Contact info: 206-350-5000 | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Twitter.com/TheGeekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note:

This Saturday, April 4th, Gozer, The Stay Puft marshmellow man and I will be podcasting at I-CON 28 in Brendwood, NY. If you’re attending the show, be sure to say hello!

We also have a Facebook group & fan page. Search Facebook for “The Geekcast” and you’ll see the show listed.

This is the last week to let us know if you’re interested in playing Xbox online. We need to know how much interest there is, so we can proceed accordingly, if at all. Right now, we have ZERO interest. Well we did have that one guy!

Listener Feedback:

Shout outs to twitter listeners therealhex & woden325. They let us know they’re fans of the show and we’re grateful to have them on-board with us. Hello to Surtur who listens on his PSP where he gets the show via the RSS feed. Finally, shout outs to Gozer’s new twitter guys: Keyshark, PeterFranken and RunningRambling.

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Geek This Week

Aaron:

World of Goo from the MacHeist 3 bundle is a fun puzzle game where you build structures using pieces of ‘goo’ that stick to each other. The object is to make the structure reach to another section of the map. I tried it on a whim last night and it’s a complete time-sponge.

I’ve really been enjoying Chuck on NBC. This geeky show has really come into its own and it’s not just about an attraction between a nerd and a hot spy. It’s one of the main shows I’ve been looking forward to during the week, now that I’ve dropped Heroes & Sarah Connor Chronicles from my TiVo.

Gozer:

Playing some Gears 2 Snowblind map pack goodness. Lots of snow. 800 points or 5,000 sheckels! 4 maps w/snow: Fuel Depot w/ snow, yes the sniper rifles are still in the tractor trailers and the hammer of dawn switches with the mortar inside the warehouse. ( Annex) Courtyard w/snow, is just a really big open courtyard with lots of small cover. Grindyard w/ snow, more of a close quarters map with awesome sniping spots and lots of cover. One particular spot awesome for horde mode.

There’s a one way ramp that goes up to this balcony where there’s either a boomshot or a mulcher. Put a shield up and you’ll be set. Lastly, w/snow, there is Underhill, with snow, which is visually spectacular. Looks like these multiple garages all parallel to each other. Then opposite of the garages is this big suspension bridge where the sun is setting. Looks fantastic. Also a great spot in the garage for horde mode. There’s basically a big garage door that you have to close and only one way into this small room. Block the one way with a shield and you’ll be good to go. Uhhh….snow.

Guitar hero Metallica! Rock! Opens with all the album covers then goes right into the band playing Master of Puppets. Awesome. Got in single player quick play. Was able to pick from a lot of songs right off the bat. I made a setlist of 6 songs:

#6 The Unforgiven ( off the black albulm), #5 The Shortest Straw ( off and justice for all) #4 Wherever i may roam ( off the black album), #3 For whom the bell tolls (from Ride the lightning), #2 Master of Puppets (from Master of Puppets), and #1 one of my favorite all time songs…Creeping Death (off ride the lightning)

The climax of the song is the personification of death killing the egyptians first born. Die…by my hand…i creep across the land…killing first born man! Goosebumps were felt as i rocked out, blinking strobe lights and all, in the basement by myself. “Lambs blood painted door, I shall pass”

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Tech & Game news:

From Ars Technica:

SeeqPod files for bankruptcy after being sued by record industry

SeeqPod, the “playable search” engine, has filed for bankruptcy after becoming a target for the record industry. SeeqPod has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after being sued by a number of record companies. SeeqPod allows users to scour the Internet for a variety of media (including videos, music, and presentations), turn music tracks into audio streams, and listen right from the browser. It also supports playlist creation and sharing. The issue is that SeeqPod makes no effort to filter out illicit copyrighted content. Any MP3 it finds on the Web is fair game, regardless of what copyrights the original uploader may be breaking. Warner Bros. Records launched a lawsuit against the company in January, 2008 calling SeeqPod an “unlawful music service that directly engages in, encourages, and facilitates the mass infringement of Plaintiffs’ and other intellectual property owners’ copyrighted works.” Since then, EMI and Capitol Records have also filed lawsuits against SeeqPod, but took things a step further by also targeting investors, SeeqPod employees, and even one developer who made use of the SeeqPod API for his own websites.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/seeqpod-bullied-into-bankruptcy-by-record-industry.ars

Onlive announces cloud-based console gaming

OnLive is launching the world’s highest performance Games On Demand service, instantly delivering the latest high-end titles over home broadband Internet to the TV and entry-level PCs and Macs. You will be able to play the hottest current titles instantly on your TV, PC or Mac through your broadband Internet connections. Access to OnLive will be available on PC or Mac via a small browser plug-in, or from a TV via the OnLive MicroConsole. While currently in private Beta, they expect to have an external Beta to gamers around the US this summer. They plan to make OnLive available in Winter 2009.

OnLive works over nearly any broadband connection (DSL, cable modem, fiber, or through the LAN at your college or office). For Standard-Definition TV resolution, OnLive needs a 1.5 Mbps connection. For HDTV resolution (720p60), OnLive needs 5 Mbps.

http://www.onlive.com/about.html

http://www.onlive.com/service/how_onlive_works.html

1UP News:

Harold Ramis Finds Video Games Unfamiliar Territory
Says the game script recording process is a “little weird.”

Harold Ramis has been in the movie business for a long time, but video games are apparently unfamiliar territory. According to a new interview with MTV, he realized as much when he took a look at the script for the upcoming video game adaptation of Ghostbusters.

“It was a little weird. I had no idea because I’m not a gamer. The game scripts are like 250 pages,” Ramis said. “You need all these alternatives so it took forever. A lot of it is just yelling, ‘Look out! Throw that trap, rookie!’ Stuff like that.”

Fortunately, the voice still fits, he said. The uniform though? Not so much.

As for the script itself, Ramis said that co-star Dan Aykroyd “kind of consulted on the project.” The result was Aykroyd having input on a lot of the story, while Ramis “kind of helped him change the dialogue.”

In the meantime, development continues ahead of the game’s multi-platform release. This after Atari rescued it from purgatory following Vivendi Games’s merger with Activision, giving what’s been termed “Ghostbusters 3″ a new home. Expect it on all platforms June 17.

Side note – I heard Sigourney Weaver showed some interest in the game a little too late. Apparently she didn’t know that the original cast was doing the game. Alyssa Milano is going to be the new love interest in the game.

http://www.gametab.com/news/2934612/

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Test A Geek: Enjoy a new edition of Test A Geek on this episode.

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How To: Use Twitter Clients on Linux

If you’re down with the penguin and also getting sucked into the Twitter world, using a Twitter client greatly advances the productivity of the web application. Mac and PC users have many options but Linux can be just as powerful for keeping up with this hyper-network. There are a number of desktop clients available for Linux users which makes using twitter a lot easier. Some of these programs are out on multiple OS’s thanks to Adobe Air, which runs on all three OS’s.

1) twhirl: Thanks to Adobe Air deploying applications over multiple platform is easier than ever. twhirl is one of the most widely used twitter desktop clients out there. It supports multiple accounts over multiple social networks with a decent user interface.

2) twitus: A simple GTK+ twitter client with several distribution specific packages.

3) gtwitter: Inspired by twitterrific and written in Mono/C#, this is another good GTK+ based Linux client.

4) Qwit: Native KDE users will appreciate this twitter clients developed with Qt4.

5) Mitter: A light weight python twitter client which can also be also used from the console.

See more clients at linuxhaxor.net. With these programs, you should find one of these clients useful to get your Twitter on. You can also use Twitter Directories like Twellow to look for people with similar interests to follow.

http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/03/22/10-twitter-clients-for-linux/

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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The Geek’s View: Skype for the iPhone / iPod Touch

This past Tuesday, a Skype application was released for the iPhone & iPod Touch. While most of the features aren’t too surprising, there are a few capabilities that are notably missing, but there are a few iPhone-only features as well.

Calls on Skype for iPhone work only if you’re in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot and calls will not work over cell. If you want to chat with someone over text, that will work regardless of the connection. If you have an iPod Touch, you will need will need earphones with a microphone to talk. During a call, you can mute the line, go on hold, or put the call on speakerphone. There is also a “My Info” window that allows you to buy SkypeOut credit online. Some iPhone-only features include taking a photo from within Skype to serve as your avatar image or pulling a picture in from the camera roll. The app also allows you to accept incoming conference calls but you cannot make those calls.

Overall, the program is really nice and is a fantastic way to get voice services on an iPod Touch while saving on minutes from your AT&T account. This can come in handy especially if you’re using the free AT&T hotspots in starbucks or free wifi in other places such as Panera Bread. It runs smooth and it’s a must-have for anyone into VoIP and looking to get free or cheap calls on their device.

Skype for iPhone / iPod Touch can be downloaded for free from the iTunes Store.

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Outtake link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjfunv7HB6U

Contact info: 206-350-5000 | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Twitter.com/TheGeekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note:

Gozer and I will be podcasting at I-CON 28 in Brendwood, NY. If you’re attending the show, be sure to say hello!

We also have a Facebook group & fan page. Search Facebook for “The Geekcast” and you’ll see the show listed.

Are people interested in playing Xbox online? We need to know how much interest there is, so we can proceed accordingly, if at all

Get your tech question answered on the show! We need content for our Ask A Geek segment.

Would you like a secondary, smaller Geekcast to come out so that you have content twice a week? The show used to be twice a week, so let us know.

Listener Feedback:

paulo_one tweeted: Great show this week. Info overload! Ha ha, love it. Will be watching Galactica with you.

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Geek This Week

Aaron:

GrandCentral upgrade to Google Voice. I’m not sure what to do with it because I have an established phone number for my house & cell. It’s a fun service but how do I integrate it into my life?

BSG finale quick, no-spoiler recap.

MacHeist Bundle. www.MacHeist.com

Gozer:

Peggle on LG Dare. Like pachinko games and arkanoid but from the top down. The object is to destroy orange pegs in order to advance in the game. Aim where the pinball will shoot then press the face of whatever character you have to shoot the pinball. Then basically just sit back and watch where it goes. There i also a thing that goes back and forth on the bottom of the screen that can save your pinball. Once you’ve destroyed all the orange pegs, these tubes come up and it starts to feel like plinko on the price is right. You wanna get the pinball in the middle one. Fun game and works well on the touch screen.

Also played some mario kart wii. Played online with my little cousin had fun. Online on the wii is terrible. Friend codes and lack of voice chat.

Still enjoyin Res Evil 5. Enjoying, being the keyword. Not loving it. It is an action game that when you get to the 4th chapter, becomes tomb raider. Needs to get back to the roots of survival horror.

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Tech & Game news:

Gears of War 2 Snowblind map pack dated, patch as well

Epic has confirmed that it will release the Snowblind pack, the next Gears of War 2 map bundle, on March 31st. The pack brings four additional maps to the title’s multiplayer mode, including Grindyard, Under Hill, Courtyard, and Fuel Depot (a remake from the original game.)

