Tech Stuff 4 You

Just joined Blogrush. Let's see what it brings...

 It is real.  The new "fatboy" Nano pics posted across the internet are real.  How do we know?  Apple asked for the pics to be taken down.

The Fatboy Nano will play video and come in matt black, silver, cranberry, light blue and light green. We guess that there will be 4GB and 8GB models, but with the bulk discounts

Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab

Instructions:

Important Update - Please read here!

1.) Copy and paste the matrix of “ViralTags” below courtesy of Founders Cafe (to support Jimmy’s quest of launching his own Internet Startup with a shoestring budget, please consider subscribing to his Full RSS Feed to see his triumphs and struggles in real time).

2.) Substitute the Host Tag and one of the “Viral Tags” in the matrix with your anchor text of choice with your blog’s URL. Please keep anchor text to a max of 3 words to keep the matrix size manageable.

3.) When you get a ping back from someone that has your link in one of their “Viral Tags”, practice good karma by copying his/her Host Tag’s anchor text (automatically the associated link will also be copied) and paste it over one of your “Viral Tags” below.

4.) Encourage and invite your readers to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

Host Tag: Tech Stuff

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Kiplinger Finance thinks so.  I on the other hand, am not convinced.  I am sitting on a $599 Apple gift card, wondering what to spend it on.  I am not sure if the Iphone is worth that much money, or whether I really need a Mac mini.  What to do, what to do...

Thoughts?

iPhone Worth Every Penny - Kiplinger.com

Gizmodo is reporting that the new Blackberry Curve is available from AT&T for $199 with a 2 year contract. Looks pretty sweet.

The folks over at Lifehacker.com have created an ‘ultimate’ extension which incorporates the best Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail.

Definitely a must-have for Gmail users like me.

Install the extension from Lifehacker.

Gizmodo reporting that the Sidekick ID is now official from T-Mobile. Looks pretty sweet!

T-Mobile Sidekick iD Makes A Statement Personalization and Affordable Style Drive T-Mobile Sidekick iD BELLEVUE, Wash. - April 13, 2007 - T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announces the new T-Mobile(r) Sidekick(r) iD, offering the latest in personalization on a communication device at an accessible price of $99.1 Designed to include the spontaneous communication features synonymous with the iconic brand, the T-Mobile Sidekick iD also offers spur-of-the-moment personalization with easily removable and replaceable exterior panels.

The customizable exterior of the T-Mobile Sidekick iD provides quick modification of the outside of the device with fashionable colors to match anyone's style, mood or that evening's outfit. Inside the device, customers will feast on the famous buffet of communications capabilities that make it simple to stay directly connected with family and friends, or stay on top of their favorite social networks and other Web sites.2

The T-Mobile Sidekick iD is designed for virtually anytime, anywhere communication through voice calling and a robust variety of options for messaging-based communication. The signature swivel screen is designed to be a large, color window into one's own personal life. The screen moves to reveal the full QWERTY keyboard providing the luxury of staying connected through the always-on access to e-mail, instant messaging (AIM(r), Yahoo!(r) and Windows Live Messenger), and text messaging.

"The T-Mobile Sidekick has always been about freedom of expression and communicating with style," said Greg Andrews, director, marketing, T-Mobile USA. "With the T-Mobile Sidekick iD, we're expanding on the theme of individuality by increasing the personalization aspect and providing pricing that is accessible to a wide range of consumers."

