Where in the world is Carmen San Diego

It seems I haven’t posted anything here in quite a while, months even. I have been busy working on many projects and I really like the Google+ project which is where I have been spending most of my time.

You can come say hi to me or visit and peruse my content with this link Rocket G+

Hope to see you soon.

Are you included? Don’t get left behind with your browser.

Keep your browser up to date. Are you using a browser that brings you the best experience? HTML5 has hit the internet and is changing the way websites are experienced, the only difference being that you may not be seeing the difference. Only browsers that support the new HTML5 code will see its content properly if at all. Here is how the browsers stack up:

HTML5 specifies a standard way to include video, with the video element.

Video Formats

Currently, there are 3 supported video formats for the video element:

Format	IE	Firefox	Opera	Chrome	Safari
Ogg	No	3.5+	10.5+	5.0+	No
MPEG 4	9.0+	No	No	5.0+	3.0+
WebM	No	4.0+	10.6+	6.0+	No

• Ogg = Ogg files with Theora video codec and Vorbis audio codec
• MPEG4 = MPEG 4 files with H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec
• WebM = WebM files with VP8 video codec and Vorbis audio codec

The audio element can play sound files, or an audio stream.

Audio Formats

Currently, there are 3 main formats for the audio element:

Format	IE 9	Firefox 3.5	Opera 10.5	Chrome 3.0	Safari 3.0
Ogg Vorbis	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
MP3	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Wav	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

As you can see there is only one company doing their homework and doing it to benefit you, and that is Google who produces the Chrome Browser.  

The most important thing to remember is to get updates for your browser as soon as you can. Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and Google are all making changes and updating their browsers to keep up with the new HTML5 code changes, however Google is the only company who sends you the updates automatically and is the only company making you and your browsing experience the priority. The latest version of the Chrome browser as of this posting is 12.0.742.112, however you can always click on the wrench and select About Google Chrome to see your current version.

Google URL Shortener

Google URL Shortener

via Google URL Shortener

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most Important Windows Security Patch Ever | PC Pitstop

I’m writing about this referenced article because it is a prime example of why software developers should be supporting and developing software for Unix/Linux/Mac operating systems.

Aside from the fact that Bill Gates and his engineers refuse to develop an OS that properly handles system resources, they still haven’t given proper attention to preventing exploits and security issues before releasing an OS.

Instead, a deadline is set for the release of the next version of windows, and then a mad rush ensues to meet that deadline at the expense of the consumers. The mindset of the Gates’ family is to get the product out first, and then patch the hell out of it later to keep in step with Apple and Linux.

This is a huge message to the public. First and foremost the focus is in the wrong place (on beating the competition) and second there is a reason why they feel they need to stay ahead or beat others to the cutting edge. It is because others are on the cutting edge first with an OS that is not vulnerable to hackers and those others have an OS that properly handles system resources and memory calls that far exceeds what Gates and Microsoft have ever offered…ever.

This is not to say Gates isn’t smart because he does understand that the only way to beat better technology and engineering (machine language architecture) is to beat them to the store shelves. Unfortunately the people that pay the price for this kind of “beating the competition to the line” is the consumer.

So why are software developers giving more attention and focus to Microsoft and their OS? Because they know that a profit is made from being first to the line, not from supporting a better architecture. Developers understand money in the pocket now, not long term investment returns.

What exactly will turn this tide of backward thinking in the software industry? The answer is in the proliferation of incidents like the cyber attack on the nuclear power plant in Iran this year. The more times an incident like this makes the news showing the vulnerability of the OS and network, the more obvious it will become to software developers that they are supporting the wrong system and shift to supporting a system that cant be hacked. Once they recognize they are on the wrong ship (the one sinking every year) they will gladly jump over to the ship they never have to jump off.

