Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

Ouch. The latest news is bad news– another ISP bows down to the capping spree.

Comcast Corp., the nation’s second-largest Internet service provider, Thursday said it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month.

On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site.

“We’ve listened to feedback from our customers who asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive,” the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Hm, I’d like to know about those customers, because I have been hearing the exact opposite, and overwhelmingly so, from the public. We want to pay for service, not time spent and especially not bandwidth used. Anything can eat up bandwidth– spam, popups, emails you get from other people… it’s hard to control.

I will say that Comcast is allowing users 250GB bandwidth per month. That’s a sizable amount, and the average computer user would be OK. But I don’t like the concept behind it, because the amount of bandwidth you personally use is not always in your control. We’ll see how this develops.

I’ve been on a lengthy investigation, trying to determine why one of my sites is not working, intermittently. I’ve been getting emails from friends who say they cannot access my site. (Not this site, my Freaky Frugalite blog). What’s weird is that all these things from all sorts of places started going wrong at the same time! It was uncanny! I installed a new theme, I installed SiteMeter as a web stat counter, my web host had DNS problems (that they say they resolved), and ?? So now I am having problems crop up, and I can’t tell what it is. Weird!

Anyway, I found this news article while searching and thought it might be helpful for you SiteMeter users. Apparently, the javascript code for SiteMeter has been causing sites to crash for people using Internet Explorer. See here and here for more information.

This goes back to August 2, 2008. I don’t know if SiteMeter still has the issue. One fix I’d heard, besides removing the code from your site, is to place the code at the very bottom of your footer, so that the code will load last. That is what I am attempting right now. We’ll see if it works.

In any other case, this headline “New Microsoft Browser” would elicit a big yawn from me. But this perked my attention:

Latest Microsoft browser challenges Google

It’s from the Financial Times, and they make you pay to read the article. So I did some hunting around, and found this, skewed differently.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 browser a threat to online ads

Microsoft’s latest version of its dominant Internet Explorer web browser could threaten the rise of online targeted-advertising because it allows users to access websites in private.

Internet Explorer 8, which was launched by the software giant yesterday, contains a feature called “InPrivate” which allows users to essentially hide their personal details by automatically erasing so-called “cookies”, and also hides the browsing history from other people using the same computer.

The new feature potentially threatens the business model of companies such as Google, which uses cookies to collect information from users as they visit websites, and then uses it to target adverts at them.

Well, I am ALL for browsing in private! But of course, a lot of guys are touting this as a way to access pornography without the missus knowing. :-p (P.S. Guys, your women already know you do it, by your behavior).

Anyway, Microsoft is still trying to elbow it’s place in the rat race with Google. If that’s all we have, Microsoft or Google, I think the Internet is doomed, lol. I doubt I’ll download the new Internet Explorer 8 until I am forced to so with a Windows Update. I much prefer Opera and Firefox. But it is very interesting to see the trend these companies are going.

As much as I like technology, I never liked the idea of automatically-inserted webcams in laptops. Kind of like DVD players in vehicles– it sounds really neat and is probably very convenient, but it creates a whole new bag of problems what go with it. Like this one:

Peeping Geek Arrested for Using Laptop Webcams to Spy on Women

A Gainesville [Florida] man has been arrested for allegedly installing software on a woman’s computer, then using the software to remotely control the camera on her computer to take videos of the woman and her friends…

The alleged victim is a Hialeah woman who told police she had a man perform some maintenance on her computer in early July. The woman told police she discovered the program on Monday along with about 20,000 photos of herself and her friends that had been made from the videos taken with the camera.

The man arrested in the case was identified as Craig Matthew Feigin, 23, who was charged with modifying computer data and disrupting or denying computer system services. He was arrested at 2 p.m. Thursday and was being held at the Alachua County Jail Friday night on a $20,000 bond.

Makes me want to puke. There’s a mugshot of the slimeball, too. What a CREEP! He needs a serious slathering of some acne cream, not to mention, several years in the penitentiary. YUK. :-p

I saw in some news circles that they are calling NASA’s new video, “An Alien’s Eye View,” which is so juvenile. Might as well say it’s a flying pig’s eye view. Sheesh! Well, anyway, the video is neat. It’s a video of the lunar cycle as view by a camera– NASA’s Deep Impact– 31 million miles out in space.

Isn’t it beautiful? And that’s just a little YouTube video– imagine what it would look like sitting in a home theater seating setting!

