I'll take nerdy odds and ends for $800, Alex . . .

The INDUCE Act, which in its earlier forms would have made iPods, TiVo, and probably any computer illegal, appears to be dead for the moment. The act is designed to protect copyright holders, but by most accounts it goes way too far. John McCain has been one of the senators to help keep crazy stuff like this from becoming law. You can keep track of INDUCE over on the INDUCE Blog.

I needed some filler text to test a printer at work today, so I reached for the old standard, "Lorem ipsum . . ." Then I started wondering what the Latin text meant. To find out, click here. The printer seems to be fine, by the way.

Das ist ien funnen Bordgamen! My friend Matt introduced me to a wonderful thing: Geman board games. We played some Settlers of Catan last weekend. He also loaned me Lost Cities and Carcassonne. Fun stuff. The Germans take their board games very seriously. Read more at Wikipedia, GermanGames.com and RioGrandeGames.com.

If you're still reading this, then you must be a geek. So, you may enjoy these last two items.

Click here to learn how to completely uninstall MSN Messenger from your computer. I've been using this at work. There's a nasty little worm affecting MSN Messenger, so removing it may not be a bad idea. If you need to chat, consider GAIM (it works with your MSN account).

I had a laptop that needed different IP settings depending on where it was plugged in. So I wrote a batch script to make the change easier for the user. I got the info from this article.