WalMart Video News

Hello again from beautiful downtown Ephrata. Yes, Susan and I made it home from Pocatello, Idaho. And we only had to go through 3 major snowstorms to do it. Of course, we arrive home and it is 5 degrees outside with a wind chill of -10. Oh, for the warm climates of Idaho where it only got as low as 20. I enjoyed seeing Salt Lake City again on Monday, for the first time in over 35 years, I might add. Lots of changes.

Down to business:

Wal-Mart Stores has entered the fledgling but growing market of movie downloads with a new service that bundles a digital copy of a film with the purchase of a hard copy of the DVD.

The movie download program begins with sales of the DVD of the Warner Bros. flick Superman Returns. Starting Tuesday, when customers purchase the disc from Wal-Mart, they will be able to choose from one of three options for a digital copy: $1.97 for a download formatted for portable devices, $2.97 for one that's compatible with computers, and $3.97 for one that works on both portable devices and PCs. Then, upon returning to their computers, buyers of the Superman Returns bundled DVD can enter a redemption code on Wal-Mart's beta video download site and obtain the digital version.

As for compatibility, there is some fine print. The Wal-Mart downloads that are compatible with portable devices will be in Windows Media Player format, which means that they'll play on all devices that accept that format, including Microsoft's new Zune, but not Apple's iPods. And the PC-compatible downloads will require the Windows XP operating system and Windows Media Player 10. Mac and Linux users, at least for now, need not apply.

Sounds like it is just easier to rent DVD's from Netflix or Blockbuster/

Of Bombs and Widgets

Dateline: Pocatello, ID
An exciting day yesterday, to say the least. Shortly after noon, as Susan, Aimee and I were preparing to head out to have some lunch and do more siteseeing in the Pocatello area, Aimee got a phone call, presumably from the police department. It was a recorded message saying that a bomb had been found at a nearby Exxon station and that we were to evacuate the house immediately for an estimated eight hours. It also said that the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center at a nearby church.

Being the skeptic that I am, and, although the voice on the message sounded real, I got in my car and headed for Exxon station to check if it was real. I didn't get far before I discovered that the streets were blocked off by fire trucks and police units. It was the real deal.

When I got back home, Aimee was on-line with Brian in Jakarta telling him what was going on. We then packed up our laptops and headed out. As we traveled about during the day, I kept checking the radio for updates and found nothing. Local radio have become pretty worthless these days in keeping citizens informed about local emergencies, but that is the subject of another blog.

So, after lunch, the girls headed out shopping and I perused a local used book store while watching the clock. About 4:00, I headed back toward the house to see if I could get there, and the roads were still blocked off. So I headed back to town, eventually meeting the girls at a coffee shop with free wireless connections. Aimee was anxious to keep Brian informed as to what was happening. But no luck as Brian was probably asleep or on another airplane to Shanghai.

Around 5:00, I headed back towards the house to see if the roads were still closed...and they were not...in fact, there wasn't a cop in site. I got all the way to the house and called the girls to give them the all-clear. From that point on, life returned to normal. We did get a call from the Pocatello Police around 6:00 that we could return to our homes, but they called the house phone, which presumably no one would be there to answer if we hadn't already returned home.

If you would like to read about the bomb scare, here is a link to a local news site.

Now, about those widgets. If you remember my Thanksgiving blog about playing with Aimee 's MacBook computer, you will recall I was impressed with a Mac-only program called "Dashboard," not really a true program but an engine for a series of small little programs that sit on top of your computer's desktop. Those little programs are called "Widgets."

I got to thinking about it and wondered if there was such an item for us folks in the PC world. After a little research, I found there is. It's a program called Konfabulator. Then, a little more research showed that the company that made it had been bought out by Yahoo!

Their version of the program is called the Yahoo Widget Engine and is available on its own Yahoo web site. I decided to give it a try, since it was free, and downloaded and installed it. The engine came with a few widgets already installed so I could try it out. I liked what I saw and immediately headed to their "Widget Gallery" to see how many more widgets I could get.

Low and behold, I found almost 3,500 widgets available to download. Most widgets are made by independent programmers and are all free. There are some that most of us would not find any use for such as a Green Bay Packer schedule, Ottawa traffic cams, or the music programs for a high school in Texas. But, I found several that I did like and downloaded them to try it out. They are small in size and download immediately into my computer to try out.

On my desktop, I have widgets that show me the current gas prices in Ephrata, a note pad, a Soduko game, a calendar of daily events, a clock with calendar, the Ephrata weather, a search engine bar, an RSS reader, an e-mail checker, and many more that are not open at this minute.

Its fun and productive (well, mostly) and really brightens up the appearance of my desktop. I can open and close those widgets at will. Its a fun project and I suggest, if you are so inclined, to check it our for yourself. You just might find something useful.

Tomorrow, I am off to visit Aimee's school and meet her students, then I am off to Salt Lake City to pick up a very tired Brian who is coming in from Shanghai via Los Angeles. Then, on Tuesday morning we head home. It is bright sunshine here today, but snow is forecast for the next couple of days, so driving should be interesting.

Black Friday on the Net

Dateline: Pocatello, ID

I've always associated the term "Black Friday," with the stock market crash. I have only come to realize lately that the term is also now associated with the big shopping day on the Friday after Thanksgiving. My first reaction was that the term was also negative as it applies to this day, as I view it as one where I do not go near a retail store. But, in fact, I believe the term comes to mean the day when many retailers go from being in the red to showing a positive cash flow.

Whatever the case, Black Friday this year became a negative term for some retailers who ply their wares on the Internet. Why? Because so many more people have decided to use the Internet to do their holiday shopping rather than brave the hordes of people at the mall...something I have been doing for years ( I am such a trend setter).

