com: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience (9780071636087): Carmine Gallo: BooksThanks Loyd! I can learn a lot from this summary.
1)What is the one big idea you want to leave with your audience? It should be short, memorable, and in subject-verb-object sequence.
2)Identify why you're excited about this company/product/feature, etc.
3)Write out the three messages you want the audience to receive, and develop metaphors and analogies in support.
4)Include a demonstration if your product topic lends itself to such. (Eg. pull the product out of your pocket if it is 'pocket-sized.'
5)Invite partners and customers to participate.
6)Include video clips if helpful, but limit to three minutes or less.
7)Answer the "Why should I care?" that's in the audience's mind. Have a passion for creating a better future.
8)Having an enemy (eg. IBM, Microsoft) helps visualize 'the problem' you're solving.
9)Simplify your presentation (and products).
10)Make numbers meaningful - eg. "Stores 1,000 songs," not "5 GB memory."
11)Don't use 'bullet-point' style visuals; instead, use short phrases that accompany your talk, or pictures.
12)Practice, practice, practice - and ask for feedback.
Does last year's seasonal flu vaccine make us more susceptible to this year's H1N1?
Is the seasonal flu vaccine associated with H1N1 pandemic influenza? | KevinMD.comNote they're talking about last year's seasonal flu vaccine, not the vaccine my family received 2-3 weeks ago. I'd have found this more persuasive if they were talking about this year's seasonal flu vaccine.... The Canadian data appear to suggest that people who had been vaccinated against last year’s seasonal flu were about twice as likely as others to catch the pandemic strain when it appeared this spring.
But the CDC said U.S. data do not show a similar risk...
... “We continue to urge people to receive both the seasonal flu vaccine and the 2009 H1N1 vaccine,” Quimby said.
Likewise, an official of the World Health Organization said that investigators in countries other than Canada had not found a similar risk increase when they looked at their own data...
After healthcare reform the cleanup begins
I disagree with Krugman on one thing. I think we'll be doing very well if we can fix the reform product in only 10 years. Nonetheless, this will be a huge step forward.
Gmail - 5 years, 6 months
I have a gmail ("beta") account. Don't try to tell me your inner nerd is not jealous.
more later, I just got it ....
It looks like conventional webmail, but far, far snappier (lots of JavaScript). Thus far I've tested on IE. Safari is not supposed to be supported but I'll try anyway.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Verizon to support Google Voice on Android phones
That's not surprising though. The surprising bit is the support for Google Voice ...
Verizon, Google Team For Android Devices -- Smartphones -- InformationWeek
... Verizon said its Android devices will come with the Android Market preloaded, and the wireless operator will support Google Voice. Verizon will be preloading some of its apps onto the devices, as well as tailoring the OS to provide a distinctive user experience..."Doesn't Verizon make money on phone calls and SMS? Why are they going to support GV? I'd like to learn more. On the face of it, a nice kick at AT&T/Apple.
The end of the ink jet printer – and the twilight of printing
My old Canon Pixma IP 4000 is sitting in the office lunch room with a “free – take me” note on it. I’m surprised to realize it’s about five years old, which is ancient by ink jet standards.
The printer works as well as it ever did, which means it suffers from the curse of Canon’s OS X printer drivers. Problem is, I almost never used it. I don’t print many photos, and it was a fussy photo printer at the best of times.
So I was paying for unused ink, even though Canon’s system is much less parasitic than the HP equivalent. More than that, I need the space this printer took up.
I have a hunch it will still be in the lunch room tonight, which means it goes to the recycler.
It feels like the era of the ink jet printer is over. I don’t know sales figures, but my bet is they resemble the sales figures for computer mice.
We still use my four year old Brother MFC-7820N (why can Brother more or less do OS X drivers when nobody else can?). There’s still a lot of paper in our life, and I think we’ll be printing gray scale for quite a while yet.
Still, how much more printing will we ever need? Like photo scanners, printers feel like they’ve reached the end of the road. As we get more display surfaces, from iPhone to iTab to giant LCD, there’s less interest and need for relatively dull looking printed color.
Sure, there’s room for improvement in printer/MFC size, noise, and power consumption. MFC class devices need better networking and standalone (no computer) document scanning abilities – basically incorporating more features from high end office devices. Device drivers, operational cost, and hardware reliability can always be improved.
Still, things will be quiet in this world going forward.
Beyond the end of the ink jet, this feels to me like the twilight of the printer.