Wow, I saw this in the news and it looks amazing! I have a few Disney-maniacs who visit my blog. Disney fine art is highly collectible, as well as beautiful! I’m sure you’ll love it!

Sanders Art Studio.com in Ogden, Utah is pleased to announce “The Magic of Disney Fine Art Exhibition.” This exciting new exhibit features Artists Trevor Carlton, Tricia Buchanan-Bensen, James Coleman, Mike Kupka, Harrison Ellenshaw and Peter Ellenshaw, among others.

The exhibit showcases over 30 of your favorite Disney Classic Film moments such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog, Peter Pan, Mickey Mouse, Pirates of the Caribbean, Mary Poppins and much more.

In addition to the exhibit, over 300 limited-edition Disney Fine Art Giclee’s on canvases are available for purchase on a new website and virtual gallery at Sanders Art Studio.com.

I’m a great admirer of art, especially cartoon art and animation. This looks like a wonderful event to attend! It’s a LIVE event, at Utah’s Hogle Zoo. It’ll be held September 20, 2008, so there’s plenty of time to prepare and plan. Trevor Carlton is an accomplished artist– it would be thrilling to meet him in person. He’ll be at the event! Call managing director KC Sanders (a longtime Disney associate) at the Sanders Art Studio.com (801) 393-9419 for more information.

Love history? Love media clips? You might love to take a look at iCue. I found it recently while looking for educational videos. My kids love to watch videos, but I won’t allow them to browse YouTube. There is so much junk, so much perversity flowing through YouTube, YUK! iCue looks better. It’s run by NBC, so expect the usual self-promotion. But some of the stuff is worth watching. It’s an interactive site, too, with games and the social networking aspect (isn’t everything about social networking these days, lol!). Good site for homeschoolers.

I read this at the You Can Learn Series blog, a blog I’ve found through Entrecards, and enjoy very much.

If you handle your own email processes then you need to take a few minutes and familiarize yourself with these new rules. The CAN-SPAM Act is not something you want to stay ignorant about.

** Any unsubscribe process can request only the recipient’s email address and any opt-out preference changes associated with their subscribed email address

** Any unsubscribe process that requires a recipient to provide more information, or interact with more than a single web page, is prohibited.

** A password cannot be required to unsubscribe.

** A user must not have to send more than one email message, or interact with more than one internet web page.

** A user must not have to provide any information beyond his/her email address.

I think these are good changes in the Act. I do not like having to go through several pages trying to unsubscribe. But I do wonder if these actions really do decrease spam?

Not very good news for online shoppers. New York State just passed a law that commands online businesses to tax their patrons if these patrons reside in the state of NY. The NY government is pooh-poohing it, saying that shoppers won’t see much of an increase in their costs, but the state is expected to reap in millions. So, you buy a $10 book, you’re going to pay $1.00 extra for tax (by the way, NYS taxes are the highest in the nation). But if you buy, say, a fancy lcd mount for $1,000, you’re going to pay $100 in taxes. That’s highway robbery.

And money or not, it’s a matter of principle. New York State is breaking federal LAW and being a bully.

I’m amazed that the state can get away with this, since this is a direct breach of the “interstate commerce” clause of the Constitution; this clause forbids one state to tax goods purchased in another state. The Supreme Court clarified it, to allow a state to tax commerce if the business has a direct physical presence in the state. But Amazon.com has no store in New York State (just individual vendors). I’m glad to hear that Amazon.com and Overstock.com are taking NYS to court. God forbid NYS should be allowed to tax like this, imagine all the states doing this. That would be another part of the Constitution gone.

Incidentally, one of the reasons why the Founding Fathers even wrote the Constitution was because New York State was doing this very same thing– taxing goods from other states (New Jersey and Connecticut) as the goods passed through the New York City harbor. NJ and CT became so incensed that it almost started a civil war– and this was only just after the American Revolution! You’d think New York would stop being a bully, but nope.

News is not trickling in very quickly. I got an email from the folks at Entrecards, informing me that their website is down due to a fire at ThePlanet Database Center. The datacenter is located in Houston, Texas. Apparently, an electrical transformer exploded, burning down three walls. The electrical power has been turned off, and all websites hosted by ThePlanet were down all night Saturday.

