In the Milestone Tenth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about NASA losing it’s funding for the Constellation program, about the iPad, the Kindle, Amazon and Apple, of the impending tv episode price war Apple wants to start, about the two rare comics that [...]]]> Episode 10: All Things From My Brain

In the Milestone Tenth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about NASA losing it’s funding for the Constellation program, about the iPad, the Kindle, Amazon and Apple, of the impending tv episode price war Apple wants to start, about the two rare comics that recently sold for $1mil each and I feature music by one of my favorite bands, The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, in the hopes that all of you will go out and support them and buy their stuff.

Leave comments. They make the world go round…

[podcast]http://atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/AllThingsFromMyBrain010.mp3[/podcast]

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THE RETURN OF THE PODCAST IS HERE!

Episode 9 of the All Things From My Brain Podcast is here.

In this weeks massive, DOUBLE SIZED, MAXI-PODCAST, I am joined by a special guest on his very first podcast [...]]]> I said I’d do it, I warned you – you didn’t listen, did you? Well, now it’s TOO LATE!

THE RETURN OF THE PODCAST IS HERE!

Episode 9 of the All Things From My Brain Podcast is here.

In this weeks massive, DOUBLE SIZED, MAXI-PODCAST, I am joined by a special guest on his very first podcast appearance as we discuss the iPad, about Apple, Google, Blizzard, Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Torchwood – and the fact that his youngest son may be stalking me via iPhone.

With Episode 9 I am dumping Podbean and everything is going to be hosted here on atfmb.com. If you’ve subscribed to the podcast via iTunes, that link is in the process of being changed and you’ll have to resubscribe – I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready and available.

In the meantime, click below and stream to your hearts content or you can download via this link by right clicking and choosing ’save as’.

~P

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain009.mp3[/podcast]

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Ars Technica

Ars Technica has a lot of interesting articles each week. Sometimes I link em on Twitter, sometimes I don’t.  Last week, they talked about advertising and file-hosting sites.  It [...]]]> I find these things interesting, and thought I would share em by compiling a list here today.  The names were NOT changed to protect the innocent.

Ars Technica

Ars Technica has a lot of interesting articles each week. Sometimes I link em on Twitter, sometimes I don’t.  Last week, they talked about advertising and file-hosting sites.  It piqued my interest because I mostly hate advertising on websites – this got my brain working and thinking.  Note that I haven’t done any much (I sometimes have an Amazon thingie…) advertising on this site. I especially hate the kind of ads that pop up as your mouse passes over text – those really annoy.  Anyway, FireFox has a lot of neat plug ins that interrupt the flow of advertising to the consumer – things to block flash and ads and whatnotall.  One file-host site doesn’t like a new plug in that bypasses their site altogether, allowing people to download directly from the site instead of visiting pages with endless ads on them.

I really wish we could find a happy medium. Advertisers want to blanket us with Coke and Pepsi ads (among other things) while we just want it all to go away because we’re on overload.  When a page takes four times as long to load because of all the ad crap – we have a problem.  When we can’t get to the content we want because the ads keep interupting us, that’s a problem too.  When the content GOES AWAY because the advertisers have left and the content creator can no longer afford to operate, guess what?  We have another problem.

CNET is another favorite of mine for news.

Last week they talked about a couple of things I wanted to point out.

The 5 best (and worst) game preorder trends.  I found this interesting because the only game I have ever pre-ordered has been the expansions for World of Warcraft.  Nothing else has ever interested me enough to pre-order it.  Of course, I also tend to buy my console games used once they’ve come down considerably in price (which is why I’m usually behind the trends). This article is amusing and worth a read. Talks about what gimmicks work/they like (like getting the game ahead of the actual release date) and what doesn’t work/they don’t like (getting in game special stuff or crappy trinkets). Check it out.

The other is about Adobe bringing Photoshop.com to the iPhone, which is just neat.  Apps like this, which allow you to enhance the photos taken by your camera phone, are just nifty.  And Photoshop is pretty much the leader in this field now (sadly. I prefer some competition).  Looks like a cool deal.  Need to get that on my iPhone…

Comics should be good.

