The days are up for some employees at the Vincennes Sun Commercial, and others' days are numbered, according to the Evansville Courier Press. Their story qoutes photographer Kevin Kilmer as saying that printing of our local paper will now be done somewhere in Kentucky. Kilmer was laid off Monday along with other employees at the paper's Vincennes office.

The paper has changed hands a couple of times. The new owners, Paxton Media Group, is headquartered in Paducah, Kentucky. Apparently, executives travelled from Paducah to perform the terminations themselves.

I was pleasantly surprised to find my favorite home improvement store running Linux on its "thin" client computers. These are computers that have no hard drive. They are only a mainboard, video card, sound card, and chip memory. All storage is being done on the store's server. What's more, the store chain has made its own version of the Linux kernel. I'm very impressed!

Looking further into its configuration, I also found a mixture of networking technologies. The computers all appear to be wired for standard 10 Megabit ethernet connected to a fiber converter that appears to be going to elsewhere. I have also noticed a wide distribution of wireless network access points connected in much the same way.

When government tries to compete with private business, you are a the loser as a consumer of goods or services. You lose for more than one reason, too.

To understand, you have to look at the reason for a government agency's decision to compete. Usually, their reason is the same as what we are seeing with our local fire department's desire to add an ambulance service to their ranks. The reason is a shortage of funds due to changes in the tax distribution within the state. They are trying to make up for a $300,000 shortage compared to previous budgets. Recent arguments seem to show that the city might actually lose money by starting their own service.

When a government agency works against local business, which in this case it is not obvious that it will, the local business has two options. Compete against the government and bury it or give up. Either way, we are the losers and the consumer of the service.

It was with some amusement that I read the story in the Vincennes Sun Commercial newspaper yesterday about the jail releasing an inmate before he was due to be released. The excuse they (the jailers) gave was that the computer had crashed and they lacked connectivity with the court. Having been the writer of the software used by the court in question, I can say, without doubt, connectivity to that program would not have helped them. They would still have had to do what they should have done to begin with; Call the court! Verify!

According to the article in the paper, the inmate (none other than Jeff Mooney) was released on July 13, 2008. The judge was not notified until Monday, July 28, 2008. Did it really take that long to realize the mistake? Furthermore, this story was a credible front-page story. Instead, it was stuck inside the front section at the bottom of the page.

You have all listened to my "preaching" the values of Linux over Microsoft products and I have not been alone in my crusade. Thousands of business across the country have found that Linux is a more suitable operating system for their business organization by measuring cost, function, and ease of use.

In the realm of cost, there is little to compare. Linux is, for the most part, a free operating system. Any cost associated with Linux is in the form of paid support. There are several companies offering such service for their versions of Linux. There are also local companies (and individuals like myself) that will provide paid support for various versions of Linux.

On Saturday, June 21, 2008, the NHRA Drag Racing community lost a champion when Scott Kalitta crashed after his final qualifying run in Englishtown, NJ. It was an horrific crash that left spectators and fellow racers in a state of shock.

Fellow racers who saw the crash knew that the chance Scott had survived was almost non-existant. It was apparent that he was possibly unconscious or disabled inside his funny car dragster after the engine had exploded as there was no visible attempt to slow the car after having crossed the finish line.

People and the media are already on top of the story of another death after the use of a taser to subdue a suspect. This time, the debate begins within our own county. Quintrell T. Brannon, 25, died Sunday night about 40 minutes after a Knox County Sheriff's deputy used the Taser on him. Officials said Brannon was being disorderly and resisting arrest. They first used mace and then the Taser to subdue him.

The debate is usually a "all-or-none" argument. But it should really be developed. I don't personally believe there is never the need for the use of a taser. But I do believe that it should be used only in the presence of a weapon that a suspect is using. If the suspect is only being physical, then the taser should not be an option. Why? Because it is obvious that the taser can be lethal and should be used as such a weapon as a pistol.

This is one of those things that just gets me enraged at so many different aspects of such an event that I can hardly type what I'm thinking. A hacker has supposedly made his way into a Greene County financial institution's database and accessed sensitive information. What gets me so frustrated is that the local town marshal won't disclose which institution has been compromised. Further more the Green County Daily World article doesn't even disclose in which town this occurred.

This is vital information that is NECESSARY FOR ORDINARY CITIZENS to have. Those who might be affected might not even realize that they are. Those who are not affected are left to speculate that they might be. This is a failure on both the parts of the local newspaper in Greene County and local law enforcement. Both should be ashamed that they are trying to protect the reputation of the bank rather than protect the financial situation of many citizens.

If you haven't been paying any attention, the Indy Falcon Cam is up and active with this Spring's brood of four chicks. Kinney has become that nation's lead producer of offspring, with 50 under his belt after the fourth egg of this years clutch hatched over the weekend.

The Falcon Blog is active with lots of action from the mother and father coming in to keep the chicks warm and feed them with the latest catch from the downtown circle of Indianapolis.

Not too many were even awake at the time of the earthquake last week that shook much of Indiana and Illinois. I happened to not only be awake but was working and felt the ground beneath me moving. My first reaction was that a train was derailing. But when I saw shelving swaying above me, I knew what was occurring. I carefully stepped back under a sturdy structure to protect myself from anything that might fall from overhead. Luckily, nothing fell.

