Turns out my prediction wasn’t quite correct, it was not the Power Management Unit (PMU), it was the heatsink. Mactivate have informed me they have one on order from Apple, so it will take a bit longer than I anticipated to get my Macbook back. I found this strange as I had not experienced random shutdowns like the ones that have been widely reported across the web. it was like I described in my earlier post, something to do with the battery not being able to charge. Then again, I am no expert on this and their is wide evidence (over 1600 people have identified heatsink as a problem in their Macbooks) that the heatsink is a definite issue. Sounds like good or bad I will have a lot more to say about Apple Computer in the future, thats why I have decided to add them as a category.

Reading my favourite tech news site: Slashdot ( /.), I see the Internet Explorer team have sent the Firefox Team a nice cake:

One comment I read said it all really:

Seems even the IE team knows that IE is dead.

As for the ex-lax, bugs, pubes in the cake of course none of that is true. Those things would only be possible if someone at Microsoft actually made the cake, and that’s not how MS does things. They knew they couldn’t make a good cake so they just went out and bought a cake from someone who already knew how to make one and then stuck their logo on it and called it theirs.

Well first of all, there has been some blog updates, inspired no less by my Grandfather! He’s at a fragile old age, so he can’t read the screen all too well. This is not a problem however, as he sets all fonts to 16 and higher in Firefox (which is out of beta and into version 2.0!). That got me thinking, as I really struggled to read this page being marginally away from the screen, as I am a [Keratoconus][] sufferer. As a result, I have enlarged all fonts in my blog, in an effort to make them more readable… I encourage everyone to do the same, or at least follow the [web standards][] so that it can be properly auto resized by browsers.

This Ladies and Gents, needs no introduction, for you all know George W. “Dubya” Bush. What you may not know is the Daily Show, which is a popular news satire show in the US. If you have time I recommend you have a look on YouTube for more videos…

I haven’t posted in a while :-( Ah well here it goes: Well we’ve all seen the news Google has bought YouTube for a reported 1.65 Billion US dollars, the deal was reportedly sealed at at Dennys in California (gotta admire that style and sophistication). I think its way overvalued Youtube, at 24m per employee! We all know it serves 100m videos a day, but it has been living off measly venture capital and hasn’t got a verifiable steady income stream, which I guess is where Google enter with Adwords….

I have ordered and I am expecting delivery of my brand new Apple MacBook (or BlackBook as some call it)! It will be a Black, 2Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM) MacBook, complete with a remote, Bluetooth 2 and Wifi functionality. Not mention cool applications such as iSight built in Camera, Front Row ( a media center) and Spotlight search technology. It cost me close to €2.000, so hopefully it will be worth it ;-)

I feel I need to confess why I am buying a MacBook, have I turned soft to my Open Source/Free Software ways? No, definately 100% NOT. I’ll explain why: I think Apple Computer has an incredible product in Mac OSx. For anyone who has not used it before, pop into a 3G store and ask to have a go. When someone releases a good a product as that, they deserve money, in my opinion. Under “the” free software license (GNU General Public License) it is permissable for anyone to charge for software licensed under it, as long as an offer of source code is given (for 3 years afterwards). Deep down I love Ubuntu, and I will install it as soon as possible when they release a version for the Intel powered Apple computers. In fact I will use my Laptop to showcase Ubuntu you had of told me November last year I’d spend well over €1,000 on an Apple Computer, I would have told you that I hated Apple, and would never consider it! What has changed my mind? I got a iPod Nano for Christmas ‘05 and thought it was great, but the Nano on its own still wouldn’t convince me to get a Mac.

I am writing this because, I regret to say, the stupidity of humanity. People nowadays define their own law on the Web and the Internet (don’t know the difference, you should), while disregarding real life. Maybe its a lack of understanding about technology or law, I don’t know. One things for sure, common sense can go a long way. Take for example this website on the Commitments, which prohibits linking from unauthorised sites! You see? I just broke the law right there, amazing dontcha think? The person who designed or put the statement up, is a total complete and utter idiot, and I don’t care if thats considered slander! Imagine if every site was to do this? Search engines would be just another litagation filled business, like so many other. With Lawyers reviewing every site to go into the database, Google would have a handful, maybe a 100 sites, instead of the usual billions it indexes.

Hope you like the new look Duey Finsters. Like Google style hoo-pah, we are still in “Beta” mode (or is it “Alpha”? Depends on who you ask!). I would be extremely grateful for people to report issues, with the folloxing browsers IE 5.5, 6 & 7, Opera 9, Firefox 1.5.X , Mozilla 1.X , Safari on all platforms Windows, Linux and Mac (BSD if you want!). Great news also in ranking, the site has gone from 8.5 millionth, to just under 4 million (#3,945,836 to be exact) in three and a half months! I am working on releasing the design to OSWD and in Wordpress theme format, for others to extend and enjoy (If you feel like helping out, contact me).

This is my letter to U.S. Dept. of Commerce, stating what I believe should happen to the Internet. Fell free to email your opinions to them directly: ** [email protected]**. As a net citizen, get your voice heard on the most important public debate of our times! Dear Sir/Madam, I, as a citizen of Ireland and the EU, think with respect, the Internet should have a world governing body, fairly appointed by each country who has more than 30% of their respective populations online. For those under 30% they should get to have a sub-committee, to prioritise and promote the Internet in their countries. I think while although ICANN has generally not been a bad governing body, vast improvements can be made, such as not allowing pressure from companies to increase domain prices, when the cost of providing them has come down dramatically over the past few years. I do recognise, that the Internet was partially created with the help of U.S. government funding, but this comes from the people of America, who would want the Internet to be a force for change, like for example, the way it is helping Chinese dissidents.Also, as with all US government generated ideas, it is free from patent and copyright which applies worldwide, such as NASA images, for example. This should be true of the Internet also, as it is with GPS (which I use regularly, Thanks for that!). I am not a whole believer in the U.N. however, I think the Internet governing body should be free form all Government and International organisational pressures (but not those that seek to limit abuse, such as child pornography, obviously). I thank you for offering a public debate on this issue and I sincerely hope the outcome will be of benefit to everyone living on earth.