It is being reported that Microsoft is trying to pay News Corp. to "de-index" their search results from Google. Rupert Murdoch (billionaire tyrant) has hinted that he'd like to prevent Google from spidering the websites for the companies that News Corp. controls. Ironically enough, what he wants can be done today for free using the appropriate rules in robots.txt.

If this report is true, it sure seems like a desperate attempt to gain search engine market share by Microsoft. What might really happen if this deal goes through? I've got to believe that viewership at the various sites would drop considerably. "The masses" know how to use Google to find stuff. If the stuff they're looking for disappears, will they be willing (or knowledgeable enough) to use Bing to find it? I'm not sure that's the case. Should this scenario play out, I can see things going one of two ways: either Microsoft wins and gains market share, or both Microsoft and News Corp. lose big time.

Gizmodo has a good take on this situation, claiming simply that, in the end, we'll all lose. This will definitely be an interesting thing to watch in the coming months.

The "high definition" remake of Serious Sam: The First Encounter is being released tomorrow on Steam! Watching the trailer for this game should bring back some fond memories for anyone familiar with this title. I'll probably pick it up very soon, as I remember having a blast with the original. At only $20, what is there to lose?

Speaking of $20 games, I still highly recommend Torchlight. I have yet to beat it, simply because I did a terrible job of creating my original character, therefore making her too weak to defeat the final boss (as embarrassing as that is to say). Oh, and the "Hard" difficulty is just that. It was a breeze early in the game, but the final levels are murder! Anyways, I created a new character and have pumped her up with all the right stats (she's now a death-bringing tank). The other character classes are just as fun to play, and I look forward to spending more time with them.

Hopefully other equally great games will come out at this price point. With the price of most games today eclipsing $50 or $60, it's hard to justify not picking up a cheap, fun title to play for the upcoming holidays.

Ever been bitten by the blue screen of death on a Windows box? Who hasn't? It's often hard to see just what caused the blue screen to occur, and the machine usually reboots before you can properly note down the information being provided. Thankfully, BlueScreenView is a helpful little utility that will provide information on your past crashes. It scans the mini-dumps that are generated when your system blue screens, and reports the problem. I've used this a time or two to track down troublesome drivers (usually the cause of these nefarious crashes). Be sure to add this helpful, free tool to your collection.

Time is a bother when programming. Doing time calculations is always way more complicated than it may seem, especially when your calculations have to go out into the distant future. Having been bitten by time related bugs in the past, I can only smile and nod in understanding when I read that the camera auto-focus bug in the Motorola Droid is due to an unfortunate time calculation. Why they use a date stamp in their auto-focus routine is beyond my understanding, but thanks to the wonders of rounding, auto focus will toggle between working correctly and not working correctly every 24.5 days. Terrific!

Time is making fools of us again. ~J. K. Rowling

A month or so ago, I looked on the Car Talk website (official web home of the popular radio show) for a recommended mechanic in my area. One of the highest rated shops happened to be just up the road from my workplace, at the corner of NC Hwy 55 and NC Hwy 54: Wasp Automotive. I've been to them twice now, once for my 120K tuneup and once today for a check-engine light problem (which turned out to be a problem with my car's emissions system).

I can't say enough positive things about this shop. At my 120K tuneup, the mechanic pointed out that my brakes had about 8 or 10 thousand more miles on them, so he recommended holding off on changing them. He gave me the same advice for my timing belt, which had about 15,000 more miles on it. It's the rare place, especially in today's economy, that would advise you to not give them your money.

Today, while waiting on my complimentary ride to work (a nice perk), I fired up my laptop and discovered that they have a wireless access point! I quickly started my company VPN connection, and hopped online to check my email. Incredible!

The folks at Wasp automotive are friendly, the service is extremely fast, and the prices are very reasonable. If you're in the Triangle area of North Carolina and you want a great mechanic, check them out. You won't be disappointed.

Last night, I purchased Torchlight on Steam, based on the positive reviews I've been reading about the game. At only $19.99, it's a definite bargain. I've only played about two hours worth so far, but man is this game fun! Torchlight is an action-style RPG, much in the vein of Diablo (in fact, it's made by a bunch of old Diablo developers). The graphics are beautiful and cartoony, spell effects are fun to watch, and the voice acting is pretty decent. But what I want to focus on in this post are the pets your character can have.

When you start a new game, you get to choose a pet (either a dog or a lynx-style cat), which you can then name. Your pet travels around with you and can aid you in battle. It will attack enemies if you put it into an aggressive stance, it can carry loot for you, and it can even wield items: a couple of rings, two spells, and an amulet. You can even send the pet around to gather up loot on the dungeon floor!

By far the best ability, however, is that your pet can travel back to town to sell items for you! Can you believe that? No longer do you have to teleport back to town to sell your unwanted loot. Just load up your pet with the stuff to sell, tell it to go back to town, and it will. The obvious downside to this is that you lose your pet's abilities and assistance for a while, but it's oh-so-worth it in the long run.

