Darker Nemesis

Greed Rules the World

Keith Wagner

I love how all the republicans are going after Obama for not being able to fix the economy and health care fast enough. The truth of the matter is that the economy has a lot more problems going against it than people realize. Economics is a funny subject as there is so much going on, some of which I don't understand, but I can see that one of the bigger issues isn't really something anyone, or any political party can solve. This issue is human nature, this issue is greed. People are greedy. I wish I could say I wasn't but there are times when I am greedy as well. The thing is is that there are so many big companies want more profits. They aren't happy making 1 billion dollars...they want to make 5 billion.

This issue is foremost in the whole health care debate. The health care system as it is now is broken. Private insurance companies like Blue Cross, Aetna are all in the business to make money. That in itself is not so much a problem as they're a business and making money is what they are supposed to do. The problem that arises from this is that these insurance companies care so much about their shareholders and their bottom line that they'll screw over anyone who gets in their way. People are paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year into their health insurance plan to protect themselves should something happen and they need medical attention. This IS what health insurance is supposed to do, be there to help cover the costs of health care, which as everyone knows is EXPENSIVE. What happens though is that some of these same people who are constantly paying into their health plan, unfortunately develop cancer or some other serious medical condition, and too many times, the insurance companies go through the paperwork and find ANY and ALL loopholes they can find (that they built into it intentionally) to drop them from coverage so that they won't lose money on them. That leaves people high and dry and struggling to make ends meet so that they can get the treatment they need to LIVE. It shows that their bottom line is more important than people's lives --- GREED.

This is insurance, health insurance companies need to realize that the risk of someone really needing coverage to the point of costing the health insurance companies money can and does happen. It's part of the business and they should have realized that before jumping in. Besides, there are also plenty of people pouring money into the company's pockets that are healthy and may hardly use their plan in which case the insurance companies are making a killing.

That is what needs to be fixed in any health care overhaul. Keep the insurance companies honest and competitive and prevent them from using the loopholes to hurt their customers and steal the customer's money. Because right now, if you're dropped or don't like your service, well, you don't have many options, and the options you do have are likely significantly more expensive. A government public option could potentially help this out and give Americans another place to go for health insurance. This would force the insurance companies to bring down costs and provide better service and coverage if they want to keep customers. Because remember...it is a public OPTION. If you would want to go the government route, you'd be welcome to. But if you'd want to remain with your private insurance, you'd be welcome to do that too.

And don't get me started about the politicians going against the health care legislation...the majority of them are likely being paid off by the health insurance lobbyists to go against it. Just another example of how our representatives are serving us, the American People Greedy Corporations and their wallets. You can always just go with the Republican Health Plan:

Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.

Why Do They All Have to Be So Bunched Together?

Keith Wagner

Seriously, there are 3 games I want, 2 are out, 1 is due out next week and I seriously can't afford them all. It reminds me a lot of last year when in October and November it was constant new games. I mean last year was Fable 2, Fallout 3, Resistance 2, and Gears of War 2. This year it's Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands, and Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age looks to be a pretty good RPG, Modern Warfare 2 seems to have a pretty good multiplayer and what has been hinted at a relatively powerful story, and Borderlands has been reccommended to me as pure fun.

So what is one to do? I can't afford all 3. Modern Warfare 2 I'll probably end up holding off on, I kinda wanna get it on the PC but the way they're doing the PC version with no dedicated servers and capping the multiplayer at 9v9, I can't say I'm a huge fan of. The console is always an option but I'm not quite sold on that. I have a friend who just started Dragon Age so I might wait to see what he thinks of it. So the first one I pick up will probably be Borderlands.

Seriously though, why does it seem that so often all the good games come out back-to-back-to-back?!

Twitter Tracker on Conan O'Brien

Keith Wagner

The Fall of Reach?

Keith Wagner

I'm not sure how I feel yet about Halo ODST, but this looks like it could be good as well as give more details about what happened before the first Halo for those who don't like to read.

Transitioning

Keith Wagner

I'm now going to be transistioning the tech related content over to my new tech blog Tech Trekker. I'll still be updating Darker Nemesis, but the updates will probably be more personal entries and any other random stuff that might not fit in properly in a tech blog.

So feel free to go check it out and subscribe to the feed.

Tech Trekker [http://techtrekker.com]

Meet the Puggle

Keith Wagner

I have no idea what his name is yet as I just got him, but he's almost 3 months old and a Puggle...

Episode IV: The Minneapolis Episode [Darker Nemesis Techcast]

Keith Wagner

I'm joined in this time around by Jay Fowler aka SilentJay74 of the Social Blend Podcast as well as Juicy Snake. This episode we go over Piracy and laws, Windows 7, lightspeed travel and more.

Sad Day for the Phillies and Baseball: Harry Kalas Passes Away

Keith Wagner

In some sad news, Harry Kalas, the Philadelphia Phillies announcer since 1971 has passed away at the age of 73. Harry was found unconscious in the broadcasting booth in Washington Nationals' Stadium today around 12:30pm and was pronounced Dead at the Hospital later.

At least he was able to announce one last Phillies World Series Victory.

Phillies Baseball will never sound the same...RIP Harry Kalas.

[via Philly.com]

Where Apple Goes...

Keith Wagner

Where Apple goes, others seem to follow. Yesterday, Apple officially made the iTunes music store DRM Free. Along with that, they introduced their tiered pricing model where digital music downloads are now priced at $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 a piece. Now while this is no doubt going to bring about groans from many, a 30-cent increase isn't that big of a deal, but it can make buying the actual CD a little more appealing depending on number of tracks on the CD and whether or not you want the entire CD. I myself prefer just to grab the whole CD, mostly for the sake of building up my collection.

Anywho, right on the tails of Apple, Amazon and Walmart have now increased their prices to match more closely to Apple's tiers. Walmart brought theirs up to $1.24 and Amazon copied Apple with an increase to $1.29.

This move does make sense as they can now raise prices and not have to worry about their prices being higher than that in iTunes. But why not keep the prices where they are at $0.99 and remain ahead of Apple? Keeping the prices lower might help bring more traffic and purchases to Amazon especially since Amazon's downloads I believe are both in mp3 format and DRM free which means that music downloaded will pretty much be playable on the majority of portable players. I would assume that the raising of prices probably follows on what the recording industry is looking at for their cut. Like ususal, the recording industry gets greedy and wants more and more from each purchase leaving the profit margin for stores like Amazon to grow smaller and smaller, so it probably is just a pipe dream to think that keeping the prices at 99¢ could make any kind of business sense, but I still wonder how much extra business might be drummed up by keeping the prices just lower than iTunes.

One more note, I don't think people are taking much notice at what Apple is doing with those songs already downloaded prior to the DRM-Free switch that still have the DRM attached. Currently, Apple is charging people to "unlock" their already purchased music to make it DRM free. I figure the recording industry is also behind this, but it'd be nice to be able to unlock it for free...after all...you already BOUGHT it. I mean assuming the user has an iPod or iPhone, the DRM doesn't really make that much of a difference, but it'd still be nice to be able to just simply remove any hassle associated with DRM. I mean right now, if you want to unlock a music file that has Apple's DRM on it, you have to go through hoops to remove it, and not all of them are technically legal in the eyes of the DMCA which just goes to show how horribly written the law is, and how biased it is towards the big media companies, often times screwing over the consumer who is really in most common sense aspects, not doing anything "wrong".

What RIM Needs for the Blackberry Store

Keith Wagner

RIM (Research in Motion) yesterday launched App World, their version of an App Store for their Blackberry smart phones. This as discussed is certainly a good thing as it will help Blackberry users go to a central location to download applications as well as updates to already installed applications. And not only that, but it provides a good way for developers get their apps discovered.

One thing that I think RIM needs to do to help propel this new feature to the Blackberry is to push to get software developers really interested in programming for the Blackberry much like Apple was able to do for the iPhone. Not to say that the Blackberry is a bad phone, but its not made by Apple and does not have the hype that comes with it. What RIM needs to look into is to find a good way to market the Blackberry for its strengths. It's not the iPhone, but it doesn't need to be. It has full background processes, a full keyboard, and the attention of many, particularly those in the business world where the Blackberry is highly regarded for its tie-ins with Microsoft Exchange Server. And besides, developers can look at it and see that they're getting 80% of the sales of their app compared to Apple's offering of 70%.

App World did launch with a pretty nice selection of Apps which is a good thing and shows promise and I hope that RIM can keep on this momentum and convince more developers to jump on board with it. The Blackberry may not have the "cool" factor the iPhone has, but its a solid phone. I myself use the apps like Google Talk, Twitterberry, and Pandora Radio all the time. To get more devs on board might help those looking for a smart phone choose the Blackberry. And as I see it, Blackberry has the advantage of having phones on multiple carriers. Compared to the iPhone which (looking at the US only) is available only on AT&T. So unless someone on T-Mobile is willing to shell out money to buy an iPhone out of contract and unlock it or willing to change carriers, the iPhone is out of their grasp. The Blackberry on the other hand is available on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, and many others. So looking at it that way, they can use that to their advantage.

The one (and big downside for me) is that the App World's transactions are done through PayPal which I absolutely abhor. So be aware that if you want to purchase an application, make sure PayPal is available and you have an account with it you can use.

Anyone try out the App World? What apps did you pick up?

Episode III: Revenge of Firefox [Darker Nemesis Techcast]

Keith Wagner

Hello everyone, welcome to episode III of the Darker Nemesis Techcast, this week I'm joined again by LJ Katz, operator of Mashed Buttons and host of the Mashed Buttons Gamecast. This week we go over Firefox, Windows 7, and much more.

Discovery Lands Safely in Florida

Keith Wagner

Saw this video today after hearing that Space Shutte Discovery landed in Florida, call me a geek, but I still think it's pretty cool.

Twitter - There's a Time and the Place

Keith Wagner

A few stories have been going around the internet lately about Twitter and how some people are tweeting either the wrong thing, or tweeting at times that are by no means appropriate.

The first thing that made this come more to light than it already should are situations dealing with the court system. Apparently jurors in trials have been tweeting about what's going on behind what are supposed to be closed doors. One case dealing with a corruption trial for former PA senator Vincent Fumo. One juror apparently was posting info about the trial on Twitter and Facebook during the trial. In this case, the juror was allowed to stay on and Vincent Fumo was found guilty later, but there's now an added chance for appeal which could cause problems later for Fumo's conviction.

But not all cases end the same way. In Florida, a mistrial was called because jurors were doing research on the case on the internet. This might not have been caused directly by Twitter, or a posted tweet, but even something as simple as that was used as grounds for a mistrial...can you imagine what would've happened if the jurors were posting about it or asking questions? The jury pool would be contaminated and a mistrial would be only fair. I mean sure I want the criminals to be proesecuted, but I want the cases treated fairly. I mean what would happen if it was myself, or one of my friends or family members on trial? I wouldn't want people influencing the jury against someone. People really need to learn that it might be tempting to post about trials, but if you're on the jury, you really have to show some restraint...someone's future is on the line.

The last case doesn't so much deal with trials, but instead, with the job market and finding yourself a good job. A case about an employee or a prospective employee tweeting about a potential job at Cisco ended with another Cisco seeing the tweet and responding to it. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure her chances of working at Cisco are now hurt if not gone entirely.

I guess in the end of the day, you really have to be careful what, when, and where you tweet. As Greg and myself were mentioning in my latest podcast, its easy for people to find you online. It may be the internet, but it's by no means anonymous and people can see what you're doing, so if you post a tweet cursing out your company, job, or boss, you'd be surprised how easily someone could find it. And if it's someone in the company who finds it, don't be suprised if it works its way up the chain to your boss or worse.

The Battle of Web Browsers Wages On

Keith Wagner

This past week has been big for the web browser world. We saw Microsoft finally release Internet Explorer 8, and Google release their 2nd version of the Chrome Browser. The tech world has essentially rolled their eyes at IE8 since they have already given up on Internet Explorer for several years now in favor of alternatives, primarily Mozilla's Firefox browser. But Google's Chrome browser has started to raise eyebrows since its release in September 2008.

First let's start with Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer still has the biggest share in the market, primarily because it comes standard with Microsoft Windows. A lot of people don't make the switch because they really don't know the advantages that come with some of the alternatives like Firefox, Chrome, or any of the others. They just stick with Internet Explorer because it's already there. Internet Explorer holds about 60-70% of the browser market share split between versions 6 (20-25%) and 7 (40-45%). And now version 8 is hitting the interwebs and so far for the first week, there's not much that has changed, but why expect a giant flood of adopters? IE7 started off slowly and since IE8 is not yet even into Microsoft/Windows Update, I fail to see why this is even being analyzed so soon. IE8 was just released, and while I don't want to just flat out bash Microsoft, it's no doubt got some bugs in it. People can guess this and will hold off upgrading. I myself will be holding off as well. And already some early adopters are starting to downgrade to IE7. Again, it's too early to really say anything too harshly about it. And because of this, I don't believe you can really look too hard into IE8's impact. If you really want to see what IE8's impact is, check again in a couple months or when IE8 jumps into the list for Windows Updates.

Web developers have hated IE for quite some time and IE8 is apparently no different. I blogged about this a while back after the first IE8 beta was released and how my site's alignment got screwed up. It was on my old design so I really don't know yet how my new design stacks up. There are certain standards that are accepted for HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Internet Explorer pretty much just laughs at them as Microsoft uses their own standards which have a nasty habit of changing with every version. Essentially what you have now is 4 standards. The W3C Standard (The real standard that Firefox, Safari, etc follow), the IE6 standard, the IE7 standard, and now the IE8 standard. I mean come on, it'd be one thing if you have a standard that differs from the official one, but now devs have to make sure it works on 3 different browsers. Either way, I digress, it'd just be sooooo much nicer if Microsoft just adopted the W3C standards and stuck with them.

Google Chrome is where things get interesting. I downloaded the 2.0 beta and this browser is FAST. Javascript heavy sites like Google Docs, Reader, GMail and sites in general are amazingly fast. So fast it almost makes Firefox look bad, and by far makes IE look like a turtle in comparison. I mean in today's world with Broadband adoption picking up a lot more than say 10 years ago, speed in web browsers probably isn't a huge deal so long as they're not super slow, but I have been impressed so far by Chrome 2.0, so much in fact that I've switched over to it on Windows. The one thing that I like about Firefox is its extensibility. Through extensions and addons, you can add to Firefox's feature set. Well apparently Chrome 2.0 has the foundations for extensions as well. You put that into Chrome and I'd definitely be curious to see what happens.

The browser war isn't going anywhere anytime soon, different people have different wants when it comes to browsers, but it's nice to see some healthy competition. It wasn't that long ago when all you really had was Internet Explorer. And now, we see IE's marketshare starting to fade. Competition brings about improvements with each company trying to get the leg up over the other. Stay tuned too because Firefox 3.5 is still under development for release sometime later this year.

Episode II: Attack of the Web Browsers [Darker Nemesis Techcast]

Keith Wagner

This week I'm joined by my good friend Greg Davies, host of the Social Blend Podcast. We go over various topics like the new Apple iPhone 3.0 software, the new versions of IE and Chrome, Twitter, and more.

Why the Hate Against Change?

Keith Wagner

I've been thinking of late as to why people seem to get all bent out of shape when websites change their design. Just recently, Facebook, the popular social networking site redesigned their front page and the response from the users seems to be fairly negative. According to a poll, only about 6% actually like the new design.

Now as a disclaimer, I deleted my facebook account a while back after really just getting tired of Facebook as a whole. But my point doesn't really require me to have an account. People seem to be against change. Personally I think the whole redesign will take a little bit to get used to so a poll this early might bring back some skewed results. When a popular site is redone, it takes a little bit for the general population to get used to the new design. I think that this poll, while not so much inaccurate for the Facebook users' general feeling towards the changes, would better be served in a couple months when people get acclimated to where everything is in the new layout. It's at this point that people might start to come around to the new layout and the new design.

But why do people seem to be so against these changes? I can remember back to some previous redesigns of Facebook back when I had an account and remember similar reactions to the change? Are people just so set in their ways that they don't want to deal with changes to what may very well be their favorite site? Now I'm not saying that people can't be upset with change, after all, change isn't always a good thing. But why not give it a chance? Use it with an open mind for a couple weeks and see what happens afterwards, you might find out you actually like it.

Something else I would like to see, as my friend Dave mentioned, is for Facebook to keep this redesign for a couple months, then switch back to the old design and run the same poll...see how many people all of a sudden like the change. So if you're a facebook user, what do you think of the new design? Love it? Hate it? And Why?

Podcast is Now on iTunes

Keith Wagner

Hey for anyone who wants the iTunes RSS Feed for my podcast, here's the link:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=309495434

It should open up iTunes

RSS Feed Changes

Keith Wagner

Just wanted to give everyone the heads up, I now have 3 RSS feeds for Darker Nemesis. The one you have now, now includes episodes of the Darker Nemesis Techcast, my podcast. The second, only contains my blog entries, and the final, only contains the podcast episodes. I figure you don't really need to do anything, but in case you want the other two, here are the links.

The full feed (Blog and Podcast)

Just the Blog

Just the Podcast

iPhone OS 3.0 Finally Brings What the iPhone Always Should Have Had

Keith Wagner

Tuesday, Apple gave the first details of what the iPhone 3.0 firmware is bringing to the iPhone. The majority of these features as I mentioned on the podcast should have been on the iPhone from the beginning but for whatever reason were not included. Some of them were the reason I switched over to the Blackberry. And I will say that with this latest release, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to go back. And while I haven't ruled out making the switch back, I don't see it happening just yet.

So for a quick run down of some of the biggest features included in 3.0

1. Copy & Paste
2. MMS
3. Full Landscape View for all Apps
4. Peer 2 Peer Connections with other iPhones
5. Voice Memos
6. Spotlight Search Functionality
7. More Bluetooth Support
8. Background Push Notification
9. More APIs opened up to developers

It's a pretty impressive list if you ask me, but 1, 2, 3, 7, & 8 should have been there from the beginning.

Copy & Paste has probably been the biggest peeve of many users. Copying down many things on the iPhone meant writing them down on a piece of paper and then typing them out where you need them. The way that Apple did copy paste is intuitive and well done as well which is of no surprise to me when looking back at how Apple does a lot of things they do. You just have to wonder what took them so long to go ahead and do this.

MMS has been another question as to its absence until now. MMS is pretty much text messages only for photos, videos, etc. Now, so long as you've got the iPhone 3G (Sorry 2G users, you're still shit out of luck) you'll be able to send photos, audio files via MMS, although last I saw there was nothing mentioned about video support...either way its at least a pretty good start.

If you've ever used an iPhone, you probably know about how it can rotate the screen based on the iPhones orientation to give you a landscape view should you turn it sideways. Well in Safari, if you turned it sideways and brought up the keyboard, you were given a landscape or wide view of the keyboard. Well this widescreen view of the keyboard was limited to Safari and 3rd party applications only which caused a little bit of frustration, most notably with e-mail. Well Apple's changing this in 3.0 to allow for all applications to support the landscape view so people can now rejoice.

Peer to Peer connections definitely add a cool feature to what could be available from the iPhone App Store. Multiplayer games are now possible between 2 people with an iPhone. Games like Chess can now become 2 player if someone designs an app for it.

Background Push Notification is probably one of the biggest reasons I switched over to the Blackberry. I like being able to keep apps running in the background while I do something else on my phone. The iPhone couldn't do that, and in all honesty, still can't. BUT, it now has the ability for notifications to be sent to the screen on different events. This is probably most notable for apps like IM clients where you can now be notified of new IMs even with the app "closed". Not a perfect solution, but a good one. Meebo, the popular web based IM client demoed their native iPhone app at the presentation using the 3.0 OS and it looked good.

The APIs opened up the the devs also are pretty slick. The only 2 I'm going to touch on are the Maps integration as well as the iPod integration. Developers can now use the Google Map API in their apps as well as being able to pull from your music collection with the iPod section of the iPhone.

There are 3 things that are really standing out as still missing for the iPhone. Video recording, Flash support in Safari, and tethering (Which Apple did say they were building into the iPhone but were working out details with the carriers. And this statement seems to have some truth to it.)

Apple made some pretty big strides yesterday and it seems that they're really showing that a good successful phone is not just all about the phone in itself but also in the operating system behind it. You can put as many fancy features on the phone you want, but without the OS, it's nothing, and lets face it, upgrading an operating system is much easier than updating the hardware. I'll be talking more about this on the next podcast, so stay tuned.

Delving Deeper Into Linux With Gentoo

Keith Wagner

So tonight I ended up wiping out Ubuntu on my desktop in favor of Gentoo. For anyone who isn't familiar with Gentoo, Gentoo is a linux distribution which is heavy on customization for "your" machine. It doesn't come with the easy install that distros like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Fedora come with. It's install is somewhat complicated but in the end gives you a distribution that should be customized for your hardware.

The one thing that is great about Gentoo is that it is a great way for one to learn a lot more about how Linux actually works. It's not so much for someone who wants to jump into Linux, but rather for someone who has been using Linux for a long time and is interested in more of the internal workings.

I know tonight I learned quite a bit about properly identifying hardware as when I first installed it and tried to boot, it wouldn't work as the SATA drivers for my hard drives weren't loaded into the kernel so it had no idea what to do with them. After rebuilding the kernel a few times, I was able to get the right drivers installed and Gentoo is now running nicely with my machine. And on an even brighter note, the issue I was having where Ubuntu and many other distros would freeze maybe 1 out of every 5 boots seems to be gone as well (which could be contributed to the fact that I built the kernel more for my computer than for the generic computer as Ubuntu tends to do). Either way, I got it up and installed the X Server.

I'm actually pretty excited to take this trip so to speak. I hope to gain a better understanding of the fundamentals of the Linux operating system. Geeky maybe, but for me, what else is new.

Episode I: And So It Begins [Darker Nemesis Techcast]

Keith Wagner

Hey Everyone, here's the first episode of the Darker Nemesis Techcast! The podcast that goes over what's happening in the tech world.

You're Doing It Wrong! [Social Media]

Keith Wagner

Social media is taking the internet by storm nowadays with sites like Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon and others, and one of the big staples of social media is the social aspect. People can discuss the story or whatever the topic might be in the form of comments. Often enough though, especially with sites that use a karma system, people want cheap and easy karma and one way to do that is through comments. So now, instead of simply reading the article and sharing their thoughts, they just post something. Take this for example:

Ok...where should I start...It's nice...good...what was nice about it? What did you like about it? Come to think of it, did you even go to the article? Did you even read it? I'd be willing to bet you didn't, so yeah, take your karma and well, go do something with it. This only helps spam get promoted as well as increase the problem with blind voting, but thats another discussion entirely.

Now take a look at this one:

Ok...you can copy and paste...at least we now know you can at least use a computer. But wait, congrats, you actually opened the article, you've done what many don't. The next question I have to ask is did you actually read the article or just copy paste the first paragraph? Again, I'd be willing to bet you didn't. Come to think of it, you couldn't even come up with your own comment.

In the end of the day, a few short comments aren't going to hurt anyone, but constantly commenting with rubbish is not what I feel commenting is about. Commenting is about adding to the conversation around a submission or post. It's about adding your two cents and discussion with others. Random copy-pasting or "nice post" don't do that. It's about adding value, and in reality there's no value in these kinds of comments. Karma's nice to have, but in the end of the day, I'd much rather discuss my thoughts and opinions.

My Cat "Nibbler" After Surgery

Keith Wagner

Nibbler tries to jump up onto my chair shortly after getting fixed only to struggle since she's still recovering and possibly half sedated.

The Facebook TOS and the Community Backlash

Keith Wagner

Earlier this week, Facebook changed its Terms of Service removing a key phrase from it.

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

This brought about a lot of complaints from the user community as it touches on a pretty big gray area and can be interpretted in different ways. The tech community, who is obviously much more familiar with how these terms of service statements work saw this as Facebook trying to sneak in a way for Facebook to retain and keep ownership of any and all user content submitted to the site, and judging on how Facebook has acted in the past, the community's beliefs were not out of line either. What this change meant was that Facebook made it seem like they could take any content posted through Facebook profiles as their own to use as they see fit. If you ran your blog through Facebook, the terms of use made it theoretically possible to use the content of your blog posts as their own.

After the change, The Consumerist as well as many other blogs brought this change up alerting people to this controversial change and then the backlash began. Users became irate and became very skeptical of facebook wondering what they were up to with this change and what the change really meant. The outcry was so loud that Mark Zuckerberg wrote a blog post to try to clear the air.

One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person's sent messages box and the other in their friend's inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

Now while it was nice of him to come out and try to help people understand the changes, he really didn't say much and his response still was well within that gray area that didn't quell anyone's fears.

Well, now thanks to the outcry, Facebook has reverted back to its previous Terms of Service; at least for now. Nothing stops them however from a month down the road, doing the same thing again. The tech community can chalk this up as a win, but was it just a battle? Or was it the war? My bet is it was just a battle. But this brings up a bigger, more age-old question.

In social networking, what really is privacy, and what really is "your" data. Truth is, there really is no true privacy on the internet. Sure you can protect your facebook profile which will probably shield you from most, but if someone wants to see your profile, they can find a way. Once you post something to the internet, its up there essentially forever. You can take it down, but if someone already grabbed a copy, they now have it to post wherever they want and you now have no control over it.

This is something to always note, with the popularity of facebook and the number of people using it, you wonder how many are fully aware of these terms of service and what they mean. Us in the more technical crowd know the ramifications of posting content and what that means in respect to facebook. The 15 and 16 year olds on facebook may not which can cause problems for them.

I deleted my facebook account a while back and still haven't looked back, I was not a fan of where facebook was heading and now it looks like I made a wise decision. All the more reason to remain vigilant of what you post, where you post it, and what that site's terms are. It's better to be safe than sorry as to not get yourself burned down the road.

Apps, Smart Phones and My Switch to Blackberry

Keith Wagner

If you look at the cell phone market today, smart phones probably are headed for the biggest growth out of all the categories. Apple, RIM (Blackberry), Symbian, Microsoft, and Google are all getting their hands into the smart phone market. Symbian is by far the leader in terms of market share followed by RIM and Microsoft, with Apple in 5th but gaining ground fast. Overall, smart phones initially started out geared solely towards business users offering them mobile e-mail and scheduling functionalities that far surpassed what a normal phone could do. But now, smart phones are being geared to more of the general population.

I personally believe that Apple with their iPhone was a big factor in pushing the trend to what it is today. The iPhone especially after the App Store opened and with the release of the cheaper iPhone 3G saw its sales and market share grow by an enormous rate where it now holds almost 10% of the smart phone market...not bad for a company who's only been in the smart phone business for a year and a half now. But aside from the fact that it's Apple who probably has one of the most dedicated fan bases around, they helped push forward the idea of a one place application store for smart phones which I think is one of the big reasons for the iPhone success. Now, not only do you have a phone that can do internet, email, music and the usual smart phone capabilities, but you also have an easy place to go to get more applications for you to use be it for business, pleasure, socializing, whatever.

Applications for smart phones have been around for a while. You could get apps for your Blackberry or Windows Mobile phone rather easily...IF you knew where to look or even realized they existed. But now that third party apps are becoming more accessible, the appeal of smart phones is growing with apps ranging from social networking, to games, to pointless-but-fun programs, more and more people are becoming interested in upgrading to a smart phone. It's a trend that most of the smart phone OS companies are now seeing and wanting to get into the action. Apple has the App Store, Google has their marketplace for the Android G1 and any future Android phones, and RIM and Microsoft are both working to introduce their take at the app store.

So that pretty much leads me to my last bit.

About 3 weeks ago, I sold my iPhone for a Blackberry. I got the Blackberry Curve 8310 for AT&T and so far I'm happy with my Blackberry. Outside the media / coolness aspect of the iPhone, the Blackberry works well. The primary reason I switched is for an actual keyboard and background processes. Those were 2 issues I had with the iPhone. I hated the fact that I couldn't really do two things at once. I think that's one downside to the iPhone is the lack of background processes which can probably be most seen with applications like Twitter and Instant Messenger programs. On the iPhone if you're in AIM and someone calls, you're kicked off, or Twitter apps can only download new tweets when the application is open. Being able to keep apps open even when you're not using them may not seem like much but it is something now that I have, I will never go back to a phone without some implementation of background processes. The keyboard is more of a personal taste, I found I sometimes had a hard time really typing with the touchscreen keyboard. The iPhone probably has one of the best touchscreen keyboards I've seen and used, but I had to retype a lot due to hitting the wrong keys. The only thing I wish the Blackberry had was a better web browser. The built-in browser sucks, and while Opera Mini is better, its not the greatest either. Newer Blackberries might have a better browser but I feel that that's something Blackberry could dramatically improve. And web browsing is one thing that the iPhone and Android have over the Blackberry, but for how much I actually use a web browser on my mobile phone outside of browsing Google News, its not that big of a deal.

There is probably no perfect smart phone, each one brings positives and negatives. The iPhone has a great UI and media player but lacks background processes and copy and paste. The Android lacks multitouchm the Blackberry lacks a good media player, and Windows, well I can't say anything as I haven't used a recent version of their mobile OS, but like every OS, I'm sure it has its plus sides and its down sides. It all comes down to what you want in a smart phone.

So, if you have a smart phone, what do you have? Or if you don't have one (or do) which one is one you really want?

5 Things I've Learned While Programming

Keith Wagner

With my work both in the business world as well as my personal projects like SocialVoter and this blog, I've learned and have improved in how I approach problems during whatever project I'm working on. Many or all of these you probably already know, but I just figured I'd give a little bit of insight along with it.

1. Don't rush things, take your time and work through to find the right solution. Trust me, you'll be in better shape later down the road.

2. Don't be afraid to try something new, or try a different solution than the one you have already built. You may have a working solution, but if you think there's a better way, comment out the code or save it elsewhere and try out the new way. If it works and is more efficient, it will be better in the end and you can get rid of the old way. If the new attempt is a failure then you should have learned something and you can go back to the original solution no big deal.

3. Use a versioning control system like CVS or SVN. You'd be amazed how nice it is to be able to revert back to a previous version after you screwed something up, or just to look at an older version to check something out. And not only can you look at previous revisions, but you also have your code elsewhere too which means should the unthinkable happen, you should be covered.

4. Google is your friend. If you're stuck with a problem where you have a general idea of where to start but aren't sure where to go next, do a few google searches, you don't need someone else to write the code for you, but results might get you help in your brainstorming. I tend to use Google for quick references on some of the more exotic functions as well as for help brainstorming a solution.

5. This one I can personally say is important. Don't be pressured to release before the product or you are ready to. Keep in mind that this might not work so well in a business environment, but if its a personal project, then you may very well have the flexibility to hold off. This sort of goes tandem with #1 but releasing too early can increase bug counts and make your project look weak. To sum it all up, extra time goes a long way.

Not all of these are always feasible in all environments, but I hope this might give you a little bit more insight and/or help for any programming projects you might want to take on.

Why So Many Versions?

Keith Wagner

Microsoft just announced that there will be 6 different versions of Windows 7. Read that again...SIX versions. Why pray tell do you need to release 6 versions of one operating system? Does anyone remember Windows XP? There were 3 versions. Professional which included better network administration tools for businesses; Home for most home users, and later down the line Media Center which was Windows XP Pro with you guessed it, media center capability. Then came Vista with 4 versions (at least 4 anyway). Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate, and I can safely say I'm honestly not quite sure what all the differences are between them, only that Ultimate was the best. (as if the name didn't sort of give that away) And Now Microsoft is going even higher with 6.

Let's ignore for the moment how silly releasing 6 different versions of essentially the same piece of software sounds. To a not-so-technical user, giving them 6 different versions of Windows 7 to choose from is going to confuse them to no end. They're going to go to the store and see 6 different versions and probably have no clue as to which version is the one they need or want. And in all honesty there will probably be 2 versions of each version as well (1 for the upgrade license and another for the stand alone install). And if they go to a place like Walmart or Best Buy to purchase it, heaven help them because I've listened to some conversations between customers and the employees and was amazed how off a lot of the employees were on a lot of the technical answers they were giving. So now, not only are the customers going to be confused as to which version to get, but they may also very well get some bad answers to questions they ask in their attempt to get the correct version.

In all seriousness though, Microsoft really should go back to 1 or 2 versions. One version would be great because it would be simple, and many people including myself like simple. But even two versions wouldn't be too bad. A version geared towards the business environment, something Microsoft really needs to win back, and a version for the normal home user. Simplicity helps, the last thing you want to do is to make it more complicated for the consumer.

This commercial pretty much says it all.

The Latest Design of My Blog is Now Live

Keith Wagner

Well, I just published the latest re-design of my blog. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. Anywho, let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions, I hope you like it.

Also, if you find any bugs, please let me know.

Mobile App Stores and Marketplaces: A Suggestion

Keith Wagner

There's been a debate going around recently about how the model should be for app stores for mobile phones, mostly with the iPhone, the Android Phone, and probably soon with the Blackberry. Apple has a closed model where every app needs to be approved before it becomes available on the App Store. The apps need to fit certain guidelines for look and feel, security, amongst other things. The Android marketplace on the other hand is much more open. Developers can post their apps with very little moderation by Google and anyone else behind the scenes. And this is where the discussion comes from.

MemoryUp, an Android application by eMobieStudio had gotten some flak recently and has been accused of having their app corrupt memory, delete calendar entries, and spam users in the contact list. The app has since been taken down from the marketplace but the debate stands as to whether the app actually was doing what its accused of and what model the marketplace should take. eMobieStudio claims that their app doesn't do any of the things that its accused of and from what I understand about Android security, it seems unlikely that it did, but that is certainly not lessening the uproar over the MemoryUp app. People are also questioning its effectiveness, but that's a completely different story.

So what would the best option be for the Android marketplace? Switch to a closed model and limit the number of apps available for the users or maintain an open model and just push through situations like MemoryUp's as they occur? Both have their upsides and their downsides. The closed model should help keep malicious apps off the marketplace and away from unsuspecting users, but then developers might feel a bit isolated and questioning why their app got rejected much like what happened with Apple and the iPhone SDK. The open model wouldn't limit developers so much but it could harm the users if an app gets through that can get past Android's security features.

I propose another option. Why not go with both worlds? Allow for developers to submit their apps for review and if approved, get a stamp of approval which would let people know that this app has been approved by Android and is clean of malware or whatnot. But also have an open place where developers can post their apps straight up. These apps would be available but would not have the stamp of approval letting users know that while they're probably OK, they have not been fully approved by the Android Marketplace.

This option might create a little more overhead but it might also be a better compromise to help mitigate potential problems. Malware, spyware, viruses, and evil computer worms aren't going anywhere, but if you can help limit their flow rate, so much the better.

So what are your thoughts on this? Open or closed?

Disclaimer: I don't own an Android Phone although lately I've been really tempted to try and get my hands on one.

Microsoft Attempting to Battle Back With Windows 7

Keith Wagner

Microsoft earlier in the month released the public beta of their upcoming Windows 7 operating system. And while I have not yet had the chance to take the plunge, what I've been hearing about it seems to show a huge improvement over the ill-fated Vista.

Microsoft seems to have acknowledged that Microsoft Windows Vista was a failure and a flop. Between the bloat and the Vista-Capable debacle many people steered clear of the OS, including which was probably the biggest blow, companies and businesses. Microsoft depends a lot on businesses purchasing licenses and using their operating system so when the majority of corporate IT departments opted to stick with Windows XP, the nail was hammered in just a little deeper. It got so bad that a lot of the computer companies were offering XP downgrades (upgrades) on new systems (normally for a price). Needless to say, this has since given Microsoft a black eye as what was supposed to be "a huge improvement" over XP, was actually being passed up for XP. It has also probably had a hand in the growth of Apple's OS X and the Linux operating system.

So because of all that, Microsoft pretty much has to dig themselves out of the grave they dug for themselves and so far it seems like Windows 7 is starting to do just that. From the seemingly better performance and the new UI, Microsoft appears to have at least somewhat sturdy footing to begin the rise back up. The question remains though as to how much the new Windows 7 can help and how long this seemingly good press will last. Windows 7 remains in beta so some bugs found in the OS can be attributed to its beta status, but if future fixes or future bugs cause more issues with the OS, then this good press can quickly do a 180 and lead Microsoft right back to where they started. With all that said, more people are also going to have to be convinced that the new Windows 7 is not just a "new Vista". That's the thing with reputations, once you have a reputation, its hard to change it. And in Microsoft's case, right now its a bad reputation.

Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart at a Convention

Keith Wagner

I just stumbled upon this on YouTube and am still cracking up, it's Brent Spiner asking Patrick Stewart questions at what I am guessing is a Star Trek convention.

For those of you who aren't aware, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart plays Captain Jean Luc Picard. Also Brent Spiner is the actor who plays Data.

Following and Followers on Twitter: Thoughts

Keith Wagner

Twitter over the last year has become very popular in the social media scene. Twitter is a microblogging service where people can post 140 character posts saying what they're doing, sharing links and photos, and many other things. The social part allows for users to follow (befriend) someone else so that the other user's tweets (posts) show up in their twitter feed. I've noticed a lot of people have become focused on increasing their follower and following count.

Gaining followers is not a bad thing, and nor is following more people, but how many do you actually need? And why are people so upset when people stop following them? Maybe there's a reason they're being unfollowed, maybe they're just spamming certain sites, maybe they're not posting enough interesting content, or maybe they're just clogging the other person's timeline and the other person is growing sick and/or uninterested in it.

The other thing is people seem to be ungrateful when they follow someone and that person doesn't follow back. I'm sorry, it goes the same way with reciprocal voting in social media sites, just because someone follows you or votes a story of yours up, it doesn't mean you have to follow them. I mean look at the celebrities or big names on Twitter like Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton, (I'm sorry is my Trekkie persona showing?) or anyone along those lines. They have thousands of followers, but don't follow everyone who happens to follow them. Can you imagine them following every single one of their followers? They'd be getting hundreds of tweets a minute in their timeline. Sometimes I can barely handle the number I get, I don't know how I'd be able to successfully follow that many people. It's not that they're assholes, they're just selective and there's nothing wrong with that. If you follow someone and they follow you back, great, and if you follow someone and they don't follow back, so what? you're still able to see their tweet and reply to it if you want. Besides, following and then replying might get you noticed as users can see replies from people regardless of whether or not they're following that person.

I look at it this way, I'm happy when people start following me on Twitter, it means that people seem to be interested in what I have to say and share. At the same time however it does not guarantee a follow-back. I follow who I want to follow, following too many just clogs up my timeline and I like to keep it to people who I'm friends with and care about what is being said. Right now I am following 38 people and 66 are following me. If someone follows me, I'll probably look at that user and decide whether or not I want to follow them. Sometimes I will, other times I won't. It's nothing personal against them if I choose not to, I just prefer to limit who I follow as to not overload my timeline so much that I get turned off to the service. It already happened with Plurk. I'm definitely not adverse to following people who follow me that I may not know either online or off, I just don't want to be so overloaded I'm overwhelmed. But regardless whether or not I'm following you, if I get a reply from someone, I probably will reply back.

So, if you're on Twitter, what's your experience?

By the way, you can catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DarkNemesis618

One Thing Overlooked with the New DRM-Free iTunes

Keith Wagner

This is somewhat of an update to my previous post about iTunes and Apple dropping DRM. This could be somewhat of a deal-breaker to some, but have no effect on others. The format iTunes uses is an AAC format .m4a. Why could this be a deal breaker? Well while the iPod and the Zune both support the m4a format, there are many other portable mp3 players that don't.

What this means is that if you don't have a portable player that can support m4a, you're stuck listening it on your computer only unless you're willing to take the time to burn the tracks to CD and re-rip them into a more universal format like mp3. This doesn't seem too bad on the surface but consider what happens when you rip a CD into mp3s...you compress them which means that while casually you may not notice the difference, audiophiles and others might notice that the quality is less than that of a CD or of the original m4a file. It may not be by much, but it is there. I was just curious about it so I took my Metallica - S & M CD and ripped it to the lossless format and compared it to the mp3 I had ripped previously and the difference was noticeable, so much so that I am very much considering ripping all my CDs into the m4a format so I can get the better quality...It may sound kinda lame and that I have no life, but I love music and to have the extra quality and to be able to hear some of the detail that gets left out from the compression is worth it, especially when you have a good speaker system to listen to music on, it makes it even better.

Again though, if your portable player supports the m4a format then all of this is a non-issue. Some could make the argument that Apple should offer them in the mp3 format, but then others could argue that you're losing something in the process. Just a thought.

UPDATE: I neglected to think about the fact that you can convert the m4a files to standard AAC which might make them a little more universal without any real loss in quality, but even then, for a non-technical user who just wants to listen to music on their basic mp3 player, doing this might not even come to mind for them, and you still have to make sure that the player can handle the standard AAC format.

Apple Goes DRM Free, What Does It Mean?

Keith Wagner

Apple announced Tuesday that it is removing DRM from nearly all of its tracks on iTunes. This comes as a victory to us in the tech world because most of us, including myself despise DRM with a passion. What this simply means is that the digital music downloads from the iTunes store will no longer carry any form of digital protection. Steve Jobs has previously stated that he would welcome the day when Apple can go DRM free, and now he seems to have gotten his wish.

But deeper down, what does this lack of DRM mean to us as the customers? This was a big step for Apple today, but in the end it wasn't them who had the final say in the matter. I'm sure if Apple could have gone DRM free from the beginning, they probably would have, but since they have to license the media from the record companies, it took them to get to the point where they would give the go-ahead to sell DRM free downloads. So hopefully we will see the record companies get wise to the fact that DRM is more like punishing the honest than it is protecting their copyrights. No DRM system is fool proof, they all can and probably are hacked from time to time by various people all over the world. Like with computer security, often times the security professionals, in this case those behind the DRM systems end up being one step behind the hackers. Preserving a DRM system seems awfully pointless too when its often times incredibly easy to bypass the DRM or just go buy the CD and rip it onto your computer.

I'm hoping that Apple and the record companies taking this step can also trickle down into the other digital download stores so that they might offer the same thing, DRM-free digital tracks. I'm partial to my iPod but it would be nice to know that I would be able to get my music anywhere and still be able to play it on my iPod. And the same can be said of the Zune or any portable music player.

The only downside to this is that in order for the record companies to agree to remove the DRM restrictions, Apple had to cut a little slack in their pricing scheme. Instead of the $0.99 per song rate, there are now 3 tiers -- $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29. While maybe the $1.29 is not completely outrageous or a huge hike, it does give the record companies a higher price tag to use and since we know how greedy the record labels can be, who knows what might come out of it. Apple Vice President Philip Schiller did say more tracks would be on the lower tiers, only time will tell what comes of it.

Either way, this I think is a big step towards providi ng a better service to the consumers and hopefully it will only be the start of a new trend.

Seriously How Can 2 Hard Drives Die at the Same Freakin' Time

Keith Wagner

Ugggh...It appears both of my hard drives in my desktop are biting the dust. I think it's my 80 GB Ubuntu drive that is clicking and will probably fail the diagnostic test I'm running, and my 160 GB Vista drive already failed a diagnostics test. Seriously...WTF? After this diagnostic on this 80 GB drive I'm going to try to repair the Vista drive but I'm not all that optimistic it will work.

The 80 GB Drive is at least 5 years old, one of the first SATA 1.5 drives so I'm not terribly upset if it dies, but the 160 is maybe only a year and a half old. It's a bit frustrating but at the same time not horrific as my desktop really doesn't hold any files that aren't stored on my server so its not like there's data to lose, its just a pain in my ass to deal with this...ughh.

Swordfish Intro

Keith Wagner

This is probably one of my favorite movies...I still love the intro.

The Power of RSS

Keith Wagner

With my abandonment of the social media scene with the primary reason being the complete lack of democracy and the majority only participating to push their own agenda (as I mentioned in this post), one of my biggest sources of news and happenings has become primarily RSS feeds from blogs and sites I subscribe to. Google Reader is beautiful for this as I can go through and peruse the latest headlines from a large variety of sites, news, tech news, comics, sports, whatever.

For those who may be unfamiliar with what RSS is, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and its a way for blogs, news sites and many other services to share their content. What essentially happens is a blogger posts their new entry and the RSS file grabs that entry and posts it to a feed which readers can then pick up and update as directed. What this means is that if I subscribe to a feed, in my reader I can view the latest entries as they get posted and become available.

I have found that RSS is a great source both to receive and to post to. My blog has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to in your RSS reader of choice. But while that might be a sorry way to pimp my blog and RSS feed, the power of RSS goes beyond just that. For me its great because I have one place I can go to to get content from many different places. And it is this that I believe shows why RSS is a great thing. So many sites have RSS feeds, and with how many sites people visit on a regular basis to catch up on the latest news, having one site is priceless.

One great thing about my reader of choice, Google Reader is that you have the ability to share what you find with your friends. Assuming you have friends on Google Talk and/or your GMail account, you can click the share link found on each RSS entry and share it or share it with a personal note attached. These shares could allow you to share things you subscribe to that you think your friends might enjoy and vice versa. It's another great way to share and find new sites, and new sources for information we all desire. (and the best part is that there's no voting so no one is trying to make the front page of a site).

Most modern web browsers have built in RSS readers (Firefox, IE7, Opera, Safari) can all retrieve feeds on their own without having to sign up for a service, but services like Google Reader (think I'm pimping it enough) provide their own added features that browsers tend to lack.

So what about you? What do you use RSS for, and what service do you use to read your feeds?

Social Media - How Democratic is it really?

Keith Wagner

When I think of social media, I think of sites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and the like. These sites all claim to be democratic and that the user determines what gets promoted to the front page of these sites. But how democratic are they really?

Getting one of your submissions to the front page is pretty much everyone's desire. They want to go to the front page and see something they submitted shown there. This much is probably part of human nature, people want to succeed and getting a Digg front page is apparently the measure of success in social media. This desire in itself can sometimes be such a driving force that the "democratic" nature of the site is seen as a burden. Users tend to want to do everything to get one of their stories to the front page, so much that they'll vote up everything in the hope of getting reciprocal votes no matter what the story is. It could be crap for quality, spam, or everyone's favorite, scraped content. In my opinion, this ruins the democracy of the sites...not to mention the quality of the front page. I'm probably just standing on my soapbox right now being ignored by most people, but I feel that stories should become front page for being quality submissions, maybe not one i neccessarily agree with or have an interest in, but one that is original, and provides something to the community be it a laugh, a thought, or a bit of news. Instead people are focusing purely on traffic and forming voting rings just to get their stuff to the front page. It should be mentioned that a lot of this activity has essentially caused me to cease pretty much all activity on all the social media sites.

/endrant

They Really Should Get This Fixed

Keith Wagner

So I was getting gas, and I happen to notice this. The computer they use to stream more ads to us "gullible" customers blue screened...perfect advertising for Microsoft...show us what not to get.

That night I drove past the station again, and sure enough, about 6 hours later, it was still stuck on the BSOD.

For Pete's Sake, BU is NOT Harboring Terrorists

Keith Wagner

I was reading this article the other day on Techdirt and I guess I just want to give my own two thoughts on the matter. The article goes on to say how Tom Sydnor from the Progressive & Freedom Foundation (PFF) is trying to claim that Boston University is creating a safe-haven for terrorists by refusing to release names to the RIAA for supposed copyright infringement. To me, this pisses me off, I don't know where he gets his ideas from but he is dead wrong.

Think about it, Terrorism, and harboring child pornography are completely different animals than the downloading of a couple mp3s. Not to say that I support piracy, but you can't really compare the two. First off, the RIAA wants the names associated with the IP addresses that they have apparently found to be linked to file sharers. This is purely a civil matter, so long as the user is not the hub of some huge piracy network, all that is going to result is either a cash settlement or a civil lawsuit and hearing. Now lets look at the terrorism and child pornography case. Both terrorism and possessing/distributing child pornography are CRIMES. They are not civil and both can result in jail time, and both deal with criminal proceedings in the court of law. In my mind they are far worse than pirating the latest Britney Spears or Metallica CD.

This whole thing started when the RIAA brought to the courts a subpoena for names linked to IP addresses of people on BU's campus suspected of file sharing. It should also be noted that the judge dropped the lawsuit/subpoena as she so should have done after it was demonstrated that BU could not provide definite identities to the IP addresses. The idea around this is a valid one. Boston University motioned for the subpoena to be quashed because they could not guarantee that the names associated with the IP Addresses the RIAA had could be correctly identified. What this means is that innocent people could be targeted or a "witch hunt" would be opened up by the RIAA for the true perpetrator. I highly doubt that BU would be so quick to jump to quash a subpoena for info regarding terrorists or those involved in child porn rings. In fact, as I stated earlier, they wouldn't be dealing with the civil courts for such an issue, they'd be dealing with the criminal courts.

I guess it all comes down to some douchebag lobbying for the big media companies trying to scare colleges, universities, etc into just acquiescing to their demands. I can't say I'm terribly surprised but once you look into the basics of it, y ou realize Mr. Sydnor here is simply spreading FUD and propoganda to further his cause, and by him linking piracy and the refusal to turn over names of students who might not even be guilty of sharing a couple songs; and the harboring of terrorists and child porn rings is completely baseless and holds no real merit.

I Can Haz Ghostbusters?

Keith Wagner

I'm hoping this lives up to its hype because after all...they're the Ghostbusters

Apple Suggests Anti-Virus Software for OS X

Keith Wagner

A little bit of buzz has arisen after Apple has quietly suggested and recommended to Mac users that they should consider installing anti-virus software on their Macs. This has created somewhat of a stir since Apple has said several times that Macs are far less susceptible to viruses if they even get them at all. Personally I know that viruses can be written for any platform, Windows, Mac, and Linux alike. Windows just is the primary target since Windows holds the greatest market share...by a lot. Now imagine if the tables were turned and OS X held 90+% of the OS market, I'd bet that instead of Windows getting the majority of the threats, OS X would likely take the brunt of the attacks. Simply put, the evil-doers will go after whatever they can get the most out of.

I'm one of the people who has a Mac but doesn't have anti-virus software for it, which is probably not exactly the smartest move, but for the moment, I haven't needed it (or I've just gotten lucky). OS X doesn't have a lot of viruses in the wild that can affect the OS, but this however may very well come to an end soon enough with how popular the Mac line has gotten, and how OS X is rising which might make it a much more appealing target for virus writers. It might also be worth noting that Apple's switch to Intel CPUs a little while back probably makes it a little bit easier for the writers as well since they're so used to that for Windows machines.

In the end, I do understand where Apple is coming from, despite what they want to say, they have to acknowledge that OS X is not immune to viruses, no OS is (not even Linux). So putting anti-virus software on a Mac is by no means a bad idea, we'll just have to see how Mac users react. Will they snub their noses to the thought or will they think about it and agree that its probably a better idea to be safe, rather than sorry later should their Mac get infected.

One last thing for everyone to consider: Apple has been consistently growing, sales are up and more and more people are bringing Macs into their homes. With this growing popularity, comes a greater target. The number of threats are only going to go up, stay vigilant and be careful what you download, what you install, and what sites you visit. OS X may be a "small" target today, but given the growth, I don't know how long it will stay out of the virus spotlight.

Web Development: WYSIWYG vs. Handwritten

Keith Wagner

Web design and development can take several forms, each with their loyal following, I stick with more of a basic text editor, while others prefer a more "drag and drop" approach.

Adobe Dreamweaver is a pretty popular tool amongst developers for getting their sites developed. Dreamweaver is similar to Microsoft Frontpage but in my opinion, significantly better. Dreamweaver and Frontpage are both "What You See is What You Get" editors (WYSIWYG). They're pretty much designed so that you can pretty much lay out a website much like you would set up a document in Word. The software takes what you lay out and creates the HTML and Stylings behind the scene. Some people would call this easier than handwriting it, and while I can see why they do, I must respectfully disagree.

I do all of my web development work from scratch using nothing more than a simple text editor much like notepad for Windows. I feel that by doing it by hand, not only do you have a lot more control over the layout of the code, but you also gain a better understanding of why things work the way they do, and where everything you need to know in the code is. WYSIWYG editors aren't perfect and sometimes require manual code adjustments to set things where you want them to be set. I feel that it's simply easier to find the "problem" areas in code that you wrote yourself than it is to find the spot in code that was literally written by a piece of software. I personally like to have full control over the code of my sites and just feel that I lose a lot of that control if I move over to a WYSIWYG editor.

I would recommend using notepad to anyone who is just getting into web design for one simple reason. I believe you learn more by writing the code yourself. You'll learn better code styling and layout, as well as how the language works, and why it works the way it does. If after that you would rather use something like Dreamweaver, you'll be better off since you'll know the basics and at that point are more just using Dreamweaver to potentially speed things up.

Now I tend to refuse to use Notepad for my development, especially since a lot of it is done on my Macbook Pro, but there are a schloo of great text editors out there that will trump Notepad any day of the week, so I'll close this out by listing a few that you can go about and try.

Notepad++ (Windows)

Notepad++ is a free open-source app that does everything that Notepad can do, plus more. It contains syntax highlighting, control over the text layout, tabs, and the ability to install and manage plugins to extend its base functionality.

jEdit (Windows, Mac, Linux)

jEdit is similar to Notepad++ but is built with Java so it is compatible and useable on all 3 major platforms (Windows, Mac, & Linux). It features many of the same capabilities as Notepad++ including plugins, syntax highligting and tabs.

TextWrangler (Mac)

TextWrangler is a text editor for OS X that features syntax highlighting and a list view (similar to tabs but lists the files on the side). It's lightweight but lacks some of the more advanced features that jEdit and Notepad++ support.

TextMate (Mac)

TextMate is similar to TextWrangler but is significantly more powerful with an advanced feature set. It supports what almost seems like the standard syntax highlighting, ability to pair brackets, svn support, regular expression (grep) support, and many others. The one downside is that TextMate is not free, it costs around $50 for a license, but depending on your use, it might be worth it to you. It does come with a 30 day trial.

Coda (Mac)

This is my editor of choice. It has an extensive list of features and my favorite being built in FTP and SSH / SFTP support which makes uploading to your web server quick, easy, and painless. Among its other features are tabs, syntax highlighting, code support (will show you the function arguments to help you on your way) as well as smart editing (will finish lines with quotation marks, etc as needed). This, like TextMate is not free, Coda costs $99, but its a great piece of software and helps make managing the code between my Mac and the web server easier. It also supports help with css keywords and styles for those who might need some help with CSS.

So, what do you use when doing web development? Something like Dreamweaver, or a more hands-on approach with a basic text editor?

Indiana Jones in WoW

Keith Wagner

It's well known in the gaming community, especially those into MMORPGs and World of Warcraft that Blizzard loves putting little easter eggs in WoW. Their reference to Bambi [wowwiki.com] is a perfect example of this. Well tonight I found an even greater one. You're in this what looks like an ancient temple, all of a sudden you see this guy locked in a cage...what's his name? Harrison Jones (for those of you who don't get it which I'm hoping is a small amount if any, Harrison Ford plays the character Indiana Jones in the popular movie series). You're tasked with escorting him out of the temple, although you don't really have to do much as he tends to fend for himself rather well. And of course he does a little bit of exploring and what does he run into, but a giant snake. And to top it all off, after the quest is done, he says "See ya around kid".

On the Hunt for a New Linux Distro

Keith Wagner

Many already know that I've been a Linux fan for some time now, primarily using the Ubuntu distribution on both my server and my desktop. Well I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10 and I noticed a noticeable slow-down on performance. I've been noticing a bit of sluggishness from Ubuntu over the last several versions, but nothing really noticeable. Well that changed for me with the install of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ipex. System performance was sluggish, and I realized that there was a little bit too much bloat than I cared for, not as bad as Vista, but still more than I feel a Linux desktop should have. I decided I'd move to a different distro.

My first choice was Debian 4.0. Ubuntu is Debian-based so I figured going back to Ubuntu's base might be a good place to start since I am most familiar with the Debian system. The install went smoothly and within an hour I had the Gnome desktop in front of me. The thing that impressed me most was its bootup speed, loading speed, and responsiveness. It put Ubuntu to shame in all of these cases as it was incredibly fast. The only thing that I didn't like was that it seemed to be behind on a lot of key software and updates. Iceweasel, its browser (a port of Firefox 2.0) was the browser installed and me of course wanted Firefox 3.0. I download it, try to run it and it says I need to have GTK+ v2.10 or higher. Apparently the Debian repositories are somewhat out of date with some key software versions as the latest version in Debian's repositories for GTK was 2.08 and when I tried to manually compile and install GTK+ 2.14, its dependencies were all libraries with versions greater than the Debian repository had. Now I realize that I could try harder to find some good 3rd party repos or work through the massive dependencies, but at the same time I'm looking for a distribution that does not require massive amounts of configuration. It might also be worthy to note that a lot of the key applications that I use on a regular day basis were not installed nor were they available for download from the repositories. I liked Debian, but it was missing too much to become a working Linux desktop distro for me. Now server wise, Debian would be great for its speed and stability, and maybe one day if I feel adventurous, I may very well switch over from Ubuntu 8.04 Server to Debian, but as it stands now, as good a distro as Debian is to many people, it just didn't match what I wanted in a desktop distribution.

My next choice was CentOS 5.2 which I'm currently installing. It'll be a change from Ubuntu since its most definitely Red Hat based and not Debian, but a co-worker sings its praises and since its an offshoot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I figure I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I'll let you all know later.

Well I've Entered Northrend

Keith Wagner

I picked up World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King today and spent the evening playing around in the new area. It's been a lot smoother than I anticipated. Despite the large influx of players into the new zone, there has been little lag and the contention for kills/quest goals is suprisingly low so definitely a better experience than I had anticipated. I actually figured I'd go into the new zone, see a lot of bugginess and then just go back to Outlands and just work from there.

Since my wrist has sidelined me from console gaming, I guess I'll probably be spending a fair amount of time on WoW in the coming days.

Kudos to Circuit City

Keith Wagner

I know Circuit City isn't exactly doing how shall we put it, well right now, but they impressed me last night when I went to pick up Gears of War 2.

Circuit city was running a deal where you got 1600 Microsoft Points with your purchase of Gears of War 2. This was a pretty good deal considering 1600 Microsoft points cost $20, so for the game which cost $60 you pretty much got $80 worth of stuff. Well needless to say, by the time I got there after work, they were out of the Microsoft Points cards. So rather than just saying sorry, they went the extra mile and gave me a $20 gift card to make up for it. To me thats kind of impressive considering they could have used the "while supplies last" excuse and remove the deal. Now while its only a gift card, they still equalled it out in the end as I can always go back and use the gift card to buy the points later when they have the cards in stock.

Anywho, I got the card, I got the game, and I'm quite happy :-)

Seriously

Keith Wagner

Seriously, there are too many games coming out in too short of a period. Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, WoW:Wrath of the Lich King, Endwar all come out within 1 month of each other leaving me not enough hours in the day to play them.

All summer we had crap for game releases for the most part, and now, all these good games in such short time. Oh well such is life and such is what seems like a neglected blog.

Why The Battle Between Desktop Environments?

Keith Wagner

Why are so many people constantly trying to claim Gnome is better than KDE or KDE is better than Gnome? If you ask me I'd say they're about equal and personal preference is where it all lies. Some people prefer Gnome and others KDE, I'm one who prefers Gnome but has no problem using KDE either if I need to.

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, Linux has the ability to use multiple desktop environments which is pretty much the UI of your operating system where you can browse for files, run applications, etc. There are many different environments with the two big ones being Gnome and KDE. There is often the talk of which one is "better" but I almost seem to be the odd one out who really doesn't seem to see either as "better" than the other.

I mean if you look at it from a different view, both Gnome and KDE are both completely open, the source code is available and you can develop for either one relatively easily. Both can be installed on any distribution albeit some distros don't come with the choice to install one or both making it a bit more difficult to do especially for the novice user, but at the same time, it can be done.

The only argument I can see for this argument is to set more of a standard for Linux desktop environments, but at the same time, the customization for me is one of Linux's greatest selling points, the ability to use whatever desktop environment and software you want. If you look at both OS X and Windows, while there are some alternatives to many applications, for some apps there are no alternatives and outside theming, you're stuck with one desktop. So while one desktop environment as "standard" for Linux would provide a base, you'd lose a fair amount in the process.

While personally I have nothing against any of the desktop environments, I think it all comes down to personal preference and the "desktop environment war" is kinda silly. In the end I think the "war" would be better fought bettering Linux and open source software. Just a thought.

Philadelphia Phillies 2008 National League Champions

Keith Wagner

Image Courtesy of http://www.mlb.com

They finally did it, the Philadelphia Phillies won the Pennant and are now the 2008 National League Champions beating the LA Dodgers 5-1 in Game 5 of the NLCS. Next up the World Series!

GO PHILLIES!

Mascot Fight

Keith Wagner

Hehe, gotta love this, the Oregon Duck and University of Houston Cougar duke it out...

And no, while it does look so, it was not staged.

I Sometimes Wonder How Far We Have Progressed as a Country

Keith Wagner

Image Courtesy of http://www.news-leader.com

I'm not one to really post political stuff on my blog, but I really feel as if I have to mention something about this. Earlier today I read this article about a billboard in Missouri portraying Obama in what I would call a racist stereotype. To me this is 100% WRONG. Instead of attacking Obama's policies, they are attacking him as a person based primarily on his race. And deeper down, they're attacking all Blacks, those of Middle Eastern descent, and Muslims in general. Racism is wrong. Period. There is no middle ground, it is wrong. I'm all for freedom of speech, it is one of the staples of America, but at some points, people take it too far.

It is beyond a standard smear tactic, it is something that just hits me hard. I was raised to be tolerant and accepting of people no matter what race or religion they happen to be and to see this just makes me see how ignorant people can be and makes me second guess how far we as a country have progressed.

I Want

Keith Wagner

I Want...that is all

Is Mixx Out of Beta?

Keith Wagner

Is Mixx out of Beta? Look at their logo today. Not only are they celebrating 1 year...but the beta text is removed from the logo.

Social Media: Traffic or Conversation?

Keith Wagner

A lot has been going on in the social media world recently. Digg has unleashed its banhammer again banning over 50 accounts, many of them in some of the top user spots. A good many of them have come over to Mixx and are enjoying their time there as they very well should be, Mixx is a great site with a great community and employees who legitimately care about the users and their experience.

But one of the complaints I've heard is that Mixx doesn't drive nearly as much traffic to sites as Digg does, and this by all means is true. Digg has been around for several years now, Mixx is barely a year old, an infant when compared to Digg. So it is only natural that it won't drive as much traffic to sites. This will grow in time though as the community grows and continues to share and submit great content, so continue getting involved and you'll see that change in the future.

But consider this: What matters more, traffic? or community and conversation?

Everyone wants to promote their own sites & blogs and generate traffic. I'm no exception, but at the same time, its not the primary reason I blog and interact on social media sites like Mixx. I interact with Mixx and I blog for the conversation and the community. I want to hear people's views on whatever may be the topic of conversation, be it a blog post of mine, one of someone else's, or just a recent news story. I want to discuss opinions and thoughts, and if traffic comes from that, its just an added bonus. Personally, I'd rather have 25 people view it and comment and give me their thoughts, than to have 1,000 people view it and not hear so much as a whisper.

And I think it is this that makes Mixx, and social media in general grow. The sharing of thoughts, views, and opinions.

Mixx has a very welcoming community with great people both behind the scenes and on the front lines. Continue submitting content and discussions and the traffic will come, but don't forget, traffic isn't everything, I as well as many others I'm sure agree that the community aspect is more important.

Halo Wars Trailer

Keith Wagner

I've said it before, I'm not quite sure how I feel about a real time strategy game being played on a console with a controller. I always feel RTS games require a mouse and keyboard. Halo Wars is doing just this. I'm hoping they might find some way to pull it off. Definitely worth a rental to try it out, but I don't know if I'll even buy it. It may be Halo, but its the wrong platform in my opinion since there's no PC version of it. Either way, this trailer was released. Enjoy!

Karma FAIL

Keith Wagner

Doing real good on Karma there aren't ya

Towing Company FAIL

Keith Wagner

I was just outside Philly visiting a friend of mine and I came across this sign...

For Any Mixxers

Keith Wagner

Greg Davies (aka cGt2099) posted this over at the Mixxing Bowl...check it out!

Mixx: The Ultimate Challenge

Self Submission and Social Media

Keith Wagner

Over time, the debate about promoting and submitting your own content has been tossed around the communities.

For those of you who are unsure what self-submission or self-promoting is, its simply submitting your own blog or your own site to social media sites like Digg, Mixx, Reddit, etc. Some people feel that this is bad etiquette and bad for the community. I take the opposite stance....to a point.

I mainly submit stories to Mixx as I've pretty much moved away from Digg and never really got into any of the other social media sites. I sometimes submit my own blog entries to Mixx, but only those I feel are of quality. If you look at all my submissions from my blog compared to all my entiries on my blog, you'll notice many were never submitted to Mixx or any other social site - with good reason. My blog is also by no means the only thing that I submit. If you look at my Mixx Profile, you can see my submissions are from a wide variety of sources and you'll only see the occasional post from DarkerNemesis.com in my submissions page. And I feel that this is what makes the difference. Submitting only your own stuff to any social media site is not really adding to the community, especially if the links aren't quality links. Also, scraping is by no means acceptable so make sure its ORIGINAL content.

So here's a quick run-down of what to remember if you're going to self-submit

1. Do it with restraint

2. Make sure if you do, the entries/links are of quality, no one wants to read utter crap or even worse, scraped content

3. Don't only submit your entries. The internet is filled with tons of funny, interesting, thought-provoking, and other great sites with great content, why not submit those as well? Also, submitting random stuff just to drown out your self-submissions with other material will be noticed, people want to see good content and not just filler.

The Good Outweighs the Bad

Keith Wagner

This is a follow-up to my last post "Come On Mixx"

That post gave a somewhat negative view on Mixx, which while that needed to come out, does not outweight the good that Mixx brings to the Social Media world. I'm not entirely sure when I joined Mixx, but I would say I joined late 2007. Since then I have been incredibly impressed with what Mixx has done, and have pretty much left Digg almost entirely to focus my attenion on and become part of the Mixx community. I have not given up on Mixx, and I have no intention of doing so, I still love Mixx and would reccommend it to anyone. So while "Come On Mixx" brought up the bad, I want to say why despite the bad, Mixx is still the place to be.

I think what makes Mixx what it is most, is the crew working behind the scenes: Kerry, Joe, Chris, Doug, Will, and everyone else. They legitimately care about what the users think of the site. Instead of just doing what they want and what they think looks or works best, they honestly want to know what WE, the users think and will work things out to make us happy. A perfect example is that right after they released the nested comments update, some users mentioned, and I agree with, that the nested comments stood out more over the parent comments. So what did Mixx do? They changed the look on them and they're now improved upon and not quite as more prevalent over the parent. The whole idea of truly listening to the users is probably what really makes Mixx stand out.

Mixx is also constantly pushing out new updates to the site. From the nested comments, to communities, groups, MixxMail, Kudos to comments, now being able to follow comment conversations, the list goes on. These new updates and abilities enhance the Mixx experience and the Social Media experience entirely. Let's go through a subset of all the things that Mixx has added to the system.

Communities

Mixx has added this community feature to pretty much be a "mini-mixx" where users can form communities and focus on a specific topic. These topics can pretty much be whatever the community admin desires, tech, news, environment, games, you name it. The community page can be customized and you can even set up for ads and be able to make some money off of it. This is what social media is about, sharing stories and discussing them, and communities make that even easier when you can use them to browse through stories of a more specific topic than standard tags and categories can allow. And the best part is of course that these communities use the same engine as Mixx does so they're just as powerful.

MixxMail

Not as new as other features but this feature gives users the ability to talk amongst themselves or in groups in what is pretty much a light e-mail system. If you want to share stories, submissions, thoughts, or just talk about this and that, the MixxMail system provides a great way for you to do so.

Comment Kudos

Now, similar to Digg, but different enough to be in my opinion better is the ability to give kudos to users' comments that are worthy of them. And each user can only give out 5 per day. This prevents for abuse of the system whereas Digg uses the up down votes on comments which are unmonitored and unlimited. This can lead to abuse of the system when something like this happens.

Breaking News

This one was added a while back. Pretty much if a story is what would be considered Breaking News, where its a big story like the Plane Crash in Spain yesterday, or someone famous unfortunately passing away, Supermixxers can mark is as breaking so that it appears on the front page sooner in its own side-section. To combat abuse, Mixx allowed for the need of 2 supermixxers to flag it as breaking before it will become breaking news. This is simply so that the big stories make their presence known sooner.

Your Mixx Page

While this may not seem like much, this is a great way for users to customize the Mixx home page so that they see what they want to see. Users can add tags, categories, subcategories, and users to their Your Mixx page to be given the stories and topics they want to see. The customization here is essential to Social Media...weed out the stuff you don't care too much about and focus on what you do.

There are countless other great things about Mixx but I think even with just this subset, you can see that the good strongly outweighs the bad. The crew behind Mixx are a great bunch and will continue to improve the site to make it better for all of us. I have faith that Mixx will get through this and become the site we all want it to be. I have no intention of leaving the site, because I still think its the best social media site out there. So Kerry, Joe, Doug, Will, Chris and everyone else, keep up the good work, and I apologize again if my last post seemed utterly harsh and/or hurt you, I respect you greatly and am always looking forward to what's new at Mixx.

Come On Mixx

Keith Wagner

Lately, I have to say I've been somewhat disappointed with Mixx. It's a great site with a great crew working behind the scenes, but with the spam issues, blind voting, and revenge voting, it seems that they may not be willing to push back hard enough against the growing problem.

For any who may not realize what blind voting is, its simply users voting on stories without actually paying attention to, or looking at what the story is. Its often done for reciprocal voting...an "I scratch your back you scratch mine" type of thing. People vote up other people's stories in hopes that the other user will then vote up theirs. Where Mixx is concerned, it could also be users trying to rack up Karma Points. This is especially bad when a lot of times these users are voting up complete and utter crap, spam, and hell knows what else. This is something that is not always apparent in every submission, but when you see users voting up "How to get cheap Viagara", its then apparent as to who they are. What Mixx needs to do is crack down on this more and dare I say it, go after the users who do blind vote. No one wants to see spam hitting the front page, and blind voters help this happen. I would actually go so far to say that maybe dock the user several hundred karma per blind vote or vote up on spam submissions, to maybe even temporarily to permenantly suspending user accounts if they are continuing to vote up spam. Now this could be problematic and potentially alienating users, but so long as the Mixx staff is open about it, letting the users know why their account is suspended, it may not be as bad as one might think. (On the dark side, Digg is INCREDIBLY tight-lipped when it comes with informing users why their account is suspended) Plus, the fewer blind votes, the less spam that gets promoted and the better the content that people will see. And face it, if new prospective users check out Mixx only to find spam on the front page, they're going to lose interest in checking more of Mixx out, which would mean losing a potential new user who would make the Mixx community proud. The Mixxing Bowl has a good thread naming names so check it out.

Mixx chooses to show the users who both voted up, and those who voted down submissions (Digg just shows diggs, not buries) and this I think helps make things more open in terms of identifying "bury brigades" as they're popularly called on Digg. This can lead to revenge voting where one user votes down all of someone else's submissions simply because that one person happened to vote down one of the other user's stories. I don't know what Mixx does for this if anything but again its something that Mixx should not tolerate and take head on with maybe the same reprocussions as I mentioned in the Blind Voter penalties. I know i've been hit several times by blind voters, mostly the spammers who I have been going after lately.

Then there's the spam problem. Social Media sites are going to get hit with Spam, thats a give-in, and Mixx has been pretty good with removing spam quickly once reported, but the obvious cheap pills-type spam is not the only type. I'm not going to name names, but one user who is great with this...you know what, the hell with it, I will name the user...CyberPhoenix. CyberPhoenix is a huge Linux fan which I can accept since I am a fan of Linux and open source as well. But this dude takes it to extremes. He/She makes fanboys look tame. Now this in itself isn't that big of an issue, only that he constantly submits anti-windows/microsoft articles filled with childish name-calling. But to make matters EVEN worse, if anyone posts a story that goes against Linux or Pro-Microsoft, he leaves like 300 line comments that are pretty much completely off-topic and spam themselves. To see what I mean, go to http://www.mixx.com/users/cyberphoenix/comments and you can see the crap he leaves as comments. i'm sorry, this is SPAM and should be treated as such. You want to leave a 300 line comment? Fine, keep it on topic and make it meaningful. Why Mixx really isn't doing anything about this is beyond me, apparently he/she was suspended briefly a while ago, but apparently has not learned his/her lesson. StandardsDT said it perfectly

Stop spamming other articles. Keep irrelevant content out of others stories. Some people are ASP.NET programmers and this might help them. We get it you hate Microsoft, this does not mean you have to ruin a submission for others. Spamming is not permitted on mixx. Your comment has been reported.

This kind of stuff also needs to be looked at by the Mixx crew and acted upon when necessary.

Voting rings, while harder to determine, are also on Mixx and I can name 2 users who are most definitely part of a rather large one: Sunita and Windows. While real evidence is needed to do something, these 2 are either paid submitters or part of a ring...or both. This should also be looked into and acted up if such is indeed the case.

I realize that some of the actions against certain problem users may sound steep, harsh, and could possibly cause some alienation, but I know I am not alone in these thoughts, and that some of the biggest and best users on Mixx agree with some or all of my thoughts on what needs to be done. In the end I think we would end up with a good Social Media site with MUCH better content. And let's face it, for social sites, content is king. Get better content, and you'll draw in more users and generate traffic.

I want to apologize if anyone thinks I'm being a little too harsh towards the crew at Mixx. They are a great team and I'm always excited to see the new stuff they add to the site. I'm simply suggesting that maybe more drastic actions are needed to combat these issues. And anyone in the Mixx crew is free to contact me if you want to talk to about this.

***UPDATE***

Make sure to read my latest entry "The Good Outweighs the Bad" because as bad as this may sound, the good that Mixx is trumps and overcomes what is mentioned here.

They Act As They Plan to Accomplish Something

Keith Wagner

This is sort of a followup to my post "Spammers Beware".

I recently found 4 or 5 users all called freevicodenonline or free{insert drug name here}online spamming on Mixx. This got me thinking. Spammers have been pushing drugs and perscription drugs and "cheap drugs" online through countless sources most notably the CH34P V14G4R4 emails I'm sure all of you have seen either in your inbox or your junk folder. These spammers have been doing this for so long it makes me wonder why they even bother anymore.

Seriously, who has not seen one of these emails offering cheap drugs, fake rolexes, or hell knows what else? This shit has been so rampant for so long, you wonder how many people actually pay attention to or fall for them. They've been around for so long people should know by now that these emails are complete and utter crap and anyone with 1/10th of a brain can see right through it.

Yet they continue to push their shit everywhere. E-Mails I can pretty much just ignore now as they find their way straight to the spam folder so I never really see them, but now these assholes seem to think that this time putting their shit on Mixx and social media sites will actually produce different results. I got news for them, no different results, no accomplishments, just wasting our time.

Good Riddance

Thinking

Keith Wagner

So I'm thinking about starting a tech-related podcast, would anyone be interested in co-hosting?

Twitter has a New FAIL WHALE

Keith Wagner

Star Trek Online is Announced

Keith Wagner

Now I'm excited...

Star Trek Online

Thoughts on Open Source VS Proprietary

Keith Wagner

I may get some flak for this from the open source community, but I'm just curious about other's thoughts on this as well as to be able to share my own.

Anyway, I know there are many open source and free software advocates who are completely, 100% against proprietary software and refuse to use it or install it. So I ask this question. Suppose that there is a great new application, a great new piece of software that came out that was amazing. It did everything and more that you want this app to do (It can be any app, with any functionality). The downside? It's proprietary, BUT they released a native Linux / BSD version of the software so you can easily install it on Linux without the use of Crossover, Wine, or anything else. Now also suppose that there is no true open source alternative to this application. No open source app comes close to what this app can do.

Before I ask the big question, let me just go over my thoughts on the matter.

Personally, I would have no problem using this software even though its proprietary under Linux. I believe that even by using and installing proprietary software, you're not really harming the open souce and free software movement, especially when there's no real alternative to the proprietary piece of software. The open source and free software community provides a great alternative to many many proprietary apps and even operating systems. This said, proprietary software is in itself, not inherently "evil" by any means. Some may say that a certain Redmond, Washington-based company is "evil" but can you really speak for all proprietary software companies as a whole because of one bad apple (can you really label any group evil because of ONE person?). In the end I see nothing wrong with proprietary software being installed on a Linux PC, deep down the OS is still open source, and still free. What's wrong with using all the tools available to you to get the best experience and the best productivity out of your computer? I mean in the end of the day, I'll always try to stick with open source software, but if there's a notably better way to do something that requires something proprietary, so be it. My use of the proprietary nvidia video drivers on my desktop is a perfect example. The nv driver isn't bad by any means, but I just have not seen it being able to match the abilities of the official drivers.

So what are your thoughts? Would you be completely against using proprietary software on your Linux desktop, or would you be willing to use proprietary apps as needed? Would you still consider using the proprietary application if it cost money?

Heavy as Hell ReLaunched

Keith Wagner

The project I've been working on, a social media/news Content Management System (CMS) or platform has just been launched on the site I'm involved with, http://www.heavyashell.com The final release version will probably be released to the public over the next 2 weeks once I finish the documentation.

In the meantime, check out Heavy As Hell and submit some stories on rock, metal, punk, and the like.

Battle of the Internet Radios

Keith Wagner

I talked about Pandora Radio a couple of days ago and what it brought to the scene, so I thought today I'd compare Pandora to the better known Last.FM service.

Last.FM is a social internet radio station where you can interact your friends and share what you've listened on Last.FM. The choices in your station are often generated by what others deem similar to the band you inputted to start the station. Users can tag the songs noting styles and similar bands to help generate the station you want to listen to. The one thing that Last.FM has over Pandora is the desktop client and the ability to tie in programs like iTunes into your recently listened to list. Last.FM is also better for learning about and hearing new unsigned bands. Last.FM allows for bands to upgrade to an artist account to post their songs on the service for others to listen to. Because of this its a great service for new bands to get their music out there for the masses to hear.

Pandora, while having some social aspects to it, doesn't yet match the full social experience that Last.FM gives, but thats fine, it brings a lot to the table on other fronts. First, Pandora bases your station on similar sounding artists from your choices rather than what other user's are suggesting. This provides a more accurate playlist when compared to user tagging which could be completely off from what you want on your station. Pandora also allows you to put multiple artists into your stations for the algorithm to create your playlist, and it even allows you to do mixes from multiple stations if you want a little more variety. This differs from Last.FM where as far as I know you can really only choose only one band to base the playback on.

Both stations are great services and provide a good selection of songs and artists. I don't think either station is dramatically better than the other. Both have their strenghts and weaknesses, and both have their advantages over the other. So right now I would have to call the battle a draw with both being the winner. Both have iPhone apps for users to stream the music from the cell data network. Both have a pretty extensive library, and both generate pretty good stations.

So, which is your preferred internet radio station? Is it Pandora? Is it Last.FM, or is it one not mentioned here?

The Case For Linux Gaming

Keith Wagner

The Linux Operating System has recently been gaining ground even for those who aren't exactly, how should we say it...tech saavy. One of the things that Linux lacks and can prevent people from moving over entirely, including myself are computer games. Yes the consoles have started to put PC gaming seemingly in the background, but there are still many who swear by gaming with the keyboard and mouse. Wine, the popular Linux software that allows you to run Windows apps under Linux, including games has improved tremendously lately, but it still doesn't do a good enough jobs for enough games to truly allow for it to be a 100% go-to option. It's compatibility list is growing but still not where it needs to be to make Linux a truly viable platform. There are some games that are built for Linux and allow a native install like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake 3, but the few games that can hardly be counted as the norm.

The Case For:

Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake 3, and others have shown that popular 3D games can be built to natively run under the Linux OS.
Linux has become more of a truly viable platform for the PC in both laptops and desktop computers.
The OpenGL libraries are already in place in most Linux desktop environments so 3D games are entirely possible without having to build everything from scratch.
There are plenty of proven cases where proprietary software can be natively installed on Linux without divulging the source code, so game makers don't have to worry about their source code being released.

The Case Against:

Linux, while it has gained ground in marketshare, still only makes up a small percentage of the PC Operating System market making it less appealing for game developers to build on while selling enough to make up for the cost of development.
There is no central graphics interface, like DirectX to allow for a uniform utilization of the graphical power of computers.
Piracy has hurt the PC gaming industry and to put funds into developing for another platform that already doesn't match the marketshare of Windows may not seem cost-efficient for companies to put money into.

What Needs to Be Done:

The development of a central platform like DirectX, only for Linux should be developed. Creating it will allow for a central library for developers to use to make the development of games easier for the game developers.
Word needs to get out more on Linux, to show companies that Linux can indeed be a viable platform for game companies to develop software and games for.

To say that we will start seeing games being developed for Linux tomorrow is of course wishful thinking, but the possibility and plausibility of introducing a new platform to the mix should not be taken lightly. If Linux continues to gain marketshare and catches the attention of say companies like EA or Activision, then maybe other companies will start to really consider developing even just part of their library for Linux. Maybe even Indie game companies looking into Linux development might have an effect too. I may be overly hopeful and overly naive in hoping for this, but as someone who wants to ditch Windows entirely, but still wants to play the occasional PC game, bringing more games to the Linux platform will help me wipe Windows for the last time.

Wow

Keith Wagner

I finally got around to watching Randy Pausch's 'Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams' and that is probably, without a doubt, the most powerful speech I have ever heard. If anyone has not watched it, I would strongly suggest you do. The way he presents himself is amazing and his legacy will live on I'm sure. RIP Randy Pausch.

Randy Pausch's 'Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams'

Enter Pandora Radio

Keith Wagner

A couple of months ago, I finally gave Last.FM a try after hearing some good things about it and finally running out of excuses to try it. I was impressed by it. I found a bunch of new bands with a lot of good music. I liked the social aspect, although I never got around to using it. The idea behind it seemed pretty solid and had a pretty good variety of bands and music.

Fast forward to yesterday. Last.FM now has a big competitor in the form of Pandora. (yes Pandora has been out for much longer, but I just decided to try it out yesterday) Pandora is similar in many ways to Last.FM but in several key ways its different. You can create seperate radio stations adding different artists to "pool" from, in other words, Pandora with the help of the Music Genome Project finds artists similar to the ones you select. Also, if you want you can do a QuickMix which allows you to listen to music found from whatever stations you select as if they were all combined into one. I could go on and on about how good Pandora is, but suffice it to say I'm quite impressed. There is a lot of music in their library and it is a great way to hear and discover new bands.

On a side note, to any Pandora user who happens to own an iPhone. If you haven't already done so, download the Pandora App from the App Store. It's free and provides access to your stations while out and about. And if you have the first gen iPhone, don't worry, its been streaming for me just fine over EDGE.

Spammers Beware

Keith Wagner

Lately there's been a lot of Spam being submitted to Mixx, some even being made popular and onto the front page. I know many top Mixxers are pissed off at it and I'm one of them. Social Media/News sites are always prime targets so having some spam submitted has to be expected. But what's been going on at Mixx lately is well beyond that. Mixxers who have been around are even voting for some of this shit that gets submitted, some Supermixxers even. I don't know whether they're voting for it because they're part of some spam voting ring, whether they just are too lazy to pay attention to what they're voting on, or what, but that's fucking wrong.

Then there are the voting rings, people all linked together voting stuff up just to get their shit on the front page, submissions that probably wouldn't even get to 5 votes without the voting ring. I've seen evidence of it and voting rings HURT sites like Mixx. And the fucking spam voting rings are even worse. All of a sudden some porn video or some spam makes front page, you view it and 20 spammers all voted for it. Spam accounts solely there to just vote up spam (sock puppets if you will) to try to get it to the front page. I report it and there are 5 more votes for it also from spammers.

Then of course there are the revenge votes, I got many of my stories voted down yesterday by a few spammers and other jackasses in revenge for me voting down and reporting them for spam. And don't think revenge voting is limited to spammers. Normal users too are guilty of this. Assholes who get pissed off that someone downvoted ONE of their stories, take revenge by voting down EACH AND EVERY ONE of yours. Grow up people, one downvote isn't the end of the world. And of course you have those people who will downvote anything and everything that doesn't match up perfectly with their beliefs, the ones who feel that if you don't believe what they believe than you are wrong. I may not agree with everything everyone else believes in, hell I'm sure I don't, but you won't see me going around and just voting it down because of that reason alone.

Comments are another issue, leaving only comments like "great article", or "nice" do nothing but clog the comment stream. Once in a while is ok, but add some value to the conversation, don't just post comments. I'm not even going to get into the one Mixx user who happens to write 300 line comments that pretty much end up being off topic onto articles that don't conform to what he/she wants.

I know Bdog2g2, gbarberi, loup.dargent and others, including myself, yesterday were trying to go through Mixx and help get rid of the crap that's been building up and submitted to Mixx. I hate to say it but we showed very little mercy. We all like Mixx, and don't want to see it filled up with spam, so we decided to go on the offensive for a change. I can't speak for them personally, but I know I want Mixx back, the Mixx I saw when I first joined where there was a lot of conversation, and quality discussion over some of the crap that makes the front page.

So to any other Supermixxers out there, keep your eye out for the spam that gets posted...report it and note it to help keep shit off the front page, we don't need to see it.

I just want to end with one note.

Yesterday I downvoted some spam stories and reported a user for spamming. About 15 minutes later I get a MixxMail from him saying that he reported me and was gonna get me kicked off of Mixx, also saying that Mortalwind did so before and he got back anyway. He then also proceded to downvote every story I submitted over the last 2 months (I really don't feel like spending the time counting how many back were downvoted, suffice it to say, it was a LOT) Well when I got this, I just laughed and shrugged it off because I didn't do anything wrong, I'm simply going after the spammers who think Mixx is their stomping ground. It might be kind of jerkish to say, but I wish I could've seen the look on his face when he realized he just got the boot from Mixx (he was booted sometime in the evening yesterday).

Just Saw The Dark Knight

Keith Wagner

Unbelieveable....that is all.

Mashed Buttons Gamecast

Keith Wagner

I will be on the Mashed Buttons Gamecast (Podcast) tonight at 7PM EST, 4PM PST. It's a podcast dedicated to video games and the gaming community. Check it out:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mashedbuttons-gamecast

iPhone 2.0 Installed

Keith Wagner

Earlier today I went and got the link for the manual download of the iPhone 2.0 firmware and so far it's pretty nice, got a few apps installed and they're working pretty well. AIM is nice, and even though its from AOL, there are no ads like in the Windows versions, although I hope someone creates a 3rd party app that also incorporates Google Talk into it.

My main complaint with it is the lack of background processes. I enjoy talking to people through AIM and it'd be nice if I stayed online when I closed the app and even when i turn off the screen, so if someone IMs me, it notifies me as say an SMS message or an e-mail would, but alas it doesn't. Oh well, it is definitely a step in the right direction for Apple.

One nice little feature is the ability to easily create screenshots...

Update: From what I've been seeing, I'm glad I did this all last night, people seem to be having problems upgrading or for the new 3G customers, even ACTIVATING their new iPhones.

Why I Will be Sticking with my First Gen iPhone

Keith Wagner

While I initially debated upgrading my iPhone to the 3G model, I have since decided that it's just not worth it, for several reasons.

First, the new iPhone plans from AT&T now suck in comparison to the first gen iPhone plans. The voice plans remain the same from what I can see, but the data plan is now $10 more and does not include the 200 text messages like the old one did, so in order to get the "same plan" for the 3G iPhone, you'll be paying $15 extra a month. It may not seem like that much, but over the course of your 2 year contract, it adds up and even cancels out the cheaper price for the phone itself.

A second reason is that despite what others want to say, the battery life on the 3G model is noticeably worse than that with the original. The 3G drains the battery faster than does the EDGE network. Walt Mossberg has already reviewed it and said he barely got 4.5 hours out of it.

A third one is features. The 3G really only adds 2 new features. The first of course is the 3G network, and the 2nd is GPS. Yes the 3G network is faster than the EDGE network, but speed isn't everything. And GPS, on a phone, I could take it or leave it, especially since I would really only see it as useful for maybe driving, but i already have a car GPS system. Keep in mind that all the other features like the app store, etc are part of the 2.0 firmware which still will work just fine on the original models.

So while the 3G iPhone doesn't suck by any means, in fact it looks great, especially for someone who doesn't have an iPhone to begin with, for someone like me however; the new iPhone 3G doesn't pack enough of a punch to make me toss my current iPhone for the new model. Maybe in the future with newer iPhone models, but for now, I will be sticking with my current iPhone.

People are Assholes

Keith Wagner

So I just realized that some jerk-off stole 2 of my girlfriend's plants that were sitting on my porch for sunlight. OK...what asshole steals plants? What the fuck are you going to do with them? sell them? It's just sweet basil and parsley! News flash...They ain't worth much, so its not like you can freakin' resell them for much...if anything.

My girlfriend was proud of them, which is what causes me to be pissed off the most...that whatever douchebag decided it'd be fun to steal plants has in turn made my girlfriend upset, which means that I'm upset.

So to you Mr or Mrs Plant Thief...FUCK YOU!

Screw You Viacom

Keith Wagner

Many people already know my opinion on the current state of copyright laws here in America...they suck, they're outdated, and they cater too much to the copyright holders many times shafting the consumer like you would not believe. The latest item to piss me off was the recent decision by some technologically-impaired judge to order Google to release all logs from YouTube to Viacom. This is complete and utter bullshit. Viacom is currently suing Google over copyright violations on YouTube and initially wanted the source code of YouTube...are you freakin' kidding me? Source code, with the exception of open source, is the bread and butter of any software company...its often what gets the company their money. Fortunately the judge was no so tech-retarded to actually allow the source code to be given to Viacom, but in the meantime, something almost just as bad, if not maybe even worse came of it. All the logs from YouTube including what IP addresses/users watched, uploaded, etc. has been ordered to be given to Viacom from Google. The consumers...us...our activities will now be given to Viacom for them to look over. This could have some pretty big implications. Now I realize that while we all like to believe that on the internet we are anonymous, this is definitely by far, not the case, but for some half-witted judge to say that ALL users, EVERYONE, innocent or not to be given over for what may very well become a witch-hunt is in my opinion crossing way over the line. And this is what bugs me as it happens time and time again, judges, who are clueless about computers and technology, who probably know about as much about computers as my great-grandmother are benched for cases that are so technologically involved, you really do need someone who is familiar enough with technology to be able to properly preside over these cases...it's like me trying to run for President of the United States...I'm simply not qualified. And because of their ineptitude, which to be fair is not really their fault, bad decisions are made and poor precedents are set.

Now I do see where Viacom is coming from, they want to protect their copyrights which is understandable, but the methods they are using to do so, take it too far.

The RIAA and MPAA have long said that piracy has impacted their profits, but they convieniently leave out some details. Lets look at a music CD. Someone goes out and pirates it. The RIAA would say it lost a sale, and lost money because of that one person pirating it. But who's to say that that same person would've actually gone out and bought the CD had downloading it not been an option? With the prices of music CD's nowadays, it wouldn't be suprising to see people become very picky about what CD's would be good enough to buy if piracy were not an option. And if they wouldn't have bought the CD under normal circumstances, did the RIAA really lose a sale?

This brings me to my final point, piracy of anything, while I don't condone, can also help all industries I think, and here's how. Say that same person just pirated that CD and ended up having a little party. During that party, he/she plays that CD. Other people then start liking the CD as well and want to know what band it is...what just happened? I don't know about you, but I call that advertising. Other party guests who may never have heard of the band, the CD, or the song, have now heard it and may very well start to like it, enough to go out and buy the CD. So while the RIAA "lost" 1 sale, it may have gained several more. Now yes, these guests could just ask for a burned copy of it, but it still gets the band's name out there which I'm sure is what the RIAA wants, even though they will probably never admit to it.

And YouTube fits this perfectly, especially for someone like me who rarely even watches TV. Clips from TV shows, music videos, movie trailers, even if not uploaded officially, still get the content out there for people to see and essentially advertising for the copyright holder. Obviously if a full TV show episode or movie is uploaded, that would cross the line, but a 30 second clip, or a trailer for a movie? give me a break. It may be your [Viacom's] copyright, but it still gives you publicity. Oh yeah...and this whole suing Google/YouTube...Well Viacom, its also gives you a lot of publicity...only its not the good kind of publicity, its the bad kind, the kind that will make me and I'm sure many others despise you and avoid you when possible, and maybe even when not possible.

In the meantime, these two videos go back a little ways, back during the writer's strike, but they're a good way to leave off...

How Many People Will Actually Read This?

Keith Wagner

I've gotten very involved with the Mixx site of late, I find it to be a fun site with an amazing community. One thing that I have started to notice is that the occasional spam story gets on, which I actually think is partially good...but not in the way you're thinking. I'm thinking that maybe it shows that Mixx is starting to really make it into the spotlight which is something I would love to see happen.

the point I'm really trying to make is that I've been seeing a few of these stories make it to popular status. I'm sure some of the people who voted for them were spambots themselves, but I have seen some votes in the up direction from seemingly legitimate Mixxers (and Mixxers I have seen around for some time, but I won't name names, you know who you are). This by far should not be the case! I'm sure many others have touched on this, and I know they have, but blind voting does NOTHING to help the Mixx Community. Not to say you should abandon your friends or not vote up their submissions, but read, look at, or watch their submission, don't just vote it up, and especially don't blind vote other stories either. If the title says "how to get free poker chips in online poker", it's probably spam and should be voted down and reported. We all want better quality submissions, so don't just blind vote.

I mean I write this blog to get feedback, to share ideas, to hear other people's opinions, to learn new things, pretty much to make conversation. As much as I would love the votes, I would like feedback more.

I hate going on these rants, so I'm gonna stop now

Of Course

Keith Wagner

Of course...3 days away from vacation and I get sick...I sure as hell hope it goes away soon, preferably BEFORE Friday.

Why are There So Few Games for Linux

Keith Wagner

If I had to give one reason why I don't completely wipe out Windows on my desktop, I would have to say that reason is games. I am a gamer and there are still several PC games I enjoy playing.

These games are made for Windows and can't natively be run under Linux. WINE, which just released version 1.0 of its software to run Windows applications under Linux does a pretty good job at running many PC games, sadly though, it is not a full substitute for running the game on the Windows operating system. I know me personally have had mixed success with running games with WINE. Sometimes I get it working perfectly, other times it takes a little bit of work to configure to get it to even work, and there are other times where I can't get a game to work at all.

The real reason for this is that developers won't make games for Linux. It's not just a matter of making a different installer, its about programming for a different set of graphics libraries, and programming the game to run natively under a completely different system. And despite my wishes that more developers would choose to release Linux versions of their games, I can't say I don't understand their reasoning. Game companies are in the market to make money, like any business. To make more money, it only makes sense for them to make their games for the greater user base, which in this case, is Windows. Like it or not, Windows is still the operating system with the most market share, and it only makes sense for developers to target Windows for their games. Windows may be slowly declining in market share percentage, but its still at the top, and the logical platform for PC games.

Mac OS X has recently grown noticeably in computers sold and some game companies, like EA have taken notice and are starting to develop more for the OS X platform. This goes to show that if a platform becomes more noticeable in the spotlight, it could very well start being developed for.

The argument could always be placed "well game companies should make a version of the game for Linux, so us users aren't left out in the cold". And I think of that argument too, and wish that some developers would take the plunge and start developing for Linux. Some companies have. Unreal Tournament 2003 came with a Linux installer and ran natively, Penny Arcade's game also came with a Linux version. I would love to see big-name games come to Linux, I think that Linux is a great platform and would definitely pay for a game that would run natively on Linux. But again, until more market jumps on the Linux bandwagon, its not realistically profitable for game companies to use Linux as a platform.

There are a lot of pretty good games that do run natively on Linux, but not many of them are the big name titles that you see everyone talking about. To make an example, I've been playing Crysis, the first person shooter from EA and Crytek. This game is a good game with amazing graphics and some pretty good gameplay. It currently can only run on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Its support under WINE is shoddy, and even if you could get it working under WINE, the graphical aspects of it that make it what it is would be lost because WINE can't run it natively.

I'm honestly not trying to bash Wine, I love it and it does a great job with the majority of applications and games, but for those games it doesn't run or just half-runs, there really is no alternative to Windows at the moment. We can only hope Wine improves and/or developers take more notice to Linux. If I can get most of my games to run under Linux, I would be love to be able to wipe Windows off my desktop and just go with a pure Linux system.

What do you think?

Well then

Keith Wagner

Well I finally just beat GTA IV...what's next? Metal Gear Solid 4 or Mass Effect?

Sorry

Keith Wagner

Sorry I haven't been updating as much as I normally do, I've been preoccupied both with work and with a new project I've been working on. I'm not going to say too much on it, but it is a new website geared for social media. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it, but so far its been a lot of fun and its starting to turn out really well and I'm excited with where its going. I'll keep you posted with any details I feel like releasing.

I've been toying with the idea of starting a small podcast, maybe updated every week or every other week that may turn out to be more of a video blog, so once I see what's involved with that, I'll take the next steps in seeing how I can make that idea a reality.

For any social media people out there who like Twitter, Plurk has just jumped on the scene and so far it's looking pretty nice, time will tell how well it does, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing its API come out. If I can make myself some time, I'll definitely see about taking a stab at it and possibly creating my own app, not sure what platform I'd use though.

As many of you are aware, Apple's WWDC keynote was Monday and I have some thoughts on that I'll probably post either tonight or later this week.

There are totally not enough hours in a day.

Also, if any registerred user tried to comment on something, I apologize. There was a bug in the system, but its fixed now.

Computer User FAIL

Keith Wagner

Look closely at the product this review is for: Ubuntu 7.04

It is Articles Like This That Slow Linux

Keith Wagner

I was recently reading this artcle [lockergnome.org] and this article really annoyed me as I am a rather large supporter or open source, free software, and of course Linux. Linux is still of course behind Windows and OS X, but over the past couple years, it has truly become a viable operating system for the desktop and even the laptop.

My main complaint about this is that it's filled with all these half-truths.

It first starts off complaining about application compatibility with Linux. The truth of the matter is that many applications have a very good open-source alternative. And if you ABSOLUTELY need to run a Windows-only piece of software, wine does a decent job of running most pieces of software. Yes, there are some truths in compatibility problems, but the author of this article over-exaggerates the problems to the point where he makes it sound like EVERY piece of software can't be run under wine. I would've really chewed him a new hole if he complained about Microsoft Office not working on wine with OpenOffice gaining stock value in my eyes.

The second thing he complains about is the command line. Yes, Linux is still heavily based on the command line, but at the same time, more and more tasks can be easily done without even opening a terminal. GUIs and point and click functionality has been increasing in Linux distros to make configuration tasks simpler for the novice user to understand and use, and for the more advanced user, the terminal actions aren't removed, just hidden underneath the surface.

He talks about hardware support and lack of official vendor Linux drivers. Hello? Linux has such a great community that many produce great drivers for multitudes of old and new hardware that may very well end up being better than anything the companies could produce themselves. I myself have had very few hardware problems on any of my computers running Linux, most of the time, all hardware was found and installed just fine under Linux.

DRM. One word that pisses off many upon many a tech user. Yes, sometimes Linux has problems reading DRM'ed content, but so do Windows and even OS X. Problems with DRM are the root of an inherent flaw associated with DRM, and one of several reasons why I hate DRM. Saying Linux doesn't work with DRM is like saying Windows Vista doesn't work with my Pentium 2 processor, its absurd because DRM may not work period, with ANY operating system.

He complains about the saying "Ubuntu just works". I can partially agree with him on this one as Ubuntu may or may not work out of the box. But I will say that he again overexaggerated his point. With the exception of my latest desktop, EVERY computer I've tried to install Ubuntu on has worked right out of the box, with the only thing needing to be done is to install the official nVidia drivers which just took a couple mouse clicks. In fact, Ubuntu recognized all my hardware, whereas Windows XP and Vista needed at least a half-dozen drivers to be installed separately. I was even able to get Ubuntu running on my old Dell Inspiron 4000, wireless and all. My latest desktop does show that sometimes there are hiccups, but at the same time, all problems I had with it were solved with Ubuntu 8.04.

Making the switch to Linux is not something that one can expect to do in an hour, but it does not take months to set up either. In maybe a couple of days, I think even a new user could learn his way around. I would reccommend it to anyone, but at the same time, pushing it on someone is not the best way to spread Linux. If you do want to help someone switch to Linux, make sure you help them as best you can, but also let them do things on their own, that's how people learn, from hands on learning and experimenting.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to bash Microsoft or any other operating system for that matter, I just think that articles that spread these half-truths aren't helping anyone or anything.

Nibbler

Keith Wagner

Just a short video of Nibbler going after a drawstring on my shorts.

The Phoenix Has Landed

Keith Wagner

NASA's scientists can finally rest easy as the Mars Phoenix Lander has landed successfully on Mars. Even in today's world, landing something on a distant planet isn't easy, and statistically, 55% of Mars missions have ended in failure. Now this is not to overshadow the successes both NASA and other space agencies have had over the years, with the most notable mission probably being the Viking missions and the current Spirit and Opportunity Rovers. The Phoenix Lander is the first to land near Mars polar icecaps and its mission is to drill into the surface to look for signs of life, both past and present. Hopefully the initial success will carry over to a full successful mission.

Busy Life I Have

Keith Wagner

It's been a busy week for me, busy with work and doing internationalization support. It's challenging, although a little annoying that every solution continues to breed new problems, although things are looking much better now, so hopefully that will maybe speed things up a little come next week.

I had a barbeque tonight, burgers came out well, but I got a lot left over...cheeseburgers all week!

I think one of my projects for tomorrow and Monday is going to be a SLIGHT overhaul of my server. I think I'm going to switch over to Ubuntu 8.04 64 bit. I've had good experiences with 64 bit Linux, unfortunately there were a few applications that gave me issues under 64 bit, most notably, flash. Well since its my server, that is a non-issue as I don't need flash to work as I'm not using it to watch the latest YouTube videos, I'm simply just using it to host files, and serve as a web and database server amongst other things. Such is the beauty of Linux, all my data will be safe as I just need to go over the system drive. Yes Windows can do it too, but I always found it to be simpler under Linux.

So far I like where my new project is going, not gonna say much more than that, but when its closer to being finished, I think it will be pretty nice.

Happy Day of the Jedi!

BluRay Players

Keith Wagner

So I was in Walmart the other day picking up a few things, and I happen to pass by the electronics department. I glance over and see a Blu-Ray DVD player priced at $900. I didn't think anything of it until I got home. I'm wondering why Blu-Ray players are still so expensive even now that Blu-Ray defeated HD DVD in the high definition DVD war. What makes this even more curious is the price of Sony's PlayStation 3. You can go out to the store now and get a 40GB PlayStation 3 for $399.99. The PS3 is Sony's next generation game system but it also acts as a Blu-Ray DVD player, and a good one at that. It plays Blu-Ray and does a pretty good job upscaling regular DVDs as well. I'm just curious what makes standalone Blu-Ray players cost more than the PS3. The PS3 is an advanced game console with more hardware, and more expensive hardware than a simple Blu-Ray player would need. And unlike some players, the PS3 can use firmware updates to allow the everchanging Blu-Ray spec to be fully compatible and playable on the PS3, something that is definitely something to think about with the semi-regular updates to Blu-Ray.

So far I can really only think of one reason for this significant price difference: Sony's need to keep the price of their game console more in line with that of the XBOX 360 and the Wii. And $900 would probably alienate a chunk of their PlayStation base. So they bring the price of the PS3 down but keep the other Blu-Ray players up in price to help their bottom line.

So in other words, if you want to get a Blu-Ray player, even if you're not a gamer, the PS3 might be the better option unless of course you have the money to spend or you can wait for the prices to inevitably go down (whenever that may be).

Zero Punctuation Takes on GTA IV

Keith Wagner

As predicted, Zero Punctuation reviewed GTA IV. The game that I've been hooked on for 2 weeks actually seemed to survive with only some minor scathes compared to other games that he tore to bits.

Operating System Coexistence

Keith Wagner

So many people can get caught up in the operating system war that they may forget that multiple operating systems can coexist side by side. Many times people are so pro-Windows, or so pro-Linux, or even pro-Mac that they believe that their operating system has to be the end-all winner in the computer world.

Ubuntu just 2 weeks ago released their first version of 2008, Ubuntu 8.04 keyed Hardy Heron. I now have it installed as the primary and only operating system on my file server and have it set up for dual booting on my desktop along with Windows Vista. So far I have nothing but kind words to say about it as it has run very smoothly for me. In fact, it's the first version of Ubuntu that installed properly and just worked on my new Desktop hardware that I got back in December for Christmas.

My server since switching over to Linux from Windows has only ever really used Ubuntu starting out with 6.06 and then 7.10 and now 8.04. For me, it is stable, efficient, fast, and properly integrates with my entire home network pretty much flawlessly. It is the only operating system to date that I've worked with that can reach 30 days of uptime without a restart and still work without hiccups. I've even got it up to 100 days before and it probably would've lasted longer had my hard drive not died and my need to get into the box. And now that whatever issue my desktop was having with Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, has been fixed in 8.04 so it now "just works" on my desktop too. In fact, as I've said earlier, if it wasn't for games, I'd be booted into Linux a lot more than I am now.

This gets me to my point, Ubuntu, whether you like it or not has catapaulted Linux into somewhat of a mainstream operating system. Yes, it will probably never get ahead of Windows, and with how Mac OS X is growing, it will probably stay behind Apple as well, but does it really matter what percentage of the market share Linux gets?

Open source advocates and the Linux fanboys would say that it does, they tend to want Linux to win completely. They want to see Microsoft pretty much rot in hell. They end up so caught up in things that they fail to see that both Windows and Linux can coexist. And what would these fanboys say to those who want to play the latest and greatest computer games? Yes there is Cedega and Wine, both of which can do pretty decent jobs at running a lot of Windows games, but not all. And to get some of them to work can require a significant amount of tweaking and careful configuration that some users may not have time to do, or simply may not be saavy enough to do.

While I would love to see Linux gain market share, I realize at the same time, that at this point in the game, Linux can be very tricky for many to use. Yes, Ubuntu makes the setup and installation quite simple that a lot of people could have success in doing it, but what about trickier issues that may arise? For the most part, I have had a good deal of success with driver support out of the box for my hardware, but what about those that may have some hardware that doesn't have proper driver support? The "easy" to set up, just got a lot trickier, even on Ubuntu. Sure, the Linux gurus and even those with only moderate experience would probably be able to solve those issues, but what about the "even you mother could use it" crowd? And this is where Linux still has its pitfalls, on the surface, Ubuntu is very easy and very smooth, and a lot of people may never have to get into the nitty gritty of the operating system. Even most configuration will work fine using the GUIs that now exist. But not everything goes that smoothly which is what can make Linux tricky.

Ubuntu and Linux in general need to be able to improve upon its base and allow for those trickier situations to be handled in a more "ease-of-use" manner so that more of the general users can figure it out. Linux has a good group of followers and many I've found when going to message boards and forums for support to be very friendly and helpful to help me solve the problem, but not everyone wants to have to go there because a lot of solutions can require some heavy terminal useage that may scare the non-geek crowd.

In the end, as much as I hate to say it, Linux is not for everyone, at least not yet. It is becoming a better alternative to Windows than it was say 5 years ago, but it is still not completely ready for mainstream useage yet. Us Linux fans can only hope that it steadily improves, where maybe one day, it will truly become a viable alternative to the ever-prominent Windows operating system.

The Windows Dilemma

Keith Wagner

VS

By now, I'm sure you're all aware that Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system is taking the world with a lot of criticism, and with Windows XP's end of life fast approaching at the end of June, many people may very well be in a dilemma on what to do.

First things first, Windows XP's end of life is June 30, 2008, less than 2 months away. What this means is that vendors are no longer supposed to sell Windows XP either standalone versions, or bundled OEM versions. Although there are a few exceptions to this, namely the budget laptops, but for all intents and purposes, the June 30^th date holds. Windows XP, compared to Vista requires far less system requirements to run so older computers normally will have no problem running the XP operating system. This in itself is what leads to the dilemma. People with older machines may want to upgrade their computer and may not want to spend the extra money for a computer that can truly handle the lofty Vista requirements. This can be particularly problematic for the current high school seniors who are heading out to college in August and September who will be buying new computers. Do you buy the computer now so you can get XP with it, do you suck it up and just deal with Vista on a computer that may not be truly able to handle it, or do you buy a standalone copy of XP and just wipe the Vista install on the new computer. None of the options are incredibly pretty. A lot of computer companies have deals late July and early August for the "going away to college" crowd which can save a fair amount of money, but this would be after the June 30th cut-off. Buying the computer now, should still allow for the purchasing of a computer with XP, but the price savings wouldn't be there. And of course buying XP now and installing it later on the new computer bundled with Vista would probably negate most of the savings since you'd pretty much be buying 2 operating systems and only using the one.

Despite all my criticisms of Vista, I have since installed it on my desktop and I don't hate it as much as I used to, especially after turning off the damned UAC. Vista for me has been running smoothly, some of the new UI features are actually pretty nice, but my desktop computer is for all intents and purposes, different from the norm. My desktop is not the run-of the-mill basic computer, it is relatively powerful and rates a 5.6 on Vista's hardware rating. Most basic laptops and desktops you would buy from companies like Dell are not specced nearly has high as my Desktop so they wouldn't be able to run Vista nearly as well as I can. And this is where my criticism of Vista really is rooted. Vista's system requirements are too high for an operating system. XP has a relatively good balance between minimum requirements and the computers capable of running it (at least as far as Windows goes). And it's because of this that consumers might find it tricky to figure out what they want to do about future desktop purchases and if they want to give Vista a shot or not.

A few things to note are that Windows XP SP3 support continues til 2014 so software updates will still be available to you after June 30, 2008. Another note is that Dell has mentioned that they plan to continue to sell XP even after the end of life date passes. Whether this means that Microsoft may again extend the June 30 cut-off or if Microsoft will put a stop to Dell's plans remains uncertain.

Of course Windows XP and Vista are not the only choices people have for new computers. Apple computers are growing in popularity and rightfully so. Macs have become solid machines of late and their OS X operating system is definitely a good alternative to Windows, and something I would personally reccommend. Another choice of course is Linux, particularly Ubuntu which in my opinion is a friendly Linux Distribution for someone new. In fact, Dell actually sells machines pre-installed with Ubuntu. You can check out these hints if you're trying to get someone to switch over to Linux.

A Spacecraft that Could Save NASA millions

Keith Wagner

This could be one of the biggest and best opportunities NASA has had in recent years. A team of engineers have been able to build and design a small test spacecraft based on a modular design. This spacecraft could eventually be used to land on the Moon, Mars, or just orbit Earth. What make it so notable is its modular design. Instead of having to build 5 different spacecraft for 5 different missions, NASA could use this spacecraft for all 5 missions by just outfitting it with the equipment needed for the particular mission, in the end saving NASA significant development time and budget resources. William Marshall, one of the team members working on the project had this to say:

This spacecraft will allow NASA to launch more missions, for less money. In the 1960's landing on the Moon took a team of thousands of people. Today that same task can be done with 30.

With how strapped NASA is for money nowadays, any idea, prototype, or possibility that could save NASA money would be welcomed and this design is definitely good for that goal.

Exclusive Video: Meet the Spacecraft That Could Save NASA a Fortune [wired.com]

Grand Theft Auto IV and Other Things

Keith Wagner

Despite my initial skepticism on GTA IV, that's pretty much all I've been playing over the past week. Grand Theft Auto IV is a lot of fun and is notably better than the previous iterations even though I can't wholly put my finger on why. The open world part is fun, and the story so far is done pretty well. And let us not forget the multiplayer. So if you ever see me on, feel free to join up or invite me to play some multiplayer. I will say the game is very addicting.

I finally was able to get my music collection of my dead hard drive so I was definitely happy about that. The thought of losing the collection I've built up over the last 5 years was definitely scary so I'm glad I now have a backup solution in place as well as my now 1.6TB worth of space on my server. All I now need to do with my server is populate my SVN trees.

I'm thinking I should have gotten NASA to recover my data. After what they did with the one hard drive on board Columbia, they should be able to get data off anything.

New Plan

Keith Wagner

Well so far, I have been unsuccessful in retrieving anything off my dead drive, but I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve. But sadly, the tricks are slowly running out so I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of losing everything. Keeping hope though.

I've pretty much decided what I'm doing in the aftermath of my hard drive failure. Without my 400GB drive, my server is almost at its storage limit so I'll need to get a replacement. I plan on picking up a 1TB SATA hard drive and dumping that into my server. I'll be doing some moving of data around to allow for better room alotments, and since Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04) comes out in a couple days, I'll reformat the root partition and bring my server back online.

Anyway, wish me luck

Learn From Me and Backup Your Data

Keith Wagner

I write this in hopes that anyone who reads this learns from my shortsightedness. Saturday I went and started up iTunes on my desktop to listen to some music. Well, my network share was unavailable. I figured that samba on my server just needed to be restarted. I restarted Samba, no luck. I look at the uptime, 91 days...I figure maybe my server just needs the rare restart. To make a long story short, the 400GB hard drive that stores my server uploads, music, and documents just went to shit. Bad sector somewhere and I couldn't read anything off the hard drive. Immediately I went out and got a 500GB external hard drive to use for backup. I thought great, now I can backup my music and other important stuff, as well as use it for Time Machine on my Macbook Pro. I manage to get into the hard drive, but am still unable to successfully do much more than that. I now have the hard drive in an enclosure connected to my Mac in hopes of repairing it with fsck but so far it's been unsuccessful.

I'm hoping and praying that I can get it working just long enough to transfer the data, but so far it looks bleak. If this is unsuccessful, I might try the freezer trick, but we shall see. I'm crossing my fingers.

On a side note, I like Time Machine, I just have one comment on it. Time Machine will back up everything on your drive except that which you choose to exclude. Personally, I don't care if Time Machine backs up my system files as I can always just reformat in the rare situation that I have to reformat. What I wish it did was only back up the folders you set it to, rather than backup everything that you don't exclude. Oh well though, seems to be a nice tool either way.

So my final point that I want to make is just this. If you value your data, find a way to back it up. Be it the periodic burn to DVD/CD or whether it be to an external hard drive. Whatever your method or choice of methods, just do it, you'll thank yourself later.

The NBC and iTunes Battle Rages On

Keith Wagner

As many of you are aware, I despise Digital Rights Management (DRM), I think it is wrong and believe that we should be able to do with as we please with what we purchase. I was reading an article on Ars Technica today about the NBC-Apple breakup that occurred last August. Apparently NBC wants to be able to put its content back on the iTunes store but wants full control on pricing as well as full control on its shows DRM.

Currently, it seems Apple takes a somewhat lax DRM scheme. I was just made aware of this today, and despite my distaste for DRM, I actually don't hate Apple's policy so much anymore. For those of you that aren't aware, Apple allows you to authorize up to 5 computers to play your DRMed music, movies, and TV shows. This means that anything you download can be played on those 5 machines, which is probably perfect for families and even roommates. To add to this, unlimited iPods and iPhones synched to those 5 machines. I was unaware of this and thought that you can only play the DRMed content on one machine and one iPod. As much as I hate saying it, I actually do approve of this scheme.

What NBC wants however I believe is unacceptable, and beyond reasonable. NBC wants any and all of their shows to not be allowed to be transferred to any mobile device like the iPod, and it looks like NBC doesn't even want you to be able to watch it offline. This is where my hatred to DRM comes from. If i were to buy an NBC show off iTunes, I would expect to be able to transfer it to my iPod. I paid for the show, I should be fully able to transfer it to my iPod to take with me on the road. To me, it's this mindset that hurts the consumers. I can understand companies wanting to make sure that people don't pay for a TV show or song and then give it away to all their friends, but to balk at people transferring the TV show to their iPod is complete and utter crap.

With the way NBC is trying to push Apple, I can now understand more why the writers strike occurred. Companies like NBC are trying to make an extra buck at the expense of the customers, and probably the writers as well, and without writers, the TV shows we have come to love are worthless.

I'm really hoping that Apple does not acquiesce to NBC's stipulations. Apple in my opinion has a better DRM system than most and the pricing of $1.99 for TV episodes is a pretty good deal without ripping off what makes the company their money, the consumers like you and me.

Social Musings and Blind Voting

Keith Wagner

I've noticed that a lot of times, in Social Media sites like Digg, Mixx, and the like, that a lot of stories that get votes, not so much on their merit, but simply because the poster's friends blind voted them. I believe I've seen it happen to my postings, and I would wager I'm not alone in the category.

Bloggers like me write about our thoughts and feelings on a wide variety of topics, and while I can't speak for others, I also write about things to hear other people's thoughts on the matter at hand. I have my opinions, but at the same time, I like hearing other people's thoughts to possibly get a better understanding of things, or even receive something that makes me completely rethink my stance. I may hold one opinion or thought, but most of the time, I'm not so closed minded that I'd be unwilling to rethink my position. It's happened before, and I'm sure it will happen again.

I mean for me, it's not so much about the traffic to my site, as it is the conversation. While traffic is nice, I'd rather open up dialogue on my thoughts and musings, or compare and contrast ideas and opinions. I know I always like to see comments about my postings, be them from my site or other sites. And in terms of my site, I don't really care whether comments are posted on sites like Mixx, or on my site itself. Either way, I get what I want, other's thoughts and opinions.

In voting sites like Mixx, everyone wants to see their posts voted up, but for me anyway, I'd rather have the dialogue. Blind voting probably won't go away, but just take a minute to look at what you're voting. So what do you think about blind voting when it comes to social media?

What Constitutes a Fanboy?

Keith Wagner

Some of those that know me could possibly call me a fanboy of both Apple, Linux, or the XBOX (yes, I know the last one is almost a contradiction in terms since its made by Microsoft and I tend to favor Microsoft's competition over its Windows OS). I however take a different stand. I don't consider myself a fanboy of Apple, Linux, or XBOX. Yes, I love my Mac, my iPod, my iPhone, my Linux server, and my XBOX 360, but does preferring one platform over another really make you a fanboy?

So this leads me to my question: What exactly constitutes a fanboy?

I've heard some people say that if you prefer company A's product over company B's, then you are a Company A fanboy. I don't believe this is true. To be a fanboy in my opinion, you must love a product so much that you will jump on any opportunity to badmouth any competition, ignoring anything that the competition might actually be doing better than your product. Fanboys tend to be relatively close-minded on issues surrounding whatever it is that their product or company is involved in. We'll take the gaming consoles for the example. A Microsoft XBOX fanboy would be so into the XBOX that he would be blind and try to find a negative spin on anything that Sony or Nintendo might come out with for the PS3 or Wii, even if what Nintendo or Sony does is better than how Microsoft happens to do it for the 360.

I'll say it first, being ignorant goes nowhere, and fanboism is no exception. Take me for example, I much prefer OS X over Windows, hands down, no second guessing with pretty much no competition. Do I hate Windows? Do I hate Microsoft? No, I don't. I don't like some of the things Microsoft does, I don't like some of the ways Windows does what it does, but that doesn't mean I hate them. And even though I love OS X, I still dislike some of Apple's practices. And this is pretty much the core reason why I don't consider myself a fanboy. I recognize Windows strengths, despite my fondness towards both of it's competitors, OS X and Linux. And the same goes towards Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii compared to my preferred console, the XBOX 360. In the end competition is what drives markets, and operating systems and gaming consoles are no exception. Without competition, there would be less motivation for companies to improve upon their product lines. Can you imagine still working on machines with Windows 98 if Linux or Mac weren't around and Microsoft was less motivated to come up with something new? I'm sure that's an extreme situation that probably wouldn't have happened, but competition drives innovation and innovation leads to improvements. So the next time you immediately want to bash a competing site, product, or company, look at it and see what it is all about. Don't just jump to conclusions and bash it blindly. It may be competing with your sacred product, but it may have its own strengths, and in a roundabout way, may very well lead to improvements for your side of the fence.

One Month Later

Keith Wagner

It's been one month since my Grandfather passed away, and since, I am always thinking about him. He was a great person and will always be missed.

For those of you who still have your grandparents, or any family for that matter, remember that we only have so much time on this Earth: make sure to let them know how much they mean to you.

Balloons

Keith Wagner

So it was a co-worker's birthday today so I figured I'd give her something to smile about. I bought balloons and covered her floor in them. Sadly I couldn't fill her cubicle up as I wanted to do due to logistics problems in getting the balloons into the office as bags could only fit so much let alone my car itself. Either way, it was successful, but not as "big" as I was hoping for or wanted. Anyway, happy birthday Lauren!

Cat Found

Keith Wagner

What's wrong with this?

Come On

Keith Wagner

Did you really think that Microsoft would release Office for Linux?

April Fools!

Microsoft Announces Office for Linux

Keith Wagner

Microsoft today just announced that they will be releasing their latest version of Office for Linux operating systems. Microsoft, probably scared about OpenOffice's rise in popularity among open source advocates decided it was in their best interest to release a version that could run on Linux and presumably BSD. Microsoft is labeling this version of Office "Microsoft Office 2008 Linux Edition". It will have most of the features that Office 2007 and the OS X version, Office 2008 including the ability to read and write the .docx format. Also included is Outlook so Linux users will be able to easily connect to Microsoft Exchange servers.

Microsoft Developer Lirpa Sloof, the lead developer in the move to a Linux version of Office was elated that he could be such a big part of the project.

Despite the fact that I work for Microsoft, and do like the Windows environment, I still like where open source software is heading nowadays and now I'll be able to use Microsoft Office on my Ubuntu Desktop as well.

While there is no definitive pricing information, an insider source has said that Office 2008 Linux Edition will cost $75. Will this be enough to convert people from OpenOffice?

Read about it here.

Setting Up a Home File Server Part 2

Keith Wagner

Last week I showed you how to set up a home file server using Ubuntu Linux, this week I'll show you how to do the same thing only this time using Microsoft Windows XP.

The first thing you need is to make sure that your system has the minimum system requirements to run XP. They aren't nearly as high as Vista's so you should be okay.

Processor: 300MHz AMD/Intel
Memory: 128MB
Hard Drive: 1.5GB space

Those of course are the minimum requirements, personally I would reccommend the following

Processor: 600MHz AMD/Intel
Memory: 256MB
Hard Drive: 100GB (same as I recommended for Ubuntu for system and storage space)

The first thing to do of course would be to install Windows XP, so put your XP disc into the drive and turn on your PC. After it gets past the BIOS, it should prompt you to press a key to enter setup. So press a key and enter setup.

**Note: If it doesn't prompt you, it probably means its trying to boot off the hard drive first, in which case you need to go into the BIOS and change the boot order. See your motherboard or PC instructions for how to do that on your individual machine.

So go on through the setup and follow the prompts. When it gets to the hard drive partitioning and where to install Windows, set aside 10-20GB for the Windows partition leaving the rest for data storage, we'll set that up later. For the rest of the setup, just follow the prompts as they're presented to you. Make sure to note what you named your computer.

Ok, I'm now going to assume you completed the setup and are now looking at your Windows Desktop. The first thing you're going to want to do is install Anti-Virus software. If you have your own, go ahead and use that, otherwise feel free to try out ClamWin, its free and pretty good. Make sure to get the latest virus definitions. The next thing to do is to install all of the updates for XP. You can just go to Microsoft Update to do that. Make sure to go there several times and restarts later to make sure you have all the updates. (yes it's annoying but sadly unavoidable)

I'll now assume your computer now has antivirus installed and all the latest updates so we're ready to go. If you right click on My Computer and click Manage, the computer management window pops up.

Click on Disk Management towards the bottom. You'll be presented with the disk management tool.

You should see your C partition and next to it you should see unpartitioned space. (it won't look just like mine so don't worry) You want to right click it and select Format. Create a partition on it taking up all the free space. The partition should be Primary NTFS partition. Let it do its thing and when its done, you should have a new drive letter for the partition.

Ok, now that your data storage partition is all set up, open up My Computer. In the Tools menu at the top, select Folder Options. In the View tab, scroll all the way to the bottom and uncheck Use Simple Sharing. Apply your changes and close the box.

Now go into your data partition and create the folder structure you want to set up. Once you have all the folders created, right click on the folders you want to share and click on Sharing and Security.

Give your share a name. You can give it a comment too if you want, but its not required. Next thing to do is to click the Permissions button.

You can leave Everyone there if you want, just make sure to only give read access. Otherwise just click Everyone and then click Remove. Now you need to add your user. First, click the Add button.

Type in your username and then click OK. Now we want to give your user the ability to write to the share. If you don't need or want this, ignore the following step. Click on your username and click the checkbox Full Control. All the boxes should then be checked under the Allow column, so hit Apply and then OK. Repeat the steps on any other shares you want to make, just make sure you note the share names.

OK, your server is pretty much all set up, all you now need to do is map them on your normal machine. From last week here's the set of instructions.

In windows, go to Start - Run and type in:

\\servername\share

Where servername is the computer's name, which you set during the install process. So for my photo share if I named my server "Darker" then I would enter:

\\darker\photos

This should then ask you for a username and password (the one you set up using the smbpasswd command earlier), or if your windows username and password are the same as the samba username and password you set, then it should just bring up an explorer window with your share. In Windows, you have the option of mapping shares to drives so a share would be given an actual drive letter like a hard drive and DVD drive are given. To do this, right click on My Computer and select 'Map Network Drive'. The following dialog box should come up.

The first field will let you choose which drive letter to assign it to, it doesn't matter so pick one. (it won't let you choose one that's already in use). The second field is where you type in your share name, which we went over in the last paragraph. The final checkbox determines whether the share should connect every time you log in. Since I'm going to assume that you want to be able to access the share all the time, you can just leave it checked. Just click 'Finish'. If it asks for a username and password, then enter it, otherwise it should pop up an explorer window showing the contents of the share.

So there you have it, you now have your very own file server to host your files on. While this may sound obvious to some, in order for people to be able to access the shares you create, you must keep the server turned on.

Again, if you have any questions, comments, need clarification, or have an alternative method, feel free to let me know.

Comcast Backs off Bittorrent

Keith Wagner

Comcast has been in the news lately for their questionable practice of throttling Bittorrent traffic across its network. Apparently they have changed their mind and seem to be planning to stop targeting the popular Peer to Peer service. While they are probably doing this begrudgingly, the latest rounds of FCC hearings and pressure likely have something to do with their decision.

For those of you who may be unaware of this, Bittorrent is a popular P2P client that allows users to download large files from the Internet. While it has many uses and is popular among open source software as a means of distribution, it is also popular among software, music, and movie pirates as well which has earned it some scorn from groups such as the RIAA and MPAA. Comcast has been throttling and interfering with bittorrent traffic, causing net neutrality advocates as well as many tech users to grow upset with Comcast's tactics. A little while back, the FCC held hearings on what Comcast was doing to look into further actions. Comcast was caught paying people to show up and take up seats to prevent Comcast opponents from participating in the hearings.

This decision, while good news for those against internet filters and traffic managing, may be too good to be true as Comcast still appears to be working on new methods to manage network traffic, so we shall see what fully comes of this.

Personally, I don't believe in internet filtering and disapproved with Comcast's tactics for a while. I feel that people should be able to access what they want without having to worry about their ISP blocking them (at work is a different story, but thats not an ISP). I have recently switched to Verizon FiOS and couldn't be happier.

Comcast Backs Off BitTorrent, will Continue to Manage Internet Traffic [engadget.com]

Whew, NASA Rovers Live On

Keith Wagner

Reports saying NASA was going to leave Mars Rover Spirit to die due to budget cuts and Opportunity to have decreased exploration tasks have thankfully been disproved or rescinded making scientists and space enthusiasts breathing a sigh of relief. NASA, having to now deal with a $4 million budget cut supposedly was planning on scuddling Spirit, but according to a press release, NASA has changed their minds and are now saying that both rovers will continue to be used with no plans to turn either one off.

For those of you that aren't aware, NASA has two twin rovers on Mars, Spirit and Opportunity. Both were origanlly slated for 90 day missions, both rovers are still functional with over 1400 days on the surface. The pictures and data they continue to send back are simply amazing and are of tremendous value to scientists on Earth seeking to discover more about our closest neighbor.

Cars Machine Guns and Rocket Launchers Equals FUN

Keith Wagner

I found this video online, hilarity ensues...

What happens when you exchange clay pigeons with cars, and shotguns with rocket launchers and machine guns.

My New Cuckoo Clock

Keith Wagner

When I was a little kid, whenever I was at my Grandmom and Grandpop's house, there was always one thing I wanted to see. It was my Grandparent's Cuckoo Clock. I was mesmerized by it, I had to see it almost every hour to hear the little bird cuckoo and hear the music box play and the little figurines dance around. Well sadly, my Grandfather passed away March 9, 2008 which hit my family somewhat hard. He was a great man and will be missed by all. His cuckoo clock, I almost consider a family heirloom, although it's probably not, lives on, now in my possession. Not to sound like I'm benefitting from the dead, because I certainly, with all my heart wish he was still alive, but it will be one more thing for me to look at and remember him by. Every time I hear the cuckoo and the music, I'll be able to think of him. And its not that I need to hear it to remember him, heck there is so much that reminds me of him, and of my Grandmom as well. It's just one more thing to help me realize that while he may have gone to a better place, his spirit, and my Grandmom's spirit for that matter too, are still here with me.

(Click for larger)

Rumors: Windows XP SP3 This Week

Keith Wagner

Rumor has it that Windows XP SP3 will be getting released this week. For all of those who prefer sticking with Windows XP over the blighted Windows Vista, keep your eyes out for the last service pack on Microsoft Update.

Engadget is however reporting that there might be a show-stopping stability problem in SP3 which could prevent its rollout. In any case, keep your eyes peeled for its release should it get rolled out anyway. This does lead to the question, "should you upgrade to SP3 right away?" The choice is yours but with this reported issue, it might be wise to wait a couple days to see if any major problems are being commonly reported.

Windows XP's end of life is fast approaching, with sales slated to end this June. Service Pack 3 is set to be the last major service pack for the still popular XP Operating System.

Update: It looks like SP3 is now being prepared for release next month, so an update this week seems unlikely, although SP3 Release Candidate 2 is now available for the public so if you're brave enough you can get Microsoft Update to install it.

Setting Up a Home File Server Part 1

Keith Wagner

Computers are starting to get cheaper nowadays and many people are upgrading, and getting new computers leaving them with older desktops that either are just thrown out or left sitting around collecting dust. One use for these computers is to run as a home server for the family or the individual. Servers don't need to have the latest hardware so that makes the older computers the perfect candidate to be turned into a server. Servers have a whole range of possible functionalities, the most popular for home use being a file server where all can share their files in a central location. All a server really needs is some hard drive space and a network card (along with functional components, but for this, I'll assume that the computer works). I would recommend at least 100GB of hard drive space, the more, the better, but 100GB should do for starters.

The first choice is what operating system will it run. If you're more comfortable with Windows and the desktop will run XP, you can go with that. The other choice is Linux, which as I've stated before has become significantly more easy to use, and in my opinion Ubuntu is the perfect candidate for this. Linux does have a slight learning curve, but its nothing that can't be overcome with some time and effort, so if you're willing to try it, Linux makes a perfect candidate to run as a server. I chose Ubuntu to set as the Linux distribution for this tutorial. Windows 2000 can also be used, but I would strongly recommend Ubuntu over Windows 2000. And if you're worried that if you host a file server under Linux, Windows and OS X won't recognize it, worry no longer, the shares will be accessible for all operating systems.

Ubuntu Linux 7.10

Ubuntu Linux 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon is Ubuntu's latest version of their popular Linux Distribution and it's a pretty good one. The first thing you want to do is go to http://www.ubuntu.com and download the i386 desktop CD. I'd say the server version but I want to gear this tutorial to a basic user so it'd be a help for them to have a graphical desktop to help them out. Once you finish downloading the .iso file, burn the image to a CD using your CD burning software such as Nero or Roxio.

Okay, now you have your CD burned so insert it into your CD drive and boot your computer up from the CD. At the initial menu, choose the option to Install Ubuntu. This will actually start Ubuntu as a live CD which means that you will be able to see basically how your system will look when its all finished. Keep in mind though that any changes you make won't be saved at this time. When you're ready, you should see an icon on the left of your desktop that says "Install". Double click on that to bring up the installer. Follow the prompts and choose the selections until you get to the partitioning menu. Make sure to note what you named the computer in the Hostname field.

I don't have any real way to actually get screen shots for you easily so here's a link that will help with the entire setup, including partitioning. http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing

My personal recommendation is that you set aside double the amount of RAM you have (so if you have 512MB of RAM, use 1GB) for your swap partition, give 10-20GB for the root (/) partition and then use the rest for data storage. You have to choose a name for the mount point which must begin with the forward slash (/). I mount my drives as '/data1', '/data2', etc but you can choose whatever names you'd like. The swap partition should be formatted as 'swap' and the others are probably best formatted as 'ext3'. After this just follow the prompts and let the system install.

Ok, I'm now going to assume that the system is all installed, you rebooted and are now looking at your brand new Ubuntu desktop. The first thing you're going to want to do is to get the file share tool up and running. To do this, open up your terminal and type in the following

sudo apt-get install samba smbfs

It's going to prompt you for your password. That command will download and install Samba and the Samba file system. The next thing you will need to do is set up the shares. Now is the time when you have to decide how you want to arrange your files and shares. You can share multiple folders so don't worry about trying to fit all the folders and files into one folder if you want to organize it differently. If you open up your home folder, and then click on Filesystem, you can then navigate to where you mounted your data partition during the install. you can create folders in here for the directories you want to share, just remember what the locations are.

The next part we're going to do the old fashioned way because I've always had more success this way so bear with me. The way I configure my shares is through the configuration file. It may sound difficult, but its actually not terribly difficult so bear with me. The first thing we want to do is to set up a samba user account. This is necessary for other computers to be able to connect as it sets up the credentials.

First navigate to samba's directory. Open up a terminal window and type:

cd /etc/samba

when there type the following command to add a user to the list:

sudo smbpasswd -a username

The first thing its probably going to ask for is your password for the server itself. The next two prompts will be for you to enter the samba user's password and then to re-enter for confirmation. After that is done, the user is all set up and you're ready to go set up the shares themselves.

In the same folder you're in now, you should see an 'smb.conf' file. This is the file you need to edit to add the shares. The first thing you should do is create a backup of it just in case something goes wrong, so run this command:

sudo cp smb.conf smb.conf.backup

This will create a backup file called 'smb.conf.backup' in the same directory should something go awry.

Ok, now lets get into the actual configuration. Type in the command:

sudo gedit smb.conf

This will bring up a text editor to edit the file in. scroll all the way to the bottom of the file. This is where you're going to put the shares. It's important to know that each share will follow the following template:

[share name]
path = /path/to/share (the directory of the share)
comment = enter comment here (not neccessary but helpful)
writeable = yes/no
browseable = yes
guest ok = no

One more comment, on the writeable section, you want to put yes if you want users to be able to write to the share (aka delete, move, copy files to). If all you want is just for a read-only share, then by all means put no instead.

So now lets show an actual example. Lets say I want to share a family pictures folder with other computers in the house. I want people to be able to copy their photos into the share and be able to view the pictures. Let's also say that I created a directory /data1/photos to store the pictures. Here is how I would add the entry into the smb.conf file

[photos]
path = /data1/photos
comment = Family Photos
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = no

That's it, not too hard at all, right? You can add all the shares you need to just make sure to put the share name in [ ] brackets to separate them.

After you're done with that save the file and close the text editor. You should be brought back to the terminal window. There's one last thing you need to do in order for it to work. You need to restart the samba server for the changes to take place. To do so, just type the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

It will tell you that the samba service is stopping and then starting back up. Once you get to a prompt, thats it, the shares are all set, so go ahead and give it a try.

In windows, go to Start - Run and type in:

\\servername\share

Where servername is the computer's name or hostname, which you set during the install process. So for my photo share if I named my server "Darker" then I would enter:

\\darker\photos

Some other uses for your server could also be as a MySQL database server, an Apache/PHP web server, if you're a developer, a subversion repository, as well as countless other possibilities. If any of this peaked your interest, feel free to do some research into them, Linux has a lot of potential that if you choose to put some time into, you can unlock. Also if you're brave enough, you can set up an ssh server on your server so you can access your server's terminal remotely.

Next week, I'll go over how to create a server using Windows XP as the operating system.

If you have any questions, need clarification, have comments, or have an alternate way of doing things, or more insight or help, then please, comment and let me know.

Robot Takes Control of Space Station

Keith Wagner

No, not quite, but the new addition to the International Space Station is complete. After 3 spacewalks, STS-123 astronauts have completed Dextre, a robot meant to help out with certain tasks where before spacewalks were necessary. It's an amazing piece of hardware and a feat of engineering. Here's a video with more details on what Dextre can actually do.

Dextre, Canada's contribution to the International Space Station was brought up to the space station on Endeavour, launching March 11, 2008.

It's Been a Rough Week

Keith Wagner

Well this week started out rough, and at least is ending on a slightly better note. I finally got my website up and running again after hours of getting pissed off at why it wasn't working. Stupid configuration issue.

Anywho, i've been playing Brawl and so far its about what I expected from it. I think it was a little overhyped, but its definitely a good game, and one I would recommend to anyone who has a Wii or wants a good party game. Online multiplayer isn't the greatest...still has a few too many bugs, but I guess I'm spoiled by what XBOX Live brings to the table. It seems that Halo 3 has been the 360 game of choice as of late. Surprised not many of my friends are playing Vegas, but with Vegas 2 coming out on Tuesday, I guess I can't say I'm that surprised. Don't want to get Vegas'd out before the sequel comes out.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 I'm definitely looking forward to. The original was in my opinion one of the best, if not THE best strategic shooter for the 360, and maybe even one of the best beyond that but I'm not going to get into that right now. The seamless co-op will definitely be a thing of beauty to actually be able to play the full storyline with a friend. That was one of my beefs with the original, albeit a minor one, that you couldn't play the true storyline with a partner. Sure you could run the maps, but no cutscenes, none of the true story of the game itself. As I look over at my game shelf, I just realized I still never beat the original Vegas...oh well, one day maybe. I still like the multiplayer aspect of the game though, not fast paced shoot 'em up like in Halo or CoD4, but an actual use strategy and cover to defeat your enemies. I will definitely be giving that a try.

Okay, We Are Back!

Keith Wagner

Okay, after a 3 day downtime from a damning configuration error, darkernemesis.com is back.

For anyone that is interested, the problem I was having was that URLs weren't being read properly so individual entries, albums, and photos, and a schloo of other pages weren't working properly. I kept getting an error that simply said "No Input File Specified". Descriptive, isn't it. I thought so. After 3 days of using Google and support forums to try to solve my problem, I figured out that I needed to set one variable in the php.ini file.

So, if anyone is experiencing the same issue (PHP5 as CGI) and are using the php explode() function to parse their URLs to make them more search engine friendly, and are frustrated with not being able to figure out what is causing the problem, add the following line to your php.ini file:

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

Not that anyone cares, but it solved my problem, hopefully it could theoretically fix yours too.

Tribute to My Grandfather

Keith Wagner

Grandpop, you were always there for me and my entire family. You always gave of yourself selflessly never asking anything in return. As I sit here trying to hold back my tears, I remember that you're going to a better place. You always kept your sense of humor, making us all laugh even when things weren't going as well as we'd have liked. You brightened the room every place you visited always making us remember the brighter side of life.

You passed down your knowledge and wisdom to my Dad and to me, who will pass it on to future generations of Wagners. You may have left this world, but you have gone to a better place, and your memory will last in my heart and I'm sure the hearts of many others forever. I love you.

I have so many memories of you.

I remember your trips to Dorney Park and Wild Water Kingdom taking the whole Wagner family, making my Mom worry more about you than about her own kids.

I remember your trips to the beach visiting us, teaching us how to body surf, showing us that boogie boards are only for "whimps" on the rough waves of the Jersey shore.

I remember your antics at several pool parties showing us how to really go off diving boards.

I remember how proud you were of me when I attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts.

I remember how proud you were when after 5 grueling years, I finally graduated from College.

I remember your sense of humor you brought with you everywhere you went. All the jokes and antics that at some points made my Mom nuts, like acting like you're going to eat an entire cake.

I remember all the Phillies games you took us to watching the team that I idolized play, with all the thanks you needed coming from a hug and the smile on my face.

You gave of yourself selflessly and will be missed by me, and many many others. We love you and will never forget you.

http://www.legacy.com/philly/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Notice&PersonID=105439607

IE8: Initial Impressions

Keith Wagner

First off, I want to preface this with the fact that the current build of Microsoft Internet Explorer is still in beta, so any issues I have found could very well be caused by the instabilities inherent with beta software.

Okay, now that that's done with, on to the good (or bad) parts. When I first heard that IE8 was going to be standards compliant I was impressed with Microsoft for actually doing something that myself, and I'm sure many others have wanted for some time now. Am I right? When the first beta was released, I decided to give it a try figuring I had nothing to lose by trying it out.

The first thing I was curious about, and rightfully so, is how does my website look under IE8 in "standards compliant" mode? I figured, "hey, my website looks fine in Safari, Firefox, Opera, even IE7, so this should be fine." Yeah, easier thought than to believe. In the default setting in IE8, the title looks like this:

Now this could very well me making a mistake in my HTML/CSS coding, I'm not the most experienced HTML/CSS coder out there and I know that, but then why does my site look normal, or should I say, like it's supposed to, how I want it to in every other browser I tested it in (IE7, Safari, Firefox, Opera, & Konquerer). It's just a table aligned to have both my picture and title text below the upper blue line. If anyone has any idea as to why its doing that and wants to give me a hint, please let me know, I'll be thankful.

One nice feature that IE8 has is particularly nice for developers. IE8 has the ability to emulate IE7 rendering. So for those wanting to see how the page would look like in IE7 need only press a button to go into IE7 emulation mode.

When you click this, IE is going to prompt you to restart Internet Explorer for the changes to go into effect.

This kind of surprised me as I was figuring that all it would really require to make the switch to IE7 emulation mode would be a page refresh. It's kind of annoying to have to restart IE to switch display modes (you do have to restart again to switch back). But I will say that I'm probably just nitpicking right now. I did notice that the switch often times did cause IE8 to crash, but I can attribute that to it only being a beta so I won't hold it against IE8...yet.

So now I'm in IE7 emulation mode, so I navigate back to my page to see how it looks with this mode. What do you know, just like in IE7, it shows up the way its supposed to.

Again, I could very well be doing something wrong so I can't hold this too much against IE8, but it just strikes me as odd that everything renders fine in the other browsers. And again, if you have any ideas, please let me know. I have noticed other minor oddities in other websites in terms of alignment, but nothing too major.

Another thing I was curious about was how Internet Explorer 8 did with system resources. With 1 tab open and at my site, resources did seem a bit heavy for what my site is, but not too out of the ordinary:

With 4 tabs open (my site, Digg, Mixx, and Space.com), the memory and VM usage went up considerably:

From what I remember checking before with IE7, it does seem a bit better, but with Firefox 2 clocking in with 65MB of memory usage with 47MB in virtual memory, IE7 and 8 are both considerably higher. But I will say its a step in the right direction and who knows, maybe the final release will be even better. One can only hope.

One thing Microsoft seems to be getting more into is social networking. The What's New in Internet Explorer 8 page lists Facebook, StumbleUpon, and Windows Live as "cool" places to get started at. There's a page menu that will even allow you to translate a page, send a page to a friend, and blog, all of course with Windows Live tools.

It also includes the standard options you'd see in other browsers as well. Wait, what the hell is Windows Live? It's still around? Does anyone actually use it? Okay, I apologize for that, I just never really saw that much potential in Windows Live, and with Google's Blogger, guess I'm just surprised people don't used Blogger, which I personally feel is a pretty decent platform for those who just want to blog and not have to worry so much about maintaining their own site. But at the same time I guess, setting it as the default option will get plenty of basic users to join as they may not know about other options, anyway, I digress.

In short, while except for my issue with my website and HTML/CSS rendering, I did see some slight improvements over IE7, overall, there's really not much that has changed. The UI is basically the same minus a few extra buttons:

(Click to view larger)

And it really just doesn't bring anything to the table to make it stand out over my preferred browsers, Safari and Firefox. Personally, I'd say that if you're a Firefox, Opera, or Safari user, you're fine where you are now. What I see so far brings me no closer to switching back to Internet Explorer as my primary browser, and not to sound too much like a Microsoft hater, IE8 beta 1 does not impress me at all really, and I don't see anything that the final release could possibly bring to make me change my mind on that.

So would you even consider going back to IE, or are you now enjoying the web with one of the other browsers?

Kyle Kendrick Traded to Japan

Keith Wagner

This is probably one of the best pranks I have ever seen. Philadelphia Phillies pitcher, Kyle Kendrick got tricked into thinking he was getting traded to Japan.

Some Apps I'd Like to See Developed for the iPhone

Keith Wagner

Because of the upcoming release of the iPhone SDK, I figured I'd list some of the apps I would like to see developed for the iPhone. Some of them can probably be done through the web apps with Safari, but I'd still like native apps to use if possible rather than going through Safari.

IM Client - This is probably the one I want most. A client similar to Adium or Pidgin that can run natively on the iPhone so I can chat with my friends using AIM or Google Talk. I'm not quite sure how I'd like it set up, but if done right, it would definitely be nice to have.

PDF Reader - The ability to view PDF files would be nice to have for the occasions neccessary. What would make this even better would be the ability to turn the iPhone and view the PDFs from both perspectives like you can webpages with Safari.

Twitter Client - It would be nice to see a native app that I can use to post and view Twitter statuses like so many clients available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. I might even try my hand with this one.

Notepad - The key to this would be synching with the computer. If a notepad like app would be developed that would allow for one to create text files on either the iPhone or the computer and be able to transfer them back and forth, I'd be interested. All I'd need would be for a basic notepad program, don't need any text formatting or any of those extra features.

Some Games - Maybe a few simple games would be nice to see, and I'm sure some will come. What would be even cooler would be some multiplayer action. The games could be as simple as something like hangman, sudoku, solitaire, etc. I know there are already some web versions of the games for the iPhone, but native ones could be nice as well as to not have to go through Safari.

Paint - The touch screen would be perfect for something like this. It wouldn't have to be anything complex, but a basic drawing tool could be interesting to fool around or play with. It could also be used for visual notes or something along those lines.

So, what apps are you looking to see created for Apple's iPhone?

Thoughts on the Upcoming iPhone SDK: Pros and Cons

Keith Wagner

Apple's iPhone SDK will be coming out soon and rumors are going around that any and all 3rd party apps are going to have to go through Apple and be approved before they will be available for download and installation. This has some upsides and some downsides.

PROS

Malware, Harmful Apps Weeded Out - If someone tries to sneak in some app that harms the iPhone OS or causes an iPhone to be unstable, Apple should be able to pick these out rather quickly to prevent an unsuspecting victim from downloading and installing the app. Now granted, like computers, it could be up to the user to protect what he/she puts on the iPhone, but Apple at the same time probably wants to protect its name. Apple probably doesn't want some user to blame them for a 3rd party app that crashes that user's iPhone. In reality it wouldn't be Apple's fault, but too many people seem to blame the easy target, in this case Apple. (How many people blame Windows for a BSOD when in reality its a poorly written driver made by some third rate printer company).

CONS

Total App Control - Apps that Apple doesn't like for whatever reason could be blocked, even if they're good apps. Take P2P apps for example. Apple could take the stance that they'd only be used for piracy and shouldn't be allowed and block them from iTunes. (They haven't said anything on this, and it baffles the hell out of me why anyone would use the iPhone to download from P2P to begin with) With the power of total control could allow Apple to abuse that power.

Pricing - I haven't heard anything on the pricing of apps thus far but I would likely believe that they'd probably be mostly under $10. This alone wouldn't so much be a problem, but what if some developer wants to create an app and give it out free? Can they do this, or will Apple step in and charge for that app anyway? If they do, then I'd say its a bad thing. If they don't then this point is pretty much moot. Anyone know anything more about this?

Anyone else have any more pros or cons?

I Hope This Marine Gets What He Deserves...

Keith Wagner

This is the most disturbing video you've probably seen in a while. It shows a US Marine (he doesn't deserve that title) throwing a helpless dog off a cliff. It's awful and I hope that the asshole gets punished. Due to it's content, I'm not going to embed it, but you can view it here. (site's a little slow as the server's getting hammered)

US Marine Throws Dog Off Cliff

here

New Study on Violent Video Games and Kids

Keith Wagner

Kotaku just released a tidbit about an upcoming book about children and violent video games. It's noted that this book details studies that contradicts what Jack Thompson and many others try to claim: that violent video games turn children in violent, killing machines. As quoted:

Until now, the most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It's debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons (not for cash or extra credit!), in social settings, over many years. But media reports and political rhetoric often ignore that distinction.

It's going to be interesting to see if this gets any publicity and how those with opposing views are going to react to this. and how they respond.

The Violent Gaming Book to Buy Your Parents [kotaku.com]

Dilbert: Luck

Keith Wagner

Congressmen Matter Too

Keith Wagner

As I've mentioned before, I'm not one who really likes getting into politics too much, too many times I seem to just get disgusted with how the government is run sometimes, but I just wanted to mention something I've been thinking about.

As many know the US Presidential Elections are coming up this November and many, rightfully so, are very much getting involved in the primaries. Everyone seems to be focusing on the presidential elections, somehow believing that by Bush leaving office and a new president, even a Democrat, that the state of the nation is going to do a 180 degree turn and go back to the way it should be. Now don't get me wrong, a new president, particularly Obama in my opinion, could very much help America change its status in the world for the better, but a new president can only do so much.

Too many times, I hear of people complaining about some of the lousy laws that are getting passed in this country. Two come to mind, the first being the telecom bill (not yet passed) that grants retroactive immunity to the telecom companies, and the other being the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (PDF). The latter one will apparently cut off university funding unless universities enact strict anti-piracy strategies...in other words, unless the universities do the RIAA and MPAA's dirty work, then they'll lose funding. In my opinion, these bills aren't what I want to see getting passed through congress. People complain about these and a lot of times, I hear people blaming Bush for them. Now granted, the telecom immunity bill, he probably pressured for, but in the end that's not the point.

The President of the United States does not make the laws. As a quick refresher, there are 3 branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial. The legislative branch makes/writes the laws. The executive branch only approves them. If people are constantly seeing laws that they don't like, the president, in this case, Bush, is not the one to blame. Blame your congressmen, push for your representatives to vote against the bills that you feel are wrong, and push for them to vote for the bills you feel are right.

People are constantly complaining about this, yet for some reason, the same representatives seem to keep getting voted into office. The presidential elections are important, but so are the House of Representatives and Senate elections as well. I can't say I've never been guilty of this oversight, but at the same time, I'm not going to overlook this fact next time around.

Get involved in the elections, read up on the candidates, both presidential and for your representatives. And vote. Democracy, as jaded as I might sound, can only begin to happen when the people get involved. Vote for who you feel is the best candidate. If you don't vote, that is of course your right, but don't complain later when you feel the wrong candidate was elected.

Web Development: One Thing I Would Like to See

Keith Wagner

Anyone who has ever really gotten into web design I'm sure knows all the fun that comes from making their website cross-browser compatible. This meaning, your website looks the same in both IE6, IE7, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and any other browser. For the most part, Safari, Opera, and Firefox all work about the same so there isn't always the need to change things to make it render the same in those browsers. Microsoft's Internet Explorer on the other hand brings about a challenge sometimes.

Microsoft is known for pushing for it's own standards, the biggest one now being OOXML (Office Open XML) but that's a different story. W3C created the HTML, CSS standards so that web developers and designers would have a good guide and of course a good standard for building sites. With few exceptions all the browsers follow these, even Microsoft to an extent. What mostly annoys me about IE is how Microsoft incorporates a few differences in the way IE renders compared to lets say Firefox. The biggest one I've run into is say the width of a box. In Firefox and the W3C standards, padding is added on to the width, in IE it's incorporated into the width of the box. So lets say you want a box with a total width of 500 pixels and a padding of 5 pixels. In Firefox, you would want to set the width to 490 pixels and then set the padding to 5 pixels (490 + 5 + 5 = 500). In Internet Explorer, all you would need to do is set the width to 500 pixels and the padding to 5 pixels. Here is what I mean:

Now I will say that I kind of like IE's way of doing it better, at least in a case like this, but I would much rather have ONE standard than have to worry about tweaking things for the different browsers.

There are work-arounds to avoid this issue, but the annoyance of having to do so is still a pain. I'm hoping the reports that IE8 passes the ACID2 test are true because that would indicate a change for the better in my opinion, but I guess only time will tell.

I'm still not as experienced a web developer as many others out there so I'd be curious as to how they handle the problems caused by the slight differences in how IE handles things as compared to the other browsers, or what other differences even exist. I'm not trying to hate on Microsoft with this post, I just think having a set standard that ALL browsers follow would make the job of a web developer so much easier rather than having to test things out and tweak things just so they render properly across all the browsers.

This definitely shows us why standards are good to have.

So web developer gurus, what other bugs have you found that exist between browsers?

Atlantis Lands Safely

Keith Wagner

Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down safely at 9:07am EST this morning at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis' landing marks the successful completion of STS-122 which saw the first new laboratory added to the station in 7 years. Columbus, Europe's contribution to the International Space Station was attached during the mission's 3 spacewalks.

What's interesting to note is the Destiny laboratory, and until this mission, the ISS' only laboratory, was launched February 7, 2001 aboard Atlantis, 7 years to the day before Columbus launched also aboard Atlantis.

Advantages of Linux and Open Source in General

Keith Wagner

Of late, Linux and open source applications have started to rise in popularity. The most noteworthy have been Ubuntu and of course Mozilla Firefox. Both are superb products that many people, even those not entirely familiar with open source have taken up using. Firefox even more since those glued to Windows can still use it in lieu of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. There are many advantages to using open source software and here are a few examples of individual apps and/or OS' that add to that.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox has started to really cut into Internet Explorer's market share over the past year or two, particularly in Europe. While IE still is the highest used browser, Firefox's market share has been steadily increasing. According to marketshare.hitslink.com, Firefox accounted for 16.98% of the market share, with IE accounting for approximately 75.47% of hits in January 2008. While this does show that Firefox is still WELL behind IE, going back to January 2007, Firefox only accounted for less than 14% of browser market share.

Firefox brings a lot to the table. Despite some memory issues, Firefox has on average a lower memory footprint than IE. Right now, for me, with 6 tabs open, Firefox is using ~35MB of memory compared to ~65MB with one tab open in IE. Firefox also tends to be more secure than IE as well. Yes, Firefox still has its vulnerabilities, but Mozilla tends to be much better and faster at getting fixes out than does Microsoft. Firefox also has what seems like an endless supply of add-ons as well. Themes and extensions allow users to customize their browser as they want including appearance, improved RSS readers, UI additions, performance improvements, even a nice plugin to block those annoying ads that are seen on so many pages.

Ubuntu (and Linux in general)

Ubuntu is a popular distribution of Linux today that offers ease of installation and use that was relatively unheard of say 5-10 years ago for Linux. I have to credit Ubuntu for helping make open source more of a possibility for more people than before. It's installation program as well as what it offers and the general use of it make it relatively easy to use after using Windows for so long. But as I've said before, Linux is not Ubuntu, there are many other distributions out there that are great alternatives to Windows as well (Slackware, SUSE, Gentoo, Debian, Fedora, to name a few).

Despite what Microsoft wants to say, I still believe that Ubuntu works more "out of the box" than Windows. Take my desktop for example. When I installed Windows, almost every component needed drivers to be installed. With Ubuntu, all that needed to be done was to install nVidia's official drivers, but in all reality, the VESA drivers that are enabled by default would work just fine for the general user. While Linux does have some disadvantages with GUIs to configure settings compared to Windows, saying that it doesn't just work out of the box is an outright lie.

Linux in my opinion is more poweful than Windows for an experienced user, and even for someone with basic skills. The terminal, while very basic and not as pretty as say some user interfaces is the heart of a Linux system. You can do so much with the terminal that you wouldn't even need a user interface to begin with. In fact, a lot of Linux servers don't even have a graphical system installed, they're run purely from the terminal.

Linux is also much more customizeable than is Windows. You can make the user interface look however you want. You want to emulate the OS X desktop look, go ahead, Windows XP look? Yup, its got that too. For an experienced user, you can even customize the kernel to best run on your hardware setup, so it goes much deeper than just the user interface.

Another bonus is that of course, Linux is free. That's right, it doesn't cost a penny to download. Compared to the outrageous prices Microsoft is asking for Vista, this has got to be an added bonus. Oh yeah, and all features are available on one version of Linux, not the 10,000 different versions Microsoft has with Windows Vista.

With the exception of gaming, I have not found anything I can do in Windows that I can't do in Linux.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a full fledged office suite very similar to Microsoft Office. It can read and write in .doc files and in the upcoming OpenOffice 3.0 release, should be able to open and save .docx (Office 2007) files too. Instead of paying who knows how much for Microsoft Office, you can download OpenOffice for free. It has most of the features Office 2003 has and is available on Linux, Windows, and OS X (although with the current version, it runs through X11 and not natively).

Pidgin (GAIM)

Pidgin is an open source alternative to AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo IM, and many more, all from one client, meaning fewer system resources being needed, as well as fewer programs needing to be open. Pidgin allows you to set up multiple accounts easily under one program, so you can talk to buddies on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, whichever they and you use. The only limitation seems to be that if you need/want to use video or audio, you're pretty much out of luck, as of now anyway. Pidgin is available on Linux and Windows. On OS X, you can use Adium which utilizes the same library that Pidgin uses.

GIMP

GIMP is an open source image manipulation program similar to Adobe Photoshop. While arguably not quite as powerful, GIMP does provide many of the same functionality that Photoshop provides and at oh, I don't know, 100% off the price of Photoshop (aka Free). Despite it not being quite as powerful as Photoshop, it is quite powerful in its own right allowing you to do most of the same work you'd do in photoshop. It is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X.

While these only touch on a very small fraction of the advantages Linux and Open Source provide, it goes to show that in all reality, using Linux and open source applications can give you many alternatives, and advantages that Windows and other software just can't provide. Anyone have any other big examples of advantages of using open source and Linux?

Additional Thoughts: Someone on digg pointed out to me that while open-source software might be free, free software can be the proper term to use as it refers to much more than the price, but also the freedom to use, run, modify, and distribute the software as you so choose, and he made a very good point. Proprietary software can't give you that freedom by any stretch of the imagination, and definitely not legally as free software can.

Version 3

Keith Wagner

So I think pretty soon I'm gonna get started on the next redesign of Darker Nemesis. After looking into a lot of things, I have a list of items I want to add to the site. Not all of them I know how to do, but that's where the fun lies, learning new ways of doing things and getting them all to work together. Photoshop is probably going to be somewhat involved in this as I want to give the site less of a blocky feel and thats not so easy to do with just CSS. I also have a list of other things to add and modify.

I started last night trying to see if I could set up bugzilla on my server to try to create a list of things that I want to do for the new version. Might be a little overkill but it would help me track what I wanted to do as well as bug reports for the current version.

I also now have visual studio and Microsoft SQL Server set up to start preparing to build my media datatbase site. I'll be using ASP.NET and SQL Server for that one instead of PHP/MySQL.

On a completely different note, it has now been 2 weeks since I've had a working XBOX 360, hope Microsoft gets me mine back soon before Rainbow Six Vegas 2 comes out.

Star Trek Technology Today

Keith Wagner

I found this on Digg, its an interesting article on how close we are to technology in Star Trek. Granted we aren't that close at all, but it's interesting to see the progression we have made in the last decade or two.

How Close Are We to Star Trek Technology [blahblahtech.com]

Beat it!

Keith Wagner

So I finally beat Uncharted last night. The game was nothing short of amazing, I'd have to put it as one of the best games of 2007 and one of the best games I've ever played. It brings a lot to the table, it has great gameplay, the controls are pretty intuitive and easy to control, graphics are top-notch, and it has one of the best storylines I've seen in a while. The story is one of the biggest appeals of the game as it keeps you wanting to see what happens next. The ending was pretty good and leaves it wide open for a sequel should Naughty Dog choose to.

So, if you have a PS3 and DON'T have Uncharted, get it, its worth it.

iPhone Custom Ringtones Workaround Still There

Keith Wagner

Back when the iPhone Firmware version 1.1.2 and iTunes 7.5 was released, people found a workaround for free custom ringtones from any MP3. I of course wanted to see if it would work, and sure enough it did. I was concerned as to how long the workaround would last figuring Apple would notice and close it up in future updates.

Then the 1.1.3 firmware became available which added a bunch of features that I liked so I figured I'd give it a try hoping that the upgraded firmware would not mess up my ringtones. After crossing my fingers and installing it, sure enough, the custom ringtones I made were still available.

iTunes 7.6 has been available for some time now, but I've been cautious about installing it thinking that it might be the update that disables the workaround. Well last night upon installing OS X 10.5.2, I decided that I might as well give it a try. Luckily my ringtones are still there, and I'm still able to create new ones, so obviously the workaround is still there for iTunes 7.6 and the iPhone 1.1.3 firmware. Here's the link for the workaround.

Note: this requires at least iPhone Firmware 1.1.2 and iTunes 7.5

Create Custom Ringtones for your iPhone [macrumors.com]

Tips for Starting Up A Website

Keith Wagner

I started this website back in July or August sometime, I honestly forget which month, but that doesn't matter. Initially it was just to help me learn CSS, PHP, and MySQL, but since it has become much more than that. Over the last 6-7 months, I have learned many things about web design and how to get it off the ground so I figured I'd share some of the things I've learned. These tips and suggestions are in no particular order of importance.

1.) Start Off Small

If you're just starting out a website, don't try to do too much at once. Start off small and add to it along the way. Trying to do too much can cause problems, especially when you realize that in order to solve one problem, it causes you to overhaul a lot more. By starting off small, you can piece things together as needed and in my opinion, get a better understanding of what the best way to piece in the next part of your site.

2.) Use Templates or Include Files When You Can

I should have done this from the beginning, but didn't think of it until it was too late. The sidebar and top bar are the same on every page of the site. Initially I just copied and pasted the code for the bars in every page. It worked, but if I needed to change something, I would have to go into each and every page and change the piece individually. I have since switched over to using the php include() function so I can simply create 1 file for the top bar, and 1 for the side. I would then simply include them in the file. This in itself may sound obvious, but for a newcomer, it can solve a lot of time and trouble.

3.) Use a Good Color Scheme

Choosing a good color scheme is very important to any website, however coming up with one that you like isn't always the easiest thing. Too many times people want to use 20 different colors on their site without realizing that it makes those who view it's eyes bleed. You want to find a good color scheme to use. Once you have one, using it isn't that hard, you really just have to decide what you like.

4.) Try to Plan Ahead

Let's face it, your initial design probably is going to eventually undergo at least some changes whether adding, deleting, modifying pages and files. One thing to try to do is to plan ahead and try to build for easy additions and not make everything based off of one component you don't plan on keeping.

5.) Be Dynamic

Databases are your website's best friend. My site is almost purely based off of a MySQL database. It allows for you to grab data, entries, many things and use them without having to constantly cut and paste. PHP ties very nicely into MySQL, and ASP.NET ties in nicely with Microsoft SQL Server. There are plenty of resources online to help you out with this.

6.) Find a Good Way to Back Up Your Code

Hardware failures happen, with technology that is pretty much a give-in. Find a good way to back up your code often. This can be simply copying it to a thumb drive, burning it to DVD, placing it on an external hard drive, or if you're a little crazy like me, set up a subversion repository for it on a separate computer and use that. Subversion (SVN) is nice because you can use it as a place you can sync files between separate computers, you can revert back to previous versions of the file easily if you realize that what you just did screws everything up, and you can just bring in all the files if you needed to reformat your machine for whatever reason.

7.) Don't Be Afraid to Experiment

If you want to try something new but are afraid you might screw something up, don't be. Experiment a little, see if your new changes would work or do what you want them to do. Just make a copy of whatever file you're working on and make your changes on that. If you later realize it can't be done, delete the copy and just use the original. You then at least get the satisfaction of realizing you tried. If you get it all working, replace the original and go with the new one. You'll never realize what all you can do if you're unwilling to try something new.

8.) Layout is Important

This one may sound pretty obvious, but here it is anyway. Creating a good layout is important for any website. Users should be able to find your content without having to search all over your page. Have your imporant links easily able to be found. No one is going to spend a lot of time trying to find something, so make it easy for them.

9.) Use a Pencil and Paper

One thing that I found that helped me out was before I made my site, i drew a sketch of what I wanted my site too look like. I could then build my CSS and layout around it.

10.) Search Engine Optimization

Make sure to use the keyword and description meta tags on your website to help search engines find your site. A site map is also a good thing to have. I myself don't have a lot of experience with this, so I would suggest looking into this yourself to help you out.

11.) Don't be Too Graphics, Flash, Javascript Intensive

Don't use too much Flash, Javascript or too many large images with your site. Users want to be able to access your site with some speed and adding these things only slows down the load time. Users tend to just close the window or tab if your site is taking too long to load. This is not to say use absolutely no graphics, Flash or Javascript, just keep these things in mind.

I know I am not the best web developer in the world, but I figured I'd share some of the things I've learned over my time working on my website. Hey, if this post helps just one person, I'll be happy.

So what about it? Anything else you'd like to add?

Busy, but Amazingly Fun Weekend

Keith Wagner

The weekend went well. Busy but not in a bad way. I ended up getting pretty far in Uncharted, but man are parts of that game difficult, I'm stuck on one part right now that I just got so frustrated with I called it a night.

Friday night I hung out with Crystal which was a great time, watched Club Dread.

Saturday my buddy Brian came over with his computer and we pretty much gamed all day playing games ranging from Golf, to Rise of Nations, and even Team Fortress 2. It was kinda nerdy I guess, but it was a lot of fun. He saved my ass in Rise of Nations, Armada 2 we pretty much just romped in, Golf he beat me but I was happy I managed to get 1 under being it the first time I played it. TF2 was well, TF2.

Sunday was just a relaxing day that I layed back and just relaxed, played a little WoW, Uncharted, and worked a little bit on my website mostly adding the social networking buttons to my entries.

Now its Monday and I'm back to work. Here's hoping the week goes by quickly.

Also, I haven't figured one thing out yet, I embedded the flash videos from my camping trip into the entry, but it errors if you don't have www.darkernemesis.com as the address, so if you're getting errors, it's probably because you have the URL as darkernemesis.com instead of www.darkernemesis.com, I'm still trying to figure out why its doing that.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches

Keith Wagner

After delaying the launch for 2 months because of faulty sensors in the fuel tank, Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off yesterday, February 7, 2008 on its 11-12 day mission to deliver Europe's Columbus Laboratory to the International Space Station.

The good news about this is that pending any other technical problems, NASA should be able to fit in 5 more launches this year as they are trying to complete the ISS by the 2010 deadline. One of the 5 missions left for this year, will be Atlantis' final mission, and the final servicing of the Hubble Telescope, tentatively scheduled for September 2008.

Bye Bye XBOX

Keith Wagner

So I just dropped off my XBOX 360 at UPS today to be shipped back to Microsoft for repair or replacement. I'm kind of hoping they end up giving me a new version of the 360 as a replacement. The new chips run cooler and of course with the new ones, you get HDMI output as well. Looking at it from a business standpoint it makes sense as well. The new systems have a lower failure rate which would mean having to replace fewer systems. It's gotta be cheaper then sending out more of the 1st gen 360s that are said to have as high as a 30% failure rate.

Either way, it does kind of suck and I'm hoping I get mine back soon, I want to play some Vegas, COD4, and I definitely want to start up Mass Effect. In the meantime though I have plenty of other options. I still need to beat Uncharted and of course Super Mario Galaxy, and of course World of Warcraft. But even outside of gaming world, I got other stuff I would like to work on. I'm looking into redoing my blog manager for this site, I just sstarted setting up my media database and web portal for my games, movies, music, etc. I decided for that I'm going to use ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server to switch things up as well as delve more into the technology. I'm also going to be delving a bit into game design so even without the 360, I'll have plenty to do.

A Fun Weekend Camping

Keith Wagner

I got back today after camping with my Boy Scout Troop up at Camp Trexler in Jonas, PA. It was a lot of fun, but very icy. I kid you not when I say that the entire camp was pretty much a giant sheet of ice. People and cars were sliding all over the place and even I had trouble maintaining my footing when I stepped out. Hurt my hip too trying to balance myself when I slipped once, but I was able to stay up. I'll be fine though, nothing serious.

I left straight from work Friday, picked up my Dad and headed up. Weather Friday was lousy, rain rain rain. Roads weren't too bad until we got to Camp Trexler I start going up the hill and think "hey, they paved this!" That thought was cut short when my Dad said "no they didn't". I quickly realized that the road up was a thick layer of ice. I managed to get up the hill simply by keeping my momentum and just going.

Friday night we just hung around in the cabin, Memorial Lodge, played cards, RISK, and had a dessert competition.

Saturday was the big day of events. In the morning we had a scavenger hunt set up for the scouts where they had to find playing cards scattered around the camp. In the afternoon there was a competition set up with events ranging from log throwing, caber tosses, a compas course, log splitting and others. I helped my Dad run the compass course and pretty much took over once he went off and ran the stations himself. Saturday night, there was a firebuilding contest which was pretty cool, scouts had to build a fire, and then transport the fire to another location (a 3-5 minute walk away) and restart the fire and burn through a dowel. 3 out of the 5 patrols were able to do it successfully so good for them.

Sunday wasn't much of an events day, just had breakfast, packed up, cleaned up, and hit the road.

Saturday also brought the fun of trying to get my parents' van back down the road after Eric (my brother) didn't heed the warnings and tried to drive up the hill, needless to say, he got stuck halfway up and we all had the task of bringing the van back down safely. The ice had re-frozen and it was almost impossible to drive up the hill, it was so bad there was a slight fender bender earlier in the day. Fortunately the van made it down without any damage.

Eric, the senior patrol leader for Troop 72 did a great job at setting up and planning the weekend. He organized all the events and really did a good job mixing in various different activities for the scouts to participate in.

Here are some links to the photos and videos of the weekend:

Winter Camp 2008 Photo Album

Why GTA IV Does Not Matter to Me

Keith Wagner

GTA IV just recently got its release date of April 29 and a lot of people are a buzz about it. To me though, I can't say I'm that excited about it. I've played GTA 3, Vice City, and Liberty City Stories, as well as GTA2, and none of them really held my attention and interest. Each game that came out, the same thing would happen. I would get the game, play for maybe 2 hours then uninstall it. The first 45 minutes or so I would actually play the game normally and try and complete the missions. After that, I would do what most people do, wreck havoc in the city doing exactly what Jack Thompson hates about the game, kill everything that moves. That holds my attention for maybe 30 minutes, and then the game is dead to me. So why should I spend $60 on a game that just interests me for about 2 hours?

GTA IV's graphics do look good, and it has nothing to do with the game in itself. The game does what its supposed to do well. It does fit the game's style and some people can play those games for hours or days on end, but to me the game just gets boring after a short while.

I'm normally always about replay value when I buy games. If a game will only get me a couple hours of fun, its just not worth it to me, especially with today's prices of $50-60 a pop. I'm not completely against the game so much that I won't buy it no matter what, but I won't be looking at reviews to decide on my purchase. With this one, it will be friends' experience that will pretty much be the deciding factor. If I'm going to get this game, it will have to add A LOT to the game in itself to the point that I will be completely convinced they added enough to get more gameplay in to be worth it.

Are you gonna get it on relase?

Busy busy busy

Keith Wagner

I've been keeping busy over the last couple weeks doing this and that. Last thursday was the normal poker night which went well, ended up breaking even so I can't complain about that. Was a big turnout too...6 people, Bailey, Kat, Brian, Rachael, Cass, me. I had a good time so I can't complain about that. I'm hoping I can sort things out with Steve, had a little squabble with him over a game of poker a couple weeks ago. It sucks but in the end, I still feel I was right and I have corroborated that as well.

Weekend was rather lazy, sadly I got the Red Rings of Death for my 360 which sucks, but I can survive for a couple weeks without my XBOX. I look at it this way, it will give me time to play other games, as well as working on other things that I've been putting off. On another note, if you have a PS3, make sure you pick up Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The game is amazing, graphics-wise, gameplay-wise, and story-wise.

Monday night I went to the scout meeting, helped their fire building competition. Went well, I'm glad I'm getting more involved in it. I know I'm going camping this weekend so that should be a good time. Eric's running it too so it'll be fun to see what he can do.

I found a bunch of tutorials on game design so I think I'll spend some time reading over those and see if I can't get something started. I think I have an idea of what I want to do, so hopefully the tutorials could help me out. Here's the link if anyone's interested: http://gpwiki.org/. Not sure how good they are just yet, but so far it seems to be a good start.

I got my subversion repository set up on my server for my code for my website and should be able to use it for anything else as well. I created a new tree last night for a version 3 of my site, not sure when that's going to get any real progress. I know what I want to do, just trying to figure out how to do it. Will have to read up on things to get it done.

Lego Turns 50

Keith Wagner

As Gizmodo notes, Legos, the popular toy building blocks just turned 50 today. I still believe to be the best toy ever. Legos can bring the creativity out of young minds and even those older can use their creativity to build what they want. I remember spending hours on end playing with them as a kid. My parents still have all the legos separated by color in bins in our basement. I remember always getting new sets, building them, then taking them apart to use for whatever I wanted to make. The best part of Legos was not building the patterns & sets, but rather using the pieces to build whatever it was that you wanted to build. As seen above, Google is even honoring the 50th anniversary of Lego.

Uh Oh ...

Keith Wagner

So I got the dreaded Red Rings of Death last night which sucks. My XBOX 360 decided for whatever reason it didn't want to work anymore. After leaving it unplugged for about an hour and plugging it back in, it does seem to be working right now, but I don't know how much I trust it, so I'll be sending it in anyway. Two plus years after buying it and Microsoft still covers it...sweet.

It's the 2nd time that my XBOX 360 has done this, which is kinda annoying, but at least Microsoft is good about it. My first experience with 360 problems went very well. Microsoft tech support for it helped me out a lot. First they thought it was the hard drive so within two days I got a new hard drive for my 360. Well it turns out, that the hard drive was not the problem. I called them back and it was deemed neccessary to send the console in. Two days later I got the empty box, and 2 weeks later I had a new 360 console. The console failing rate shouldn't be so high, but at the same time, the way Microsoft has been with fixing the consoles that do break is admirable. Tech support was very good in helping me out both times, and the response and pickup times to actually talk with a human being was also good, I think I waited like 2-3 minutes before a human picked up. Compared to my experiences with AT&T and various other tech support calls, 2-3 minutes is pretty damned good.

So for like 2-3 weeks, I'll be without my XBOX 360 which should give me time to work on other projects I have on my plate.

Microsoft's Competition

Keith Wagner

Everyone knows by now that Microsoft is the leader of the pack when it comes to market share with the Windows Operating System. Over the last few years though, both Apple and Linux are starting to gain ground.

Apple & OS X

With the introduction of Intel-Based Macs, Apple started a new chain of events that has only seen their market share rise. OS X, their operating system I feel is significantly ahead of Windows in terms of usabilty and the whole user interface. I used to bash Macs, mostly because I didn't realize their full potential and what they can actually do. Once I got my iBook G4 a couple years ago, that all changed. The smoothness and the intuitiveness of the operating system and its base programs I thought, and still do think make OS X what it is. So many of the programs are all integrated together, something Windows has a problem with at times. And the base software itself rivals that of Windows. You get so more with OS X than you do with Windows, and if you buy your PC from Dell, HP, etc, you don't get all the crapware that comes preinstalled.

Linux & Open Source

Linux, once the operating system for the true geeks and nerds (no offense to anyone), now is proving to be much more user friendly, and a viable option for those who choose to try it. Ubuntu Linux is probably one of the key reasons for Linux's success recently with its ease to install and use. However though, as many point out, Ubuntu is not "Linux". It is a Linux distribution, but Linux is a lot more than just Ubuntu. I've been using Linux for 2 maybe 3 years now and honestly, if it weren't for games, I probably would have wiped Windows from my desktop entirely by now. It's probably wishful thinking, but I wish that more game developers would consider writing games for Linux. Sure, games like UT2k3 and UT2k4 had a Linux installer, and there's WINE and Cedega, but overall, hardly any mainstream games will run on Linux natively. And running on Linux doesn't mean that the software has to be open-source. You can install closed-source and proprietary software on Linux just as easily if written properly. The idea of proprietary software may be against the "true" open source ideals, but in my opinion Linux and open source are more about the freedom of choice rather than whether or not something is proprietary or open source.

It would be wishful thinking that either Apple or Linux could overtake Microsoft anytime soon combined or separately as Windows simply just dominates, but with the sad state of Windows Vista, Microsoft might end up seeing both Macs and Linux gain a little more of the market share.

Remember When

Keith Wagner

Normally I don't like talking politics, and I still don't like to, but I want to touch on this point.

Remember when presidential candidates, or any position really would campaign and actually say what they're going to do to help the country, city, town, etc? I can't seem to remember hearing that too much anymore. Now it seems that the popular way to campaign and try to win is to lie, cheat, and bash your opponent more than they bash you. I'm truly not a fan of that at all. I want to hear and see what they want to do for the country, not what their opponent has done wrong, or what they claim their opponent has done. It's really a shame that candidates feel they need to attack their opponent in order to win votes. I guess it has pretty much become the status quo now as the strategy to use, but I'd really like to just hear what they want to do to help me, because lets face it, everyone in politics has made their share of mistakes, no one's perfect.

So, instead of telling me what the other has done wrong, why not tell me what you want to do to help.

This is particularly aimed at the whole Clinton-Obama dispute and I'm really sick of hearing it.

/endrant

New Server

Keith Wagner

So my new case and power supply arrived on Friday and my server is now set back up. It should hopefully be a lot faster as it now has better hardware. I ended up upgrading the OS as well. Instead of Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake, it now runs Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. It is a tad bit louder than my old one but runs well so who am I to really complain. Besides, new server maxes out at 7 hard drives instead of 5.

Old Specs:
Intel P4 2.0GHz
768MB DDR PC2100 RAM

New Specs:
AMD Athlon64 2.0GHz
2GB DDR PC3200 RAM

Gotta Love Teasers...

Keith Wagner

This was leaked today. The first ever Star Trek XI teaser trailer.

If you can't tell that's Leonard Nimoy reciting the famous "Space, the final frontier..."

Here's the good shot of what can't really be seen clearly in the trailer (click for larger version)

UPDATE: The official teaser is shown during the previews for JJ Abrams Cloverfield

Macworld Keynote Thoughts

Keith Wagner

So Apple's Macworld Keynote was yesterday and several new products and upgrades were announced. The big one of course is the Macbook Air, an amazingly thin laptop that looks pretty sleek. Here's my take on the Keynote and new products

iPhone 1.1.3

The latest update to the iPhone firmware. For those with hacked iPhones, this update is not a good idea right now, but for those without, this update adds a lot to the iPhone. First it brings in sending text messages to more than one person at once. Second it gives you faux GPS...locates your position using cell tower triangulation, as well as providing hybrid view in Google Maps. One more thing it allows for is for you to save websites as shortcuts on the main menu. It allows for a few other things as well, but I guess those are the big ones. Overall it seems to be a pretty good update, I've been fooling around with it some and the new features aren't bad, although I wouldn't rely on the triangulation as a GPS device...placed me in Philly last night while standing in my bedroom some 45 minutes away.

Time Capsule

This is seemingly a very nice product. Essentially what it is is a wireless-N router with a hard drive built into it for backup. For those who use OS X Leopard's Time Machine on a Macbook, Macbook Pro, and I guess now the Macbook Air, this is a viable solution to storage space. It comes in sizes of 500GB for $299 and 1TB for $499 which aren't horrible prices considering the storage space and speed that they're said to have, but it still may be more economical for people just to go out and buy an external hard drive. But, there are some nice things about it as well. One, it acts as a network server allowing for Windows, Mac, and Linux to connect to it, and two they can all connect simultaneously when you compare that to an external hard drive only being able to connect to one computer at a time. It seems like a nice product but I don't know if I can justify it at the moment since I have my server.

Apple TV Take Two

A new software update and price drop still is not influencing me to even consider this. In order for me to consider a product like this, it would have to include a DVR and support for Divx. Guess what, the Apple TV still doesn't. If Microsoft and Sony can get Divx on their game consoles, there should be no reason why Apple can't get it on Apple TV. Also, while it doesn't affect me so much, it'd be nice if Apple TV would support 1080p.

iTunes Movie Rentals

What seems like a good idea gone horribly wrong, although they are close. Essentially what it is is you pay $2.99 for a movie, $3.99 for a new release, and I believe $4.99 for high-def. So where did they go wrong? Two things. One, when you rent one of the movies, you have 30 days to start watching it. BUT, once you start watching it, you only have access to the movie for 24 hours. For a tad more at Blockbuster, I can rent a movie and watch it 24/7 for 3 days to a week if I want (depending on the return date). With iTunes, just 24 hours. If I were to go to Netflix, i could pay double the iTunes price and be able to rent unlimited DVDs per month with no late fees keeping each DVD as long as I want to. It was a step in the right direction, but they still have a lot of things off in my opinion. Also having to wait 30 days after the DVD release to rent from iTunes..and STILL pay a new release price is ridiculous.

Macbook Air

Most likely the thinnest laptop around right now. It looks sleek and seems to have decent power, but I'll take my Macbook Pro thank you. With the Macbook Air, you can't access your RAM, Battery, or your hard drive. Now the hard drive is not that big of a deal because I can't access it on my Macbook pro either, but the battery and the RAM, are biggies. To have to take it in to Apple to replace the battery, or pay Apple's prices to upgrade the RAM, is the sad reality stemming from the thinness of the Air. Now granted the replacement of the battery is at cost only. You'd only have to pay for the battery which is a slightly pricey $129.99, but the installation would be free. Personally I think the price of the Macbook Air should be slightly less as it is comparable in technical specs to the Macbook. I respect that by making it thin costs a little more, but $1800 for it is a little much. In all honesty, the Macbook is just about as portable.

Back Into Scouting

Keith Wagner

As some know, I was in Boy Scouts growing up, and attained the rank of Eagle Scout, one of my parents' proudest moments. During college, I was unable to stay as involved as I would have liked to be, if involved at all. Now being out of college, I find myself wanting to get back involved in the program, and my Troop. Troop 72, the troop I was involved with, gave me a lot my 7 or so years I was there for. My Scoutmaster in particular was key in me getting Eagle. He, along with my parents, pushed me, and inspired me, and did everything he could to get me into the program as well as get my butt in gear when I was slacking off and really disinterested. I thank him, my parents, and of course all the leaders who were there helping me. I guess part of me wants to pay them, and the new scouts, back for everything they did for me...hell, not part, most if not all of me wants to.

I went up to one of the bigger events, Snowbound this past weekend, which is pretty much a big scouting competition the District runs. My brother, Eric's patrol placed first, as they did last year, and as the troop tends to do to begin with. I helped out, walked around, and I want to get back to being involved. I'm still a registerred leader there so I think I'm going to actually get involved as one.

Eagle Scout is not easy to achieve and the last number I counted was that 1 out of every 100 scouts attain the rank. Several US Presidents are Eagle Scouts, and one of my personal heroes, Jim Lovell also achieved the rank. Eagle Scout can show a lot about one's character and I would suggest the program to almost anyone.

Despite some of BSA's criticisms, the Boy Scouts teach young men many important life skills and is a great program. The most important of which I believe, is leadership. Leadership is actually the primary basis of the Eagle Project that is one of the bigger requirements for Eagle Scout. A good leader is not always the easiest thing to find nowadays and the program is set to help inspire young scouts to grow and gain leadership skills.

Another Teaser for Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Keith Wagner

In what is probably one of my most anticipated games of 2008, Ubisoft has now released another teaser trailer for Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. While it is all CG, it still looks sweer and I'm anxious to see some in-game footage.

Until Someone Wins the HD Format War, We All Lose

Keith Wagner

One week ago, Warner studios, previously releasing movies on both HD DVD and Blu-ray dropped HD DVD and became Blu-ray exclusive. This move triggered what many believe to be the beginning of the end of HD DVD because currently only Universal and Paramount are studios releasing movies to HD DVD. Paramount is said to have a contract that will now allow them to opt-out of their exclusivity contract, and the exclusivity contract with HD DVD and Universal possibly appears to be expired, so that has left a lot of questions on the future of HD DVD. Paramount and Universal have since stated that they are still committed to HD DVD which may only prolong the HD format war. To add fire to the flames, Microsoft is standing behind HD DVD as well, and even produce an HD DVD drive for the XBOX 360.

But whichever side you look at it, this HD format war is horrible for the consumer. Right now, while this is being prolonged, the consumer loses. Many people, and rightfully so, are hesitant to buy a high def DVD player be it Blu-ray or HD DVD or fear of the other format winning and then being stuck with today's equivalent of the Betamax. The players aren't cheap either so if someone were to buy for the losing format, they'd be out a sizeable amount of money. Until one format becomes the true standard, we, the consumers are pretty much stuck. Do we go with Blu-ray or HD DVD? I mean right now, Blu-ray seems like it will be the winner, but who's to say HD DVD is somehow magically going to make a comeback and either prolong the war much longer or overtake Blu-ray entirely. Yes, right now that does not look possible, or even plausible, but at the same time, it's not outside the realm of possibilities.

In the end, we need one format, and personally even though I have an HD DVD player and not a Blu-ray, I can honestly say I don't really care who wins. Both formats look amazing, and if Blu-ray wins out, I'll pick up a Blu-ray player. I just want to be able to buy one format and be done with it.

I Can't Help But To...

Keith Wagner

So this [Gizmodo.com] has been going around for a couple days now and I can't help but laugh. It's childish, immature, and wrong on so many levels, but as much as I try, I still can't help but laugh my ass off.

It almost makes me wonder how much Gizmodo wants to go to CES in 2009.

Back Into WoW

Keith Wagner

So a little under a month ago, I decided to get back into World of Warcraft as I had a lot of fun with it previously. Tonight I think after dinner and when I finish my laundry, I think I'm gonna be getting on my level 70 mage and see what havoc I can bring on. I played a bit on my level 39 warrior last night and I haven't really done much with my mage as of late so I figure get some playing time in there. I still need to figure out what I exactly need to do for Kara as it seems to be a pretty popular thing for 70s.

Work is going slow today, hope it speeds up a bit.