This from Engadget yesterday:

“New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has announced an unprecedented project wherein the entire city will be blanketed by free WiFi within a year. Due to the almost complete devastation of the city’s infrastructure, the free Internet access is one attempt to turn the city’s stagnant economy into one of growth and independence. Like in most large-scale networks, the New Orleans routers will be placed on top of street lights and provide citizens and businesses with 512 kbps download speeds until the city’s state of emergency has been lifted. In accordance with state laws that restrict government-owned Internet providers, speeds will drop to a paltry 128 kbps once the city has returned to some level of normalcy.”

I’m sorry, didn’t Ray Nagin just announce about a month or so ago that the city would have to lay off a very large percentage of its’ employees? Police Officers, Firefighters, etc…many of them were laid off because of the pressure the city was feeling based on the costs to rebuild.

So, basically, there’s a single woman down in N.O. with two or three kids that now has free WiFi (no computer, mind you) and no one to protect her. No need to worry, though, I’m sure Nagin will come to her aid if she needs it.

After alpha test upon alpha test upon release candidate upon release candidate…Mozilla has finally released a well…final version of Firefox 1.5 You can download it here and, while you’re there, check out the new Firefox homepage and “Add-ons” section.

I stumbled across a site which seems to claim that you can build a blog based entirely on Gmail functions.  For instance, a new e-mail = a new blog post and comments would represent conversation replies.

I can’t seem to verify whether this is an actual piece of software or just a prototype because I haven’t gotten around to working with “tarballs” yet so I can’t test the files the author has provided.

If this was developed, this would be a VERY useful item to have….

Check it out here: http://ion.gluch.org.mx/files/Hacks/gallina/ and let me know what you think.

Joy! The 3rd service pack for the oh-so-behind-the-times operating system, Windows XP, has officially been confirmed by Microsoft according to FixMyXP. The service pack is expected to ship after the next generation OS, Vista, is released in the latter part of 2006. Unofficial fixes that are expected to be included in SP3 can be found at TheHotFix.net.

I’m not sure what this has to do with “tech” but you’re not a true geek if you don’t enjoy the classic episodes of the Simpsons (Seasons 3-7, fyi.) The one particular episode that seems to have quite a bit of recognition around my parts is the episode in which Bart and co. (Milhouse, Nelson, and Martin Prince) come across some cash, fake IDs, and a rental car and make their way down to Knoxville, TN. (Home Sweet Home.)

Milhouse: Wait! How about a fair? Not just a county fair, not just a Europe fair, but a World’s fair — the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Bart: Keep reading.
Milhouse: The Hungarians have built a giant motorized Rubik’s cube, and the fair’s symbol is the SunSphere, which sits atop a 266- foot tall steel shaft.
Bart: What’s inside?
Milhouse: An information desk.
Everyone: Cooool!

Their reason for choosing to go to Knoxville is to see the (1982) World’s Fair and the fantabulous “Sunsphere” which the writers claimed was now actually an abandoned “wigsphere” claiming that this infamous building is now just a storehouse for wigs. This entry I discovered on Google Video (made by a local newspaper - the Knoxville News Sentinel) actually goes into the Sunsphere to tell once and for all what is actually inside this piece of Knoxville/Simpsons history…nothing.

You can watch the video here: Google Video and you can read all about the episode of the Simpsons in which the building was referenced here at the Simpsons Archive.

Okay, I could be WAY behind the times but I am only just now noticing the new redesign for Sourceforge.net - something I’ve been waiting for.  For a long, long time.  It’s pretty nice, actually…very clean and easy to navigate.  I’m especially impressed with the fact that I can check out most active projects for each software category without ever leaving the main page.  Check it out…you won’t regret it.

http://www.sourceforge.net

Russell over at ZDNet’s VOIP blog points to a freeware app called SkypeKiller.  This little app goes a bit further than Add/Remove Programs and removes all traces of Skype’s existence.  I’m personally a fan of Skype and I even just signed up with SkypeIn so I’m probably not going to be downloading this but I thought I might try to be a bit “fair and balanced” today.

PC Magazine just released an in-depth review of the first Office 12 beta.  The first sentence of the review is absolutely priceless and something I can most definitely relate to: “When Office 12 arrives sometime in the second half of 2006, you may stop hating Microsoft Office.”

Seriously…that’s the best beginning to a review of a Microsoft product…ever. 

Thanks to Slashdot for the heads-up on the review. 

The new U3 USB mini-drives from Memorex are including Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail client as one of the bundled applications. This is yet another huge step for the open-source movement. Thunderbird will be accompanied by Migo (to manage personalized settings including IE favorites and desktop wallpaper, etc.), U-Safe (for password protection), and U3 Anti-Virus (powered by McAfee). The drives will be available in 256mb, 512mb, 1gb, and 2gb capacities.

Sure, it’s missing a portable Firefox but I’m as pleased as punch that Thunderbird might be getting some more exposure. The faster I can get rid of Outlook…the better off I’ll be in the long run.

Source: http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/review.php?reviewId=1286

First off, read Google’s description of its’ latest product:

Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.

I know Google said that the payment tool it came out with before was not to be developed as an eBay/PayPal killer but with the addition of Base - I can’t see that NOT happening.