There’s a new computer program that knows all about your history - but don’t worry, it’s not going to report those parking violations. It cares about the evolution of your DNA. And it’s open source.

How Big Can a Black Hole Grow?

Giant black holes sit at the cores of virtually all galaxies, and are thought to have grown from smaller seed black holes that swallowed lots of matter.

GNU turns 25

Today the GNU project celebrates its quarter-century. It was on 27 September 1983 that MIT slacker Richard M Stallman made his announcement that he intended to create a complete Unix-like system that would be completely open and hackable, giving anyone the right to modify and distribute the work.

Mozilla CEO uncertain about future relationship with Google

The simple fact that Google is now pursuing its own browser could leave Mozilla scratching its head. And quite apparently, Mozilla has not quite figured out how its relationship with Google will work out over the next few years.

7 Really Awesome Things About Google Chrome

After playing with it for a while, it’s too early to say that I’m blown away, but I must admit that I’ve stumbled onto some impressive feats which show that the team that built Chrome was intelligent, mature and forward-thinking. Here they are, in no particular order.

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Basically, I had two choices…either I get the wireless card to connect to the wireless broadband network or use my new Blackberry to do it. Both options give me broadband access on my laptop, but the wireless card route would have required a two year contract, plus the purchase of the card. Also, the access charge was like $59.99 per month or something like that.

I decided to go with the VZAccess software that came with the Blackberry. I called Verizon Wireless support and had them turn on the broadband feature. It is $15 per month with no contract in addition to my existing one. Since it is a feature, I am able to turn it on and off as I please. The guy was like, “Ok, give it 15 minutes and you should be good to go.” That’s it. I installed the software, plugged the phone in and hit connect. It works great.

Both plans are limited to 5Gb per month. I think that should be ok for sitting on the patio of the Spring House on Block Island. I suppose I could occasionally look over to see the waves in the ocean.

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So, let me tell you about my experience.

I have many email addresses, all forwarding to one Gmail address. It makes life a bit more simple. When I got the phone, I went through the quick setup. After that, I went in and configured an email address. It was basically inputting the email address and password. After that, I logged into Gmail and clicked “settings.” I clicked “Fowarding and POP/IMAP.” There, I enabled POP.

Then, I sent myself an email. Low and behold, I received it in my Gmail account and my Blackberry. Truly, I thought this was amazing. Then, I clicked delete on the Blackberry. I had the option of deleting the message from just the phone or both the phone and the Gmail account. I deleted it from both the phone and the Gmail account. A few seconds later, I noticed it disappear from Gmail. Again, I was stunned.

After that, I did the whole thing again, except this time, I deleted the message from Gmail first. I waited and waited for the message to disappear from the Blackberry. After a little research on the web (and customer support), I found out this is not possible. The messages stay on the Blackberry until they are deleted from there. Why? I have no idea. This is going to be kind of a pain in the butt, but I’ll figure something out. I did a search for “blackberry curve won’t reconcile” and I think I read somewhere that if you are using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (or something like that), you can reconcile your messages with your email client. Until I find some information, I don’t know how to reconcile the email on the Blackberry with Gmail, or Outlook for that matter.

The other issue I was having was that whenever I would send an email from the Blackberry or from Gmail, I would receive a copy of that email on the Blackberry. I needed to find out how to stop that. I called customer support and, while on hold, did a search for “blackberry getting copies of sent email” on Google. I found a nice website that instructed me to login to the Verizon Wireless Blackberry Internet Service (BIS). No one seems to tell you these things from the company. At this point, customer support picked up and we both created an account and created a filter for my email address. Basically, the filter stops my own email address from sending me email. This forum post will tell you exactly how to do that.

Otherwise, everything is very smooth. The Blackberry syncs up with my Outlook 2007 so I can have my tasks, contact list and calendar on both my PC and the Blackberry. This is not too much different from the Treo 700w.

I’ll let you know how it works on the streets when I have had it for a while.

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Microsoft’s acquisition of Powerset signals the building of a future when the world could have access to virtual “software agents” who “roam” across the Web, taking care of the day-to-day hassles of humankind. It’s called a “Semantic Web” and it really could change the Internet at a fundamental level.

Move Your Business from Windows to Linux

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10 Tips for Securing Linux Desktops

You might find these suggestions to be pure common sense, but maybe you’ll see a means of security you never thought of before. If you’re a new Linux user, these tips are a great place to start to ensure that your Linux experience is a good one.

Social Media Sites that Deserve Your Affection

There are so many websites out their that serve the same purpose as Digg, Twitter, and Myspace. The question is; which of these websites are actually worth your time? Since time is one of the most valuable resources that us humans try to utilize, I’ll explain some of the social media sites that are worth using, and why.

Why Don’t More People Use OpenOffice?

Why don’t more people use OpenOffice, the free and open source alternative to Microsoft Office? Microsoft has spent years and dollars engineering creative ways to keep people using its costly software and preventing them from switching to OpenOffice — that’s one explanation, writes Lou Dolinar.

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The simple dictionary definition of “Twitter” is “microblogging/social networking platform that places a 140- character limit on each individual post/tweet.” However, describing Twitter thusly would fail to encapsulate the power of this new omnipresent medium. So, instead here are 101 examples of how Twitter members regularly use the service.

