Entry #23 Like Moths to a Flame

Tech Humor

In Columbus Ohio a man was car jacked and the crooks got away with this car, money and cell phone. After been car jacked the man and his friend came up with a plan that relied on most criminals not being the smartest of people. The man texted his cell phone saying that he had drugs and women and wondered where he was. Like moths to a flame the carjacker stupidly replied back their address and instead of a party on Saturday night they found them selves visted by the police. The crooks were caught red handed and the man will get his car and hopefully the rest of his belonging back shortly.

Entry #22 I Love You But... I'm Hungry

Facebook

Before the creation of Facebook it was easy to drop friends by just never talking to them again. Now with the creation of social networks like Facebook dropping friends has become harder. I now myself I am having to go through and clean up my friends list as there are people on there I barely new in the first place and other that just well... annoy me.
For those of you looking for a good excuse to drop Facebook friends Burger King as launched a new app call, Whopper Sacrifice. The app that allows you to hide your friend abandonment under the vail of delicious flame broiled patty.
The new app will remove friends and them post a message saying "Joe Shmoe sacrificed so-and-so for a free Whopper. Who, will be the next to go?"

So now for those of you looking for a good excuse to drop those old friend from school you only friended in the first place to see how fat they got... and don't deny it you know you did. So happy de-friending and remember some one be hurt but you will be full.

Entry #21 Steve Jobs is The New Celeb

Tech News

Welcome back to a new exciting year of all that is tech and like last year we started this blog with Apple so I think it only right to start this year with Apple.
Last year the big Apple news was not the release of a new line of Mac books but instead the health of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. Myself, I avoided blogging these rumors as my opinion is that Steve Jobs should not be treated as a celebrate and everything he does, does not need to be public information.
Today though Steve Jobs has release a letter stating that his much published weight lose was not because we is dieing but just a hormone imbalance. Steve says that he is beginning treatment and will regain the weight shortly. I hope now with this letter release this can be put to rest but will probably just fuel more speculative blogs and and Apple stock price drops.

Entry # 20 Nintendo DS Scrabble Teaches You Essential Vocabulary

Tech News

A mother bought her eight year old son the Scabble game for the nintendo DS in hope to help him with his vocabulary. To her surprise the game started to teach the child words that no eight year old should know. Words like fuckers, and titts started to be generated by the computer player. Surprised the mother looked at the definition the game offered and sure enough they meant exactly what they referred to.
The women of course was understandably furious and I hope Ubisoft the maker of the game will pull this game from the selves and off refunds to those that purchased the game.
Although this is a very serious topic one thing I did notice is this child better learn these word anyways because he is in for a world of teasing as here appears in the picture with is mother and a pink DS. brave boy or mean mother, one of the two.

Entry #19 'Tis The Season To Be Scammed

Security

With Christmas upon us and our hearts in a state of giving and joy it is a perfect tie of year for crooks and scam artists to pray on the naive and week. While going through my countless news feeds I discovered a story published by the Leader Post about a women that discovered a scam that prays on one's love for puppies. According to the story the women was interested in by a dog and though she had found a breeder online with the dog and price she was looking for. Now luckily in this cases the women was smart enough to do some background checking on the breeder to find out the address given to her was a fake and the information though appearing legitimate did not jive considering this breeder was willing to flight the puppy to her in -50C temperature. This story is a good example of how people should act online when purchasing anything.
When purchasing anything online people should do what they do in real life, use common sense. In real life you always make decisions about the places you shop. You look at the store and judge them by appearance. You ask friends what experiences they had there. You find out what type of shopper insurance they offer, things like return policy, price guarantee, warranties, etc. So why would you not do that online?
When shopping online research, Google is not their to just find funny pictures it is there for research. before shopping at a site find reviews of the site. If you can not find any well then that is a good indication it might be a place to avoid. Also read multiple reviews both good and bad because often just reading one review will not give you the true picture as reviewer tend to be over dramatic about something and either give a site a really high review or really low review and neither are really warranted. Also read reviews from independent site not the reviews on the site itself as though reviews are easily faked or moderated.
Other thing you can do to protect yourself is check scam warning sights like www.phonebusters.com. You can also use third party trusted purchasers like Paypal or Google Checkout as these sight pay for the products for you and you pay them. This gives you a layer between your credit card and the merchant. Most reputable online sites will support these services because they know the value of them their selves.
There are many other things that a person can do to protect themselves when shopping online but the best advice is do do exactly what this women did and research and use common sense. As the saying goes, "if it is to good to be true, it probably is."

Entry #18 The Mouse Went Over The Hill

Tech News

All though it is a little belated but on December 9, 2008 the computer mouse turned 40 years old. The mouse was first used by Douglas Engelbart in 1968 to demonstrated an new way of interacting with computers. In this demo Douglas used a one button wooden mouse made by Bill English and was used to show how a user could cut and paste text in a text file.
Since 1968 the mouse has become the critical interface device next to the keyboard and even possible more used then the keyboard. the Mouse has taken on many different shapes from multi tracking, ergonomic , multi button and even laser sensing, a far cry from the wooden one first used.
But what really makes the mouse important is it became the first human interface device to a computer that was not the keyboard. It also lead to greater use of graphical user interfaces on computers. Before the mouse computers were text bases terminals that used command line prompts from the keyboard forcing users to memories several text commands and the order at which to use them. With the invention of the mouse people were able to "point and click" their way through a computer using their eye for visual queues as to what to do.
The advancement of the mouse has also lead to new interface models such as touch pads that you find in almost all laptops today and even new multi touch tables built by Microsoft that allow users to interact with a computer like they would a pile of papers on their desk.

Entry #17 Drugs .... Maybe .... Linux .... NO!

Tech Humor

While in high school did you ever have something snatched from you by a teacher that managed to sneak up behind you with out warning. Well then you can imagine the invasion this student felt after a teacher confiscated a set of free distributions of Linux from the student as if they were drugs. After confiscating the disk the teacher then wrote an email to the Linux group supping the disks and stated,

"...observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a conference with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal."

Then after claim the actions of the student and group were illegal she threatens to charge them illegally distributing software because as the teacher puts it,

"No software is free"

She continues to go on and claim that she tried Linux while at collage which by her ignorance I can only assume she tried DOS or Unix and would not know the difference.

"I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods."

The sad part about this email and the although not stated punishment of the student, is a clear example of an education system that is not well informed of the actual world outside of its own diminishing schools system.

The bright point to this story is the group the teacher contacted was able to set up a meeting with her and the principle and I hope that this teacher will be put in her place and the student giving back the disks that the student rightfully owns.

Although I did not include the entire email here or the response to that email I encourage everyone to read the email and response in its entirety as it made me chuckle at the ignorance some people have.

Linux - Stop holding our kids back