Have you heard? Over the weekend, El Reg reported on Verizon Wireless forcing subscribers to use Microsoft Bing on select smartphones:

Verizon has unilaterally updated user Storm 2 BlackBerries and other smartphones so that their browser search boxes can only be used with Microsoft Bing.

The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m.

The search boxes previously allowed searches via Google and on other websites like Dictionary.com. Yes, affected users can still visit the actual sites and search from there—going to Google.com on their mobile browsers for instance—but they’re rightfully pissed.

Ah well, I guess that five-year deal was too good to pass up, though The Register did report on Google trying to reach a similar agreement with Verizon.

And, in other news, Anticitizen on Flickr brought his new Droid (bought for $200) back to the shop for repairs. The battery was loose, so what did the Verizon rep do? Plaster a Verizon-branded tape on the back to secure the battery:

Now you’ve given iPhone users—with their non-removable batteries—more reason to turn their noses up and start harrumphing. Thanks a lot Verizon!

As a life-long Windows user, with a smattering of System 9 and OS X experience, the following table is so true:

For those who can’t get the symbolism presented (or for those who see the world with their five other senses, and thus need text for their parser to interpret) here’s a boring text-only version:

Linux
Windows
Mac
As seen by…

Boring plain vanilla workstation
Blue Screen of Death
Awesome multi-display workstation
Mac Fanboys

Hard-to-understand terminal
Awesome multi-display workstation
A toy for kids, with limited capability
Windows Fanboys

A laptop that’s literally the center of the universe
Microsoft screwing Windows users over
Steve Jobs holding up a wad of cash
Linux Fanboys

What do you think? Is this …read more

Aside from the HP Mini deal available from netbook (which runs until December 22), the PC maker has its own deals available from hp.com, covering both desktops and laptops. All the offers listed below also include free shipping, a minus $29 over the final price, and last until December 26, 2009, the day after Christmas:
HP Desktop Deals
Save up to $545 instantly on the HP Pavilion Elite e9250t Series Customizable Desktop PC! Savings include:

$250 instant rebate
Free 6GB memory upgrade (-$80)
Free 640GB hard drive upgrade (-$50)
35% off a 21.5-inch diagonal widescreen monitor (-$90)

Save up to $515 instantly on the HP Pavilion Elite …read more

Online shoppers who visit buy.com benefit from the site’s widely varied catalog, which includes a variety of tech-related trinkets and gadgets that for a limited time are available at a lower price.
Feel free to take a look at the following list and see what piques your interest. Various items are available on the cheap, including Xbox games, themed flash drives and portable media players, and even an all-in-one PC! All discounts or offers below last until December 22, so it’s your chance for some very last-minute Christmas shopping!

Save 62%
Free Budget Shipping
Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle Crackdown, Perfect Dark Zero, Project …read more

Andrew McDonald, perhaps known as the writer of The Greatest Blogger in the World, recently came up with a fool-proof plan to get his camera back—just in case he ends up losing it to theft or carelessness.
The author will simply leave a series of pictures on his camera, never deleting them. A masterful mix of actor-worthy facial expressions and witty copy on a portable whiteboard entertains whoever finds the camera with a bit of over-share, before finally instructing them how to return the gadget. The first two shots are below:

With a total of 26 shots, the total size of the …read more

The reality is that while Facebook’s new privacy settings are actually pushing people to share more of their personal life, we simply can’t just drop the social networking site. Right? Right, especially if you’re addicted to your online life—and if you’re an online marketing professional who wants to keep tabs on what the masses are up to.

Anyways, it’s harder to be private on Facebook, and Facebook is a sort of must-have these days. Both are currently facts of life, so reading Yahoo’s recent tips on improving your privacy on Facebook makes sense. Aside from reminders that some parts of your …read more

Select markets have enjoyed access to the Nokia N900 for quite some time now, which was why I was happy to finally try out the Maemo-powered phone. “Phone” though is such a mild name for the N900. While it continues the Linux-based legacy of Nokia’s previous Internet tablets, a key difference is the inclusion of a SIM slot and thus telephony and wireless broadband functionality. Here’s a 3-minute video of me fumbling with the N900, as featured on Technograph.
As you can see, the N900 benefits from its powerful ARM processor, handling multiple apps with ease. I just wonder though what …read more

It’s not the week leading up to Christmas, and retailers are ramping up their promotion campaigns, hoping they catch shoppers trying to fit in some last-minute Christmas shopping into their busy schedules. So they make sure the market knows all about these bells and whistles.

Like engravings on iPods. It’s a great way to personalize Apple’s popular media player for a friend or loved one. Just in keep in mind that it’s impossible to return an engraved iPod!
Makes sense actually: Except for those who originally bought them, these engraved iPods have virtually no resale value, and Apple definitely can’t provide refurbished …read more

Feel free to call me an old fogey who’s slowly turning into the harrumphing adult, the kind who was irritating when I was kid. But when did kids start thinking that sending “nude or nearly nude” photos of themselves to friends was an ok thing to do? A probably late news report summarizing the trend:
It’s like what JayeCuevas on YouTube said: “hey i have an idea! DON’T TAKE THOSE KIND OF PICS IN THE FIRST PLACE! now there’s a concept”. In any case, even adults need to learn that keeping a record of incriminating pics or text is simply asking …read more

The home page of goo.gl, Google’s new URL shortening service, claims that it’s “not for broader consumer use”. But thanks to Alexandre Gaigalas, who created a third-party goo.gl URL shortener, that’s not true.
Visit http://gaigalas.net/lab/googl, type in any URL and press “Shorten” to get your very own goo.gl URL!

Thanks for the tip Andry!