The T-Mobile Sidekick iD will have T-Mobile's myFavesSM available out of the box. The unique myFaves experience provides additional customization as the home screen contains images of the five people that matter most or are called the most often. The myFaves interface also enables access to a straightforward communications menu for effortless calling, texting, multimedia messaging and e-mail. Customers can choose from a range of myFaves plans to get unlimited calling to those five designated people - to any number in the U.S., even land lines (excluding toll-free and 900 numbers) - that make up their personal network.3

Key features of T-Mobile Sidekick iD include the easily personalized hardware to express individuality and style as well as the following:
* T-Mobile Sidekick's signature swivel screen with a large landscape color display (2.4-inch screen with 65K colors and 240X160 pixels) for improved viewing of Web pages and contacts
* A full HMTL Web browser with enhancements for faster downloading and optimized viewing2
* Beneath the screen, a full QWERTY keyboard ideal for speedy instant messaging and other text-based communication
* Dedicated support for three major instant messaging clients (AIM, Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger) with the ability to hold up to 10 IM conversations at one time to stay constantly connected to a social circle
* Support for personal e-mail with a dedicated "t-mail" account or use of an already existing personal e-mail account
* Inclusion of myFaves for additional personalization and the benefit of unlimited calling to any number on any network, including landlines, to stay connected to the five people who matter most
* A convenient trackball for one-handed navigation and an improved gaming experience
* A speedy ARM9 processor to handle the massively multitasking communicators
* Replaceable battery with up to 5.3 hours of talk time and 6 days of standby
* Dimensions: 5.12 x 2.48 x 0.87 inches; 6.2 ounces with standard battery
* Accessories available in black, yellow, blue, white, purple and glow-in-the-dark

The T-Mobile Sidekick iD will be available for $99.99 (with a qualifying two-year contract and mail-in rebate) at T-Mobile retail locations and online at www.t-mobile.com beginning April 25. For more information on T-Mobile Sidekick, please visit www.sidekick.com.

Computerworld lists the top 10 Firefox extensions to avoid, based on whether they have any side effects, are memory hogs, or affect your browsing experience negatively. Check them out and comment on if you agree or not.

Fasterfox: This Web accelerator has a "pre-fetching" mechanism that makes you a very bad Web citizen. Here's how it works: You land on a page and start reading it. While your system is idle, Fasterfox silently starts following links and downloading the destination pages. The idea is that if you then decide to click on one of these links, the page is already cached on your local machine and will pop up very quickly.

NoScript : This extension is hugely popular and works as advertised, giving you control over which JavaScript, Java and other executable content on a page can run, depending on that content's source domain. You whitelist the sites you consider safe and blacklist the sites you don't.

Adblock and Adblock Plus : Obviously, we have some bias when it comes to ad-blocking extensions, as Computerworld is an ad-supported site. We also understand that these are very popular extensions. But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?

PDF Download: Here's another extension that works as advertised and is very popular, but it seems like overkill for most users and can cause headaches for others. PDF Download lets you control how Firefox handles PDF files when you click on them -- you can display a pop-up box that lets you choose whether to download, open
or view the file as HTML. You can also set it to take one of these actions by default, skipping the pop-up.

VideoDownloader: Homegrown video is hot right now, and why not? Sites like YouTube and Google Video make it easy to put content online for Web denizens to enjoy. The VideoDownloader extension promises a way to download video from these sites and many more for your offline viewing pleasure. Sounds great, right?
The problem is that the extension has to connect to a Web site in order to work, and more often than not, you'll find that instead of a download window, what you get is "Service Temporarily Unavailable." When it does finally work, the download is
infuriatingly slow.

Greasemonkey: Hey, wait just a minute. Wasn't this on our list of best extensions? Well, yes it was. Greasemonkey is a really nifty extension to use, as long as you know what you're doing with it. It can potentially get you in trouble because it allows JavaScripts written by other people to run in Firefox. If one of those scripts is malicious, your system could be at risk. ScribeFire (formerly Performancing): This falls into the category of extensions that seem pointless. What we have here is a browser-based tool for writing blog posts. But don't most blogs already have a browser-based editor that works just fine?

TrackMeNot: This is another of those extensions for the overly paranoid. The developers apparently became concerned with search engine profiling -- the process in which search engines track your queries and build a demographic profile of you based on those queries -- after a list of three months' worth of search queries from 657,000 AOL members was released on the Web. A small section of a log file of searches performed by TrackMeNot. We don't mean to downplay privacy concerns, but the technique used in TrackMeNot is questionable. The extension runs in the
background while you surf, and sends random search queries to AOL, Yahoo, Google
and MSN search engines. What a waste of system resources for both you and the
search engines you rely on!

Tabbrowser Preferences: This extension lets you tweak Firefox's tab settings in various minor ways. For instance, you can add a New Tab button to your tab bar, or control whether the Close Tab icon appears on each tab or at the end of the tab bar. It works fine.

Tabbrowser Extensions: This extension is a real heavyweight but seems quite popular in certain Firefox circles -- it almost seems to be a rite of passage for Firefox nerds. It gives you lots of control over how tabbed browsing works and even supports plug-ins to add even more functionality. However, it is buggy and conflicts with many other extensions. In fact, even its developers suggest that you not install it!

Bonus: Watch out for the Numbered Links 0.9 imposter: There's nothing wrong with the Numbered Links 0.9 extension per se. By showing numbers next to links, buttons and other interactive elements on Web pages, it lets you navigate without using a mouse. If you chose to install Numbered Links 0.9 previously, there's no reason not to go on using it if you find it helpful (though you might be interested in Conkeror by the same developer).
However, if you see this extension in your add-ons list and don't recall installing it, then tread carefully. There's a version that has been modified into the FormSpy Trojan, which installs itself as a Firefox extension and keeps the title "Numbered Links 0.9." FormSpy can potentially capture information entered into HTML forms and send them on to a malicious Web site. For more information, see McAfee's FormSpy profile.

O’Reilly Media has opened the O’Reilly School of Technology at http://www.oreillyschool.com/. You can take a bunch of information technology and related courses and even get credits from The University of Illinois at $400 a pop.

Top 5 Most Popular Courses
Introduction to HTML and CSS
Linux/Unix 1: The Unix File System
Learn Object-Oriented Programming using Java
Learn XML Programming
Learn Perl for CGI Programming

I don’t know about you, but I am not comfortable saving all my passwords on some online site. According to Clipperz, you don’t even need to trust them with your information, because they encrypt everything before storing it on their databases. I don’t know about this.

From Clipperz.com:

Clipperz benefits

• Free and completely anonymous.


• Access any time from any computer.


• No software to download and nothing to install.


• Avoid keeping secrets on your PC or on paper.

Why you don’t need to trust Clipperz

• Clipperz let you submit confidential information into your browser, but your secrets are locally encrypted by the browser itself before being uploaded to Clipperz.


• The key for the encryption process is a passphrase known only to you! Clipperz will not be able to recover a lost passphrase because we don’t know it. Actually we don’t even know the username you have chosen!


• Clipperz simply hosts your sensitive data in encrypted form and could never actually access the data in its plain form.


• Your browser is a powerful “number crunching” tool, capable of executing cryptographic algorithms thanks to our Clipperz Crypto Library, a JavaScript collection of cryptographic primitives.


• Clipperz does not use homemade cryptographic algorithms but implements standard strong encryption schemes. You can review the source code anytime you like, but you need to know nothing about cryptography to be an happy user!
  

What do you think? Is it safer to save it online rather than saving it on your laptop with a password manager like Roboform?

Extremetech has a nice article on how to speed up Windows Vista by getting rid of stuff you don’t need and some other nifty tips. Check it out.

Performance is probably the most coveted intangible when it comes to PCs, and tweaking, to the performance hungry, is considered more of a necessity than an option. Gearheads go to great lengths to get quicker system response times, faster-running games, and shorter PC bootup and shutdown times.

One way is to overclock the heck out of the poor components (and then, for bragging rights, to log on to a message board and claim a stable CPU frequency of about 300MHz faster than what's actually possible). Another way is to tweak out the operating system itself.

PCWorld lists its version of the 50 best tech products of all time. What do you think?

Great step by step tutorial on how to install XP on a machine that came with Windows Vista pre-installed. I will definitely be doing this on the laptop I just bought with pre-installed Vista.

