It’s actually kind of frightening how quickly you can lose yourself in entering in words or phrases into the Internet Anagram Server just to see what pops out.

Try your full name and see exactly what you could be if but for a few rearranged letters.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the Michigan man often cited by experts as one of the premier sources of junk email, Alan Ralsky, has been charged with violating federal anti-spam laws in Detroit based on the results of a three year investigation.

Ralsky, called the "Spam King" by internet security experts, is unique in the field as he's often given interviews to news reporters in which he defends his self-proclaimed "legitimate" advertising practices.

I found a good use for the media sharing capabilities of Microsoft's Zune and XBox 360 during the family gathering for Christmas this year: musical slideshows.

I have a Zune with the monthly subscription that allows me to play unlimited music from Microsoft's Zune Marketplace. However, if you also have an Xbox 360 connected to the same network as the system you have the Zune software loaded onto, you can play downloaded subscription music remotely through the 360 media player.

Additionally, you can share photos from the same system, so I had a slideshow going of old family Christmas photos on my HDTV in the family room, while a multi-hour playlist of Christmas favorites played through the home theater sound system. It made for a nice bit of background while we spent the holiday together.

There should be some celebrating going on in Columbus, Ohio tonight as my sister just received official word that she will promoted to the rank of Major in the US Air Force in the coming year. She previously won Public Health Officer of the Year in 2006 and continues to receive outstanding reviews from the Air Force.

Of course, now the race is on for my brother, a Captain in the US Army who became a commanding officer in South Korea in 2006, to reach Major prior to the next time he sees her. Otherwise, she'll be SURE to make him salute her.

I'm writing this post using Windows Live Writer, one of the utilities recently released by Microsoft as part of Windows Live, a collection of services and software products created by the software giant to allow users to create and share content, among other features.

The software is extremely slick, automatically detecting that I'm using Wordpress blogging software on my personal website and LiveJournal here.  It even went as far as importing the theme I use for the site and making it part of the preview window as I make this entry.

The Live software team marks a change in development for Microsoft, in that they do things differently: They release software early and often, compared to the rather slow moving operating system and productivity departments.

For an example of the faster release schedule, take a look at the current Windows Live Beta collection.

It snowed tonight after we put some of our Christmas decorations out at the Meister House, so I took some photos:

  

(click for big)
( More Photos )

Not quite the display we put up for Halloween, but then again, I did just send a rather large check out this week to these guys for next year.

The UK website CVG is reporting that the scheduled December 2nd release of this fall's Dashboard update for Microsoft's XBox 360 will include the ability to download and play full games for the original Xbox. The service, dubbed Xbox Originals, will be available to Xbox Live members for 1200 Microsoft points, which translates to about $15.

If you're an owner of the first generation of Microsoft's Zune MP3 player, you'll probably want to head to the download page for today's big launch of the updated software. After a year of using the original software, the latest version is faster and easier to use. It also includes support for podcasts, a missing feature critics have often pointed to.

The software also includes a nice bonus for owners of the original 30GB hardware in the form of a firmware update that will put the same software running on the newly released second generation Zunes, providing much of the same features on the existing equipment.

If you're looking into purchasing a new Zune, CNet has video reviews of both the new 80GB and flash-based 4GB models, which they seem to like.

( Video: Halloween 2007 at the Meister House )

This year’s Trick or Treat event at the Meister House was our biggest yet, with over 200 kids visiting our Halloween display. Like most years, we had a steady stream of people coming for the first time only to come back later in the evening to bring friends and family back to see all we’ve setup over the last few weeks.

The streets in the area were filled with people for much of the night, resulting in our newest neighbors running out of candy, making a quick trip to buy more, then running out again all over the three hours the city officially recognizes for the night. We had an oversized bowl of candy, as well as several others around the garage area, all of which were empty by the end.

Our two biggest additions this year, Jason and Joe, went over extremely well with both the kids and adults. We joked that next year, we’re investing in high speed photo printers and digital cameras so that we can charge people to have pictures taken, much like the amusement parks do.

( Gameplay Video )

One of the biggest complaints I have about my Nintendo Wii is the fact that most of the 3rd party games that have come out since the console's launch have been little more than hastily created mini-game compilations.

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure may have a clunky title, but it does make up for it with gameplay. The game is a puzzle point and click adventure that can be extremely challenging once you progress through the levels.

If anything, the cutesy characters, harmless storyline and wacky name may be a downside for a game that is possibly more difficult than the age group the art design seems to be targeting. But for adults, the challenge available after the first few levels will keep them interested and satisfy them with the "aha!" moments as they work their way through them.

The Wii control scheme feels like it fits the game, rather than merely being an add-on gimmick, though there are some non-essential mini-games available within the normal levels that will make you want to skip them immediately due to issues with controller lag. However, the motion sensing works fine for the regular game, so it's not a game killer.

