They don't want your money, they want your voice

The Long Walk to Justice calls on the leaders of the world’s richest countries to help Africa by doubling the aid, dropping the debt and making the trade laws fair when they meet in Gleneagles on 6th-9th July. Support the cause by signing your name on the Live 8 website. I did.
Click here to go to the Live 8 Live Website. You can also upload or MMS your picture to 0044 7774 777 444 and it will be posted on the G8 gallery.

Microsoft closes the window for Win2k

Microsoft divides its product lifecycle support into 2 phases, mainstream and extended and Microsoft has ended the mainstream support for Windows 2000. People may consider this to be a bad move as Windows 2000 is still popular especially among small and medium size business but we have to look at the issue from Microsoft’s point of view as well. This operating system is old and it has redundant standards built into it. To continue mainstream support for this OS would mean re-engineering Windows 2000 to reach today’s standards. With new types of virus coming out everyday and new software being developed that uses features of Windows XP, it is tedious effort to bring Win 2K up to speed. For all those people still using Win 2K (more than 1/3 of the people who read this blog use Win 2K), start planning your migration to Win XP, it is not worth taking the security risk with all the data and identity theft out there.

(I am out of town this weekend so please excuse the less frequent update of this blog.)

There’s a chip in my ‘Strawberries and Cream’

People say that the Wimbledon Championships have not changed since 1877, not to the lay man anyways. Listed below are a set of technologies being used around the Wimbledon tennis courts this fortnight.
- Wired and wireless IP phones are used by the organizers that help keep walkie talkie radio waves free and the grounds clear of unnecessary cabling.
- Security personnel carry wireless internet enabled hand-held computers on which they can watch the games, helping with the exact timing at which they can usher in spectators.
- A shot tracker called Hawk-eye is used by broadcasters to replay critical umpire calls. This technology creates a 3-D image of every rally played.
- Along with the mountain of match data collected, shot tracker helps coaches and players study further into the players’ performance.
- The IBM website gives real-time scores of the matches in progress. There are 3 massive internet farms hosting the Wimbledon website.

Luckily, we did not have the Hawk-eye during John McEnroe’s career; he would really have had nothing to scream about and let’s face it, his tantrums were entertaining.

This is one frog that should ‘croak’

A new version for the theme from Beverly Hill’s Cop, Crazy Frog Axel F, became the first ring tone to reach no.1 in the U.K, singles chart (what kind of music do they listen to?). It has been a craze all over U.K..... until now. There are stories emerging about how Jamster is robbing customers. One user, Hannah Bayman, ordered the ring tone after seeing an advertisement on T.V and since then, she has been sent hundreds of messages from Jamster inviting her to download more ring tones. Hannah was charged £3 for every message she received from Jamster!!! Many clueless mobile users get signed up for such services and they get charged for the spam they receive as messages. I had the same problem with sms.ac, I was sent spam everyday and at the end of the month I was charged by Rogers for the spam I received. The customer service at Rogers said it was no point changing my phone number as whoever is sending these ‘premium’ messages would find me anyway as long as I am on the Rogers network. Does that mean that our phone networks are giving out our personal information to any company that would pay something like 1 cent for a phone number? What happened to all the laws out there protecting our personal information? We blame hackers for identity thefts when there are companies we should trust that sell our personal information.
(sms.ac was nice enough to stop when I replied ‘End’ or ‘Unsubscribe to one of the messages)
Have you been robbed by a phone company or a messaging service?

London turned into a live Monopoly board

There used to be a time when kings had their own live chess boards with people representing chess pieces and you have seen it in one of the Harry Potter movies too, but now, you can have your very own live Monopoly board. Hasbro has fixed GPS tracking devices on 18 London cabs so that they can be tracked real time and this helps you play Monopoly real-time!! You choose which cab driver you want to play with, pick your properties and place your houses and hotels and you are ready to go. You get to play for a day and you try and make as much money as you can. I call Park Lane and Mayfair!!! (For those of you who have not played Monopoly, these properties rock.)

Click here to go to http://www.monopolylive.co.uk/

The Queen – ‘I want to break free’

Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II, said that she finds Sony’s products too difficult to use. The Queen told Sony’s new CEO, Howard Stringer, that the remote controls of Sony’s products are confusing and that they have too many arrows. As Sony does not think that of old women as their target market for their hi-fi products, I don’t think Mr. Howard would have taken the complaint seriously and ordered a revamp of Sony’s products (I hope). The Queen was also recently in the news for buying an iPod. She sent a courtier to the Apple store on Regent Street to pick up a silver iPod mini and the courtier is said to have asked for a ‘royal discount’. Now why would the Queen of a country ask for a discount? If the Queen needs a discount, shouldn’t we all get iPods for free. What do you think?