A patch is to be released on March 24th ( yesterday), which will change the game’s current ranking system to an improved experience points-based system, giving players the opportunity to up their status to as high as level 100. Additionally, drop-outs suffer an experience point penalty, and Epic will introduce an auto-balancing system to replace AWOL players with bots, to even games out as they progress.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3707-LA-Gaming-News-Examiner~y2009m3d13-Gears-of-War-2-Snowblind-map-pack-dated-patch-as-well

From Ars Technica:

Blockbuster On Demand comes to TiVo

Blockbuster has hopped on the TiVo bandwagon to bring Blockbuster’s digital movie library directly to the popular media center. The companies announced Wednesday that Blockbuster’s OnDemand service would be integrated into TiVo Series 2, Series 3, HD, and HD XL units in order to offer content for rental and purchase. To balance out the deal, TiVo DVRs will be sold at Blockbuster stores throughout the US and on Blockbuster’s website.

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keys elaborated on the companies’ joint plans for the future. “Ultimately, our vision is to work with TiVo so that their subscribers can access movies not only through our OnDemand service but also from our stores and through our by-mail service as well,” Keyes said in a statement. “Regardless of a film’s availability—through VOD or on DVD—we want to work with TiVo to provide their subscribers unprecedented access to movie content.”

The deal is part of Blockbuster’s latest strategy to try and get its services onto every device possible. In November of 2008, the company delivered a set-top box called MediaPoint, which is meant to stream movies from Blockbuster’s online library. Then, in January of 2009, BlockBuster announced that it would begin slapping its logo on CinemaNow’s online movie service, allowing Blockbuster to deliver content over the Internet to a “wide assortment of home and mobile electronic devices.”

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/03/blockbuster-follows-everyone-else-by-getting-on-tivo.ars

http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/blockbusterontivo.html?WT.ac=tivohome_blockbuster_img

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Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: Customize the Windows 7 Login Screen

Windows 7 has been out in public beta for a couple of months and everyone will agree that it’s what Vista should have been. It has a polished look that works great and it should bring Windows back to a respectable OS that XP made it. One great little tweak to make Windows 7 even better is to customize the logon screen to whatever you want.

Logon Changer is a tiny system customizing utility that swaps out the logon screen wallpaper easily. All you need to do is just select a new wallpaper and you are done. Simply log out to see if the results are what you’re looking for. One of the only restrictions to the program is that the image cannot be more than 256k and it has to be a JPEG file. Most programs should be capable of exporting an existing image into the size and format Logon Changer requires.

Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Windows 7 is a free download and can be found at http://tweaks.com/software/tweakslogon/

http://lifehacker.com/5182061/logon-changer-customizes-the-windows-7-login-screen

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: Install jailbroken apps without jailbreaking

Up until now, in order to install non-authorized 3rd party apps onto your iPhone or iPod Touch, you had to jailbreak your phone. This process has come a long way since the inital versions where they could easily brick a phone and they were a crap-shoot. Today, there are a couple easy ways to jailbreak a phone and they work great. Now it seems that there has been an interesting development in the Jailbreaking wars.

Installer.app now has a desktop application that lets you install jailbroken apps directly from the desktop without jailbreaking an iPhone. The application looks like iTunes and works almost as easily.

The desktop version of Installer.app can be downloaded at http://ripdev.com/installerapp

9to5mac.com reports that if you are using a Unibody MacBook, you’ll need a USB hub. Overall, it looks like it isn’t really working that well yet. Their reccomendation is to wait and see.

http://www.9to5mac.com/iphone-jailbreak-installer-desktop

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The Geek’s View: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Twitter.com/TheGeekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: Gozer has joined the Twitter community after much pressuring from Aaron. Be sure to follow him @Gozer360!

Listener Feedback: Twitter user woden325 let us know that there is a great disk wiper available called Dban. This is in reference to the harddrive story we talked about on episode 126. A full review will appear on an upcoming episode of The Geekcast

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Geek This Week

Aaron: This week is the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. It airs on Friday and is a two-hour episode. Aaron talks about the series (with very little spoilers) and how it’s changed the sci-fi world.

Gozer: Resident Evil 5. Background of resident evil experience. Res 1 on Saturn, Res 2 on N64 ( a friend’s) Res Code Veronica + Res 3 Nemesis ( delorean) on Dreamcast, Gamecube deal with Resident Evil 0 and Res 1 revamp. Then one of the best games of all time, Res 4. Played a demo disc of it and was not used to it at first. Bought the game and loved it, played it six times, 4 on gamecube and 2X on Wii. Resident Evil 5 is not as good as 4. Still enjoying it but with alot of frustration. Biggest frustration being the inventory system. Pull up your inventory in real time, more frustrating than intense. you can only hold 9 things, res 4 u had a briefcase that u could make bigger. I do like the quick inventory using the d pad. Sheva – needs to be smarter. Can’t tell her what weapon to use. Gotta play this game co-op. Still enjoying the game and the different scenarios. * spoiler* I just beat an old man version the golem dude from res 4 and some half bat half lobster thing that was fairly easy to beat. New multiplayer is dlc for $5. If it’s just deathmatch, iam not getting it. Just run towards each other, stop and shoot would suck. Gotta do some cool zombie mode like left for dead or something like one player is human and the other sends waves of zombies at him during certain points in the match.

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Tech & Game news:

From Lifehacker.com:

Google Chrome Beta Updates, Boasts Improved Speed and New Features

Google Chrome has released a fresh new beta that integrates many of the features available in the nightly releases, including significant speed improvements and a few cool new features. Apart from the speed increases—which claim a 25% boost in their V8 benchmarks and 35% on Sunspider —the new beta includes form autofill, full page zoom, autoscroll, and a tab drag feature for breaking tabs into a side-by-side view.

http://lifehacker.com/5172576/google-chrome-beta-updates-boasts-improved-speed-and-new-features

National Center for the History of Electronics Games

What It Does

Situated at Strong National Museum of Play, the National Center for the History of Electronic Games™ collects, studies, and interprets electronic games and related material and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other.

Collections: The Center defines electronic games broadly to include video games, computer games, console games, arcade games, handheld games, and toys that combine digital and traditional play. The Center’s collections—nearly 15,000 items and growing—are therefore broadly inclusive and encompass not only games and game platforms, but also a wide variety of other material such as packaging, advertising, publications, electronic-game-inspired consumer products, literary and popular inspirations of electronic-games imagery, historical records, personal and business papers, and other associated artifacts and documents that represent or illustrate the impact of electronic games on American life.

Meanwhile, from May 30 through November 1, 2009, Strong National Museum of Play is hosting Videotopia, a traveling exhibit from the Electronics Conservancy. The show features more than one hundred restored and new arcade video games—from the earliest machines through the first to utilize microprocessors, ROM chips, and 3-D graphics to today’s simulator games. The exhibit enables museum guests to explore the history and technology of the games by playing them on site.

http://www.ncheg.org/

Apple previews iPhone OS 3.0 features.

On Tuesday Apple previewed the new 3.0 OS version of the upcoming iPhone software. Among the added features were copy & paste, which many were looking for. The full run-down of features are as follows:

GPS/mapping tweaks
In-app purchases
Landscape mode in all apps
MMS
P2P networking
Push notifications
System-wide search

The OS is available now for developers and will ship in the summer. iPhone owners get the upgrade for free, while iPod Touch owners will have to pay $9.99 to get the new features.

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Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: Update Facebook selectively from Twitter.

Twitter updates are great and even better, there is a Twitter application for Facebook that allows your Facebook status to stay in sync with your Twitter updates. Unfortunately we tweet much more than Facebook friends would like to see and that can really gunk up people’s newsfeeds. Now there is a way to selectively update Facebook via Twitter.

SelectiveTwitter is a FaceBook application that will update your facebook status from Twitter but only when you explicitly say so. SelectiveTwitter only updates with tweets that end with the hashtag #fb. The hashtag is added when you tweet and is intentional. By doing this, you are always in control of when your Facebook status gets updated.

To install the application head over to http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter/ and enter your Twitter ID. Once you hit enter, allow the permissions when prompted. That’s it! The app will monitor your Timeline for the hashtag and push the Facebook update when needed. It also drops the #fb so it’s not a cryptic item at the end of each post.

There are some important things to remember:

* Tweets have to end with #fb. It won’t update if the tag is anywhere else in the tweet.
* The app won’t work if your twitter updates are protected.

Information from http://www.twi5.com/selective-twitter-update-facebook-status-from-twitter/1860/

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: Make Free Ringtones on the LG Dare

Why spend money buying ringtones for songs you don’t like or for parts of songs you don’t want? There is an easy and free way to get the songs you want onto your LG Dare with a program called BitPim. BitPim is a program that allows you to view and manipulate data on many CDMA phones from LG, Samsung, Sanyo and other manufacturers. This includes the PhoneBook, Calendar, WallPapers, RingTones (functionality varies by phone) and the Filesystem for most Qualcomm CDMA chipset based phones.

Download BitPim from http://www.bitpim.org/. Once it’s open you’ll have to create a port using your phone. I tried using usb to do this but had trouble so i connected my phone via bluetooth and it created a port. Go to find phone in the menu in the top, with the magnifying glass. Go to ringers, then to the musical note with the plus sign. Search for your mp3 file then open it in bitpim. Import into bitpim.

Then you have to convert the audio file. Change the sample rate to 48,000. Change the bitrate to 96 or 112. Click convert, may take a minute. Then it allows you to adjust the current position of the track. Click ok. It might warn you that the track is too big. just click yes. Then you’ll see the new ringtone in your ringers section of bitpim. Click send to phone and replace all.

BitPim runs on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

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The Geek’s View: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Twitter.com/TheGeekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: Twitter & Youtube channel, Gozer’s theater/gaming room setup & GTA 4 vid

No animals were harmed in the outtakes from last week, Gozer doesn’t squeeze his cats he simply hugs them.

Listener Feedback:

Mike writes: The show is doing good just like old times. Good stuff !!

Max Writes: Aaron glad to see ya back! very happy with The Geekcast thus far, I can imagine that its pretty hard work keeping things going by your self…so nice addition in Gozer. I’ve a couple of requests if you’d indulge me….
I’ve an xbox360… would love to invite you and Gozer in to a GTA game sometime if ya want you can host a geekcast fan night?!?!?

Have you explored the zune? and it’s marketplace… don’t recall if you mentioned this on the podcast but not only does Zune’s Market place, allow for unlimited downloads of music but they also allow you got get 10 free songs a month…I’ve gotta gush about my zune 80, love the device..hope you can get your hands on one it’s pretty good… pity it’s overshadowed by the Ipod touch… but as stand alone players it pretty good….
this ends the microsoft fan portion of my email!

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Geek This Week:

Aaron:

Aaron and Gozer played GTA 4 multiplayer together, lobby is fun just messin’ around ( so funny to try to accomplish something together and then just turn and kill each other without waring) We took a boat from the statue of liberty together to another island and i kept fallin off the dock and when i got up on the dock up the stairs you just decided to 2nd amendment-ed me! Multiplayer is cool at first but then you just feel like your playing alone.

