....& the ONLY change with the 'updated' screen capture(which was ONLY an update, NOT a new submission) is that it was a 'capture on a Windows 7 OS + a new OD background....wow Dog...you REALLY do hold grudges for a LONG ass time considering I haven't been on WC since you got all hysterical over the 'Sarah Palin Is the Cancer of the Republican Party Thread', that was locked before Barack was elected POTUS....lol....(ya make it REALLY difficult to participate with ANY pleasure, never mind support this 'community....& I JUST renewed my ObjectDesktop subscription -the word petty springs to mind..... )

Things started quite well, with the curiosity factor. To many Europeans there is something exotic about snowy Alaska. Viewers and readers were intrigued by the shots of the outdoorswoman with her eyes squinting fixed along a gun barrel, the thought of a vice president who had once been a beauty queen.

Columnists were approving that here, for once, was a politician in the higher reaches who probably actually knew the price of a loaf and a pint of milk. Women writers in particular responded warmly to her joke about the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom --"Lipstick."

But soon the carping began, and it was not confined to what U.S. rightists like to dismiss as the "liberal media elite."

We were, the Irish Times warned, "just a heartbeat away from the biggest half-baked Alaskan nightmare." Britain's Financial Times said his selection of vice president raised serious questions about John McCain's judgment and added: "The Palin appointment is yet more proof of the way that abortion still dominates American politics."

Prominence was given to an onslaught on Palin's environmental and animal rights record by veteran ex-film star Brigitte Bardot. Spain's left wing El Pais described Palin as "a figure who comes from the America that is farthest removed from and incomprehensible to the European spectator."

Since then the scorn has been constant, the jokes unrelenting, the YouTube exposure devastating. But let us dispel one bit of nonsense from the start. It is nothing to do with Sarah Palin being of the feminine gender.

Europeans have been astonished that America has never had a woman president. After all we in Britain elected the redoubtable Margaret Thatcher three times as prime minister. Norway did the same with Gro Harlem Brundtland. Germany has a female chancellor, Angela Merkel, even if she does tend to underline the remark I once heard from a British Ambassador: "A German joke is no laughing matter."

Nicolas Sarkozy's socialist challenger for the French presidency was the elegant Segolene Royal.

When Sarah Palin first became McCain's running mate there were even headlines in some British media suggesting that America had found its own Margaret Thatcher.

That certainly was overdoing it. So much so that after 20 years close up reporting on the original I can't resist the temptation to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen's comment when Dan Quayle unwisely compared himself to John F. Kennedy. "I've interviewed Margaret Thatcher, Governor Palin and I can tell you that you are no Margaret Thatcher."

No, the problem for Sarah Palin in terms of her acceptance in Europe has been the deep wave of Obamamania that had already swept through the European media before her appointment, the self-inflicted wounds of her early media appearances and the apparent box-ticking cynicism of her choice.

That was summed up for some by the appearance of those women at McCain rallies wearing T-shirts emblazoned "Small Town Gun-Totin Christians for McCain."

For Europeans, who were alienated during George W. Bush's first four years by a president who showed little interest in their continent and patently cared nothing for the opinions of its leaders, the turning point probably came with the appearance on the Katie Couric show when Palin confessed to not having had a passport until 2006.

Europeans are appalled at the thought that someone who wants to be vice president of the most powerful nation on earth had so little interest in the rest of a world which is so vitally affected by the decisions of the man, or woman, in the White House.

And they are not much impressed by explanations that her parents did not have the money to send her on a fact-finding tour of the world as a student. Anybody with the money to own an SUV, hunt moose and drive a snowmobile has the money to travel.

It was the American Mark Twain who reminded us all that "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness." If Sarah Palin wanted to be loved in Europe she should have got about a bit.

The negative general consensus about the debate is summed up tidily in the Times of London's "Gnawingly dull debate won't halt the Obama Tide":

Senator Obama – you may be shocked to hear - promised tax cuts for working people; universal health care, an end to financial deregulation, the winding down of the war in Iraq, a renewed commitment to the war in Afghanistan and an America that is liked by the world. Senator McCain – in case you hadn’t heard – is a Republican who will continue the failed policies of George Bush.

For his part Senator McCain insisted he was – wait for it – a reformer who would reform Washington, end corruption on Wall Street, drill for oil, win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and robustly defend America’s interests. Senator Obama, he gravely reminded the audience, could not be trusted because he didn’t have the experience or the judgment.

Most media outlets, it seems, are peeved at the fact that the candidates strictly stuck to their talking points, despite the fact that doing so mitigates the strength of a debate, making it sanitary and common. It's a reasonable contention; but we've got one question: what campaign has everyone else been following up until now?

Sarah Palin dodged every single question in the VP debate, choosing instead to rattle off prepackaged quotes like she was performing a 10th grade book report. Where was the bored media's ire then? Instead, David Brooks of the New York Times said Palin "held up her end of an energetic debate that gave voters a direct look at two competing philosophies." WTF? What philosophy was that, Brooksy? She gave a shout-out to third graders! Sorry to break it to you, everyone, but our politicians now feel that they are above speaking to us honestly. And you know why they think they can do that? Because we don't really make a big deal out of it when they do, because we sit on our asses and allow columnists in the "paper of record" to call them "direct" when we know damn well that they're anything but.

And is everyone authentically shocked that the presidential candidates rarely veer away from their main points (ie Obama: "I was once poor," McCain: "I'm not a sissy lawyer") anymore? This is the final month before the most important election in decades, one in which the slightest verbal or physical mistake has been uploaded to YouTube instantly. Nobody's going to risk shooting from the hip and ending up with a macaca-gate on their hands—or worse, another Palin-style meltdown about Alaskan airspace. For the next thirty days, Obama and McCain are like spiders: more scared of you than you are of them.

And another thing…

The CNN coverage of the debates, with the charts and the graphs and the viewer response lines? That crap needs to end. Have we really reached a point in our zeitgeist where people can't sit and watch two of the most powerful men in the whole world talk about decisions that will effect billions of dollars and people without video games cluttering the screen? Are we that gone on sugar and Ritalin and cocaine?

By framing the debates in useless nonsense, CNN and their ilk are not only distracting voters from what's being said, they're also distracting them from stuff that's actually important to watch when attempting to discern what kind of person a candidate is, their verbal patterns and subtle physical tics.

It's called paying attention, and it's how millions of Americans at bars every night choose who they're going to do the bonedance with. Why can't everyone apply the same level of interest to two men they really don't want to be cornholed by.

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who has expressed doubts about Sarah Palin's readiness to serve as vice president, said this week the Alaska governor represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party

From CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand

Magnaville - dubbed Canadaville by residents, was created by Frank Stronach, chairman of auto parts company Magna International. The magnate bought 369 hectares of land, outside Simmesport, a small town in Louisiana, 240 kilometres north of New Orleans in an effort on the part of the magnate to help people displaced by Hurricane Katrina which hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Dennis Mills, president of the Magnaville project, appeared on Canada AM on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007 to discuss the development

 WASHINGTON — The end of summer means back to school for millions of college students across North America. But welcome week won't be much fun for at least 500 students at some of the best U.S. schools.

Waiting on campus for these chosen ones are special "prelitigation" settlement offers from the Recording Industry Association of America.

The latest flurry of legal letters is part of a crackdown by the major music labels, targeting heavy downloaders who use powerful university computer networks to swap songs.

The recipients - at schools ranging from tiny Bryn Mawr College to sprawling UCLA - have an "opportunity" to resolve legal claims at a "discounted rate" - typically about $3000 (U.S.) - before they're hit with a formal copyright lawsuit, according to the RIAA.

The message: Settle now or face hefty legal bills down the road. Going after a few hundred students may seem like legal overkill, but new research suggests piracy has become a threat, not just to the industry, but to the overall U.S. economy.

