Goodbye Kurt

Kurt Vonnegut died today. So it goes.

Limewire in iTunes

I'd had given my roomate an old computer to use and one of the things he did was put Limewire on it. I don't run those programs myself. Not because I'm against downloading music particularly but mostly because I can't stand all the junk that it puts on your computer. I'd rather just pay the dollar on iTunes and save myself the spyware. Anyhow, when I went on iTunes after work I saw a Limewire directory. Kinda a neat feature. No setup done or required. I knew you could see other people's iTunes directories if they choose to share them but who knew it worked with other music services?


Limewire in iTunes

NY Times Say's, 'Show Me The Money.'

Been a while since I've posted. I am addicted to the news on the web and one of my favorites has always been the NY Times online. A week or two ago they started charging for some of the services. They call it Times Select. I guess I understand it. They need to make money, but it kinda stinks. I like the advertising model better. I liked the op-ed articles but the majority of them are under the pay service now. I guess it's like everything else in America, you only get an opinion if you have money.=)

Hurricane Mess

It's been a rough week in this country. Once again Bush is showing his talent for driving a company into the ground. After this week's hurricane debacle even die hard republicans I know are having a tough time defending this guy. Bush's policies are pretty much responsible for defending the work that was to be done on the New Orleans levies and dismantling the organization FEMA had become under Clinton. Here's an excerpt from the NY Times on some of the ways the new FEMA "helped out":

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

Can you imagine the balls on these people to turn back trucks full of relief supplies? If you're not going to fix things then at least don't get in the way. It's just so sad. I personally believe that anyone living in those areas deserves a refund on their federal income taxes for failure of services. Your taxes are a sort of covenant that the government is going to help you out in times like this and if they don't deliver then what were they taking your money for? I made a donation this week to the red cross at http://www.redcross.org/. Not big money, but everyone should try to just give something.

You know I get a little nervous putting anything political like this on my blog because I'm worried that it might generate some kind of FBI file or something on me. I wonder if there isn't some watch list I'm being thrown on for publicly thinking that this thing was screwed up. Isn't it sad that we have to feel that way nowadays; being scared of retribution for criticizing government? I think it's a pretty big warning flag on the state of our free society. I don't think anyone felt like that before Bush. Now it's practically expected.

This Is Your Computer On Spyware...

Aghhhhhhhhh. I was setting up a bittorrent gmail setup like they showed on G4's 'Attack of the Show' and the site they pointed me to infected my computer with the worst unremovable spyware I've ever seen. I'm a little peeved that AOTS led me to a site that did that. They're probably singlehandedly responcible for thousands of infections. I tried about 6 free and trial anti-spyware programs to no avail. Looking through the registry runservices, CWS shredder, nothing worked. Finally wound up trying Spy Doctor for 20 bucks with a coupon. It seems to have gotten rid of the spyware but The spyware is still popping up this website asking me if I need a home loan. It's the same site everytime. I hope those people die of cancer. IE is opening real slow and opening a new window takes about 10 seconds now which feels like a lifetime to me. At least the spyware didn't affect FireFox. It's enough to make you switch your default browser. I think I'm going to have to do a reinstall to get everything back to normal. It sucks but it's not the end of the world. I have a good data OS partition strategy to make it relatively painless. My Office install has been giving me some trouble for a while and SQL server & tools are screwed up from testing different versions so I'm not feeling too bad about it. MS really has some work to do on IE. Either that or fix up their free antispyware tools so they work.

Google Map Lag

Anyone tried Google maps yet? That and the free Google Earth that was released last week are pretty amazing. Don't count on the pictures being current though. This bridge under construction in North Arlington, NJ was finished at least 3 years ago to my memory. I wonder how long it takes them to get their data and what the turnaround time is. You can tell they concentrate on areas with higher population which makes sense. No use of having a high res picture of the middle of the desert I suppose.


Hey isn't this thing done yet?

War of the Worlds Rocks!

I saw 'War of the Worlds' tonight. It was really good. This is why you go to the movies. Entertaining, funny, scary. Just a great, fun, flick, which is Steven Spelberg's strong point. Go see it this weekend. Bring a cute girl who will hold on to your arm.=)


Cruise and Dakota