I’ve gotten word that The Pirate Bay’s servers have been taken offline. I’m still waiting for further word, but stay tuned for more information as it becomes availible.
You’re in IT, right? So chances are you’ve been laid off at least once from some crappy company and it’s going to happen again. Here is my one piece of advice to you. The single most important thing to do as soon as you make it back to your house with that box full of stuff:
Seriously. Do it now, before the initial shock wears off and that logical side of your brain starts coming up with lame excuses. You will never have a better chance to get out and see the world than right now. You have a pile of saving and a severance package. You’ve got 6 months to a year before your skills start getting rusty. There is absolutely no reason to start looking for work immediately, and every reason to take that round-the-world trip you’ve always dreamed about. Right. Now.
Trust me, your career will be just fine.
This is the easiest question to answer: Bangkok. Seriously, the mere fact that you had to ask the question indicates that you’re probably not a seasoned traveler and therefore should be going to Thailand first. I know you always wanted to do Europe, but it’s crazy expensive and frankly, it’s just not relaxed enough for you right now. You’re going to need some serious chilling to recover from a layoff. Southeast Asia has that in Spades.
Make your way to Ko San Road, find a room, grab a Beer Chiang and talk to a few other travelers. Your trip will plan itself from there.
Ok, one modification to the above. Thailand is thoroughly uninhabitable for a few months between May and July. In that case, you’re going to Africa. Book a flight to Cape Town instead. Follow this itinerary up through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. Everybody there speaks English and you can get a room for $0.75. You’ll do fine.
You’re going to want to stay gone for 6-9 months. Less than that and it you’ll be kicking yourself for not leaving enough time, and you’ll be rushing through entire countries just to keep up with your itinerary. I know that this seems silly now, but somewhere along the way somebody will ask how long you’ve been in Vietnam for and you’ll answer “Only one month.” Timescales work differently on the road.
In my experience (did I mention that I take about 9 months vacation a year and spend most of that traveling in the developing world?), I tend to start missing work after about 6 months away. By 9 months, I’m pretty much ready to commit to a real job in a real office just so that I can start using my brain again. Talking to other software guys on the road, it seems that this pretty common. You’re going to want to come back eventually, so be sure to keep a few good contacts back home.
Regardless of how long you plan to be gone, try to book your flight one-way. It will give you unlimited flexibility with your travel plans and let you pick your return date later when you know what you actually want to do. As a last resort, pick the return date furthest in the future, since it’s a lot easier to move it forward than to push it back.
I budget about $1,000 a month when I’m traveling in Southeast Asia, Central America, Africa or the Middle East. I seldom go through that much if I’m sticking to ground transport, but over the course of a year if you consider flights into the calculations, $1,000 a month is about right. Stay away from the developed world at all costs though, or you’ll quickly triple that figure!
The nice thing about a 6 month timeframe is that it gives all of your ex-coworkers time to entrench themselves in other hopeless software companies. Email them and notice how everything around them seems to be on fire. They need you to start tomorrow. Line up a good offer based on one of their recommendations and book a flight home.
You can’t possibly be serious. Are you saying that you’ve been working in IT for all these years and haven’t put away a lousy ten grand??? Shame on you. Get a book on life skills and open a bank account fer cryin’ out loud.
Not true. Nobody will hire you if you’re bad at what you do and have terrible interviewing skills. Those things won’t change over the course of six months, but you might possibly wind up more relaxed (and with some good stories to tell) and that’s actually a benefit when it comes to interviewing.
Regardless of what you may have heard, skilled developers are very hard to find. If you fit that category, there’s very little that you can do to poison your resume. Certainly, heading off on your once-in-a-lifetime trip won’t leave you unemployable.
Ok, you win. You’re screwed, but that’s the life you chose for yourself so you’re going to have to live it. It’s worth noting, however, that most Europeans wouldn’t consider that a reason not to travel. Right this second, there is a German couple pushing a stroller down a remote beach in Thailand, and they’re not going home for another month. What’s your excuse again?
When you get right down to it, you’ll probably find a way to talk yourself out of taking that dream trip. You’ll come up with some pretty believable excuses, but really it will come down to the fact that you’re scared.
That’s cool. Travel is pretty scary when you look at it from the outside. But here’s the thing. It stops being scary the moment your feet hit the pavement on Ko San Road in Bangkok. You’re going to get blasted by 100 degree heat, power-wafted by smells of the most amazing street food one minute and an open sewer the next, assaulted with music from a thousand bars, and crammed into a tiny room overlooking it all with a fan that doesn’t work. And you won’t be able to wipe the silly grin off your face.
