I had to do a drive restore on the main computer. No posting, but a lot of swearing.
And no, I’m not buying a Mac.
There is hope, as rouge fuel trading countries are becoming more and more rougish:
President Bush lifted the drilling ban Tuesday for Alaska’s Bristol Bay, clearing the way for the Interior Department to open the fish-rich waters to oil and natural gas development.
Alaska officials as well as local communities had asked for the ban to be lifted, but environmentalists have warned against drilling in the bay, which is also a major fishing area for salmon, crab and cod.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said one or two lease sales in about 5.6 million acres of Bristol Bay will be considered for leasing in the department’s upcoming five-year 2007-12 lease plan.
Separately, Bush lifted a drilling moratorium in an area of the central Gulf of Mexico known as Lease Area 181, making that area available to drilling.
Of course, the enviromentalist movement will decry this with all their might, as they would rather have us dependent upon Mideast and South American countries who wish us ill to provide us with oil. They don’t want a better environment; they want our economy to be weakened and ultimately destroyed.
More still needs to be done, though. More refineries will need to be built, along with opening up more areas designated for oil and gas development. But this is definitely a smart start.
(link via James Hudnall)
The InstaPundit himself is in town this week for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Check out his posts over at his home blog and at the Popular Mechanics website.
I hope to be wandering around on the convention floor sometime tomorrow afternoon with the cell phone camera in tow. Should I run into Glenn, I’ll let you know.
Update (1/10): Can’t make it to CES due to work-related priorities. Let’s try again for ‘08!
If you’re familiar with Novell NetWare and GroupWise, or hold a Novell Certification, Raymond Noorda was the man who helped make network computing possible.
Noorda, 82, is also credited as one of first high-tech executives to take on Microsoft Corp. over its dominance on the desktop and with helping to create the reseller approach to boost sales by allowing partners to offer its software.
Noorda served as president and chief executive of Utah-based Novell from 1983 to 1995 where he spearheaded Netware, the network operating system linking desktop computers to printers, file servers and directories.
“He helped drive the extension of the PC by building a successful file sharing system for the newly introduced PC that is now the defacto standard in Local Area Networks,” computer maker Dell Inc. Chairman Michael Dell said in a statement issued by Noorda’s venture capital firm.
Under Noorda, Novell grew from 17 employees to more than 12,000 and became one of the most important technology companies to come out of the 1980s.
After retiring from Novell, Noorda founded the Canopy Group, a venture capital firm through which he invested in start-up companies based mostly in his home state of Utah.
Troll a blog, go to prison.
Can’t Congress think of anything else better to do? CNET’s Declan Mc Cullagh comments:
It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.
In other words, it’s OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.
This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.
Read the entire op-ed.
I find it appalling that Microsoft bends over backwards to censor Chinese-language blogs on their MSN service, but they can’t find time to plug the holes in Windows…
(links via Classical Values)
This doesn’t bode well for Microsoft:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer vowed to “kill” Google in an expletitive-laced, chair-throwing tirade when a senior engineer told him he was leaving the company to go work for Google, the engineer claimed in court documents made public on Friday.The allegation, filed in Washington state court, is the latest salvo in an increasingly nasty court fight triggered when Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee jumped to Google in July in what Microsoft claims is a violation of a one-year, non-compete agreement.
In a sworn statement made public Friday, Mark Lucovsky, another Microsoft senior engineer who left for Google in November 2004, recounted Ballmer’s angry reaction when Lucovsky told Ballmer he was going to work for the search engine company.
“At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: ‘Just tell me it’s not Google,’” Lucovosky said in his statement. Lucovosky replied that he was joining Google.
“At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office,” Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “I’m going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f***ing kill Google.” Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell.
It sounds like Ballmer needs a CTRL+ALT+DEL.
Thought your personal information is protected from prying eyes and would-be scam artists? Think again! PC World has the lowdown on a new public records data service:
Zabasearch.com lets anyone search for information about U.S. residents. The site will give you any available street address and phone number for free. While address and phone number searching isn’t new, the site can dredge up phone numbers and addresses of people who are otherwise unlisted in any other phone directory.Additional fees, which start at $20, get you what the company calls a background check–everything that it can find about the person you specify. Online background checks aren’t new, either. But many companies that perform them say they provide data only to qualified clients–potential employers, insurers, and landlords, for instance. Zabasearch will sell data to anyone who is willing to pay.
