Microsoft set to lock down Office docs; enforced with encryption and DMCA

Ok, this is too much. Via Linux Journal I found an article in InformationWeek about MS's new Vista OS and how it will enable MS to criminalize open document readers and consequently kill open standards computing.

The gist of it is that Vista will enable Information Rights Management (IRM), a feature available since Office 2003, to control the hardware (yes, you read right -- see "trusted computing" below) and software required to open a document created with Office running on Vista while also allowing control over whether that document can be printed, edited, copied, forwarded or any number of other possibilities. These rights can even be "managed" remotely, though I imagine that would require being on a common MS network using Outlook or the network to obtain the document.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) is invoked by the use of encryption to enforce the IRM. In short, bypass the encrypted formatting and break the law. The IRM features can be incorporated with "trusted computing" principles to completely lock down the documents at the hardware level of your PC.

The InformationWeek article talks of losing open document standards, but the Linux Journal article predicts much more dire consequences: the possible forced obsolescence of Linux and other open standards-based OSes. If most of the computing world is standardized on Microsoft platforms and products and it is illegal to even duplicate MS functionality for common document use, how useful will Linux be?

If Microsoft successfully implements these "features" then it has truly missed the boat of the Internet with a capital "I." The value of the Internet is that it does not matter what client you use as long as it supports the common and public standards the network (i.e., "Internet") uses to move data around. Once documents created with Microsoft products can only be opened or manipulated using Microsoft-approved systems, we've reverted to the earliest Apple/IBM incompatibility headaches and corresponding lack of sharing, communication and creativity among users.

Successful implementation may also create a pseudo net neutrality advantage to Microsoft users. Imagine corporations, who are by the way huge users of MS products, which will not accept documents unless they are submitted in a protected MS Office format or will only make press releases or other company information available in that same protected format. Who cares if your Linux box has as much bandwidth as some other guy's Windows machine -- your Linux-created document simply isn't getting through.

Such a corporate lockdown is not unrealistic given the fact that corporations' IT departments like the consistent, easy-to-manage, standardized (ironic, no?) infrastructure that a MS network provides, plus Microsoft sells IRM as a "company asset" in its description of the feature. What corporation or IT manager does not want "Information privacy, control, and integrity" incorporated into network management?

Please read both of the articles mentioned in the first paragraph and become informed about what software and computing companies are doing. Even if you are only a Microsoft user you should be concerned about your shrinking choices and limits on your free use of your own property.

The new Blogger beta

Seeing as how this new beta version was declared "feature complete" as of November 2, I figured I'd jump in and convert. The process was easy, I just clicked on "Update my blog" from the old dashboard, signed in with a google account and the rest was all on google's end. The conversion took 3 to 4 minutes and I was notified at my gmail address when it was done.

So far things on the admin side look mostly similar, just more polished and with more features more easily managed. As far as I can tell, the blog's appearance to the outside world is identical to how it looked before. I look forward to organizing my posts by labels.

[UPDATE] The only suggestion I will make to potential converts is to consider whether you want to associate your new Blogger beta blog with a google account that is different from your primary gmail account. This is because unfortunately, when you sign out of Blogger beta you are signing out of your google accounts entirely, also logging you out of any other google services you are currently using.

Actually I just tried and confirmed, and this really sucks, that you can't be logged into two different google logins at the same time at all on the same computer. Well technically you can use a browser to monitor one gmail account and monitor a different gmail account via Gmail Notifier in your taskbar, but that's not really what we're talking about here. If you're like me you have gmail open all the time, you use google's personalized homepage, gcal and google maps often all at the same time, so inadvertently logging in and out of all of that is a hassle. It's best to have a separate google account solely for your Blogger beta blog so you only have to worry about that one thing.

I suppose you could use your main google/gmail account with Blogger beta so that you can stay logged into everything all the time. I hestiated to do that because I'm uncomfortable with my personal gmail data being so closely stacked in the "Google identity silo" with my blog posts.


Related post: Blogger beta hesitation

Kathy Griffin at the Crest

I'm not sure why I didn't post this earlier, but my girlfriend and I went to see Kathy Griffin here in Sacramento on December first. Griffin did two shows that night, and the later 10:00 show we went to lasted an hour and forty minutes! Great stuff, she is a hilarious stream-of-consciousness comic, mainly focusing on her interactions with "A" list celebrities as a self-proclaimed "D-lister." Topics ranged from Britney to Lohan, Clay "Gayken" (allegedly) to Kathy's parents behavior on her reality show on Bravo.

