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Official: Pownce Set to Shut Down.

A notice was sent to Pownce users today informing them of the imminent shut down of the micro-blogging system. The message was sent at around 6:30Pm on December 2, 2008. The shut down which is set for the 15th of December is being blamed by their recent acquisition by Six Apart.

Below is information posted by Six Apart on their website:

Pownce has been acquired by the blogging company Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. To find out more about the acquisition please read the announcement by Six Apart CEO Chris Alden, and the announcement by Pownce Founder Leah Culver.

Pownce.com will be Shutting Down

Pownce.com will be shut down by December 15, 2008. If you would like to keep your content, we have created an export tool to assist you under Settings > Export. But please be sure to have exported your content by December 15, 2008 as it will not be accessible after that date.

We want to thank you for building the Pownce community. We are sad we must close Pownce.com, but we encourage you to continue the spirit of Pownce on Vox or TypePad.

A New Beginning

The Pownce team is excited about joining Six Apart. Six Apart has some excellent services to help you stay in touch and share with friends and to reach new readers.

Pownce, which is a similar site to Twitter couldn’t keep up with their competitors after those competitors hit the big leagues being mentioned within big companies such as CNN, and also from being used in Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. Although it was a great platform, Pownce just couldn’t keep up.

How Many Apps are available for the Iphone?

Apple has recently been punished by the surrounding tech media about how little applications get approved to be sold or given away in their Iphone/Ipod Touch App store. Well they’ve proved all their critics wrong.

According to 148apps.com, there have been over over 10 000 Iphone applications available on the market as of late (and still counting). It has taken almost 5 months to achieve this goal, and why not celebrate it better by seeing every single graphic of each Iphone Application in 1 place. That’s what 148 Apps did, and along side that graphic they also show a list of how many apps were available on any given month. They also have a table showing the “Count by Price” with an estimated total of all the Applications being $31,392.62.

Apple continues to be a leader in mobile technology, and is expecting to make a huge profit during the holiday season. For more information on Apple visit their website by clicking here.

How to Set up a Ventrilo Server.

Do you want to have a Ventrilo server set up for your home, family, or business? Do you want an easy way for people around you to verbally speak with you by using the Internet? Do you have the Ventrilo Client, and want to learn how to use it? Well your answer is yes to all the above questions take a look at the tutorial below to get started on creating your very own Ventrilo server.

First go to ventrilo.com/download, and then choose under the server programs section what type of download you need. The type of operating system you have usually helps determine that decision for you. After you choose your download you’ll be taken to a new screen giving you the terms, conditions, and agreement write up. On the very bottom of that page you will see an Agree button. Click that to begin the 3-4 second download.

After the download you’ll be taken through the usual install scenario that shows you the progress of the install. You will be also asked a few questions like what organization you’re affiliated with along with your name.

Once completed go to your start menu, and then click “All Programs”. Then scroll along the list until you find a file called “VentSRV”. Click on that and then select “Edit INI File”. This will open a text editor such as notepad. In this file you will see a list of server options. From there you can edit the information relative to your desires such as the server name, and password. After you have completed that make sure that you save it.

Once you’ve completed the above go to VentSRV again, but this time click on the actual Ventrilo server. This will open up a black window detailing information regarding your server. There is no need to do anything with the server other than leaving it running in the background.

Now open your Ventrilo Client, which you can download and install here. From there you should make sure you have your user profile filled in. Now click on Server(->). Afterwards click create a new server, and type in your server name. Once you’ve clicked Ok, type in the hostname box “localhost”, or the IP address of the server you wish to use. Then type in the password you created in the INI File. Once you hit OK everything should be complete and ready to go.

  • Don’t forget to Click Connect.

If you have any questions about the information above please feel free to leave a comment below. This can be difficult to explain, so if you think there’s a better way of explaining things regarding the Ventrilo server please contact me.The best way of contacting me is to follow my Twitter account or by sending me an email.

Linux on The Iphone?

Yes it’s apparently true according to this website. Apparently Linux’s 2.6 Kernal has been ported to the Apple Iphone’s platform. Better yet, it’s also said to be available for both first and second generations of the device. However don’t get to excited yet. The source said that drivers are still missing, and it will still take a few more versions before the complete version of Linux gets implemented.

So here’s apparently what it has at this time:

- Framebuffer driver
- Serial driver
- Serial over USB driver
- Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc.

Here’s what their working on:

- Write support for the NAND
- Wireless networking
- Touchscreen
- Sound
- Accelerometer
- Baseband support

There is also a demonstration video running around the Internet at this time via Vimeo video hosting. This video is about a three and a half minute long explanation on implementing and installing Linux 2.6 onto your Iphone.

People are still wondering what the point of this whole Linux/Iphone thing is all about. Well from what we’re getting from the source that first made this information available, it is meant to be an alternative operating system as compared to the traditional Iphone Operating System.

When Do You Start Celebrating Christmas?

Well it’s that time of year again, where we go out and get the Christmas tree, start fulfilling our Christmas promises, and start shopping for gifts for our loved ones. Of course it’s not just Christmas that the world celebrates. Various religions throughout the world all celebrate in different ways, at different times. So that brings up the question “When do you start celebrating Christmas?”

