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Charges Rise on Dell MS XP Downgrade
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Editorial, Microsoft, PC / Laptop,
Last June, Dell began to charge customers $20.00 to $50.00 to downgrade to Windows XP. It was up to $100.00 by October. Now it seems that they are charging $150.00. At the same time, we recently read that Microsoft claims that 9 out of 10 Vista customers are satisfied. While we don’t believe everything we read, we keep wondering why Dell is punishing XP users and MS’s inhouse research, with figures that include licenses sold as part of a downgrade package, seems cheerfully optimistic. What do you guys think? Remember when Coke came up with a new version and nobody liked it? It just went away.
Read More 
| Silicon Alley Insider
Gallery: Charges Rise on Dell MS XP Downgrade
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Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: True Christmas Spirit
Posted by Dennis Velasco Categories: Editorial, Features, Family, Kids,
Growing up the way I did - barely getting by, fully understanding what hard times meant, and dealing with some messed up family stuff - we never really made Christmas a big deal. At least, it never really was to me. For example, one year we couldn’t afford a Christmas tree (but when we did, we kept that thing for like a decade), my mom made us get some fallen twigs outside our apartment and she delicately wrapped them up in tin foil. We put it in a green vase and I think my sister actually tried decorating it by coloring the tin foil red and green. Ah, youth. Well, I couldn’t totally blame her for her attempts to make something bad into something good, afterall, she had a perm and actually thought it looked cool. But, heck, it was the mid-80s, so the poor choice made by my nine-year-old sibling could be forgiven in retrospect.
In all honesty, the last Christmas I remembered before this particular one I’m about to tell you about when I was eleven, was when I was five. I got a whole bunch of Micronauts and this huge plastic Spider-Man doll that had a grappling hook, which was supposedly a web that he could “climb.” Mind you, I don’t blame my parents for any of this lack of remembering several years in between as they always did their best, God bless their hearts, and I’m glad my sister was always in the Christmas spirit, but I knew what was up. Okay sure, I was a Holden Caufield without knowing I was at the time, but whatever. I dealt with it. You couldn’t fool me, I tell ya.
But, this particular Christmas, I got fooled.
Click to continue reading Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: True Christmas Spirit
Gallery: Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: True Christmas Spirit
Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: A Dark Lord Christmas
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorial, Features, Toys, Kids,
I was nine years old and I was a huge Star Wars fan. I was looking forward to Christmas like every kid and I hoped to get a ton of Star Wars stuff.
Christmas morning finally came and back then I would try to sneak out of bed at four or five in the morning so I could start playing. Sometimes I would get caught and I was told to go back to bed, but I always came out later after the coast was clear.
That Christmas I woke up early and quickly ran to the living room to start opening my presents. Every gift I opened was a toy. I don’t remember all of the stuff I got, but as I said it was all toys!
I went searching to the back of the tree to see if there was anything I missed and I found a present in the shape of a rectangle. This meant it was shirt box – clothes! Ugh. I tossed it back and buried it under some of my sibling’s presents.
Click to continue reading Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: A Dark Lord Christmas
Gallery: Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: A Dark Lord Christmas
Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: A Crushed Ice Christmas
Posted by Veronica Santiago Categories: Editorial, Features, Smart Home, Women,
Purchasing gifts for a loved one is often difficult, especially when expectations are high. So, gentlemen - if you’re struggling to find the perfect present for a significant other, please let me share a story about one of my most “memorable” gifts.
Back in 2001, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I had our 1st real Christmas together. Although it was technically our second time celebrating the holiday, I didn’t really count the first. Since we had only started dating weeks beforehand, I didn’t anticipate much. But after a whole year together, I was curious to see how well he knew me. Apparently not as well as I had hoped.
To be fair, I did receive two gifts that day. The first was a beautiful green necklace. (Thankfully, it did not come attached to a Benny Bear.) And while I appreciated the tasteful choice in jewelry, the item was unfortunately not the thing I remember most about that December 25. It was a completely random selection still waiting in the wings: the ice crusher.
An ice crusher that my boyfriend/husband saw in Pottery Barn and thought was “cool” and “very pretty.” (Granted - the Metrokane Ice-O-Matic did have a nice art deco design.) An ice crusher I didn’t know I needed. An ice crusher my husband’s coworker told him NOT to buy. (She said it wasn’t exactly a “romantic” choice.) An ice crusher that said “crush my heart” and “ice queen” all at the same time. An ice crusher that up until last night (when I reminded my spouse of its existence), hadn’t seen the light of day in years.
