Buzz Out Loud 861: Ice blue and the hot breaths

We've got a host of Black Friday news today, like Apple retail stores matching online promotions; Sony still refuses to lower the price on the PS3, but they will let you get a PlayStation credit card and a $150 discount (along with whopping interest rates, of course, so pay that sucker off right away, mmkay?); and Nintendo has a couple of new DS Lite bundles on offer instead of the DSi. At least one of them comes in ICE BLUE.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 861

Apple retail stores will match reseller prices
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10107987-37.html

Use the new PlayStation Visa, get $150 off purchase of PS3
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/25/use-the-new-playstation-visa-get-150-off-purchase-of-ps3/

Nintendo hunkers down for Black Friday
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/9294-nintendo-hunkers-down-for-black-friday/

Sling opens up its Hulu competitor to the public
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/25/sling-opens-up-its-hulu-competitor-to-the-public/

U.K. agency bans ‘really fast’ iPhone ad
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10108679-37.html

Digital sales surpass CDs at Atlantic
http://news.cnet.com/Digital-sales-surpass-CDs-at-Atlantic/2100-1027_3-6248057.html

Gmail ‘vulnerability’ turns out to be phishing scam
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10108529-83.html

Google admits breaking App Store rules
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10108348-37.html

Microsoft ranked fifth worst spam service ISP
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10108283-83.html

90 percent of gaming-addiction patients not addicted
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7746471.stm

VOICE MAIL
Dave from New Jersey: BlackBerry Friday

Anon: PeekYou

E-MAIL
Leave it to the Swedes:

http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/11/14/the-worlds-most-super-designed-data-center-fit-for-a-james-bond-villain/

Keith

**********

Hey JaMoTo+1,

This is Kumar from Hong Kong. I’m just writing in about Episode 859 where you mentioned that Felicia Day’s show The Guild was paid show. In fact, the first season of The Guild is available for free on YouTube, and the first episode of the second season was just released, and is now available at MSN Video (and Xbox Live/Zune Whatever-it’s-called, obviously). You can get all the links at watchtheguild.com.

Also, someone asked why it wasn’t available as a podcast. While it isn’t officially a podcast, there is a website (www.rsshandler.com) that converts YouTube channels to video podcast feeds. Pretty nifty, huh? It’s come in handy for me many times (I use it for Season 1 of the Guild, the official Monty Python channel, the official PotterCast channel, and more).

Cheers,
Kumar

P.S.: Is there a way to send you guys voicemail through Skype or something of the sort? Or how about sending an mp3 through email? The US telephone number isn’t of much use down here in Hong Kong.

**********

Hey Buzzers,

I vote for the immediate establishment of the Association for Creation of Reliable Obfuscated Naming for Your Meaningless Subcommittee aka ACRONYMS

I wonder if I can get hold of the acronyms.gov? I'll let you know how that goes

Dave the Software Engineer
Ireland

**********

The government department charged with creating names like “SAFER”, “PATRIOT”, “CANSPAM”, etc. is the “American Central Research Office
(for) Names Yielding Mnemonics.”

Simon

**********

Dear Buzz Crew, or JaMoTo as the case may be : )

I’m writing you concerning the verdict in the Amero Case. I’m the Technology Coordinator / IT Admin for the Clarendon Public School District in Clarendon, AR. I am absolutely disgusted and in shock that this case was even brought to court in the first place. The ones who should be paying fines, and more appropriately being tossed out on their collective asses, are the police computer “expert” and the school tech guy. They lied in court and proceeded to make several errors and mistakes when talking about internet technology. Stories like this make me want to be like the old South Western Bell Telephone: Reach out and “touch” someone. And by touch, I mean slap the holy crap out of. I feel really bad for this poor woman. I know her health is not good, but I’d find me a good lawyer who understands the tech and sue the living pants off of the idiot cop, the tech guy, and the district.

I have had a few cases where I’ve found porn on systems and porn on the browser cache, but they have all been linked to spyware that has infested the machine. The source is usually from software such as “free” screensavers that the teachers bring from home via thumb drives and install on their teacher computer. I also see a lot from botched installs of Limewire, Frostwire, Aires, Bear Share, etc. They can install all the major file sharing apps they want. My school side firewall and the DIS side filtering system won’t let them work. Simple, but effective.

I manage a Novell (Suse Enterprise Linux w/ Novell Open Enterprise Server) network and right at 300 computer systems. We have a hardware firewall at each campus, a site license with Grisoft for our AV, Firefox w/ Adblock as the default browser, and we are behind the AR Department of Information Systems 8E6 filtering system. I use several free tools to manage malware infections when they happen.

My point is this. Even with the very good protection that the state’s filter system, our firewall, and AVG provide for us, I still get porn pop-up and malware issues that happen. I do not care how much hardware and software protection you throw at it, if you have a large network, you will have issues. Period. End of Story. Add kids on computers to the mix and your risk goes way up. If you want to have and impervious system, I have a very simple solution. Unplug the network cable. Until you are ready for that day, at least hire some people with more than a brain stem to run your network.

I cannot guarantee that as of right now every machine on my network is updated with the latest patches and AV updates. But I can guarantee that none of our systems are more than two months behind. It boggles my mind to think of the problems that the Kelly Middle School faces now if the same idiots still run the network.

Sincerely,

Brent Cannon

**********

I’m a teacher.

Not only should Julie Amero go after the IT department in her former district. I think the whole commuity needs get up in arms about the huge waste of money persecuting this poor woman. They need to impeach/fire the DA, the head of the police department that arrested her. The cops and DA’s office should have laughed in the district officials faces - and if the district pushed it they should have been arrested for filing false charges.

I’m am disturbed by the fact she didn’t know how to turn off the monitor. I teach technology to students K - 5 all of them know how to turn off the monitor. SOP for hitting an inappropriate website is turn off monitor, tell an adult, the adult gets you out of the site and checks what you were doing just before. If the student was acting within the rules - a note goes home to the parents explaining that a site was accidentally accessed and has been turned into IT to be blocked. If the student acted outside the rules - well they don’t report the bad site unless they get caught (My classroom is set up so I can see all the screens easily). Those I find by checking histories on the computers.

In the last 4 years, I have had 2 or 3 kids a year accidentally access inappropriate sites usually while doing research on cancer, the Civil Rights Movement or the Civil War.

Love the show,
Kimberly a Texas Teacher