Those damn BP liars are making things even worse trying to fix the catastrophe they caused. Their efforts are turning the massive oil flood into giant underwater clouds made of corrosive particles. Here’s the underwater video to prove it. More »
Gulf Oil – Scuba Diving – Oil spill – BP – Underwater Photography
Wow. After being down huge in early trading, with the indices off over 3%, on all the same fears, the market did a big comeback in the final hour of trading. The modest down day in most of the indices was a big win for the bulls
Here’s the scoreboard:
Dow: -22.82
S&P 500: +0.38
NASDAQ: -2.60
And now, some of today’s top stories:
Join the conversation about this story »
Remembering the passwords we
use to access different accounts can
be a real headache. For many of us, regularly used passwords are easily remembered, but remembering login details to all of your accounts is almost impossible. For some, storing a password usually
means jotting
it down on a scrap of paper or storing it somewhere within their PC, without any sort of encryption. The best way of securely saving passwords is to use a password storage
application, so you can refer to it for any forgotten details.
Password
Safe 3.22
enables you to manage all of your passwords, quickly generate new
ones and organise and retrieve them. Use it to store all of your
passwords with a single encrypted master password or use multiple
databases to further manage this information.
Password
Safe 3.22 link.
2010 Mitsubishi Lancer
TrueCar, a new car price search site, recently completed a study that shows the brands that have the highest concentration of younger buyers. The study showed that Mitsubishi, Mazda and Volkswagen have the youngest customers, while brands like Buick, Lincoln, Cadillac and Mercury produce eight of the 10 models with the lowest percentage of buyers under 34.
The study also identified the beast deals on models for buyers that are between the 18-34 range.
Click here to get prices on the 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer.
Mitsubishi topped the list (18.3 percent) with the Lancer and the Eclipse. Mazda came in second (18 percent) with the Mazda3 and the Mazda6 being the most popular amongst buyers in the 18-34 range. Volkswagen came in third (17.6 percent) with buyers flocking towards the Jetta and the GTI.
Hit the jump for the list and check out TrueCar’s full study here.
| Make | Model | Trim | % of 18-34 Year Olds | Discount off MSRP |
| Mitsubishi | Lancer | Sedan Manual | 18.3% | -25% |
| Mazda | 3 | 4dr Sedan Man | 18.0% | -5% |
| Volkswagen | GTI | 2dr HB Man | 17.6% | -3% |
| Nissan | Titan | 2WD King Cab | 15.6% | -37% |
| Mini | Cooper | 2dr Coupe | 15.0% | -3% |
| Audi | A3 | 4dr HB MT | 14.9% | -3% |
| Jeep | Commander | RWD 4dr Sport | 14.0% | -30% |
| Honda | Fit | 5dr HB Man | 13.9% | -1% |
| Subaru | Impreza | Sedan 4dr Man | 13.5% | -5% |
| Acura | TSX | 4dr Sedan I4Auto | 13.4% | -6% |
– By: Omar Rana
Source: TrueCar
After his headscratching and side-splittingly frightening Mamma Mia audition leaked to the Innernets last week, we knew it was only a matter of time before we were treated to more hilarious audition tapes from American Pie’s own Chris Klein.
Boy, that Katie Holmes sure knows how to pick ‘em.
We’ve just added a new Pro Apps category to TechUniversity and with that addition come two new screencasts, Logic Pro 101 and Final Cut Pro 101 (subscription required).
In Logic Pro 101 we cover all the major bits and pieces of the interface as well as sharing the content you’ve created.
In Final Cut Pro 101 we walk you through everything you need to know to edit a video including: the interface, working with audio/video clips, rendering, keyframes, speed, titles, transitions and exporting.
Below are samples from each. Check out the new Pro Apps category on TechUniversity for more details and to subscribe!
Materials: Rast chest of drawers
Description: This started life as a paint job gone horribly wrong. Eventually, after I hid the thing in the closet for months, I decided to give it a second try.