The company doesn’t make it easy to remove personal info from its site. You have to send Zabasearch a snail-mail letter requesting the removal of your records. It takes two days for your details to disappear; and even then, if Zabasearch spiders find new records about you from a different source, the company can’t promise that your personal details won’t show up in future searches.
Though the risks to your privacy are serious, they aren’t Zabasearch’s fault. The larger problem is that local and state governments have been publishing public records online for years. If you’re concerned about your privacy, you should, for now, send a letter to Zabasearch. But the most effective way to protect your data in the future may be to send a message to your elected representatives urging them to limit the amount of confidential information contained in public documents posted online.
The San Francisco Chronicle notes that there is a Heaven’s Gate connection to Zabasearch:
You remember Heaven’s Gate. Thirty-nine members of the Southern California cult committed suicide together in 1997. They apparently believed this would allow them to rendezvous with a UFO hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet.The bodies of the cultists, who had funded their activities with computer work, were discovered in a mansion near San Diego by a former Heaven’s Gate member, Richard Ford, who’d been sent a videotape by cult leaders explaining their rationale for mass suicide.
At the time, Ford was working as a Web designer for a Beverly Hills computer company owned by ZabaSearch’s Matzorkis. About a dozen cult members reportedly had worked for Matzorkis at various times.
Matzorkis couldn’t be reached for comment by e-mail or through Zakari.
But according to news reports, he drove Ford to the mansion to check on the cult’s circumstances. He reportedly waited in the car while Ford went inside.
“They did it,” Newsweek quoted Ford as saying as he returned to the car.
“Did it smell?” Matzorkis was quoted as replying.
It was Matzorkis who subsequently insisted that the San Diego Sheriff’s Department be notified.
Zakari, who was working with Matzorkis at the time, served as Ford’s lawyer after the bodies were found.
Neither Matzorkis nor Zakari was a Heaven’s Gate member.
Nevertheless, Matzorkis quickly negotiated a deal for ABC to make a TV movie about Heaven’s Gate. It never got off the ground. He also gave numerous interviews to reporters about finding the bodies.
Well ain’t that ducky?
At least some of us aren’t going to take Zabasearch lying down…
From the L.A. Times:
Verizon Wireless misled customers about the capabilities of an expensive new cellphone and disabled many of the handset’s key features in order to charge higher fees for its own services, a lawsuit alleges.The suit, filed Dec. 30 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claims the nation’s second-largest mobile phone provider promoted the v710 handset made by Motorola Inc. as its only model equipped with so-called Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth enables phones and other devices such as computers and personal digital assistants to communicate wirelessly with each other over short distances.
But, the suit alleges, Verizon never turned on many of the handset’s key features — such as the ability to transfer data between the phone and a computer. […]
The suit, which asks for unspecified damages, was filed by two California residents: Grant Opperman of Dublin and Timothy Davis of Bakersfield. It asks the court for class-action status, noting that many of Verizon’s 42 million customers may have bought the phones.
More power to them. Verizon subscribers should have full functionality in their Bluetooth cell phones. If VZW hadn’t crippled BT in the V710 to begin with, a lawsuit would’ve never been filed.
Related: My previous posts regarding the V710 phone
Some of you TransFormers fans out there might appreciate this new commercial from French automaker Citroën.
(link via Ramblings’ Journal)
Get thee over to SPACE.com for the live webcast.
It looks like my popping chill pills and eating crow on the Motorola V710 issue were in vain.
Jonathan Zdziarski spoke with Verizon Wireless’ Brenda Raney and got the official word from VZW regarding the crippling of Bluetooth capabilities on the new phone:
Q. Many people feel that Verizon has specifically disabled these features to force them to use your Get-it-Now and PIX Place service.A. And your point is?
