Firefox 3 Beta 1 passes Acid 2 test

(Firefox 2.0.0.10 (top) & Firefox 3 Beta 1)

On the 19th of this month Mozilla released Firefox 3 beta 1, Today i finely got around to downloading the binary for 10.4, doing what i always do after i download a new browser i headed over to put it thru the Acid2 test, and to my surprise it passed.

The Acid2 test is the bench mark for testing how well web browsers comply to standers, this is important because the better a broewer does on this test the better it will render the web page.

Firefox 3 will join a small club of browers that can pass the test, including Apples safari and the open source Konqueror.

Pointless comic

Daft punk One More Time/Aerodynamic Live @ Wireless Festival 2007

Can you tell i am a daft punk fan?

Daft Punk - HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER (Alive 2007)

WOO!!

Ncis is back on!

Life is good.

The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy

It seems every where I go there is a new way to pronounce “carbonated beverage”, some call it “pop” and yet some call it “soda”. To end the debate of which phosphate-naming camp has more followers, someone (who must have a LOT of time on his hands) decided to answer that question in the form on a web site.

It seems that 40% of those questioned prefer “pop” (boo!), 37% say “soda” and 16% say “coke”. What’s more interesting (or the only interesting part of this whole post) is the “other” Responses,
it seems that 24 people from Michigan think that

“Luigi is hotter than Mario”,

2 people from Texas are all like

“I, like, you know, when the servant, or whatever, comes to ask me why none of the 28 drinks they've already left, are like, you know, not good enough, I like say, but they don't have, you know, papaya extract with bioflavinoids, so I make them go find me some, because, you know, I am famous and important, and you know, it's their job to get me stuff.”

And 13 people from Pennsylvania think that

"Everyone in this argument is retarded”.

Texas results
totals

NBC is bringing American gladiators back.

If you are a fan of spandex, hair bands and the (decade that will never die) 80s then you are in luck because NBC is bringing back American gladiators. The worst show to span 1989-1996 is coming back as a 2008 mid season replacement!

Can’t they just let the 80s die?

This weird dream I had last night.

I sit on my bed watching TV I see a very odd looking man talking about how because of a nuclear arms agreement all of the worlds nuclear bombs and missiles where flown in to the sun. I fall back to sleep. (I hate when this happens in dreams.)

It’s now about 3 months later, December I think. Its cold and dark, I read a magazine. The whole thing is about how there is too much uranium in the sun, and how because of this the gravitational fields of the sun are way more powerful then it is supposed to be, and they think this might rip a part the earth. My last light bulb went out a few hours ago, the TV is the only illumination. There is nothing on but a few infomercials and a counter to zero hour, the time when the gravitational fields hit earth. Behind the counter they are showing people praying at the Vatican, Jerusalem, a Buddhist temple and a few other places but I don’t know where they are. The counter says its -0:37:45.

I leave my room, into my dimly lit house. I seem to be the only one home, I play with my dog, she is oblivious to what is going on and ignores me. I get something to drink and go back to my room, the counter says its -0:10:00.

Someone comes on the TV he looks tired, I wonder why he in particular is there, did he draw the short straw? Is his wife and kids there? I wonder what they think of all of this? My attention fades back in just in time to hear him say “I just got a fax from the white house, it says that at zero hour when the gravitational waves hit the earth to stay in your house. There will be earthquakes throughout the U.S. and the world, people in costal regions especially in the west cost need to take extra caution because of tsunamis.” The counter says its -0:03:08. “It just kinda goes on like that.” He said “it also says that the power will go off at about 1 minute before zero hour.”

The TV goes back the people praying, and I start reading my magazine.

About half way through something that looks like weird 3d glasses fell out, one side says “garavGLASSES” the other “put this on and you will see the gravitational waves as they hit the earth.” I doubt this but I put them on any way.

The power goes off it must be -0:01:00

I wonder what that mans kids are thinking. I go to the window to watch what happens, to my surprise I can see it all, it actually is waves. Seas of red and streams of blue. I take the glasses off and look out the window and I see tractors and other farm equipment flying into the air. I feel my house shake and float into the air about 50 or 60 feet, and then the nails and screws and other metal that where in my house must have gotten loose because I started falling back to the ground.

I must have hit my head falling because I blacked out.

I woke up a few days later, wondering why the earth was still intact and if I was the only one left. I decided to go into town to see if any one was there.

iPhone with out the Phone

if you recently bought a iPod or iPhone prepare to start throwing things and swearing at your computer.

Apple introduced today the iPod touch, which is destined to be on EVERY ONES Christmas list, and make every ATT hating iPhone user mad. because it is basically iPhone with out the Phone, comes in 8 or 16 gig, for $299 and $399 (new price of the 8 gig iPhone to) respectively. apple also re-branded the (old) iPod as the iPod classic, which comes in 80 and 120 (wooo!) gigs and is $249 and $349 (also) respectively.

I find all of incredibility funny because it seems that everyone i know just got a iPod this summer.

they are also coming out with a new fat looking, video playing nano, but i don't like nanos so i don't care.

Egosurfing

Ah, egosurfing (read: googleing yourself) you are the past time of board insomniacs and egotistical 12 year old muttonchop enthusiasts.

What new things do you have to tell me about myself? perhaps that i work for Alameda County Public Works Agency? or that i am in a new (presumably) "B" movie? maybe i am the Sr. ISV Channel Sales Manager at Oracle? Or that i am a dj in new jersey.

Or is it just that i need a life? Why do you hurt so egosurfing? Why?

I am sick of this 1/2 horse town.

I’m sick of this place, a town in which there is no public forum at all. No common sense, no intelligence, no activism, no political outrage, no public display of affection, no art, no graffiti, no love, no hate, only orthodoxy. Only what has always been.

I live in a town where if you don’t drive daddy’s pickup, have a 50” TV, new house, if your not in the FFA, boy scouts, the Klan meeting in hiding that is a country club, you are a outcast. Sub-human, not worth the air it takes to say your name.

I live in a town that has the dumbest city counsel, who got rid of the sports teams they didn’t like. Got rid of the auditoriums they didn’t like. Got rid of the employs they didn’t like.

I live in a town where the news paper, TV newscast and radio talk shows all praise city hall so hard it makes every one believe they are all paid off.

I live in a town where there is no nightlife, no music other then blue grass (they don’t call it the guitar factory for nothing).

I live in a town in where there is no industry other then agriculture, oil and medical. And with a city counsel that does nothing to attract emerging technological, entertainment and sports based companies its no wonder every one wants to move to east Texas or out of the state all together.

I live in the south plains of Texas where the above statements describe most of the towns surrounding Lubbock.
Where drugs, alcohol and STI’s run rampant. And where Conservatism overpowers free thought and speech.

If your thinking about moving here, don’t this place eats your soul.

Relaunch!

made you look!

software update

GIMPshop
want to try photoshop? don't want to pay $300 to learn that you suck at it? go and give GIMPshop a try.
GIMPshop which is a fork of the GIMP and that has a G.U.I. made to look like photoshop. it is open source, (i.e. free) and it runs on windows, osx, and Linux.

Vienna...
...is a open source rss/atom feed reader for osx, which is one of the best rss readers i have used on osx, it has an integrated tabbed web browser, can filter downloaded posts, and a lot more then im giveing credit for. but is (at least for now) osx only.

Better Browsing Part 1 "OpenDns"

dns in a nutshell is how you computer knows how to find a web site.

example: you want to go to "www.Google.com" but theres not a server named "Google" instead its "name" is a number called an ip address. your computer asks your isp's dns server for the ip address, the your computer (using it newly found ip address) connects to googles server. then loads the web page. (there is a bit more to it, but thats the basics.)

the problem is that most isp's dns servers are underpowered for the number of users they have
so you get (among others) timeout errors, the answer to this? OpenDns its (in most cases) faster, It blocks Phishing sites (as does Firefox), its easy to set up and its free.


how to set up OpenDns on:
Windows
Mac osx
Linux
or on you home network

This Weeks Project "howto rip cd's to you're computer the right way"

note: you will need iTunes 7.0 it you if do not have it already

This ones fairly easy but time consuming if you have a lot (30+) cds, thats why this is a week project.

step one: setting your settings.
open the settings page (on mac os x: iTunes>settings on windows: Tools>settings (i think)
you will want to set iTunes to to rip your cd's as mp3's, because almost (if not) all daps and phones play mp3's, plus there are a lot of software mp3 players on most operating systems.

set the quality to high, (160 kbps). because the more kilobytes per second you use the better the mp3 will sound.

click "get cd names from the internet" "use cd error correction" and "crate track names with nu mber", and then click ok.


step 2: riping you cd's
with iTunes open insert you're cd and wait for iTunes to get the track names. (if iTunes dosent do this for you then click "advanced>get track names) then click "import"

step 3: adding art work



Go To albumart.org and type in the name for the album you are looking for (in my case it was Relient K's opes Mmhmm) hit search and wait for the art to load, after you find it left click the picture and click on view image.

select EVERY song in the album (osx: cmd (apple logo) click, windows: control click) and right click the songs and click "get info" (This may be different on windows i'm not sure) then drag the art work from Firefox (or whatever you are using) to the settings window, click ok and your done.

quick note: yes i know iTunes 7 will get art for you but it will require you to sign up for the iTunes store, and will NOT embed the art into the id3 tag. (part of a mp3 that stores the track name, singer etc. etc.) so if you want to change media players (windows media, xmms, whatever) or if you get a mp3 player thats not an iPOD your art wont go with you.

helpful but not "necessary" step: making a "needs art playlist"
when you add the art work set the "user rating" to 5, then click on file>new smart playlist.
and set the rule to "user rating is more then" and click 0 and hit okay, name the playlist "needs art" and your done.

This week in software

all the things (maybe) will need for this weeks posts.

Firefox 2.0 [web browser]
Even if you have Firefox 1.0 or 1.5 (or not at all) you will need to upgrade to 2.0.
this will be for the weeks how-to "securing your internet".

and

iTunes 7.0 [media player](again if you have iTunes 5 or 6 you will need to upgrade)
this will be for this weeks project "riping your cds to you computer the right way".

you may or may not have them on your computer and you can use other programs, but the projects and how-to's will use these programs.
both are free and on osx and windows.

Things To Come

welcome to the first week of TECHblog! I'm still trying to figure out how every thing will work out as far as posting is concerned, however heres what to expect for this week.

• Mondays

week projects

• Tuesdays

how-to's

• Wednesdays

software
week projects help +(if needed)part 2

• Thursdays

consumer electronics

• Fridays

week projects end
video games, movies, TV, and all things fun and pointless

there will be news, web sites and other tid-bits every day. plus the day main posts. weekends will have the "Things To Come" post and the "this week in software" post for the the next week.

Intro

intro

name: TECHblog, (or how to pose as a computer nerd.)

and yes i know that there are a lot of blogs
with the name "tech blog" but i didn't know it 'tel after i set up the blog and email.

mission: to bring technology to the non-computer geeks.

why im doing this (you can skip all of this if you want): there are a lot of non-geeks, and a lot of different aspects of computers/tech/whatever that can be confusing. and there are a lot of company's (both good and bad) that want your (and my) money.
and thats where i come in, i love to teach people how to use there computer best, i have no agenda, i don't work for a computer company. (yet) i just want to teach people how to use there computer.

what to expect: there will be a schedule, but as of yet i dont know what it will be. and for the few days i will be adding content, and on Monday(ish) will be moving to said schedule.

how to get a hold of me: email tips.techblog@gmail.com

since of humer : dry