Until then, as a consumer who wishes to be rid of the need for anti-virus software and not have to buy a new computer every year that has a system that slows to a snails pace, and doesn’t want to worry about the information on their computers being compromised regularly, they have options like Knoppix, Ubuntu, and other unix/linux/debian based Operating Systems to give them what they need. Eventually consumers and software developers will be profoundly happy to have switched away from the chaos of Microsoft and the Gates family.

On a side note, Windows costs money, Ubuntu is free as well as Debian, and Knoppix and a host of other Open Source operating systems.

Most Important Windows Security Patch Ever | PC Pitstop

A Higher Purpose

With so many YASNS (yet another social networking site) on the web, a Wiki for feeding your brain (not necessarily with facts), blogs and opinion/editorial sites, what is available for those who feel a higher purpose? Main stream media purports to bring you facts but instead they bring you biased speculations, circumstantial evidence and opinionated viewpoints while rarely producing any facts.

Google has stepped up to the plate to provide a venue for higher knowledge. The Knol. A knol is  a way for people (not Google) to put their reputations and facts on the line, unlike a wiki that is viewed as mostly facts, but edited by the general public with or without verifiable facts. The wiki encourages citations and verifiable sources and provides a means to help promote accuracy and policing of the facts, but this is not 100% guaranteed as is stated in the Wiki’s disclaimer.

The Knol’s purpose is not understood by many, such as those that seem to think it is a market place to their wares as depicted by Will Johnson and his knol here.

For a better explanation of the purpose of a knol, take a look at this one. Maybe with a concerted community effort, we can help the Google knol concept flush out the “opportunists” and garage salesmen from its pages. Fortunately knols provide a star rating system, comments section and if the author allows, the ability to edit or collaborate on a knol. What tools are available beyond the star rating really adds to the credibility and reputation of the author.

Google Wave hits the internet like a Tsunami

#Google #Wave #Googlewave

Google Wave is an incredible web 2.0 development that is revolutionizing the web. Google concentrates on the limitless uses of the internet as its focus for developing new applications and technology to bring information and people closer together.

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. Google understands that a computer is as commonplace in our homes as a TV, VCR/DVD player, and microwave. They also understand that 90% of the time spent on a computer at home, is spent surfing the web, instant messaging, playing online games, emailing, and more. Many businesses are also heavily engaged with the internet during the course of the day, video or voice conferencing, collaborating, and a host of other activities.

Google is addressing the amount of internet activity with the wave which is equal parts conversation and document, shared, and live. The wave is a tsunami of productivity that is both needed and required in a cost effective and time managed world as well as a task manager that can be utilized by anyone at home or work.

One aspect of the google wave is to replace the brokenness of email as it is today. In the beginning email was to replace “snail mail” by being cost efficient and reduce delivery time. Email developed into a huge mess of billions of copies of copies and fwd:’s of fwd: fwd:’s with copies of a message stored on your computer and then a copy stored on the recipient’s computer (or on a virtual mail server) and the process is never ending. We wont even go into the junk mail problem. What you have is dead copies of a message all over the world and in millions of computers. The wave revolutionizes and eliminates these electronic piles.

Wave’s Solution: Conversations as Live Documents

Rather than pass back and forth multiple copies of messages, Google Wave hosts a single copy of a conversation that all participants can edit and add to. Wave displays the latest version of the conversation to everyone in the group in real-time, even as it’s changing.

“The goal of Google Wave is to collaborate INSIDE email rather than using email to ARRANGE to collaborate.” —Wave user Marsh Gardiner^[1]

	The Email Way	The Wave Way
People	Send or Recipient	Participant
Messages	Copies	Single, hosted conversation
Rich Content	Attachments, Links, HTML	Inline gadgets
Quoting/commenting	Manual	Forum-like threading
Privacy	CC, BCC	Inline, private threads

This is not the only functionality of the Google wave as it is limitless in is uses. The confusing initial Wave experience may thwart its adoption. Wave’s whiz-bang features are impressive, but may not be practical. Whether Wave actually gets adopted as widely as email or remains relegated to niche use like the Segway remains to be seen. But plenty of people want in on the Wave preview, prepared with plenty of ideas about how they’ll use it.

