beatgammit

Virus protections is practically essential these days whenever data is transferred over the internet. We cannot trust our anti-virus programs on our computer to catch everything, and every extra measure is important. I have used Gmail for a year or so and I have loved it much more than any other email service I have used (I have used my internet provider's standard one, hotmail, yahoo, gmail, and a few others like netdragons and my college's). This is just one more reason to love Google. Google has declared that it is dedicated to controlling the world's information, and now it is showing evidence that it cares about the security of the world's information.

I use Winamp. My friends all swear by iTunes, but I don't have an iPod (I have a SanDisk mp3 player instead) so I like Winamp. Winamp works well and I have gotten used to it. It can be customized extensively to make it easier to use while getting other work done (keyboard shortcuts, docking at the top of the window, good skin selection, etc). I love how I can listen to XM radio (while limited) for free. It has worked well for me and is faster and takes up less RAM than Windows Media Player.

I heard that Microsoft was coming out with a new product that will make GameMaking very simple for decently motivated users. They will not be the most high quality games, but they will get the job done. I don't know what it is called, but I read about it on the news a couple of months ago. I'm sure Microsoft has something on their website that you can read, but I don't think that it will be free (nothing from Microsoft is free).I don't know about free AND no knowledge. Companies make their money off of making things easy. If something takes alot of knowledge to know how to use, usually it is offered free (like Java). But there are OpenSource versions of virtually everything, but usually they do not work as well as the commercial versions, and the commercial versions are updated much more often.

I have used OpenOffice alot of late, creating everything from presentations to documents. I have come to the conclusion that OpenOffice is cleaner and better. I like the whole word completion thing and I love that OpenOffice has smaller files (not really necessary, but I like it). I love how it is saved in an open format that is based off xml so other programs can use it (specifically Google's Docs and Spreadsheets). I like that it is free and offers many of the same features as Microsoft's version (and I like the way they implement them better too).I was wondering what everyone uses. I know Microsoft Word has been the standard forever, but is it time for a change? Microsoft is also developing their own open xml format to compete with OpenOffice's, which is a good move, but I was wondering if this is reason enough to keep using Microsoft.

I just use a simple program called TextPad. There's nothing sexy about it (no dynamic update of your website for css) for css, because it is not built for CSS, but to be a generic text editor. It does allow multiple files to be open at a time, so if you have "nested css files" meaning that if you have one overarching CSS file for the whole site and then sub css files for different parts of your site, this is a clean and good way to be able to access them easily with little problem. There are easier ways to do this, like through the FireFox extension, but I like TextPad because I use it for everything.

I think frames are a sexy way to make your website work "correctly". I think it makes it better organized, but you do risk your page ranking. Search Engines don't look at frames, so your "index" files would have to have a bunch of meta-tags. This is not a sexy way to appeal to search engines, but if you really don't care about search engines, you are good to use frames. If you care about search engine page rankings, I would go with tables and iFrames, and have the iFrames dynamically updated each time a page is changed (navigation in the iFrame running php code). This way you can have pieces of your site that effect this iFrame differently depending on where you are in your site heirarchy. This helps the user know where he/she is on your site without you having to hardcode as much. This is easier to adapt than making your entire site run php.

In my area, there are only restrictions on copyrighted content. If you perform live under a contract, you should read this contract to see whether they have rights to the performance. Music that you produce is legal to distribute, but if you produce it under a record lable, you must have permission (because the music is no longer yours). I believe you can let people listen to music, but not download music, with very little in the way of copyright infringement, but I would make sure with the owners of the music to be sure.All in all, if you don't own it, you can't share it (legally).

I trust Google with alot of my personal information, but nothing too important. Every corporation has the possibility of fraud, so I would never entrust ALL of my personal data to Google, but Google does provide a good service and does not seem to me to be greedy. Google's only revenue stream is advertising and upgrades of space in their services. This is different from Yahoo, which has paid hosting, paid email service, their own internet provider for their users, and various other paid services for their users. MSN is, of course, Microsoft, and Microsoft gets revenue streams from a variety of venues. Google only gets revenue from search (and upgrades to space, but this is understandable). I love Google and I think that they provide a very good, and very specialized service that is useful to the general public and should be rewarded with trust in their services.

