Brief Note

Mother has had knee surgery scheduled since November. It was supposed to take place on February 7, 2006. Partial replacement was the procedure and she had to have tests done prior to the operation. Yesterday they started the tests and found a problem with her heart. We don't know the extent, but should have more information today.

In the meantime, please bear with me. The voice mail on my cingular cell phone has not worked for the past month. It is dropping calls and the ID shows up sometimes even the next day. If you need me please keep calling or email at this address. I try to check email throughout the day and always have the phone with me.

Hopefully, we will hear positve results sometime later this evening. No one is near panic, but we are concerned. Your patience will certainly be appreciated.

Guild Wars? Fun For Even a Dinosaur Like Me!

After watching several GuildWars matches over the weekend, it looks like the 'Alcoholic Muppets' and 'Your Math Teacher' are my current favorite guilds. We have several people from SouthernPhried that are playing and a guild is in the making. This game is online and we enter this world with people we know, meet people in the game or a person can go solo. Our current attitude is to learn everything in the initial area taking our time before we move over to the next arena which is much more intense. Besides, this is a great way to visit with my daughters since both of them are in the game. Sure do have to watch the clock though. Can only dedicate a small portion of time. But hey, it's fun and a great stress relief! Anyone have a good name for our guild? Alcoholic Muppets, that cracks me up.

"Real elation is when you feel you could touch a star without standing on tiptoe."
-Doug Larson

Sue Our Fans? Why?

Interesting to see that a record label is aiding people being sued by the damned RIAA. Nettwerks is paying the legal fees for a family that the creeps at the music mafia are harassing. This is a Canadian firm that is affiliated with such artists as Avril Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan. Seems they believe it's stupid to sue the fans too. You can read about it at ArsTechnica.

"We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?"
-Will Rogers

Retail Tail or Tale?

Just read an article about retail sales policy. It involves one of my favorite stores, Best Buy. Tupelo has had a Circuit City for years, but Best Buy just opened here last spring. Now it seems, they have decided that some of their customers are non-desirables. This is a RETAIL chain, right? They don't like the fact that some shifty people buy, file rebates, return the merchandise and then buy it as a refurb or close out, etc. As Red Foreman would say, "Dumbass!" This is real simple. Stop all rebates, pass the savings along at time of purchase, cease price matching and enact a store return policy of 30 days. Problem solved. You can read in depth about all this in an older article posted at ArsTechnica by Ken "Caesar" Fisher. Slashdot has a related article Best Buy Working Towards Ending Mail-in Rebates posted yesterday by Zonk. Am I staying away from Best Buy? No. Going there today to make a purchase. The local folks need their jobs so I will shop there on occasion. Besides, they have a book in stock no one else carries, at least not locally.

Recently, one of my clients needed 5 LCD monitors. I recommended the Samsung SyncMaster 914v. They agreed it suited their needs and a call was made to Best Buy. They had 6 in stock and yes, they would price match (Circuit City listed them for around 30 bucks cheaper per unit). After arriving there, company credit card in hand, it was discovered that management had stepped in and overrode this deal. Seems someone had dreamed up a store policy that dictated a limited number of units per purchase at a competitor's matched price. Again, this is a RETAIL chain, right!?! Finally, after some talking, they sold us the monitors at the reduced price. This was no fault of the sales rep or the manager. They followed policy dictated from the dumbasses that prowl the Best Buy board room dreaming up silly stuff like rebates, being critical of customers, etc.

Yes, I'll keep shopping there, but following the lead of my 5 LCD client, it may be a good idea to shop Circuit City first. Best Buy apparently doesn't need the business. Why else would you whine about customers in the news media? Shoot, if business is that good just close the doors one more day during the work week and give the employees an extra day off. They probably need it to recover from such board room shenanigans!

"We cannot specify wind direction, but we can adjust the sails."
Lee Taylor, Master Sailor, Grenada, MS

Early Sleep

It's flu season. The changing weather has not helped as far as comfort. The aching feeling is not a good sign, but maybe the daily Vitamin C regimen will ward off any major illness. Besides, it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Have an appointment that involves around 50 miles of travel one way in the morning, but no excuse can be found not to clean house tomorrow afternoon. Darn! Going to bed early. Have a good, dry weekend.

