Regardless of your religious beliefs or what have you, The Cyberculturalist and The Weirding would like to wish you all a very, Merry Christmas!
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Scratch Input
Chris Harrison and friends have put together an honestly unique and refreshing take on input with their scratch input device technology. It seems the most ingenious advancements are those which seem so simple once they are "discovered" - like peanut butter and chocolate being put together; whenever a significant advancement - such as this one, for I truly see this being applicable to mainstream technology - you always kick yourself and go, "Now why didn't I think of that!?"
Not to put myself on Mr. Harrison and crew's "level," as it were - I simply do not think in such ways and lack the edumacation and time. But you have to admit, once you see this video, the basic concept seems obvious... so why hasn't anyone else thought of this!?
The flip-side of that coin is, of course, someone probably has - in fact, history teaches us that whenever a major advancement has been made, similar experiments were being carried-out by one or more people simultaneously. It largely depends on timing and funding.
This brings up the patent debate, but that's outside of this discussion. At any rate, look for some variation on the scratch input to start making its way into mainstream technology within the next decade or so.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Not to put myself on Mr. Harrison and crew's "level," as it were - I simply do not think in such ways and lack the edumacation and time. But you have to admit, once you see this video, the basic concept seems obvious... so why hasn't anyone else thought of this!?
The flip-side of that coin is, of course, someone probably has - in fact, history teaches us that whenever a major advancement has been made, similar experiments were being carried-out by one or more people simultaneously. It largely depends on timing and funding.
This brings up the patent debate, but that's outside of this discussion. At any rate, look for some variation on the scratch input to start making its way into mainstream technology within the next decade or so.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Warner Brothers Re-Threatens YouTube
In 2006, Warner Brothers made a deal with fledgling video service, YouTube, which was hailed as a landmark agreement, paving the way for other companies. A Warner Brothers "channel" was created on the service. But now, Warner Brothers is asking for more money (go figure...) and has decided to change the arrangement.
While the Warner Brothers channel is still live as of this writing, if YouTube caves to their demands, it could spell trouble: YouTube has similar deals with music publishers Universal Music, Sony, and EMI, and if Warner Brothers has their way, we all know the rest of them will want more money, too. Thousands of videos could be pulled.
Warner Brothers' agreement was to receive ad revenue from the videos watched, which amounts to fractions of a penny per viewing - basically the same deal we publishers get with Google AdSense (Google owns YouTube) - I honestly feel their pain! Warner Brothers called the share "staggeringly low."
Google countered Warner Brothers' renegotiations with the very Google statement, "...you may notice videos that contain music owned by Warner Music Group being blocked from the site."
I am elated! Finally, we independent webmasters (publishers in our own right) may get a chance to be heard, as Google is treating large publishers the same way and those larger publishers are fighting back. While we are too small - and far, far too poor - to fight Google on any grounds, these larger publishing firms most certainly are not.
While Google has monopolized the Web these last few years, its main function remains that of a search engine. If larger publishers begin pulling their content from Google, we smaller publishers may join the fight! What will Google be without any content? Considering it owns the search engine, YouTube, and Blogger (to name just a few of its many, disparate holdings)... not much.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
While the Warner Brothers channel is still live as of this writing, if YouTube caves to their demands, it could spell trouble: YouTube has similar deals with music publishers Universal Music, Sony, and EMI, and if Warner Brothers has their way, we all know the rest of them will want more money, too. Thousands of videos could be pulled.
Warner Brothers' agreement was to receive ad revenue from the videos watched, which amounts to fractions of a penny per viewing - basically the same deal we publishers get with Google AdSense (Google owns YouTube) - I honestly feel their pain! Warner Brothers called the share "staggeringly low."
Google countered Warner Brothers' renegotiations with the very Google statement, "...you may notice videos that contain music owned by Warner Music Group being blocked from the site."
I am elated! Finally, we independent webmasters (publishers in our own right) may get a chance to be heard, as Google is treating large publishers the same way and those larger publishers are fighting back. While we are too small - and far, far too poor - to fight Google on any grounds, these larger publishing firms most certainly are not.
