Thought Patterns

(insert sexy Monroe singing Happy Birthday)

Sent into space on April 24, 1990, Hubble is now old enough to be drafted, but not old enough to drink. Would it want to drink, given that it is already so high and aimed toward the wonders of the universe? Or is that a good enough reason onto itself?

At any rate, the best thing about Hubble, and the fact it is operated by NASA, is that the images it takes are public domain.

much larger version which shows the wonder and awe of Hubble

Linkage:
Space.com - All About Hubble Telescope | Complete Hubble Coverage
LiveScience.com's Space - Hubble Photographs Dozens of Colliding Galaxies
Wikipedia - Hubble Space Telescope | List of Hubble links
Wikimedia Commons - Hubble images
Space Telescope Science Institute - HubbleSite.org
NASA - Main Hubble page | Multimedia

What a choice, eh?

This June, Microsoft will discontinue the XP operating system (OS). Silly of them, yes?

Take, for instance, Galen Gruman. A longtime technology journalist, Gruman is more accustomed to writing about trends than starting them.

But after talking to Windows users for months, he realized his distaste for Vista and strong attachment to XP were widespread.

"It sort of hit us that, wait a minute, XP will be gone as of June 30. What are we going to do?" he said. "If no one does something, it's going to be gone."

So Gruman started a Save XP Web petition, gathering since January more than 100,000 signatures and thousands of comments, mostly from die-hard XP users who want Microsoft to keep selling it until the next version of Windows is released, currently targeted for 2010.

On the petition site's comments section, some users proclaimed they will downgrade from Vista to XP - an option available in the past to businesses, but now open for the first time to consumers who buy Vista Ultimate or Business editions - if they need to buy a new computer after XP goes off the market.

Others used the comments section to rail against the very idea that Microsoft has the power to enforce the phase-out from a stable, decent product to one that many consider worse, while profiting from the move. Many threatened to leave Windows for Apple or Linux machines.

(…)

Al Gillen, an IDC analyst, estimated that at the end of 2008 nearly 60 percent of consumer PCs and almost 70 percent of business PCs worldwide will still run XP. Microsoft plans to end full support - including warranty claims and free help with problems - in April 2009. The company will continue providing a more limited level of service until April 2014.

Gillen said efforts like Gruman's grass-roots petition may not influence the software maker, but business customers' demands should carry more clout.

"You really can't make 69 percent of your installed base unhappy with you," he said.

(source)

I use XP. If I get a new computer, I will downgrade from Vista back to XP. Vista has stunk since it first come out and it still stinks.

There's rumors of M$'s next OS, called "7". Many people hope that "7" will be better than Vista and will be like XP felt after the "ME" version of Windoze.

Oh, and the above article said this:

On the petition site's comments section, some users proclaimed they will downgrade from Vista to XP - an option available in the past to businesses, but now open for the first time to consumers who buy Vista Ultimate or Business editions - if they need to buy a new computer after XP goes off the market.

Anyone know anything about this? Is it an automatic thing or what?

Linkage:
Save XP petition
ZDNet article/post about Windows 7

From BBCNews:

Final goodbye for early web icon
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear.

Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 March 2008, the company has said.

In the mid-1990s, as the commercial web began to take off, the browser was used by more than 90% of people online.

Its market share has since slipped to just 0.6% as other browsers such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox have eroded its user base.

The company recommends that users upgrade their browser to either Firefox or Flock, which are both built on the same underlying technologies as Navigator.

"I think we represent the hope that was of Netscape," Mitchell Baker, chair of the Mozilla Foundation which coordinates development of Firefox, told BBC News.

"We have picked up many of the things that Netscape launched but we've taken them further in terms of openness and public participation."

Ms Baker was one of the first employees at Netscape in 1994.

…

Netscape was created by Marc Andreessen who as a student had co-authored Mosaic, the first popular web browser.

His company Netscape Communications Corporation released the first version in 1994.

According to Shawn Hardin, President and CEO of Flock, Netscape played an important role in making the internet "a relevant mass market phenomenon".