"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow."
-Charlotte Brontë

Beware the Sniping Technodoodleheads

"In a bid to stem the rising tide of adware on computers, two leading academic institutions have been commissioned to research the problem and how it can be solved." Read the rest of this article at PC Pro. These two learned institutions are working in conjunction with StopBadware.org which is said to be a Neighborhood Watch style organization. Neighborhood Watch style is not what is needed. Somebody needs to hunt down these sorry creeps and kick the everlovin' sh-- out of them!!! Assassins are what we need! Yes! That's the ticket!

It is tiring to constantly fight with these jerks especially when, with just a little effort, most folks can keep this junk off their PCs. You have to use the right tools and then UPDATE said tools. If you don't want to do this then please don't complain when your tech person charges you for their time. Yes, there are those few instances that have weird circumstances (we are talking about computers you know), but simple daily maintenance will suffice in stopping these mangy wolves at the door a vast majority of the time. Update, update, update. Then run the scans.

Beware the technodoodlehead that will clean your computer for a nominal set price. If you are worried about cost have your tech call with an estimate. Most any computer technician can judge by the type of infection how much time it will take to heal the machine. Honestly, it's better to go on and pay for a complete format and re-installation of Windows in most cases - that is, if you have a backup system. Folks, please contact your Congressperson about this dilemna that plagues most all computer users. This is an outright invasion of privacy and just as bad as someone breaking into your home trying to steal information about you.

"Don't tell my mother I work in an advertising agency - she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse."
-Jacques Seguela

Life's Just a Tire Swing

Darla emailed asking, "What music do you like?" My immediate and initial thought was to reply Spanky & Our Gang. They were a huge group back in the days when Ford invented the Mustang and T-Rex was Mr. Big Nasty on the planet. Please forgive my sophmoric attempt at humor Darla. You have quite a lovely name. Excuse me for a moment while I comb out my Alfalfa hair.

Since I've waited for years to be asked this question, please indulge me. My musical tastes are eclectic. One of my favorites is Mozart as long as there's no singing involved. Little Feat is right at the top of the list with ol' Wolfie. Waiting for Columbus is possibly the greatest 'live' recording ever made. There is some prejudice here, because I did see this tour back when you parked your stegosaurus-mobile outside the arena. This is a classic. What a concert! I've seen the group Yes four times. Never seen Pink Floyd, but own most of their stuff. Love 'em.

Rock, Jazz, Classical, R&B, Soul, Blues, progressive Christian, and some country are also heard around the beach house. Saw Marty Stuart on late TV last night and he was awesome. Dude can play a mandolin. I've even written a country song called She Won't Yahoo Anymore. For those interested the lyrics can be found at SouthernPhried. The one artist that stands out when we have gatherings is, of course, Jimmy Buffett. What a library! His music automatically drops my blood pressure by being soothing and then sends it back up because I constantly crave Cheeseburgers in Paradise. Yes, I am a PARROTHEAD! Got the license tag on the front of the El Camino to prove it!

Lately, jazz is the prevelant background. Love saxophone. Mindi Abair absolutely blows me away! She plays awesome sax, keyboards and and has a soft, gentle voice that is like honeydew vine water. Another great saxophonist comes to us by way of Holland. Her name is Candy Dulfer. All I can say is WOW, WOW. My favorite jazz master, sax player is David Sanborn. He is downright awesome. Hey, I can go on and on. The genius of Bob James would take up pages as would my take on the great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong.

Darla, thanks for a great question! I must stop now before this becomes a book. Work calls. Put some melody in your ears today. It'll help.

"Music, when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory"
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Can Men Subscribe to "O" Magazine?

Reading headlines this morning brought to mind Jubal Harshaw in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein predicted our present day communication capabilities and his curmudgeon character Jubal uses the news gathering mediums, in this great book, as we do today. Wow, the gay folks are mad at Simon and Randy for saying something on American Idol (never watched at the beach house), Tavis Smiley interviewed Craig Newmark of craigslist.com last night on PBS, the Iran Atomic thing is still newsworthy, Google is holding out on turning over search records to the gov (go Google!), the Palestinians have a huge election in front of them, so on and so forth. News junkies can certainly get their fill.

