WebOS Lives!

For months now there have been rumors that WebOS may be tossed to the way side like it's host tablet the HP Touchpad. However, that rumor has been laid to rest and it appears as if the best possible scenario, given the situation, has happened: HP has decided to open-source WebOS and make it available to developers to invest back in the project. This is good news indeed for the WebOS community.

Here is an excerpt from their blog:
Well, you’ve been waiting for the big webOS announcement, and today we’ve made it. This morning, HP announced that webOS will be going open source with the resources of HP behind it. The Developer Relations team is very excited by this announcement and what it means for the future of webOS, and for you, our developer community.

With this announcement, Meg Whitman has reiterated HP’s commitment to webOS as a cloud-connected, scalable platform, while opening up new possibilities for platform expansion and improvement. She has also committed HP to a course of continued improvement to webOS, which means we’re in it for the long haul. Finally, we are committed to good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation of the platform.

You can read more here.

As an aside, I would have never given webOS a chance had it not have been for the firesale that afforded me the opportunity to test out my first tablet. I believe WebOS has many a good qualities, namely multitasking, cards, notifications, the homebrew community... Android and iOS could learn a few things from their neglected sibling.

Sprint 'ing To Another Mobile Phone Carrier

Confession time: For the past 12 years I have been involved in a love/hate relationship. We had some good times together and we had some very, very bad moments, but through it all we always were willing to work things out and overcome our issues... that is, until now. We finally hit a roadblock in our relationship that neither of us were willing to budge on. Usually about every two years, we would hit one of these roadblocks and we would bring in a mediator. This year, the mediator just couldn't help us bridge our differences. So, I'm leaving. After 12 years in this relationship, I am finally packing my bags and moving out at the end of the month. As a matter of fact, I have already found a replacement and her name is Virgin Mobile. Yes, I know Virgin Mobile is her sister and they share the same network, but she made me an offer I couldn't refuse so I took it.

Details? I'm glad you asked. For the majority of my 12 year relationship with Sprint I was under a retention plan. The retention department (aka our mediator) always seemed to pull through after the 8-12th call to them. Every 2 years I would get a better plan at my previous price point or I would get the same plan at a cheaper price point.
Currently my Sprint plan is the following:
-Unlimited Data/Web
-Unlimited Texts
-Unlimited Picture Mail
-Free Roaming
-Free Nights and Weekends starting at 7pm
-Free Mobile to Mobile
-GPS
-800 Anytime minutes with additional blocks of 100 minutes for $5.00 if we go over.
-2 lines
This costs us a base fee of $72 something a month before taxes and fees.

What caused us to leave? I'm also glad you asked. We wanted to upgrade our phones to either blackberry phones or Android phones. We currently have the Samsung Ace (Windows Mobile) and a Samsung flip phone. Sprint informed me that I would have to upgrade my data plan if I wanted a smart phone. My Windows Mobile phone (Samsung Ace) is a smart phone and utilizes the web, Windows Marketplace, GPS, etc. just fine on the current data plan but for some reason my data plan wouldn't work with the newer phones. In reality Sprint just wanted me to pay more for the same service I already have by calling it a different name and applying it to other phones. Data is data. I did not want to pay the additional fee and I didn't want to pay an additional 10 dollars a month per phone (if we got 4g phones) as we don't have 4g in our area. This time retention could not keep my bill at the same price point and allow us to upgrade our phones so I started looking around.

I looked at AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cellular South. I really looked at going with Cellular South but they were still going to be more expensive that my current plan with Sprint (all the others were way more expensive) and they don't have 3g data service in my area (7 miles on either side of me, but not here). That's when I thought I was going to have to just grin and bear it and just accept that Sprint had one this battle. That's when I happened across an ad for Boost Mobile. I looked into it and thought it was great. It was still more expensive than Sprint at the onset but after 18 months you get unlimited everything for only $35 dollars a month (it starts at $50 a month and gradually decreases over set month intervals: 6, 12, 18). Plus, there is no contract and the taxes and fees are included in the price points given. Once I started looking at it, I found out they were utilizing Sprints CDMA and IDEN networks (remember NEXTEL?). Ultimately I wasn't impressed with their phone selection... but I read somewhere that new ones should be rolling out in April (it could be nothing more than a rumor).