Community Powered Local Search - This Could Actually Work

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10 Cool Websites We Recommend

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GigaOM Favs: 10 Blogs You Should Follow

Om Malik shares the comprised results of a twitter survey and personal contributions of his team members. The results are definitely useful!

Finally the definition of Web 2.0 & 3.0

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I didn’t think anything of it. Then, a little while later, I tried to access some websites that I have on one of my servers. I couldn’t get on. I tried again a little while later and still couldn’t get on. I asked Laura if she was able to get to the sites and she said no. She told me that she was working on one of them when she couldn’t get to it anymore. I figured the hosting company’s monitoring “red light” would’ve gone off by now and the server would be brought back on line by them. Nothing. I decided to submit a support ticket.

The hosting company responded to the support ticket informing me that they could access the server and all the sites just fine. I then called my sister down in Chapel Hill, NC to see if she could log on to the sites. She could access them just fine too. The strange thing is that I was able to see all the websites on my other server like nothing was wrong.

I responded to the hosting company ticket and let them know that I could not access the servers from only my location, but it seems like the rest of the world was looking at the sites without issue. I felt so left out. They asked me for my IP address so they could check the firewall. That was fine. Then, they asked me to do a traceroute to the server. I did that and the connection timed out at the server. Then, they did a traceroute from the server back to me, and the connection was timing out at my location.

This was all getting kind of odd. They asked that I power cycle the modem. I did and the problem was solved. I was able to access the server again.

What I find puzzling is that I was only blocked from one server in the world…mine. How did this happen. After thinking for a while, I remember right at the moment of the power hiccup, the issue began. Could being on a website at the time of a power surge (or failure) make your modem block you from the website (server) you were looking at?

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I already have two people helping me out these days. They manage all the websites, which is nice because it loosens me up to run the business. It has worked out very well so far. Now I need to take the next step. I am looking for someone (preferably an English major) who LOVES to write and do research. The main words are creativity and professionalism. This person must be able to write better than me, because if they can’t, I might as well do it all myself. I would love to read something this person writes and give them a pat on the back and say job well done. This person needs to be thinking about what they are going to write the next day while they are laying in bed falling asleep. Have you ever turned the light back on to take notes so you wouldn’t forget that great idea? Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

If you don’t know me, I am going to let you in on a little secret. I am kind of hard to please. I do many things related to business myself and have gotten very good at them. It’s rare that I come across someone who knocks my socks off. When it comes to writing, I notice all the missing commas and off punctuation. It’s not easy noticing all this stuff, but that’s the way momma raised me.

Anyway, if you, or anyone you know is looking for some cold, hard cash and is an awesome writer, please let me know. You are going to need to send me samples of your work so I can look at them. It would be fantastic if you knew all about keywords and how to write for the web. It would also be fantastic if you were a marketing major (as well as an English major) who has experience with the web.

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Anyway, since I am blazing fast now, I decided to check out my actual upload and download speed. How did I do this? Well, I hopped over to SpeedTest.net and did my thing. You can visit them and follow the very simple instructions to check your own broadband speed. Here, take a look at my results…

I think that’s pretty good, but I don’t have anything to compare it to. I’ve never done this with any of my earlier connections. Now I wish I had. Boy, there’s got to be someone out there who can tell me if thi is fast or not…

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The guys from Comcast just left. They switched our services from residential TV, cable and internet to just residential TV and cable and now business internet. They did a bunch of stuff, but the main thing was to set up another modem downstairs, alongside the old one and the router.

I already see a speed increase with downloading my files. I just happen to be in the middle of a big download, and strangely enough, the connection didn’t break…it just got faster. I have yet to set up the router to work with the static IP, but have found the support page that tells me how to do it. We are going out for a little while and I’ll give it a shot when we get back.

One thing I am going to do is the create a screen capture of the original settings, just in case I screw up. I am also going to have Hannigan’s number on hand. Hopefully he is familiar with Linksys routers.

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When I got to the store, I browsed through the equipment. I had some stuff in my hand, but then started really looking through everything else. As I understand it, there are a few different speeds and ranges that routers and cards offer. There is the “b” speed that came out first. Then, there is the “g” speed that is now a few years old and a lot faster than the “b.” I thought that was as fast as things got, so that is what I was looking for. After reading boxes for a bit, I realized there is now a “n” speed. This offers 4X the range and 12X the speed of “g.” That’s what I’m talkin’ bout.

I bought the WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter here…

…that came with this massive antenna…

Now, that’s no wimpy little antenna that sticks out of the back of my computer. That sucker sits on top.

The recommended product to go with this card is the WRT300N Wireless-N Broadband Router, which I got too. Now, remember, this router offers 4X the range and 12X the speed of its predecessor. It will also wash your hair in the morning. Here’s a pic…

I hooked everything up and it works well. I like the fact that there is a security feature that stops my neighbors from using my far reaching bandwidth. If you want to connect to my network, you need a long password key. I already set all the computers up with it. I don’t notice any extra speed with my current DSL because I was hardwired into my old router, but once we make the switch to cable, we should see a big jump.

Please write your opinions on this topic, I will try not to argue.

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