Stays Crunchy In Milk

Enough Bitchy Before Bed. Yes, on a happier note I am only one day behind on the paper now! I have plowed my way up through Thursday and only have today's paper left to read. Oh wait . . . it's past midnight now. Uh… guess I'm technically two days behind now. [Now my wife is outside trying to jump one of our cars. The battery appears to have died. It'll be an open-hood funeral.]

Simple error means big change. Scientists hail new research which claims to show how simple genetic changes could produce entirely new animals. [Finally, we'll be able to see the creatures only Ron Howards' kids have seen.]

MSN privacy flaw. A problematic feature in MSN Messenger allows any Web site to grab visitors' IM nicknames as well as names from their buddy lists. [They're not blocking Trillian. Yet.]

Tux Racer. In Tux Racer, players race as one of four arctic characters (including the popular Linux Mascot, Tux the Penguin) through eighteen thrilling downhill courses, while collecting herring and performing tricks along the way. [This one's fun for the whole family.]

Trillian Fights Back Adding yet another chapter to the seemingly endless battle over instant messaging, AOL has begun blocking Trillian users from accessing its servers, effectively cutting off communication between the independent client and AOL's ad-laden software. [I almost hate to say it, but AOL is justified to block my favorite IM client. If they were smart, they'd offer to purchase Cerulean Studios outright.]

If I Had Known. I settled in with the Tivo remote and the laptop and let the creativity flow as I caught up on the shows on TV. I have to stop and take a moment to thank Chris Pirillo… [Yeah, sorry about that. I tend to get carried away when someone puts a camera in front of my face. It seems to happen every weekday afternoon at 2PM (PST).]

Satan's Browser. What gives? Everyone I've encountered running 6.0 has had this centering problem now. Have you? [Yeah, I see the centered text, too. I thought it was the way you designed it?]

Card PC packs a punch. In the good old days of IT, operators would program their computers using stacks of punch-cards. In memory of those times IBM has developed a fully-fledged PC that's almost the same size as a punch-card. But from the specification it seems to packs a lot more punch than a stack of punch-cards. [Just don't fall down on your way to the site.]

Computer Museums. Who will remember computers? An historical perspective of computers, outside of a written or pictorial perspective, takes one thing in particular. Space. Lots of space. This article will give you an overview of a few of the larger and best endowed Computer and Technology museums around the world, along with a couple of local efforts. [I've donated my Pentium III, but they say it's already "too old" for them. Damn.]

The skinny on USB. The Universal Serial Bus. Friend or foe? It depends on who you are and how much you've invested in the technology. USB 2.0 devices have started to hit shelves (and they boast a speed rivaling that of the competing data transfer standard, FireWire). USB 2.0 ports are also backwards compatible with older USB devices. Though, for the moment, most digital video devices are shipping with IEEE 1394, so it's good to have a FireWire port on your system, too. Still, there are “interface” decisions you may need to make in the coming months. Some printers even give you a choice between Parallel or USB. In many cases, you're just as well off with the older (Parallel) connection. What else are you really going to use that port for? You may also have seen a “Legacy USB support” option floating around your system. It's for people who are using USB-based input devices (like the keyboard or the mouse) in non- USB environments. DOS, for instance, won't recognize USB devices on its own. This is only an issue if you're running a Windows OS other than XP. Disable the feature in your BIOS if you're smacking into problems (as documented in MSKB Q282195).

AMERICA – Fifty percent online. More than half of American households and more than half of all Americans are now connected to the Internet, according to a Commerce Department study. [If you don't have an e-mail address, I don't know you.]

Apple To Part Ways. Apple and Circuit City have mutually decided to go their separate ways and will be phasing out their relationship over the coming year. [Well, I'd just as soon order a unit directly from Apple.com. The question is: do I want an iBook or an iMac?]

Six universities receive $2.6M. Called the Text Analysis Portal for Research, the libraries will combine their electronic databases, which include legal documents, stories in aboriginal languages, rare poetry, oral statements and Old English texts. [Oral statements? Sounds kinda kinky.]

Pentium 4 Mobile to launch. Intel has pulled in the launch of mobile processors using the Pentium 4 .13 micron core to April, we can reveal today. While it will launch the product at speeds of 1.70GHz, with clock rates rising to 2GHz for notebook based Pentium 4s by the end of this year, shortly after introduction it will release a 1.80GHz Pentium 4-M. [So, you're saying this laptop I just purchased is already out of date? Guess I'll see if the computer museum wants it.]

Zelda Remix. I wrote this a while back but never did much with it. Recently in IRC I was talking to Gina (Pearle), and she thought I should send it to you. It's a midi remix of the classic Zelda theme changed to G Harmonic minor with a modified melody and completely redone parts. [When I was younger, I wanted to grow up to be like Link. Then I realized he was a video game character.]

Making OS X a UNIX Contender. As a sysadmin, I see OS X as a fantastic replacement for a UNIX workstation. But there are a few things Apple should think about if it really wants to compete in the UNIX space. [There's a large amount of validity here. If they ever ported it to the Intel platform, Microsoft Windows would be in big trouble.]

Get a Mac. People in the software industry said I should understand that bugs are part of the system. People outside the tech business screamed their frustration with the gear they can't understand or keep running reliably. [And most people don't care what computer they use, provided they can get online, do a little word processing, and maybe play a game or two with it.]

[I've seen Dave's brain and all I got was this lousy blog.]

Dick Cheney as Gollum? [One dork to rule them all.]

Delta 2 launch delayed again. The launch of a Delta 2 rocket, scheduled for Saturday, has been delayed again, this… [Yeah, but when are we going back to the moon? I need some place to retire, you know.]

Two Cereal Companies for Episode II. I just recieved my Topps Attack of the Clones Info packet, and inside, it mentiones some of AOTC's promotional partners. Among them: General Mills, Kelloggs, Frito-Lay, Hasbro, Lego. [What ever happened to sugar-laiden C-3P0s? That was my favorite cereal when I was a kid.]

Mailbox is full. On my way home today, I stopped at the store, and picked up “The Awful Truth” on DVD. It's an awesome TV show created by the equally awesome Michael Moore, creator of “Roger and Me,” and “Downsize This!” [Agreed. Moore is a genius.]

Have Cell Phone, Will Shoot. In the new SMS-type games sprouting up in Europe players track each other down (sort of), and shoot 'em up (bloodlessly). [Just don't do it while you're driving, eh?]

Pros and cons of the Linux PDA. Although the idea that a personal digital assistant running Linux could provide the same functionality as a Windows CE or Pocket PC device at a significantly lower cost is attractive, fact is most costs come from hardware. [Tony said he was going to run Linux on the Jornada he won at Gnomdex. That hasn't happened yet.]

Use Optimize 3.0 to clear out your registry, and get rid of pesky errors that can threaten the stability of your machine. It's also easy to use to kill off unneeded processes that may be hogging up your memory - and will help speed up your boot times.