Well, the key word for COMDEX this year is small... REALLY SMALL. The crowds are smaller, the products are smaller, the venues are smaller, and the booths are smaller. This is not the COMDEX of yore. There are new tools and toys for sure. However, the real emphasis of the show is B2B (business to business). According to the vendors who I spoke to, this seems to be working. Hopefully, some new agreements can be reached to push the industry forward. Regardless of that, it is just strange to see portions of the off-shore vendors within 50 or so feet of the Microsoft and Dell booths.

Well it's been a long time since the last update. Looks like I an in one place for a while (at least for work). Now I've got to go find some cool stuff to update the site with. Once again, the handheld comes in handy. It's a computer geek weekend. Sitting at APCUG updating my blog... oh yeah, APCUG stands for Association of PC Users Group.

WEIRD SPAM Dept - Okay, so this one is so weird that it is worth mentioning -- I got a spam email the other day that offers an acre of land for only $29.99 - yep, that's right $29.99. I'm not going to give anyone the website, nor am I going to share the email. The guarantee that comes with the purchase is a hint to its weirdness and humor. All lots have a view that's out of this world... You might have guessed it by now. It's a lunar acre of land. Sorry, but this just tickled my funny bone. Who even owns the lunar surface? How has the acre been identified and surveyed? And the questions go on, and on, and on... That's what kicks it squarely into the weird department. Then the other part of me stops for a second and wonders how RICH these guys are going to get before they vanish into thin air (or space).

In the light of the power outage in the US and the inability to deliver power to all parts of THIS planet, the Russian plan to build a nuclear power plant on Mars is just too WEIRD!!!

Now the trees CAN talk -- or maybe it's that we have begun to listen. Now we can see the Remote possibilities grow with redwoods. Tiny sensors a huge help in tracking trees' progress. Trees that can communicate how they view the world and how the world is treating them.

Back from vacation. Looking for a program to do something special. Check out these sites: Webattack.com; Download.com; Nonags.com. Each takes a different approach for finding things, but there is lots of good stuff out there.

So, now you are curious about this new Zaurus thing... Check out my new Zaurus-rex blog. There is a permanent link to this at the top of my links section (to the left). Enjoy.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Just enjoying grilling in the backyard and wireless connectivity...

Okay, so let's try this...

I am sitting in my family room watching Terminator -- yes -- the original. Thought it would be cool to update my blog from my Zaurus wirelessly. This will be pretty cool if it works.

Well, those of you who know me know that I have carried my Palm V forever. Finally got a new PDA. I settled on the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500. It has 64MB of RAM, a slot for Compact Flash, and a slot for SD memory card. And the best thing of all, it runs Linux!!!!

I have had nothing but fun with this unit since I got it. The MP3 player is outstanding and the applications are great. I have a 802.11b wireless card and am expecting a ethernet card to show up any day now. It is just really handy and a real improvement on the old tired and reliable Palm V.

More on this later...

W A H O O !!!! We're back. Until I can get the SFTP issue resolved so that I can use my own website, I have put this up on blogspot.com. This is a companion service to Blogger. So, for now, the only annoyance is that there will be an add at the top of my website.

Well, here is the latest in the blogging saga. Turns out that the latest version of Blogger only supports SFTP and passive FTP for tranferring files. Turns out that my web site and ISP - newsguy, doesn't support SFTP or passive FTP. This makes them pretty mutually exclusive. I have asked Newsguy to consider implementing SFTP, which is more secure.

So, for the time being I will continue to publish to my blog, but then manually add the new entries to my web site. What a pain....

As a result the comments are not working, for now and the text will be a little different. Good news is that the link lists is not broken...

Stay tuned, I will keep you all posted as to how this one turns out.

Well, seems the new version of Blogger has some posting enhancements (read that as BUGS) and so I can maintain my blog, but can't seem to get it to post to my site correctly. So, once they get it fixed, there will appear to be a flood of new posts... so goes the world of enhancements.