For instance, the WalMart web site was nearly impossible to access yesterday. For much of Friday morning, attempts to open Walmart.com resulted blank pages, delays or other problems. By early afternoon, visitors were simply told to come back later. According to WalMart, they had far more website traffic than they had anticipated. By late Friday afternoon, things had pretty much returned to normal for them.

A company called Keynote, which regularly monitors performance at leading Web sites, said its probes began detecting problems at about 4:30 a.m. EST. Throughout the morning, visitors still could access portions of the site but generally ran into difficulty before completing purchases. For instance, searches that normally take a second or two were taking 30 or 40 seconds and attempts to log in or pay for purchases sometimes generated error messages.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com had its own problems, although they did not last nearly as long as WalMart's. The site was disrupted for about 15 minutes, starting at about 2 p.m. EST Thursday, as the retailer was offering the Xbox 360 to the first 1,000 customers for $100, $200 below the regular retail price. The Xbox sold out in 29 seconds. Amazon also sold out of discounted Mongoose mountain bikes, Barbie dolls and Amazon Prime memberships with $100 gift certificates in about 15 minutes. Amazon.com also said they underestimated web traffic.

Another web traffic jam occurred at Disney's web site. They had some one-day sales that attracted lots of people. According to Disney, one could get on the web site easily enough, but could not get past the first couple of pages before being bogged down. Disney is planning to extend their special sales through Sunday night and expect customers to come back.

If you are a web shopper like me, expect the Monday after Thanksgiving, also known as "Cyber Monday," to be busy as it is one of the year's biggest online holiday shopping days, as people return to work and shop online using their office computers.

FYI: Susan and I went to the mall here in Pocatello around 5:00 PM to get a few groceries and for Susan to shop at a couple of stores that we don't have in our own neck of the woods. It looked like any other Friday ...no crowds at all, even at WalMart.

Having Fun with a MAC

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving from Pocatello, Idaho. Susan and I drove over yesterday, about a 10.5 hour drive from Ephrata. If you are not familiar with Pocatello (and there is no reason you should be), it is in the southeast corner of Idaho near the Wyoming and Utah borders. We are about a 2.5 hour drive north from Salt Lake City and about the same if we wanted to go to Yellowstone National Park to the Northeast.

If you are a faithful reader of this blog, you know that our daughter Aimee and husband Brian moved here in August. Sadly, Brian won't be here to share the Turkey. He is currently in Jakarta, Indonesia with the music group M-Pact. He arrived there today after being in Singapore for a week.

Interestingly, the group was invited to perform for the President in Singapore in their version of the White House, which is more like the Forbidden City than the White House. Turns out that they were the first American musical group ever to perform there. And while they were there getting ready for the show, our own President Bush was upstairs meeting with the President of Singapore. Bush wasn't there for the show, but the show went on very well without him.

Aimee, and now us, are able to keep up with him on a real time basis on their Apple MacBook laptops. They use a program called "IChat" which allows you to not only chat, but to send pictures and videos. In fact, as I write this blog, Aimee is chatting with Brian and looking at the pictures he has sent. When Brian uploads the pictures from his camera to his MacBook, they are automatically sent to Aimee's MacBook.

By the way, the photograph is of M-Pact in Singapore. Brian is the one with the yellow bag. Somebody should tell the photographer not to shoot straight on into a mirror.

When we got here last night, Brian was still in Singapore. Each of their laptops have a built-in camera so we took a picture of the three of us around Aimee's laptop and sent it to Brian. Then Brian took a picture of himself in his hotel room and sent it to us. It was a lot of fun chatting with Brian on the other side of the world.

iChat is only available on Apple computers, but Aimee says we can do the same thing on our Windows PC with AOL Instant Messenger. We may just try it out to stay in touch. But, I will say the way that iChat works and integrates with the built-in camera is very slick and easy to use, which is the hallmark of Apple products.

Another MAC program that I like a great deal is "Dashboard." It sits on the desktop so it is visible when you want. It consists of several different "Widgets," each performing a different function. For instance, there is a calendar widget, a local weather widget, stock market widgets, local gas price widget, music widgets, airline flight tracker widgets and several others. If you would like to see what it looks like, check out the Apple Website.

By the way, Brian is in a luxury hotel in Jakarta, but cannot go outside without escorts. Lots of kidnappings going on. The group is there for the Jakarta Jazz Festival. He will be back here on Monday afternoon for a week before heading to Seattle to do three shows at the Triple Door theater, then off to Denver, then to South Korea for Christmas. In January, M-Pact heads for Italy, then Estonia, and finally Moscow. These guys are getting popular...and its about time. If you have never heard them, it is definitely worth a trip to see them in Seattle...but hurry as they always sell out. And, oh yes, they are still talking on iChat.

I will write more about my impressions of the MacBook in a future as I play with it more this weekend.

First Impressions of IE7

I finally did the deed...I downloaded Internet Explorer 7 to my laptop computer and started playing with it. First impressions...I don't like it very much. It is difficult to get used to, especially since I use Firefox. It has a whole different look and their is no menu bar across the top.

The other thing I don't like is that it doesn't remember what pages I have open when I turn it off. Firefox will restore all the web pages I had open when I shut it down. That is very handy. I have also had it lock up on me a couple of times, once while running my StoryBook Album page from my own website. Also, IE7 has only a few add-ons whereas Firefox has hundreds of add-ons available that are very valuable and useful .

As most reviewers have stated, Firefox is a much better browser in all categories and I believe them. I am going to stick with my Firefox 99% of the time. I may not even download IE7 in my main studio computer.

On the same subject, here is a short paragraph from the latest edition of WXPNews:

IE 7: Are we there yet?

Internet Explorer 7 was released in final version just over a month ago, and it's distributed as an automatic update. The auto upgrade is relatively painless, and the new IE offers many advantages over its predecessor, such as tabbed browsing and the anti-phishing filter, ActiveX opt-in and other security enhancements. Unfortunately, it still contains a few bugs (or are they "undocumented features") that result in my using Firefox much more often than I would otherwise.

