Pintmaster

Through Katie, I received a freebie ticket to “The Good Shepherd“, a new movie about the CIA through the eyes of one character, Edward Wilson played by Matt Damon. The movie spans the 20s, when Wilson sees his father commit suicide, to his days at Yale where he joins the illustrious Skull & Bones secret society, to his entrance into the OSS during world war II, to the formation of the CIA, to the bay of pigs fiasco….. wow I am out of breath. That is a lot to cover in a movie, which is why the movie is about 2 hrs and 30 minutes long. I must warn the reader, that if your favorite movie is “Mean Girls“, this is not for you. I am a history buff and am fascinated with life in the United States pre 1970, so this movie was right up my alley. Had it not been, I would be pretty bored, which I suppose the two teeny-bopper girls next to me were when they left after about 35 - 40 minutes.

Strengths

The strengths of the movie lie in the directors ability to bring this history to life and use Damon’s character as a vehicle for viewing history. Wilson is a stoic man, who does not say much. In fact, based on the interactions with other characters, you sense that Wilson is well respected by peers, enemies and the like, but either the director wants to purvey that he does not see this in himself, or Damon’s performance is unconvincing. You be the judge.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses are certainly the length. There are several, interesting but irrelevant forays into topics that have no bearing on the plot. For example, Wilson is asked to be a “bonesman” while performing dressed in drag in a play at Yale. This is amusing, but irrelevant. We could have had this part left out and just jumped straight into him being in the “Skull & Bones”.

Conclusion

Overall, I would rate this as a 7/10. Anything over 5, I think you should go watch. I believe in a true average being 5/10 and this movie is certainly above the average crap that Hollywood seems to love to churn out.

As an afterthought, I would recommend this movie to people who enjoyed the movies “Kinsey“, and/or “A Beautiful Mind“. These movies all feature the same sorrowful brilliance of the protagonist.

This review is not a review of Microsoft’s Windows Vista OS, nor is it necessarily a review of Parallels Desktop. It is a review of the combination of the two software.

Review Rig

• Macbook Pro / Intel Core Duo 2 ghz / 2gb Ram
• Parallels Desktop for Mac 3038 Beta
• Windows Vista Ultimate RTM

When I started a contest to run Windows XP on the Mac, I was looking for the optimal way to operate in a world where you cant stand to work in Windows but cant afford to work without it.

I purchased Parallels Desktop for Mac when it first was released and have used it as my primary way to run Windows on my Macbook Pro. There have been a multitude of improvements since the first release, and the new features in the current betas are quite exciting.
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So, I thought I would do a review of my experience with Windows XP 64. I guess the place to start is:

Why I bought Windows XP 64.
I was shopping online for a new computer for one of our employees and saw that Dell was selling these workstations with Intel Core 2 Duo processors (64 bit chips!) with cheap upgrades ($10 + shipping) to Windows Vista. Well, if you bought Windows XP, you only got an upgrade to 32 bit Windows Vista. At this point, I had a lot of faith in Microsoft Windows Vista, and thought that for sure, within 1 year, no one would be buying and installing the 32 bit Vista… that technology is for the dinosaurs. So, the option I had (for no additional cost) was to buy the 64 bit Windows XP and get the upgrade to 64 bit Windows Vista Business. I didn’t think / have time to research potential problems with that decision and thought that I was making a smart choice.

The computer arrived and I booted in to Windows XP 64 and noticed one thing that immediately concerned me… two versions of Internet Explorer. *Gulp*. If they’ve got two versions of Internet Explorer, then that means that some things don’t work correctly on the 64 bit version and you need to use the 32 bit version. This was a sign of problems to come.

Installation and Set up
Well, the next step was to set up office which was pre-installed. Im pretty sure there isn’t a 64 bit compiled Office 2003 so there was probably no benefit with running that on a 64 bit system. So, after a few hiccups and some concerns I got the machine up to spec and was ready to send it to our other office. The morning I am going to send it, I had to finish one install before it left. As I am using the computer, I get a BSOD. Uh oh. The computer shouldn’t BSOD when it is brand new. Those unfamiliar with BSODs or Blue Screen of Death might want to note that these are usually caused by poorly coded device drivers.

