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Yahoo’s Anti-Spy toolbar feature buggy

Yahoo on Friday confirmed that its recently released toolbar has mistakenly linked an alleged spyware program with a product that has nothing to do with the application in question. [News.com]

I did not have this issue… in fact the Yahoo toolbar spyware tool was the best thing I’ve used to remove my spyware. I found in the week since I’ve been seriously using the PC, that one small app (Grockster…yeah yeah) rendered IE helpless and that it was impossible to kill some of the pieces since I was told by the system they were in use. Why were they in use you might ask? Well, since the browser is bundled in the OS, it’s always friggin running and there is no easy way to blast crap out when it is being called for. The Yahoo spyware finder seemed to find things another app I tried was unable to and finally enabled me to squash the crap. I’m done playing there… The system gets way to wacked out from a seemingly small move.

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An observation of iPod charging…

I’ve noticed that my iPod (40GB 3G) does not really take a full charge while connected to my firewire hub at home… When I disconnect, it often has a reduced charge and generally runs for much less time (like my flight to San Fran last week) than when I leave it plugged directly in the wall where it seems to get a full charge and in fact gets to the point where it even says charged. I noticed a dramatic difference in the last trip — especially now that I am moving about with a PC without firewire and only plugging it into the wall.

I have no idea what causes the difference, but it’s real. Perhaps there’s some kind of silly safeguard on the battery though I am not sure how it would even know which way it was getting a charge…

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Introducing the Link Splicer

This may get me using del.icio.us more again… easy to add and if you are reading my (feedburner) feed you’ll get this stuff automagically…

Introducing the next FeedBurner service: the Link Splicer! After we released the Flickr Splicer last month, we had a number of requests to splice in other kinds information, including online bookmarks. We couldn’t agree more … now, you can splice your del.icio.us bookmarks into your feed. [The FeedBurner Weblog]

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Bloglines Efficiency

So I’m about a week into using Bloglines as my primary (actually only) source for feed reading and I am totally into it. First, with a solid connection (like my current wifi connection at SFO), it’s incredibly quick and easy to use. I find that it’s in many ways quicker than some of the local readers I’ve tried. Of course there’s the read/unread status which carries regardless of what machine you use — amazingly good feature for people on more than one machine or platform.

The only negative as you might expect is that you are SOL when offline … that really does not happen all that often. On of the nicer bonus features when you do return online, is that your subs are already updated since there is no local downloading… it’s all been done on the server.

There are some nice things like the rendering you get with some local readers like my app of choice NetNewsWire on Mac, but since you can’t sync it to another platform it makes it tougher for me to use it when I am back on my home machine. I can easily maintain read/unread status through import / export of my OPML file, but I’ll be reading or at least seeing many items that I’ve read previously. Hopefully (I know I’ve mentioned this previously) someone will realize that a standard will greatly benefit many users.

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.Mac email aliases

This is quite handy and I did not see a limit… I’ve set up 2 already for fun. You’d be amazed (though perhaps not) at what was already taken… I tried quite a few profanities as well as a few funny things I was thinking of, but dammit someone got rickjames@mac.com already.

“You can use email aliases instead of your .Mac email address to keep your .Mac account private (such as when purchasing online) or to easily recognize and organize incoming emails from various sources. Simply deactivate or delete an email alias to keep unwanted email from arriving in your Inbox. [The Cult of Mac Blog]

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T-Mobile HotSpot Connection Manager

The T-Mobile HotSpot Connection Manager is actually quite good in my quick tests. I am able to not only see but also connect to hotspots from my hotel that I was not able to do so prevoiusly the past few nights. It’s easy to scan and connect and seems to work with the VPN software I’ve got for remote access as well. It’s a combo stumbler, connection manager… I am not connected to a TMO hotspot at the moment, it’s just called SF and I honestly have no idea where it is… Guess I could have saved a few bucks this week if I’d only thought to try it earlier…

I’ve been using the hotel broadband connection – $9.99/24 hours which is 5 bucks less than last week when I was at the W Hotel here in San Fran. No idea why the W thinks they can charge so much more… guess since we choose to pay it to connect and work — or play.

