• Intro from the Pubcrawlers
• We're back, again. This time we believe it's for good
• Darren is drinking Brain Toniq and Jeff is drinking Coke Zero
• AVG cripples XP boxes across the world, offers a free year
• The cost of building an iPhone and G1 phone
• Just how many SPAM messages are sent out for each sale?
• Targeted ads, good or bad?
• AOL isn't dead.. I know, we were shocked too!
• The birth of P4P, can this be good?
• Second Life affair ends in real divorce.. Freaks!
• Chicago wants a tax on DirecTV and Dish Network subscribers
• A bunch of things you don't know about Barry AKA Barack Obama
• A dropped third strike = a home run?? Video Link
• Which commercial is hotter? Heidi Klum for Guitar Hero Video Link or Julianne Hough for Juicy Fruit gum Video Link?
• Thanks for listening and tell a friend!!

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It's been a busy few weeks for Comcast as they've finally come out and put a cap on users accounts and also announced plans to start throttling the bandwidth hogs. Beyond that today I was trying to send some e-mail through my own web server and realized I could no longer reach it at port 25, so yes, now Comcast has started blocking 25 in my area as well.

I admit it. I have turned into a digital music addict. With the death of DRM finally starting to happen and Amazon MP3 putting together an excellent service offering DRM free content, I find that I am buying a lot more music in digital form. I have finally got over the need to have a jewel case and liner notes. This development has made a good portable music player a critical item for me.

If you listen to show #22 you'll know why this post is called unsubstantiated. It's because I couldn't say that word. At least not within a proper time period not to look either totally drunk or totally stupid. I wasn't totally drunk, or even a little drunk at the time and you can make your own decisions on the other one.

The point I am making here is what you get with Alt-This is the show as it would have been if you were sitting around with us live and recording it. We don't edit out our blunders, unless they happen to be huge and unentertaining. We believe the live and off the cuff feel of the show makes for the best show. We hope you agree.

Unsubstantiated.. it's easier to type, trust me.

• Intro from the Pubcrawlers
• We're Back!! Episode #21 was recorded but never edited..
• Bookers and Makers Mark make this an all bourbon show
• Screw Pamela for their piece of trash software and support
• Don't buy Pamela, try Call Graph instead
• Screw G DATA and their piece of trash AV software and support
• Screw AVG and their piece of trash software and support
• Jeff says "AVG is a virus itself!"
• Screw the Consumerist and their constant "grocery shrink ray" posts, comment moderation and unsubstantiated stories!
• Costco may be the only company in America that doesn't suck
• Office Depot and why they also suck
• Cable broadband blocking ports, capping it's users, using deep packet inspection to insert ads and other garbage
• Non-DRM music is here since we last talked to you
• Jeff loves Amazon's MP3 offering
• Is Steve Jobs heathy? Can Apple survive without him?
• Darren is liking Vista on his new machine
• If you're plugged into the Internet please patch your shit!
• YouTube videos now available on our HD / Series 3 Tivos
• Thanks for listening and tell a friend!!

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• Intro from the Pubcrawlers
• Jeff gets sunburned at the A's game
• Darren and Jeff highly recommend Bull Frog sunscreen
• Darren drinking the 12 year old Tullamore Dew and Jeff drinking the Bookers
• Belkin might owe you money
• How much security is too much?
• Apple "shrinks" iPhone with bigger hand model
• Cathay Pacific strands passengers on a plane for 7 hours
• United's two-and-a-half computer glitch causes havok
• AirTran's sale not so much of a sale
• Holiday Inn's great rates non-refundable
• $6500 repair bill to remove stone from a moon roof
• Judge says students must be allowed to respond to RIAA lawsuits
• EMI has DRM free sales boom
• Pirates agree not to pirate developers app anymore
• AT&T cold calls you then disconnects your phone
• American Express saves the day with extended warranty
• Dell says they're sorry to the Consumerist
• Blockbuster sides with Blu-Ray
• Why I can't use Linux
• The Pirate Bay launches uncensored photo sharing site
• Http traffic takes over P2P thanks to YouTube
• Is MySpace worth $12 Billion?
• Feds can't seize your e-mail without a warrant
• Countdown to the iPhone
• Wifi record - signal goes 237 miles
• Darren talks about the Sopranos ending
• Important tip kids: Posting personal information is a felony
• Long Island couple forces fines and jailtime over loud kids
• Jeff recalls a fun day at the ballpark
• Free files of the week: Fix dead pixels with JScreenFix or UDPixel
• What's with the 510 guy at the Oakland games?
• The shot show is coming!!
• Thanks for listening and tell a friend!!

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• Intro from the Pubcrawlers
• We're here, we're recording and we're drinking
• Darren having the Kilbeggan's Irish Whiskey and Jeff is boozing it up with some Wild Turkey Rare Breed bourbon
• Applebees gives toddler a margarita instead of apple juice
• Jeff's Drinking Tip of the Week - Ask for a low, wide glass
• Jessica Alba would love some no-strings sex
• Pornado teacher gets a new trial
• The Consumerist pisses Dell off
• 27 Confessions of a former Circuit City worker
• The guys talk extended service plans
• Darren says JBL is the speaker of choice
• Are sellers really covered by Paypal's seller protection plan?
• Google pisses eBay off
• Apple's Safari available for Windows with 0 day exploit
• Russian ATM runs on unactivated copy of Windows
• Roller coaster, Arkansas, power outage
• Jeff says rain and roller coasters don't mix well
• 5 year old hands out heroin in daycare
• The earwig hunt continues
• FBI goes after the zombie hordes
• TorrentSpy ordered to track visitors
• AT&T's new copyright plan - read everyone's data
• Jeff notices Amazon ads much more targeted for him now
• Woman captures her own identity theif
• NBC lawyer thinks copyright infringement is a bigger problem then theft, fraud and bank robbery
• Bottled water costs 1000 times more than tap water
• Hottest female podcasters of 2007
• Free file of the week: last.fm
• Darren's last.fm page - Jeff's last.fm page
• Tell us what you like!
• Thanks for listening and tell a friend!!

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Every time a new version of Ubuntu or any other flavor of Linux comes out I think this could be the one that's usable. And every release comes and goes and it just isn't ready for prime time for one reason or another.

My main gripe? The way web pages render in Firefox under Ubuntu. I'm a baseball fanatic, anyone that knows me knows I spend more time on mlb.com than I do on just about any other site. When I try to view mlb.com using Firefox in Ubuntu it just doesn't work right. The drop down menus end up going behind the Flash box, making the site navigation pretty much useless.

I thought this has to be something I'm doing wrong so I did the usual, I made sure I was running the latest and greatest version of the OS, in this case Ubuntu 7.04. I made sure I have the latest Firefox and the latest Flash. No luck, same problem. I swore up and down this had to be something I was doing wrong because the last version of Firefox / Ubuntu / Flash did the exact same thing 6 months or so ago when I tried it.

Then I started doing more and more research and I found that I wasn't alone. This was a widespread issue, yet nobody seems to want to own up to just why the hell this kind of simple thing doesn't work right. I finally came across this thread on a message board:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=437525

Check out the screen shots. Then check out the answer given by someone claiming to be a Senior Support Engineer with Adobe.

Engineering is investigating this. The root of the problem is that no linux browsers support WMODE transparency. So other possibilities are being looked at but no firm solutions or timeframes yet.

So maybe I'm just picky, or maybe I just can't overlook such a pain in the ass glaringly annoying problem like this and soldier on pretending to love the whole Ubuntu / Linux experience. To me, if Firefox can't render pages correctly under Ubuntu / Linux then I'm sticking with Windows. Hell, at this point I'd rather try Apple's OS X than attempt to go through the hassle of spending the time to set up Ubuntu only to have simple things just not work.

If someone at Firefox or Adobe or even a member of the Ubuntu crew can come up with a fix to this problem then maybe I'll be able to rid myself of the daily Microsoft fix. Until then, I don't care about all the things Ubuntu does right. When it comes to using it on a daily basis to do simple things like web browsing it's no contest, Ubuntu is a useless pile of crap to me.

UPDATE: I've tried other browsers under Ubuntu as well. Someone over on Digg.com suggested that Opera worked fine with mlb.com. I installed Opera and it's the same problem, the drop down menus are coming down behind the Flash box. Also, the text of the menu bars are cramped and overlapping. The site just overall looks wrong and jumbled.

Tried Konqueror and the menus came down over the Flash box on the left but came down behind the video Flash box on the right. And, as with Opera the text on the menu bars was distorted and the site overall just looked wrong.

I stand behind my initial assessment that Ubuntu Linux isn't ready for prime time if you want to surf the web and hit any sites that mix Flash with drop down menus in the vicinity.

My only real question at this point really is why this isn't a bigger issue as there are PLENTY of sites that use this combination. Are all the Linux users just SO anti-Microsoft and SO in love with Tux that they can just ignore things like this? If you're a Linux user that thinks this is no big deal then I'd like to hear from you. I've heard for years why Microsoft was bad because they didn't follow web standards within IE to make pages look right. Well, to me this is Linux being unable to render a page correctly in multiple browsers. Where's the uproar?

Sorry for the delay in the posting, here is episode #18 in all of it's glory!!

• Intro from the Pubcrawlers
• Darren hits the 12 year old Red Breast as Jeff enjoys some Basil Hadens
• Darren is hunting earwigs
• Buy.com obviously doesn't actually read customer service e-mails
• Jeff goes off on Bank of America
• Can you really hear the difference in a higher bitrate mp3?
• iTunes embeds your persoanl info in the DRM free files
• World's largest mp3 store launching - payplay.fm
• Politicians that take money from the RIAA
• SPAM King arrested
• Jeff recommends "Inside the SPAM Cartel"
• NYC Theaters try to make things better with tech
• Jeff suggests shooting cell phone users in theaters - Yes, with guns
• Getting access to a Gmail accounts of the dead
• Idiot Illinois Governor wastes $1,000,000 on video game violence campaign
• The Slurpr - a device for better wifi theivery
• Jeff spills his bourbon
• I didn't download it, my router got hacked
• Windows Longhorn lives
• Microsoft's new Surface
• Amazon ads that know you - Does Jeff play with dolls?
• Darren explains why he hates Amazon's return policies
• Phishers pretend to be the IRS
• Fake e-mail causes Apple Stock to tank temporarily
• How you order at Starbucks effects how much you pay
• Postmaster mad as hell at Wachovia ads
• Google Gears takes on Microsoft
• On-Line backup services
• Wal-Mart fires employee for posting joke on MySpace
• Free file of the week: TrueCrypt
• Thanks for listening and tell a friend!!

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• Intro from the Pubcrawlers
• Darren drinking Kilbeggan Irish whiskey and Jeff drinking St. George bourbon
• Google and Dell join up to take over your DNS
• Dell selling machines at Wal-Mart
• Average download speed in the US are 1.9Mb
• Time Warner in Ohio jumping to 10-15Mb download speeds
• Jeff worries about his MLB addiction might do to his bandwidth usage
• Report says wireless set to overtake wired for businesses
• 7 Ways to send HUGE files
• Gmail allows 20MB attachments now
• BudTV already set for the scrap heap?
• Darren says Joost is pretty cool
• Pandora radio looking to go Wi-fi
• Charter charging $9.99 a month for what?
• Comcast charging customer for $1230 in porn she never ordered
• Comcast being the same company that accidentally showed porn on the Disney Channel
• Jeff says the Consumerist may be best website ever
• Best Buy getting sued for their secret internal website
• Jeff's Tacoma guitar vs. Southwest Airlines
• Midwest Airlines rated #1 in customer satisfaction
• Costco replaces dirty underwear punching bags - Wow
• New diet drug makes you crap your pants - double wow
• Consumers more likely to be loyal to a company that fixed a problem
• Is the new forever stamp really a good deal?
• New software uses your browsing habits to ID you
• Trent Reznor says he steals music, calls record label "thieves"
• Surviving PC disasters - file recovery
• Free file of the week: GnuCash - replace Quicken or Money!
• Hackers use part of Windows Update to send malicious code
• Darren adds another 500GB drive to his Buffalo NAS
• Darren Tivos 24 and watches it in on weekend
• Thanks for listening and tell a friend!!

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