I can’t say enough nice things about this blog. I love the classic stuff and the contemporary stuff they cover every day. I usually can’t keep up with their updates.  Really worth some time on your part to check em out if you’ve ever cared about comics.

Life, Doctor Who and Combom

If you are a fan of Doctor Who, present or past, you really should check out Life, Doctor Who and Combom.  This is another site where I can’t keep up with all the updates.  If it’s Doctor Who related, it’ll show up on this blog.

Some more individual items for you.

“Fiction: In Blood 2009″ from @authormancuso. Warning for graphic violence/gore.

GameLife has a story on Sega’s SG-1000 (Sega’s 1st Game System) and gets extra points for showing Golgo 13 – a game I had for the NES.  Trying to remember his name…  Duke Togo? Something like that. 007 only Japanese.

The NY Times has a puff piece, but still very nice, about a woman on A Quest to Read a Book a Day for 365 Days.

I have never particularly cared for Batgirl.  Since finding the DCU blog ‘The Source’, however, I find myself intrigued.  Almost enough to venture to a comic book store again.  Almost.

Ya know what? I don’t want to grow up to be Sam Raimi.  Not that it wouldn’t be cool to be all rich and stuff and know Bruce Campbell and Xena.  But, I don’t want to be the guy who puts Sandman above Venom because ‘in his day’, Sandman was the big bad and Venom hadn’t been invented yet.  When I think of Batgirl, I think of Barbara Gordon (who became Oracle when Joker shot her in the spine and put her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life).  So much has changed.  Need to stay up with the times.  The Source helps with that.  And I have to say, it’s much better than Marvel’s blog – which is all selly.  The Source feels more low-key, which is probably why it sticks in my brain.

HOLEY SUBLIMINAL MARKETING, BATMAN!

…I am so sorry.  I really am.

~P

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As you may or may not have figured out by now, I am most definitely an Apple head.  I’ve got 2 iMacs at home and an iPhone in my pocket and I love to discover new games and apps to play with AND I love to share those finds with the kind folks who read [...]]]> Well.

As you may or may not have figured out by now, I am most definitely an Apple head.  I’ve got 2 iMacs at home and an iPhone in my pocket and I love to discover new games and apps to play with AND I love to share those finds with the kind folks who read this blog and listen to my podcast.

A bit of an old school gamer, I am quite the fan of a side scroller.  S’why I like the games coming out on iPhone so much – they are simple to figure out, fun to play and, for the most part – they scroll sideways!   It’s also why I bought the Sega pack for my X-Box – SONIC!  ALTERED BEAST!  HECK YEAH!  But let’s get back to the iPhone for a second.  I was trolling the lists to see what was making the rounds in the Top 25 the other night, and I came across something that looked interesting.

Enter: Cartoon Wars

Cartoon Wars is a side scrolling game that you can scroll back and forth on, if that makes any sense.  The concept is simple: you have a castle and the computer has a castle.  You have mana and the computer has mana.  Use your mana to create your army and then attack the other castle and its army. Scroll to the right to see your forces attack the enemy.  If the enemy beats you back, you’ll find yourself scrolling left again pretty quickly.

It gets better.  Taking down the other army brings you gold.  Taking down the other castle also brings you gold.  In between battles, you can use your gold to upgrade your units or purchase new types of units.

You start out with your standard fighter dudes – they’re the stick figurey guys with the white heads shown above.  Next, you can purchase Ninjas, Gunners, Wizards, Dark Angels -the list goes on.  Each new class of fighter costs a little bit more mana – could be 10 (normal fighter dude), or it could be 400 (Dark Angel, I believe).  And each unit can be upgraded – so you can take a training Ninja and turn em into masters – depends on how much gold you have.

You also have a turret on the top of your castle that can shoot massive arrows out into the enemy forces.  Control of that thing is a little tricky.  I really thought I had it but then I upgraded the weapon between battles and everything went to hell and my boys got SLAUGHTERED!

