How Stupid is Sony?

Apparently, Sony hasn't heard yet that changes made to Wikipedia articles can be traced back to the corporation's IP address. Otherwise, it's hard to explain how they went ahead and edited the Halo 3 Wikipedia article, claiming the graphics are not so hot. Halo 3, from Microsoft and Bungie Studios is the (current) killer game for the Xbox 360, competing with Sony's PS3.

Hey Sony:

1. Buy a clue. If you're about to play dirty, the very least you can do is step out of the office to an internet cafe :)
2. Next time, make my blog mandatory reading for your marketing people :)

AT&T and the Freedom of Speech

Just read this and it pissed me off to no end:
According the AT&T Legal Terms of Service, posted on their site, AT&T is allowed to suspend or terminate your service, if they "believe" that you've caused "damage their name". Look at (c):

5.1 Suspension/Termination.Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. In addition, AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries. Termination or suspension by AT&T of Service also constitutes termination or suspension (as applicable) of your license to use any Software. AT&T may also terminate or suspend your Service if you provide false or inaccurate information that is required for the provision of Service or is necessary to allow AT&T to bill you for Service.

Apparently, this is measure is there to prevent public criticism, or just to plainly harass complainers.
I'm probably taking quite a risk just for posting this, since according to this contract, AT&T can terminate my service, if they feel I've damaged their name...

The Most Beautiful PC You Can Buy

Up until a couple of years ago, it wasn't common finding the words "beautiful" and "PC" in the same sentence. PCs were usually gray, boring boxes. When Dell decided to ship computers with black chassis, it was heralded as a major design decision.

Then along came Apple and shipped the original iMac (worked on this one at my first startup), and suddenly "design" stopped being a dirty word, in reference to PCs and technology in general. I'm sure you all remember that period, at the beginning of this millennium, where everything, from a computer to a utensil, was coated in transparent plastic.

Apple continued shipping computers that looked great (including my Mac Mini - the nicest piece of technology in my living room) and various other gadgets (like the latest batch of iPods, the iPhone and the AppleTV) that look like they belong in a museum. The iMac evolved, and the latest titanium-encased model looks like this:


So, imagine my surprise when I came across this PC from Gateway (yes, the "Cow" company), called Gateway One:

Not only does this PC looks gorgeous, but it actually contains some very nice features:

1. Embedded web cam.
2. Transparent keyboard (well, not necessary, but nice).
3. TV Tuner.
4. Remote control.
5. And guess where all the ports (USB, sound,ethernet, etc.) are located? On the power brick!
   Only one wire needs to be connected to the actual computer. How's that for smart design?
   
   

There are 3 models, ranging from $1300 to $1800 (for different hd, memory and video card configurations). See the full spec here.

Enable More Than 2 Downloads in IE

One of the most annoying behaviors of IE (5/6/7) is its limiting downloads to 2 at a time.
Once you've started downloading 2 files, the next one would be stuck in limbo, until one of the first 2 finishes, etc.
There have been many registry hacks to solve this situation, but I recommend this one, directly from Microsoft, who finally realized people want to download more than 2 files at a time.

As for me, I'm mainly a Firefox user. But rather than use the limited Firefox Download Manager,
I use the Download Statusbar add-on. Much more robust, usable and with plenty of options.

Google Adds Presenation to Docs

I have Google Apps for my domain. One of the capabilities is called Docs, which so far contained a Word-like and an Excel-like web applications. As predicted, Google just (the email just eneterd my mailbox) added a Powerpoint-like app called Presentation.
Together with GMail, they now have a full suite with which to compete with MS Office.

Windows 2008 Server RC0 is Out

I've heard of RC1 (Release Candidate) before, not of RC0. But apparently, when you're late, you start releasing earlier. This version is more robust than the beta and finally has HyperVisor (the server virtualization infrastructure) included. Sadly, I couldn't test it, but the latest version is running nicely on my VMWare (with minor creaks: no driver support for sound and network is going in and out - probably will be fixed by VMWare Tools relase later on).

Halo 3 Goes to Harvard

Like any gamer worth his title I waited till yesterday to gaze at Halo 3 - arguably the game of the year. I enjoyed Halo and Halo 2 and was eagerly anticipating the third (and last?) installment in the trilogy, following the Master-Chief as he singlehandedly saves the human race.

Well, apparently I'm not a serious gamer. At least not as serious as these Harvard students, who turned the statue of John P. Harvard into a tribute to the Master-Chief. Clearly, their instructors are not assigning enough homework...

Amazon vs. iTunes

I've been using iTunes for over a year and own over a 100 songs. Their price point is great - $0.99 per song is affordable and the quality of the music is assured. I'm a great believer in getting people of piracy by offering the right price point.

The problem is, Apple still considers me a pirate, despite me paying. Every song is protected with a complex DRM (Digital Rights Management) scheme that allows playing the song on 5 registered computers only and one iPod. Despite the fact I bought a song, I can't give it to anyone (so my property rights are violated). Lately, Steve Jobs announced that Apple will switch to DRM-less music, at a $1.29 per free song. Good, but a bit late (and pricey).

Enter Amazon, who this week launched a new MP3 store. Their price point is $0.89 per song, $4.99 per album (compared to Apple's $9.99). And all the songs are DRM-less!
They currently have a million songs available and they'll keep on adding.

I still have 65 pre-paid songs in my Apple account that I have to purchase by Nov. 30. But after that, I'm definitely checking out Amazon's store.

PS: for my international readers, another reason to check the Amazon store is the fact that it sells (most) songs worldwide, as opposed to iTunes that sells in the US, UK and parts of western Europe only.

Backup Your Blogger Blog

Since I'm close to 150 posts on this blog alone, it dawned on me that I'm heading for a disaster if I don't backup my posts.
After searching for a solution on Blogger help and coming up with this article (that contains 10 steps, including changing the blog's layout template, along with some other potentially destructive steps) I found a nice tool called simply Blogger Backup by Greg Duncan.

This open source tool, written in .Net 2.0, utilizes GData - the Google API to access any data exposed by Google - to harvest all the feeds from the blog and save them to distinct files.
Reviewing the code can serve as a good example of using GData in .Net and some other neat pieces of code. The project is hosted on CodePlex - Microsoft's open source project hosting web site - another great site for some .Net code.

One comment: if your blog utilizes FeedBurner to manage the RSS feeds, you won't be able to use the default feed link of your blog. Instead use the following format:
http://www.blogger.com/feeds/your blog number/posts/default
(you can find your blog number by viewing the source of the blog and looking for the string rel="service.post"

The Excel Bug

A very interesting bug was found in Excel 2007: apparently, if you multiply 850 by 77.1 the result you get is 100,000 (rather than 65,535). Above, you can see my verification of this.

Of course, now you wonder what other errors are hiding inside. "Can we trust the numerical output of Excel?" you ask.

This bug reminded me of the big Pentium Floating Point debacle of 1994. Unlike Intel, Microsoft is not denying the existence of the bug, and unlike a hardware company, they can issue a patch (soon hopefully).

Joel attempts to explain this bug. His explanation is very interesting, involving binary and string representations and showing a pattern of similar cases that will crop up. I will not bore you with the full drill-down, but here's Joel's parting shot:

And let's face it -- do you really want the bright sparks who work there now, and manage to break lots of perfectly good working code -- rewriting the core calculating engine in Excel? Better keep them busy adding and removing dancing paper clips all day long.

How to Sabotage Google

No, I don't wish to sabotage Google. I'm living well off the free services they offer: my blogs are running on Blogger, my mail on GMail, Google Apps for my domain and RSS feeds are being served by Feedburner.

The title of my post is the title of John C. Dvorak's latest article. In it he discusses how a potential... let's say "competitor"... might use Google's Achilles heel - it's reliance on keywords -against it.
I found his article, and discussion of American capitalism, fascinating.

Google Landing in My Backyard

I live far enough from the SJC airport to not be disturbed by airplanes, yet close enough to get there fast (7 minutes on the 101). But no one told me when I rented the place I'd hear the traffic from Moffet Field.
Moffet Field belonged to the US Navy and is now owned by NASA. Once in a while odd planes fly over my house to land in the field. By odd I mean: experimental fighters, World War II bombers, helicopters and I even saw a Comanche (no, not a flying Indian - it's an experimental attack helicopter - see image below).

And now, I just heard that Sergey Brin and Larry Page - the Google founders -
have negotiated with NASA to let them land their 767 Googlejet at Moffet Field (which is close to the Googleplex).


Why?! Why do I need a landing flying over me every time Larry feels like a Philly Cheesestake (in Philly)????

Too Soon to Celabrate?

While I really liked the fact the iPhone was finally hacked, it seems celebrations started too soon.
Today Apple announced that their next iPhone update would brick (a term used to describe a gadget that can only be used as a brick) any hacked device.
Oh well, we'll just have to wait for a better hack, I guess...

Test Your Speed

Speedtest.net is another in a list of sites to measure your upload/download speed.
The difference is: it looks beautiful. With car-like gauges, it's fun to measure your speed. It also encourages you to post your results and/or compare them to other people around the world (if you don't want to cry, don't compare your US results with Sweden - ~15Mbit download :( ).

I clocked a nice 3.5Mbit download rate - as advertised for my network. But I'd have to repeat this test in the middle of the day, on the weekend etc.

Feel free to test your speed and post your results - make me cry, why don't you :)

Steal from Microsoft

A new Office 2007 promotion campaign from Microsoft is called "The Ultimate Steal".
It allows you to purchase the Office 2007 suite for $60 (yep, you read it right - the suite usually retails for around $680).

To be eligible, you have to have a .edu email address and be an actively enrolled student.
While I can see how Microsoft can verify the first, I think the second is quite hard to verify (so, if you still have your old college address, or know someone who's still in college - get them to register for you :)).

Why does Microsoft drop 90% of the price of its leading product? Microsoft's philanthropy is usually displayed elsewhere, and huge discounts are not their forte.
What it is, according to some experts, is Microsoft fearing that students will either pirate their software, or even worse realize that there are alternatives out there (like Open Office, Zoho, Google Docs - to name a few) that provide the same features as MS Office and are (gasp) free to boot. And one day, these students will graduate into the business force, with the "wrong" idea that you can edit your documents with no Microsoft software around. Nope - better hook them up while they're in college...

Challenge Yourself

Even if you didn't buy the book "How Would You Move Mount Fuji?", you may still feel you're up to challenging yourself with some puzzles, brain teasers and quizzles (quiz + puzzle) that appear from time to time on job interviews.

Look no further than this site, that treats this book as it's bible. It has many such quizzles, along with solutions and a forum where people try to solve the puzzle, before a solution is posted.
Here's one to whet your appetite:

The Rope Bridge

Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night. Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it’s only strong enough to support two people at any given time.

Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes?

So far I'm 3 from 5...