Messages

1

2004 / scam/spam

« on: September 29, 2003, 08:00:21 PM »

To all:

Active listing with the BBB is no testament to the
veracity of a business - it simply indicates they
paid the required membership fee. Period.

WDL

2

2003 / OT: Where were you when the lights went out?

« on: August 15, 2003, 07:28:42 AM »

Some observations:

MARS - The elimination of "light pollution" made it ideal to
observe Mars while it's temporarily orbiting so close to Earth!

Problem is (personal) I don't have a telescope and couldn't find
my binoculars! Must have been wonderful for the amateur
astonomers! A God-given opportunity!

TECHNOLOGY - Unlike 1965 where transistor radios were ubiquitous - the "everywhere" devices now are cell phones, laptop and hand-held computers & PDAs. None of those worked or were able to access the internet! One man on the street in Manhattan had a transistor radio and was surrounded by a crowd who wanted to hear what was happening! (BTW he called it a "transition radio")

GREED - DETROIT - Store owner - when people started rushing in to buy bottled water, he upped the price to $175 a case! Probably would have charged $10 a candle if he had any.

PREPAREDNESS - We experienced a most unusual local four hour power failure six months ago. We had lots of candles from camping, decoration etc. Our house was lit up with about 12 candles in an absolute sea of darkness. After about 20 minutes, someone in another house had found one candle and added a tiny light to the sea.

What we hadn't foreseen was that our three cats had never seen live flames before and were playing with the flames. One cat singed the fur on its belly walking over a short candle! Another knocked a candle over!

Next day went to a hardware store and bought two fluorescent battery powered lamps and batteries and have them at hand for immediate use. Unlike my binoculars, I know where the lamps are!

TERRORISM - As Krissel pointed out - if ever there was notice served on all of us (the developed world) about how vulnerable our technology makes us - how easily we can be paralysed - surely this was a warning to heed.

While the U.S. suffered the obscenity of Sept 11th - it's the entire developed world that is the target of the fundamentalist hatred. The U.S. is just the prime target by virtue of it being the world leader.

I won't get into how ashamed many of us in Canada are at the doofus prime minister we have, surrounded by a bunch of dolts in his cabinet. My blood pressure revs up and my veins and arteries can't withstand the strain.

WDL

3

2003 / Firewall

« on: August 10, 2003, 10:18:06 AM »

Dick:

Forgot to add - all our Macs (and a Dell) are sharing
a DSL connection through a hub. Often two or more
are on at the same time.

WDL

[and]

4

2003 / Firewall

« on: August 10, 2003, 10:13:01 AM »

Dick:

I've been using NetBarrier on our 3 Macs and it's
excellent. Our version is 1.1 - then there was 1.2
and not sure how many since.

Going to the Gibson research site and testing the
Ports - they all show "stealth" which is the highest
level of security.

grc.com

BTW - Gibson is now using an improved Ports test
that checks out the first 1056 ports - and provides
more detail which allows you to adjust the preferences
in your firewall.

For example, with the new test I was told my settings had
allowed pings/packets returns - so I opened up the Anti-Vandal section of Net Barrier and put a check mark
in the box next to Pings/Packets - then retook the Ports
test at Gibson and got the highest rating of security.

Our Macs are using 9.0.4 -  9.1 - 9.2.2.

WDL

5

2003 / Kudos for Apple

« on: August 06, 2003, 09:57:13 AM »

Chief software engineer at Sun Microsystems - "practically every employee has a Mac desktop at home. We would love to partner with Apple - it's everbody's favourite company."


http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1210889,00.asp

  WDL

6

2003 / Macworld CreativePro Conference & Expo

« on: July 20, 2003, 11:13:28 AM »

This should not be interpreted as a complete downer
for Apple.

All trade shows are down/smaller.

Additionally Ted Landau has a three part article on
MacFixit pointing out that New York is becoming an
unaffordable venue - exhorbitant rental fees and
usarious charges by various unions. For example, paying
$45 to have a union member plug in an electrical
connection - the cords are all there, but you must pay
to have a union member make the simple connection we all
do every day in our homes/offices.

Read it, then relect on why any exhibitor would choose
to throw their money away like this.

WDL

Another example of greed ruining

7

2003 / Farewell, C&G

« on: July 01, 2003, 06:00:11 AM »

This is really sad.