I never use any kind of password remembering software or write anything down. For every website I go to, I can either reset my password or have them send it to me. I don't want to risk getting my passwords stolen, but I have taken measures to reduce the effects of them getting my password. I use about 6 or so different passwords, so if I loose one, I don't loose security in everything I do online. I live with a couple of roommates, and they swear by the password remembering thing. I can't stand this, because if they don't type it in every time, they will not remember it. They are limited in their passwords because they do not use them everyday. They would be left rather helpless if they had to use somebody else's computer because they wouldn't know their passwords. This is why I use a variety of passwords and do not write them down or have any programs store this information. I don't trust Microsoft (that is what I use mostly)

I think that Apple will decide to include video and picture taking with their new iPod. I still think that they will have cheaper versions that will not have this functionality, but to appeal to everybody they will offer these packed iPods. For example, in Asia, consumers like to have as much stuff packed into one small package. To appeal to these customers, they will offer the iPhone with video and picture, along with a bunch of extra features like the ability to add games and such. Americans, on the other hand, like to have all of the pieces, and only buy a product for one functionality. Apple will still have to provide for Americans the separated versions. I forsee that they will also allow downloading remotely from their iPods with the addition of the iPhone service. The iPhone service will enable Apple to have wireless communication with their products. I am guessing that they will integrate this, as Microsoft is doing, into their new iPods.

Good post CaptainRon. I think Google will adapt to this new threat, but this new search doesn't have much founding right now. Microsoft has a history of embarking on projects that are too big for them. There are sure to be flaws. Plus, Microsoft probably isn't implementing this technology true to the Neural idea. I am guessing they just make a database of most accessed sited per a search criteria, and then apply an algorithm to that. This "learning" is just expansion of a database. All of this database access takes time, and money. I am not sure that users will be willing to take a couple of seconds for a simple search for something like "buy xbox". With all of this technology, there are sure to be hacks, where automated programs continually search for the same topic and mess with the rankings. No system of search is perfect, but for now, I think Google has the best method. This new system must take a while to get all of the information it needs to get relevant content, and Google is doing that without having to have all of this. If this truly IS the way of the future (and if the general public accepts it as such), then Google will roll out a similar, and probably better, version of this. It all depends on how Microsoft goes about advertising this.

I don't really see the point of this. I guess it's interesting as a novelty thing, but it really doesn't help anybody. It doesn't solve any accessibility problems. It's cool that it is in there, but there really is no point. I guess the programmers at Google got bored, afterall, they ARE given a day a week to work on whatever project they want, on company time. I have heard of this, but I didn't know that Google adopted it.

It really doesn't matter. Like somebody said earlier, they don't get any advertizing, since everything is linked to Google. The only thing it does is make Google more popular. The more people talk about a "Google-ripoff" online, the more people go to check it out. The more people go to check it out, the more people use that search engine. The more people that use this "fake" search engine page, the more people are redirected to Google. Google gets all of these new customers coming to its page. This may help "convert" people from one search engine to Google. All-in-all, Google really shouldn't bother suing them. They aren't doing any hurt; actually, they may be helping.

This doesn't alarm me too much. As time goes on, the government will increasingly put new restrictions on pollution as it has been since the industrial revolution. The EPA won't let something like this happen. Plus, I don't believe all of the Global Warming hype. We are part of a larger trend, and there is no way to pinpoint this on us.

Well, Google just rolled out a new service, Google Checkout, and it is being adopted by a bunch of online webistes (like Buy.com). It is supposed to be better/easier than PayPal. It will enable users to finish checkout in fewer steps (sometimes as few as 1 easy login). I don't think iKobo will be able to make a splash with these two HUGE methodologies. Google Checkout is also offering huge discounts for users in order to spread the news of it's coming ($10 on $30 or more spent, or $20 on $50 or more spent, depending on the merchant).

I use Google homepage. It has my favorite search engine with my favorite content. I use Google Finance alot for my stocks, and there is a great stock add-on that I can add. New add-ons are coming all of the time. I have several tabs, ranging from my home tab (email and the like), to news, to finance. I like this better than Yahoo! because of the ease of adding/moving content around. I tried Yahoo! for a while, but it is not as advanced as Google's is. I don't like Live because it is a little confusing (not that I can't manage it, just that I don't want to). I like Google's clean interface.

I heard a rumor that Windows vista is going to abandon the long-feared Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and make it red instead, kind of a Red Screen of Death (RSOD). Article. The BSOD will still be used, but for lesser errors, only the RSOD will have the intensely bad-news errors. Is this a good idea or no? I personally think it is stupid and only points out the errors in Windows. People will be talking about the change for a while. Some less computer-literate users might wonder what the heck happened to their screen. They may think that their computer is posessed, since the color changed!! Anyway, it probably won't be that bad, but I still think that it is a stupid idea.

