Breaking Windows

Sony is planning to enable future versions of its PlayStation gaming console to recognize user gestures and even emotions, according to a company executive. The PlayStation 3 may also incorporate a motion sensor and camera add-on similar to Sony's EyeToy.

Only about 35 percent of large businesses plan to move up to the latest version of Microsoft's Office software next year, according to a new survey of chief information officers. The Merrill Lynch survey polled CIOs at 75 U.S. companies and 25 European ones on a number of issues, including whether they were "likely to upgrade to Office 2003 in the next year." A total of 65 percent said "no," a result Merrill Lynch attributed to complex new server-based functions--including capabilities based on Extensible Markup Language (XML)--included in the new version of the productivity software. "Without a new killer app in Office, the upgrade cycle looks to be gradual until new XML-based technologies take hold in the broader market," according to the report.

More than 1 million songs - not all of them good, mind you - uploaded to the Web site MP3.com over the years by various musicians went away Tuesday as the new owners of the Web site took it offline, with a promise to launch a similar service next year. Garage bands and solo musicians from dozens of musical genres were notified last week to make back-up copies of their song files or risk losing them to the fleeting business world of the Internet.

HoverSnap is a small but powerful screen capture utility that can capture the entire desktop, the active window or custom areas on the screen and save the image to JPEG, GIF, BMP or PNG format. It can even automatically rename and resize the screenshot and save it to a folder of your choice. Additional features include integrated FTP upload and support for layered windows. The program runs in the system tray and screen captures can be triggered via keyboard shortcuts.

Saves time by not having to rekey commonly used phrases Reduce typing errors Ideal for letter templates, signatures, addresses, chats Runs powerful macro functions to automate everday’s tasks Great for Tablet PC without keyboards

America Online is offering a PC, monitor and color printer for $299 to subscribers who sign up for its Internet service for one year, the latest effort by the Internet service provider to prop up its subscriber base.

Reader Frans van der Geest reports an incompatibility between Suitcase 11.0.2 and WindowShade X (the haxie that brings OS 9's Windowshade functionality to OS X): "I noticed that Suitcase does not start up correctly on boottime when Windowshade (the latest version from the Unsanity utility) is installed: Suitcase hangs at startup or the window does not 'auto-hide' at autostart at login. removing Windowshade solved all this"

No, it's not April Fool's Day. To quote the Simpsons: "I had a big company, and he had a big company, and now we have a very big company." Former rivals IGN Entertainment and GameSpy Industries have kissed and made up and have signed a definitive merger agreement creating the Web's largest network of destination sites for gamers. Both brands will remain separate entities.

A Texas woman was sentenced to 10 years in jail Thursday for running over the manager of a McDonald’s with her car because she wanted mayonnaise on her cheeseburger. THE WOMAN, Waynetta Nolan, 37, showed no emotion as the sentence was read in court after a trial in which the McDonald’s manager, Sherry Jenkins, said that even though she gave Nolan the mayonnaise she requested, the woman flew into a rage anyway.

With all of the viruses and hacking going on, it's no wonder that more and more people are interested in securing their computers. Fortunately, the National Security Agency recently released detailed PDF documents full of great information to help you secure your PC.

Ace Utilities is an award winning collection of tools to optimize and speedup your system performance. Registry cleaner, Clean disk and internet history, erase your application and internet browser history, cache, cookies and more. You can control startup programs that load automatically with windows, find duplicate files, fix broken shortcuts and uninstall software. Other features include secure file deletion, shred recycle bin, disk space analysis, tweaking of hidden settings, an empty folder finder and more.

When Steve Jobs cruises into the airy reception area on the Apple Computer campus in Cupertino, California, on a recent morning, nobody pays much attention to him, even though he's the company's CEO. He's wearing shorts, a black T-shirt and running shoes. Tall and a little gawky, Jobs has a fast, loping walk, like a wolf in a hurry.

Sony Corp said on Friday it had pared back specifications for its all-in-one PSX console, an entertainment system that includes a hard disk drive (HDD) and DVD recorder plus a PlayStation 2 game machine. Sony reduced the PSX's dubbing speed from its hard disk drive onto a DVD to 12 times normal speed from 24 times. The machine also will not record or play DVDs in the DVD+RW format, as in the original plan, but it will play and record in DVD-R or DVD-RW formats. The PSX will not play CDs in the CD-R format, as planned, and there also will be no video format support for certain Sony digital cameras and support for MP3 music playback.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to intervene in a lawsuit over the hit song "Rosa Parks" by the Grammy-winning musical group OutKast. The action, taken without comment from the justices, means the 90-year-old civil rights figure can go ahead with her lawsuit against the band. The 1998 song is about the entertainment industry and its lyrics do not refer to Parks by name. The chorus of the song goes, "Ah-ha, hush that fuss. Everybody move to the back of the bus."

