Is there a day to pass without a news or a blogpost about Sony? This Company got some serious technical problems for sure. Technical means in all fields of the trade. Not only do they use stolen code from open source MP3 application/codec LAME, but they had to put up a list of 52 rootkit "infected" music cds, because Sony´s Uninstaller did cause more trouble than the rootkit itself.

Remember to report the eff.org in case you own one of the cds and/or ran into trouble with it.

Meanwhile in Cupertino,silence, but rumor sites keep Apple fans in motion reporting about new gadgets like the never-forgotten idea of an iPod PDA. Harry McCracken for PC World´s Techlog sums up the things to come.

I really hope those Intelbooks will be released soon, I cannot wait to see the all new benchmarks that will paint a beautiful picture of how superior the x86 is over the PPC. The PPC which is, as Steve Jobs wanted to make us believe many years before, more powerful than any x86. Do the facts really have changed from one day to the other? If that is the case, why do the other companies like Microsoft or Sony switch to PPC platform?

These questions will be answered as soon as the Intelbook finally arrives, or new lies will be told...

Maybe Halloween is getting a little bit of a hype in here but there is another fun article that caught my attention.A satirical Forbes.com article by David M. Ewalt features full size Halloween masks(designed by James Hickey) of Steve Jobs (aka Darth Vader),Alan Greenspan (aka Yoda) and others.

Though the article is a humorous approach towards Steve Jobs personality, the metaphors used are not too far fetched.

OK, lazybones here is the killerapp you ever waited for.Busy Bee makes your Mac look as if it was doing some very important jobs to allow you to expand your coffee break, flirt with the boss secretary or simply sit around and look out of the window.You will never have to worry if somebody is looking over your shoulder again.Do not underestimate the possiblities that this app offers.

Close to Halloween all kinds of screensavers,spooky desktop pictures and soundsets are ready for download.Pumpkin is one of of the funny but useless gimmicks.

Beware its Scareware!

Right in time for Halloween NASA offers free downloads of sound recordings from latest Saturn mission.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/sounds/

Spooky!

The crazy ones knew it all the time. Reality caught up with sience fiction finally. EFF ( Electronic Frontier Foundation ) claims to have found out and shows proof that intelligence agencies have put up a deal with major printer companies to include an color-encrypted code on every piece of paper coming out of the laserprinters. Other types like ink-printers were not checked but again why should they (ha!) focus on laserprinters only?

"So far, we´ve only broken the code for Xerox DocuColor printers,"said Schoen. "But we believe that other models from other manufacturers include the same personally identifiable information in their tracking dots"

Stunning, I take it even the most evil conspiracy theories didnt include this scenario, as a logical result I assume that everything written down or even only thought of when it comes to intelligence and counter-intelligence has already been done or will be done. Now if that tracking dot scandal is real, what else is real? Black helicopters, microwaves killing critics of the system, forced implants, EVERYTHING is possible.

I am positive the people will again swallow the bitter pill of losing another part of their freedom, when told it was to protect themselves from the bad guys and if they didnt participate they wouldnt be good patriots. These are definately the last days.

Thats one of the funny laws from all over the world you find on dumblaws.com(link). It shows authorities ignorance in the world, people are dominated by stupid and mostly outdated rules. On the other hand there are laws that are fully understandable to me like this example from New York City :
"Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business"

Another intestesting aspect is, you can check "if you really wanna go there" before ending up with death penalty for walking the wrong way during your vacation. Plus, the website shows perfectly, how plain and understandable the laws in Germany are. Well, however :
"It is illegal for ones car to run out of gas on the Autobahn"

I have to submit I didnt know that law existed, so dumblaws.com(link) is the perfect place, to have some fun and learn some facts while doing so as they even explain why that rule was created in a lot of cases.

As reported yesterday a new release of Ubuntu hit the web and today it had to hit my powerbook. I was really looking forward to this since I probably wont follow Steve Job´s switch to intel. So when Stevie started his " 2 year conversation to intel" I started my switch to linux roadmap that night. After some problems while stupidly clicking the link on ubuntu download site(link) without any result I upgraded to brain 1.01 and scrolled down a little to find a nice web directory. Well, there are the goods! I chose the live cd .torrent file(link) and off I went.

Note : The .iso which is the result of the download can easily be burned using OS X built in disk utility application.

A famous german hacker group called "Chaos Computer Club"(link), to be more precise it´s section from the german city called "Ulm" did some introduction in OS X hacking which may not only be interesting for the beginners but for the advanced audience as well. The video and the pdf supporting it can be found here(link), sound quality is crappy but since its german language that doesnt matter anyway. Even if you understand german its no gain in listening really as the things shown on the screen deserve the focus of the viewer anyway.

Do those websites that try to force you into submitting your details like eg the New York Times get on your nerves? Whats behind conning your name and income out of your brain just for reading an article? I am not sure myself BUT I take it for granted it generates one huge mass of spam. Of course we all fake those entries, of course I dont because I use a nice and free service called "BugMeNot.com"(link) that provides the visitor with log/pass for all those odd and not-so-odd news sites.

Something new , something old and something borrowed, along with something blue and off you go for a nice wedding.

How else should I get from fair traded audio software to the well known 622 music videos in one blog?

Don´t Crac[k] (link) tries to interact between audio app developers and users. They offer numerous freeware audio apps plus an online shop with reasonable prices for commercial software. A little bit like u can buy fair traded coffee from third world countries, I didnt know the audio app developers had that much of problems but the freeware section is worth a visit for sure as it not only contains mac but also windows software.

Granfaro Weblog(link) offers 622 music videos along with other blogs created to bring mp3s and other things to the interested audience. While I really enjoy the Granfaro music videos, I have to submit I dislike the other blogs offered there. But then I am sure others will see things different and know why this news is "old".

Now thats about it for today, but hey, wheres the borrowed and the blue thing one needs for a perfect wedding? As for the borrowed thing its the design of this website for sure, for the blue thing, it´s B´s pondlife I just discovered recently.I take it all the details were given .... let´s call it a day.

The most expansive fan movie of all times is about to be availible on the internet... and only on the internet.Just like it´s counterpart(link) from the Star Trek universe, the ethusiasm of more than one hundred people made "Tydirium - The true Story" possible.Unlike Kevin Rubios "Troops"(link), Tydirium is reported not to be a kind of parody but a "serious"story located in the Star Wars universe.

From TydiriumWebsite(link) : " Our story about the conquest of the shuttle Tydirium takes place somewhere between the liberation of Han Solo from Jabbas palace and the flight of the rebels to the forrest moon of Endor. "

That sounds very interesting to me especially if they really followed the shuttle story and put the spacecraft in the middle of the plot which could result in a very interesting viewing experience. So you folks better stay tuned!