No, I haven’t decided to make this a political site. Or one that vents on every issue.  There are plenty of those.  However, the news that came out today (see below) is downright sickening.  For all of us.  We are all being taken to the cleaners by the oil companies and we only have ourselves to blame.  That’s right. You and me. 

When was the last time you complained to your elected officials?  Are you happy that the oil companies are making obscene profits at your expense?  Your elected officials are doing nothing about it either.  And they won’t.  The oil companies have so much money, elected officals would risk going broke at election time if they couldn’t depend on money from big oil.  So do you really think they will try to do something about the curent sky-high gas prices?  Do you think they will allocate loads of money for mass transit development?  Do you think they will put a major effort into alternative fuels? 

The answer, of course, is no.  They won’t.  It isn’t in the oil companies best interests.  And if your elected officials want that money at election time, they’ll just pay these issues lip service, but do nothing.

Case in point.  From Bloomberg.com:

Corzine, Citing Gas Prices, Wants New Jersey to Try Self-Serve

April 27 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, citing a need to bring down gasoline prices, said he wants the Legislature to approve a pilot program allowing self-service stations in the state for the first time since 1949.

All or some of the stations along the 148-mile New Jersey Turnpike, the busiest U.S. highway, would be converted to self- service under a plan that will have to be approved by lawmakers, Corzine said.

“The main issue here is whether price savings from self- service actually get passed through to consumers,'’ Corzine said at a news conference held to detail his response to surging gasoline prices. “Most people say we can expect savings of 5 to 6 cents a gallon.'’

New Jersey and Oregon are the only states that ban self- service gas. State Senator Gerald Cardinale, a Republican who has been trying to end the self-service ban since the 1980s, said the safety concerns that prompted passage of the law more than 50 years ago are no longer a factor with modern equipment, and that allowing self-service would reduce gas prices.

“Self-serve is not the whole answer, but it can be a small step at helping families make ends meet,'’ Cardinale said.

Average pump prices in New Jersey for regular gasoline are now $2.87 a gallon — up “dramatically'’ from $2.25 two months ago — and more than $3 for premium, “said Corzine, a Democrat.

So 5 to 6 cents a gallon is gonna turn the situation around? Did self-serve help the situation in those states that have had it for years? 

From Reuters news service:

Exxon posts another huge quarterly profit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, posted its biggest first-quarter profit ever on Thursday, but higher taxes dragged the results below Wall Street forecasts.

The Texas behemoth reported a profit of $8.4 billion, on the heels of record earnings of $10.7 billion in the previous quarter.

The news immediately triggered a now familiar wave of outrage in Washington over Big Oil’s long-running profit bonanza. Stung by soaring gasoline prices, U.S. lawmakers and consumer advocates have stepped up calls for windfall taxes on oil profits and the repeal of tax breaks enjoyed by Big Oil.

“It is a travesty that oil companies should be making such staggering profits on the backs of Americans trying to fill their gas tanks,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Other politicians also joined in the chorus, while Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a proposal to soften the blow of rising gasoline prices by giving taxpayers a $100 check and suspending a retail fuel tax.

A $100 check.  Yeah that’ll help.  Meanwhile the oil companies don’t sacrifice one red cent.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from Steve Quinn, an AP Business Writer :

Placed in perspective, Exxon‘s revenue for the three-month period was still greater than the annual gross domestic product of some major oil producing nations, including the United Arab Emirates ($74.67 billion) and Kuwait ($55.31 billion), according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Or maybe you’ll find this of interest from Tom Doggett of Reuters news service :

WASHINGTON - Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline costs, Exxon Mobil’s $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a “shameful display of greed” that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan said on Tuesday.

Dorgan said he wants Exxon Mobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation “justifies” giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.

He also said the Securities and Exchange Commission should investigate the deal that “appears to shortchange” shareholders.

“There can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation which has produced record oil prices is out of control, and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers,” Dorgan said.

Dorgan’s criticism of Raymond’s financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Higher crude oil prices are helping to push of up gasoline costs. The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he was “concerned” about the impact high gasoline prices were having on families and businesses.

Exxon earned the wrath of many lawmakers when it reported more than $36 billion in profits last year as energy prices paid by consumers soared.

Dorgan said he will push to win passage of his legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and rebate that money to consumers, unless the companies used their earnings to explore for and produce more energy.

“I think a sensible public policy would insist that the big oil companies either invest those windfall profits in things that will increase our own domestic energy supplies, or we should return some of that money to consumers,” Dorgan said.

