Todd's Blog

People who already have Google Chrome installed can easily upgrade to the latest version (version 10) by clicking the Wrench icon in the upper-right, then select "About Google Chrome".  If an update is available, that simple action will always perform the upgrade.

If you DON'T already have Google Chrome installed, I'l ask you:  WHY THE HECK NOT?!  (Install it here.)

Google Chrome is screaming fast and is the model of simplicity and efficiency.

Want a tab to display in its own window?  Just drag the tab out of the browser, and it creates its own window.

Want to integrate another Google Chrome window into the current window?  Just drag the tab into the current window.

It's intuitive and simple stuff like that that make Chrome so great.

And it works fantastically with Lottery Post!

Version 10 actually seems to fix a minor bug in the last Google Chrom release that occasionally froze the browser window, so that's nice to see also.

What a nice surprise, my new iPhone arrived via FedEx today!

The official launch day is Feb. 10 (Thursday), but I guess Verizon shipped them out early for existing customers who pre-ordered last week.

I must say, Apple builds mobile devices as close to "perfect" as I've ever seen.  What a beautiful phone.

As nice as my Android phone was (the original Verizon Droid), the new iPhone is that much better.

This is a 5-minute recording of a radio interview, just released Monday.  I actually got the chills a few minutes into it, when the person go to the point of revealing the information, and I am realizing all at once that there is a very good chance that we have a president who is not legally qualified to be president.

There could be a constitutional crisis coming that will rock the nation to its core.

There is a bit of non-related stuff at the beginning of the tape; just let it play.

Last Edited: January 26, 2011, 10:59 am

For the first time I can see how it is possible Obama was not born in the USA.  I thought when they found the newspaper listings it was a done deal he was born here, but apparently not so.  This is fascinating stuff.

. . . . . . . .

BORN IN THE USA?
Hawaii governor can't find Obama birth certificate

Suggests controversy could hurt president's re-election chances

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie suggested in an interview published today that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.

Abercrombie told the Honolulu Star Advertiser he was searching within the Hawaii Department of Health to find definitive vital records that would prove Obama was born in Hawaii, because the continuing eligibility controversy could hurt the president's chances of re-election in 2012.

Donalyn Dela Cruz, Abercrombie's spokeswoman in Honolulu, ignored again today another in a series of repeated requests made by WND for an interview with the governor.

Toward the end of the interview, the newspaper asked Abercrombie: "You stirred up quite a controversy with your comments regarding birthers and your plan to release more information regarding President Barack Obama's birth certificate. How is that coming?"

In his response, Abercrombie acknowledged the birth certificate issue will have "political implications" for the next presidential election "that we simply cannot have."

Get the free, in-depth special report on eligibility that could bring an end to Obama's presidency

Suggesting he was still intent on producing more birth records on Obama from the Hawaii Department of Health vital records vault, Abercrombie told the newspaper there was a recording of the Obama birth in the state archives that he wants to make public.

Abercrombie did not report to the newspaper that he or the Hawaii Department of Health had found Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate. The governor only suggested his investigations to date had identified an unspecified listing or notation of Obama's birth that someone had made in the state archives.

"It was actually written, I am told, this is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down," Abercrombie said.

For seemingly the first time, Abercrombie frankly acknowledged that presidential politics motivated his search for Obama birth records, implying that failure to resolve the questions that remain unanswered about the president's birth and early life may damage his chance for re-election.

"If there is a political agenda (regarding Obama's birth certificate), then there is nothing I can do about that, nor can the president," he said.

So far, the only birth document available on Obama is a Hawaii Certification of Live Birth that first appeared on the Internet during the 2008 presidential campaign. It was posted by two purportedly independent websites that have displayed a strong partisan bias for Obama – Snopes.com released the COLB in June 2008, and FactCheck.org published photographs of the document in August 2008.

WND previously reported the Hawaii Department of Health has refused to authenticate the COLB posted on the Internet by Snopes.com and FactCheck.org.

WND has reported that in 1961, Obama's grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, could have made an in-person report of a Hawaii birth even if the infant Barack Obama Jr. had been foreign-born.

Similarly, the newspaper announcements of Obama's birth do not prove he was born in Hawaii, since they could have been triggered by the grandparents registering the birth as Hawaiian, even if the baby was born elsewhere.

Moreover, WND has documented that the address reported in the newspaper birth announcements was the home of the grandparents.

WND also has reported that Barack Obama Sr. maintained his own separate apartment in Honolulu, even after he was supposedly married to Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, and that Dunham left Hawaii within three weeks of the baby's birth to attend the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dunham did not return to Hawaii until after Barack Obama Sr. left Hawaii in June 1962 to attend graduate school at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

Conceivably, the yet undisclosed birth record in the state archives that Abercrombie has discovered may have come from the grandparents registering Obama's birth, an event that would have triggered both the newspaper birth announcements and availability of a Certification of Live Birth, even if no long-form birth certificate existed.