Book the flight today, because every day you delay it is one more day wasted on the couch, and one more day to come up with lame excuses for why you shouldn’t go.
It is all good here. Get your ass on a plane.
So yes, it’s been a bit of a while since I last made a real entry here at Dev-Toast. The reason is really far beyond the scope of this website. For the longest time I’d been using Microsoft Word as my blogging editor and then posting directly from word. Then I was using Adobe Contribute CS3, which is great… if you only use Internet Explorer…
While stumbling around on the net with StumbleUpon, I found Windows Live writer. The big thing about it is that essentially what you see is really what you get. It downloads the CSS from your weblog so that you’re editing is done inside the constraints of the CSS style sheet. Very slick indeed. Keep checking back here for a full review on the HTC Kiaser also known as the AT&T Tilt among a plethora of other names.
-Joe
Quoted from http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/08/28/top_10_tech_toy.html:
Related Entries: Features
Just as cell phones are becoming ever more powerful übergadgets, and flat TV screens get larger even as their prices drop, so, too, do the gadgets of the upper crust further distance themselves from the trinkets of the masses. For better or worse, most of the guts of even the priciest pieces of tech are pretty much the same as those of the glitterati — even if the oil sheiks and Level III Scientologists of the world can afford to house those guts in 24-karat gold inlaid with Babe Ruth’s bone fragments.
Still, sometimes the superrich get what they pay for, or at least far more bang for their Black AmEx swipe than the Wal-Mart shoppers can get on layaway. Here are the 10 most extravagant electronics for the techy bajillionaires on your gift list, and be sure to come back tomorrow for our companion piece, the 10 Gadgets You Can Actually Afford.
10. Ultimate Ears UE-11 EarphonesBespoke suits, custom-made shirts, fitted ball caps — nothing bought off the rack can match the like-a-glove fit and comfort of customized men’s wear. The same perfection holds for customized in-ear monitors: earphones that require a visit to (or from) an audiologist to make a wax impression of the canals to shape precise molds, resulting in intrusive, yet perfectly comfortable ‘buds.
UE’s $1,150 phones are the company’s most sophisticated pro models yet, housing not a double but a quad armature speaker configuration with a three-way crossover. The results — delivered via dual subwoofers, a midrange driver, and a tweeter directly into your eardrum — is the most precise sound capable short of a miniaturized Christina Aguilera living in your brain. Ultimate Ears UE-11
9. Krell KID iPod DockWhen it comes to iPod docks, there are a lot of them: No audio-equipment manufacturer wants to be without one. So high-end component maker Krell introduced its own $1,200 entry this past January, attracting attention as the most expensive iPod accessory — an erroneous qualification, seeing as how there’s BMW that docks a ‘pod. No matter. Krell left out its supersensitive tubes when developing the Krell iPod Dock (disparagingly nicknamed by the acronym KID), instead optimizing the output of the iPod’s digital-to-analog converter. Otherwise, the KID serves its simple purpose of passing along iPod (or auxiliary Zune or other input) signals with panache, offering balanced outputs, bass and treble adjustments, and video out for the discerning entertainment rack. Krell KID
8. Audio-Technica ATH-W5000 HeadphonesWhen buying audio equipment, the rules of diminishing returns inevitably require we budget-minded folks avail ourselves of the cost-value proposition. Yes, $100 headphones sound better than $20 headphones, but do they sound 5 times better? And does that mean that $1,500 headphones sound 15 times better than $100 headphones? Of course the answer is not frickin’ likely. But when cost is no option, plugging in a pair of bass-heavy Bose phones into a $7,000 receiver is tantamount to casting Charlize Theron as the She-Thing in FF3.
