Salvia online - Sally D news

Logitech today unveiled the QuickCam Vision Pro webcam for Mac with Carl Zeiss optics.

Logitech today unveiled the QuickCam Vision Pro webcam for Mac with Carl Zeiss optics.

I was interested to read the result of a recent survey conducted by, no less, Gene Munster. Munster is an analyst at Piper Jaffray and he had the initiative and foresight to discuss the potential prices of apps that would be appearing in the forthcoming app store. The developers announced that around 71% of their apps would be placed in the app store for free distribution. The remaining 29% would be priced, on average, at just $2.29.

This is fantastic news for all of us waiting with baited breath to get our grubby mitts on the app store.

It is dreadful news for Apple who, it seems, didn’t think to make a similar survey before they calculated in an comically misguided $10 as their expected average price. When one considers that the only direct profit that Apple is due to make from the app store is in the 30% cut on anything sold there, it is easy to see the magnitude of the blunder.

The survey also revealed that the final destination of the wares in the app store was split pretty evenly between the Mac computer platform and the iPhone. We suspect that Apple was hoping it would be weighted rather more in favor of the iPhone!

Apple today announced that more than five billion songs have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store.

If you live in Kansas or Oklahoma then beware: laws have been passed that make Salvia banned.

Salvia Divinorum – or Diviner’s sage, or Sally D – is legal under US federal drug law, and remains legal in most of the US states. It is legal in most countries worldwide. The naturally occurring plant has hallucinogenic properties that can cause disorientation and can impede judgment in users. It is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen.

The call to see Salvia banned across the US may have stemmed from the tragic death of one teen in Delaware. The teen’s parents attribute his untimely suicide to his heavy use of Salvia. Understandably these parents are upset and one can sympathies when they say they want Salvia banned; the plant, in their eyes, took away their son. There have, however, been no recorded deaths where Salvia has been noted as being the sole or major cause. Neither is there any medical evidence to suggest that making Salvia banned will save or help anyone.

Unfortunately it seems that some State lawmakers – like those in Oklahoma or Kansas – want to score political points and find they can do this if they pass laws to see Salvia banned.

WD today introduced its new My Book Mirror Edition dual-drive storage systems in capacities of 1TB and 2TB.

Ares Lite was a revelation in its day. Somehow this little piece of software was considered the only version of Ares that was not bundled with some spyware or other. This, the punters thought, was why it was Ares Lite, the ‘Lite’ signifying the lack of ‘bonus’ software.

Of course then, as now, this assertion is incorrect. There are many great versions of Ares that are not, and never have been, packaged with adware. Ares Ultra, Ares Ultimate, Ares Galaxy and Ares Vista are all clean and perform admirably.

The concept behind Ares Lite (and the real reason it was ‘Lite’) was that it was a cut down version of Ares Galaxy with no integrated chatroom and fewer concurrent connections allowed. The reduced code footprint meant that Ares Lite consumed fewer resources and worked quicker on older computers.

More powerful computers and cheaper hardware has rendered the need to compromise over functionality for the sake of older and less powerful machines no longer necessary. Are Lite served its purpose with distinction, but now, perhaps, is the time to let it rest.

Mozilla today released Firefox 3, a major update to its popular open source Web browser.

I am writing this note from a hotel in Phuket. It is 6am and I have just experienced the Phuket nightlife for the very first time. The Phuket nightlife is varied and lively, to say the least, and while it is not quite up to the level of places like Bangkok it can certainly offer a lot to the island’s visitors.

This is a marked improvement for Phuket’s nightlife which, last time I visited, was relatively tame in comparison. Now though, as I have just found at the expense of my night’s sleep, it is anything but tame. The key here now is variety.

I moved into Phuket town and sampled something slightly more authentic: a Thai-style club with a local band doing famous covers. This was more like the Thailand I know and love, and this is the Phuket nightlife that I am used to seeing.

Then I went somewhere a little different and found something that I really hadn’t seen – or expected to see – in Phuket nightlife before. It was a ‘real’ club with hardcore dance and hip hop music. People were there to dance hard, and the organizers made sure that music was their top priority.

It is this kind of variety that really makes Phuket an absolute pleasure to visit.

Opera Software today announced the release of Opera 9.5, a new version of their popular alternative web browser.