I’ve spent the last week developing a new interface for our Web site at work to allow us to insert, modify and remove various course descriptions. The bulk of the time has been spent simply inserting over 500 different course descriptions to get the database populated initially.

However, along the way, I kept running into different items that threw me for a loop, causing me to have to go back and rethink the way I had written the script.

I’m noticing more and more that everyone seems to be abandoning the traditional e-mail server in favor of Google’s Gmail. My Internet Service Provider switched over a while ago. Recently, I also joined a consulting group, working on managing and maintaining their Web site (and doing side Web work for them), and found that their e-mail is completely managed through Gmail. That Web site is hosted by GoDaddy. After a bit of research, it seems that Google and GoDaddy have (and have had for a few years) some sort of agreement that allows users to sign up for Google Apps and GoDaddy hosting all rolled into one.

In addition, I have heard that many colleges are now switching their student e-mail servers over to use Gmail rather than the services they have used in the past. In fact, the entire state system under which I work has moved over to Gmail for the student e-mail system. While our support staff e-mail is still hosted locally on an Exchange server, all student e-mail now runs through Gmail.

Is the whole world switching over to Gmail? Is anyone still using their own mail servers to handle sending and receiving correspondence? Does it even make sense to use your own server anymore? Will the world come to a grinding halt if Google’s e-mail servers ever shut down for any reason?

This evening, while visiting My Yahoo!, I came across a Yahoo! news article discussing the upcoming voter registration deadlines. I clicked on the article to read it and found a link inside leading to a VentureBeat article about the voter registration application being offered on Facebook.

When I finished reading that article, I noticed an interesting item at the bottom: a link to CenterNetworks. While CN was not really featured on Yahoo!, they are only three clicks away.

I’ve posted some screen shots of my progression after the jump.

Some very big rumors about Sega have been circulating on the Internet over the past few days. Most of those rumors have centered around the idea that Sega will be developing and releasing a handheld gaming device next year, attempting to rival the Sony PSP. Gizmodo even took the bait and ran with it. There was, apparently, even a shoddily produced video supposedly showing the new “Vision” in action. The video has since been removed from YouTube.

However, from what I’ve been able to ascertain, most of those rumors are false and have been blown way out of proportion. CrunchGear ran a couple of articles trying to get to the bottom of the situation. In the end, Unofficial RPG posted seemingly official quotes from Sega officials confirming the existence of the Vision handheld, but stating that it was simply going to be a portable media player rather than a new handheld game console.

As of yet, there is still no official word on Sega’s Web site, so it is very difficult to ascertain how much fact and how much fiction are involved in this story. I, for one, will be one waiting with baited breath to see if Sega really does dip its toes back into the hardware game.

I was thinking the other day about a really cool feature I would like to see in media player software. It’s possible that the feature already exists in some media player software, and I’m just not aware.

I think it would be very neat to have the ability to play something on my computer while I’m plugged in; then continue playing the same thing on my digital media player when I unplug it from my computer.

I have no idea how many people use the Wal-Mart music download service, or, for that matter, how many used it when Wal-Mart was still selling DRM-protected WMA files.

However, if you are one of those people, you are in for some bad news. Those files will do nothing but take up space on your hard drive this time next week.

That’s right; Wal-Mart has finally decided to shut down its DRM server, which is where those files acquire their licenses. If a license cannot be located for those files, they won’t play. Further, if you have them on your digital media player (iPod, Zune, etc.), they’ll most likely be automatically removed next time you sync.

What can you do to save these files? About the only thing you can do is to burn those files to a CD, then rip them back off of that disc in mp3 format. Be careful; if you rip those files back off of the disc into WMA format, chances are that the files will still have the DRM protection.

There are probably various semi-legal applications out there that allow you to digitally convert the files without the need for blank CDs, but those apps are usually only semi-reliable and often difficult to configure and use properly.

Good luck with it.

On Sept. 2, 2008, Sun released VirtualBox 1.6.6. Then, two days later, version 2.0 was released. Finally, just over one week later, they put out version 2.0.2.

I’m not quite sure what was the reasoning behind releasing three new versions in less than two weeks, but I’m glad I wasn’t paying much attention. I would have been kind of upset if I had upgraded my version three times in that short amount of time.

Regardless, if you’re using an older version of VirtualBox, go ahead and upgrade.

VirtualBox 2.0x added the ability to run 64-bit guests (assuming you’re running a 64-bit OS as your host), along with a lot of other new features. As far as I can tell, VBox 2.0.2 basically featured about 10-15 bug fixes from v2.0.

As of midnight tonight, Zune services will be going down for maintenance, and will be out of commission for up to two days. While this is probably devastating for Zune pass subscribers, at least the powers-that-be at Zune.net are doing things right.

On Sept. 26, I received an e-mail message letting me know that the services would be unavailable during that time. In addition, if you visit the Web site right now (there’s a screen shot to the right), there is a very blatant message informing you that the services will be down for up to 48 hours.

While I’m not sure this maintenance downtime is going to be good for the Zune bottomline or increasing its following, I am hoping that the maintenance will also include some nice upgrades to the service.

I simply cannot imagine iTunes being down for two days (although, I suppose it’s possible that it’s happened, since I never use iTunes, personally).

It seems like an odd business decision, but I am impressed with the level of notification.

A new site has launched that’s part game, part test. It’s called “The List” and once you figure out how to use it, you will be tested on your coding skills. When you launch the site, all you receive is a linux prompt. You need to know the right commands to get into the game. Can you solve the problems they present?

My supervisor sent this to me at work the other day. It really is an amazing promotional piece. You may need to watch the video more than once to get the full effect, but it’s definitely worth watching again. I am truly amazed at how the developers were able to put this together, but I am incredibly impressed.

I assume that it’s all done with Flash, but I really am not 100% certain. What do you think?

Link