Gozer:

1) Very geeky week!!! Got my flat screen back from repair. Sound still doesn’t work. Pissed. Got my iMac back with new LCD screen and leopard 3 pack $169 for single user. Upgraded to final cut

express 4 for $100 since i owned the old version already. Got a new wireless mighty mouse for free!! Apple rocks!

2) Played Tomb Raider Under world, couldn’t get past the underwater part in the beginning, never gonna play it again. Still lovin’ GTA 4 lost and the damned & Street Fighter 4. Difficulty is nuts and

multiplayer needs improvement. Ninja Blade Demo – Felt like Ninja Gaiden but not as good. Too many separations of gameplay. Fighting into Dragon’s Lair’s esq button pushes. Huge Worm & Spider in demo.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. review & impressions. Controls awkward, left stick up and down and left ad right goes into like a barrel roll. Right stick moves the camera. LB and RB turns the plane left and right.

Sound fx could be better. Resident Evil 5 Thursday night midnight launch.

Went to gamestop and i got a ‘sigh’ from the girl behind the counter about how i am not buying this on PS3.

3) LG Dare on Friday.

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Tech & Game news:

From News.com

Apple Releases New iPod Shuffle

On Wednesday, Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that’s half the size of its predecessor. The new device is smaller than a AA battery and holds up to 1,000 songs, Apple said. The Shuffle also adds a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names, as well as provide status information, such as battery life. Apple reports the battery life is good for 10 hours.

Priced at $79, it comes in silver or black. The aluminum body of the third-generation Shuffle stands 1.8 inches tall and is 0.3 inch thick. The navigation and volume controls are in a small protrusion on the right earphone cord. With the new Shuffle, users can organize songs by multiple playlists. The VoiceOver feature can speak in 14 languages: English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10193443-37.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

From TeamXbox.com

VIDEO GAMES LIVE ANNOUNCES 45 MORE TOUR DATES!

World Tour to Consist of Over 60 Shows Including Performances During Comic Con, E3, WonderCon and Many More

LOS ANGELES, CA – February 27, 2009 – After having just performed the opening of the Taiwan International Music Festival last weekend in Taipei to an endless sea of tens of thousands, and having sold out every show so far this year, Video Games Live is proud to announce 45 new shows for 2009. The 2009 World Tour will consist of more than 60 shows ranging from Asia to South America, to all over Europe and North America.

Created in 2002 and launched in 2005 by video game veterans Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, Video Games Live has gone on to become the worldwide leader in live video game entertainment. Marc Geiger, Senior Executive Vice-President at the William Morris Agency stated, “2008 was a big break-out year for the guys, having performed nearly 50 shows, but 2009 is going to be even bigger. Our goal from the start was to turn Video Games Live into a household name and Tommy and Jack have been really successful in creating a show for everyone to enjoy whether you’re into games or not.”

Video Games Live has seen amazing growth over the years and has gone from 3 shows in 2005, to 11 shows in 2006, to 29 shows in 2007 to 47 shows in 2008. And the upward trend will continue in 2009 as well as performances already being scheduled for 2010.

In order to build and keep audiences returning year after year, Video Games Live continues to add and update new material and segments each month. Although only able to perform around 20 segments per performance, Video Games Live has created over 60 segments for which to draw from during each show. In its 5 year touring history, no two shows have ever been the same.

All Tour Dates, Times, Venues and Ticket Links can be found at: http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/18999/Video-Games-Live-Announces-45-More-Tour-Dates/

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Test A Geek: Enjoy a new edition of Test A Geek in this episode.

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How To: Keep Your Mac Apps up to Date

If you’re looking for a great way to keep your Mac applications up to date with one program, you should check out AppFresh. This program scans your machine and checks the versions against what is available online. It easily updates your non-Apple programs and gives you full management over all updates. Best of all, it’s free. Check it out at http://metaquark.de/appfresh/

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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The Geek’s View: Mad Men Season 1 on Bluray.

Mad Men deals with the lives of competitive men and women working in a 1960s advertising agency. The term Mad Men comes from Madison Ave, where they work in NYC. Don Draper is the main character. He is a very mysterious and powerful man. As the story and season unfolds they slowly reveal the mystery behind him. Throughout the season he gets what he wants business and personal. ( he’s a playa) he works at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency along with other dispicable men. Women are portrayed as being objects. Everyone smokes and drinks all the time!!!! If you have a gf, fiancee and/or wife, make sure you have a punching bag next to them if you watch it together.

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Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Twitter.com/TheGeekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: We have started a YouTube channel to share some of what we’re working on and also the cool tech stuff we geek out to. Check it out at www.YouTube.com/TheGeekcast

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Geek This Week:

Aaron: Heroes and how it’s dropping off

Gozer: F.E.A.R. 2 Demo & Puzzle Quest PSP

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Tech news:

From MacRumors.com

Amazon Releases Free ‘Kindle for iPhone’ Application

Kindle for iPhone allows Apple iPhone and iPod touch owners to read Kindle books using a simple, easy-to-use interface. You can shop for hundreds of thousands of books at www.amazon.com/kindlestore, and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone or iPod touch. Enjoy Amazon’s low prices on Kindle books, including New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases for $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
Features include:

- Buy a Kindle book from your Mac, PC, or iPhone using a Web browser and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone
- Read first chapters of any book for free before you buy
- Download the Kindle books you already own for free — they are automatically backed up on Amazon.com
- Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle device

The iPhone client will also allow you to seamlessly switch back and forth between your Kindle device and Kindle for iPhone while keeping bookmarks and reading location synced between the devices. The Kindle is Amazon’s electronic book reader that was recently updated to version 2. Amazon had promised that Kindle content would become available for mobile phones which had led to speculation that they might support the iPhone.

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/04/amazon-releases-free-kindle-for-iphone-application/

From kotaku.com

Celebrate The Resident Evil 5 Launch With A Bloodletting

If you’ll be in the Los Angeles area on March 13th and have some spare blood lying around, stop by Capcom’s Resident Evil 5 Blood Drive to exchange plasma for prizes.

Capcom is hosting an official Resident Evil 5 Blood Drive on March 13th, the day the game launches in North America and Europe. Folks who stop by and give some of their life-juice to the American Red Cross will be able to get their hands on posters, pins, and bumper stickers, as well as a chance to win copies of the game and limited edition Red Xbox 360 Resident Evil 5 bundles. Capcom will have kiosks set up with the game running, for those of you too woozy to make it to the store afterwards.

Besides, even if you don’t win a prize, giving blood is an excellent way to give back to society while scoring Nutter Butters and orange Hi-C.

The Resident Evil 5 Blood Drive is taking place at the World of Wonder Gallery on March 13th, from 11am to 5pm.

http://kotaku.com/5164367/celebrate-the-resident-evil-5-launch-with-a-bloodletting

Resident evil 5 demo, midnight launch at gamestop

From MacRumors.com

Apple Announces New iMacs, Mac Minis, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule

Apple today announced updates to its iMac and Mac mini desktop lines, including a 24-inch iMac and a Mac mini with new NVIDIA integrated graphics. For the same $1,499 price as the previous generation 20-inch iMac, the new 24-inch iMac delivers a 30 percent larger display, twice the memory and twice the storage. Apple also claims up to five times better graphics performance in the new Mac mini with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics..

“Our flagship 24-inch iMac with twice the memory and twice the storage is now available for just $1,499,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO. “The Mac mini is not only our most affordable Mac, it’s also the world’s most energy efficient desktop computer.”

iMac

- $1199. 20-inch 2.66 GHz iMac. 2GB RAM. NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated graphics. 320GB HD. Mini Display Port
- $1499. 24-inch 2.66 GHz iMac. 4GB RAM. NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated graphics. 640GB HD. Mini Display Port
- $1799. 24-inch 2.93 GHz iMac. 4GB RAM. NVIDIA GeForce GT 120. 640GB HD. Mini Display Port
- $2199. 24-inch 3.06 GHz iMac. 4GB RAM. NVIDIA GeForce GT 130. 1TB HD. Mini Display Port

Mac Mini

- $599. 2.0GHz Mac mini. 1GB 1066 MHz DDR SDRAM, GeForce 9400M integrated graphics, 120GB HD, 8x SuperDrive, Mini DisplayPort and mini-DVI, 5 USB Ports, One FireWire 800 Port
- $799. 2.0GHz Mac mini. 2GB 1066 MHz DDR SDRAM, GeForce 9400M integrated graphics, 320GB HD, 8x SuperDrive, Mini DisplayPort and mini-DVI, 5 USB Ports, One FireWire 800 Port

Apple also updated the AirPort Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule, which are now offering simultaneous 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz dual-band networking “for optimal performance, range and compatibility.” The new models also offer the ability to set up a secondary Internet-only Wi-Fi network to allow family and friends to access the Internet without giving them the password to the primary network or allowing them access to networked drives and other peripherals. Finally, Time Capsule offers MobileMe members the ability to access files on their device’s hard drive over the Internet from anywhere.

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/03/apple-announces-new-imacs-mac-minis-airport-extreme-and-time-capsule/

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Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: Time Machine backups via Shared Drive

If you would like to back up your data via Time Machine over a network, Apple wants you to purchase an expensive Time Capsule. While this is a great solution, you can now back up your data via Time Machine if you have two Macs running OS X 10.5, Leopard.

On the Mac where the external drive is connected, go into System Preferences and turn on File Sharing. Then add the Time Machine drive to the list of shared devices. On the second Mac, mount the drive via your network and then Time Machine will see it. Once the initial backup is complete (this will take a few hours) you can dismount the drive. Time Machine will continue to see it for future backups and complete them as normal!

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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The Geek’s View: Hulk vs. Blu-Ray

Hulk vs. Thor on Blu-Ray

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Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Twitter.com/TheGeekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: Welcome to all the new and old listeners who heard about The Geekcast from Twitter. We hope to hear from everyone via e-mail or voicemail.

This edition of The Geekcast is once again co-hosted with Gozer. Together we tackle the world of technology. Send your feedback, thoughts and suggestions on to us!

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Geek This Week:

Aaron: Aaron opens his b’day gift. Gozer briefly describes what it is.

Gozer: Gozer discusses new Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC expansion. “The Lost and Damned” $20 for roughly 1/3 of what the original game was.

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Tech news:

From News.com

Microsoft sues TomTom for patent infringement

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it is filing two separate patent infringement actions against the GPS navigation company. In complaints before the U.S. District Court in Washington and the International Trade Commission, Microsoft is alleging infringement of eight patents.

In an interview, Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said that the software giant has been trying to start licensing talks with TomTom for more than a year.

“They basically never were prepared to have a discussion with us with respect to licensing terms,” Gutierrez said.

A TomTom spokesman said, as a corporate policy, the company “does not comment on legal matters.”