A public interest group had a holiday warning and a new word Monday for parents of video game users: Beware of "killographic," defined as the "graphic depiction of brutal violence." .... Lowenstein noted that the average age of those who play video games is 28, and said as adults they should be allowed to pick their entertainment. He also pointed out that the industry rates its games on age appropriateness, and that Walsh's institute found most parents are not aware of a game's content. "The message is that parents in many cases aren't doing their job," Lowenstein said.

The creator of the Lingerie Bowl assures sponsor Dodge that the pay-per-view program will be more than a paltry panty party. The idea of a bra-and-panty fest ``concerned Dodge executives, as it should, because that's not what they were sold,'' said Mitch Mortaza, creator and executive producer of Lingerie Bowl 2004, which will take place during the Super Bowl on Feb. 1. The contest will feature 14 models playing a real game of tackle football dressed in low-riding, lace-lined "boy shorts" and sports bras and some protective equipment. Former professional players Eric Dickerson and Lawrence Taylor will coach the teams.

A New York-based video game company announced Wednesday that it would make changes to "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," a game that had provoked angry protests from Haitian immigrants and city officials.

Add Addresses - You can add multile addresses to Address Book. This, like all the scripts, reads the messages that you have selected and gathers the names and email addresses from the To, From, CC, and BCC (I think) fields. Archive Messages - You can archive and export messages. Export options are to text or mbox format. You have the choice to narrow your archive/export by date, read status, and flagged status. The archived emails go into a newly created mailbox folder Archived Messages (Date Archived). This is very handy to me as I am archiving by month a lot of my mailboxes, such as my Sent box. Change SMTP Server - This is a much quicker way to change your SMTP Server then going into Preferences, although it does the same exact thing. Why would you use this? When I go down to my dad's house, I have to use the SMTP of his host to be able to send email. Remove Duplicate Messages - At first just comparing Message ID's, it now compairs the raw text of the message body as well. I found that it found a number of false positives with only the comparison of the Message ID's. You would think that every email has a unique Message ID, but in some cases, there are duplicate Message ID's that are not truly duplicate messages. Since this script compares the message body, it can take a while depending on how many messages you have. Send all Drafts - This does exactly what is says, it sends all drafts.

Shutdown POPFile, go to http://localhost:8080/ (or the port number you changed POPFile to) and click "Shutdown POPFile" Backup your current POPFile install. This is at /Library/POPFile Keep the folder /Library/POPFile/corpus handy, you will need to move this to the new version of POPFile. Also keep "popfile.cfg" which holds your settings. Download the new version of POPFile Replace the contents of the /Library/POPFile folder with the contents of the newly downloaded version of POPFile (I trashed the contents and replaced it with the new version of POPFile). Be sure to move the corpus folder over to /Library/POPFile and the popfile.cfg file, or you will have no buckets, magnets, or anything for that matter! Open the Terminal and type/paste these two commands:

cd /Library/StartupItems/popfile sudo sudo ./popfile start

(You will have to authenticate sudo with your password)

The Three-Click Rule isn't completely bad. People talk about it with users in mind, even executives who have never designed a web site. The rule may help designers focus on the information that users need and may help them create better web sites. These are admirable qualities. We can't be overly critical of a rule that has the effect of helping designers keep their focus on users and their needs. However, the Three-Click Rule does not focus on the real problem. The number of clicks isn't what is important to users, but whether or not they're successful at finding what they're seeking

The Copyright Board of Canada said on Friday that it will place a levy of CDN$2 on digital music players with a capacity of up to 1GB, $15 for players with a capacity of 1GB to 10GB, and $25 for those over 10GB. As expected, Apple'siPod will be affected by this decision. However, it could have been worse. "Under the music industry's original proposal, an MP3 player with a 20GB hard drive would have been subject to a levy that would have boosted the price by about $125," reports The Globe and Mail. "Manufacturers filed objections to the Copyright Board over that plan, arguing that the levies would price their products out of the market."

Apple's popular iPod digital music player is in short supply in many markets in the US and UK, according to the Financial Times. "Most stores in New York have sold out of the larger capacity models and do not expect to get more before the holidays... shortages are forcing many Christmas shoppers to hunt around or settle for one of iPod's many imitators. While most rival machines cost less, aficionados consider them to lack the vital quality of 'coolness.'"

