Just an observation from the front lines: Cory Doctorow is an alien who has come to devour us and level our buildings with his eye beams.

Check out this press release from Ustream.TV:

For the First Time, Interact with the Real Santa Claus LIVE from The North Pole on Ustream.TV

LOS ALTOS, Calif.–(Business Wire)–For the first time, using the power of LIVE VIDEO broadcasting on the Web, Santa Claus will be interacting LIVE with children and grown-ups around the globe - every night for a week in December.

WHAT: This year, instead of braving the mall crowds to get a glimpse of Santa Claus, kids and their parents can log on to www.Ustream.TV to see Santa LIVE, hear his stories and chat with him in real-time to ask questions about their gifts or anything else that is on their mind relating to Christmas.

WHEN: December 9th through December 15th, 2007 from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. EST

WHERE: LIVE online at ustream.tv/channel/santa-claus-live; broadcast from Santa’s studio at The North Pole (Ok, from Alaska!)

WHO: Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kingle or simply “Santa.”

Santa Claus is available for interviews from North Pole, AK.

You can also visit the Web at ustream.tv/channel/santa-claus-live to see an earlier recorded broadcast of Santa that will give you an idea of what Ustream-goers will see starting December 9th.

A lot of guys - especially geeks - tend to get frustrated when they try to make women laugh. We (guys, I mean) are usually frustrated by the simple “polite laugh” that women use to brush us off when they see us as uninteresting (something especially true for geeks). Sure, there’s a ton of advice floating around the Internet - mostly from women who are describing their dream date - on how to attract a woman and make women laugh, but let’s be honest:

For us geeks, the advice “just be yourself” doesn’t work. We could go on and on about computers, the Internet, civil rights, and Leo Laporte for days, but when you’re trying to flirt with a woman you just can’t be yourself, no matter how much you’re told being yourself works.

Why should you believe me? Because there’s a “satisfied” woman sleeping in my bed as I type this right now. :)

Now, I don’t advocate being someone else. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s no way I could fool someone into thinking I’m David Hasselhoff, but I am saying that, as geeks, we need to practice a little social engineering in order to make women laugh (and, ultimately, get them to look at us as serious competitors for their affection).

• Go Ahead, Be A Dick - I’m not saying go around and proclaim yourself to be a womanizer and calling all women ho’s - that’ll just get you slapped in the face, and rightfully so. Instead, all I’m saying is to make yourself be the cocky guy at the bar - talk just a little louder than the other guys, walk around with your head held high and a slight grin on your face. Most guys see that as being an overconfident dick, but a lot of women see it as confidence. And confidence is a strength.
• Tell the Dirty Jokes - No, don’t just walk up to a woman and tell her the joke you heard about … well, I won’t defile this blog with that kind of humor ;) In any event, don’t be afraid of making a passing, off-color remark. Some women hate it, others love it.
• Treat Women like Humans - Possibly the most important tip is to just remember that women are humans too - just like men. Yeah, they’ve got different priorities, but at the end of the day, they just want to be happy like everyone else.

This is only a small sampling of the techniques you can use to attract women and make them laugh. Click Here to learn more about making women laugh.

David, a fan of Chris Pirillo Live wrote in asking which one was better: the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Well …

In order to choose between the two consoles you’ll need to answer a couple of questions.

Gaming Library or Features?

If you’re looking for features over games, then the Playstation 3 is your console - the included Blu-ray drive is what’s going to kill the Xbox 360’s sales this Christmas. Also, while the Xbox 360 already has an extensive library of games, the Playstation 3 library will be growing over the next two years.

As far as media features, both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 offer a similar list of media playback features (mp3, dvd, etc…) - but the Playstation 3 offers Blu-ray support out of the box, whereas the Xbox 360 requires an add-on drive.

There are other features, such as web browsing and motion sensitive controllers, that are supported on the Playstation 3 but not the Xbox 360; but, if you’re browsing the Internet on a console you’re wasting your time - and you should really leave the motion sensitive controls to the Wii.

Backwards Compatibility?

I’ll admit, backwards compatibility really isn’t that important - how often do you actually play old games, other than for nostalgias sake? Still, it’s important to remember that the Xbox 360 comes with software emulation, whereas the Playstation 3 40Gb model does not support Playstation 2 games.

Is Online Gaming a Top Priority?

If online gaming is your thing then you’ll want to invest in an Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Gold. Yes, you’ll have to pay an additional fee every month, but the Xbox Live experience is - far and away - better than anything you can find on the PC, Playstation 3, or Wii. On the other hand, if you’re not hot on the idea of paying every month to play online, the Playstation 3 experience is actually quite decent, it’s just not as good as Live.

Is Halo a “must have” series?

If you just have to have Halo 3, and any of the future Halo games, you’ll need to get an Xbox 360. Of course, the Playstation 3 has its own share of exclusives. You’ll have to determine if loyalty to a franchise is more important.

As for transferring your save games - I don’t have an answer for that. While the Playstation 3 does have a hard drive built in (for storing save games and media downloads, among other things), there isn’t any simple way to transfer save games from system to system, from what I can tell.

This is only a small subset of things you should consider. If you want a much more in-depth comparison between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 check out Xbox 360 vs Playstation 3: One Year Later

My father is a manager at a theater on Broadway. He usually goes to work Tuesday through Sunday and only gets off on Mondays. Of course, this is assuming that his theater has a show. You see, working on Broadway is not guaranteed work. Actors might complain about downtime in their schedules, but other people are affected when Broadway is dark, from the managers on down to the stagehands and ushers.

This strike comes as a pretty bad time for us. Before the strike my dad had work for only a month. Prior to that, his theater was dark for just over 8 months. Broadway has gone through its own little mini-recession and there was simply no work to be had. 8 months of being unemployed can play hell with your life - you go through your unemployment pay pretty quickly - and it has almost destroyed our family.

While dad remains on strike, mom works upwards of 60 hours per week, and my sister works just over 40.

Now, mom is a registered nurse, and has a pretty decent hourly rate, and my sister can fend for herself, but the sheer hell this strike can cause is staggering. Since my mother and sister are working so much, they’ve become much more impatient and stressed out - with each paycheck they fight to pay the rent, electricity, and other utility bills. We’ve also got the lease on the family car to worry about, as well as several credit cards, insurance policies, and loans that must be payed. To top that off we need to buy gas and eat every once in a while.

In order to balance all of this out, my family decided to sacrifice a few amenities that we’ve taken for granted for years: we’ve had to cancel our cable television account, which means we’re back to over the air TV, and there is no longer an Internet connection in the house (I’m currently borrowing my neighbors connection, which he agreed to let me use).

This lack of work also plays hell with other things - things that may seem minor, but just simply cannot be paid for with this tight budget; for example, there is a rather large, brown stain on the ceiling in the living room. Yes, we know it’s a leaking pipe, but we simply don’t have the cash to open the ceiling up, fix the leak, and replace the ceiling. Hell, we pay close attention to the lights and the heat just so we don’t get an unexpected surprise in next months invoice.

That car I spoke about earlier? The “check engine” light is on. One of the toilets stopped working, And, the family computer stopped working. I’ve since fixed the computer, but there isn’t much I can do about the car or the toilet.

Oh, and cell phone service? Forget it. For a family of four that loves to keep in touch with everyone, a family cell phone plan costs a lot more money than people would like to mention.

Are these minor problems? Absolutely. Could they be fixed under normal circumstances? Sure can. Are they piling up and costing more to fix than we have in our collective budget? Damn straight.

Why am I writing about this? I don’t know. It’s none of your damn business, but I think I just need to vent. Since I live in Seattle I’m disconnected from these particular events, but I’m not unaffected from the stress - I try to help them out financially whenever I can afford it, and I’ve spent a lot of effort and energy in coming home for the Thanksgiving holiday (and I’m attempting to make it home for Christmas).

How does the Broadway strike affect real people? It kills us, slowly, with stress.

OK, this is a damn cool project from the folks at at Geekbrief.tv: iYule, the iPod-compatible piece of digital holiday cheer.

it’s 30 minutes of an original holiday score by Geoff Smith, with a crackling fireplace video playing, formatted for your widescreen or standard portable device. At $5 for the portable formats, or $7 for a higher resolution, you can enjoy the holidays on the go.

($10 nets you all of the available formats, plus bonus features)

I bought it, and I love it. The score by Geoff really does put you in the holiday spirit! Excellent job guys, excellent.

Fair warning: Since I am addressing an article based on opinion, this article, too, will be based on opinion; however, I will give references where able.

JB Williams, in an article carried by the Canada Free Press, describes several reasons why Ron Paul is dangerous to the Republican presidential nomination, the Republican party, as well as the very security of the United States itself. I think that these accusations are inaccurate, at best.

Before beginning, I need to admit some facts about myself and the Ron Paul campaign:

• I support Ron Paul. And, since I do, there may be a bias in this article.
• Ron Pauls campaign has benefited greatly from their communities efforts to grab national headlines. These efforts, such as thisnovember5th.com, are nothing more than attempts to gain notice through fund raising.
• Ron Paul does trail the so-called “top-tier” candidates in both fund raising and poll results — by a wide margin.
• Because of the above two facts, I must acknowledge that I don’t believe Ron Paul has the best chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination. Aside from those active in the political circle, very few people even know who Ron Paul is, let alone want to vote for him.

In his article Mr. Williams has one major point of contention with the Ron Paul campaign: where does the money come from, and what does that means about Pauls political opinions?

Where is All that Money Coming From?

According to the official campaign fund raising filings at OpenSecrets.org, the top company to donate to Ron Paul is Google, with $22,250 in donations. The second and third most come from the US Army and US Navy at $21,018 and $14,105, respectively.

While Mr. Williams lists Google correctly as the top contributor, he never states — or even acknowledges — that the donations listed do not come from the organizations themselves, but “rather the money came from organization’s PAC, its individuals members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families.” As you can see, those contributions listed for Google comes from a wide range of locations — including people who may not even work directly at Google [1].

“Google,” Mr. Williams writes, “… has a long history of progressive political activism … in their campaign contribution habits, which is solidly Democrat, with the exception of Ron Paul.”

(Please note this quote is edited. I encourage you to read his full article to acquire context. The accusations of censorship made by Mr. Williams will not be addressed here. Ironically, I found his article through a search on Google.)

While Mr. Williams is correct in that Google, as a whole, has donated more to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he is either not aware of the contributions made to the campaigns of Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain, or chose to ignore them [2].

Poll Numbers and Campaign Methods

Mr. Williams asserts that, since the political contributions are coming from the liberal wing of the political spectrum, the monetary numbers cannot translate into poll numbers. “His donors are not Republicans,” Mr. Williams writes. “So, no matter how much money he raises, it is not translating into Republican support in the polls.”

There is more truth in these words than Mr. Williams even realizes, I think; however, in order to properly address we must first understand two things: how these polls work and who Ron Pauls campaign is targeting.

Most organizations poll “likely voters” - in this case, “likely Republican voters” which generally means Republicans who voted in the last election. This excludes a long list of people, including:

• People who did not vote in the last election.
• New voters (in some cases, pollsters limit the age group to people over 21, but this is rare).
• People who have recently switched parties.
• People who do not own a land-line (including people who exclusively use a cell phone).
• Non-Republicans who intend to vote Republican (this is true in states such as Washington where there is no political party registration and the primaries are open).

While I will concede that the percentage of people in some of these demographics are not significant enough to make a difference — for example, the non-republicans who intend to vote Republican — other factors have the potential to make a huge impact: there are more than enough college-aged people who work exclusively with a cell phone.

In order for these polling discrepancies to be meaningful in any way the campaign, obviously, cannot go after the classic Republican voter — the same voter who selected George W. Bush in the last election cycle.

“Because Paul supporters know that support coming from non-Republicans is not reflected in the Republican polls,” Mr. Williams writes, “they have started a campaign to promote party-jumping so that their anti-war supporter’s from the left can vote in the Republican primary.”

While he acknowledges that the efforts to “party-jump” are an integral part of getting Ron Paul elected, he makes two claims that stand out about the sanity and constitutionality of this election method:

Dangerous Insanity?

Mr. Williams contends that “the mere notion that a Republican presidential candidate should be nominated by [party-jumping] is insane and very dangerous to the entire election process.” He fails to address the fact that several political parties have had their entire political viewpoints changed because party-jumpers came across and helped sway the overall opinion of the party.

He also fails to address why this method of getting votes is “insane” and “dangerous to the entire election process” — in fact, party-jumping is nothing new to the Republican party: Strom Thurmon and Ronald Regan jumped from the Democratic party to the Republican party. Indeed, I dare say that the entire Republican party has been defined by party-jumping in the last 50 years.

Unconstitutional?

Mr. Williams contends that “at a minimum, it is a demonstration of just what kind of people are behind the Ron Paul campaign, obviously, not constitutionally conscious people.”

In preparation for writing this rebuttal I read through the United States Constitution multiple times. I am unable to find any reference to the unconstitutionality of changing party affiliations or voting outside of your statistical voting norm. Nor can I find reference to the unconstitutionality of people changing their opinions based on new facts presented over the course of time.

At no point does the Constitution of the United States ever decree what an individual cannot do — outside of Amendment 18, which has since been repealed — but instead it states what the government can and cannot do.

The constitutionality and, indeed, the legality of the “party-switching” campaign is not in question. I can only conclude that Mr. Williams is confused about some piece of legislation, or simply has not read the Constitution.

Dangerous?

“I can not agree with the campaign tactics of using leftist money and votes to hijack the Republican nomination and I’m shocked that any Republican would,” Mr. Williams writes. He, however, seems to ignore that the Republican party was not always the so-called “right wing” party it has become.

During Ronald Regans administration the Republican party advocated small government, low taxes, and a foreign policy of non-intervention. It wasn’t until Bill Clinton took office that a movement within the Republican party started to take hold: “Christian conservatives” started their own campaign of party-jumping to get people elected in the House and Senate. They used the same tactics Ron Pauls supporters are using in order to get elected: either vote for the Republican candidate that you support, or switch parties and vote.

To use Mr. Williams’ imagery, the Republican party was hijacked with the use of “rightist” money and votes.

I contest, then, Mr. Williams’ closing remarks:

“There’s really no need to write another word about Ron Paul. If you can know all of these facts, follow the money and the links provided for their campaign tactics and still support him, you’re no Republican, much less a conservative or constitutionalist.”

I disagree. Traditionally, a conservative was one who supported small government and minimal spending. In fact, the name implies that there is some kind of ideal of conserving. Modern conservatives — so-called “neo-cons” — are not conservative in almost any respect: they support big government and more spending.

As for not being a constitutionalist: the very definition of a constitutionalist is someone who follows the constitution to the letter. Given that Mr. Williams’ views on the constitutionality of the party-switching campaign are questionable at best, his opinions on the matter are a moot point.

Mr. Williams is right to conclude that there is not much else to write about Dr. Paul: he has consistantly voted against unconstitutional actions [3] and has voted with his political affiliation of a contitutionalist, rather than what he personally feels.

References

1. OpenSecrets.org, “How to Read this Chart”
2. OpenSecrets.org, Search for Google
3. Washington Post, List of votes by Ron Paul

Tags: ron paul, election 2008

OK, this is a head scratcher, and I can’t find any information on it (maybe my Google-Fu just isn’t just to snuff as of late)., but my Desktop icons have suddenly been overlayed with an image of a computer and a padlock. Not replaced - overlayed. The original icons are still there, and I see them when I refresh the desktop or reboot the machine, but once the screen finally loads, that damn icon overlay comes and covers everything up.

My icons have been stuck like this for at least the past 12 hours, possibly longer. Help?

Uh … never mind? As soon as I finished typing that sentence, I went back to my desktop and, lo and behold, the icons were back to normal.

OK that does piss me off, because I was going to rant about some random act of Vista violence, but … what the hell, man? Why would my icons be stuck like that all through the night, only to magically fix themselves 12 hours later?

If I was a complacent consumer, which I’m not, i would be thrilled that the problem fixed itself and I don’t have to worry about fixing anything. As I said, I’m not a complacent consumer, and now I’m actually pretty pissed off: I don’t know why the icons did this in the first place, and I sure as hell don’t know why they magically fixed themselves.

Windows Vista: It’s Comcastic!

Tags: windows vista, comcastic, magic desktop icons

Remember, remember, the fifth of November …

I wrote about my intentions to vote for Ron Paul, but I wrote them with the idea that I was in a very small, eclectic group of people. Specifically, I thought that the Ron Paul supporters were fewer in number than that of the other lower-tier candidates; however, today made me rethink that position.

Today the grass-roots campaign, This November 5th apparently caught fire. Over 22,000 people donated today, raising over $3.5 million in a single day. When I went to sleep last night, there was about $100 thousand in donations for the day. When I woke up, nearly $1.5 million. As the day continued, the numbers continued to increase.

I originally came into this campaign believing that Ron Paul was, at best, a fringe vote, limited to people who were simple “too liberal” for todays society. Every time I would engage in a discussion about Ron Pauls policies I would either be mocked (”so you’re a 9/11 trutist”), questioned (”why support an isolationist”), or just downright treated like an idiot (”you’re going to cause another 9/11″). But for every person that mocked me, there were two people who supported my position.

After today, I am convinced that we - Ron Pauls supporters - are not the lunatic fringe. We’re simply the people who genuinely want the federal government to act in the way the founding fathers outlined for us: with a clear, logical mind, unhindered by the pressures of religion, and unwilling to impose its will upon the will of the people that created it.

Tags: ron paul

It wasn’t too long ago that I really didn’t know too much about Republican candidate Ron Paul. Aside from the constant Digg spam, I knew little to nothing about his politics and, at the same time, I had decided not to vote in this presidential election - the year before I decided to write in Don Mattingly as both a joke (although this year makes more sense, comedy-wise) and as a political statement that my views just are not expressed among the “superstars” of the political world.

Before I begin this long tirade, I want to preface this with something very important: I was there on 9/11/2001. In New York City. Hell, I’ve lived there for most of my life (up until recently when I moved out here to Seattle).

With that in mind, the current crop of political superstars - for both the Democrats and Republicans - disgusts me to no end. Their message is pretty much the same, and they are only very nuanced in their differences: continue the aggression in Iraq, keep a very close eye on Iran (and don’t rule out war), support the Patriot Act (and the continued spying on of American citizens), screw FISA, let the government run your life.

In my eyes, the three major candidates only differ because of their paths in life. Clinton is still riding the wave from Billy-bobs blowjob, Obama is a black man in politics, and Guilliani is a drunk Irishman who happened to be in NYC on 9/11/2001. Because of these minor differences, I’ve decided to refer to these candidates as the legendary beast Hillianiama.

All three candidates, I believe, would leave the country worse off than it is with George Bush. If you thought a declining dollar and trillions in foreign debt was bad, just wait until the Hillianiama monster fails to pay back that debt (pissing China off), the current market bubbles pop, and the value of the dollar reaches parity with the Yen. On top of that, Hillianiama would, in the long run, continue to decrease personal freedom in the name of national security. A national ID card? Why, because my drivers license was too easy to get?

It’s bad enough that I have to take my shoes off at the airport - although I do get a laugh out of it because my feet stink so badly, just ask Chris Pirillo ;) - but what happens when some radical group decides to blow up a bus, or a shopping mall? Will I have to get stripped search every time I want to pick up a stick of RAM? When does this shit end? Will I have to use a government sanctioned computer to access the Internet - with content filters attached that the RIAA, MPAA, and a bunch of right-wing Christian lunatics lobbied for - because the Department of Homeland security thinks I might, in some drugged up parallel universe, be a terrorist?