One of the most annoying in everyday life is the tiny font problem. We're talking really small here, and changing the text size in the View menu has no effect. You can use the zoom here to make the text readable (118% does the trick), but the problem is that the tiny fonts only appear on some web sites, so when you go to another site that doesn't have the problem, you have to adjust the zoom again. Firefox displays both pages in a reasonable font size without the need for adjustments.

The other, potentially more worrisome but much less frequent problem is IE lockup. Every once in a while (maybe once every three days), IE 7 just quits working. I'll be browsing with no problem and then when I click a link or type in a URL, it just won't connect, just sits there spinning its wheels for minutes. Meanwhile, Firefox will connect to the same site immediately.


A Fun Website:

Check out this collection of amazing cloud photographs, some of them from right here in Washington. There are also a couple of great Aurora Borealis videos.

Real Violence in the Gaming World

The new Sony PlayStation 3 debuted in America on Friday and most likely there are few, if any, left for sale, other than those being scalped on eBay. As we mentioned in a recent blog, they sell for a suggested retail price for $500 and $600. Because the demand is so high right now, they are selling on eBay for $2,000. Thousands of people were lined up for hours, waiting for the stores to open to get their hands on this new baby.

Now, if all that sounds a bit bizzare, the worst is yet to come. There were reports of sporadic violence across the U.S. and Canada as people waited in line to snap up one of the consoles. The most serious reported incident happened in Putnam, Connecticut, where a man was shot while waiting for the console to go on sale. The man apparently confronted two armed men who were trying to rob those in line, according to news reports.

Meanwhile, dozens of police were called to Boston's Copley Place Mall after security guards lost control of a crowd of about 400 people. A 19-year-old man was injured after running into a pole while racing others to get a place in line outside a Wal-Mart store in Wisconsin. In Ottawa, Canada, one man was arrested for being intoxicated after a fight broke out in the very early hours of the morning among people waiting for a game store to open.

Has the world gone nuts? These are game machines, for crying out loud! Are people's values so far out of kilter that they have to perform physical violence on other people to be the first to get our hands on a new game. I am at a loss. I think its nuts even to stand in line for a cup of coffee, much less for a video game.

It does make one wonder if the violence portrayed in many of the games themselves has lodged itself into people's psyche, paving the way for such stupidity. Maybe it's just me...now that I have passed over the 60 year mark the world has left me behind and I am the one out of kilter here.

FYI: The Sony unit will be in short supply for some time because they are short of the blue-laser diode that sits at the heart of the console's Blu-ray Disc drive. Problems starting up production of that part pushed Sony to scale back the worldwide launch. There were supposed to be about 2 million PlayStation 3 consoles ready for the launch, but that was cut to about 500,000 units.

And guess what? We may not be out of the woods yet as Nintendo is today (Sunday) releasing its new gaming console. As I write these words, early Sunday morning before most stores have opened, thousands of people are lined up at stores around America to be one of the first to by the new Nintendo Wii machine.

Unlike the high priced Sony, the Wii retails for $250. And they will not be in short supply like the Sony. According to Nintendo, they will be able to easily fill all the demand for their product. That may lessen the chance for violence, I hope.

The dumbing down of America continues, quite successfully, it seems.

The Nikon D40 DSLR

Yesterday, I wrote a lovely blog about the new Nikon D40 digital camera, the new low price leader in Single Lens Reflex cameras. I talked about it and its suggested retail price of $599.95, including the lens. When I posted it, something happened and it disappeared forever into the digital black hole of lost files. It is nowhere to be found. An hour of my life wasted.

Well, I am very much like General George Patton in that I hate to cover the same ground twice. So I will give you a quick summation and direct you to a web site with more information.

The D40 is Nikon's newest DSLR camera and is now the new low price leader in that category. If have a hankering to step up to better photography while not breaking your budget, I would look strongly at this camera. It will be available in stores and on-line in the first week of December.

To read more about it, head over to the Digital Photography Review Web site and read their in-depth preview report. This looks like a good one. Coincidentally, Nikon has also released a new low price flash unit (Speedlight), the SB-400.

OK, its time for me to push the "Publish" button. Let's hope you get to see this one.

IPod vs Zune

One of the unfolding stories in the tech world that I have not covered this year is Microsoft's entry into the world of MP3 players. Called "Zune," it goes into direct competition with Apple's iPod. All I can think of is that Microsoft, like in the past, got jealous when Apple hit a home run with their iPod. How dare anyone outsmart Microsoft and take control of the huge MP3 download market?

Less than a year ago, Microsoft decided to try and play catchup with Apple and began developing its own player. Yesterday, it hit the market with less than spectacular results, as was expected by most analysts. As we are entering the Christmas season and you may be thinking about buying a portable music and video player, we thought you might like to know more about Zune and how it stacks up against the iPod.

First, the price...Zune sells for the same price as a comparably equipped iPod...about $249 for a 30GB-equipped hard drive. The Zune screen is slightly larger than the iPod (3" vs 2.5"), which is good if you plan to watch a lot of videos. But, of course, that makes the Zune larger in overall size than the iPod. It is also heavier, so if you carry it in your shirt, it will make your pocket sag much more than usual.

Zune's extra incentive over iPod is the ability to share music with a friend via a built-in wireless network. Sounds good, but there are some limitations. First, you need a friend who owns a Zune. Second, each song you share lasts for only three plays or three days on your friend's Zune. And third, if you share a song with a friend, you can never share that same song with that friend again. Also the wireless part of Zune will not surf the Net, nor will it synchronize with your computer (you can only do that by a USB cable). Maybe those features will be addressed in a future version.

The Zune Marketplace has around 2 million songs for download, while the iPod iTune's Web site, has 3.5 million. To buy songs for your Zune, you spend points that you must purchase in $5 increments, a system that is similar to the e-commerce model on the Xbox 360 but annoying compared to the convenience of using your credit card to buy songs on iTunes for 99 cents. Deceptively, Microsoft sells its songs for 79 points, but it costs you 99 cents to accumulate that many points. For unlimited songs, subscriptions cost $15 a month.

