Buzz Out Loud Podcast

EPISODE 800

Apple Store in Hawaii still not open
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/db/2008/08/23/hawaiian-spirits-dictate-storefront-materials/

Meet Chrome, Google’s shiny new browser
http://news.cnet.com/Meet-Chrome%2C-Googles-shiny-new-browser/2009-1032_3-6246210.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10030025-2.html
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-02-n72.html

Apple makes September 9 iPod event official
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10030344-37.html

Is Cuil killing Web sites?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/is-cuil-killing-websites/

IE8 Beta 2 fatter than Firefox and XP
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/09/02/1418252.shtml

Lenovo won’t refund the Windows tax without an NDA
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080831-lenovo-wont-refund-the-windows-tax-without-an-nda.html

Spore to finally appear later this week
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/02/spore-finally-appear-later
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122031227102788791.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Nokia ‘Comes With Music’ to offer ‘Free’ music to cell phone subscribers
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/nokia-comes-wit.html

Ultrasound to give feel to games
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7593444.stm

Is technology making it harder to be unfaithful?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10029985-71.html

Shower TV!
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/02/sony-floats-waterproof-bravia-xdv-w600-1-seg-tv-for-the-bath/

VOICE MAIL

Jim from London
About bandwidth caps.

Bill
An example of an album as a single file.

E-MAIL

Josh Denver wasn’t very far off, in fact BMW developed a racecar that runs on the same principal. It was super fast setting 9 speed records and its only byproduct was water. It was called the BMW H2R. Here is the the Wikipedia article link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_H2R

Google it if you have any other questions

Comcast’s limits:

Take 250GB and divide by thirty (8.3GB daily cap), 347MB hourly cap, 5.7 meg per minute, and 96k per second. The key question is, “What applications do I run that consume 100kpbs per second?” In a family of five, here’s the math:

Son 8 - Club Penguin
Daughter 11- Homework, AIM chat
Daughter 4 - iTunes video
Wife - Web browsing/online chat, Internet radio
Me - Buzz out Loud, Skype, Adium, Transmission, Slingbox, Pandora

OK, maybe we ought to switch off our router at night… that would double our numbers, but let’s face it, the real problem is if you need to run something that persistently consumes bandwidth: Torrents & Persistent Music & Video connections are still the big issue. Who’s kidding who?

Glad I’m on Time Warner...so far, we’re safe, for another five minutes. Even so, I know we all know they’re shaping our traffic, it’s just a matter of how sneaky they are at it.

Love the show,

Ernest

I am sure that this is beat to death but I am one of the few who may be affected by this new cap. My husbands employer just allowed him to work at home as a software developer. He VPNs everyday for 8-to-9 hours into his works network. I myself work from home as a writer for a daily news blog and maintain a personal blog where I upload pictures and videos daily. My husband and I do online gaming at night, watch Hulu, just browsing, and so on. My children are home schooled and we use an online learning program and lots of Web sites as educational resources. We even use VoIP for our phone! We pay for the most expensive Comcast plan at $75/month. It was advertised as a “gaming and entertainment plan”. So much for that. If we get booted from Comcast our only choice is 1.5MB DSL thru Fairpoint. Sounds ridiculous but we may have to buy a new house just to get the Internet we need.

-kate

Hey JaMoTo,

Quick update on your analysts site, I settled with NTT DoCoMo. After having a few e-mail discussions with DoCoMo, they eventually told me it was a mistake to send me that e-mail, and the person who sent the e-mail misunderstood what causes infringement on there copyright! Also you can now access the site from a new URL, Jamotoanalysts Dot Com. Plus the first press release comes out wednesday!

-Hayden

August 31, 1998, is when the very first mp3 player was available:

http://www.teamteabag.com/2008/08/31/retro-computing-corner-the-worlds-first-mp3-player-c-1998/

The mp3 player is now a decade old!

Hi Crew,

Regarding Lloyds "password" saga (BOL 799)--it isn't actually a password, it is a "secret word".

