Sir, your Laptop is on Fire, Vista Delayed (again)? & Could you please speak into the PC?

Over the last few days I've discovered a lovely site called BoingBoing. If you will recall in the last post I rerferenced it for a story about the Core 2 Duo Chips. Anyways, it's an interesting site about odd stuff. They have interesting things on everything from writing on water to a giant fish. But I digriss. It's now added to the link's sidebar and feel free to visit it. Moving onto today's news.

Sir, your Laptop is on Fire
Back a few months ago there was a story about a Dell laptop catching on fire at a Japanese conference. The cause is not clear however it's kind of disturbing that it happened a bit more than a month later. Heh, You'd think Dell would learn from it's mistake's don't you? Well the fact that it recalled over 35,000 batteries would be kind of reashuring.Not really. It happened again Apperently according to a fourm post by an eyewitness the battery burned through the table and that's what was on fire. Now consider the fact that the battery is made of Lithium. Lithium is a very flammable metal. Imagine if that Laptop was being used in something like the Post Office where there's lots and lots of papeMy parents have a Dell 6000 they bought this past winter. It's a bit hot on the legs and I wonder if it'll ever explode. I'm typing on a Dell, my sister has a Dell. What if this doesn't just affect Laptop's? That would not be good news. Are entire network would be down. In 5 years we have bought 3 dells, and it's only crashed on us 1 or 2 times. Other than that we've had only minor problems with them. But this raises some interesting questions. If Dell quality is suffering from quality issues then Dell needs to reexamine itself and see if it needs to refocus prorities. I will now avoid using my parents Laptop and hope to goodness that Apple has fixed all the problems with they're Macbooks, when I eventually get around to getting one.
Vista Delayed? (Again)
This entire Windows Vista thing is getting way out of hand. First they cut half to three quaters of the features because of "deadlines". Then they decide that they're going to delay Vista to the begining of 2007. Fine. It gives the consumer more time to decided if he/she wants to blow $100-500 on a new OS. But now they're thinking of delaying it again. There is rampant speculation that Vista will be delayed once more due to problems in the codebase. My quesiton is when will Microsoft commit to a firm launch date. Vista is late as it is. XP is reaching for it's 6th birthday, one of the oldest Operating system's in Microsoft history, if not the oldest. My question is: When will they make up thier minds and get the ball rolling? But the height of the irony is, I think many people will go "Oh Vista, well that's nice". People I think, could care less about Vista and will stick with XP until support for it is dropped sometime in the next few years. Even more users would probably switch over to a Linux distro of the users preference. The most popular Linux distro right now is Unbuntu, which has a complete productivity suite set up for you. It includes Open Office, Firefox and the GIMP. So why wait for Vista to shell out hundreds of bucks when you can get an OS that is much more secure and guess what? It's Free. So why wait for Vista? Get Unbuntu.
Sir, Please speak into the PC
The theme of this post so far has been Odd- Rational and then now I'm continuing on with another Odd piece of news again from BoingBoing. Back a little while ago on digg, there was a story about the top ten Computer Setups. They're where some really cool ones there like the Wing, the ultimate Mac setup and the wall-o-monitors set up. The one I would like to focus on today is the whiskey bottle setup which is nothing short of amazing. Someone managed to cram a P3 733 Pentium Processor, 256 notebook RAM a 40 GB hard drive into a whiskey bottle. Going back to BoingBoing someone decided that he liked the old Shure 55 mic's, used most noteably by Elvis. The blogger got kind of creative and decided to put a PC into a Shure 55 made out of wood. The specs are not on the site but the shear coolness of putting a PC into something as small as a microphone. There was as PC a few months back that was completly wireless and was the size of a microprocessor. I can't find the link right now, but If I do I'll add it in later