Then I found Virgin Mobile and saw they use Sprint's CDMA network and they had a little better selection of phones and one phone in particular that has good reviews all around: the LG Optimus.

Virgin Mobile's plans are as follows:
-Unlimited everything: $60
-Unlimited everything except for voice (1200 minutes): $40
-Unlimited everything except for voice (300 minutes): $25

With Virgin Mobile they also have the fees and taxes included so there is nothing to add on top of your monthly bill. And, like Boost Mobile, they do not tie you up with a contract either.

I also checked out Wal-Mart's offerings (Straight Talk) and wasn't impressed with their phone selection. I understand it uses T-Mobile's network, but the phones are less than stellar.

For me, Virgin Mobile allows both my wife and me to have an equivalent plan to what we had for a cheaper price point (she is getting the $40 plan and I am getting the $25 plan) and we were able to upgrade our phones to the LG Optimus V (V stands for Virgin Mobile). We bought the phones through BestBuy for $129.99 a piece which is cheaper than elsewhere at this time and that is about what we would have paid to upgrade our phones with Sprint if they would have chosen to keep us as customers. The only thing that we will not have is the Roaming service as Virgin nor Boost offer that. With that being said, I don't know when the last time it was that I wasn't in a Sprint network area for any length of time.

We picked up our phones a couple days ago and have hooked them up to our wi-fi connection. They are very responsive and seem to be a great phone for the price. (the two cons listed in the linked review above are easily addressed by Skyfire for seeing flash content and Quick Settings for making your phone a wifi hotspot from the Android marketplace)I would definitely recommend the phone and I don't see why I wouldn't be happy with the Virgin Mobile service as it will use the same service that I am used to minus the roaming. We are going to change our numbers over to Virgin Mobile towards the end of the month as Sprint will not prorate service when your 2 year commitment has expired and you are on a month to month plan.

If you run across this, note it was written on March 9th, 2011 and hopefully it will broaden your options when considering your next phone carrier.

Social Networking Game Play Leads To Rise In Infant Mortality

Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested after the January death of 3-month-old Dylan Lee Edmondson. She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called FarmVille on the Facebook social-networking website.

You can read the rest here.

Some questions:
-Is the mother alone to blame?
-Why do insignificant things such as game playing, social networking, etc. override the sense of duty and responsibility?
-Do you see this type of thing happening more and more?
-How did we come to such a place that values entertainment over responsibility?

Google Chrome OS

In the second half of 2010 Google will release its first operating system in direct competition with Microsoft Windows. It will be based on the Google Chrome browser and initially released on netbooks. Note, this is not a variation of Android, but a build based off Chrome.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-If you are a user of other Google products, do you think you would use this?
-Do you think they have a chance of usurping Microsoft Windows?
-Do you think this will effect Mac sales or Linux sales?

Smart Phone Of The Future Is Here Today

Pomegranate Smart Phone

Only available in Canada currently- but maybe other markets will catch on.

Palin's Hacker Exposed

State Rep. Mike Kernell confirmed Thursday that his son, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student, is at the center of heated Internet discussion into the hacking of the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, confirmed that it is his 20-year-old son, David, who is being widely named on Internet blogs and chatrooms in connection with an unfolding story about Palin's hacked e-mail accounts.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Do you think the democrats had anything to do with this?
-Will this negatively affect Obama?
-Do you think this is the result of a "like father, like son" mentality?
-Do you find what David Kernell did to be fair game, or should he be punished? What if it was the other way around: A republican's kid hacking Biden's email?
-Do you think there is more to this than meets the eye?

Tweaking Microsoft Vista

In my ever-ongoing quest to get the leanest operating system so I can utilize all of my resources for video editing, I ran across this article on downloads that allow you to customize Vista and tweak to your hearts content. I thought I would pass it along and hopefully it will be of benefit to those of you who have moved on (however grudgingly) from XP.

Here are a few of the downloads:

Vista Smoker Pro

If you're looking to juice up Vista's performance, give this tool a try. It's designed to help you optimize the way that Vista runs, from memory to hard disk operations to the basic interface.

TweakVista

As its name implies, Stardock's TweakVista lets you alter and fine-tune Vista in countless ways. A blessedly simple and well-designed interface makes tweaking easy. You can see what programs run at startup, how much RAM each currently running program uses, and what Vista security parameters are now in force. One particularly useful feature is the Services module, which enables you to switch various Vista services on or off...

