The iPad has arrived along with legendary Steve Jobs. He looks good… and so does the iPad. Slim, trim, 1.5 pounds of sharp clear color, 1000 MHz 16 24 32 GB Memory… the iPad that is…
UPDATE 2: Pricing, $499, $599, $699. 3G add $150. Will carry textbooks - boon for students. This is a huge win for Apple.
UPDATE: Seems like the 16GB version is $499. Unbelievable, all considered. Good price for a great touch screen, if true.
We like this device. It’s most likely priced around $1200 considering the features. Perhaps more. Maybe a streamlined version for $999.
It’s slim, clean, neat, pretty, but does it function as a Phone Screen? Can you connect it to the iPhone as a Vidscreen?
Should have a stand… nice case. Extras no doubt.
We love it even though we’re PCs. (We run XP or Unix on our Macbooks. X is an afterthought.) Give us one of these, and we’d be genuinely grateful.
Question: Can you run a sophisticated Internet business on this tablet?
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Some people have mistakenly logged into strangers’ Facebook accounts by using their ATT cell phones to access their own accounts.
It seems to be a routing problem caused by ATT.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com…security/
What does this mean? It means that ATT’s routing flaw allowed people to access private, personal Facebook information without the use of any passwords or login information.
Does this mean that privacy is dead?
Possibly. This error has revealed that ATT (and probably any cell phone or Internet provider) has the ability to access personal private information via routing protocols.
Of course, this is not unexpected - it’s always possible to grab passwords and other private information over the Web unless there is a bonafide HTTPS secure link between you and the other server.
Even then, one wonders if information is secure. Nevertheless, HTTPS connections are definitely much more difficult to breach.
Privacy was dead a long time ago, when advertisers began collecting private information about every residence in the United States, and elsewhere. Databases around the globe have access to more information about you and your location than you probably know about yourself.
They have collected buying habits, ethnicity, income, financial records, ages, family situations, divorce, relationships, roommates, lovers, friends, personality types, all legal information and more for decades.
Additionally, credit card companies and other purchasing portals use buying habit informations to sell targeted advertising information.
You have become, basically, a statistic. Welcome to the modern world!
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Important Information to Know re: Online Purchasing
Have you make a purchase from such companies as Vistaprint, Fandango, 1800 Flowers, movietickets.com, classmates.com, Victoria’s Secret, Yahoo, Cheap Tickets or a myriad of OTHER RETAILERS? See below for a larger list.
Were you diverted to a special bonus, coupon, money off after your initial purchase? Did you knowingly agree to pay a subscription or membership fee to the tune of $10 to $19.95 or more per month?
This “bonus” offer was especially designed to be deceptive and misleading, say a number of Web marketing experts before a Senate Commerce Investigatory committee.
For one thing, your “bonus” will probably consist merely of spamlike sales offers offering little value. In other words, you signed up to pay a monthly fee to receive spam emails.
For another, your eye was tricked to go immediately to “Yes” buttons, arrows and Free Offer text diverting your attention from the fine print.
Additionally, AFTER your original purchase, your credit card information was automatically transferred, unbeknownst to you, to the entirely UNRELATED third party marketing company.
You would have tacitly given permission to share credit card information when you agreed to the Terms and Conditions with your first purchase.
What To Do
Check your credit card bills to see if there are any suspicious monthly fees that you do not recall signing up for.
If you see these “unauthorized” charges, immediately contact the company and ask for a complete refund of ALL “membership” and monthly charges and fees. They will claim you gave your permission. Be insistent.
Send a quick letter or email to your Senate Representatives.
Contact the original company and voice your complaint. Let them know your displeasure and disappointment.
Post your complaints on consumer websites such as Satisfaction.com. Be sure not to make any false claims.
Email complaints or notifications will not be enough. A number of people have reported that their emails were ignored.
Be sure to read the fine print on ALL purchases. Otherwise, you may end up being one of the unknowing victims of this multibillion dollar ”industry.”
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Senate Investigation
Four of the offending marketing firms are Vertrue, Webloyalty, Chase Bank, Affinion. Currently, several or all are under Senate investigation for consumer fraud.
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Additional Information
CNET: Feds: Top e-tailers profit from billion-dollar Web scam
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10399880-93.html
COMMERCE.GOV
Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and Their Impact on American Consumers
Link
Government Archive Video
View Archive Webcast
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PARTIAL LIST OF OFFENDING RETAILERS
Over 10 Million Dollars Received
1-800-Flowers.com
Buy.com
Classmates.com
Columbia House
Confi-Check
Expedia/Hotels.com
Fandango
FTD
Hotwire
InQ
Intelius
MovieTickets.com
Orbitz
Priceline
Redcats USA
Shutterfly
Travelocity
US Airways
Vistaprint
1 to 10 Million Dollars Received
1-800-PetMeds
Adteractiv
Airtran Airways
Alliegiant Air
AllPosters.com
American Greetings
Auto Parts
Avon
Barnes & Noble
Bizrate.com
Bookspan
Boston Apparel Group
BuySeasons/Celebrate
Express
Campusfood.com
Cendant
Channel Advisor
Cheap Tickets
Choice Hotels
CollectionswEtc.com
Continental Airlines
Current USA
123 Prints
Custom Direct
Digital River
Dr. Leonard’s
Drugstore
eHarmony
eTix
eToys
Fareportal
FrangranceNet
From You Flowers
FTD Florists Online
Gamestop
EBgames
Gevalia
Haband
Half.com
Hanover Direct
Hertz
HiSpeed Media
Infinity Resources
J.C. Whitney
Joann.com
Lillian Vernon
Live Nation
Marketworks
Miles Kimball
Musicnotes
MyLife.com
MyPoints
Pizza Hut
Potpourri
Restaurants.com
Riverdeep
Shoebuy
Simplexity
Spirit Airlines
Suresource
Americart
Thompson Group
Tiger Direct
TimeLife
True.com
True Credit
True Link
Upsellit.com
US Search
Victoria’s Secret
Vitacost
WayPort
West
Yahoo
REMEMBER - THIS IS ONLY A PARTIAL LIST. THERE ARE A HUGE NUMBER OF ONLINE RETAILERS WHO PARTICIPATE IN THESE “WEB LOYALTY” ADVERTISING PROGRAMS.
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Beware of Cell Phone Apps!
Did you know that the App you download for your iPhone or Blackberry could contain malware? Malware is software designed to infiltrate and control your device without your knowledge or permission.
Your phone is no longer just a phone - it’s a sophisticated mini computer subject to all sorts of computer dangers.
It goes like this. You find a great APP that offers a free game, cool tool or something intriguing. You’re ready to download. Hey, it’s free. Why not? What’s to lose?
Plenty.
That APP could contain malware. Among other things, malware can crash your phone, do all sorts of mischief or download all your personal information, contacts, even files.
Your contacts and personal information are gold to scammers and criminals. These hypesters could pretend to be you and email or contact your friends and business associates in YOUR GOOD NAME and then commit all sorts of dirty deeds.
So, What to Do?
Be smart - check out that APP before you download. Visit their website, check out the testimonials, SEARCH on Google for any REVIEWS and legitimate SCAM information. Proceed with care.
Your due diligence is required. These days, due diligence is imperative.
For Your Computer
Use the FREE firewalls, anti-virus and protection tools available through major companies.
Our favorite? Comodo. We’ve been running Comodo Free Professional Grade Firewall on our computers and haven’t had problems for many years.
It’s fast, doesn’t bog or change up your machine like many of the virus checkers do.
Use PREVENTIVE Technology
These days, scammers and hypesters are very Net and Tech crafty. They’ll use any method possible to raid your wallet and steal you blind if at all possible. Firewalls are preventative. Anti-Virus and Virus Checkers are REACTIVE. After the damage is done, there’s often little hope for proper repair.
Summary
Check out your APPS before downloading.
Use a Free firewall product. We recommend Comodo Free Pro Grade Firewall.
Be safe!
It can be a nutty world out there!
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CHANGE YOUR HOTMAIL PASSWORD!
If you have a hotmail account, change your password immediately. Thousands of email accounts have been compromised and passwords, logins and other information may have been stolen. A majority of accounts seem to be in Europe.
NEWS STORY IN DETAIL:
Thousands of Hotmail passwords have been hacked and posted online, BBC News has learnt…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/8291268.stm
Quote
“I’d also recommend that people change the password on any other site where they use it,” he said.
Around 40% of people use the same password for every website they use, he added.
If you are one of those 40%, it’s advisable to start changing your passwords NOW.
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Why I’m Glad Steve Jobs is Back
If you’re a Apple Mac aficionado, the news is glorious - Steve Jobs is back in town and looks to be on game. And I’m glad he’s back because without Steve, Apple wouldn’t be Apple.
Evidently, he’s been back at Cupertino’s Apple main office since the beginning of July 09, but that had been kept rather hush hush. But today, he presented the new iPOD models at the Apple event in San Francisco.
His starting quote: “I’m very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you may know, about five months ago I had a liver transplant. So I now have the liver of a mid twenties person who died in a car crash who was generous enough to donate their organs. And I wouldn’t be here without their generosity. So I’d like us all to be as generous, and I’d like all of us to become organ donors.”
Okay Steve. You got it.
The reason I’m just so darned happy about his return is because this man, along with his arch rival and sometimes nemesis, Bill Gates, helped define MULTI generations while ushering in the computer hardware industry as we now know it. And, he’s about the bounciest comeback CEO ever.
Remember, he was fired from his OWN company by the very people he originally hired. Ouch. He then drifted aimlessly, despondent, eventually started Pixar. We all know THAT story. He proved himself yet again creating another excessively superlative company. Like Apple.
Apple is Steve, Steve is Apple. Just my opin.
When Apple was set to implode and die, he returned like a magic superhero and revived the dead beast to it’s once, vaulted stature. And more.
The man is UNSTOPPABLE… except when it came to coming down with Pancreatic cancer.
The newer, ill, more gentle Steve gave an unforgettable commencement speech at Stanford. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” Words from Steve and the Whole Earth Catalog… It was as if he had come to realize the “preciousness” and temporalness of life.
A story for our times. There isn’t another one like it that I know of. Perhaps you know other stories of superheroes in real life. But he’s my superhero techie hardware story.
Steve started as an ogre, a villain with uncanny abilities. He’s proven himself time and again to be villainously unstoppable. He’s created by sheer will of force, single handedly, two of the greatest creative companies on Earth.
How?
Relentless Quality
Marketing to the College Crowd (They have or will have, money)
Unmitigated Gall to Incite Frenzy
Taking Terrible Chances
Gambling on the Unknown
Reading the Minds of Consumers
(Before Consumers know themselves)
99 cent downloadable music
Slick whiteness and curvy corners
Great Packaging and Presentation
Whipping His People to a Froth
Never accepting Quit
Stumbling like a drunk, catching himself like a gymnast
Given up at birth, adopted by angels
Intimately challenged by the Great Bill Gates
Having the finest sense of Calligraphy and Design
Sheer luck
Sheer brilliance
Super Sense of Style
Secrecy
Mystery
Constitution of Rubber
So although I’m Virulent PC, I do own a Macbook Pro. That runs XP. It’s just one of the best pieces of versatilious hardware out there.
And that kind of says it all.
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Steve Job’s Transcript of his commencement address at Stanford University
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
The Youtube Video Presentation of Steve Job’s Address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
With the new purchase of Friendfeed, Facebook is now going to own all your Friendfeed updates and info. Own your feeds, own your Facebook, own You on the Net. That includes what you write, what you do, where you go, what you say, post, and see, if they so deem.
Your sole Social Networking life can be contained within Facebook the site, and now, throughout the world with Friendfeed aka, Facebook Global.
Is this a problem? Perhaps not to you, as you most likely may not feel the behind the scenes gradual integration of internal Facebook workings with outside feed aggregation. Perhaps other Social Networks and Aggregators will feel the pinch. The pinch out of existence Pinch.
What this basically means is that you will be able to “get all your socializing and online interactions” through Facebook. Add Search, and will you even need Google? WHAT will Google do, one ponders…
Let the fireworks begin…
Is this good or bad? It’s only for us to decide, individually. Some will love it. Others, fear it. Still others, decry and possibly hate it. And there will be those who Fight It, perhaps coming up with something still better. Or not.
The Friendfeed purchase of only $47 million by Facebook is the coup of the century…
Pwned.
As companies consolidate and combine further and further, the RULE OF THREES may apply.
That means: there will be only 3 companies left standing in a given field… 2 huge conglomerates, 1 tiny little sideshooter.
As for those two huge conglomerates? Most likely intricately related and married into a hidden couple.
Articles:
Now Facebook Really Owns You
You just don’t know it yet. - Chadwick Matlin
Ever increasing demands for data storage are creating a new cash crop for the Mid and Southwest - Data Centers with huge rows of servers and miles of pipeline and cable.
With skyrocketing costs in California and the Pacific Coast, companies such as Apple and Microsoft are heading East and South to open huge data warehouses for thousands of cloud servers and data pipes. Bye to Silicon Valley and the Pacific Coast, hello to Iowa, Texas, South Carolina, West Virginia.
Loans to build are harder to get, so tech companies are turning more towards leasing space at established server farms. Due to tech advancements, old data centers can be left in the dust holding yesteday’s technology at tomorrow’s prices… thus, banks are less likely to lend for buying land and building your own.
Like all tech investments, it’s a crapshoot knowing what’s going to be the next sure thing. One thing for sure - increased data streaming demands are going to skyrocket.
Articles:
California’s Other Real-Estate Crisis - Martha White
Data storage sites are moving out of Silicon Valley—at the state’s expense.
Our original definition:
Rule of Threes
When there’s only 3 companies left standing in a given field or industy - 2 giant conglomerates and 1 tiny maverick. Usually the 2 conglomerates are living in connubial bliss… closely tied together but legally unwed.
Synonyms
Three Left Standing
We Own Your Ass
Competition Elimination
End of Empire
3’s Too Many
One Left Standing…
When there is only one left standing, it will inevitably fall. Why?
We live in a world of dualities. We must play off one another, or no force is created. And, force is required for maintenance and growth. Without the interplay of competition and innovation, a society is doomed.
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Right or wrong, we derived at, and have Long Held the Following:
Everything is a Microcosm of the Macrocosm… Everything is a Microcosm of the Whole.
Meaning…
Any questions you have regarding the past, the predictatory future and the present, can be answered by merely studying the pattern of what has consistently happened in any evolution before.
Every happening set of sequences has been repeated before, and will be repeated again in similar fashion.
Example
Technological advancements - what will be the next greatest innovation?
Prediction
Whatever fits the pattern of what succeeded in the past. In this case, innovation begins with a singular brilliant creator that expands to an all encompassing community and back again. Things come in waves, cycles and particulate forms. So it is with business, technology, science, art, the Universe itself.
All it takes is One to build the world, and One to tear it down. All the One needs, is Community.
One to light the match, community to provide the fuel, fan the flames and build the fire.
Using this method of defining “What Is,” one can surmise that the Universe was created by One, Expanded by Community, and will be destroyed by One. To Rise again, then be utterly destroyed to form other Universes.
In other words… the Universe was started by One, joined together by Community, consolidated into Three, melded into one, to be utterly destroyed, it’s sparks and pieces to be rebuilt into a new phenomenon.
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Nicest video card?
That depends… yeah yeah whatever.. We’ll take two.
Feel like modding your XBOX for friends? Beware…
Michael Crippen was arrested by Homeland Security Agents for modifying and enabling Xbox video game consoles to play copied games. He was charging $30 per mod.
Whoa, he faces 10 years in the slammer… he’s currently out on $5,000 bond. At that lower bond level, seems unlikely he’ll get the full 10.
Obviously he was targeted for making a business out of this.
His defense: Merely helping folks make legal backups. Sounds… harmless enough…
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