Well, I dismissed that first BSOD to dumb luck, packed the computer up and sent it on its merry way. The next thing to do when it is on site, is to install all the printer drivers… no problem! Well, it wouldn’t be a problem on regular windows… but 64 bit, better Windows doesn’t have the same support for printers that its weaker smaller brother does. HP attempted to address this by having a unified driver for all of its printers for XP 64. What HP probably didnt do was test it on all their printers. I wasn’t able to get it to work on the HP Color Laserjet 2500.

So, I said I would try and fix it later and would look for a solution online. Well, the next step was installing Quickbooks. I was a little nervous by this time, so did a search and found the following disappointing information about compatibility of Quickbooks in Windows XP 64.

Daily Use
Well, as it happens, the computer has started crashing and showing BSODs multiple times per day. Looks like we are going to have to send it back to Dell and get the 32 bit Windows XP.

Morale of the story is - if you are using Microsoft products, stay away from the cutting edge - it sucks pretty bad.

Ever wanted to use your iPod in your car? I did. In fact, a lot of people do. Quite a few cars these days are coming out with factory installed iPod integration. Others have a line-in input built in.

Background

If you’re not lucky enough to have one of these, there are a few more options. The one I used to use, and I think the majority of iPod in Car users use is the FM transmitter. After doing a lot of research a couple of years ago, I ended up picking the Monster iCarPlay Plus Wireless FM Transmitter. It was great when I moved to Houston in a UHaul, but we had to keep changing the station as we went across the country. Then, I used it for a while in my Saab 9-3 before replacing the factory stereo with a Sony stereo with a line-in. Chenging the stereo was messy and I had an ugly cable sticking out. Well, I used that until the engine blew in my ‘99 Saab at around 105,000 miles.
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Allofmp3.com has been making a lot of noise in the news lately. I heard about it several years ago when they were just starting out, but discounted the service because of the lack of good (subjective) music. I took a look again after hearing how Russia’s entry into the WTO was being blocked because of Allofmp3.com. Im an iPod and iTunes Music Store user so that will be my baseline comparison.

Interface

Allofmp3.com is your standard website interface. It’s not overly fancy with Ajax etc… it just works. You can preview songs without having an account and they have their bestseller lists organized by region. Though the site is based in Russia, they have spent the time to make it seem like it could be an American owned site. It’s not as nice as the iTunes Music Store interface, but it does its job.

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Worried about getting busted using Bittorrent? You probably should be since it doesnt hide your identity. It seems that downloading movies is more likely to get you busted than other content. I have several friends who got notices from their internet provider after downloading movies. You may be able to do that safely too!

What you have to do is run a piece of software in the background called “PeerGuardian 2“. The way it works is by blocking IP addresses. Your list is updated based on a master list, and you can choose if you want to block corporations, educational institutions, governments, etc.

In non-technical terms, internet addresses, just like physical addresses can be traced to their owners. By blocking addresses that are more likely to be tracking copyright infringement or sending bad data, it enables you to sneak under the radar and continue to download.

As always, be careful where you get your torrents from and use a reputable source like piratebay or tvrss. While I am on the subject, I’ll give a plug for ¬µTorrent too! It’s a great windows based bittorrent client. If you are on a mac, Bitrocket is increasing in quality at a really fast pace. The built in search is awesome.

Worried about getting busted for music? allofmp3 is still up and running, and according to them is legal! I dont know about that, but $2 an album is the price music should be!

I dont have chronic bad breath. I get morning breath. I also remember Ryan Pacheco telling me my breath stunk in spanish class when we were 13 or 14. I think i have been paranoid since then. Thanks Ryan! Aside from that my breath is ok (as far as I know!). One of the other people in my office was talking about BreathRX. It’s a new product on the market developed by the “Extreme Makeover” dentist, Dr. Bill Dorfman. Well, if that doesnt excite you - then how about this testimony:

The BreathRX system has stopped my breath smelling. I can finally get close to women without making them cringe, and I dont make small children cry anymore.

- Chip Chipney, Boise, ID

I can also give my testimony that the stuff works. The really great part is the tongue scraper. I’ve used tongue scrapers to get the nasty, yellow, smelly plaque-teria (word is my creation) off my tongue. I have used none better than the simple one that comes with BreathRX. Check it out at your local pharmacy - you should be able to pick up a basic kid for $10.