Interestingly, the stage at the show was completely bare except for a stool with several water bottles on it and a microphone stand. This is a 36' X 24' stage in a 975 person theater and the place was sold out. It made me realize just how difficult it must be to build up a routine to the level of being able to keep a paying audience entertained for a full show.

She'll be on tour in California through January 12th before heading to the Northwest and then east again if you'd like to catch a show.

Howard Stern TV media blitz this week

Stern is hitting the "Big 3" networks this week for a Sirius holiday promotional push.

Last night Stern was on Letterman's show (CBS).

Thursday night he will be on Conan O'Brien (NBC, 12:30a Friday, technically).

Friday night he will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC, 12:05a Saturday).

The Letterman appearance was cool. Howard was wearing a Santa robe with bare legs, and came bearing gifts. He gave Paul and Dave each a new Sirius Stiletto, the latest and greatest portable tuner/mp3 player from Sirius, and then gave everyone in the audience satellite radios with free three month subscriptions! No doubt a more basic model, but how cool is that?

Howard had stories about his and Beth's recent attendance at Bryant Gumbel's Christmas party, showed a video clip of Jeff the Drunk falling down, and talked about a few other things that have been going on since he moved to Sirius. Some more info is on Stern's site since they commented on it quite a bit today. Also, the Lateshow site has a transcript of the entire show. Apparently Regis Philbin heard that Dave actually shook Howard's hand backstage after the interview (a rare event as I believe both Howard and Dave are germophobic) and was so amazed by the occurrence that he may confront Dave about it when he is on Letterman tonight (Wed.).

Conan is great, though I think Howard is lukewarm about him. We'll have to see how the appearance goes. I'll be taping it for sure.

Let me just say that the official Conan O'Brien web site is woefully underutilized as far as upcoming guests go. I actually had to go to frickin' tvguide.com to confirm Howard's appearance tomorrow night. Further exploration on nbc.com revealed listings for the whole NBC network which included Conan's upcoming guests, but logic and good sense requires that such things be right there next to Conan's smiling face. Woe be upon those who underutilize... web things. We shall never speak of this again.

Kimmel and ABC have done it right. Upcoming guests for the whole week are right there on the front page. Actually the next two weeks. Kudos to you, Kimmel, and all those who make your web presence possible. Kimmel and Howard have a great chemistry which should ensure a great appearance.

Graphological Initiative

So the October 2006 issue of Wired had a full-page ad for TUL pens paired with an additional cardstock page with a postage-prepaid postcard that could be torn out. Both pages show a "Dr. Gerard Ackerman" looking at the camera with some sort of an "I'm smarter than you" smirk on his face, holding a metal clipboard, seemingly daring readers to mail in the attached postcard for a free graphological analysis. The part of the card stock page that one doesn't tear out has text on it that says "Share your handwriting with me and discover who you really are."

What one does is write a specific phrase on the card, I truly need a new pen., include an email address and mail in the card for analysis. I knew it was just a promotion for these pens, but TUL (really OfficeMax) had already paid for the postage, so I did it. I also thought they might send me a free pen. I received the email with a link to my "results" last week and would like to share.

UPDATE: email actually received the last week of October. I've had this saved as a draft for awhile.

The email was short and pretty much just contained a link to click on. "Results" is in quotes above because what I was given is not a personalized analysis of what I actually wrote on the postcard. This was disappointing, but what could I have expected, right? It's free. The general web site is here, where you can have your own handwriting "analyzed" without mailing in anything.

The web site gives its analysis of your handwriting by asking you a series of questions about the characteristics that appear as you write the phrase I wrote on the postcard. The characteristics are 1) Slant; 2) Size; 3) Spacing; 4) your capital "I"; 5) your lowercase "t"; and 6) your lowercase "y." I won't bore you with the respective options for these characteristics, but suffice it to say there are quite a few permutations that TUL had to make separate results videos for.

My results

My handwriting slants to the right (extroverted, emotionally responsive, trusting) and is medium-sized (average) with narrow spacing (conservative, inner strength, uptight, inhibited, aloof, emotionally remote, frugal).