“Using them to drop $400 million dollars in the pocket of a big oil executive is simply unacceptable,” he added.

Exxon Mobil has defended Raymond’s retirement package, saying it was pegged to the rise in the company’s profit and market capitalization that occurred during his tenure.

Or this, from Lisa Myers, NBC’s Senior Investigative Correspondent :

What about CEO pay?

Chevron’s CEO received $37 million in total compensation last year. Conoco Phillips’ CEO got $17 million. Those are big numbers, but experts say they are in line with Wall Street’s inflated standards.

Then there’s Exxon’s CEO and his stunning $400 million pay and retirement package — which an industry spokesman still defends.

“One has to compare any executive’s compensation with the performance of the companies that they manage,” says John Felmy, the chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute.

Oil industry officials also argue that some profits are passed on to average Americans, who invest in the companies. But critics say, in most cases, those dividends won’t begin to offset the high cost of gas — and the outrage.

A Mercury News Editorial :

 Latest attempts to stem rising gas prices are not enough 

The sky-high gas prices are hitting Americans hard in their pocketbooks — and it hurts.

Everyone is feeling the sting, but those at the lower rungs of the income ladder are suffering the most. That’s especially true for gardeners, handymen, cab drivers or other workers who must drive long distances, often in a truck, for work. In short, at more than $3 a gallon and rising, gasoline prices are like a giant regressive tax on the American economy.

So it’s not surprising that President Bush, as well as Republicans and Democrats in Congress, are all busying themselves by drawing plans they hope will save Americans from having to transfer more of their hard-earned cash to fabulously rich oil companies. While there are some differences, most of the plans share a few things in common. They’re mere Band-Aids that may or may not provide some short-term relief at the pump. They’ll do nothing to solve America’s long-term energy problems. And they’re mostly a political exercise aimed at deflecting public anger.

The angry public should keep in mind that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have had five years to craft a more sensible energy policy that might have averted — or at least lessened — a crisis that has been brewing for months, if not years.

Bush hopes to bring prices down by diverting some oil from going into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Problem is, the additional supply won’t be enough to significantly depress market prices. Bush also has rolled back some environmental safeguards on fuels and on refinery approvals. That too will have only a marginal effect on prices but will bring us more pollution.

Then there’s the the outcry for investigating alleged price-gouging by some oil companies and taxing windfall profits at others — ideas that some Democrats have embraced. And why not? Shining a brighter light on any industry is always a good idea. And there is something obscene about the record profits being raked in by the Exxons and Chevrons of the world at motorists’ expense — not to mention the $144,573 that Exxon’s Lee Raymond earned for each day served as CEO.

But perhaps those profits and executive paydays wouldn’t be so obscene if Congress hadn’t given oil companies billions in tax breaks in recent years and if the nation’s energy policy hadn’t been cooked up behind closed doors by Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oilman.

Bush did propose a few sound ideas such as more tax breaks for hybrid cars and greater incentives to promote alternative energy technologies. The phrase “too little too late'’ comes to mind.

And even after declaring in the State of the Union that Americans need to combat their addiction to oil, Bush has failed to do the obvious: order a meaningful raise in automobile fuel-efficiency standards. That’s the most effective way to reduce the growing demand for fuel over the long term, which is the main reason oil prices are so high in the first place.

The fact is politicians have little power to affect the short-term price of oil. But there’s plenty they can do — and should have done earlier — to deal with America’s addiction to oil.

You can’t complain if you don’t make yourself heard.  And it won’t do any good if only a few of us do it. We ALL need to make sure our elected officials know we have had enough.  And it is easier than you think.  Go to Congress.org and enter your zip code or your state.  You’ll get a list of your elected officials.  You can even see how they voted on the latest issues.  And you can email them.  This isn’t a Republican vs. Democrats thing.  It’s time we all stood up and got counted, regardless of our political affiliations.

Now back to tech stuff

From a press release from McAfee (who recently purchased SiteAdvisor):

McAfee® SiteAdvisor (http://www.siteadvisor.com/), which is pioneering Web safety by testing and rating nearly every trafficked site on the Internet has news for Internet users who think Web sites with clean, appealing graphics and national advertisers on the home page are always safe: “Think again.” According to the first-ever Spyware Quiz conducted by SiteAdvisor, a staggering 97% of Internet users are just one click away from infecting their PCs with spyware, adware or some other kind of unwanted software. Even though the threat of spyware has received extensive media coverage, just 3% of the 14,000-plus consumers who took SiteAdvisor’s spyware quiz received perfect scores.

