Tech news....

Being a geek, I am constantly surfing for new "stuff" that comes out that I simply MUST have. Fortunately, none of these actually cost me money this time around. I just thought I'd share a few things I came across.

US quarantines visa system after virus attack

An attack of the Welchia worm lead the US Department of State to shut down its system for filtering visa applications in search of potential terrorists. A computer virus has hit the US Department of State, affecting the performance of the government's information technology system that manages visa approvals, according to reports.

The virus shut down the State Department's Consular Lookout and Support System (Class) on Tuesday, according to published reports from Reuters and the Associated Press. A State Department representative CNET News.com reached on Wednesday would not confirm that the system had crashed but indicated that IT personnel were working on a problem.

MSN praised for plan to cut free chat rooms

Child advocates Wednesday applauded a decision by Microsoft's MSN online service to crack down on its free chat rooms, calling unmonitored chat sites among the most hazardous places for kids on the Net. "There is no question but that chat rooms generally tend to be very dangerous places for children," says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Responding to complaints about child predators, pornographers and spammers who prey on children, MSN said Tuesday that on Oct. 14, it will shut down chat in its online services in 28 countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia, and will allow only paying members to chat in the USA, Canada and Japan.

Right... so what about the others who offer up chat rooms? Ultimately, it's up to the parents to monitor what their kids are doing. I'm a big believer that much of the delinquents we have today are the product of parents who just weren't active in their kids life during their childhood and adolescents. Granted, I'm not a parent and I'm not saying it would be easy to be a parent, but you either take the job seriously, or you have no business being a parent, period.

That means:
1) you know where your kid is at all times.
2) you know all of his/her friends.
3) you make it a point to meet his/her friends parents to find out what attitudes they instill in their children.
4) you take an active roll in your kids education. This means that you are aware of what they are studying in school and are active in any problems they are having with their homework.
5) you insist that they have homework and are doing it.
6) you periodically talk with their teacher(s) to make sure that they are doing as well as you think they are doing.
7) you attend PTA meetings every time and talk with the teachers of your kid. You make them very aware that if there is any issue, they are expected to contact you.
8) you spend time with your kid. This is very important for the relationship you have with your kid. You, as a parent, should be their best friend - that one person who they can tell anything to.

Not easy, but if I were a parent, I would never have to tell myself, "I don't know how this happened... I didn't raise them to be that way...". It just wouldn't happen. I'm not a big sports fan, but if my kid happened to love soccer and was on the school soccer team, I would make it a point to learn all I could about soccer and to participate in my childs interest. That would mean attending the games, etc.

I just don't understand why that's so difficult for parents. Saying that you don't have time in your busy schedule just doesn't cut it. You make the time!

Electronic Paper Speeds Up for Videos

Some day soon, videos may be playing on paper instead of screens. Scientists in the Netherlands have developed a new version of electronic paper that can switch quickly from one color to another, giving it the ability to display moving images. The new system is described in a report published today in the journal Nature.

Electronic paper??? Too weird for me.

Is Google like Microsoft? In some ways

Why lump Google in with Microsoft?

First, Google has reached near-monopoly -- or at least oligopoly -- status as a search engine. Some observers fear their privacy is being violated: too much personal information culled about them by one company. Some advertisers complain about a lack of transparency in Google's search algorithms, which dictate the ranking of Web pages on its results page. Individuals might wonder about this, too.

One reason Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus, says he helped back Nutch, an open-source alternative to Google, is because Google is ``very guarded about how it works.''

He bemoans that businesses are trying to manipulate Google, attempting for example to boost their ranking by creating bogus links to their sites. (Google uses the quality and number of links, among other things, to measure relevance.)

Well, if you go to Google, and type in the search box "bill and kent", our site will be the first in the list. I don't have an issue with my ranking!