Just ignore all the shit I talked previously about my BlackBerry [Pearl]. This is the one! Big, bad, and oh-so sexy. The BlackBerry Curve 8330 features high speed EvDO data, fully unlocked GPS with Google Maps and BB Maps, camera, video, full keyboard, huge screen, and the best part: Over 10 days of standby and 4-5 straight hours of talk time before your call drops. For a CDMA phone, this one is king.
I’m such a phone head.
I’m sick and tired of all the useless non-sense that goes into blog comment spam. I know it’s getting harder and harder to bypass all the crazy filters and steps needed to post a legitimate comment on a popular site but when does the madness stop? I’m actually a bit entertained by the useless randomness that makes up most blog spam these days, although deleting each rouge comment is becoming a pain.
To help lighten the work load I have with deleting unapproved spam-related comments, I’ve put into effect a simple spam prevention method that I hope works out well. It’s clean, neat, and doesn’t require you to read a bunch of funny text. I hate that! This one is strictly geek — based on simple math.
You can do simple math, right?
“Uh-oh!” That nostalgic little sound notifiying you of an instant message used to come out of the speakers of almost every computer online. However lately, these speakers are pouring out a different tune. What happened? I started using ICQ back in 1997 when I heard about it from a friend who asked me what my “ICQ Number” was.
My number? I had no idea what she was talking about. After seeing it in action on her computer, I had to have it. What a cool way to instantly communicate with someone! Previously I had been using web-based chat and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to pass the time away. My first and only ICQ number was 12516865. It’s still active over a decade later and I’d hate to see what lengthy numbers new users today are assigned.
I slowly moved away from ICQ shortly after AOL purchased them for a whopping $407 million dollars in mid-1998. Where did I turn to? AIM. AOL let me be something other than just a number by specifying my own “screen name.” The best part was I could communucate with the then horde of AOL users without having to use the AOL Internet Service.
I still use AIM today quite often and log in to ICQ for the hell of it using one of those nifty all-in-one IM programs (Audium). I don’t talk to anyone ICQ, just receive the usual daily dose of spam since ICQ has become a hotbed for sleezy advertising. Will I continue to log in to ICQ? Who knows. I thought back in the day that AOL would disolve ICQ entirely in favor of AIM but it looks like it’s growing to the tune of 31 million or more spammers… I love the Internet.
Google recently introduced its own web browser, which in my opinion is nothing more than a glorified toolbar. While it isn’t really available for Mac, they’ve enticed us with the Google Chrome icon over default Leopard wallpaper. It looks like it’s in the works, but how does it work?
Wanting to dive into the action myself, I fired up Parallels Desktop which I keep a copy of Windows XP SP3 on and went to work. The installation was light and fast, although could be a bit faster considering how small the package is. I figured the extra slowness was due to Windows running in a virtual enviorment. After firing it up, it looks… well, simple. Like the “Safari” look with a few interesting features.
Will I be keeping up-to-date with Chrome’s advanced search tools and Google “stuff?” The screenshot below says it all.
One of my favorite media players when I hooked up my first computer to the Internet was RealPlayer. From streaming radio stations to movies, Real was where it was at. The first version of RealPlayer was introduced in April of 1995 as RealAudio Player which was one of the first media players capable of streaming media over the Internet. But where’s RealPlayer now? In the age of iTunes and iPods, it appears struggling RealPlayer is barely on the radar.
Briefly known also as RealOne Player, this once sophisticated application has been blasted with bad press over the years for its resource hogging ways, feature lack support and poor interface. Dominating Windows Media Player and extremely popular iTunes has all but sealed the fate of this media giant in recent years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the name bought out by someone just to take it off the map entirely.
The only thing RealPlayer has going for it is its scalability. Unlike iTunes or Windows Media Player, you’ll find Real readily available across the board on platforms such as Windows, Mac, Palm, Symbian, Linux/Unix, etc. Real portable but real horrible. Apple should buy them out and re-name it iRealBigPlayer.
