a day in the life

This is why I love my state.

via Michigan.gov

In attempt to scare unlicensed Windows users, Microsoft will release and new version of Windows Genuine Validation in the form of Windows Genuine Advantages Notifications tool. It will display a message “This copy of Windows is not genuine; you may be a victim of software counterfeiting.”

Great…..

via cnet News.com

This is a demonstration, using an iMac (Intel Core Duo 2.0) with Quicktime and the MTV HD video. The purpose of this video is to demonstrate how actively resizing the video window changes the perspective of emphasis of the video content. This is a work in progress and I will make another one next week. I would suggest watching the MTV HD video first, just so you can have a better feeling of what the video is in its original form.

Ok so i’m getting kinda annoying and wondering why my site had ads about ‘keeping children safe’ and ’sex offenders lists’ and ‘teen sexual addiction recovery centers’. it’s really annoying me

Now you can download Firefox with the Google Toolbar included, no extra download necessary. Cool!

Firefox with Google Toolbar

This is a very beautiful graphic commercial for the new MTV HD channel that is coming soon. If you can, download the movie and listen to just the audio. Its so pretty.

MTV HD

Edit: This is really a great song. I think I may try to make a ring tone out of it for my Blackberry. If anybody is interested, let me know.

Using an extremely rich Javascript experience, BitFontMaker allows users to create their own fonts, using nothing more than a simple web browser. Check it out! You can even test drive your newly created font.

via Ajax Magazine

I have been using my computer with dual displays for quite a while now. And while there is no way I would go back to using just a single display, I’m starting to consider getting a third (and possibly fourth) display. I am having a hard time finding what I want though: dual-DVI output for both video cards. I looked at the NVidia Quadro 1440, however I’m getting confused by whether it is possible to use two cards because they bother operate on 16x PCI-e.
Anyway, this article talks about how adding a second display can increase your productivity by 30%. Good read.

from Digg.com via New York Times

As I am sure you all know, I am an Apple freak. Now that we are clear on that, it looks like the record labels may finally give up on their quest to get ‘variable pricing’ on the iTunes Music Store. Thank you Steve. All Hail the iPod!

via New York Post

Thirteen very prominent physicists wrote a letter to the president, stating that any plans to use nuclear weapons in Iran would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world” and “nuclear weapons in today’s arsenals have a total power of more than 200,000 times the explosive energy of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, which caused the deaths of more than 100,000 people”

via PhysOrg

T-Mobile USA is now offering the Blackberry 8700 series in their product lineup dubbed the Blackberry 8700g. With a new service plan, you can have the best Blackberry for 299.99 (After rebates). Enjoy!

Blackberry 8700g

Seriously, I just can’t get enough of making fun of Scientology. HAHAHA
YAAFM

In case you missed the “Trapped in the Closet” episode of SouthPark. Watch it here!

I hope you’re ready.
Loose Change 2nd Edition

It made it! The censored segement from Part 2 of “Cartoon Wars” made it onto the internet! The funny part is Muhammed looks exactly the same as in the “Super Best Friends Club” episode. Like they say, “It’s either all okay or none of it is”

via You Tube

new mirror Scientomogy

Fucking RIAA. Help of the cause.
Help to Fight the RIAA

I recently found an article on cnet talking about how the government wants ISPs (ie. Comcast, SBC, AT&T) to retain more data about their customers for ‘future police work,’ citing the need to protect children and prosecute child pornographers. While child pornography is an important issue, this clearly looks like a cover up for a different agenda. If you ask me, the government is turning into big brother more and more every day and is coming up with the worst excuses for what they want to do. Read about it after the jump.

via ISP snooping gaining support | CNET News.com

As an avid Southpark fan, I have been following the conundrum about the two part “Cartoon Wars” episode. First aired last week, the episode focuses on Cartman’s quest to have an episode of Family Guy pulled because it makes fun of Muhammed, and thus starting a chain reaction to get Family Guy off the air. Trey & Matt make it clear during the episode that it is hypocritical to allow certain types of freedom of speech while censoring others due to threats of violence. It’s a sad day for Comedy Central and the US. It is also overlooked that Muhammed was featured in a previous episode of Southpark “The Super Best Friends Club” from almost 5 years ago. Only know does it matter and must be censored. WEAK

via TVSquad

With the recent talk of the government allowing the telcos and cable operators the ability to charge individual site operators for adequate bandwidth to their sties, which is, Total extortion. Its good to hear that Google, eBay and Amazon (to name a few) are up to the challenge. If Google could provide me with great bandwidth, I’d say bye bye to Comcast faster than you can say Broadband.

