Terremark enters the more lower end (get the fog reference yet?) cloud computing market with their vCloud Express offering. I have always wanted to be able to use their higher end cloud, but really had no projects to offset the costs. So now we are all going to join the cloud right? Well lets take a look at costs:

Lets say we are going to build a decent Windows Server, but provide our own software and licenses.

We get 2VPUs with 2gb of ram:
$0.14 cents an hour * 24 hours * 30 days = $100.80

We just put in 120gb of storage:
$0.25 a month per gb * 120gb = $30

One Public IP:
$0.01 per hour * 24 hours * 30 days = $7.20

Internet Services (ports open to the Internet): HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP
$0.01 per hour per service * 3 services * 24 hours * 30 days = $21.60

Bandwidth of lets say 50gb
$0.17 * 50gb = $8.50

So our total would come out monthly to $168.10

So it is not the entry level cloud that I am looking for, but it is a pretty decent entry for small to midsize companies. You have to remember that your getting a pretty decent amount of redundancy and very considerable uptime protection. This is not like your dealing with a small time hosting company that is relying on other to keep them running, Terremark is their own large scale provider.

(Pulled from Terremark)

You can find all kinds of interesting things on the internet. This one is pretty entertaining and helpful for all those single guys out there. Straight from the Wired Wiki:

The Dab

Surreptitiously dab a thin layer of lip balm on the tip of a ballpoint pen.

The Approach

Approach your target and tout your special mind-reading power: “I can pick out your digits from a collection of phony ones.” With your eyes averted, tell the hottie to jot down their actual phone number on a paper coaster and then 10 fake ones in any orientation.

The Coaster

When you get the coaster back, take out your cell and say, “Now all I have to do is make a few calls …” Cue laughter. Now examine the coaster. The first numeral in the correct number will begin with an inkless groove of oil and develop into a solid line. Bingo!

Contributed by Chris Lesinski

Pretty entertaining, made me dig out some chap stick just to try it out. And yes, it does work.

(Via Wired)

Bolivian TV channel PAT has breaking news about Air France 447. It turns out someone on board was shooting pictures from their Casio Z750 as the plane began to break apart. Check it out below.

Well it was a great story, so they thought. It was actually video from LOST the TV show of Oceanic Flight 815 crash that went around as a hoax email. Unfortunately PAT fell for it hook line and sinker.

(Via The Register)

Even from the after life MJ is causing some problems. Granted it is really not his fault, but he is dead, so we can blame him all we want. It all started with the news of his death. Turns out more people are like me than I thought, when hearing about a major story they turn to Google for the answers.

It was so many searches that Google thought it was an attack on the system. According to the CNET story it took about 25 minutes before Google realized that the story was real. By the end of the day they received 16.4 million visitors, the most of any story in history.

Then the malware and spam starts, from V3:

The message sender claims to have information about Jackson’s death that they want to share with the recipient. Although the body of the spam message does not contain any URLs or other call-to-action links, if replied to it will allow the spammer to harvest the user’s email address, said Sophos.

Rik Ferguson, senior security adviser at vendor Trend Micro, warned that any event of this magnitude would be expected to generate significant amounts of spam and malware.

“It always does – it happens with any newsworthy event, joyous or tragic, and Jackson’s death is probably up there with Elvis,” he said.

“We fully expect to see black hat SEO [search engine optimisation] activity and significant spam runs using the news as bait, because people are hungry for details.”

So watch those emails that you open. Was it Demerol that killed MJ? Your best source for info is going to be Google, not the countless emails you have with “exclusive” details.

(Via V3 and CNET)

Getting a non tech person to download a product that they already have is a challenge. My mom probably can’t tell the difference between OS X and Vista, yet you want her to download o new version of IE? Oh and from a special website? Yeeeaahhhh, it COULD happen, but only if it comes at the end of a video showing a dangling kitten while it installs 30 different viruses.

One piece of the effort is a charity push in which Microsoft will donate meals to a food bank for each person that downloads IE 8 via a special “Browser for the Better” Web site. Technically, the company is donating $1.15 per completed download, up to a maximum of $1 million.

Although Microsoft is also pushing out Internet Explorer 8 over Windows Update and including a version of it with Windows 7 (except in Europe), the company is trying to build awareness of the latest version and spur active usage.

The software maker has seen its browser share–which once topped 90 percent–continue to decline, with Mozilla’s Firefox having gained considerable ground. The company also faces competition from Apple, Google and others in the browser arena.

You know how you get people to get on the bandwagon? You push the porn privacy mode. That would get people on board REAL quick.

(Via CNET.)