Amongst the many joys of the British banking system, any call to customer service will involve (after a 20 minute wait and multiple choice questions) providing such information as age, date of birth, inside trouser (pant?) measurement, and so on, and finally the Secret Word.

From this word you are asked to provide, for example, the first and third letter--all this is to supposedly prove you are you and no one else, said word is not part of any login system and is purely for human consumption.

Finally--Top Gear and the i-pod pronunciation, that is just James May aka Captain Slow, he has made it into the 21st Century, but only just.

Regards

Mike Lumley
Torquay U.K.

While listening to episode 797 the superbug of piracy, you guys were talking about spreading the rumor about The Beatles coming to itunes September 9, well I just wanted to let that the other day at work (I work at Best Buy…… yeah Best Buy, who buy the way are proud sponsors of CNET TV just wanted to throw that in there). I informed a friend of mine (who is also a BOL fan), that The Beatles were coming to itunes September 9 and he was all like REALLY!!!!!!!!! (all excite) and I was like no….. it’s just a rumor that Molly and the guys from BOL are spreading, and he than just started laughing, than later in the day when I was sitting in the lunch room talking with a bunch of other staff, Pat walked in and said “So Nicole did you hear that The Beatles are coming to iTunes September 9” everyone in the room was like really…….and I was like ya didn’t you hear. It was a super funny moment anyways LOVE THE SHOW.

Nicole Drummond
just another BOL fan

EPISODE 799

Comcast puts a cap on Net usage
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2008/08/25/daily35.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10028506-2.html
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-comcast-to-roll-out-monthly-usage-cap/

Kaminsky DNS bug claimed fixed by 1-character patch
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/29/127210

Microsoft warns of IE8 lock-in with XP SP3
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9113739

No new Kindle this year
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007628.html

Yahoo kills their social network
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10028716-36.html

Psychologist invents new uber-wiki
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/29/mememoir_uber_wiki_announced/

Android developer challenge winners announced
http://code.google.com/android/adc_gallery/

Alphabet decides who gets most spam
http://www.pcworld.com/article/150464/alphabet_decides_who_gets_most_spam.html

Coca-Cola readying 100-flavor soda fountains
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/29/coca-cola-readying-100-flavor-soda-fountains/

Voice mail

Camilla
Rant of the week.

Josh Denver
So… About the hydrogen…. Seriously.

RogueTess
Why water is different than OS X

E-mail

Hey Guys,

About the story in 798 - artists not selling their music on iTunes because of lack of an album only option - I disagree with the stance that this purely the record labels trying to exert more control. In the Ars Technica piece you will notice the it says Kid Rock decided to pull out of iTunes not his label. I’m assuming that this decision is because it’s a concept record, which is something of a lost art these days.

I work on three music projects in which I write, produce, and release all the music myself through Tunecore. While I love the service and it’s very convenient to release to iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and others, I find it to be a rather frustrating process to figure how to release our music in that i write in terms of a concept album and to break it up is difficult decision to make because you feel like you are putting something out there that is out of context. What ultimately I decided to do is to use iTunes to release compilations containing songs from all three projects and use Amazon mp3 the sell them as an album only, as you failed to mention or you didn’t know Amazon does offer this option.

I leave you with this if Pink Floyd released the The Wall today would have gained as much acclaim, attention and influence on later bands as it did in 1980 when it was released or would be just about Another Brick in The Wall and Comfortably Numb.

Great show.

Eric - DC, Soon to be back in Austin

**********

Buzz clique,

It appears in episode 798 you have finally addressed one of the fundamental issues that have divided our two nations for decades. I thought I’d set you straight as to what the deal with ‘pants’ is.

There’s a reason why pants is a British adjective for something that is not good. This is because when we use the word pants we don’t think of a pair of well cut, nice fitting khakis from Gap, but rather a pair of sweaty, skid marked, discarded undercrackers.

The American use of pants in place of trousers has always bothered me slightly, but not as much as the over pronunciation of the letter I. I will not be going to EYEraq, taking antEYE-depressants or installing Norton AntEYE-virus. Pretty sure you guys aren’t guilty of this one though. Right on, and more power to you.

Love the show, and what the frack is a Kindle?

Greg, London

P.S. Caprica? WICKED!

**********

Buzz Fellows,

I simply cannot believe that the circumstances behind the situation of the Pants story (from episode 798) exist at all! Everyone knows (or, apperantly they don’t!) that you never, ever store customer’s actual (plain-text) passwords ANYWHERE.

The standard practice is to use a Hashing algorithm to create a unique and one-way translation of the user’s password into a key. This key cannot be reverse engineered to obtain the original password, but the same password will always generate the same key. So, when you store or check a user’s password, you hash whatever they enter and compare the key to the key you have in your database.

If you store plain-text passwords, as Lloyds TSB clearly does, then you run the HUGE security risk of providing a malicious attacker with thousands of users’ real passwords, which could be used immediately to log into their accounts. This is all a story within itself BEFORE we even get to the fact that someone felt the need to change a user’s password!

When I read “In these cases an advisor can read the full password.”, I nearly had a heart attack.

~EndangeredMassa

**********

hey buzz crew

i have been waiting to hear about a solution to the firefox flash video issue, as it affects me all the time!
i mostly have 15-20 tabs open when browsing.. maybe that does have something to do with it?

in the mean time, i’ve found that i can watch flash video in firefox ( 2 / 3 ) without the issues by using the ‘ietab’ extension

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

So, everyone can use this while they wait for adobe and mozilla to work it out!

Cheers

Aladar

**********

I was the person who created the JaMoTo Analysts site. I don’t know if you noticed, but the logo I used was the NTT DoCoMo (The Japanese cell phone carrier) logo, I changed the logo around a little bit and added some effects, but the next day I got an email form DoCoMo asking from me to take down the logo! I don’t even know how they saw the page so fast! The email said that the DoCoMo logo is there property and that it should not be used or altered at all, and that if I don’t take down the logo it could lead to quote “LEGAL ACTION”! My first thought was to take down the logo, but should I? Do I have the right to use a heavly altered logo on the site. I have no intention of making money off the site, I am not selling a product or anything. I have no idea what to do!

-Hayden

We're joined today by special guest Wil Harris from ChannelFlip.com, in what he chooses to call "British Invasion" and we choose to call "extremely welcome third voice." In the news today, MobileMe accounts are extended again, free beta style (hint hint), Muxtape bites the dust (temporarily?), and Bigfoot turns out to be a rubber costume. Astonishing.

EPISODE 791

Episode 791

Apple extends MobileMe accounts--again
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10019909-37.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9715

Google tops among search sites for customer satisfaction
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10019621-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Apple customer satisfaction scores gain
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/20080819/tc_cnet/83011357931001971137

Vendors add features to Windows that Microsoft should have thought of
http://www.pcworld.com/article/149896/vendors_rally_while_windows_sleeps.html

One third of new PCs downgraded to XP?
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/08/18/2016228.shtml

Muxtape shut down by RIAA?
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/muxtape-shut-down-by-riaa

FCC commissioners will hit the road to tout DTV transition
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080818-fcc-will-go-on-the-road-with-dtv-transition.html

Apple releases iPhone firmware update, 3G fix?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10019471-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Entire Olympics built of Lego
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1046255/On-marks-set-Lego-Welcome-Olympics-everyones-quick-blocks.html

Bigfoot body revealed to be Halloween costume
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,406101,00.html

E-MAIL

Hey Buzz Crew,

This is Sperling, the digital cinema product manager. On episode 789 you mentioned that the release date of the next Harry Potter film, due out November 21, had been pushed back into next year. In the story, Warner Bros. seemed to be faulting the recent writer’s strike as having altered the competitive release date landscape and the reason for the date change. While this is no doubt true, it is more likely issues with their own releases that caused the date change.

Scheduled for release around the original date are big name titles such as Australia, Benjamin Button, Madagascar 2 and the next Bond film, Quantum of Solace. But let’s face it, Harry Potter has such a large built-in audience that it can guarantee a healthy opening in which the film tops the box office for at least the first week, if not two. What is more likely the issue is that Warner Bros., having folded New Line Cinema and Warner Independent Pictures into the main studio, simply has too many films to release between now and the holiday season. Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein recently covered this in one of his columns:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2008/08/warners-films-m.html

Of course, there is always the absurd theory Roger Friedman has pegged as the reason for the delay--that Daniel Radcliff, the actor playing Harry Potter, will be in the midst of starring a in a highly publicized Broadway play in November, Equus. Radcliffe will appear naked in the play and have simulated sex on stage, and Friedman’s theory is this is not the image Warner Bros. wants associated with Harry Potter:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404681,00.html

As always, love the show.

Regards,
J. Sperling Reich

—

Hello JaMoTo,

Yes, I just told you about my netflix experience. However, I just saw
an article that claims that the outage shows why disks deserve to die.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/08/netflix-outage.html

I think the only thing the outage showed was how vulnerable computers
still are. And if anything, streaming service computers are MORE
vulnerable to outages. Besides, at the moment, I still like the disks.
While I have 8Mbs download, streaming services don’t always work well on
it. I think the Net, as a whole, needs to improve, possibly by moving to
IPv6, before we can have EVERYONE streaming movies rather than just a few.

—

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold the phone…

You guys reported on episode 790 that Toshiba is going to be selling “upconverting” DVD players. That’s great, I guess. But I was just wondering, are those really upscaling DVD players, or just the leftover, repackaged stock of HD-DVD players with a firmware update? If I remember correctly, the HD-DVD players did the upconverting thing already.

Hey, I’m not complaining; in fact I applaud their ingenuity. Why waste the millions you’ve already spent by throwing away manufactured goods when you can update the product’s software, slap a new label on it, and sell it at a slightly higher cost than when it became obsolete? And you get to do it all whilst undermining the competition’s entire advertising campaign (or lack thereof)! If nothing else, it’s environmentally friendly.

Love the show!
J-2 in Maryland

—

I’m a week behind but had to e-mail you about your text-messaging air
traffic controller.
I have been a controller 20 years in the U.S. Sorry we can’t
duplicate this task, you are on your own.
Two years ago the FAA imposed what they call a contract (we call it
imposed work rules) and it forbid electronic devices in control rooms
and towers. This includes cell phones.
This despite the fact that controllers facing communication failures
in the past have used personal cell phones to contact adjacent
facilities.

Mike in New Hampshire,
Sent from my iPhone

By average people we mean, mean people. As we have learned that mean and average are indubitably the same thing. However, we also learned on today's show that men are from Redmond and women are from Cupertino. That and a lot of news that actually isn't about the iPhone. Though we covered that to.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 763

iPhone 2.0 software available for download
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9987221-93.html
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/10/iphone-2-0-firmware-5a347-available-early/

Apple launches new iTunes with App Store
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9987100-93.html

It’s iPhone 3G tear-down time
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/10/its-iphone-3g-tear-down-time/

The 'fake' Steve Jobs is giving up parody blog
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/technology/10blog.html?adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1215702150-UNTJCPwFu1gjpl/S10F3UA

Pirate Bay wants total network encryption, but does anyone else?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080709-pirate-bay-wants-total-network-encryption-but-does-anyone-else.html
http://newteevee.com/2008/07/09/the-pirate-bay-wants-to-encrypt-the-entire-internet/

Comcast, Vonage collaborate on network management
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9986719-7.html

Windows XP a hot item on Amazon
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9986916-56.html

Yahoo Games shifts to free games in alliance with two game ad start-ups
http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/10/yahoo-games-shifts-to-free-games-in-alliance-with-two-game-ad-start-ups/

Women more frustrated by the Web?
http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=318

Workplace BlackBerry use may spur lawsuits
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25586129

Google open sources browser sync
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/10/0337211

VOICE MAIL

Richard
How to pronounce Koppelverkoop

Wouter
Or do you pronounce it this way?