I'm having a blast so far with this game, and I'd much rather be at home playing it right now than at work. I definitely recommend checking it out. For only $20, it's a great value!

I have a land line telephone at home, along with a really old cell phone. I'm thinking about ditching the land line and going cell only on a smart phone (I'm looking at the Motorola Droid). Has anyone else here gone cell only? If so, what do you think about it? There are a few edge cases I'm mildly concerned about in migrating to a cell only scenario:

Emergency Contact at Night

Let's assume someone else needs to get a hold of me late at night. Do I simply keep my cell phone on all the time? I'm assuming I would (it would be connected to the charger overnight). With a land line, this is obviously not a problem.

Loss or Theft of Cell Phone

Suppose the cell phone is either lost or stolen. Replacing it is a no brainer, but in the mean time there would be no fallback plan (right?).

Cell Phone Outages

Rarely, cell phone outages occur (say, from a hurricane). This is, admittedly, an extreme edge case. Land lines can similarly go out in these cases. But what is the fallback plan for outages? Is there one?

I know these are edge cases, but I'm trying to think about all the possibilities before I make the plunge. Any other advice on going cell only?

In a recent study, the Pentagon has found that nearly 75 percent of potential military recruits ages 17 to 24 in the United States are unfit to serve due to obesity, lack of a high school diploma, or serious criminal history. This is mildly surprising to me, only in that the figure is so high. The US military has had recruitment problems for years now, so I was already aware that they are willing to hire some pretty shady and dangerous people.

What happened in Fort Hood a few days ago is very sad, and I certainly can't pigeonhole the shooter into the demographic mentioned by this study. However, when you're willing to hire criminals, you're bound to get burned at one point or another. A report released in July of this year showed that major crimes have been on the rise at all military bases since 2003. In addition, arrests among soldiers for murder, arson, and rape rose sharply between 2007 and 2008.

I don't know what the solution to these violence problems is, but I really feel like we're straining the folks in the military too much. Having to serve multiple tours year after year is bound to make even the sanest people among them break down. The fact that criminals are let in only makes things worse in the long run. Hopefully someone will come up with a clever solution to this issue. Otherwise, our country is in for a rude awakening when the supply of competent recruits dries up.

Last night, I tweeted some dark thoughts about The Office. This morning, I stand by them. As painful as it is for me to say it, this television show is becoming a chore to watch. Laughs have been few and far between this season, and last night's episode was the second in a row where I didn't laugh a single time. Not once! What happened?

Nearly all of the characters have lost their charm. Pam, for example, used to be an enjoyable second-tier character. Now, she's just a cranky, two-dimensional bitch. Every episode this season has seemingly revolved around her being unhappy and depressed (even the wedding episode). This is getting really old, really fast, and it needs to stop.

Here's my idea on how the show can recapture its greatness by the end of this season: Michael needs to fire Pam, Jim, or possibly both. There's no tension in this show anymore, and shaking things up big time is the only way I see it coming back in a legitimate way. The first few seasons of this show captured the awkward tension that made the original British series so wonderful. Sadly, that tension has been lost (though it was oh-so-briefly revived in the "Lover" episode from this season). If Pam were to be fired, a whole new tension would arise: between Jim and Michael at work, Jim and Pam at home, and things may even spill over onto the rest of the cast (by the way, has anyone else noticed how little air-time the secondary characters have gotten this season?).

For the past two weeks, I've diligently watched this show and not once have I laughed. The Office, I'm putting you on notice. Three strikes, and you're out of my TV lineup.

I've been looking at my visitor statistics for this website (as I always do), and I thought I'd share some interesting information. The most popular posts at this website are surprising to me, and I'm not sure I could have guessed which ones were at the top. Here are the top five posts for the month of October:

1. Batch File Exit Codes - 741 views
2. Using NTP on a Private Network - 260 views
3. Fixing Broken HTML Document Icons - 169 views
4. Firefox 3.5 Slow to Start - 162 views
5. Thoughts on Mint.com - 151 views

I find it quite bizarre that my article on batch file exit codes is at the top of the list; and by quite a large margin! Apparently, there are a lot of people out there confused about this subject (and rightly so). Also, I never would have guessed that setting up NTP was popular enough to even register. But there it is coming in at number 2! Some of the other articles are less surprising: Firefox 3.5 being slow is an obvious search (since it is indeed slow ... though it's gotten better with subsequent releases). And Mint.com seems to be gaining in popularity around the web, so I can understand people looking for reviews on the service.

I've always enjoyed looking at site stats and, while this website doesn't see near the traffic that its sister Born Geek does, it's enjoyable to see that my articles are indeed being read.

It seems the good folks at Valve have released a Halloween-themed update for Team Fortress 2. I haven't played TF2 in quite some time now, but this is a good excuse to jump back into the game. A total of 5 new achievements are being offered, but only for a limited time.

