Kim Bolan of the Vancouver Sun.
My favourite news blog of 2011. You may ask “why does an IT admin in hog town like reading a blog about crime in the streets of Vancouver?” Because it is entertaining.
Kim’s investigative prowess, knowledge, courage and the way she transmits it to web is excellent.
I used to live in Van…so I can relate to it a bit…and it makes me sentimental for the good ole’ days of Bindy….you?
You probably seen the TV ad for quibids.com with the attractive female telling you that you can buy an I-Pad 2 for less than $30.00 dollars right? Are you one of the flock who actually believed that pitch? If so, you might want to read this interview with the CEO:
http://www.pennyauctionwatch.com/2010/01/interview-reviews-quibid-penny-auction/
Believe me! I, a hottie would never lie!
This part is hilarious:
Penny Auctions can sometimes get a bad reputation, due to the fact that some employ bot bidding scripts and shill bid. What do you have to say about those who say “QuiBids is a scam” or “Penny Auctions are scams?”
QuiBids.com: I feel that anytime a consumer potentially spends money and gets nothing in return, (other than the experience of competing for prizes), you are going to have those who say it’s a scam. Given the model of penny auctions, there are many companies that run these sites only to make money. These companies do not put an emphasis on building long lasting, valuable relationships with their customers. At QuiBids, we didn’t want to just be another penny auction site that cycles through new customers in order to make the model work. In order to make this happen, we’ve dedicated ourselves to giving out the most wins of any penny auction website, as well as making it easy to win. Because we do this, and do it quite effectively, anybody that uses our site for a few hours and watches auctions will clearly see we aren’t a scam.
The number one tech story of 2011 is without a doubt the death of Steve Jobs. The release of his subsequent biography gave the masses a peek into the life and times of an icon.
As I read the book, I came to realize that Jobs dies by professing to the very mantra that built his empire. “Think Different”, and that’s what he did…not allowing surgery on his cancer for 9 months, and tying to treat it different is what ultimately killed him.
Steve Jobs
Apple is tracking you. A newly discovered feature on IPAD and IPHONE allows Apple to track your movements. The app was not divulged to users, and was discovered recently by a third party. There is a way to turn it off, but for me this is another reason why technology can be both helpful, and evil at the same time. I suppose tracking a user via their phone or tablet could have useful applications, but more than often it will be used illicitly. Next thing you know, they will be able to shock you through your device as punishment.
Georgie Orwell was only off by about 25 years.
Amazon.com’s ECC (cloud service) has been down for the better part of the day today. This has knocked offline 1000′s of sites and site functions (podcasts, blogs, streaming media…) including big boys like REDDIT and FOURSQUARE.
This is another fine example that in cyberspace, Murphy’s law is alive and well. Amazon, is massive and you would think they have redundancy up the ying-yang…but you would be right & wrong. They are very beefy, but there are still lynch pins.
In this case (no official report has been given by Amazon yet) it appears to be a datacentre core issue. Perhaps a switch, or fiber pipe was fried. Nonetheless, it still makes one IT analyst here in T-Dot crack a smirk-smile.
Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen was on 60 Minutes (CBS) Sunday night. He talked about Bill Gates, and how he tended to berate and belittle people and their ideas. Yelling matches were common ole’ Bill, and could go on for hours…”tiring” Allen said. He mentions how he walked by Gates’ office, and overheard him talking to then CEO Steve Ballmer. The conversation was on how to “Get Allen out, and diminish his stock”.
Allen talks about the early days, and how Gates would upset people they were trying to pitch software too. He would always go alone to meetings because Gates looked about 13.
Allen shows off his amazing collection of computers dating back to the Altair. He looks very sickly and may not have long to live. Perhaps he wanted to say his piece.
What’s really impressive…is his collection of guitars!! Check it out….
My son Connor…he’s 7, will occasionally blurt out some remarkable things. Perhaps to the everyday surfer, his words are unremarkable, and innocent…but I need something to blog about eh? (Canadian content!)
He came up to me, as I was headed out the door to work, and said quite clearly “I want a Nintendo DSi XL with 2 screens 93% larger than the DSi.”
I remember when spam used to come from some asshole in Russia who had hacked into a email database, now it seems Twitter is rife with spew. There are so many “spewsers” (phony users whose sole purpose it is to post links to fucked-up sites), it is hard to stay public and get followers.
If you allow yourself to be seen trending, you open up to abuse by these clowns. I think Twitter has really just overlooked it all in most cases, and has the “we can’t stop everything” attitude. This activity (the “twamming” if you like…) is the main reason I am not big on the twitterverse…ok…that’s pushing the portmanteau! (Google candidate) IMHO It stands to reason, as long as social media evolves, so shall anti-social media. We can just find ways to piss off the spammers too.
There is a bug in Vista / Win 7 that screws up mapped drives if you are an Admin user.
The fix is a reg hack. Save the code below and call it “ELC.reg” (or whatever you want…).
It will add the fix to the registry as DWORD. You will need to reboot to see results. (DO NOT use this fix for Win XP or 2000!)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
“EnableLinkedConnections”=dword:00000001
The Motorola Xoom is coming to Canada. Looks like it may be very cool…next gen will have 3/4 G. I may wait for that. Still, it looks real slick and no Apple shite to deal with! The video capability looks stellar too, with HDMI direct out.