For my capital "I," the tail of the "I" is dominant (dominant father and a lame who's your daddy with pimp graphic joke in the video). My lowercase "t" has a short crossbar (matter-of-fact, efficient, proficient) and my lowercase "y" has a full, almost voluptuous loop (physical, imaginative, flexible, uninhibited, direct).

Putting all that together for a coherent profile is pretty much impossible. You can see from my results that I am both emotionally responsive and emotionally remote, extroverted and uptight/aloof, inhibited and uninhibited, and trusting and frugal. I'm not sure how to add in the other characteristics, but I'm sure if I consult my astrological forecast I'll be pointed in a direction.

Any direction.

Of course the good doctor uses the results to make a particular pen recommendation using his apparently summarizing title of my characteristics, "Captain of the Boardroom."

No free pen.

My favorite pen right now (yes, it changes. Past honors have gone to the Uni-ball Vision Exact and Uni-ball Vision) is one I received as a promotion from my investment advisor at a brokerage firm. Of course the firm's logo is laser engraved on the cap, but the pen is solid brass, so it has a nice weight and balance to it. It's the BL8650S: Latitud Rollerball Pen of the Basics line offered by Logomark, Inc. It has nice, smooth rollerball ink and a consistent ink flow for easy writing. And it came with a certificate for 5 free refills. The site has a "refill wizard" and appears to have refills to fit lots of different pens, not just ones from Logomark. You pay shipping, but $4.95 isn't too bad for some quality ink.

Do I think too much about pens?

Colbert is absolute gold

You must check out this video of Stephen Colbert boxing newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- using custom Mii avatars on Nintendo's Wii Sports boxing:




If for some reason the YouTube video does not show up, click here. Colbert puts more thought and effort into his show than almost anyone I've seen.

For a moment there...

I thought Google was forcing Blogger users to switch to "the new version of Blogger." The above image is what I saw at 6:51p tonight when I tried to view my blog. I saw the same error message for my friend Chad's blog, also on Blogger. All seems ok now, but Google sure does want us to switch as the first thing a user sees in the current Blogger dashboard is a "Your new version of Blogger is ready!" message and a prompt to make the switch.

I haven't done it yet because there were issues with the new version such as not being able to edit the HTML code, but apparently all of the original features of the old Blogger are now included plus some new ones like labels for posts, dynamic serving (no more "republishing" for each new post and pages are dynamically served from a database instead of a static HTML page) and more site feed options like the ability to have RSS feeds for comments. Cool stuff for sure, but for now I'll keep up with the Known Issues for Blogger in Beta blog and stay where I am.

UPDATE: Well, there's the answer, straight from the Blogger Status page:














No details, but it has been fixed. Apparently if I had been using the new version of Blogger I would have been unaffected.

Harrumph!

Amazing argument for not going in to work

The cost of driving to and from work can be measured by more than just dollars per gallon. Until I saw this post on the blog of an attorney who works from home I had not seen just why it can make so much sense to work from home. The key concept here is opportunity cost, the value of the next most valuable alternative forgone in favor of the choice made. After computing the formula there really is no argument.

In the example the author references, a couple has bought a house that requires a 1.5 hour commute each way and being skilled technology workers they earn $100 per hour. From his post, here's the formula and how it works out:

(Commute time * Productivity per hour) * Days Commuting per year

(3 * 100) * 230 = 69K

Based on similar formulas I calculated the following numbers:

• Yearly opportunity cost - $69,000
  
• Lifetime (30 years) opportunity Cost - $2,070,000
  
• 8-hour work days spent commuting per year - 86.25
  
• Lifetime (30 years) work days commuting - 2587.5
  
• Number of work years spent commuting - 11.25

That’s right! They will spend the equivalent of 11.25 work years driving to and from work. I defined a work year as 230 8-hour days.

Even if you're just one person earning $50 per hour and commuting only half an hour each way, that's (1*50)230 = $11,500 per year, $345,000 over your work lifetime! I don't know about you, but that would give a tremendous boost to my IRA/401k/life insurance.

Plus, the person in my example with a more modest commute would have the equivalent of an extra 28.75 eight-hour work days each year and 862.5 eight-hour work days over 30 years, adding a total of 3.75 work years if commuting was eliminated from the day. If nothing else such a reclaimed opportunity cost could help relieve some billable-hour pressure. Pretty cool.

