Yesterday’s New York Times had a scary article about the very real possibility of being locked out of your Gmail account.

The best strategy to deal with this danger is backing up your Gmail account. Along those lines, the helpful folks over at Lifehacker offered up this method for Gmail backup in Windows using fetchmail.

Problem is that there are at least 15% of all computer users that don’t use Windows. For the rest of us that live in the *nix (unix, linux, BSD, Mac OS X, etc.) world, I discovered George Donnelly’s helpful guide.

It’s important to know that Gmail limits how much can be downloaded at one time, so you might have to do your initial backup a few times to catch all your data.

Hopefully, Gmail will never be a bother, but it’s always good to be prepared.

Gmail backup was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

I broke my supposedly indestructible titanium glasses today!

After laying down relaxing this afternoon, I opened my glasses to put them on and the nose piece snapped. My frames fell into two pieces!

I’m now using my 12 year old, backup pair. Of course, they are uncomfortable and out of prescription.

*sigh*

Broken glasses was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Getting To Know You by David Marusek

Promo copy:

Not since William Gibson and Bruce Sterling galvanized science fiction in the 1980s has the emergence of a new writer been heralded with such acclaim as that attending David Marusek, whose brilliant first novel, Counting Heads, appeared to rave reviews in 2005.

Now, in this collection of ten stories, Marusek’s fierce imagination and dazzling extrapolative gifts are on full display. Five of the stories, including the Sturgeon Award-winning “The Wedding Album"– a shattering look at the intended human consequences of advanced technology– are set in the same future a Counting Heads. But all ten showcase Marusek’s talent for literate, provocative science fiction of the very highest order.

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

Promo copy:

Named by the New York Times as "one of science fiction’s bright young lights” and winner of the Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke Awards, Richard Morgan has vaulted to the pinnacle of the science fiction world in just a few short years. Now in The Steel Remains, the first in a trilogy, he turns his talents to epic fantasy, crafting a darkly violent adventure sure to thrill old fans and captivate new readers.

After the Downfall by Harry Turtledove

Promo copy:

1945: Russian troops have entered Berlin, and are engaged in a violent orgy of robbery, rape, and revenge…

Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel, a career soldier on the losing end of the greatest war in history, flees from a sniper’s bullet, finding himself hurled into a mysterious, fantastic world of wizards, dragons, and unicorns. There he allies himself with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Lenelli, and Velona, their goddess in human form, offering them his knowledge of warfare and weaponry in their genocidal struggle against a race of diminutive, swarthy barbarians known as Grenye.

But soon, the savagery of the Lenelli begins to eat at Hasso Pemsel’s soul, causing him to question everything he has long believed about race and Reich, right and wrong, Ubermenschen and Untermenschen. Hasso Pemsel will learn the difference between following orders… and following his conscience.

The Surrogates by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele

Promo copy:

The year is 2054, and life is reduced to a data feed. The fusing of virtual reality and cybernetics has ushered in the era of the personal surrogate, android substitutes that let users interact with the world without ever leaving their homes. It’s a perfect world, and it’s up to Detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to keep it that way. But to do so they’ll need to stop a techno-terrorist bent on returning society to a time when people lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them.

The Surrogates is a story about progress and whether there exists a tipping point at which technological advancement will stop enhancing and start hindering our lives. It is also a commentary on identity, the Western obsession with physical appearance, and the growing trend to use science as a means of providing consumers with beauty on demand.

More in Part Two.

Books received 10/3/08 Part One was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams

Promo copy:

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead; from Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. The ultimate consumers, zombies rise from the dead and feed upon the living, their teeming masses ever hungry, ever seeking to devour or convert, like mindless, faceless eating machines. Zombies have been depicted as mind-controlled minions, the shambling infected, the disintegrating dead, the ultimate lumpenproletariat, but in all cases, they reflect us, mere mortals afraid of death in a society on the verge of collapse.

Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead, covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction. The zombies of The Living Dead range from Romero-style zombies to reanimated corpses to voodoo zombies and beyond.

DC Goes Ape

Promo copy:

Written by Otto Binder, John Broome, Gardner Fox and others; Art by Carmine Infantino, Wayne Boring, George Papp, Ross Andru, C.C. Beck, Jim Starlin and others; Cover by Arthur Adams
You’ll go bananas for this new title collecting simian stories from SUPERBOY #76, SUPERMAN #138, THE FLASH (VOL. 1) #127, DETECTIVE COMICS #339 and 482, HAWKMAN #16, WONDER WOMAN #170, STRANGE ADVENTURES #201, SHAZAM #9, SUPER FRIENDS #30 and THE FLASH (VOL. 2) #151!

I wrote a lengthy blog entry about this back in May when this book was announced.

Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover

Promo copy:

In Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle, Matthew Stover created a new kind of fantasy novel, and a new kind of hero to go with it: Caine, a street thug turned superstar, battling in a future where reality shows take place in another dimension, on a world where magic exists and gods are up close and personal. In that beautiful, savage land, Caine is an assassin without peer, a living legend born from one of the highest-rated reality shows ever made. That season, Caine almost single-handedly defeated–and all but exterminated–the fiercest of all tribes: the Black Knives. But the shocking truth of what really took place during that blood-drenched adventure has never been revealed … until now.