Audio-Technica’s $1,670 striped ebony-cased cans (that’s wood — better material for producing richer sound) enhance acoustics, output precise audio fidelity, and reduce noise. Leather ear fittings provide a comfortable hold, but not even the unique wood-y look of the things can communicate “rich audiophile” anywhere outside a specialty show, nor can they diminish the dork factor of DJ-style headphones. Audio-Technica ATH-W5000 headphones
7. modPod Egg ChairFans of Men in Black (the movie — not the comic book, and definitely not the kid’s cartoon show) may recognize the iconic Egg Chair. Everyone else will recognize it from breakfast. And while the unique retro design isn’t conducive to test-taking, it’s rather ideal for sound immersion — hence, the iPod integration with surround sound speakers. Each chair is custom upholstered in a choice of fabric, adding to the appeal/cost; a model with shaken-not-stirred rumble action goes for $1,800. modPod Egg Chair
6. Bentley HumidorNothing says, “I have money to burn” like a smoldering cigar. True tobacco aficionados keep their imported-at-great-human-and-fiscal-cost Cubabos in unnecessarily expensive humidors. This $6,400 jobby is cased in solid walnut, spiced up with Burr Walnut veneer and details of ebony and silver; a premium Credo humidity regulator (humidifier and hydrometer) — ostensibly the mechanism that justifies its gadget designation — is the best of its kind. A winged Bentley logo adorns the front to remind guest tokers that his other car is a lot more impressive than whatever you rolled up in. Bentley Humidor
5. Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947
Cell PhoneIf the iPhone is the Mercedes sedan of cellies — superperforming, aspirational, slobber worthy — than this $7,500 phone is the… Ferrari GT — a showy, overstated midlife crisis wrapped up in metal and leather. “Exclusive handset crafters” Vertu (a subsidiary of flashy-forward cell maker Nokia) has tweaked the styles of its Ascent line to feature various automotive masterpieces; the individually numbered Ascent Ferrari 1947 phone gets its cues from the GT models of that obsessive Italian carmaker’s lineup, pairing hand-polished titanium with red and black leather, tarted up with black lacquer racing stripes and a to-scale aluminum brake pedal adorning the back.
Beyond sleek, racy good looks (we’ll grudgingly give it that), the Ascent, like all Vertus, connects directly to 24-hour concierge service, providing tech support and “creative and relevant solutions” to customers via a dedicated button — ostensibly saving the pampered class the trouble of texting GOOGLE for Web-accessible information. Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 Cell Phone
4. Xexoo Gold-Plated iPod ShuffleThe ubiquitous iPod provides a blank palette ripe for ostentatious individualized prettying up — graphic stickers, laser engraving, plastic molding and the like. How, then, to best enhance the appearance of the stylish gadget in a truly over-the-top fashion? Perhaps German company Xexoo looked to C-3PO for inspiration, as their solution involved covering up the base, pedestrian materials (plastic, aluminum) of Apple’s music players with gold — gold plating, to be precise.
A $19,000 Shuffle makes the most of little, adding diamond bling to its otherwise-$10,000, red carpet-worthy, 18-karat-covered accessory. 24-hour tech support — including damage repair and replacement worldwide — sweetens the deal, though for the price of 240-song storage on one Xexoo Shuffle, his majesty could also purchase Shuffles for each of his 240 servants/mistresses. Xexoo Gold-Plated iPod shuffle
3. Steinway Lyngdorf Model-D
Handmade Music SystemSteinway & Sons built its reputation on building flawless pianos like its concert grand Model-D. Peter Lyngdorf has built his reputation on building high-end hi-fi equipment. Put them together and the result is a $150,000 sound system, a completely digital, ultra-high-end beaut capable of reproducing a full symphony without any sound loss — thereby scaring the bejesus out of beyond-their-prime oboists who’ve been phoning it in for decades.
Each speaker tower weighs 500 pounds, has four 12-inch drivers, two 5-inch midranges and a single ribbon tweeter. The hefty cost includes a visit from a sound technician to do the installation and configuration to ensure that Mr. Moneybags can hear every last piccolo inhalation from any point in his listening room. The Model-D all but requires a shrine to audiophile addiction. Further ratcheting up the exclusivity, Steinway is hand-making just 100 systems, keeping the pristine pieces out of the hands of latecomers as well as us commoners. Steinway Lyngdorf Model-D Handmade Music System
2. Tulip Ego Diamond Notebook PCDutch company Ego has seen the future in laptop design, and it looks like a purse. As with high fashion, utility and practicality are boring when it comes to luxury gadgets — hence the wholly underwhelming tech specifications of these Tulip Egos: single-core AMD Turion processor, 12.1-inch screen, blah blah blah. But they are so gorgeous, darling!