I think the holiday themed update is a very interesting idea, and it's definitely something that not too many games have done in the past. Stuff like this always makes me hope that Valve isn't purchased by some other entity. I can see the bean counters at a place like EA saying, "we don't have the time or money to develop this kind of thing." With any luck, Valve will remain an autonomous studio, and will continue to crank out great content like this.

I am considering blocking all users who use Internet Explorer 6 from viewing this website (support will remain for Born Geek). Viewers using this old browser would instead be given a dialog offering links to other, more competent browsers (including IE 7 and 8). Is there anyone who regularly visits this website that still uses IE 6 and doesn't want me to block them? I see that IE 6 still accounts for 13.5% of traffic to this site, which is surprising to me. Interestingly enough, Firefox only accounts for 37.7% of the visitors here.

If you're an IE 6 user, and you want to continue viewing this site in your antiquated browser, let me know in the comments. If I don't hear from anyone in the next two weeks, I'm gonna drop the ban hammer and start rejecting visitors who use it.

Today is the big day for Windows 7: release day! I'm thinking about picking up a copy of the new OS at some point in the near future for my gaming machine at home, though I'll probably wait until the price drops. Is anyone here going to upgrade?

I saw in the news recently that Windows 7 has eclipsed Harry Potter for the number of pre-orders on Amazon UK. That's saying something, seeing as Harry Potter is wildly popular over in Great Britain. I'm looking forward to giving this new OS a shot. It's definitely time for something new (XP is feeling increasingly old and clunky).

Barnes & Noble has unveiled the Nook, their Kindle-killing e-book reader. Although I don't read enough to warrant getting one of these devices, I have to admit that the Nook is very slick looking. It certainly has the Apple-esque design going for it, with its slick looking screen, color keyboard, and general all-around sexiness.

Do any of you use a Kindle, or wish you did? What do you think of this new device? I think B&N will be bringing the heat to Amazon which is always a good thing (we can always use more competition).

This month's useful tool is another from the good folks at Sysinternals. Autoruns is a tool for Windows that shows you all the processes and services that are scheduled to start when the system boots up. It's amazing how many auto-start lists reside in the Windows registry! My laptop has hundreds of entries, ranging from system level entries to third party drivers and software updaters.

What makes this tool outstanding, however, is the ability to easily disable certain processes from the startup sequence. Next to each entry is a checkbox; when it's checked, the item will be started as usual. Uncheck the box and the process will be omitted from startup. I've found it incredible handy to disable some of the more annoying programs that start up (iTunes helpers and Adobe Acrobat, I'm looking at you).

Here's a great web developer tip that I've discovered recently. If you're trying to test a site that involves cookies, and you specifically want to test as a "new visitor" (i.e. you are visiting the site for the very first time), simply turn on Private Browsing mode in Firefox. This can be done with the handy Ctrl+Shift+P keyboard command, or via the corresponding menu item in the Tools menu. Using Private Browsing will prevent you from having to clear your cache, allowing you to save those cookies you really do care about.

When you're done, simply exit Private Browsing mode and you will be returned to your previous session: cookies, history and all! This is a handy way to quickly run through tests that might otherwise be a bother to do.

There's nothing like a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls to make any day a great one:

Add some icing (made with powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk), and you've got one of the best foods of all time.

A few days ago, I installed "Serious Sam: The Second Encounter," a game I haven't played for many years. Released back in 2002, SS:TSE is an incredibly fun first person shooter. Though the graphics are dated, the gameplay is as fresh and exciting as ever. If anything, playing this game makes me even more excited for the Serious Sam HD remake that's coming soon.

What really surprises me, however, is how much I remember about the game. It's astonishing how, after all these years of having not played Serious Sam, I remember the location of nearly every secret area. I can remember areas where enemies pop up unexpectedly (so I know to be on my guard), and I remember most of the various ammo and health drop locations.

If I were to load up Wolfenstein 3D, I could probably take you to 80% of the secrets in the first chapter of that game. The same thing holds true for Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and countless other titles that I spent time with when I was younger. Have I really wasted that many brain cells to remember stupid things like this?

It is being reporting that Firefox will replace menus with an Office-style ribbon interface. Personally, I couldn't be more against this. I'm no fan of the Office ribbon (it takes up way too much screen real estate and looks clunky), and I fail to see how this interface will make things better for the user. Mozilla is known for screwing around with the GUI, however, so I won't be surprised when something like this shows up. I can't imagine how this change will affect many extensions out there, like Googlebar Lite, that add UI elements.

What do you think about the Office ribbon interface? And what do you think of this decision? Thankfully for me, someone will undoubtedly come out with a theme to fix this stupid design decision. Consider me signed up for it already!

Has anyone seen the following bug with the Amazon wish list system? When I purchase something from my list, the purchased item is no longer automatically removed. Instead, it reports a "quantity received" value, and apparently must be manually removed from the list. This is highly annoying, and applying the "unpurchased" filter doesn't affect the purchased item's visibility.

Am I the only one seeing this problem?