myopiclunacy.com

• Palm Centro DUN with Asus eee PC http://tinyurl.com/6hra55 “have a Palm Centro that can be tethered to the eee via bluetooth or USB …” #
• “… and it can be used as a wireless modem to provide EVDO speeds using Sprint’s PCS network.” #
• “Download USB Modem here: http://tinyurl.com/pacsz. Yes, there is a trial, but registering is less than $25.” #
• “Launch USBModem … click on the “Enable” button … on the eee [create a dial up connection w/the phone] using #777 for the phone number” #
• EeeUser ASUS Eee PC Forum / Tethering a Palm Centro or Treo to the eeePC http://tinyurl.com/6jsape “sudo kwrite /etc/ppp/options” #
• “find the line that says [lcp-echo-interval 30] and comment it out so it looks like … [#lcp-echo-interval 30]” #
• “That # tells the connection manager to not look for a keep alive signal from Verizon to keep the connection open.” #
• “I would recommend PDANET http://www.junefabrics.com/palmnet for anyone running XP on their EEE PC.” #
• “I got it working on my Treo 680! Here’s what I did (thanks to the info in this thread):” http://tinyurl.com/6jsape #
• EeeUser ASUS Eee PC Forum / [HowTo] Using your Windows Mobile 5 Device for Internet Access http://tinyurl.com/6azoxc #
• Connecting to HSDPA via Internet Sharing on HTC TyTN running WM6 http://tinyurl.com/6gzjhq “… followed ericmoritz’ guide on EEEUser.com” #
• Internet Sharing over Wifi-Chainfire’s WMWifiRouter v0.80 Ooo Pretty (Dec-10-2007) - xda-developers http://tinyurl.com/2scg38 #
• “allows Windows Mobile phones to act as a full ad hoc Access Point, which allows you to tether via WiFi…no BT needed.” #
• http://tinyurl.com/5qs2zn ericmoritz on bluetooth tethering #
• EeeUser ASUS Eee PC Forum / Verizon EVDO Data connection on Eee PC via USB phone link http://tinyurl.com/5cs7wz #

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Is there a more useless and subjective sport than Dorsage (or Dressage or whatever)?? It’s the Summer Olympic equivalent of Curling - and not even because it all seems arbitrary - at least with curling you can see the comparison between two teams’ efforts.

The Olympic coverage sucks. Nobody knows enough to make the actual sporting endeavor compelling - they have to rely on taped features about the guy’s mom or something. It’s like NBC is taking a McDonalds approach. You can get good steak at Mortons and fish at Legal Seafood. Or you can go to McDonalds and get a Steak Bagel and a McFish.

And they never give you a schedule of what will be on when and on what channel. It’s like a lottery - tune in and hopefully you’ll find what you want. That’s not how my Tivo-trained mind works. Then you want me to go online to see highlights and force me to use a Microsoft-approved browser? Bullshit.

Why are 40 year olds allowed to compete in a competition for the youth?

It’s a competition that’s whored itself out for corporate sponsors - at least here in America. I’m sure the coverage in other countries is much better. I mean these guys are commentating from a studio in New York - they’re not even in Beijing.

It’s only 2 weeks - I’m sure you could spare a little expense, NBC.

Popularity: 4% [?]

As someone with a mixed OS environment, I like finding articles (especually real technical ones) that compare and contrast the benefits of Windows, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu to see if there are any previously unknown strengths or weaknesses I can take advantage of. So I’m reading through just such an article on PC Magazine called OS Wars: The Battle for Your Desktop and I come across this gem:

The current version of Mac Leopard costs $129 direct, or $109.99 at Amazon, where you can also still buy 10.4.5, aka Tiger, as well. With Apple, users pay every year (or so) to get a major upgrade. Microsoft provides its major Windows upgrades, called Service Packs, free of charge. Paying more for Mac OS upgrades is a bit galling when you’ve already paid a premium for the hardware.

Are you kidding me? I almost immediately thought this was some sort of Microsoft fanboy article until I remembered, this is PC MAGAZINE! It’s galling to me that the person who wrote (and edited) this didn’t know the difference between Service Packs and OS Upgrades wrt to Windows. For the record, Tiger is to Leopard as XP is to Vista - i.e. a major upgrade AND a separate purchase. There’s no magical service pack that you can use to upgrade XP to Vista. And it’s not free. And mischaracterizing the Tiger to Leopard upgrade as “galling” is piss poor journalism.