Q. Well, these features are available in phones from many other carriers, and people feel cheated.
A. Verizon does business unlike any other carrier, and we make no apologies for that. … [Those features] don’t work with our business model. Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings.
Q. Do you foresee that OBEX/OPP will be enabled anytime in the near future?
A. No.
Q. The average joe can go out and fork over $60 for a TransFlash card, which will allow them to transfer pictures, MP3s, whatever…and at no profit to Verizon…so why not just enable these features on the phone and give the customers a break?
A. That’s where the security issue comes in.
Q. So what would you say to the consumer who paid for this phone and expected to receive [these features]?
A. [When a customer buys a phone] there’s a level of risk. … We never advertised these features…. We have a fifteen day satisfaction guarantee.
Q. When this phone is released to other carriers, will you accept their ESNs if your customers want a fully-functioning phone?
A. We don’t [activate] phones unless they’re ours. If Motorola sells it to another carrier, it may be the a710 or the p710. That’s not our phone.
====
Unfortunately this conversation only confirmed my belief that Verizon’s customers were nothing but cattle to be rounded up.
I second that last sentence.
I take back my previous statements letting Verizon off the hook.
If VZW doesn’t address their “security issues” soon with the v710 and other upcoming Bluetooth products, they will lose my business as a customer. Such callous ignorance and disregard to customer demand is unacceptable.
To Ms. Raney, as well as to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg:
Let’s get a few things straight here.
I am not a sheep. I AM A CUSTOMER.
You DO NOT decide for me what goods and services I want or need. I DO.
Despite your boasting of better coverage, Verizon Wireless isn’t the only game in town. If your competitors are willing to offer features I want to see in my next mobile phone, they will earn my business.
Offer full Bluetooth capabilities NOW or you will lose customers (beginning with this one). It’s as simple as that.
In the meantime, for those who are SOL and already locked into contracts with the v710, Zdziarski has put together a hacker reward program for anybody who can successfully enable working OBEX and OPP Bluetooth on the phone. I support this effort 100%.
Commments in the previous entry concerning the Motorola V710 mobile phone and Verizon Wireless have warranted a follow-up.
Michael Demmons noted in response to the link I cited from Russell Beattie’s blog, “your link about the problems with the V710 has mostly been updated to say he was wrong.”
In fairness, Russell did make a correction to his post, now confirming that the V710 does support dial-up networking via Bluetooth (in addition to headset support).
However, it is a fact that the V710 currently does not support the OBject EXchange protocol (or OBEX, for short) — which is also a Bluetooth component. OBEX is crippled on the phone. For Bluetooth users, OBEX is a nifty feature used for wireless data transfer between other Bluetooth devices such as PDAs and other Bluetooth-enabled phones.
In an effort to confirm the facts on my part, I personally visited a Verizon store and performed functionality tests on both a live demo phone and on the store manager’s phone. While I could pair my Palm Tungsten T3 with the V710, I could not transfer data files or use the PDA’s autodialer.
I also reviewed Motorola’s specifications for the V710, which stated that the phone currently supports only wireless headsets and DUN. Since the phone is produced mainly for Verizon Wireless, I have reason to believe that OBEX was deliberately disabled, being that Verizon would rather have their customers pay extra for their GetItNow service and their propietary sync tools.
In feedback, some felt that I was being extremely harsh on Verizon Wireless. I’ll concede to having taken the matter personally, as I helped petition VZW to offer Bluetooth phones with their service. While I find the lack of full Bluetooth support on their current offering to be disappointing, hopefully they will consider full BT support in the future. High marks for wide coverage and customer satisfaction mean nothing when a certain demographic is being alienated by not offering fully functional products.
So, for now until further notice, my VZW account remains active (I’m currently not locked into a contract). However, I will not upgrade my VZW phone until fully-enabled Bluetooth products are offered. And for the time being, all of my incoming calls from my Verizon number will continue to be forwarded to my Sony Ericsson T610 from T-Mobile.
Related: Jonathan Zdziarski at Nuclear Elephant goes into the nuts and bolts of the V710.