As many reviewers pointed out, the Zune feels like a first generation product and the a rule of thumb for buying Microsoft's products is not to purchase anything from them until the 3rd generation.

As I said earlier, retailers reported first day sales of Zune were very slow. But Microsoft says they don't expect to make much headway vs Apple for at least four years, but they plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over that time to make it happen. Apple should stay on their toes with their iPod as this same strategy was used by Microsoft on their X-Box gaming console. They are now the number one product in that market.

So, the bottom line is that if you have been thinking about buying me a portable MP3 player for Christmas because you like my writing so much, I would prefer an iPod over a Zune. Thank you in advance.

Some Odds and Ends

Here are a few stories that are interesting, but maybe don't merit a whole blog.

Wal-Mart Stores has started selling a Compaq laptop for $398 a few weeks ahead of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest shopping days of the year. It is more feature-laden than the model they sold last Christmas.

Not long ago, Dell released a new 20" laptop computer, the biggest screen ever for a laptop. But there is a price to pay, this monster laptop, which could also be categorized as half laptop-half desktop, weighs in at 18 lbs. Imagine lugging that around through airports. As a matter a fact, a British website called Crave UK has put up a video showing one of their staffers lugging this monster on the London Underground and on a double decker bus. It rates a good laugh, so enjoy it.

Sony will shortly release its Playstation 3 game console in the US, just in time for Christmas. Hold your breath, because it will sell for $499 and $599. The more expensive one will feature a Blue-Ray DVD player. Sony is lagging behind Microsoft's X-Box in popularity and it is hoped that this new player will help them catch up.

Starting early next year, the address bar in Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 7 will turn green when surfing to a legitimate Web site, but only in some cases, not all. The colored address bar is designed to be a sign that a specific site can be trusted, giving people the green light to carry out transactions there. It is a weapon in the fight against phishing scams, which use fraudulent Web sites to steal your identity. The catch is that only corporations will be able to get the online trust indicator, a rule that shuts out the vast majority of smaller businesses.

If you have been hooked on Sudoku, or maybe want to give it a try, there is a new, free software available where you can learn the secrets of playing it and work on puzzles from easy to extremely hard. If you are not familiar with it, Sudoku is a numbers puzzle that uses the numbers 1-9 in 81 squares that you must complete with various restrictions applied. I got hooked this year while on the road and did it during my quiet times instead of crosswords.

What's Up With Vista

Just a quick update on the status of Windows Vista, Microsoft's forthcoming new version of the Windows Operating System.

Vista is now finalize and is on its way to manufacturing. It will be released to certain corporate customers at the end of this month, but won't be released to the general public until January 30. The completed version of Vista is now in the hands of many software manufacturers who are making sure it will work with their products.

It has taken nearly five years of hard work and lots of missteps to complete this new version of Windows. There have been many delays and missed deadlines, but as software gets more complicated and sophisticated this is bound to happen. The biggest disappointment for computer manufacturers was that it was not ready in time for this year's Christmas selling season.

On a lighter note, Windows co-president Jim Allchin said this week that Windows Vista is such a huge upgrade in terms of security over Windows XP that you can run it without any anti-virus software. He is so confident in his statement that, in fact, that his seven-year-old son's Vista PC lacks anti-virus software. He later said that he has installed stiff parental controls on his son's computer.

Of course, say several Windows experts outside of Microsoft, that if you lock down any computer from downloading or having e-mail, you don't need any anti-virus software. So, they are warning that if you do get Vista and are a normal user, you will definitely still need anti-virus software.

There are some good videos available to preview the new operating system on CNET-TV. You can also read more about it on the Microsoft Website and download a software program that will analyze your system to see if it has the capacity to run Vista. There are four versions of Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate.

Personally, I plan to wait a little while before I make any move. Let's see what bugs it has in it and make sure those are taken care of. But more than that, new Windows operating systems have history of slowing down computers and requiring more memory. I just know that if I install Vista in my fastest computer, it would run much slower than Windows XP. And being that I spend most of my time in Photoshop, it doesn't matter to me what operating system I'm using as long as Photoshop works well.

All this was brought home to me (again) just recently when I was scavenging parts from three different computers to put together a new home computer for my own use. This computer is a Pentium 3 and runs Windows 2000 and works just fine. But, I know that if I installed XP into it, that it would be a much slower computer.

One of the computers I scavenged was a 7 year old system running Windows 98. And guess what...it flew. I had forgotten how fast it was. Sure, Windows 98 is not as feature-laden as Windows 2000, and nowhere near as good as XP, but the computer was very fast and worked very well for me for a few years. The point is that newer operating systems require newer computers with lots of memory.

Because of this, my policy is now don't upgrade an exisitng computer to the next version of Windows. Wait and purchase a new computer with the new operating system when the time is right. It has worked well for me.

Followup - Technology and the National Elections

After writing my latest blog about the effect of the elections on our local politics and the PUD, I came across an interesting article on how the new Congress may deal with some technology issues. There are some big issues that need to be addressed properly, something that the Republicans did not do well.

The issues encompass several different items: Net neutrality, digital copyright, merger approval, data retention, and Internet censorship. The Democrats had different positions on all these than the Republicans. Now that they are in power, lets see if they maintain their stance or will they suddenly have a "change of heart."

I think it is an interesting read for those interested in technology. To read it, go to the CNET website.

Elections and Technology

"Meet the new boss...same as the old boss."

That pretty much sums up my feelings about the national elections. The voters apparently sent a message to the Republican-controlled Washington DC that they were unhappy with the way things are being done. Now, as the Democrats take over the House and almost certainly, the Senate, be prepared for gridlock. And, after some of the humongous mistakes made by Republicans when they controlled both the executive and both houses of Congress, maybe a little gridlock is what we need.

