http://tts.imtranslator.net/566L
Free Text to Speech software online for English
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Entertaining?
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SERVICE: Voice out from text
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Leave a Comment » | 
SERVICE | Tagged: INNOVATION | 
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Cloud Computing; who controls what?
Saturday, August 1, 2009http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=8181453&page=2
Big Brother Is Watching Your Blackberry
With Every High-Tech Gadget We Buy, We Give up a Little More of our Privacy
By CHRISTIAN STOCKER
July 27, 2009
*** begin quote ***
A dramatic example of Zittrain’s thesis occurred recently in the United Arab Emirates. Wired magazine and The Register reported how the local Internet provider, Etisalat, sent out a software update to around 145,000 of their Blackberry customers. However, thanks to a software glitch that caused the battery power in all the affected Blackberrys to be drained, it was discovered that the software update also included surveillance software.
The spying part of the software was switched off — but all it needed was a command from the Internet server and the Blackberrys would send e-mail and text messages in an encrypted form to an unknown recipient. IT experts believe the intended recipient was local security forces. To date, Etisalat has not made a statement in response to the allegations. The company’s sole response has been a curt press release stating that the reason for the update was simply “to improve the service quality.”
*** end quote ***
Clearly, we must be very circumspect about “cloud computing”. We don’t control the applications, the data, and in some case not even the local hardware.
No, no thanks, when I buy my copy of George Orwell, you don’t get to take it away from me.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: freedom | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SERVICE: Warranty Elephant; sounds like a good idea
Monday, July 27, 2009https://www.warrantyelephant.com/html/howitworks.aspx
Welcome to Warranty Elephant .com, a unique website designed to organize your warranty information on all purchased goods. Your warranty information will be stored for free on our secure server and will be listed by date of warranty expiration. An easy click on the item will allow you to obtain all valid warranty information on that product, including handy telephone numbers and your product’s serial number.
In addition, you can even upload a copy of your warranty itself and your invoice, so that you don’t have to search through stacks of paper to try and find the documents needed to exercise your warranty rights.
We will send you reminder emails at 3 months, 1 month and 1 week before your warranty expires. This will remind you to check your item and ensure it is in good working order. If it is not, you will have all the information needed, right in front you, to arrange for warranty service. You will never again spend money to purchase a warranty on an item only to have it break down and not be able to remember whether the warranty has expired or if you had even purchased the warranty in the first place.
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Seems like a good idea to me.
Warranties, especially extended ones, seem worthless.
Maybe an organized approach would change that opinion.
I view stuff I buy as a “used car”. Caveat emptor.
Maybe saving this information might make it easier to return stuff.
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Leave a Comment » | RECOMMENDED, SERVICE | Tagged: RECOMMENDED | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: You have to expect failure
Saturday, July 25, 2009http://scofieldi.livejournal.com/91075.html
*** begin quote ***
Your session ID for this incident is 29038665.
Time Details
07/22/2009 11:35:33AM System: “Thanks for choosing chat for your technical support needs. A chat agent will be with you shortly. Just so you know, you can also visit our website at support.dell.com to get technical help.”
{Extraneous Deleted}
07/22/2009 12:44:21PM Agent (Sup_Karanpreet_116303): “That is fine. In case you get any issues again you can call at 1-800-624-9896 and can leave a voice mail on my extension 5880012 and we will get back to you in maximum 24 hours.”
If you require further assistance, please visit us at support.dell.com
Like, in what universe does that make sense? What makes it a good idea to let me, an unqualified 20 year old girl, take apart my computer and replace the hard drive?? wtf. No.
I lost my summer log too :( everything that had happened, all my reactions and thoughts and feelings…gone. I’m pretty distraught. Luckily, I saved my story because I sent it to Shannon!! Thank heavens for small favors…
*** end quote ***
Support, warranties, extended warranties, and implied promises … all worthless!
Hopefully, my fellow alum will muddle through.
Carbonite, Apple Time Machine, usb drives.
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Hello fellow alum:
Sorry to hear of your problems. It’s happened to me; then I got “religion” about backups. If you’re like me, the budget for “fixing” is zero. (There are expensive recovery services. I actually used one for a corporate desktop. Cost 650$ and took 3 days — door to door.)
