CompuDrew.com

It was interesting to read of more growth along the lines of an idea I worked on in2006. Google seemed to be the first big company to latch on to it. They had their street view panoramas, with very obvious usefulness. Then they began to overlay information on them, again, obvious and very useful.

Now it seems one of my favorite companies is warming to the idea as well.

http://www.MacRumors.com/2011/08/18/apple-exploring-enhancing-maps-with-...
http://www.AppleInsider.com/articles/11/08/18/apple_investigating_augmen...

There is a new version of Drupal out! Drupal 7.

I tinkered with a few betas when I had a few minutes to do so.

I recommend Drupal highly!

So there's been quite a bit of news about Apple recently.

But the bottom line is the overwhelming majority of people like the iPhone 4 and are having no problems with the antenna.

I also read about how Microsoft is putting up a bunch of propaganda to continue to scare people away from Apple Macs. What a load of BS.

You are FAR BETTER with a Mac. Macs are more powerful, and since you can also install MS WIN, you can do everything that OS can do AND MORE. But personally I prefer and recommend to avoid MS WIN altogether.

This post is born of 10+ years of frustration in dealing with the Internet Service company that once was MindSpring, but was bought buy Earthlink, aka ELNK.

Back in the 1990's I bought a domain name though them, for a pretty penny. I won't go through all my woes with them, but will point out my main frustrations.

I moved from one state to another. Per the Internet authority on domain names I was required to update my registration information. I called Earthlink to do this and could not. At this point it's been so long ago I forget their excuse. So for over 10 years that domain name had seriously stale information associated with it.

Later I wanted to move my domain name to another host. So I called Earthlink and asked them to unlock my domain name. They said the would, but they lied. It stayed locked and I could not move it.

I was so frustrated with their poor service I decided I didn't even like that domain name any more and stopped using it.

Finally it came time for me to try to totally cut them out of my life, but like a blood sucking parasite they would not let go; like a stalker they kept on following me around in the dark.

I called them 2009-08 to tell them I wanted to cancel my account with them and end my relationship with them. Done. Parted ways. No more contact. Tired of games.

They stopped sending me invoices, but it wasn't until a few months later I noticed they were still billing me through my credit card. I was furious. I called my credit card company to find out what was going on. They said they'd look into it. But the most recent statement has all EVIL ENLK charges back.

So of course I had to make another round of calls to figure out why.

Still more games from Earthlink. They claimed I only cancelled my domain name with them, but did not want to cancel my _______@Earthlink.net email address, so they kept billing me for that email address which I NEVER used. In fact, to give you a sense of how "good" they are, I did get email to that _______@Earthlink.net email address, it was spam! Obviously their systems were hacked. Why would I buy a domain name then use some @Earthlink email address?! Ha. I never did. But I did get invitations for bodily enhancements and invitations to buy drugs over the Internet.

Such frustration. MindSpring/Earthlink may have been a good company in the 1990's but they have been nothing but frustration and IGNORING my requests for over a decade now. And like a sick stalker, they are amazingly hard to get rid of by asking nicely.

Yes Earthlink, I'm talking about you. And yes, I am going to write the BBB, my state attorney's general, the state attorney's general of Georgia, and will also send copies to the FTC and FCC. Your practices have MADE ME ANGRY and GRABBED MY MONEY WHICH YOU DON'T DESERVE.

DOWN WTH EVIL GREED and money grubbing games.

Introduction

There are many programs out there to store your passwords in. Here's another one!

If you're like me, you have FileMaker Pro and like it a lot. I made a flat-file database to hold my passwords many years ago, but a few years ago it was not enough, I needed a relational database.

But before I get any further I should say this database evolved to be able to store any private information. It can be used to not only store information about web site login IDs, but house alarms, where you keep important documents, and whatever else you want. Near the end of this article I discuss some security considerations you should keep in mind.

Want a laugh? Here is a funny article teasing Microsoft, which recently announced it would open a bunch of retail stores.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159521/10_ways_microsofts_retail_stores_w...

(The following is a 1st draft article. I'm publishing it in this state anyway, since I know some people who could benefit from this introduction. I hope, before too many years go by, I'll be able to give it a "going over" and maybe add some zest with some JavaScript fanciness on showing the graphics, which are a bit clunky in places, sorry.)

Introduction

This article is written with beginners in mind. People who have either not heard of this subject, or have been using Safari's or Mail's built-in news reader, but want more control and power, as well as a better looking interface. (It should be noted that in 10.4 only Safari can read news feeds, with 10.5 both Safari and Mail can fetch news feeds.)

Even though this article is geared towards Apple Macintosh users, and the program Vienna, it can still be a great tutorial if you are using another Operating System, or another of the main news readers available for Apple's OS X.

CompuDrew.com is back online after a brief outage due to a number of factors beyond my control.

I moved my domain and consolidated my web sites' code, but it seems I moved it all to a hosting account with outdated support, and that lead to a series of unfortunate events.

However, i was able to get my host to wipe the slate clean, as they say, and it seems this new hosting environment is better.

To say I long for the day when I can run my own servers out of my own place, at a reasonable cost, is a gross understatement. Down with telco/cable monopolies and puny bandwidth at exorbitant costs!

It may take a while for me to get my posts back online, I'm not sure I trust my latest database dumps, so stay tuned!