Thirty years later, Caine returns to the scene of his greatest triumph–some would say greatest crime–at the request of his adopted brother Orbek, the last of the true Black Knives. But where Caine goes, danger follows, and he soon finds himself back in familiar territory: fighting for his life against impossible odds, with the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance.

Just the way Caine likes it.

See Part One here.

Books received 10/3/08 Part Two was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

My review of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist now appears on Moving Pictures.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist review was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Ray Harryhausen Gift Set

Promo copy:
The six-disc DVD boxed gift set features two-disc special editions of It Came From Beneath Sea, Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, and 20 Million Miles to Earth: 50th Anniversary Edition. Each film is available in a brilliant colorized version, in addition to the pristine, digitally-restored black & white original version, and viewers are able to toggle between the two as they please. Also included in the gift set is a collectible Ymir figurine based on Ray Harryhausen’s original 1957 hand-crafted design and signed by Ray Harryhausen himself.

I previously reviewed these editions of It Came From Beneath Sea and Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (The 50th Anniversary Edition)

Promo copy:

The single-disc DVD comes loaded with special features including audio commentary by Ray Harryhausen, visual effects experts Phil Tippett and Randall William Cook, author Steve Smith and producer Arnold Kunert; a documentary; six featurettes, and more.

Besides, this film featured the first appearance of Harryhausen’s legendary fighting skeleton. That alone makes it a must for any geek!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Promo copy:

One of cinema’s greatest adventure heroes is back in this latest chapter of the immensely popular INDIANA JONES franchise! Directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Frank Marshall, with George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy as executive producers, the smash hit stars Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone and John Hurt, all following Indy on a perilous adventure to find the coveted Crystal Skull of Akator. Utterly packed with exciting bonus features, this may just be the biggest DVD and Blu-ray release of the year!

I reviewed the movie back when it played in theaters.

And the most exciting for last:

Quark-The Complete Series

Promo copy:

A spoof of science fiction films and TV series, these are the adventures of Adam Quark, captain of a United Galactic Sanitation Patrol ship. His cohorts include Gene/Jean, a “transmute” with male and female characteristics; a Vegeton (a highly-evolved plant-man) named Ficus; and Andy the Android and Betty and Betty (who always argue over who’s the clone of the other). Based at Space Station Perma One are Otto Palindrome and The Head. Though Quark is supposed to stick to his sanitization patrols, he and his crew often meet adventure with such colorful space denizens as the evil High Gorgon (head of the villainous Gorgons), Zoltar the Magnificent, and Zargon the Malevolent.

I blogged about this in August.

DVDs received 10/01/08 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Silly ]
[ Currently: Listening to Husband Unit Try and Put Geeklet to Sleep ]
He is one of us.

[  Mood: Silly ]
[ Currently: Enjoying Naptime ]
So we Canadians are also in the middle of our Federal Election. Unlike the American one, it takes about five weeks. I know, so short!

Yet I am already bored.

I just want this to be over. I am so tired of elections. We have had three in five years.

Maybe part of the problem is that the Tories are going to win. We know that. The only question this election is settling is will majority or minority. (I personally hope for the second as the first would be scary.)

Tory leader (and our current PM) Stephen Harper is a smart George Bush. He’s policies are right wing for Canadians. I know to Americans, he looks like a hardcore democrat, but he is pretty hardcore up here. Take for example his proposal to try fourteen year-olds as adults if they commit serious crimes. I teach fourteen year-olds. Trust me. They are children. And they make stupid mistakes. Should they be in jail for twenty years if they make a mistake at fourteen? No.

And don’t toss the deterant argument at me. If you’ve been around fourteen year-olds, you know they don’t think to the end of the week. Trying to argue that a deterant would prevent a fourteen year-old from committing a crime is ridiculous.

So why are am I bored, you ask? Given my politics, you think I would be out on the streets. Well the left in Canada is split three ways right now. (Four ways in Quebec). The Liberals, the NDP and the Greens. Where does my vote go?

In my riding, David McGuinty will win. He is a Liberal, our current MP and a good MP. And I like the Liberal Green plan. But I also like the Greens. And the NDP might actually win enough seats to be the official opposition.

The key is, we have to stop the Tory majority. This has lead to vote splitting schemes on Facebook and strategic voting. I am still trying to figure out how to vote. And given my boredom, it is not easy.

And I am still trying to figure out how to vote for Obama.

“Like the Iraq war and patriot act, this bill is fueled by fear and haste,” said Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas on the Bailout Bill.

Finally, a Texas politician speaks the truth… was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Angelic ]
The Caldecott medal is given every year …

This year, the award was given to Brian Selznick for his incredible The Invention of Hugo Cabret. At 500 plus pages, this is not a traditional picture book. It tells the story of a young orphan boy who maintains the clocks in the Paris Train station and his discovery of an automaton left behind by his father.

This is not your father’s picture book. Nor is it yours. The story is told both through text and through pictures. There are pages and pages of pictures without words and then several pages of novel style text. It is far more of a silent film in style, which is cool cause the story references the silent film era.

I would encourage all of you to pick this book up. It is revolutionary and breathtaking. I loved it.