My initial reaction was that of shock. I suppose I viewed a datacenter as something non-tangible and amorphous, something akin to vegan shoes or something. Oh, so– websites aren’t created out of thin air! They are on computers and those computers sometimes fail! Haha! It wasn’t until I got my own websites that I finally began to understand that the Internet is not like radio– it’s not really transported via waves, but via tangible databases.

OK, anyway… so that’s why a lot of websites are down. Entrecards says the site may be up in 12-24 hours. Statcounter.com is up although there are some components of the site not working. And the only news story I could find, and Newsblaze.com, is down because– duh– they are hosted by ThePlanet, too.

I’d found some disturbing information while doing some blog and news research this morning. Reports that Google is deleting Blogger blogs (and possibly de-indexing others) are alarming. I don’t see how this can bode well for Blogger at all. Perhaps Google’s takeover of the popular blogging platform was with this very thing in mind– to have more control over the blogosphere.

There’s this story:

So let’s assume I make a blog on blogger.com/blogspot.com - let’s say I tailor it towards one particular narrow field. It could be about a product, it could be about one subject like cars, or it could be a personal blog. It doesn’t really matter because recently, from personal experience, and from scanning the blogosphere, it appears that Google/Blogger/Blogspot is now deleting people’s blogs for absolutely no reason.

The reason -I- was told, that 5 of my blogspot blogs were deleted was because of link spam. I wasn’t spamming. I was actually focusing on narrow fields, talking about products from one particular company for each blog. The articles were real, I wrote them out by hand, it wasn’t some stupid piece of software.

The reason given to this blogger? None.

The reason given to this blogger’s friend? Read more…

This blogger had his blog deleted for no reason, and is trying to garner support. He got it fixed though.

More information here, and here’s a forum thread for Blogger help.

If you have Blogger blogs, you may want to check into this.

My generation (Generation X in America) grew up in what is known in popular culture as the “Information Age.” Technology was spawning inventions and geo-political implications, like the man on the moon, Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense plan, televisions and VCRs, and the inception of the Internet. Can you believe that all these things occurred only a generation ago? I remember when VCRs came out– the family was ecstatic! My stepfather was an electronics repairman, so we had the first of everything in my neighborhood. Today, those clunkers we call VCRs and tube televisions from the 70s are nothing compared to the sleek-looking HDTV models out there. Amazing.

I’ve been thinking that the generational age we are living in could be called the “Entertainment Age.” Never before in history have we used technology so much for our entertainment. It is truly a sign of the times. And sports is probably the most popular form of entertainment.

I heard that CBS (who has held the broadcast rights to the games since 1982) is going to stream the entire season of the NCAA March Madness on the Internet this year. The news commentator was joking that businesses would see a sharp drop in productivity, not to mention in clogged bandwidth because so many would be watching the basketball games. There was some speculation that businesses may add filters to their business Internet servers, to prevent workers from streaming the March Madness games.

Retrevo, an excellent source of news and electronics products (and one of my new favorites for news on gadgets and everything about technology), says:

Starting this year CBS will broadcast all games in the men’s tournament, both constant and flex, in HDTV . If you can receive CBS HDTV over the air or via cable you should be in good shape. For the women’s games you’ll have to get ESPN which will be broadcasting many games in HD.

Basketball can be very demanding for HDTV . A fast moving foreground (the action on the court) against a complex background (people in the stands) make it challenging to compress, decompress, and difficult to display without artifacts and blurring.

The very latest LCD sets that offer features like MEMC (motion estimation, motion compensation), 120 Hz refresh, and fast pixel response can help minimize problems. Sets with these features are just starting to show up and may cost a few dollars more.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to put up with a few possible annoyances for a much superior experience than your old standard definition set has to offer, you can get some great values in LCD, Plasma, or even Rear Projection sets for under $2000 and even under $1000.

Imagine, watching the NCAA games on a huge Plasma TV or projected on a huge wall through a high-tech projector? My husband would go bananas. All he’d need to be completely happy is to have Michael Jordan come back to basketball, lol.

There’s more information about entertainment technology here. I love this site because they are so thorough and offer advice and price ranges and examples of all the electronics they discuss. Bookmark that site for future reference (and they are also in my sidebar links).

Well, I have to wonder what will be next in this age of burgeoning electronics. Personal space travel? I still cannot believe that just forty years ago all we had was the tube television and the transistor radio… amazing.

There’s a website up to help you see if you are owed money from old tax refunds or other unclaimed funds in New York State; it’s the State Comptroller’s Office.