David
Want a cheap iPhone?

Anonymous
Make joke.

E-MAIL

This is a little bizarre. Donald Knuth, one of the greatest programmers of all time, doesn’t use email. Weirder yet, Richard Stallman, found of GNU, doesn’t use the web, except through Lynx (a text based browser).

http://io9.com/5022824/the-ones-who-disappear

Love the show.

Joe
aka dOgBOi

Hello Tom, Jason, and (hopefuly Caroline McCarthy),

What do you think? Is the iPhone the new RAZR? Is it the super cool phone that will turn into the phone even your grandma has?

I would like to wait for the Xperia X1. However, since I’m not Tom and I don’t have a monthly budget for cool new gadgets, I will have to see if I can afford it. In that case, I would go for the Apple iRAZR.

Love the show,
Bernardo

Awwwwwww = how sweet

…but ya do it with a great accent.

This is Tracy and I am still a guy dernit… the guy that always calls in and owns the Comcast-proof dogs.

I’m getting married (to a girl - even though it will be in CA) in Saint Helena next week and will be in S.F. the end of next week so don’t make me come down there.

Tracy
Guy
Atlanta

Hi BOLers,

I had the same problem as Evan with ZoneAlarm after updating Windows yesterday. While the glitch is annoying, it’s relatively easy to fix… I just had to reinstall ZoneAlarm so that it could redetect Windows’ Internet settings. Pain in the butt, yes… but I’m not ready to jump on the antitrust train with this one…

Love the show.

Mike from Columbus, Ohio

As the two linked articles stated, the Microsoft update apparently broke ZoneAlarm. It did not break all third-party firewalls. I use Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall, and the Microsoft update did not break it. I was running just fine after the installation.

Larry in New Mexico

Hey BuzzCrew-
In reference to the Dvd copying you were talking about in episode 762, here’s what I do. I am subscribed to Netflix and when I get the DVDs in the mail I rip them to my hard drive. Not because I want to keep them, but because then I can watch them when I have time and still send back the movies to Netflix. This makes the turn around rate for the Netflix movies worth the monthly fee. I get the movies in the mail at 11 a.m., rip them, then bring the movies to the city mail boxes by 5 p.m. Netflix gets them the next day.

Love the show

Trey
Walton, NY

BOL,

Thanks for reporting on the 3G iPhone release, you caused me to forget my wife’s birthday. All this talk about the BIG DAY being 7/11 has completely overshadowed an even bigger day in my puny little mind.

My wife was born on 7/8. Though, this year, I was convinced that her birthday was 7/11, until i walked into the house yesterday and she was dressed up to go out. “Where are you going?” I asked. She responded, “I’m taking myself out for my BIRTHDAY.”

By the time I came too, all was lost. I just curled my tail up and walked directly to the doghouse.

Thanks BOL,
Mark from Virginia

At least in Taiwan, the Linux version of the Asus Eee PC is very popular among housewives and students. Meanwhile geeks want the Windows XP version. Also on the show today Microsoft finally declares war on Apple's advertisements, and an Xbox 360 price cut may be coming as early as Sunday. Oh and there was something about the iPhone. Apparently people are excited about it.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 762

Apparently, one third of us have been copying DVDs!
http://www.cnet.com/8301-17914_1-9985794-89.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080708-breaking-the-law-one-third-of-us-residents-rip-dvds.html

Xbox 360 price cut coming July 13
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9985383-7.html

Wal-Mart spreadsheet claims 40GB PS3 “will be replaced” in August
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/09/wal-mart-spreadsheet-claims-40gb-ps3-will-be-replaced-in-augus/

Microsoft admits Windows Vista mistakes, criticizes Apple ads
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208803153

Linux for housewives. XP for geeks.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=342

iPhone 3G reviews: It’s fast, hungry, and still pretty
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9986195-1.html

Belgian operator will sell iPhone simlock-free
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/09/belgium_will_sell_iphone_simlock_free/

iPhone wannabes or smart alternatives? You decide
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-9985925-94.html

Aussie device ‘could speed up Web 100 times’ (Thanks Wayne!)
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=594743

The travails of receiving digital TV broadcasts
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-9985562-61.html

Getty Images and Flickr announce exclusive partnership to offer new collection of creative imagery
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=320377
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/great-photo-on-flickr-getty-images-might-pay-you-for-it/

Skooba’s TSA-approved bag — for real this time
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/08/skoobas-tsa-approved-bag-for-real-this-time/

VOICE MAIL

Braden
Putting that 7 cents a kilobyte in perspective.