I sanded down the whole thing to get rid of the bad shellack job (not mine), then gave it 4 coats of paint and one coat of clear lacquer. I primed two of the drawers and covered them with fabric using Mod Podge Hard Coat
It went from “hide in the closet” to “kid’s delight”.
You can see the step by step process here.
~ Clara, PuntaCana
Vlingo on Blackberry offers great voice control of features on the phone, now it is available for Android! Vlingo for Android allows you to speak emails and text messages; it opens the default app then writes what you said you confirm and send it, can search the Web, find businesses on Google Maps, speak tweets for Twitter, and more. The SafeReader feature reads email and text messages aloud to you when on the go. The app costs $9.99 and available in the Android Market for Android 2.0+ phones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7cNlIeQNl8
We’ll be thoroughly testing with Android App Review with video so you can try before you buy it. 
Update: We couldn’t find it in the Market for Android 2.2 phones, even following this link didn’t work: http://www.vlingo.com/getvlingo 
[Via Android Community via Vlingo]
Dropbox is the easiest way to sync and share your files online and across computers. Dropboxify brings the Dropbox experience to your webOS device. Browse your entire Dropbox on the go. View your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, video, photos, and listen to your music. Register for a free account from within the application or login using your existing Dropbox account. We specialize in usable software and pay meticulous attention to detail in our products. If you find as much as pocket lint in this app, we want to hear about it! *File uploads coming soon with an update.*
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews
Today, Microsoft doomed its Entertainment and Devices division to failure, in a sudden shake-up removing key creative leaders. Timing is simply terrible. Microsoft is engaged in a pitched battle with Apple and Google in several strategic entertainment and mobile categories. It’s like Microsoft changed generals on the eve of a major and quite possibly war-outcome-defining engagement.
Out are Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices division, and J Allard, Microsoft’s Apple Jony Ive wannabe. In expanded roles: Andrew Lees, senior veep of the Mobile Communications Business, and Don Mattrick, senior veep of E&D’s Interactive Entertainment Business. Bach will stay on through autumn in an advisory role, but the move leaves one of Microsoft’s five major business units without a president. Allard is leaving. Period. Although Microsoft claims he will remain in an advisory role to CEO Steve Ballmer.
The question to ask: Are Allard and Bach creative bozos who failed Microsoft’s consumer strategy or are they creative visionaries crushed by the Office-Windows machine? I think the answer lies somewhere between, with the latter being more reason than the other. Allard is clearly some kind of casualty. Bach is quoted in Microsoft’s press release. Allard is not.
Last week, Mary Jo Foley asked: “Where in the world is J Allard?” Foley’s sources indicated that Allard and Ballmer had a falling out over Courier, Microsoft’s long-rumored tablet. Nearly a month ago, Microsoft confirmed Courier’s existence and cancelled it in the same statement. At the time I wondered: “Why confirm something exists only to kill it?” Microsoft could have quietly pulled the plug, unless there was something else going on behind the scenes — like the alleged Allard-Ballmer scuffle.
Somebody did right by silencing Courier, which two-panel design simply made no sense. It’s not rocket science to see the usability problems and potential high manufacturing/component costs associated with a two-touchscreen design, particularly compared against Apple’s iPad, which appeal is simpler single-slate design and reasonably low purchase price. How could Microsoft conceivably offer a two-panel tablet for $499? If Allard was too attached to Courier, he has lost his creative mind.
Then there is Robbie Bach, who really can’t be blamed for many of Entertainment and Devices division’s problems. Ballmer made the decision to launch Xbox as a money-losing product designed to steal market share away from Nintendo and Sony. That strategy worked. But the division never really left the pattern of generating loads of revenue with little return profit. For example, during fiscal 2009, E&D generated $169 million operating income from $7.76 billion in revenue.
The division also was charged with pushing Microsoft products into the living room, a strategy that has repeatedly failed. While Xbox succeeded, other products did not. Windows Media Center stuck in a niche, which is unsurprising giving the advantages of incumbents, mainly cable and teleco providers; they built DVR and on-demand services into their set-top boxes. Last week, Google announced Google TV, which surely wasn’t received well among Microsoft’s upper echelons. Is Google TV perhaps a catalyst driving the reorg?