C&G have been a class act,
creating top-quality software - and still supplying
beautiful printed user manuals. Their last manuals
for ConflictCatcher were written by David Pogue.

The makers of bug-ridden software sail on successfully,
while the epitome of excellence closes.

WDL

[The Big Picture]

8

2003 / Two Good mac Articles

« on: June 05, 2003, 10:18:34 PM »

Good articles Jim.

Another good one is The Big Picture by Matt Deatheridge on the back page of the June '03 issue of
MacWorld Magazine. Don't think you can access it for free
though.

WDL

9

2003 / Hands free systems for cell phones?

« on: May 26, 2003, 07:57:12 AM »

Bill:

For a guy that had to quit chewing gum just so he could go for walks, that tummy rubbing sounds right up there with quantum physics.

I'll leave this now - just a final observation.

Most of the distractions you list most of us choose to tune out to preserve our sanity. So we ignore them and don't really spend any concentration on them.

However, with cell phones, most of us choose to tune in and concentrate on what we're going to say, or what the other person is telling us.

By the way - what's so different about Arkansas? Most studies show we're four times more likely to be in a collision while using a cell phone - in Arkansas it's nine times!

WDL

10

2003 / Hands free systems for cell phones?

« on: May 25, 2003, 10:34:58 PM »

Bill:

Just did a check at Google using "Cell phone use while driving"
and a wealth of entries came up. Might want to take a look.

WDL

["Cellphones seen as worse than alcohol"]

11

2003 / Hands free systems for cell phones?

« on: May 25, 2003, 10:18:14 PM »

Bill:

Have a number of articles - one at hand titled:

"Cellphones seen as worse than alcohol" from the Globe & Mail, Toronto, Saturday, 23 March, 2002.

Unfortunately, just checked their archives and they charge money for reprints.

If you want to give me your address or fax number in a private message I'll mail or fax you a copy.

WDL

[all]

12

2003 / Hands free systems for cell phones?

« on: May 25, 2003, 08:34:08 PM »

Bruce:

Hands-free or hand-held the results were equal - conflicts the
concentration required worse than the level of alcohol that
qualifies for "impaired."

The research showed it for all drivers.

Seems we humans aren't too good at multi-tasking.

WDL

13

2003 / Hands free systems for cell phones?

« on: May 25, 2003, 03:18:14 PM »

Bill:

Not to pee on your parade, but the research in Britain and the U.S. so far has shown that there's virtually no difference in the division of the driver's concentration and ability whether the cell phone is hand-held or hands-free. Both ways interfere with operating a motor vehicle safely, equally.

There's just no substitute to pulling over or off the road, parking and making your call(s).

WDL

14

2003 / OT - Concorde

« on: May 24, 2003, 05:55:41 PM »

Two memories of the Concorde.

On a vacation flight to Bahamas from Toronto the captain came on the intercom and advised us to look upward out of the starboard windows and we would see a Concorde in flight - he added that we were flyhing at 33,000 feet and it was flying at 60,000 feet. Beautiful against the dark blue of the upper atmosphere.

In the early 90's we went to McCarran airport in Las Vegas for out return flight to Toronto. Lo and behold, a Concorde was sitting just below the windows in the passenger lounge. Then crew members came into the lounge to answer any questions people might have.

This Concorde was in Las Vegas as one stop in a world tour which I believe cost the passengers $40,000 U.S. each. One of the crew told me they didn't like coming to Las Vegas at that timne of year because the heat (Aug - 112 degrees) reduced their liftoff capabilities.

Eventually it was positioned out on the tarmac for takeoff. The memory of the sheer power and thunderous noise as it plunged down the runway, its nose lifting and it rising into the sky will always stay with me.

As highmac said:

"Yes, it was noisy but, for a machine, it really is an elegant thing of beauty. Probably the best-looking jet airliner ever built."

Well said - it was all of that in spades.

WDL

[never]

15

2003 / Junk Email :(

« on: May 16, 2003, 08:31:44 AM »

Like Greg, I get almost no spam. My ISP uses Spamfire and each customer can choose the level of filtering they want.

In a year, I can't recall it "quarantining" more than four or five suspect messages that were spam. It did quarantine messages from Apple, Iomega etc which I chose to accept.

Very careful about where I use my email address - and I never give suppliers permission to - "would you like to receive updates or info from related suppliers?"

WDL