Disney Tinkerbell and Fairies Games and Activities for Online Fun
July 27, 2008 Category: Disney News Today No Comments »
Disney Tinkerbell and Fairies Games and Activities for Online Fun July 26th, 2008 idk im kinda behind. anyone know wat the plot of the tinkerbell movies gonna be and when its gonna come out? is this like a straight to video piece of garbage or are they putting it in theaters? You can meet the Disney fairies, create your own fairy, play games, find and learn about fairy books, find fairies movies and watch a trailer for the Tinkerbell movie. It looks like a lot of fun. There are loads of ac
Movie Success! Bring on the popcorn!
July 27, 2008 Category: Disney News Today No Comments »
Ds has been asking to see Wall-E since it came out, which is when we were in SC/NC/VA in early July, and seeing a movie on vacation just wasn’t in the cards. (But mini-golf, beach’ing and other fun stuff definitely was!) Youngest dd left this morning for a mission trip for the next six days, and ds was uncharacteristically loving towards her, giving her (stuffed) animals aka ‘friends’ to take on the trip, hugging her, and sleeping on her floor last night. We promised him a lot of activities du
MobileMe Sneaks Onto Windows Computers…And No One Cares?
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
After a rocky start which involved post-launch outages and subsequent apology letter not to mention the big reveal that MobileMe wasn't exactly the "push" service they advertised, Apple finally has MobileMe up and running. But now, after updating iTunes to the latest version, many Windows users were surprised to find a new MobileMe icon in their Control Panel. Apple is once again sneaking software onto our PCs - the question is, why are we letting them get away with this?
MobileMe Bundled With iTunes
This isn't exactly the first time Apple has sneaked additional programs onto our machines. Already notorious for bundling QuickTime with iTunes, Apple was finally taken to task last March, when they bundled Safari with their iTunes software update. (QuickTime is one thing, apparently an entire web browser is quite another.)
Yet, they didn't learn their lesson from that experience, or even more likely, they just don't care. They're Apple. You love them. They can do anything right?
Wrong. The truth of the matter is, outside the tech blogosphere (which, ironically, doesn't seem to include that many blogs about computer software), the MobileMe "malware," as it's being called in some cases, is a hot topic for discussion.
When clicked, the icon launches a window that essentially functions as an advertisement for the MobileMe service with text that reads:
"Try MobileMe
MobileMe stores your email, contacts, calendar, photos and files in an online "cloud," and keeps your Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod touch up to date. Sign up now and experience MobileMe today."
And guess what happens when you click the "Learn More..." button? You are, of course, taken to a web site where you are able to purchase the MobileMe service.
To remove the icon, you have to go into the Control Panel, Launch "Add/Remove Programs" ("Programs and Features" on Vista), and uninstall the program "Apple Mobile Device Support." Since the name of that program doesn't actually say "MobileMe," a more novice Windows user might not know that it is the program responsible for the new icon on their machine and leave it be.
If any other company did the same (especially Microsoft!) the outrage would be deafening. So why aren't we hearing more complaints about this behavior when Apple does it? Can they really do whatever they want?
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Free sample pages from Dover Publications
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Dover Publications has a really extensive catalog, everything from coloring and maze books to clip art to engineering and tech books. They're the publishers of the wonderful 507 Mechanical Movements. You can sign up here for the Dover Sampler - every week they send out an email with links to book content. It's a complete mixed bag, you never know what you'll get, sometimes it's really fun! This week there were pages from this Origami Aircraft book. They also give you discount coupons and notice of sales.
(More pages of the plane instructions are here)
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WowWee’s Alive White Tiger Cub gets unboxed, showcased on video
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Filed under: Robots
Continue reading WowWee's Alive White Tiger Cub gets unboxed, showcased on video
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Glary Utilities Optimizes Your Windows PC [Featured Windows Download]
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Windows only: Free application Glary Utilities performs vital maintenance on your system to keep it in tip top shape. Glary Utilities performs six key functions, from optimizing your registry to clearing out that spyware you accidentally installed. The application also removes dangerous entries from your Start Menu, fixes invalid shortcuts, erases your web browsing and application usage history, and frees up space on your hard drive by deleting temporary files. Glary Tools was voted a user a favorite by many of our readers in our best Windows maintenance tools Hive Five, and with all these features and functionality, we're not surprised. A free version of Glary Utilities is available for download for Windows only, though there is a professional version available for $39.95.
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ZipClip Provides Easy Web-to-Mobile Media Sharing
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
ZipClip is a service I got to check out during the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this year, but has been under pretty tight wraps until now. Even in its beta phase, ZipClip, which is a product of mobile apps provider Berggi, appears to be a cool service that will further connect Web and mobile applications and media sharing. With two personal demos from the gracious Berggi CEO Babur Ozden, I got a good idea of what this service is all about.
