This has nothing to do with technology, but I thought the opening number (which was the only thing I saw with the emmys), which was hilarious. And now here it is both parts of it:
Part One:
Part Two, with a musical number: "NBC is Screwed"
Enjoy!
What does your browser reveal about you?: You would be surprised to discover that the browser you use might give us a look into your personality. The author takes the time to talk about IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, AOL, Konqueror, and more. Check out this amusing article to discover who you are based on what type of
Swift: Do you enjoy using Apple Computer's Safari browser, but want to stay the Hellz away from Mac OS X? Now you can with a Windows application that looks and acts like Safari. Now that shows how much free time you have!
Microsoft added a little Windows Vista quiz to their websites which asks seven questions about the upcoming new operating system. If you answer the questions right (some users report that this even does not have to be the case) Microsoft will send you Beta 2 of Windows Vista. We all remember the free USB stick that Microsoft offered at there website.....
I remeber that...and that was swamped, and I don't know if anyone actually got that in the first place....I did the quiz, and got one question wrong, with the date of the release for buisnesses, the answer for it, November 2006, sounds ludicrise anyway, they arn't going to have it in any reasonable packaging to show it to buisnesses, heck its networking stack is brand new, so there are a heck of alot of security issues in there that should worry anyone into waiting a few months until they can at least grind out some release issues.....
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Recently, I decided to try out one of the latest mods for BF2, which is POE2. This group of modders have had previous experence, with the Battlefield Vietnam, with the original POE. I was throurgly impressed with that mod, that raised the quality and experience of BF:V into a new level. I was expecting the same thing with POE2...
POE2 is set in a different conflict, after the previous one that pitted the Soviets vs the Americans in Africa. This time, the fighting is between the Ukrane, and Germany. The weapons selection, as well as the models were very good, though balance with the weapons may need to be tweaked slightly, the Ukranian Spec Ops gun was a tad too powerful....though it had less ammo than its German counterpart. The variety of vehcials are a decent selection. There are a few issues with the vehicals damaging themselves when going over small bumps, though that should be corrected in future versions.
Overall, I was impressed with the mod, though not as impressed as with the original one. This could be attributed to the fact that many of the features that first appeared with POE (Multiple Tank Shells, etc), but then again, simalar ideas have been implemented in other mods, making the neat things that orignally made POE neat, the same. POE2 is still a good mod, and is worth the extreme download (One Gig), which could be a pain for some. This could go on for a much longer than it is now, but I just wanted to sink into the basic details of the game, and get some interest into learning more, beause there are more details about it, as well as other features that are included, that I have not really mentioned, but would add on to this basic review. POE2 has the makings of excellent Mod, though the gameplay is similar to BF2, it brings some new life to the game play, with new weapons, as well as a change in environment.....the desert does get kind of boring after awhile. There are a few cosmetic details that need to be addressed, as well as balanced, but overall a good first rease for the mod. Additional details can be found at http://www.pointofexistence.com/
For the next week, I'm going to be on vacation...so its going to get a tad quiet here...but I'll be back the week after next. If you need your daily dose of tech news, I suggest checking any of the other sites I have linked on my site, to get your dose of news, as well as Digg.
I originally ran into this on the AMCP Tech Blog's Friday linker, and its pretty neat, Alex describes it in the original post:
I'm not sure if any of you watch Steve Colbert's, The Colbert Report, but someone has taken the time to allow anyone to create a fun way to put anything up there and display it as, "You're On Notice!". You can see the one I made here (Try to see who belongs to which company!).
Mike Melanson, Adobe dev working on Flash 9 for Linux, has updated his blog with information that his team have produced a stable build, and they are now looking into creating cross-distro binaries. Let's hope that they decide to release a beta version to the public. (No release dates have been announced, so any release could still be far off.)
After getting to know GarageBand, I started working on a tune that involved all loops, with a funky, and rock like feeling. It turned into Crusin' Along...which I think is a good compostion, taking into account that its my first time with GarageBand...it can be found here on iCompositions.net.