The survey challenged Web surfers to test their ability to detect which sites in a number of popular categories were free of adware or spyware. The examples in the quiz are taken from more than three million Web sites which SiteAdvisor has independently tested and rated for Web safety issues like spyware and spam. The first part of the quiz presented users with pairs of sites and asked them to pick which one of the pair was safe. The second part presented a series of file sharing software sites and asked which ones were spyware and adware free. The test has been available since March.

Among the survey’s most sobering conclusions:

Based on their choices, a majority of users (65%) would have been infected with adware or spyware many times over The presence of national advertisers and a clean, uncluttered design seem to trick respondents into thinking a site is safe Even users with a high “Spyware IQ” have a nearly 100% chance of visiting a dangerous site during 30 days of typical online searching and browsing activity Users often miss the fine print that allows a dangerous Web site to claim it installs unwanted software legally Sites were selected from popular categories screensavers, smileys, free games, song lyrics, and file-sharing applications all of which are also notorious for distributing spyware, adware and other unwanted programs. The quiz was specifically designed to determine how adept users are at visually detecting the potential for intrusive downloads on a site.

“We know it’s not easy to judge a site’s safety just by looking at it, but that’s the point: Bad sites are often very good at providing an aura of safety,” said Chris Dixon, who heads McAfee’s SiteAdvisor development. “No matter how knowledgeable or perceptive you are, you can’t rely on your instincts alone. Another important take-away that people sometimes forget is that there ARE safe sites, even in these often abused categories.”

The percentage of correct responses by category broke down as follows:

Percent of Consumers Able to Correctly Determine a Web Site’s Safety:

Lyrics Sites: 28%
File sharing Sites: 59%
Screensaver Sites: 62%
Free games Sites: 68%
Smileys Sites: 75%

Quiz takers did particularly poorly on the pair of lyrics sites. One possible reason the unsafe site had advertising from well-known brands like Circuit City and Monster.com that may have served to legitimize it.

Seagate has unveiled a monster hard drive in its Barracuda line that packs in 750 gigabytes (GB) of photos, video, music and other digital data using perpendicular recording technology.

The California storage giant said the new Barracuda 7200.10 drive family would reach, for the first time, above the current top capacity of 500 GB while maintaining performance — thanks to the perpendicular recording design.

Intended mostly for consumers who are exposed to an ever-widening range of multimedia content, the new monster drives are a sign of things to come in personal computing.

The 750 GB drive marks the move from yesterday’s data types such as the text of regular documents and files, to today’s multimedia, high-quality video and sound, Endpoint Technologies Associates Founder and President Roger Kay told TechNewsWorld.

Seagate said the new, bigger Barracuda line — now shipping  worldwide for a price of US$599 — is aimed at meeting the demand for more and more digital storage among consumers and organizations.

Read Seagate press release here.

This week, Apple unveiled a 17-inch MacBook Pro laptop that might just raise the bar on mobile computing and provide those thinking about using Apple machines with another reason to make the switch.

Powered by a 2.16-GHz Intel Core Duo processor and featuring an overhauled system architecture, the new laptop is some five times faster than the PowerBook G4 and weighs less than seven pounds. The components are wrapped in a one-inch thick aluminum chassis that sports a built-in iSight camera for on-the-go video conferencing.

In targeting the creative types that are its best customers, Apple has improved the display so that the 17-inch MacBook Pro’s screen is 36 percent brighter than the company’s other laptops. Moreover, unlike most notebooks on the market, this mobile powerhouse has an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card with a full 256 MB of dedicated memory.

The MacBook Pro also includes Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor that is designed to protect the hard drive in case of a fall. The MagSafe power adapter, another notable feature, connects to the notebook by way of magnets, disconnecting when there is strain on the cord. This feature, which works much like break-away collars for dogs, is designed to prevent the machine from being dragged off a work surface when sombody trips on the cord.

To help users shift from older machines to the newer Intel lines, Apple has included software-translation technology, called Rosetta, that lets the new machines run most of the older Mac OS X PowerPC applications seamlessly. Customers using the new Intel-based Macs also will have more than 1,500 “universal” applications from which to choose. Universal apps can run natively on Intel Macs.

At the time of purchase, the laptop is packed with an assortment of applications, including Apple’s Front Row software, which gives multimedia enthusiasts a simple way to enjoy digital content such as music, photos, and videos from across the room using the Apple Remote.

