I’ve decided to create a blog to go along with my photography website so this blog will be moving to a new address, www.sgawne.com/blog/.

The new blog will be split between photography related posts and technology related posts. I feel this is a good move for me because I would never be able to maintain both blogs individually and it allows me to focus more on my photography hobby while still posting periodic tech related tips, tricks and news.

So please join me at the new blog!

Thanks!
–
-Scott

Still having trouble deciding who to vote for? Lifehacker list the “Top 10 Web Tools For Election Season” to help you learn about each of the candidates and where they stand on the issues that matter most to you!

The tools included everything from side-by-side comparisons, video clips, spending & donation trackers, polling locations, recent news, candidate positions on your hot-button topics and fact checkers.

Rounding out the top three are Microsoft’s Political Streams and Google’s blog search for tracking current stories at #3, fund raising and donation trackers OpenSecrets.org and Fundrace 2008 at #2, and FactCheck.org at #1 for finding the truths.

Check out the full Lifehacker article to see all ten tools and learn more.

Technorati Tags: 2008-election, campaign-2008, president

update: this post got lost in the drafts so it’s being published a little late.

CNN is reporting a genetic study shows humans nearly went extinct 70,000 years ago. The study says a drought had left the human population possibly as low as 2,000 people in small groups throughout Africa.

It’s pretty amazing to think the human population could get as low as 2,000 people world wide when we have over six and a half billing people living world wide today. Humans have an incredible ability to adapt to changing situations but human extinction is almost a given at some point it time. Makes you wonder what will end up causing it. Drought? Flood? Meteor? Starvation?

… Read the full story here.

Technorati Tags: extinction, genes

Mark Hendrickson of TechCrunch.com is reporting that Microsoft has purchased the airfare prediction search engine Farecast.com (confirmed on their blog). Farecast.com, previously talked about here, is an airline flight search engine similar to Kayak.com. It searches across multiple travel sites including the airlines themselves, finding you the best bang for your buck!

Farecast’s claim to fame is their airfare prediction engine that provides and easy to read arrow display that suggest weather your should buy now or wait based on their prediction of whether the price will rise of fall. A confidence level percentage is also shown to help you decide if you would like to follow their advice or not.

Now that Microsoft owns farecast we’ll probably soon see it integrated into the MSN travel site.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, search, farecast

It’s Official, Yahoo has rejected Microsoft’s offer of a $44.6 billion buyout and Microsoft Responds. The NYTimes is reporting Yahoo’s stock has risen slightly in light of the rejection letter.

That means that investors appear confident that Yahoo is simply posturing to get a better deal from Microsoft (most likely) or someone else (if they can).

What does this mean for Google? Is Yahoo going to strike a deal with AOL? Keep up with the latest news on Yahoo and Microsoft in relation to this recent offer on the NYTimes Bits blog.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, yahoo, merger, aol

This time it’s actually true. Yesterday Microsoft made a $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo! Google is by far the most dominant when it comes to online advertising. A deal like this, if accepted by Yahoo, could create a true competitor in the online advertising market. Here’s what Eric Sconfeld over at TechCruch came up with to show how a Microsoft – Yahoo merger would compared to Google.

The real question may be what will happen with each of the properties owned by Yahoo and Microsoft if the two companies combine. Microsoft has been putting a lot of effort behind their new “live” branded properties, including many still under development. Both companies have their own media players, search engines, email, photo sharing, etc. Duncan Riley from TechCrunch gives his take on what will happen to some of the major products in the event of a merger.

In my opinion this seems like it would create a company too large but on the other hand it could create great competition in the online world. Yahoo just recently announced 1,000 layoffs, could Microsoft be the company to get Yahoo properties back on track? So when it comes down to it I guess I don’t really have much of an opinion yet, I can see the goods and bads that could come out of this merger. We’ll just have to wait and see when and if the deal actually goes through, I hear News Corp (Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate) is now also scrambling for a bid.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo, merger

A New Zealand microbrewery, Croucher Brewing Co., is offering a lifetime supply of beer for anyone that returns a stolen laptop. The laptop contains all the brewer’s financials as well as new label design ideas. One dozen bottles per month for life, totaling approximately $19,500.
… full story
Technorati Tags: stolen+laptop, beer