Women and fancy boys can customize their pocketbooks, er, notebooks with their choice of skin (leather or other fabric) and by integrating designs like embroidered initials or symbols into the case — all tailor-made. And while prices start at $5,000, the gem of the appropriately branded Ego is a $350,000 diamond-encrusted Tulip. It’s named for the flower-shaped icon consisting of 470 diamonds Krazy-glued to the lid, certain to attract jealous looks from socialites and diamond thieves alike. Tulip Ego Diamond notebook PC
1. Fujitsu Super Frontech
Vision LD DisplaySure, there are 100-plus-inch flat screens out there, but Samsung, Sharp and LG aren’t likely to sell you one no matter how much scratch you bring to the electronics show. But anyone with a half-million holiday bonus (or 63 million Japanese Yen) still burning their extraordinarily large pockets can get their hands on (if not their arms around) this whoppingly huge-ormous 231-inch display consisting of huge LEDs. And as opposed to a Jumbotron, the 16-million-color monitor accepts a myriad of inputs, including DVI. Just don’t expect to see larger-than-life Katherine Heigl standing in your living room in full HD: the resolution’s a paltry 512 x 288 pixels, requiring a viewing distance of at least 15 feet. Fujitsu Super Frontech Vision LD display
Quoted from http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/internet-and-broadband/news/75-year-old-woman-has-fastest-broadband?articleid=1857379299:
Tech.co.uk | News | 75-year-old pensioner has fastest broadband
Anna Lagerkvist
13 Jul 2007 08:41
A 75-year-old Swedish woman currently has the fastest broadband connection in the world.
Sigbritt Löthberg, from Karlstad in central Sweden, enjoys a massive 40Gbps connection - many thousand times faster than the average connection speed delivered to homes. It’s the first time such a high speed as ever been delivered to a home user anywhere in the world.
Sigbritt has only recently taking up computing. She is the mother of Swedish ‘internet legend’ Peter Löthberg, who arranged the connection along with the local council’s network department.
“This is more than just a demonstration,” said Hafsteinn Jonsson, network manager at Karlstad Stadsnät.
“As a network owner we’re trying to persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections. And Peter Löthberg wanted to show how you can build a low price, high capacity line over long distances,” Jonsson told The Local .
Sigbritt is now able to enjoy 1,500 high-definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if she doesn’t find anything to watch there, there’s also the option of downloading a full high-definition DVD in just two seconds.
The ultra-fast connection speed has been achieved by a new modulation technology. It allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, without any intermediary transponders.
The distance is, in theory, unlimited - there is no data loss as long as the fibre is in place, according to Karlstad Stadsnät.
“I want to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has,” said Peter Löthberg, who works at Cisco.
The fibre technology behind such high speed connections is “technically and commercially viable,” Jonsson said.
“The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt’s PC,” Jonsson added.
Quoted from http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/07/04/mpaas-media-defender-sets-up-fake-site-to-catch-pirates/:
TECH.BLORGE.com » Blog Archive » MPAA’s Media Defender sets up ‘fake’ site to catch pirates
July 4, 2007 |
Don’t get caught up inthe Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA)latest sting.Media Defender, a company whichdoes the dirty workfor the MPAA, has been caught setting up ‘dummy’ websites in an attempt to catch those who download copyrighted videos - entrapment comes to mind.
The site, MiiVi.com, complete with auser registration, forum, and “family filter”, offers complete downloads of movies and “fast and easy video downloading all in one great site.” But that’s not all;MiiVialso offers client software to speed up the downloading process. The only catch is, after it’s installed, it searches your computer for other copyrighted files and reports back.
ZeroPaid,acting ona tip from The Pirate Bay, found MiiVi to be registered to Media Defender using a whois search. Shortly after, the registrar information was changed, but the address still reflects Media Defender’s address at 2461 Santa Monica Blvd., D-520 Santa Monica, CA 90404.
Not 10 hours after the site was found to be registered to Media Defender, the site went dead. There’s no telling how long it was up; however, the domain was registered on February 8, 2007.
Perhaps Media Defender won’t use its own name on the registrar the next time around, but it just goes to show the lengths at which the MPAA is willing to go, to fight piracy.
Quoted from http://www.geekstudent.com/?p=22#comments:
Nerf Guns + Airbrushing = Awesome Looking Toy Guns you could feel proud to pistol whip a terrorist with!
Get yourself a Nerf Dart Launching weapon like this N-Strike Maverick here…
Find all your old Model Paint bottles from your D&D days or leftover paint from your Warhammer miniatures and slap that stuff on one of these….
BAM!
All you need is a helmet and you’re the next Master Chief!