Every 17-inch MacBook Pro also includes a FireWire 800 port, a FireWire 400 port, three USB 2.0 ports, optical and digital audio input and output ports, built-in Bluetooth, and integrated 802.11g Wi-Fi wireless networking.

Listing at $2,799, the 17-inch MacBook Pro follows the February introduction of Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Pro, which was among the first Macs to hit store shelves sporting Intel chips.

Read Apple’s press release here

Another well known camera maker for over 40 years,Mamiya, doesn’t make the change to digital.  Here is their press release:

Elmsford, NY, April 24, 2006 – Mamiya O/P has announced that it’s Optical Equipment Division, manufacturer of the leading medium format cameras and lenses will be transferred to a new company.

The new company, Cosmo Digital Imaging Company, Ltd. was formed by Cosmos Scientific Systems, Inc., a leading company in IT technology.

Cosmo Digital Imaging will be able to combine its software expertise with Mamiya’s photographic capabilities to further advance in the digital direction of professional photographic imaging technology.

Building on Mamiya’s reputation and world wide distribution network, the new company will be able to achieve an even higher level of customer satisfaction. Service of Mamiya cameras, lenses and accessories will also be handled by the existing Mamiya distribution network.

Coming in the wake of a number of industry changes, this positive development gives Mamiya a new direction and a vision for the future.

Cosmo Digital is planning to execute these changes on September 1, 2006 and will retain a substantial number of present staff and facilities and acquire all the assets including inventory, property, trademarks and patents to assure a smooth transition.

From Slashdot:  OmniNerd has an interesting traffic article demonstrating how leaving early for work may cost you time. Brandon Hansen uses a year’s worth of data collected on his urban drive to and from work along with statistical analysis to show the effects of varying departure times and considering external factors like nearby school districts’ schedules. In the end, a minor shift in his departure time results in saving driving hours equivalent to over a third of the vacation time given annually by his employer.

I could have saved Brandon a lot of time.  My commute is anywhere from 45-90 minutes each way, depending on traffic.  Leaving around 8:30am (instead of 7:30am) saves me a lot of time and grief.  Unless the GW Bridge is screwed up, which sadly, it is at least once or twice a week..  Going home after 5:30pm, my commute is usually better.  Leave at 4pm to 5pm and it’s a safe bet the commute time increases. Brandon makes the obvious, valid conclusion in his article. We need to spend more on mass transit.  Unfortunately, until Washington stops taking big money from the oil companies, traffic and high gas prices are assured.

Excerpt from Hansen’s article:

Traffic: the commuter’s bane. It plagues major city drivers around the globe and shows no sign of letting up.1 In fact, the average U.S. commuter spends about 100 hours a year driving just to work - 20 hours more than a typical year’s supply of vacation.2 This personal “daily grind” uses more than 15,000 miles and 1,000 gallons of gas every year, which might not be so bad if much of it wasn’t waste: 1.6 million hours and 800 million gallons of gas are wasted every day in traffic jams across the nation. Traffic even affects your health, raising blood pressure, increasing stress, and producing more Type-A personalities.3

Of course, some places are much worse than others. New York tops the list, with Chicago, Newark and Riverside following, albeit at a distance. L.A. comes in at #6 and Houston, where I reside and commute, is #15.4 Other cities, such as Nashville, TN and Kansas City, MO, show up much further down the list, but something tells me that even commuters in those relative traffic havens dedicate significant effort and conversation to ‘beating traffic.’

Resources are sometimes available to help in this quest. Houston Transtar provides up to the minute traffic information for all major Houston highways.5 Average traveling speed, construction and accident information are all available at the click of the mouse, but how to avoid the perpetual web of red during the morning and evening rush hours is nowhere to be found. Obvious answers such as public transportation and carpooling are legitimate, but trends show that Americans are meeting the increase in traffic by using such transportation methods less, not more.6 Also, if the online traffic-reporting graphic warns of potential issues, there is no indication of how long they might persist, leaving the traffic conscientious commuter right where he started: guessing.

Tired of the typically inefficient and contradictory workplace chatter on the subject and feeling the pull of a slight worksheet obsession, I set out to statistically analyze my commute in order to determine how I might minimize my time behind the wheel. If there was a way to figure out how to give myself an advantage over the almost 900,000 other Houstonian workers out there (who average a 26.1 minute commute),7 math and a smidgeon of obsessive compulsive disorder had to be essential ingredients. At the very least, I would be able to ascertain just how much of my commute time was up to me - and how much depended on a “higher power” (e.g., weather, school districts, wrecks, etc.).

TechWeb’s article has some good tips.  However, if you are the type that is easily intimidated by your computers complexities, prcoeed with caution.

Despite all the hoopla about the introduction of Windows Vista, the truth of the matter is that the new OS isn’t due for at least another seven to nine months — and it will probably be even longer before most of us start adopting it. Meanwhile, we’ve still got to deal with Win XP.

In order to make the waiting easier, we’ve decided to assemble the greatest tips in the history of Windows XP. Here you’ll find the tips that give you the most bang for your buck; that are most useful in terms of security, functionality, and PC performance; and that are just plain cool.

Danger, Danger!

Before you jump into the story, a word to the wise: Some of the tips discussed here involve hacking Win XP’s powerful registry. Before you make any registry changes, make sure you back up your existing registry; that way, you’ll be able to restore it in case something gets fouled up.

Backing up your registry is easy. Simply open RegEdit (click Start > Run, type regedit and click OK), then select File > Export from the main menu. You can export a copy of your registry to any folder on any hard drive in your system. Exporting a copy to the desktop is usually easiest.

This PCStats article is amusing, but it is a good read that just may help you avoid some of the pitfalls they found.  They were:

Most Common Problems

26% PSU and power issues
23% Bad gear and user negligence
13% Heatsink related
15% Assembly and moving
10% Lightning strike and static
3% Computer cruelty
6% USB related
2% Overclocking

Here’s a little more….read the rest here.

Computers should be essentially immortal right? They are just a collection of circuits and signals, and as long as power flows to them, they should continue to operate; there’s nothing to break down, nothing to age… uh-huh. Anyone who’s ever owned a computer knows that this is not quite true.

Computers and their component parts do have a finite life span, and just like us, they have a list of afflictions that are most likely to claim their digital existences. Also just like us, most of these problems stem from careless handling, neglect, unhealthy environments and old age. Toss careless manufacturing into the mix, and you can see why the average computer system rarely survives more than ten years without some sort of catastrophic failure.

Ordinarily, this brief lifespan would not be of concern, since the average useful life of a computer system, the time in which it is still relevant and capable of running the software of the day, is far shorter, five years tops. The thing is though, careless handling can cut your computer down while it is still in its prime. Chances are anyone who has ever owned more than one computer has experienced some sort of unexpected computing catastrophe from a system that still had years of useful life left to it.

A few months ago the PCstats Newsletter asked its readership a pretty simple question; “have you ever killed your PC?” Hundreds of stories flooded in, encompassing everything from standard computer failures to tales of blue smoke and fire.

If you had a story about a system that died unexpectedly, or that you killed, we wanted to hear it. To say that we were overwhelmed by the responses would be an understatement. So before we go on, I’d just like to say “thank you!” to everyone who took the time to share their story. As it turns out there have been plenty of PC’s accidentally killed, hundreds of CPU’s fried, and more than a few power supplies unceremoniously cremated.

Out of all these tales, one thing became clear; sometime soon, one of your computers or one of its essential components is going to get fried and fail.

The beer can is in for a technology makeover that will shake-up the beverage industry, and it’s being brought to you by a company called Tempra Technology, which has ambitious plans for their cold can technology.

The specially modified cans use proprietary engineering to create a temperature drop that will reduce the I.C. Can contents by a minimum of 30° Fahrenheit in just three minutes. When activated, the all natural desiccant contained within a vacuum draws the heat from the beverage through the evaporator into an insulated heat-sink container. It is this patented vacuum-power which lowers the temperature so dramatically and quickly, leaving the beverage inside cold.

The I.C. Technology is 100% safe non-toxic and environmentally benign, because the whole process is the driven by the simple physics of water evaporation.

The average American drinks 22 Gallons of beer annually, and even though this product would demand a large price premium over a traditional can, the convenience factor and bragging rights would make this a must have item. Camping and fishing will drive the initial sales, and as volumes increase more and more uses will be found.

Expect the first cans to show up on store shelves in mid-2007.

Panasonic will sell a flat-panel TV with a 103-inch screen by the end of the year, the company said Wednesday.

Based on currently announced screens, the new television stands to be the world’s largest flat-panel set.

A prototype was first shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January this year, but at that time Panasonic didn’t have anything to say about a commercial product. However, on Wednesday the company’s U.S. unit, Panasonic of North America, said it will be available in December this year. Pricing was not announced.

The widescreen panel has a full high-definition resolution of 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels and a 3000:1 contrast ratio.

Read original NJ4T post on this story here