Raucous S.F. rally at his fund-raiser for ballot measures

Thousands of noisy protesters outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel greeted Governor Schwarzenegger as he arrived in San Francisco for a fund-raising dinner. CBS 5 report by Sharon Chin. KPIX-TV San Francisco.

Quicktime video  (6.4 MB)

Note the protestor being pushed by a cop and the loud booing of Arnold, whose popularity, like that of Dubya’s, is plummenting. The reporter mentions that Schwarzenegger, who ran on a platform of no special interests, has now raised more money than the previous governor Gray Davis, who he criticized for doing just that.

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It used to be that no-name clone notebook computers were low end and unreliable. This no longer true. I recently got a Wintec KN1 notebook, and it’s state of the art - 15.4 inch wide screen, every port imaginable, Pentium M 2GHz, and lots more goodies - all for a retail price $600-700 hundred dollars less than a comparable Dell or HP.

It was manufactured by Quanta Computer, the #1 maker of laptops -they made over 13 million notebooks last year - and distributed in the US by Sabio Digital. Wintec is one of the primary retail vendors for the KN1.

One nice thing about this notebook is all the parts were bought on the open market. Name brand notebooks often contain proprietary hardware. If something breaks, you must buy their replacement part. Not so with the KN1, all parts are freely available. Plus, to install or change hardware, you simply flip it over, unscrew a couple of screws, and all the parts are easily and quickly accessible. Nice!

This notebook was built in a class sponsored by Intel, which was aimed at small resellers, and assembled by a friend and colleague, Ken Buckner, who sells computers and who I do software consulting for. Everything was perfect except that there was an audio glitch. The sound didn’t work. After a few calls to tech support, a Sabio Digital VP drove to my house from about 45 minutes away and fixed it no charge. Can’t ask for better service than that.

Why is Intel sponsoring classes like this? Because the notebook market is flattening out and they want more sales. They want small stores that maybe sell ten a week to be selling notebooks too - branded with their own store name, of course.

This notebook is quite amazing. It’s fast, quiet, with a crisp wide screen and startlingly good audio. Plus, it has a/b/g wireless and LAN cards, 5-way memory card reader, and ports, ports, and more ports (One IEEE 1394, one microphone-in, one headphone-out, one VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor, four USB 2.0 ports, one S-Video out, one RJ11 modem connector, one RJ45 Ethernet connector, one infrared IrDA port, and one DC-in connector.) Wheee…

Sabio Digital - KN1 specs

Wintec

Quanta Computers

If you live in L.A. and want one, call Ken Buckner at 310 670 2803. He’ll have it built to your specs, deliver it to you personally, and do whatever setup and configuration is needed. I’ve bought my last several computers from him.

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Fired police chief admits bilking parents of assets

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The Japanese tech giant announced today a new generation lithium-ion battery technology which can be recharged to 80% in one minute, with total recharge taking a few minutes more.

This is huge. Recharge time for everything from cell phones to notebook computers to a hybrid and all-electric cars now becomes a non-issue. Wow.

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From the BBC Channel 4, reported by Deborah Davies - with video

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted with cattle prods, Burned by toxic chemicals, does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for BBC Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

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Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has appealed to the IRA to help rebuild the Northern Ireland political process.

In a direct call to members of the terror group, he asked them to “fully embrace and accept” democratic means.

Hmm, why this appeal and why now? Given the McCartney murder by IRA members, Sinn Fein (the political arm of the IRA) has been under huge pressure. But that murder was a bar fight and not political. Adam’s words could well send the more militant of the IRA back underground. Some will scream sellout at him, and the peace process in Northern Ireland is currently extremely fragile. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand from afar why internal actions like this happen, but he’s in the thick of things and I’m not. Sounds like the situation is fragmenting, if not bordering on explosive.

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