Dear Valued Newegg Customer,

[...] After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008. This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers. [...]
Sales Tax: Hooray Newegg Stops Collecting New York Sales Tax

I got this email this morning (even though it was sent to me yesterday). Good news in my book, even though they do include a reminder that people should pay their own “use tax”. Now if only Amazon would jump on board.

Comments (0) | Geekish

So WNBC ran a story tonight about domain name squatters, which was basically a story complaining about how all the “good” domain names have been taken. It’s really not news in my eyes, since it’s a practice that (as the story itself said) has its roots in the cyberbubble of the 90’s. But I guess since more people are getting Internet savvy(?) it’s becoming more obvious to more people, and thus is now considered “newsworthy”.

The problem is they simply misrepresented things. In talking about domain name squatters, they said that the largest owner of domain names is Go Daddy, the domain name registrar. Registrars don’t own the domains they register, they simply handle the registration process on behalf of people who would like to purchase domains. The domain is owned by the person who buys it through the registrar. However, the story made it seem as if Go Daddy itself was a domain name squatter, and the quote they used from Go Daddy didn’t help clarify things:

We consider domain names the real estate of the 21st century.

Makes sense if you understand that Go Daddy is trying to convince you to buy your own domain name, but if you’re already under the impression that Go Daddy owns 30 million domains of its own and is just trying to auction them off to the highest bidder, it sure won’t dissuade you of that opinion either.

Their website doesn’t really make things any clearer. They offer a link to Go Daddy’s complete email in response to their questions (which, again, doesn’t necessarily clear anything up if you’re already misinformed) and a link that simply reads Who Owns The Most Domain Names? (Again, this is a list of registrars, and nothing about the page they linked to implies otherwise.)

Then again, the page in question also currently links to file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/501452663/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/OLK1639/product_detail.htm, so, uh, you’ll excuse me for not taking them too seriously.

Comments (0) | Geekish, TV

In case you were wondering, an iPod Touch purchased since the 2.0 firmware was released will not, in fact, come with version 2.0 installed. It won’t be an oversight, either, because it will come installed with version 1.1.5 instead, which was released after 2.0.

And, needless to say, Apple will still be willing to charge you $9.99 for the upgrade, finally putting a nail into the coffin of that silly old “we only charge for the upgrade because we have to for accounting purposes” excuse that they’ve been touting.

My annoyance with Apple in this regard (no, I don’t own a Touch) is only outweighed by my disappointment with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform, which has been thoroughly put to shame by the iPhone OS. As much as I dislike Apple’s resistance to removable batteries and external storage cards, the lack of Bluetooth/speaker/microphone on the Touch, and Steve Jobs’ draconian control over what applications can be marketed and installed to devices that Apple sells, the usability of an iPhone or iPod Touch vs. a technically superior (with regard to hardware) Windows Mobile device is just so much better that my qualms more or less become irrelevant.

There are a lot of things Apple does wrong, and many things that they do worse than their competitors, but their final package is often simply unmatched in the end. In a way, it’s kind of disappointing.

Comments (0) | Geekish

AOL is apparently telling some of news blogs under its wing to cut back on posts in order to trim down its budgets. The sites that are impacted by the move fall under AOL’s Weblogs division and include DownloadSquad, Diylife.com, and The Unofficial Apple Weblog. All have been asked to stop posting content until July 31, according to paidConent.org.
AOL Cuts Back on Blogs to Save Cash || The Mac Observer

Ironically, it would appear that none of the aforementioned sites have yet posted to announce the fact that they… well, won’t be posting as much.

Comments (0) | Random

And really, could Sprint have made the battery door any more impossible to remove?

How would you change the Samsung Instinct? - Engadget

Yeah, they could have put an iPhone battery door on it instead. *rimshot*

Comments (0) | Geekish

Being off from school and all (and refusing to go back until I absolutely have to) has afforded me the much needed opportunity to do nothing productive, all in the comfort of my own seclusion. I decided to ask for DVDs of TV shows this year as gifts, perhaps in spite of the fact that I don’t usually ever get to watching DVDs of anything. (I don’t really need them as room adornments, either.) But the past couple days I sort of forced myself to watch the first season (plus a couple episodes) of The Office, along with the commentaries and such (I played the new Mario game for a little while too, which I guess was kind of fun). It was a nice change of pace, and well worth it—at least until I have to get some actual work done. But I think I can still put that off for a little while.

Happy New Year, folks.

Comments (0) | Random, TV