This one's for you, Eric.

Yes, you.

Voting Accomplished

Remember to vote today, if you haven't already. Polls are open until 8p.

For those who want a quick reference for the Sacramento area:

Sacramento News & Review's recommendations; and

Sacramento Bee's endorsements.

Popcorn & This Old House

It really doesn't get any better. I am at the midpoint of the This Old House hour where the work on the project house for this week has been documented and we are about to begin the Ask This Old House portion of the show. This week, TOH did some serious work on their project house in East Boston, consisting of demolition in the kitchen involving asbestos-tainted floor removal, knocking down a wall, and replacement of a sewer pipe that had become clogged with the roots of a nearby tree. They actually had the city come in with a backhoe to dig up the sidewalk and dig down to the sewer main to replace a section of pipe that had been compromised and clogged with roots. The backhoe operator was, as they said in the show, friggin' surgical. He pulled up a three-foot square section of sidewalk in one piece and put it right in the dumpster still in one piece.

If this doesn't excite you as much as it does me, maybe you don't appreciate circular saws, sledgehammers, 6-mil plastic liner, hepa-filtered exhaust fans and triple-chambered isolation tunnels. Oh, and I'm eating popcorn that is goooood! This is my specialty snack and just can't be beaten. First, I pop my corn old school, you might say, popping kernels in hot oil right in a saucepan -- no microwave for me. With the popped kernels still piping hot, I add Jolly Time Buttery Seasoning, which just makes it simply heavenly. It's like friggin' bacon. I can't give enough praise.

Howard Stern free for 2 days on internet radio

Sorry for the short notice on this one, but for all of you who have not heard Stern's show since he began on Sirius satellite radio here is your chance to check it out for free. Beginning 12a Eastern on Wednesday, October 25 through 11:59p Eastern Thursday, October 27, anyone who signs up for a free trial userid and password at sirius.com can listen to the Howard 100 and 101 channels via internet radio during that two day period.

I don't believe you have to download the Howard Stern-branded media player to listen to it as Sirius pops up its own browser window to play internet audio streams. In fact I recommend you don't download the HS player because you'll have to go through the rigamarole of signing up for a login on howardstern.com, download and install the player, deal with another password and you apparently have to have a Windows-based machine to use it.

I know, "waaaaaaahhhhh" you'll say, "I have to sign up and download another program, waaaaaaahhhhh." The Sirius thing works fine.

The schedule is on Stern's web page.

Some great stuff is in store in addition to Stern's regular radio show, including a new half-hour radio sitcom written and directed by Simpson's co-creator Sam Simon, a replay of the Top 10 Bits of all Time which was originally aired on Sirius over the Labor Day weekend (this includes material from Stern's KROC show, uncensored), and on Thursday a roast of Stern's producer, Gary Dell'Abate.

The roast alone should be worth signing up for this. The Howard Stern Show has almost single-handedly revived the roast comedy format since its move to Sirius, and if you have liked what Comedy Central has done with the Pamela Anderson and William Shatner roasts, you will love this. Stern has hosted at least three other roasts on his show and they have all of the kinks worked out of the format as well as having a great group of comedians who are just brutal and ruthless, exactly how a roast should be.

This free promotion is not to be confused with the similar offer for HowardTV's iNDEMAND 1 cent preview taking place November 3 through 5, which is only available if your local cable provider runs HowardTV on its iNDEMAND service. Howard's pay-per-view show is much like the show he used to have on E! except this one is uncensored. Hence, the charge of 1 cent. I'm not sure why the audio version of his show can be offered for free and the video version costs one cent, but I'm sure the Internet has something to do with it. Oh, and uncensored nudity.

For those unfamiliar, there is no doubt Stern's show can sometimes be juvenile and vulgar, but it's also very often funny and provides an intelligent and alternative perspective, different from the whitewash of mainstream media. Give it a shot.

Related posts: Stern still has it; Stern's 60 Minutes interview; Howard's first Sirius broadcast;

Gamespot: Afterhours event in SF

Thanks to my friend Rita who put me and my friend Shawn on "the list" to get in, I went to this last Saturday night. It was pretty cool, and free. It was a small-scale videogaming event somewhat like PAX or a consumer-oriented E3. Unfortunately neither one of us remembered to bring his camera, so you'll have to savor my descriptive prose as a tasty substitute.

There were lots of different booths with groups of consoles set up by various developers to show off new or upcoming games. Surprisingly, about half of what was available was for the PC, so that platform is certainly not dead yet even in the face of the enormous popularity of console gaming. I saw the new Guitar Hero II for PS2 in action, and for the 360, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Dead or Alive Extreme 2 and Lost Planet, among others. The list of all the games available is here. I only mention DOA Extreme 2 because it was really funny how obvious it is that a) it was developed by guys, for guys and b) that game has the most advanced "boob physics" anywhere. Every single movement the girls made onscreen resulted in a generous sloshing of their chestal regions, and the several "minigames" (Butt Bumper, Beach Flag Grab and Tug of War come to mind) were obviously created to emphasize this type of action.

I was hoping they would have a hands-on demo available for the Nintendo Wii, but I don't recall seeing Nintendo or any developers of upcoming Wii games anywhere at the show. Apparently there was an onstage demo by a Sega producer and one of the GameSpot guys later in the night of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, but we had already left by that time. There is video of that demo on the After Hours web site under the heading "Hour by Hour" and the video "The Future is Now - 7pm." Super Monkey Ball starts at 41:20 and shows how movements of the Wii remote translate into gameplay. Wii will certainly redefine interactivity when it comes to videogame control.

What I was most interested in, and what I was unexpectedly drawn to, was taking a gander at the playable PS3s. It was an interesting setup: each console was connected to a huge black box behind the monitor that was about the size of two VCRs laid one in front of the other (you can see it in this video). Apparently these were test (dev?) kits, and indeed the consoles had "TEST" printed right on top of them just beneath the PLAYSTATION 3 moniker in the Spider Man (see #55) font.

The console is physically huge, easily bigger than the original Xbox. Visually it's not appealing -- it seems to be a model of a domed stadium with a cheap, glossy, curved roof. Predictably the beast felt pretty heavy and plenty of hot air was being pushed out of its exhaust vents. The controller was unexpectedly light, but felt sturdy enough. To my knowledge none of the games demoed there utilized the tilt feature of the "Sixaxis" controller. The games available for play on PS3 were Full Auto 2: Battlelines, Ridge Racer 7 and Gundam Crossfire.

I played Full Auto 2 and watched the other two and while the graphics were pretty, I could see no real difference from current 360 games. Gameplay of Full Auto 2 was also no different from any other racing game I've already played. All of these games were very "arcadey," making no attempt to feel realistic, and in my opinion did not really show off the capabilities of the PS3. I suppose it says something about the power and potential of PS3 that its first generation games look as good as second generation 360 games, but by the same token an equivalent graphical appearance is no reason to choose PS3 over the 360 this holiday season, particularly when the 360 will be available on the shelves at most stores and for hundreds of dollars less than PS3.

There were also a number of "viewing only" demoes in separate rooms that were pretty cool. We saw presentations of Sid Meier's Railroads! and Bioshock. The cool thing about these was that members of each game's respective development staff were there and could answer questions and explain features and what they are trying to achieve with their games. No juicy inside stuff here, but Railroads! did crash on Windows while we were watching. Bioshock looked nice and had some creative combat ideas involving genetic mutation, but it's a good thing it won't release until 2007 because still needed some polish on keeping its framerate up during busy battles.

Thanks again for the hookup, Rita.

Caveman with tennis racket in the airport: the music

You know you like it. It's catchy, poppy and elevator-esque.

I found the answer in a forum post here. It's Royksopp's "Remind Me" (Radio Edit).

RealMedia sample is at the artist's web site, (click the band name, then "Discography" on the popup and then Remind Me / So Easy) and the commercial is on You Tube. Royksopp's label is astralwerks Records, and provides a Windows Media version (bigger, better version) of the commercial.

Analysis of Star Wars as "entertainment"

I've read John Scalzi's Whatever blog on and off for probably a year. He's a professional writer with fiction and nonfiction books to his credit, among many other things. He's also the Chief Entertainment Media Critic for Official US Playstation Magazine -- who knew? His fiction is mainly sci fi stuff, and an online discussion of science fiction and "entertainment" spurred quite an explosion of prose on his part in today's post.