Tube.  I love the latest trend of making online video more accessible to tv.  My tv capture card is pretty much obsolete now thanks to Hulu.  Not that I’m complaining or anything.  There are certainly worse things in life, like a 4 book series about some dumb high school girl, some vampires and werewolves. The only thing worse than that, is that story made into a movie with untalented adolescent retards trying to act…. I’m sorry that was mean.  I didn’t mean to offend retards.

Youtube XL looks like it’ll make it even easier to waste hours of my life but in full screen and with a remote. 

Hot on the heels of Hulu’s remote-control friendly desktop application, YouTube introduces its own TV-sized interface called YouTube XL.

At the beginning of the year Google unleashed an optimized interface for the Wii and PS3, but YouTube XL appears to be the next step in that progression. The new and improved YouTube XL (presumable the XL stands for extra large) boasts a better interface than the old “YouTube for TV,” though it lacks a few of the features available on YouTube proper. (Namely comments, which is arguably a positive.)

via Lifehacker

Apparently, people are sick of Wikipedia being so bland with only it’s informative text and all.  Now the next time you wiki Coltrane you will get photos and music clips all on one page.   Because opening a new tab in your browser is hard work! Man my index finger is tired from all that clicking.  I’m gonna take a nap…

Have you ever been annoyed by the fact that Wikipedia has a wealth of textual information but no videos and hardly any pictures? Take the Wikipedia article for Sony’s Rolly, for example, where the device is depicted as “an egg-shaped digital robotic music player.” If you have never seen a Rolly before, this cryptic description won’t help much. After reading about it in Wikipedia, you’ll then need to look it up on YouTube or Google Image Search to see what it actually looks like.

This is where a new service called Navify comes in. Launched in public beta today, Navify intends to enrich Wikipedia by adding pictures, videos and user comments to each article. And it actually works pretty well. Look up “Sony Rolly” using Navify and you not only get the original Wikipedia text but also hundreds of related pictures and videos (pulled in from Flickr and YouTube) by clicking on the tabs Navify puts on top of each article. Look up “Pulp Fiction” and the service retrieves the Wikipedia article itself plus screenshots, covers, posters and trailers from the movie. You get the picture.

(Via TechCrunch)

Ever read a wiki and think, “Duh, I could have written that.” Well, this post is not for you.  As a matter of fact, if you’ve ever thought that, then go screw yourself.  This post is for people who read a half a wiki and get distracted by pics like this.  If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour… wait, there’s no way that thing is going anywhere.

Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc, are you trying to tell me that my mother has got the hots for me?
Dr. Emmett Brown: Precisely.
Marty McFly: Whoa, this is heavy.
Dr. Emmett Brown: There’s that word again; “heavy”. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth’s gravitational pull?
Marty McFly: This is heavy.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Again But Slower is basically a wiki for people like me…

Wikipedia’s a great resource for learning more about complex or esoteric subjects, but sometimes the dense, insider language can be a bit off-putting. Free mashup tool Again, But Slower compares original Wikipedia entries with their simplified re-writes.

Those rewrites come courtesy of Simple English Wikipedia, a site with over 59,000 Wikipedia articles written for those at early stages of English learning or otherwise needing scaled-down encyclopedic articles. Again, But Slower simply shows those entries and the original Wikipedia entries side by side, allowing you to learn how complex scientific terms and other phrases are being used, and getting a possibly faster-moving read on a subject you need to catch up on.

via LifehackerTechnorati Tags: wiki,

It is almost like a blast from the past, or maybe more like a sick joke, but Circuit City has returned from the grave. Brought back to life by System Max, the online ONLY store made its debut this week. I have to admit, at first glance at least, the site seems to have something the original store never had, decent prices. The product drill down also seems to do a decent job also. My only complaint is the site is a little busy looking, but not too terribly bad. What are your thoughts?

(Via Circuit City)

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were forced to shut down parts of their computer networks after a mystery virus struck the law-enforcement agencies Thursday, according to an Associated Press report.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that it had disconnected from Justice Department computers as a precaution after being hit with the virus, while an FBI spokesperson would only say that it was experiencing similar issues, according to the report.

“We too are evaluating a network issue on our external, unclassified network that’s affecting several government agencies,” FBI spokesman Mike Kortan told the AP.

The virus’ type and origin are unknown, but spokespeople for both agencies said agencies’ access to the Internet and e-mail was shut down while the issue was evaluated.

Government regulations require agencies to report any security issues to US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), but a call to CERT late Thursday for comment was not immediately returned.

Like I have said, it only takes one outward facing machine to get in. I am sure their are tons of viruses and botnets out there going undetected. You just have to play the waiting game, update them, and make the traffic blend in…

(Via CNET)