Archive for the 'Technology' Category

08
Sep

Microsoft Ad - Shoe Circus

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Technology, Television and Windows

Please can someone explain this Microsoft commercial to me? I do not get it. The commercial hopefully is setting up something. Hello Microsoft….I am waiting to see something cool or funny, or at least that makes sense.

I have to agree with Kevin Rose on the latest episode of Diggnation - what old men came up with this ad? The audience you want to capture, at least on TV is the younger audience. Kevin suggested paying Jessica Biel to rub a Vista box against her breasts. How talk about making Vista cool and getting some viewership for the ad. ;-)

Shoe Circus - Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates

06
Sep

Server Room Disassembled

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Life and Technology

For those that know me, I have and always will be a bit of a computer geek.  You just cannot beat it out of me with a stick.  Even now that I have taken a position in management and using a Mac, I have still not stopped geeking out once in a while.  However, the days of requiring a rack of computers to install the latest beta version of Microsoft OS, Active Directory, Exchange or open source Linux distribution or server application are probably gone.  Although I have fond memories of those days, and miss being the guy in the room that technically knows more about the latest and greatest things than anyone else in the room, I have moved on - life goes on.  So leaving that era of my life behind, I no longer need a so-called ’server room’.  All of the servers have been shutdown, all the data wiped.  I have gone from a potential rack of 8 live servers, plus a bench for assemble and disassembly to one office with three computers.  No longer do I have a working Active Directory domain with DNS, DHCP, active mail servers for web front ends, custom router/firewall systems, private instant messaging servers or hardware RAID enabled file servers.  On August 11th, 2008, it all came down.  Now to be realistic, most of it has not been powered up for the past two years…but that is beside the point - it was still in the room ready to be powered up.

Now the rack sits disassembled in a neat pile in the corner of the room.  All the extra computers have been reviewed by friends for possible life in their active server rooms.  The rest are all piled up downstairs awaiting recycling.  It is the end of an era….

Now on to bigger and better things - mobile computing and the 21st century.

04
Sep

No Chrome for Mac or Linux Users

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Apple, Linux, Technology and Windows
Tags: , , , ,

You know I hear on the radio when driving earlier this week that Google had release a revolutionary new browser called Chrome. I got a bit excited. It sounded pretty cool and I like that fact that Google had decided to throw their innovative resources into the browser market as well. Yesterday I got a ping from a colleague asking it I had installed it yet. I have been busy over the past couple of days, and sadly replied no, but was going to. he provided some feedback on his experience and I got a bit more excited about trying it out. So later this morning I find some time and turn my browser to Google’s Chrome site.

I find the following:

So I see Beta for Windows, OK, where is the Mac and Linux versions?
Point One: Google runs on Linux. All it’s products and services benefit from the robust Linux community.
Point Two: Hello the Google CEO sits on the Apple Board of Directors.
Come on, Google has a stock price floating around the ~$500/share range, and you tell me that you can only make a Windows version.

Then I found the following: Google Co-Founder: No Mac Chrome an Embarrassment
It also states that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a Mac user as well. Hopefully someone is getting an ass chewing.

In an interview with BoomTown’s Kara Swisher, Mr. Brin
asked if she would try out Google Chrome, to which she said “no,”
because there isn’t a Mac version available. Mr. Brin replied “”I know,
I know, it’s embarrassing.”

He added that he doesn’t know exactly when a Mac version will be
available. “I’m asking every day. I hope it’ll be a matter of months,”
he said.

Crack the whip Sergey and get those guys working…

21
Aug

Apple Tademarks Leopard System Preferences Logo

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Apple and Rant
Tags: , ,

Trademark Files for Leopard Systems Preferences Logo

Really Steve, do we have to trademark everything? Stop wasting time with all you copyrights and trademarks and hushing everyone at Apple from tell anyone what is coming next and work on fix the broke iPhone 2.x platform, iPhone battery life, and the pathetic MobileMe system. On MobileMe, how bad is it when Google provide a much better platform for free that we can bget from MobileMe for a $100/year. Stop filing patents and fix your services.

21
Aug

Hey Microsoft - Seinfield had a Mac

By justisengard 1 Comment
Categories: Apple and Windows
Tags: , , ,

Looks like Microsoft has finally had enough of Apple poking fun at Vista with its rather humorous, I’m a Mac commercials. It would seem that they have paid Jerry Seinfield $10 million dollars to appear with Bill Gates in some so-called ‘edgy Microsoft commercials. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone at the Microsoft marketing department actually watched Seinfield…cause Jerry Seinfield had a Mac in the show.
I am curious to see what the commercial will be. It is suppose ot air on September 4th.

More details: Gates, Seinfield to appear in MS Vista ads?
MS Counter - Apple ads start, admit early flaws

12
Aug

Getting an iPhone 3G - Maybe Later…

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Apple and Mobility
Tags: ,

iPhone Suffering from Flawed 3G Chips

After reading this article about possible problems with the iPhone 3G chip, I am rather glad that I did not get one.
My situation is a bit unique. I simply do not want to buy a $300 iPhone 3G, sign a 2 year contract with AT&T, and next year this time not be able to use it when I am in Ottawa, Canada. Would be sweet if Rogers would let me simply sign my iPhone 3G purchased in the US up to their service, but that is not going to happen. Rogers is having too much fun raping their fellow Canadian citizens with their 3 year contracts and $110 limited data plans for the iPhone 3G.

Lets hope that this is a firmware fixable issue. God knows the Iphone 2.0 software is slow and buggy. It literally takes me 2 seconds to get SMS Text Messaging to appear once clicking on the iPhone icon. Even longer for it to bring up my contacts list.
I was a huge fan of the iPhone 2G and the 1.0 software, but I have to say, with the 2.0.1 (that is even with a bug fix or two) the iPhone works like an alpha product. Battery life….hmmm, do not get me started. Oh, and why does it take an hour to sync my iPhone now - why?

Steve - Please use some those hordes of cash you are making off the new phones and the App Store and fix the damn software…please!

24
Jul

The DNS Flaw

By justisengard 1 Comment
Categories: Security and Technology
Tags: , ,

Evidently there is a flaw or bug in all DNS caching servers that is really simple and has not been patched.

This?! This is the DNS flaw?

The above Infoworld blog is where I initially found out about this. Then I move the the link in the article to Poor DNS blog post of someone who has been doing testing. Checkout what he found, but here is the latest list of vulnerable DNS servers.

Continue reading ‘The DNS Flaw’

23
Jul

VMware Fusion Users Beware

By justisengard 2 Comments
Categories: Apple, Technology and Virtualization
Tags: ,

Just came across the following article about a possible bug with VMware Fusion.

VMware blames Apple for Fusion corruption

According to VMware, the underlying problem is in the way Mac OS X
handles unbuffered I/O. The issue is variously referred to as either a
bug or “a disagreement between Fusion and OS X about what sequences of
disk-write calls are legal to make.”

Unbuffered I/O works by sending data directly to the file, as opposed
to buffered I/O which stages the data to be written into a block of
memory (a buffer) and then writes the contents of the buffer out to the
file.

The good news is that with its default settings, Fusion does not use unbuffered I/O.

Well, evidently, I am not the power user of years past, as I did not know there was such a setting to change.

For now, VMware says “We have reported this issue to Apple, but until
this bug is resolved, we recommend that all VMware Fusion users ensure
they select the default option, in VMware Fusion Preferences, for
‘Optimize for virtual machine disk performance’ to guard against
potential data loss.”

29
Jun

Bush wants to use Military Satellites for Domestic Surveillance

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Apple and Rant

You’re On Candid Camera

A Bush administration program to expand domestic use of Pentagon spy satellites has aroused new concerns in Congress about possible civil-liberties abuses.

What the hell? I mean just how far are we going to let President BombsaLot go? Please, someone explain how far fear is going to allow our country to become a fascist state?

Rep. Jane Harman,
a California Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security
Subcommittee on intelligence, told Newsweek that majorities in both the
House and Senate intend to block all funding for the domestic
intelligence center at least until August, when the Government
Accountability Office, an investigative agency that works for Congress,
completes a report examining civil-liberties and privacy issues related
to the domestic use of picture-taking spy satellites.

Thanks Jane, but what is there to look at or review? Am I going to need to worry about explaining everything I do to big brother soon?

29
Jun

Why cannot iTunes Multi-Task?

By justisengard 0 Comments
Categories: Apple and Rant

Steve Jobs, can you explain to me why iTunes on Leopard cannot download and play a video podcast at the same time?
I do not run iTunes in the background all the time. So when i start it up to watch, typically Diggnation, it starts to update and download all my podcasts, some large some small. When iTunes finishes a download it updates the iTunes database, and I get the rainbow beach ball with now sounds and video for the video podcast I am watching. Oh, and it is not like it pauses the podcast, the podcast still runs, you just cannot hear or see it while iTunes does some update. WHY, tell me why Apple cann fix iTunes to not do this? Please someone explain.

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