Any give the TMO Connection client a shot if you like…. I like that my damn wireless connection manager has finally shut up now down in the task bar as an added bonus. Hate those pop-up notices…

quick update… 30 minutes later I really dig this connection manager. I tried pretty hard the past few days to get a connection I could really use, you know not walking about the room, but actually at the desk working or reading. I found the answer tonight with this thing. I’ve maintained a 20-40% signal connection to the same hotspot without issue now. It’s been great and works as you would want – it just does. Not sure what’s up with the built-in stuff from IBM, Cisco and Intel. I’ve got a Pentium M in here – not a centrino so I not sure if that’s any different with connectivity.

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WiFi Shootout crushes distance record

Imagine the possibilities of getting wifi from over 50 miles away… whoa

Amateur engineering took a new turn on July 31, 2004, in the Nevada desert, as three teenage ham radio operators from Ohio took top honors in the 2nd Annual Defcon Wifi Shootout Contest. Held in conjunction with the annual Defcon convention, the contest seeks to discover who can achieve the greatest connected wireless network distance between two computers using the 802.11b Wireless Fidelity (Wifi) protocol.

Using two consumer-grade 32-milliwatt Orinoco Gold USB Wifi adapters mounted on the feed points of two surplus 9-1/2 foot satellite dishes, the team known as P.A.D. achieved a verified connect distance of 55.1 miles (88.67 kilometers), without the use of external amplification.

This surpasses previous records set in the unamplified class, including those of Canarias Wireless of Spain (70.5 kilometers) and Seattle Wireless (61.1 kilometers). [WiFi Shootout

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AOL Mailblocks

This seems like very good news in the fight against spam and seems to indicate that AOL just has way too much spam flooding their systems internally for them to figure out how to fight. One thing — I hope we all don’t start getting flooded with challenge / response emails.

AOL said it plans to add Mailblocks’ software to its existing antispam tools through a series of upgrades. The company also intends to completely redesign the Web-based e-mail systems offered on both its AOL and its Netscape sites, adopting Mailblocks’ user interface in an effort to make the sites faster and simpler to use. [News.com]

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It’s Good to be the King

From the USA Today Airline Blog, a US Airways shuttle from Boston to DC was diverted on Saturday to Albany to pick up 22 passengers, including President Bush’s daughters, resulting in a two hour late arrival. The airline claims that the diversion was not all that unusual (I beg to differ) and that the diversion was not made solely to pick up the twins. Yeah right. [Online Travel Review]

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OneNote won’t install

I’ve been really itching to try OneNote on my work PC in order to keep all my info organized and tagged as I’ve heard you can do. Microsoft released a 60 day demo download and just announced a price reduction ($99), but with all this I am still running into a wall. It seems that regardless of the number of times I download the demo installer I get a fatal error during installation. That’s literally the error I get while the .exe upacks itself.

Searched the MS forums and the only thought has been to delete cache from IE (done a few times) and try again. I’ve tried using Firefox to download but I get the same error. Not sure what the issue might be… it’s quite frustrating though.

In related news I also downloaded a demo of GoBinder which is a competitive product but in addition to completely nuking my Palm sync, it never ran since they never emailed a reg number for the demo.

Not exactly sure what’s up with this particular software market, but something’s missing…

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Microsoft launching blog service in Japan

Steve Rubel Points to an interesting blog launch…

TOKYO (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp, the world’s largest software maker, said on Wednesday it is launching a Web log service in Japan on a trial basis, and aims to have one million users in the first year. [Reuters.com]

Japan is an curious choice… I wonder if they thought it would fly beneath the radar intially or whether it will cater more towards the use of mobiles…

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Excellent meal in SF

Thanks to a recommendation from a friend, I had an amazing meal in San Fran tonight…

The place is called the Slanted Door and it’s a Vietnamese fusion place on Embarcadero now in the ferry building. The tastes were excellent — very clean and simple but soooo good! I’ll definitely have to try it again next visit.