via Networking Pipeline

Apple today announced an upgrade to their systems management suite, Apple Remote Desktop 3. With over 50 new features, Apple has done it again stepping up a notch. As with all Apple products, I take the time to check out every aspect of the website Apple puts up for it. Remote Desktop 3 was no exception. I did notice something interesting though. On the tutorial listed “Easy Setup” , if you move the play head button to just past the triangle under the Finder face, the video is setting up a client computer and there is an additional System Preferences button I haven’t seen before. It says Processor and has a picture of a chip. Is this from a new Mac that has yet to be released, or a special development style one? Could they be installing it on a non-Apple computer?!

EDIT (April 21, 2006)
So one of my Apple Genius Bar friends clarified what the icon is for. When you install the XCode and other developer tools the processor icon shows up so developers can control how their applications work in multithread environments. Cool none-the-less.

The Bartender

A man enters a bar and orders a drink. The bar has a robot bartender.
The
robot serves him a perfectly prepared cocktail, and then asks him,

“What’s your IQ?”

The man replies “150″ and the robot proceeds to make conversation about
global warming factors, Quantum physics and spirituality,
bio-mimicry,environmental interconnectedness, string theory,
nanotechnology, and sexual proclivities.

The customer is very impressed and thinks, “This is really cool.” He
decides to test the robot. He walks out of the bar, turns around, and
comes back in for another drink. Again, the robot serves him the
perfectly prepared drink and asks?

“What’s your IQ?”

The man responds, “about 100.” Immediately the robot starts talking, but

this time, about NASCAR, super models, favorite fast foods, guns, and
women’s breasts.

Really impressed, the man leaves the bar and decides to give the robot
one more test. He heads out and returns, the robot serves him and asks,

“What’s your IQ?”

The man replies, “Er, 50, I think.”

And the robot says… real slowly..”So…………… ya gonna vote for
Bush again?”

After the major announcement last year that Apple was going to switch to Intel processors and the surprise announcement of the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro in January (six months ahead of schedule), Apple has done it again. Shortly after a few programmers were able to get BIOS emulation to work on the Mac, Apple released a new product BootCamp.

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply
irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac
OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system
on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta
today.

Obviously only compatible with the new Apple computers with Intel chips (MacBook Pro, iMac, MacMini), BootCamp not only allows users to setup and install Windows XP, it even burns a CD with the core drivers (Graphics, Networking, Audio, Airport Wireless, Bluetooth, The Eject Key, and Brightness Control) for Windows. This was the main problem with the hack-around method before as users were faced with unstable performance.

The real question now is, how well does it perform. Shortly after the announcement of BootCamp, I downloaded and installed Windows XP on my 20′ iMac with an Intel Core Duo processor running with 2 GB RAM. The install went very quickly and as I began to install applications (Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio I noticed that they were installing faster than on my PCs. I launched Adobe Photoshop and began working with some RAW images. I applied some filters and effects and the results were astounding. The performance completely blew my current PC setup out of the water! Illustrator and Flash gave similar results. The verdict? Not only does the iMac perform amazingly with OS X, it simply fies with Microsoft Windows.

As a funny side note, the BootCamp site has a silly disclaimer on the side:

Word to the Wise
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC.
That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world.
So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

Apple, you never cease to amaze me.

Happy Birthday Gmail! 2 Years Strong… and counting!

Dissapointment from Apple -
After all the speculation that Apple was going to do something (i.e. announce a new product, have a aniverasry sale) for it’s 30th birthday, they did not. In the grand scheme of things though, I guess they do have until 1Pm EST (10AM PST) to make some sort of announcement, although prospects are looking dim now. Although some may say that Apple didn’t need to announce any new products or do anything special for their birthday, they really could have made a media day out it. Oh well, their loss I guess.

Some funny April Foolgle Jokes:
Area 51
Google Romance
Google Rooms