Welcome to summer. The summer soltice occured yesterday at 19:10 (GMT) [2003 JUN-21 @ 19:10]. We've already had lots of days of triple digit heat, but the summer will undoubtedly get warmer. Summer 2003 is also unusually green in the desert. With all the precipitation earlier this year there are an aweful lot of green plants. The desert is incredibly beautiful this year.

Well, finally go the comment thing working... After looking at several different approaches, I settled on Haloscan as the tool. It was easy to implement and seems pretty easy to use. Please let me know what you think by leaving your comments as you wander on my blog.

So you want to know if your computer and network are secure. To test how well the security is set up on your computer check out this tool from Microsoft (yep, I said Microsoft) Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. Or, for your corportate types check into Symantec DeepSight Analyzer. If you are concerned about the security of the computers on your network, go to Shields Up! at Gibson Research Corp. The best part about the Gibson Research site is that there are lots of explanations in something pretty close to plain english. I have said it before and I will say it again, "If you are connected to other computers or to the internet, then you need to be implement computer security at some reasonable and appropriate level".

For those of you who need a firewall and have an old machine sitting around (like a Pentium 300Mhz with 8MB or more of RAM and a floppy drive), you need to take a look at Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall project. I have recently built a firewall on an old machine using the Bering Firewall. It loads from a floppy disk and only requires 8MB of RAM. It requires a little bit of computer knowledge, but it is worth the time investment.

Here's another fun item from Slashdot. Ever wanted to keep your beer cold for the entire time you are enjoying it? ==> Peltier Beer may be the answer. This is just TOO fun a solution to the problem.

Well, I have to say that powerline networking is cool. Just found a Siemens SpeedStream SS2524 Powerline Wireless DSL/Cable Router that supports, powerline, wireless and ethernet networking on sale for, $49.99 (yes, I said 50 bucks). It is easy to set up and seems to have some nice features for security and control of who uses your network.

Congratulations to LinuxTag and Novell who have both come out against SCO regarding their lawsuit against IBM. The press release and letter from Jack L. Messman, Chairman, President and CEO of Novell is worthy of framing. You really must give it a read. Novell makes it very plain that based on copyrights and other legal agreements that SCO doesn't even own what they claim was infringed upon. Way to go Mr. Messman!!!!

I suspect that IBM will join the fray soon with a formal statement and that sometime VERY soon, SCO will go find a rock to hide under.

I also predict that it will only be a matter of hours, days or weeks before Microsoft "decides" that it is not such a good idea to working towards a licensing deal with SCO... Keep your eyes open, because this is liable to be a very quiet and subdued distancing on Microsoft's part.

Well, I am disappointed... I have been testing SpamArrest (won't give the link -- don't recommend them). Seems they decided that they would attempt to play both sides. They couldn't resist the emails that they had access to via their customers. They began sending unsolicited emails to everyone who went through their site. OOPS -- that to me is an adequate definition of S P A M ! ! ! ! So, although it decreased my spam by as much as 80 - 85%, it is not a workable solution. It may be that the only reasonable solution for SPAM is a good ISP with filtering software like SPAMAssassin or a local solution on your machine. The sad saga goes on... S P A M should be ILLEGAL!!!

Powerline networking is becoming more mainstream. Check out the Homeplug Networking Association product listings for vendors who have developed products that comply with the established standards. The FAQ answers lots of questions. 14Mbps networking to all the outlets in your house. Pretty COOL!!

For those of you interested in homeplug (AC power) networking, I have tracked down one possible answer to one of my questions. Can a powerline adapter/bridge be plugged into a UPS, power strip, or surge protector? From the Seimens web site manual for their SpeedStream 2524 Wireless DSL/Cable Router - "The SpeedStream Powerline Wireless Router has built-in surge protection. It is not recommended to plug the router into a power strip, surge protector or UPS as the Powerline connection speed and quality will be affected." Not much of a limitation, but make sure to protect your network cable via UPS.

Need to know how to work with your videos and video files? Want to create VCDs and/or DVDs? -- check out VCDHelp or DVDHelp.

