Todd's Blog

THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY FORCEABLY REMOVED FROM THEIR KEYBOARDS BECAUSE OF HOW ANNOYING IT IS TO SEE EVERYTHING THEY WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.  THOSE PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK IT IS EASIER TO READ THEIR TEXT WHEN THEY TYPE IT LIKE THIS.

But should someone be fired for it?  Heck, maybe.  At least that's what one company thought.  Check it out:

Woman fired for USING ALL CAPS IN E-MAIL

Vicki Walker, an Auckland (New Zealand) accountant, was sacked for sending supposedly confrontational emails with words in red, in bold and in CAPITAL LETTERS.

The Employment Relations Authority in New Zealand ruled that Walker was not fairly terminated from her position after sending the emails to co-workers. Her previous employers, ProCare, have now been ordered to pay New Zealand dollars $17,000 (US$11,500/€8000) for unfair dismissal.

Fired in December 2007, after two years with the company, ProCare claim Walker had "caused disharmony in the workplace by using block capitals, bold typeface and red text in her emails."

Walker claims that the one email used in evidence was in regard to how her team should fill claim forms, and specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: "To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist."

Walker plans to seek further compensation.

Source

There is a CD you buy that will take you to another place — a place of wonderful, harmonious music.

Philip Glass is one of the great classical piano composers and performers, and his Solo Piano album continues to be one of the single-greatest works of his.

It is perfect for when you want to listen to music — not just background music while you use the computer, read a book, or do some work — I'm talking about those times when you want to sit with your eyes closed and allow the music to take you wherever it goes.

Solo Piano is a succession of music that builds around a theme, and like most Philip Glass music it builds on the concept of repetition.  It is a meditative miracle.

If you have never listened to classical piano, there could be no better introduction.

You won't want it to end, and it leaves you in a contemplative mood.

(Click for more info)

It turns out that flipping a coin has all sorts of non-randomness:

Here are the broad strokes of their research:

1. If the coin is tossed and caught, it has about a 51% chance of landing on the same face it was launched. (If it starts out as heads, there's a 51% chance it will end as heads).
2. If the coin is spun, rather than tossed, it can have a much-larger-than-50% chance of ending with the heavier side down. Spun coins can exhibit "huge bias" (some spun coins will fall tails-up 80% of the time).
3. If the coin is tossed and allowed to clatter to the floor, this probably adds randomness.
4. If the coin is tossed and allowed to clatter to the floor where it spins, as will sometimes happen, the above spinning bias probably comes into play.
5. A coin will land on its edge around 1 in 6000 throws, creating a flipistic singularity.
6. The same initial coin-flipping conditions produce the same coin flip result. That is, there's a certain amount of determinism to the coin flip.
7. A more robust coin toss (more revolutions) decreases the bias.

The paper.

NEW ZEALAND — Defiant Mapua artist Roger Griffiths today made a stand against Westpac by withdrawing his $190,000 savings in $20 notes.

The bank provided a red-and-black carry bag to take away the cash after meticulously counting it in front of Mr Griffiths at its Nelson branch.

Mr Griffiths, a loyal Westpac customer for 25 years, decided to withdraw his money after the bank rejected his application for an $80,000 mortgage. "It's about time normal people took a stand."

He said the bank turned down his application because he did not have a regular income as an artist. However, he was a successful artist, exhibiting his paintings at the World of Wearable Art complex, in Christchurch and New York, he said.

He wanted to buy a $385,000 property in Mapua, had $200,000 in cash and was going to sell his $110,000 campervan.

That more than met the bank's criteria for a 20 per cent deposit, and the property which included a home and commercial premises would have returned $500 a week, he said.

He was disappointed when his loan application was rejected, but it was Westpac losing $111 million to Lane Walker Rudkin Industries that tipped his decision to withdraw his money.

"They can lose $110 million with LWR but turn down a normal customer who has never missed a loan payment," he said. "If they don't have the trust in me after 25 years, there's a problem for Westpac."

Having decided to withdraw his money, he then decided to make it hard for the bank by requesting payment in $20 bills.

He said the Nelson branch told him it did not have that amount and he would have to also go to other branches at Stoke, Richmond and Motueka. However, he insisted the bank have the money ready to collect at 9am today. He then took it to the Nelson Building Society, saying he would rather deal with NBS because it was part of the community.

His message to Westpac: "If you don't support the community, the community won't support you."

Mr Griffiths' protest comes after a series of embarrassments for Westpac. On Tuesday its former Alexandra bank manager admitted defrauding the bank of more than $400,000, and it has been left red-faced over the slip-up that allowed $10 million to be wrongly credited to a Rotorua service station co-owner who had since fled to China.

