Video Q&A - Jabbits - The New Frontier?
Matt Candrian of Jabbits recently wrote a comment about his new video Q&A service, and it's worth mentioning the site in a post so everyone can catch it. Personally, it's not for me. I've used Yahoo Answers and other Q&A sites partially for their speed - I can post quickly and relatively quickly find out if anyone has an answer, and video slows ... (Read on Source)
Keyshawn to Analyze NFL Draft for ESPN
NEW YORK (AP) -- Keyshawn Johnson someday would like to be an NFL team's general manager, if not its owner. He's getting a head start on personnel evaluation and a crash course in the draft this spring.... (Read on Source)
Football Star Hires Security After Wedding Threats - ABC News
 The Money Times | Football Star Hires Security After Wedding Threats ABC News - Boise State running back Ian Johnson, right, proposes to his girlfriend, cheerleader Chrissy Popadics, Monday, Jan. 1, 2007, after Boise State beat Oklahoma 43-42 in the Fiesta Bowl college football game in Glendale, Ariz. "Social baggage" of hate toward interracial love Ian Johnson Suffers Racist Threats At Wedding |
American Airlines Offers In-Flight Internet
... used on transcontinental routes. For a fee, passengers will be able to access a virtual private network (VPN) and e-mail capabilities through WiFi-enabled laptops and PDAs. If it works as well as ...
BBC Player Strains Bandwidth (PC World)
PC World - The British Broadcasting Corp. is under fire from Internet service providers over how its new multimedia player may cause an increase in demand for bandwidth, placing greater stresses on the infrastructure of ISP's.
PDF spam levels plummet
After hitting record volumes earlier this month, PDF spam levels have declined significantly as spammers return to simpler methods of pumping stocks
The Echo Chamber Loses an Echo
As we have noted many times over the years, the editorial board of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has been one of the few institutions in America more consistently left-wing than the New York Times and perhaps, even, MoveOn.org. This cutting-edge leftism has been carried out for the last 15 years under the leadership of Susan Albright, who was let ... (Read on Source)
Bandwidth Theft Definition and Examples
Bandwidth is the technical term for the amount of data sent between one computer to another. For instance, when you entered this site, the data was sent from this server to your web browser and stored on your computers hard drive this page, the data was sent from the server to your web browser and stored on the hard drive of your computer. The information is measured in bytes and the sum total is what makes up your bandwidth usage. It is basically what makes the internet go. Many Internet Service Providers and Web Hosts charge according to your bandwidth usage and will penalize, discontinue or otherwise charge those who exceed a previously agreed bandwidth limit. You may have seen such sites with notices of quota exceeded or temporarily overlimit notices. That is a direct result of exceeding their bandwidth allotment.
The ID card cometh...
While the national ID card for U.S. citizens is in serious trouble at the state level, members of Congress are not be be denied. If the states won't play ball, then the Feds might just have to take over.
The Web Is Improving Consumer Software By Cutting Out Middlemen
David Pogue quotes an interesting reader email about why high-tech consumer products are so often bloated and poorly designed. It points out that when large companies design a product, they tend to be overly focused on adding lots of complex features in order to put "more check marks in more boxes" on comparison charts and impress reviewers. That raises the price of the product and can often confuse novice users. But in the old days when software was sold in a box at Best Buy, it was hard to avoid this fate because the overhead of producing, distributing, and marketing the software required charging a high price and sucking up to reviewers. The web has eliminated a lot of overhead and allowed an entrepreneur to put his product directly in the hands of users without going through a lot of middlemen. That shifts the marketplace in favor of small, lightweight, easy-to-use software.
Software that would never have been judged serious enough to put in a box and sell at Best Buy can now carve out a niche in the market by appealing directly to customers. And that's a good thing because comparison charts are often a lousy way to judge software. For example, the original Google search engine would have stacked up poorly in comparison charts against larger rivals like Yahoo! that were rapidly transforming themselves into "portals." But Google was a lot better at the one feature that really mattered: search quality. They had trouble convincing the titans of the web to buy their search technology, but luckily they could just put it on the web and let the customer try it. As more and more software migrates to the web, it's likely to result in more responsive and higher-quality software.
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
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When Duplicate Content Really Hurts
Intro from Rebecca: Eric Enge is a guest blogger for SEOmoz. His posts primarily focus on link building, but he has tackled other topics as well. He has previously written about the role of outbound links, various ways to pursue links, the role of directories in link building, Google's Ajax APIs, and how he doesn't buy links. Today he'll be ... (Read on Source)
'Maximum Slim' Seller Warned About Marketing Claims
ROCKVILLE, Md. - The Food and Drug Administration recently informed Martin Nutraceuticals Inc. that its marketing for "Maximum Slim" and "Arthrizyme" products violates the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S. Code Section 321[g][1]) because it suggests that the supplements can be used to cure, mitigate, treat or prevent disease. Full story on lexis.com
SEO Chat Forums - This site may harm your computer.
