If there is one “entity” that consistently defies human logic, it’s the RIAA. Like a wounded animal backed into a corner fighting for its life, the RIAA is trying every possible angle to justify, and maintain, their existence. What recently got me going was an article at TechDirt that reported and equally insane commentary from, oddly enough, the manager of U2. Apparently this guy thinks “Google and their hippie friend should pay the record industry.” It’s an interesting and aggravating post that is well worth a read; however, it was the first line of this article that made me sigh — roll my eyes — groan — and nearly toss my cookies: “…the IFPI and the RIAA have been actively pushing for ISP liability for file sharing …”

Filed under: Off Topic

In a recent post at CenterNetworks Allen Stern outlined the concept of ad-free RSS full feeds for $1 per month. It’s an interesting concept which sparked some lively discussion, however, who would pay for something they can get for free?

Filed under: Blogging Related

Ever want to dabble with music remixing but didn’t want to lay out the cash to be the necessary software? If so, then you should really check out JamGlue.
JamGlue is a free online music remixing application built using Amazon Web Services. The feature set is somewhat limited when compared to traditional music mixing software; however, [...]

Filed under: Friday Finds

I have a Blackberry 8700 for work. It’s a great device with some fantastic features, but as a basic cell phone it’s awkward and bulky. When I’m not working, I’d prefer to carry around a basic flip phone but don’t want to pay for an extra phone line. Fortunately my cell provider uses GSM cell technology which means the phones on the network all use a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card (a little device that contains everything necessary for the phone to access and use my providers cell network). Using this cell technology allowed me to go to my provider, purchase a flip phone, and, depending what I needed for the day, simply swap the SIM card between the new flip phone and the Blackberry device. Not the most elegant solution, and repeatedly swapping the SIM does run the risk of damaging it. Unfortunately I have no other option for my situation — or do I? Why can’t I just copy my SIM card and leave one card in each device and only use them one at a time?

Filed under: Tech Commentary

The MacWorld dust has settled and the first round of MacBook Air reviews are in. Oddly enough, however, some of the negative comments nit pick to find short coming rather than site the one major flaw with the new MacBook Air – the price.

Filed under: Tech Commentary

I’ve been working on a project that required some date based MySQL queries. I’m not sure what it is, but I always find date based queries a little tricky. Seems that the data I need is never in the format I want or I’m always looking for data from a few days back and need [...]

Filed under: How-To & Tech Tips

Ever see something on Craig’s List that sounded just too good to be true? Did that listing include a phone number to call? If not, then it’s probably a scam. But what exactly is a false Craig’s List ad trying to scam? Easy — valid email addresses for use in an email spamming operation.

Filed under: Tech Commentary

I was doing some automated web page retrieval work and needed to look inside the javascript on the page I was trying to retrieve. Since the javascript was referenced in an external file, it wasn’t easily seen when I examined the HTML page source. I installed an extension for FireFox but it started to make my browser hang. I disabled the extension and looked for a different option. What I found was simply amazing: Web Development Bookmarks.

Filed under: Friday Finds

Recent tech headlines have said that Warner Brothers Studios has committed exclusively to Blue-ray high definition DVD format. That simple statement have many in the industry claiming that Sony and Blue-ray have won. While they might have won a battle, they certainly haven’t won the war. Many of us are still sitting on the fence waiting for a clear winning, and Sony could be that winner if they would only take one drastic step: drop the price on the Playstation 3 below $200.

Filed under: Tech Commentary

I don’t get a lot of “real” comments on my site, but I certainly get more than enough spam comments. If you run a blog, then you know what I mean. Comment spam is an annoying comment that contain links to adult content, replica rolex watches, ring tones or other unrelated material. Recently the total amount of comment spam appearing on my site has become so large I was finding it difficult to scan the spam comments to extract the few false positives caught by my comment spam filter, Akismet (comment spam filter plug-in for WordPress). It became clear I needed something else to help Akismet fight off the spam, but what?

Filed under: Blogging Related