Traditionally in the Roman Catholic religion the Christmas season begins four weeks before Christmas day. This in the faith is called the season of Advent. This season is when people begin the celebration of waiting for Jesus Christ who in the Catholic faith is a symbol of God their creator.

I traditionally begin my Christmas celebration towards the end of November(right about now), and i love it. In my opinion it’s just a great way to celebrate the season of thanks, and giving. Ok I also might get a gift here and there, but it still brings out joy from people all around the world.

Business also use Christmas to advertise their products, with Christmas season savings. This season of savings usually begins November 1st, right after Halloween, and these companies usually implement savings of between 10 percent up to 90 percent off original product prices. This is also a big time for online stores such as Zazzle to advertise their market. Zazzle is an online company which sells user created content for much lower prices than traditional retailers. The creator of the content also receives a percentage of the money made from sales of their products. Zazzle is offering huge deals on Christmas related products.

Since the winter season is up and running, and summer is still months away hammocks are being sold for a great price. Style Mexican is offering single hammocks for less than $30.00, and super king hammocks for less than $60.00. This is a great deal plus you get express shipping for a small extra price. Again a great deal, for quality hammocks coming straight from the manufacturer in Mexico via Canada.

So how do you celebrate the Christmas season? I’d be very interested to know. Feel free to leave a comment below on what the Christmas season means to you, or send me an email by clicking here. I hope that you all have a safe, and pleasant Christmas season, and hope that you will take advantage of the great deals coming out of Christmas sales, and the financial Crisis we are in.

5 Easy Ways to Keep Your Windows PC Safe and Secure!

Computer security is becoming a very familiar topic around the Internet as of late because of the fact that hackers are much more advanced in computer hacking then they were 10 years ago. Most people in this day and age also have some sort of virus defender. Well let’s just say that this post is directed more towards people without such software. Remember that these tips are not set in stone, and there are other ways in which someone can get access into your computer.

1-Know the link you’re opening- Links are a very common form of accessing a website. Unfortunately a portion of those websites aren’t that safe. So how do you prevent yourself from accessing these websites? Well first off it’s important that you don’t click links sent via email. This also applies to emails sent from family and friends including forward and/or replies. Please note that it’s not necessarily a members fault if you receive one of these types of emails, as hackers in the present time are very smart  and are able to defy even the best of security software. If you absolutely must open a link, it’s important that you know where the link is going to take you, and how the website reacts.

Limewire

Limewire

2- Don’t use Limewire- This one is a rather obvious tip. Hackers and “Internet Extremists” can use this program to send virus’s to your computer causing you to lose some if not all control of your PC. Hackers hide the virus in a file(usually a music or video file) and when you download your favorite song, you mightalso be downloading the latest in spyware. It’s also important to notice thatvirus’s aren’t obvious, and in most incidents give no warning whatsoever of it’s intrusion. So again don’t bother downloading Limwire unless your interested in filling your computer with unwanted “stuff”.

3-Stay away from random files- Unfortunately some people just don’t understand this. If a file’s on your favorite website doesn’t mean it’s legit. Some people post these files to social networks and services to hack into others computers using password encoding software. Once you click download on one of these files there’s no telling in whats going to happen next. In some cases you won’t even noticed that some sort of malicious software has been downloaded(some go for months without ever noticing). So again unless your 100 percent sure that the file being downloaded is legit, you should stay away from it. I know this tip is a bit of a stretch as computers in this modern age require files downloaded from websites to run smoothly and efficiently.

4-Install Updates- This is extremely important in a windows PC. What these updates do is protect your computer from the latest in virus’s, spyware, and other malicious software. Also if you’re getting a new computer make sure that it’s up to date with these updates. If not it’s important that you install updates immediately. Most people however are unaware of how to install these updates so I’ll give a quick tutorial.

  • Open your start menu.
  • Click Control Panel.
  • Click the security icon in the window that pops up.
  • Then click “Turn Automatic Updating On or Off”.
  • From there you will see a new screen. On the new screen you will see a list of security options. I recommend setting it to automatically update.

I also recommend that you look around the Windows control panel making sure that all of your security options are set in a safer more secure manner. Once again updating your PC is very important in regards to keeping your computer as safe and secure as possible.

AVG

AVG

5-Get virus protection- Before i get deeper into this tip i should point out that this won’t protect you from all virus’s and or spyware but will give you a first line of defense. This first line of defense can be very critical when being attacked and may help warn you in certain venerable situations. There are plenty of options available to the consumer today like Norton, Mcafee, and much more. However there is also free alternatives available like AVG. Unfortunately some of these virus defenders slow your computer down dramatically. An example of this would be AVG: When i downloaded the software about a week ago my computer stopped responding and became slower than a snail. So just to warn you that when you do decide to download protection it does come with a cost of either price, or speed.

There is no one hundred percent defense on virus’s, or spyware but there are definatly ways in which you can protect yourself. It really depends on how you use your computer, and what programs/websites you use during your day. I hope these tips helped you out, and i surely hope that you don’t get attacked with any type of Virus. I personally have had it happen to myself, and it is no walk in the park. I’ll have another blog post coming up in the next little while on what to do if you have a virus already installed onto your computer and things you can do to attempt to destroy it. If you have any tips and tricks on how to defend your computer please feel free to comment below. If you would like to contact me the best way is to follow my Twitter account.