Archive for October, 2007

Happy Halowe’en

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

Happy Halowe’en or All Saint’s Eve if you prefer. Maybe you’d even prefer to call it by the Irish name of Oíche Shamhna. And as our hispanic friends like to call it, Día de los Muertos.

What ever you call it, may it be safe and fun.

Xfire 1.83 Released

Monday, October 29th, 2007

New version of Xfire was released today. As usual, it’s mainly to add support for new games and very little else. It’ll update next time you login.

New Version of GMail

Monday, October 29th, 2007

So, I was checking my email earlier and noticed a link in the top right that says “Old Version”. I clicked it, GMail reloaded, and looked the same. Clicked “New Version” and still couldn’t tell much of a difference.

The only thing that I’ve noticed so far is the mouse over for a person’s email has changed a bit, and the “more actions” menu is now less form looking. That’s the only thing I can find so far. Even the “What’s New” doesn’t offer any insight. Anyone have any ideas?

Trillian Astra Build 60 Released to Testers

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Cerulean Studio’s has released a massive update for Trillian Astra. This update mainly offers a major revamp of the Windows Live (MSN) Messenger plugin, as well as Profile 2.o. You can read about all of the changes on the development blog.

WordPress 2.3.1 Released

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Wordpress 2.3.1 has been released. This update addresses over 20 bugs, including one XSS bug, improved support for Windows Live Writer, and a number of other things. Because of the XSS exploit found in WordPress 2.3 it is recommended that you update to 2.3.1.

Download | Change Log

LOST News

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Yesterday actor Daniel Dae Kim was arrested for driving under the influence. Daniel Dae Kim plays Jin-Soo Kwon on ABC’s LOST. The big question now is, what will happen with the character Jin-Soo Kwon now. Historically LOST actors that have had a run in with the law in real life usually get killed off the show. Does this mean Kwon will be taken by the island next?

When It Rains…

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

Owning a house is so much fun. In fact, all of the things that go wrong all of the time are enough to drive a person crazy. We’ve been in this house for less than ten months, you wouldn’t expect much to happen in that short period of time, would ya?

Within the first two months, our hot water heater started leaking. So, we replaced that and things were fine until about two months ago. That’s when the A/C died. The 20+ year old Amana unit that was probably installed when the house was built quit blowing air. The squirrel cage had separated from the drive shaft. Rather than buying a new A/C we just replaced the part. That cost a bit under $400.00.

Then a few weeks later, it gets cold out so I go to turn on the heat. The system starts up, but there is not hot air coming from the vents. Repair man comes out, looks at the unit, does some system checks and determines that the switch is bad. At this point, I’ve had enough of the Amana package unit, so I opt to have it replaced with a brand new and slightly large capacity Rheem unit. So there goes about $3500.00, keep in mind $400.00 that was just spent replacing a part.

Less than a week later we have a brown out. The next morning, the wife find the kitchen floor has become a pond and she calls to tell me that the refrigerator is leaking. So I come home after work and take a look at things, nope, the fridge wasn’t leaking it was the freezer. And it wasn’t really leaking so much as everything frozen had thawed out. The compressor on the system is shot which means no cold air for the fridge or freezer.

So, now when the wife gets home, we’re going to go look at appliances. I’m ready to replace everything just so that nothing breaks in the next couple of days. Thankfully, I’ve got a good friend who works at the local HHGregg.

Unofficial: Opera 9.5 Beta 1 Available

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Opera 9.50 Beta 1 isn’t scheduled to be officially released until tomorrow, however it’s made an early appearance on Opera’s public FTP.

Before I post the links, a little word of warning to anyone that grabs the file early. It’s not been officially released until you see something on the Opera Desktop Team Blog or the actual Opera.com website. There have been a few occurrences in the past where a file on the FTP had to be pulled or replace due to some kind of issue.

Download Opera 9.50 Beta 1 Unofficial:

The above links are to the FTP site, and not the actual file. Remember, this is unofficial still and even then it is BETA software. The official release will be tomorrow.

GMail Now With Free IMAP Support

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Google has given GMail users a new feature. No, not more storage space. This time we’ve gotten free IMAP support. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it basically means you can now access your mail from a device (PC, Mac, phone, whatever) and any changes you make will be reflected on any other device connected to your account and even gmail.com itself. – Google’s GMail Blog will do a better job at explaining things than I am. ;)

This is pretty sweet, as it’s a heck of a lot better than POP3. For information on how to set up your iPhone to use GMail IMAP click here (hint: you don’t set it up where you’d expect to). For info on setting it up on all other devices, go here.

Opera Software Opens Office In Google-ville

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Opera Software has opened a new office right down the road from the internet juggernaut, Google. Though to be fair, Mountain View, CA is home to a number of other companies that you might have heard of. AOL, Mozilla, RedHat, Intuit, and even Microsoft.

According to Opera Watch, the new US office along with the existing office in San Diego, CA will be crucial to the marketing of the Opera browser. Something that the little browser is in serious need of.