Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as the favorite No. 1 album of all time

The British public has "overwhelmingly" selected the Beatles' legendary 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" as the favorite No. 1 album of all time. Results of the poll were broadcast Monday (Aug. 28) on BBC Radio 2 to help celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Official U.K. Album Chart.

The Beatles had four albums in the top 10, with "Revolver" at six, "Abbey Road" at eight and band's eponymous set, also known as "The White Album" at 10.

Michael Jackson's '80s blockbuster "Thriller" was ranked No. 2, ahead of U2's "The Joshua Tree," Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," respectively.

Also making the top 10 were Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at No. 7, and Queen's "A Night At The Opera" at No. 9.

Pink Floyd's ground-breaking 1973 album "Dark Side of the Moon" topped a separate list, winning the "Best of the Rest" title for those albums which did not reach the pinnacle of the albums chart. The album, which has gone on to become one of the all-time best-sellers, peaked at No. 2 in Britain following its release.

The public was invited to vote online at the Official U.K. Charts Company's official Web site, and the BBC Radio 2 Music Club Web site.

From Billboard.biz

First Annual Top Gaming Colleges Survey

As the end of summer approaches, hundreds of thousands of college students are reporting to their institution of choice. Which can only mean one thing: fire up your rocket launchers, boys and girls. It's time to take your classmates to school.

Some choose colleges for their diverse student bodies, great football teams, crazy parties or active Greek life.

But a growing number of students are choosing colleges based on their compatibility with video gaming. Super hi-speed connections and dedicated servers, big-screen TVs in lounges, gaming-related classes, social events centering around LAN parties and perks like free download licensing are increasingly part of the lure of certain schools.

If your still undecided on which College to attend then read the rest of he article here.

MSN Messenger Adds One-Click Sex Offender Report Button.

Young people using Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger to chat online with friends can now make a report to police with one click if they are concerned their online 'buddy' is a sex offender.

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Senator Ted Stevens Downloads the Entire Internet and Complains It's Slow!

Regarding a recent vote, Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment (basic net neutrality) and gave an amazing primer on how the Internet works: "It's a series of tubes." and "...an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday." Story includes an mp3 link.

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Watch your favourite TV channels in your browser - FREE

Watch more than 150 TV channels for free. Here is a collection of more than 150 free channels that you can watch from your browser. Includes HBO, ESPN, Playboy TV, Bloomberg, ABC News, AL Jazeera, E-Music, Deejay TV, Deluxe Music, Fashion TV, Horror Channel, Comedy Channel, Sci-Fi Channel, Lifestyle Network, and a lot more.

read more | digg story

AOL chief technology officer resigns:

AOL's chief technology officer Maureen Govern, who oversaw the division responsible for accidentally releasing search data for more than a half a millions users, has resigned from the company, according to an internal company memorandum. Read more here.

Cat Schwartz on the Today Show

For all of the old TechTV fans out there that used to watch Call For Help, you can see Cat Schwartz tomorrow Tues. the 22nd, between 8-9am on the Today Show on NBC. She will be talking about back-to-school tech. If you don't know who she is you can read more here.

150 Cool Downloads for Windows XP

This morning I found a great site (on Live Spaces, no less) that tracked 150 cool downloads for Windows XP. I have known about most of these before but it's nice to have them all listed in one place.

Is your personal computer ready for college?

With my son starting college today I thought this was relevant. Whether you're attending college for the first time this fall or you are a returning student, now is the time to think about whether your PC is ready for the upcoming academic year. Here is some great info to help you find out.

read more | digg story

What does your browser reveal about your personality?

I often tend to judge people based on the type of browser they use. Believe it or not, the choice of your favorite browser reveals allot about your personality. This post analyzes the personalities of the users of most popular browsers including IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape and etc...

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Thank you Cableone...

Good morning, as you may have seen in an earlier post here we have been having problems with our internet connection with Cableone for about a month. The problems, slow speeds and the cable modem going offline altogether. Yesterday it happened again, we couldn't get anywhere on the net so after a few calls to cableone tech support and one call to our local office the general manager of our local cable office came out. He had run some test and determined that our modem was not getting enough of a signal from the cable line. He himself put a new line and a new splitter on the outside of our house and ran the new line directly to the cable modem. Now everything seems to be working great. He also said that he will come out next week to replace the cable lines to our TV's. I just want to thank Clarence Matlock for coming out and doing this for us yesterday in the 106 degree heat. We really appreciate it.

Skype + Outlook = Skylook!

Skylook records voice calls to MP3 and archives all your Skype communications into Outlook folders.

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Firefox Video tutorials

Do you want to teach someone how to use Firefox? Maybe they would learn more if you gave them a visual to study? I ran across this series of Firefox video tutorials this morning.

Right now they cover: Tabbed Browsing, Live Bookmarking, Integrated Search, Themes, and Add-ons or Extensions.

Go here to check them out.

A New Way to test your Bandwidth Speed

Applications that test bandwidth speeds have been around for a long time, but Speedtest.net takes this concept to a new level.

The site allows you to select servers to ping from around the country on an interactive map and graphically displays connections as they travel with varying speeds along the way. It also lets you store results of tests for your computer and sort them by date, time, speed and distance.

Go and check your speed

Testing Windows Live Writer

 

I just installed Windows Live Writer and this is a test post.

Microsoft has released a new blogging tool called Windows Live Writer. While obviously compatible with Windows Live Spaces this program also works with Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress and more!