Well, much to the disappointment of many of us, InfoWorld has changed their format again and this time, they have dropped many of there long-time columnists. Do not dispair though, many of the columns are now available online, either as individual columns, weblogs or newsletters delivered to you. Here is the list, which to their credit was in the letter section of the 5 May, 2003 Infoworld:
Bob Lewis' blog for Infoworld - He also has a newsletter
Wayne Rash and Mario Apicella - Subscription page for Infoworld online newsletters
Ed Foster
Bob Lewis
Brian Livingston
Russ Pavlicek

At the LVPCUG General meeting... tonight a cool presentation on ebay.

Been wandering the world with your wireless capable computer or PDA? Now there's a way to lookup those public networks on 802.11 Hotspots and info on the wireless industry at 802.11 Planet.

Another pet peeve department -- S P A M (that is ILLEGAL commercial bulk emailing). Thanks to Al Gibes, the Online Guy for the tip on this one. On to the unabashed plug sideline, checkout Al Gibes' weekly column in the Review Journal Click on the Online Guy. In his 5 May column, Al highlighted a new service called Spamarrest . The concept here is that you can control the acceptable list of senders OR they can interact with a web site to authorize themselves. This process will prevent automated emailers from being accepted since the interaction includes entering a word in a dialog box that is visible as a graphic. Hard for a machine to interpret and respond (You will notice that I did NOT say impossible).

Latest pet peeve department: I know many of you have heard me gripe about this problem. I have finally decided to begin my drive to ask Microsoft^® to remove a "feature" from all of its currently supported operating systems. Everyone knows that the time estimates for file copying in Microsoft Windows^® can only be counted on for one thing... that it is WRONG. Estimating that a copy of files will take 300,000+ minutes (yes I said minutes -- do the math) and it turns out that the copy takes less than 10 minutes is not only irritating -- IT IS USELESS. In addition to that, this USELESS "feature" uses system resources. As systems and disk drives have gotten faster and faster, this time estimate has gotten worse and worse and worse. If you would like to see this feature removed, let me know. I don't even want to suggest that they fix it, since it has been broken for SO long, I doubt it can be done without negative affects on the rest of the operating system.

Want to stop (or at least cut down) the amount of email SPAM you receive, check out Mailwasher. It allows you to bounce spam and make it look like the email address doesn't exist. To rid your machine of spyware, check out Ad-Aware v6.0. For additional security related software and freeware, check out Gibson Research Corp.

From Slashdot: "Here's the announcement that many have been waiting for all week. Yesterday, the ReplayTV and Rio product lines of now-defunct SonicBlue were auctioned off in a bankruptcy court. Despite earlier negotiations failing to result in a deal, the Japanese holding company D&M, makers of high-end Denon and Marantz stereo gear, bought the product lines for $36.2 million. The big question is what about all of the "lifetime subscriptions" that people bought? No answers as of yet, but we can all be hopeful."

Proving two things, 1) any site can be SLAMMED, this post from Slashdot seems to have led to the site mentioned here being overrun; 2) There are always a lot of sci-fi fans lurking about. Try it in a day or two, it sounds lik fun: "It looks like someone has very lovingly created something that sci-fi fans everywhere will likely want to see; if not out of curiosity, then at least to revitalize the burning, seething, grudges between fanatics of rival science-fiction universes. Starship Dimensions places images of various starships from science fiction settings such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, ID4, Macross/Robotech, Lexx, Freespace, and Battlestar Galactica side-by-side, in scale! The author has also conveniently included football fields, humans, King Kong, and buildings for comparison. You can even drag them around the page and stage your own interstellar battle royale."

From the Opera press release, dated 12Apr2003, Opera Software today released Opera 7.10 for Windows and Opera 7.10 for Linux Beta with features that are not only new to Opera, but also completely new to the world of browsing. Right from the beginning, users can see the two new buttons FastForward and Rewind in the toolbar, accelerating Opera users' Web navigation. Users can also speed up researching with the completely new Notes features or view photo files with SlideShow.'

Okay, so it's true. I have been trying to use OpenOffice for more and more of my office productivity needs. They have recently released v1.0.3 and it is pretty solid. I run it on both Linux and Windows and it is great to be able to have that flexibility on a cross platform application.

Okay, so it's true. I have been trying to use