Some Examples:

Caregiver Mike said:

I am looking after an elderly lady named Liz. She is well at the moment but does suffer from spells of confusion and forgetfulness. Liz is a widow but has a large and caring family. Unfortunately they are spread all around the country (none live within a two hours’ drive) and have families and jobs of their own… At the moment I send out a weekly group email detailing what’s happened to Liz over the days of the previous week. The family then replies with any questions or suggestions, etc. Even with Gmail conversations, answering and replying to six responses and further ongoing replies back and forth becomes confusing and very time-consuming. Wave could greatly improve our communications. I would open a new wave at the beginning of each week, inviting all the family to it, and add content on an ongoing current basis. This would mean the family would be far more up to date than they are currently and their responses and queries would be spread out (and inline), far more manageable and more current. Also due to Wave playback, when someone has been away, catch up would be simple.

Bride-to-be Tiffany said:

I am coordinating my wedding with a dozen or so friends/family and various vendors, from all over the country. I live in Texas, the wedding (and my mother) is in Florida, my maid of honor lives in Massachusetts, you get the idea. Currently, we use the telephone and email to exchange ideas, sometimes Skype if we’re lucky enough to be on at the same time. I also have a notebook where I paste pictures of inspiration, jot down links, sketch ideas that I will hold up to my webcam or snap a photo of the page to show others. Seriously. Wave would improve wedding planning SO MUCH. We can all share ideas and see who has jumped in on what jobs in what order. We can use plug-ins to embed venues, caterers, dresses. I can embed a Wave in my wedding blog, which I link to on theknot.com, a wedding planning site that connects you to all sorts of local and national wedding resources. We can Wave simultaneously, which will save us from typing a long response, only for someone else to send something else faster that changes what we just spent time writing (don’t you hate it when that happens?). You know how the bride, her bridesmaids, and her mother all get when they start brainstorming and delegating. Imagine if we were all in the same room. It would get rowdy. This way, with Google Wave, it will be organized, documented, and editable. It will also be a great way for my fiancee to track our progress and see whose ideas are whose and approve or disapprove at will. It will make the perfect planning tool for the perfect wedding.

The following examples of some things Google Wave can do for you are also in the Google Wave Preview in your wave titled “When to use Google Wave” with project links beneath each idea.

Organizing events

Keep a single copy of ideas, suggested itinerary, menu and RSVPs, rather than using many different tools. Use gadgets to add weather, maps and more to the event.

Meeting notes

Prepare a meeting agenda together, share the burden of taking notes and record decisions so you all leave on the same page (we call it being on the same wave). Team members can follow the minutes in real time, or review the history using Playback. The conversation can continue in the wave long after the meeting is over.

Group reports and writing projects

Collaboratively work in real time to draft content, discuss and solicit feedback all in one place rather than sending email attachments and creating multiple copies that get out of sync.

Brainstorming

Bring lots of people into a wave to brainstorm – live concurrent editing makes the quantity of ideas grow quickly! It is easy to add rich content like videos, images, URLs or even links to other waves. Discussion ensues. Etiquettes form. Then work together to distill down to the good ideas.

Photo sharing

Drag and drop photos from your desktop into a wave. Share with others. Use the slideshow viewer. Everyone on the wave can add their photos, too. It is easy to make a group photo album in Google Wave.

For a short preview of what Google wave can do here is a 10 minute video (for those of you that don’t have the 80 minutes for the full presentation that took place at the May 2009 I/O conference).

If you do have 80 minutes to spend, then here is the full presentation in all its glory.

Now, for those looking for quick references and guides and information on how to use the tools of the Google Wave application, I am including the links below. As the Google Wave is in preview mode, it will be undergoing changes and fixes over the course of time until it is rolled out as a complete application, free of course, as all things google are.