It's quite long at 7 "Page Down"s till one reaches the end, but it doesn't feel like 7 "Page Down"s because it's structured well, is interesting and entertaining and is also just plain right. The meat of the post is that Star Wars as an entity, as a series of movies and as a mythology, is merely a vehicle for George Lucas to entertain himself. Since entertainment as a concept involves caring about and engaging an audience there is no way Star Wars can be considered entertainment.

It's all in the post: Joseph Campbell, mythology, incredible special effects, bad dialogue, the occasional acclaimed actors. You really should go read it. I'm a huge Star Wars fan and haven't wanted to admit the weaknesses of Episodes I, II and III, but there they are in all of their shame, pointed out to me and now undeniable. He gives reprieve to Episodes IV and V because they occurred at the right time in cinematic sci fi history, and were actually well-written (i.e., not by Lucas), respectively.

Then keep up with Whatever for awhile. In addition to sci fi he writes about politics, current events, goings-on with his family and occasionally, writing itself. His insight is sharp and writing clear and concise. He also actively participates in comments discussions. You'll like it.

Artie Lange on NPR's "Fresh Air"

Artie was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air this morning. Interestingly, Gross said she and the producers of her show are Howard Stern listeners and think Stern uses the radio medium in an innovative way. She could have said "genius," but I'll have to listen back once the mp3 is posted on NPR's site at 3p eastern today.

The cool thing about this interview is that Gross asks mostly about Artie, his life and progression as a comic and actor. She took the interview seriously, unlike most mainstream media figures who treat anything related to Stern as mere "entertainment," purely "offensive" or a circus freakshow that only appeals to the most crude and base listener. The local NPR affiliate host announced this interview at 7:30 this morning and said that while she "would never listen to Stern," NPR would play an interview Artie Lange, a member of Stern's show. Typical.

They talked about how Artie came to be a part of Stern's show, what he does to prep for the show and the fact that the show acts as a kind of therapy for Artie. They talked a bit about Artie's beginnings on Mad TV, mentioned his movies such as Dirty Work, Lost & Found, The Bachelor, Old School, Elf, and now Beer League.

Artie talked about his desire to only "do the funny stuff" in movies but that with movies like The Bachelor and his most recent movie Beer League he realized that doing other non-funny parts (like creating a believable romantic interest) help develop the characters and allow the funny stuff to work better for the audience.

Gross asked about the death of Artie's father and Artie's response gave tremendous insight into his motivations and addictive behavior. Artie even discussed things I hadn't heard him say on Stern, like bombing at his first try at standup comedy and then not trying again until four years later after his father had died. There was also some discussion of Artie's "waaaah" bit on the show and Artie said the death of his father "was his waaaah."

It was refreshing (hello, Fresh Air) to hear Lange being taken seriously in a major media interview, and the approximately 30 minute piece is well worth listening to.

Why Howard Stern's interviews rule

Howard -- "What do you do?"

Guest Jessica in studio -- "I'm an independent contractor, a courier."

Howard -- "What's that, like, a pigeon?"

-From 9/13/06 show

Feedburner initiated

Thanks to an entry on the McWilliams' World blog I am trying feedburner to manage my RSS feed. I'm not sure whether those of you who subscribe and use feed aggregators will have to resubscribe, but I think Blogger still sends out the standard RSS and Atom feeds. I'll be experimenting with the feedburner syndication "chicklets" as it calls them (the little graphics one clicks on to subscribe to a feed) so some things in the right margin may be reordered or changed, but that's it.

Feedburner allows its members to monitor how many people are subscribers to their feeds, among other things. I love tracking my visitor stats, so these additional numbers will feed my hunger for more data.

Linux distro suggestions request

I know a number of you out there use some distribution of Linux, so I need some advice and information. I'm a big fan of open source software and the general idea and ethic behind it, so I am finally going to make the jump and do an installation to see if I can accomodate all of my computing needs with a fully open source Microsoft-independent PC. Just using Firefox isn't cutting it anymore, and my hard drive with Win2000 is nearing death, so I figure now is a good time for a new hard drive and new OS.

My question is which Linux distribution would you recommend for a first-time Linux user? I know there are legion, but based on your experience what do you think?

There are a myriad of questions you will want to know about my PC hardware and computing preferences before advising me, so I'll try to list below all of the relevant information.