WND has also reported that Tim Adams, a former senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu in 2008, has maintained that there is no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate on file with the Hawaii Department of Health and that neither Honolulu hospital – Queens Medical Center or Kapiolani Medical Center – has any record that Obama was born there.

Source

This is what our country deserves and needs to hear from a president after a tragic incident like the one in Tucson.

Good news for people who want an iPhone, but refuse to do business with AT&T.  (Like me.)

Tomorrow, Jan. 11, Verizon is announcing the iPhone for Verizon, and it should be on sale by the end of the month.

For those who don't become rapidly hateful every time "George Bush" is mentioned, you may find this video informative and somewhat sentimental.

Last Edited: January 7, 2011, 4:20 pm

I can't get over the faux-patriotic music in the background and the countless annoying computer-generated camera sweeps over the twisting $100 bill (with accompanying lens flare), but at least you get to see the new features of the bill.

Last Edited: January 6, 2011, 11:36 am

Is Julian Assange purposely going for the Dr. Evil look?

Or is it a coincidence?

You be the judge.

Ever wonder what all those complicated financial terms like "Quantitative Easing" mean?

Here's a great video that explains it -- and the absurdity of it -- perfectly.

I have blogged about this topic before:  I have been recommending for a couple years now about how Microsoft offers what I consider to be the best virus protection -- and it's free.

Years ago I came to the conclusion that most, if not all, commercial virus protection software is a racket, designed to scare you year after year into constantly buying the annual upgrades.

That's why these packages advise you (amongst other things) about "evil cookies" that the program thankfully "eradicated" from your computer. 

Give me a break!  That's the biggest crock in the industry -- that cookies are somehow "evil", and that everyone should go around fearful of having them on their computer.

Let's say the virus software companies told you the truth -- that cookies were completely harmless little text files, and that not one single person on Earth had their computer corrupted by a cookie.  And in addition to telling you the truth, they stopped their software from the useless (and often annoying) practice of deleting cookies from your computer.

What would happen then, when you scan your computer for viruses and come up with "no viruses found" time after time?  You'd begin to realize that their software was not really necessary, and maybe you'd skip that next annual upgrade.

And don't think they don't know it.  That's why they make sure that their scanning software always finds "evil stuff" when you run a scan.  So you're like, "Thank God I was protected by their great software."

You know what's evil?  The fact that they corrupt your perspective into thinking little text files called "cookies" are evil so that you'll continue wasting your money on their software.

OK, so back to Microsoft's free offering.  It's called Microsoft Security Essentials.  You can download a free copy here.  (Keep in mind that you should only run ONE anti-virus software package at a time, so uninstall other similar packages before installing the Microsoft package.)

Security Essentials offers two things: 

1. It runs silently in the background, monitoring all files for possible virus activity.  If you were to try and do something like download a file containing a virus, it will alert you and give you options for how to deal with it.  Selecting the option for the software's "default action" is usually best.
2. You can set up the program to automatically run a scan of your whole computer on whatever schedule you wish.

You can also set up the program for an "advanced membership", which I recommend.  Again, it does not cost anything, but it gives your software more options.

All of the pay software companies out there make claims that Microsoft's free software is nowhere as good as their commercial software.  Hogwash!

The fact is that the Security Essentials scanning engine is exactly the same one used in Microsoft's high-end ForeFront anti-virus software that Microsoft sells to businesses.  It is top-notch, and often obtains some of the highest scores in the industry for threat detection.

Check out this article over at ZDNet that came out today showing that Microsoft's anti-virus software is detecting viruses that most other pay software can't.

So, if you're looking to have your Windows-based computer well-protected against threats, install the free Microsoft Security Essentials software, and use the built-in Windows Firewall software to block Internet intrusions. 

In this case the best threat protection is free!

Virginia is probably going to offer these plates -- Texas may be next.  I hope, hope, hope that New Jersey gets 'em too.  I'll be the first in line, for sure.

Source

Check it out!  Lottery Post has hit the big time, with a link on DRUDGE REPORT!

http://www.drudgereport.com/

I found a neat little free program today that cleans up your bookmarks and favorites in your web browsers.

It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera.  (Too bad, I don't see a Safari option.)

Basically it looks at all the bookmarks in your browser, and tests each one to see if the page they point to is still working.  That way, you can quickly purge all non-functioning bookmarks you have. 

That would be handy enough as-is, but it also has a feature to go out to each bookmarked site and grab the latest "favicon" image to display in your bookmarks.  Sweet!

Did I mention the software is free?

It's called AM Deadlink, and it's located here: http://aignes.com/deadlink.htm

It seems pretty well built too, not just "thrown together".

Very handy for people with a lengthy collection of favorites/bookmarks.

Edit: Forgot to mention, it also finds all the duplicate bookmarks in your collection!

Last Edited: October 30, 2010, 11:21 pm