Boxee: Unboxing the Media Experience (invites)

With television viewership on the decline and so many of us watching our favorite shows at our own convenience online it was only a matter of time before one or more clever companies helped us bridge the gap between our favorite online media services and our televisions. Boxee.tv is leading the way!

Although still in closed alpha, Boxee has been gaining steam as the open source media application of choice. Previously it could only pull in content from your networked drives similar to iTunes, but the latest version of Boxee now also enables you to watch content from tons of sources. Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, CNN and more are all at your fingertips. Boxee doesn’t stop at just video. You can also stream music from you Last.fm account, your local iTunes library, and even photos from Flickr. Better yet, you can easily add any video rss feed to your Boxee account and watch it as its own channel.

Stay-at-home system administrator

By Erwin Blonk, November 30th, 9:55PM.

With the rise of home networks, a form of system administration has slowly creeped into the home. Windows Home Server has preceded Linux in this category but these, whether that is correct or not, appealed more to the techno-savvy consumers. With centralizing data and functionality comes the necessity of keeping it organized.

Microsoft has released version 1.1of the Windows Home Server Toolkit. Main parts of lie in two basic funtions: troubleshooting connections and error reporting. Being a system administrator in the corporate world this sounds familiar, and it will be interesting to see how Microsoft will balance the need for home system administration with users that don’t necessarily care to know every nut and bolt of their computers.

Vista Transformation Pack

I’m sure a lot of people out there have heard of the Vista Transformation Pack, a software bundle that ads a number of Vista’s features (as well as a clone of Vista’s ‘Aero’ theme) to Windows XP. I used it a few years ago and have to say, it’s not great. It does add some useful things to XP but it slows the computer down considerably.

Vista Transformation Pack dosn't always work properly.

Some of the features that I liked included Vista SideBar, a tool that mimicked the SideBar in Vista, ViStart, a clone of the Vista Start menu (rather buggy though) and WinFlip, a peice of Software that simulates the Start+Tab flip hing in Vista. I ended up removing the pack because it drastically lowered my system performance. In some cases it took 5 times as long to do something in XP with the Transformation Pack than in XP without it. Unfortunatly the Pack also messed up my Audio Drivers.

When compared to the speed of real copy of Vista on the same machine, the Pack was faster but by so little it hardly mattered. If you have an old PC, I don’t suggest trying the pack or attempting to install Vista itself, just stick with what works for you  -  XP.

Microsoft Announces Morro

By Erwin Blonk, November 23th, 3:35PM

Microsoft recently announced Morro, dubbing it a no-cost consumer security offering which will protect against viruses, spy-ware and other computer problems. It will become available in the first half of 2009.

According to Roger Kay of Endpoint Technology Associates, “By offering such basic protection at no charge to the consumer, Microsoft is promoting a safer environment.” As such it can be seen as an extension to Windows Update.

Rowan Trollope, Symantec’s consumer business senior vice president, considers it proof of Microsoft’s inability to provide quality security software.

Randy Abrams, technical director of security firm ESET, sees it differently. Windows Live OneCare took 2% of the market without many promotional activities, deeming it not a defeat to competitors but a bid to enhance Windows’ security positioning.

OneCare will be sold until June 30th, 2009 and support will be phased out soon after.

iPhone 2.2 Software Update

By Jonathan

Apple has released another software update for the iPhone, iPhone 2.2. Among other things, the updated OS features Google Street View and streaming podcasts via WIFI or your data plan. I have already tried it out, and both new features work fantastically. I have been waiting for real streaming podcasts for months, so this update is something I have realy been looking forward to. Thus far iPhone users have had to use other podcast solutions which were incomplete and far inferior. Now if we could only see a copy & paste option!

Google releases themes for Gmail

By Kris at 5:38 PM

Google has been releasing a ton of updates for Gmail lately, ranging from video chat to goggles, but none of those updates are as cool as the new Gmail themes.  More behind the break.