Rarely do I burden my mind with the TV news media due to their woosie liberal take on everything. If the beach house boob tube is hawking news it is usually Fox. A cross section of formats and styles are watched though. Tavis Smiley is a great interviewer, but he's only tuned in when he has a guest that interests me. He's on Socialist TV, oops, uh, uh, PBS 10:00PM local time. In the morning internet is favored over local idiot box news. It is on a rare occasion the local newspaper is read. Now for the clincher of this whole blurb: If home early enough, which is very rare, I will watch Oprah. Shoot, she's the best source of information for males to see what the female population is up to nowadays.

I am sure some femi-nazi will find fault with my saying this so let me just say - flame on, sister, flame on!

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance."
-Saul Bellow

Bill's Slam on Spam

Two years ago Bill Gates said he would solve the spam problem within the same time frame. Time's up. Did he? Slashdot says "maybe." Link credit goes to MsWillow for a very good article. Still having spam problems after Mr. Gates efforts have been put into place? Start using GMail. Need an invite? Email me. This is Google's free email service that absolutely rocks! And they definitely have spam under control.

Have a great Monday. Tuesday is less than 24 hours away!

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.
Try to be better than yourself."
-Faulkner

Morning Lull

I overslept. My butt should have hit the pew about 8:30ish, but sleep pushed me to rest. Have a huge day planned which consists of major house cleaning, furniture movement, repairing 3 PCs, doing some remote service work on two different networks, cooking something with shrimp, visiting with family, trying to break the garage cleanup barrier and engaging in some soulful prayer. Somewhere in there it'd be nice to play Guild Wars, but there may not be time. Rain is forecast for the local area and the temp is supposed to peak in the high 40s. Wow, the bed is calling.

Please update your protection software. There are several new strains of spyware infection running rampant and I've had to format two different PC hard drives this past week. If your data is valuable, then BACK IT UP! Jump Drives (small USB hard drives) now come in 1 and 2 gig varieties. OfficeMax, Staples, etc. have good buys on these great devices. This is an inexpensive and easy way to save data. Plug it in a free USB port, drag and drop, then remove. It's that simple. Windows 2000 and XP will see them automatically. You will have to install a small software utility if running Windows 98SE.

"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins."
-Benjamin Franklin

Neighborhood Wildlife Report

Okay, Arnold (not the motorcycle lip Gubenator or the Green Acres porcine actor) the opossumus germanicus austriabodicus is fine. He's been in stealth mode lately, but I saw him last night as he waddled in the woods north of the beach house. He hasn't tried to steal the barbeque grill, turn over the green trash bin or lead a possum revolt in the past few weeks. But he's alive and doing his possum thing. Believe me you'll be alerted if he does anything interesting.

Have a casual Saturday night, LOL, what's left of it anyway.

"I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me."
-Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, 1907

Ride Sally Ride

Back in the day when pterodactyls roamed the earth Ford invented the Mustang. Mr. Wilson Pickett came out with a song titled Mustang Sally. How many thousands of times have I heard this wonderful tune that brings back very fond memories? In the 1991 movie The Commitments this song was central to the plot. If you like music you'll like this movie. Then there was Sandra Bullock's famous walk in Miss Congeniality that premiered in 2000. Lordy Lordy, that blue dress was just awesome and her transformation from tomboy Gracie Hart to beauty queen happened in those few magic seconds. In the background Mustang Sally played loud and clear.

I've always wanted a Mustang. This song inspired me not only about a car, but about life in general. An average guy could own a neat car and date a pretty girl. Wow, what a concept. Mr. Pickett not only touched my life with this tune, but with other great songs. In the Midnight Hour, Funky Broadway and Land of a 1000 Dances come to mind. Wish I had written him and thanked him for the sharing of his genius. He passed away yesterday. My heart goes out to his family and he will be missed. You can read further at Rolling Stone. This man was larger than life. He has inspired several generations of musicians. I like to think I am one of those fortunate people.

One day that Mustang may sit in the driveway. Thank you Wilson, for helping me realize dreams and thank you for music that keeps me dreaming.

"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence."
-Robert Fripp

Further Adventures Battling Minions of Satan

As I sat last night waiting for an upgrade to finish my attention was drawn to the taskbar where several windows decided to open. Yes, pop unders. This PC was heavily infected with spyware and it seemed to be better. It has been on the bench now, for several more hours. If the clock could be spun back this one would have been formatted. So much time wasted and the spyware people are the cause. This one may still have to be formatted to clear it of all the garbage. People, will you please get in touch with your Reps and Senators? This has to stop. Other things could be accomplished instead of fighting an evil that has no right to exist.