Some people I've talked to didn't even know that an earthquake had occurred. They either slept through it or were driving and it was not apparent to them while on the road. Yet others were very freaked out by it, almost panicked, and that is the wrong reaction. Here are some tips from the USGS about what to do not only during an earthquake, but before and after one occurs.

An open source operating system was the sole survivor of the Pwn to Own contest at CanSecWest this week, reports C|Net News. The contest went into a third round before it concluded. The first round, which allowed only hacks against the operating system itself produced no winning hacker. The second round, which allowed attacks against common applications such as web browsers, produced a winning hack against the Mac AirBook showing a flaw in its Safari web browser. The third round opened the hackers to work against any software installed which fell the system running Windows Vista Ultimate to a flaw in Adobe Flash. In the end, only an Ubuntu loaded laptop remained untouched.

Yesterday's big story about trash pickup routes in Vincennes got me thinking about the topic. At first, I thought to myself, "Hey, no big deal. I put my trash along the roadside at the alley, anyway." But today I realized that if the trash trucks begin going down the roads only and not down the alley, then that's going to be a traffic obstacle for us all to have to avoid. Some of the streets in Vincennes have only enough room for one vehicle to go down that street even though it's a two-way street. One such street that I use often is Locust from Washington Avenue to Upper 11th.

Between Washington Ave and North 11th, there is only room for one vehicle due to parking on both sides of the street. That particular stretch of the road is pretty heavily populated, so the trash truck is going to have to stop all along the way to pick up trash. That is going to be a real headache for everyone, including the garbage truck driver.

This year's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is off to a whale of a start for fans. Toyota, having scooped up Joe Gibbs Racing, is showing real dominance on the track and last year's powerhouse team, Hendrick Motor Sports, has only Dale Jr in the top 12 in points. Jeff Gordon and defending champion Jimmie Johnson sit in 13th and 14th spots, while Casey Mears in all the way back in 33rd.

Mears has had a lack-luster performance since going to the Cup Series. He remains winless and has not managed to get into the Chase since its inception. But he is not alone. Several other drivers also have a poor performance history and they are all in trouble of losing out to young drivers coming up in the ranks of the Nationwide Series or newcomers from open-wheel racing.

Our primary elections are just around the corner and having read about so many problems occur across the country, I decided to look up something about the vendor of our local voting machines in Knox County, Indiana - MicroVote. I was quite shocked to find so many different stories regarding the company and a somewhat less than clean history. Additionally, an interview transcript posted on VotersUnite.org that left a less than stellar impression.

Perhaps the most troubling thought came from the interview transcript. The one single line that just doesn't sit well with me is as follows:

The Associated Press reports that a woman has filed a lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and MediaSentry. The suit claims that RIAA and MediaSentry have used unlicensed, unregistered and uncertified investigators to illegally enter and search the hard drives of tens of thousands of people.

The woman's lawsuit follows her having been falsely accused of downloading music illegally and served papers from RIAA.

An article in the Evansville Courier discusses how many Chinese-manufactured technology gadgets like MP3 players, navigational systems and digital cameras that come with software installed on the gadget are infected with spyware, malware, and virus programs. The story's author seems to believe that this is something new. But it's not.

Several years ago, I was a guest on Knox County Today on WAOV and was asked about the future of Internet access. The host, Tom Lee, was asking me this question in regards to being a dial-up provider in the face of growing competition from cable and DSL providers. I directly answered that cell phone providers stood to be in place to take the lead. They only needed to install the technology within an already-in-place infrastructure. I believe that interview took place in 2002 or 2003.

Well, the cell phone companies almost did it. But they have been very slow to respond to the mass market and have priced it out of the range of the "average" users. DSL and Cable have pretty much reached a point of complete saturation of their markets. The only way for them to grow is to expand their markets, which is unlikely in most cases as that is not a profitable venture to go into the country side. Fixed wireless has a pretty good hold in that market already and the satellite and cell phone providers have made some inroads there, too.

What has to be the biggest find in recent memory, police in Allen County located over 3 tons of marijuana, reports the Indianapolis Star. According to the article, police got a search warrant for the man's rented residence after they found 10 pounds in his car and $100,000 dollars cash when he was pulled over for speeding.

Wizards.com reports that co-creator of the popular game Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, died March 4, 2008. Gygax was 69 years old. No cause of death was provided by the sight.

Dungeons & Dragons, perhaps one of the most original and popular games of the 20th century that spawned multiple computer and other Fantasy Role Playing Games (RPGs), was first published by Gygax and Dave Ameson in 1974. It was often the focal point of religious zealots who accused the game and players of witchcraft and satanism during the late 1970's' and early 1980's. Some parents even claimed the game caused their children to behave violently or caused outright insanity and suicide.

The problems for Microsoft and the Vista version of its operating system just won't go away and are getting worse. The lawsuit against Microsoft over its "Vista Capable" logo on computer systems sold in 2006 is heating up. It has been given class-action status and may also end up with added defendants which might include Intel.

Last week, emails between Microsoft, Dell, HP and Intel as well as hand-written notes were released (although redacted) for public view. They show a lot of frustration among vendors and Microsoft executives alike over the branding of computers as "Vista Capable."

It appears that the logo was created solely for Intel to be able to sell its model 915 chipset series of main boards in laptop computers. That particular series did not have enough graphics power to run anything beyond Windows Vista Home Basic edition, which did not include the Aero package found in higher versions of Vista. Even a couple of Microsoft executives ran afoul of the problem themselves. Mike Nash, Microsoft Vice President of Windows Product Management wrote in one email: