Dear Google,

I'm writing this letter to ask for your assistance in a campaign of awareness.  Currently the US Government is considering legislation that would undermine the fundamental freedom we enjoy in using the Internet.  In the spirit of openness, please help out our fellow Americans to protest the gross miss use of the US Law.  I'm talking about current legislation that goes by the names SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and others.  These bills, if passed, would break and ruin the Internet as we know it.  

My request to you, Google, is to stop processing search requests for 24 hours beginning on January 1, 2012.  Instead, change the Google.com page to simulate the censorship that would result from these bills.  A campaign of this magnitude is what will be required to raise the awareness of the American public. Maybe then the guys and gals in Washington will understand the mistake they are too close to making.

Sincerely yours,

Everyone on the Internet

I have been give the privilege to post to this blog we call a toilet. What that means, I have yet to decide - but it shall be an interesting week trying to correlate tech news with toilets. Whoever came up with this blog title must be very strange (did I just say that out loud...). 

Anyway, a little background on me - I am currently a network engineer working for a large corporate client. And when I say large, I mean it. We will see where my posts lead us, but with my heavy Cisco focus don't be alarmed by a large number of network related posts over the next few months. (Maybe I am the plumbing for the toilet - you know - the network ... okay, that was lame). I love my gadgets and tech news and hope that my opinion is useful to someone out in the great sea of tubes. 

Let the journey begin.

(Feel free to follow me @wrwarwick)

Here's your link: http://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/

Now the hard part comes in letting a name expire.  It feels like the moment the site expires, some enterprising 15-year old is going to buy it and become rich.  I have to convince myself that's not going to happen.  But it's much harder said than done. Instead, "I'll just buy it for one more year" becomes very temping option.  Now you know why I've had a site four years and done nothing with it.

I'm pretty sure the next TLC hit TV show will be domain name hoarders.

~TT

I find it amazing that I've not told anyone about my new address.  I just start emailing them from my new address and for the most part, they respond to the correct address.  It's got to be a lesson in email psychology.  I can train my email recipients without their knowledge.  Very cool.

Anyone who's been following this story knows that nothing good will come from a merger.  AT&T's own reason for buying T-Mobile (expanded coverage... yada yada) isn't valid since they could spend less money and have the same expanded network WITHOUT purchasing a competitor.

Here's your story: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57330035-266/how-long-will-at-t-fight-for-t-mobile/?part=rss&subj=latest-news&tag=title

With my domain now in Google's playground, I need to migrate my data.  Gmail has a nice feature that allows importing email via pop.  I configured my new account to download all my old email from my regular gmail account.  This. took. forever.  About two weeks later, all the mail was imported, minus labels, filters, and chats.  Labels and filters I can easily recreate.  All my chats however, that's a loss.  Still don't have a solution for those.

Actually making the switch to my new email address is going to be a slow process.  I figure I'll just start replying to folks with the new address.  I'm hoping to avoid sending out some email blast to all my contacts about my new address.  We'll see how well that works.

Calendar, contacts, and Google Reader were the easiest and quickest to migrate.  Google provides tools to import/export the data from all of these services.

I've had an iphone for a few years and Google's services sync nicely via the exchange features.  I told my old gmail account to stop syncing contacts and calendar, and told my new account to start syncing contacts and calendar.

Services I have yet to migrate:  Google Docs, Picasa web albums, Google+, Google Voice, Youtube, Google Books, Google Maps.  Of these services, I imagine Google Docs will be the toughest, since I have several shared documents.  Stay tuned, I'll report my progress throughout this process.

I wanted to write a post about a major problem affecting way to many users these days, Browser Toolbars.  However, a smart fellow over at Emory Law covered this topic nicely.  Plus, he saved me the time (and security) of not having to install these toolbars myself to demonstrate the problem.  Browser toolbars are a nuisance and should be punishable by a permanent Internet ban.

Enjoy - http://blogs.law.emory.edu/elsit/2009/02/18/browser-toolbars-are-bad/