iDude.org

I knew it was coming, sooner or later, and here it is, the new Mac Mini Intel Core Duo. I am going to wait and see how the benchmarks go, although I know it will be substantially better. The Intels were supposed to be better than even G5’s and the old mini was a G4 1.42 at the most.

Apple claims they’re ~3-5x faster than the old G4 ones, which I honestly believe is accurate. We’ll see though. I’ll probably get one of these later this summer.

I was with Nextel and have always been a big proponent of them in the area I live due to limited national cellphone coverage, but the price was starting to get a bit high on the monthly plans and all the good plans were reserved ONLY for new customers. What a load of poop.So, I decided to switch to Cingular, which is 1 of about 3 major cell providers that offer coverage here. Verizon is non-existant, Sprint only has 3 towers of their own, T-Mobile is ok in town, but horrible outside town.

Most of the Cingular coverage is provided through 100% roaming agreements with CellularOne, although I believe they do have a few of their own towers in town.

At home, the coverage is spotty, sometimes good, sometimes not, but it gets the job done. In town or at work, the coverage is EXCELLENT. Full signal almost everywhere.

I do plan on getting together a letter from the local business community and ask Cingular for a few more towers in key areas here. My town is expanding and will be rapidly over the next 4-6 years, so now is a good time to get started and get a loyal customer base before things really heat up. We are already a major tourist area due to having a major lake nearby, lots of people from out of town come down using many different providers, but out of GSM users, most of them are Cingular. They are not only visitors, but actually own lake homes and/or property. I estimate that with only 3-5 decent towers, all deadzones could be filled in and also create some nice overlap so we don’t immediately roam to CellOne between handoffs.

As for the phone, It is a Motorola SLVR L7, it is an amazing little sucker. iTunes works great although it is limited to 100 MP3s, the tiny little speaker has relatively excellent quality for it’s size, the screen is sharp and clear, but unfortunately not a hybrid LCD that gives good visibility in sunlight.

My Bluetooth earpiece (Mot HS-850) works fine with it of course and I was able to transfers files between my phone, PDA and my wife’s phone (Also a new Motorola RAZR with Cingular).

Cell reception is also great compared to other GSM phones I’ve used locally with internal antennas.

Out of approximately 20 GSM phones I have used, this one is the best, hands down. I give it 9.5/10.

This is my brothers new puppy, cute little fella ain’t he? Just wait… Look at the size of those paws. :-)

He’s gonna be one big ‘little’ puppy here in a year or so.

I will eventually get a puppy. Just have not decided on what breed yet. Interested in a Husky or Malamute, but may settle for a ‘used’, good natured, well trained, retired police dog or something…

I demand discipline once they are to the size that they can PULL you down the street or terrorize neighborhood kids.

Although that may be a ‘good’ thing. :-)

My mom’s puppy is big, although not the size this guy is going to get, but he acts more human than I’d prefer a 4-legged creature to act.

(EDIT - ‘fella, guy, he’ = ‘girl, girl, she’ … It’s a female puppy and I forgot until after writing this post)

Although this is a bit technical in nature, when I googled it, no one I saw, right off, had a simple solution to this problem.

This error was returned to me after calling the stored procedure in MySQL 5.0.18 from an ASP script in IIS 6.0 on a Windows 2003 Server. I knew this should work because I tested in on my machine at work and it was fine, as well as on my personal IIS webserver on my home machine.

Weird… Ok so. Here is the solution…

Download (and install) the latest MySQL ODBC Connector

That’s all I did on my production server, rebooted, and it works fine now. The ODBC on my server was only a few months old, but I guess after MySQL 5.0.x came out with stored procedure capability, the ODBC driver had to be updated as well.

If you are using a 3rd party provider, it may be a little more difficult to get your admins to update the driver… If you have any trouble, send a message to yours ISPs support with a link to this article.

Police Say Sugar Brought To School Look-Alike Drug

(CBS) AURORA Police in Aurora have confirmed that a 12-year-old boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project last week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug.

The sixth grade student at Waldo Middle School in Aurora also was suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.

The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said two other boys asked if the bag contained cocaine after he showed it to them in the bathroom Wednesday morning. The boy’s mother said he told them it did, but then added, “just kidding.”

Aurora police arrested the boy after a custodian at the school reported the boy’s comments. The youngster was taken to the police station and detained before being released to his parents that afternoon.

All these people should be ashamed of themselves!!!

Bush Today’s memorial service for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King — billed as a “celebration” of her life — turned suddenly political as one former president took a swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor!The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. “She extended Martin’s message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there,” Lowery said. The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation. A closed-circuit television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed the president smiling uncomfortably. “But Coretta knew, and we know,” Lowery continued, “That there are weapons of misdirection right down here,” he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. “For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!” The crowd again cheered wildly. Former President Jimmy Carter later swung at Bush as well, not once but twice. As he talked about the Kings, he said: “It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps.” The crowd cheered as Bush, under fire for a secret wiretapping program he ordered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, again smiled weakly. Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America. Some black leaders have blamed Bush for the poor federal response, and rapper Kayne West said that Bush “hates” black people.

AND NO WMDs?!?! Come on! Even Saddam’s top general has fled and talked about how the WMDs were flown out of Iraq before the war started in passenger planes on regular schedules and his story has been corroborated. Don’t these people pay attention to the news? There was WMD and they still exist in Syria. As for the Hurricane response… The federal government had absolutely NOTHING to do with the early bad response to the situation. Local state, county and municipal governments are the first responders! Everyone knows that. When someone breaks into your house or your house is on fire, do you call the FBI or Federal agencies to put out your fire? NO… You call your local police and fire, the first responders. The local authorities failed and are doing everything in their power to divert the blame from them to the Bush Administration. I’m not saying the government did everything right, I’m sure big mistakes were made there too, but it was mostly the local authorities

Ran across a link to this on fark.com and was so impressed, thought I would pass it on! Click the image below for more.

In case you needed further proof that the human race is doomed through stupidity, here are some actual label instructions on consumer goods:

On Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping.

On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase nesessary. Details inside.

On a bar of Dial soap: Directions: Use like regular soap.

On some Swanson frozen dinners: Serving suggestion: Defrost.

On a hotel provided shower cap in a box: Fits one head.

On Tesco’s Tiramisu dessert:(printed on bottom of the box) Do not turn upside down.

On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: Product will be hot after heating.

On packaging for a Rowenta iron: Do not iron clothes on body.

On Boot’s Children’s cough medicine: Do not drive car or operate machinery.

On Nytol sleep aid: Warning: may cause drowsiness.

On a Korean kitchen knife: Warning keep out of children.

On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights: For indoor or outdoor use only.

On a Japanese food processor: Not to be used for the other use.

On Sainsbury’s peanuts: Warning: contains nuts.

On an American Airlines packet of nuts: Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.

On a Swedish chainsaw: Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals.

On a childs superman costume: Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.