Westpac media relations manager Craig Dowling said today that when the bank lent money it required certain information to be provided to enable that lending to be done prudently.

"It's about providing evidence of an ability to meet regular repayments."

In Mr Griffiths' case that information was not provided for it to be assessed, he said. Mr Griffiths' withdrawal was disappointing.

"We would like to welcome Mr Griffiths back. We just need the confidence regular repayments can be met."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2667215/190-000-withdrawn-in-20-bills

The latest version of Firefox is now available for automatic update.  To install the update, simply open your existing Firefox and select "Check for Updates" on the Help menu.

The new version is a much more advanced browser internally.  It has a faster JavaScript engine, which means that pages whould operate quicker, and it also has a "private" mode, which is like the InPrivate mode that Microsoft added to IE8 several months ago.

I was very sad to see this.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays' wife found him unresponsive Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators he didn't feel well before he went to bed about 10 p.m. that night.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay's Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays afterward.

"All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping," MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. "It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays' death to the landing would "purely be speculation." She said Mays' family members didn't report any health issues with the pitchman, but said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in the coming weeks.

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA is not investigating his death.

U.S. Airways spokesman Jim Olson said there were no reports of serious injury due to the landing.

"If local authorities have any questions for us about yesterday's flight, we'll cooperate fully with them," he said.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "As Seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of "As Seen on TV," said he first met Mays in the early 1990s when Mays was still pitching one of his early products, the Shammy absorbent cloth, at a trade fair. He said he most recently worked with Mays on the reality TV show "Pitchmen" on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

"His innovative role and impact on the growth and wide acceptance of direct response television cannot be overestimated or easily replaced; he was truly one of a kind," Khubani said of Mays in a statement.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it's done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, "Long live your laundry!"

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

"Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy," she said, adding that Mays met his future wife at the network. "Everybody thinks because he's loud and boisterous on the air that that's the way he is, but I always found him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person."

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans for his commercials on a wide variety of products. People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the products.

"I enjoy what I do," Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. "I think it shows."

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel ("powered by the air we breathe!") on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

As part of "Pitchmen," Mays and Sullivan showed viewers new gadgets such as the Impact Gel shoe insert; the Tool Band-it, a magnetized armband that holds tools; and the Soft Buns portable seat cushion.

"One of the things that we hope to do with 'Pitchmen' is to give people an appreciation of what we do," Mays told The Tampa Tribune in an April interview. "I don't take on a product unless I believe in it. I use everything that I sell."

His former wife, Dolores "Dee Dee" Mays, of McKees Rocks, Pa., recalled that the first product he sold was the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.

"I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him," she said of Mays' success. "He'll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for them. He was a generous soul and a great father."

Besides his wife, Mays is survived by a 3-year-old daughter and a stepson in his 20s, police said.

Rest In Peace, Billy Mays.

This post is for anyone who has looked for good anti-virus/anti-malware software.

Microsoft just today came out with a beta of their latest security software, which previously had the code name "Morro".  The official product name is Microsoft Security Essentials.

Like the other Windows Live software Microsoft offers, the new security software is free, and will always remains free.

It is a direct replacement for the company's OneCare software, which I personally use, and which I have recommended to many people.  The new software removes the backup and firewall components from OneCare, but those components were really unnecessary anyway, because they are built into Windows.

I have installed the new Security Essentials myself, and it is perfect for what I look for in security software:  it is simple, it doesn't annoy you with a bunch of notifications about every nit and nat, and it has excellent malware detection, with fantastic ability to differentiate between real malware and "false positives".

There are only 75,000 slots open for the beta program, so if you want to give it a try, swing over to the following link right now, and at least get the installer downloaded, even if you install it later.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

I have been running for over a year now without any of those big security suites installed (like Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, ZoneAlarm, etc.), and I couldn't be happier.  They were a big waste of time and frequently slowed down my computer.

Microsoft's firewall that's built into Vista is as good as any firewall in those security suites (it is actually superior to most), so why would I want to replace it with some other company's software?

Microsoft's OneCare is currently one of only three products to get certified by the industry standard tests (can't remember the name of it), and the new software uses the same security engine — so it's really good.

I love that the installer immediately downloads the latest virus updates and runs a quick scan, without having to kick it off yourself or hunt for the right button.

Fans of Apple's Safari Web browser can rejoice:  version 4.0 was officially released!

The free download is here: http://www.apple.com/safari/

Apple claims that it is the fastest Web browser on the market, but it is actually almost the fastest.

The fastest browser is still Google Chrome.  That's not just me saying it; I read a ZDNet report today, including actual performance statistics.  Safari 4.0 is very fast.  Chrome is just a little bit faster.

