The HP Magic Giveaway!



HPN80175_blog_300x250_v4.jpg-430x360Our biggest giveaway ever is now underway. Geek News Central and 49 other sites will each be giving away $6000.00 dollars in HP Prizes. This site along with the 49 others will be giving you a chance to win during the HP Magic Giveaway!

The list of prizes are impressive. The chances to win are many. But the most important factor for this contest is that you listen to this coming Friday’s edition of the Geek News Central Podcast for the details on how you can win.

Here are the list of prizes that I will give away to one lucky winner.

This is a great opportunity for a single listener of my podcast to win the prize package of the year. More details to follow here shortly.

Notice: This contest is sponsored by Hewlett Packard!


My Take on the Justin.tv Suicide



Over the last few days, more information has come out about the teen suicide viewed by hundreds of people on Justin.tv. The situation is sad, and was likely avoidable, but I’m going to resist blaming the people watching on the internet for letting it happen.

The young man in question, Abraham Biggs, was obviously troubled, and had more than once threatened to commit suicide, both in his real life and in his online activities. He had even attempted suicide at least twice, but had been stopped both times. The only people who knew for sure what Abraham was going through was his his own family and those that surrounded him in real life.

While it is tragic that this had to happen with an audience, much of the audience in question had heard the same threats from Abraham in the past, and did not believe he was serious about actually committing suicide. When he took pills, his viewers didn’t know if it was a handful of relatively harmless tylenol, or something much more sinister. Since there had been such a game of “the boy who cried wolf” about Abraham’s activities over the previous 2 years, it is not really all that surprising that people watching his live feed did not believe he was actually going to go through with his threat.

To blame those watching from afar is to misplace our anger. Those who had the most interest and knowledge about Abraham’s condition were his own family and close real-life friends. Even they did not realize how serious Abraham was, or he wouldn’t have ended up committing suicide in front of hundreds of strangers who only had their online experiences with him as background material.

I agree that it is tragic, and that Abraham should have received the help he needed when he needed it. But to blame an Internet audience pushes it too far, in my opinion. How many times are we hoaxed on the Internet every day, by all manner of pranksters with all manner of intentions? How many articles do we read in any given day that are not accurate? Most of us take the Internet with the proverbial grain of salt; it is only as real as we allow it to be, and most of us don’t give it a whole lot of reality in the total scheme of things.

I feel badly for Abraham’s family, and his close real-life friends, who now have to grieve this incredible loss. I’m sure the people that were watching, now that they know Abraham went through with his threat, are suffering as well. But to blame anyone in this case is misplaced. Abraham was responsible for his own behavior, and the final blame for his activities have to fall on him and him alone.

All that being said, if someone threatens suicide, please believe them and get them the help they need. There are Life Crisis and Suicide Hotlines all over the United States, and if you have a friend, coworker, acquaintance, or family member who expresses thoughts of suicide, then do your best to attempt to get them help in the quickest way possible. You could save their life.


Stop Giving Me Software I Don’t Need



Every day, it seems, when I boot up my computers, each one wants me to update iTunes and add Safari. It doesn’t matter how many times I say no, and click quit, every day the stupid install window keeps coming back up. And there is no way to permanently turn this off. At least, not that I’ve found.

Java wants to do the same thing. We cannot run the latest Java here at work because it breaks one of our enterprise systems that are critical to business functions. Fortunately, you can remove the Java Updater from the control panel on most machines to make the annoying popup telling you there’s a new install of Java not pop up every day. But every once in a while, that updater seems to reinstall itself on my machine and I have to delete it again.

My annoyance today is the Sandisk Cruzer. It comes with the U3 operating system installed, and self-installs on any machine you plug the device into. This tiny operating system then gives you tools you don’t need, like copy and paste, explore. On a college campus with locked down computers, these Sandisk Cruzers are the worst for confusing students. Of course, you can remove the U3 operating system, but it takes several steps and a geekish know-how, so not everyone who buys one of these devices knows how to remove the operating system so it works like a normal thumb drive. Worse yet, older Cruzers do not allow removal of the U3 operating system, only the newer ones do. Even a format won’t take care of the problem, as the U3 software sits in a hidden file that is difficult to access.

I want software and hardware companies to stop telling me what I need, and trying to automatically install their software into places without my permission. I want them to stop hiding this stuff, make it an option rather than a necessity, and when I say no, it remembers that I said no and never ask me again.

Much of this stuff is a huge waste of time for tech workers that are just trying to get people back up and running as quickly as possible.


The importance of choice



I got back from holiday this week to discover that the work on my kitchen and bathroom was far from the completed state it was supposed to be. Considering that we left the house to avoid being without these facilities it is very annoying. The upshot of this is that the family is now stationed at my father-in-laws house. This is not a hotbed of new technology. Until I go back to work and pick up my 3G card I am forced to revert to dial-up for my Internet access.

