The talk about professional golf this past week has focused on Tiger Woods -- his phenomenal U.S. Open win and the fact he'll miss the rest of the season with continuing knee problems, including what will be his third surgery in five years. Throw into that healing from stress fractures, and the PGA could be without Tiger for longer than the rest of the year.

"Tiger is our tour," Kenny Perry said from the Travelers Championship. "When you lose your star player, it definitely hurts."

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If you have a customer service problem or question and want to speak to a live person, Contact Help may be of assistance. The site allows you to enter a company's name, and it gives you the phone number, customer service Web site, e-mail contacts and what you need to do to reach a live person. Unfortunately, not all of the sites listed have this feature, but the site is constantly updated with new information.

Many people anticipated the new iPhone was going to scrap the EDGE network for the 3G technology for faster downloads and Internet access.

What was not anticipated by many was a price reduction that could have it flying off the shelves faster than the early versions.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone at the start of Apple’s five-day Worldwide Developers Conference at Moscone Center West in San Francisco. The cost of the new 8GB is version is $199, and the 16GB version will cost $299.

According to an Associated Press story, Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small it can be seen only through a microscope.

A mechanical engineering professor and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter 1/25,000 of an inch in a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.

A London artist had created a device which allows people from "across the pond" in real time.

The device, called the "telectroscope," basically an optical device connected to a high-speed fiberoptic Internet hookup. One device was place on a pier in Brooklyn, N.Y., while the other was placed near the Tower Bridge over the Thames River in London. People who looked into the device could see people from the other side of the pond looking back at them, giving the impression they were looking through a telescope across the Atlantic Ocean.

Rumor has it that Apple will be introducing a new, more powerful version of the iPhone sometime next month.

So, what is so special about the this version that Apple is planning to unveil? The biggest thing is that the new phone will have 3G data access, meaning faster music and streaming video downloads than the current iPhone's data access network.

Tuesday night, I had the opportunity to watch the latest installment of "Costas Now" on HBO, and if you are interested in the changing face of the world of professional sports and how it is being reported, it's definitely worth a look.

Among Costas' guests included Will Leitch, the founder of Deadspin, perhaps the best-known sports blog among sports fans in the 18-34 demographic. If you are not familiar with Deadspin, I kind of liken it to kind of a TMZ of the sports world. The responses to the blogs aren't exactly G-rated, and seemingly by those with less-than-impressive IQs.

On Friday, the city of Rock Hill bestowed a long-due honor to former mayor Betty Jo Rhea by naming the control tower between the softball fields after her. Rhea was instrumental in getting approval for Cherry Park to be built, and I have a personal reason to be thankful it was.

Microsoft's withdrawal of its bid to buy Yahoo has many analysts trying to guess what the company's next move will be.

In a story by the Associated Press technology writer Jessica Mintz, analysts seem to be divided on the course it should take. Some analysts say Microsoft must increase its search traffic to attract advertisers. Others believe Microsoft should concede that market to Google and find success elsewhere — leapfrogging rivals in areas such as display and mobile advertising.

JOG PLAY (www.jogplay.com)
JogPlay streams music from your home computer to any web browser, it maps your music library to YouTube music videos and it works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. I have messed around with the site a bit, but not enough to really make a judgment on it. It seems easy to use, but transferring music appears to be slow. Judge for yourself.

PIXELOO(pixeloo.blogspot.com)