While Google has monopolized the Web these last few years, its main function remains that of a search engine. If larger publishers begin pulling their content from Google, we smaller publishers may join the fight! What will Google be without any content? Considering it owns the search engine, YouTube, and Blogger (to name just a few of its many, disparate holdings)... not much.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
1 Notification: You've Been Served
An Australian lawyer got the clearance to serve a couple court papers via Facebook. He told the judge he had exhausted all other means of contacting the couple, but knew they had a Facebook profile.
Mark McCormack of Canberra told the court he had tried contacting them by phone, mail, and e-mail but the couple was unresponsive. They failed to appear in court on October 3rd. The couple's house is being repossessed and McCormack believes they are simply avoiding the situation. McCormack used information found on the woman's Facebook profile to convince the court she is the responsible party. Her husband was listed as one of her friends.
The court sided with him and allowed him to send the papers via the popular social networking site. Australian courts have allowed e-mail and text messages for this use in the past. This is the first time they have allowd Facebook - or any social network - to be used in this manner.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Mark McCormack of Canberra told the court he had tried contacting them by phone, mail, and e-mail but the couple was unresponsive. They failed to appear in court on October 3rd. The couple's house is being repossessed and McCormack believes they are simply avoiding the situation. McCormack used information found on the woman's Facebook profile to convince the court she is the responsible party. Her husband was listed as one of her friends.
The court sided with him and allowed him to send the papers via the popular social networking site. Australian courts have allowed e-mail and text messages for this use in the past. This is the first time they have allowd Facebook - or any social network - to be used in this manner.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Organize Your Start Menu
I am a productivity extremist; I spend entire days tweaking my computer and programs to get the most out of them. If you are like me, you know how difficult and time-consuming this can be - the pay-off is that, once you've set everything just right, your productivity does increase.
If you are not like me, take a moment to consider all the time you waste looking for programs, files, and so forth. Add to this the time spent adjusting settings according to your project's needs, your personal preferences, and so on. Add all those minutes together and you'll see just how much time you are losing everyday, on every project and operation.
Above and beyond that, it's frustrating as hell! And the quality of your work, as well as your productivity and output, is directly affected by your mood. Having your computer behave and perform exactly the way you want/need it to - without having to fool with it to make it do so - reduces your stress more than you can ever realize until you have experienced it for a week or two!
And all of this begins at the beginning: the Start Menu.
WinStep is a utility we really shouldn't need; Microsoft continues to put more and more of its OS "under the hood," where we tweakers have to struggle to get to it in order to make our computers work for us. Ostensibly, this is to make it more "user-friendly," except that it just isn't. Microsoft's preferences are neither intuitive nor productive; they are designed to promote their "upgrade" services and those that come pre-bundled with your computer.
There probably is some registry hack or three that allows you to accomplish what WinStep does, but it would be messy, complicated, and time-consuming; WinStep makes it pretty easy. But let me give you the rundown on how to use it, because they won't tell you this on the site or in the instructions:
You can still manipulate listings directly from the Start Menu, and I've found a combination of the methods to be the best approach for me - actually some tweaking directly from the Start Menu is necessary. There are a lot of duplications - Administrative Tools and System Tools being the stand-outs - that you will need to iron-out on your own.
Great utility that should be completely unnecessary.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
If you are not like me, take a moment to consider all the time you waste looking for programs, files, and so forth. Add to this the time spent adjusting settings according to your project's needs, your personal preferences, and so on. Add all those minutes together and you'll see just how much time you are losing everyday, on every project and operation.
Above and beyond that, it's frustrating as hell! And the quality of your work, as well as your productivity and output, is directly affected by your mood. Having your computer behave and perform exactly the way you want/need it to - without having to fool with it to make it do so - reduces your stress more than you can ever realize until you have experienced it for a week or two!
And all of this begins at the beginning: the Start Menu.
WinStep is a utility we really shouldn't need; Microsoft continues to put more and more of its OS "under the hood," where we tweakers have to struggle to get to it in order to make our computers work for us. Ostensibly, this is to make it more "user-friendly," except that it just isn't. Microsoft's preferences are neither intuitive nor productive; they are designed to promote their "upgrade" services and those that come pre-bundled with your computer.
There probably is some registry hack or three that allows you to accomplish what WinStep does, but it would be messy, complicated, and time-consuming; WinStep makes it pretty easy. But let me give you the rundown on how to use it, because they won't tell you this on the site or in the instructions:
- Install the software, go to Main and choose "Backup Start Menu," then logoff and logon again.