Later,
Nathaniel

Round Up: Core 2 Launch, Editorial: The Failure of AOL

Core 2 Duo Finally Arrives

Well they're finally here. The new Core 2 chips made my Intel have made they're way into the mainstream. The Core Two Duo chips codenamed Conroe(Desktop) and Merom(Mobile) respectivly, are set to replace the year and a half old Yonah first gen Core Duo chips. This puts the silicon crown back on Intel's head as these chips just shoot way ahead of anything that AMD has the market as of yet. The main feature of these new chips is not the clock speed but the L2 cache. For all you non-geeks out there the L2 cache is the part of the processor that does the repative tasks. For example, if your visiting something like BoingBoing, instead of retriving the data from memory the data will be stored in cache which will decrease the load times. The new Core 2 chips have a 4 MB cache that is shared between the two cores. However when using most programs, only one core is used and therefore you have full use of the 4 MB cache, increasing speed even more. The chips range in price and speed from 1.86 ($183) to 2.93 Ghz ($999) Rumours suggest that Intel is working on a 3.2 Ghz version as well as a single core version coming later on this year or early next year. My main question is this: How will this affect Apple? Will all the Macs be pushed up from the new chips. I would love to see the Mac Mini pushed to 1.8 Ghz or over and it wouldn't hurt to see the Macbook's and iMac's pushed up a bit either. I'll wait a little while before getting my Mac to see what gets a speed boost. It should be interesting to see what AMD follows up with especially now that AMD has aqquired ATI.
In more personal news I went through my first shift at work today. To say the least the staff are a tad quarky. But the job is fun since you get to walk around and help people. I managed my first sale within the first two hours and things where pretty steady. The staff are a bit.....crazy to stay the least but the money's good and the hours are good. So I hope to stick with it into the fall.

AOL: The Notable Web Failure

Is anyone here familiar with AOL? Anyone? Anyone living? Well all I can tell you is that AOL is one of the worst ISP's in the world today. Take the case of one Mr. Vinceant Farrari, an AOL cutomer who decided to cancel his account. He wasn't sour to AOL he just didn't use it. But the entire thing spending 22 minutes trying to cancel his account really ticked him off. And that's just he customer support. The software the AOL uses for it's browser is not great either. The UI is horrible and the experience is just "blah" in the word of a highly reliable source. (You know who you are.) And the fact is AOL is charging more for dail-up than for broadband! What's that for? I can understand the higher costs of maintaining Dail-Up networks but when your paying $15-16 for broadband and paying 1.5-2 times for half the service! But the fact is, AOL wasn't always that way. Before the merger with Time Warner, AOL was a pretty decent service. That fact is when a smaller company gets aborbed by a larger one one of two things usually happen. Profits go way, way up and quality goes down down *splat*. That's what happened to AOL. That's what could happen to companies like Aliant and Eastlink. The quality goes down down down while profits go up up, up. Until customers are presented with a third option, then the entire userbase jumps ship and usually the company goes bankrupt. And that's the direction in which AOL is headed unless it cleans up it's act of things like horrible customer support, and bribing bloggers.
Well that's my rant for tonight
Nathaniel

Roundup: ATI and AMD=AMT?, Review: The new Digg Labs & Scotty set for Space

ATI + AMD= AMT?
Not this is new news but guess what? ATI and AMD have merged with is a fancy way of saying, ATI has been swallowed up by AMD. Now I love AMD, don't get me wrong. However I don't aprove of major US companies thinking that they can swallow up Canadian companies cheaply. Now in AMD's case it will cost them $5 bilion and about 70 shares of there stock to buy ATI. So what does the tech world and the market have to gain? Well hopefully better chipsets for AMD motherboards and better processors from AMD as they are allowed to tap into ATI's coperate secrets. However it also works the other way. ATI will be able to make superious chipsets for motherboards for AMD as well as increase the performance in the graphics card lines. So it works both ways. However there has been a second development while I've been trying to get this through the publishing process. Intel has revocked ATI's chipset license. So what this basically means is that any and all mainboards that are made by Intel can no longer have ATI chips put in the them by default. However you can go out and buy an ATI graphics card to put in your PC. However insiders tell various news sources that Intel has not revoked ATI's chipset license. So this could be interesting. If Intel does (or did) revoke ATI's chipset license it's not the end of the world. All it means is that ATI chipsets will only go into AMD motherboards. And then there are motherboards manufactered by third parties.
The one major thing that could come out of this could be that Vista, as well as all other major future operating system could become more interoperable. Think of it thisway. The motherboard could be designed in such as way that the graphics card and the proccesor work together to enhance both the speed and the graphics performance of Vista. But who knows? Anything can happen.
Review: The New Digg Labs
As part of it's upcoming API, digg has launched it's two new users app's today. Called Swarm and Stack the apps are meant to enhance the way diggers know which stories are getting the most diggs (stack) and how many users are interested in a story (swarm) Launched last night the two apps together are in a new section of the site called digg labs. But enough banter onto the review
Stack