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
-Haile Selassie

NOTE: After talking to the owner it has been decided to format the above PC hard drive. Sometimes you gotta' regroup!

Spyware? It's All Written in Hell.

Spyware sucks. It just plain sucks. And anyone connected with the creation, development, promotion, employment, distribution sucks too. Damn it, how many times do I have to say quit using Yahoo. They have Claria and 180solutions all over their stuff. While I am at it, you can call it adaware, malware, spyware, thiefware, dungware, garbageware, junkware or whatever! It's an invasion of privacy! Would you let someone come into your abode and pilfer through your personal stuff? In my opinion, this is by far the worst problem we are facing when it comes to using the internet. These creeps should be gathered and sent to the South Pole in their undies!

The worst of the worst is PSGuard, aka SpySheriff, aka Shudder Global Limited. These jerks hijack your desktop wallpaper and take away the ability to change it. They also flood your computer with registry entries that have to be eradicated or it cannot be removed. It'll keep coming back! Several people claim to be able to remove this scum, but it will take extensive registry hacking and the use of SEVERAL anti-malware tools. Get ready to spend hours in front of the computer if you are a tech and days if a user. Best solution? Format C: will get it.

Tools? Most are listed in the Cybersouth Links. Use Spybot Search & Destroy. Install it properly. Don't know how? Email me. Use Lavasoft's Ad-aware (I use the free version). Install it properly. Don't know how? Email me. Use JavaCoolSoftware's SpywareBlaster. Install it properly. Don't know how? Email me. Use CCleaner. It can be downloaded at MajorGeeks under the drive cleaners category. As a matter of fact all these programs can be found there. Use a good anti-virus; AVG Free Edition is used at the beach house. Hey, if these tools help then donate or upgrade. These people put many hours into developing something to help us all.

If you get a really bad infection don't begrudge your tech for charging. They will spend much time correcting errors. Personally, I won't return a computer without installing the above tools and tuning each tool to work at optimum. Beware the signs that say $45.00 for spyware removal. It would scare me to think they charged just a dollar a minute and only spent 45 minutes trying to clean a machine. You can barely download and install the above mentioned tools in that amount of time.

Here's the most important tool that you have to fight Spyware; CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSPERSON!!!! Yahoo should be forced to put banners all over their site confessing to the use of spyware, not just small print in some EULA. Raise hell about this horrible invasion of privacy. Also, please back up your critical data. More than likely if you get the PSGuard infection, you will have to format your hard drive, especially if you have ignored it and let it run in the background. A final note; it seems that Yahoo is watching this site. That will be interesting.

"The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable."
-U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977 (1977!?!, Call your Congressperson!)

Umbrellas, Bifocals and Odometers

There's a winter rain falling outside. Not too chilling, but steady and the beach house has taken on a gray hue. The forecast calls for an inch of precipitation and the temperature will drop to the mid 40s before day's end. Several things need to be moved, but that job will wait until tomorrow when it will be sunny. Looks like rain again on Friday. Hey, we need it.

Did you know that Ben Franklin was born 300 years ago on this day? Guinnessy at Slashdot posted this item. Franklin is often quoted here and I have always admired his spirit. Dude was healthy in the brains department too. I think he would like the 'net if here today. Wow, imagine Ben doing a TV show. What a trip that'd be! That's a slot no one would want to cancel but the Comcast boardroom baboon brigade would probably make a heck of an effort. Then they'd try and replace him with Kevin Pewreara (he has to be related to Brian Roberts, Comcast CEO).

Contend with the weather. Remember it'll change.

"We should not only use the brains we have, but all that we can borrow."
-Woodrow Wilson

Forgive me, I Watched G4

This morning I am working on several projects and trying to catch up. In the background I've tuned into Comcast's abortion of a TV show called "Attack of the Show" and have found it to be an insult to anyone over the age of 3 years, no make that 2 years old. Sarah Lane was on TechTV's "The Screensavers" and is being belittled and wasted by that which surrounds her.

The Kevin Pereira (excuse spelling, they don't show his name much and that's understandable) dude needs to just...go away. Can't think of enough bad to say about him. Can we say goofy blithering idiot? Do people in California really dress and act like that??!?!

The monkeys in the board room at Comcast should be put on short rations and caged somewhere on a small island FOREVER. They destroyed a perfectly good TV channel (TechTV) and have replaced it with the worst channel to ever air (G4). You know, I thought they might have come to their senses when they started airing Leo Laporte's Canadian version of "Call for Help", but where has it gone?