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IE is Relentless

I’ve noticed that even though I have set a different browser as my default on the PC – Firefox if you must ask – IE will still acquire links I click if it happens to be open. I need it for some intranet related pages…

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Chappelle renews for $50 million

This is great news for Dave and well deserved. Chappelle’s Show is one of my favorites and this means 2 more seasons, plus more ideas and craziness coming soon as he also locks in a development deal for his production company.

Sources familiar with the deal indicate it could be worth about $50 million, vaulting Chappelle, 30, into the rarefied realm of television’s top earners. The new contract is believed to mark not only a steep increase for Chappelle as star, writer, co-executive producer and co-creator of “Chappelle’s Show,” but more significantly, reward him with a hefty chunk of the series’ robust DVD sales. [CNN.com]

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Watch Out Google…well not quite

I just caught this item from Mark Cuban …

Im working with a company called IceRocket.com. (http://www.icerocket.com). IceRocket is a brand new search host that combines the best of spidered search, meta search, and what we hope are some unique and different features that make using the engine more efficient and addictive. [Blog Maverick]

I shot over and gave it a shot, skipping the usual search on the page stuff and heading right for some of the unique features which immediately appealed to my mobile senses. You can search via email for search, news and pictures with an email to either search@icerocket.com, news@icerocket.com or pics@icerocket.com. I did one of each for a work project on the search and news and decided to see what might come back with pictures of the “Treo 610.” I was disappointed with the results.

Search works… I can see using this on occassion, but you’ll still have to click through to get detail greater than a search result. News came back blank, with a link to click for the next 5 items… not too cool considering the same topic is something I track with Google News and have gotten a few alerts already today. Pictures though was by far the most interesting and unfortunatley disappointing… My “Treo 610” search came back with links to overweight people and some other random stuff…not even close.

I’d say Google still has the edge.

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A Hacker’s Guide To RFID

Forbes reports on a method recently revealed to take advantage of a security hole in RFID tags… fortunately for retailers these are not in too massive a distribution. The program to do it all is freely available…

A would-be scofflaw heads into a grocery store where all the products have RFID tags on them. Rather than paying $7 for a bottle of shampoo, he’d rather pay $3. To make that happen, he whips out a PDA equipped with an RFID reader and scans the tag on the shampoo. He replaces that information with data from the tag on a $3 carton of milk and uploads it to the shampoo bottle tag. When he reaches the check-out stand–which just happens to be automated–he gets charged $3 instead of $7, with the store’s computer systems none the wiser. [Forbes.com]

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Siemens SK65 Bad-Ass Business Phone

Gizmodo points to one slick business messaging phone! I love the blackberry messaging built-in and can’t wait to see that show up on more devices. Speaking of which I am currently able to get around the blackberry-only IT support courtesy of T-Mobile’s mobile messaging which is somehow able to log-in and pull messages down for me in the mobile client of my choosing…But I digress.

Seimens has unveiled a very interesting phone design, aimed at business users, but certainly appealing to the IM- and SMS-heavy set. The SK65’s defining feature is a central swivel with reveals a QWERTY keyboard, made all the more appealing with the inclusion of Research in Motion’s Blackberry push email, making the unit a potentially very effective corporate communication device… [Gizmodo]

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Bad Idea Marketing

Tonight I was scooping the cat box and decided it was time to add some more litter… I opened a fresh tub and started pouring it. As I did, a coupon folded up in quarters poured out directly into the existing litter.

That would have to be an extremely valuable coupon to warrant my taking it out by hand and carrying it to the store on my next purchase. I chose the easy path… I scooped it out and disposed of it along with the rest of the load.

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Apple Computer CEO Jobs Undergoes Successful Surgery

I’d certainly like to wish Steve a healthy recovery!

In the e-mail, Mr. Jobs said: “This weekend I underwent a successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my pancreas. I had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which represents about 1% of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed each year, and can be cured by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (mine was). I will not require any chemotherapy or radiation treatments.” [WSJ.com]

Amazingly in high spirits… the P.S. of the email to staff states:

PS: I’m sending this from my hospital bed using my 17-inch PowerBook and an Airport Express.