But, you know what, in a few years, we will throw out the Democrats and replace them with a Republican majority because of the mistakes they will make that will make the voters very unhappy. My point is that very little change ever really takes place in the federal government. Its the same story year after year...only the names change.

Over the years, I've sort of become a fan of one party controlling one branch of government while the other controls another. But, it almost doesn't matter anymore because part of the government of this country is controlled by the millions of non-elected bureaucrats and the remainder is controlled by special interest groups with lots of money. Oh, how cynical I have become.

But, I really wanted to write today about our local elections, especially those involving the Grant County Public Utility District (PUD). The PUD is the starting place for growth and change in our county. They control the major source of energy in our county and well as our high speed connections to the world via the fiber optic program. Therefore, when a company begins thinking of relocating their business here, they must deal with the PUD very early in the process. This makes them a very important cog in our growth process.

After the perceived excesses of the previous PUD administration, the local electorate voted for change to bring everything, including fiber back to a more reasonable level. That's not what we got. Instead, we elected 3 new commissioners dead set on shutting down the fiber system and with strong personal agendas . These three are not men of vision...they were bean counters...men with no vision for the future. They basically worked hard to shut down the fiber optic system, and although they claimed that wasn't the case. But, standing still really means we are going backwards as the rest of the world passes us by.

Their actions, or lack of actions, has caused several privately held local companies to disappear or stop working to provide Internet services. They shut down the TV center, thereby causing VIB-TV to go out of business. Donobi shut down their local office and other providers have stopped providing Internet services over our fiber. The PUD made promises to make this a viable system, then broke their promises.

Yes...there were excesses in the past. But, even the independent investigator hired by the PUD to investigate these excesses prefaced his report by saying these deeds were not done for personal gain. They were done to make our fiber optic system the best for our county residents.

A lot of mistakes were made, and the sinners paid the price. But, in the future, we will look back at them and thank them for their vision. Sadly, some innocent parties, whose only mistakes were to follow orders, also paid the price. But that is another story.

But, we Grant County residents also paid the price by electing three new PUD commissioners who had no interest in providing fiber service and upgrading the future of our county. For them, dial-up was just fine. Maybe for them, but not for the future, not for our children. Without fiber, businesses would not migrate here and most of our children would have to leave the area. Do you think Microsoft or Yahoo would be here now without fiber? And at least one of the three tried to throw a monkey wrench into that operation.

One of these three commissioners came up for re-election this year. He had two opponents for his seat. In the September primaries, he came in last place, thereby losing his seat. I am glad voters saw this man for what he was and remembering that he was convicted of assaulting a sheriff's deputy four years ago. In my opinion, this man was not fit to hold this most important office.

On Tuesday, we elected two men whom I perceive have a vision for our future, Bob Berndt and Terry Brewer. It looks like the PUD may soon have a more reasonable approach toward our future as the Luddite majority of three becomes a minority of two. It's a good start towards restarting our future.

Now, on a personal note, many long-time readers know that Susan and I have had some major issues with Terry Brewer in the past. Six years ago, Terry fired Susan as his personal assistant halfway through her chemotherapy treatments. So, I am sure some of you are asking how we feel about his election.

In fact, Susan and I have both moved way past that episode. That's was a long time ago and we both believe in moving forward with our lives, not living in the past and trying to build a life on hate and anger. Susan and I truly believe that Terry will do a good job for all of us and there is no one more qualified to help bring new businesses to our county. We applaud his election and wish him and Bob Berndt well in their new positions.

Once again, we can look forward to the future of our county.

Writing About Jim

A few issues ago, I promised to bring you up-to-speed with what has been going on in my life as well as those of my family. I fulfilled my promise on the family update, so now it is time to let you know about my comings and goings. Here goes:

As you probably know, I spent most of the last six months on the road, doing art shows in three different states this year. As a whole, business was down from last year, not only for me, but for most artists I know. However, I did have some very successful shows, including a couple of new ones I tried for the first time in Gig Harbor and Coeur d'Alene. I will definitely be doing those again.

As for Leavenworth, it was a major disappointment this year. On an average basis, sales were down 35% from last year. The kinds of people coming to Leavenworth, for the most part, were those folks who had little or no interest in buying art, or much else, for that matter. We were mostly a place for people to go while eating their ice creams. From what little I know, most of town's businesses did not have a great year. I think a lot of that had to do with the high gas prices during the summer.

I was strongly considering doing only a couple of shows there next year, if at all, when Leavenworth's Village Art-in-the-Park beat me to the punch. I received a letter a few days ago informing me that Village Art-in-the-Park is no more. After 40 years of operation, sales have fallen to such a low point that expenses are greatly exceeding income. It is very sad that the oldest art show in the Pacific Northwest in now over. They gave many a fine artist their start in the business...and it paid for all the art programs in the Leavenworth schools. Lord knows what will happen there now.

In the meantime, as you may know, I decided about a year ago to diversify my time by becoming (again) a professional photographer doing weddings, portraits, and other photographic-related operations. In June of this year, I opened a photo studio and gallery at 256 Basin Street NW, here in Ephrata. In case you don't know where that is, I am on the north side of town, next to the Gourmet Kitchen Store and across the street from the Country Deli and Bamboo Shoot restaurants (look for the two large murals).

Because of my time on the road, I didn't get much chance to work on the gallery until mid-October when the shows ended. I am now in the process of getting both the studio and gallery up and running full time. Lots to do, as you can imagine.

In order to tell the world about all these changes, I am doing a major revision of my website, now promoting my photography business as well as my existing art business. I would appreciate you dropping by there sometime and telling me what you think. It is a long way from being done, but I am adding new pages on a daily basis.

I was busy this year in August, September and early October doing high school senior portraits, which turned out very well. You can see a few examples now on the website. I continue to do weddings and am enjoying those immensely. There are also several example of my wedding photography on the web.

One of my new offerings in weddings is what I call the Storybook Album. It is a professionally printed and bound book that can be considered a coffee table book, including a custom cover. I do all the design and layout of the book, then send it off for publication. It looks so much more professional than a standard wedding album.

One of the things I can do for a couple who wants the Storybook Album is publish it first to my website and let the newlyweds approve the book before it is published. If you would like a sneak peek at that, I have put a partially completed one up on my website. It is not yet linked on my site, but here is the secret address:

http://weddings.corkrum.com/album/Album_Test3/

It is a self-running program and each page changes every 15 seconds. Remember, it is not yet finished as I have some additional editing to do and several more pages to add. I really want you to give me your opinion on this one, so please take a peek.

As far as the Oxford House Gallery goes, I am currently displaying my works, although I have worked out agreements with other artist friends to come and display their works at the gallery. Some are even coming here for receptions and demonstrations of their painting skills. This will not begin until probably early spring of next year.

I am enjoying being in my new studio gallery and I hope you will drop by and take a look. There are more pictures of the gallery on the website, as you will see.

Not much else going on in my life other than Sunday and Monday NFL football. My new studio is taking up most of my time. Susan and I are hoping to go see Aimee and Brian in Pocatello for Thanksgiving, with a side trip to Yellowstone as it is so close. We shall see what the weather holds in store.

I look forward to hearing from you about my new website.

Some Amazingly Good, Free Software

The word "free" always captures my attention. Sometimes there is a catch to products that have the word "free" attached to it. But, sometimes we get lucky, especially when it comes to freeware software. Here are a few products that I and others consider quite good...including a free accounting software from Microsoft and a free office suite from Sun Microsystems.

Keynote 1.6.5
This is a powerful notepad program compares favorably with commercial applications, and, in some respects, is even more flexible and convenient. A note file may contain any number of notes, which appear as separate tabs. In turn, each tab can hold a tree of subnotes. The software can handle rich formatting, images, and hyperlinks to other files and notes. It also supports templates, plug-ins, and macros.

This is a great application for high school and college students as their lecture notes can be categorized by class, then sub-categorized by date. It is also a great way for people to organize their own notes by what ever method they want. I have lots of notes from seminars, classes and by items I find on the Internet doing research that need to be categorized. I have been using the Notebook feature in Lotus Organizer to do this for a while, but of course that is not a free program. In so many ways, Keynote is better. I have found it to be easy to use and easy to organize lots of notes on different subjects. I might switch over to it for some specific tasks.

If you looking for a way to better organize your life and all your random notes, Keynote may be the one for you. It can be downloaded from Download.com.

Microsoft's Office Accounting Express 2007
Within the few days, Microsoft has turned its accounting suite for small businesses into two separate offerings, one of which users can download for free. Office Accounting Express 2007, an updated version of Office Small Business Accounting 2006, is now available as a free download at Microsoft's IdeaWins site.

Microsoft also expects to begin offering a slightly higher-end version of the software, Office Accounting Professional 2007, from retailers early in 2007. The professional edition of the software has more robust features than the free version for handling inventory management, budgeting, cash flow and other tasks mature small businesses require. Office Accounting Express 2007 is aimed more at small businesses that are just getting off the ground and need help starting up.

I haven't tried this program yet, but it might be worth a look if you are looking for a business accounting program. It is a big surprise to me that Microsoft would make such a program available for free, but sometimes surprises are nice.

OpenOffice.org 2.0.4
If you read yesterday's blog about Microsoft's new version of Office, you know that office suite programs aren't exactly cheap. But, OpenOffice blows that theory away. This office suite of programs contains a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, a database, and a drawing program. OpenOffice has been around for six years now and is being shepherded by Sun Microsystems. The current version was released only a few months ago.

As I mentioned recently, I put together a new home computer for myself from three older computers that I own. This replaces my powerful desktop that was moved over to my new studio. I decided to try OpenOffice and downloaded and installed it in this new/old machine. I only installed the word processor and spreadsheet because that is basically all I use at home.

My first impressions is that it is an excellent piece of software. It looks so much like Word and Excel that it was easy to learn how to use and I was immediately productive. I can save the files as Word and Excel documents so that they are usable by my Microsoft Office programs at my studio. If I have any complaints, is that sometimes it seems slow to load. Other than that, it is a terrific piece of software and I plan to keep using it at home.

You can download it from the OpenOffice web site and from the Download.com website. One of the advantages of going to Download.com website is that you can read their review and the reviews of lots of users who installed it. The OpenOffice web site does offer a good list of links to other websites and blogs where you can learn a lot of neat tricks and tips on using the programs.


The GIMP 2.2.10
I must admit that I have not used this program yet, but the reviews I have read are very favorable. The GIMP is a powerful general-purpose image editors. The application's advanced features include channels, layers and masks, filters and effects, tabbed palettes, editable text tools, and brightness/contrast adjustments. It may be the ideal tool for amateur photographers, Web designers, and anyone who wants to create and edit professional-quality digital images on a budget. It is also available on the Download.com web site.

More free software recommendations soon.

Office 2007 Heads for Manufacturing

Microsoft has released their final code for the new Office 2007 to manufacturing so production of the CD's can begin in earnest. So, while big companies may get their hands on this new version in December, it will not be available to us consumers until January.

In fact, there is a very good chance that both Office 2007 and the new "Windows Vista" operating system will show up on dealer's shelves at the same time. Prices are not cheap. Prices for a first-time purchaser of Office 2007 begin at $399, while upgrade prices begin at $239. There are eight different packages of Office 2007 ranging from Office Basic to Office Enterprise...and they can contain up to 14 different software programs.

I won't cover all the changes made to the package, except to highlight the biggest change of them all. They have dropped the file menu and other menus along the top of the screen and changed it to what they call, "The Ribbon." Independent writers and bloggers are calling it a radical change, but one that is intuitive and easy to use. And most agree that it will be a successful change.