"Netscape had a critical role in taking all of these zeros and ones - this very academic and technical environment - and giving it a graphical user interface where an average person could come online and consume information," he told BBC News.

"During its halcyon days it really felt like the internet and Netscape were really the same thing," he said.

…

"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer," said Tom Drapeau on the Netscape blog last year, when the demise of the browser was first announced.

For the past week Netscape users have been shown a message alerting them to the end of support for the browser.

"Given AOL's current business focus, support for Netscape browsers will be discontinued as of March 1st, 2008," the message reads.

It then suggests users upgrade to either Flock or Firefox.

(full article)

Linkage:
Firefox
Flock, The Social Web Browser

it can happen to anyone.

I said that in a post recently (yesterday?) about Dreamhost having a big billing problem.

My cable company (who also has my internet and telephone) apparently had its own boo-boo. Not sure if my rarely used Charter address is one of them.

Cable Co. Empties 14,000 E-Mail Accounts
Jan 24, 2:28 PM (ET)

By JIM SALTER

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts.

There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from inboxes and archive folders across the country on Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis-based company.

"We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error," Lamont said Thursday when the company announced the gaff.

Charter, one of the nation's largest cable TV operators, also provides telephone and high-speed Internet service. It has applied a $50 credit to the bill of each customer whose account was affected by the mistake, Lamont said.

Charter gives each new Internet user a free e-mail account, but some customers opt to use other accounts instead. So every three months the company deletes inactive accounts, Lamont said.

"During this maintenance we erroneously deleted active accounts along with the others," Lamont said. "It's never happened before. They are taking steps to make sure it never happens again."

Charter provides service in 29 states, and Lamont said the affected customers were scattered around the country. All told, the company has about 2.6 million high-speed Internet subscribers.

Computer experts advise backing up all important e-mail.

—

On the Net:

.http://www.charter.com

(source)

Oops. My host had some issues and is still working on the problem. Seems the site is up now, at least.

This is after the billing problem earlier. It was quite the mess but it seems they have it fixed.

I love my host, though. It would take a lot for me to leave. Some people get their panties in a wad over things like this but, hey, it will happen no matter where ya go.

Messenger sent back an excellent photo of Mercury already.

link to much much much larger (1024×1024px) version

I first saw the image in a Wired News article. It had a link to the news release page for the spacecraft. Oh, and it was on today's APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day).

Personally, I think it is awesome. Perhaps we can exploit other planets just before we officially kill our own. Yeah, sarcasm is today's theme.

At any rate, here's linkage:

Messenger home page | image gallery | news center
NASA's Messenger site
Astronomy Picture of the Day | Messenger and Mercury (1/16/08) - this has a bunch o' links in it

As always, I am constantly looking for the perfect keyboard. Since my laptop's monitor died and I am stuck at a desk (vs where ever), my research into them has dropped to minimal effort.

But today I see an article about the "new" keyboards out there. LiveScience.com has a video article (short and sweet) about the different ergonomic keyboards out there.

The video article mentions a several keyboards. I'm not sure on the spelling of the last two and will be looking them up in a minute.

Kinesis Advantage
Goldtouch
Kinesis Freestyle (check out the YouTube video)
Safetype (the site has sound come on when you first load the page so be aware and don't jump out of your skin like I did!)
G-tech (also has sound! and has more annoying sounds as you move the cursor across a link. annoying)
das keyboard (not sure why this one was included in the article….)
Saitech - couldn't find the keyboard on their site. Again, not sure why this one was listed in terms of ergonomics
I-tech

Another site, speedingcomputer.com, had a listing of "25 Coolest (and most unconventional) keyboards" almost all the keyboards above, plus several others. The most intriguing are the AlphaGrip and the Combimouse.

I find myself drawn, still, to the Kinesis Advantage and to their new Freestyle. I like that the Freestyle can come with a 20" cord between the two sections. I don't like that I have to buy all these accessories to make it at an angle or curved.