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Vol. 8, No. 15
4-17-08
1 Economics and demographics
2 Dad… ?
3 A non Apple Mac?, Starbucks and iTunes, Seagate locks and loads, Sims gets real world big
4 Spring Cleanups
5 Complete protection
I read a fascinating paper this past weekend that touches on technology but really concentrates more on demographics and the global economy and how it affects the US. Not my usual fare but it’s worth a read even by novices like me.
The author, Herb Meyer, was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He was a special assistant to the Director of the CIA during the Reagan years and won the US National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, which is apparently no mean feat.
In his speech, Mr. Meyer lays out his hypothesis that there are four main factors driving the world’s economy.
1: The war in Iraq
In this one Mr. Meyer describes the three main religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and how they split in the 16th century with Judaism and Christianity absolving differences and moving towards a more progressive culture while the Islamic culture went in the other direction and started drifting toward an earlier cultural model.
2: The emergence of China
In this day and age China is an economic powerhouse and, whether we like it or not, manufactures many of the goods that we use. We have a symbiotic relationship with China but soon they will hit the hard wall of modernism and when that happens, Katie bar the door.
3: Demographics
For a country to survive as an independent entity it must replace an aging population with a younger one. That isn’t happening. Couples in modern countries all over the world are availing themselves of the means to control when they procreate and how many offspring they actually produce.
This reduction in population means less power militarily as well as productively. If the numbers don’t exist to fill the job quotas you have to scale things back, regardless.
4: Restructuring of American Business
This is where Mr. Meyer deals with technology, and it’s on a subject near and dear to our hearts: Outsourcing. American companies are “fracturing” at an alarming rate, moving more and more of their work to outsiders. More workers are finding themselves “independent contractors” every day, even though they may end up working at the same company and making the same pay, although they now lack any benefits.
I’m not going to go into any great detail, the paper is simply too long and complex to quickly summarize in the space I try to fill each week. Regardless it’s an excellent read and one written so that even economic laymen such as myself can understand it.
You can read the entire article at http://www.oldmadison.com/paper.html.
Nice job Mr. Meyer :)
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
A company called Psystar has
put up a website selling a product called an Open Computer. The product is
essentially a white-box Mac with Mac OS X Leopard preinstalled. The
battalion of ambulance-chasers at Apple are sweating through their Brooks Brothers':
http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9920436-37.html
Starbucks is giving away free music on iTunes
with a new "Pick of the Week" promotion that offers customers a free
song every week at over 7,000 Starbucks locations. And you thought that
$3 cup of burnt coffee would never return anything on the investment:
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006807.html
Seagate Technology just might have a few patents
that make the rest of the storage industry squirm. Like the flash hard
drive:
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9920771-7.html
"The Sims" video and computer game has
sold 100 million units since its launch in 2000. At this rate, the game
will eclipse sales of reality by 2074:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-89hYH2ER3iHHaZVc23PcJByt6wD90380HG3
Copy us on the good stuff---even the lawyer
stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.mattstodayinhistory.com
Download of the Week
Hey, folks, it's time for
spring-cleaning. Cleanup Assistant can
help you with that chore. This simple
freebie helps speed up your system by unclogging your hard disk by finding
duplicate files, cached files and others, then deleting them for you. It will
even shred files so that they can't be restored; if you've got personal files
you no longer want and don't want anyone to see. It's free, and easy to use.
Even though it may not be the most sophisticated of programs it's worth a
shot. Cleanup Assistant works with
Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Vista. Get
it here:
http://www.cleanupassistant.com/.
*Note: Cleanup Assistant is
certified safe to download by SoftPedia.
Art Maley
Email Question of the Week
Q: Could you tell me what Trojan removal software that is free that would be the best to make sure that you have spyware and Trojans removed completely.
A: The tools I mentioned in this week's
newsletter are about the best you can get. A good retail antivirus
program (don't skimp on a free one, buy one like Panda or Kaspersky), Ad-Aware,
Spybot, Spyware Blaster, Spyware Doctor, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and Panda
Anti-Rootkit.
If you’re very familiar and comfortable with Windows and how it works you can
toss in a software firewall (Panda and Kaspersky both have versions that come
with firewalls or you can get a free one like ZoneAlarm from http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,7228-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html).
You might also consider turning on Tea Timer in Spybot. This is a
Registry monitoring tool installed with the free program that will alert you to
every change made to the Registry. To enable it start Spybot and click
Mode and Advanced mode. Click Yes when prompted, then click the Tools
button on the left and click the empty box next to Tea Timer in the list on the
right. If it gets too annoying do the same thing to reverse the
setting. Reboot every time you make a change to this setting.
If you have trouble finding any of the free
versions of those programs (other than the AV programs) shoot me an email and
I'll send you links...
Hope that helps and keep me
posted...
Kevin Mefford
Contact
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