New Mac User On Board: The Aluminum MacBook Is Now Mine

Needing a laptop, an instinct was directing my mind, body (and money!) towards buying a Mac over any kind of Windows-based machine. Having no need to make or edit movies and video, the MacBook pro was definitely on the high end of the spectrum, whilst I had my doubts about how the exterior of white version would hold up after time. I do appreciate the sturdy aluminum body of this machine.


Most of the negative reviews for this book seem to bemoan the absence of a firewire port, but seeing as I do not own any device requiring that port, this is a moot detail for me.



Sad to say, this post is not being written on the new toy, still using the trusy ol' PC for that task at the moment (being held back by a stubborn wireless network....a long story itself). I do love the features that I've been able to access, but I've found out that I've got to considerably sharpen my chess skills to beat this opponent, but hey, if I can do well in the two-deck version of Spider Solitaire, it'll just be a matter of playing again to get better.

Oh No! Hasbro Vs. Facebook/Scrabulous

Potentially bad news for fans of the popular Facebook application: lawyers for the makers of the Scrabble game have asked that the application be withdrawn from the site due to copyright infringment.


Count me as one Facebook user who's happily passed a bit of time playing the game with people in various parts of the world, as well as a user who's grown more than a wee bit tired of spam applications and the attendant invitations one must send out in order to use it; the former has certainly outweighed the annoyance factor of the latter from my view, an informal chat with the opponent about whatever is happening on that day (or days). Hopefully, a licensing arrangement, talked about in the BBC article, can be forthcoming.



STORY

Early Computing Games On The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Via Music

Jeez, another backwards-looking post. It's always jarring when someone else brings up something from the past, thanks to a post on REDDIT today, I was reminded of my first computer over 20 years ago, a gift via my aunt on Christmas. In this case, that would be the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, invented by a British gentlemen, dunno why she picked that one over the Commodore 64.


I don't have the layout for connecting the various pieces of equipment for consultation just now, about all I can remember about that aspect was that all of the programs were stored and played on regular tape cassettes, and from that, I still do possess one piece of software from that period: a UK cassette tape version of the Stranglers' 1984 album Aural Sculpture, which had a game on it, at the end of the album, entitled Aural Quest. There were some other programs that came with the computer, some of which were marginally useful, relatively speaking, but I have no idea where those tapes are these days.


At this point, once I had bought the Stranglers album, trying to play that game, where one is the bands road manager, became a goal I wished to master, but due to various factors (my total inexperience with computers then, faulty equipment...the tape player I was using was a cheap handheld portable type, etc.) that goal was never accomplished much past the beginning stages. It definitely could have been the hardware, on the inside of the j-card, the instructions read Wind the tape just before the computer programme starts. Set the Spectrum up for loading programs as shown in the manual. Type load "ENTER". Now play the tape. If the program fails to load, try a different volume setting.


Being that we had much more time to waste those days than we do now (HA!), all of the other volume settings would prove to just as useless when trying to get the damn program to start. That in itself was a rare occurrence, but the fact that this was a crappy game didn't help matters much either. The fact is also that the Stranglers were a crappy band to begin with and were to lose whatever credibility they had with me on this album, I rather liked the punch of the single No Mercy, but the rest of the album was just mediocre pop pap, not at all like the stuff from the first album such as Down In The Sewer or the tastelessly sexist chant Peaches.


That Reddit thread had a link to a site that had been running for just over a year, apparently (I don't go around searching for stuff like this), and the story on Kempa.com, which is HERE, which also has a link to play the game today, caught my eye because it told of of various 80's bands from the UK who used vinyl as a type of software for computer programs. For the record, I once might've bought the Pete Shelley XL-1 album, but seeing as I sold his debut album Homosapien soon after buying it ended that possible dilemma. The only question remains is why it took my so long to figure out that most of the Stranglers catalog was garbage.

Postcard.org.....

Sorry that some a*holes are using your site for crap like this....

The Joy (And Cost) Of Text

6,807 text messages in one month, an average of well over 200 per day. As the song by William Shatner and Henry Rollins goes, "I can't get behind that", especially when the total bill comes to over $1,100.



Texting is useful in situations where a phone call may not be appropriate, but even I have to say that much of what I, or others I know, have texted in the past could've easily waited a few minutes, or a couple of hours, or until the next day, for "normal" face to face communication.


It has affected some of my coworkers at times, the younger ones especially, when I feel they are more interested in the messages rather than the job at hand, which can be annoying. Not quite sure how the schools deal with the situation of text messages these days, and the whole texting-while-driving scenario is a truly dangerous distraction that's a post unto itself.



The story behind the big text numbers cited at the beginng, from a Washington, D.C. teenager, from today's WASHINGTON POST.

MLB.Com: Behind The Scenes

An interesting overview of the daily operations of the crew working for MLB.com. Article on CNET.


I appreciate the statistical work done on the site (as well as for each team site as well), so a tip of my hat to them for keeping us informed as quickly as possible. Still probably won't ever subscribe to mlbtv.com though, about the last thing I want to do is sit in front of my computer for three hours after having done the same thing for eight hours at work. I'll stick with the ExtraInnings package, which does a fine job in terms of coverage, though I was a bit miffed to find out that yesterday's Mets/Braves game wasn't available (wasn't on TBS either).



STORY

Guidelines for Using a Cellphone Abroad

From the "I didn't know all of that info" department: Some of the things one would need to know before using their cellphone, a mainstay of most peoples lives these days, overseas, information that I've yet to see in any of the manuals of the various phones I've had over the years.




FULL STORY




This is from the technology section of today's New York Times (not exactly with their permission, but I dunno if you have to register to read this, or how long it will be available online, I think basic stories don't have the same age limits as do topical news stories, though doubtless I'm probably wrong about that).




Guidelines for Using a Cellphone Abroad
By ERIC A. TAUB
Published: March 15, 2007

As a T-Mobile subscriber, Ken Grunski, a businessman in San Diego, knew that his cellphone would work during a trip to Tanzania. What he did not expect was the bill: $800 for 10 days’ use.

“I didn’t think I was going to use my phone that much,” Mr. Grunski said. “But two to three 10-minute calls a day, and it adds up.”


What a shame that Mr. Grunski did not heed his own company’s advice. If he had, he would have saved himself a bundle.


Mr. Grunski owns Telestial, a company that sells SIM cards, small chips that replace those in cellphones sold by T-Mobile and Cingular and lower the costs of calls when overseas.



While his American phone worked abroad without one, Mr. Grunski was paying sky-high rates because he was roaming in a foreign country. T-Mobile charged him $5 a minute to roam in Tanzania.

If Mr. Grunski had used one of the SIM cards he sells, he would have paid $1.15 a minute to call the United States and his calls — averaging 16 minutes a day — would have cost him $184, rather than $800.

While Americans have embraced the convenience of using cellphones, trying to dial from overseas often brings surprises. Even if the phone works, voice mail may not. Depending on the handset, coverage can be spotty. Make the wrong choices, and you may find a huge bill.

The right tactics to avoid those headaches depend on which carrier you use, the length of your trip and your destination.



GSM vs. CDMA

A majority of the world’s cellphone subscribers — 82 percent — use the GSM technology standard, according to the GSM Association. In the United States, the major carriers use two systems. Cingular (now AT&T) and T-Mobile use GSM, while Sprint and Verizon use CDMA, an incompatible technology.

CDMA technology is found in North America, as well as some Asian countries, but it is basically nonexistent in Europe. As a result, Sprint and Verizon customers can use their phones in just 26 countries. (AT&T and T-Mobile customers can potentially use theirs in over a hundred.)

When traveling in non-CDMA countries, Sprint and Verizon customers can rent or purchase GSM phones from those providers. Sprint rents a Motorola Razr for $58 for the first week, and $70 for two weeks, plus $1.29 to $4.99 a minute of airtime. Verizon charges $3.99 a day to rent, plus $1.49 to $4.99 a minute. Verizon also sells three combo CDMA-GSM models, priced from $150 to $600 with a two-year contract.


Cingular and T-Mobile customers have more options — if their existing phones can pick up multiple frequencies. To complicate matters, the American GSM standard operates on 850 and 1,900 megahertz, while the rest of the GSM world uses 900 and 1,800 megahertz.

To use an American GSM cellphone in a foreign country, the handset you own must be tri-band or quad-band and able to operate on one or both of the frequencies used outside the United States. The Cingular and T-Mobile Web sites, as well as Telestial’s and others, list the predominant frequencies used in each country, and show if your phone can operate on one or both overseas bands.

To protect against fraud, American cellphones are typically blocked from making calls when used abroad. Before traveling, call your provider and ask to have that restriction removed.