Since I am sick this weekend, I have been watching quite a few movies. I figure that I should try and do something productive with it so Im going to share my opinions of the movies:

The Benchwarmers

The benchwarmers is one of those lame underdog movies. It’s basically about a bunch of losers whose goal as adults is to beat a bunch of kids baseball teams. It has the usual SNL guys - Rob Schneider, David Spade as well as Jon Heder of “Napoleon Dynamite” fame. However, this movie is terrible. It is cheesy, predictable and fails to maintain attention through the movie. It has a few funny parts, but basically it is disappointing. Maybe it works if you are a bunch of teenagers at a slumber party. Anyone else, leave it on the shelf

3/10

Basic Instinct 2

This is the raunchy sequel to the leg-uncrossing Basic Instinct. Sharon Stone is older and raunchier. It is set in London, probably to try and make it more interesting. I can half pay attention to the movie when they start talking dirty or have a graphic sex scene. The car that she crashes at the beginning is pretty interesting. Overall, the movie was more interesting than Benchwarmers, but I would still refrain from giving it good marks.

5/10

Ultraviolet

Decent special effects, poor story and really fails to set the mood to give the viewer the full feeling of the dystopian future. The idea is that there are people infected with a virus who are stronger, heal faster etc… than humans, but they also die faster. The humans are trying to eradicate these infected people from the general population. Violet is one of the infected and wants to prevent the humans from killing all of the infected. It’s another comic book made into movie. It isnt interesting enough in the transfer and I would be pretty bored seeing it again.

4/10

Inside Man

Fantastic Spike Lee movie about a bank robbery in New York city. It has the usual Spike Lee racial undertones.¬† It has a really interesting cast - Denzel Washington, Willem Dafoe, Jodie Foster. The cast makes for a really interesting dynamic. The story reminds of “The Usual Suspects” and flashes back and forth between times as the hostages in the bank robbery are being interviewed. Unlike “The Usual Suspects”, the viewer is more omnipotent, and only the Detective (Washington) has the epiphany moment when he realizes ‘whodunnit’. It’s certainly one that slipped under my radar, and is more interesting than a lot of crud that hollywood has pumped out. Nice one spike!

8/10

So, I went to Crome on Sunday evening. It’s a nice place and they charge $10 cover to get in (surprising for a sunday!). When you get there it is pretty packed. A lot of people migrate from La Strada around 5 - 6 o’clock. The bar was cool - very nice with white “VIP” couches outside - reminded me a lot of Pangia in Marbella. Now here is the part where I bitch and moan :). There was a bar at the far side of the outside where there were these two 30-something women (they could have been 20-something with too much sun, cigs and alcohol I suppose) working the bar. I went up there and asked them for a club soda since I am no longer drinking. They poured it and said “$3″. I said “you’re not gonna make me pay for that are you?”. They just said “leave us a nice tip” and I said “keep being nice to me and I will”. So, I grabbed me drink without paying and walked away.

Fair enough, I had to talk my way out of paying with these bitches. So I walked inside and hung out for a bit and then my drink was empty. So, I figured… I want to give these bitches a tip & I went back out. I said, “could I get another club soda please”. She poured the drink, rang it up and looked at me deadpan and said “$3″. I said “that’s not very nice” and she said “$3″. I said “you guys are horrible” and handed over $5. She rang me up and said “do you want to stay here?”. I said “what?”. She said “if you want to stay here, you had better not call us horrible”. I said nothing and walked away.

So I guess I cant be that pissed - I didnt get kicked out. Frankly I would have been surprised to be kicked out for calling the horrible bartenders “horrible” for charging me for soda water.

The blonde (short w/ bad face) and brunette (taller w/ bad face) behind the counter have such a small circle of influence that pretty much extends to the four corners of Crome and in reality, they probably dont even have all of that. It’s just sad when people try and abuse what little power they have.

All in all, it is a nice place. They just need to fix their policy on non-alcoholic drinks. I have never been charged for Soda Water more than one glass, and I dont expect to be - especially by somewhere that charges cover on a sunday! Crome - if you want to be seen with other people posing as rich and trendy, it’s the place to be.

We live in the era of the Desktop replacement notebook PC. It replaces the desktop computer, but not the desk. Like many people, when sitting at my desk, I prefer using an external monitor, keyboard and mouse plugged in to my MacBook Pro. I travel with my MacBook pro between work and home and find it frustrating to have to plug in 6 things when I get to work every day - Monitor, Ethernet, USB hub, Headphones, Power cord, external harddrive. My Thinkpad toting colleagues just drop their notebooks into the dock when they get in and hey-presto everything is up and running again.

