Slashdot | Identity theft Happens Predominantly Offline

Slashdot | Identity theft Happens Predominantly Offline: "prostoalex writes 'Worried about identity theft online? Relax, say the Feds. You're much more likely to have your identity stolen offline (72% of the cases). In half of all the cases, it's the friendly relatives, neighbors and friends who steal the identity of the victim. Moreover, those watching their financial accounts online lose approximately $551 per incident. The average rockets to $4543 for those relying on paper statements from their banks and credit card companies.'"

I am struggling to create a coherent thought about this. But it's interesting as an argument against those afraid to spend online.

Google Search: "brett walker"

Google Search: "brett walker": "mopedarmy"

From 7 hundred something to one-seventy-something to #33.

Ego surfing is an issue for so many, what does it mean that I push it, and discuss it here? Don't know, don't care. Barry changed my name to Walker; I haven't asked Matt to update his links page. Bobby and Sheree could be helpful, too.

Go time.

Drink Beer Or Wine And Be Sharper?

CBS News | Drink Beer Or Wine And Be Sharper? | January 20, 2005�12:00:00: "the New England Journal of Medicine found that women who have a drink of beer or wine daily have sharper minds into old age than women who abstain."

What about the men? WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?!?

Five things I'm thankful.
1) Fun Trivia tournament. Hopefully Matt's performance today will give him something to be happy about.
2) Bobby's Executive membership at LA fitness
3) Yahoo's launch player. They just played Paperboy's Ditty, I rated it 100, my 6,000+th song/artist/album rating. Still waiting for Sting's Englishman in New York. I could do it manually, but I would rather wait for the digital DJ to play it for me.
4) Hettermann, who's saved me more times than I can count on three fingers.
5) Sheree, enough said.

Sheree and Brett - June 11, 2005

Sheree and Brett - June 11, 2005: "There's a lot to do in Chicago"

And our website is ready for public release. It still has some kinks, but for about 4 hours of work I am pretty happy given my limited skills with html and css. I hope Barry is proud.

APP.COM - Diet study reaffirms red meat as a culprit in colon cancer

APP.COM - Diet study reaffirms red meat as a culprit in colon cancer: "Diet study reaffirms red meat as a culprit in colon cancer"

That's 789 studies against red meat, none for. Maybe I should pull back on the number of times I splurge with a nice filet... to twice a week.

Fifty years from now (if I'm still around), I hope to still play Saturday morning basketball at Caltech with Hettermann, and more and more evidence says that if I want to do that, I have to stay away from red meat. And that includes pork.

Now if I can just convince Matt to show up one time...

Up All Night...

...and I didn't get to work until 10 in the morning.

Christina Nazareno's band Up All Night played last night at Molly Malone's last night. Barry, Dylan, Evan and I drove down (Carpoolers ROCK!) and watched a great show.

They played a 45 minute set, and at least three of the songs had me hooked. I'm looking forward to their next show. With a great turnout, I hope they're excited about playing again soon; here's hoping they get something a little closer to Pasadena. Why am I so against a 35-minute drive?

I wish Sheree could have been there. Tonight the boys are playing poker, one of the rare times where I don't mind us being apart. Other than that, I want to spend more time with her...she moves in very soon, so I look forward to my wish being granted.

Microsoft Online Crash Analysis - survey

Microsoft Online Crash Analysis - survey: "Survey

Microsoft is interested in your opinions about Windows Error Reporting so that we can continue to serve you better. Please take a few minutes to complete the following anonymous survey.

Important: Reporting shall be entirely voluntary and non-confidential. By submitting suggestions and/or comments to Microsoft you grant Microsoft permission to use, at Microsoft's sole discretion, such suggestions and/or comments in connection with Windows error reporting. Microsoft is under no obligation to use any suggestions and/or comments you may provide."

I give feedback regularly, and appreciate companies who actively solicit comments. How many times have you heard 'communication is the hallmark of success in any relationship'? Well some businesses may say, 'our product is perfect, therefore needs no opinion'. Or 'people will tell us if they have a problem'. At least Micro$oft is asking 'what is going wrong or right?'. Here's hoping they do something about it.

Speaking of communication in relationships, doesn't it apply to friendships? Why do guys get along so well, with their reputation for not being communicative? And why are women so often 'catty'? Stereotypes are often unfair; in this case isn't the average for men to have larger male cliques than their female counterpart?

And in my engagement and marriage, I know Sheree and I will do well. The classic advice, 'never go to sleep without resolving a disagreement', 'agree to disagree', etc. are easy. Harder is figuring out when and if you're being selfish, and when and how you should say "I'm sorry". We are awesome together, and it's in no small part because we communicate so effectively.

Google's desktop search not rated highly

Keeper Finders - Five new programs that let you search your hard drive without having a seizure. By Paul Boutin: "Grade: C+. Google's desktop program has been plagued by questions about security problems that could let remote hackers search your PC. But the real problem here is that you can't search your entire PC. The program not only restricts searches to a preset list of folders, but it also won't match partial filenames. Google's desktop search is perhaps the least geek-friendly of the bunch, save Ask Jeeves. It doesn't have any of the special search syntax ('paul NOT boutin') or smart results sorting that Google's Web search is known for. If your photos have names like paul001.jpg, paul023.jpg, searching for 'paul' or 'paul*' won't turn up anything. If you don't know a wayward file's exact name, or if it's hiding in some backwater of your disk, you're simply out of luck."

Grade: A. Copernic has almost as many configuration options as the rest put together but lacks some of the best features of the lesser tools: Jeeves' all-categories-at-once search and tabbed results, Google's live AIM indexing and Web page thumbnails, MSN's advanced search syntax and index of Outlook info, and HotBot's RSS search. Still, Copernic finds more than any other desktop search and gives you control over how it indexes your computer. Search Engine Watch has confirmed that AOL's still-under-wraps desktop search is "powered by Copernic," but you can download Copernic for free right now without joining AOL. At the price, it's one heck of a deal.

Albert Einstein said the height of ignorance was condemnation without investigation.

I wonder how overly headstrong I was for spamming my addressbook with a Google Desktop Search recommendation without first checking the competition. Maybe I'll try Copernic's for a while...

A blog for me, a blog for you

Google Search:: "2004: Big Year for Blogs
PC World - 11 hours ago
Last year proved big for blogs and bloggers, according to data released from The Pew Internet & American Life Project. Blog readership"

The link above points to a ton of articles about a 'Pew' report that talks about how many and what kind of people read and write blogs.

My friend Matt has one. Sheree started one so I could keep tabs on her. I love you baby. Here is one of my best men Bobby's

When I wonder what my friends and family are up to, it takes me 1min to check it out. And I can leave comments with two of them.

I wish I had more sites to visit.