Setup auto-detects your blog & settings
Edit & format text just like Microsoft Word
Place photos where you want them, even wrap the text!
Insert a Windows Live Map!
And . . Spellcheck!

Download Windows Live Writer Here

Malware Analysis: Drive-by Download

Network security analyst Corey Nachreiner, CISSP, shows what happens when you're browsing the Web and a "drive-by download" attack hits you. Produced by LiveSecurity for WatchGuard Technologies.

DM2 - Windows Enhancements

DM2 provides several Windows enhancements that may help in every-day work. One of the nicest and most popular features of DM2 is minimizing windows to floating icons (unique feature!) freeing both task bar and tray bar space. Moreover, DM2 can manipulate windows in various ways.

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Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning to Windows users

The U.S. government's Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning to Windows users, apply the patches to fix the MS06-040 vulnerability.

"Windows Operating Systems users are encouraged to avoid delay in applying this security patch. Attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in operating systems routinely occur within 24 hours of the release of a security patch. This vulnerability could impact government systems, private industry and critical infrastructure, as well as individual and home users."

The reason that this vulnerability is being taken so seriously is that it could be used in a network worm attack similar to Blaster, Slammer of Sasser.

Users can apply the Microsoft MS06-040 security patch here

Home user may prefer to go to Windows Update at http://update.microsoft.com and select “express” to install critical security updates, including the MS06-040 security patch.

New build: Windows Live Messenger 8.0.0812.00

New build: Windows Live Messenger 8.0.0812.00

Less than two months after the final release of Windows Live Messenger, a new build was released last night. No word on any changes in Windows Live Messenger 8.0.0812.00 from the previous version, but I'm looking into it.

Download it here

http://get.live.com/messenger/overview

Addendum

Serious improvements to the quality of audio and video

Fewer messenger crashes, hangs, and connectivity issues.

Fix for "error 80004005"

“Before I got this error, I had just changed my friendly name to something REALLY long w/ emoticons.”

That was the key! In messenger, there is a max length for friendly names. When you sign-in it checks to make sure your friendly name is under this max. But it was calculating the length in two different ways:

Below is from the Messenger Blog

"Say limit is 6 characters per friendly name. Messenger would let me type “LeahJ” no problem, because it was counting the whole emoticon as one character, and thus my friendly name was 5 characters total. But the next time I tried to sign-in, Messenger would do a check which would count each character of the emoticon separately and thus “Leah:-)” added up to 7 characters, which is over the max limit of 6. Error."

I am beginning to think that the hot weather will never go away

I am beginning to think that the hot weather will never go away, yesterday was another 100+ degree day and today the forecast is for a high of 104 degrees. This sucks. The grass and bushes in our yard are all dying. We have not had a good rain in what seems like forever. The long range forecast does not give us any real hope. From what we can see it looks like most of August will be this way.

The Hollies (1988)- He ain't heavy, he's my brother

For My Brother Mark, Happy Birthday

My Brother turns 40 tomorrow

My little brother turns 40 tomorrow August 5th, Happy Birthday Mark ( that's him in the pictures above ). Hope you have a great day....

“Life begins at 40 - but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times.”
Helen Rowland

Microsoft Heads for Another Big Patch Tuesday

On 8 August 2006 Microsoft is planning to release:

Security Updates

Ten Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Windows. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and the Enterprise Scan Tool. Some of these updates will require a restart.

Two Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Office. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. These updates may require a restart.


Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

Microsoft will release an updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool on Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Windows Server Update Services and the Download Center. Note that this tool will NOT be distributed using Software Update Services (SUS).

Non-security High Priority updates on MU, WU, WSUS and SUS

Microsoft will not release any NON-SECURITY High-Priority Updates for Windows on Windows Update (WU) and Software Update Services (SUS).

Microsoft will release two NON-SECURITY High-Priority Updates on Microsoft Update (MU) and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Maybe I was too hard on Cableone

Maybe I was too hard on Cableone. Yesterday afternoon I called the local office ( earlier I had called the 800 number for tech support ) and told them that I was thinking of switching to ATT DSL and they sent a tech over to my house. The tech, Tom was very knowledgeable and said that he would look into things and he even gave me his personal cell phone number and told me to call him anytime that I was having problems. I had a slow down last night at 9pm and I promptly called Tom and he said that he would go to the local office and check to see what was going on. I had to leave to do some stuff and by the time I was home at 10:30pm we were back up to speed. This morning my speed is 3124 Kbps or 3.12 Mbps download, now that is more like it. :) Thanks Tom....

What is your connection speed? Go to www.testmy.com to find out.

Slow internet speeds with Cableone

We have been having problems with our speed on cableone ( our ISP ) for about two weeks. Lately sometimes it seems like we are back on dialup. This morning I did a speed test and my results were 429 kbps down and 26 up. That is ridiculous for the price that we are paying. We have a package deal with our cable company and our monthly bill runs at just above $100, no we are not getting movie channels on cable. So the $100 price tag is for cable TV and Internet service. I decided to call cableone this morning, by the time they answered the phone my connection was back to high speed with a test result of 3221 download and 322 upload. It's somthing, in all the years that I have had cableone internet they never admit that the problem might be on their end ( it's always the customers fault ), even when several other people in town are having the same problem, here is a quote from today from the tech support person " even if several people in your area are having slow connections it just means that their computers are not working correctly" LOL I am seriously thinking about switching to ATT DSL if this is not resolved soon.

Test your speed here

This was resolved with a new cable modem and a separate line for the cable modem, thank you Cableone.

Fun with the Heat Wave

Just a funny heat wave cartoon. We are in for another 100 degree day....