Sara might look into being a tech reporter for ANY channel other than G4. She deserves better. Kevin Pewreara might consider therapy that will help him become human, and the rest need to find other jobs. Leave the real tech reporting to Kevin Rose, Patrick Norton, Leo, Martin, etc. What an awful mess that just gets worse by the day.

Now it's time for medication. Later y'all, have a casual day.

"It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back."
-Mick Jagger

Traveling Faster than Impulse Power

Recent absence? Nothing's wrong. Finally made the trip to Mother's and celebrated Christmas with her, my brother and his family. We had a good time. As always, the food was awesome and the diet went to hell for a day. It was a pleasure to drive the lead sled and the new warp engine purred all the way. Next is air conditioning. No more summers in a black car without AC in the Deep South. That's lunacy.

Popular Mechanics has an interesting article about 15 things techno to watch this year. Thanks goes out to MBoy at Slashdot for the link. Good read. One note; we have started calling Guild Wars Crack Wars. It's uber fun and addictive. Thank Goodness there is a clock in plain view.

"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
-Benjamin Franklin

Blackberries Taste Just Fine

It's late and I have an early appointment tomorrow so this will be short. Just wanted to promote reassurance to the folks that are using Blackberry technology. PCWorld has an article about how they are now using Google Talk. This should ease the minds of those with the super phones, etc. It's very doubtful that Google would endorse a technology that might shut down. Anyway, my take is that Blackberry will survive their problems.

Rain is forecast for early tomorrow and travel is on the schedule. Be careful out there.

"Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger."
-Saint Basil

Patch, Arnold's Lip and Elvis

After a needed rain it is nice to awaken to a cool morning and anticipate a beautiful day weatherwise. Coffee is good and the world seems rather calm after a first glance at the news. Glad to see that Microsoft has issued a patch for the recent round of WMF problems. Hope the Gubenator's lip heals soon. Just read where a woman became extremely irate over an Elvis song.

Stay casual and listen to an Elvis tune today.

"All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field."
-Albert Einstein

Done Those Updates?

Got up to answer the phone only to find that the call had been made two hours earlier. Time sure flies while having fun in dreamstate. Usually I answer, but yesterday was rough and I retired early knowing knowing tomorrow morning will need an early start.

People, please be careful out there in computerland. Many evil things are waiting to make you life miserable. Betuglia from called Murfreesboro and has PSGuard infection. Has no idea where it came from and it has taken over his PC. This is the worst of the worst. Time to format.

Do Windows Updates, update and run Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Update Spywareblaster and run CCleaner every few days. Make sure your anti-virus program is updating. AVG updates every day now. This is a first line of defense. All these tools are listed in the link list.

Time to return to zzzz land.

"All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own."
-Plutarch

Tunes Brit

The 65 year old Welsh singer Tom Jones has been knighted. Hey, it's not unusual. He was very popular in the 60s n 70s then recreated his image by covering the Prince song Kiss. He's been a great survivor, and can still croon with the best of 'em.

Another item from our British friends - music downloads have reached record numbers. Smart people, doing the right thing! Don't buy pressed CDs. Download the music and then burn to CD. Let's do away with the damned RIAA mafiosos forever.

Monday has begun; look forward to Tuesday. Hang in there.

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."
-Ludwig van Beethoven

Pause for the Cause

It's Sunday afternoon and I am stopping for a cup of coffee. Stayed in Tishomingo County last night, ate like a pig and slept like a log. Love being there , but it's always nice to come home to the beach house. Cleaning is going on and I'll never finish all the work that is due tomorrow. Just not enough hours in the day.

The weather here is low 70s with sunshine and wind. The windows are open and my lard butt is headed to the swing out on the veranda for a few minutes of break time. There's Jimmy Buffett music playin' in the background. Enjoy Sunday!

"Coffee, n. break fluid."
Hamboni the Wise

Smoke Over the Fire

Aha! My take Thursday on Google's doing something new was right, well, partially. They now offer a pretty nice suite of tools, utilities, applications, etc., and it can be found at Google Pack. Nice stuff, but I'd opt out on Norton/Symantec Anti-virus and download AVG Free Edition. Most of you will probably have a lot of the things offered, but it's still nice to have one place to acquire these tools. BTW, Larry Page, one of the two UBER-Googlers, made the Google keynote speech at CES yesterday and when asked about a Google PC/OS being in the works he never denied it. There's hope.

Have you gone wireless? Just built a machine for the bedroom and opted for a desktop wireless card. Why pull cable and fight the underhouse critters? Using Belkin stuff here after trying Netgear. Their equipment is not really that bad; my problem is their use of non-English comprehending Hindu Help Line. D-Link and Linksys are two companies that have great WiFi products. The network being built today will actually use Internet Connection Sharing with a dial up (no highspeed available) to make it handy for two laptop users to sit by the pool and surf. Casual, huh? Let me know about your wireless experiences. Hey, geeks need to share.

Stay casual and enjoy the weekend. Peace out!

"Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an Invisible Piper."
-Albert Einstein

EDIT: Just finished installing the Belkin wireless card in this PC. This is about as easy as it gets! Hats off to a company that truly cares about their customers. Go Belkin!!!

Rumor Exposed

Well, darn! Just over at SouthernPhried and Grasshoppa has found that the info about a Google PC is an unfounded rumor. He has several links posted. Like 'hoppa I was looking forward to such a device. Still, where there is smoke there is fire. Something is probably afoot. More research is needed. At least, one can hope.

It is time to hit the trail for tomorrow we TGIF. Have you updated today?

"Trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell."
-Shana Alexander

My Kingdom for a Jelly Doughnut

Coffee is made, the clothes are drying, my schedule is planned and the Camino is ready to launch in an hour. Sometimes life is good. My ability to sleep has been improved with modern medicine and overall mood seems to be more casual. Rest is wonderful.

The diet commences in a few days. The exercise pattern has to drastically change. Finding the time is tough and I am just not walking in the dark. That means dedicated early rising. It is time to change el lardo into le buff.

WikiHow has an article on How to Calculate Your Body Mass Index. My scales are groaning. Stay casual out there and eat a doughnut for me!

"Gluttony is not a secret vice."
-Orson Welles

Google the Moogle

The fact that I am a Google-ite has not been hidden. Get ready folks, the search engine crew is about to make a large step in the world of computerese. They are in negotiations with Wal-Mart. A Google PC will soon be distributed. It is rumored that they will NOT use Windows as an operating system. It seems they are developing their own OS. Is that kewl or what?!?!?!?

Gotta go. Stopped long enough to post this info while on the jobsite. Rah! Rah! Google!

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."
-Robert Louis Stevenson

You Just Can't Polish a Turd

You know, a geek doesn't stand a chance when it comes to disliking something. There's soooo many net things from which to choose. Someone asked me the other day what I disliked most about computers, the net, etc. Hmmmmm that took little time. It's all spyware related it seems.

The creeps at Yahoo really get under my skin by acting goody-twoshoes and really screwing everybody in the background. Want spyware on your computer? Just Yahoo. Claria and 180solutions are there to slow your computer down and Yahoo thinks that's just fine. If I become Emporer of the Known Universe their butts will be job seeking tomorrow.

Would the writers of spyware be in line with the Yahooers if such a governmental upheaval occurred? No. I'd have them ALL tossed into a live volcano. Each and every one of them! These people are the scum of the earth. Bet they play patticake with Osama.

Not real crazy about AOHell, uh...AOL, Acer, Hindu Help Line and several other things too. But, that's enough negativity for a day at the beach house. Y'all have a nice day.

"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it because we are not the person involved?"
-Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894

Privacy? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Privacy!!!!

On November 3, 2005, it was mentioned that the Sony rootkit was creating problems for users. This is still not over. These jerks care nothing about the due rights of their fellow human beings. I hope the State of Texas and the EFF burn their asses. I have stopped buying their products. Everyone should stop. Send them a message that they have no right whatsoever to violate our privacy.

Folks, you let them get away with it and this will only encourage others. Want an example? Get out your Microsoft EULA (End Users License Agreement) that you agreed to when you installed Windows and read it. Now run Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and look at the MRUs listed in Negligible Objects. Bet most are different parts of Windows reporting into Microsoft about what you are doing with their software. You don't own this software. It's a conditional lease.

Read further about all this in Robert McMillan's informative article at PCWorld. Thanks Red Dragon for a great link. Get ready, for tomorrow the evil Yahoo will once again be exposed. Happy New Year everyone.

"Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like."
-Douglas