According to a completely imaginary source from Apple (no, it's not Phil Schiller), Apple is set to release update for Aperture in the near future. Based on the fake informations, the update will address some stability and compatibility issues.

Take that, Scott Bourne! (Last time I heard, he likes using Aperture.)

Product: Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Problem: Stopped working
Date: 7/22/2008 7:02 PM
Status: Not Reported

Problem signature
Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
Application Name:    wmpnetwk.exe
Application Version:    11.0.6001.7000
Application Timestamp:    47919370
Fault Module Name:    Indiv01.key
Fault Module Version:    11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp:    47e31c1d
Exception Code:    c0000005
Exception Offset:    00107422
OS Version:    6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID:    1033
Additional Information 1:    375c
Additional Information 2:    b609c209d0d5efeb3cfcb425b7f84343
Additional Information 3:    375c
Additional Information 4:    b609c209d0d5efeb3cfcb425b7f84343

---

Product: Windows Media Center Receiver Service
Problem: Stopped working
Date: 7/22/2008 7:02 PM
Status: Not ReportedProblem signature
Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
Application Name:    ehRecvr.exe
Application Version:    6.0.6001.18000
Application Timestamp:    47919381
Fault Module Name:    Indiv01.key
Fault Module Version:    11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp:    47e31c1d
Exception Code:    c0000005
Exception Offset:    0010275e
OS Version:    6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID:    1033
Additional Information 1:    fd00
Additional Information 2:    ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Additional Information 3:    fd00
Additional Information 4:    ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160

---

Product: Digital Cable device registration application.
Problem: Stopped working
Date: 7/22/2008 7:02 PM
Status: Report SentProblem signature
Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
Application Name:    ehPrivJob.exe
Application Version:    6.0.6001.18000
Application Timestamp:    479192da
Fault Module Name:    Indiv01.key
Fault Module Version:    11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp:    47e31c1d
Exception Code:    c0000005
Exception Offset:    00111e04
OS Version:    6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID:    1033
Additional Information 1:    d947
Additional Information 2:    9e34b879961a9cb241047333b26275f7
Additional Information 3:    59fd
Additional Information 4:    ea834e34771542fd8e86caf9cf1343ce

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID:    855048358

I found the solution after a lot of searching. In a nutshell, a new CPU requires a new DRM store. To effect this, start an elevated cmd prompt and:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.C:\Windows\system32>cd \ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\DRM

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\DRM>rd /s/q .
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\DRM>

Warning: if you needed any of that data, it is gone. Hopefully the Vista AppCompat team can look into publishing a better solution more widely.

But any other suggestions are welcome. I don't expect to actually buy anything for a couple of weeks, unless I just see something that I can't miss.

OK, let's talk about this for a minute:

10: We lose the will to survive - anyone ever take an anti-depressant?  It gets rid of virtually EVERY instinct you have to live.  There's a new drug on the market now called Chantix.  This drug is supposed to be used to help people get rid of their addictions.  However take a look at #1 in their list of new, revised side effects. Yeah, you know, I work every day in closed quarters with a smoker, and I don't think I'd be willing to trade a smoker for a suicidal partner (although being around me, that may happen anyway.  HA!)  A few more drugs like this and the world may very well come to an end.

9.: Aliens Invade Earth - forget SciFi.  There's no evidence to suggest this can happen.  But then, there is also no evidence to suggest this can't.  I believe in aliens.  However, I'm not necessarily sure they'd invade.  I think it is more likely that we would wind up inflicting our violence on them.

8: The ecosystem collapses - Sure, why not?  Enough has been said about the environment that I don't feel the need to add anything to it.

7: Particle Accelerator Mishap - I don't quite understand that one.  I leave things like that to be understood by my wife.  But yeah.  I've got no problem with playing God.  I think we've done it throughout history and it has enhanced our lives tremendously.  The toys we are playing with now are simply bigger and we need to treat them with more care.

6: Biotech disaster - Again, above my knowledge and expertise.

5: Reversal of Earth's Magnetic Field - Some environmental degredation is quite normal and happens during our planet's natural lifecycle and this is one of them.  One of the reasons I'm not sure 100% of our environmental woes are man-made.  His solutions are the best of any I've seen.  I'd love to get off this planet and see another.

4: Giant Solar Flares - Again, know nothing about this.  I leave the thinking on these topics to smarter, and smarter, and smarter people than me.

3: A New Global Epidemic - New diseases come about all the time.  I believe our prescriptions make us sicker over time.  More so than these diseases do.  I don't however, believe the global epidemic will reach the U.S. first.  I think we'll get plenty of notice from the suffering in the third-world countries.  My solution: spend more money and effort down there to stamp out disease in those countries (you do know where influenza comes from, don't you?)

2: We Meet a Rogue Black Hole - See my responses to #4.

1: A Really Big Asteroid Hits Earth - This happens regularly and often.  I believe there's a massive one set to collide around the year 2026 or thereabouts.  Every year, NASA's budget gets cut in favor of more stupid things.  We need NASA to watch for and take care of shit like this.  I believe what's going to happen is another country's space program, like China's, is going to step up to handle things like that, making that country the dominant power in the world, unless we get our act together and deal with this.  Three million dollars is all we're spending on this problem.  NASA's toilet seats cost more than that!  An asteroid is going to come at us in 20 years.  We need to be ready.  Think I'm joking?  Just google "Asteroid" and "Earth" and see what comes up.  I guarantee the first page is filled with news sources and not porn.

In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit sites beyond a cutoff point.

From my browsing (on the currently free Internet) I have discovered that the ‘demise’ of the free Internet is slated for 2010 in Canada, and two years later around the world. Canada is seen a good choice to implement such shameful and sinister changes, since Canadians are viewed as being laissez fair, politically uninformed and an easy target.

The corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world, probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the ‘evil’ of the Internet (free) and the CEO’s spouting about ’safety and security’. These buzzwords usually work pretty well.

What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that the ISP’s will provide a “package” program as companies like Cogeco currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now for their television stations. Television stations will be available on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the package, you know what happens. You pay extra.

It’s all part of the corporate plan for a New World Order and virtually a masterstroke that will lead to the creation of billions and billions of dollars of corporate profit at the expense of the working and middle classes. There are so many other implications as a result of these changes, far too many to elaborate on here.

Be aware that we will all lose our privacy because all websites will be tracked as part of the billing procedure, and we will be literally cut off from 90% of the information that we can access today. The little guys on the Net will fall likes flies; Bloggers and small website operators will die a quick death because people will not pay to go to their sites and read their pages. Ironically, the only medium that can save us is the one we are trying to save- the Internet (free).

Other News Stories

Predicting the Death of the Internet

AT&T To Create Tiered Internet Access For Subscribers

This is great for business situations where one wants to leave a voice mail without talking (usually to avoid an awkward situation)

Just remember, friends don't let friends put crap on their ear.

Link: http://us.jawbone.com/

Universal Music and UK-based satellite TV broadcaster Sky are preparing to launch a new DRM-free music with hopes of competing with Apple's iTunes.

The new and as of yet unnamed service will be of the subscription variety, meaning instead of having to pay for each track or album, you'll pay one flat fee each month and have access to as much or as little music as you'd like.

By being free of DRM, the service hopes to succeed where others, such as Napster, have struggled.

No word on exactly how the pricing will be other than to say that it will be "competitively priced" against their rivals.

[Via Electronista and The Guardian]

07/22/2008

iLife Support 8.3 | 10MB
iLife Support provides system software components shared by all iLife '08 applications.

iPhoto 7.1.4 | 74MB
This update contains new holiday greeting card and postcard themes for use with Apple print products.

iMovie 7.1.4 | 38MB
This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

iWeb 2.0.4 | 35MB
This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

Apple was expected to release some updates to the iLife '08 suite to bring compabilities with the newly launched MobileMe.

The Internet has been whispering rumors about Apple's plans to release a tablet Mac into the world for quite some time now. Rumors like this are common, especially in the Mac world, sometimes they are right, most of the time they are wrong. The tablet rumor is one that keeps coming up again and again. There is already a Modbook, but people seem to want Apple to come up with their own design, with their own twist on the concept of a tablet pc.

The latest news/rumor flying around today is that Apple is in fact going to release a MacBook Touch in October.  MacDailyNews reports:

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion's haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at "low" price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.

Personally I'm interested in how "low" the price margins will be. I've looked at the Modbooks and other tablet pcs like those made by HP, but none of them really seem worthwhile, I'm much rather just get a Cintiq. But if these rumors are true, Apple will be releasing something that is much more than just a tablet pc. I'm imagining something like what they had on Star Trek Enterprise. I will be paying attention to the rumor as time goes by and October draws closer, this could be very interesting.