In a monumental decision today, EMI announced that they will sell DRM free music on iTunes. Gizmodo has a nice write-up on what this means as far as the RIAA’s fight against piracy and all that c*ap.

So… holy crap. EMI is releasing their music on iTunes without DRM. This is great news! And not only that, but they're offering it at twice the quality of the DRM'd equivalent. This is a huge step forward for the online music marketplace.

So how does this affect our movement against the RIAA? On the one hand, EMI is still a member of the RIAA and the RIAA is still suing college students and invalids. On the other hand, this is a huge test of the DRM-free music market, and it's one of the most important times to buy music in years.

Read more after the jump. DRM-free iTunes, the RIAA Boycott, and You

PC World has published an article with it’s version of the top 101 freebies found on the internet. They have applications in a lot of different categories like System utilities, Communication and file sharing etc. Google’s Gmail is the #1 web-based email, Winamp the best media player, Google desktop the winner in Desktop Search.

More free applications at PCWorld.

Thank god they didn’t call it iComplete.

Cupertino (CA) - Apple announced today that it will begin lowering prices of complete albums by 99 cents for each song that users have already downloaded.

Individual music tracks are priced at 99 cents, though users can also purchase complete albums, sometimes at discounted rates. The new "Complete My Album" service will mark off 99 cents from an album's price for every track that the user has previously purchased from iTunes.

Users will have 180 days from the purchase of a song to get 99 cents off any album that includes that song. The discount from an individual track can only be applied to one album.

"With Complete My Album, iTunes is giving music fans the best of both worlds -- the ability to discover great new music by buying just the single and a credit toward the purchase of the complete album," said Sony BMG president Thomas Hesse.

After about a week of rumors and speculation, here it is. The Xbox 360 Elite live on video on on10.net.

While everyone else is talking about it and showing grainy camera phone pictures from undisclosed bunkers, we thought we’d go right to the source and get you an exclusive video. You think you need it, you know you want it, and we have it – the Xbox 360 Elite. I sat down with Albert Penello to get some of your questions answered. Yes, it has HDMI & 120GB hard drive. No, it doesn’t have an HD-DVD player. Yes you can still pull audio separate from the HDMI. No, it isn’t going to be a limited edition. Yes, it’s awesome! Watch the video for more, including what comes in the L337 box.

Check out the video after the jump.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! First look at the Xbox 360 Elite

Are you waiting for the iPhone to come out? Cell phone makers are preparing to compete with the iPhone by introducing their own ultra-geeky phones. Samsung Upstage($150 w/contract from Sprint) is one of these new phones.

It has :

• a 64 MB microSD memory card to store music, which can be upgraded to 2GB.


• bluetooth stereo to listen to music without wires.


• 1.3 megapixel camera


• Sprint TV

More on Sprint’s Samsung Upstage website.

Did you go get an Apple TV as soon as it was released? Pre-ordered maybe? Are you the kind that can’t let things be and like to ‘improve’ your electronics by applying ‘hacks’ to them? Gizmodo has the top 5 hacks for your Apple TV hacking pleasure.

1. Boot Apple TV from an External USB Drive

2. Get Apple TV to Run XviD files

3. Bump up Apple TV’s Hard Drive

4. Make Front Row look like Apple TV

5. Get Apple TV to Work on Your Old Boob Tube

Read more at Gizmodo's Top 5 Apple TV Hacks

AppleInsider.com is reporting that all Nike shoes will be iPod compatible by the end of 2007. I guess it is helping their sales, although there are a bunch of hacks on the web to use Nike+ technology with any pair of shoes.

Nike Inc. said last week that it plans to make its entire line of running shoes compatible with Apple Inc.'s iPod nano line by the end of this year.

The comment was made Nike president and chief executive Mark Parker on Thursday as the shoe maker released its third-quarter results, saying it had a soft year with some specialty mall retailers.

More at appleinsider.com

The Halo 3 Legendary Edition ($130) is already making its way onto the Amazon Bestseller list, taking third place. Seeing as these are only pre-orders and the game still has a few months before it hits retail, it is on track to be the best selling game of all time.

Lifehacker has a nice list of the top 10 extensions for Firefox. You do use Firefox, don’t you? These will make the browsing experience a lot smoother.

10. AutoCopy (clipboard helper)

9. CustomizeGoogle (Google enhancer)

8. Firebug (Web development helper)

7. FireFTP (FTP Client)

6. Greasemonkey (site-specific script manager)

5. ScrapBook (web clippings library)

4. Tab Mix Plus (tab manager)

3. DownThemAll (download manager)

2. Adblock (advertisement blocker)

1. Foxmarks (bookmarks synchronizer)

Lifehacker’s top 10 extensions

A nice list of iTunes Add-Ons for PC and Mac users on Helpero.com

Some of the plug-ins listed:For Mac users:

For Mac users:

Synergy
Synergy is a tiny little app that puts basic iTunes controls in the menu bar, for playing, rewinding, fast-forwarding audio tracks and displays real-time track information in a small floating window. You also can assign system-wide hot keys for controlling iTunes without the mouse. You can find settings for configuring the spacing, visibility, and style of the control buttons, as well as for configuring what track information Synergy will display.

Fetch Art for iTunes
This small program works by grabbing the cover art from Amazon's music listings so you don't have to search for it manually. It allows you to preview the art that was found and add the art you want to iTunes.

iTunes Monitor
One of iTunes's greatest features is its ability to share music across a local-area network. iTunes doesn't provide much information about who is connected or what is being shared.
This utility monitors iTunes to provide a solution for this inconvenient.

iPodRip
iPodRip allows you to get the most out of your iPod. You can transfer music from your iPod back to your iTunes Library, listen to music directly on your iPod -saving valuable disk space, plus much more. iPodRip gives you flexibility importing songs of any file type including MP3, AAC, Audible.com, and Protected AAC. It is available not only for MAC, so if you want you can download a PC version from here.

RadioLover
With RadioLover you can: record internet radio streams as individual MP3 songs, schedule recordings of your favorite daily or weekly shows, record multiple radio streams at the same time, split and organize recordings by song, time or size.

>>>For PC users:

Volume Logic
Volume Logic is a sound enhancer that improves the sound quality of your iTunes music playback. Volume Logic offers a range of presets for different types of music, as well as a bass boost adjustment.

EvilLyrics
EvilLyrics is a very useful application that will find lyrics to the currently played song and displays it in tiny window.

G-Force
“G-Force is the most dynamic and sophisticated, yet entirely artistic, music visualization available - and it keeps getting better.”
Some of the features include Advanced mathematical engine with millions of visual effects and and that you can add your own visuals.

EyeJamz
“EyeJamz for iTunes adds an exciting visual dimension that greatly enhances the enjoyment and the usefulness of your iPod and iTunes.”
You can easily download free Album cover art, load Album Cover Art to your iPod and then display them while your iPod plays your favorite music.

FoxyTunes
This application simply places a small audio control panel at the bottom of your Firefox browser, letting you perform actions such as playing a song, rewinding, and adjusting the volume without accessing the iTunes.

Top 10 iTunes plug-ins.

IPTV may be a ways off for the Xbox 360, but that doesn't mean you can't have a little internet TV fun right now. Introducing Orb, a media streaming solution for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3. Orb allows users to stream video, photos, and music to selected devices, including our beloved Xbox 360. Of course, the Xbox handles streaming all by its lonesome, but Orb adds the option of streaming content from internet sources as well. While we've seen similar functionality in programs like TVersity, we've actually managed to get Orb up and running with minimal hassle. So far we've watched a little BBC and a Japanese rock concert with little trouble (over a wireless connection no less). The program takes some time to buffer (over a minute in our case) but the ease of use is appreciated. To give it a shot yourself, head over to Orb.com, read the Xbox 360 guide, download the software, and get cracking.

