Rick's World

Hello from Windows Live Writer!

This is a test of posting to my blog from Windows Live Writer.

Thanks to my friend Dave for pointing this out to me.

Hmm, it partially works.  It can post articles, but I can't find any way to set blog categories..

Link: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Today, Microsoft demo'd a very interesting hardware and software package called Surface. Surface is this tabletop computer that uses a 'multi-touch' interface to allow you to 'grab' things, move them around, stretch them etc. all on the table. The demo showed a pile of photos scattered around on the table. You can then grab a photo on the screen, rotate it, stretch it out, shrink it down, etc. You can put a digital camera on the table and the tabletop computer instantly recognizes it and pulls all the photos out of the camera, 'tossing' them onto the table along with the rest. You can then manipulate those photos and drag them back onto the camera. They even had this incredibly cool effect where it looks like you are looking down into a pool of water. You see all these different color stones at the bottom of the pool of water and you can tap the surface of the 'water' and it leaves little waves.

What did I think of this? I had a couple thoughts. Admittingly my first thought was the conspiracy theory thought. "Oh look. They are demoing a multi-touch product as an attempt to beat Apple to the punch." Apple is releasing the iPhone next month and it will contain a multi-touch interface very similar to what was demoed here. The difference is the iPhone is actually a real product! You will be able to buy it next month. What about Microsoft Surface? It costs $5,000 and consumers will NOT be able to buy it. It will be mostly targeted at deep pocketed businesses.

Once again Microsoft demos a technology that consumers can't get. When is Microsoft going to stop screwing their consumers in favor of business customers? Yes, you can make a lot of money selling to businesses, but there are an awful lot of consumers out there who would love this technology. As soon as I saw this technology, my first thought was that this would be a VERY cool technology to have on a Tablet PC. Microsoft hasn't had much luck selling Tablet PCs. This could have very easily given them a way to sell A LOT more tablet PCs. Hell, that water effect alone would be so cool, it would sell Tablet PCs.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Apple includes real multi-touch functionality in Leopard. Once again, Microsoft over-promises but under-delivers. And Apple, no doubt will as usual under-promise but over-deliver

*Sigh* Microsoft, I really want to like your products, but you seem to have a gift for making that not happen.

Today, Apple announced a couple of updates to their AppleTV set top box.

First, they announced that starting tomorrow, you can get an AppleTV with a 160GB HD for $399.00 This is $100 more than their current model, which only has a 40GB HD. I've always thought it was a bit odd to only have a 40GB HD in a device designed for storing and playing high definition video. HD video requires A LOT of space. 40GB isn't enough. 160GB is a much better number for storing high definition video. This is an excellent move. They've quadrupled the storage space on that thing. When I first heard this, the first thought that went through my head was "I wish my iPod had 160GB of space!"

Another interesting, and related development was Steve Jobs comment that HD video would be coming to the iTunes store. He didn't say when, but I suspect it will be soon. It's always been my opinion that the AppleTV's greatest weakness right now is it's support for HD video. The AppleTV is designed to work with a widescreen HDTV. It will play HD content. The problem is you can't buy HD content on iTunes! This means that any videos you buy on iTunes will be at a relatively low resolution compared to HDTV resolution. This makes these videos look blocky and downright horrible when watching them on an HDTV. Apple really needs to get that HD video content out right now! I don't have an HDTV, but I do have a computer monitor that is equivalent to HD resolutions. I'd love to be able to watch 'Heroes' in HD on my computer. Hell, I wouldn't even need an HDTV if I had that! Bring it on Apple!

Forbes wrote an interesting article that basically called the AppleTV a flop. They even went as far as to compare it to a Zune! *shiver*. While my first reaction to this article was to get offended that anyone would dare to offend something from my beloved Apple, I have to admit he has a point. As long as the iTunes Store doesn't provide HD content and you can't buy and download stuff directly on the AppleTV, it really serves no purpose buying one. Once again, I say to Apple - Get that HD content up there NOW!

Apple announced that they would be sending out a software update 'in a couple weeks' that would give the AppleTV a chance to view YouTube videos. While I find this interesting, and a good idea, once again the problem of resolution, rears its ugly head. Youtube videos are generally very low resolution. You think iTunes content looks bad on the AppleTV with an HDTV? Wait until you see how bad these low res Youtube videos will look. Another interesting thing to notice is that he mentioned that the software update would come 'in a couple weeks.' Hmm, WWDC is in a couple of weeks. Coincidence? I think not. I suspect we are going to see a flurry of new updates to Apple products at WWDC. Apple will be finally revealing their new Leopard OS at WWDC. I think we'll see some kind of Leopard integration with AppleTV. I also hope we'll see HD content on iTunes announced at WWDC, but I kind of doubt it. That's just too much stuff to announce all at once. Maybe a separate 'special event' a few weeks after WWDC will be used for that.