( VIDEO: Two New Faces at the Meister House )

Halloween 2007 has come and gone at the Meister House, but while I cut up the video I took during the night, I thought I would post a little snippet with two of the latest additions to our animated figures: Jason from Friday the 13th and Joe, the self-decapitating zombie.

And until I get around to slicing and dicing this year's video, here's a view from last year's Halloween:

( VIDEO: Halloween 2006 at the Meister House )

We've also got photos available at the Meister Photo Album.

C|Net's News.com is reporting that US high-speed internet access adoption increased 33% in 2005 over the previous year. According to the article, over 50 million broadband lines are now in service.

The split between cable and DSL broadband did undergo a change during that year, however.  While cable broadband still accounted for over 57.5 percent of last year's new connections, they did drop 3.5 percent from last year's new activations.  DSL, with only 40.5 percent, gained 3.3 percent over the same time.

This isn't too surprising, as many consumers new to the market are being tempted with the lower-priced DSL service, despite those packages having an average slower download speed than entry-level cable packages.  New services in areas where cable was the only broadband option available have helped the increase as well.

For most consumers, though, the differences between cable broadband and DSL mean little, and therefore DSL will continue to grow with it's current package offerings that are generally equal or even cheaper in monthly costs than most major dial-up services such as America Online or Earthlink.

I've been using the Ubuntu distribution of Linux for nearly two years now, and during that time I've only used the upgrade utilities to update my install to new versions across the Internet.

A new motherboard and hard drive, however, gave me an opportunity to try out a fresh install of the operating system using the latest install disc from the group.

I have to say I'm impressed, as the install disc automatically boots into a "live" version of the distribution.  This allows you to preview the OS and try it out on your hardware without making any changes to your system.

All of my hardware was auto-detected, from sound card to video and networking, and the example applications available from the desktop include multimedia players and web browsers, all ready for testing.

If you want to proceed with the install, you just click on the "Install" desktop icon and the process begins.

If you're a fan of the Internet Explorer alternative Firefox , you might be interested in downloading the recent Firefox 2 beta 1 release.

This preview of the next series of Firefox builds doesn't look particularly different on the outside, but improvements in page rendering and memory usage make it much faster that the 1.5.x line. 

I'm very happy for the built-in spell-checking for text entry boxes.

After you've installed the beta, you might notice that a number of your add-ons and extensions have been disabled as being "incompatible". You can get around this by downloading the Nightly Tester Tools add-on, installing and restarting.

From there you can go to Tools -> Add-ons and hit the Make All Compatible.  This overrides the version number compatibility set by the add-on's author, but will allow many plugins to work without much issue.

Audioholics,.com has an article up entitled 10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed.

The list makes some compelling arguments about how the format wars currently going on between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are going to end up making them nothing more than niche players like DVD-Audio and SACD.

Personally, even as a fan of new technology, I'm not interested in either format because I can't find enough compelling reasons to go with a more expensive format than DVD right now.

Sure, we're told about how great the technology is and how much more space for content the discs have, but I already see DVDs with plenty of space left over because the studios tend to avoid extra content whenever possible outside of hideously expensive "collector editions" released several months after the original disc.</p>

YouTube has a stunning video posted of low-level jet flight that ought to raise a few hairs on the back of your neck.

If the part where the pilot is checking his map while flying at two hundred miles an hour less than a hundred feet of the ground over the african plains doesn't bring a sense of thrill, then nothing will.

The Consumerist has a short little rant from one reader who complains that his local CompUSA refuses to price match online competitors.

According to Rick, the CompUSA has Linksys NSLU2 network storage drives for $100, whereas popular online-only retailer Newegg advertises the product at $83.99.

Most brick-and-mortar retail stores have price matching policies that only allow matching offers made for products advertised and available from other local retailers, which the writer of the Consumerist rant obviously doesn't agree with. The article then goes on to state: "Brick and mortar’s will become ash and dust unless they step up and match or beat online undercutters."

The only problem is that no one at the Consumerist bothered to check that realistically, the in-store deal is better if we're talking about comparable service. Yes, the product is $84 at Newegg, but even with next-day shipping, the total comes to $102. So for a few dollars more in sales tax, Rick will be able to go home immediately with his product, rather than wait one (or more, as Newegg doesn't always immediately ship your orders) day to get what he's already looking at.

The makers of PC-Cillin Antivirus have released a free beta version of their PC-Cillin Internet Security for Windows Vista that's good until October.

If you're running the 64-bit version of Vista, make sure you follow the extra instructions found here, or you may come across some stability issues.

The Beta 2 version of the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista is now available to the public for download in both the 32 and 64-bit versions.

The download weighs in at a hefty 4GB and in the form of a DVD .iso file.

Feeling a little down? Take a little virtual stroll through the collected images at imreallysad.com for a quick pick-me-up.