While this is only a theoretical path - and some of it does sound absurd now - it’s a path that I can see the current Hillianiama monster taking. It’s a path that makes me sick to my stomach. In fact I had considered - and continue to look into - moving to another country. Not because I’m personally oppressed, but because my political views, apparently, are.

I have, for the longest time, been a fiercely independent person: I do things on my own accord. It’s not necessarily “my way or the highway,” it’s more like “here’s the idea, let’s get this shit done.” This, I believe, is true personal freedom: the ability to do what you want, when you want to, as long as it doesn’t harm another human being. Of course, this personal freedom comes with personal responsibility.

I started a business with venture capital funding. That business failed, and I ended up with the debt on my personal behalf. This was my fault, my responsibility, not some evil VC who was hoping to make a quick buck, or use me as a scapegoat: I made the call, signed the documents, and helped the business fail. Me. I believe that your freedoms come with the responsibility of answering for your own actions - YOUR actions, not those of someone else.

So, when I see the proposal for a national ID card, when the TSA searches me because they “can’t be too careful,” or when AT&T and Verizon help the NSA tap my phone (and cellphone) conversations, I see that as answering for the actions of someone else. When Hillianiama proposes that we increase taxes to help fund the aggression in Iraq, I see that as me answering for the monkeys mistake.

I also hate bullshit. Hillianiama only fortifies their arguments with three things: oppressed blacks, oppressed women, and 9/11. There is no substance behind their arguments - it’s only a point of view riding the personal emotion attached to an issue. That, my friends, is what salesmen like to call “bullshitting the customer” - tell the customer what they want to hear and get their cash. The same holds true in politics: tell the audience what they want to hear and get their donations.

It’s for all of Hillianiama’s bad points that I fell in love with Ron Pauls political message: personal freedom with personal responsibility. Don’t spend money you don’t have. Don’t start a war that Congress did not authorize. Don’t bullshit the American people.

The political position Congressman Paul has taken is radically different than that of the Hillianiama candidates; however, his position is not, in it of itself, radical:

• Dissolve the IRS? Come on, who doesn’t get a grin out of this idea!
• Bring the troops home? We walked into Iraq, we can walk right out. We made a mistake, there’s no shame in admitting that.
• Don’t build nations? There’s no reason to occupy a nation. Never has been, never will be.
• Foreign policy of no intervention? It has been my firm belief that we, as a super-power, have no need to extend our political reach.
• Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security? What have they done, besides giving the TSA the authority to strip search you at their discretion, and a color-coded graph?
• Eliminate the Department of Education? While it sounds radical at first, you have to remember that among developed nations, we’re the dumbest.
• Eliminate the Department of Energy? The same department that, from what I can tell, doesn’t actually DO anything?
• Eliminate the war on drugs? About damn time they stopped locking up people who smoke weed.

Eliminate the Patriot Act? Force the government to use the FISA courts? Destroy government granted monopolies? Let the market do its thing? Let States govern themselves? Let individuals control their own lives?

Everything Ron Paul has said has agreed with my own personal philosophy: be who you are, not who others say you should be. Do what you want to do, not what others say you should do. Interact, but don’t interfere, with others.

I do have some points of contention, especially when it comes to drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. I find no fault in the recreational use of drugs and alcohol; however, people do become addicted to these substances. While he has said that if you want to use it you can, he has not provided an answer for people who become addicted. On the position of prostitution he has stated that it’s a persons business if they want to engage in it, but he has never taken a firm stance in enacting laws to protect that behavior.

Overall, in the fight of Hillianiama vs Ron Paul, I choose Ron Paul. Yes, he is a bit radical compared to the other candidates, but he is the only candidate - Democrat or Republican - whose message includes “personal freedom with personal responsibility.”

Tags: ron paul, hillianiama, 2008 election

I am, for lack of a better phrase, absolutely pissed off at Windows Vista and the Vista team.

I’m having some serious networking issues with Windows Vista - and no, it’s not related to the network performance drop when playing media. Since yesterday, the network connection on this Vista machine has been horrible, at best. Let’s recap what happened to lead me to this unstable mental state:

Started off alright. I had some bad packet loss, but nothing that was not normal for Clearwire (the single worst ISP in the history of shitty providers). As the day progressed, the packet loss became very significant - to the point where I was unable to even stay connected to IRC for longer than a few minutes.
• At first I suspected Clearwire was the culprit. After all, it is the worst ISP to ever disgrace the Internet (not far behind is Comcast and AT&T). Running a trace almost confirmed my suspicions: the trace died at the fourth hop (router->modem->tower->clearwire-dns); however, things started to become very unclear on my end.
• I tried to use my slingbox on this Vista machine, but was unable to maintain a steady stream. The stream would fluctuate between 1 and 10Kbps (where I can normally push 10+mbit easily).
• Concerned that the problem was actually on my router, I decided to go into the diagnostics and run a trace through the Internet. sure enough, i was able to ping and trace perfectly.
• Still, something was amiss, so I reset the router in the hopes that the local side was just being dumb. No such luck.
• At this point I had to eliminate all possibilities. I had a friend connect to my slingbox from a remote location. He was able to stream at nearly 50Kbps. Yeah - from a remote location on a shitty wireless ISP, where I was unable to stream locally at all.

At this point i suspected the computer as being at fault. I’ve had a similar problem before where the network adapter would not, for whatever reason, acknowledge that the network existed.

• since i had that problem before, I decided that resetting the network device might be in order. At this point I’m pissed - I spent the entire day bitching about how crappy clearwire was, and how I couldn’t wait until DSL got installed.. the network device resets and … nothing. This time I can’t even get DNS. I can’t even ping IPs outside of my network … and then pinging IPs inside my network failed.
• Resetting the device once more only caused more problems. Now I was unable to get Vista to admit I had a wireless network! Oh boy.
• Sensing I was in over my head, I rebooted the machine.

Can you guess what happens next? That’s right - everything worked again. Apparently this is a known issue - if your Vista machine is on “too long” the networking components will go batty. The only fix is a reboot, and this problem, I hear, isn’t going to be patched anytime soon. Wonderful.

How a company can release a product as horrible as Windows Vista and survive longer than a month amazes and astounds me.

Tags: windows vista, network connection, vista problems

Selling products online isn’t the easiest thing in the world, especially if you plan on going up against giants like Amazon or eBay, but a small group of people discovered a simple method for selling niche products online that completely avoids the big Amazon boulder: sales letters. Instead of building an e-commerce website, smart marketers have taken to writing one-page sales letters devoted to selling one type of product or service.

A sales letter is, as the name implies, a letter (often several paragraphs in length) designed to sell a product or service. Obviously, it’s a bit more complicated than that, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. In order to write a sales letter you’ll need to know several things about your product:

• What problem the product solves.
• What it does.
• What it does better than the competition.
• How much it costs.

Once you have all of that information, you’re ready to write a sales letter. Instead of showing you paragraph-by-paragraph how to write a sales letter (this isn’t English 101), here are some tips for creating a killer sales letter:

• Create Hope - sales is a game of faith, and people buy hope. Your goal is to create hope for a person that their problem can be solved. Remember: we’re pretty simple mammals, and our entire existence is based on building or acquiring tools to deal with a problem. So, you need to create hope in the buyer than the product is the right tool to fix the problem.
• Be Personal - have you ever gone to a used car dealership only to feel dirty? That kind of feeling comes from knowing that you’re being sold something. While you are trying to sell something, you need to be more personal than just your average used car salesman. Don’t leave the customer with the impression that all you want is their money, instead leave them with the impression that your product has the ability to fix their problem, and all you’re asking in return is some compensation for helping them fix the problem.
• Create FUD - FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt - is a tactic several large companies have used in order keep people from switching over to competing products. FUD also works for making an initial sale, if you know what you are doing. Creating FUD in a sales letter can be done in several different ways, including pointing out flaws in competing products, warning of the dangers that could arise if they don’t purchase your product, etc… The trick to cre