Heard the latest news and here? California wants to tax your iTunes buying method.

The tunes that cost you .99 cents will now be $1.07. All of this because our lawmakers cannot seem to graps our state economy and curb the rampant deficit that plagues each new big wigs.

“The California Assembly, apparently facing an $8 billion deficit, has introduced a bill that would apply sales taxes to “media downloads,…”.

So how will they do it? “The Golden State currently only taxes “tangible” goods — those that can be “seen, weighed, measured, felt, or touched” — leaving digital purchases tax-free.” “New taxes require a 2/3rd vote of the Legislature, meaning some anti-tax Republicans would have to sign onto the proposal, but Calderon got creative. Instead of proposing a new tax, AB 1956 simply requires the Board of Equalization to amend the definition of “tangible personal property” to include “digital property.” That needs only a majority vote, meaning no Republicans necessary.” “…since new taxes require a 2/3 majority in California… to duck the majority rule, they’re … trying to have “digital property” count like normal, taxable property.” “That way, all they’re doing is changing a definition, not actually adding a new tax.” Some of you have seen the loophole, what about people buying outside of California? Who will know and who ever pays these taxes, right? With the latest from Google and the likes gathering IP address information for a year and a half, let’s be careful.

I just don’t understand the idea to tax a booming business model when economy is weak and needs boosting more than restricting. As with always, politicians’ answer to boosting tax revenues, even in soggy economic markets is to raise taxes.

Ever get the feeling: “Who puts these people there?” What degree do they have? What grasp on reality do they actually have? Is there a school for politicians and lawmaking? Who’s in charge? And we won der why people find clever ways to avoid paying. What will it take for lawmakers to truly boost our economy and not stifle it with taxes?

It’s easy to switch to Mac and say it’s the best platform, especially when your friends are still on Windows and need your help cleaning up Windows’ burps

I just got back from a friend’s house who was having computer trouble. Windows wouldn’t get on the Internet. I looked at the obvious culprits, temporary cache full (why is it called temporary?), and found on top of the usual suspects the power adapter of their brand new FIOS modem fried.

What I found was the computer trying to run 8 instances of Realplayer. AIM, QuickTime, and a slew of spyware were vying for full resources of the CPU. It was a typical Windows mess left unattended. It reminds me how Windows, despite its vain claim of being user friendly is meant for people who understand how to use a computer. In this aspect, OSx is much more user friendly because the system purges itself every night and it is easy to leave it running for months at a time without a reboot or problems. In fact, many OSx users are clueless as to how to take care of their computers. And why not? They just don’t need to.

Microsoft chose a different road. In the end, I sit in front of my friend’s Windows machines and ask them why they deal with this? If they are not computer savvy enough for Windows, just switch to Mac. It will do what most need, at the very least, type a few letters and get on the Internet. For those more savvy, Unix prompt are more robust than than what the Window’s world has to offer.

No matter how I look at it, Windows is an Operating System that demands constant vigilance, something very few people buy into when reading Microsoft’s marketing of a user friendly system. Let’s not fool ourselves either, Mac will one day be big and will make the same arrogant mistakes Microsoft made. It will be time also to look for another system. Linux or Haiku, anyone?

It ticks me off to see how printer companies force cartridges down our throats.

I swore I never will buy again a printer that stops you from printing a black and white paper because it is low on color cartridges. It is annoying that I don’t need the color and I need to print black and white for my business right now. This calls for a letter to Epson. And it’s not just Epson. They all do this. I guess you just cannot depend on them for business.

I think I have finally found a working solution to continue not having a TV while still having access to quality programs, it’s called Miro.

Miro, formly called Democracy Player, is a program that goes online to search for TV shows, movies and any other content. You can search national and international TV channels, YouTube and pretty much anything out there. It presents itself like a modern age TV, with channels. You select what type of video you would like to see, Science, entertainment, etc and download it. You can view it later and save it to your hard drives.

What won me over is that I have been using it for years from way when it was a fledgling program to what I consider now a robust alternative to TV. I can watch National Geography shows without commercials (some shows have) and my favorite, NASA shows. You can even find public domain cartoons, movies and another one of my favorite, such as FastLaneDaily, and other car shows. All free!

The great thing about it is that is a discrete revolution. Take for instance FastLaneDaily, amongst many others. They are redefining TV content. Everyday, or so they review a car, any news and accept suggestions from you. There is a quick commercial in the beginning (that you can skip through, thankfully). Somehow, the Navy is big on commercials in this new media which is strange considering the type of people watching through this technology, as far as I concerned. Nonetheless, it is a quiet revolution. Barely a blip on the media radar, thank Goodness. It can mature away from public scrutiny and find more stable ways of bringing out content in a relevant way.

As far as I am concerned, this is the future of TV. I can access what I want, when I want it. I can chose what I want. I can skip any commercials that are not interesting. In the future, we will probably be able to rate commercials and buy directly, I assume but in the meantime, Miro is a great way to get quality content for free, letting me complete reign how and when I watch it.