I have some suggestions.
Regardless of your technical expertise, and your location, I think you might be able to do your own investigation and possibly recovery.
Before you wig out. My other suggestion is to find some personal help from your local nerd herd. Geeks always love to help beautiful women. :-)
If you can get your hands on a Linux “Live CD” (I can certainly send you one), you can try to boot from it. If it boots, you have a window of opportunity to save your data. The Live CD will allow you to actually copy the files to a USB thumb drive.
If the hard disk is truly crashed, there will be nothing you can do. But, it is worth taking a look.
Going forward, now that you’ve been inducted into the “Church of Always Backing Up”, you need to have some backup. Worst thing is to have it happen again.
Carbonite, (Not Mozy), will give you a small free online backup without anythought. Apple’s Time Machine is the gold standard for unattended unthinking backup. Many of the USB drives for Windoze have the same capability.
Hope this helps,
fjohn68
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: RECOVERY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Data Portability
Tuesday, July 21, 2009http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/09/powercom-countersues-facebook-over-data-portability/
Power.com Countersues Facebook Over Data Portability
by Jason Kincaid on July 9, 2009
*** begin quote ***
The Data Portability wars just got a little more interesting. Power.com, the service that lets users aggregate their social networks into a single hub, is countersuing Facebook for restricting users’ ability to export and move their own data. The company is claiming that Facebook is unlawfully withholding the data that users own (as stated in Facebook’s own ToS), and is stifling competition by refusing to allow third party services like Power.com to access the data, among other things. This should be fun.
*** and ***
It’s an analogy that has been drawn since the data portability movement began, and while it may make sense, there’s no guarantee the courts will view phone numbers and a user’s social network data in the same light.
*** and ***
The idea that users aren’t allowed to input their username and passwords into other services is particularly hypocritical, as that’s exactly what Facebook invites you to do to import contacts from services like Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
Facebook can point to its efforts with Facebook Connect, which lets you log in with your Facebook username at third party sites and import some select data from your profile, as evidence of its openness. But this isn’t true data portability, it’s just a new walled garden — third parties are generally only allowed to cache your data, which means that you’re still tethered to Facebook.
*** end quote ***
Data portability is the issue.
Argh!
It’s MY data.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: freedom | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Kindle and its ilk too pricy for me
Sunday, July 19, 2009http://www.macworld.com/article/141620/2009/07/kindle2_pricecut.html?lsrc=rss_main
Kindle 2 price plunge signals e-book reader competition
by Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
*** begin quote ***
Amazon quietly lowered the price on its Kindle 2 e-book reader Wednesday. That didn’t take long: The Kindle 2 became available only about five months ago. And the price cut is a significant one: Amazon cropped $60 off the top price of its second-generation e-book reader, which now carries a more reasonable price tag of $299.
*** end quote ***
I’d suspect that before I leap on any bandwagon it has to be under 100$. (Minimize my buyer’s remorse.) And, I don’t like wht I’ve been reading about the price fixing on Kindle Books. (That is that despite near zero cost, everything is 10$.) Add to that DRM and you have to rebuy if you need to redownload too many times. (Not my idea of a good user experience!) Argh! So, I’m not in the ebook market yet.
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: INNOVATION | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: OFFICE2000 and version control
Friday, July 17, 2009*** begin quote ***
Support for Office 2000 at an end
Speaking of Microsoft Office, if you’re still using Office 2000, you might want to consider upgrading. Microsoft ended extended support for the ten year old productivity suite earlier this week. There have been a great many improvements to the Office programs since that version, so it’s probably time for a change anyway.
http://www.vistanews.com/YEZ166/090716-End-of-Office-2000
*** end quote ***
There’s something humorous calling Office2000 “ten years old”. It’s had more patches, fixes, and disasters; I felt on any given day I was dealing with a new monster. And, I never NEVER ever turn on auto updating.
No, Google Apps, isn’t much better.
I don’t have a good solution other than text files and printed copies.
Maybe the Luddite is rubbing off on me.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: Microsoft | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: MAGICJACK (NOT RECOMENDED)
Monday, July 13, 2009Playing with MagicJack.