Bill Portland
Question about TrueCrypt

E-MAIL

Hey almost BOL crew (minus the ranty one) I just came accross this story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080709.wgtiphone0709/BNStory/Technology/home

Basically it says that Rogers is going to offer the 6GB(still not unlimited grr) plan for $30 instead of $100 from launch day until August 31. As of right now (12:30 ADT) there has been no update on the Rogers Web site or the infamous ruinediphone.com other that on the latter there is a link mentioning a video address later today. If this plan also includes the minutes included with the previously announced then this might be a pretty good deal. Still lame that it’s limited but a lot better….
Love the show
Justin the engineering student
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Tom, as much as i love the feature too, I gotta say the new feature in Gmail has a down side to it and it is the person who is in your Gmail account can log you off too. so while someone else is checking your mail and see that you sign in he/she can log you off. so maybe when the happens you need to be the faster person and log the other person off and change your password as quick as you can. Its going to be a war game between logging each other off. Yay Fun!

love the show
Manuel

Hey BOLers.

http://www.ubi.com/US/News/Info.aspx?nId=5336

This is Wayne the pixel fudger here in Quebec. I just thought I would share this with you. With this merger, there is going to be some serious realism infused into next-gen games. I worked at Hybride for 8 years on such projects as Sin City, 300, (and you favorite Tom & Molly….& Veronica) Snakes On A Plane. They do some very nice work there and with the emerging 3-D trend (insert groan here), Hybride is the logical choice for this kind of merger.

I know the owner of Hybride very well and I think with the extra cash from this deal, he’ll be able to afford Rogers’ iPhone price plan.

Heart the Show,

::Wayne B

Long time listener (via podcast), first time “caller.” I started my computer this morning to find that the Internet connection was unresponsive. As a loyal follower of the show, my first response was to blame Comcast, curse a little, and start to reset my cable connection. Eventually I traced the problem back to the Zonealarm firewall I have installed. It turns out that one of Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday updates crippled third party firewalls.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2221138/microsoft-fix-kills-web
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/07/09/ms_dns_patch_zonealarm_woes/

It appears that MS was making a legit DNS protocol update, but that they failed to tell software vendors building to their old system that it was going down. I smell antitrust if this lasts longer than a day and the Europeans catch the scent… oh well, off to uninstall Zonealarm and enable Windows Firewall (hey, it’s bundled after all).

Love the show, keep up the great work. All the best,

Evan
Washington, DC

AT&T employee here and I just got an email asking me to wait a few days before buying an iPhone so customers could have the opportunity to get theirs first.

awwwwwwww,

Tracy

No, not death, but close to it. The race is on for who has the most expensive iPhone plan in the world! Plus Microsoft finally gives us a date for XP SP3, sort of. And we have some security news for you as well as a recap of the digital TV transition. So listen up!
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 761

FAQ: iPhone 3G launch day is Friday
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9983810-37.html

iPhone Jonny: world’s first iPhone 3G owner (in waiting)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/08/iphone-jonny-worlds-first-iphone-3g-owner-in-waiting/

Spat with Rogers leaves Canadian Apple stores without iPhones
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/07/08/spat_with_rogers_leaves_canadian_apple_stores_without_iphones.html

Apple’s MobileMe service set to debut
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9985253-7.html

Microsoft hopes third time really is lucky with XP SP3 update
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/08/microsoft_xp_sp3_smb_server/

Civil rights groups hit panic button on DTV transition
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080707-civil-rights-groups-hit-panic-button-on-dtv-transition.html

Skooba makes with the pictures of TSA-friendly bags
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/08/skooba-makes-with-the-pictures-of-tsa-friendly-bags/

Google powers up users’ Gmail security arsenal
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9985264-36.html

TrueCrypt 6.0 Released
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/08/027220

Geeks get a word in with Merriam-Webster
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9985074-93.html

Kara's stories--Kids Tech camp--Obscura Digital
http://www.cnettv.com/

VOICE MAIL

Kevin Ontario
I called Rogers about the iPhone.

E-MAIL

Have any of the buzz crew seen the insane pricing plan for iPhone that Vodafone NZ have come out with?

$250 (about $190 USD) per month for 1GB of data. Over two year contract, you pay $6,000 ($4,550 USD) plus $199 for the phone.

Full insane info at http://www.vodafone.co.nz/iphone/plans.jsp

A good rant on a local tech forum… http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=40&TopicId=23717&page_no=7 is it cool to be first in the world to get the new iPhone? yes at that price? NO!!

Love the show , keep up the good work.

I recall reading a feature about Marissa Mayer in which she said that they thought about getting rid of the “I’m feeling lucky” button, but market research found that people love having it there even though fewer than one percent of all searches utilize it.

I can’t find the original story, but here’s a feature about it in the
Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100201277.html

Keep up the good work. Love the show!

Jason in Boston

I don’t actually use the button, but I do use the feature and so do you (probably). If you type some text into the Firefox (e.g learn html) and hit enter it will send you to the W3Schools site for HTML. This feature is powered by Google’s I’m Feeling Lucky. I also use it for Wikipedia quicksearchs because it will automatically apply any “Did you mean”s.

Love the show,
Michael from N.C.

In response to Molly’s question of if there’s anyone left in the United States that hasn’t had their identity stolen, I can safely answer that I have not. No one wants to be me--not the Russian Mafia, not hackers, not drug dealers. No one.

It’s a little depressing, really. Just like high school all over again.

Is it me?

Love the show

Anonymous

Hi guys,

Just so you know WiMax has been available in Ireland since 2006. A company called Irish broadband (setup in 2006) uses WiMax in it’s broadband with no wires offers. Just a WiMax reciever built into their routers and Wi-Fi and Ethernet out! It’s apparently dead simple to set up but their best home plan is 3MB per second (upload and download. Which is quite good in Ireland especially compared with my DSL (1Kbps upload 1MB download).

Love the show,

Eoghan(eoin) in Ireland

Episode 756

Save Windows XP
http://weblog.infoworld.com/save-xp/archives/2008/06/editors_blog_sa.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/30/BUDG11GE33.DTL

Google taps ‘Family Guy’ guy for Web series
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9980226-7.html

A movie on your TV at home, before you can rent it
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/technology/30sony.html

GoDaddy VP caught bidding against customers
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/29/0625249

Tech giants form group to buy patents
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9980343-7.html

Get a ticket, get a free gadget
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9979488-7.html

'Unprecedented pent-up demand' for Apple iPhone 3G, RBC says
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/unprecedented-demand-for-apple-iphone-3g

Princeton University to publish Kindle textbooks
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9979179-7.html

Your online profile actually tells a lot about you
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/30/0043232

Type in a song and make a free music link to share music with friends (Thanks Josh Lowehnson of CBS Interactive's Webware.com)
http://tinysong.com/

Voice Mail

Oscar
Tactic for the radio stations.

Bert
If you want to fix the .ocm issue now, here ya go.

E-mail

Dear Buzzards,

Just listening to Episode 755 was intrigued by the the Dual-display e-
book concept. I think in order to make it a more realistic reading
experience, a finger swipe should only flip the page 50 percent of the
time unless you make use of a moisture sensor which you can activate
by licking your finger prior to swiping. Just trying to add to the
reading experience….infatuated with the show.

Andy the Microbiologist

**********

Hi

In Norway there is no such thing as “Unlimited calls” or “Unlimited
bandwith” unless actually unlimited.

The closest thing is a company called “TalkMore” with the slogan “Call
basically as much as you want”--not exactly how an American company
would have put it--And in plain text it says below “Limited upwards
to 3,000 minutes per month”

Using the name “Unlimited bandwith” the way American companies do, is
actually illegal in Norway and looked upon as false marketing. I agree
with Molly on this; the States has some work to do on this.

Sincerely
Christian Knappskog

**********

Hey, Buzz Crew,

On Episode 754, you covered the story about British Telecom (BT)
threatening to cut off customers accused of sharing copyrighted material
in a cooperative agreement with BPI.

Just wondering if anyone else found it ironic that you followed this
story with one about Bruce Schnier who (according to his personal blog
at http://www.schneier.com/ ) is the Chief Security Technology Officer
at British Telecom (BT).

I just found it interesting.

Love the show.

Thanks,

Keith Albright
Quakertown, PA

There's no way we'd bait the International Olympic Committee like that, knowing how notoriously aggressive they are about controlling their content. They hardly want anyone to see it. That's why all the digital content is Vista only this year. Rimshot! In other news of the day, Nokia bought Symbian, leading analysts to predict everything from global market takeover to complete and utter destruction.

EPISODE 752

Nokia buys Symbian, turns software over to Symbian Foundation
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/24/nokia-buys-symbian/
http://news.cnet.com/Symbians-new-role-in-mobile-apps-drama/2009-1039_3-6242423.html
http://mashable.com/2008/06/24/nokia-acquires-symbian/

The high-tech job capital is the Big Apple?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/the-high-tech-job-capital-isthe-big-apple/

Microsoft pledges Windows XP support through 2014
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208800494

NBC Olympics on-the-go download service is Vista only
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080623-nbc-olympics-on-the-go-download-service-is-vista-only.html

Radio digital switchover proposed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7470460.stm

Co-founder shares surprises, letdowns, morsels from early Microsoft days
http://news.cnet.com/2009-1014_3-6242276.html

T-Mobile to prorate cell phone termination fees
http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208800463

New brief on DARPA’s Vulcan engine
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9975240-7.html

Voice mail

Kent
Nerd for hire or absence of joke?

FORUMS

Microsoft’s biggest blunder: Not fighting back vs. Apple
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6035_102-0.html?forumID=97&threadID=298968

E-mail

In episode 751, you discussed the merits of ICANN allowing the registration of TLDs. That got me thinking about Apple’s recent decision to change the name of .Mac to MobileMe. I find it ironic that just as Apple drops .Mac (the name never made sense to me anyway), ICANN might allow Apple to create a top-level domain of .mac. One positive note: we are spared the web address “www.apple.mac.”

Am more entertained by your tweets than the show (just kidding),
Shawn in Greeley, CO

**********

Just to let you know, the Apple Cinema Displays do not include a built-
in iSight. This is why old iSight cameras go for high prices on eBay.
The show is awesome!

Trev from Oz.

**********

First for all the angry google browser syncers out there is Mozilla Weave:
https://services.mozilla.com/

It is still in experimental stages but works quite well. I’ve used it
for several months now since switching off of Firefox 2. It is more
like Google Browser Sync than Foxmarks because it syncs bookmarks,
history, saved forms, etc

Lastly I thought you might find this interesting. Our family was chosen
to be a Nielsen Ratings family. So we signed all the paperwork and
sometime later they came out to install the monitoring devices. When
the installer started going over my TV setup, he told us that we could
not participate because I had my computer hooked up to the TV. (as an
auxiliary input) He said this would cause their monitoring device to
report incorrectly.

So if you have an unsupported device then you can not participate in
Nielsen Ratings. While they support devices like DVDs players, VCRs,
and game consoles, it sounds like they don’t support much else. It
seems to me that they are missing a big demographic then. Sounds like
everyone who owns a Windows Media Center, Apple TV, or other computer
like device may be looked over. Sorry techies but it looks like all our
favorite shows are destined to have bad ratings.

Paul from Houston