Content and news by Rob Williams

Many things are said, and quoted, in 25 years. Some become catchphrases. Others we’d like to forget. And some words capture the essence of a news event, a phenomenom, or a time. USA TODAY reporters and editors came up with this list of our Top 25 most memorable quotes of the last 25 years.

No doubt you will recognize at least half of these quotes. My personal favorite is from Seinfeld, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Source: USA Today

How much did I use Google? Apparently a lot more often than even I could speculate. For the last two weeks, I’ve had google.com blocked at both work and home. The amount of data they’re gathering on me is frightening. Not because of Google, but because I’m positive the government will legislate their way into Google’s database sooner or later and start labeling people as suspicious.

Could you give up Google? I am not sure I could. I use their services because they work and do exactly what I need them to. I’ll admit though, their intense data gathering can be scary to think about.

Source: Center Networks

Indeed, Dell will limit Ubuntu sales to five systems per customer, according to fine print on the PC giant’s Web site. (See the lower right-hand corner of this Dell Web page.) That could frustrate anxious customers who want to load up on Ubuntu Linux for friends and family or small businesses. But The VAR Guy thinks the five-system limit is a smart move.

It’s too bad that the internet didn’t limit the amount of Ubuntu news stories.

Source: TechIQ Mag

Thanks to WikipediaFS, Wikipedia fiends tired of reloading pages in the browser can now, provided they’re using Linux, mount the site as a virtual filesystem. WikipediaFS is a mountable Linux virtual file system that enables you to view and edit Wikipedia (or any Mediawiki-based site) articles as if they were real files.

This seems like a great idea, but the project doesn’t seem to be that active, or supported anymore. It’s too bad, it seems like such a simple way of doing things. You can still give it a try though, as the “pre-alpha” version is fully functional, but buggy.

Source: Wired

You want a new business card, don’t you? Of course. This is the most important element of your visual identity. It’s the first thing people see when they meet you. Here is a collection of cool business cards to inspire you. Most of them are from the Business Cards flickr pool, some of them from Ads of the World.

For those looking to create a cool looking business card, this is the site to check out. There is a listing of business cards from around the world, and some are just amazing. I’d hate to know what it would cost to product most of them.

Source: Creative Bits

“I can’t comment on failure rates, because it’s just not something – it’s a moving target. What this consumer should worry about is the way that we’ve treated him. Y’know, things break, and if we’ve treated him well and fixed his problem, that’s something that we’re focused on right now. I’m not going to comment on individual failure rates because I’m shipping in 36 countries and it’s a complex business.”

To be fair, he seems to be spot on. I haven’t heard of too many bad experiences from those who have had their 360 die.

Source: Daily Tech

Medical imaging specialists Aperio have broken the 4GB file size limit on the TIFF image format by creating their own format called BigTIFF and offering the format into the public domain (an amazing fact in its own right). To showcase the power of BigTIFF image resolution, Aperio has released the first terapixel image.

BigTIFF is an understatement. Even compressed, the image weighs in at 143GB! You can view the image online in a Google Earth like method, but it the website was down when I last tried it.

Source: News.com

The most important pieces of the puzzle being a “new deep encased cell structure, crystal emissive layer and first surface colour filter.” What that means is the new sets, part of Project Kuro (“Black” in Japanese) have a black level 80% deeper than 7th generation Pioneer plasma. Without any sacrifice in brightness, according to our sources. That deeper low end gives the TV an overall 20,000:1 contrast ratio.

Yes, this TV is gorgeous and presumably more expensive than a nice car. 20,000:1 is one hard ratio to beat.

Source: Gizmodo

On 2003 April 5th, a Saturday, at the age of 33, I threw away my dignity, mocked
my Ivy League education, disgraced my Master’s degree, and proved, in just over
three hours, that humans can do things “The System” didn’t anticipate. Things
didn’t turn out exactly as planned, but it was a crazy experience!

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Imagine taking the SAT with a set mind to answer every question incorrectly. This is exactly what this fellow did. He accidentally answered two correctly, but hey, that’s good enough.

Source: Colin Fahey

Although the high definition players are already fairly cheap (HD DVD at $299 and Blu-ray getting close), the lack of content and their uncertain future is still putting a lot of people off. What’s the alternative? An upscaling DVD player that turns all of the movies you own—plus all the ones you can rent from Netflix or Blockbuster—into high definition goodness.

Before you run out and pay for an upscaling DVD player, you might want to read this first. You’d probably have to be burned pretty bad to truly regret that >$150 purchase though.

Source: Gizmodo

Just when I was least expecting it, the releasing engineering team unleashed 2007.0.

This release met with several delays due to an abnormally high number of security vulnerabilities in large packages which had to be rebuilt using the newer, secure versions of the packages. There was also a complete resnapshot done about half-way through the release period due to the release taking so long and the packages becoming stale.

You can expect my thoughts on the latest release in the coming week.

Source: Gentoo Press Release

The new Windows Live Hotmail, which Microsoft says will deliver a safer, more powerful and productive email experience than previous versions, rolls out today in 36 languages. Microsoft also announced that later this month Windows Live Hotmail customers will be able to access their Windows Live Hotmail e-mail and contacts for free using Office Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 via the new Office Outlook Connector beta.

Those that still use Hotmail will be pleased to see new updates implemented. As long as I can send and receive e-mail, I don’t think it matters just how sophisticated the webmail is. I might be in the minority.

Source: Daily Tech

It found that approximately 31% of people are “high tech elite,” who we probably used to call early adopters before it became such a big group — but even that group is split into four distinct sub-groups, including approximately 25% of the high tech elite being in the “lackluster veteran” category.

I think the only “early adopters” to be upset in the near future will be those on whatever side of the format war loses. If there is one.

Source: Tech Dirt

Sales records typically don’t stand for too long without being overtaken by the next best thing, but somehow, Nokia’s el cheapo 1100 handset has reportedly racked up “over 200 million sales” since it launched in 2003. You heard right, this low-end candybar has put the 100 million iPods, 50 million RAZRs, 10 million Chocolates, and 115 million PlayStation 2 consoles to shame in terms of sheer units moved.

That is a LOT of cheap plastic. Though not the most sophisticated phone around, it’s still quite an amazing accomplishment. Too bad the N-Gage didn’t take off like that.

Source: Engadget

It’s the deal you never thought would happen: MySpace acquiring Photobucket, the “parasite” that fed off MySpace traffic and hosted a massive number of MySpace photos. There’s no word on whether the $300M price tag, which Photobucket was being shopped around for, was met.

Is MySpace becoming the next Google? Probably won’t matter, as it wouldn’t be surprising to see Google snatch up MySpace in the future. They already own most everything else!

Source: Mashable

Seldom has the rumor mill turned faster than when gamers talk about gaming in Vista. Some folks are staying away from the new OS simply because they feel it doesn’t game well. We set out to put some hard numbers on those claims.

HardOCP takes a fresh look at gaming on Vista. Things should be better now than at launch, right? Yes, but it appears we still have a little way to go.

Source: HardOCP

Sunnyvale, Calif.—May 7, 2007—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled a unique memory kit for AMD enthusiasts and power users. The new PC2-5400 Titanium modules were designed exclusively for the AMD AM2 platform and are custom-tailored to the extended column address range of the AM2 memory controller.

Source: OCZ Press Release

REDMOND, Wash., and WALTHAM, Mass. – May 6, 2007 – Microsoft Corp. and
Novell Inc. today announced that Dell Inc. is the first major systems
provider to join the business collaboration that was formed by Microsoft
and Novell in response to customer demand for greater interoperability
and intellectual property (IP) assurance. As part of the agreement, Dell
will purchase SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft
and establish a services and marketing program to migrate existing Linux
users who are not Dell Linux customers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Source: Microsoft and Novell Press Release

I am always on the lookout for cool new sites, and Flash Earth is one of the better ones I’ve stumbled on recently. As you might have guessed, it’s completely flash based and works similarly to Google Earth. Except here, you can change the services on the fly, in case one has a better image than the other. Currently they offer Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps, Microsoft Maps and a few others.

Definitely worth checking out if you are a Google Earth fan, but bear in mind that a few images are not as recent as Google Earth might have.

Source: Flash Earth

No, this is not an in-game item for making in-game purchases. It’s a real world plastic Visa card. While I think that a credit card with an MMO face is needless, the bonuses is that you can earn game time… about one month worth for every $150 charged on a qualifying purchase, if I understand it correctly.

Accrue World of Warcraft gametime at the rate of 1% of every dollar in qualifying purchases. The World of Warcraft Rewards Visa is the only card that pays you to play.

As strange as an MMO credit card is, I guess it’s no more odd than Everquest 2’s now-defunct /pizza command.

Source: Official Site