Posts by Tim Stevens at Switched

Teen Streams His Own Suicide Live on Web

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 21st 2008 at 10:44AM

We've covered no shortage of Internet-related suicides, particularly the epidemic of student deaths in Wales, but we haven't seen anything like this before. On Wednesday, 19-year-old Abraham K. Biggs chose to end his life with an overdose of pills, and also chose to stream his death live on Justin.tv -- apparently while being encouraged by members of the bodybuilding.com forum.

Viewers of the stream watched and commented until Biggs appeared to no longer be breathing, then called police. In the live video stream, police were seen to storm the house before covering the camera. Unfortunately, they were too late to save Biggs, who in his suicide note indicated "I hate myself and I hate living." While it seems Biggs was intent on taking his life, online or off, we're certainly hoping his choice of making it known doesn't start a new trend. [From: NewTeeVee]

Should Employees Be Paid While Slow Computers Boot?

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 20th 2008 at 11:42AM

Should Employees Be Paid while Computers Boot?

If you spend your day sitting at a desk at a computer, when do you boot up your machine? If you do it when you get in, do you count that time spent booting toward your overall workday? Or, do you come in ahead of time to let it boot up? We're guessing there aren't many people getting out of bed 15 minutes earlier just to make sure their computers are logged in and warmed up precisely at 9:00 am (or whenever their workday starts), and whether or not they should is a subject currently being debated in a legal battle between employees and companies like AT&T, United Health Group, and Cigna, a case many will be watching.

The employees contend that installation of Windows Vista on aging hardware, plus the enforcement of some rather draconian security policies, result in machines that take somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes to complete. That's upwards of an hour lost per day, during which time the employees can't really do anything about it.

The companies contend, however, that those employees go take smoke breaks or head to the water cooler while their machines boot, meaning they're not getting any work done, anyway. Who is to blame? That is something the courts will decide, but it seems a wee bit crazy to give your employees slow hardware and then punish them for it! What do you think? [From: Electronista]

Google Rolls Out 'Themes' for Gmail

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 20th 2008 at 9:40AM

Google is certainly not a company satisfied to leave a product well enough alone. Gmail, the already hugely popular free online e-mail service, has seen a number of upgrades in the past few weeks. First, it was integrated text messaging, then came easy to use video chat, and now Google is releasing a series of themes to make your Gmailing experience a little more aesthetically pleasing.

Google enabled people to apply custom themes to the Google.com search page many months ago, and since then, a variety of colorful and fanciful styles have been added to let you personalize your search. It's similar here, with Gmail starting with 30+ themes that range from wood-grained to modern and sophisticated. To enable a theme, click on the "Settings" link at the top of the page and click on "Themes." Don't see the link yet? Fear not; Google's doing their typical thing of rolling it out slowly -- it should be there in a few days.

And why is the company being so generous with the feature upgrades lately? Maybe they're still trying to make up for that painful downtime... [From: The Official Gmail Blog]

17-Year-Old Admits He Went on 3-Year Computer Crime Spree

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 19th 2008 at 5:45PM

In the online world, there are various levels of hackers. Lowest are the script kiddies, would-be miscreants who lack the skills to be a proper threat. Then there are the white hatters who infiltrate corporate and government networks largely just to see if they can -- often alerting the necessary authorities about the flaws. Worst are the skilled black hat hackers -- Dshocker was one of those, and arguably one of the most notable on the Web. Unfortunately (for him), he wasn't the most elusive, and he was sent to a juvenile detention facility for 11 months after being convicted of numerous crimes.

Dshocker is an unnamed 17-year-old kid from Massachusetts whose skills with computers got him into trouble. He not only led personal attacks against other online hackers, but was the leader of a large botnet and used his skills to make a number of bogus 911 calls. He was able to call emergency services and make it appear as if he was at one location, when in fact he was at another. He'd report that a violent crime was taking place, resulting in armed police storming the supposed origin of the call -- a dangerous situation for all involved.

Dshocker could have faced 10 years in prison had he been tried as an adult, but he managed to get away with less than a year in detention. We hope it's enough. [From: The Register]

PC Magazine Closing Print Edition, Staying Online Only

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 19th 2008 at 1:39PM

Woe betide the print publications of the world -- the Internet is here, stealing your subscribers, and it's not going to go away. Adapt or die is the mantra of the newspapers and pulpy journals of the world, and Ziff Davis is the latest trying to do just that, stopping print publication of the venerable PC Magazine, in favor of an exclusively online publication.

Founded in 1982, the magazine is following in the (very recent) footsteps of the Christian Science Monitor, which is also moving to an online model. PC Magazine, which used to print editions in excess of 500 pages in the heydays of the industry, back in the late '80s and '90s, will print its last edition in January of 2009. After that, the only place to get the word from the original source of PC news and reviews will be online.

So, PC collectors with a closet full of old, beige hardware, you may want to get to the bookstore in the near future -- your tome of choice won't be around for much longer. Not to worry too much, though, since you've probably been reading PC Mag online for years, anyway, and it doesn't look like that part is going anywhere.

The sad part, though, is just how fast all these magazines are shutting down. Check out our gallery below of five titles that have recently moved online only -- four out of five of them have announced the plans in the last couple of months alone. Though now make our living writing for the Web, we have to admit that we still like bringing the occasional newspaper or magazine when we're on, say, an airplane or bus (after all, that Amazon Kindle isn't cheap!).

What do you think? Do you still read magazines? Which do you prefer for news and articles: magazines or Web sites? [From: Paid Content]

Gallery: Death of Print

Silenced Army Blogger Tells His Tale in New Book

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 18th 2008 at 7:35AM

Last May, after a series of blogs created by U.S. Army soldiers on deployment gained worldwide notoriety and popularity, the military cracked down, effectively putting an end to the practice. Now one of the most popular of those silenced bloggers, Colby Buzzell, has written a book and continues to speak out about his experiences there and his hopes for the future.

Buzzell, who operated a blog under the nom de guerre CBFTW (Colby Buzzell F*** The War), wrote a number of posts from the warfront immediately after engaging in combat, including one famous one titled "Men In Black," about an engagement with a number of insurgents dressed in black. That post earned him plenty of attention from the worldwide media, and his superiors, too, who initially confined him to base then later ordered him to stop blogging altogether -- just 10 weeks after he started.

Now he's written a book, called "My War," which contains many excerpts from his blog, and continues to write for Esquire magazine while also working on a new book. Military blogs are still largely banned, though. Sadly, this means that the only way we're going to keep up to date with what's going on over there is the same way we always have -- through the traditional media. [From: CNN]

Scientist Creates Microscopic Obama Portraits

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 17th 2008 at 11:00AM

Barack Obama has made quite a stir since winning the election two weeks ago. He's promising change, big change, and with Democrats taking control of the House and Senate, he should have all the tools he needs to deliver it. His promises may be big, but Assistant Professor John Hart at the University of Michigan is highlighting his persona in something very, very small, by creating a series of microscopic portraits he calls "nanobamas."

Hart works at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, where research into carbon nanotubes is performed. Nanotubes were used to create the portraits, each about a half-millimeter across. The portraits are so small that an electron microscope is needed to photograph them.

Carbon nanotubes are a super-material that promise to let us to do everything from climb buildings to take an elevator into space. This particular use is rather less practical, but Hart's hope was that creating these nanobamas would increase awareness for his field of research. But, with the current economic downturn, the ongoing war in Iraq, and dozens of other crises facing the President-to-be, we think it's going to take something a little...bigger to capture his attention. [From: Science Daily]

Multiplayer Online Earthquake Game Trains Californians for Disaster

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 14th 2008 at 1:32PM

What would happen if a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Southern California? We certainly can't think of anything good, and our thoughts are echoed by the findings of a 300-page study from the U.S. Geological Survey, which detailed the likely resulting damage should such a disaster hit along the San Andreas Fault. That inspired the Institute for the Future and the Art Center College of Design to create 'Aftershock', a sort of massively multiplayer game in which everyone logs onto the site to simulate the social fallout.

The idea, in a nutshell, is for people to sign in and post their experiences during and after the imagined quake, which "hit" yesterday. Some are playing along, like this posting which tells the imagined tale of the results during a college class. Other posts, though, range from the offensive to the humorously confused, but it's all part of the peoples' reaction. Anyone can "play," even if you're nowhere near SoCal -- so we'd only ask that you play nice. [From: Boing Boing]

What's New in Windows 7?

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 14th 2008 at 6:00AM

While Windows Vista (launched in early 2007) addressed a number of Window's XP's biggest issues, most notably a much needed security refresh, Microsoft's most current operating system (OS) came with its own string of new headaches, like incessant pop-ups and some frustrating incompatibilities (not to mention its own set of flaws). Despite what those Mac vs. PC commercials might say, Microsoft has been listening, and its answer is Windows 7. It recently gave a preview version to a number of early-access developers and journalists, so let's run down some of the highlights of their early impressions of this OS that could still be several years away.

Continue reading What's New in Windows 7?

Teacher Suspended, Facing Dismissal for Facebook Comments

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 13th 2008 at 6:30PM

Another day, another warning about the dangers of public Facebooking. We've seen how college applicants are getting shafted, as have seen other cases where employers are snooping at employees' profiles. Now we have a case of a teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina who stands to lose her job thanks to comments and pictures posted on her Facebook profile.

The teacher, who remains unnamed, listed "teaching chitlins in the ghetto of Charlotte" in her Info section and, in the "About Me" section, said "I am teaching in the most ghetto school in Charlotte." As part of the school's investigation they also found some "suggestive" exchanges between teachers and photos of other teachers, also in "suggestive" poses.

It all sounds fairly tame to us, but given the position teachers hold in society, we can see where the school's superintendent is coming from. Regardless, it's yet another example of why you should make your profiles private. If you don't know how, just click on "Settings," then "Privacy Settings," then set everything to "Friend Only" if you want to be safe. [From: The State]

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Gallery: Death of Print

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