On another note I like to mention about this neat OSX plugin I got that allows control of iTunes, even if you have iTunes on another desktop..also on each song switch, it makes displays track info in this neat overlay:
The program is called You Control Tunes, and it can be found here. Its a free program , but you have to register for a serial...This plugin also works well if you have the Desktop Manager addon for OSX, allowing you to control iTunes from any desktop, without having to go to that desktop to control iTunes.
Sierra Entertainment has made the multiplayer component from the award winning PC title F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon), has been renamed F.E.A.R Combat, and is available for download Today, Thursday August 17th.
Now I know for a fact that musicians can be a little odd, because I am one myself. But this....is beyond weird. What is hilarious about this is that the car is on and it is moving....with a few external passengers on the car. This is one thing that you definatly do not want to do.....one false move, and then there are alot of people injured at once, an explosive combination....On the flip side, its a nice photo, though with someone actually in the driver seat, that makes me uneasy. I'm hoping that the car isn't actually on, because that would be a nutty combination..On a completely random note, did I mention I like the fact that theres plenty red in the photo....
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Overview of the current progress in Ubuntu 6.10 and Gnome 2.16.
GNOME 2.16 Beta has been in Edgy Eft (Ubuntu 6.10) for the past few days [or even a week or so]. It is functioning extremely well. There are lots of new things in GNOME 2.16:
Please digg this because not only is it a cool thing that Google is doing, but if I get enough votes, I will get an A in my class. So please help me out!
Want a free Web 2.0 logo for your website? Use this free, simple builder to get yourself a flash logo. Beta tag optional...
Hintjens, the CEO of iMatix, has launched the Capsoff organization in a campaign urging hardware manufacturers to ditch the oft-abused and misused key. Hintjens' plan is to build the entire infrastructure for the movement using only freely available tools from Google. He's already set up a Blogger Capsoff blog and a forum at Google Groups.
Indiana schools' department is ready to ramp up its rollout of Linux desktops in classrooms.
"Microsoft confirmed Tuesday that two of the 12 security bulletins issued last week affect Windows Vista Beta 2, the widely-used preview, and posted download instructions for the first security updates to its next-generation operating system."
In an effort to collect on a $12.8 million dollar judgement against email spammer Davis Wolfgang Hawke, AOL intends to dig up the yard of the spammer's parents where they believe they'll find buried bars of gold and platinum. While Hawke's mother says they won't find anything, she and her husband intend to challenge AOL's plans in court.
"A portable hacking device equipped with hundreds of exploits and an automated exploitation system will go on sale in the United States in October."
Well, I recently was browsing through some photos that were from some people in my orchestra, and I seem to be constantly getting these bloody proxy errors...This is why I'm making this comparison. Overall webshots, is a normal photo sharing environment, with a hard limit on photos, standard albums, and is also owned by Cnet. The things I can pick at is that the servers that Webshots is hosted on have been recently been flaky, and the fact that there isn't other was of labeling photos like tags or other things that, Flickr has, to search photos in many different ways. Overall, I have not seen why Webshots is so popular with people of my age, other than possibly simplicity of uploading photos and adding descriptions. This is not to say that uploading photos to flickr isn't just as easy, but Flickr has not been around as long as Webshots has. Word of mouth from what I've seen is how it has become more popular with people of my age. Another thing is that the search engine for finding photos is really poor, because of not having tags, only able to search descriptions and titles, and that does not turn out as much accurate answers as say Flickr's search is.
Flickr on the other hand, may be a tad harder to upload photos, with having to add tags, description, and title, and if you want it in a photoset, but it's more flexible. Photos can be put into multiple "sets", which are just collections of photos that have a similar reason. Tags can be browsed individually, allowing people to see photos from multiple sets, and ones that are not in sets. Flickr also has the additional community features, that allow people to make groups for similar interests that include photos, groups, and other things. Flickr is more than photo sharing, it includes the searching of photos, the commenting of them, as well as its flexible organizing. The disadvantage of a free Flickr account is that, the upload is capped at 20 megs. Though the advantage of this is that they only limit you on bandwidth, not on the total size of the photostream. Another disadvantage of a free account, is when you hit 200 photos, older photos are not shown in the photostream; they are not deleted though, they are just archived. Though compared to a paid Webshots account ($2 a month) to a Flickr pro account ($25 dollars a year), the Flickr pro account seems the better bargain, because you only have to pay once a year, though the 2 dollars a month equals about the same as the pro Flickr account. The additional benefits of Flickr outweigh Webshots. Flickr Pro has a 3 gig photo upload limit per month, and unlimited photos, as well as allowing images to be replaced with a different version after upload.
If your looking for a place to upload photos, and have a large amount of them, and upload a lot, then a Flickr pro account is the best way to go. If you just occasionally upload photos, or just dump a few occasionally for friends and family to see, then something like Webshots, or another free imagehost like image dump, may be the way to go, for the better free accounts. In my opinion, I would go always with Flickr for its organization, as well as its open API that allows you to use your photos in a variety of ways outside of flickr in other programs, and online services.
Interesting article on someone switching from a PC to a Mac - and finding out just how easy it is.
We already have a server. One that works rather well. With AIGLX all this server is lacking is a nice way of accelerating common rendering primitives Glucose is that bridge. Between AIGLX and Glucose we have the complete solution. It uses XGL code and there is no duplicate code/work.
Disk Inventory X is a great little FOSS app that will display all the data on your hard disk visually so you can see what is taking up space. Each file is represented by a block, its size determined by the file size and its color determined by its file type. Great for finding large, unnecessary files you don't know about to save disk space!
Story about the birth of Pirate Bay, people behind it etc.
Belkin has unveiled three new surge protectors that will be able to make any cable management whore jump with joy.
Despite an earlier (and possibly biased) report proving the Mac Pro's price advantage, both Macworld and The Inquirer have also agreed that the Mac Pro is unquestionably cheaper than a similarly-configured Dell. Jeez, when was the last time this happened?
I'm rather impressed. Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 is designed to do just that - impress the user from the start, with a smooth and (mostly) simple experience that will satisfy the secretary through to the MD. It does still have some areas to work on, however.
RARhost is a unique file hosting storage site, only for .rar archive files. There are many features such as the ability to see the contents of the .rar archive before downloading, ensuring the archive contains the files you want. The size limit per archive is 200mb, and you can upload as many archives as you want!
Google's Blogger.com, one of the trailblazers of the whole medium, is about to undergo a substantial upgrade that will improve its usability and help it catch up to the state of the art.
Ironic that I am also using blogger, which is decent, but compared to Wordpress, is behind in the times. Hopefully there updates to it, should improve it. At the moment, I've not gotten an invite yet :(...
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This past weekend, the OSU Linux Users Group descended on a field in Oregon to create a 45,000+ square foot crop circle of Firefox. The photos of this, taken from planes and helicopters, are incredible
Darknets are SO last century. Why not go Brightnet!
Why break the law when you don't have to. Hackers have found a way to share stuff without violating copyright.
Though it does break it down into parts that are not disernable from the orignial files, but couldn't the developers, or who post links into this network, be violating the copwrite laws, because once the file is constructed on there machine, it is copywrite infringement. It basically protects the actual network, but people who download copywrited files, will still be targets of copywrite infringement.
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"When connected to a PC, this device will be able to project a laser piano keyboard, and you'll be able to jam out your favorite tunes." Something tells me this will look cool, but actually suck in real-life.
It looks neat, but it isn't really practical to be used all the time, because it isn't either a full sized keyboard. What it does have is appeal in the fact that it displays the keyboard on a table, taking up less space.
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A group of high school kids campaign to have Firefox (yes, the web browser) run for prom queen at their school. The advertising is incredible, and they're almost successful--until the school bans browser candidates.
Microsoft recently released a powerful blog authoring tool, Windows Live Writer. It features a live web preview mode, the ability to post drafts to your server, embed Windows Live maps and a ton more...
The Swedish Pirate Party has launched a commercial, high-capacity darknet, on an unprecedented scale and bandwidth. This service lets anybody send and receive files anonymously without being tracked or traced, and can pump data well over 10 megabits per second.
As of today, we are posting buildable kernel sources for Intel-based Macs alongside the usual PowerPC (and other Intel) sources, starting with Mac OS X 10.4.7. We regret the delay in readying the new kernel for release, and thank you for your patience," the message read in part
"It has a built in network iTunes client, so it'll show up as an iTunes client to your PCs. And it has a BitTorrent client that can rip down 7 streams automatically (and 10 FTP or web streams at the same time.) That's with your PC off, all downloads handled by the router. And there's a lot more. Too much more to share before the jump."
An excellent source for free backgrounds, sorted by user rating. The images are available in all common resolutions, from 2560x1600 down to 1024x768, and are very diversely themed.
"Specialized cores are inevitable for one simple reason. If you design a chip for a specific task, the same number of transistors can perform that task 10-100x faster or more. These kind of performance gains can't be ignored. Why not include some cores designed specifically to run certain applications?"
Eh....thats not going to happen...not in a longshot, in standard desktops, mabe in Workstations and computers involving Rendering. Programmers are going to eventually adapt to multiple cores, but because multi-core processors, have only been out for a short time (in a sense), programmers have not learned/adapted to writing there code to be optomized for multi-threaded applications. This is not just affecting windows, many programs in Linux are not multi-threaded too, though there are apps that are, including the kernel (via the SMP version). This idea could be also a "flash in a pan" for all we know......because if we had specialized chips, we would have a large ammount of them in computers in the future, and that isnt resnoable.
read more | digg story
In 2003/2004, Jeff Schroeder served in Iraq, flying a tiny remote control spy plane and servicing Unix/Linux systems on the battlefield. Schroeder learned a lot of technology in the desert, and now he's busy working as a Web administrator for Comair Airlines, writing utility scripts for Ubuntu. He says Linux is going to "take over the world."
Wow, now that is an interesting story, from being introduced to linux in high school, to using it to control UAV's. What is interesting is that I did not know that the Army's Land Warrior program, was going to use tiny interegated Linux computers....score one for Linux. Personally I wasn't introduced by anyone really to linux, I just ran into it on the net in middle school. Basically I was a self taught Linux user, though still many of my comptuers run windows, for gaming mainly. Anyway, in the article, his story of being introduced to linux, to using his experiences in both the army and before that in his current job shows the increase in more corporations, and other areas, but has not penetrated the desktop market as well, though support in the desktop area is getting better. Back in 2001, Linux was more rough edged, and not as many things worked as well, though up to this day, this has improved in the kernel updates, as well as other components. Overall, Linux is on the track to becomming an economical operating system in the destop area, though it will still take some more time, to iron out more issues with it, until it becomes more adopted....
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Nothing improves a laptop's performance more than cat hair! Heck, I doubt this laptop is going to last long enough for the hair to be a problem. This laptop is sitting so far over the edge, a sudden move by our sleepy feline could send the machine onto the floor
Now we defiantly have a catastrophe here, the cat made a really dumb move with sleeping on a laptop, as well as the laptop being on the edge of where the laptop is, that it could fall. Though even if it doesn't break, this user is going to have a heck of a time cleaning every fiber of cat hair out of that computer....
Photo Galleries > Convicted for endangering their computers?
technorati tags:Cat, Nap, Laptop, Computers, PC, Photos
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I ran into a link to this,while reading an article on ZDnet....and found this gallery of computers full of dust. This isn't just the minor dust that builds up over a few months, these are EXTREMELY dirty machines, with dust literally covering the computer cases. These photos should shock and as well suprise you how neglected some people are of cleaning there machines of dust...
technorati tags:Computers, Dust, Cleaning, PC, Photos, Disasters
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- It looks like a large Styrofoam takeout container. The 14-pound box would fit into a backpack were it not for the two antennas, set well apart. It can withstand subfreezing temperatures and 165-mph winds; it's even lightningproof. With the lid bolted down tightly, the box offers no clue as to what's inside.
Intel on Wednesday released open-source software intended to give Linux full-fledged 3D graphics support and to give the chipmaker an advantage over rivals ATI Technologies and Nvidia.
HardOCP covers the release of NVIDIA's WHQL Quad SLI driver and just what it takes to get a Quad SLI system of your own up and running. They also have 25MB of lossless compression screen shots that they took at 2560x1600 resolution why playing games that really shows you what Quad SLI can do.
Ripped from the 5381 Vista build. The bamboo one is great.
Australian and New Zealand residents are the first in the world to be able sign up for Gmail without having to scrounge for invites from existing users.
As of today, users can sign-up to Google's Web-based e-mail program by simply registering on the site www.gmail.com
One lucky guy has received Apple's new Mac Pro already, and shared the unboxing with MacRumors.
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- I began writing this weeks column with a hope of discussing a cell-phone bubble. After a week of research I discovered that was impossible, since the business is too miserable to even form a bubble.
The cutting edge of GNU/Linux
Researchers warn against an entirely new threat to computer security: peripheral devices - such as keyboards - which could be physically bugged in an attempt to steal data. A class of devices that could covertly transmit data across an existing network connection without the user's knowledge has been identified. They are called JitterBugs.
Compared to most Sony gear we've seen over the past few years, the Mylo is a breath of fresh air. The media player does MPEG-4, digital audio, and pictures. But it also has a WiFi connection and a QWERTY keyboard, for chatting on Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger (No AIM support, sorry.) Wait, wait, wait! It also works as a wireless Skype phone!
People are taking there seats! This is being updated live at http://www.macrumorslive.com/web/
Check it out for live updates.
Edit: 7 minutes until the keynote, as menitoned by MacRumorsLive!, get ready...
Edit: MAC PRO IS OFFICAL (From macrumors):
Mac Pro
-old case - two optical drives
-woodcrest processors
-based on core 2 duo
-all dual core
-up to 3 Ghz
-large 4 MB shared L2 cache
-128 bit vector engine
-64 bit
-deliver tremendous performance per watt
-up to 3x a Xeon
-amazing processor
-every Mac Pro gets 2 of them
-compare to G5
-big jump in performance
-1.6 to 2.1x faster than the G5 quad
-everyday apps performance
-taken a bunch of apps and tested the speeds
-around 2x speed increase in real-world use
-around 2x faster in xcode
-"it's a great chip"
-each on it\'s own - 25GB/sec bandwidth
-4channel
-256 bit wide memory access
-twice the bus of the G5
-less cooling in box
-room for 4 hard drives
-up to 2 TB of internal storage
-second optical drive
-increased front I/O as well as back I/O
-back - 4 PCI express slots
-graphics slot at bottom - double wide for larger graphics cards
-design of case stays the same
-inside, entirely new
-drive carriers - insert drives without tools - just snap into place
-processors fit in compact space - leaves lots of room in case for full size ram, drives, everything
-1 standard incredible configuration
-2.6 Ghz dual
-256 MB ram
-Superdrive
-$2499
-previous fastest was $800 more than that
-"usually more expensive" - great product to bust that myth
-$1000 more to get close from Dell
-BTO options (Built to Order- Like most Macs)
If you want to see more about the keynote, go to MacRumorsLive...
Engadget has posted some photos of WWDC, 16 minutes before the keynote. They can be found at this permalink.
Apple's Leopard operating system is taking aim at rival offerings from Microsoft. Meanwhile, Mac OS X developers get their hands on Leopard beginning Monday. And the announcements coming out of WWDC will reportedly spur display changes inside Apple retail store windows.