• The Complete Guide to Google Wave
• Google Wave Cheat Sheet
• Links and references to using Google Wave
• Gadgets and Tools

This only begins to scratch the surface of all the things Google Wave can do and its related info, reference material, guides, cheat sheets, etc. Check back here often to find more information in the comments of our users and links posted to help you out in getting the most from Google Wave.

Reference: 1. Marsh Gardiner, Twitter.com

The Google Side Wiki

I was really impressed with the simplicity and clean layout of the Google Chrome browser not to mention all of Google’s creations, but this new one really puts a lot of information and education at your fingertips.

The Google Sidewiki

SideWiki

lets you add your input to any part of a web page or comment on the entire page.

You don’t have to be an expert contributing expert insight or advice.

Even Soccermom can add her helpful tips or comment on a web site. The information in the SideWiki is not altering the website you are visiting, it merely attaches the relevant information in a database collected from everyone who has visited the website and commented.

SideWiki operates in the sidebar of your browser if you enable it. You can also close the sidebar SideWiki if you don’t wish to view the associated comments or information.

As with any wiki, it is user generated and user edited for content and is not to be construed as fact or verified/validated fact. Although there will be a vast amount of information that is factual, it is up to the user to determine what is relevant and useful.

Google labs have always impressed me with the amount of information that can be brought to the fingertips with it’s web 2.0 content. I hope you enjoy this new feature as much as I do.

Sidewiki is currently a feature in Google Toolbar (in Internet Explorer and Firefox) and Google Chrome.
In Safari and other browsers you can use the Sidewiki bookmarklet.

Google Chrome OS

That’s right, Google has announced the release of their OS “Chrome” later this year to early 2010.

By John D. Sutter – CNN

(CNN) — Google is jumping into Microsoft Windows territory — and threatening to change the way personal computers work — with its own version of a computer operating system.

The company says the forthcoming Google Chrome OS will revolutionize how computers operate, putting more emphasis on Web functionality, making computers faster and opening them up to helpful tinkering by outside program developers.

“The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web,” Google said late Tuesday on its official blog. “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.”

Chrome OS will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010, Google says.

But why should you care?

A trim and speedy Google operating system, which has been buzzed about online for some time, is interesting for several reasons — even if you think it could flop out of the gate. (…more)

I personally can’t wait. I predicted (Nov, 2007) Google would be doing this and made mention of my prediction in this blog as a sidebar to the free 411 call called 800GOOG411 ...here

I truly love the Google Chrome web browser that just blows Internet Explorer out of the water for speed, sleek, clean functionality. Bring it on Google, lets give Microsoft the wakeup call. It’s time for Microsoft to smell the roses, hell, I am all for Google shoving a rose so far up Microsoft’s butt that they can taste its fragrance.

More Power to Google and open source!

Get Involved – Become a social member of Dragon Tail

Go to http://dragontail.ning.com and become a member of “The Dragon Tail” social network then get your network badge and wear it proudly. (found at the bottom right hand column)

Destroy Information on the Internet

Find out everything that’s being said about you online and get rid of the content you don’t like.

Next we DESTROY… This is where we go to work for you. Our trained and expert online reputation specialists use an array of techniques developed in-house to correct and/or completely remove the selected unwanted content from the web. – ReputationDefender™

Does this sound alarming to you or maybe impossible?

Using our network of websites & forums we dominate your name or business!
PROTECT YOUR NAME FROM HARMFUL INTERNET POSTINGS!

We specialize in moving those negative listings aside and replace them with positive information about you or your company! Dont be held hostage by negative Internet listings. – DefendMyname[.com]

How is this possible? How does a company remove anything you have published, from the Internet?

Do you have a Myspace, Facebook or Hoverspot account? A recent survey of hiring managers at CareerBuilder.com found that about two-thirds of the them rejected an application after performing a web search on you.

As soon as I had heard that companies are claiming to be able to do something like “remove” or “destroy” information on the Internet, a red flag went up. Our country is based on certain inalienable rights, of which freedom of speech and freedom of press are just a couple. So how are these companies able to relieve you of those rights? The answer is, they legally can not.