The annual drain on the economy includes $12.5-billion in output, 71,060 jobs and $422-million in federal, state and local taxes, according to a new study by Stephen Siwek of the Institute for Policy Innovation.

The true cost of sound-recording piracy far exceeds its impact on U.S. producers and distributors ..." the study concludes.

 "Piracy harms not only the owners of intellectual property, but also U.S. consumers and taxpayers." Indeed, Mr. Siwek argues that the direct effects - lost CD sales for retailers and record companies - understates the true cost by half.

He says a multiplier effect swells the final tally as the industry's losses ripple through the economy via lost jobs and wages.

 "This report echoes the sentiment of other economic analyses, namely that there exists a tangible harm from music piracy," says intellectual property lawyer Alan Fisch of Kaye Scholer LLP in Washington, D.C. "Efforts to reduce music piracy must continue to focus on both the supply of and the demand for bootlegged works.

" The industry isn't relying solely on litigation, which began with its pursuit of Napster and other peer-to-peer computer networks seven years ago.

 On the supply side, the industry is belatedly getting its head around the idea that it can be a player in the distribution of digital music, not just a purveyor of hard-copy CDs.

 Six years after the iPod and more than a decade after computer users started swapping digital music files over networks, the digital music market seems to be slowly opening up. Universal Music Group, the leading music company, announced earlier this month that it has begun "testing" digital sales of copy-protection-free songs in MP3 format through major online retailers, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon.com and Rhapsody.

The arrangement means buyers will be able to load those files onto any device they like. Unlike Apple Inc.'s iTunes online store, the music can be played on any MP3 and will cost a few cents less a song.

 Separately, RealNetworks said last week that it's merging its subscription-based Rhapsody music service with MTV's Urge music store and Verizon Wireless's V-Cast, which offers song downloads for cellphones.

All this opens up new, legal ways for people to acquire and own music. But the industry is already very late to the game. MP3 players, cellphones, fast Internet, and cheap mass storage devices have revolutionized the way people listen to, share and acquire music.

And record companies continue to maintain roadblocks to buying music legally. Most songs purchased anywhere other than on iTunes can't be played on iPods - the dominant MP3 player - because of embedded copyright protections.

Consumers may also find the latest Universal test unsatisfying. It only involves songs from Universal artists, and even then, only part of the company's vast collection.

And it's only for a limited time (until January, 2008) as the company assesses the impact on piracy and sales. For years, the recording industry focused almost exclusively on trying to stamp out piracy by suppressing demand through lawsuits. And it's their right to continue to do so.The

industry's dilemma might be a lot more manageable today if it hadn't been so late to embrace digital music as the innovation that it is, rather than a threat to be thwarted at every turn.  

article by BARRIE MCKENNA From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

hey : trying to back up custom emoticons acquired chatting w friends on Messenger + no search of .gifs, local settings, documents + settings, emoticons in 'search' or in the 3 program groups related to Messenger revealed where these images are stored after 'adding'....any direction in this regard would be greatly appreciated as I would be at a loss if ever upgrading or 'restoring' to ever replace some of them w/o an existing backup...thx

When I was just out of college in the late 1980's, I made a lot of computer house calls in New York (all right, apartment calls). During those years, I learned an awful lot about people and the dichotomy between their public and private personalities. 

One client in particular has never left my mind. She was a wealthy woman with an astonishingly huge apartment -- and an astonishingly sour personality.Whenever menials like me were around, she played a game whose name, I now realize, was "You're Wrong."

It began the moment she answered the doorbell. "Well, don't just stand there like a mannequin. I'm not paying you $25 an hour to just stand there. Go inside."

So, mumbling apologies, I entered the apartment and set down my bag next to the computer desk.

"Not there, not there!" she shrieked. "You'll get dirt on the carpet! Put it out there in the pantry. Have some respect for people's things!"

If I then reached to turn on the computer, it was, "Don't do it yourself! How do you expect me to learn if you do everything for me? Don't treat me like I'm some kind of idiot!"