Date: July 14th, 2008 03:32 PM - mehra - fgg.js Post: We discovered the problem. Somehow a robot hacked into our site and inserted a line calling on a JS throughout many pages of the site. The location of the js was not always the same but the js was always named fgg.js. this is always appearing...
HP, Intel, Yahoo in cloud tie-up
Three high profile tech firms put their weight behind the cloud computing phenomenon.
Alt Text: The Sci-Fi Rejection Letter That Time Forgot
Dear Author, We appreciate your submission of your short story, "In the Year 2008," to Astonishing Chronicles magazine. However, we regret to inform you that we cannot publish your story. As the premier science-fiction periodical, Astonishing Chronicles publishes stories ranging from the merely hypothetical to the completely outlandish, but you ... (Read on Source)
Evernote
Clip, save and search text and images with Evernote Pandia (July 4) "Evernote is a cool tool has the potential to become my outsourced brain, a place to store anything I want to remember, tag it, annotate it and make... (Read on Source)
Plan a Perfect Event with Aid of Corporate Event Planner
It is very stressful to plan corporate events because it is difficult to ensure that all details are taken care of. You always want perfect venue for the party or meeting or any other gathering, enter...
RP iPod File Recovery
... video. * Provides iPod Data Retrieval Support for both Apple Macintosh OSX or by Microsoft Windows. If you continue to write to your iPod after accidently erasing, losing, data/files, or ...
McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School
John McCain's vice-presidential pick, Sarah Palin, has gone on record in support of teaching creationism in schools.
Judiciary Committee Airs 'Preemption By Regulation'
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., recently accused the Bush administration of abusing executive authority by attempting to impose federal preemption on legal claims through agency regulations. Full story on lexis.com
Puppy Linux Live Trumps LinuxDefender In More Ways Than One
Run with the puppies or stay behind to defend what isn't there anymore ;) More than a few people wrote in to let me know about other interesting "live" distro's of Linux after our post on using LinuxDefender Live CD to Fix NTFS problems ran. I've been a bit busy with my son, now that he's started school and isn't completely exhausted at the end of the day (like I always am ;), but I will post each and every comment I received (at least, with the consent of the commenter's) as soon as I can.
Star Wars Lights Up the Pumpkin Patch
:
You don't need a lightsaber to carve a Star Wars jack-o'-lantern.
All it takes to create your own Jedi-approved Halloween decoration is a pumpkin, a few tools and a little inspiration from one sci-fi's most beloved franchises.
Got your own geek-o'-lantern? Upload a photo of your geeky gourd to share it with Wired.com's readers.
Left:
A collection of Star Wars pumpkins.
Photo: dayna1/Flickr
: R2-D2's dome top made a natural translation to a jack-o'-lantern, says Patrick Buechner, 42, of Berkeley, California.
"I work at a videogame studio, so this only improved my geek cred," Buechner said. He shows the pumpkin-carving tools he used on his blog, The Derringdos.
: "Star Wars has been a favorite theme since I was a kid," said Marc Evan, 28, of Brooklyn, New York. "I believe it has played an important role in the development of our generation's creativity and imagination. It is the mythology that we grew up with."
Evan runs the Maniac Pumpkin Carvers website, and says Star Wars' rich universe has been a consistent influence in his pumpkin artwork.
"My family and friends often chide me about my love for these characters because I have become so immersed in their lore over the years," he said. "But at the same time they love how it has influenced my own creativity and work. As an homage to these great films and mythology I have carved my favorite Dark Lords of the Sith into pumpkins for Halloween."
: Jim Reynolds, a self-described "huge Star Wars geek" who lives in Akron, Ohio, said he loves Halloween and carving pumpkins so much that he usually ends up with at least 10 gouged gourds each year. At least one of them is usually inspired by George Lucas' film franchise, as is this Darth Vader jack-o'-lantern.
: "The general reaction from the wife, friends and/or family is a combination of impressed, pity and concern," says Jim Reynolds, 32, of Akron, Ohio, who also carved this imperial insignia pumpkin. "Not so much because of the Star Wars — more because of the amount of time/effort and my erratic, suggestive Halloween happy-dancing."
: Sarah Darnell, 31, carved this Jedi master from a pattern provided by The Pumpkin Wizard.