The first interesting development today was the release of iTunes 7.2. What's so special about this new version of iTunes? Two words - iTunes Plus.

iTunes Plus is a new section on the iTunes store that contains the DRM Free music tracks from EMI. Today's release is the culmination of a promise Apple and EMI made back when they jointly announced that EMI would be offering higher quality music tracks for sale on iTunes without copy protection! They had promised to do this in May of 2007. Today is May 30th. Talk about cutting it close there folks!

This is a very daring move by Apple. For the longest time, sellers of online music have been pushing DRM down our throats in the irrational fear that everyone will steal their music if they don't. This irrational fear has caused us to have to put up with low quality music and inconvenient copy protection. The new iTunes Plus opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for both consumers and for Apple. This new section, despite it's 'unsafe' lack of DRM, should greatly increase music sales at the iTunes store.

Yes, I said increased music sales. The removal of copy protection, even at a slightly increased price ($1.29 per song versus $0.99 per song) will cause Apple to sell a lot more music. Why?

• People want higher quality music. The new music files are encoded at essentially double the encoding rate of the old files. This means better sounding music.
• No more 'iPod lock-in'. Many of Apple's competitors, such as Microsoft, have complained that if you buy music on the iTunes Store, you are locked-in to only playing it on the iPod. That is no longer true. With this new DRM Free music, you could effectively buy a song on iTunes and play it on a Zune, or any other player that supports AAC.

I've done some browsing over their selection of iTunes Plus songs. There seems to be some inconsistencies in how they list things. Some albums by the same artist are Plus songs, some aren't. Some albums only have certain songs listed for sale separately, and some songs are only available if you buy the whole album. I imagine this is just 'growing pains' for this new section. Everything will straighten out over time.

There is a lot of good music there. I'm definitely going to buy some of this new Plus music. I want to support them in this DRM Free attempt in order to encourage them to push this with more music labels.

I predict that 6-12 months from now, we'll see a BIG increase in sales of these Plus songs over the standard DRM'd songs.

Ok, I'm feeling a lot better. The cold or whatever it was that I came down with last Thursday has been gradually going away. I'm mostly better now. I still have the sniffles, but other than that I'm OK.

Time to get back to some blogging. It's been a very interesting news day...

For the last three days, I haven't been feeling so well. Ever since Thursday, I've been feeling very tired and sluggish. I've also had a nonstop runny nose. I very rarely get sick. This is probably my first real sickness all year. Thursday it was the worst. I went to work, but the entire day I was feeling so sluggish and lacking of energy that I seriously considered going home at lunch and just sleeping. I didn't though... I 'toughed it out'. Friday I was a little better but still not up to speed. I did end up going home a little early from work though. Today I'm still feeling sluggish, but I'm hanging in there. It sucks to be sick on a long holiday weekend.

This sickness was one of the reasons I haven't seen the new Pirates movie yet. I was going to go see it at the 8pm show on Thursday night when it premiered, but I wasn't up to it. Friday I didn't go either. Today I actually did go, but by the time I got to the theater, I was trying to buy tickets for the 4:30PM show... $9.50! I decided not to see the show for $9.50. I'll go back tomorrow and catch an earlier show for cheaper. Since when does a friggin' 4pm show count as a night show?? Sheesh. They charge night prices for any movie after 3pm now! It's no wonder Hollywood is having so much problems! Noone can afford to pay that kind of money to see a movie every week! It's at the point now where it's cheaper to buy the damn DVD for $15 once and let your whole family watch it, rather than pay $9.50 for every person, plus popcorn, drinks etc. Is the 'theater experience' really worth this kind of money? The only reason I still see movies these days is when I can get in cheaper - matinees or the 'student discount' (even though I haven't been a student in 15 years! :) And to top it all off, you have to play $9.50, plus sit through 20 minutes of previews and commercials. Hello! I paid the admission cost so I wouldn't have to see the friggin' advertising! It's not like the theatre isn't making a fortune of the $4 soda (maybe 10 cents worth of soda), and the $5 popcorn. Grumble, grumble. (Maybe I'm just cranky because I'm sick...)

*sigh*

In one of my earlier blogs, I commented that I was seeing a strange user agent in my stats. This user agent went by the name of 'Morfeus Fucking Scanner'. This name obviously caught my eye. I seriously doubt a legitimate user agent would be called that.

In that blog, I asked if anyone had any information on it. I got several replies, which you can see in the comments on that blog. It turns out that Morfeus is a scanner that looks for vulnerabilities in PHP based web sites (as this one is). I guess it failed to find any vulnerabilities in my blogging software because I haven't noticed any problems, or additional files are anything.