But if, on the next visit, I invited her to turn on the machine herself, she shot back, "How should I know how to turn it on? If I knew how to use the computer already, I wouldn't be paying you $25 an hour, now would I?"

No matter what you said, on any subject, no matter how neutral, Mrs. Cronkwitz could find fault with it. (Yes, this was the same woman who berated me for suggesting that her daisy-wheel printer couldn't print graphics.) Her simple rule was: "If you can't say something negative, don't say it at all."

I think about Mrs. Cronkwitz's game every time I read the comments on any online forum that accepts anonymous postings, like Digg.com or YouTube. It's all a big contest to see who can spit with the most venom on any product, any idea, any topic.

Just once, I'd love to see how many products, ideas and topics these people come up with themselves. (Actually, I already know: None, because most of 'em are still in high school.)

All of which brings me to the Kathy Sierra story, which The Times recently covered.

In short, a computer-book author named Kathy Sierra wrote, on her blog, about whether it's OK to delete nasty comments left by your readers. Anonymous commenters descended on her with vicious, violent and even sexual comments and threats, complete with vulgar Photoshopped images of Ms. Sierra.

Anyway, Tim O'Reilly, the publisher of her computer books (and mine, by the way), responded with a proposal on his own blog: a voluntary, seven-step blogger code of conduct.

There's room for argument over some of his points -- true to form, most bloggers' first reaction was to criticize it -- but one point, I think, is unassailable:

"3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments."

That's it, baby. People don't go to psychotic extremes when their names or e-mail addresses are visible.

Just look at the reviews for books and products on Amazon.com. They prove that it's perfectly possible to express dislike of something without spewing hatred. And if you've signed your name, you're a *heck* of a lot less likely to do that.

For the record, my assistant and I moderate the comments on my own blog. Criticism, snarkiness and anti-Pogue comments are all permitted. The only things we delete are off-topic political diatribes, vulgar language, and spam. Yes, spam; you have no idea how many spammers seem to think that a tech blog is the place to find customers for Cialis and Viagra.

(OK, Amazon deletes vulgar and abusive comments, too. But I'll bet that it amounts to only a small percentage of submissions, just as we delete only about 1 in 1,000 Pogue's Posts comments for offensiveness.)

The quality of the discussion at nytimes.com/pogue is very, very high, as a number of readers have noted with delight. I think the biggest reason is that on this blog, readers don't feel anonymous. Your comment is posted under a nickname, but you're nonetheless aware that we know who you are; after all, you've signed up for free nytimes.com registration. Plenty of Pogue's Post readers even use their real names as their nicknames.

And why not? If you're proud of your thoughts, why would you be afraid to be associated with them?

Yes, I know, there are exceptions; certain blog topics have good reasons for offering anonymity (spouse-abuse forums, HIV sites and so on). I'm not suggesting that *all* blogs eliminate anonymity.

Nor am I suggesting censorship. As Tim O'Reilly put it: "I'm not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so.

"There are many real-world analogies. Shock radio hosts encourage abusive callers; a mainstream talk radio show like NPR's Talk of the Nation wouldn't hesitate to cut someone off who started spewing hatred and abuse. Frat parties might encourage drunken lewdness, but a party at a tech conference would not. Setting standards for acceptable behavior in a forum you control is conducive to free speech, not damaging to it."

I'm just observing that the blogs with the best and most intelligent discussion are the ones where postings aren't anonymous -- and vice versa. Over and over again, the sites that permit anonymous pot shots are the ones that seem populated solely by Mrs. Cronkwitz and her clones.

* * *

(P.S.-- On a totally different, much cheerier subject, a number of readers have asked whatever became of "It's All Geek to Me," the six-episode TV series I wrote and hosted that was supposed to air in April.

The show has finally been blessed with a firm broadcast schedule: Friday nights at 8 p.m., beginning May 18.

Each week, they'll air one new episode and one re-run, on two channels: Discovery HD and The Science Channel. Both of these channels require either a digital cable box -- you can upgrade to one through your cable company, if you haven't already -- or satellite. Whether the episodes will be available for Internet download hasn't yet been determined.)

