Who’s got the fastest broadband in these parts? We’d like to list the top speeds of readers in a future item for .TXT.

To find what your speed is, go to http://www.speedmatterswashington.org/ and click on the link to test your speed. Or use the test link just below.

Here’s how we did at .TXT central, at The Spokesman-Review’s downtown Spokane office: upload: 11839 kpbs (kilobits per second)and download: 49750 kpbs. If you click the "compare results" option, you'll see how your speed measures against other averages.

State of Washington's average download speed, according to this site, is 1427 kpbs. Upload average in Washington is just 244.

We'd love to find anyone who can outhustle us.
Send messages or screenshots to txt@spokesman.com

YouTube is a handy repository for videos about the tragic aftermath of the huge earthquake this week in Central China.

This video, compiled off of the China news portal AboutCN.info, is a good video overview of the quake's impact.

If you have any other examples either on YouTube or elsewhere, please post their addresses.

An Indiana school district has filed a lawsuit against an unidentified user of Facebook after the social network site allowed people to create a bogus persona for a school administrator.

As reported in the Indianapolis Star, the suspects -- believed to be school students -- created a fake Facebook account for Tim Puntarelli, dean of Archbishop Roncalli High School in Indianapolis.

The perpetrators allegedly then used the Facebook account to send other Roncalli students inappropriate messages in Puntarelli’s name, an attorney for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said.

This is an issue worth dealing with, as having too many icons on a desktop uses up available memory. And that in turn can affect the ability of your browser to manage pages smoothly, especially if your machine is using lots of memory on multiple programs.

A simple option is using Microsoft’s built-in desktop cleaner. You’ll find it through control panel, then choose Display. Choose the Desktop tab and then under Customize, you will find the Desktop cleanup remove unused icons choice.

The Clippings item that we ran (see two items below this one) featured a set of comments by an NBC spokesman who suggested Microsoft is considering adding new controls in future Zunes to stop the playing of DRM (protected) video.

OK, now we got this answer from a "Microsoft spokesperson" who works for Microsoft's PR firm, Edelman.

Here's the official view and denial:

“Microsoft has no plans or commitments to implement content filtering features in the Zune software -- either on the PC or on the devices -- as part of our content distribution deal with NBC. Our focus at Zune continues to be delivering fun, connected music and entertainment experiences for consumers.” – Microsoft spokesperson.

We buy the explanation.
What's odd is why Edelman doesn't want to use the name of the spokesperson. That's a pretty fusty convention to make it seem somehow more corporate.

Live in Idaho and have a great idea for a video about potatoes?

Check out ituber.org, where you can find the details of the second annual iTuber potato contest.

Cash winners will be awarded for the top three finishers.

You must be at least 18 to compete for the main prize; there's a second category for high school students.
Read below for all the other tuber details.

From wire and local sources

If you use BitTorrent to helps you find and download episodes of “Heroes” or other NBC shows, think twice before buying a Microsoft Zune to watch them.

A future software update of software for Microsoft’s portable media player will likely include a feature that blocks unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from playing.

Microsoft announced last week it would sell video for the Zune, mainly TV shows. These include programs from NBC Universal, which has pulled its shows off Apple’s iTunes Store.

Web site Domainnamewire.com reports domain-name scammers have developed a scheme using messages sent from the “U.S. Copyright Registry.”

There is an official U.S. Copyright Office, but this scam tries to confuse recipients by suggesting that site owners should register their Web sites with uscopyrightregistry.com in order to protect “intellectual property.”

The scammers are crawling Web registration companies to find e-mail addresses, then send the notices, which suggest filing one’s site with U.S. Copyright Registry will protect “intellectual property.” The e-mails make references to large lawsuits in the six-figure lawsuits range for those who fail to take that precaution are made.

The U.S. Copyright Registry site uses background images of great buildings with granite columns to try to look official, but is not real.

Domainnamewire tried to identify who is behind the scam, but the best it could do was identify a contact address as 244 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10001-7604.

Etsy is one of the Web’s major success stories. It’s the definitive hangout for people making and selling handcrafted items.

AS it’s grown, Etsy has developed a number of smart ways to search among its ever-growing collection of items for sale.

Say you only want items in a particular shade of soft green (or light rust). Go to www.etsy.com/color.php and play with the color bar there to find results among its hundreds of thousands of items for sale.

Story appears in the May 10, 2008
edition of The Spokesman-Review.

Two Midwest fans have convinced Spokane’s Cyan Worlds to help them develop a movie based on the legendary world of Myst characters and legends.
Myst, originally released as a CD-Rom game in 1993, has sold millions of copies and has spawned books, a string of sequel games and an ambitious Internet venture called URU, or Myst Online.

Over the years Cyan Worlds has discussed ideas for movies or miniseries based on characters and storylines developed in Myst. But no previous video projects ever met Cyan’s approval or moved forward with the company’s blessing, said Rand Miller, the company president.

More than a year ago, Adrian Vanderbosch and Patrick A. McIntire, who live in northern Indiana, sent a proposal to Miller outlining the idea for a film, based on Myst.

By Tom Sowa
Staff writer
Aaron Patzer used to spend an hour each Sunday using Quicken, entering his bank statement and trying to keep track of investments. It was always a struggle and chore, he said.

He was working toward “the golden five minutes,” what Patzer said was the payoff after those first 55 minutes. That occurred when his effort produced a pie chart or nice graph explaining where he spent his money or how much he’d saved.

A graduate of Duke and Princeton University, the 26-year-old Patzer said he wondered if he could figure out how to get to the five minutes of satisfaction minus all the work and pain.
At left: Mint.com screenshot

To find out the status of your federal economic stimulus check, visit a site created by the Internal Revenue Service at
https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/ IRServlet?app=IRACTC.

You’ll be asked to enter your Social Security number, which won’t be stored on the site. You’ll need the total number of exemptions claimed on your 2007 return.

For many taxpayers not yet sent checks, the reply will read: “no specific information on your stimulus payment is available.”

No one provided the right answer to the .TXT Video Challenge No. 17 from last week.

The YouTube video, “5 to 9,” featured skiers cavorting in the backcountry of North Idaho.

We asked readers to identify the lakes featured in the latter part of the video.
The answer: The Beehives. The video even says "The Beehives" at one point.

The next Video Challenge will appear May 19.

A now-defunct site that allowed users to download copyright music and video was hit with a $111 million penalty in a federal court after a two-year trial.

The now-dark TorrentSpy service was slapped with the penalty for facilitating the infringement of thousands of copyrighted works.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in Los Angeles, ruling in a case brought by the Motion Picture Association of America, said site operator Justin Bunnell and associates must pay the maximum $30,000 for "each of the 3,699 infringements shown."

Chinese officials are refusing to guarantee that they won't censor the Web during this summer's Olympic Games.

In recent reports, the officials say the the international media will still be able to function normally. Officials from China's Technology Ministry took a somewhat odd opportunity to speak about its censorship plans during a press conference after the Olympic torch relay crossed Mount Everest. They said that while the government would be able to "guarantee as much [access] as possible," there's no way that China would turn off the Great Firewall entirely during the Games.

"China has always been very cautious when it comes to the Internet," Technology Minister Wan Gang said, according to Reuters.

Attorneys general across the country on Thursday announced an agreement with Facebook to protect kids online.

The chief goal was protecting children from inappropriate content and unwanted contact by adults.

The agreement is similar to one that MySpace reached in January with 49 states and the District of Columbia. MySpace agreed to head a task force, which Facebook has joined, focused on developing technology to verify the age and identity of social networking site users. The task force will report back to the attorneys general every three months and issue a formal report with findings and recommendations at the end of 2008.

Those of you who care about open source desktop options should rejoice at news that (finally) a new release of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is around the corner.

It's been three years since the last serious overhaul of this alternative to Windows Office Suite.

During that time we've seen community fragmentation and frustration resulting from Sun's heavy involvement with the office suite's development, and even a third-party online version that provides editing and collaboration features.

Now, the open source office suite is back with a new 3.0 beta release, ushering in a handful of major enhancements, broader file format support, and a solid batch of evolutionary new features.

See the release and download the beta at Openoffice.org.

Anyone care to offer a review of the new features and how it improves on the previous version? We'll provide you plenty of space to discuss the changes.

This you should like.

The IRS wants people to find out quickly the status of their stimulus check. They’ve created an online tool that lets a taxpayer find out where the money is.