If you would like to see some good screen shots of the new interface, head over to a blog I found on the net by Jensen Harris that has lots of good pictures.

For an in-depth look at what is new is Office 2007, Microsoft has put up a terrific series of pages featuring all the new features for each of the Office component on their website. They have also put up a free on-line test drive on their website which is a hands-on look at the product. No downloading required.

PC Magazine's review says that everyone should upgrade to this new version. In fact, they gave it their editor's choice. If you would like to read PC Magazine's rave review, you can do so on their website. I always am a bit wary when magazines give rave reviews to Microsoft products as they receive lots of advertising revenue from the Redmond folks, but there are too many good reviews from independent sources that say they are correct in their appraisal.

Another good in-depth review, perhaps more dispassionate than PC Magazine's review can be found at the ComputerWorld website.

This should give you enough information to be able to make an intelligent decision on whether to upgrade to the new Office 2007.

Check Out CNET TV

Oh, how I miss Leo LaPorte, "Call for Help," "Screensavers," and many of the other programs that used to be on TechTV. This great cable channel was dedicated to technology and helping you understand it and work with it. It was available on some advanced cable company offerings, Direct TV and Dish.

A couple of years ago, TechTV was bought out by G4, another fairly new cable channel that specialized in shows about computer games. Within no time at all, it killed off all the good tech shows like "Call for Help" and "Screensavers" in favor of some of the most mindless, brainless TV twaddle of all time. If you would like to have your IQ lowered to below 75 or have your educational level lowered to that of a 4th grader, watch G4 sometime for a few minutes and you will see what I mean. I think this station is part of the conspiracy to dumb-down America.

Before I get too far off track here, I really want to tell you about a new "TV" service offered by CNET, called CNET TV. While it is not available on Direct TV or any other cable or satellite channel, you can watch it on your computer by going to the CNET TV website.

I must admit it is pretty slick and filled with some good information. There are hundreds, if not thousands of program contents to choose from. What makes it better than a TV show is that you choose the content that you want to watch. New content is added daily and is listed under the date so you can easily see what is new.

Choose from categories like Gadgets and Gear, Tips and Tricks, Gaming, Car Tech, Movies and Music, and Tech News. I watched an interesting video this morning on how to run Linux on your computer without installing it to your hard drive or ruining your Windows installation.

So while CNET TV does not replace TechTV, it gives all of us some good tech education options that we haven't had for a while.

Casino in the Sky

I love RyanAir. In case you are not familiar with them, they are a budget airline that flies all over Europe for extremely low fares. How low, the last time I was there I flew from London to Rome for $18. That is not a misprint. The most I have ever paid to fly on Ryan Air was $38 from Turin to London. My brother-in-law flew from Venice to London for $26. There are even times when you can fly for $2.

How good are they? Frankly, they are just fine. They fly modern jet aircraft and have limited, but good in-flight service. They usually don't fly from the major airports in big cities, which helps cut down their cost. For instance, in London, you fly from Stansted instead of Heathrow. Check them out, the next time you are in Europe.

But the purpose of this blog is to tell you about Ryan Air's newest plan to launch online bingo and gaming next year following the introduction of its in-flight mobile phone service for passengers. Passengers will be able to use their mobile phones and other handheld devices on flights to play Ryanair's online bingo and a number of other instant-win games that will offer jackpots in excess of $380,000 (200,000 pounds).

The launch of this innovative in-flight online gambling service, however, is dependent on European regulatory approval for Ryaniar's mobile phone service. The service is due to launch by the middle of 2007 and will allow passengers to make and receive voice calls and instant messages via satellite broadband links.

To help promote next year's launch of the in-flight gambling service, Ryanair has this week teamed up with a U.K. online bingo operator to launch Ryanair bingo and other games on the airline's own Web site. During the first week all Ryanair customers who play any of the online games will receive a free flight.

You just can't beat technology.

Catching Up with the Corkrum's

A long time ago, during the days of my newsletter, I used to write a few paragraphs here and there about what was going on in my personal life and those of my wife Susan and our three kids. It became very popular and always generated lots of e-mail, especially from folks who knew members of our family personally. With the change over to a blog format, it didn't work as well.

So, I decided to write the occasional personal blog in addition to my tech blog, usually on the same day as a tech blog so as to not cheat my tech readers. Today, as I promised a few days ago, is the day I write that second blog about what is going on in our lives. So, here goes.

First, I am going to mostly exclude me and save that one for another day as a lot is going on in my life. As for Susan, she is still working away at Family Services of Grant County. Because of federal budget cuts on the Head Start Program, she now only works 32 hours a week, in a four-day week. She would like to work more as the loss of income hurts a bit, but she is torn as she really enjoys being off three days a week. Right now, she is right in the middle of putting together a three-day retreat program for women at her church, which will occur in the next weekend.

We finished our back yard project during the summer (thanks to Lynn Sanders for all her hard work) and if you are interested, you can see some of the pictures on my website. Bear in mind that these pictures are a couple of months old now and many new plants and ground covers have been added.

She was able to travel with me for a few art shows this summer including Coeur d'Alene, Richland, and a couple of shows in Leavenworth. Her help is always greatly appreciated. As I think I mentioned a few months ago, we were able to take a trip in early May to Yosemite for four days before the start of the art show season. There, we met up with my brother David and three of his friends from San Francisco and Oakland (our friends, too). We spent four nights together in a cabin up in the Wawona area and spent our days in Yosemite Valley. It was spectacular as the waterfalls were filled to overflow. There are also a few pictures of our time together on my website, although these are mostly just family pictures. The spectacular pictures of Yosemite are in process now and will be put on my regular website when I get a chance.

As for our kids, there are a lot of changes since we last talked. Starting with our youngest, Aimee, she has made some major changes. I think the last time we talked, Aimee was working as a full time substitute teacher in the choral department, replacing her mentor Chris Youngberg, who retired. The plan was that Aimee would then be in a good position to be hired as the full time choral teacher. Well, that did not happen. To everyone's surprise, another person was hired because the school wanted to "go in a different direction" for the choral program.

We were all shocked and Aimee was very sad because she and Brian loved living here in Ephrata and being close to her family. But, somehow I had a premonition that this was going to be a good thing for Aimee. And, it turns out, I was right.

In almost no time at all (or so it seems), she was hired to be the choral director at an academic high school in Pocatello, Idaho, so they moved there in August. The school wanted someone to build up their program, as opposed to Ephrata who wanted to cut back. And she has risen to the challenge. Already, students from the non-Academic high schools are applying to be part of Aimee's program (you can do this in Idaho) and she has been asked to be a part of the city's wonderful symphony organization. Her first review by her principal was excellent, so she is really blossoming in this new environment.

Meanwhile, her husband Brian is still working as the sound technician for the music group m-Pact. Their bookings have really started to increase as has their income so Brian is working more often for more money, although his work takes him away from Pocatello, which is difficult for both the kids. Lately he has been working in the US, but will head for Europe in December.

As for our daughter Kristen, she moved in late August from Seattle to Chicago (What?). She wanted to give her relationship with her boyfriend Kevin the best possible chance to mature and grow. She and Kevin don't live together, but she got a nice apartment in the same building as Kevin in Chicago's South Side. She is not working yet as of this writing. According to her latest reports, she is not crazy about Chicago and doesn't understand how it could be so cold and windy in October. We reminded her about Chicago's nickname, "The Windy City."

No word yet about whether or not her relationship with Kevin is going to work out. They just returned from spending some time with his family in Georgia and she enjoyed seeing the southern states.

The good news for Kristen is that she does have family close by. Her Uncle Don and his wife Noreen moved from Iowa to a suburb of Chicago several months ago. And her Uncle Kent is only a few hours away in Decorah, Iowa.

Lots of changes going on in our son Eric's life. First, he and his wife Kim amicably parted ways in the summer. It just wasn't working and Eric really wanted to leave the cold environs of Bellingham. He is a warm weather person. Eric, Susan and I are all still good friends with Kim and communicate with her on a regular basis.

Eric moved to the Tacoma area and went full time with the National Guard. To his surprise, he was recommended for promotion. Then he was really surprised when got it and was made a sergeant in the medical corp. He spent much of the summer in Yakima, both for his own training, then on loan to other units for his medical abilities. Then, to our surprise, he volunteered for the border mission in Arizona. He spent a month down there until the mission ended.

But, he was asked by his colonel to put together the medical operations for a new mission to Arizona, which he did after he came back. We got to spend a weekend together in Ephrata and Leavenworth before he had to go back to Tacoma to help organize the new mission. After two weeks of preparations, he and his units headed back to Yuma, which is where he is today.

He has had many interesting stories to tell about this mission, which we can only shake our head at. One thing he told us was that the troops are not allowed to patrol in vehicles, because of a treaty with Mexico. So they sit in their parked vehicles at the border (24 hours on, then 24 hours off), and notify the Border Patrol when they see illegal aliens crossing into America. The Patrol then shows up to nab the poor folks crossing into America looking for a new life. They must be doing a good job as illegal immigration is down 85% since the Guard showed up.

Eric's job is to drive from unit-to-unit making sure their supplies and medical needs are up to speed. Because he is in a moving vehicle, he is not carrying his weapon, as that would be considered patrolling. What a world we live in. But, we are all proud of Eric and what he is doing with his life. Being in the Army is probably the best thing that could have happened for him.

So that's what going on with us. I will write another blog soon about what I have been doing and the major changes going on in my life as an artist and photographer. Thanks for reading.

Federal Decision Reaches Beyond Airports

In a new federal decision just released today may have widespread ramifications for the distribution of free Wi-Fi wireless Internet access. The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that the Massachusetts Port Authority cannot block a Wi-Fi access point in the Continental Airlines lounge at Boston's Logan International Airport. Here is the background:

The feud between airport authorities and Continental Airlines began last summer, when Massport, the governing body of Logan Airport, instructed the airline to remove a Wi-Fi system it had installed in July 2004 in its "President's Club" frequent-flier lounge at Logan International. The airport authorities claimed that the system, which was accessible for free by passengers with lounge privileges and by some airline employees, violated the terms of Continental's lease. Massport charges $7.95 per day for its own terminal-wide wireless service. In response, Continental filed a petition last July with the FCC, asking it to declare Massport's demands a violation of federal rules.

The FCC concluded that the lease terms were "unreasonably" restrictive. The commissioners also dismissed Massport's argument that Continental's service would cause it economic harm by taking away revenue from the airport's own Wi-Fi offerings. The airport shouldn't expect to make money off of unlicensed devices, the FCC wrote, and furthermore, the government in this case has a stronger interest in promoting broadband availability and competition.

The FCC's order is not only good news for the many airlines and more than 2,000 Continental customers that filed comments in support of Continental's position. Beyond that, it could be a turning point for those hoping to roll out community wireless projects, said a senior vice president of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm.

For example, city officials in Boston have recently been discussing how to go about setting up wireless access points in apartment buildings where residents cannot afford their own broadband subscriptions. Without the FCC's decision in place, landlords may have been able to get away with blocking certain free or low-cost wireless services and equipment.

Media Access Project also said that this ruling, "provides a powerful affirmation to the community wireless movement in the United States by protecting the rights of users to operate Wi-Fi access points and other unlicensed devices, whether or not a landlord has an exclusive arrangement with a provider."

Look for this ruling to have long-term ramifications throughout the United States. Many cities are in various stages of trying to set up free Wi-Fi access inside their city limits. Now, the wireless companies that charge for access inside the city limits can't stop it from happening.