For federal unclaimed funds, go here to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. Wow, that’s a mouthful of a title.

Years ago, I found some money that was mine. It was a savings account that my grandmother had begun when I was a baby. I was excited when I heard the news! After all these decades of interest, how much money would I get? I submitted my information and a few weeks later, a check came in the mail! I tore it open to see the amount: $17.29.

Not even enough to buy HDMI switches. *sigh*

I’d read months ago that Microsoft wanted to make it possible for every home to have their very own home-based server. (I’d also once read about every home having their very own electricity generator– how cool is that?). Having a home server is actually very appealing, since I am a do-it-yourself kind of gal. It’s not terribly difficult, either. Popular Mechanics online has a brief (yes, brief!) article on how to do just that.

Essentially, any computer that “serves” data to other machines on a network is a server. And as American households become populated with multiple PCs, the idea of a central hub that can be used for backup, storage and even remote access becomes reasonable, even essential. Anticipating a household server market, HP recently launched its HP MediaSmart Home Server ($599), using Windows Home Server software as the operating system. The HP server comes with a single 500 GB hard drive (plus three empty drive bays for expansion), and can automatically back up computers on the network, as well as store and stream media.

$600 is still a lot of money in my book. But such a thing could very well be affordable. And the beauty of it all is, you could even use an old, unused PC as s server. The PC needs to be able to connect to your home network, of course (my old Windows ME does not have a Network card so we’d need to install one if we wanted to use that).

A home server is a great idea, because we have so many little flash drives around the house that it’s crazy! Tucking all the information on one big hard drive for the whole family to share would condense all our files and get rid of the immense computer clutter that I hash through on a regular basis.

The thing I would love to work up to is hosting my own websites on my own server. I have absolutely no idea how to even start thinking about doing that, lol. But it’s a nice thought. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about my websites going down because of an ice storm in Texas, or worry about my domain name being scarfed up by a drug rehab website or a splog about Brazilian flooring. :S And yes, that has happened.

I do wonder what the future holds. I’m looking forward to self-generation of electricity!

The Internet is a wonderful thing. So is information. But some things we do not want plastered all over the Internet, like our health records, and the floor plans to the Pentagon. Right? Google thinks otherwise.

Pentagon Bans Google Team from Bases

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing security risks, the Pentagon banned Google teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases after images of a Texas base ended up on the popular Internet site.

A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told officials not to allow the mapping Web site to take panoramic views inside the facilities. Google said taking such pictures is against its policy and that the incident was a mistake.

Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, said Thursday that that the decision to issue a formal ban was made after at least one Google crew requested and then was permitted access to a base, identified in the message as Fort Sam Houston. He said he was concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level view could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel.

It’s a worry, Renuart said, because such views can show ”where all the guards are, it shows how the barriers go up and down, it shows how to get in and out of buildings, and I think that poses a real security risk to our military installations.”

The story gets weirder and weirder. Especially the part about where Google shrugs shoulders and says “Oops.”

Google spokesman Larry Yu said a Google crew mistakenly asked for access to a base.

”It is against our policy to request access to military bases for the purpose of capturing imagery in Street View,” he said, adding that when Google was contacted, the imagery was taken off the site within about 24 hours.

Street View is a feature on Google Map pages that allows viewers to click on a location and see a panoramic view of that spot.

The issue emerged just a few days after published reports suggested that protesters used Google Earth to help plot their access to the roof of the Parliament building in London.

…According to the message sent by U.S. Northern Command to military installations around the country, Google representatives requested access to Fort Sam Houston and were granted permission.

”Once given access they took panoramic images of the area with roof-mounted recording equipment,” the message said. ”These images were placed on the Internet for public access.” The imagery included views of entry gates, barriers, the headquarters and other facilities.

Ummmmmm…. how can you “mistakenly” ask to see a base? I’m no military girl, but when I ask to see a base, I know that it’s a base. What did they do, call a wrong number and get Fort Houston instead? And the guys who make Google maps don’t know it’s a base?? Come on! They knew what they were doing.

Anyway, the government made sure to emphasize that their protest has nothing to do with making Google look bad.

Renuart stressed that this was not an attack against the Internet giant, and that it was more a concern about secondary effects of an otherwise good technology.

That’s right. You don’t want Google after you, man. Could be World War 3 or something. Google did, by the way, willingly remove the information at the military’s request. But wow.

Hat tip: NYCO’s Blog: