November 10th, 2008

Posted by Andrew Nusca

Probably, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal detailing how cable customers are paying the same amount for fewer channels.

The FCC has sent letters of inquiry to 11 cable companies asking why their customers are paying the same amount each month, even as the companies move channels to digital cable.

WSJ reports:

Some consumers are complaining that they are getting fewer channels now on their analog cable service, as cable companies move channels to more-expensive, digital tiers. Once a channel is moved to a digital tier, it is unavailable to analog customers, who still make up about 40% of cable subscribers.

Agency officials said the investigation stems from concerns that cable companies could be trying to use the transition to digital-only television broadcasts in February to lure their subscribers to move to these more-expensive digital tiers.

Cable subscribers don’t have to do anything to prepare for the digital transition, because that will affect only consumers who rely on TV sets using antennas. Cable subscribers aren’t required to upgrade to digital tiers of service, either.

 

cialis online no prescription

Cable companies are notorious for introducing fees and other assorted items on your bill without giving you much of a choice. (Just how the hell did I start “renting” a cable box and remote, exactly?)

November 10th, 2008

Posted by Mary Jo Foley

Which came first — Google dropping StarOffice from its Google Pack or Sun agreeing to distribute  Microsoft’s Live-Search-powered MSN toolbar with the Java runtime?

We’ll probably never know (at least until Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz blogs about it). But the new deal, announced on November 10, between Sun and Microsoft is ironic, if nothing else, given the twisted history between the two over Java.

(In 1997, Sun sued Microsoft, for alleged misuse of Sun’s Java technology. Microsoft paid $20 million to Sun as a settlement. In 2002, Sun filed a civil antitrust  suit against Microsoft over Java again. Microsoft ended up paying Sun $700-million-plus in 2004 to settle “all outstanding antitrust issues.”)

In 2005, Sun struck a deal with Google to bundle the Google toolbar with Java. That deal is replaced by the new agreement with Microsoft — although in the U.S. only and only for Internet Explorer users, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes. The Google toolbar will still be bundled with Java overseas.

Microsoft has been seeking partners to preload its Live Search and other Windows Live properties on new PCs and/or as part of their software offerings.

Microsoft is slated to launch the final “Wave 3″ release of its Live services on November 12, company officials said cialis once a day recently. Microsoft has been beta testing its Wave 3 release of its Live Essentials suite for the past couple of months.

The new Live Essentials suite, unified via a common installer, includes updated versions of Windows Live Messenger instant-messaging; Windows Live Mail (with a new and improved Live Calendar); Windows Live Writer blog-posting tool; Windows Live Movie Maker; Windows Live Photo Gallery, the Family Safety parental control tools and the Outlook Connector.

If you’ve been on YouTube's Web site recently, you might have noticed that you can now customize your own YouTube homepage! That's right, you can make it so that you get your subscriptions, recommendations and even a friend tracker all on one page. Let’s check it out, shall we?!

To begin, here's an example of a personalized YouTube homepage:

Now, I’ll walk you through the different parts (or modules, as YouTube calls them).

1.) Subscriptions

You can keep track of new videos from the channels you subscribe to. If you have many subscriptions, this feature will be quite useful!

2.) cialis offer Featured Videos

Your featured videos are those that YouTube has selected as interesting. The module’s a good starting place if you want to wade through them and maybe add some of your own favorites.

3.) Recommended for You

This one's my favorite! There are so many YouTube videos around, I hardly know where to start. Luckily, YouTube recommends videos based on your previous video choices in the Recommendations module.

Removing Modules

Removing and rearranging modules is very easy. In the top right hand corner of every module, there are some buttons that look like this:

To rearrange the module, simply click on the up or down arrows. Or, to delete the module, just hit the button with an "x" on it. Easy as pie!

Now, go on and have fun with your very own YouTube homepage!

Q:
Should I leave my computer on all the time, or turn it off?

A:
This debate comes up often. Sparks continue to fly on both sides of the issue (especially if you don't have a surge protector;-)

I guess I'll give you the thoughts from both camps and let you decide.

Those are the main reasons both ways. My opinion? I let it run during cialis normal dose the day when I'm using it and shut it off at night.

I don't think it's good for the computer to have someone poking at the power switch constantly. If you're going to use it in the morning and then again in the afternoon, leave it run till you're finished for the day.

I used to leave mine run 24/7, but a few things have changed my mind.

For one, any chip faster than 133Mhz needs a cooling fan to keep it from burning itself into a silicon cinder. These fans are not totally reliable.

If I'm using the computer and am getting signs that I have a CPU that's overheating (your computer will act *really* strange, some will play a little tune through the internal speaker), I can shut things down and get it fixed. If it happens in the middle of the night, I'll have a roasted CPU in the morning.

Another reason is that I've seen power supplies go bad and try to catch themselves (and anything nearby) on fire. Again, not something I want to have happen at 2:00 AM when I'm asleep dreaming about program code.

Finally, anyone who uses Windows knows that it should be re-booted on a daily basis. So, by shutting it off at night and turning it back on it the morning, I automatically get my re-boot (that's not to say you won't have to do the occasional re-boot during the day though with win 9.x type machines or ME).

So, my advice is to run it when you need it, and when you're done for the day, shut it down.

The other day, a reader sent in a question about printing a MS Word document at half the size.

It seems he had a document containing a picture that was frequently printed. Since it didn't have to be full size, he was hoping to easily have Word print two of the same thing on a single page, rotating the duplicate pages to sit side by side in a landscape on the paper so that it still retained its proportions. The thought was that printing two on one page would save on ink and paper.

Is it possible to accomplish that without so much frustration, it drives you crazy?

I'm happy to report the answer is yes, so give this a try!

• First, copy and paste to make a second page of the Word document that's a duplicate of the first.

• Now, when you print, don't hit the Print button. Instead, go to the File menu (or Office Button cialis no prescription in Word 2007), Print choice (Ctrl + P).

• In the Print window, you're looking for the Zoom section.

  

• From the "Pages per sheet" list, choose 2 pages.

• Now, simply proceed with your print.