So, Cartoon Wars is part strategy, part side scroller and though I didn’t know that I would like it, I find myself getting a bit addicted.  It’s taken over as my break time entertainment during the day.

It’s available in the iTunes store right now for $0.99 and is worth it.  Check it out in iTunes: this link will launch iTunes.

~P

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In the eighth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the petition to make the Kindle open and non-DRM, DRM in general with books, music, movies and dvds, how ESPN, the NFL and the Marine Corps have all banned Twitter and Facebook, TiVo’s new [...]]]> Episode #8: All Things from My Brain

In the eighth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the petition to make the Kindle open and non-DRM, DRM in general with books, music, movies and dvds, how ESPN, the NFL and the Marine Corps have all banned Twitter and Facebook, TiVo’s new web video support, the FlyCast App from the App Store, TomTom on iPhone, Sam Raimi’s (fictitious) World of Warcraft movie production Diary from Wired, chargebacks via PaymentOne causing Warcraft accounts to be suspended, G.I. Joe; The Rise of Cobra. 73 ways to become a better writer and my own writing and blogging this week on All Things From My Brain.

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain008.mp3[/podcast]

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In the seventh episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Kindle once again and the lawsuit against Amazon, about Firefox passing one billion downloads, Apple’s new 3.0.1 update to fix an SMS exploit on the iPhone, the buzz around the iTablet from Apple, [...]]]> Episode #7: All Things from My Brain

In the seventh episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Kindle once again and the lawsuit against Amazon, about Firefox passing one billion downloads, Apple’s new 3.0.1 update to fix an SMS exploit on the iPhone, the buzz around the iTablet from Apple, Torchwood: Children of the earth, Green Lantern First flight, the San Diego Comic Con, J Michael Stracynski and his advice to writers, my own writing and what’s been happening over on the blog.

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain007.mp3[/podcast]

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Die hard Mac haters are cheering.  “See,” they say in a chorus of sneering.  “Mac’s aren’t so safe after all!  You can get infected too!”  They’re toasting each other on what they have believed is the inevitable destruction of [...]]]> So.  Big news on the net this week; Mac’s have a malware program running around the Internet.

Die hard Mac haters are cheering.  “See,” they say in a chorus of sneering.  “Mac’s aren’t so safe after all!  You can get infected too!”  They’re toasting each other on what they have believed is the inevitable destruction of the Mac users smug arrogance when it comes to Internet security.  They are moving through fits of ecstasy at the thought that so very soon, the Apple store’s shelves will be filled with box after box of anti-virus and firewall software to protect the foolish masses of Mac computers out there in the world soon to be raped by malware designed to zombify them and/or give over precious private data.

They blog and report on websites around the world, reminding us once again, about their theory that the only REAL reason Mac’s have been ’safe’ for so long is due to their unpopularity.  If only more people bothered to use and purchase Mac’s (and why would they when there is so little software available for Mac’s?), they have said for decades, then the worms and Trojans and malware would come out of the woodwork’s in droves.  But right now, they have always said, it’s just not in the interest of the people who create such things to do so for such a small user base.  They write stories with titles like, “Paradise Lost” to really hammer home the concept that the party is over.  No longer are we Mac users safe, they say.  Time to become slaves to the Internet Security Behemoth Windows has built over the decades.

We’ve heard it for so very long.  It’s utter bullshit.

Yes, Mac has a malware attack out there in the ether and yes it can zombify your machine.  If you’re stupid. Let’s take a look at the differences between how a Mac computer can become infected with something like this versus how a Windows machine becomes infected.

On the Mac, you must actively download and install the program.  In the case of the one going around right now, it’s inside/attached to a pirated, trial copy of iWork.  How do you stop it from infecting your computer?  Um, don’t download the pirated copy of iWork?  Since the majority of Mac users in the world probably won’t do that, the chances of this thing becoming a huge big deal are pretty slim.  Install anti-virus?  Um, no.  Why would you?  The only way for this piece of malware to infect your computer is for you to download and install it.  It won’t come through your browser.  It won’t come through your mail.  It won’t simply find you on the web, download and install itself and then run rampant.  You have to choose to become infected.

