Tuesday, September 1, 2009

BREAKING: eBay to Announce Deal to Sell Skype

BREAKING: eBay to Announce Deal to Sell Skype: "The fate of eBay-owned Skype (Skype) has been in question for months now. Back in April, it looked as if eBay was going to spin-off the VoIP service as a publicly traded company. Now we’ve learned that Skype will be sold to private investors.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Iraqi Shoe Thrower to be Released Early for Good Behavior

Iraqi Shoe Thrower to be Released Early for Good Behavior: "The journalist had thrown his shoes at Bush in a press conference. Bush was forced to duck for cover as the journalist shouted in Arabic: 'This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.'

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Facebook's iPhone update paves the way for apps

Facebook's iPhone update paves the way for apps: "The social network's latest iPhone application update sure does make it feel like an app launcher of its own. Are Facebook apps making their way to the popular handset?"

Friday, August 28, 2009

Gimp 2.7 Beta Improves Text Editing, Streamlines Saving [Beta Beat]

Gimp 2.7 Beta Improves Text Editing, Streamlines Saving [Beta Beat]: "

Windows/Linux: Look ahead to what's being baked into open-source image editor GIMP's 2.7 with an early beta release. The developers tell you right in the installation process that it's 'unstable,' and even make you promise with a checkbox not to bug them if things go wrong. Still, if you're eager to see smoother, intuitive text editing, a streamlined saving and exporting process (no more warnings about 'flattened' JPEGs!), and other improvements and small features, you can grab a Windows installer from FileHippo or grab source code for Linux building at GIMP's FTP servers. [via Download Squad]

Head to head: Snow Leopard vs Windows 7

Head to head: Snow Leopard vs Windows 7: "Head to head: Snow Leopard vs Windows 7 Our definitive verdict - should you be upgrading your OS?

5 Most Popular iPhone Navigation Apps Compared Head-to-Head

http://www.ismashphone.com/images/5-most-popular-iphone-turn-by-turn-navigation-apps-review.png

A handy chart that compares the five most popular apps for the IPhone for turn by turn navigation. Any real user feedback, please post replies.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

MIKE REMEMBERS TED KENNEDY FOR THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Ted Kennedy failed to match brothers’ legacies, but forged own flawed future

BY MIKE BARNICLE

Wednesday, August 26th 2009, 6:30 PM

He died on a soft summer night, at home in Hyannis Port, a few days after a storm, the edge of another hurricane, ripped the waters of Nantucket Sound, turning the sky an angry gray.

But now, on the day after he died, the air was clear and there was only the heat of the August sun beating down on the boat, the Mya, that Ted Kennedy so often took to sea, seeking comfort from the past and refuge from the illness now ravaging his system.

Some months before he died, he sat on the porch of the big, white clapboard house he shared with his wife, Vicki, his dogs and his memories - the Hyannis Port house both a home and a museum containing the story of seven decades in the life of one man and a single country.

“When you’re out on the ocean,” I asked, “do you ever see your brothers?”

“Sure, all the time, all the time,” he answered, his voice a whisper. “There’s not a day I don’t think of them. This is where we all grew up.”

And this is where it came to an end, the long dynastic thread woven through world wars, politics, scandal and redemption.

At 77, Edward Moore Kennedy was a man who learned to live with his flaws, his failures and a prematurely ordained future that never was and, after 1969, could never be.

He was the most Irish of four brothers, had the loudest laugh and the biggest voice. He was familiar with pain, emotional and physical. He was sentimental, given to song, poetry and painting. His own hand-painted watercolors adorn the walls of his house.

He suffered greatly from self-inflicted wounds - Chappaquiddick, an affinity for alcohol - as well as the weight of constant expectation that he would, could, might rise and eventually take the White House.

But disruptions caused by the hand of two different gunmen in two different American cities altered him forever, detoured him from the family dream, pushed him to live without a calendar, measuring his days and hours by the whim of a fate he knew he could never truly control.

He became, Kennedy did, a religious man, often attending early Mass with his wife at Our Lady of Victory in Centerville on Cape Cod, knowing that his Catholic faith was rooted in forgiveness.

It is easy to consider how Ted Kennedy might have approached the Lord:

“Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been - What? - Three weeks? Three years? Three decades? - since my last confession.”

And his penance, if you will, was to serve as a surrogate for three dead brothers and the cargo of lost and wounded children left in the wake of war and assassination; to lose and immerse himself in the freedom of being a legislator rather than be shackled by a myth or become a political vessel for others driven by dreams of dynasty.

He carried his Cross through all the decades, carried it with honor and nobility. He heard every slur, each slander, lost his only quest for the Oval Office and emerged from defeat with a deeper knowledge of who he was and what was meant to be: a life lived in the United States Senate, to negotiate, deal and fight for laws that simply changed how we lived.

Now, the house by the sea, a place once filled with high hopes and even higher ambition, is quiet. And last night’s dusk arrived with a brutal truth: This man who came through the fire of life, scarred but whole, is silent forever, while the fog of memory, seven decades deep, becomes legend on the summer wind.

Harvey Johnson