As mentioned above, Digg stack is meant to show a more detailed view of dugg stories. This is a novel concept and the UI of stack is quite nice. However I have 2 complaints. First the page does not render properly in Firefox. If Kevin Rose had anything to do with this project, he would not have let this detail go unnoticed. Another problem with Digg stack is the unability to go back to stories that have passed. When active digg stack moves actively to the left. And with all the digg comming in at times it's hard to click on a certain story. You can however pause the stack and click on a story. When you click on as story as well as a link to source page, you get a history of diggs per hour. This is very useful information. What I would like to see in stack sooner rather than later is the ability to digg a story within stack. Currently you must either have a tab/window open within the main section of digg and then search for the story within the specified container. You should be able to log into Digg within Digg labs and digg stories within stack. My third suggestion/critisism is that you should be able to review the stack. For example you should be able to go back through stack and see stories that have already gone by.
I love the idea of stack and it's much more effective than browsing through digg manually. Good Job Digg! 3.5/5
Swarm
I haven't spent as much time with swarm although I have gotten a feel for it. Like stack, it's meant to give users an idea of what stories are popular and what stories aren't. Swarm gives you an idea of how many users are viewing a story at any given time. Although not put into porportion. An interesting idea swarm can be very overwhelming. I clicked into my swarm tab to see dozens of stories with hundreds of little yellow things (users) floating around them. It was very overwhelming. So if I had to pick between swarm and stack I would pick stack. I find stack to be a bit more of clean interface as well as a bit more clarity and detail in terms of what information is provided. 3/5
Keep up the Good work Kevin!
Scotty's ashes to be shot into Space
Actor James Doohan's ashes will be shot into space this fall. They where supposed to be shot in space last year, however the launch that was supposed to shoot the ashes into space unable to launch because of tests on the rocket. Doohan's widow Wende (Doohan) said that James' final wish was to actually go into space. In 2004 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A little known fact about Doohan is that he was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and invaded the beaches with the 1st Canadian Division on DDay. He killed two german snipers, and did considerable damage to the germans before being shot six times by a german machine gun. Four times in the leg, once in the chest, and once in the finger. The finger was amputated. He would later conceal this in his later performances. He was trained as a pilot as an artillery observer and, at one point was labelled "the craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force", although he wasn't officially a memeber of the RCF. Doohan' ashes will be shot into space along with 100 people, notable of them Timothy Leary, and astronaunt Gordon Cooper. But anyway I digress.
Sorry it took so long to push this post through the door, but good material is hard to come by these days.
Nathaniel

