Here at Computer Geeks, we love everything Geek, especially Star Wars! As we all know today is May the 4th and naturally we should all do something to commemorate the day. So what can you do to celebrate today, even though it’s a Monday, and we are all probably stuck at work. Here are our top 10 ways to celebrate May the 4th be with you!
1. Call out sick and binge watch all 6 Star Wars movies, It’s a holiday, you’ve worked hard, and you deserve it!
Granted most of us cannot do this, or we’ll get fired for doing it, but if you can, GO FOR IT!!
2. If you are stuck at work, change your desktop background to something fun and full of Star Wars!
So it may be a bit cheesy, but it makes me smile when I’m having a bad day….
3.? Have an iPhone Lightsaber battle with a coworker!
Go ahead call me a Geek, I’ve fought 5 people in my office and brought each and everyone to their DOOM!
4. Be Charitable
UNICEF and Lucasfilm/Disney have joined forces with a wearable power band that allows fans, young and old, to get moving and help children in need around the world.
And if you happen to be in Sydney, Australia, you can support Scott Loxley, a man who has been walking the country in a sandtrooper costume to raise money for charity. Participants can ?walk a mile? in his boots by hopping on a treadmill.
5. Cosplay
I already know most of you are already in full gear since you woke up, you probably hopped in your Stormtrooper or Jedi Garb at the stroke of midnight. I mean, I did too, but just sayin….
6. Change Your Ringtone and text tone to be Star Wars Themed
My dad’s texts now echo the famous “Luke, I am your Father” and the Classic star wars theme is my Ringtone, I am KING OF THE WORLD!
7. Aimlessly wander Twitter and find all of the fun memes that people have posted
You may even find our AWESOME MEME OF THE DAY! But if you can’t I’ll just post it here
8. Remember those lost on Alderaan…
This may sound silly, but if you really cared, you could go to a church and light a candle for all of those lost..
9. Answer your phone all day with “this is (your name) May the 4th be with you”
Again, this is a list for geeks, so if you think I am being a colossal nerd, it’s because I am. And I am epically proud of it!
10. Sneak into Skywalker Ranch and give George Lucas 5 hugs, and 1 punch in the gut (For Phantom Menace)
I actually don’t think this one is possible, but if you go for it, make sure you are wearing a GoPro, we all wanna see it!!!
The Silicon Valley suddenly lost a legend this weekend. Survey Monkey CEO David Goldberg passed away suddenly Friday night, May 1, 2015. The cause is not yet known. David Goldberg was only 47 years old.
David Goldberg’s death was announced on Facebook Friday night by his brother Robert. David Goldberg was the husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. The couple raised two children together. Goldberg will be remembered as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and one of the most likable. Mr. Goldberg was raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota and went on to Harvard. He graduated from Harvard in 1989 in history and government. In the years that followed, he worked for Bain & Company, then Capitol Records. In the early 1990s, he started his entrepreneurial career when he and a friend from high school started Launch Media, a digital magazine company. ?In 2001, Yahoo bought Launch Media. He went on to serve as head of Yahoo Music. Around this time, he began dating, and eventually married Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg eventually became one of the most powerful women in the world. In 2007, Goldberg left his lucrative position at Yahoo and became entrepreneur in chief at Benchmark Capital. In 2009, he became the CEO of Survey Monkey. There, he turned a struggling online survey company into a successful $2 billion dollar powerhouse.
But what made David Goldberg so likable was the way he treated others, and the dedicated family man he was. No matter how busy he and his wife were, they always made time for their kids. They were both home between 6-8 pm, and nobody was going to interfere in that. In a world where most insist on success and perfection, he believed in giving employees opportunity to fail and let them learn from failure. When most looked for the most experienced, Goldberg took chances on many fresh out of business school. In an era of conglomerate merger and takeover, Goldberg embraced a small business environment. In just a few years, that formula took a struggling company with 14 employees to a successful one with 500 employees, creating over 25 million surveys. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Goldberg’s family, friends, colleagues, and employees during this difficult time. We here at Computer Geeks invite you to chime in and tell us what lessons can we learn from Mr. Goldberg’s legacy?
Windows 10 maybe one of the most anticipated Windows operating systems of our time. Most will still say that Window XP is the best operating system in the last 15 years and now that it is no longer supported, we need a real champion to take that mantle over. Windows 10 looks as if it could handle that task.
But the biggest question is when will we be able to use this new OS? Well Microsoft has been vague with the actual date. Going with sometime in the summer. Which is nice and knowing Microsoft they are going to wait as long as possible to give out a date because they will want to release it when they think it is ready and would not want to push back the date so giving us a window of June-August or even early September gives them some nice wiggle room.
However it looks like there has been a little slip up but not by Microsoft but from AMD. AMD is a microchip manufacture that works closely with Microsoft to make sure the chips will function with the Windows systems. But you must then ask yourself it must be an unknown source or something like that.?? Well no it is actually the CEO Lisa Su. In a conference call on Friday Su was asked about the second quarter and she commented by mentioning Windows 10. Here is the transcript from Seeking Alpha:
?What we also are factoring in is, you know, with the Windows 10 launch at the end of July, we are watching sort of the impact of that on the back-to-school season inventory and build-up.?
So late July? It seems reasonable given what Microsoft has stated with AMD being a close partner they would have a strong idea of launch.