"I can't imagine anything more fun at a Halloween party than the icons from Star Wars," she said. "It turns out that Yoda and friends are very well-suited to flickering orange."
Photo: Nige (aka Norbini on Flickr)
: "I have been a fan of Star Wars since I saw A New Hope in our theater in my hometown of Woodstock, (Ontario, Canada) in 1977," said Travis Allison, 37, who carved this stormtrooper. "I remember being there with my dad but nothing else other than being so caught up in the story."
: When the first Star Wars movie came out, it made a huge impression on Marty Hergert, 37, of Melrose, Massachusetts.
"It's a cultural touchstone for people my age who grew up with the original movies, so I guess I want to pass down the passion and imaginative power I felt to my own children," Hergert said.
He based his Yoda jack-o'-lantern on a mask printout from StarWars.com. "I made a line drawing out of it and used those Pumpkin Masters tools to do the fine carving. The difficult part was deciding what features to cut out and what to leave solid and have it still look like Yoda."
The diminutive Jedi master is perfect for a pumpkin because of dark and brooding demeanor, Hergert said: "His sage and mystical qualities come through perfectly in the orange glow."
: "I chose a Boba Fett pumpkin for two reasons," said Kent "Drhaggis" McKay, a pumpkin carver in his 30s who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. "I thought the simple, iconic form of the helmet would translate well to a pumpkin and be recognizable. Also, my lifelong love of Star Wars made it hard not to do."
What was the reaction to the sci-fi pumpkin?
"My friends thought it was very cool, as I choose my friends carefully," McKay said. "My wife and I have also done Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter pumpkins. My fandom is worn fairly prominently, so it's never a surprise when I do something like this."
: Star Wars fans David Newton and his girlfriend, Caryl, carved this Darth Vader pumpkin to battle Halloween ennui.
"At first we considered doing Yoda," he said, "but Vader's a scary dude and fit much better with Halloween." The design is based on artwork by Barry Bradfield of Basement24.com.
"Our friends back home, when they saw the pics, at first didn't believe it was real or, if they did, that we made it," Newton said. "It wasn't until we showed them some pics of us actually carving the pumpkin that they believed us.... Once we convinced them that the pumpkin was actually ours, I think they were pretty damn impressed."
: Noel Dickover's intricately carved Death Star pumpkin landed the top spot in Wired.com's 2007 geek-o'-lantern roundup.
See more: Gallery: Our Readers' Coolest Geek-o'-Lanterns.
'Botnets' attack silently
... unprotected computer running an early version of Windows XP to the Internet. In less than a ... find a botnet that turned on the Microsoft Windows Update feature after taking over a computer, ...
Clock Quotes
Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach. - Woodrow Wilson Read the comments on this post... (Read on Source)
Retraction: Kelly Reilly and Guy Ritchie Not Romantically Involved
In our November 3 issue, we suggested that the actress Kelly Reilly was having a relationship with Guy Ritchie. It is now clear from the further information that we have received that Ms. Reilly is engaged and there is and has been no romantic relationship between Kelly Reilly and Guy Ritchie. We apologize for any embarrassment caused to Ms. ... (Read on Source)
Presidential Inauguration's Hard-Core Happy Campers
With hotel rooms booking up fast, visitors who want to witness President-elect Barack Obama's historic inauguration are snapping up spots at campgrounds in Washington's suburbs and as far away as West Virginia, reserving unheated cabins, renting RVs and inquiring whether it would be feasible to camp...
Lost Creek Mushroom Farm Shiitake Mushroom Log Kits: Give Friends and Family Years of Gourmet Mushro
Ma & Pa Shiitake, mushroom farmers Doug & Sandra Williams from Lost Creek Mushroom Farm, are contributing proceeds from the sales of their shiitake mushroom log kits to Mushrooms in Ghana, a project to support mushroom farmers in Ghana and West Africa and assist with introducing protein-rich shiitake mushrooms to Ghanaian farmers and the Ghanaian diet. The top-selling log kit company in the US takes the first steps into social entrepreneurship. (PRWeb Nov 25, 2008)
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/mushroomsinghana/mushroomlogs/prweb1657664.htm
Special Update Thursday night
News of the failure of the auto bailout has tanked an already weak market sending...
Open Source Integration Challenges and Solutions
Linux has proven that the open source model works -- it addresses two of the biggest challenges for IT professionals: the high cost of infrastructure software and the limitations a closed stack imposes on the enterprise. Open source is particularly appealing for cost savings, vendor neutrality, access to source code and innovation.
name: MAGPIE