Archives for September 2009

Disney is offering a free day's admission to 1 million guests who complete a day of volunteer work next year. The "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" program will provide certified volunteers with a one-day ticket to any park at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., or Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., in 2010.

Disney is partnering with HandsOn Network, a clearinghouse for volunteer opportunities, to connect people with projects and to certify that the work was done."We are trying to inspire 1 million people to volunteer in their communities and we're inspiring them to do that by giving them a free day at a Disney park," Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Rasulo called the promotion "very timely," citing the increased needs of nonprofits in the weak economy, as well as President Obama's national volunteering initiative."The spirit of our country is very much behind that, whether it's the first family or whether it's the average family," Rasulo said.

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Microsoft today confirmed that it will launch its free security software suite, which has been in development for almost a year, Tuesday morning. "Microsoft Security Essentials, the highly anticipated no-cost consumer security offering, will be released to the public tomorrow, September 29," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail reply to questions.

The spokeswoman added that the program will be made available Tuesday morning, Pacific time, although she did not have a specific hour for the launch. Earlier in the day, Network World's John Fontana had been told by Bob  Muglia, the president of Microsoft's sever and tools division, that the company would ship the free software Tuesday.

Security Essentials, which Microsoft offered to a limited number of beta testers last June, is the company's replacement for Windows Live OneCare, a for-a-fee security suite that was retired at the end of June 2009. Microsoft has pitched the software as a basic anti-virus, anti-spyware program that consumes less memory and disk space than commercial security suites, like those from vendors such as McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro.

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Students with an ITLabs Account at the University of Minnesota have access to a wide range of free software (legally) for their personal computer. This includes software ranging from Microsoft Windows to Microsoft Office to ProEngineer to Mathematica.

Much of this software is offered through ITLabs and can be found on the ITLabs Resources Page. The software available here includes Matlab and Mathematica. You can also sign up here for access to Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance, where you can get free licenses for almost any software that Microsoft makes, including the Windows Operating System from Windows XP to Windows 7 Release Candidates (Pre-Release Versions), Microsoft Office (including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Project, and OneNote), and almost any other current releases of software they make.

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One of the most inspiring things I've witnessed in my 10-plus years in open source is its gradual embrace of pragmatism. By "pragmatism" I don't mean "capitulation," whereby open source comes to look more like the proprietary world it has sought to displace. Rather, I would suggest that the more open source has gone mainstream the more it has learned to make compromises, compromises that make it stronger, not weaker.

Let me explain.

There have long been two camps within what we typically refer to as "open-source software." The first is led by free-software advocates like Richard Stallman (who, importantly, largely eschew the term "open source" as not being sufficiently concerned with freedom), while the latter is led by no one, but was formally organized in 1998 by Tim O'Reilly, Eric Raymond, and others in Silicon Valley.

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Men over 40 will be able to have free PSA and DRE tests for prostate cancer on Saturday, October 3.

Priority will be given to men between 50 and 65 who have not been tested over the past two years.

Prostate cancer will be described by local urologists prior to appointments for individual examinations and blood tests.

Admission by pre-registration only. Phone 250-338-8235 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The 34-year-old actress earned critic's attention with her uncanny portrayal of "Little Edie" Beale in HBO's "Grey Gardens," and her directorial debut, "Whip It," has been hailed as a success well before it rolls into theaters October 2.

But, at her core, she's still the irresistible free spirit we all know and love, as she revealed in the October issue of InStyle.

On being a celebrity ...

Barrymore said that while she loves her life, there are still moments she battles with being a celebrity. "Some days I want nothing more than a brilliant mask so I could look like someone else and go wander the streets and be free," she said. "I'm very peeved that Halloween only comes once a year."

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As I previously reported, Microsoft has decided to make its apps for the new Zune HD free. The idea is that, because the Zune Marketplace has far fewer applications than Apple's App Store and because Microsoft isn't accepting third-party apps, making them free gives the Zune an edge.

Well, that's all fine and dandy – if you want to watch a pre-roll advertisement before your game boots up.Ars Technica brought this little development up in a Wednesday blog post, noting that so far it seems the ads only appear before games. Apparently, free is too good to be true.

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Toronto - myhosting.com, a leader in affordable and effective Web hosting services in more than 140 countries, today announced its Web Hosting Endowment program, which donates free Web hosting services to organizations that help the greater need.

“We believe in giving back to the community and help organizations that contribute to the greater good; it is part of our culture at myhosting.com.” said Celal Ulgen, chief marketing officer for myhosting.com.Non-profits and other contribution-based organizations will receive Web hosting, Exchange Email and SharePoint through myhosting.com. More specifically, those organizations will receive the following free features:

- FREE Professional Web Hosting which includes a dedicated IP address, both Windows 2008 and Linux hosting platforms which include generous storage, bandwidth, email accounts and all other standard Web hosting features.

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The Jacobs School of Music seeks to bewitch audiences with strains of free classical music.Five of the student orchestras have free shows at the Musical Arts Center this month. The semester starts off at 8 p.m. today at the MAC with the Philharmonic Orchestra.Jacobs spokesman Alain Barker predicted a relatively large turnout for the first major student orchestra of the fall.

“We expect to see about 1,000 people Wednesday night,” Barker said.Faculty member David Effron will be conducting, but he might conduct for other orchestra performances over the course of the semester. Each performance of the orchestra can also have a different conductor.“They switch up the conductors every show,” Barker said.

After the Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra will be performing at the end of the month. The Jazz Ensemble, Wind Ensemble and University Orchestra will also perform this month at the MAC.In order to help improve the quality of the orchestras, an audition process was put into use.

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Intuit has announced that it is purchasing online personal finance rival Mint for $170 million. That is no small change for the free personal finance service named one of The 100 Best Products of 2008 by PC World.

Intuit has long dominated the world of personal finance software with Quicken in all of its flavors. Microsoft Money was its primary competitor, but Microsoft bailed out of the personal finance software market earlier this year.

Perhaps Microsoft saw the writing on the Web 2.0 wall before Intuit? Microsoft's statement on its site announcing the end of Microsoft Money said "With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed."

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