Computing preferences:
Software: Fairly basic needs including word processing, spreadsheet, web browsing, email, mp3, video, pdf, photo editing. Ability to interoperate with MS Office may be a necessity for work.

Hardware: Wireless, wireless, wireless.

Me: I'm an intermediate computer user, able to build a PC and troubleshoot most hardware and software problems. I'm not a coder, but I am familiar with programming structure and logic and take technical issues as a fun challenge.

PC hardware:

• MSI motherboard, K7T Turbo Limited Edition w/RAID (using onboard sound)
• AMD Athlon 1133 MHz
• 512 MB RAM
• ATI Radeon 7500 AGP, 64 MB, AGP
• Intel Pro/100S PCI network adapter
• D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G510 wireless PCI network adapter
• EIDE hard drives
• Philips PCRW404 CD-RW400
• Generic EIDE CD drive, 48x
• Generic 3.5" floppy drive

I also may try to make an older PC more useful with Linux:

• ASUS motherboard, VX97
• Intel 200 MHz MMX
• 48 MB RAM (non-matching SIMM modules)
• SoundBlaster AWE 32 (?) sound card
• ELSA Victory Erazor, 4MB, PCI (thanks, Mish! that was a killer upgrade.)
• Hauppauge! WinTV card (not a deal-killer if this is not Linux-compatible -- does the "Win" in the name automatically disqualify it? :-P)
• Kingston PCI network adapter
• EIDE hard drive
• Generic EIDE CD drive, 4x (?)
• Generic 3.5" floppy drive

If I can resurrect my laptop with a new hard drive I will also convert it to Linux:

• IBM i1452; (Lenovo link)
• Celeron 366 MHz
• 64 MB RAM
• 56K Lucent onboard winmodem, but two PCMCIA slots available for a network card
• CD/DVD drive, 2x
  

What I have found so far:
Reading up on the subject, I have found Eric S. Raymond's web page to be inspiring generally about the open source movement, and he made the suggestion of finding a local Linux user group to help with a first-time installation by a Linux newbie. The nearest active one to me is the Linux User Group of Davis and wouldn't you know it, they have Linux installfests.

On distros in particular, SUSE was recommended to me long ago (pre-Novell) by a techie whose opinion I respect, but things may have changed since SUSE was bought out. I've also thought about Fedora Core since it was developed by the ubiquitous Red Hat which I assume makes it more likely to have wide hardware support and consistent technical support. Lastly I've considered Ubuntu, mainly because one of my friends has installed it, it seems to have a small footprint and is pretty much the hot new thing right now.

I haven't decided on a desktop environment yet. The general consensus seems to be "try them and use whatever you like best," so based on what I've read I'll start with KDE.

Ok, go!

Microsoft's Live Drive for Vista -- how about supporting the Xbox Live service?

Free online storage is a good idea -- it's convenient and, well, free.

With readily available upgrade options, free online storage is also less of a concern for PC users than for console gamers. I haven't heard yet whether Microsoft plans to integrate its Xbox Live service into Live Drive, but I bet it would be much appreciated by gamers.

Think of the ability to store game saves, trailers or demos online. This frees up local hard drive space on the console, plus would allow for a place to save these things for transfer back to the console in the event the console hard drive needs replacement or is at some future point upgraded with a larger capacity.

Sounds good to me.

Boycott Beerfest, go see Artie Lange's Beer League

I know little about "Beerfest" beyond the inane TV ads and the movie's weak tagline, "From the comic geniuses who brought you the phenomenon 'Super Troopers.'"

Phenomenon? Phenomenon? Super Troopers is something you jump to late at night on basic cable inbetween segments of Talk Soup or the World Darts Championship on BBC Sport. When the best tagline you can come up with to promote your new movie actually promotes another movie you made five years ago, you can bet there was a problem selling this one to the studios.

What I know about Artie Lange's Beer League is that Artie Lange wrote the script, plays the lead character, and he also happens to be funny as hell as a full-time member of The Howard Stern Show on Sirius satellite radio.

Beerfest opens this Friday, but I have no plans to see it. There is no doubt I'm biased against Beerfest because I love Artie on The Howard Stern Show, but I like to support people whose talent I admire. The open nature of the Stern show and Artie's humor and storytelling ability on that show make me feel like I actually know him, so this is also about loyalty. Artie Lange's Beer League opens for limited release on September 15 with wider release soon after.

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