Day: June 16, 2008

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Firefox 3 Download Day

Download Day

Tomorrow, June 17th, is the official launch of Firefox 3 and we’re trying to set a Guinness World Record. Please download Firefox 3 tomorrow to:

Set a Guinness World Record
Enjoy a Better Web
Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours – it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.
The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008.

I’ll be downloading it tomorrow and you should to.

———-Update 11:00AM EDT———–

According to the Mozilla blog, the record setting attempt starts at 10:00 a.m. PDT (1:00PM EDT), for other  time zones see this page.

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Denon, Incompetent or Fraudulent?

Denon is now selling a 5 foot Ethernet like cable for $500.00. Either Denon’s engineer’s are totally incompetent for designing a digital audio link that requires a $500 cable to work over 5 feet or, Denon’s marketing and management are jumping on the take money from gullible audiophiles bandwagon. Either situation is very bad, you don’t want to buy incompetently designed or fraudulent products.

denon1Take a look at the data sheet, it is completely devoid of electrical specifications, all it has is the usual range of pseudo-scientific marketing phrases. The biggest laugh I got from the data sheet is this bullet point. “Direction marks to indicate correct direction for connecting cable” and the picture shows a double headed arrow printed on the connector shell. The symbol clearly shows that you can connect the cable in either of the two possible ways making the symbol completely unnecessary. Another laugh is their labeling of the strain relief bushing in the head shell as a “bush”. Sorry Denon you don’t even have a firm grasp of the English language, a bush is plant type not a strain relief device.

I am very disappointed in Denon and in my opinion they have become snake oil salesman. I recommend that people do not even consider buying any gear from these hucksters. Any company willing to stoop this low is one to stay far away from if you value your money.

This article about the cable has some spot on observations and reasonable reader comments. My favorite phrase from the article is this, “Not made of solid gold and unicorn hair then”.