Geekly Update August 10

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Back to school shoppers living in 15 select states and D.C. will be able to take advantage of tax holidays this month. Most of them include items such as clothing, footware, and general school supplies. The good news is that this might be the time to buy a computer and/or software as they also qualify in certain states. Make sure you check for tax holidays in your area as certain restrictions apply, such as city taxes and times of the sales.

Firefox passed the 1 billion download mark last Friday. Since its debut in 2004, the browser has come a long way, and is now available in 75 languages. In honor of the event, they launched the site One Billion Plus You. You'll find a link to Firefox 3.5, which they say is twice as fast as Firefox 3, and ten times as fast as Firefox 2. Sounds like a good reason to upgrade. Oh, and here's another: YouTube is apparently phasing out support for "older browsers" and is encouraging people to upgrade to Firefox 3.5, Google Chrome or IE8. It's still not clear what the timeframe is, or whether other versions of Firefox and/or IE7 will be supported by YouTube.

The iLounge has announced that Apple has released its 3.0.1 OS Update that should solve the SMS vulnerability problem. Those with 2G, 3G and 3GS can download the whopping 280MB update from iTunes.

In the beginning, there was sheet music. Then came singles and albums with 12 tunes on each. But now that that iPods and other MP3 players have the ability to cycle singular tunes rather than entire albums, you can play DJ and mix and match your own collections. The approach by musicians to music has changed as evidenced by Beck’s Guero. In an interview with Wired, he talked about what he calls a 'multimedia experiment.' "Artists can and should approach making an album as an opportunity to do a series of releases," says Beck. "One that's visual, one that has alternate versions, and one that's something the listener can participate in or arrange and change. It's time for the album to embrace the technology."

Nikon's Coolpix S100PJ is mini entertainment in the guise of a camera. Not only does it have a 5x wide angle, Zoom-NIKKOR Glass Lens and 12.1 megapixels for prints of up to 16 x 20", it is the planet's first to include a tiny built-in projector so that you can embarrass family and friends instantly. At a price of $429.95, the cam also features a 5-way VR Image Stabilization System and a Smart Portrait System with red eye fix, blink warning, skin softening and other error correction.

Sony is finally coming out with its own netbook. The VAIO W Series has a high-res 1366 x 768, LED backlit 10.1" display, an isolated keyboard, touch pad and mouse keys and the ability to view to pages at once. Available in brown, white or pink, it also features a 160GB hard drive with Windows XP, a built-in webcam and microphone and will retail for about $500.00 beginning next month.

Last Thursday morning, Twitter announced on its blog that is was the target of a denial-of-service attack. While it had been mostly taken care of by the afternoon, it was an effort to disrupt online services for customers and users. Facebook also had its share of problems as the site AllFacebook reported that many features were unavailable and that there were issues with loading friend request pages.

On a related note, I found a great site if you are having problems connecting with one and want to know if it is working. The "http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com" does exactly what it says. Unless THAT site is down... :-)