Troopathon IV

The 4th annual Troopathon will take place on June 23. Troopathon is an 8 hour live webcast that raises money for care packages for our troops overseas. Head over to troopathon.org to find out how you can help.

Connection Troubles

Having some problems connecting to the internets. It seems to working ok now, but if I disappear for a few days you'll know why. I hate technology sometimes.

Just Leave Things Alone

Anybody else seeing this on their Gmail account? First, leave it alone. Gmail is fine the way it is. Second, "faster Gmail and the newest features" most likely means it'll be HTTPS which takes FOREVER to load on dial-up. Third, "upgrade to a modern browser". What does that mean? I'm using Firefox 3.6. It's not like I'm still using Netscape or something. Why can't people just leave things alone? Why do they feel the need to "improve" everything that's not broken?

Unable To Establish A Connection

So I've been having trouble connecting to the internets. It started last night and continued this morning. I was finally able to, thank goodness, but I'm not sure how stable it is or how long it'll stay that way. I might not be able to later, I don't know. And this got me to thinking. If I were to lose my connection for good, what would I do? Now I'm ass-u-me(ing) that most of you get your service through a large company. Cox, Comcast, AOL, etc... and really don't don't have to worry about them going under any time soon. I, however, get my service through a small provider called Address. And although I've had it for a few years now, it could very well decide to stop it's service at anytime. The economy isn't very good and small companies are going under all the time, so... Maybe I should start looking for alternatives just in case. I had Netzero at one time but they dropped me because their "unlimited" service wasn't so unlimited after all. I might want to get their info again just to be on the safe side.

Was Prince Right?

Is the internet dead? I mean, there's nothing good on it anymore. At least for those of us using dial up. Everything's so geared towards broadband anymore that it's getting to be not much fun for some of us. More and more websites are image heavy and loaded with Flash and Javascript and I can't view them. I can download music if I want, but most files are between 5-7MB and can take up to an hour or more to download. And that's not including the time it takes the page to load because it's full of Flash or Javascript. Games? Nope. Videos? I can watch the videos I post for Music Czar Monday, if I feel like sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Even television is going broadband with Twitter, Netflix and YouTube services being included in some new HDTV's and Blu-Ray players. How much longer before we're no longer able to watch it without an internet connection? Woe is me, woe is me I guess. Maybe when the government deems broadband a right I'll be able to get it. Government run internet. How cool would that be? Sure, they would need to monitor what sites you're visiting but it'll be "free".

Cool Add-on

If you're using Firefox here's a pretty nifty add-on you might like to check out called Screengrab.

Friend Me

If you haven't done so, you should head over to Facebook and friend me. That's were I've been doing most of my posting lately. You can get the link in the sidebar.

Email Signature

Are you like me? Do you hate that ugly, basic, text only signature your email service gives you? Well, I have thank Greta for turning me onto WiseStamp. It lets you create a personalized signature to attach to your emails. Pictures, text, links. You can change fonts, colors, sizes. You can Bold, Italic and Underline. It's something very basic, but it makes it better.

Need Some Help

The site that I've been using to host the Wednesday Hero posts, Ripway, has, for some unknown reason, suspended my account so I'm on the lookout for a new free file hosting site. If you know of one that's easy to use, doesn't use Flash and displays text files in the browser rather than making you download them could you let me know. Actually, the easy to use and doesn't use Flash aren't all that important but displaying files rather than download them is. When you have to download files from these sites it's just a big mess having to click this link then this link then another and so on. Plus the text doesn't display right for some reason. Things get jumbled and screwed up.

New Banking Virus

Beware the Clampi virus.

Al Gore May Have Invented It, But Obama Will Control It

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Future Me

In 2007 I sent myself an email for my 30th birthday. I got that email today. I'd actually forgotten about it. If you'd like to send your future self an email, you can do so here.

Knowledge Is Power

Before you blindly apply any and all updates Microsoft tells you to, just stop. Take some time and read Ask Woody to know what's what.

Government To Redesign Recovery.gov

I know what you're thinking. "So what?" Well, the actual redesigning isn't the issue. It's how much it will cost. Dude, I could redesign the website for like, $20. But since it would be taxpayer money, I'll do it for free. You know, so long as it was basic HTML.

Cybersecurity Act

Thoughts?

I don't know enough about these two bills, but it does seem that they give the president broad powers without really defining what those powers entail. And anytime you start getting the government involved in anything you should be wary.

I'm On Twitter

http://twitter.com/DarthRepublicus

Lack Of Updates

Some of you may have noticed that there have been a lack of posts recently. A few here and there, but mostly just Wednesday Hero. That's because I really can't post anything. If you'll remember a few months ago I complained about having trouble with my connection. Well, four months later and the problem still persists. I've done everything I can think of and nothing. Anyway, one of the biggest problems that has surfaced is the loading of news sites. They just won't. For instance, there's a story on the Chicago Sun-Times site I wanted to link to, but after five minutes of waiting the site still won't load. And downloading updates for things such as Windows, Firefox and my anti-virus? Forget it. That's just not happening. Hand to God, I'm ready to take a sledge hammer to this damn machine and be done with it.

Slow Internet

My connection has been extremely slow the past few days. I'm barely able to get pages to load most of the time. So if I disappear for a while you'll know why.

UPDATE
I called my ISP and things seem to working now, but I've learned never to celebrate too early because when it comes to computers things can go wonky real quick.

UPDATE 2
I began having trouble again yesterday. When I called my ISP they told me that they heard some static on their end of the line and that's what may have been causing my trouble. So I called my phone company this morning and they're going to send someone out by Monday 5pm to check my line out. No hurry. But I've noticed that these past two mornings, today included, that my connection seems to work fine. It's in the evening that problems seem to arise. Not sure if that means anything.

Firefox 3

In case you didn't know, Firefox 3 has been released. A couple of warnings. 1). Some of your add-ons might not work with it. There may not be an update for them yet. About half of mine don't work. Hopefully the developers will get that rectified. 2). If you install FF3, don't like it, and try to go back to your previous version, it might not work. That's what I did. I saw that my add-ons weren't working so I tried to go back to v.2.0.0.14 and it kept crashing so I had to stick with v.3.

Can We Borrow Some Of Your Internet?

Did anyone watch South Park last night? It was one of the best episodes they'd done in a long time. The internet went down and nobody knew what to do. The reason it was so funny is because it's true. My service tends to go out sometimes and stays out for about 2-3 days. I can barely stand it. In the episode, nobody knew how to communicate with each other, news channels didn't know what do to and in an homage to The Grapes Of Wrath, everyone headed out to "Californee" for some internet. And South Park always has some sort of message at the end. It was about conservation. Don't take things for granted. But could you image if the net were to actually go down. People would seriously freak out. If you get a chance to watch the episode, do it. But there is a warning. One of the parents needs strange internet porn to "relieve himself". Japanese schoolgirls puking on each other, Canadian fart porn. Things like that. And when he finally is able to get his fix, uh... the aftermath of his relief is everywhere. It's a scene that I was amazed made it past the censors. Funny, but sick.