Go to: https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/IRServlet?app=IRACTC and enter one’s social security number. (The site doesn’t store that number.)
You also need to know total exemptions claimed on your 2007 return.

For many taxpayers not yet sent checks, the reply will read: “no specific information on your stimulus payment is available.”

A follow up to the previous post about Spokane-based Artocracy winning a voter's choice Webby Award.

The only other Northwest Web site that won a Webby, based on a first review of the full list, is Seattle's Zillow.com, the flashy real estate 2.0 site.

It won in the real estate category.

Another Seattle site, icanhascheezburger.com, won a voter's choice Webby for humor.

Wigix is a Silicon Valley startup out to stop eBay from dominating the online person-to-person selling market.

Amy Klamper, who writes the SR's Cart Shark blog, has a nice summary of what Wigix is doing and how consumers can use it smartly.

Take a look at this week's Cart Shark over here.

Spokane's creative art selling Web site, Artocracy.org, came out the winner in the People's Voice division of this year's Webby Awards.

The Webbys are considered one of the major online awards. This is the 12th year the awards have been handed out.

Artocracy, operated by Spokane's Megan Murphy, was one of five sites nominated in the Art category.

Her victory occurred in the "popular choice" category, based on overall votes cast at the Webby site. Artocracy was not the judge's winner in that category; the award went to the Modern Art Museum.

The list of winners is at this link.

OK we're now definitely big fans of Penny Arcade.
See our story down below from last week ("Two dorks from Spokane take Penny Arcade to the Rain-Slick Precipice").

We like the creators, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, even more now that we see them taking on more than the obvious targets in the gamer community.

When they do shoot at the obvious gamer targets, they also do a great job. Here's a recent PA strip that is a quick slam on the Grand Theft Auto universe.

The strip is found at Penny-arcade.com

To see a larger version, please click here.

Did you know the movie “The Wicked Lady” is the ninth-most-watched feature film, ever, in England?

Neither did we. Yet there it is, among the 10 most popular U.K. films, as found on the British Film Institute’s just-released list of 100 most popular films in that country, based on tickets sold. The full list is at bfi.org/uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/.

Topping the list: “Gone With the Wind.” Right under it, “The Sound of Music.”

The other top 10 films are also a bid limey.... they would not match up with the U.S. Top 10.

OTHER NUTS this week:
Stat Counter
You’ve gone ahead and launched a Web site or blog and you can’t tell how many people are using it. Download the program called Free Hit Counter, at statcounter.com, and it will track how many hits you get. Maybe you should learn whether you’re getting visitors or not.

Portable USB drives have changed the way people move about and connect with the Web.

Many post-2001 USB drives can carry a whole group of applications that you can use and run from any computer you plug the device into.

We’ve just test-driven the “Lite" suite from PortableApps.com. We think it’s quite handy and highly useful if you want to carry your e-mail and browser with you in a compact unit.

PortableApps has two versions: Standard runs 260 megabytes, the Lite suite runs about 105 megabytes (it replaces the productivity pack, OpenOffice, with a slimmed-down version).

Included in both are a Firefox browser, the Thunderbird e-mail application, a task manager, antivirus software, a calendar and an instant messaging program.

From Mead to money: www.penny-arcade.com

By Tom Sowa
toms@spokesman.com
After Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins left Mead High School in 1997, they prepared for their future doing what many kids do: they played tons of videogames and worked odd jobs.

Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, right, decided to focus on creating comics and left the business side of Penny Arcade to others. Photo: Penny Arcade

But before their lives changed, the two friends washed dishes, collected balls at a golf course, fixed computers and stocked shelves at Circuit City. Holkins for a while worked a tech-support job with the Spokane school district.

The two buddies also tried their hand at creating an online comic, figuring the World Wide Web was the quickest way to win a large following of fans.
In the fall of 1998, the site Loonygames.com decided to start running the comic the two had created. The strip was Penny Arcade, a witty and irreverent take on the videogame subculture.

Today, Holkins, 32, and Krahulik, 30, sit atop the Penny Arcade franchise, a Seattle-based company with 10 employees and three million Web visitors a day.

FOR a slideshow of six PENNY ARCADE strips, click here.