So why be excited about Windows 10? How about that the startup menu is back! Windows got rid of the traditional start menu with a full screen menu. Well now it is just your normal start up menu but shows apps on the side as well.
There has been no word from Microsoft on the comment made by the AMD CEO which could mean that her statement may not be so far off.?? Do you think Windows 10 will come by late July? Or do you think it is doomed to a late August early September release? Let us know in the comments below!
Google is probably one of the biggest corporation of all time. That’s quite an accomplishment, right? The European Union doesn’t think so.
Now, the European Union accuses Google of breaking antitrust rules and creating a huge monopoly in search engine and online shopping dominance. After a five year investigation lead by the European Union, they may plan to sue Google for over 6.4 billion dollars. That’s a tenth of what Google makes in a year. It took no time for Google to respond to this potential threat. It called the EU accusations ‘very disappointing’. They used charts to show Amazon and eBay’s profits in France, Germany, and United Kingdom do even better than Google’s. ?The rebuttal talked of how the EU plans to investigate Android soon. They reminded the EU of their lowered prices, impeccable customer service, and the cool apps Android provides, not to mention the revenue and jobs they contribute. Google believes they have, “…a very strong case”.
Looking at the charts from Germany, France, and United Kingdom, they do have a strong case. Those charts put Google in the middle of the competition. This is even against local European competition. ?Ebay and Amazon do way better. Even smaller companies we’ve never heard of in the USA do better in some cases. So the case of the charts is valid. But this is only part of the story. How are ratings doing in Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, etc? But on the other hand, the three nations studied in the charts are the biggest economies in Europe right now. So is it safe to assume these charts could be accurate for the other European Union nations? And, if so, then that opens other questions. Are European search engine companies in cahoots with the European Union to lessen Google’ s influence so the local search engines can have all the spoils?
I have breaking news to announce: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on all 30 counts for his role in this terrorist attack.
These counts included use of weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, malicious destruction of property, and use of firearm during a violent crime. The defense tried to argue he was brainwashed by his older brother Tamerlin Tsarnaev. ?The jury of 12 rejected this. Now there’s one question left: weather Dzhokar will spend life in federal prison or will he get the death penalty. Tamerlin was killed in a shootout with police in nearby Watertown, MA a few days after the April 15, 2013 bombing on the Boston Marathon finish line. This heinous attack, in which pipe bombs were used, killed five people and injured 280. Some of the injured, their families, and emergency personnel testified in this trial. Most people were brought to tears by this testimony, and how this has impacted them physically and psychologically. The defendant showed no emotion, no remorse, no repentance, no anything for the lifetime of damage and destruction he and his older brother caused. This is the classic sign of a psychopath.
And this is why I hope Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gets the death penalty, and I’m usually against the death penalty. Some may say, “But isn’t that what he and other terrorists want?” But do you know it ?costs less money to send a kid to Harvard than it does to house, feed and care for a prisoner? And this psychopath isn’t worth all that. I know I’m supposed to be more objective in my blogs, but I can’t for this one. You see, I was only three blocks away at a nearby mall when the atrocity happened. I remember the screams of fear and terror. I remember children crying in agony. I remember what was supposed to be a day of triumph and happiness turned into a day of tragedy and mayhem. I remember what it was like when a whole major city was put on lockdown when these terrorists were on the run. Imagine traffic being non-existent, no public transportation facilities, no offices, no schools, no restaurants, and hardly any stores open on what should have been a typical busy spring Friday. Our city was gripped in fear and confusion. That’s what Dzhokhar and his other brother did to our city. Do you think Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should live or die?
Turkey censors social media…again. This time, that nation blocks You Tube and Twitter because the social media sites refuse to take down a photo of a lawyer being held hostage by militants in Istanbul, Turkey’s capital, largest city and most popular tourist destination.
After many people complained about failure to log on to You Tube and Twitter, a Turkish Internet service provider official confirmed the ban. A total of 166 websites were ordered shut down. All these websites published the controversial photos. It’s not just social media that’s suffering from the ban. Local newspapers and media are taking a hit. Facebook’s ban in Turkey has been lifted. But that’s only because they agreed to comply with this issue. This whole crisis started when a rouge far-left political party took prosecutor Mehmet Kiraz hostage. Kiraz was the prosecutor in an emotionally charged murder trial. Kiraz was kidnapped, attacked, and hours later, died of injuries afflicted in these attacks. Pictures of this ordeal went up all over the nation, electronically and otherwise. Kiraz’s widow and kids began the call to take the pictures down. The case went to an Istanbul court, which ordered the pictures to come down. Turkish medium Daily Hurriyet, who got censored because of the ban, said, “We just want to do journalism. We do not want to face bans…trying to prevent our colleagues from doing their work.”
I must admit, this is a tough call. I sympathize with Attorney Kiraz’s family. It’s traumatizing enough to lose a husband and father in this sudden, tragic and violent fashion. It’s another thing to have this ordeal displayed all over the country. The effect can be devastating. But to ban social media websites because of this is overkill. ?I agree, there needs to be respect for this man’s family and those pictures shouldn’t be posted. But I think of the reaction here. It almost seems like Turkish government leaders and service providers are using this tragedy as an excuse to push censorship. It’s not like they haven’t pushed censorship before. They could have just used disciplinary action against the media companies who posted these pics. Couldn’t the government and media come up with a better solution?
