Brought to you each week by the PC Gurus, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana region.
You can interact with the team via chat room or BBS at www.thepcgurus.com. There are usually members present in the chat room after 8:00 PM every evening and you can post computer questions, comments, rants etc. on the bulletin board 24/7.
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The WHAS Crusade for Children provides year round support for needy children throughout the Kentuckiana region. Visit http://www.whascrusade.org to make donations online.
6-16-05
Last week’s article on the overblown estimates of losses due to piracy and virus attacks got me thinking a bit. If losses are up then it stands to reason that sales would be down, yes? If more music, software and movies are stolen as opposed to purchased then we should see a concurrent drop in profits, yes?
As usual there’s not a chance in hell this is actually true. Figures for the RIAA, MPAA and BSA all prove that profits are up and all parties involved are rolling in money. These organizations continue to lie and inflate figures for only one reason… To feed these bogus numbers to their wholly owned and operated Congress Critters to justify ever more onerous legislation that attempts to limit user’s fair use rights and attempt to make all of us criminals.
For the big three, here’s the breakdown:
For the first half of 2004 CD shipments were up 10% over the same period in 2003 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/21/riaa_mid2004_salesshock/). According to that article revenue was up 4%. Pity the poor music labels, they are one sale short of waiting in line for government cheese.
The BSA is no better. Revenue for Q3 2004 was up 17% from 2003 (http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY04/earn_rel_q3_04.mspx). According to the article:
“Information
Worker revenue grew 18% over the prior year as Office experienced strong sales
across all customer segments. Worldwide retail license sales of Office 2003
since its launch in October 2003 were double those of Office XP over its first
five months. Office OEM sales grew 35% benefiting from increased adoption of
Office 2003 including penetration of the Small Business and Professional
editions. Customers acquiring Office during the quarter included Circuit City,
Del Monte Foods, Perot Systems, The Thomson Corporation, and Unisys
Corporation.”
And the MPAA?
Phhhppht…
According to figures from http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_report/features/year_in_review/2004/dvddilemmas.html
box office sales were up from $9.2 to $9.4 billion and DVD sales were up from
$12 billion to $13.6 billion from 2003 to 2004. Those are billions with a “B”
folks.
Obviously the music, movie and software
industries are on the verge of bankruptcy due to rampant piracy and the rise of
the Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks.
Please…
All three of these organizations need to be
hauled into court and tried for price-fixing and anti-trust violations but of
course, they never will. As long as
the “representatives of the people” such as Orrin Hatch remain on the short
leash of these monopolies we will be subjected to their legislative whims, all
in the name of fair trade practices of
course.
Hey Orrin… Ever hear the quote “Of the people, by the people, for the people”? I didn’t think so…
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Direct from
Steve Ballmer's nightmares: Michael Dell says that he
would be
interested in putting the Mac OS on Dell computers if it's
ever
licensed:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1072719,00.html
Knowing
that the miracle of Longhorn is right around the corner, many
businesses are
hanging on to Windows 2000 with no plans to upgrade to
XP:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/15/windows2000_nicely/
AOL
hosts more zombies than any ISP on the planet...and all this time
we thought
they were hostages:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=164303641
Is
filmless home video in your future? JVC hopes so:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5748100.html
If
you've been thinking about making the jump to Vonage's VoIP
service, now may
be the time to act----and get a free router (hat tip
to team member Carmine
Allocco for the link):
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1826647,00.asp
Copy
us on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.opaquelucidity.com
This week I've
got two really quick, really simple, really handy
extensions to help you
out.
The first is Sort Extensions, found here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=460
It does just
what it says. It sorts the extensions that you have installed so
that
you can find them a little easier. It does this by adding a link
that
says "Sort" inside your extension manager. Just install it,
restart
Firefox and there you go. To sort them go to Tools ->
Extensions
and hit the sort link at the bottom of the box. In a few
seconds you
will get a notification that they have been sorted. Note:
It may seem
like Firefox is locked up for a second or two but I assure
you that it will
snap out of it.
The second extension is Minimize to Tray. This is
handy if you don't
want Firefox to take up valuable real estate on the task
bar. You can
get it here:
http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=640
Note: you
may get a yellow bar that says that it won't let you install
it, click the
"Options" button at the end and then click allow. Second
Note: Hit the
first install link, not the second one that says it is
for trunk
builds. Once you install this one, restart Firefox again and
go to
Tools-> Extensions and find the Minimize to Tray extension. Hit
the
options button and click always minimize to tray. Now, whenever
you
minimize the window it goes into a Firefox icon down by the clock.
Just click it to bring Firefox back to life.
Happy
Browsing!
Daniel A. Williams
PCGurus Team Member
daniel@thepcgurus.com
We’ve been way too serious lately, what with the security updates, spyware scanning updates and virus news. This week, how about something a bit lighter?
If you’re a fan of the Simpsons you’ve definitely seen an episode or two of the Itchy and Scratchy show, the satirical cartoon within a cartoon that features Tom and Jerry type characters having mishaps with things like chainsaws and axes. If you like the gross-out but darkly hilarious genre check out http://happytreefriends.atomfilms.com/index.html. It’s sick, twisted and laugh-out-loud funny.
As the site says: “Cute, cuddly, and horribly wrong…”
Q: Is it possible to connect a laptop
computer (Toshiba), to a monitor to
get a larger picture than offered on the
small laptop screen?
A: It usually is. One thing that you
will need to look for is a 15 pin
D shaped connector on the backside of the
laptop. The pins will be in
three rows and it will be a female
connector. If it has one then yes,
you will be able to connect that
monitor to the laptop. Just take the
end of the cable coming out of the
monitor, and plug it right in. Once
you get it hooked up, you will need
to look for a way for your monitor
to be recognized by your laptop.
Power the laptop on normally, and
after everything comes up, you will press a
series of keys to get it to
see the monitor. You will press and hold
the "Fn" key, which is usually
in the bottom left or upper left of the laptop
keyboard. Then, you need
to find and press the output change key.
This key is usually one of
your function keys (the ones that have F then a
number), and under the
F# there will either be a picture of two monitors or
the words
"LCD/CRT". After you press it, everything will flicker, and
your
monitor output will be changed. If you need more detailed
instructions,
send along the model of the laptop, and we'll see what we can
do from
there.
Thanks for letting us help!
Daniel A. Williams
daniel@thepcgurus.com
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