I want to recommend the Macbook as the laptop that we should replace the thinkpads with when they come up for renewal. The macbook is certainly a compelling buy. For about 1600 bucks, you get a great business computer that can run windows. Users can even keep their personal lives separate and dual boot the computer.

As I said, I want to recommend the Macbook, but it needs to be easy for the business user. Thats where the dock comes in. Just drop it in, and everything is connected. In order for apple to move beyond the die-hard mac fan + home user market into the big bucks, they need to make the notebook more appealing to the business user.

Im not the only one that shares this sentiment

On my ThinkPad I have a small port replicator that I just click the laptop onto and all my connections are made. With the MacBook I have an array of fiddly connectors to plug-in spread over 2 sides of the book. I have to connect Power, Audio and USB to the left hand side. Then Plug in DVI-D video, Ethernet and Firewire on the right hand side.

Well if that’s not fiddily enough I have to open the lid of the book to press the power button as there is no way to turn on the book without opening it. The ThinkPad has a power button on the replicator. I have no need to use the built-in screen as my desktop display is plenty big enough and the internal screen is so poor. So I close the lid and of course the computer goes to sleep. So I then have to wake it up to use it, only problem is I can’t wake it with a 3rd party Bluetooth keyboard and mouse so have to connect a USB mouse just so I can wake it up.

If Apple are going to make headway into corporate use they need to acknowledge that a laptop is taken to and from work every day and it is not practical to plug and unplug six or seven cables twice a day

Apple. Please dont let down your business users. Our companies pay for laptops. We need you to make it a more compelling sell. Right now, I love my MacBook - but it is too hot for a laptop and too cumbersome for a desktop.

I recently learned you can get Mexican coke at Fiesta! Coke, made with Real Sugar, not high fructose corn syrup crap! Im going to go to Fiesta and pick me up some Mexican coke. I’ll report back with pictures and my analysis of the taste. In case you’re wondering, I grew up with sugar coke in Singapore and not the high-fatness corn syrup that infests every single junk food product in the US.

I got my Optical Desktop Elite for Bluetooth® today and hooked it up to my Mac Mini. The bluetooth doesnt even reach to my couch! What gives! The total distance from the mac mini to my couch is about 8 feet. The advertisement says the bluetooth mouse and keyboard stretches 30 ft. If I use the mouse any further than 4 feet, it gets jerky. If I use the keyboard further than 5 feet, it drops strokes. This is a terrible product - something is wrong - either the bluetooth in the Mac Mini has no range, or the Optical Desktop Elite has no range. Either way I am really disappointed. I will be trying the apple mouse and keyboard for comparison.

Pros: Price, Audio Quality, Great bass response, Microphone built in
Cons: They mess up my hair

I got these the other day after reading some reviews online. I just wanted to add my $0.02.

These are a great pair of headphones for the money. The sound quality is good at low volume levels. I got them for 2 primary reasons:

1. Block out people around me at work
2. Talk on Skype

I can assure you that they are great for both purposes. I have never been interested in large over the ear headphones because they are too bulky to be portable. These are no different. They are perfect for sitting at your computer and I would challenge anyone to find better desktop speakers sub $40.00. Im not an audiophile, but I love music and I can tell the difference between good and bad headphones. These are definitely the best headphones I have had in a while - much better than the iPod buds, and the Sony replacement buds for my iPod. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a videoconferencing / skyping set of headphones or if you work long hours on your computer listening to music. I imagine they would be great for gaming too, but I have heard there are 5.1 surround headphones that are a little pricier.

After checking pricegrabber, I found the best price for these was on Amazon.com

Cnet also mentioned these in an article on creating your own podcast - I might try it!

About 5 years ago, my parents invested in a Ski property at Keystone Resort in the Ski Tip Ranch Neighborhood. Keystone promised they would build a new Ski Lift for the residents in that area and promised Ski in, ski out ability. Instead of protecting the interests of the homeowners there, Keystone, owned by Vail corporation keeps building and building and saturating the small local market. In the deed to the property, there are also numerous favorable clauses for the resort - they get a cut on each sale. When the property was under the management of the resort, there was hardly any occupancy except for over the major holidays. Generally, a good rule of thumb is - dont buy property where you are relying on the builder to control your interests, because they make more money on building and selling more property than they do protecting the interests of current owners. Dont buy in a place where there is excess land - such as around many ski areas. It may be hard to get to, but it isnt hard to build more properties if the demand is there. Do not buy timeshares (i.e. Westgate resorts which is in the ground floor of my office building and in the nearby mall just smells like a scam). But I digress… the important thing here is do not trust Vail corporation to protect your interests as a home owner… do not buy within a ski resort.