TweakUAC

What's the biggest annoyance that Windows Vista have to deal with? Hands-down, it's User Account Control (UAC), which nags at you to enter a password or click OK every time you make certain changes or perform certain actions.

Amnesty Generator

The Web contains are thousands of widgets and gadgets, but regrettably the vast majority of them won't work in the Sidebar. But Mesa Dynamics' free Amnesty Generator fixes that state of affairs. The program lets you convert almost any online widget or gadget to a Vista-compatible gadget that you can then run on the Sidebar.

Feeds Plus

Fans of the RSS blog reader built into Internet Explorer 7 need this program. It enables you to read all of your feeds from a single location, instead of having to read one feed at a time. This is especially useful for people like me who subscribe to dozens of feeds.

You can find more (and download) here.

Some questions:
-Do you use Vista? If so, what version?
-Why did you switch to Vista?
-Are you considering going to Mac? If so, why?
-Do you think Microsoft is going downhill?

Man Walked On The Moon, Aliens Walked On Earth

FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.

And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now".

You can read more here.
You can listen to the audio here.

Some questions:
-Do you believe in intelligent alien life?
-Would such a belief contradict the Bible?
-Do you believe the statements Dr. Mitchell made or do you believe Nasa?
-Do you think our government lies to us? Why?

Email: What Do You Use?

I have been using gmail since it was first released via invitation only back in 2004. I still keep my Hotmail account just for junk mailings (if I need to sign up for something). However, I am extremely pleased with gmail and its philosphy that you do not have to throw away anything ever nor do you have to file things away- just search for it. This is a great tool. If you need to review an email with a key code in it or download link, just type something in the search box that was in the email and there it is. It also narrows down email addresses as you type them in (or the name associated with them) in the address field. Once you see a list of names appear, just choose the one you want- no more address book or memorizing email addresses. On top of that you have storage galore and google talk built right in. Did I mention that their spam filter is phenomenal? I don't remember the last time I had spam slip through into my inbox.

In addition to email, your google account also opens up to you the ability to utilize google calendar, google docs, and a plethora of other services.

There are also "add ons" that can turn your gmail account into a storage space for files and such. There is even one that utilizes it to run a web based operating system.

So, I say all that to ask this: who is your email client and why?

Sawdust Utilized As Biofuel?

A wider of range of plant material could be turned into biofuels thanks to a breakthrough that converts plant molecules called lignin into liquid hydrocarbons.
The reaction reliably and efficiently turns the lignin in waste products such as sawdust into the chemical precursors of ethanol and biodiesel.

"For the first time, we have produced alkanes, the main component of gasoline and diesel, from lignin, and biomethanol becomes available," says Yan.

Impressively, the researchers' practical yields approached those theoretical ideals. They produced monomer yields of 45 wt% and dimer yields of 12 wt% – about twice what has previously been achieved.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Do you think this method will prove to be a beneficial alternative to other biofuels as well as oil?
-Why do you think it is so difficult to start production on an alternative fuel source that will be renewable and cheaper than current fuels?
-Do you think it necessary to be looking for alternative fuels?
-Is a "Mr. Fusion" only reserved for the movies or could it be real someday?

Do The Ends Justify The Means?

A London woman is carrying Great Britain's first baby guaranteed to be free of inherited breast cancer, but she had to eliminate several of her other embryonic offspring to do so.

Doctors used pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a controversial screening method, to determine which of the 11 embryos created by means of in vitro fertilization (IVF) had the gene that would have resulted in a female child having a 50 to 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer, according to The Times of London.

Six of the embryos tested positive for the gene and were rejected. Two embryos without the gene were implanted, producing a pregnancy of 14 weeks as of June 29. Two others were frozen, The Times reported.

The 27-year-old mother, who desires to remain anonymous, and her 28-year-old husband are fertile, but they chose IVF and PGD because of the prevalence of breast cancer on one side of the family. The husband had tested positive for the gene, known as BRCA-1.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Are embryos human?
-Morally is there anything wrong with what was done? Legally?
-What constitutes a human being?
-Should we be able to pick and choose our children?
-Is this justifiable in some scenarios but not others?
-If you were presented with this option (due to genetical tendencies) would you do it?
-Would you do this if no embroyos were harmed or killed?