The first company I quoted (ReputationDefender), doesn’t even have a phone number that you can contact them with, stating “…we are in Beta and we are keeping our costs low, which allows us to keep our prices low.“ Prices? Oh yes, there is always a price, and in this case its $10 for you to find out what information about you they can find and then its $30 for them to do something about the information they find about you, if they can do anything at all. Then they claim to destroy information published on the web. If that doesn’t scream SCAM!, nothing does. I personally challenge them to destroy this post about them without hacking into my account.

The second company is a little more careful with their wording, and to an observant reader, disclose how they accomplish “squelching” any information about you on the internet. The process is simple, but completely unethical. DefendMyName will utilize the technology in search engines such as Google, along with their numerous forums and websites to post repetitious “good” information about you to ensure only the “good” information ranks highest in web search results. This is organized abuse at its finest as well as an unethical business practice. The company will only negatively impact the Internet and make it harder for researchers and folks searching the web for information, to find what they are looking for and force a longer sifting process. This type of flooding the internet with repetitious information is in essence suppression of information, oppression, and propagandizing.

I am sure you were thinking it so I will overstate at this time, yes, there is a price for the service.

Dragons and Angels

A recent search engine phrase brought a reader here. The search phrase was from the Ursula Le Guin pro-fantasy manifesto: “Why Are Americans So Afraid of Dragons?”

Of course I had to look this up as well and found an article that was more appealing titled “Why Are Americans So Afraid of The Golden Compass?” which had more interest for me. (read article here)

The Golden Compass is movie adapted from a trilogy of novels by author Philip Pullman called “The Dark Materials.” Philip Pullman is a self-proclaimed atheist, [big deal] and his trilogy published by Random House is categorized as “juvenile fiction.” So why are so many people getting their proverbial panties in a bunch over this movie and the books?

This is the intent of Philip Pullman to further his money making machine. What’s wrong with making money? Nothing. Mr Pullman has sold over 15 million copies of his trilogy “The Golden Compass”, “The Subtle Knife”, and “The Amber Spyglass” world wide. Since it is common for books to become movies, the first book was released as a watered down version movie on Dec 7th, 2007. So far nothing is wrong with this activity.

Mr Pullman claims to be an atheist but his writings and interviews touting his atheism is severely contradicted by the fact that you can’t attack or kill something you believe doesn’t exist. Pullman represents God as a decrepit and perverse angel in his novels, who captures the dead in a “prison camp” afterlife. one character, a fallen angel, tells another character in the book “The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful…”

Pullman’s writings contradict himself as we all know the first angel, the most powerful, was cast out of heaven and was known by many names, the most common ones being Satan and Lucifer. In later interviews with Pullman he states that two characters in his last book [The Amber Spyglass] kill God. The contradictions are endless as the two characters in the last book kill the fallen angel, the most powerful angel, which was in actuality, not God.

Books of the trilogy have sold more than 15 million copies around the world, with Northern Lights [released in the US as “The Golden Compass”] winning the Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature in 1995 and in 2007 being awarded the ‘Carnegie of Carnegies’ for the best children’s book of the past 70 years. The Amber Spyglass, the final book of the series, won The Whitbread Prize in 2001, making it the first children’s book to do so.

In conclusion, what do we have?  We have a guy who writes books, who claims to be one thing, then contradicts himself in writing and interviews, trying to make as much money as he can using the resources at hand such as capitalism, commercialism, controversy and press, and trying not to be a “has been” overshadowed by the works of J.K.Rowling in the mean time. All summed up, big deal.

Editorial comment:  As the author of this blog, it is my firm belief that parents have always been and always will be responsible for how their children are raised and their development into adulthood. Pullman is not breaking the law, and he isn’t forcing anyone to buy his writings. Many Christian and non-Christian groups are advocating not patronizing Pullman with a boycott of his materials which only blinds us to the nature and content of his material which reduces our understanding and knowledge of what is good or bad about the content.  How can an individual say something is good or bad unless they have taken the time to read or view it for them self and make an informed decision on their own about the information?

