One of my friends got a new computer, and asked me to find the version of Ad-aware thats free to use.

The reason being, Lavasoft no longer makes it available on their website, and nearly every link to what used to be the free version, has been replaced by a paid version. So, to make it available, here’s the link. Remember, it is only for non-commercial free use. You cannot charge anyone for this program itself, but you can charge a minimal fee for downloading it.

As well, to enable me to afford the bandwidth to download this, please click on the ads!!!—->

Ad-aware SE Personal 2007

Part of a conversation with Ruby:

[16:45] Ruby: There is never a bad time to put our name out there, except for those times when you’re standing on a table drunk with your pants over your head. Then you might not want to mention who you are.

So true. So very very true.

Imagine a country, where the amount of national debt is almost equal to its GDP. Imagine a country, where each person on average owes over $20,000. Imagine a country, where the politicians have been bought and paid for, to deliver to the credit companies yearly profits of over 50%. Now look at America.

Yes, that is the state the US of A is in currently. When credit card companies are making yearly profits of 50% or more, off of the backs of poor people, its simply ridiculous. And yet, it is happening. It is evil, pure and simple.

Go rent “In Debt We Trust”. I’ll wait. Done? Good.

I’m Canadian, yet, what happens in America, happens here, often to a lesser degree. However, what scares me is a simple fact of math: The US has 330 million people, Canada has 30 million about. The US has a debt nearly at 9 Trillion. Canada has debt nearly at 360 Billion. Now, if we take those numbers, and compare them, we see first that its about a 10:1 ratio in population… but in debt, per person, it is at a 2:1 ratio! Thats five times worse than we Canadians should be at! I blame your influence, America!

The movie, “In Debt We Trust” also postulated a housing crash of some sort very very soon. Guess what happened this summer? People lost money. A lot of it. People lost homes. Lives were ruined, changed irrevocably, because of a twisted, twisted chain and trail of ‘funny money’.

Ask yourself, “Do I need another gilded set of plates? Do I need to buy a car that guzzles up more gas than that cheap, cash only car? Do I believe that my status is dependent on my credit cards, on how many I have, and how much I can end up owing? Do I want to sell myself in virtual bondage?”

I have two credit cards, both paid off. I have not touched either since Christmas. I will owe about 20-30 grand in student loans, but I consider that a good sacrifice for the education I am receiving. Others may not.

or can it? Some news out on the blogosphere about Microsoft releasing the entire spec to their binary formats(IE: .ppt, .doc, and .xls specifically)

No specifics on what version of those formats will be made available, nor on how far back the documents go. I for one, hope that I’ll be able to convert a .doc I wrote in 1994, and am able to open in Open Office, but not MS Office 2003!

Or, I could just stick with Open Office for the time being.

It appears that Microsoft is making an open-source converter for the binary formats, to OOXML, their “widely used” office document format. Widely used because everyone had a choice. Right.

Will this bode well for us? Or is this yet another brilliantly evil plan that falls over in execution?

I was reading wired(always a good magazine), and stumbled across an article that was quite touching and even alarming in a way.

First, the link: Climate Change and Mental Health

I think this is a rather interesting, and depressing phenomenon. It shows that at heart, we’re still hominids crossing the savannah. I can see where such a connection would evolve from. It was essential to our survival to move out when the enviroment changed. However, the fact that we are being affected by it, does show that no matter the source of climate change, we do need to do something about it.

/political rant