Archive for: September, 2009

Kodak EasyShare: Oxymoron of the week

Sep 30 2009 Published by Kyle Buis under Uncategorized

I just got off the phone with one of our readers trying to submit a photo for our Your Turn page and was reminded of the one thing I can’t stand. No, it’s not talking to readers on the phone.

It’s stock photo programs. I can’t stand them. Especially Kodak EasyShare.

As I mentioned on the phone earlier, “EasyShare” is only accurate if you’re sending one photo with one e-mail. Beyond that it just becomes a giant cluster—mess. It’s a bloated piece of garbage designed to get you to buy prints and products through Kodak.

I’m going to make an official recommendation to those of you using Windows that have a digital camera and use Kodak EasyShare. Stop it already. You’re only hurting yourself.

Instead use this free software from Google called Picasa. It is significantly easier to use and will help you organize your photos much easier.

It’s free. You can find it at http://picasa.google.com

Worried that your photos won’t show up or will be too hard to find? Picasa will ask to load them all itself when you first start it up.

Again, it’s free. You can find it at http://picasa.google.com

I really don’t think I can make it any clearer how much I hate Kodak EasyShare.

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Will you be my fwend?

Sep 15 2009 Published by Kyle Buis under Uncategorized

Adding onto the empire of amazing ways to find stuff through Pen & Links, we’re on Facebook too. How do you find me? Click on the badge below, or on the other one I added on the right side of the page under the ads. It’s a work in progress at the moment.

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Tough choices, broadband and anonymity

Sep 04 2009 Published by Kyle Buis under Uncategorized

Man difficult choices abound for me.

With both Sony’s PlayStation 3 hitting the $299 mark and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 joining the party I’m conflicted about getting a second console. The sad thing? The tipping point might be the fact Sony has a DVD player and my TV is currently lacking one. And Sony doesn’t have the Xbox Live service I have to pay for just to play games online. And Sony has FFVII, which I have yet to play and would like to enjoy in it’s somewhat original incarnation. Oh the difficult decisions to be made.

Of course Nintendo did just release the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the same price as the third title when it released on the Wii. I’m debating on whether or not to get this since I never really picked up the Prime series. But this is three on one disc so who knows?

By the way, speaking of DVD players, how about Wal-Mart unleashing fiery hell in the form of a $30 DVD player?

I’m adding in this Kevin Mitnick story partly because of the fact AT&T didn’t have stringent enough security to protect him and partly because in photo with this story, he bears a striking resemblance to our own Harold Kruger. Granted the photo of Harold is a glamour shot without his specs on, but I can see it.

Another reason not to trust Facebook apps: Phishing schemes that Mark Zuckerburg and Co. can’t keep up with. And if I misspelled his name, I’ll just say it’s out of spite because we’re about the same age and he’s worth a few billion dollars more than me.

The City of Los Angeles will soon be destroyed. Not by raging wildfires, but by it’s embracing of Google Apps and the cloud environment. Sure, it’s a great idea on paper…until Google goes down for a couple of hours like it did this week.

By the way, Google outage didn’t make this CNET list of 10 ways to break your laptop.

The Department of Agriculture of all people is jumping on the rural broadband bandwagon, promoting the benefits of faster Internet to farmers. I’m not sure which chart worries me more: The one that shows the percentage of farms converting to broadband and doesn’t reach 25 percent in the scale, or the one further down pointing out how few broadband providers there are in the West.

Bendable transparent LED screens? Yeah, I’m a sucker for flexibility.

What am I not a sucker for? Companies accused of wrongdoing who turn around and blame the accuser. In this case, a company accused of engaging in software piracy wants to go after an anonymous accuser and could set a precedent on when an anonymous poster can be unmasked.

And if you like Windows 7 and want to use it for 120 days legally, here’s a way to do it.


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Explaining MMS requires tilting your head funny

Sep 04 2009 Published by Kyle Buis under Uncategorized

The whole announcement of MMS finally coming to the iPhone wasn’t worth a post by itself. But Seth the blogger guy and his limp neck was worth it.

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You can't take down Obama's site that easily. Or stupidly

Sep 03 2009 Published by Kyle Buis under Uncategorized

I’m posting this story by itself mainly because of the combination of a high concentration of Republicans and a relative lack of tech savviness. I read the comments on our stories and get to read the letters to the editor that confirm all of this.

If you get a piece of e-mail promising to add your computer to a botnet to launch a denial of service attack against President Barack Obama’s Web site, don’t click anything. It’s fake. Then again, it’s not entirely fake. I’m sure it’ll add you to a botnet you’ll have no control over.


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