Movie Rentals & Purchases Via The Playstation Store

I was reading through the user agreement for the new patch for the Playstation 3 and saw a section about three fourths of the way through that discussed movie rentals and purchases in both standard definition and high definition. After reading through it and finding nothing questionable I turned on the playstation and downloaded the new update. The store now has a video section where you can rent or buy movies and tv shows both current and classic by the season. The prices are no different than going to blockbuster. I am unsure what rights you have if your hard drive crashes or you lose your purchased content. It was not spelled out in the user agreement if you could download again by showing proof of purchase or if it was just your loss.

Regardless, if the content selection continues to grow I don't know if I see a reason to visit Blockbuster anytime soon (I rent maybe once a month). And those who own xbox 360's have been given the ability to download Netflix rentals, there may not be much of a future for walk-in movie rental stores.

Also, if anybody is considering moving up to BluRay, I would urge you to consider a Playstation 3. I bought mine so I could watch my high definition video that I filmed, but after buying it, I realized it was also useful as a media reciever by setting up a media server on my computer (check a box in windows media player) and for watching bluray movies, listening to music through my home theatre via mp3 and wma's, surfing the web on the tv, video conferencing with anybody else who owns one (all of these things are free by the way) and if you are into games, you can also play those on it.

The Day Cancer Died

A cancer patient has made a full recovery after being injected with billions of his own immune cells in the first case of its kind, doctors have disclosed.

The 52-year-old, who was suffering from advanced skin cancer, was free from tumours within eight weeks of undergoing the procedure.

The case could be a landmark in cancer treatment

After two years he is still free from the disease which had spread to his lymph nodes and one of his lungs.Doctors took cells from the man's own defence system that were found to attack the cancer cells best, cloned them and injected back into his body, in a process known as "immunotherapy". After two years he is still free from the disease which had spread to his lymph nodes and one of his lungs.

Experts said that the case could mark a landmark in the treatment of cancer.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Would you be opposed to this type of treatment?
-What are your thoughts concerning cloning cells?
-Do you see hope in this treatment?
-Are there any ethical "red flags" attached to such a treatment?

Google Gulp

At Google our mission is to organize the world's information and make it useful and accessible to our users. But any piece of information's usefulness derives, to a depressing degree, from the cognitive ability of the user who's using it. That's why we're pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.

The privacy statement:

From time to time, in order to improve Google Gulp's usefulness for our users, Google Gulp will send packets of data related to your usage of this product from a wireless transmitter embedded in the base of your Google Gulp bottle to the GulpPlex™, a heavily guarded, massively parallel server farm whose location is known only to Eric Schmidt, who carries its GPS coordinates on a 64-bit-encrypted smart card locked in a stainless-steel briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist. No personally identifiable information of any kind related to your consumption of Google Gulp or any other current or future Google Foods product will ever be given, sold, bartered, auctioned off, tossed into a late-night poker pot, or otherwise transferred in any way to any untrustworthy third party, ever, we swear. See our Privacy Policy.

If anyone needs any Gulp caps, let me know.

You can read more here.

St. Louis Over Memorial Day Weekend

Over Memorial Day my wife and I went with another couple to St. Louis and spent the weekend. It was a great time. We stayed downtown with a great view from our 15th floor room overlooking the Arch; right across the hall on the other side you could see the new stadium built for the Cardinals. Needless to say, the hotel was in a great location.

Our plan was to not be rushed and feel bound to an itinerary, so we had a few places we wanted to visit and anything else was bonus. We got in Friday night/Saturday morning and went to bed and spent all of Saturday at Six Flags St. Louis. If you are planning on going, I recommend looking online for tickets as you are almost guaranteed to get them cheaper anywhere other than the park. We stopped Friday night in Cape Girardeau to pick up some at Schnuck’s but the “Courtesy Desk” was closed and no one could get us tickets until 7.30am the next morning. The next day before leaving the hotel we printed off some from SixFlags.com and gained admittance for what was normally a child’s fare.

Six Flags was great. Roller coasters in general are great. The Boss, a wooden roller coaster, is at the top of my list (and in the top 5 in the nation for wooden roller coasters). We stayed until the park closed and headed back to the hotel to turn in for sleep.

The next day we spent some time at Forest Park, at the Science Center, the Jewel Box, and the Zoo and topped it off with a great dinner at a local restaurant downtown. We saw some amazing things at all of these places and I will post a link on this post at some point in the near future to show off some of the things we saw- just can’t do it today.

Then on Monday we left out and went to the Botanical Gardens and The City Museum. The Botanical Gardens really make you pause to think on the creativity of our God. It is a great, peaceful place that is nothing short of beautiful. Finally, before we left for home, we spent the last two hours of our trip at The City Museum. We did not bring any cameras [I think you can see why] in except for my phone with which I snapped the photos above. This place has been around for 10 years, housed in an old 7 story factory building, and everything in it came from the St. Louis area (including all of the art and items used to construct it). And, don’t let the name fool you, it is not your typical museum. This place was like a giant playground where nothing was off limits (by that I mean you can interact however you wish with whatever is there). They had giant ball pits, a humongous “monkey bar’ set (if you can even call it that) as well as a cave system, giant slides, tunnels, an aquarium, tube systems, as well as art intertwined with the design of the setup. It was the icing on the cake of our trip. If you have ever went to a fast food restaurant and wanted to play on the playground equipment but you were too old and too tall, this is a great place to fulfill that desire! It will be on my list of to do’s when I go back to St. Louis.

So, what did you do over Memorial Day weekend?

***Click the picture below to see the other pictures I said I would post***

Can You Hear Me Now?

Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems, according to authoritative research.

A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Do you put any stock in this survey? If not, why?
-Will this alter your mobile usage if you are pregnant (or when you become pregnant)?
-Will you allow your children to talk on the mobile before the age of 7?
-Do you think studies like this prove anything? (the egg is good for you/the egg is bad for you...)
-Have you thought about giving your child a mobile? Have your thoughts changed after reading this?
-How do you think a mobile can produce such results?

Parody Based On Probability

This is probably what happens when we assume too much.

Lesson Learned: Don't Steal Macs!

A remote-desktop access feature found in some Macintoshes is being credited with leading police to two suspects in the burglary of an apartment in New York.

The feature allowed Duplaga to see immediately how the computer was being used at the time, as well as operate it remotely. Recalling that she had a camera installed on the computer, the fast-thinking Duplaga snapped images of one of the burglary suspects before he realized what was happening, according to the Times. Duplaga showed the image to friends, who recognized the suspect as someone who attended a party at the apartment.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Would you have thought to use this feature?
-If Apple can provide remote access to a Mac, IP agnostically mind you, why can't a PC natively do this?
-Do you think the police would have pursued it had it been a 10 dollar flash drive? A iPhone? A Dell? At what point does the item lose the ability to be pursued by authorities due to its worth?

Facebook: Do You Use It?

Changes are coming at the end of May according to Facebook insiders. A new look and new "tricks" are opening up for developers.

Here is a screenshot:



You can read more here.

Ever wonder what they do with all that information you plug into Facebook? Well, somebody did and they drew up a conspiracy theory; who knows, maybe it is the truth.

Here is their theory:



Some questions:
-Do you use Facebook?
-If you watched the video, does that make you less inclined to use it?
-Do you install any of the 3rd party applications?
-Do you use Myspace?
-What was the draw to using Facebook or Myspace?

Diabetes? Put That Needle Away

"It has been a Holy Grail, not only to deliver insulin orally, but also other drugs that can [only] be taken by injection," Peppas says. With colleagues he has now developed a pill they hope will make that possible.

The team created a new water-based gel using nanoparticles of two polymers. When formed into particles around 100 nanometres across and combined with water, the polymers form a flexible hydrogel that can soak up insulin.

In lab tests, insulin-loaded gel was subjected to conditions simulating the passage through the stomach and into the gut. It was able to cope with acidic stomach-like conditions for an hour, barely leaking any insulin.

When put into less acidic conditions like those found in the intestines, the the polymer chains changed shape to make the hydrogel swell and release its payload.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-If you're diabetic type I, do you look forward to the day when you will no longer have to jab yourself?
-Does it suprise you that India and China surpass the US in the number of diabetes cases?
-Why do you think that diabetes carries a "less-than-urgent warning", if you will, than say some of the other diseases that affect human life spans?
-Does diabetes run in your family? If so, what are you doing to ensure you do not fall victim to it (given that we are talking about type II)?