So in case you missed the lessons from my cautionary tale, let me list them out for you:
- “Pretty” things don’t necessarily make good gifts.
- Don’t ever buy your loved one something YOU want.
- Products that require manual labor should never be given, unless it’s something they requested.
- If you ask another woman for a second opinion, please heed her advice.
- Read our Holiday Gift Guide, and let us help you.
Happy Holidays!
Gallery: Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: A Crushed Ice Christmas
Holiday Gift Guide: Remembering my first DVD player
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Features, Home Entertainment,
Being both an early adopter, someone without a bunch of money, and a gadgetophile is a hard combination to pull off. Back in 1999, that was me as a teenager, and the thing I wanted most that year was a standalone DVD player. Sure, I had the DVD-ROM drive in my Sony Vaio desktop computer, but my monitor was only 15-inches back then, and I had a 28-inch television. Who wouldn’t want to watch DVDs on their awesome 28-inch television, with ghetto stereo sound?
That year, my girlfriend at the time decided she would surprise me with a Sony DVD player. If you weren’t in the market for DVD players back then, allow me to fill you in. Those $25 deals you are seeing this holiday season on players at Target and Wal-Mart? Yeah, prices have fallen exponentially. My first DVD player sold for $399.99. A serious token of her love, most certainly. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t have gotten a DVD player otherwise.
I immediately snapped up The Usual Suspects and a couple of other titles that I don’t even remember. I didn’t even care, I was just all about the slick new piece of technology.
What about you? Any fond memories of holidays past, where you gave or received an awesome gift? Let us know in the comments
Gallery: Holiday Gift Guide: Remembering my first DVD player
Once again, we are amazed at the apparent idiocy of people who are too casual when on the Internet. Tom Stones, a Tesco store worker in the UK, called in sick, but later posted on Facebook. He now faces disciplinary action. Last month, 13 Virgin Atlantic crew members used the same means to trash their employer and were consequently fired. Australian Kyle Doyle called in sick after a night out. His managers found him updating his Facebook page. Thank goodness that those of us who work/play on the Net a gazillion hours a day know that it’s part of the gig. If that’s not you, save the Facebook updates when that you can get away with it
are legally off the clock.
Read More | Telegraph
Gallery: Facebook Users Get Busted
Record Your Voting Experience
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Cameras, Smartphones, Editorial, Internet, Videos,
A little nervous about voting? We won’t mention the term “hanging chad” (oops) but poll experts suggest that you not only bring your ID with you but take a picture of your ballot as well. Video the Vote goes one step further and suggests you record your experience to share with other citizen journalists, indy filmmakers, and media pros. You can upload them on the site and they will cross post to YouTube. We would love to see them, too! Now get your butt out there and do your American duty!
Read More | Video The Vote
Gallery: Record Your Voting Experience
Less than 2 weeks to go before the vote that changes America (we hope.) We just got a peek at the latest in silly endorsements. This time Andy, Opie/Richie, and Fonzie are involved in getting you to vote. Listen, if it’s good enough for Arthur Fonzarelli, then you know it’s something you want to do, too. You can find other political commercials on Funny or Die, including some with Paris Hilton, John Stewart, and Gina Gershon doing Sarah Palin.
Read More | Funny or Die
Gallery: Opie and the Fonz Endorse Barack
If you are a subscriber of Bloglines, you may have noticed the frequency of red exclamation marks and error messages. This is what is known as a broken system. They are no longer updating some of the feeds. We understand that they have received numerous complaints and whining, but our solution is to switch to another RSS reader, a simple enough process. Click “Export” on the bottom left, save the opml file and import it to the reader of your choice. In an Internet that has so many choices, we are allowed to say, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Update: It would appear that all that whining helped. Many of the feeds are updating again, however we are going to keep our backup feed all the same.
Read More | TechCrunch
Gallery: Bloglines Goes Bad
We admit that some of us were not big Leo DiCaprio fans, but now that he has created this Voting PSA for declareyourself.com, we have to give him points. Featuring such celebs as Halle Berry, Jennifer Aniston, Tobey Maguire, Dustin Hoffman and Ashton Kuchter, the online video is aimed at younger voters in an effort to get them to register, with the deadline being this week in some states. Supposedly shot in his backyard in one day, it has already had over 40,000 views. Our kudos to the politically correct actor.
Read More | Declare Yourself via Filibuster Soup
Gallery: Leonardo Encourages Voting Online
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