Not a guarantee.
If you have to think of a reason for it… you don’t need it. This is basically my feeling towards the… I’m just gonna call it the iTab. I’ve seen sites posting reasons why the iTab is actually really amazing and groundbreaking, but if you have to tell me why I need to have it and what I would use it for; then I just plain don’t need it.
The argument I’ve heard is that the iTab is the device that is in between a smart phone and a netbook. Alright… so what’s going to be in between the smart phone and the iTab? What do you mean we don’t need anything between those two devices? I didn’t think we needed something between a smartphone and a netbook either. Now if the iTab was actually revolutionary software-wise, then things would be different.
Want to see a revolutionary idea for a tablet from another company? An idea that actually looks amazing and useful; and not just a smart phone with a larger screen slapped on.
This little leaked video from Microsoft for the Courier is what I can get behind. I personally still wouldn’t have a use for it, but at the very least I could see productive people using it to make their job or life easier and more organized. The iTab is almost literally an iPhone with a larger screen. And like I said before… I don’t care how good an an screen keyboard is; it will never feel as good as something physical.
Let’s all just agree this was a bad idea and forget about it. It can join Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, Microsoft’s WebTV, in the big technology wasteland in the sky.
Here’s my problem with this…. everything.
It’s is essentially a large iPod Touch/iPhone; meaning it still doesn’t multi-task and it still doesn’t have flash. The phone in my pocket multi-tasks and will soon have flash. Who out there wants a larger version of their phone? My phone (Nexus One) is more capable than an iPhone, but even I don’t want a larger version of it. At that size I want a full blown OS to play with. And who like typing on a screen? Be honest. Steve Jobs thinks netbooks don’t have a place, but that the iPad does. I think Steve Jobs is counting on hype to carry a mediocre product and bad idea (He might be right, but I hope intelligence prevails.).
I’ll be honest; I was somewhat excited at the prospect of a large touch screen device that Apple thought of. I didn’t know what purpose it would have, but I figured maybe Apple would create a purpose for it. What we got instead was a lazy idea. It is the Zack Morris iPhone. Why not put a full blown OSX on there? That would be far more compelling and drool worthy.
For $500 I can get the best netbook out there or a pretty nice small and low power laptop. All of which can do a whole lot more than this iPad.
I also really don’t like saying iPad.
Also. In case you haven’t seen this. It’s the index that should have been in Palin’s book. http://www.slate.com/id/2235917/
I get questions like this from people at my work quite often and I figured I would address and educate people about it so that you don’t fall for it.
Here is what the email looks like
Taxpayer ID: your_name-00000660988660US
Tax Type: INCOME TAX
Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application)
Please review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website (click on the link below):
Internal Revenue Service
review tax statement for taxpayer id: your_name-00000660988660US
Now the first thing people probably do is get a bit scared and maybe even wonder if it’s legitimate. The first thing to do when you get emails like this is think. Is the IRS really going to email you about this? No, they are going to mail you a physical letter about it informing you that you’re probably going to get audited.
Now if that doesn’t wipe your fears we can get some solid proof right here. If you hover your mouse over that link you should see what it goes to in the bottom of your browser somewhere. I have of course removed the link and put in a phrase, but I just want people to know where to look first of all.
Next up is the anatomy of a URL. Up at the top you should be seeing http://blog.notsunil.com/. That is because I own notsunil.com and that is what matters here. Actually what really matters here is reading URLS right to left. However, all we need to focus on is inbetween “http://” and the first ‘/’ after that. To the left of that first ‘/’ after “http://” is “.com” and if I were a goverment orginization, then I would have a “.gov”. Now you think you know where I’m going with this, but just wait. So no one can control the .gov or .org or .com part of their domain. That part is controlled by ICANN. What we can do is create a string of letters and numbers that may or may not form a word or phrase and put it in front of a .com and so forth. I purchased “notsunil” in the “.com” space and I can do so for others such as .biz and .net. I can’t however buy a “.gov” as that is reserved for goverement sites. Other countries of course have their own domain level. Japan has “.jp” so a “.com” in Japan is actually “.co.jp”, the UK has “.co.uk” and so on.
So I can’t choose anything for what comes after notsunil and before that 3rd ‘/’, but I control the notsunil.com domain which means I can make and put anything I want in front of notsunil. Such as this site which is blog.notsunil.com and my old WordPress site at tech.notsunil.com (which was orginally intended for these types of articles). So knowing this I can create www.irs.gov.notsunil.com and… well okay I hope no one would be fooled by that. But here is what the scammers do. They buy a domain name that is a random string like eaedejssad.org.uk (this is almost exactly the domain used for the IRS scam I was asked about today. I just added 2 letters). Now from this we can tell that this domain is supposedly in the uk, but other than that it’s just random letters. How is this useful? Well how about www.irs.gov.eaedejssad.org.uk Now that just might be enough to fool people who don’t know how domain levels work. Everything before that random string, including the www was created by them.
Here’s another trick that the information bar at the bottom of your browser is useful for. Say I put up a link or email a link to someone. I can have it say http://www.google.com/ and that looks perfectly normal right? But hover over it and you can see that it is clearly not google.com. Sometimes it might look simmilar though. So maybe it would be gooogle.com and people would just glance over it. Now some blog services such as Tumblr, actually have measures in place to prevent someone from doing this little switcharoo. It will actually replace the url you have typed with the actual URL. As you can see, however, their measures are easily circumvented by anyone who knows even basic HTML. In fact the method I used would probably pass right by most filters designed to look for this kind of thing (those curious can view source and ctrl+f “lmgtfy” to see how I did it). And if I came up with it, you can be sure the scammers have too. The only sure way to know is to hover over the link and look down there to make sure it’s right.
Well I hope this has armed some of you with the knowledge to protect yourself. And when in doubt… http://lmgtfy.com/
I know I’ve been M.I.A. for a while…. that’s the military term not the singer. Let’s try and make up for some of that today.
Start of with a nice dose of Jon Stewart. Here he is doing a great parody of Glenn Beck for over 8 minutes.
I was wrong.
McCain is looking to block Net Neutrality with the “Internet Freedom Act.” Now this sounds an awful lot like Net Neutrality and I’m 100% sure it was designed to do just that and confuse people. What they really mean is freedom for the corporations to do whatever they want with the internet. Maybe Comcast will start a tier system. Basic internet for $60. Oh you want to watch videos? You’re going to need the expanded package that’s $100. Oh and you have to watch the video on our site because we don’t support Hulu. The only thing keeping Comcast and all the other ISP’s from doing just this, is the fear that it will end in net neutrality laws being passed. Now, if this “Internet Freedom (for corporate America) Act” is passed, then that fear is removed. Is McCain for the people or for Corporate America? Republicans keep talking about how they work for the people, but their actions time and time again prove otherwise.
Thankfully, Obama likes net neutrality and it is one of his higher priorites, so I’m not too worried. It’s still just such a slap in the face from McCain.
Edit:
I feel like I need to explain myself a bit more. The main argument in this “Internet Freedom Act” is that government shouldn’t be allowed to control the internet. Ummm… yes, they should. Much like the goverment controls our roadways they should be able to control the pipes that carry our internet traffic. What if GM built it’s own roads? And then only let it’s own cars use it or charged other people with other makes of cars money to use their roads? The fact is that goverment NEEDS to control certain things. If people are so anti-goverment, then stop using roads, going to national parks, borrowing from the library, and stop using the internet. The goverment… The U.S. government created the Internet. It’s all right here. One of the greatest invetions of our time came from a goverment program. But I digress.
If anyone can come up with a valid argument as to why corporations should control roadways, then yes, by all means lets close up the internet and let the corporations decide how we should use it.
Bill O’Reilly making sense?! Why couldn’t he have been this way the whole time? It’s been the case for a long time that, as John Stewart said, “They hate Obama more than they love America.” But right here in this clip Bill O actually makes the point (ON FOX NEWS!) that Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, deserved or not, is a good thing for America.
Yes, he hasn’t accomplished anything major, but he has the will. He’s looking for the way and the world just showed that he (and the U.S.) has their support. Is it basically a “Thanks for not being G.W. Bush?” Maybe. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s good for America. Bill actually does a pretty good job of making the point… I know… I’m pinching myself too.
On another note. Yes, there has been a lack of updates. I hope to change that this week.
How does he still have a TV show? Oh right… he has an “audience.”
I kind of want to punch him. I can’t wait for the future when idiots like him will be less and less. Though I do know plenty of people in my generation who subscribe to his views. Honestly, can’t we all just get along? Oh right. No, we can’t.
South Park still has it right. If we get rid of race and religion we will still find something to fight over and divide us. Can’t we just have “American culture?” Why does it need to be white culture or black culture? Asian culture or hispanic culture? I’m from India, but I consider myself American. Something tells me Glenn Beck has a problem with that because I wasn’t born here.
