Home of the Future Becomes a Reality. Over the past year, JEITA has deployed 50 home networking applications in a rented home. Companies participating in the project include Matsushita Electric Industrial, Hitachi, Sony, and Sharp, among others.

Electronic tax filers could get extra 10 days to file. To encourage greater electronic tax filing, President Bush wants to give e-filers an extra 10 days to get their returns in and begin designing a system allowing more people to file directly to the IRS via the Internet for free.

CREATE A CONTEXT MENU: An easy shell extension - design a context menus for Web pages.

Is Linux the New Latin? (Live from LinuxWorld). From Netslaves.com: “Looking around at the attendee crowd and the exhibitors, I've come to a conclusion about Linux and open source software in general: Linux is the new Latin. In medieval times, there were two predominant languages in any region-the local language or 'vulgate' and Latin, which was used by the ruling elite at the time. All Church and legal documents were written in Latin. This had two results…

New Truste service to target spam. The privacy seal group on Thursday will announce the launch of a new service to help police unsolicited commercial e-mail, or spam.

(From John Beelerspace) I hope you're writing up something on AOL's blocking AIM through Trillian. I thought we had all grown up since Odigo and PowWow, but apparently not. I'd much rather see the two programmers at Trillian spend their time making the best IM program better - instead of playing cat and mouse with AOL engineers.
In fact, I don't think I'll ever go back to using AIM even if they do block Trillian “forever.” And besides, wasn't this the exact same business practices AOL's Netscape is accusing Microsoft of in class action lawsuit? How convenient (and sad) that Trillian lacks the IT resources to play this game with AOL either on a technical front or a legal one.

Am I the only one who didn't order a new Mac?

If They Mated - Television And The Internet. How about the Web/TV combination follows its own separate path, becomes a new market, quite different to what's gone before, distinct from both current television and the Web as we know it?

Fairly Unbalanced.. I haven't heard yet from Walter Issacson (CNN), Neal Shapiro (MSNBC) or Roger Ailes(FOX), but that doesn't mean the campaign…

Microsoft Ships Windows 2000 Security Rollup Package. On Wednesday, Microsoft finally shipped its long-awaited Security Rollup Package for Windows 2000, which aggregates all of the security fixes the company has shipped since Windows 2000 Service Pack 2…

Mailwasher…. I watched Call For Help again last night (plus caught the tail end of Screen Savers) and heard Chris Pirillo…

Online Games Go Multicultural. International quests, blood oaths and sword play are coming to online game worlds now that the makers of EverQuest and Lineage have teamed up.

The Incredible Shrinking Hard Drive. The tech industry's story of the incredible shrinking hard-disk drive could be entering a new chapter with Toshiba's recent introduction of 1.8-inch embedded drives sporting storage capacities of 10 GB and 20 GB. The higher capacities and smaller size could clear the way for even thinner notebook PCs, as well as handhelds that pack many more programs and features.

Visual Connections to the Classic Trilogy. Sligty_Worride started this forum thread which has really taken off. Click on the link for piles of visual references connecting Episode II to the classic trilogy. Check it out for comparisons of symbols, characters, ships, locations and more!

Opera for Windows. Opera 6.0 for Windows introduces the looks and the performance of an exceptional Web browser. Opera's user interface has received a major overhaul with the new start-up dialog, and new default…

“Revolution OS” screens at the Miami Film Festival. What is the one thing that Microsoft¹s monopoly will never give you? True freedom. That¹s why a pioneering band of quirky software rebels has been fighting to create an alternative computing universe that no one controls and everyone is free to use. Taking the viewer inside this twenty-year struggle, J.T.S. Moore¹s new documentary film REVOLUTON OS, tells the personal stories of the hackers and programmers who rebelled…

Software bug blamed in radioactive spill. A programming error at a uranium processing plant in Western Australia leads to a failure in a control system and a rupture in a pipe carrying radioactive fluid.

WiFi Metro officially launches: WiFi Metro launches its for-fee service today with about 40 hot spots and 50 more in the works. For $19.95 per month, you get access to their network plus their JumpStart partners. I'm seeing the mesh start to get finer. [80211b News]

WHY - Demise of content sites. It was unbeatable. The royal flush of Web content sites.

