Category: Computers, Internet & Technology

David Pogue says Verizon has a card-sized device coming out later in May that uses its 3G network to provide Wi-Fi for up to five users at about 1.5 Mbps for $60 a month. Mi-Fi.

All You Need to Know to Twitter Your First Tweet

Not that you should want to.

Nearly 29% of all homeowners owe more than their house is worth!

Real-estate Web site Zillow.com said that overall, the number of borrowers who are underwater climbed to 26.9 million at the end of the first quarter from 16.3 million at the end of the fourth quarter. The latest figure represents 28.9% of all homeowners, according to Zillow, up from 17.6% in the fourth quarter and 14.3% in the third quarter.

WSJ.com

You can get a free copy of Windows 7 to play with — it’ll be good until March 1, 2010.

Windows 7 Release Candidate Customer Preview Program

I wouldn’t replace my operating system with a Release Candidate (that means more than beta, but not yet for sale), but I’m using it for Windows on my Macs. It seems better than either XP or Vista, but I don’t begin to put any stress on it.

It’s a 2.4 or 3.0 GB download depending on whether you need 32 or 64 bit.

Our old friend Ed Bott (he used to comment around here) writes what to expect from Windows 7.

If you’re curious about Twitter but you don’t want to sign up, you can read any Twitterer’s tweets simply by going to twitter.com and entering slash + their Twitter user name.

For example, John Mayer is at http://twitter.com/johncmayer

Lance Armstrong http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong

Shaq http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ

Demi Moore http://twitter.com/mrskutcher

You get the idea. Just Google twitter + the name of the individual and you should get the Twitter link.

Beware however, some are phony and some are ghost written.

And few are interesting beyond about 15 minutes.

New York Times columnist David Pogue answers the most common consumer tech questions. An example:

Q: What TV should I get?

A: Plasma for dark rooms, LCD for bright ones.

If it matters to you—and there’s no reason it should—it looks like plasma is on the way out. Most companies have stopped manufacturing and selling them (Panasonic is the notable exception).

If it were me, and if I could afford it, it’d get an “LED LCD”—an LCD screen illuminated by LED lights. The blacks are so black, it’s like you’re looking into space.

And here’s a partial just for Mark:

A: Mac or PC?

Q: I’m going to get torrents of hate mail no matter what I say, so here you go: Mac, if you have a choice.

Lethal is a 99¢ iPhone/iPod Touch application. According to the review at The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

• LETHAL now gives a risk ranking for every US and Canadian town or city with a population over 100,000, plus all Canadian National Parks. If you’re within a large metropolitan area, you can watch your LETHAL index change as you drive around.

• More disasters! More dangerous animals!

• The crime information is more specific, with new updated crime data from the FBI database.

• You can view rankings for all locations from most dangerous to least (or vice versa) for all indexes and specific risks. Want to find the #1 area to get killed by a grizzly bear? LETHAL can help.

I think I can get 99¢ worth of fun out of this just while driving down Central in Albuquerque.

Update: Data is actually not yet granular enough to show variations within a city the size of Albuquerque.

Via Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker, today’s greatest Web site in the world.

Have fun.

OK I’m playing with Twitter trying to be an astute fogey.

Twitter username: NewMexiKen

No wisdom, whimsy or wit promised.

BTW, the best line of the day comes from a tweet from dooce:

“The Bachelor” needs to be renamed “The Insufferable Asshole.”

I opted out of some software company’s emails a few moments ago. Within seconds I received a confirmation email. It contained this line:

“Please allow 10 business days for this change to take effect.”

How come their computers can send the confirmation in seconds but it takes 10 days to implement the change? They make software, right?

I don’t Twitter despite having an account and, sorry Facebook friends, but I don’t find much value to Facebook either except for what my daughters and daughters-in-law post there.

Old fogey or astute, you decide.

Via Discourse.net, Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something

Just a few not to miss

#27 scroll down to “What’s For Dinner?”
#30
#36 of course
#42 ‘cuz it’s our own Albuquerque TV
#57 The Classic
#89 awesome

. . . is having an essay contest — “In the longterm, eternal sense, do you think the Internet is a positive or negative development for mankind?”

You’ve got until 9PM MST to win one of three $500 shopping sprees at Apple.com.

Be forewarned, it’s competitive; as of 11:15 MST, she had 5,668 comments.

When the hive mind works, it’s a beautiful thing, an article about Ask MetaFilter, one of the web’s great sites.

There’s a new beta Apple – Safari to play with, Mac or PC.

Learn about the features available in the world’s fastest and most innovative web browser.

I am running the beta version of Windows 7 on both of my Macs — 32-bit on the iMac 2GHz and 64-bit on the MacBook Pro 2.4GHz. I had no problems with either installation and find it to be smoother and quicker than Vista or XP. (Caveat, I use Windows for very little, and nothing strenuous.) IE8 has some nice new features too.

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

The internets are pretty fascinating for just being a bunch of tubes.

Link via kottke.org.

NewMexiKen does not usually have an income tax refund coming — I prefer not to loan money to the government interest free — but for various reasons this year was different.

So I went ahead and got my taxes done using TurboTax, deciding for the first time (because it was free and I had money coming) to use e-file. I filed my federal return electronically around 10:30 this morning.

At 6:30 this evening I got a confirmation that my return had been accepted by the IRS and my refund would be deposited in my checking account next Friday (the 6th).

Cool.