Koplowicz.com

I remember the early "dot-com" days in 1999 and 2000.  It was an exciting time, and as a college student I had front row seats: a new computer, high speed internet access, plenty of free time, and surrounded by fellow students with a loose set of morals, especially when it came to things like pirating mp3's.  No one really knew what the internet would turn into.  One very popular technology was Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP.  Back then, it meant a website with a telephone keypad that let us make free long distance calls.

Now I know why law offices don't use open source software.  Pleadings.

When I put Casey's Infantry Tactics on my Blackberry, I chuckled to myself that I'm the only person who would enjoy such a confluence of the deep past and the ultra-modern.  In 1855, US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis commissioned as US Army officer, Hardee, to write a new manual on tactics.  When the Civil War started, both Davis and Hardee went to the South, and in 1862 Hardee wrote a new manual for the Confederates.  The US Army couldn't stand using a tactics manual that had been written by a Confederate so they commissioned

Why do I even bother?  Mostly to vent of steam, but also to remind you of the terrible OS under which you toil.  Windows 7 is nothing more than an upgraded prison.

Even though there is not a single computer in my home that runs Microsoft software on a regular basis, I encountered two Microsoft-created demons in the same day.

The first popped up when I had to reboot into Windows to watch CBS online.  Of course I used Firefox; I know better than to trust Internet Explorer, that slutty browser who's more permissive than Jenna Jameson.

An op-ed from today's New York Times talks about trusting your computer when it wants to automatically update.  The article reflects people's general ambivalent attitude toward computers: things that get in the way and boss you around and will theoretically make your life easier and more convenient but usually just slow you down and drive you nuts.  This attitude represents

I have a kid but no camcorder (yet).  That leaves me with my Blackberry when I want to take videos.  Blackberry actually does this very well (considering it's a telephone), but it leaves me with odd .3pg files.  Not sure if anyone else in the world can view them, so I'd like to convert them to a more common format.  But I'm not a video whiz and I want something quick and easy.

The solution: WinFF.  Available for Windows and Linux.

I previously complained about how UStream won't work on iPhones.  (Well, it will, but only "featured" or "popular" webcams, so my babycam is out of luck.)  Thus I have embarked on a quest for free webcam software that will allow me to stream to the web and also to Yelena's iPod touch.  Curious?  Read on.