As a side note – the key to all of the anti-virus software out there is that once your computer is infected, the anti-virus software will clean the infection off your machine or quarantine it so it can’t do any more harm.  You didn’t actually think it proactively protected you, did you?  Cuz it doesn’t.  It waits for the damage to be done, then it reacts, so it wouldn’t help you unless you’re already infected, which again, unless you’re stupid, won’t happen.  So don’t worry about it.  You don’t need any of that crap for your Mac.

So, all in all, there’s a mac-specific malware out in the wild that can’t hurt you unless you invite it in, ask it to sit down and hand it the keys to your house.  Are there people out there who will invite it in because they want the pirated copy of iWork?  Sure.  And they’ll always be at risk of things like this because they are being stupid and there’s nothing that can be done about that except to hope that they don’t breed.

Let’s compare that scenario with how a Windows machines becomes infected.  First up, I feel that it in the interest of good faith disclosure that I inform you that the chances are, during the time it took you to read the text above, several attempts to infect your machine were tried by various bad people all around the world.  I am not one of them.  Hopefully they failed.  On an unprotected XP machine, it’s something like 4 minutes on the web before the damned thing is infected with something.  4 minutes!  On Vista… why the hell would you be on Vista?  Are you just looking to be punished?  Do you have some sort of narcissistic need to cause yourself pain and frustration?  You probably beat yourself with one of those studded belts across the back like in ‘The DaVinci Code’, don’t ya?  But I digress…

See, the fundamental difference is that the Windows user doesn’t really have to do anything to become infected by something nasty.  Just being connected to the Internet means they can find you and infect you.  That’s why you have firewalls and anti-virus, and user credentials and closed ports and a slew of other stuff to try and make that Windows box ’safe’.  Unlike the Mac malware attack above, you aren’t really a part of the equation in your Windows box becoming infected, it’s not a choice that you have to make – the bad stuff out there doesn’t really need your permission to run or install.  They run in the background, while you’re playing Bejeweled or surfing porn or whatever else you enjoy on the web, and they do so silently and quickly.  Like Ninjas!  Wait, does that make them sound cool?  They’re not cool.  They are anything BUT cool.

Opening up Internet Explorer and visiting websites can infect your machine.  That’s because they like to specifically target the security vulnerabilities inherent in IE to infect your machine and again, you don’t know that it’s happening until its way too late.  That’s why and how ‘Patch Tuesday’ evolved; as vulnerabilities were identified, Microsoft had to address them through weekly patches to combat whatever nasty thing was floating around that week.  Occasionally, something will come along that is particularly nasty and they will issue a special security patch on a different day.  Same goes for other entry points – all you have to do to become infected by certain email bugs is view the infected email.  Open the email, you’re infected.  That’s why these types of programs try to send themselves to everyone in your address book first thing, because your friends, colleagues and family are more likely to trust and open something from you versus some random piece of junk mail or spam.  Neat huh?  Nothing to run, just open it and you’re screwed.  Then your computer tells two friends.  And they tell two friends.  And so on.  And so on…

Better close that preview pane in Outlook.

They even came up with a way to infect your machine by viewing an image.  That scared a lot of people last year.  Open an email or a browser with an infected .jpg on it and you were infected.

All of these things hit Windows machines through vulnerabilities in Windows and other Microsoft software products.  These vulnerabilities can be innocent in inception, a port defaulted to ‘open’ because some legitimate piece of software or a driver or something, somewhere needed it to be.  But in the wrong hands, it suddenly becomes something much more sinister and a way to enter in and do bad things to you, your computer and your private data.  Is the Mac OS more secure?  Yes, it is.  So is Unix, but you don’t want to use Unix.  Command prompt bad.  BAD COMMAND PROMPT!  NO!  NOT ON THE CARPET!  NO!