Check out Gizmodo's article about the rumors (it's got better photos (not real though) ).

O site começou com um beta fechado em fevereiro desse ano. O sistema oferece aos jogadores espaço para compartilhar suas experiências nos games, recordes pessoais e formação de equipes.

Lá você pode criar grupos, participar das comunidades de títulos específicos, fazer galerias e até manter um blog interno. Resumindo, se você tem conta orkut, facebook ou em outra rede social, é praticamente a mesma coisa, mas com o tema totalmente voltado para games.

Para conhecer, acesse.: http://ugame.net

PS: I posted this using the Wordpress App for iPhone/iPod Touch, even the image was capture/uploaded entirely on my iPod.

Yeah Twhirl is a handy application for use with 4 popular social networks, but at what point is too much too much? I have a lot of contacts both in twitter and friendfeed, and I'm finding that I'm just turning it all off and playing either Crysis or Unreal Tournament 3 just to break the stress up a bit.

I know it's something manageable, but I always feel like if I blink I'm going to miss something interesting, which really sucks for me when I get started in a multi-hour marathon playing crysis multiplayer or team fortress 2. XD

I titled this blog post "Information Overlord" for various reasons. The foremost being that it's exactly how I feel. I'm really going to have to work hard to get it under control and make it more manageable for me.

The other day I went ahead and downloaded Apple iTunes 7.1 from the official Apple site. I have to say I was not sure what to expect. The reasons I got iTunes, was that I was getting tired of Windows Media Player, and it was messing up and lot, and being laggy.

Now after the initial download I was a bit mad that iTunes did not import all of my music automatically. It only imported a few songs. But that is not a huge gripe, because a lot of the music I wanted to listen to was there. I also found the initial set up of iTunes to be a bit bland.. until... I found out that I could customize the appearence of iTunes with three choices. I chose the third choice of the three, and it looks a little something like this...

Now when I found out I could do THAT, iTunes won me over. I soon began to search Google images for pictures of all of my CD covers so they could show up in my library. A cool feature that iTunes has is the ability to scroll through all of the CD covers you have like in the above image. It make it fell really smooth and slick like an iPhone, or iPod Touch. In addition to organizing songs by CD, you can make playlists, which group all of your songs by any thing you want. Genre, Group, Style, Color, whatever. It's great. But I use it to sort by Band,/Artist. All you do is drag, and drop the songs by Aerosmith, into the Aerosmith playlist, and thats it. It even shows all the individual albums by each band, if you have multiple albums in one playlist.

Finally, the coolest feature for me is the radio feature. Now I know that online radio is nothing new, but I am able to search through almost EVERY genre known to mankind, and find individual online stations. I currently am listing to some Robert Palmer - Bad Case of Loving You, as I am writing this. Cool song, and everyone has heard it.

Well, after the first few days with iTunes, I have to say I am generally VERY impressed. If you want the BEST music experience, then get iTunes. Regardless of weather or not you own an iPod.

Pero en realidad este no era el tema del post, la cosa viene por otro lado. Hace un tiempo leí un muy buen libro de Michael Crichton (Sol Naciente, Parque Jurásico, la fabulosa Esfera, entre otros...), que narraba una historia de ficción en la que un grupo de científicos crea nanorobots por encargo del ejército de los EE.UU., los cuales tenían la capacidad de actuar como una unidad, es decir que coordinaban sus actos para lograr fines específicos, incluso adoptaban formas biológicas si ello les ayudaba en sus objetivos. Su programación estaba basada en la reacción depredador/presa, por lo que estos robotitos actuaban como si tuviesen instintos predadores. Todo muy lindo hasta que se salen de control y es ahí en donde la novela se hace interesante.

Lo llamativo de esta historia es que en el prólogo o en el epílogo (...no lo recuerdo), el autor hace referencia a los peligros de abordar tecnologías basadas en la informática, la nanotecnología y la ingeniería genética, y refuerza sus dichos con un fragmento de las conferencias de varios científicos, en la que se exponen más claramente diversos puntos de vista al respecto.

Hasta acá, todo joya, sólo era una novela que planteaba una historia interesante, regularmente narrada, con muchos baches pero entretenida, y que tenía alguna advertencia sobre los peligros de la ciencia descarriada. Nada fuera de lo común.

Pero no pude con mi genio, la curiosidad pudo más e investigando un poco me dí con que el tema no es tan lejano como parece, de hecho las investigaciones sobre estas tres ramas de la ciencia están muy avanzadas, y la posibilidad de llegar a algún desarrollo importante no son tan descabelladas.

El siguiente fragmento dá un punto de vista al respecto:

En algún momento del siglo XXI, nuestra ilusa temeridad chocará con nuestro creciente poder tecnológico. Un campo en el que esto ocurrirá es el punto de intersección de la nanotecnología, la biotecnología y la tecnología informática. Estas tres disciplinas tienen en común la capacidad de introducir entidades autorreproducibles en el medio ambiente.

Convivimos ya desde hace unos años con la primera de estas entidades autorreproducibles, los virus informáticos. Y empezamos a tener cierta experiencia práctica con los problemas de la biotecnología. Un reciente informe revela que en el maíz autóctono de México aparecen ahora genes de maíz modificados —pese a las leyes que lo prohiben y los esfuerzos por prevenirlo—, y esto no es más que el principio de lo que muy probablemente será un largo y difícil camino para controlar nuestra tecnología. A la vez, parecen ya menos sólidas las arraigadas convicciones acerca de la seguridad intrínseca de la biotecnología, fomentadas por la gran mayoría de los biólogos desde la década de los setenta. La creación involuntaria de un virus devastadoramente letal por parte de unos investigadores australianos en 2001 ha inducido a muchos a replantearse antiguos supuestos. Es evidente que en el futuro ya no nos tomaremos esta tecnología tan a la ligera como hasta ahora.

Jackson, R. J., Ramsay, A. J., Christensen C. D., Beaton S., Hall, D. F. y Ramshaw I. A. «La activación de la interleuquina-4 del ratón mediante un virus recombinante de ectromelia inhibe las respuestas del linfocito citolítico y vence la resistencia genética a la viruela del ratón», Journal of Virology, 75 (2001), pp. 1.205-1.210.

La cuestión es que el tema se pone denso... porqué?... hoy leí un artículo gracias a un vínculo de HispaMP3 que me llevó a una noticia más que interesante, les pongo un extracto de la misma:

La Agencia de Proyectos de Investigación Avanzada para la Defensa (DARPA) ha encargado a la Universidad Tufts el desarrollo de unos nano-soldados que se construirán con biomateriales y cuya estructura y funcionamiento estarán basados en la biomecánica de las orugas, lo que les permitirá introducirse en  edificios enemigos a través de una rendija bajo la puerta, un conducto para el cableado o un agujero en un muro. Esta nueva generación de robots se llama Chembots (de Chemical Robots) y una vez llevado a cabo su cometido en territorio hostil, pueden autodestruirse y biodegradarse completamente.

La cuestión se sigue poniéndo densa cuando uno lee el artículo y lo compara con el libro... están desarrollando los nanobots descriptos en el libro!!!..., santos protones!!!

Si les interesa el libro se los dejo. Sólo pesa 1 mb y está en formato .doc

Michael Crichton - Presa

There, I said it. Right now I am very upset with both AT&T and Apple. Let me also say, I want an iPhone, and I have been waiting for one for a long time. When the original came out I decided to wait for the second gen with 3g, which I just knew was coming. So far the iPhone has lived up to the majority of the hype, and I really want one. Finally, my wait is over, and I can go get the lovely new iPhone 3g.

Now here is where stuff gets annoying. My original first gen Razr decided to stop working 8 or so months ago, and I was forced to get a new phone. Of course I was eligible for an upgrade at the time, so I used it. Now I am unable to get an iPhone at the advertised price of $200/$300 because my line isn't eligible until November. AT&T will not help me. My only options are to pay the full $400 or $500 price, or I can cancel my current plan with them and start a new plan. The catch? I lose my number, which I just can't do right now.

Eff you AT&T.

Now Apple. Eff you too. The current tag line of "Twice the Speed, Half the Price" is bullshit. Its still full price, in fact it is more when you consider the new +$10 a month for Data, and another $5 a month for text messages. Even if you qualify for the subsidized price, it still ends up costing you more over the life of your 2 year plan.

So is it worth it for me to spend an extra $200 to get the iPhone now or wait till November. I do not know yet. The worst part is that I will probably cave in and go buy one at full price, then I will not only be mad at AT&T and Apple, but at myself as well.

Picture is taken using iPhone, uploaded through WordPress iPhone Apps.