The Stand-up Philosopher

No Need To Pay For Security on Your PC. Lifehaker Says MS Security Essentials Are Enough

Most of my non-geek friends like to ask me about security. I tell them that unless they look at a lot of porn or spend time downloading pirated software, then they don’t need to worry as much. It’s not that big a deal.

Microsoft once had Windows Live OneCare. I hated the beta version, and installed it after less than 15 minutes. As it matured, I found it to be very useful, and I would recommend it to friends who asked what I though. I’ve long since had it with Norton and McAfee, although I’ve heard since they days that they gave me a bad taste that they’ve optimized their products so they don’t require as much time and attention, as well as system resources. I’m still not ready to pay for either again.

While Windows Live OneCare was a paid product, Microsoft now has Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free. Lifehaker says it works well enough that Windows users shouldn’t have to shell out money for other security products.

Kindle For PC Is Here! And More Good News

Amazon’s Kindle for PC was released today. Maybe it was last night. I’ve already installed it. I’ve had Kindle on my iPhone since I first leaned about it. I’ve only bought one book to date, but now that I can make notes and highlight, I’ll probably buy more. I like to read, and being able to carry my books with me is a great thing.

The post on Amazon’s blog also includes this at the end:

Stay tuned, as more apps are on the way, including Kindle for Mac, and Kindle for Blackberry.

Sweet, Kindle for BlackBerry. Between my iPhone and BlackBerry, and now my computers, the only excuse I’ll have left for not reading will be “because I don’t want to”.

If anyone from Amazon is reading this, can I have an @kindle.com email address without buying the physical Kindle? If I could get some pdf files into the system, that would be great.

The Kids Were Just Too Cute Today

(This picture was from several weeks ago)

I’m writing this post from a hotel room. I’m on travel. I got up this morning, and after packing walked down to pick up my rental car. When I got back, I went out to eat breakfast with my family. Christina drove my Kia Sedona and I drove the rental car to OCB (Old Country Buffet). The funny thing was, when I loaded the rental car at home, Joshua kept asking if he could ride with me. Caleb didn’t bother to ask. He just took his booster seat out of the minivan and walked toward the rental (Ford Focus). Joshua took the hint and grabbed his booster too. By this point, there was no way I could say no, considering I was planning to leave after breakfast while Christina took the kids on to some other planned activities.

That’s a weird contract between the kids. Joshua was asking, Caleb just grabbed his seat. I have to wonder, how many things are we denied because we ask? How many people get what they want because they just do it? I have to admit, sometimes the kids ask me for something, and I deny it for arbitrary and capricious reasons. Maybe I’m too tired and distracted to deal with it. I have to wonder how many requests I’ve been denied in my life for similar reasons.

Another funny point. At one point in the drive to OCB, I pulled into one lane and Christina pulled up right next to me in the other. I knew the two lanes merged after that light. When the light turned green, I stomped the gas and pulled ahead. The kids were giggling for several minutes. They loved it.

Get Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Workweek Audiobook Free

Audible.com is giving away a free copy of Tim Ferriss’ “The 4 Hour Work Week”. I checked the book out from the library. I’ve been meaning to buy my own copy, but Tim is apparently revising it so I’m waiting for the revised version to come out. I might buy the Kindle version if available, now that Kindle for iPhone allows notes and highlighting and Kindle for Windows is right around the corner.

If you want the audiobook version of “The 4 Hour Work Week”, check here and follow the instructions. Make note of that site, as it occasionally has some interesting links to free content. Sometimes it links to new age fluff, but other times it links to really good stuff.

Alternately, if you’d like to purchase a physical copy of “The 4 Hour Work Week”, you’re welcome to do so through my Amazon affiliation. It would help both of us out.

I Don't Like Sports

I'm sure nobody stayed up all night when I said my next post might be about why I hate sports. Most of the people that I know like sports, and I currently live in a part of the country populated by the most rabid sports fans imaginable.

I just never could bring myself to care. I'm not saying I don't enjoy throwing a ball around with my boys, but I sure can't sit and watch a game. It doesn't matter which sport: football, baseball, basketball, soccer, NASCAR, golf, they all bore me equally.

I've tried to care. Believe me, I've tried to force myself to watch a game to fit in. I've tried to force myself to care which team beat which team, or what the difference is between March Madness and the World Series. Trust me, for some reason, my brain does not contain a part that allows me to care. I've been known to answer the question "Who do you think will win the Super Bowl?" with "I think it's a sure bet on the Spurs." Yes, I know the Spurs are a basketball team (I lived in San Antonio). I was deliberately being "a dick".

V Is The Best Sci-Fi Miniseries EVER!

A new V series starts tonight. I LOVED the original. My dad was stationed in Germany from 1980-1985. Somebody taped it and sent all 10 hours to us, and I watched it over and over and over again (give me a break, we only had 1 channel). Of course, even after we moved to San Antonio and had more channels, I still would watch all 10 hours of V when I got a chance.

I remember one day in 1996 when I was stationed on the U.S.S. Oldendorf (DD-972) in San Diego. I had an apartment with a couple of my friends from the ship (I’m still really good friends with one of them). My dad, who worked for the Air Force as a civilian by that point, was TDY to San Diego for some reason or other. The Air Force goes TDY. In the Navy, we get to go TAD (Travelling Around Drunk). There actually happened to be a Star Trek convention in San Diego at the time. For some reason, while I was in San Diego, there weren’t any Star Trek conventions except for that one. I’d been to a few in San Antonio so I figured it would be fun to go with my dad. I haven’t been to once since.

The point of this post isn’t actually about the Star Trek convention. It’s about one idiot at the convention. I was walking through the booths and saw V- The Original Miniseries. It was on 2 VHS cassettes. I asked the vendor if he had The Final Battle. He said no, it hadn’t been released yet. I walked away, dejected.

Well, irony of all ironies: the next day, I was at the Navy Exchange, and saw a 5 VHS Cassette set of V The Original and V The Final Battle. I don’t remember what it cost me, but I bought it that day.

Later that year, I had to take a Typhoid shot. Typhoid always messed me up for 2 or 3 days, but for a short duration, I was working in Supply away from the ship and I was given the afternoon off. I settled down with my 10 hours of V and watched it just like I did all those summer vacations ago.

I don’t think I’ve had time to watch it since, but I still have it, safe on the shelf in my computer room. At some point, I should probably look for the DVD set.

Anyway, I hope this new V series maintains some of the splendor of the original. I know that 25 years and a new crew and a new generation and changes in society can change some things. Star Trek The Next Generation NEVER would have flown in the 60’s, but it worked well for the late 80’s. I hope the new crew is able to incorporate some new technology and cultural idiosyncrasies, while remaining true to The Original V. And I don’t mean that butt-awful attempt at a TV series where that alien hybrid girl shed her skin and aged 13 years every commercial break. After they kicked the Visitors off the planet, bringing them back for a TV series just didn’t make much sense. I tried to like it, I really did, but in reflection, it sucked.

If Newspapers Died, Would You Care?

I know a lot of people who love newspapers. For some reason, they insist on maintaining a newspaper subscription. They like reading the paper.

Just like professional sports, I don't get it.

I hate newspapers. I don't read them. I don't subscribe to them. I take the booths they set up at trade shows offering "$50 in free gifts for trying the paper" as a sign of desperation. Any time I end up in a discussion with somebody trying to sell me a subscription, I usually tell them "No, thank you. I am not paying you to pile up a paper on my floor, which is what happened every time I've had a subscription."

Am I saying I hate journalism and journalists and the entire news profession? No, and please don't read that into what I'm writing here. I simply don't get the point to newspapers, and if newspapers went away, I would not miss them.

Newspapers are huge and cumbersome. I never got the point to the format. In order to read the paper, you have to spread it out farther than your arms, legs, and head were meant to go. Then you have to fold it back. For some reason, the fold never goes right, causing crinkling. You have to lay the darn thing down and FORCE the fold where you want it, then pick it back up to read it.

I also can't stand that format of stories continuing from one page to another section. I hate it when a story continues on through 3 different sections of a paper. "Oh, look, right here on the front page, an interesting story... oh, continued on page A34... Oh, now I have to go to D18 to follow it..."

Maybe I'm just spoiled by the Internet, but I don't even like magazines that do that. Just put the entire story in one place, editor. Don't make me flip around and try to remember where I left off in the first place. I don't understand where this came from, and why it persists to this day. I find it annoying.

I like things to be sequential. I like to pick up a magazine or newsletter and read it like a book. I start at page 1, and read through to the end. I went through a "Choose Your Own Adventure" phase for a while (about the time I was 8), and it was fun while it lasted, but I'd rather just read sequentially.

Another thing I don't like about newspapers is that I can usually tell when a journalist has run out of useful information to give but still has a word count to maintain. Of course, I can tell this on CNN.com or WorldNetDaily, so it's not exclusive to newspapers. Journalists should be able to just stop when all the useful info is given out, rather than just babbling on for paragraph after paragraph with nothing to say.

Also, newspapers are broken up into sections. Some are useful, and some are not. I'll NEVER, EVER, under ANY circumstance, read the Sports section, for instance. I just don't care about it. Why should I pay for it? Why waste the paper and energy to deliver it to me, considering that it is useless to me? I'm not sure about the other sections. If I were looking for a house, I'd probably benefit from that section, but right now it does me little good. The Society section doesn't help me much. Newspapers try to be everything to everybody and result in overkill, especially in an age when you can get what you need, no more, no less online at any given momemt.

So there, I said it. I don't like newspapers. I won't miss newspapers when they go. I also don't like sports. Maybe I'll make that my next post.

This Is Hilarious: Acronym Change

The site Probably Bad News provides me with a lot of entertainment. Today it posted a clip about how the Wisconsin Tourism Federation had to change it's name. Why? Well, it turns out that Wisconsin Tourism Federation breaks down into the acronym "WTF". Years ago it meant nothing, but today it means quite a bit. I won't repeat what it means here since this is a "family blog", but it shouldn't be too hard to find the definition.

T-Mobile MyTouch 3G: But What Does It DO?

Like I asked in my last post, based on the embedded commercial, what does the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G actually do? It's the first phone that becomes you, or something like that. Great. So what does it do? Does it have 3rd party apps? Can it manage multiple email accounts? Can it sync to Google Calendar (I'd hope so, since it's based on Google standards). Can I manage a task list? Can I use it for work?

Or, are the people who put that commercial together not really thinking of me as their target market? That's probably a smart choice. Woe unto the marketer who thinks I'm his or her target customer.

Does This Make You Want to Buy A Palm Pre?

Since I dumped Windows Mobile for the iPhone earlier this year, and have no plans to go back, I watch commercials for other platforms with a curious eye. Have you seen the commercials for the Palm Pre? What is the deal with them? Do these commercials make you want to buy a Palm Pre? Do they make you NOT want to buy a Pre?

I can't figure them out. I think if I had no idea which "smart" phone I wanted to buy, these commercials would not bring me in. What does the Pre do? I have no clue from this commercial. All it is is some sick looking woman standing before a blue sky talking about a day when everything goes right. OK, so what does the phone do?

Watch this video. Do you own a Pre? Did you buy it because of this commercial, or another in this series?