17 ways to survive a Mac Disaster.

By Jonathan

Mac Life has came up with 17 great ways for you to survive almost every Mac disaster.

Take Full Advantage of your Gmail

By Kris at 5:48PM

It is very likely that a lot of people don’t know the full potential of their Gmail account. In this article, I will give you some tips on how to take full advantage of your Gmail account, with its biggest feature: Gmail drive. Gmail Drive is a tool that lets you create a hard drive out on the web that can be accessed right from your computer. Read on for the instructions.

Strategic Assault for the iPhone

By Jonathan at 6:51 PM

A new game by the name of Strategic Assault recently saw its iPhone debut. It may be the first real time strategy game published on the iPhone platform, but is it really all that great?

Strategic Assault has very similar feel to that of the Command & Conquer series. You can create a variety of little fighters like tanks, jeeps, and helicopters with which you capture resources.  As in most RTS games your ultimate goal is to hunt down the opposition with a squad of your finest men…or whatever troops you can afford anyways.

Those of you new to Strategic Assault may marvel over it, what with the four out of five star rating it holds, but it really is an antique. I first played Strategic Assault over five years ago on my Palm M100 which had a 16 MHz processor and 8MB of ram/storage.

OS X on a HP Touchsmart

By Kris at 6:00 PM

The HP Touchsmart with Vista

If you’ve seen the HP Touchsmart you were most likely amazed at the technology and also disappointed that it ran Vista. Well Aaron Nelson a hacker posted up an article how he installed OS X on a HP Touchsmart (Here is the article). Aaron Nelson said that the wireless card, audio, Bluetooth, video card, TV tuner don’t work with OS X but he is working on fixing these issues.

Apple Software Update

By Jonathan at 3:56 PM

For all of you hobbyist and professional photographers out their, Apple has recently released an update just for you. Apple released Digital Camera raw support version 2.3. It extends the raw functionality of iPhoto and Aperture to four new cameras.

Windows Home Server price cut

By Erwin at 7:14

On the Windows Home Server Team blog, a price cut for Windows Home Server has been announced.

With the price now at about $100, Microsoft off course hopes more people will choose WHS. With the ever growing home networks, this might very well happen.

As with all technology, it takes time to trickle down from the tech enthousiasts to the regular user.

If Microsoft timed it correctly this will possibly be answered next year, as WHS is not likely to be a Christmas seller.

Linux Blu-Ray: BD+ defeated

By Erwin at 6:57

Although the question remains when Blu-Ray will gain critical momentum as the DVD replacement, the ability to play Blu-Ray on Linux has come closer as BD+, of which its developers said it would take 10 years to break, has been decoded.

On the Doom9 forum there is a discussion that is not exactly entry level. It picked up speed in the second half of October and over the weekend there was talk of tangible results.

It is as yet hard to say when it will lead to Blu-Ray playback on Linux, still an important barrier has been broken.

Ever wanted to talk in Binary Code?

By Jonathan at 11:46 PM CST

Ever wanted to learn or communicate in Binary Code? Thanks to Roubaix Interactive, its easy!

Binary code is the system of representing text or computer processor instructions by the use of a two digit number system. This system is composed of only the number zero, representing the off state, and the number one, representing on state, combined in groups of 8. These groups of 8 bits can represent up to 256 different values and can correspond to a variety of different symbols, letters or instructions. An example of this is the uppercase A, which in ASCII binary is 01000001.

Windows 7

By Kris at 5:55 PM

So Microsoft is working on the next release of the Windows OS, dubbed Windows 7.The reason for the shift in name change away for year dated releases was originally started with Windows XP, with which Microsoft had hoped to move away from the old scheme of yearly platform releases to a download-to-update.  For some reason or another they shied away from this release method and returned to the older shelf release scheme with Vista.  Despite the return to new product releases every few years, the change from dated name releases stuck with the products, leading to the upcomming release of Windows 7.