Yahoo Fees: A new service for domain owners

Uhh, even though Yahoo! formally declined the Microsoft offer, I have reason to believe Microsoft pirates have managed to invade the ranks of Yahoo! management, and do one of those classic Microsoft-in-the-90's maneuvers.

Yeah, I'm totally going to someone who doesn't skim an extra $3 for no reason. No offense, I tip my waitress, but this, its just a record in a c-table or something like that.

[[UPDATE]] After reading the fine-print of Yahoo!'s offer, they amazingly one-upped themselves. How clever, you can steer your herd by cleverly referring to competitors as junk.

Happy Spectrum Day!!

Today is finally it!!

With the FCC spectrum auction today, I couldn't be happier. I hope that all those who mean well will be successful in their bidding today.

I suppose that could be an oxymoron, because whoever has the most money, and the most will to spend it will likely be the winner. In essence whoever has the greatest claim to making a return.

Batteries and their man-machine symbiosis

I'm in the market for buying a new laptop, and I found this on tigerdirect.com read the end for my profound thoughts...

About Laptop Batteries

Following are five tips to help you get the longest battery life possible

1. Keep Your Screen as Dim as Possible – LCD screens are one of the biggest battery drainers. Adjust your setting so you have enough brightness for comfortable computing. During an overnight flight, for example, you can dim your brightness yet still see clearly. Most notebooks have simple applications you can use to control LCD brightness; consult your user’s manual.
2. Use Power Wisely – Turn off unused devices; each of them drains power. Most notebooks have power-management options. When you’re not using your laptop, you should have it on sleep mode, or your notebook’s equivalent. This mode keeps enough power running to maintain minimal function, so you can resume full power with very little delay when you’re ready to return to your work or play.
3. Cut Down on HD Activity - You can cut down on how hard your hard drive must work by defragmenting it regularly. This can be done automatically at selected regular intervals once you’ve located the Disk Defagmenter in the Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools menu and follow the prompts.
4. Disable Startup Items – Every time you boot up (on Windows), startup items load into memory, causing other open programs to add to your CPU’s power load. You can easily disable startup options simply by clicking Start/Run, entering C:\MSCONFIG and following the prompts.
5. Keep Your Battery Fit! - Yes, you can actually condition your battery. When you buy your laptop, charge the battery to its full capacity, then discharge it completely. Next, fully charge it again. This way your battery actually learns how much electrical charge it can hold. Always make sure when you charge your battery that it reaches 100 percent.

I think the last note is a really interesting idea. Perhaps like us humans, we need to keep in the habit of working full productive days then getting a full nights sleep, otherwise our lives battery becomes debilitated.

Ubunut Studio -- An ubuntu linux distro for multimedia gurus

I was pretty much way off on this one. I had thought Ubuntu Studio was going to be a killer sweet multimedia app to compete with the likes of Adobe CS3 and mac iLife. But instead it is an entire customized operating system for multimedia production.



I'm fairly certain that I'm going to be distributing discs of this distro, in addition to gutsy for mac and pc.

Pro's
It is maintained by the Ubuntu Community, especially as far as operating system enhancements are concerned, so this isn't a dead fork in the road; but rather an expansion that grows off the same Ubuntu/Canonical root.

Con
I kinda wanted an application to show up in add/remove programs that would just pull in some great multimedia apps.

Feedback.
I would suggest that ubuntu give you the option to transform your OS as you need it. Stupid suggestion given that it is already an open environment, since you can do that anyways. But perhaps a button that enables you to revert back to the base install of Gutsy, or to transform into Edubuntu, or Kubuntu, or over to Ubuntu Studio.

Anywhere.FM + an FTP server full of music + WebDrive == Awesomeness

I had a minor dilemma this morning. And the day before as well. I had alot of music that I've uploaded to my (ftp) server and I wanted to bring it in to my anywhere.fm profile.

TWO OPTIONS
1) Download all my ftp music back to my hard drive, and then use the anywhere.fm uploader for the music that is back on my hard drive.
2) Emulate the ftp server as a mounted drive (in windows) and tell anywhere.fm to scan that mounted server.
3) option 3 is not very feasible because i would have had to install the last.fm uploader tool on the shared server which runs linux, that I have no authority to install programs on. but it could be a nice project if i were a genius with nothing better to do.

I chose to use WebDrive and emulate a w:\ as ftp.myserver.com and then use the anywhere.fm uploader to scan it for new tracks. There is a lot of file movement, but I'll update this when it works.. or even if it didn't work.

The Future now of music

A good buddy of mine, Paul Betts had a posting that music no longer should be tied to us, ergo Voyager sans bagage. Autotranslated into english english.. we don't need to carry 8,16,30,100 gigs of music on us. We just need to be able to grab what we need when we need it.

{insert modern graphic of an ipod that has been damaged, and a headphone sucking wireless music out of the air}

The NOW of music is that we have an interesting web app called Anywhere.FM . You essentially upload all of your music that you are currently toting around with you, and fragmentally residing on all of your computers and consolidate it beautifully through a more or less fantastic interface. Your music plays through the player, and you would no longer need to touch your mp3 files again.

The FUTURE of music...
We however do not have our uMachine; our uBiquitous, uNiversal Machine. When you go for a drive in your car, we don't (I don't) have an internet connection feeding websites to my radio. So if we could get this wonderful (perhaps existing as an iPhone) internet-fed poly-purpose {not just multimedia} device that we can dock into our car's headunit, we then pass the modern test of making progress with our lives, our music, our overall doing something more.. which is a greater act than just doing some more.

Lotus Designer Tip: Attach Documents to Forms

Users have been entering information into a database running in Lotus Notes for some time, and now they would like to attach documents to it. All this time, I've been mostly clueless as to how to do it, reading somewhere that it only works when viewed through the web browser, and then giving up for a while.

But to allow users to upload/attach files to your form, just create a rich text field... thats it.


I was pretty amazed at the simplicity of that. Nothing tricky. Just to not keep secrets, I additionally changed a setting on the control tab of field properties, under storage, I set it to "Store contents as HTML and MIME", just for possible future compatibility.

My Latest Technovation: Alarm Socks

Loud annoying alarm clocks got you down? Yeah, I know its actually the ever present foggy, misty, wetness in your car that the defroster can't get rid of.

But for mornings when you don't really care that your alarm is ringing and you fight for just five more minutes of peace and slumber. You might as well be getting a foot massage while you ignore your morning wakeup.

Introducing, Alarm Socks, another great technovation from the company that brought you that wicked cool google maps mashup that you can pull real-time information from within your car of traffic, maps, navigations, weather, local businesses, other vehicles supporting the common chatting service, picture swapping, and the mobile marketplace.

In a recent interview with founder Peter Pants, Mr. Pants was quoted as saying, "With all the other great technology companies out there competing in the 'hyperlocal' sector, theres just nothing more local than your feet". There's no word as to whether or not Pants Industries, more commonly known as Eclectech:Technologies, thoughts, ideas... will still work on other hi-tech systems that involve coding, computers, internets, and users, but for now, we know that Mr. Pants will wake up every morning, and his feet will thank him.

Technical details of the Alarm Socks:
One size fits all
Requires surgical implantation of electrical node in leg (to power the socks, and to sense for the optimal time to wake up the user based upon REM sleep stage)
Optional time setter to set the time you wish to be woken up requires uMachine (sold separately)