Swap Blog

This is the coolest clock in the world. Link

Smooth upgrade and all is working well.

Life Hacker is running a great poll - top 5 or best text editor - my vote Notepad++ or Vim

First of all, I am not a big Dell fan. Their higher end stuff (XPS, servers, etc) is good, but their lower end stuff is just terrible in my experiance. Honestly, they make fine computers if you buy a new box every few years, but if you want to upgrade and expand well their non standard motherboards and all on one board systems have always bothered me. Bottomline, in high volume big business where there is a consistent and regular migration pattern then Dell works, but in small to medium non tech businesses they create problems with the less then stellar quality and properitary products.

With that all behind us I heartly say CONGRATS and WELL DONE to Dell (HP and Leveno too) for coming up with creative and LEGAL ways to continue to provide XP after the CURRENT (as I think the Redmond gang will move it) June 30, 2008 end of product life date for XP. Vista is just bad. Every person I know now is trying to stay with XP. All my IT friends are working hard to keep Vista out of their offices and off their users desktops when possible. Windows 7 better get here soon or OS X and Linux will continue to get traction (and growth) in the marketplace. At this point Microsoft needs to understand that people are trying to stay on XP and are only going to Vista when they have too. That sort of situation causes people to look around at alternatives ALOT more. Personally I would love to see a working Windows 7 by Jan 1, 2009, but honestly I don’t think Microsoft could hit a any reasonible deadline at this point.

Stories here, here and here.

[H/T to Dale at A Few Good Pens for this one]

As a followup to our previous post about how blogging can be a dangerous / hazardous job, we now offer up a post from Brittianca’s blog asking / pondering if newspapers are dead. Post here

If newspapers are doomed, and bloggers are dying right and left, I guess the MSM will have to pick up the slack. I hope and pray that both newspapers and bloggers are here to stay for a LONG time if that is how it would work out.

PC World, as well as a lot of other sources, is talking about how blogging may take the path of coal mining, crab fishing, bomb diffusion tech, and logger and become listed as a dangerous job. It seems that the stress of the 24 hour nature of the world of blogging and inability to take time off is leading to health issues. Full Post Here

Mark Olsen at Pseudo Poly Math has a excellent post up how science can and does lead to questions outside of science, but those questions (and there possible answers) are not scientific in either their nature or their conclusions. This post, and the questions that drive it come from two books - one by John Polkinghorne and Michael Polanyi- both scientist who have begun to look into unscientific questions and paths.

The New York Times, and numerous other news sources, have the story out today that report the results of a clinical trial on home defibrillators. It seems that the home defibrillators do NOT increase the likelihood of survival. Honestly that was a surprise result to me, and one that I hate to learn as I thought such devices would be a nice addition to the average US household as heart disease / attacks are a major issue in America. NY Times Here