The Night Report: Zune Zap Flop, Israel calls for NATO & Operation Lancaster

Trying to get back on my feet from a bout of Bloggers Block. Well here goes:
Zune zap flop
If I have any Engadget readers out there or anyone who hasn't been ignoring the tech world for the past 2-3 weeks then you probably know that Microsoft is intent on taking on arch rival Apple in the Portable mp3 player market with a new product. Codenamed Zune, people both inside and outside the tech industry are calling it the "Ipod Killer". They're have been numerous "Ipod Killers" in the past few years, all of which have failed to live up to they're namesake. Another example of this is Creative and it's Zen. Although by no means a push over, the Zen does fail to impress on a few fronts. First, the interface of said players come nowhere near the simplicity of the Ipod interface. And the fact is people have been trying to copy the interface and the concept of a click wheel for the 5 years that the Ipod's been out and guess what? It hasn't worked. Creative's tried the "Scroll Strip" and they're have been a few other innovations, but the fact is Ipod remains king. So why should the Zune be any different? Plus it's by Microsoft who's Apple like super secret project Oragami project proved to be a major flop. Even when it tried the Apple like silent treatment it failed to steal the thunder from Apple. Plus it's Microsoft and at this point the majority of the geek community of the geek community for not accepting open standards, delaying Windows Vista amoung other things. So if your just looking for a (not so) cool player, by all means buy the Zune, however beware, it will be nowhere as user friendly as the Ipod.
Israel will go for a NATO led Force
Israel has confirmed today that it is in favor of an internatioanlly led force patrolling the border between Israel and Lebanon. Israel is in favor of NATO leading the force, for reasons that remain unclear at this time. However I believe I know why Israel is in favor of a NATO led force as opposed to a UN led force. In the past, the UN has been ineffective as a catalist in zones like Israel and other flashpoints, due to stricts rules of engadement, the UN is not able to break up a fight. NATO is much more flexible, not being bound by the red tape and mindless infighting of the UN. For another reason, NATO has many more resources in comparrison to the UN which has to basically beg for troops and eqipment to stage it's operations. NATO members have an obligation under the North Atlantic Charter to commit troops both for deployments and simulations. The UN is completly voluntary, meaning that it takes longer for it the command structure to take form and resources to become operational that by the time the entire operation is set up, the conflict has either no longer become an issue or the fighting has become so much of an issue that the UN has to pull out for lack of resources or for "security reasons". Give me a break. If the UN didn't have such a wussy set of ROE's then "security reasons" wouldn't be an issue. With NATO, the Americans most likely have airpower somewhere near the area of operations and if things get really hot they can call in an airstrike. Not so with the UN. If you get ambushed with no radio, no backup your pretty much done for. The lack of logistics and a support network within the UN is very disturbing, this is why I believe that if they're is any sort of "peacekeeping" to be done that NATO should do it. Israel is a case and point. You have Islamic militants who are firing rockets and RPG's at the IDF, one of the most advanced and well eqqiped forces in the world. If the UN was there as a "detterant" they wouldn't last five minutes. NATO has a much better command structure and things can get done more so within a ressonable time frame. If a NATO or UN led force is established I imagine, at least for a while, Canada will have some troops over they're to help get things running. After all we did invent Peacekeeping.
Operation Lancaster
If anyone reading this is farmilliar with Canadian Geography you know we have something called the Northwest Passage which is link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It's like the Panama Canal, only it's more convient for people like us Canadians some Americans find it easier to take the northwest passage instead of having to travel all the way to the Panama Canal in Central America. For this reason it is strategically vital to both Canadian and American security. Canada has a claim on all the lands from 50 parallel to the North Pole. However the United States does not recognize Canada's claim to the northwest passage. Here is a case and point. In 2005 the nuclear submarine USS Carolina surfaced in the Northwest Passage without persmission of the Canadian goverment. The Americans, along with the European Union* and Japan do not recognize Canada's claim to the northwest passage. Hello? This is like saying just because Panama has the Panama Canal, that United States shouldn't recognize it's claim to it. It's within our borders for pete's sake, if it's within our legally recognized borders then it's ours. Period, end of discussion.
That's why the Canadian goverment is launching Operation Lancaster. It will be a large arctic soverignty patrol. The frigate HMCS Montreal as well as two smaller coastal patrol vessels, as well an assortment of Helicopters. A platoon of 70 soldiers soldiers from the 22e Regiment (Vandoo's) will perform patrols with Canadian Rangers from an assortment of northern communities. More than anything this is to be a statement to the Americans and the rest of world that considers the Northwest passage and the Canadian claim to Arctic.
I'm very sorry about the quality of posts these days. The scarcity of good news, along with the fact that I'm busier now have contributed to the lack of quality within the posts.
Nathaniel