A TEMPORARY SIM CARD

GSM phones use SIM cards (subscriber identity modules), tiny electronic chips that hold a cellphone’s “brains,” including the subscriber’s contact numbers and phone number. (CDMA phones store such information directly in the hardware.)

GSM customers can avoid sky-high roaming charges by replacing their American SIM cards with ones from other countries. For example, travelers to Britain can pick up a SIM card from the British carrier Vodafone; once inserted, it gives the phone a temporary British phone number. Calls within Britain and to the United States would be much cheaper.

For example, T-Mobile charges its customers 99 cents a minute for using their phones in Britain, whether calling a pub in London or your home in New Jersey.


Insert a prepaid British SIM card from a company like Telestial instead, and local calls drop to 26 cents a minute, while calls back to the United States cost 9 to 14 cents a minute.

Another benefit when using overseas SIM cards is that incoming calls are typically free in most countries.

Overseas SIM cards can be purchased before you travel from companies like Cellular Abroad (www.cellularabroad.com) and Telestial (www.telestial.com) or at local shops in foreign countries.


UNLOCKING THE PHONE

Even if you have a GSM phone that operates on both overseas frequencies, domestic cellphone providers do not want you to use your phone with another company’s SIM card, because they do not make any money when you do. To prevent your doing so, cellphones bought through Cingular and T-Mobile are electronically locked — they accept only their own company’s SIM cards.

Before you throw your phone off the Eiffel Tower in frustration, know that there are several ways to unlock your phone and avoid those high overseas roaming rates.

Cingular and T-Mobile will unlock their customers’ phones under certain conditions. Cingular will provide unlock codes to customers whose contracts have expired, who have canceled their service and paid an early termination fee, or who have paid a full rather than subsidized price for their phones, according to Rich Blasi, a Cingular Wireless spokesman.


T-Mobile has more lenient policies. It will provide the unlock code to any customer after 90 days of service, but no more than one unlock code will be provided every 90 days, said Graham Crow, a T-Mobile spokesman.

If you do not meet these requirements, you can still get your phone unlocked from a private company. For a few dollars, the Travel Insider (www.thetravelinsider.com) and UnlockTelecom (www.unlocktelecom.co.uk) will provide your phone’s specific unlocking code.


OTHER GSM PHONES

Cellphone customers with dual-band GSM phones that cannot be used overseas can always purchase unlocked quad-band phones from third-party providers. These phones can be used solely when traveling outside the United States. Since they are unlocked, they can also be used instead of your current phone on your American network.

Because the phone is not subsidized by a carrier, the price is higher. For example, an unlocked quad-band Motorola Razr V3 can be bought for $140 from Cellular Blowout (www.cellular-blowout.com). Cellular Abroad and Telestial also sell unlocked phones.


A FEW MORE TIPS

When entering numbers in your phone, always add the plus (+) sign and the country code; that way, the number can be dialed automatically no matter from what country you are calling.

Store your GSM phone’s numbers in the phone itself, rather than the SIM card. Then the numbers will still be available to you when you use an overseas SIM card. To transfer them to a new phone easily, store them on a device like Backup-Pal (www.backup-pal.com), an external U.S.B. memory unit.


While you will not pay any charges for incoming calls when you use a foreign SIM card, tell your American callers to get an overseas calling plan from their phone company before you ask them to ring you. If they do not, they could be paying the same sky-high rates that you just avoided.

And if you take your American phone overseas, make sure that its battery charger is dual voltage; without one, all the effort to get your phone to work in other countries may go up in smoke the first time you plug it in.

MSN Says IE One Of The Three Biggest Internet Threats For 2007

Came across this link via StumbleUpon, a story on the MSN site about how Microsoft's Internet Explorer is one of the biggest threats to safely surfing the Internet. No, Alanis, I don't think this constitutes "irony" either.



MSN STORY



STUMBLEUPON THREAD

Oh Mama, This Really Is The End

...to be using a computer without a floppy disk in them (severe apologies to Bob Dylan for that preceding awful rhyme. :embarrassed:





This move will come as no surprise, but one more step toward the actual demise of the floppy disk, the long standing storage device in the computer world for years and years, is at hand with the announcement that PC World computer stores will no longer be selling the item once stocks on hand are gone.



Of course, no one really mourned the passing of the first really big floppy discs, so I would assume that there won't be much of an outcry, it'll just be the sole remaining task at hand for the disks still in my possession to serve as a reminder of my first days learning computing basics back in the early 80's.



BBC STORY