Guns Master Chief Model Paint Nerf Warhammer
Quoted from http://thebrowser.blogs.fortune.com/2007/06/29/the-iphone-is-business-medias-paris-hilton/:
The Browser: Analyzing the tech biz The iPhone is business media’s Paris Hilton «
The iPhone is business media’s ParisHilton
The Browser nowunderstands how the folks attelevision news organizations like CNN(part of the CNN/Money family)feel when they privately complain aboutleading the news with stories about Paris Hilton. They know the story is overhyped and lacks the value of other news, but they struggle with the fact thatviewers seem to love it, even demand it.
The iPhone isourParis Hilton.
The news value of the product launch doesn’t merit all the coverage it is getting - but yeteverytimeThe Browser writes about the iPhonewegettons of reader feedback. (Some of it comes from Apple (AAPL)enthusiasts who seem to pore over every sentence looking for hidden or overt anti-Apple bias.) Sowe feed the beast with more iPhone stories and blog posts.
And like Paris Hilton, the iPhone won’t go away.To paraphrase New Yorkmagazine’s Undulating Curve of Shifting Expectations, there will be backlash to the iPhone and then backlash to the backlash. (We’rewell past the overhype stage, so expect the iPhone to be uncool in about 3 days, and so uncool-it’s-coolby mid July.)
Perhaps by the time we hitthe backlash to the backlash to the backlashwecan moveon to blogging about other news of the day. Like Paris Hilton’s latest exploit. Meanwhile, keep reading the Browser for more about, you guessed it, the iPhone.
Quoted from http://infowars.net/articles/june2007/290607Filming.htm:
New York Moves To Ban Public Filming And Photography
With vague reasoning and little explanation, moves are afoot in the city of New York to stamp out all forms of filming in public, be it by professional television crews, protestors or simply by tourists on sightseeing trips.
Some tourists, amateur photographers, even would-be filmmakers hoping to make it big on YouTube could soon be forced to obtain a city permit and $1 million in liability insurance before taking pictures or filming on city property, including sidewalks, reports the New York Times.
Though the Mayor’s Office of Film has said that the new rules are not aimed at families on vacation or amateur filmmakers or photographers, the enforcement would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in public for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance. The same ruling would also apply to any group of five or more people who plan to use a tripod in a public location for more than 10 minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment.
Even people simply holding cameras could be subject to the rules, the ACLU says.
The ACLU has pointed out that there is no distinction in the wording of the rules that excludes non professionals and it would be down to the discretion of the police as to whom to enforce the rules upon.
Given that camera crews are routinely threatened with arrest for filming peaceful demonstrations and the fact that cops have been caught stealing protestor’s cameras in the past, the new ruling does not bode well for photographers and independent reporters.
Filming in public is a right every American citizen has under the first and fourth amendments, which is why the cops in the cases above had to steal the camera and the footage, because there was no legal basis to seize it.
We have even seen police seize cameras and film from innocent people under bogus charges of “wiretapping”. Earlier this month a man was charged in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with filming police officers during a routine traffic stop and faces up to seven years in prison. Last year a North Middleton Twp. man was charged in a street racing case that involved a wiretapping charge. Police claimed the man ordered associates to tape police breaking up an illegal race after officers told him to turn off their cameras. Furthermore, last month a 48-year-old man from Dover, New Hampshire was arrested for “wiretapping” for allegedly recording police while they were investigating him for driving while intoxicated.
The charge is invalid because it flouts privacy laws. Under the fourth amendment the expectation of privacy is not reasonable at such public places as automobile thoroughfares.
In other words filming on a public highway cannot be classed as an invasion of privacy.
Furthermore, the expectation of privacy is not reasonable if there exists a vantage point from which anyone, not just a police officer, can see or hear what is going on.
With the greater availability of camera technology there have been numerous incidents in recent years where the heavy handed police actions have importantly been caught on camera. Just yesterday we covered a story out of Hot Springs where a cop was caught on film choking out kids merely for skateboarding down the street. Without such evidence the cop might not have been placed on leave and an investigation may not have taken place.
While the Department of Homeland security is throwing money at cities and towns to put cameras everywhere to film the public, and police routinely film public gatherings, the right of citizens to film and photograph in the streets is under direct attack.
In addition, the Mayor of New York is Michael Bloomberg, who owns one of the biggest media outlets in the country. This move also therefore represents a direct conflict of interest on behalf of the mayor’s office.
It seems that filming and photographing is now deemed to be a threat per se. Pick from any number of stories archived at www.freedomtophotograph.com for example.
Such moves represent an attack on freedom of the press, liberty in general and the flow of information. They set a precedent for a national ruling to crack down on documentation of important events and incidents and give police the power to selectively enforce unconstitutional measures to restrict freedom.