l-dopa

You’ll have to disable “3D Acceleration” in Peggle Nights if you update to newer ATI drivers. But the UI of the menu screen freezes up so it’s hard to do that. Here’s a relatively easy, low-tech fix:

• Start your PC in safe mode (hit F8 at startup or use msconfig) and “Safe Boot”.
• Start up Peggle Nights and get a sticky note. Rip off three small squares of the sticky stuff up top.
• Stick one square directly on “Options”, one on “3D Acceleration” and one on “Done”.
• Reboot, but this time not in “Safe Mode”.
• After you’ve started up normally, start Peggle Nights up again. You’ll be on the frozen screen, but thanks to the sticky note squares, you can now click the areas you need to click: first, the bottom square, then, the top square, then finally the square in the middle.

By way of explanation, my daughter loves to watch people play Peggle Nights, so when this stopped working there was great sadness.

Keeping all my data in the cloud has become something bordering on an obsession for me. Here are my current suggestions on what the best bets are for staying nimble across a wide range of devices and operating systems — please feel free to leave your personal favorites in the comments: Read the rest of this entry »

Dear iPhone 4 Users,

In the coming days or weeks, your friends, or neighbors, and/or loved ones may send you links and articles from Engadget.com, Wired.com, or even from noted child-pornography trading hub Gizmodo.com, articles that suggest that there is some sort of reception problem with the iPhone 4. Not that we would ever suggest that our loyal customers side with Apple over their own (often unreliable) family members, but we would like to take a moment to correct many of these ignorant, misinformed and outright evil statements repeated in the media and by your family members.

Read the rest of this entry »

Notice I did not say all Facebook users*! But some of them!

*but I was thinking it

From Freecycle:

“About a dozen of the soy sauce packets from Chinese take out; more of the hot mustard packets; and half a dozen ketchup servings.

Easy pick up from front porch in neighborhood off ### Street near #####. Preference to prompt pick up – Monday would be great.

######
Northampton”

Ok, so, this:

Slick, right? I’ve watched this video twice, because I love reading and I love magazines and I love software demos and I love hardware demos. Full disclosure: I don’t completely love sports, so maybe there’s something I’m missing here. But all this tablet hype is reminding me of something I am almost hesitant to bring up:

CD-ROMs.

Remember CD-ROMs? I do. For about a year or so, you couldn’t buy a magazine without a CD-ROM falling out the side. Then it was DVD-ROMs, full of music videos and shareware demos and to tell the truth, I don’t think I ever even put one in the computer, because by that time there was something else out there:

The Internet.

The above video obviously represents a richer experience than can be experienced on the web right now (barring those fancy-lad, full-screen Flash sites that everyone in reality hates) but I maintain that the above product, once you finally iDownloaded all 860 MB off the iTime iMagazine iStore would be very boring, mainly because all those fancy photos and videos and stuff whizzing around on that tablet? They would be so old by the time they put all that together for you that you would have watched it or read about it already.

On television, and on the Internet.

Never mind that a multimedia presentation and layout as complex as the above demo is going to require an entire new generation of digital producers skilled enough to tightly integrate video, audio, print, web, fixed layout and dynamic, non-linear page layout. There are not many of those producers out there right now; the above product represents a pretty rare intersection of skills, most parts more akin to software designer than graphic designer.

So anyway. I tend to pooh-pooh ideas at first, before I eventually embrace them and via revisionist history pretend I felt positive about them the entire time. But, seriously, ‘mythical Apple tablet computer’ as white knight, print magazine savior?

We’ll see.

Via Lindsay Robertson

Not that I am like Dr. Blog Von Bloggington over here but I can give out this one piece of advice with some certainty:

1. Do Not Post Hour-Long Videos To The Web.

OK, I’m ready for some questions now. You, sir?:

Q: Yes, I recently shot flipcam footage of a community council meeting I recently attended, and it’s an hour-and-a-half of unedited, shaky footage with unattractive people speaking off-camera in a nearly inaudible monotone. Should I post that to the web?