One commenter, by the name of Haans Gruber, even provided a solution to prevent it. Interesting name there Haans, either it's a coincidence or he's a big fan of the Die Hard movies... Haans Gruber was the name of the main villain in the first Die Hard movie. Anyway, the solution he provided was to add the following code to your web sites '.htaccess' file. Note that this change will only work for Apache based web servers. If you are running IIS, I'm sure there is a similar way to do it, but you are on your own. Here's the fix:

# Start of .htaccess change.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Morfeus
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [F]
# End of .htaccess change.

I've added this fix to my site's .htaccess file. Let's see if it helps.

Thanks Haans!

I've been having trouble with my Airport Extreme for the last few days (and really for weeks before that). It had trouble connecting to my DSL router. When it would connect, it seemed like the DNS worked but it couldn't connect to any web sites. It even corrupted on of the hard drives I had connected to it! Thankfully the data on that HD wasn't anything critical, or I would have been a lot more upset. I was having trouble connecting to the wireless network on it, even with no security on the wireless network. This is compared to my old router which 'just worked'. Anyway, I decided it was time to take it into the Apple store for an exchange.

I brought it in last night. After I walked in, I tried to make an appointment on one of the computers there to see a 'Genius' to have it looked at. The computer wouldn't allow me to make an appointment saying that all their appointments for the night were booked. Despite the fact that they were full, the Apple employee who was helping me suggested I wait at the Genius Bar. Maybe they could get me in anyway if someone didn't show up for their appointment.

I waited for a few minutes at the bar with my little Airport Extreme. After a few minutes, I talked to one of the Geniuses and explained the problems I was having. He took my information and booked me as a standby appointment. After a few more minutes he helped me out. After discussing my problems with the router with him, he decided to replace it. Obviously, I was happy about this, since that's what I went in there for. I was expecting them to give me a refurbished Airport Extreme, as they usually do when you bring something in for repair. I was perfectly happy to take a refurbished one. Every refurbished product I've gotten from Apple has been perfect. You can't even tell they are refurbished. They look brand new. But this time, he comes back with a brand new Airport Extreme, still in the box! He opens the box right in front of me and hands me a brand new Airport Extreme, not a refurbished one! He said they gave me a new one because they didn't have any others available to replace it with. Hey, I'm not going to complain! He told me I'd have to manually re-register this new router. Again, not a big deal.

I asked about the warranty. Usually when you get a replacement, the warranty only lasts for the remainder of the one year warranty. Since I got a new one though, the warranty starts over from yesterday! That means that essentially I just got a free three month extension on my warranty!

I am very happy with the service I received from Apple. Once again, it's nice to go into a store and be treated with respect. They don't talk down to you, they don't act like you are bothering them by coming into the store and they generally seem to enjoy what they are doing. I've had my share of Apple hardware problems in the past, as I've documented previously in this blog, but as long as their customer service continues to be this good, I'm going to continue to buy their products, even if they are a bit more expensive.

You get what you pay for.

I've been studying my site statistics a lot lately. As a web site owner, it's something that is important to do. I'm always interested in seeing how many people are visiting my site, what pages they are viewing, etc. One thing I've been noticing lately is a huge increase in the bandwidth my site uses per month. The below chart is a graph of my monthly bandwidth usage from June 2006 through today (May 18, 2007 ) Here's the info:

In 7 months, my site has gone from less than 1GB per MONTH to over 10GB this month SO FAR - and the month is only half over!

What has caused this? Once again Spider-man rears his webbed head. My Spider-man 3 trailer preview has managed to obtain an amazing (to me) 12,000 hits! Now for a site like Amazon or eBay, 12,000 hits is a drop in the bucket. For a tiny little site like mine, this is a flood. It's a mini Slashdot Effect. Call it the 'Spider-man Effect.' It boggles my mind that this little article would garner so much attention. The article with the next highest number of hits on my site has maybe 1,000 - 2,000 hits.

Or maybe I should say that it used to boggle my mind. Once I did some research in my site statistics, the reason for this bandwidth spike became clear. The images on my Spider-man article are big. One of the images - the 'New Goblin' image, is 173K in size! I never even realized that the image was that big. To make things even more interesting, if you do a Google Image Search for New Goblin, my site comes up as the first hit! I'm at the top of the Google search! How'd that happen? :) In fact, images.google.com is the number 1 referer on my site, by far. Now, multiply the fact that my most popular image is 173K times a few thousand hits per month and you get a lot of bandwidth burned. Combine that with the fact that there are several other images on the article, and that one page probably feed 250K or so worth of data for EVERY page view!