Walt Mossberg reviews Tiger:

April 28, 2005
Tiger Leaps Out in Front

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

Despite all the advances in personal computing, one problem has remained constant: It often is really hard to find a file months or years after it was created. To have any hope of doing so, users have to create a logical, structured system of folders, and take care to give consistent, descriptive names to their files. But few have the patience to do that.

Tomorrow, Apple Computer will introduce a new edition of the operating system for its Macintosh computers that finally solves the missing file problem, and introduces other features as well, including a new “Dashboard” that instantly displays small, frequently used programs like a calculator, dictionary and stock tracker.

The new release, called Tiger, is the latest version of Apple’s excellent Mac OS X operating system. Its key feature, called Spotlight, is the first universal, integrated search system ever offered as part of a mainstream consumer PC operating system. In seconds, Spotlight can peer inside e-mail, office documents of all kinds, photos, songs, address books, calendars, and all manner of other files to see which ones match a search term you type in…… Go to the article

A reader of Osnews has also reviewed Tiger - a little more thorough and technically oriented than Mossberg’s

I looked around today at a couple of apartments with Veronique and found a verrry interesting website -Apartmentratings.com We had had a lot of crime in the apartment building and decided that when our lease is up we are going to move out. We checked out the place next door which looks like it has more secure access to the building. We asked the guy upfront what the crime is like there and he outright lied to us and said there was none. Their review on apartmentratings.com paints a very different picture. We are leaning towards Montecito but havent seen it yet. It looks like what we need - without the crime, and hopefully without shoddy construction. Veronique likes 3000 sage, but I am very wary of their construction.

After 3 years of having a personal cell phone and a few months of having $200+ phone bills, I decided that I didnt like Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Cingular etc… I had heard about these *new* Internet telephones /VOIP / IP Phones (they go by many names) and decided to give one a try. So, I did my research. My requirements were as follows:

Requirements

• Able to use a regular phone
• Doesn’t require a computer
• Must have cheap international rates
• Must be reasonable sound quality

My family lives in London and I work for a company that deals with customers worldwide so I make phonecalls overseas in the evening after work and on the weekends. I narrowed my search down to two providers - Vonage and Packet 8. What sold me on Packet 8 was the cheaper plan (19.99 per month gets you unlimited nationwide calls) and cheaper international rates ($0.02 per minute to London).

After using Packet 8 for several months now, here are my conclusions…

Good

• Rates are really that good! After the $19.99, I spend about $3 - 4 additional on international calls.
• Simultaneous ringing - I can forward my home phone to ring on my work cell phone (and at home) when I am out
• Voicemail to email - To archive your voicemail, packet8 can send it to you in your email. You can then send it on to relevant people or keep a record for yourself
• I can bring my box with me anywhere there is a broadband connection and have my Texas phone number (better and cheaper coverage than most cell phone providers)
• Price - I cant accentuate this enough - Cell phones are a ripoff. I was paying $55 a month for a cell phone (verizon) and then I spent about $20 in international calls on a calling card (to save money). I use the phone about as much and pay $25

Bad

• It doesnt always ring! (when you dial) This can be annoying because you doubt that the call is going through
• Doesnt always connect either
• Some countries have terrible sound quality (Taiwan) and bad delay (Singapore, Australia) - Some worse than my cell phone
• Not easy to connect up to every phone outlet in the house (I hear it is possible though!)
• Does not have 100% uptime - they are basically limited to both your internet provider and the various internet providers they use around the world to guarantee that calls go through. There have been about 2 outages that affected all Packet 8 users and a few times that my cable connection was down + a couple of power outages. I fixed the power problem and have my Cable modem, router and Packet 8 box on a battery backup so I can make calls even without power
• Packet 8 was incompetent and unable to port my old cell phone number to this line
• Limited 911 service

Conclusion
As a 2nd phone for home, this is an excellent solution. With a IP telephone, you experience many similar annoyances to having a cell phone. However, at minimal cost, and great international and national rates, why wouldnt you use it! The uptime and call quality will sort itself out and eventually IP phones will increase in reliability in line with your cable / dsl provider. I would highly recommend Packet 8 as long as you are aware of and accept the possible draw backs.

Other information
Packet 8
Vonage
The Economist: The phone call is dead; long live the phone call
Another Review (probably better than mine)