A very expensive McBa
add
MagicJack
add
Verizon Wireless Broad Band
add
a $10 Radio Shack phone
EQUALS
A phone booth?
A cell phone?
A free Local and Long Distance phone?
Hmmm?
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Notes:
It didn’t go together as easy as they make it sound.
The user interface isn’t as user friendly as it could be.
The FAQ is difficult to navigate and may need some filling out.
Powered USB hub is fine. Although that is NOT clear, the device is labeled “no hubs”.
We’ll see if it’s useful.
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OBSERVATION: No way to import all your phone numbers. No way to use a directory (i.e., Apple’s Address Book or Microsoft Outlook).
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FINAL UPDATE: NOT RECOMMENDED
Gave it a live test and I could hear the drop outs. So could the other person.
RMA process is a hassle.
(And, that was from home with a real high speed line. Not Verizon Wireless Broad Band!)
Funny the McBa with VWBBIE performed better that a VISTA desktop and Comcast Broadband!
Oh well, it was a thought.
I guess you do get what you pay for.
Back to Skype and Google Voice.
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: INNOVATION, Not Recommended | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Some spammer tips his technique with spam to my domain
Sunday, July 12, 2009AN EMAIL TO A SECURITY GURU ACQUAINTANCE OF MINE
*** begin quote ***
Thought you’d find this interesting. As an old security guy, (well that’s what all the recruiters tell me, “too old”, and “50 is the new 90”. I’m “only” 62! Strange world we live in.), I am seeing a “new” form of spam.
Background: I run an alumni news blog / ezine / website. Never, ever any email address in it. Just news. “Joe Blow Class of 1970 died”, “Samantha Smith Class of 1980 promoted”, “Harry Potter Class of 1990 gets Hogswarth PhD”. Absolutely of little interest to other than alumni. I, of course, having too much time on my hands have our own domain. Jasper Jottings dot com.
Punchline: I am now seeing spam addressed to: Joe.Blow, blow.joe, blowj …, jblow, samantha.smith, smith.samantha, etc. etc. AT my domain name! Lots of it.
Conclusion: Someone is parsing the content. Extracting names. And, has a pretty sophisticated addressing mechanism.
Sidenote: Of course, the laughs on them because there are ZERO real people to read the spam. These are advertising commercial products. Not Nigerian benefactors, male / female enhancements, nor get rich quick schemes. But they are tech conferences, odd technology products, and tech books on amazon.
Observation: “Real” websites, for companies or business, with people named on the site are going to get slimed.
Just thought you’d enjoy this little wrinkle. Clearly we need IPv6 and authenticated email; replace SMTP once and for all. (Love to lead that effort for some one!) As I said, too much time on my hands.
*** end quote ***
Love it when I find something new.
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: SPAM | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SERVICE: BUG HUNT! WORDPRESSDOTCOM prime suspect; ECTO secondary suspect
Friday, July 10, 2009I lost content on my Jasper Jottings blog. The the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom is the prime suspect. But, it might be ECTO, my secondary suspect.
Only on Jasper Jottings. Happened once last week. Didn’t have time or attention to chase.
Now I do!
*** begin quote ***
Using ECTO, I posted a story on 7/10. “JBlogger: Stagnaro, Melissa [MC1997?] Cancer runner. Donate?”
*** and ***
When I looked at my FEEDBLITZ daily email collection of stories, one was blank. So I recreated and reposted it with today’s date. It was blank on the site as well (so it wasn’t feedblitz).
*** and ***
It happened last week, but I didn’t think to much of it. I thought maybe I screwed it up. Today, I’m positive, I didn’t.
I’m not sure it’s the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom that has a bug. It could be ecto. But, why all of a sudden, starting last week do I suddenly have a problem? I’ve been using ecto for a while and no updates. Whereas, WP being outside of my control, might have had a change last week. So I suspect, WP. No proof.
But, I’m on a “bug hunt”
*** end quote ***
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UPDATE: The the free, and unequaled, wordpressdotcom responded that the items were store blank. This makes ECTO prime.
UPDATE: Certain posts, prepositioned, are blank. That content is lost. Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: cloud, computing | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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