The final release of Safari 4.0 definitely shows improvement over the beta.

For one thing, I am so happy they decided to do away with the giant tab that stretched across the window titlebar.  That was remarkably ugly.  Instead, it now opens normal tabs just below the toolbar.  (Like IE8 and Firefox do.)

The Refresh button is still too small and almost hidden within the Address bar.  The browser menus are very similar to Google Chrome; they exist in two icon-only buttons all the way on the right side of the toolbar.

If you're a Safari user, I'd be interested to hear what you think of the new release.

One of the poorest parts of a PC is its ability to keep accurate time.  I could never figure out why, but a PC's clock is worse at keeping time than a gumball machine plastic watch.

Windows does have a feature that tries to synchronize the clock with a server on the Internet, but it does not synchronize often enough, in my view.  And if it fails when it attempts to synchronize, your PC's clock can get way out of wack.

For some reason, Windows makes it impossible to control how often the clock gets synchronized.  Probably to avoid a massive traffic problem on the time server.

But today I found a nifty little program that lets you change the synchronizing to occur either daily or hourly.

I think hourly may be a bit overkill, but daily is definitely a good idea.

Here's a link to the utility: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_inet_time.htm

It comes in a simple zip file, and there is no installation necessary.  The zip file contains one file.  Just copy that file to wherever on your hard disk you'd like to keep it, and then run the program.

It displays a little dialog box asking how often you'd like to synchronize the clock.  You click the option, click Apply, and the click Exit.  That's all there is to it!

Works with Windows XP and Vista.  I haven't tested Windows 7 yet, but it probably works there too.

Google has released a new version of their Chrome Web browser.

If you have never used Chrome, I would definitely recommend giving it a try.  It is super-fast, and will make everything you do on the web much faster than whatever you're using now.

Incredibly, the new version (which is 2.x) manages to get even faster, both with the screen rendering times and with how fast it can execute scripts.  

If you already have Chrome installed, you can see if it's the latest version by clicking the Wrench button in the upper-right corner, and then selecting About Google Chrome from the menu.  The version number appears at the bottom of the about box, and if it's an older version, you just click on the Update button and it installs the latest version for you.

If you don't have Chrome installed, go to www.google.com/chrome and click Download Google Chrome.  (Grr, I wish these non-IE Web browsers would automatically make links clickable like IE does -- my biggest pet peeve with them!)

Don't ever be afraid to install multiple Web browsers on your computer.  It does not do any harm, and it in fact gives you an opportunity to try out different ways to browse the web.

The fact that all Web browsers are free does hurt either.

If you're a computer newbie/non-techie, just go ahead and try it anyway.  It's about as easy to do as anything you've done on the web.

BTW, one nice thing about Chrome is that like Safari and Firefox, it can do rounded corners, so you get to see the Lottery Post buttons in their best/intended form, like this:

When you buy a PC, the one thing you always try to do is to buy something that will last for several years and won't be quickly outdated.  The last thing anyone wants is to buy a new PC, only to find that it is useless in a couple years.

With that in mind, I read an article today about picking the the type of CPU (Central Processing Unit, or microprocessor) in your new PC to be sure it is future-proof.  (Some people refer to the CPU as the computer's "brain", but I personally hate that analogy.)

Microsoft is currently putting the finishing touches on it's latest operating system, called Windows 7.  It is the successor to Windows Vista, and I think you'll find that unlike Vista, Windows 7 is going to have a very good reception. 

I have personally been running Windows 7 on test machines for many months now, and I now have the Release Candidate running.  It is one solid operating system.  There are so many nice touches in there.

One of the nice touches that will be available in some versions of Windows 7 is Windows XP Mode.  I know this is going to be a very popular feature.

Windows XP Mode lets you run Windows XP applications right alongside new Windows 7 applications.  They even look like Windows XP programs, with the all-too-familiar blue window frame design that Windows XP uses.  You'll even get a Windows XP task bar at the bottom of the screen.  (This is, if you want it.)

But, here's the catch.  (And the reason for linking to the important article about CPUs in new computers.)

If you want to run Windows XP mode, your CPU must have a certain technology built-in, and when you buy a new PC it can be extremely difficult to tell if the CPU has it.

The technology is called "virtualization".  It is available in both Intel and AMD CPUs, but you need to be careful which model you're buying to be sure it has it.  In some cases, it seems there is little rhyme or reason as to why it is included or not included with a particular CPU.

The bottom line is that if you are buying a new PC, absolutely, positively, be sure it has virtualization built-in to the CPU.  The last thing you want is to find out that your new computer can't handle a very desirable feature a year or two down the road.

