When visiting Google’s search page today, I was greeted with a spooky Doodle showing the cartoon version of the Addams family. (see other Google Doodles here)

With this unique Doodle, Google is celebrating the 100th birthday of Charles Addams, the creator of the original Addams Family. In 1938, Addams authored the first Addams Family as a series of cartoons in the New Yorker magazine. His weird, evil looking (but nice) family became a sensation, and later led to a TV series in 1964.

According to IMDB, the 1964 series lasted until 1966 and had 64 episodes. Some full length episodes can be seen at IMDB and YouTube. Here’s a description of the series from IMDB:

The Addams Family is not your typical family: they take delight in most of the things that “normal” people would be terrified of. Gomez Adams is an extremely wealthy man, and is able to indulge his wife Morticia’s every desire: be it cultivation of poisonous plants, or a candlelit dinner in a graveyard. People visiting the Addams Family just don’t seem to appreciate the 7 foot tall butler “Lurch” or the helping hand (which is just a disembodied hand named “Thing”). Written by Murray Chapman

Just below, you can see a Youtube video which shows the opening theme for the classic 1964 black and white TV serial.

Later, the Addams Family spawned several other movies and TV series in the U.S. and other countries. Many of you might be more familiar with the 1991 movie, “The Addams Family“, and it’s 1993 sequel, “Addams Family Values“, which starred Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci. These were funny and action filled movies. If you get a chance, I recommend them as fun for the entire family.

I was a child in the 1960s, and I enjoyed seeing the Google Doodle reminding me about the old TV series. Following the Doodle’s link, I learned the story of Charles Addams, the creator. May he rest in peace, and may the Addams family legacy continue far into the future.

As you may already know, SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is an internet regulatory bill that is being proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives.

According to Wikipedia, SOPA would:
“allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a felony. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.“

Yesterday, we reported that GoDaddy, a premier domain registry service, was one of 150 backers of the SOPA regulations. As a result, dozens of companies and individuals either left GoDaddy’s services or threatened to leave them.

Later, GoDaddy flip-flopped and is “backing off” in its support of SOPA. It’s doubtful that most people believe GoDaddy’s stated reasons for changing this position. GoDaddy’s CEO, Warren Adelman, was quoted as saying There has to be concensus about the leadership of the internet community. It’s a large community and a global one.

I believe that the threat of losing business has more to do with GoDaddy’s change of heart concerning SOPA than any concern about a concensus. Up until now, GoDaddy seemed to be more concerned about protecting the wishes of big government and big media groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Firstly, I can’t understand why the GoDaddy execs decided that it was a good idea for them to work on regulating the internet. Secondly, I think SOPA is a bad idea, not the answer to a problem that mainly exists in the meeting rooms of a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. The cost of regulations are always paid by consumers, and internet users will end up paying the price if the SOPA supporters get their way. I hope that this flip-flop from GoDaddy is a sign that internet users are being heard, and that their voices are crying “The internet is not broken – stop trying to fix it“.

via American Censorship

In August of 2009, Google introduced a new collaboration service called Google Wave with some mystery and a lot of hype. Initially, there was quite a bit of interest in it, but over time, it was obvious to Google that it wasn’t going to be a popular service.  I tried Wave a few times, and even though I thought it was pretty cool, my biggest problem with it was that it was sluggish and simply didn’t offer a good replacement for simple email and social networking, as in Facebook.  A year after the introduction, Google finally announced that the Wave project was getting killed. Later, it was announced that Wave was going to end up as an open source project hosted by the Apache Foundation. Wave did have a lot of great features for collaboration, and the move to open source was welcomed by many.

Yesterday, I received an email from the Wave team which details the final funeral arrangements for Google Wave. Here’s that email in full:

Dear Wavers,

More than a year ago, we  announced  that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. At the time, we committed to maintaining the site at least through to the end of 2010. Today, we are sharing the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.    

If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including  Apache Wave  There is also an open source project called  Walkaround  that includes an  experimental feature  that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.  For more details, please see our  help center.

Yours sincerely,

The Wave Team

Google Plus video

If you want to check it out, you can join me on Google Plus and add me to one of your circles.

Halloween is celebrated in many countries across the world. While many associate this holiday with ghosts, witches and goblins, a lot of us think it’s just a great time to get together and have fun. If you have a computer, tablet or smartphone, you might want to add something to it that helps you get into the fun Halloween mood. Below are some links to a few of our past Halloween articles and some new stuff as well.

Screensavers

If you enjoy using screensavers on your Mac or Windows computer, you’ll find a nice collection of Halloween screensavers at NewFreeScreenSavers. Here are some screenshots of these great free screensavers. You can download them on the Halloween page.

