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Word gets around on Internet quickly, but apparently not quickly enough for me. I do recall noticing somewhere a word about small security breach in WordPress 2.8.2 few days ago, but it wasn’t clear to me that all earlier WordPress versions were affected, so I did not rush and act right away.

Yes, there, I am out in the open now, ready to admit it. For the longest time I’ve been watching Netbooks, saying to myself – it’s really a useless toy, why spend money even?

I am posting this courtesy of my good neighbor, who willfully provided a password to his wireless network to save us from going completely crazy and self-destructing as a family. You see, we are over a week now without Internet!!!! It feels that almost every aspect of our family life is crippled, and thus far Comcast seem to have done little to resolve our issue. After their tech didn’t show up for an appointment (which we already waited almost a week for), they said that all they can do is schedule us for Next Saturday….. All our pleas on the phone and even via twitter, didn’t help the situation thus far. Worse yet, it is pretty clear that outage is outside our home, and most likely affecting other houses. But onto the main topic — Is Internet a Luxury or basic utility of our times? From school assignments even for our youngest new K student, everyone expects use of Internet on daily basis. Without going too much into longest list, it feels like every other moment we are reminded that something cannot be accomplished because there is NO INTERNET! I ask myself — Is Internet really a Luxury and our family is just spoiled here and too centered around it? Or are we the new norm, where most activities, whether for school/study/work/shopping or after-hours gaming and video viewing, require fast Internet connection? If Internet indeed such an integral part of life and such a basic utility, should any self-respecting provider allow themselves outages for weeks at a time? Would you agree to live without Water for a week? Or Electricity? Of course I would understand if there were a major storm and some serious damage that took time to repair, but this feels like simple incompetence where overloaded lines caused entire neighborhoods to loose signal, and no-one cares… There, rant done! Weigh in on how you see things and whether I should seek immediate “Internet Rehab” for entire family or instead consider switching to new provider (which may be available all over town!).

I am back from vacation, and it was very rejuvenating. To totally relax this time I spent few free minutes between activities on some casual gaming, mostly on Facebook and Steam. I have been a long fan of Steam, but the improvements in Facebook games were a surprise for me. I love how Steam lets you purchase digitally and then just install and play on your different computers, as much as needed, with no discs to store or find.

In the future, there will be No More Files (and most likely No Folders either). Have I completely lost it, you probably wonder just about now? All modern Operating Systems, from latest Linux to upcoming Windows 7 or Mac OS Snow Leopard, still share this fundamental flaw. I think designers and engineers have long known that Computer Industry has a major trouble with how it gets our generation brought up and used on the concept of “Files”. Bill Gates was very bold to try and change this notion with a Database based file system, but it was too soon and the biggest issue of backwards compatibility couldn’t be properly solved at the time.

I noticed that they took down Most of the movies I liked on Hulu as my recommendations, a year ago. Only Girl Next Door remains, which brings up a thought of a Chicken-n-Egg situation. Specifically – Do they put Young Guy attracting movies because that is their demographics, or is their demographics this way because they put Young Guy attracting movies?

The title is all you need to know. The special price only at your local MicroCenter store and only for 3 days. Of you don’t have one, check local Costco. Or, I will have a link to Amazon, which promised to deliver on Oct 22, on here later today. Posting from my iPhone, so signing off now.

I’m back, and just posting quick update on little “big” things that are going on with me. Filing this one under “Random Thoughts”, FYI. Microsoft announced officially last week that they are discontinuing Microsoft Money product. This Really saddened me, frankly. Something in the way they presented it made me especially sad. I was always expecting MS-Money desktop software to die, and to be replaced by cloud based solution (like Quicken.com and MSN Money). But instead of telling us to use Web solution, they just told us to “Go Away”…

Today I remembered a curious little application, which I wrote back around 1989, if memory serves me right. So, decided to document this for the future generations and you, loyal readers.

Poor attempt at a Not joke? I had a rough day, but I want to promptly document it for everyone’s benefit. Our story begins during late night hours, somewhere deep in the tough Ulduar area in World of Warcraft Instance.

Few days ago, while driving, I heard about this new podcast that Jason Calacanis and friends have put together. Sounds rather interesting, learning more about the tough and exciting world of Startups and Ventures.

I have decided to have a few posts focused on discussing what’s next in the world of computing. The idea is to look at progression thus far, and see what makes sense to be researched and improved next. This simple formula can be surprisingly effective, due to collective “creationism” that defines computing industry. In other words – we create our future (just like in real life) by focusing research efforts (aka: wishes) on particular things. Thus, we can foresee now what will the future bring, simply by assuming that our research pans out.

I normally enjoy Robert Cringely’s insightful articles, but the one I heard today was nothing like his other works. In fact, my first reaction was “Grow Up, not the whole World revolves around you!”. But few seconds later it hit me – this is a modern reincarnation of Sales Pitch!

This is amazing demonstration by Microsoft Office Labs, what they called vision for 2019. For me, the main focus in this demo is on computing interfaces. Notice how many different ways of interacting with the “computer” are shown. Amazing ones are on little cards/devices, that “sense” the motion of the device and respond by showing you different parts of the content, zooming in, etc. Actually, this is something easy to develop on the smart phone today, though I only know of very few apps that do that.

Before you scream – SPELL CHECK, STUPID – The error in the title is intentional. Nintendo’s device should be called iDS, but opting not to alienate Apple they called their “i” device Nintendo DSi.

I watched another excellent Nova show today, called The Spy Factory. It is an excellent in-depth investigation of the failure of US Intelligence when it came to preventing the 9/11 attack. I won’t go further into details, as the entire show is available for online viewing right on the official PBS.org site, so I recommend you watch it. Once you finished (or perhaps you already seen it on TV), come back here for some more afterthoughts of mine.

I just couldn’t resist the title, it’s just too funny. But on a serious note, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform is in serious trouble. Rumors flamed up again about Microsoft making their own MS branded hardware device, presumably with Zune functionality built in.

I think as any responsible techie, I downloaded both 32 Bit and 64 Bit editions of Windows 7 beta, the first day it came out (naturally). Got 2 keys also (one for each edition).

I am thrilled this weekend! Ecstatic! I have been looking for a knockoff or even this original classic game, for at least a year now, hoping to introduce my kids to it and have some fun playing together!

Yep, I am talking about New York Stock Exchange Computer System here! Actually, I am not laying any blame, but Google Finance and MSN Money both show a quote of 28.67 for AMD (NYSE:AMD), which translates into an increase of 946% – Overnight!! Meanwhile, Yahoo Finance is still correct!