Pure Editorial Content: American Influense

Well, due to the scarcity of good news these days I've decided that tonight I will go on an Editorial rant of sorts. Tonight's topic will be Ameican Influence: The Death of Nationalism.
Over the past century America has developed from a small group of states bound together in a union to an influnece on the world stage. Over the past several years American Influense has grown-and grown and grown, to the point where Americans are interfering in the affairs of her allies and even the coutries that American's do bussiness in. After the end of the of the Second World War, American influnese grew on a scale that has not been seen sense the British Empire in the late 17th to late 18th centuries. During that time period, the Americans came to use the newly formed CIA to influense the internal affairs of countries that where seen as vital to the security of the United States and it's allies. For example, in 1953 the then occupied Iran decided to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian oil company. Great Britain who had controlled the company for almost 60 years, earning large royalties for oil from the large reserves within Iran. With the nationalization of the oil company, Great Britain decided to try and beg back what they had lost. They launched an operation codenamed AJAX. But the British where hesitant to launch the operation with the approval of they're American allies. Now wait a minute-Wasn't it usally the other way around? The Americans would ask for British backing in an operation? Why would the British be asking for American backing. It's simple really. After the End of World War II, Britain was deeply in debt and licking it's wounds. However America was prospering with a booming ecomomy and a monopoly on the atomic bomb America's influense grew and with the formation of NATO it grew to such an extent that almost all of the developed countries where under American influence. In the end the situation was resolved. If you can call toppling the deomcratic goverment and replacing it with a bunch of aristocrat's resolution.
And even when countries didn't agree with the US the Americans have tried to get thier way. They've fixed elections, assassinated leaders who don't agree with them amoung other things. Take the (failed) Bay of Pigs invasion in 1963. Just because Cuba had a goverment that did not agree with American views, the US decided to send a bunch of Cuban exiles to invade it. The exiles where trained and equipped by the CIA. Other examples include the invasions of Grenada and Haiti. The Americans have also backed the regimes of the likes of Saddam, Augesto Pinochet and even Osama bin Laden. Why? Simple, it was better than the alternative. What was the alternative? Communist Russia (then known as the USSR) was the only alternative. What the United States saw as a threat was really on the natural process of revolution. If the Americans forget, they came from a revolution of monarchy vs democracy. If they fail to remember they wanted "Life, Liberty and Justice". The only difference between the revolution of 1776 and the revolutions of the latter part of the 20th century, is that the other countries are forming a goverment that has different views on different issues (socialism as opposed to capitalism) doesn't give another country the right to pick on it and influence it's internal affairs.
This brings me to my point: I am sick and tired of Americans inflenceing the internal affairs of my country. US policy has, for far to long, shaped the politics of this country. And if we don't agree with the US on a certain issue, the shut us out until they get their own way. Take the Vietnam War for example. Canada refused to actively participate and sheltered draft dogers when the came to Canada seeking refugee status. At the very start of the war President Lyndon B. Johnson was infuriated that Canada refused to participate. During a state visit to Canada Johnson (who was a large beefy texan) was so mad that he literrally took Prime Minister (Lester B.) Pearson by the scruff of the neck and and shook him, screaming at him about not helping America in the fight against communism. Hello? It's our right to refuse to participate in a conflict that we deem not to be morally in line with what we see fit. It's not your decesion to drag us into the war. Likewise with the Iraq conflict. If you're feeling that Saddam needs to be brought to justice, then fine by all means do so, however we as a nation reserve the right to make an independent and unbiased judgement to stay out of said conflict. It's that simple. We will not be bribed or bullied by the American goverment into anything as a nation that we see unfit. End of discussion.
In conclusion I would like to say that I believe that America needs to simmer down and stop pushing people around. That's why you have War on Terror, the Iraq conflict, rising oil prices, Venezuela being ticked off at you (amoung other countries.) and hordes of angry muslims denouncing you left and right. If you didn't push people around they'll be happy and you wouldn't have had 9/11 either.
Sorry this entry is a bit late, but I really havn't been feeling up to it these days. The number of entries could drop from now on, because of the fact I now have a job.
Nathaniel