Phones

Get Ready For Halloween with Halloween Android Apps  - also with wallpapers, themes, and ringtones.

Halloween Theme for Nokia and Symbian Smartphones

Top 5 Halloween Apps For iPhone/iPad

Computer Wallpapers

Download High Quality Halloween Wallpapers – for the PC, Mac and Linux

High Quality Halloween Wallpapers For Your Desktop or Mac

25 Places to Get Creepy Halloween Wallpapers

Web Browsers

Halloween Personas for Firefox  (themes)

Phantom of the Opera: Special Edition Opera Browser for Halloween

Apps, Themes and Extensions for Google Chrome Browser

Even More …

We have even more stuff for you to look over. Just follow this link to a Halloween search of Techie-Buzz.

Today, I received a letter from Emsisoft that explained how a well known group of hackers in Germany discovered and tested a trojan program that’s used by the German Federal government to spy on its citizens. These white hat hackers, known as the Computer Chaos Club, determined that the “R2D2″ or “State Trojan” is not only able to spy on an infected target computer, it’s also able to download more software and remotely control the target computer. So far, it’s designed to work only on Windows based PCs.

Back in 2008, Computerworld reported that WikiLeaks documents provided information that Germany had hired a company named “Digitask” to create a trojan spy program for them. A few days ago, ZDnet was confirming that a few of the German State agencies have admitted to using this trojan in their investigations. Naturally, these were “legal” uses of the trojan, and required a judge’s signature.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was curious to see if the U.S. Government had similar trojans, and in 2008, they submitted  a FOIA request. Unlike many other attempts to get information released, the EFF received documents that revealed how the FBI was investigating ways to intercept Skype conversations. I think we can assume that since then, the U.S. has done more than just “investigate” how to spy on Skype.

What does all of this mean to the average Windows user? It means that you not only have to worry about threats from the usual hackers after your money, you also have to worry about “Big Brother” trojans from your own government. Fortunately, companies like Emsisoft, F-Secure and Sophos have assured us that they intend to search and elimate government trojans as well as the typical spyware we’re used to seeing.

For those of you who are using Macintosh or Linux instead of Windows, feel free to stick out your tongue and say “na na na na na na“. You don’t have to worry about these trojans … for now.

[Windows Only]

These beer themed screensavers are perfect for getting into a thirsty mood for the upcoming October festivities. If you are hosting your own little Oktoberfest party, one of these on your computer screen is sure to be popular. Just be sure to  set a password on the screensaver. I don’t recommend letting drunk people operate your PC. There’s nothing worse than a PC with a spyware hangover.

• Screensaver Download Page

As many of you have learned by now, not all free screensavers are created equal. Many times, free  means that you have to install stupid toolbars, adware and other unwanted junk along with the screensaver. That’s not true of the ones at NewFreeScreensavers.com.

Once again, remember my warning about letting your buddies use the PC while drunk.  However, your crew may fall on the floor laughing, while watching what happens when a squirrel has too much to drink. (video: Drunk Squirrel)

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I’ve downloaded and installed several of the screensavers at this site and never had a problem with any of them. These screensavers are safe, totally free, and there are dozens more to check out once you visit.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

[Windows Only]

For all of you north of the equator, Fall is falling. The people at NewFreeScreensavers must have detected a chill in the air, and they’ve started adding new Autumn screensavers. Don’t be afraid to grab one or two. The screensavers there are always safe to install.

Here’s a video showing what these look like in motion.

Warning!

There are plenty of free screensavers and wallpapers on the net, but you have to be careful to visit only safe websites when you are looking for them. As many of you have learned by now, not all free screensavers are created equal. Many times, free means that you have to install stupid toolbars, adware and other unwanted junk along with the screensaver. That’s not true of the ones at NewFreeScreensavers.

Screensaver Download Page

W i n d o w s 7 t h e m e s?

If you have Windows 7, be sure to check out this Eerie Autumn desktop theme. If you don’t have Windows 7, you can still snag the wallpapers by using this trick.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I’ve downloaded and installed several of the screensavers at this site and never had a problem with any of them. These screensavers are safe, totally free, and there are dozens more to check out once you visit.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Yesterday, I saw the most amazing videos. These are called Mandelbulb videos, and half the fun of watching them is understanding the science and mathematics behind them. If you don’t want to learn how these are made, you can skip to the end of this article.

What is a Mandelbulb?

It’s a type of mathematical entity that’s based on ideas behind  Fractals  which were discovered in the 17th century. Fractal mathematics describe  geometric patterns that repeat at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractal patterns are often seen in nature, such as in snowflakes. Here’s an example of a Von Koch curve, which is one of the simplest forms of a fractal.

When a fractal shape is calculated, it is calculated in steps, or iterations. You can see the shape change, above, as it goes through each iteration.

