Call of the Wild

According to Wired magazine, a UK company called Classic Ringtones will be launching here in the U.S. late next month. They will be offering 40 different chirps, roars and calls from various animals that you can set as your ringtone, instead of some annoying song…though I’m not entirely convinced that a lion’s roar would be less annoying than some bubblegum pop music. However, on the plus side, the company will donate 10 percent of each sale to environmental and nature advocacy groups. Maybe I will set my phone to bark, just to freak out my dog.

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I have to admit, I’m a little concerned.

ORLANDO, Florida — A U.S. district judge ruled Monday that Florida election officials have no legal obligation to provide voter-verifiable paper trails for electronic voting machines, but it would be better if they did. In tossing out a suit brought by Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida), Judge James Cohn ruled that the touch-screen voting machines do not hinder the ability of election officials to determine the choice of voters in any race. “Touch-screen machines eliminate the problems confronted during the 2000 election in having humans interpret voter intent based on ambiguous markings of the voter,” Cohn wrote in his summary judgment.

Well, wasn’t that fun? Big thanks to Mr. Bill and Rachel for organizing this one. I loved hopping from place to place and really getting to see SOHO. Very cool. I wish that was my neighborhood! I am still recovering from all the fun I had. Ugh…maybe I should have ordered those chicken wings after all…something to soak up all that alcohol! Did I actually dance with the lead singer of that band? Ah jeez, do you know what level of drunk that requires? And the night was still young then! Oh boy, I better go check out the pictures of that.

Anyway, Joel is on his way home now, bringing me Wendy’s burgers (without the bun, of course) because nothing cures a hangover like grease. Mmmmmm.

My pics from the evening are on my camera phone page. Lewis has pictures up…and so does Joe and Tyler.

Enjoy!

Try as I might, I just can’t figure this one out: Outlook 2003 blocks automatic picture downloads by default. You can change these settings in the Tools –> Options–> Security Tab–> Change Automatic Download Settings. You can select to block downloads except those from people on your safe list or in a trusted zone. Outlook 2003 also blocks certain kinds of attachments by default (like .exe or .scr) for security reasons. These are the only two places I can even think of that would be affecting my problem. But neither of those settings, although properly configured, have fixed the problem I have with some emails.

I receive email newsletters from PCWorld.com that used to display as an HTML email in my old Outlook 2002. Now these emails always come as an HTML attachment. At work, my boss receives her Hot Jobs search results the same way - an HTML attachment! This is so annoying and it’s a time-waster, to have to open the attachment just to read the email. I shouldn’t have to! Both of us have our email settings configured as HTML format. The senders are on our "safe senders" list. We have Office Service Pack 1 installed. I receive other HTML emails, just not these. Why does Outlook 2003 do this? Is there any way (even a registry edit?) that can change it? I’m dying for some help here!

My political views aside, this site is FUNNY! Convinceyourmom.com is a website devoted to how to convince your mom not to vote for Bush. Click on one of the key issues and it gives you talking points (facts) to tell your mom about Bush.

To be fair, a funny anti-Kerry site, flippercam.com features pictures of some guy dressed up like, well, Flipper, and the site obviously highlights Kerry’s voting record. It even plays the Flipper TV show theme song.

Whatever your views, you have to give it to these guys - they sure are creative!

Instead of using the Gmail Notifier that runs in my system tray, I’ve installed this instead. It’s an extension for the Firefox and Mozilla browsers that checks for new Gmail messages directly from the browser’s UI, and there is a status bar item that will show how many emails you have. There is also a toolbar item that can be added by customizing the toolbar. And I LOVE it.

(I only came across this one ’cause I can’t type!) I’m addicted to “Ctrl” + “Enter” to add the “www” and the “com” on my URLs for me, but I just found out that “Ctrl” + “Shift” + “Enter” will add on a “.org” for you! Well, in Firefox, anyway. Get it here! Now. I mean it. You’ll thank me later, I swear.

We’re all using Zone Alarm, aren’t we? Well, I just heard that Zone Alarm has a new update available. It doesn’t automatically download itself - you have to go get it. I had to double-click the Zone Alarm icon in the system tray, click on the “Overview” section (on the left), then the “Preferences” tab. Once there, Zone Alarm prompted me, via a pop-up box, to download the new Internet Security Update. But you can avoid all that jazz and just click here. According to the Zone Labs website, the update delivers improved performance and increased stability. Ironically, for me, the install caused lots of application error messages referring to “vsmon.exe” and how the memory could not be “read.” (And why, btw, is that always in quotes in the error message? Isn’t it okay to say The memory could not be read? I mean, is “read” some euphemism for something? Reminds me of that Friends episode about Ross and the excessive air quotes. But I digress..) Anyway, I had to uninstall the program and re-download it again. GRRR. This involved two reboots (one after the uninstall and one after the install!) However, now, I’m back to normal and my Zone Alarm is fine. Whew.

Does anyone have $15 I can borrow? Because I love this new screensaver, but I’m hating the nags. Please? I’ll pay you back Wednesday, I swear.

P.S. The image is a link - Matrix wallpaper.

I haven’t needed a Cool Web Search removal tool yet, mainly because I’m running the new Spybot Search and Destroy that has an app called “Tea-Timer” (why??) that warns me of any crap like that *before* it gets installed. Plus, I used the “immunize” feature to block against known spyware. However, there are those out there that occasionally come to be with their computer problems and this could be one. So, when I saw this link to a new CWS removal procedure, I figured I’d blog it in case I ever needed to find it again.