My belief is if you decide to read or view the material or allow your children to do so, then it is our obligation as good parents to be fully involved in the comprehension and understanding of the material and to use the material as a teaching tool for whatever your values and morals prescribe. If some people decide to blind them self and/or their children from the content, then that is perfectly fine as we all should be doing as we believe. One of the great things about America is having that right to choose as we wish.

Norton Removal and PC Tuneup

Happy New Year 2008! I hope everyone had a great holiday season this past Christmas and New Year.

Being that this is the first post of the new year after a lengthy vacation for me, I feel it is important to start off the year with a useful post to just about every PC user out there.

Anyone that has bought a new PC has probably seen a Symantec created Norton product pre-installed on their machine. You didn’t have a choice of having this product, just like you didn’t have a choice of which version of Windows operating system installed on your machine. You got the latest release and get no choice of previous versions instead.

Like myself, many people are annoyed, frustrated, and unhappy with Norton products for various reasons. Some folks will subscribe and others will be automatically subscribed to Norton products when they purchase a machine, and others like myself will not subscribe at all and immediately uninstall (or try) any Norton products.

It is not commonly understood or known that Norton products severely degrade a Windows operating systems performance, however it is visible to a great many people how slow their systems become after a short time. This is due to a number of reasons most especially because Microsoft Windows still does not handle system resources properly after all these years of being on the market, and also because of utilities (like Norton) that bog down your system resources while trying to perform its tasks in the background. Other reasons are not defragmenting your hard drives with a reputable defragmentation program or at the very least the Windows defrag program, as well as a cluttered system registry (which Windows lacks the ability to keep clean and in top condition on it’s own) and an improperly sized virtual memory or page file.

With a Norton product installed and an expired subscription, you will get annoying reminders to renew your subscription because you are at risk if you don’t. If you have performed an “add/remove” of a Norton product, you may think that all is said and done. However, certain portions of those programs continue to run in the background,use system resources and load at start up even after being uninstalled because a Norton product is never fully uninstalled until you get the Norton Removal Tool. The soul point of todays post is to provide you with the link to remove any Norton product from your machine so that you can once again enjoy better performance from your machine. To do so, *clicky* this link: Symantec Home & Home Office Support to choose the Norton product you want to remove and download the tool.

After you have freed your system from the bonds of sluggish performance of a Norton product, you may be wondering what you can use for protection. I like Trend Micro for their Internet Security and PC protection. If you would like to use their free computer scanning system over the internet, visit Trend Micro Home and Home Office HouseCall. They also have a page with four of their best free programs for security of your computer and internet use called Trend Secure (here). This page also includes the HouseCall scanner.

My recommendations:

1. Never use or have active, more than one virus protection program at a time. You can have more than one program installed, just don’t activate or use them at the same time.
2. Never have more than one spyware/malware/greyware program running at the same time.
3. Since no one program for virus protection and spyware/malware protection is ever going to be 100% accurate or the “endall” of protection, I recommend having and using different kinds independently of each other, periodically.
4. Keep your system registry and your system as a whole tuned up frequently with some utility such as PCPitsop’s PC Optimize or similar program.

PC Pitstop is another what I call “can’t live without” pc resource for maintaining an absolutely top notch computer. You can perform a free scan of your system (even anonymously if you wish), read extremely valuable information about spyware and malware and you can download programs to install and maintain your own system. PC Pitstop “scores” you against their database of visitors and their machines so that you know how you rank compared to your friends machines.

If you have any questions at all or would like to relate your experience at PC Pitstop, or discuss any other items in this post, please leave a comment here. The only truly stupid questions are the ones never asked so please ask. I guarantee at least one other personal will learn something from the information, but was afraid to ask.

Club Tease in Second Life

by Rocket Flasheart – DragonTail Press

This post has moved to the DragonTail Press in SL at http://dtpsl.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/club-tease-in-second-life