A: Great question. No. You should not. Because nobody cares and nobody will watch it. Next question!

Q: Hello, I have a two-hour long video of an acedemic talk I recently attended, should I post the entire unedited video to blip.tv, YouTube or Vimeo? So hard to choose!

A: Excellent question, I get that a lot. Actually you should not post it at all, because no one will ever watch it so you are really wasting your precious remaining time on Earth; time that could be better spent with loved ones, or even just staring into the middle distance. So, I think I have time for one last question.

Q: Can iMovie HD handle videos longer than three hours long? Or should I use Final Cut Pro? Because I have this recording of a marketing seminar we held last month that I really think people would enjoy big time.

A: It is doubtful that iMovie could handle that much footage without issue, but again, the problem there is not hard drive space or network bandwidth but instead the problem is that your video is longer than Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather movies and infinitely less interesting. You do your viewer (completely hypothetical — I assure you, no one is watching) no service by dumping raw, unedited footage on them; ninety-nine times out of 100, aggressive editing is a kindness and demonstrates respect for your audience’s attention span and amount of free time.

I hope this helped some people out there today. If you have any questions about the advice above, please post it in the comments!

I’ve been seeing a lot of ‘Google Money Master’ ads on various sites. You click through and you get a page explaining how you can ‘work at home’ (the American Dream, apparently) and a pitch:

Step 1: Get Google Money Master, only pay the $1.95 for shipping.

Step 2: Follow the directions on Google Money Master that basically shows you how to and set up a Google account. Then they will give you the website links to post. Start posting those links. Google tracks everything.

You heard right. It basically shows you how to and set up a Google account. There there are some fake comments at the bottom, which you can’t add to because of ‘problems with spam’ (kudos for that).

What you should do is check Google before attempting to become a Google Money Master:

• complaintsboard.com says: “This is based out of Phillipines. It posts FAKE blogs on how people made money posting stuff on google. They initally took out $2.87 from my account and I just found out they will take out $70 something monthly. Oh and of course the 800 number stays busy so there is no way to contact them.” (and the comments agree)
• ripoffreport.com says: “A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from a Fredricka Mills from the grant center telling me I would receive 7 free days of google money profit, and 7 free days of advance benefits plus 7/24 medical to try. In return I would receive a gas card and $1,000.00 in grocery vouchers. I told her no thank you I only wanted the grant cd and had not signed up for anything else. She then informed me that I would be charged $39.95 per month to be a member. Well it sure did not say anything about that either when I ordered the grant cd … I thought it was all over until I got this package of membership cards etc. for this advance benefits plus 7/24 medical emergency stuff. I called the grant place back and they told me they were a third party (which is bull) and gave me a phone number to call. In the meantime my credit card was charged $29.95 …”

Long story short, don’t fall for it.

Also of interest the same leaderboard ad shills for a fake Rachael Ray blog at rachelrayblogs.com:

We know we spelt her name wrong, but it’s too late! Did you know most people who search Google actually type the wrong spelling in?

…you don’t say.

NOTE: “Google Money Master” is now “Google Home Income” but it still continues to be a HUGE SCAM.

~Jeff

Enjoy!

And the SEO expert says, “You guys, I’m so thirsty. Is there anything to drink?”

And the CEO says, “I just drank the last of my water 30 minutes ago.”

And the web programmer says, “I have plenty of water, a true abundance, but I won’t give any to you. Because, you are the worst. I hate you with every fiber of my being. Your very existence is an inherent refutation of the basic concept of quality workmanship and craft. Every additional second you remain on this planet is a deep, personal offense to me.”

Then the SEO expert died slowly and painfully of thirst, and over the next several days his body slumped, shriveled and shrank as his organs collapsed upon themselves with a hissing sound while the CEO and web programmer sat and stared. And the sun set, and rose, and set again.

THE END