Keep in mind you will have to create an Orb account, but it's free (for now at least). Also, we have no knowledge of how reliable Orb is, so use it at your own risk. Give it a whirl and tell us what you think.

Via Xbox360fanboy Via Teamxbox

Engadget has the first nice collection of pics I have seen of the Apple TV being un-boxed. Did you get one? What do you think of it?

Apple TV un-boxing.

There are a lot of different options to make your PC look and feel like a Mac, like Windowblinds and such. FlyakiteOSX is a free transformation pack which will do this for you. It is pretty slick and they even let you test drive it in your browser. Here is a screenshot.

FlyakiteOSX is a transformation pack. It will transform the look of an ordinary Windows XP+ system to resemble the look of Mac OS X. The installer simply automates the process of replacing critical system files, setting registry tweaks, and installing extras such as cursors, sounds, visual styles, etc. FlyakiteOSX DOES NOT contain any spyware or ad-ware of any kind. All files needed for FlyakiteOSX are stored in the Windows directory in a folder named 'FlyakiteOSX' that is hidden by default. All registry values for FlyakiteOSX are written to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\FlyakiteOSX.

FlyakiteOSX

Gizmodo is reporting that T-Mobile will be launching the MOTORIZR Z3 today, March 21.

The pricing is going to be $99 with a two-year contract ($249.99 if you buy it outright), and the phone comes with myFaves, a 2.0-megapixel camera, 8x digital zoom, flash, stereo Bluetooth, microSD slot, quad-band GSM, voice dialing, and a 1.9-inch screen.

Gizmodo

EDIT: T-Mobile has a page up with the details now.

Just downloaded this nifty little add-on to Firefox which lets you save a lot more bookmarks on your bookmark toolbar than you would normally be able to. It displays only the site icon on the toolbar without any text, enabling you to save almost 50 bookmarks on the toolbar. When you roll over the icon, it displays the text underneath. Nice!

Smart Bookmarks Bar

I know it looks like a space age pepper mill, but it is actually a high-end DVD, CD Storage Tower. You can enter all the information about your discs which is displayed in a panel on the top.

$489 USD

So I open up Firefox to my homepage, which is my personalized Google homepage http://www.Google.com/ig, and I see “New: Select Theme”. Right now they offer 7 themes to choose from:

• Classic


• Beach


• Bus Stop


• City Scape


• Sweet Dreams


• Tea House


• Seasonal Scape

I picked Sweet Dreams for now. The themes self-adjust based on your locale and time of day. It is a nice change from the age-old Google classic theme.

The first time you boot up Windows Vista, you notice the differences between it and XP. The visual differences, that is. But there is a lot more under the hood that is different as well. Ars Technica has a detailed review of the new features in Vista here.

After months of pre-orders and waiting, Apple is finally shipping Apple TVs. According to the Apple online store, new orders will ship in 3–5 days.

If you are new to Linux and are having trouble with the command line, tutorial5.com lists 30 commands to make life a little bit easier for you.

Link.

PMPtoday.com has a nice video tour of Sandisk’s Video player, Sansa View, the 8GB PMP with a 4&Prime screen.

Shuttle is making a PC for your car. It will be powered by your car’s battery and will gracefully shutdown when you turn the car’s ignition off. Very interesting!

The "CarPC", an integrated device with a special designed power supply and thermo technology, features Shuttle's cross field design. Using car power supply, the system will auto shutdown after turning off the ignition key without losing data or system crash. Also, Shuttle's exclusive "fin flake chassis" radiate heat effectively. CarPC is not only for car use but also for difficult environments.

Read more.

There was a time when Linux and Unix were the ‘ugly’ operating systems. Not so much anymore. Beryl adds beauty to Linux which rivals, in my opinion, Vista and even MacOS.

A nice hands-on review here.

Just starting out here.  I will be posting regularly about the latest in technology news, gadgets, and all other geeky stuff that I think is cool.