The article includes a full listing of all the current CPUs available, and points out which ones have virtualization.

Also, apart from the article, Windows 7 is almost certainly going to be officially released somewhere between August and October of this year.  If you're looking to buy a new PC this summer (or thereabouts), you may want to wait until the PC makers start coming out with their free Windows 7 upgrade offers, which tend to start about a month or so before the release of the new OS.

That's what they do every time a new Microsoft operating system is going to be released shortly.  It allows you to buy the buy with the assurance that when the new operating system is released, they will ship you the installation CD for free.

Here's the article about CPUs, and their support for virtualization.  Highly recommended reading!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=946

 

Update:

Here's another very useful article, and is complementary to the other article linked above.  Microsoft has come out with their official minimum recommendations for Windows 7, which is great information to have at your disposal when shopping for a new PC.

By no means do I ever recommend getting the minimum specification.  But it does give you a good heads-up about how well your PC should perform, relative to the lowest PC running Windows 7.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2643

The official release day of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is here, and as predicted, it took place this month (March).

The timing actually coincides with the big annual Microsoft developer's conference called MIX 09.

I have been using IE8 for many months now, so I have had an opportunity to watch the product evolve and continue getting better.  I highly recommend that any user of Windows XP or Windows Vista install it without reservation.

Lottery Post has been thoroughly tested and tweaked to be sure it works perfectly with IE8, and I can say from my own experience that the new browser works very well with practically every site on the Internet.

What makes it so wonderfully compatible is the little Compatibility Button that sits right at the top of the browser.  Any time you want, you can click that lite button and the browser will change modes to render the site in IE7 mode — for just that one site.

You can even set any site to permanently render as IE7 without having to click the button.

That kind of precise control is just plain awesome, and totally removes any need for worrying about upgrading.  It is the ultimate fall-back plan, without having to uninstall the product.

Ready to upgrade?  Here's the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx

Go for it!

Webmasters can be obsessive about Web browser statistics, such as what browser people are using, what version number, etc.

Another statistic that can be an important "tell" is what operating system people are using, because it telegraphs a lot of information about your visitors' computers and capabilities.

For example, someone using Windows 98 is going to have an old, very underpowered PC, whereas someone using Windows Vista will tend to have a more modern, capable computer.

That information is important to me because it tells me how far I can go with delivering leading-edge features.  If only 5% of the people visiting the site is capable of using a feature, I won't waste my time on it.  But if 60% of visitors can use something, I give it more attention.  If 90% of the visitors can use something, most of my effort goes there.

So one of the stats I watch closely is the ratio of Windows XP users to Windows Vista users, because the more Vista users there are, the more leading-edge features I feel comfortable spending the time creating.

For a long time, the number of Vista users remained pretty steady at only about 25% of the number of XP users.  So if there were 1,000 Windows XP users visiting Lottery Post at a certain point, I could pretty accurately predict that at that moment there were also about 250 Windows Vista users on the site.  The statistics continued bearing out that ratio for a long time.

But recently, I have noticed a sharp uptick in the number of Vista users on the site — a very encouraging statistic.

That ratio of XP-to-Vista users is now up to about 50%.  At this moment (at this time I'm writing this) there are 1,113 Windows XP visitors and 582 Windows Vista visitors — which equates to 52%.  That's nice to see!

I'm not sure as to the timing of why that is happening now.  Maybe it's the upcoming release of Windows 7, or computer companies having big sales, or something else.  But I do know that it helps bring me closer to getting my hands unshackled as far as being able to build much more slick, friendly features.

On the other hand, one statistic that is still too high, and I'd like it to drop like a stone, is the number of IE6 users.  IE6 continues to be the bane of my existence.  It is so full of security holes and is so incredibly buggy that I am constantly holding back on delivering exciting things because there are still too many IE6 users to completely drop support for it.

In fact, there are more IE6 users on the site at any one time than Firefox users.  That's a real mind-bender!  (Right now there are 303 IE6 visitors and 231 visitors using any version of Firefox.)  

Every single IE6 user has a PC that is capable of running Firefox.  Their entire web browsing experience would be 20-thousand times better using Firefox than it is with IE6, and it doesn't cost a penny to upgrade.  I wish there was a way I could reach across the Internet and click download for them.

Anyway, I mentioned Windows 7 earlier, and I'll be doing a write-up on it sometime in the future.  Suffice to say in the meantime that it is just plain awesome.  In fact, I'm using the latest build of Windows 7 (build 7057) right now as I write this.  Everything is just so refined and ... logical.  And it's fast too — faster than both Vista and XP in all the tests I've seen.  That's been my experience as well.

More on that another time!