More precise disk read / write. ST's L6671 Rotational Accelerometer is a two-part chip that senses vibrations in a spinning disk drive and sends electronic signals to the arm that moves the read/write head across the disk. Informed by real-time data, the heads stay more precisely positioned over the data track. [Geeknews]

States Asked to Examine Microsoft Internet Service. The Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to all 50 state attorneys general, asking them to protect consumers against what it called Microsoft's unfair and deceptive trade practices because the federal government has failed to act. [ActiveWin]

Credit Card Fraud and You. Theft doesn't occur with just the cards you own, but also with the offers you reject.

Free Wireless Networks at Airports. Today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune is carrying an article about the installation of a wireless network throughout Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the first of five such airports across the nation to get a uniform wireless network system.

The Magic behind the Web. Dr. JoAnn Hackos talks about the advantages of content management systems over ad hoc systems to preview her new book “Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery” due in February from John Wiley.

Imaging Resource battery shootout. Kudos to Dave Etchells for posting an excellent (technical and logical) comparison of different brands of high capacity AA NiMH batteries. His comparison (although done outside of a digital camera) measured…

Great Dating Ideas. Being boring is probably the worst thing you can do on a date. At least, that is, if you have any desire to have a second date with the same woman.

3Com Offers Free Hardware. 3Com Corp. is looking for beta testers to evaluate new V.92 modem software that offers 30% to 40% higher throughput with the new V.44 compression standard, quicker connection times, and a Modem on Hold ability, which allows you to “pause the Internet connection on an incoming or outgoing call for a short period of time, then resume it when you are done talking,” according to 3Com.

BBC dumps MP3 for Ogg Vorbis. VNUNet.com reports that “Broadcasting powerhouse the BBC has thrown its weight behind the Ogg Vorbis open source MP3 standard. The BBC opened up live streaming of Radio 4 at the start of this year to test the latest Ogg codecs, particularly the latest Release Candidate 3 which also launched at the start of the year. Ogg is an open source audio compression codec set to rival the popular MP3 format.”

Fixed AIM connection issues; Re-enabled SecureIM; allow 'Check Hotmail' for msn.com accounts; fixed bad INBOX requests; save preferences in a hopefully more reliable fashion; better window parenting for error messages; added check for updates on load; no longer flash on online / offline messages; systray icon to look less stupid; added comma to thank you line; increased speed in the contact list; etc.

If you don't already have it, get it! If you want to get ahold of me, try my ICQ number (144832). I have MSN, AIM, and Y! accounts as well, but those are only shared on request. Don't expect me to answer any “tech” questions via IM. I'll ignore you. And if you're going to contact me, please have something more to say than “Hello.” Please ask more than “How are you?” I'm doing just fine, folks.

(From Mike Bibby) YouÂ’ve got me thinking about factoids and your definition of them. Perhaps we should have the converse – the “fictoid” – which everyone refuses to believe, yet is actually true (or probably is).
Take the “fict” that Osama Bin Laden used to support Arsenal – a British soccer team. Or that Russia applied to be a founder member of NATO.

In addition, I think you should define “frictoids.” These are “factoids” or “fictoids” that inevitably start heated debate, especially in chat rooms. For example: the US gives 0.1% of its GDP to aid, less than any other developed country. Or that it's been scientifically proven that women canÂ’t park properly. ThereÂ’s also room for “fantoids” – things that arenÂ’t true but that we wish were. I leave the definition of “foktoids” to your own imagination…

(From CptSiskoX) FreshDevices.com's FreshUI 1.0 is based on Xteq Systems' X-Setup. Look at: Information \ Microsoft Plus! in FreshUI then compare it to the option X-Setup has had for several versions in the past year or more - located within
X-Setup here: Information \ Applications \ Microsoft Plus! Check. The wording
of the final item “Plus! 2000″ in FreshUI was obviously copied directly from
the existing X-Setup plug-in. Technically, Plus! 2000 is officially called
“Plus! Game Pack” - only X-Setup has referred to it as “Plus! 2000″ in our
software. Therefore, this proves they (FreshDevices.com) copied it from
Xteq Systems' X-Setup and is what I consider to be irrefutable evidence.

There are several other options just like this, with identical text, even
certain typos were copied from X-Setup to FreshUI in perfect clarity and
detail. Since they did obviously rip it off from X-Setup (the
options / plug-ins of X-Setup are all viewable in Notepad, but copywritten),
they should at least credit Xteq Systems X-Setup as their source and ask
Xteq for permission. It would be analogous to someone copying a website
word for word, in every detail, identically, and only changing the
background or fonts, etc. and posting it as their own work, or someone
copying the content of a magazine or e-mail newsletter and putting their
name on it and changing only a few small details, and saying it is their own
original work. It's no better than theft and plagerism, and a bad job
copying - or perhaps -too- good of a job because they proved they aren't the
authors of the items in their program.

Don't deny 'em. You know you want 'em. You can't live without 'em. Dithyrambic raspberries. They're irresistible. At least, according to Google. Get 'em while they're hot. Pretty soon, everyone will want 'em - and you know they all can't have 'em. There's not enough of 'em to go around. Tasty. Very tasty. Tomorrow you'll wake up to a bunch of stuff and then go back to sleep.

“I spy. What do I spy?” I can't get that darn Chrysler jingle out of my head! Does anybody have it in MP3? I'd settle for WMA. Or WAV. No RAM, though. And I'm not too thrilled about AIFF, either. OGG works, too. Oh, where's the Ad Critic when I need him?!

The Case for Keeping Dialup. Jonathon has gone back to surfing via dialup. That's why I continue to pay monthly fees on my dialup account. It paid off when @Home went down. It's all about…

Back Microsoft and win an iPaq. Back Redmond and win an iPaq? Strange but true, this was indeed the offer made to a select mailing list of likely Microsoft supporters by lobbying group Americans for Technology Leadership, according to an AP report today.

Will Microsoft pull the plug on Apple? Is Microsoft going to kill Apple Computer? Some may say it's already happened, at least from looking at the relative dominance of Windows over Apple's Mac OS. But I'm talking about Microsoft pulling the plug on Office and Internet Explorer for Mac OS. [ActiveWin]

Sun Plans Linux Version of iPlanet. With customer demand for Linux support spiking, Sun reveals plans for a Linux version of its iPlanet Application Server.

WORK - Don't install anything. The next time you install software on your computer at work, you could be facing criminal charges.

Consumer confidence up. Franco said the upturn in confidence was driven by the feeling that the business outlook and job prospects are going to get better.

Microsoft: A Little More 'Open'. On the eve of LinuxWorld, Microsoft still believes that open source is not a viable model. But some observers think the software giant is slowly embracing the movement.

Two of My Favorite Things. Television and Britney that it is. Pepsi wants you to do the work in helping them put together their Superbowl…

Apple Doesn't Need Zealots. Zealots are unreasonable, in that they cannot be reasoned with. Zealots will religiously defend the object of their affection with words and even actions. And zealots are bad for Apple's business.

Trillian Broke? Nope, but there seems to be a bug in the secure IM capability of the AIM part of the program, stopping aim from connecting.

More Photos from Attack of the Clones. Here's a BIG one for all the fans out there who like the spoiler pictures. If you've been paying attention, you already know that Anakin…

USA Today reports on secure organizations banning Wi-Fi: makes sense and I applaud it. If you don't have the resources to make sure that your Wi-Fi network is secure, and you're operating a going concern (whether high-security or not), you simply shouldn't run it. [80211b News]

I've Got My TechTV!. The song going over & over in my mind right now? “I've got my… I 've got my…”

Columbia finally rolls out to launch pad. The space shuttle Columbia rolled out to the launch pad on Monday after crawler problems…

Dr. Benway. Today is the last day that you can vote in the 2002 Bloggies, and today, at work, we turn in our pilot for my show.

Passport glitch hits Microsoft game site. The Zone suffers another glitch in its switch to Microsoft's Passport identification system, logging subscribers on to a bogus Hotmail e-mail account.

BootVis Tool updated. Customer research shows a frequently requested feature that users want from their PCs is fast system startup, whether from cold boot or when resuming from standby or hibernation.

Wow. I think I'll be picking up the newly-remastered TRON soundtrack on CD this weekend. I've had the MP3s for a while (ripped directly from the LP), but I hadn't really listened to them until Ray Weigel (a TechTV Product Analyst) outted himself as a TRON fanatic the other day. Walter Wendy Carlos is a musical genius. I hope Disney has her slated to craft the soundtrack for the upcoming TRON 2.0. It'll be hard to recapture the same “screen magic” as the original, but with a good script in hand, the much-anticipated sequel should prove to be fun.

Just a quick comment about TV channel one. When the frequencies were opened up for television, there was a channel one. However, it caused considerable
interference to the adjacent frequency band (or was it the reverse?), so North America dropped the channel one. Broadcasters never worried about it at that time, they were too busy fighting to get channel 3-6 slots in their areas.
At that time, I was in communications. The original band pass filters for
microwave communications had about an extra 20 db loss on channels one and
13 compared to the rest of the TV band. The extra loss could be corrected
but the noise ratio was worse. No broadcaster wanted them. Usually Public TV
wound up with 13, while one went unassigned. (Jack Sager)

The frequency allocation chart
shows that the frequency right below TV channels 2-4 is allocated to
Amateur Radio. It is, in fact, the 6 meter band. But TV channels were
not always allocated the frequencies they are now allocated. There's a
good description of the history - “good” meaning that it rings true - here. It seems that the FM radio band moved about in the early 40s too, and that affected TV channel allocation. (Art Yaffe)

While I can't say with any certainty what the original purpose of reserving
channel one was, I can give you some information regarding channel usage you
may or may not know. For instance… do you know that the ENTIRE FM radio
band sites between channel 6 and 7 on your TV dial? That is one reason TV's
with FM tuners were popular for a time in the 60's and 70's.
So, it's not uncommon for the FCC to drop unrelated services into the middle
of already used band. It's also not uncommon for the FCC to reserve
bandwidth for future uses without knowing what they will be. For instance,
when the 2.4 GHZ range was being bandied about there was NO idea that you'd
be able to plug a card into your notebook and roam around a building while
connected to the internet. (Steve Hoult)

While I'm sitting here waiting for the CFH rerun to finish, I might as well find out how my name is doing on Google. Ya know, before I started this blog, I wasn't even in the top three million “Chris” hits. As of this entry, I'm sitting at number THREE, baby! Go ahead, search for Chris and see what comes up. I've taken a screen shot for posterity (and sanity). Out of 3,900,000 “Chris” pages that Google has indexed, I'm sitting near the top. And I will not stop until I've hit number one - for a whole day, at least. This is the happiest moment of my life! Then again, I was just as happy when Gretchen told me that I could go out for lunch tomorrow. So, take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt, folks.

Notified Weblogs.Com that Chris Pirillo's Headline Happiness updated. And it said in response - Thanks for the ping. We checked and found that the “Chris Pirillo's Headline Happiness” weblog has changed, so it will appear in changes.xml next time it is updated.

14258 » January 28 10:04 PM. E-Filing Your Taxes This Year? If your adjusted gross income is $25,000 or less, you can file your taxes with Quicken Turbotax on the Web and waive the $19.99 filing fee through their Tax Freedom Project. Who says that all the good free web goodies are gone?

Font Lister: This font browser thing shows all of your installed fonts (along with a sentence in the face) on a Web page. If you're on Windows 2000 or XP and you want a quick look at your fonts, check it out…

No Pop-up Ads on Google. Google does not allow pop-up ads of any kind on our site. We find them annoying. So why do they occasionally appear when you search on Google? Here are a few possible explanations…

EXPLORE FOR FILES (free): Right click a file or shortcut and pull up its whole folder in Explorer.

Notified Weblogs.Com that Chris Pirillo's Headline Happiness updated. And it said in response - Thanks for the ping, however we can only accept one ping every five minutes. It's cool that you're updating so often, however, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice - take a break, you'll enjoy life more.

Want to attach a background sound to your HTML e-mails? In Outlook Express, start with your favorite piece of stationery, click Format | Background | Sound, then browse for your favorite MIDI or WAV file. Be forewarned, though: people (like me) don't really look forward to hearing audio with our e-mails. However, we do look forward to greeting cool studio guests. Matt from DeviantArt is going to be on CFH in a few weeks. It'll be like meeting a Web celebrity. I hear he only eats green M&Ms. That remains to be seen.