A Bedtime Story

“Once upon a time, children, there was a whole industry built on nothing but distributing music.” “Grampa, what’s disturba… distrab…?” “Distributing? It means that a person takes music that other people make and sells it to people who want it.” “Why couldn’t people buy it from the people who made it, like we do?” “Because …

Continue reading ‘A Bedtime Story’ »

The OS Wars II: Bitten by Bluetooth, Seeing Double, and Talking To The Palm

During a chess competition a chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk. — Alexander Alekhine I’m well known for being stubborn. Very stubborn. When I run into a problem, I pound my head against it until either my head breaks or the problem does. So far, it has almost …

Continue reading ‘The OS Wars II: Bitten by Bluetooth, Seeing Double, and Talking To The Palm’ »

“The United States National Medical Association”

More spam today, with a very similar modus operandi as yesterday’s bogus greeting card message. If you want to see the message itself, you can find a two-year-old copy here, word for word. The only difference is that my copy actually linked to a different .COM site with a nonsense name, though the visible text …

Continue reading ‘“The United States National Medical Association”’ »

“You’ve received a postcard from a family member!” Yeah, right!

What I actually received was the message below, with the above-quoted subject line. It smelled fishy. I’ve gotten these greeting-card messages before, but they’ve always included the name of the person sending the message. If the site didn’t have the person’s name, then how would it know that it was a family member? And what’s …

Continue reading ‘“You’ve received a postcard from a family member!” Yeah, right!’ »

Linux Is Outpacing Windows

Microsoft has really been spinning it’s wheels for the last six or seven years. With the exception of improving security, nearly everything it has done since Windows 2000 has been focused on sizzle rather than steak. The same operating system with prettier pictures. You can see it in the whole user interface, and you can …

Continue reading ‘Linux Is Outpacing Windows’ »