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This map from StrangeMaps.com and BigPicture.com relabels each of the 50 United States with countries that have similar gross domestic products (GDPs). GDP is the market value of all goods and services produced in a country within a year. Of course, we can find similar figures for each of the 50 states.

Hawaii is world famous, not a world economic power

For example, Nigeria’s GDP of US$82 billion is about the same size as the state of Hawaii, which is also 39th on a ranking of the 50 states and DC.

New Zealand’s GDP of US$99 billion is comparable to the District of Columbia. Yes, the nation’s capital city has a bigger economy than the entire state of Hawaii.

New Jersey is comparable to Russia (US$733 billion), so there’s the number five slot.

Texas is number two: it matches up to Canada, which is the #10 country at US$1.08 trillion.

In the number one slot: California, which matches up to France’s GDP of US$2.15 trillion.

As noted in the article, a map based on per capita GDP would look very different. Most of the US states have smaller populations than their GDP equivalents.

Thanks to Boing Boing for links!

From the SANS Institute, here’s an article by Deborah Hale that discusses how the US and Canadian change to an earlier Daylight Savings Time affects various flavors of Microsoft Windows, Linux, and other systems. I mentioned this change last week.

There are patches for Red Hat Linux, one of the most popular flavors of that operating system.

Five weeks to go, and Windows Vista is ready out of the box.

There is a patch available for Windows XP. Service Pack 2 must already be installed, however. Run Windows Update or Microsoft Update for more details about your machine.

Windows 2000 requires a manual process to update the registry, the massive database that Windows uses to store hardware and software information on a computer. Frankly, anyone who’s running Windows 2000 at this point needs to upgrade.

There is no official patch for earlier versions of Windows (ME, 98, 95, 3.x). It really is “time” to upgrade! (rimshot)

Also, users and administrators should check with software vendors to see if applications, utilities, and other software requires a patch. There’s a deeper discussion in this ComputerWorld article, focusing on Java applications as an example. ComputerWorld also offers this list of vendors and the DST patches or solutions that they’ve announced.

What a mess. At least it’s not as bad as Y2K or the introduction of the Euro (€).

At least WorldTimeServer will get the time right.

While this isn’t as bad as the y2K problem, and we don’t observe Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the State of Hawaii, Canada and the the rest of the United States will start DST early and end it late. Clocks, computers and other devices will need to be patched or replaced to handle this man-made change in the natural order of things.
March 11 is the official start of DST for 2007, as a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That’s the second Sunday of March. DST will last until the first Sunday of November (November 4, 2007).
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013102318.html?nav=hcmodule

According to the Washington Post, US and international companies are only now planning for the change. Microsoft Windows, MacOS and other operating systems include functions to handle DST, but these are keyed to the traditional start and end dates (the first Sunday of April and last Sunday of October).

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/rtrent/archive/2007/01/19/one-dst-patch-angle-you-may-not-have-thought-of.aspx 

Microsoft states that they will have patches ready by early March. Cutting it a bit close, huh? According to Rod Trent, Microsoft’s DST rebasing patch will cause existing Outlook and Exchange appointments to be off by one hour.

Microsoft has a page of DST-related information at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx

That page includes this little gem: Mexico will NOT observe the new US DST guidelines, but Canada WILL. Canada agreed to follow the US changes last year, but Mexico didn’t.
Among the business-related topics mentioned by the Post are ATMs. Banks time-date stamp every transaction, and on many ATMs, the electronic clock is built into the machine. So ATM transactions that involve Mexico in some way will be affected by the new guidelines.
Airlines have to coordinate schedules across multiple time zones and jurisdictions.
Most of the world is only now figuring out that the US and Canada are changing their implementation of DST, which most of the world refers to as summer time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

This article first appeared in my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=269

http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196603857

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/technology/13skype.html

Skype had been offering free VoIP calls within the United States and Canada since May 2006.

In 2007, users will have to pay a $30 annual fee to make unlimited SkypeOut calls to landlines and cell phones in these two countries. The current SkypeOut plan charges users about 2.1 cents per minute.

Calls outside these two countries will still incur the usual Skype fees.

Skype is offering a special until January 31. The US$30 fee is reduced to US$14.95 and includes 100 minutes of SkypeOut service, which can be used for international calls.

Skype has been working with mobile phone and computer manufacturers to offer Skype services on mobile handsets. This service makes sense when the handset has 802.11 features, as I discussed on November 27. The mobile phone network is still too slow to support Skype’s VoIP services. Next year, Skype is partnering with Google and Yahoo to offer a Skype WiFi phone.

Still, analysts are wondering how Skype fits into eBay’s corporate strategy. eBay spent US$2.5 billion to purchase Skype in October 2005. Given Skype’s roster of 136 million registered users, eBay paid about US$18 per user.

Canada: Calgary Sun: - Am-Bushed: “It should anger all of us, this Fahrenheit 9/11 film. In fact, Michael Moore’s award-winning, irritatingly incisive expose of Bush Junior and his strike-first-and-ask-questions-never bully boys, should leave Calgarians particularly peeved, since it is a celluloid confirmation of betrayal by a president much loved in these parts. How hard it will be for some of us to finally confront the truth. Those who have been made fools. ”