Just getting online this way proved to be a challenge. The modem in my laptop has never been used. Luckily I’m a pack rat so I still had the driver CD in my case. With the modem making sounds and dialing my home number I only needed to work out what number to actually dial. I tried calling my broadband provider, no luck there. I also tried my phone provider as they might have a dial-up service. They did and would let me use it if I signed up for a 1 year plan at the bargain price of 75 dollars. Finally I tried my work helpdesk and found that our VPN supplier has a dial-up option.

So with a tortuously slow dial up connection I can only use when no-one wants to use the phone I am effectively still off-net and finding it very frustrating. It is serving as a great illustration for me though of how our opinions of a situation are affected by the power we have over that situation. The previous weeks I had been offline by choice and did not feel stressed in the least. After my first hour trying to get online yesterday and I was cursing and things went downhill from there. On an objective level I was more connected than I had been, only now my lack of access was not by my own choice. Maybe I’ll leave the family here and go back home. I’m sure the neighbors will let me use their bathroom. I am actually looking forward to getting to work on Monday to get an Internet hit.

I did have a nostalgic moment when my father in law picked up the phone and complained it was making strange noises. Actually he cursed it out in Italian, but it still dropped my connection. And for some strange reason every time I connect I expect to hear Todd start speaking.


Our Biggest Prize Giveaway Ever!



Folks you are going to want to pay attention to Geek News Central over the next 3–4 days as we have a promotion that is forthcoming that is simply going to blow you away.

If you are not subscribed to my Podcast you will need to listen to win. How to win the multiple thousands of dollars in prizes will be announced on the show. One very lucky listener anywhere in the world is going to win a fantastic prize. I cannot wait to reveal what we will be giving away.

Oh and there is a special twist to this as well that we will reveal in the next 3–4 days. Someone is going to have an amazing Christmas!


GNC-2008-11-21 #426 Interesting Mix of Content Tonight



Very serious discussion at the end of the show about the Justin.tv suicide. Please folks make sure you take care of one another. Very stressful times we are in we need to take care of one another more than ever.

Please Support my Show Sponsors!:
[Save 10% off on any order at GoDaddy.com!] Use Code Todd
[Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days at GoToMeeting.com/techpodcasts. No credit card needed.]

Twitter Me http://www.twitter.com/geeknews
My Facebook Profile
FriendFeed GNC Room!!
Comments to 619-342-7365 e-mail to geeknews@gmail.com

Special Event. Go to this Link fill out info at Top of the Page, then in Local People section put “Todd Cochrane” “Best NewsCaster”” lets see if New Media can beat Old Media!

Listener Links:
Justin.TV Suicide
MySpace Trial

Show Notes:
iPhone 3g Proxy Sim Hack
Scary Times with Auto Industry
Equadoren Dwarfs Genetics No Cancer
Endeavor Night Launch
Verizon Storm Betting the Farm
Ultra Wideband Radio
Vitamin Research Shocking
Apple HDCP in MacBook
Yahoo 5 Biggest Mistakes
Samsung 256gb SSD!!!
Sprint hey you wanna Quit
New Style Christmas Tree
Apple TV Upgrade Breaks Boxee
Gamestop Black Friday Ad
Nokia Damage Test LaB
ISS Smell Detector
Staples Black Friday Ad
Neuros Latest Offerings
Browser Compatibility Test
Google Search Wiki
Microsoft IE8
Teen Social Web Utilization
Using Outlook 2007 to Read Feeds?
ISS Eva 1
DOD USB Drive Ban
ISS EVA #2
Glacier found on Mars
MySpace Trial goes off track
Lets Clone a Mamouth
New Guest at ISS but will be Hungry
10 Free Songs Each Month with Zune

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.


Broadcaster Dies on Justin.tv.



I remember scanning though the uStream channels one night. A young girl, head wrapped in a veil but exposing her breasts to the ustream public. I also remember other issues of questionable content online or even on TV.

Apparently on Justin.tv, a broadcaster was pushed by his viewers to take a high dose of pills. He did so and died. The 19 year old was pronounced by the Broward County medical examiner.

While this is a travesty, it also sounded like this kid tried to do this before. Whether he was looking for a way out via video or not is hard to say. The end result though is all too real.

Hopefully this will not impede on Justin.tv, ustream, Seasmic or any of the other sites out there. Unfortunate as this may be, it was also bound to happen. Hundreds of feeds out there and some of them are not being viewed by anyone.

There should be a way for these companies to monitor what is out there. But once again – hundreds of videos. Some of them are here and gone in a single episode.

In a perfect world this wouldn’t happen. We don’t live in a perfect world.