Political correctness is getting rediculous. Look at George Allen's case, he said the word Mukaka (I think that was right), and then people destroyed him because it was offensive to some people. He didn't even mean to offend anyone (I can't remember why he said it, but it wasn't aggressive at all). George Allen has some Jewish heritage, and a reporter asked him where that heritage ended in his family line (implying he was ashamed to be Jewish). It is definitely getting out of hand.My friend is in a debate class, and they practice saying thigs so that NOBODY could possibly get offended. All of these political "rules" are getting way out of hand. I am afraid to even reference an African-American, fearing that that term is now discriminatory because they are not African anymore. But then again, if I don't include the African, they may get mad at me for not "celebrating our differences"!! I don't understand why all of this is such a big deal.A leader of my church said that it is not possible to offend somebody, it is only possible to take offense at what somebody said. If somebody said something directly attacking another person's character, this is unacceptable. If the person did not mean anything by it, then this should not be a problem.

Yeah, I heard about this on another forum. It is really mentally stimulating, but I think it takes way too much time. I have too much schoolwork to focus on it, but it is very fun to figure out each stage.

I've heard about this. It will make charging cell phones utterly unnecessary. Batteries will not be necessary. Wireless laptops will be much more usable because you will not have to worry about short battery life. IPods will be much more usable because no cords are necessary, just change your preferences on your computer and the next time you walk by (or while you are sleeping) the IPod will be charged and updated. Bluetooth and wireless energy will be a lethal combination that will greately improve their use. I have been thinking about this idea for sometime, but haven't come up with a way that it would be possible. This is now possible!! I expect to see huge developments in this area over the next few years, starting with one city and moving to the next.

Microsof is pretty safe right now. They have a hold on the OS world and much of the application world as such. Google is just entering the application world. Microsoft has SO much money that they can practically buy their way into any arena. They can apply their money to beat any competition. Google is working on controlling the world's information, and Microsoft is focusing on personal computers.Google's world is the internet, and Microsoft's world is the personal computer. If either one ventures into the other's domain, there will be total rejection. Sure, competition is great, but when a major company tries to impede on another major company's domain, the more established will prevail. We are seeing this with Microsoft's Live trying to compete with Google. Google is too well known and too trusted in the online world, that, until they mess up, they will dominate over Microsoft. As long as Microsoft keeps improving Windows and Office, they will dominate over any attempts by Google to steal into their market-share. We saw this with Novell's WordPerfect. Microsoft totally destroyed WordPerfect with their Microsoft Word. Microsoft is a trusted name in the office application world and OS world, and Google is a trusted name in the online search/services world.

I might use it if it was offered free and open-source. There are talks of an OS called Gubunto, a mixture of Ubuntu Linux and Google's own particular style. I like the idea, but right now Google has enough to worry about. Google is the king of AJAX, web services, and advertising, so I would only expect them to offer a Google OS as a side-project. They won't make anything that is too terribly competitive.Google has a close relationship with Apple, so if Google does enter the OS arena, I could see them partner with Apple. Google won't enter the OS anytime soon, as their current mission is to organize the world's information, not take over the world. Don't worry, Microsoft is safe, for now.

I love the idea of an online OS, but as mentioned earlier, this is not feasable. Speed issues, security issues, and whatnot remove the possibility of such an OS. I don't trust my computer to any website, not even Google. I do like the idea of a basic OS with settings and preferences stored on the net. This is just like an expansion of Google or Yahoo! where individual profiles are maintained and each person has their own personalized website. This could be coupled with ideas from Sun Microsystems, who make "workspaces" where a user logs on and specialized data is loaded from the network. If this were expanded, with a basic OS, this idea could be realized.The new Docs and Spreadsheets by Google is definitely a step in the right direction. Online applications are the future. They are relatively fast if done correctly and greatly increase efficiency by being able to access the same resources anywhere around the world. We can now store documents, music, photos, and bunch of other stuff online that we could not before. I see this expanding to include every imaginable resource, from source code to home videos. Google found a way to profit off its services directly, and since they have been keeping this information safe and secure, I expect other companies to join in.All in all, an online OS is not feasable, but online accounts are the future.

Here's the article I'm talking about- link This guy is saying that he lets his kid run Windows Vista without an anti-virus because of the parental controls. He thinks that since the new Windows has made such great improvements in security that he no longer needs an anti-virus. I think Microsoft has gone waaaaay too far in their PR, now they are flat out lying. They are getting to be like Apple (sorry Apple fans, but most of their ads are totally untrue). Vista will be a huge target for hackers because it is one of the most anticipated releases of an OS insofar. Sure, Apple OSX has it's moments, but Windows Vista will make a much bigger splash, for better or for worse.

I've tried live a few times and it works pretty well. I like the clean look (kinda looks like google :] ). I don't like the rest of the page though. It is too hard to find things (took me a few minutes to get used to it). Online portals should be very user-friendly and easy to use. I like google's customizable homepage better than Live's. Microsoft should just get out of the portal business and focus more on their OS and other products. This is Google/Yahoo/Ask's war, not Microsoft's. I like Google the best, and then Yahoo as a distant second (too cluttered homepage).