The XML Feed for the site is now up and running thanks to Blogger’s Atom Feed. I just downloaded Macromedia Central to use as my news aggregator. I really like it so far except for the fact that some of the weather and movie features only work around your zip code and not around a postal code. Hopefully they update it for us Canadians, but in the meantime I’ll stick with it because it’s sweet.
Update: I’m now using Mozilla Firefox with Sage XML reader. It really IS sweet.
It was a fast meet. There were a lot of “meet” and “team” records set; one girl even set a world record! Two more of the swimmers on my team are going to CI’s. Too bad I’m not one of them.
I set a new personal best in 50 fly putting me in 27th place squeaking in just under the 30 second mark with a time of 29.89. My 50 free wasn’t as good as I would have liked it to be, but I did place 16th with a time of 25.97. Oh and not to forget my DFL in 100 Free with a time of 58.56.
Corry Doctorow over at BoingBoing.net summarizes the important parts of Scoble’s blog post on the ins and outs of iTunes DRM, Microsoft DRM, and whether you should get an iPod. The bottom line is that in order to save music, the consumer should only buy music that isn’t in a lock-in format, and to break the locks on any music you do own, while you can. He gives many examples – and the one most familiar to most of us is probably the VCR. Remember how in the early 80’s the movie studios were trying to get the VCR banned because of the worry of piracy? “With the VCR, though, Sony delivered what its customers wanted, and the movie companies got rich off of it, dragged kicking and screaming to the money-tree again.”
What really goes on in the back rooms of car dealerships across America? What does the car salesman do when he leaves you sitting in a sales office and goes to talk with his boss? What are the tricks salespeople use to increase their profit and how can consumers protect themselves from overpaying? These are the types of questions that undercover journalist Chandler Phillips answers in his informative account of day-to-day experience on the car lots.
Reading this article will broaden your understanding of the dealership sales process and cast a new light on the role of the car salesman. Most importantly it will help you get a better deal — and avoid hidden charges — the next time you go to buy or lease a new or used car.
Favorite quote:
I was an undercover car salesman for Edmunds.com, sent to a dealership, which sent me to a seminar, which sent me to another dealership as an undercover shopping evaluator. I guess that made me a triple agent. Very good lines.
CNN reports that Mike Rowe has agreed to a settlement with industry giant Microsoft. They even threw in an Xbox to seal the deal.
I’m off to Victoria for the Canada West swim meet. I’ll be back Monday for regular blogging updates.
The RIAA has just issued a new lawsuit against 532 more “illegal filesharers” only this time, they’re also using the “john doe” approach meaning that they don’t have to have ascertain your name by strong-arming ISPs, but by suing your IP address, they let the judicial system take care of that little detail.
Britney Spears might say she’s not that innocent, but some fans of Michael Jackson have put together a song that PROVES he was set-up. Ok it doesn’t really prove anything but a fun game when you are listening to the song is to try and figure out whether this is parody or not.
A San Diego woman loses all of her body’s skin due to a rare drug allergy and lives to tell the tale.
The Software giant is mad because Mike Rowe’s new website http://www.mikerowesoft.com sounds a lot like Microsoft.com. Well boo-hoo. They offered him $10 to buy the domain from him. He said he’d like $10,000 and after they realized their scare tactics weren’t working it sounds like they might actually back off, from ZDnet, “We take our trademarks seriously, but in this case maybe a little too seriously. It’s important to recognize that under the law companies are required to take this type of action to protect their trademark against widespread infringement. But that said, we appreciate that Mike Rowe is a young entrepreneur who came up with a creative domain name. We’re currently in the process of resolving this matter in a way that will be fair to him and satisfy our obligations under trademark law.”