*cough*  Is the Mac OS invincible?  Of course not.  But it is better protected thanks to how it is developed and because of the thinking behind it and the new versions of the OS as they are developed  - Apple is not trying to support legacy machines from 10 years ago with each new OS released, which I think makes a huge difference.  They don’t have all of that baggage and they don’t have to try and please every Tom, Dick and Harry manufacturer of BLAH in the world who is trying to create the next, cheap piece of crap hardware to go into the Windows box.

Is it less of a target because of the smaller user base?  I really don’t think so.  It could be, but I don’t believe that it is.  I don’t think that is the motivation behind the attacks and the development of this stuff.  Given that a lot of this crap specifically targets Mircosoft software and vulnerabilities in various versions of the Windows OS, I’m actually inclined to think that this is more likely a war against Microsoft itself.   Glee is taken by those who find and exploit each new vulnerability or in finding out that old ones once thought patched are now open again (happened last year or maybe it was the year before).  even as Microsoft tries to release new things that are intended to be more secure, like IE7 and Vista, these folks crack their knuckles and set about finding out just how secure they are and where they can break in and do bad stuff.  It’s like a vendetta.  A jihad, even.

So.  What does all of this mean?  Yes, there is a malware threat out there for Mac.  No, it does not signal the end of the Mac users warm and fuzzy feelings over Internet security.  Nor does it signal that the time has come for Mac users to load and mess with anti-virus bullshit.

I think it comes down to being a non-event and a non-issue.  We can only wait and see if things change, if more and more stuff comes out that attacks the Mac platform, and how Apple reacts and combats those attacks.

IF they happen.

~P

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I don’t deny that Mac’s cost more – [...]]]> Microsoft is running these cute new commercials offering to pay for a laptop for some twenty-something who is computer shopping, if they can find what they want for under $1000.  The point of the piece is to highlight the difference in pricing between Mac computers and Windows computers.

I don’t deny that Mac’s cost more – never have.  Or that you can pick up a Windows machine cheap.  I think the commercials are putting the spotlight on a valid point: price does affect who buys a Mac and who doesn’t.  The kid going off to college looks at the price tag on a Mac laptop vs a Windows laptop and thinks, ‘Damn – I could get this and this and this with the money I save…’ and they’re not wrong.

But there’s an old saying, “You get what you pay for.”

I was and continue to be willing to pay more for the Mac platform because of the time I save that would otherwise be spent on total and utter crap.  Case in point: I inherited a laser printer, color and a bit old but still a really decent printer all the way around.  I’ve got a cable modem and router combo from Comcast, so it’s a pretty standard wifi network setup with three computers on it: 2 iMacs and 1 Vista machine (not mine and I rarely touch it unless I absolutely have to).  I wanted to hook my printer up on the wifi network so that all of the printers could print to it.

Now, having said that, let me also say this: the Vista machine has a color printer attached to it.  I’ve shared the printer, I’ve made it so that the Vista machine is supposed to be ‘visible’ inside the network to other computers, but the Macs can’t see the Vista machine and vice versa, nor can they see the printer that it’s sharing.  They can see each other though, and can share files back and forth – not so with the Vista machine – except for iTunes, which can see both libraries on the Macs.  makes no sense, right?  Right.

I remembered seeing something about a wireless print server from Apple a while back, so I did a little research and found the Airport Extreme which, among other things, let’s you share a USB printer, create a wifi network of its own and will stream music from your iTunes directly to speakers that you can hook right into it.  All in all, a pretty cool thing – and it’s small; plugs right into a wall outlet and is out of the way.

I headed out Saturday to pick one up (that was an adventure and a story for another time. Maybe.), came back to the house, took a look at the instructions, which were fairly straight forward, and proceeded to install it.