Apple Computer Inc. said Monday that consumers had bought and downloaded more than 25 million songs from the iconic computer maker's iTunes online music store. Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., also said that more than $1 million worth of iTunes online gift certificates -- sold in denominations of $20 to $200 -- and allowances have been bought since those features were added in October. "The fact that we've done over $1 million in allowances and gift certificates shows a lot of interest on both Mac and Windows," said Chris Bell, director of iTunes product marketing, in a telephone interview.

Do you think Peter Jackson will direct the prequel? I am not sure The Hobbit would fit into a 3 hour movie. And considering how liberal he has been with Tolkien with this trilogy, I am not sure a movie would do The Hobbit justice. Unlike LoTR, I did read The Hobbit when I was a kid, and I can just see myself sitting there in the theater cringing. Now that I have seen the LoTR movies I have read (well, OK, listened to) the books. and I now cringe when I watch the movies again.

And do you think Jackson will think of some odd reason why Arwen needs a role in the movie version of The Hobbit? (Yes, I am referring to the LoTR trilogy, Arwen, if you read the books, does NOT have such a large role, but thats show biz.)

So, do you think we will see The Hobbit in the next few years?

Well I must say that I made it through the entire movie without having to take a potty break. I am quite impressed with myself. My "conditioning" played off.

I am sitting here at our local Waffle House at 4 AM, but that is ok, I am a nocturnal animal. This being the case, this might need some revising later, but I wanted to jot down my thoughts while still fresh in my mind.

My buddy Mike had to take photos for the Sentinel-Tribune, so he could not watch this masterpiece. He had to input photos and get ready for a full day of assignments tomorrow. So later this week he is going to want to go see this movie, and I will gladly see Return of the King again, even if it is a solid three and a half hours sitting in the theater.

This movie is more then worth seeing again, for so many reasons. Coming from 3D modeling schooling I was most impressed with the enormous amount of animation mixed with live action (I always notice the CG work first, that’s just me). They blending of the live action and CG were handled very well, and most all the animation was very smooth and with a great amount of detail and blur where appropriate. But I am just a nut when it comes 3D animation. The huge elephants were my favorite, but I do not want to spoil the experience for anyone so I will not go any further on about the animation. Just to say that I was mighty impressed with the progression it has made since The Fellowship of The Ring. They were not kidding when they said The Battle of Helm’s Deep was nothing in comparison to what is in Return of the King. Seeing Massive (the fuzzy logic software built to handle the colossal hordes of men and orc in all the breathtaking battles in this trilogy) handle all the battles in Return of the King was a magnificent experience.

I have not read, or listened to, Return of the King. Since I had not done the same for The Fellowship of the Ring or The Two Towers, I did not want to jade my experience of this third installment. I am glad I have not read Return of the King, as I may have been disappointed in what I did, or did not see.

Humor aided in a larger part of the story this time around, and as Return of the King is by far the darkest of the three movies, it was welcome. There were many moments when the entire theater busted out in laughter. There are some funny moments, more memorable then the rather conservative humor in the last two films.

I do not see how people like my father fall asleep in the middle of watching these movies, the acting, the writing, the visual effects, the landscapes, it is all too much for the senses.. I cannot remember the last time I wanted to see the final chapter to such a good story in a long time.

The Fellowship of the Ring was a very straightforward story, with very little sub plotting. The Fellowship broke apart, and in The Two Towers we had three distinct stories plodding through the lands of Middle Earth. This was all an exercise in out collective attention span as Return of the King jumps from one splinter of the story to the other. But, it never leaves you guessing what happened to who, the pacing is very well shot, or edited, as the case may be.

Musically I think that the various themes, such as the Shire theme, for example, were mixed into the mood and plot points a little more smoothly then in Two Towers. We got the soundtrack to Return of the King a few weeks back, and I have been listening to it. I enjoy it much more then The Two Towers soundtrack.

I could go on to so many points I found astonishing to the senses, but I want you to experience this last journey through Middle earth yourself, not read about it here: go see this movie! You will laugh, you will cry, and three and a half hours later you will, for some strange reason, not want it to end.

The Hobbit anyone?

Jordan Fouts is beginning to wonder if enrolling in gradschool at McGill was such a hot idea after all. At least it has opened up a few neat new possibilities and gotten him out of Ohio most of the year. In fact getting out of America entire is something he's finding very refreshing. Plus Montreal is just the best town anyone could ever wish for.

Josh Harris and Cole Magner set Motor City Bowl records for completions and receptions, respectively. Northwestern took away Bowling Green's running game. So Josh Harris beat the Wildcats through the air. Harris passed for 386 yards and three touchdowns to lead Bowling Green to a 28-24 victory over Northwestern in the Motor City Bowl on Friday night.