ZipClip operates as a downloadable application with two parts–one for your computer and one for your mobile phone. The two applications can now talk to each other, and you’re able to easily share media between the two devices. The easiest way to think of ZipClip is as a bookmarking tool that also supports mobile access. If you come across a few videos, for example, on YouTube, you can send them to your mobile phone and view them on your morning train ride commute. You can even convert these YouTube clips into ringtones, which are automatically plucked from the first 20 seconds of the YouTube clip, unless you specify otherwise with the ringtone editor that resides in your ZipClip account.
Media can also be sent to friends’ mobile phones, so you’re not alone in the fun. If you’ve sent content to a mobile phone (your own or your friend’s), then the content will be accessible through the mobile Web, so memory isn’t taken up on your mobile device. Any content you’d like to save on your mobile phone, however, can be easily saved as well. Sharing content with friends on their mobile devices is easiest when they also have the ZipClip service–if they don’t have it then they’ll be invited to immediately download the mobile application.
Working almost as a reverse Evernote bookmarking tool, ZipClip has most of its action directed towards the mobile device. There is, however, a heavy duty Web side to ZipClip that lets you access, organize, tailor and further share content that you’ve clipped while browsing the Web. It’s here that you can send content to friends (though you can do this while surfing too), edit ringtones, etc. So far it seems like a handy service for sending content to your phone, and the associated Web service is a good hub for your clipped and shareable content. I’ll be watching to see how ZipClip continues to evolve, as a cross-device media sharing tool and recommendation service.
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Open Tech’s “Mac clone” demonstrates a firm misunderstanding of the law
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Filed under: Desktops
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Optimus Pultius: because Maximus just isn’t enough
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Filed under: Displays, Peripherals
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e-Gold Founders Face Prison for Money Laundering
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Everyone knows who PayPal is. Do you know who competes against PayPal (and I use this term very loosely, since they dominate the market)? I did a search just a few minutes to see who’s in business still, and which ones have gone by the wayside. It’s a volatile market - very few companies that start up in that space are reputable, or if they are they aren’t well funded enough to stay in business until they gain traction.
In fact, most of them are so obscure or little known that the closes thing to a list post of PayPal alternatives here at Mashable is a post Pete put out back in 2006, where he re-published a list of banned eBay alternative payment methods (imagine that - a list we haven’t done yet!).
One company that has stood the test of time in this space is E-Gold - at least up until now.
PC World is reporting that the founders of the company are facing serious jail time due to “design flaws” in the e-Gold system. E-Gold was an odd system, even by the measure of Internet pay systems. It required you to purchase actual gold and have it stored in an e-Gold certified vault. From there, you could spend and accept e-Gold currency as you wished with other participating vendors.
Unfortunately for e-Gold, due to the PayPal/eBay stranglehold on the Internet marketplace, it was next to impossible to propogate usage through legitimate business development means. When multi-level marketeers and their cousins the ponzis schemers started using e-Gold for their business ventures, e-Gold apparently turned a blind eye for as long as they could.
The problem with letting too much of your business rely on folks who prey on others to make their money is that it’ll eventually snowball into a mountain of complaints, and as they say: “when you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.” E-Gold may not have been complicit in the quasi-legal schemes of the MLMers and Ponzi schemers, and they may not have wanted to outrightly endorse the schemes, either. Unfortunately, their very prolific usage of their systems turned US federal scrutiny towards the company when e-Gold tried 
to deal with the common problem of refunds, seizures for abuse and account suspensions that accompanies that crowd.
For allowing them to ply their trade using the e-Gold system, e-Gold founder Douglas Jackson and two senior directors, Barry Downey and Reid Jackson all plead guilty today to the charges related to money laundering (one part of a Ponzi scheme that makes it illegal). The senior directors could face prison sentences of up to 5 years, and Douglas Jackson is looking at 20 years.
Of course, shady MLMs and illegal Ponzi schemes aren’t the only things that got them in trouble - they were the gateway drug, so to speak. In order to cater to the userbase, which was primarily this crowd, they had to have loose identity verification standards to open an account with the system. This ended up meaning the system was rife with other illegal activities related to, according to the Department of Justice, child exploitation, investment scams, credit card fraud and identity theft.
What was the situation that made this possible? We’re back to eBay’s stranglehold on the market. When PayPal and eBay ruled online commerce, which was when e-Gold made their stand against them, it was a bleak picture for anyone who tried to compete with them. Now, with all the other commerce going on with alternatives to the largest garage sale on the Internet, a strong business development team could very easily mount an offense without catering to the lowest common denominator.
There are a number of interesting aspects to the story, and a lot of other systemic flaws that e-Gold even admits to as a company. To start getting into those various problems would require several more blog posts, and would involve a lot of very theoretical talk about virtual economic systems and how they interact with one another on a macro scale (for more on that from the horse’s mouth, go to e-Gold’s latest blog post).
For those in that business, though, let this be a cautionary tale. I’ve been around a number of companies who work in this space, and it looks lucrative to cater to the MLMers and look away when you think those programs start to verge on Ponzi schemes. What happened to e-Gold, though, is what success looks like when you go down that path too far.
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