Microsoft’s mobile device strategy is the Britannic torpedoed. Research in Motion has consistently gained mobile market share, despite Microsoft’s push-mail and other push-service efforts. Meanwhile Apple and Google storm the smartphone markets. Windows Mobile worldwide smartphone OS market share dropped to 6.8 percent in first quarter down from 10.2 percent a year earlier. Windows Mobile ranked fifth, behind iPhone OS (third) and Android (fourth). Meanwhile the catch-up strategy isn’t looking great. Reviewers generally panned Microsoft’s two KIN phones, which debuted earlier this month. Windows Phone 7 will come to market too late. Android phone sales are tracking to be 9 million units per quarter and rising, about the same as iPhone. Windows Mobile is stuck in the 3.7 million range.
For years, Microsoft has talked up a three-screen strategy: Windows PC, TV and mobile phone. The company has real success with PCs, reasonably good success with game consoles and near failure with mobile phones. Even where there is success there’s no real synchronicity.
Given Microsoft’s meager mobile and three-screen advancements, Lees’ performance should be questioned as much as Allard’s or Bach’s. If the old blood is so bad, where’s the life-reviving transfusion? On July 1, Lees will report directly to Ballmer, who views the world in enterprise business-shaded glasses. In December, I explained how Microsoft had lost its consumer edge, as the company shifts more resources to enterprise products leveraged off Office, Windows and Windows Server. Before assuming his Mobile Communications Business role in February 2008, Lees worked on Server and Tools division sales. Entertainment and Devices needs something more consumer not something corporate.
Then there is the entertainment product horizon. Microsoft just launched KIN, Windows Phone 7 is coming in autumn, Project Natal also is due in autumn and Windows Live Wave 4 is just beginning its rollout. Microsoft mixes it up with another leadership shakeup. Microsoft made E&D organizational changes in January 2010 and February 2009 — at least those are the ones I remember. How many more will there be?
By the bean counter’s measure, Entertainment and Devices is a failure; the profits aren’t there. But from a creative and new market perspectives, E&D is a colossal success. The division opened new markets after many earlier failed attempts to push beyond Office and Windows.
Today’s reorganization announcement is the bloodletting of Microsoft key creatives, while replacing them with an incomplete organizational structure too closely tied to the old monopoly leadership. For anyone thinking things were bad, they’re about to get worse.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Microsoft – Google – Robbie Bach – Xbox – iPhone
It’s takes a special type of nerd to read a video game’s novelization, and I’m none too proud to say that I recently started reading the Mass Effect novel. But there’s a certain quiet dignity in reading a novelization that simply isn’t present when sitting at the multiplex (or downloading the Blu-ray rip, as it were) watching a movie. Get ready: EA has sold the movie rights to Mass Effect, and it’s gone to Legendary Pictures, the same people behind The Dark Knight, Watchmen, and The Hangover. So there’s hope the movie won’t be total dross.
Several of the BioWare folks, including Ray Muzyka and Mass Effect project manager Casey Hudson, will be a part of the production, so there’s even more evidence that the movie has the potential to be OK.
It’s being written by the man who wrote I Am Legend, Mark Protosevich. I never understood how you can be credited with writing a movie when all you’re doing is remaking it…
The thing is, Mass Effect is already so cinematic that making a movie seems like overkill. Just play the game; I’m almost certain the movie won’t be as good as the game was.
Stating the obvious: Commander Shepard needs to be played by Matthew Fox, the guy who played Jack in “Lost.” They look identical.
Im sure you want to know the real story of Ronald Defeo’s life. Its nothing new for the town of Amityville to see thousands of people visit their town to hunt demons and ghosts. It has a rich history and beauty are overshowered by Kathy Lutz and George who are the last to have stayed at 112 Ocean Avenue. It was them who told about a living terror in the house. Its not just the most famous hunted house in the country but also popular movie and novel.
Now to give you the chills, six members of the DeFeo family were killed in that house before they moved in to live there. Stories tell that until this very day it is being haunted.