Took five minutes to plug the printer into the Airport, then the airport into the wall, walk to the first iMac, install the software, download the drivers for the printer, setup the device, then install the software on the second iMac and do the same stuff.  Both computers saw the printer, added it, and I was able to print test pages – everything worked so beautifully.  I was jazzed.

Went to the Vista machine.  Went to download the drivers for the printer, Vista asked me if I really wanted to download the .exe and I said yes.  Installed it.  Put the disc in and went to install Bonjour for Windows, needed for the computer to print to the printer over the Airport Extreme.  That went okay, but then it popped up and said that my user settings were insufficient to complete the installation and kicked me out.  Since there’s only one user account on the machine, and it’s set to ‘administrator’, I tried again – this time it let me complete the installation, but asked me several times if I really wanted to do what I was doing, which is really, raelly annoying.

I followed the instructions to setup the printer, only it couldn’t see it on the network.  I walked in the next room to make sure the Airport was still good – it was, went back to the Vista machine, canceled out of that setup, and started again – this time, it found the printer.  Started going through setting everything up, it error’d out saying that the ‘parameters were unset’ and kicked me out.  Okay.  I was a frustrated, but I continued on.  I tried again – it got to the point where it recognized the printer, saw it on the network, but wouldn’t accept the Vista specific driver I’d -just- downloaded for it.  I tried it with a different one that it had on its list and it took it, but then error’d and told me that it wasn’t the correct driver so I tried the Vista driver again and it accepted it.  Got through the entire setup process and hit ‘print test page’.  Error.

Tried again.

Error.

Tried again.

Error.  It could not print.

So I deleted everything and started over, rebooted and went through setting up the printer, driver, blah blah blah – said it saw it, said everything was fine, hit ‘print test page’ – Error.

Forty-five minutes of this crap.  To get this going I was going to have to start trolling the web and find out if other people have gone through the same thing and if they found any solutions.  I don’t want to have to do that.  I want it to work right the first time.  So, I gave up.  I quit.

This is just one of the reasons why I don’t miss Windows, why I try to stay as far away from it as possible – stupid shit like this.

It shouldn’t be that hard, it shouldn’t take so much of my time.  This isn’t counting the annoyance of all the damned things popping up telling me that I had to approve this or that and did I really mean to do this?  What a load of bull crap!

So yes, little twenty-something’s in M$’s commercials – go, purchase your Windows machine, save a little cash, then spend the rest of your days with that computer toiling away, trying to get things to work rather than doing your work.  And don’t forget the money you’ll spend on virus protection and firewalls.  Money well saved.

~P

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Never Defend Yourself

Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip.  All I can say is: It’s about damned time.  Sheesh!  Everyone is making this out to be a bad thing, that Israel is the bad guy, that there needs to be a cease fire.  Guess what [...]]]> Just a few things that caught my eye today over lunch…

Never Defend Yourself

Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip.  All I can say is: It’s about damned time.  Sheesh!  Everyone is making this out to be a bad thing, that Israel is the bad guy, that there needs to be a cease fire.  Guess what people?  There’s been a one sided cease fire for what – three years now?  One sided because in the time since Israel gave over control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, thousands of rocket attacks have poured across the border into Israel.  One report I read said it’s been something like 6000 rockets!!

Frankly, I’m surprised they’ve waited so long and I hope they don’t back down until Hamas is done for.

What the hell is going on with the Democrats?

Is it just me, or has the time from election to inauguration day seemed longer this time around than any other election in recent history?  I mean, the election itself felt really long, but with all the scandal’s coming out in the past couple of months, it just feels a lot longer than it actually is.

First we had the Blagojevich (thank you copy/paste) mess and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know all about his trying to sell President Elect Obama’s Illinois Senate Seat to the highest bidder.  The guy has more nerve than a lot of these politicians – he even went so far as to nominate someone for the job after everyone told him not to.  I can’t believe that the guy nominated, Roland W. Burris, A) Accepted the position in the first place and B) Showed up for work.  Wow – I mean, just, Wow.