MacRumors will be covering Apple's WWDC Keynote live. Up-to-the-minute details will be given without having to refresh your browser via AJAX technology. At MWSF, MacRumors was able to serve over 100,000 simultaneous people. Now it should be able to handle the increased audience expected as Steve expands his reality distortion field...
The MXL.006 USB is a pretty fancy-looking microphone, but it keeps things simple by plugging into the USB port of a Mac or PC. Usually if you want to use a cardioid condenser microphone, you'll need to hook it up to all sorts of sophisticated electronics, preamps and such, but nothing doing with this baby. Cardiod? That's right, it has that heart-shaped pickup pattern so coveted by pro audio recording studios.
15 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee publicly released his WWW project onto the Internet.
Apple Computer has plans to immediately begin work to adopt Intel Corp.'s latest mobile processors. Recently, Intel rolled out their new Merom Core 2 Duo processors, and Apple is keen to incorporate these into their product lines as soon as possible.
IT positions previously thought safe are now under threat due to advances that will allow servers to be based in the U.S. and the admin overseas.
President Bush is attempting to get Republicans to end their objections and put into effect the Convention on Cybercrime. It would require the FBI to aid oppressive foreign regimes in enforcing their internet laws, including ones where free expression of political opposition is a crime. In effect, it would end freedom of speech on the internet.
Want to hear what 5Hz sounds like? A new woofer technology unlike any other and a new product category for home audio. This is the first home audio woofer delivering true response to DC. The Thigpen rotary woofer is the worlds first true infrasonic home audio or home theater woofer. Conventional subwoofers roll off rapidly below 20Hz.
#1 Real game programmers aren't afraid of mathematics.
#2 Real game programmers use C++.
#3 Real game programmers aren't afraid of learning new things.
etc. etc.
Quote, "My friends, I have some news for you. Yesterday I did an evil thing. I did something that, even now, feels degrading. But I had no choice."
With all the horror stories of bad customer service, here's a story with a happy ending. Steve Jobs answers the call of a student developer who's having issues with a Macbook repair, and is in danger of not having his machine back for WWDC.
"Today I got a call from a man from Apple who identified himself as Steve Job’s personal assistant. Jobs had gotten my email and instructed his assistant to make the necessary calls to get my laptop fixed and returned back to me in time for WWDC. His assistant also mentioned that Steve found my line about “going to WWDC without a laptop is like going to war with a bannana” funny. Ha. I made Steve Jobs laugh today. How about that."
Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble says big things are in store for Apple's August 7th press event. "I wish I could say more, but that'd get me sued by Steve Jobs and I don't need that kind of heck right now."
"We'll have to wait until Monday, for the conference to start, before we find out about all the new goodies, but I think this banner may provide some clues..."
Is that 64 bits I spot?
"This is an archive of photos of some of the assets of what has been called "the last great dot.com liquidation auction:" the mp3.com liquidation. This is being preserved here as it is, a piece of American history. There are two reactions that you will get from viewing these photos. One is to laugh and possibly be horrified as well..."
This article will detail how to mold the Ubuntu Gnome desktop into anything you want it to be.
MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Bebo and other social networking sites would be banned from schools and libraries in the U.S., if a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law.
Given that the next version of Windows is more than two years late, you'd expect that people would be calling for Microsoft to get its act together and release it soon as possible. Not so.
When Voice Recognition goes bad...just a simple demo of trying to type "Dear mom," results in something completely the opposite...
"But my own experience and that of many others who have shared their pain on many Internet sites is that the youthful Geek Squad agents have nice personalities but lack technical competence. The result is that when customers expose their prized computers to their agents, because they need technical help, they put themselves at risk."
The Hic-Cup, a patented Class I medical device, allows hiccup sufferers to enjoy 100% drug-free relief from this plaguing condition.
If you're a Linux desktop user and are forced to use someone's Windows machine, the experience may be more on par with borrowing a toothbrush.
To guard against this potential unpleasantness, it's time you looked into putting a bootable Linux desktop image on a portable USB key chain drive.