My first reaction when I discovered this was to panic and immediately trim that image down to cut down on bandwidth. When you run a small web site on a shared web host, you are given a limited bandwidth. Depending on your web host and web hosting plan, you could be limited to 10-100 GB per month. Not too long ago, I was seeing many web hosts that limited you to 1GB per month! Had I been on one of these low bandwidth sites, I would have been in serious trouble. At 10GB this month, I would have blown past my limit 10 times over! That would have cost me a lot of money in overage charges. Now granted, web hosts are starting to bump up their monthly bandwidth allocations significantly, but not long ago, this kind of bandwidth would have killed me. Fortunately, last year I changed to a new web host who provides a positively sick amount of bandwidth - 5TB (yes TERAbytes!) per month! That's over 5000GB. At 10GB this month, I haven't even hit 1% of my bandwidth limit. 10GB is a drop in the bucket for me. That means, that my big images are going to stay. Obviously this massive spike in bandwidth was caused by increased interest in the Spider-man movie as we got closer and closer to it's release date. The release date has come and gone. While my site hits did drop off significantly a few days after the movie's release, they are still averaging about 3 times what they were last year.

That one image has been quite an education for me as a web developer. Here's some things I discovered:

• If you have just one popular image, it can burn an amazing amount of bandwidth.
• It has taught me the sheer power of Google. Probably 80-90% of the traffic on my site comes directly from Google. I've never advertised this site anywhere.
• It has taught me that Google Adsense is pretty much worthless to the small web site owner. I've made a grand total of $0.91 for the one small Google ad I put up on my site. And you don't even get paid by Google for Adsense ads until you hit at least $10.00. That means that 10 months from now, I'll get $10? What's the point?
• It has taught me that people will steal your images. Months ago, I discovered that several pretty high traffic web sites were directly linking to that 173K New Goblin image on my web site on their web site. This means that I was essentially giving them 'free bandwidth' to use my image on their site! This kind of direct linking can easily be done so that noone is the wiser. You'd never be able to tell that the image was coming from a separate web site. Now, because I have so much bandwidth on this hosting account, I really didn't care much about this 'theft'. I was happy about the fact that people liked the image. However, once I discovered this, I decided that I was going to take advantage of their theft to give my site some free publicity. I modified all the images in my site to have a small semi-transparent watermark at the bottom of the image. This watermark contains the URL of my web site. By adding this watermark, I have just guarranteed that all those web sites linking to my images will be giving me proper credit. I could be nasty replace the images with something nasty, such as hardcore porn but as of now there is no need. Should image theft become a problem I can easily shrink the images, rename them, or do whatever I need. I am in complete control of these images. Don't these people realize I could really screw with them if I wanted to? It is not a smart idea to surrender control of a big part of your web site to an outside party of of your control.
• It has taught me just how important it is to be as 'search engine friendly' as you can. Make sure you have a robots.txt file. Make sure you maintain a sitemap XML file and submit it to Google and Yahoo regularly. Make sure you do not try to 'game' Google by trying to falsely boost your Google ranking. If you do this kind of thing, it's a good way to get removed from Google's index. Should this happen, your web site may as well not exist. Google wields such power on the web that should they remove you from their index, it could easily put you out of business.

Yesterday, I posted an article on the new Transformer's live action movie that is coming out in July. While it is nowhere near as involved as that Spider-man article, it does contain some good images from the movie trailer. These images are fairly large, though not as large as the ones in the Spider-man article. I did learn my lesson on this one. It's probably only 150K or so in total size for all the images and text on that article. Will this blog increase my bandwidth and my hits. Probably (and I hope so). Naturally, I'm going to keep track of things and make sure it doesn't get out of hand, but otherwise, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the ride!

Link: http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/Transformers/1808716430/trailers/31

You can find it here. I took a few interesting shots from it. See below!

A good look at Optimus Prime's face

Interesting how he doesn't have the shield over his mouth. It also looks like Optimus has a goatee! WTF?

Optimus Prime's Mouth Shield

There's been a lot of controversy about the apparent lack of a face shield over Optimus' mouth. In the original cartoons and comic books, it was always there. Up until now, you've never actually seen his face. Apparently, if you watch the preview closely, you'll see that he normally doesn't have the shield, but when he goes into battle, the shield expands out from the sides as you can see from the sequence of photos below.

Megatron at a military base

Apparently the militar capture Megatron. Perhaps this is an injured, deactivated Megatron found early in the movie.

Bumblebees face

Here we see a good shot of Bumblebees face. Notice the Autobot logo on his forehead

b>Optimus in action

And last but not least, a great shot of Optimus in action!