Although Microsoft has been on the receiving end of many patent complaints, this is only the third patent case Microsoft has taken to court. Last year it sued Taiwanese mouse maker Primax, before subsequently settling. It also had a dispute with Belkin back in 2006, which was eventually settled as well.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10172068-56.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

From Joystiq

Netflix planning on offering ‘streaming only’ subscriptions in future

If you’ve found yourself fascinated by the Xbox 360′s recently acquired ability to stream movies and TV programs off Netflix, but found yourself hesitant to subscribe to its pesky DVD delivery service in order to access said function, we’ve got great news. Netflix has apparently recognized your reservations, and is planning on implementing a “streaming only” subscription in the “foreseeable future.”

The demand for such a subscription plan is clear. Netflix, which offers over 12,000 titles on its streaming service, saw a great deal of unexpected growth last quarter thanks to the popularity of streaming programming — we’d wager most of that came from the 360s Netflix app. No word on the release date or pricing of the stand-alone streaming subscription — without the hassle of postage fees, we’d wager it’ll see a nice discount from the standard $8.99 monthly plan.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/25/netflix-planning-on-offering-streaming-only-subscriptions-in-f/

From Ars Technica

New Google Toolbar beta invades desktops, brings suggestions

Google has released a beta of Google Toolbar 6 for Internet Explorer. The modest new version brings Google features both old and new to Internet Explorer, and also brings Google’s increasingly thorough search to Toolbar users’ desktops.

The most significant new feature of Toolbar 6 beta is the Quick Search Box (QSB), a search dialog that ironically has nothing to do with the toolbar itself. You may recognize QSB from Google Desktop for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, or even the scaled down, Mac-only product of the same name released in January.

Like a college-bound teenager, QSB lives separately from its IE toolbar brethren in the Windows taskbar. A mouse click or a control-space shortcut invokes its popup dialog for searching the web (with suggestions), local bookmarks, and even applications. As with its other implementations, QSB learns as you use it in an effort to (in theory) identify what you are searching for more quickly. In our brief experience, QSB is fairly smart, able to identify applications by abbreviations (WMP) and clearly present suggestions.

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/new-google-toolbar-beta-invades-desktops-brings-suggestions.ars

From OSNews:

Steve Ballmer: Linux Bigger Competitor than Apple

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer had some interesting things to say yesterday about which companies Microsoft sees as its competitors in the client operating system space. You’d think Apple was their number one competitor – and you’d be wrong. Microsoft sees two other competitors as their primary adversaries.

During a speech for investors, Steve Ballmer showed a slide to his audience where Microsoft sees piracy as its biggest competitor. “Number two market share goes to Windows pirated, or unlicensed,” Balmer said, “That’s a competitor that’s tough to beat, they’ve got a good price and a heck of a product, but we’re working on it.” This isn’t exactly new information, but it’s interesting to see it spelled out so clearly.

Much more interesting is Microsoft’s idea of Linux and Apple, According to Microsoft, Linux is a bigger threat to the company than Apple, placing Linux above Apple in the marketshare figure pie chart thing. He went on to explain how the company views Apple: “I think depending on how you look at it, Apple has probably increased its market share over the last year or so by a point or more. And a point of market share on a number that’s about 300 million is interesting. It’s an interesting amount of market share, while not necessarily being as dramatic as people would think, but we’re very focused in on both Apple as a competitor, and Linux as a competitor.”

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Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: Watch Hulu Shows With Only One Commercial

If you refreshing a streaming Hulu video page, you are offered the choice of watching one two-minute video instead of regular commercial breaks. Handy for slower connections and sly office viewing.

You might not save that much on total commercial time, but rather than having to re-buffer each video section between commercials, Hulu’s offering lets you watch one two-minute clip, then stream a whole episode without having to stop again. It’ll be interesting to see if this opens up downloading hacks down the road, since it would seem the whole clip would be cached in your browser.

Some users might see the new commercial option right away, and it might take multiple refreshes for others to pull it up.

From Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5158623/watch-hulu-shows-with-only-one-commercial

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: Re-add Hulu to your Apple TV

Last week Hulu removed their content from TV.com and then the next day from Boxee, which streams content from many sources. Many people loaded Boxee onto their Apple TV units and Hulu was the missing piece to make the box the perfect online TV device. Now there is a hacker’s plug-in that can put streaming Hulu content back into your Boxee media center on Linux, Macs, or Apple TV.

Before embarking on the process, grab the Hulu plugin package from the forum links at the page at the end.

1. Launch Boxee and log in, then head to the left-hand panel and click down to “Settings.” Choose “Applications” from the upper right.

2. Choose “Update/Remove” from the top-hand bar, then scroll down to Hulu and click.
3. Head down to the bottom two options, choose “Remove” on the right, and confirm. Don’t worry, it’ll be right back!
4 Grab the Hulu plugin package from the link above this gallery, unzip it, and drop the folder into your plugins/video folder. Here’s the likely spots:
Apple TV: SFTP into your Apple TV’s root directory (described in our Apple TV/Boxee guide linked above), head to Applications/boxee.app/contents/resources/boxee/plugins/video, and drop in the Hulu folder you extracted. Make sure there isn’t an extra “Hulu” folder containing it, as noted above.
Linux: In your home folder—.boxee/plugins/video (note the period at the beginning)
Mac OS X: From the Boxee package—/Contents/Resources/Boxee/plugins
5 Head back to Boxee, browse to Settings/Applications, choose “Add New” from the top bar, then select the “new” Hulu.
6 The non-blocked Hulu comes uncapitalized, but you can rename it however you’d like. Make sure “Video” is checked among the “Source Type” options, then hit “Add.”
7 Boom! Hulu’s icon is right back where you left it, and you’re once again flush with streaming TV, movies, and other content.

Some people on Apple TVs, and other systems, are seeing a “Failed to retrieve data” message, and I was too, earlier. I fixed it by removing the extra-level “Hulu” folder and copying the folder inside it into the correct plugin folder (listed below for each system). In other words, make sure the folder you’re dropping into your plugin folder contains two folders, .svn and resources, and three files, not another “Hulu” folder.

From Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5157615/how-to-reinstall-a-working-hulu-in-boxee

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The Geek’s View: Blu-Ray review of Hulk vs.

Part 1 Hulk vs. Wolverine ( ultra violent awesomeness)

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Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: This edition of The Geekcast features a co-host, my good friend Gozer. Gozer is a big Ghostbusters fan and avid gamer. Together we tackle this episode of the show and there is the possibility of him being a full-time co-host. Send your feedback, thoughts and suggestions on to us!

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Geek This Week:

Gozer: Street Fighter 4 in depth review, just picked it up today (flashback of Street Fighter 2 favorite all time game)

Aaron: BTTF DVD re-relase special features & also BSG.

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Tech news:

From News.com:

Facebook backs down on privacy terms

Facing a federal complaint from a leading privacy organization and a revolt of tens of thousands of its users, Facebook on Tuesday night backed down from what many have seen as an onerous privacy policy. The policy had seemed to grant Facebook perpetual rights to users’ uploaded content, and the threatened complaint from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) had demanded, essentially, that the social-networking service return to its previous terms.

The move came after Facebook had, earlier in the day, polled its users as to whether it should revert to its previous terms. In his blog, founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the company would be asking users to get involved in crafting the next set of terms.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10166456-2.html

From Shacknews.com

Midway Files for Bankruptcy

Struggling Mortal Kombat publisher Midway has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, citing an inability to repay its $150 million debt potentially due next week. The filing does not affect its non-U.S. operations, which will continue “as normal.”

The company plans to reorganize but “conduct its business operations as usual,” with CEO Matt Booty noting that “Midway enters this process with strong underlying fundamentals, as evidenced by solid fourth quarter sales that exceeded expectations in spite of a challenging retail and general economic environment.”

“This filing will relieve the immediate pressure from our creditors and provide us time for an orderly exploration of our strategic alternatives,” he explained.

After Midway was sold for a paltry $100,000, some investors were able to demand reimbursement due to the change in leadership. They initially had until mid-January to decide if they wanted to collect, but the deadline was postponed until February 19.

In all, Midway faces $240 million in debt, though only $150 million may be due February 19. That $150 million is the sum of two $75 million investments, which originally weren’t due to be repaid until 2025 and 2026

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57213

From News.com:

Hulu pulls content from TV.com

Hulu.com has pulled its content off TV.com, which relaunched last month, Hulu confirmed Wednesday. Attempts to access episodes of Heroes and other content from NBC and News Corp. partners in the Hulu joint venture, displayed a “video unavailable” message.

Hulu also has distribution partnerships with other sites, such as Mojo, MyNetworkTV, and Lionsgate. TV.com saw a 263 percent increase in unique viewers in January after it redesigned and expanded the site and added user interaction features, according to Nielsen VideoCensus figures cited by MediaPost Online. It has 5.9 million unique visitors compared with Hulu’s 4.5 million, according to Nielsen figures reported by Advertising Age.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10166467-93.html

From Ars Technica:

17″ MacBook Pro disassembly reveals huge battery

iFixit.com has dissected a brand new 17″ unibody MacBook Pro and found some interesting information from what Apple is shipping out. The hard drive seems to be replaceable with a process only requiring the removal of about a dozen screws of various lengths with Phillips heads. After disconnecting the SATA cable the drive is free.

The breakdown shows the mystery of Apple’s built-in, non-user-replaceable 95-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. The battery weighs in at 1.5 pounds and spans close to the entire width of the machine. It hooks up through a wired connector and is screwed to the case via “tri-wing” screws. The battery’s size seems to confirm Apple’s reasoning for changing the form factor of the battery, enabling it to be larger to hold more juice, giving the computer longer life.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/02/17-macbook-pro-disassembly-reveals-ginormous-battery.ars

From NY Times:

Even With Delay, Hundreds of Television Stations Switch to Digital

More than 400 television stations have stopped broadcasting in old-fashioned analog form, according to the Federal Communications Commission, months before the rescheduled transition to digital TV. Turning off the analog signal allows stations that are short of cash to save money, but it also means a loss of service for viewers who have not yet upgraded their older television sets. The long-awaited move to digital TV, which promises clearer pictures and more channel choices for over-the-air television viewers, had been scheduled to happen Tuesday, but this month, however, the government delayed the move until June 12, citing a troubled transition process and a fear that millions of Americans would find that their televisions had been rendered incapable of receiving signals.

Despite the delay, 421 stations, most of them in smaller TV markets, chose to turn off their analog signals Tuesday. When they are combined with the 220 broadcasters that already broadcast solely in digital, the F.C.C. estimates that 36 percent of the nation’s stations will have switched by Wednesday morning. Nielsen Media Research estimates that about 5.8 million households, or about 5.1 percent, have not upgraded their sets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/business/media/18digital.html?_r=1&ref=technology

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Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: Insert Special Characters into Twitter

If you’re a Twitter user and looking to spice up your Tweets, there is a great way to easily insert special characters into your text with just a click of a few buttons. Back in September of 2008, a blog posting went up showing giving a sidebar of special symbols to insert into posts. This took off and gained over 2,000 digs on Digg.com. A few days later the blog was updated to make it easy for everyone to get their special characters at any time.

In order to get this sidebar onto your browser for use at any time, head on over to http://thenextweb.com/2008/09/18/twitterkeys-the-first-48-hours/ and scroll down until you see the text “Drag this link to your browser bookmarks toolbar: TwitterKeys”. The TwitterKeys text will be a link. Do as told and drag it into your bookmarks bar. Once it’s there, click it and a separate window will open up showing you all the symbols you can insert into Twitter.

Simply highlight a symbol, copy it and then paste it into your Twitter area. Once you tweet, the symbol will show up for everyone else. This is a quick and easy way to share more than just text with everyone following you out there.

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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The Geek’s View:

Blu Ray – Slumdog Millionare, Movie theater vs. Home theater 3- D movies

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Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: This edition of The Geekcast features a co-host, my good friend Gozer. Gozer is a big Ghostbusters fan and avid gamer. Together we tackle this episode of the show and there is the possibility of him being a full-time co-host. Send your feedback, thoughts and suggestions on to us!

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Tech news:

From AppleInsider:

Apple prepping iTunes Replay on-demand video service

Apple is believed to be wrapping up a new feature in iTunes 8 that will allow users to stream their iTunes video purchases directly from the company’s servers for playback anywhere, anytime without eating up local storage.

Dubbed iTunes Replay, the service would allow iTunes shoppers to build out their digital video collection without worrying about the space needed to store the often hefty media files. It’s unclear whether Apple plans to charge for the service, which is said to support both iTunes Movie and TV show purchases.

One of the main complaints users have with video purchases on iTunes is that they are forced to either throw away their files after watching them, or find a place to store the large files either on their hard drive or by burning them to DVDs. By storing their video content for them and allowing users to stream it for viewing as often as they want, Apple would essentially be offering a media center alternative.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/02/11/apple_prepping_itunes_replay_on_demand_video_service.html

From ArsTechnica:

Blockbuster Total Access to add games for $5 bump

Blockbuster is going after both Netflix and Gamefly with a new strategy: add the option of renting games as well as movies when you subscribe to the Total Access service. Games will cost a little more, and you can only have one title at a time, but this could give the company a leg up in a crowded field.

Blockbuster Video wants a larger slice of the video game rental pie and has announced that it will begin to offer game rentals through its mail-based rental service, Blockbuster Total Access. This upgrade to the service will be added to select markets across the country soon, and is aimed for wide release by the second half of the year. This would give Blockbuster the only through-the-mail subscription rental service that allows customers to rent both movies and video games.

“We already rent more video games than any other company, store-based or online, in the nation, so we know our core customer loves games as well as movies,” VP and general manager of blockbuster.com Bob Barr said in a statement. “With this pilot program, we’re laying the groundwork for offering Blockbuster Total Access customers easy online access to the movies and games they want, through an integrated subscription offering. Plus, according to their plan, they’ll continue to be able to exchange their by-mail rentals both for free in-store movies as well as half-price in-store game rentals.”

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/02/blockbuster-total-access-will-add-games-for-5-extra-a-month.ars

From Computerworld:

Survey: 40% of hard drives bought on eBay hold personal, corporate data

Buyers found data on everything from corporate spreadsheets to e-mails and photos

A New York computer forensics firm found that 40% of the hard disk drives it recently purchased in bulk orders on eBay contained personal, private and sensitive information — everything from corporate financial data to the Web-surfing history and downloads of a man with a foot fetish.

Kessler International conducted the study over a six-month period, buying up disk drives ranging in size from 40GB to 300GB from the United States and Canada. The firm, which completed its research about two weeks ago, bought a total of 100 relatively modern drives, the vast majority of them Serial ATA.

“With size of the sample, I guess we were surprised with the percentage of disks that we found data on,” said Michael Kessler, CEO of Kessler International. “We expected most of the drives to be wiped — to find one or two disks with data. But 40 drives out of 100 is a lot.”

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9127717&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top

From NY Times:

Sirius XM Prepares for Possible Bankruptcy

Sirius XM has hired advisers to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing, people involved in the process said. That would, of course, be a grim turn of events for the normally upbeat Mr. Karmazin, Sirius XM’s chief executive, who had hoped to create a mobile entertainment juggernaut with stars like Howard Stern.

It is unclear how a bankruptcy would affect customers. Service is unlikely to be interrupted, but the company might have to terminate contracts with high-priced talent like Mr. Stern or Martha Stewart.

A bankruptcy would make Sirius XM one of the largest casualties of the credit squeeze. With over $5 billion in assets, it would be the second-largest Chapter 11 filing so far this year, according to Capital IQ. The filing by Smurfit-Stone, with assets of $7 billion, has been the year’s biggest to date.

Sirius XM, which never turned a profit when both companies were independent, is laden with $3.25 billion in debt. Its business model has been dependent, in part, on the ability to roll over its enormous debts — used to finance sending satellites into space and attract talent like Mr. Stern (who was paid $100 million a year) — at low rates for the foreseeable future until it could turn a profit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/technology/companies/11radio.html?_r=1&ref=technology

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Test A Geek: A new edition of Test A Geek is featured in this episode.

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How To: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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The Geek’s View:

For this episode we feature two Geek’s View segments. The first is Gozer’s review of the LG BD – 300 Blu Ray player. In the second, Aaron talks about the recently-announced Kindle 2 from Amazon.

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | GeekcastOnline.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |

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Items of Note: Welcome back to The Geekcast! We have all new contact information. First, the website is now www.GeekcastOnline.com. Second, we have a Twitter account located at www.twitter.com/The Geekcast. Finally, we want to hear your feedback and questions. Hit up the voicemail line at 206-350-5000! I’d love to hear from you all.

It’s been 18 months and I’m happy to be back. I hope you all enjoy a new edition of the show and look for more to follow.

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Tech news:

From CNet.com

Microsoft offers to just ‘Fix it’

When people encounter a problem with their PC, they often go to the Web and do a search to see if others have had the problem. If they are lucky, someone has found a fix and listed the steps on either a support document or within a user forum. Now, they may have an even better option. Over the past six weeks, Microsoft has quietly added a “Fix it” button to a few of the thousands of help documents on its Web site. When clicked, the computer then takes all the recommended steps automatically. An example of the “Fix it” button that has started showing up in some Microsoft help documents, offering users a one-click solution. “If we know what those 15 steps are why shouldn’t we just script it,” said Lori Brownell, Microsoft’s general manager of product quality and online support. The “Fix it” option is still fairly rare, showing up in around 100 different help documents. The effort is growing rapidly, though, up from just four such fixes when the program quietly began in December.

The first fixes included a number of common issues, including restoring a missing Internet Explorer icon to the desktop, how to enable the DVD library in Vista’s Windows Media Center and more. For now, Microsoft is having to go back and search its archives to see which of its problem solving tips can be automated. Eventually, it hopes to create the automated fixes at the same time the help articles are created.

From Ars Technica

Canadian government eyes open source, asks for feedback

The Canadian government is looking to shave costs wherever it can and is now eyeing open source software as one way to accomplish that goal. The government of Canada has issued an official Request For Information (RFI) on open source software and is looking for feedback and public guidance to help shape procurement policies. This move could be a prelude to broader adoption of free and open source software in the Canadian government’s IT infrastructure. Although Canada has weathered the global financial crisis better than many other countries, its government is looking for ways to compensate for a recent glut of stimulus spending that has generated the country’s first budget deficit in over a decade. To help keep the economic recovery plan on track, Canada’s government is looking for ways to spend smarter.

The language used in the RFI makes it pretty clear that cost reduction is priority number one. It uses the broad term “NO CHARGE LICENSED SOFTWARE”, which it defines as software that is open source or available at no cost. According to the RFI, Canada is exploring no-cost software options on the desktop as well as the server, in categories that include operating systems, office suites, and automation systems.

From NY Times

Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios

On the day last July when “The Dark Knight” arrived in theaters, Warner Brothers was ready with an ambitious antipiracy campaign that involved months of planning and steps to monitor each physical copy of the film. The campaign failed miserably. By the end of the year, illegal copies of the Batman movie had been downloaded more than seven million times around the world, according to the media measurement firm BigChampagne, turning it into a visible symbol of Hollywood’s helplessness against the growing problem of online video piracy. Hollywood may at last be having its Napster moment — struggling against the video version of the digital looting that capsized the music business. Media companies say that piracy — some prefer to call it “digital theft” to emphasize the criminal nature of the act — is an increasingly mainstream pursuit. At the same time, DVD sales, a huge source of revenue for film studios, are sagging. In 2008, DVD shipments dropped to their lowest levels in five years. Executives worry that the economic downturn will persuade more users to watch stolen shows and movies.

“Young people, in particular, conclude that if it’s so easy, it can’t be wrong,” said Richard Cotton, the general counsel for NBC Universal.

People have swapped illegal copies of songs, television shows and movies on the Internet for years. The slow download process, often using a peer-to-peer technology called BitTorrent, required patience and a modicum of sophistication by users. Now, users do not even have to download. Using a search engine, anyone can find free copies of movies, still in theaters, in a matter of minutes. Classic TV, like every “Seinfeld” episode ever produced, is also free for the streaming. Some of these digital copies are derived from bootlegs, while others are replicas of the advance review videos that studios send out before a release.

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Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: Reduce GSM static from your speakers

When using any GSM phone such as a 2G iPhone, there is interference that the phone generates that speakers pick up. The sound can be frustrating and even damage your speakers. Luckily there is a way to dampen the interference without stopping your phone from operating properly. First you can try ferrite beads, which allow speakers to dampen the signal. The beads would go around speaker wire near the speaker itself.

A second way to dampen the signal is to use a static bag that hard drives come in. These bags work great and you don’t even need to place the phone in it. Just place your phone on top of the bag and you’ll see an instant improvement on the interference you’ll hear. Overall, it works great and the bags can usually be had for free or cheap.

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Hack: Use Your USB Stick As a Key to Boot Your Windows PC

*** DISCLAIMER : the following method requires you to make some changes to your operating system. The Geekcast cannot accept any legal liability if anything goes wrong with your PC and you should proceed at your own risk. Please read the instructions thoroughly before beginning and if you are still not sure what you are doing, you should seek help from a knowledgeable friend ***

Most of us are concerned about the security and privacy of our data. We put login passwords, encrypt data and do various other tricks to ensure that someone cannot access our system without our authorization. Hardware manufacturers have also started exploiting our desire for data security by offering fingerprint readers, face recognition and other fancy stuff. If you are paranoid about who accesses your system, you can use a simple trick to prevent the system from booting unless you want it to boot.

This can be achieved by using a regular USB/pen/thumb drive (whatever you call it). Basically configure your system to boot windows from USB stick. The hack would be more than enough to keep even your curious geeky computer friends from booting into the system. That said, it is by no means foolproof (which security measure is? ) so you might not want to bet your life on it.

A key requirement for the hack to work is that your system should support booting from a USB device. This can be verified from within the BIOS menu. So if you have an older system that doesn’t support booting from USB devices, this one is not for you. We will cook up something else! Although, now that I think about it, theoretically (because I have not tried) the hack should work with a floppy disk as well. So you guys with older systems can also follow along and let us know if it worked.

What we are going to do is transfer some of the important files (you will see which ones) that Windows needs in order to boot, to the USB drive. Now if someone was to boot up the PC without your USB drive the system won’t find these important files and will thus fail to boot.

So now that you know the concept, let’s get working:

* Format the USB drive.
* Within Windows Explorer go to Tools > Folder Options. Within the View tab, choose “Show hidden files” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”.
* Open up the Windows Partition (usually C:), copy boot.ini, NTLDR and ntdetect.com onto your USB drive.
* Boot up the system and change the boot order preference to check for a USB device first. You can access the BIOS menu generally by hitting F8 when the computer just starts.

Just in case you are curious, the boot.ini file is required to tell where the operating system resides. NTLDR is the NT loader which actually loads the operating system. ntdetect.com detects basic hardware that is required to boot up the system.

The changes are fully recoverable, although it would require some work for the uninitiated. If something goes wrong or you want to restore back things as they were then use the Recovery Console from your Windows CD. Then at the command prompt issue “bootcfg /rebuild”. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

The solution is not foolproof. Even if someone is not able to boot your system he/she can easily get your data by using a live CD. So you might still want to keep your data encrypted.

From http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/prevent-pc-from-booting-if-your-usb-drive-is-not-inserted/

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast

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Items of Note:

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How To: Opt out of unsolicited mail, calls and cookies

The New York Times a while back rounded up ways to opt out of solicitations online, from junk snail mail, to telemarketing calls, to Doubleclick web site ad cookies. Here’s a quick list of each type of opt-out:

Phone solicitations: donotcall.gov

Junk snail mail: Direct Marketing Association: http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/offmailinglist.html

Email: “Whatever you do, do not respond to an unsolicited e-mail message when it gives you the option to opt out of receiving more e-mail. That is a trick used by spammers to confirm they hit a live address.”

Credit card offers: OptOutPrescreen.com

Doubleclick ad cookies: Ad Cookie Opt-out

Lexis Nexis public database: Opt Out of Lexis Nexis: http://www.lexisnexis.com/terms/privacy/data/remove.asp

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Hack: Hide user accounts from the Windows XP Welcome screen

The Windows XP Welcome screen. Pretty pictures for each user account. What a nice thought on Microsoft’s part. The only trouble is – I want to create an administrator account, and not have others tempted to try getting into it while they are on my computer.

When windows XP is not joined to a domain, it displays a welcome screen when it first boots:

The welcome screen displays all of the local users on the system, except the built-in administrator account that was created during setup. If we want to hide a specific user from the list, we need to create a special value under this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

Under this key you simply create a new DWORD value – the name matches the users name exactly, and the value is one of the following (Decimal format)

0 – Hides the user just from the welcome screen
1 – The user is shown

Before you start putting values in this key, I want to warn you. This tip is particularly dangerous. If you make the wrong move, you could make it nearly impossible to get back into your system. Don’t blame me if you hose your system!

To disable the users I want, I browse to the registry key on my system. Now I want to hide all of the accounts except one, so I add each of the accounts shown on the welcome screen, and give them a value of zero.

That’s all we need to do. I log off, and now I only see the one remaining account.

Here’s the big question. How do you log on as a hidden user? If you are running windows XP Professional you simply need to press CTRL-ALT-DEL twice, and the standard logon screen will be displayed. This has one pitfall – it will fail to work if a user is still currently logged in. If you are having trouble getting it to show, then reboot and press it twice before any users have logged in. Secondly, if you are running Windows XP Home, you will need to boot in safe mode to use the hidden account. The CTRL-ALT-DEL trick does not work for XP Home.

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast

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Items of Note:

Enjoy “I Love My Mac” by Daphne Kalfon. You fan learn more at www.ilovemymacthesong.com Also,these songs are available in the iTunes Music Store, so be sure to check it out.

This will be a short show due to my hectic schedule.

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Tech news:

iPhone updates & Apple TV.

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How To: Access wifi on the go

If you’ve ever been on the road with your mac and needed to find an access point, it can be difficult at times. You could use the airport menu at the top of your screen to check for access points but that is slow and it doesn’t tell you the signal strength until after you’ve connected. An easier way to go is with iStumbler.

iStumbler is a wifi locator for OsX. The program is small but will detect access points wherever you are. The advantage of iStumbler is that it will not only detect wireless internet but you can also use it to detect bluetooth devices and bonjour services that are floating in the air.

iStumbler is small and not complicated to use at all. Once you fire it up, you can see all available networks, their security status and signal strength. The application is clean and blends right into the OsX interface.

Of course, iStumbler is free and can be downloaded at www.istumbler.net

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The geek’s view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast

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Items of Note: There are currently no items of note.

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Tech news:

Microsoft announces Microsoft Surface. Microsoft on Wednesday introduced Microsoft Surface, code-named “Milan,” more than five years in the making and the first in what the company hopes will be a long line of “surface computers.” The Microsoft Surface tabletop PC, for which the company has created both the hardware and software, is controlled entirely through touch with no mouse or keyboard. To paint, people can pick up a paint brush or just dip their fingers in virtual paint cups. Sharing photos is similarly intuitive. A stack of pictures can be easily sorted through and shared. To resize a photo, just stretch two fingers apart. Pivot the fingers and the image rotates. More than one person can be interacting with the computer at a time. Although consumers will be able to touch it later this year, most won’t be able to buy a surface computer any time soon. The expensive components required to allow multiple users to touch the device simultaneously give it a price tag approaching $10,000. As a result, Microsoft isn’t targeting homes initially, though it hopes consumers can own their own Milan within three to five years. For now, Microsoft is focusing on getting the products into public spaces in the hospitality arena–hotel lobbies, restaurants, and casinos, to name a few.

Apple Introduces 160GB Apple TV for $399. In a press release announcing YouTube videos for Apple TV, Apple also reveals that they will be introducing a 160GB Apple TV for $399. Apple TV, which includes the Apple Remote, is available through the Apple with a 160GB hard drive will be available now for a suggested retail price of $399. The YouTube feature for Apple TV will be available as a free software update in mid-June.

Dell laying off 10% of its workforce. Today Dell announced that they’re planning to layoff nearly ten percent of the company’s workforce according to the BBC. The BBC doesn’t get specific about where they’ll be job cuts, but we all hope that the cuts don’t come from tech support and customer service departments, as they are already looking bad in public opinion.

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Test A Geek: Enjoy 3 more trivia questions.

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How To: How to Add Music To Your Ipod Without Itunes

Many people I know who are thinking about buying iPod’s love the unit but aren’t too keen on working with iTunes. While it is a fantastic program, it does use more memory than we would like and the interface takes a little bit of getting used to; especially if you’re not a mac user. Many people also believe that it’s only for buying music and they have no idea that it’s also a jukebox. For anyone looking to go a different route than using iTunes, these programs are for you.

What you’ll need:
First, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to enable your iPod as a portable hard drive. You can do this via startup key commands. Check your manual for more information. Once you’ve got that done, you’re ready to soup up your iPod.

Sync music and movies with Floola.

Floola is a freeware, cross platform application that lets you copy music and videos to and from your iPod from and to any computer. Floola lets you sync both audio and video to your iPod, which is a must for anyone with a video-capable iPod. Floola is actually capable of doing a lot more – like managing your music, playlists, and artwork, finding and removing duplicate songs, integrating with Last.fm, and playing your iPod’s music on a computer.

However, the important thing is that with Floola you can add music and videos to your iPod from any computer, and all it takes is a simple drag-and-drop. That means you’re no longer locked into any one computer or iTunes library. You can add music or videos to your iPod from a friend’s computer just as easily as from your own. And since Floola is cross platform, that means that you can put the Windows and Mac versions of Floola on your iPod and add songs from either a PC or a Mac.

To install Floola on your iPod, just download the OS-appropriate version and drag the app to your iPod. Double-click it and you’re ready to go.

Foola is available for free from www.foola.com

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Sync podcasts to your iPod with MyPodder.

MyPodder is a freeware, cross platform program for downloading podcasts directly to your MP3 player. Although Floola claims to support podcast downloading and management, people have reported having trouble getting the podcast feature to work. When dealing with podcasts, MyPodder is by far the more robust solution.

In order to use MyPodder, you’ll need an account with the Podcast Ready web site. Then just follow along with the instructions for installing MyPodder to your iPod. After it’s all set up, you can run MyPodder off your iPod on any computer to update your iPod’s podcasts.

The current version of MyPodder does a great job of adding your downloaded podcasts directly to your iPod as it downloads them, so you don’t even need to use Floola to add those downloaded MP3s to your iPod. You can manage all of your podcasts from MyPodder.

You can download MyPodder at http://www.podcastready.com/download.php
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Play your iPod’s music on your computer with Pod Player.

When you’re not listening to your music on-the-go on your iPod, you can use the freeware application Pod Player to playback your music on any computer you plug your iPod into.

Pod Player is available from http://www.ipodsoft.com/site/pmwiki.php?n=podplayer.Homepage

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Hack: Mac tip: Sync iPhoto libraries across multiple machines.

Please note that the full instructions have edits to them at the end and the commands shown through the steps may not work correctly. Please reference the original article for any updates and corrections. As always, backup your data in case you make a big mistake. Losing digital pictures without recovery can be devastating!

Original article:

http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/weblog/comments/mac_tip_one_iphoto_library_to_rule_them_all/

If you’re a Mac user whose family has several computers and you all want to share all your digital photos, you’ll want to check this out. If you have more than one Mac in your house, sharing pictures can sometimes be difficult. iPhoto has a great feature that allows other users on the network to get at the photos on your Mac. The downside is that the Mac would have to be running iPhoto whenever someone wants the photos.

Now the main component of this hack is to have a spare Mac as a file server. You can keep a duplicate of your photos on the server, run iPhoto on the server, and then others can access those all they wants.

First, you needed a simple way to synchronize the photos from the main Mac to the server. One Mac should be the primary repository for photos. To do this we will use the Unix terminal command ‘rsync’.

(Warning: If you’re not familiar with the Terminal program, take some time to familiarize yourself with some simple tutorials online. It’s a powerful program that if misused, can do damage to your data. You’ve been warned.)

Your first stop should be an excellent tutorial at Lifehacker.com which covered using rsync when backing up files between a Mac and a PC. Here we’re doing something a little different.

Open the application “Terminal” in your “/Applications/Utilities” folder. At the command prompt, type the following:

rsync -azv –delete –exclude ‘.DS_Store’ /Users/domenicbettinelli/Pictures/iPhoto_Library_1/ dombett@10.0.1.187:/Volumes/Neptune/Pictures/

That is the rsync followed by a series of switches and parameters. The exact syntax doesn’t matter, but here’s what some of it means. In the block of -azv, the first time you run the command, you change the “v” to “n”, which sends it as a dry-run, telling you what files would have been sent and/or replaced if it had been an actual sync. The –delete parameter tells the server to replace any changed files on its hard drive with the files from the primary Mac. The –exclude ‘.DS_Store’ ignores those invisible little OSX files that are in every folder and don’t need to be copied.

The parameter /Users/(your name)/Pictures/iPhoto_Library_1/ is the path to the original iPhoto library on my primary Mac and dombett@10.0.1.187:/Volumes/Neptune/Pictures/ is the path to the folder on the server.

(This bit—dombett@10.0.1.187:—is found by opening “System Preferences” and selecting “Sharing” then clicking on the “Services” tab. Now select the check box next to “Remote login” and you will have enabled ssh, which I explain below.)

The first time you run the rsync command with the -n switch, you should look to make sure everything appears correctly.

*******Make sure that you do not have any spaces in your source or destination addresses. This could cause rsync to delete lots of data.***********

When you run this command, you will be asked for a password. This is the password for the “dombett” account (or your equivalent) on the server. Remember it.

Now, once you’re sure everything is good, run the rsync command again, but this time replace the “n” in “-avn” with “z”. At this point, the sync will begin and depending on how many photos you have, it could take some time. Be patient. The first time is the longest and after this, it should go very quickly unless you add tons of photos or makes lots of edits to your primary iPhoto library.

The next step is to automate the rsync to update every night. For this we use a built-in Unix utility called cron. But to put a nice easy-to-use face on it, download a utility called Cronnix. It offers a means by which we can have the Mac run a regularly scheduled action, whether it’s opening an Applescript or launching an application or, in this case, executing a Unix command.

Click on “New” and then on the “Simple” tab. Paste the rsync command you’ve been using into the “Command” box. Then put in the time you want the command to occur. If you want to happen every day, click the check boxes for “Day of month”, “month”, and “Day of week”. The checked box means “every”, as in “every day.” For hours and minutes, enter the time you want the command to be executed each day (using a 24-hour clock). In my case, I want the sync to occur each night at 11:30 pm.

Click on the “New” button, then click “Save” and quit. Now every evening at 11:30 pm, my iPhoto library will be synchronized with the server.

Passwordless ssh logins

There’s one problem though: Every time it runs, it will ask for the server password, meaning you would need to be there to enter it. Don’t worry; we have a solution in the form of passwordless ssh logins.

For the purposes of this tutorial, this is what ssh is. Entering that command in the terminal allows you to take control of another computer as if you were sitting in front it instead of your own, which is what we’re doing with the rsync command. Pretty powerful stuff, which is why they don’t make it easy for you to let just anyone come in and muck about in your system’s innards without being an authorized user. So what we’re going to do is tell the server that when it sees an ssh connection from this one computer, to accept it without demanding a password.

Here’s how to do it. In Terminal, type cd ~, Return, then cd .sshand Return. Next type ssh-keygen -t dsa and Return. Assuming you’ve had no error messages so far, at the next prompt type scp id_dsa.pub dombett@10.0.1.187:~/.ssh/Palantir_dombett_id_dsa.pub, replacing dombett@10.0.1.187 with the ssh info for your server we got up above in the rsync section. As for Palantir_dombett_id_dsa.pub, you can replace Palantir_dombett with your primary Mac’s hard drive and your user account. This is the public encryption key file for ssh.

At the next prompt, type ssh 10.0.1.187: (use your server’s IP address) and Return. Your prompt should change slightly to reflect the fact that you’re now in control of your server. Type cd ~, Return, cd .ssh, Return, cat Palantir_dombett_id_dsa.pub >> authorized_keys (replacing it with the name of the actual public encryption key file you just generated.)

To quit the ssh connection to your server type ~. (tilde-period).

At all prompts for your password, enter your server password. If you’ve come this far without errors, you’re now set up for passwordless ssh logins. The next time the rsync command runs, it won’t ask for a password.

Automating iPhoto on the server

Of course for all this to work properly, iPhoto must always be running on the server, but when a sync occurs iPhoto needs to be restarted to recognize that its library has changed. It would be a real pain to automate everything else, but have to remember to go to the server everyday and quit and relaunch iPhoto. Happily, this can be automated too.

Open a text editor on the server, whether TextEdit or TextWrangler or TextMate or BBedit or what have you. Type the following into a new window:

#!/bin/bash
osascript -e ‘tell application ‘”iPhoto”‘ to quit’
osascript -e ‘tell application ‘”Finder”‘ to delay 20′
osascript -e ‘tell application ‘”iPhoto”‘ to activate’

What this little file does is run a batch of Unix command that call Applescript from within the Unix environment to quit iPhoto if it’s running, wait 20 seconds to give it time to quit, and then restart it. That’s it.

Save the file as “restart_iPhoto.sh” to your /User folder and then open Terminal. You need to turn this text file into an executable script so type chmod u+x ~/restart_iPhoto.sh and hit Return.

From the prompt, type restart_iPhoto.sh and Return. This should quit iPhoto (if it’s running), pause, then launch it again. Now to set up a schedule.

You could download Cronnix to this computer too, but here’s the Unix way of manipulating cron. In another text file, type the following:

#minute hour mday month wday sh
30 01 * * * sh /Volumes/Neptune/restart_iPhoto.sh

Substitute your own path/to/file.sh. Save the text file as “restartiPhotocron”. Now, back in Terminal, type crontab /Volumes/Neptune/restartiPhotocron and hit Return. Type crontab -l to make sure that it went in correctly and you’re all set. Now, ever day at 1:30 am, the server will quit and restart iPhoto. Because this will run two hours after the rsync, this gives plenty of time for all the copying to be finished first.

Final steps

The last step is to turn on Sharing in iPhoto on the server. First, you need to open a hole in the firewall for iPhoto to see through, so open up “System Preferences” on the server and then click on “Sharing”. This time, click on the “Firewall” tab. Check the box next to “iPhoto Bonjour Sharing.” Quit “System Preferences” and switch to iPhoto.

Click on “Sharing” and then select “Share my photos”. In my case, I chose to share all my photos (may as well since you copied them all over there), and then set my shared name to “Server’s photos”. You can require a password for access if you want.

Go back to your other Mac, open up iPhoto, and if you have “look for shared photos” set in your preferences, you should see “Server’s photos” in the source list.

You’re done!

Epilogue and final thoughts

With a little experimenting, I’m sure this method could be adapted for iTunes and other programs that keep a library of files and share them out.

I’m also sure that some of these steps are a bit of kludge and that an experience Unix and/or scripting guru could clean my method up a lot (after he shakes his head in disgust at this mess). On the other hand, I had fun figuring this out on my own and learning quite a bit in the process, which is half the reason I do it. (The other half is that great feeling of satisfaction knowing that you were able to go from “I wish I could…” to “I did it!” )

Any comments, questions, and most importantly corrections and advice would be greatly appreciated in the comments below.

Update (Apr 9, 07 11:20 pm): I think the rsync command I’m using needs to be adjusted a little in order to ensure that it’s syncing everything in the folders of the iPhoto library. This should work: rsync -azv –delete –exclude ‘.DS_Store’ /Users/domenicbettinelli/Pictures/iPhoto_Library_1 dombett@10.0.1.187:/Volumes/Neptune/Pictures. You have to take the trailing slashes off the source and destination. The other problem I’ve encountered is if a user is still sharing the library, the program on the server won’t quit. I need to find a way in Applescript to make it quit, which I’m sure is possible even if I have to resort to the brute method of a kill command.

Update (Apr 10, 07 5:14 pm): Jason advises in the comments that we should add the -E attribute to the rsync command in order to make all the proper Mac OS X metadata gets copied as well so that it would take this form: rsync -azvE –delete –exclude ‘.DS_Store’ “source” “dest”

http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/weblog/comments/mac_tip_one_iphoto_library_to_rule_them_all/

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The geek’s view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast

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Items of Note: Please note this is a corrected version of the episode. The original had minor audio issues.

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Tech news:

iPhone Pre-paid may be available. BoyGeniusReport.com has posted screenshots from AT&T’s accounting system revealing new account codes for three versions of iPhone sales: PostPaid, “Pay As You Go”, and “Pick Your Plan”. While most phones are more expensive without contracts, Apple’s iPhone is rumored to have tossed this business model out by not allowing the phone to be subsidized. This remains unconfirmed, but this means the $499 & $599 price should be the same with or without contract. This would mean that iPhones would be sold without contracts and it would be easier to allow users to buy and unlock their iPhones for use on other networks.

Music industry offers deal to small Webcasters. News.com reports that while facing an outcry over imminent royalty fee increases for Internet radio operators, the music industry has attempted a peace offering. SoundExchange, the nonprofit group that collects fees, said it would give “small” Webcasters the option of paying “below market” royalty rates on the songs they play. These rates are essentially the same as they are under a 2002 law called the Small Webcaster Settlement Act. “The net result of this proposal is that small Webcasters would be guaranteed no increase in royalty payments for 13 years, from 1998 to 2010,” SoundExchange general counsel Michael Huppe said in a statement. Webcasters that fall in the “small” category would be required to pay 10 percent of all gross revenue up to $250,000 and 12 percent for all gross revenue above that amount. Those rates would hold until 2010 and be retroactive to 2006, SoundExchange said.

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Test A Geek: Enjoy 3 more trivia questions.

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How To: Remove your phone number from Google Search

Concerned about your privacy? One proactive step you can take is to remove your phone number from Google PhoneBook.

As you may know, typing a residential phone number into a Google Search bar (though not the Google Toolbar) performs a reverse lookup that lists your name, address and even a link to a Google Map of your address. Fortunately, Google gives you the option of removing all your residential listing information. All you have to do is fill out a short form and wait 48 hours.

Google Phonebook Name Removal: http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html

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Ask A Geek:

Frank asks: Is there a program to “fix” youre computer? I’m running windows XP and the problem started when i could not hibernate my computer. Then then i get an error with the explorer that keeps telling me to send or dont send an error to Microsoft. I already tried defrag and recovering but that doesn’t seem to help.

Answer:

To go through these types of errors is usually difficult. On XP you can try the following:

1. Attempt a System Restore to a time before the problem happened.
2. Think back to when it began and try to see if you installed any new programs or hardware around that time.
3. Fully update your virus scanner and spyware scanners. Run full scans on your machine.
4. Scan and clean your registry with a fantastic little tool called TweakNow! You can get it at tweaknow.com/RegCleaner.html
5. You can use Hijack This! to try to restore settings on your computer back to factory.
6. I’m sure you did this but run Windows Update.
7. Try disabling hibernate mode and re-enabling it. Sometimes toggling it could work.
8. Verify your sleep settings to be sure that they’re set correctly to allow your computer to hibernate.

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Hack: Top 10 Tweaks, Tips, and Tricks for Windows Vista

1. If you’re annoyed by Internet Explorer’s incessant barking that you’ve lowered your security settings, launch “gpedit.msc” from either the Run command or Start Search field, navigate through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Turn off the Security Settings Check feature” and set it to Enabled.

2. If Internet Explorer’s Information Bar also annoys you, you can turn it off (again) in the Group Policy Object Editor (gpedit.msc) through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer / Security Features. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Internet Explorer Processes” and set it to Disabled. Hallelujah!

3. There’s a Group Policy Settings Reference spreadsheet available on the web to tweak more.

4. Read the Background on Backgrounds (http://shellrevealed.com/blogs/shellblog/archive/2006/10/28/The-Background-on-Backgrounds.aspx) if you’re a performance junkie. Don’t set your wallpaper through Internet Explorer ever again. Now that Windows supports JPG wallpapers, there’s absolutely no need for using BMPs anymore.

5. If you insist on keeping UAC (User Account Control) turned on for yourself, you might care to make the elevation prompts a bit less visually jarring. Launch the Local Security Policy manager (secpol.msc), and navigate through Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options. In the rightmost pane, scroll to the bottom and double-click “User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation.” Disable it, and you can keep UAC turned on without the Aero Basic theme.

6. Vista can send you emails! The Computer Management tool can still be accessed by right-clicking “Computer” and selecting “Manage” from the menu. However, now you can attach a task to any event. Try navigating through System Tools / Event Viewer / Windows Logs / Application. Now, go ahead and select an event – then look to the rightmost pane and click “Attach Task to This Event.” Name it whatever, describe it however, click through the next step, then in the Action step, you’ll see the “Send an e-mail” option.

7. The Windows Task Manager gives you a lot more troubleshooting information in Vista. Flip to the Processes tab, and in the View menu, click “Select Columns” and add Description, Command Line, and Image Path Name. Moreover, when you right-click a process, you can select either “Go to Service(s)” or “Open File Location.”

8. Open up the Date and Time Control Panel applet. Flip to the “Additional Clocks” tab. There, you can configure two more clocks from different time zones. They’ll appear in the tooltip when you hover over the Taskbar clock. No additional software is necessary.

9. Applicable in other versions of Windows, create a shortcut to RegSvr32.exe in your SendTo folder. To get there quickly, enter “shell:sendto” in the Run command dialog or Start Search field. Now, when you want to register a DLL or OCX file with the system, you can select it/them and “Send To” the RegSvr32 shortcut.

10. It doesn’t beat Picasa, but the Windows Photo Gallery is better than nothing. Once it’s indexed all your photos, click the icon next to the Search field and turn on the “Table of Contents.”

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Bonus Second hack:

How-To: play DivX and Xvid on your Apple TV

The two biggest Apple TV limitations are the lack of codec support (like XviD, DivX, etc.) and not even having the ability to do basic surround sound like Dolby Digital 5.1. These issues were resolved almost immediately after the Apple TV was released, although the hacks were somewhat less than practical. Something as simple as getting your Apple TV to, say, sync and recognize your XviD movies as playable was no simple feat. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case.

Warning: you’re about to potentially void your warranty!

First download the following files via: http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/how-to-play-divx-and-xvid-on-your-apple-tv/

Download – ATVFiles plugin.
Download – Perian, the swiss army knife of QuickTime codecs.
Download – A52Codec, an AC3 codec.
Download – Custom ssh.plist file to start sshd automatically.

Optional
Download – Fugu, a nice OS X GUI to transfer files to the Apple TV.
Download – WinSCP to a nice Windows GUI to transfer files to the Apple TV.
Download – If you don’t have an Intel Mac, you will need this Intel version of sshd.

Materials needed:
A Mac.

We are going to do this in two steps. For those who do and do not already have SSH enabled. So if you’ve got SSH running on your Apple TV, skip ahead to the next section.

Enable SSH on the Apple TV (requires a Mac)

Remove the drive and plug it into a Mac, then launch Terminal. Our first command is going to copy the Intel version of ssh daemon from our Mac to the ATV drive. If you are on a Intel Mac copy it from your sbin directory to the ATV’s OSBoot/usr/sbin/ directory. If your browser causes the line to wrap be sure to enter it on one line in the Terminal.

sudo cp /usr/sbin/sshd /Volumes/OSBoot/usr/sbin/

You can also copy it from your downloads directory:

cp /Users/Engadget/Downloads/sshd /Volumes/OSBoot/usr/sbin/

Make sure sshd is executable
sudo chmod +x /Volumes/OSBoot/usr/sbin/sshd

Backup the original ssh.plist to our home directory:

cp /Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist ~

Now copy the new one from our downloads directory to the Apple TV drive:

cp /Users/Engadget/Downloads/ssh.plist /Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/

Before we dismount the drive to reinstall into the Apple TV, let us see if we need to clean up after Spotlight again. Perform these command and check if the .Spotlight files are on the partitions by typing:

ls -a /Volumes/Media

and

ls -a /Volumes/OSBoot

Now, if you do see those .Spotlight files, use the following command to remove them. But be careful, this is the dreaded rm -rf command, which has the potential to ruin everything.

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/OSBoot/.Spotlight-V100

or

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Media/.Spotlight-V100

Now dismount the drive and install it in your Apple TV. From here on out you can use a PC on this if you so choose.

Test it by signing in via terminal. (The password is frontrow.)

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local

That should get you in. Now we can install the programs.

Adding additional QuickTime components.

Before we can start copying files we need to ssh into the Apple TV and mark the volume as read / write. A few times we will use sudo (as in sudo make me a sandwich) and a password will be requested; it’s also frontrow. From the terminal, ssh to the Apple TV:

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local

Now remount root as read / write. (Enter frontrow for the password.)

sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/disk0s3 /

At this point you can use Fugu (our scp file transfer frontend) if you prefer. Otherwise, use the commandline scp to copy the following files to the Apple TV. But before you can preform this step you need to mount all the DMGs you downloaded and uncompress ATFiles so you can have the necessary files handy.

Now, copy the ATVFiles plugin, Perian and AC3 QuickTime components to the Apple TV. (As always, depending on the location of these files your command will differ.)

scp -1 -r /Users/Engadget/Downloads/ATVFiles-0.2.1/ATVFiles.frappliance/ frontrow@AppleTV.local:~
scp -1 -r /Volumes/Perian\ 0.5/Perian.component frontrow@AppleTV.local:~
scp -1 -r /Volumes/A52Codec\ 1.7.2/A52Codec.component frontrow@AppleTV.local:~

If you have the MPEG-2 QuickTime component then you can copy that too, but otherwise it’s probably not worth the $20.

scp -1 -r /System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeMPEG2.component/ frontrow@AppleTV.local:~

Now we need to use ssh to move the files to the proper directory so QuickTime can find them.

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local
sudo mv ATVFiles.frappliance/ /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns
sudo mv Perian.component/ /Library/QuickTime/
sudo mv A52Codec.component/ /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/
sudo mv QuickTimeMPEG2.component/ /System/Library/QuickTime/

Now we need to restart Finder so it will load the plugin, you could pull the power (easy way) or you could run a couple commands (slightly less easy way). Here those are, if you’re paranoid about unplugging your unit; find the pid to kill:

ps ax | grep Finder

This will return a line with the pid for finder.

Now kill Finder’s pid. (Ours was 512 when we wrote this.)

kill 512

After Finder restarts we will see a new menu item named Files, which allows us to play movies stored in /Users/frontrow/Movies on the Apple TV. So we’ll copy a movie there, shall we? (Again you can use scp, or Fugu if you prefer.)

scp -1 ~/Movies/Gothika_480p_XviD.avi frontrow@AppleTV.local:~/Movies/

All you have to do is select the clip to play from the files menu.

You’re AppleTV is all set now!

Full instructions w/ pix are available at: http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/how-to-play-divx-and-xvid-on-your-apple-tv

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The geek’s view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast

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Items of Note: Enjoy a video review of the new iPod game iQuiz. It costs only $0.99 and is available from the iTunes Store.

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Tech news: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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How To: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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The geek’s view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Show Notes:

Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast

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Items of Note: There are currently no items of note.

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Tech news:

Apple rumored to be working on iWeb Pro. According to an unconfirmed report via macrumors.com, Apple is working on a higher end web authoring application to complement iWeb. “iWeb Pro” is said to offer an easy to use web authoring interface for small to mid sized companies. While the current version of iWeb is more of a complementary tool to .Mac, “iWeb Pro” is said to be a complete stand alone product.

Vista sales propel Microsoft’s profit to $4.93 billion. Microsoft Corp. posted a 65 percent rise in quarterly profit, topping Wall Street estimates from better than expected demand for the Windows Vista operating system.
“The strength of Vista is really driving this,” said Kim Caughey, analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. She added that the company had set “manageable expectations for the full year 2008, which generally allows them some headroom.”

March NPD sales data shows Nintendo beating competition. The Wii has dominated hardware sales in January and then performed a repeat performance in February. Nintendo has gone three in a row, as they dominated the competition for a third straight month with both the DS and Wii. The hardware sales break down to the DS selling 508,000 units and the Wii selling 259,000 units. This brings the Wii to a total of 2.1 million consoles. In comparison, the PS3 sold only 130,000 during the month and its total is almost half of Nintendo’s at 1.2 million consoles. The Xbox 360 sold 199,000 during the month, for anyone keeping track.

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Test a geek: Enjoy 3 more trivia questions.

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How To: Get Vista Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows XP

It was only a matter of time before people started cloning Windows Vista features and adding them into Windows XP. One of the more favorite Vista features is the thumbnails that popup when you mouse over the taskbar. And now you can use them in XP as well.

The utility used for this is called Visual Tooltip, which is a hybrid dock / thumbnail applicaton. With a few tweaks to the settings, we can make it work just like Vista thumbnails.

To make your thumbnails look the same as mine, just follow these couple of steps.
Download and start the application, and open up the options from the tray icon.
Increase the size of the sliders to make the thumbnail bigger, and then uncheck the option for “Size proportional to the target window”.

Click on the Display tab, and then uncheck the “Show window title”

That’s all there is to it.
Download Visual Tooltip 2.1 at http://chsalmon.club.fr/index.php?en/Visual-tooltip-about

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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Hack:

MAC: Make Skype video larger, for free.

Skype video is great but if you want to get a bigger picture, it’s not so easy. Luckily with a few small changes to configuration files, you can make your video instantly bigger.

You need to upgrade to the latest Skype release (2.5.0.85 or later for mac and 3.0.0.216 for PC), quit Skype, and then edit the config.xml file in your settings directory (“~/Library/Application Support/Skype/[skypeusername]/” in OS X).
You should see an entry that looks similar to:

   Built-in iSight

Modify that to read:

   640
   480
   Built-in iSight

When you’ve finished, your contacts will be seeing you in glorious 640×480 instead of the standard 320×240.

PC:

Install the latest public version of Skype 3.0 or newer for Windows.
Open config.xml in Skype settings directory. Find the section under /. Add the following additional parameters in it. (It probably already has some other settings in , just leave those there.)

480
640
ATI T200 AVStream Analog Capture
25

https://developer.skype.com/SkypeGarage/SkypeForWindowsExperimental/HighQualityVideoCalls

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The geek’s view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.

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