The device is pretty neat, there’s no denying that. It’s unfortunate that apple has decided to completely lock down the iPhone into AT&T. In fact, this is what kept me from getting the first iPhone. That, and the fact that it’s usually better to wait for the second generation of new hardware. Apparently, Apple has wizened up, and you are now forced to sign the contract in the store. This makes things a bit more complicated then. With the first iPhone, you were allowed the possibility of enabling it through iTunes. Or, you could not activate it at all, and instead you could unlock it. Yet there is always the problem of being left with an iBrick. With the 3g iPhone, Apple has agreed to a wide array of different contract prices with countries in Europe. For example, in Belgium you get a completely unlocked iPhone, with which you can use with whatever carrier you like. The price is rather steep considering the exchange rates (it costs almost $1000 for the 16gb version!), so if you’re desperate and looking for an unlocked iPhone now, Europe is the way to go.  However, there are plans of selling unlocked iPhones by the end of the year in America. The price will be much higher without a contract, at $599/$699 depending on the model. It will be pay as you go, but I do not know if that means it will work with every carrier. I’ve been unable to find more information about pay as you go iPhones being sold in America, maybe my google fu isn’t up to scratch. Unfortunately for apple, I’m not buying their iPhone just yet, and most likely neither should you (although this could depend on the circumstances).

Python is a language that has risen in popularity these last few years. I have heard about it before, and just recently I decided I wanted to learn it. First of all, I know no other language other than visual basic. However, I don’t want to be forced to use a language that is locked into windows, although I know there are ways to get visual basic working using Mono. However it is not the disadvantages of visual basic that compel me to learn python, rather the advantages of python. I honestly don’t know enough about visual basic to say why it sucks, but the fact that it’s from Microsoft was reason enough for me look and see what better cross-platform alternatives there are. Python is also easy to use. It has an easy to read syntax, meaning that it is easy to maintain it. If you write something in python, you can come back to your code in six months and easily figure out what you’re trying to do. However, if you use a language like C++, it can be difficult to understand your own code at first. Of course, having a clean syntax also helps as you’re coding. It helps make everything clear, and instead of focusing on the language, you focus on the logic. Most important for me is that I can learn it without it being too complicated. It’s going to be a little side project of mine. I don’t want to waste a lot of time learning things in c/c++ that I could already be doing in python. Perhaps at a later point, I will learn c++. At this point in time, I would rather learn more about programming theory, such as objects and whatnot. Python makes it easy to learn all of this. If you also wish to learn about programming, I would imagine python to be a great starting point for everyone. There is a book about python that will be released on the 25 of September, called Beginning Python: from Novice to Professional, Second edition. I have read some of the author’s articles online, as well as the first chapter in his first book. It does not over complicate things with unnecessary terminology meant for professionals, but instead focuses on being clear to understand without overloading on complicated matters. I have read some of the his articles online and it it seems clear without taking things too fast. Thus, I will try to get my hands on a copy of the book when it releases. I will begin learning python in approximately a month and a half (no, not because I’m lazy).

Enso

Enso launcher is product made by Humanized. Humanized bases all their products on having a “humanized” interface. Everything they do is done to make everything as efficient and humanized as possible. I think their philosophy is best explained on their about page. Enso itself is a very neat product. It’s visually appealing, and uses a nice pallet of colors. It’s very slick, and I can see a lot of thought was put into this aspect. It uses the caps lock key to toggle input, which you must hold down. It can be a bit hard at times to do this, especially if you’re a touch typist, but it works well enough. You can change it to other predefined keys. However, you will not be able to use the defined key for its normal use, it’s sole purpose is for the Enso launcher. You are told to try it, that even though it’s new, you’ll get used to it. I’ve been using this for a two weeks, and it’s still a bit awkward, but I can use it to a degree that is sufficient enough for me to use it without much thinking. It’s different, that’s for sure, and whether or not it’s better seems more like what you’re comfortable with, rather than hard data. This is my personal opinion, as I’m sure a study could show that one is better than the other, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon.

The way you use Enso launcher, is that you press and hold caps lock to type a command. The most common commands are:

open: open an executable

go: Change to another open window

learn as open: Highlight something, use this command, and put in whatever you want the program to learn. For example, highlighting “www.techsmartly.com”, using the command, and typing in techsmartly will make the program learn that the command “open techsmartly” will open this website. If you still don’t quite understand it, think of it as binding a key in the console if you’re a gamer.

open with: Like the open command, but you say which program you want to open the file with.

These are the most frequently used commands for the average user. There’s also a tutorial video that explains everything much more in depth if you install it, so don’t worry if you don’t understand.

The main reason I prefer the beta 2.0 version over version 1, is that it learns what you use. This is a feature that was sorely lacking in the first version. This is why, despite missing many useful features, I much prefer version 2.0. Also, the way commands are typed in is different. in the original, you typed “open Firefox”, and it would open it. Now, you type “o”, let go of caps lock, and a little box shows up. Then you can type “fi” and enter, and then Firefox opens up. Despite being more complicated on paper, it is much easier to actually do. It requires fewer keystrokes. It’s only a bit difficult to learn if you’re used to the old stay. It’s quite intuitive, since after all it is the philosophy behind all Humanized products.

Like every program, it has its downfalls. First of all, no copy and paste. It’s still not implemented, so you’re going to have to type everything out. Luckily there’s that learning algorithm to help you. Another problem is that you can’t scroll further down the list of suggestions other than what is already listed. Lastly, you can’t type anything that’s incredibly long. Most importantly though, is that it seems to crash quite a bit. I’ve had it crash several times, but luckily it starts again. It also opens up a web page where you can explain what you were doing when it crashed, and it sends info about what was happening. You’re able to see all the info that’s being sent, so there are no worries there(hopefully).  These are several glaring problems that I’ve had with this program. It is not enough to render it unusable, and it is still a beta. There is also no linux version, for all your linux fans and users out there. However, a Linux version is in the pipe works, although I’m unsure if it’s for the first enso launcher or the the second version of the enso launcher.

It’s a great little app, and I use it quite a bit.

Launchy

Launchy is, just like Enso, a launcher. Like Enso launcher, it’s main goal is to speed up your computer usage. However, less focus is put on the interface itself. The end purpose is the same, but everything else is different. Launchy has a lot more options than Enso. You simply type the name of what you want, and it finds it for you. You do not have all the commands given in Enso launcher, meaning it is only what it is, a launcher. However, it doesn’t only have to launch what i has already indexed. Unlike Enso launcher, you can tell Launchy to index a certain folder, so that everything inside can be launched as long as you know the name. You can write the name of a song, and it will open it. However, you need to know the actual filename, not the anme of the song.

You can’t go to another window in Launchy. Enso is very powerful if you know how to use it. Launchy is also powerful if you know how to use it. However, they are powerful in different areas. Enso can also have more commands if you know how to code. Launchy has a lot more customization, as well as the ability to index everything. It is also quite simple of you like to use default everything (putting all your videos in my videos, music in my music, etc). If you like to tweak and customize to your liking, you can also do that. With enso, you can’t do so. You can’t make it index anything else, and the amount of options is quite flimsy. You can change the skin in launcher, but you can’t do so with enso. Fortunately, Enso does most things “just right”. It has that feelings that disillusioned mac users think about OSX. Of course, following in traditional Mac footsteps, if you don’t like the way it does things, tough (bring on the hate mail!).

A small footnote in today’s ever increasing processing power; launchy has a smaller memory footprint. Enso takes up about 33 megabytes of ram, while Launchy takes up only 12. This is while it’s idle. For those that have very little computer resources, like some of my friends, launchy may be the best choice if there is some indecision between the two.

Which one?

Both are great launchers. Both are free, so can try both and see what you like. I personally prefer Enso launcher, but some people may prefer Launchy. It depends on how you wish to use it, as well as a myriad of other factors. Although I would recommend people to try enso if asked, the real answer would be to try both, that way you can’t be wrong. I’ve since stopped launchy from starting up automatically, and I use only Enso Launcher now, but there’s no risk in trying both, or maybe others as well. Remember, the keyboard is almost always faster than the mouse.

For those that don’t use windows

Unfortunately, Launchy and Enso launcher are not out for another other than windows. For linux, you can choose between Katapult, and gnome do. For Mac, you have Quicksilver.

Linux is an operating system that originated from a man called Linus Torvald. He based Linux off of UNIX, the same operating system that OSX is based on, except it’s not as bad as OSX. It started in 1991. A commercial operating system called MINIX, based on UNIX, was being sold. Linus wanted to create a similar operating system, but one that was free. This led him to create the Linux kernel, together with everything from the GNU project. He released GNU/Linux on 17 December 1991. Oddly enough, Linus was working on Linux when he was in a university as well. However, he did not drop out. Now what about Linux would be so great as to merit such a long and boring intro? There are too many reasons, so I will just give a very brief summary.

It is the most secure OS on the market. It has almost no viruses. In fact, there probably is no need for an anti virus. Since people find problems, fix them, and submit the solution, exploits are quickly fixed. Don’t ever use an anti virus on Linux. It simply isn’t worth it. Even when Linux gets more popular, and more people (attempt to) create viruses, Trojans, or worms, there are more people that will also fix all of those exploits. This makes the developers have to do less work, and makes Linux more secure.

Linux also turns out to be one of the most reliable operating systems around. There are some servers that have been up for more than 5 years, and have never been shut down due to crashes. Linux runs programs in a different way, where they aren’t tied to the system. The system is 1 layer, and applications are another. When the application crashes, or something goes wrong, it is much easier to get out of such a situation. I’ve had windows fail to load when a file became corrupt due to turning off the power when my games froze, or some other application. It is possible to recover from almost every situation without leaning over to touch that power button.

Different distributions are what make Linux so much better. Don’t like how red hat handles certain things? Then you might want to check out Slackware. Oh, it doesn’t have a good package management system? Maybe try Ubuntu, or Kubuntu, or maybe Fedora, or even Opensuse. You want something that feels more like windows? Trying to get someone to switch to Linux? Try Linespire, or Freespire! But maybe Mandriva suits your tastes more, especially since it has such an easy way of installing. Now what if you’re stuck with windows? Use DSL, a distribution of Linux that is only 49.5 mB. It is possible to run Linux inside of windows using only a pen drive.

Lastly, Linux is completely free. No money has to be exchanged. You don’t need to buy a separate copy for every computer. Even software can all be free. For Photoshop you have gimp. For Microsoft office there is OpenOffice. A lot of money could be saved if we didn’t spend so much on commercial products when there are just as good products that you can get for free. I never believed in the saying “you get what you pay for”.

Linux is used everywhere. It’s just too hard to pretend it doesn’t exist. Phones are using it. Big businesses, as well as small ones. Computer used for work, gaming, or surfing. More and more schools are using it. It’s not a fad, an inferior OS, or just a little piece of dirt on the sidelines. It’s something much better than windows. That resource hogging Aero that was in Vista was in Linux long before. In fact, Linux can do better things than Aero. In short, Linux is in general, a better operating system.

First youtube poop

Second youtube poop

Hope you enjoy it…if you like that sort of thing. If you’re wondering when I’ll stop posting about youtube poops and stop being weird, don’t worry, there are normal articles in the pipe line. I am however a little busy, and have been for the past week.

Now you may be wondering what I’m talking about right now. Actually, I don’t quite know myself exactly what makes a youtube poop (ytp) a youtube poop. What I do know, is that they can be quite funny for those who like that style of humor. What it is, is a remix of sorts, originally done to CD-i  videos. I think the best way to know what a youtube poop is, is to watch one yourself.

My favorite ytp’s are:

These are some of my favorite’s and I think they demonstrate what it is quite well. Not everyone likes youtube poops thought, however they’re now one of my favorite forms of entertainment. There are also different styles and things that you can do with ytp’s. There are more experimental forms, which can involve things like blowing your ears out with lots of distorted and crazy sound.

Youtube poop’s aren’t only limited to CD-i. The original ones are, but pretty much everything can be turned into a youtube poop. Along the more popular ones are the Super Mario Bros. show, which is more than 15 years old, as well as shows from Sonic the Hedgehog. My preference for youtube poops is anything funny, but I always like to watch poops of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I’ve seen some pretty funny poops based off that show.

Youtube poops are not for everyone. You may just dismiss it as some crazy thing that some people like to watch and like, similar like Hillary Clinton supporters(yes I did just go there). It’s one of the funnier things that I have seen, and it’s relatively unknown. If you wish to start watching poops, and need a foothold for where to start, I would recommend two of my favorite poopers.

Youtube user MTB710

Youtube user Krobo Productions

Happy watching, and hopefully I’ll be able to get my youtube poop encoded properly!

Why must you always seduce people with your nice looking products? I admit, Macs are better at some things with windows, but again there are some drawbacks to macs. Not only that, but it seems like people forget that OSX, despite being all pretty is intuitive, is still a closed down OS using proprietary formats. My knowledge of Mac is quite small however. I only ever use macs when I go to the mac store to browse to anti-mac pages such as here, or here, even not everything I link to is entirely true. I’ve done this about 5 times, and one out of those five times the mac crashed on me. Of course, it could have just been a chance encounter, but aren’t they supposed to just work? Anyway, enough Mac-bashing. I don’t want people emailing me saying how wrong I am. I don’t like macs, and I’ll never use one without malicious intent. The fact is, Apple seems hell-bent on getting everyone to use what they think is best. You must use their ideas of what they think is good for you. For a grandma sitting at home, this isn’t all that important. But for a person who wants to make things work the way they want it to, it becomes a problem. So tell me Apple, why must you extend your influence to my windows partition?

I have a pretty clear Idea how this happened. I was installing iTunes, which installed quicktime. There was some little check box or list that I didn’t looked completely through. But why did Apple decide that it should force upon me it’s terrible software by automatically checking one item among so many? Granted, it’s not a big a problem as it wanting to install safari. in fact, it has a very simple solution. But that’s not what the problem is. I’m not complaining that Apple changed PNG’s to open with some program that crashes when I try to use it. I’m complaining about the fact that Apple is trying to feed me it’s own slow software on my computer, try to deceit me and hide from my watchful eyes. This is poor on Apples part. I want iTunes so I can sync my iPod (with rockbox!), and it also has to install quicktime, and change my settings so that it tries to open the pictures. Hopefully songbird can become good enough for my daily usage soon, so that I can rid myself almost completely from iTunes. I however still have DRM on some songs which I need to get rid of. Apple earns my big red mark of shame, which does not actually exist, but you get my drift.

Now, let me start off by saying that I don’t think my computer has ever felt more violated. My computer was in the worst state I’ve ever seen it since getting blue screens of death from the creative drivers (I still haven’t quite solved that problem). I don’t know what made me think it was a good idea. I’ve been starring at the same desktop ever since when XP came out, sometimes changing my wallpaper. If my eyes were a CRT monitor, the start menu would have been burned into my eyes by now. I guess my excuse is that I was getting bored at looking at the sae scenery all the time. At least now I know it’s better just to download a theme. It is important to mention that I used the Vistamizer program, which may have had issues with my computer. However, what happened to my computer after restarting was terrible, almost unmentionable. I wish I had screenshots, but I couldn’t bare to have my computer stay like it was long enough for me to take some. It all comes down to 4 things.

• It’s terribly slow.
• It’s ugly!
• Too many processes were running.
• It changed my stuff and didn’t revert it.

It’s terribly slow

Now of course, this is quite a heavy task. Maybe even Vista itself would be faster than what my computer was. However, I have a very powerful computer. It can run Crysis on high at a smooth framerate. So why does my computer have to slow down so much just to handle all the effects? When I right clicked, it took half a second for the computer to do whatever it was doing. At least I got to see a pretty circle while I waited! When I use normal XP, I don’t see any cool looking circle, I just see a menu pop up almost as soon as I click. How dare I decide that functionality is better than staring at a pretty circle!

It’s ugly!

Wait, what is this? It’s ugly? Yes, it is quite ugly! The transparency doesn’t look nice, especially with things in the background. There were a few miner graphical glitches. The taskbar colors did not look nice. It just did not work well together. It’s not just because I’m not used to it, it’s because it’s actually ugly. I wouldn’t be able to stand using it after a while. Even the default windows setup is better than what I experienced.

Too many processes were running

I realize that there needs to be a lot of stuff going on to deliver the vista experience on windows. However, when I find myself looking at new things running in the system tray, I do not like this. Maybe I was hoping for too much, but when I use a computer, I don’t want too many programs running in the background. On top of that, there were perhaps many other processes happening in the background. However, I didn’t look because I wanted to change back to normal windows so quickly.

It changed my stuff and didn’t revert it

The first thing I noticed is that I had a new desktop wallpaper. The second thing I noticed is that my files were spaced farther apart. Fair enough. I didn’t really mind this at all. In fact, it looked OK, and I didn’t have any problems with it. The problem I did have, and still have (since I can’t be bothered to fix it), is that when I uninstalled everything, it didn’t change back to what it was originally. All the icons are still as spaced out as ever, and the order that it was has ben destroyed. Not only that, it set the desktop wallpaper back to the default. I had a nice Firefox wallpaper that I can not find anywhere which I found through stumbleupon. How am I supposed to get that back? I’m sure I can find it through enough googling, but why should I have to spend quite a bit of time just to fix what Vistamizer changed?

Now this is only one opinion. For some people, Vistamizer might have worked perfectly. In fact, another vista pack could work better than vistamizer did for me. I don’t know until I try all of them (the popular ones at least). However, until then I think my computer wants a rest, especially through what it has been through.

Click for bigger image

It seems like nowadays, privacy is becoming more and more a thing in the past. Google stores your search data indefinitely, although now they will anonymise searches longer that 2 years if I remember correctly. I get 10 spam emails every day, from signing up to websites and making comments. In fact, I got my very first spam email that bypassed the filter two days ago, and I’ve had my email address for more than a year. I was surprised, considering I have not seen a single spam email except when I venture into the spam vaults for a good laugh. How can you not get a laugh out your friends when you get an email like this:
Your rod and balls will become candy after taking our special formula.

So maybe this isn’t your type of humor, and instead what happens is you sit in front of your computer, contemplating on the security of email. You go on a trip, thinking about the proliferation of spam, the rise of phishing, and other techniques dependent on user intelligence. Lost passwords, stolen credit card numbers, private data available in a database for sale. All these things exist. That’s why you must protect yourself against privacy violations, and identity theft, as well as everything else out there. Now it’s not like you must mistrust everybody, but you must always be careful with what you send out. You may feel a need to run under your computer desk (your chair works OK if you can’t fit under your desk), but before you do that, you must continue reading on before you live the life of a hermit.

One of the most simple things you can do to protect yourself is to know whether or not you’re submitting info over SSL. If you wish to learn in depth about SSL, you can visit the Wikipedia article about SSL. SSL stands for secure sockets layer, created by Netscape. Nowadays, SSL is used whenever any important data has to be transmitted. Everything sent over SSL is encrypted. In fact, sending your data over SSL is the most secure it will ever be. Once it reaches it’s destination, what happens there is completely dependent on the security of the servers. So what does this mean? When you’re sending you private info, whether you’re signing up for a website, or you’re doing anything you would not rather anyone see, make sure it’s in SSL!

“But, Joe, how do I know I’m using SSL?”, I hear you say. It’s very simple. Look for an icon looking like a lock on your browser UI. Using release candidate 1 of Firefox 3, I get the lock on the bottom right corner. It’s been such a long time since using internet explorer though, but I do believe that the lock appears on the url bar. Now, as long as you have that lock, you are safe. No, not really. You are only safe against a 3rd party. Just because there is that lock there, doesn’t mean that your info can not be read by anyone. This is protection against others trying to steal what you’re sending. This does mean that the website you’re sending the info to has access to it. Even if you are using SSL, the website that you are sending it to can abuse that information, even if it is illegal to do so.

So how can you fully protect yourself against all those terrible and nasty people out there? It’s a simple answer really, and all you really need is common sense. Is a website you don’t know asking to install a plugin? Are you signing up for everything you see? Do you click on email attachments without knowing before hand there would be one? The stop right there! Think! It doesn’t take a trained eye to know when someone is trying to violate your privacy, although it does help.  When you’re dealing with the internet, and are one of the few people who wish to keep as few people as possible knowing about their info, the best thing is not anti-virus, it’s not living in a cave for the rest of your life, it’s common sense.