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How much time have you wasted today? “Not enough”, you say? How about 150 Flash Games for Your Enjoyment to help you meet your quota?

Even ham radio operators need to take a break from doing serious stuff in order to have some fun once in a while. Maybe if we did it more often there would be fewer Cranky Old Farts on the air.

The games are sorted into the following categories:

(Read more)

This is quite a well thought out treatise on potential interference problems between digital D-STAR repeaters and analog repeaters. It was written.by Ray “Abe” Abraczinskas, W8HVG. Abe is one of the founders and a Director of the Independent Repeater Association.

Digital communications activity utilizing ham radio repeaters keeps expanding. The lure of the many capabilities in connecting repeaters through the Internet keeps growing. Modes such as Echo Link?, IRLP?, VOIP, Wires?, and D-STAR, etc. are all present day technology means of connecting radios and repeaters to the Internet allowing talking with hams all over the world. Some people say that it isn’t really ham radio, but truly it is, and it will continue to grow and affect every amateur radio operator’s future both for the good and bad. (Read more)

This report on computer threats and vulnerabilities contains some interesting information that you should be aware of.

The XForce won’t save you from a burning building but, they just might make your surfing safer. The XForce is IBM’s team of Internet Security Systems researchers and they’ve just released the midyear report for 2008, listing all kinds of facts and figures on internet security. If you’re really into data, go read the report for yourself. It might also be good for insomnia. I’ll give you the quick highlights here.
The first part of the report is about computer threats and vulnerabilities. Top five companies with vulnerability disclosures (when they publish information about a security problem) in 2008 so far?

• Apple
• Joomla!
• Microsoft
• IBM
• Sun

(Read more)

SOURCE: downloadsquad.com

You may have noticed my frequent complaints here about the greedy actions of the RIAA. They have all been for good reason. The latest is their treatment of Internet radio.

Musical artists, listeners, and Webcasters, have joined forces in the SaveNetRadio coalition  to help save Internet radio. The members of the coalition believe strongly in compensating artists, but Internet radio as we know it will not survive under the proposed new royalties. You must help. Please take a moment to call your members of Congress to let your representatives know how much Internet radio means to you.

On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio’s royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry’s future.  (Read more)

What a great idea. A new ITU standard will assist rescue workers to notify a victim’s next of kin in emergencies by using global mobile phone directory code. Just modify the names in your address book by priority, adding a 01, 02, 03, etc. before the names.

Geneva, 23 July 2008 - Emergency workers searching for next-of-kin contact information for an injured person now have a globally recognized way of doing so, thanks to a new standard from ITU.

By simply prefixing the Arabic numericals 01, 02, 03, and so on to a nominated contact, such as "01father", "02wife" or "03husband" written in any script in the mobile telephone directory, will help emergency workers in any part of the world identify contacts in order of priority and notify them. (Read more)

If your MP3 and downloaded video collection has outgrown its storage media, you will be thrilled to note that Seagate has won the manufacturer’s race by being the first to announce a 1.5 terabyte hard drive. The huge Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 will use four platters and should be in stores in August.

This makes me feel old. The first hard drive I ever saw had a capacity of only twenty megabytes. At the time, we were thrilled by its size and judged it by the number of 5 1/4 inch floppy disks it could digest. When I first got an Internet connection you would get flamed for having an e-mail signature longer than six lines because it “wasted bandwidth”. Now, everyone transfers full motion video files without giving it any thought. How times change.

I almost missed this. Thanks for the heads up, Russ.

In a press release dated July 2, 2008 The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in cooperation with RadioShack gave notice of a voluntary recall on RadioShack’s 13.8VDC power supply.  The power supplies are wired incorrectly and could pose a fire hazard or electrocution hazard.  Users of these power supplies (Catalogue Numbers 22-507 and 22-508 should discontinue the use of the unit and take it to the RadioShack for free repair.

CPSC’s memo can be found at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08319.html.

Information from RadioShack is at http://www.radioshack.com/recall

SOURCE: w6agt.com

I hate to admit it, but there exists some radio station promotional material that contains a photo of me resembling the dork on the right side of the middle row of the`70s shot. No, it will not be posted here any time soon.

Classic! Everyone has seen that awful 1970’s era Microsoft photo, well, Newsweek has got everyone from that picture to come back for a new group shot. Predictably, they’re a lot less … um … unattractive than they used to be.

That photo of 11 weirdos in ’70s clothes you may have seen on the Internet really is the original Microsoft team, snapped Dec. 7, 1978, on the eve of the company’s move from Albuquerque, N.M., to Seattle. Almost 30 years later, a few weeks before Bill Gates’s departure from Microsoft, the group (looking better) reconvened.

SOURCE: SuperSite Blog

The reason the FISA Amendments Act is so important is that it is at the heart of the struggle to maintain a democracy in the face of, at times, overwhelming pressure to scuttle the rule of law for expediency, self-interest, or just plain old stupidity. A law does not cease to exist just because the president says it does. Please, let us remember that there are still two other branches of our government to be dealt with first. It is a good system. It is what has kept the US from becoming a monarchy. There is no reason to change it. One King George was enough.

The comments after the original Slashdot post are also worth reading.

ivantheshifty writes with news of a delayed vote (failed filibuster attempt aside) on the updated FISA bill which has been discussed here recently, in particular because it would grant telecom companies immunity (under certain conditions) from suits for wiretapping conducted at government request. According to the Associated Press story carried by the Washington Post,

"Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and more than a dozen other senators who oppose telecom immunity threw up procedural delays that threatened to force the Senate into a midnight or weekend session. The prospect of further delays was enough to cause Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to postpone the vote until after the weeklong July 4 vacation."  (Read more)

SOURCE: Shashdot

After the MobileMe announcement and demo, Steve Jobs came back on stage to tout the iPhone’s 90 percent customer satisfaction rating. Jobs then announced the long-expected 3G iPhone with GPS. It is slimmer, has a side slot, full plastic back, flush headphone jack, and the same display as its predecessor. Battery life is rated at 300 hours for standby, 2G talk at 10 hours, and 3G talk of 5 hours. That translates into 5-6 hours of browsing, 7 hours of video, and 24 hours of audio. The 3G iPhone also offers full Exchange support using Active Sync and a secure VPN.

The iPhone 3G will cost $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. Apple plans availability in 22 countries starting July 11, with a goal of rolling it out to 70 countries.

SOURCE: arstechnica.com