A Missed Opportunity

 causes, technology  No Responses »
Nov 022006
 

I'm not sure if you've heard about (RED), but it's a project going on combining the efforts of Motorola, American Express, GAP, Emporio Armani, Converse and Apple to help raise money for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS and awareness about the AIDS epidemic. My wife first heard about it with Bono's appearance on Oprah. It's a noble cause that most of these companies are offering special products for, and a portion of the proceeds go to the cause.

However, I think the Apple product missed the boat. About 3 weeks after the new and redesigned iPod Nano's were released, they came out with a Red one for this project. Now, that may not seem like a long time, but for any technophile, 3 weeks after an initial release can be an eternity.

For example, my wife and I had just upgraded her dying iPod Mini to one of the new Nano's about a week after they came out. When she found out about this project, she said to me "If I had know the red ones were coming out, then I would have waited and helped support the cause". I'm sure she's not the only one who feels this way. Essentially, Apple missed supporting the (RED) project with any money from the early adopters. I just feel that's a shame, especially with a project such as this one. If they had planned better, they surely could have done a lot more good.

Internet Outage

 life, technology  No Responses »
Oct 092006
 

So, out internet was out at home for more than half the weekend as Comcast was working on transferring our local Adelphia branch to Comcast. We've known it was coming since the sale over the summer, but it was out much longer than expected. Some spotty outages on Thursday, and then from early Sunday morning through at least 9:00AM this morning we had pretty much nothing.

Nothing like a smooth transition.

Hopefully things will be back to normal when I get home from work today.

BTW, does anyone remember what we used computers for before the internet came along? Tongue out

Diggin It

 technology  No Responses »
Sep 212006
 

Well, I submitted a story to ProBlogger's recent "How To" group writing project from my IfJesusHadAWebsite.net site, and to my surprise, it quickly became a hit. I got more Diggs than any other article I've written, and have had more comments than on any other article.

The article?

How To Ineffectively Use Your Church Website

It's a very tongue-in-cheek look at how to drive people away from a church website.

It's a pretty cool feeling to know that people are actually reading and appreciating your work.

PS3 To Help Make The World A Better Place

 causes, technology, video games  No Responses »
Sep 182006
 

With all the money that goes into video games and their next-generation hardware, it's nice to see that PS3 owners will be able to volunteer their gaming units to help process complex calculations over the internet.

PlayStation's serious side: Fighting disease

And it's not only an independent venture, but Sony is helping to make the processing program available to any PS3 owner who wants it. That's really nice to see.

Some Things Just Make Too Much Sense

 interesting, technology  No Responses »
Aug 162006
 

I came across an article the other day about a "skin sensing table saw", and decided to check it out because I was curious how it could be done. Not only did I get a good explanation (and a neat video), I also found out about all the struggles of the inventor as he tried to market his innovative safety mechanism in a business more than happy to stick to the status quo.

The article, more accurately titled Man on a Mission, talks about the motivation behind the safeguard, overviews of the development process, and then documents the setbacks faced by inventor Stephen Gass over the past seven years. It's the classic story of a man sticking with an invention he believes in until he sees it come to fruition. Gass still has a ways to go, but the wheels are finally turning thanks to increased government safety regulations/recommendations.

It also shows that anyone can be given the inspiration of innovation, in any field at any time. Just ask the former patent attorney.

Repercussions of Technology

 interesting, links, technology  No Responses »
Aug 022006
 

I've come across several articles recently that caught my eye about this world of technology we're in:

Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later? from Slashdot takes a brief look at how Big Brother is watching us all today. It does seem like everything is being recorded anymore, but the question has to be "Is anyone ever going to go back and look at it all?".

Photograph Police, Get Arrested from Slashdot has two links to stories about individuals who got arrested after either recording police on home security cameras or taking pictures of public-area police activities on their camera phones. It's kinda scary when the law and police can't even get things straight. But just imagine if these police departments were just as gung-ho about preventing actual crimes!

Craigslist + footballer with a taser = PR Disaster from TechCrunch talks about an electronics "buyer/seller" who has been luring other buyers and sellers to in-person meetings where he could rob them and stun them.  Sure, it may look bad for Craigslist and other online classifieds-type sites, and someone will undoubtedly clamor that the interweb is to blame, but the same thing could have easily been done though the classifieds in the local paper.

Sadly enough, these things will probably continue as long as there are technophopic people around who blame the technology for the problems, and not the people who are using that technology. 

Get off ME!

 technology  No Responses »
Jul 112006
 

Today, Microsoft ended support for Windows98, WindowsME and WindowsXP Service Pack 1.

I sure hope that they're more confident in Vista than everyone else seems to be. Leaving support for only one consumer OS seems rather risky. I can see finally eliminating support for Win98, and I'm surprised they even acknowledge that they created WinME, but I'm sure there are a lot of XP users who never upgraded to SP2.

Oh well, if it does backfire, it'll just Linux better…hopefully!

What Do Geek Squad Technicians Actually Do?

 business, technology  No Responses »
Jun 282006
 

It's a very valid question this is raised over on Slashdot, and in my two experiences (only because the laptop was still underGeek Squad warranty, otherwise I wouldn't have wasted my time) they don't do very much.

The first time, the guy was able to run a diagnostics CD and then ship the laptop back to Sony (the touchpad had died).

The second time, the guy was able to look up the error message on Google, and then managed to break the display before he was able to run the diagnostics CD. Then he went on guessing what the problem was (including a program that had been uninstalled over a year ago, but had left registry entries behind).

Sadly, the Geek Squad can't even live up to it's name. There's no geeks that work there, just losers who finished the 3-hour in-store training course. Don't waste your time with them if you don't have to, as several others have already found out. There are plenty of other qualified computer technicians out there, so open up your yellow pages and get someone who can actually help you.

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