Here’s another example of a complex fractal which was generated by the  GoogleLabs JuliaMap Generator.

If you follow that link to Google Labs, your web browser will generate a fractal. One of the unique properties of fractals are that you can zoom in on the patterns and see even smaller but very similar patterns.

Over the years, many mathematicians have tried to determine the formulas for true 3D fractals. Finally, in 2007,  an amateur fractal image maker,  Daniel White, came up with some formulas that seem to generate these 3D fractal shapes. Daniel started his work by using one of the most famous fractal types, called the  Mandelbrot set. The resulting shapes are called Mandelbulbs.

A couple of months later, some software hackers and fractal enthusiasts got together to work on software to render Mandelbulbs on computers. The Mandelbulber Project has been a success, and as you’ll see below, it’s also resulted in some very fantastic images and videos.

Here’s a screenshot of what the software looks like, running on a Linux PC. The software is Open Source, completely free to download  and also runs on Windows PCs.

Here are a few screen-shots of Mandelbulber’s artificial worlds.

Finally, we have reached the video. As you’ll see, Mandelbulber can create entire virtual worlds that can be explored. In fact, it can create an infinity of different worlds and some of them are almost scary in their complexity.

Video:  Trip to center of hybrid fractal

Here are more Mandelbulb videos from XLACE. It’s interesting to see how his videos have evolved over the years, and how Mandelbulber has suddenly changed the world of fractals forever. Someday, I expect to see these artificial worlds appear in movies. If you need an alien place for a Sci-Fi movie, it’s pretty easy to see where you could get one.

In 2009, Google added it’s own dictionary, called Google Dictionary. Many people used it and loved some of the features, such as the ability to “star” some entries and recall them later.

On August 5th, Google suddenly declared that it had shut down Google Dictionary. This prompted a flurry of questions in the Google support forums. One person in particular voiced their concern in a big way:

You shut down “Google Dictionary”. I HATE you for the first time.

If you go to the Dictionary site now, you’ll see Google’s sweet little message telling you that “Google Dictionary is no longer available.”

In response to a few furious users, Google employees responded with the following explanations.

Hi everyone,

As many of you know, we’ve recently introduced a dictionary tool into Google Web Search to help you quickly look up the definition of a word,. Because the dictionary tool offers the same functionality as Google Dictionary, we’ve decided to discontinue dictionary.google.com.

For your definition needs, you can type your query right into the search box and use the dictionary tool located in the left-hand panel on the results page, or you can type [define (your word)] right into the search box.

I want to thank those of who who’ve been loyal users of dictionary.google.com and welcome you to share your feedback on how the dictionary tool can be improved.

Cheers,

Kelly

Google is right about that. You can still access most of the same functions from the normal search box at Google.com, by typing the word “define” in front of the word you want to search for, as shown in the following image.

If you click on the word “More >>” at the end of the first result, you’ll be tossed over to what’s left of the now defunct Google Dictionary page. So, all is not lost, except for the “star” feature.

There are some nice alternatives if you still want quick access to dictionary definitions. The first one is the Google Dictionary extension for Google Chrome web browser. This extension allows you to double click on any word in a web page and get a quick pop-up definition. It’s very nice, and once again, clicking on the “More >>” link sends you over to the old Google Dictionary page.

If you are using the Firefox web browser, I recommend the Answer.com addon. After installing it, point at any word, hold the Alt key (Ctrl in Linux) and click. A pop-up will appear on the screen, explaining the term.

Now you can comfortably keep on HATING Google, while looking up every crazy word in the world.

This year we’ve seen democracy protests in Egypt, flash mobs in Cleveland and Chicago, and most recently, rioting, looting and fires in England. What do all of these have in common? They have all been enabled to some extent by social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

What is the most natural reaction of a big government to a problem caused by social media? Naturally, they try to ban or censor it. We saw this happen in Egypt, when Mubarak shut down the internet. We’ve seen how Pakistan has shut down Facebook. It seems like more and more countries are following China’s great example for isolating people from news and social networks.

So what would you expect from the politicians of Britain? It looks like the impulse to protect people from the Internet (for their own good) isn’t absent in Britain, after the riots there. A report from EFF.org (the Electronic Frontier Foundation) provides a quote from Prime Minister Cameron which displays another misguided swipe at free speech in social media:

…when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers.

video of London riots

Is this what England needs? Do they need police powers to censor social media? Of course they do, after all, it worked so well in Libya and Egypt. We’ll know more about what’s going to shake out from the rhetoric once members from social media services Facebook and Blackberry RIM meet with UK government officials on the 25th of August.

I hope that freedom wins over a restrictive political solution. As Ben Franklin once said “He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”

The police need more understanding of how social media works, and not more power to stop it from working.