Then we have the same basic thing happening in New York, where Hillary Clinton is leaving to join the Obama administration as Secretary of State and her seat is up for grabs.  Caroline Kennedy says that she wants the job, but I read somewhere (Dangit – I can’t find it now) that basically said she was hurting for the job because her contributions to the DNC were low.  Um, what?  How is that different from Blagojevich holding a private auction?

Now we have the Richardson thing.  He’s being investigated for possible corruption over political donations that may have landed certain companies certain transportation contracts.  Not good.

Is it just me or is it just the season or what?  I mean – is there a lot more of this stuff turning up all of a sudden?  Considering that Democrats have won some crucial victories throughout the country this election cycle, it seems that all this stuff turning up is really tarnishing the luster of those wins.

Steve Jobs isn’t sick. Or, he is, just not what you think.  Or maybe it is.  Or maybe it’s not.  …it’s all so very confusing, but according to Mr. Mac himself, there’s nothing seriously wrong except for a hormone imbalance causing him to lose a little weight.  So, he really, really, really doesn’t want people panicking and dumping their stock in Apple.  Um… Okay.

The New York Times, seeing that, like most newspapers across the country, their revenues are dropping drastically because no one reads their paper anymore, has taken the first logical (insane Troll logic) steps towards rectifying the situation: they’re now selling ad space on the front of the paper.

Forget that no one reads their stuff because it’s all slanted and partisan!  That can’t possibly be why so many people go online and find their news from alternative sources (like I do!), thus causing a decline in readership, which then affects revenues from advertisers who seek out alternative areas to spend their advertising dollars on!  No, no – the problem is that they don’t have ad space on the front page of the paper!  Yep, that’ll solve -ALL- their problems…

And, to end this little bit of news on a lighter note: There’s a New Doctor Who coming our way.

Young Matt Smith (Yes, I said -young-) has been chosen by producers of the BBC Show to replace David Tennant after 2009.  Tennant, arguably one of the best Doctors to come along since Tom Baker played the iconic role back in the 70’s, is leaving the show after propelling it to new heights and popularity with the reboot of the series.  The show’s been on, what?  43 years?  44?  Something like that.  It -needed- a reboot (and a real budget – it got both).

Tennant is doing some specials in 2009 that we probably won’t see on SciFi on this side of the pond for a while, then he’s out and the new guy is in for the 2010 series (season, we call it over here).  I have mixed feelings about this.  I really, really like Tennant in the role and I’m very sad to see him go.  The new guy?  The interview posted on youtube isn’t promising.  I immediately didn’t care for him.  I’m hoping that will change once I see him flying around in his T.A.R.D.I.S.

~P

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We all see the ads when we visit websites.  Ads in the banners or in the sidebars and now, even right in the middle of whatever it is we’re looking at or reading.  Heck, the most annoying ones are the scrolling ads that appear ON TOP of the [...]]]> I don’t know why, but this amused me.

We all see the ads when we visit websites.  Ads in the banners or in the sidebars and now, even right in the middle of whatever it is we’re looking at or reading.  Heck, the most annoying ones are the scrolling ads that appear ON TOP of the page, preventing you from seeing the page you came to visit.  I dislike those the most.  Makes me want to make a list of the products being advertised so I know to never, ever, ever purchase them.

Mostly, we ignore the ads.  That’s what the statistics say anyway.  We’ve become conditioned to ignore them.  Still, occasionally one catches our eye and we click it – that’s how they make money, those ad companies.  I can’t remember the last time I clicked one.  But I did pay attention to one just today.

See, I was reading this article on Apple Insider’s website.  It was about the iPhone and how “Apple’s iPhone 3G is being credited this week as the lone force responsible for growth of the smartphone market during the September quarter.”

Pretty nifty, right?  What amused me was the add inset within the article:

If that wasn’t amusing enough, there was the sidebar add, also for a Crackberry:

I love how keywoards like ’smartphone’ drive the ads that appear.  You’d think that someone, somewhere, would’ve noticed that an article about iPhone 3G’s was covered in Crackberry ads…

~P

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