In reading the entire article it became clear that the writer was very familiar with Microsoft products, but seemed to rely on others to provide the expertise on Ubuntu and Mac. For instance:

The Ubuntu core, however, is a text-based OS—something Windows spent years getting away from. And unfortunately, you still have to use terminal input to install software or configure settings far too often, even more often than you had to use DOS command lines in Windows 3.1. Until Ubuntu can do away with the terminal for all but the most geeky uses (as the Unix-based Mac OS does), it will never become an OS for the masses.

Anyone who’s even played with Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon, or even Puppy Linux knows that synaptic and other similar package manager guis have been around for a while. I can’t speak for other distros, but I’d assume it was the same there too. What’s funny is the author mentions this later in the article. Huh??

On a more important note, does this guy understand how Operating systems work? The knock on Windows is it’s stability - something that *nix systems have in abundance. I recently ran an ipconfig /release on my Windows XP box and it shutdown on me - closed all my open applications and only gave me 60 seconds to save. And I consider myself lucky I didn’t get the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death).

OS architecture on Windows rears its ugly head when it comes to viruses and malware. In *nix based systems like Ubuntu and Mac OS X, programs that are installed play in their own space. No need for a single-point-of-failure registry or possibly overwriting shared DLLs like in windows. If you install something that needs to be a bit more invasive, it always asks you for your password - so you know when something nefarious may be afoot (like the Sony Rootkit). With XP it’s come one come all wrt editing system files. As long as you have admin access (which most people with XP Home have) you can do what you want. Vista fixes this with a band-aid approach by asking you to confirm everything - sometimes twice - and getting in the effing way. Again - it’s all about the design.

And now for the best line of the entire piece:

among them the slick Internet Explorer 7 (especially slick when compared with Safari on the Mac, a bad browser)

Internet Explorer is by far the most bloated, memory hogging, malware attracting browser on the planet. The whole BHO (browser helper object) architecture is simply ridiculous - no wonder virus writers lick their chops when a new exploit is found. Safari may not anything to sneeze about feature-wise, but if it is “a bad browser” then IE is “a worse browser!”

Come on, PC Magazine - I expect better than this!

Popularity: 8% [?]

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A while back I found a very good deal on a Dell 531 slimline - part of its 530 budget series computers. Like $300 good. And they’re having it again. The systems in question, and indeed the one I bought were shipped with FreeDos. I figured I could just install my own copy of XP or 2000 on it. The comparable systems shipping with Windows Vista cost more, plus there was no way I was going to deal with the frustrations of Vista.

When I got the machine and went to Dell’s site to download the sound card, mobo and graphics drivers, I noticed that they weren’t there. All they had were Vista drivers. WTF? Seems in an effort to push Vista on the consumer, Microsoft has forced PC Makers not to support XP on their machines. So to find the XP Drivers for this machine I had to hunt around the internet. Thank goodness I found them:

• Graphics Driver: nVidia ForceWare Release 162
• Sound Card Driver: Realtek Onboard R175
• Motherboard Driver (incl Ethernet, USB, etc): nVidia nForce 430 chipset

I’m now happily running XP on a cheap Dell and will never have to deal with Vista.

Popularity: 10% [?]

• YouTube - Microsoft Surface Parody http://tinyurl.com/2g2683 It’s a big ass table! #

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• Access Linux Platform (ALP) http://urltea.com/20n6 Why the hell doesn’t Palm use this? They’re getting dwarfed by Apple & Google’s platforms #
• Gamerator MAME cabinet features 187 games, built-in keg - Engadget http://urltea.com/20od Wow - that’s solid! #
• WiebeTech HotPlug lets cops move desktops without shutting them down - Engadget http://urltea.com/20ow Cops … and civilians too I hope. #
• Hahaha - a Hello Kitty ATM? What will they think of next? http://urltea.com/20p0 it “even comes with its own `cash card`” #
• Yahoo! Kickstart http://urltea.com/20pk Yahoo’s answer to Linked In? Yet another social network to integrate. #
• A video tribute to Kirby Freeman’s performance vs NCST
  
  
  http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1285265711 I used to think Kyle Wright was the worst. Not no mo! #
• Funny quote from Jorge Sedano: “Bill Belicheck is the Cobra Kai sensei of the NFL. SWEEP THE LEG!” I guess that makes Dungy Mr. Miyagi? #
• Truemors :: Fired Microsoft CIO, Stuart Scott, Was Having an Affair with a Subordinate http://truemors.com/?p=16647 Are You Sure You Want To Schtupp An Employee [YES] [NO] #

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