Ronald DeFeo jr purchased that house in 1965. To mention when he bought it, he also got a boathouse on the Amityville River. He had four children and a beautifull wife. Everything seemed so perfect like in a story book.
Reports say that Butch, the son of Ronald DeFeo in November 13, 1974 grabbed his riffle killed his parents including his younger brothers and sister one after the another while they were sleeping.
Related posts:
Between FedEx, UPS, and Google I/O, I’ve gotten my paws on a bunch of new phones over the past few weeks. Some I’ve reviewed in full, some I’m still working with, and some have been pass along to other PhoneDog Editors for their take. So check back often for written and video reviews of all the latest smartphones and devices.
In case you don’t have the time or desire to read or watch full-length reviews, I’ve summarized my take on the recent wave of smartphones for you. Click from the list below for more on each phone. Enjoy!
(Note: All prices are given as on contract/after rebate cost through the carrier)
HTC Evo 4G (Sprint) – $199, June 4
HTC Droid Incredible (Verizon) – $199, Available Now (Back-Ordered)
HTC myTouch 3G Slide (T-Mobile) – $179, June 2
Microsoft KIN One (Verizon) – $49, Available Now
Microsoft KIN Two (Verizon) – $99, Available Now
Garmin Garminfone (T-Mobile) – $199, Available Now
LG Ally (Verizon) – $99, Pre-Order Now
Palm Pre Plus (AT&T) – $149, Available Now
Country singer Mindy McCready was admitted to a Florida hospital on Tuesday.
McCready, 34, was admitted to a hospital in Cape Coral, Florida after a suspected chemical reaction to painkillers, TMZ.com has learned.
According to Mindy’s mom — Gayle Ingle — the trouble star broke her toe on Saturday night and had been pain pills for the injury. After growing worried that McCready had a bad reaction to painkillers, her Ingle called 911 Tuesday morning. The fire department arrived, and the singer was immediately transported to a local medical center.
A rep for Roger Clemens’ confirmed the hospitalization in a statement saying, “It was confirmed by Ms. McCready’s Ft. Myers, Fla. attorney that Mindy was taken to the Cape Coral Hospital this morning. The diagnosis has not yet been confirmed. The family asks for your respect of their privacy and appreciates your thoughts and prayers at this time.”
Mindy has battled addiction and a series of personal issues over the years. The Celebrity Rehab alum has battled depression and tried to commit suicide several times, most recently in 2008. McCready has been particularly fragile since a sex tape allegedly featuring the star was nearly released by Vivid Entertainment earlier this year.
She is best known for her 1996 hit, “Guys Do It All the Time.”
» Purina-owned pet community Petcentric is launching a new app for Blackberry users; there’s also a new version for the iPhone.
» Yahoo is launching a new mobile site dedicated to covering the World Cup. [AdWeek]
» Big Apple products manufacturer Foxconn says it is not a sweatshop. [Engadget]
» LiveWire’s revenue dropped to $3 million from $3.8 million a year ago, although it credited one-time charges in part for the drop off. [FierceMobile]
Lost became a mess and left many questions unanswered, but it also left us with some of the best scenes and sets in television history. This is the best building in the series, where it all started: The Swan station. More »
Lost – Television – Arts – Drama – Programs
Being a Netflix customer requires a certain amount of trust in the US Postal Service — that they’ll deliver your movie promptly and without stomping on it and that they’ll return it in the same condition. But a former postal worker in Texas violated that trust, and has admitted to swiping Netflix discs before they got to their intended destinations.
This all goes back to 2008, when Netflix security noticed an anomaly — 114 discs had not been delivered to the 77373 zip code in the town of Spring, Texas, on the outskirts of Houston.
An investigation was opened and the postal worker’s bosses kept a keen eye on him until he was eventually spotted taking a Netflix disc straight from a mail bag and placing it in his personal backpack.
The 38-year-old now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Ya know, he probably wouldn’t have been so easily caught if he’d just watched and returned the discs. Just sayin’.
Houston postal worker pilfered Netflix movies [Houston Chronicle]