- Go ahead and prune your Start Menu from the Start Menu. Take note of how many "Adminstrator's Tools" and "System Tools" folders are scattered throughout; if you move them to a folder in which one already exists, it will overwrite, so be sure you take special consideration of them.
- Move individual programs from folders to the folders in which you want them or to the Start Menu root; WinStep does not allow you to manipulate folders' contents.
- Logoff and logon again. You will have to do this a lot, as the changes do not always take effect until you do.
- Start the program and make a new Backup.
- Go to Main and choose "Delete Dead Shortcuts."
- Make your changes through WinStep.
- Restart the system entirely.
- Go to your Start Menu, right-click on each folder and choose Properties -> Customize. Change the bland folder icon to something keyed to the folder's contents. Remember that, aside from the icons available to you when you immediately choose this option, most .EXE files have at least a few icons, as well - some have dozens! - use each program's icon for its folder. Don't forget the old standby, MORICONS.dll (in the Windows/System32 folder).
You can still manipulate listings directly from the Start Menu, and I've found a combination of the methods to be the best approach for me - actually some tweaking directly from the Start Menu is necessary. There are a lot of duplications - Administrative Tools and System Tools being the stand-outs - that you will need to iron-out on your own.
Great utility that should be completely unnecessary.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Calibrate Your Monitor
Before I got Firefox, there was a certain blogging website (no longer online) which I visited regularly - several times daily - and spent a lot of time on. I always thought it was ugly. When I got Firefox, it turned out IE was not translating the colors correctly for whatever reason (possibly coding on the website's end); suddenly, it wasn't so ugly. Further, there were features and options in those colors I'd never even known were there!
Again, the website is no longer online, so I have no way of knowing what, exactly, caused this issue. However, I did discover a way to calibrate my monitor to ensure that wasn't the problem.
First, set your monitor's contrast to 100%, then follow the directions given here.
When complete, your monitor should be adjusted so that all colors show exactly as they appear.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Again, the website is no longer online, so I have no way of knowing what, exactly, caused this issue. However, I did discover a way to calibrate my monitor to ensure that wasn't the problem.
First, set your monitor's contrast to 100%, then follow the directions given here.
When complete, your monitor should be adjusted so that all colors show exactly as they appear.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Scareware Shutdown
The FTC was granted an injunction against two major "scareware" dealers, effectively banning them from advertising or distributing their fake software for now.
Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC were using false advertising to trick consumers into purchasing such programs as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. Further, evidence was presented showing the companies had tricked websites into advertising their products.
"Scareware" ads pop-up, often flashing, informing the viewer that a virus, spyware, or even illegal pornography has been detected, and he needs to click now to remove it. It then leads the surfer to a site, where a fake "scan" appears to occur. The scan purports to detect all manner of ills, scaring the user into purchasing unnecessary and useless programs.
The FTC froze the assets of these two companies and requested the hosts of the websites shut them down. They estimate as many as 1 million US citizens - and many more, worldwide - have fallen prey to these tactics, spending millions on bogus software.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC were using false advertising to trick consumers into purchasing such programs as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. Further, evidence was presented showing the companies had tricked websites into advertising their products.
"Scareware" ads pop-up, often flashing, informing the viewer that a virus, spyware, or even illegal pornography has been detected, and he needs to click now to remove it. It then leads the surfer to a site, where a fake "scan" appears to occur. The scan purports to detect all manner of ills, scaring the user into purchasing unnecessary and useless programs.
The FTC froze the assets of these two companies and requested the hosts of the websites shut them down. They estimate as many as 1 million US citizens - and many more, worldwide - have fallen prey to these tactics, spending millions on bogus software.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Russian Trademarks :-)
Oleg Teterin, president of mobile ad company, Superfone, has trademarked the smiley emoticon ":-)". While reports are referring to him as a "businessman" and "entrepreneur," The Cyberculturalist would like to go on-record as considering him an opportunistic cyberthug and his attempts at trademarking an emoticon as a clear-cut instance of unchecked cyberbullying.
Teterin graciously noted he would not spend time tracking-down individuals who use the emoticon, "this is only directed at corporations [and] companies," he told a news crew. Such entities could use the emoticon after purchasing an annual license which "won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars." Since other emoticons are similar to ":-)" Teterin says they may fall under his domain, as well.
