Because I know all of my readers are awesome and amazing, I don’t think I really need to post this story. But just in case, if you want Snow Leopard, pay the $29, don’t pirate it. Otherwise say hello to another trojan.

By the way, your government believes a $1.92 million penalty for uploading 24 songs online.

August is ending, but I never did get around to the July NPD numbers in which people declared the gaming industry in a massive death spiral. I was kind of surprised to see Punch Out creep into the top 20.

Maybe he felt a degree of maturity in the kids he was after, but a pedophile ended up not roping in kids, just a bunch of undercover cops.

Remember when Bill Clinton brought back those reporters from North Korea? Remember how thrilled Hillary was when she thought she was being asked about her husband’s opinions? Want to relive them? Try Hillary: First Blood.

You know you like Snow Leopard stories and can’t go a few paragraphs without them, just like this comparison between Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Of course what really gets people riled up in the blogosphere’s echo chamber is when an application gets rejected for the iPhone. Here are 10 that raised some eyebrows.

How about some NorCal ACLU pride? Like how the group is going after Facebook for the million and one quiz apps on the site that reveal your personal information to the creators of the applications. I go through a mountain of rejections of these things every day.

By the way if you want to load Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode, make sure you’re holding down 6 and 4 every time you start up your Core 2 Duo Mac.

NASA is turning the 14-letter word I couldn’t get enough of in college into a base for green efforts.

And what would a 100-mpg Hummer hype-fest be without the Governator?

In Sunday’s Appeal-Democrat, there’s a story on the front page about seniors getting acquainted with computers, the Internet and e-mail. While I was excited to hear about these seniors being exposed to all of the exposure to the wonders and tools the Internet has to offer, I was disappointed to hear that not much was said about Internet security. It’s kind of like telling your kids “Sex is amazing,” while leaving out the parts about STDs and pregnancy.

So in the interest of trying to curb a future story on the identity theft of seniors who were robbed of their life savings online, I’m going to give you the talk. It’s appropriate for all ages and it’s becoming increasingly important to understand in this day and age.

I can sum up how to stay safe in a few points

1) If you don’t know who it is, they’re out to get you: Sure this sounds like paranoia, but when it comes to e-mail it’s very safe advice. If a random e-mail pops into your e-mail from someone you don’t know, delete it or mark it as spam as quickly as you can.

2) Don’t click on links in e-mails: That blue text that says to check your bank account probably isn’t from your bank. Speaking of which.

3) No bank is stupid enough to send “Your account has been compromised” e-mails: If you get a message from a bank, whether it’s yours or not, saying your account has been compromised, don’t open it.

4) Lay off the forward button: OK, this one isn’t so much for security’s sake, but for the sanity of your family and friends. Don’t go forwarding every amusing thing you get in your inbox to your entire address book

And finally

5) Shut your computer down at night: The fewer hours your computer is on, the fewer hours a hacker or ne’er-do-well can attack your computer or use it for bad things.

With that kind of help, you should be ready to take on the world.

Well while I’m waiting for Blogo to get its much anticipated update – well at least by me – I’m testing out another piece of blogging software called MarsEdit. It’ll run me about $30 if I really like it. Sadly there isn’t a Cash for Clunkers for blog editors like there was for cars and now for refrigerators.

Thanks again to a couple of my Twitter followers I also have a different Twitter application until the one I normally use is compatible with Snow Leopard. Now I can follow Ole Miss’ power usage.

Of course the one thing Snow Leopard didn’t improve was my Internet speed since well, that’s on the ISP side and in the U.S, it is lagging badly, especially in the west. Maybe things will magically change around sort of like the way Nintendo and Sony’s prices have in the past 12 years. Maybe Joe Biden can find a game for the president’s Wii, who knows?

Speaking of video games an politics, sadly a quarter-century of regulation on the entertainment industry didn’t keep over this week in Britain because of a legal loophole. Unlike the refrigerator I’m trying to fix, the leak was patched.

And as far as video games and the law, 43 bills up, 43 shot down. Job well done, Entertainment Software Association.

Antiferromagnetism. Don’t know what it is? Wondering how it could apply to hard drives. Nothin’ but speed baby.

I like to think I’ve made my feelings pretty clear on copyright. It’s supposed to give a creator a jumpstart on the market, not be a treasure chest of profits for Disney. That’s why seeing the gutsiness of copyright companies behind the Pirate Bay decision decide to go after another company irks me. It’s just reinforcing the idea of copyright and stifling innovation in other arenas.

Transformers: V-chip in disguise?

By the way when you’re thinking of safety and security and whether or not you’re safe, just remember you never are. Locks were made to be picked, encryption was made to be broken, just like WEP and now WPA wireless security protocols.

While I enjoy screwing around with robocalls and tracking down the idiots behind it, not everybody has the same level of innate curiosity, so thankfully the FCC is cracking down.

Holy scratched plastic batarang Batman!

I brought up Twitter earlier, which is free, unless you want to use it on your Xbox 360. Hello monthly charge for a Gold account.

And just to wrap up my thoughts on Snow Leopard for now, yes Virginia, you can install it over 10.4.

When you’re on the cutting edge, eventually you lose a finger. You hope it’s just a pinky because it isn’t that important and it just makes for a good story. You pray it’s not the index or middle finger because you’ll lose the ability to point and make your point, respectively.

I’ve installed Snow Leopard on this machine and I’m testing out every application that I have to see if they work. Unfortunately both my Twitter and blogging apps, Nambu and Blogo, bit the dust, though updates are promised quickly from both. I’m not sure if Blogo is my middle finger and Nambu is my thumb.

Anyways, other than those two mishaps, I can safely report that the upgrade went pretty smoothly, though I did find myself muttering “lyin’ sack of crap” a lot today. I’m choosing not to pin that on my descent into insanity, rather a series of coincidences. It has nothing to do with the performance of the operating system though. It trimmed a few gigs off of my hard drive and Safari seems to be working fine.

But let’s start with the installation. Instead of the usual “insert disc, click application, restart first” method, Snow Leopard begins the installation process as soon as you click on the application on the disc.

A big red flag right off the bat was brought to my attention by my own curiosity. Anything that says options or preferences gets an automatic scan through by me if only because I’m just enough of a dork to be enthralled by these things. Hidden in the bottom left corner, where it was first stuck in Leopard, is the installation options dialogue. While Snow Leopard offers options to trim down the number of printer drivers and other things that would clog your hard drive, there’s a tiny 2MB download that isn’t included for some reason.

Rosetta.

For those of you not familiar with the software, it allows PowerPC programs (i.e. those designed to run on machines before Apple switched to Intel in 2006) to run on Intel-based Macs. I could understand if Apple was trying to cut off the Power PC generation entirely, but why include it as an optional install? Because of space concerns? IT’S TWO FREAKING MEGABYTES. The headaches of not having Rosetta installed for users wondering why their software suddenly doesn’t work just isn’t worth it. The PR mess alone of “OH MY GOD MY APPLICATIONS NO LONGER WORK” stories from bloggers across the net is bad enough.

That wasn’t the first “lyin’ sack of crap” though, henceforth known as LSoC. That came when the installer was ready to continue with part two of the installation when I wasn’t looking. Somehow the one-hour installation was done in about 15 minutes. Then it restarted. And loaded. And carried on from the same 45-minute mark as before it restarted. Ironically, after I called the thing an LSoC, it finished installing the OS within 5 minutes of when the installer originally said it would take. That’s a rarity for Apple installers.

Here’s another warning for people installing the software: Be prepared to wait for the beach ball of death to sort itself out. Your system isn’t frozen, it’s just trying to find where the hell everything is now after it got the equivalent of a Power PC colon cleansing. Yes, this was another LSoC moment from the installation.

So far, aside from the applications I’ve mentioned, everything has worked, including Photoshop CS.

The last big LSoC moment came from my battery status, or as I like to call it, Apple’s new “Get a battery” campaign. I’ve owned my MacBook Pro for a year and a handful of months so far. If I unplug is on a full charge, it says it has around two hours of battery life, but I can get around 3 depending on what I’m doing. But according to Apple, that’s not good enough. Under the battery menu, it’ll tell you the condition of your battery. Mine is Replace Soon. Whatever could that mean:

It means well, but I’m not so sure how well it’s doing estimating my battery life since in the five minutes I’ve been writing about the battery charge, I’ve actually gained three minutes of battery life.

So far Snow Leopard seems to be working fine with few bugs. the black dock menus are taking some getting used to, especially on my main user account since I have a lovely photo of Ellis Lake at night that is quite dark itself. Then again, maybe it’s just my tired eyes from the lack of caffeine and the 800 or so words I just gave you about Snow Leopard. Make sure to check this site to see if your software is compatible, otherwise it’s a nice upgrade for $29.

And it features that one guy who’s been all over the place from Comcast to Holiday Inn