Update & Mea Culpa (8/23/04): According to information posted at HowardForums, Motorola released the V710 to production without OBEX (via Michael D.).
Verizon Wireless is not at fault for the lack of BT data connectivity in the V710, and apologies go out to VZW for the misunderstanding.
I’ll wait patiently for the next BT phone to be added to VZW’s lineup. In the meantime, I’ll be having crow for dinner tonight.
Update (9/4/04): It’s official. Verizon sez that OBEX will not be enabled on the v710. See this entry.
A few days ago, I was merrier than Christmas when Verizon Motorola introduced their new V710 Bluetooth phone for Verizon Wireless.
All I can say is that I’m glad that I didn’t lock myself into another 2-year contract yet.
Bluetooth Crippled in Verizon’s New Motorola V710So in case you were thinking about all the cool stuff you were going to be able to do via Bluetooth with your spanky new Moto V710 on Verizon’s CDMA 2000 1x network, forget about it. It only supports handsfree use. Arguably, one of the main reasons that people have been so excited about this phone is the potential of using Bluetooth on a CDMA phone for the first time, but nope, the phone’s been crippled.
First I tried to send the V710 an image I took with my S60 Nokia phone and it refused - even though I could see the phone while browsing Bluetooth devices. It didn’t prompt to pair or anything, it just canceled the transfer. Then Vineet went into the photos section of the Moto and tried to “send via Bluetooth” as you would normally do, but there was no option of that sort. Since my Moto A845 which has an identical UI has that ability, this phone has obviously been made so that only Bluetooth headsets are supported.Gotta love carrier paranoia, no?
Well, I’m sick and tired of those asshats at Verizon. When I and other customers demanded a Bluetooth phone, we wanted a full-functioning phone for data/photo transfer, pairing to PDAs, the BT headsets of our choice, and wireless sync between computers. Instead, they deliberately foist a $400 device that’s utterly worthless upon their customer base.
Well, Verizon, can you hear me now?!? Good. NOW HEAR THIS:
Take your V710 and shove it. And when you’re finished doing that, you numbnuts can “join in” on kissing my rear end.
I’m canceling my account immediately and taking my business to either Cingular Wireless or AT&T Wireless keeping my secondary carrier, T-Mobile. I’m sure one of those carriers will gladly welcome by business and offer me a strong signal andWhile their GSM coverage isn’t as wide as your CDMA network is, at least they will offer me a FULLY FUNCTIONAL Bluetooth phone.
You had your chance to make your Bluetooth base happy and you blew it. Now I’m voting with my wallet — and I hope other angry Verizon customers will follow suit.
Update: Follow-ups to this entry can be found here and here.
After years of anticipation, months of delays and a day of celebrations, the ballyhooed Las Vegas Monorail this morning will begin hauling paying passengers on a route behind the Strip.The $650 million line, which debuts to the public at 8 a.m., will be unique in ways beyond its basic premise of luring walkers off the car-crazy Strip and onto trains.
Innovations include driverless trains, taxpayer-free system funding and turning the simple act of riding a train into something called “transportainment.”
But before carrying its first tourist behind the east side of Las Vegas Boulevard South, the monorail had to overcome a daunting price tag, skepticism and technical glitches that pushed back its rollout date.
“It’s been a roller-coaster ride,” said John Haycock, board chairman of the Las Vegas Monorail Co. “You can well imagine that on a project of this magnitude, every day there was a new obstacle to deal with.”
The monorail made its ceremonial first passenger run Wednesday morning, plowing past a wind-scattered cosmetic cloud of fog and a blast of streamers.
VIPs along for the first ride included Gov. Kenny Guinn, Regional Transportation Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury, entertainers Rita Rudner and Penn Jillette, and the usual Vegas big event gaggle of showgirls and sirens, who were whisked from the MGM Grand station to the Sahara stop in about 17 minutes.
In the evening, monorail backers hosted a soiree at the Las Vegas Hilton, where more than 1,000 invitees were expected, consisting mostly of transportation commission and monorail company officials, monorail employees and their families.
The best part about the monorail that it’s privately funded, without a cent from taxpayers.
I might try it out this weekend.