Obviously, legal experts dispute the validity of his claim to the emoticon, as some note it has been in the public domain for years. Further, a Russian court sided with a major corporation in a similar 2005 case when it was sued by a man claiming to hold the copyright to an emoticon.
A college professor from Carnegie Mellon claims to be the first to have used the combination of punctuation marks in an artistic effort some 25 years ago.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Teterin graciously noted he would not spend time tracking-down individuals who use the emoticon, "this is only directed at corporations [and] companies," he told a news crew. Such entities could use the emoticon after purchasing an annual license which "won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars." Since other emoticons are similar to ":-)" Teterin says they may fall under his domain, as well.
Obviously, legal experts dispute the validity of his claim to the emoticon, as some note it has been in the public domain for years. Further, a Russian court sided with a major corporation in a similar 2005 case when it was sued by a man claiming to hold the copyright to an emoticon.
A college professor from Carnegie Mellon claims to be the first to have used the combination of punctuation marks in an artistic effort some 25 years ago.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
WinSplit Revolution
One of the things with which I have consistently had issues is working with more than one open window. I have tried so many times to size the windows just right, but it rarely matters because you have to click in a window to make it active, which removes focus from the other window, often changing the size... just a solid pain in neck!
WinSplit Revolution changes all of that!
Finally, a useful utility I can stand to leave running in the background even if I don't use it that often, WinSplit allows you to instantly size open windows on the desktop in conveniently-sized panels, allowing you to view all open windows at once. You can now easily navigate between them without bringing one into the forefront and having to resize it to see the other, etc. Further, you use the little "remote control" to position windows as you like, so you don't have to worry with dragging issues.
Great utility I could not recommend more highly. Unfortunately, the official site was down the whole time I tried getting to it, so I came across this site where you can download it for free.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
WinSplit Revolution changes all of that!
Finally, a useful utility I can stand to leave running in the background even if I don't use it that often, WinSplit allows you to instantly size open windows on the desktop in conveniently-sized panels, allowing you to view all open windows at once. You can now easily navigate between them without bringing one into the forefront and having to resize it to see the other, etc. Further, you use the little "remote control" to position windows as you like, so you don't have to worry with dragging issues.
Great utility I could not recommend more highly. Unfortunately, the official site was down the whole time I tried getting to it, so I came across this site where you can download it for free.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
SkyDrive Now Live
SkyDrive is now live and you can sign-in with your Windows Live ID. Get 25G free web storage space, along with a host of features unavailable almost anywhere else.
I meant to tell you this before, but forgot because I signed-up for the Beta login and have had an account for a while now. My problem is that I do not like "cloud" computing and rarely use it, so I always forget it is there. However, I am definitely going to get into the habit of using it more often, seeing as how I have so many downloaded files! I burned them all to CD the night I slaved the XP drive, but have collected several more since.
No matter what you use it for, while I strongly urge against putting anything personal online anywhere, SkyDrive is a useful feature for anyone.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
I meant to tell you this before, but forgot because I signed-up for the Beta login and have had an account for a while now. My problem is that I do not like "cloud" computing and rarely use it, so I always forget it is there. However, I am definitely going to get into the habit of using it more often, seeing as how I have so many downloaded files! I burned them all to CD the night I slaved the XP drive, but have collected several more since.
No matter what you use it for, while I strongly urge against putting anything personal online anywhere, SkyDrive is a useful feature for anyone.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Apple Says Mac Needs Antivirus
Apple is urging Mac owners to install antivirus software, following a recent a rise in Mac-centric scripts. Most virii target PCs, as Windows is most widely-used; Linux and Macintosh users have had little to worry about. While a few Mac virii exist, they have mostly been "demonstration," posing no real threat. However, experts have noticed a rise in more serious scripts lately.
Namely, cybercriminals are infecting popular webpages with scripts that steal account passwords, not infect machines. The scripts record the user's keystrokes, then send the information to the designers. A lot of them are stealing gaming accounts.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
Namely, cybercriminals are infecting popular webpages with scripts that steal account passwords, not infect machines. The scripts record the user's keystrokes, then send the information to the designers. A lot of them are stealing gaming accounts.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
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