Do you have a hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com or Xbox 360 account?

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If you have a hotmail.com, msn.com or live.com. account, or if you have one of these as part of your Xbox 360, you should know that more than 10,000 of these account passwords were just posted online. Most of these accounts were in Europe, but quite a few were here in the US.

If you have any one of these accounts, take a moment right now to change your password. In Hotmail, you need to go to OPTIONS in the top menu and then down to MORE OPTIONS. From there you can choose VIEW AND EDIT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. Finally, click the CHANGE link next to the password field to type in something new.

Music recognition on the iphone : Shazam vs. Midomi

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Have you ever heard music on the radio or while you were out shopping and wondered who that was? With an iphone and either of these two programs below, you can find out!

Shazam logo

Shazam logo

Shazam is the first contender. When you hear music you want to know the name of, you just launch the application and then click the small TAG NOW button in the upper right corner. The iphone will start to listen to whatever is playing around you as a pie chart fills up to show the deciphering progress. When it finds the result, it will buzz the iphone and display the artist, song title, a link to YouTube for the video (if it’s available) and a link to the iTunes store to purchase the song. Shazam does fairly well in crowded areas, and picked up songs that were playing in a busy toy store as well as a restaurant during dinner rush. The only problems with Shazam is that it displays ads all over the application, does not return good results on classical or jazz music, and it now requires iphone system software 3.0. But it is completely free, and correctly deciphers most mainstream music.

Midomi Logo

Midomi Logo

Midomi is the second contender. When you launch Midomi there is a giant WHATS THAT SONG button to click on. In a few seconds, Midomi will listen to your surroundings and show you the result of what it hears almost the same way that Shazam does. But with Midomi you get a massive increase in song recognition speed, no advertising clutter, and better recognition on jazz and classical music. Midomi picked up “Drop me off in Harlem” by Richard Wyands, “Symphony #40 in G minor” by Alberto Lizzio, and “Remember Tomorrow” by Mo’ Horizons when Shazam returned a “no idea” for each one of them. But Midomi missed “Symphony No. 25 in G minor” by Mozart and “Love Supreme, Pt. 2: Resolution” by John Coltrane. Then again, Shazam missed both of these, too. Midomi works just as well in crowded locations as Shazam does and correctly deciphers most mainstream music as well. For the vastly superior speed and for a slightly better classical and jazz recognition, Midomi will set you back $4.99.

Both programs let you post your finds to social networking sites like Twitter, view the music video on YouTube (if available) and email a “hey I like this” email with the song artist and album to whoever you want.

It comes down to whether you want to pay a little extra for speed and marginally better classical and jazz recognition, or use a free but slower application that works good enough with vocal performances.

I have both. Just in case.

Shazam: Three and 3/4 out of five stars

Midomi : Four out of five stars

The Taking by Dean Koontz : Mini Book Review

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The Taking by Dean Koontz

The Taking by Dean Koontz

10 words or less : Great start, poor ending. Had potential to be really great.

Long version : “The Taking” was my first book by Dean Koontz. Like most of the books I buy, it was in the bargain bin at a local book store, so I grabbed it for a quick weekend read.

Before I go on with the review, I have to say that horror movies and horror books seldom work on me. The solution to 85% of horror movies? Shotgun. Jason Voorhees? Shotgun. Michael Myers? Shotgun. Blair Witch? Shotgun. I know what you did last blah blah blah? Shotgun. Just shoot the friggin’ bad guy and be done with it.

As for the paranormal kind of horror, most of the time I think those kind of things are just really funny. If I ever run across a ghost, I’ll probably pull a Ray Stantz on them… take some technical readings, and then make fun of them.

Movies that worked for me? Aliens. The Thing. The Shining. Session 9. The Silence of the Lambs. Movies with intelligent people who were in situations appropriate for their characters, who were also properly equipped for their environment, and who were still having really bad things happen to them.

Now, having said all that, I think “The Taking” was almost great. Almost. And that’s what’s really frustrating about it.

The book starts off with a rush. Bad things start to happen immediately and you get to know the characters as the book unfolds and as things happen to them. It reminded me a little of the very first episode of LOST.

The story and characters are well written, and they react like people with decent intelligence and some self-defense capabilities would in their given situation. And they had a shotgun! Bonus! I was really getting into this book.

But a little more than midway in, the terror part of the book runs out of gas. Things push way too far into the unbelievable, and the bad guys’ motivations and abilities become far too excessive. I was wondering if this story was heading for a sequel when a textbook “deus ex machina” tied up the ending. And not to ruin the book, but if that was who the bad guys were, then what exactly were the good guys? That’s a far more disturbing thought for me.

Amazon reviewers say not to judge this book as one of Koontz’s better ones. So having seen those comments, and being very impressed with the first part of the book, I will try one of his earlier books for next time. Because if Koontz can write a whole book like the first few chapters of “The Taking”, I’ll be really impressed.

Checking in at around 450 pages, “The Taking” was a decent summer / weekend read.

Three and 3/8 out of five stars.

News stories the mainstream media missed 10/03/09

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Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* The H1N1 (Swine Flu) is getting ugly. A quietly released CDC paper that you can download here says H1N1 is adapting to everything being thrown at it. The paper says “…humanity faces a dangerous threat. Viruses isolated from a sample of patients with confirmed cases in early phases of the outbreak demonstrated resistance to amantadine and rimantadine…. More recently, pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus resistance to oseltamivir emerged during treatment of 2 immunosuppressed patients in the United States. Such cases demonstrate that oseltamivir resistance can emerge in infected persons treated with oseltamivir. To date, all isolates tested have been susceptible to zanamivir.” The paper is written in med-speak, but it’s quick reading. Stock up on Zanamivir and buy stock in GlaxoSmithKline. [CDC (CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION)]

* Related to the H1N1 (swine flu) mutation and adaptability… not surprisingly it is spreading. A website from the CDC shows “Twenty-seven states are reporting widespread influenza activity at this time. They are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Any reports of widespread influenza activity in September are very unusual.” The website is an overall 2009 H1N1 update and is good a good reference to bookmark. The stats on the bottom of the website are particularly worrisome. “U.S. Influenza and Pneumonia-Associated Hospitalizations and Deaths from August 30 – September 19, 2009… 12,863 hospitalizations and 1,197 deaths.” That’s in just 20 days. Stock up on masks and meds now. [CDC (CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION)]

* Meanwhile, the FDA has released a warning for consumers not to eat or purchase certain imported dried plums because they’re spiced with lead. The problem isn’t with any plums from the US, so check the labels. Or better yet, just skip plums altogether. Yuck. [FDA]

* When blood used for a transfusion is over 30 days old, it doubles the possibility of death for the person receiving the blood according to an article in the LA TIMES. The article says the American Red Cross believes blood has a “shelf life” of 42 days, but the reality now looks like 30 days or less. Seriously, one of the better things you can do on a weekend is go and donate blood. You will not only be helping saving someone’s life, but when this goes mainstream, you can bet the blood banks will need donations more than ever. [LA TIMES]

* Is vitamin water really better for you? Nope. At least according to an article in Food Business News. Vitamin water is better than most sodas, but compared to water? Not so much. And for athletes, sports drinks are superior to vitamin water too. Save your money, folks. [FOOD BUSINESS NEWS]

The wrong kind of secret question to ask

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Most websites will ask you to choose from a set of secret questions to answer when you set up an account. If you ever need your password reset or get locked out, most of the time it’s a cut-and-dried process where you answer that specific question, type in a CAPTCHA scrambled-text phrase to verify you are a real human, and then change the password for the website to whatever you want.

Easy enough, right?

Don’t ever pick your high school name as the secret answer.

Here’s why – all someone has to do to reset a password of yours with the high school name as the answer is to search Facebook. 99% of the time, everyone’s high school information is in their public profile.

I’ve tested it. It works.

A good practice is to choose your own personal question if a website gives you that option. That adds just a little more security to your website activities and keeps you just a hair ahead of the bad guys.

Lost in translation

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Lost in translation

Lost in translation

True story.

Me: “Hi. I noticed the sign on the side of your building has said family jiz suite for about a month now.”

Super8: “Yes! Would you like to sign up for one?”

Me: “Uh… for a jiz suite?”

Super8: “Yes! A family jacuzzi suite!”

Me: “Jiz is an abbreviation for jacuzzi? Are you sure?”

Super8: “Yes! Jiz is jacuzzi!”

Me: “I see. Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Lost in translation. Big time.

Working with what you have

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Golden Corral Sign

Golden Corral Sign

“OK, so we’re not the best, the biggest, most award winning, number one in the city, or have the most customers. And no specials. What can we put on the sign?”

You gotta go with what you have!

Moon in the Texas Sky

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Moon in the Texas sky

Moon in the Texas sky

A older photo I took of the moon in the Texas sky. The sun was just crossing the horizon and the sky was slowly sliding from blue to dark navy.  A little wisp of a cloud was stretching itself out and dissipating in the early evening’s heat.

Robert Rodriguez’s Predator remake

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In case you haven’t heard already, Robert Rodriguez is remaking the original Predator movie. Or as Hollywood says, “rebooting the franchise”. Due for release sometime in 2010, Latinoreview has already noted that Nimród Antal is going to direct and Danny Trejo will be in the film as a supporting character.

According to the exclusive preview on latinoreview, the main character, the new badass, the “Dutch 2.0” is named….. Royce.

Yeah. Just gimme the tickets now.

Io.9 and Screenrant both say “Our hero is Royce, a “Steve McQueen” type. The film begins back on Earth, when Royce gets in a fight with another human, and kills his opponent — but some Predators are watching the whole thing from behind their camouflage screens. The Predators like what they see, so they kidnap Royce and shoot him over to their home planet. Royce, along with seven other abducted humans, all wake up after parachuting into the Predator home planet.”

Robert? I’m cutting you off. If you can’t keep a secret, I ain’t telling you any more of my stories.

Seriously. Just how many famous “Royces” are out there? Royce Gracie (the original MMA badass), California House of Representatives Ed Royce, Royce da 5’9″, and Royce the Voice.

Short list!

Latinoreview has an exclusive video on the reboot on their website to go with the story that shows the movie’s other supporting characters and their backgrounds.

Texas Railroad Tracks

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Texas Railroad Tracks

Texas Railroad Tracks

I took this outside of Mission somewhat near highway 83. Near the tracks was that big underground ant colony from a few photos ago.