...and you thought those people that set up roomfuls of dominos to knock over
were amazing. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film.
Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very
minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again.

The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they
were ready to change professions. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete
including full engineering of the sequence. In addition, it's two minutes
long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're
shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime.

However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in internet
history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in
"free viewings" (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this
commercial!).

When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it
immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.

There are six and only six hand-made Honda Accords in the world. To the
horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make
the film.

Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and
complete Honda Accord) is parts from those two cars.

The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda
executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics
have gotten.

They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real. Oh, and
about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield
wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing
automatically as soon as they become wet.

Artists revolt against CRIA policies

JACK KAPICA

Globe and Mail Update
The music recording industry will no longer be able to present the united front it claimed to have on copyright issues, after a group of prominent musicians and singers this morning announced an association whose philosophy is at odds with the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

The group, called the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, says they got together because the recording industry seldom speaks for recording artists.

"Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies," the coalition said in a statement released this morning, "but let's be clear: Lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists."

The new group's membership includes the Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman (co-founder of Blue Rodeo).

The group opposes demands of the recording industry for major changes in the Canadian Copyright Act. The former Liberal government had tabled an amendment to the act that was heavily influenced by demands from the recording industry.

The bill died on the order paper when the government fell, and the bill's champion, Liberal MP Sarmite Bulte, went down to defeat in the subsequent election amid accusations of catering to the CRIA.

In the wake of the bill, recording artists felt their views had been ignored by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, and sought to form a coalition that would represent their needs in the copyright debate.

The CMCC has a common goal of "having our voices heard about the laws and policies that affect our livelihoods.

"We are the people who actually create Canadian music. Without us, there would be no music for copyright laws to protect."

The CMCC says it's the government's responsibility to protect Canadian artists from exploitation, and calls for "a firm commitment to programs that support Canadian music talent, and a fresh approach to copyright law reform."

The coalition parts company with the recording industry in three major areas.

It calls the lawsuits the industry wants to launch against those who download music free from the Internet "destructive and hypocritical," and opposes any copyright reform that that would make it easier for the recording industry to sue the fans.

It condemns digital copyright protection measures as "risky and counterproductive," and opposes the criminalization of any attempt to circumvent them, a provision that exists in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, one of the world's most draconian pieces of intellectual-property law.

The CMCC also demands that any copyright reform should support the musicians and artists, not the record labels themselves.

The creation of the CMCC is not the first setback suffered by the Canadian Recording Industry Association recently. The independent label Nettwerk, which records Sarah McLachlan and the Barenaked Ladies, spoke out against CRIA's policy of suing people who share music files.

Six of Canada's leading independent record labels — Anthem Records, Aquarius Records, The Children's Group, Linus Entertainment, Nettwerk Records and True North Records — pulled out of the CRIA this month.

In a letter to CRIA president Graham Henderson, the six labels said that "it has become increasingly clear over the past few months that CRIA's position on several important music industry issues [is] not aligned with our best interests as independent recording companies.

"We do not feel that we can remain members given CRIA's decision to advocate solely on behalf of the four major foreign multi-national labels," the letter said.

The six companies then threw their support behind the Canadian Independent Record Production Association (CIRPA).

In another setback, the CRIA recently commissioned a study, conducted by the Pollara market-research group, on the downloading habits of Canadian music consumers. The study failed to prove that peer-to-peer file-sharing technology is devastating the music industry.

The Pollara study concluded that Internet downloading constitutes less than a third of the music on downloaders' computers, that downloaders use the downloaded versions as a sample before they decide to buy the music, and that the largest downloader demographic is also the largest music-buying demographic.

The CMCC was blunt in its criticism of the recording industry "has been suing our fans against our will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in our names .... The government should repeal provisions of the Copyright Act that allow labels to unfairly punish fans who share music for non-commercial purposes."

The government, the CMCC continued, "should not blindly implement decade-old treaties designed to give control to major labels and take choices away from artists and consumers."

It also says that consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice."