Jack Black Anti-Pricay PSA

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Why am I stuck with Time Warner Cable?

Hi everybody, I've got a question for you. I live in Brooklyn NY right now, and because of that, I have only one choice for a cable tv provider. That is Time Warner Cable. And after dealing with them for a number of years (pretty much the whole city is locked into them) I absolutely dispise them. Their service is deplorable, their customer support is horrendous, and their "On Demand" channels almost never work. Not to mention they have a very limited selection of HD channels to complement my new HDTV. I have looked at Cablevision's HD package and it looks like they have nearly twice the HD channels that TWC has. They also have the one HD channel that I am craving which is MSG-HD (I want my Rangers in High-Def). I called Cablevision and asked what it would take to switch to them, and after telling them that my building was currently controlled by TimeWarner, they told me that there was absolutely no way to get their service. I was screwed. Here's my question... Why the hell do I not have the ability to make my own choice? Why is it that Time Warner "owns" my building? Why are they allowed to have a monopoly on the whole city? WTF? I'd like to hear other stories about this type of cable company strong arming, and I want to do something about it. Has anyone figured out a way around this nonsense (without turning to DirectTV or DiSH)? Leave a comment and let's figure out how to stop this crap!

A better way to download podcasts

Yes, I know it's been a while since I last posted, but hey, better late than never. Anyway, recently I've discovered a new way to manage all the awesome podcasts I listen to. It's called PodcastReady and I never would have heard of them if it weren't for apple's cease and desist letter that they received for their use of the word "podcast" (WTF!) Anyway, with podcast ready, you can manage all your podcasts from their website. Then you download their software called "myPodder" and install it on the device that you use. This is very different than any other piece of podcast-catching software that gets installed on your PC. Anyway, you install the software onto your mp3 player and you can then plug your player into any computer with an internet connection and update your podcasts! This is really cool for me as I can now update both at home and at work, and not have to worry about maintaining two different lists of the podcasts I subscribe to. The software will work on any mp3 player that your computer sees as a removable storage device. This includes iPods. The only downside I've seen to using this software on an actual iPod (tested on my girlfriend's) is that the podcasts don't show up under the podcasts section in the iPod. Instead they just show up with all the other music which could be annoying.
Another awesome reason to try PodcastReady is that they have built in some neat social networking features into the service. As with all social networks, you can become someones friend. But once you are you can see what they are subscribed to (I think) and you can send whole podcasts or single episodes to them which are then automatically downloaded the next time they plug in their player. I haven't made any friends on Podcast Ready yet, so I haven't been able to fully examine all the social networking aspects of it, but they sound really great. All I need to do now is get more of my friends to start listening to podcasts.

Anyway, I hope to be posting a little more often now and I hope you all enjoy it.
Later bloggerinoes!

A Message From Al Gore

Darth Vader Calls Emporer to Tell Him About The Death Star

Timmy's Wish

Ask a Ninja on Net Neutrality

After your done watching the video, click the link below to see how you can stop the Telcos and ISPs from destroying the internet and putting up their wall made out of the shredded first amendment!

Stephen Colbert 'Roasting' The Decider (bush)

I know this is a little old, but a lot of people missed it, so I've decide to post here, the video of the White House correspondants dinner where Stephen Colbert (of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report) gave a hilarious speech standing right next to the president (oh if only Cheney had been there too). Anyway, because of YouTube's uploading restrictions, this video was posted in 3 parts that are all displayed in order here. Just watch the 1st one, then the 2nd, then the 3rd, all in one easy to find location. ENJOY!

Update: Sorry, it looks like YouTube took the videos down due to copyright infringement.

Google on Earth Day?

So I walked outside for lunch today, and I realized that it's earth day. Vanderbilt street is covered with booths owned mostly by car companies showing off their fancy new hybrids. But the one booth that caught my eye was Google's. Not only do they have their own earth day booth but they are right next to the EPA's booth. So what are they doing there? Well if you looked at the picture, you'll see that they are promoting Google Earth. Now, I like Google Earth, but does it have anything to do with Earth Day besides the name? I thought this was worth a small chuckle. Of course my first question to the woman (who's head is pictured) was, "How do I get a job with you guys?" She giggled, but didn't respond. :( Oh well, I'll just keep on blogging in the mean time.

Get Revision3 Podcasts Early Without Being a Member

Ok, I'm a big fan of Revision3's podcasts. And my absolute favorite podcast of all time, Infected by Martin Sargent, is hosted by them. So when I went on to Revision3.com today to grab the latest episode, I was furious to find out that it was only members who could download it today. I waited for most of the day to see if it would become public, but the clock struck 4 and still nothing. So I decided to pay the $5 bucks and become a member. After all, like I said, I'm a big fan, and don't feel bad about donating a few bucks to a great organization (although I would rather donate to the 'Get Martin Sargent Back On TV Fund'). Anyway, I waited the 5 minutes it asked me too, and the site still did not register me as a member, so I did a little snooping, and found out that the members only podcasts are online and downloadable by the public. Being a member just gets you the link! So I copied the address of the previous show, changed the episode number and date to match that of the new show, and voila, I was infected yet again. (No, I won't provide a direct link, because if you want to do this, you can do it yourself!) Anyway, I'm sure that if anyone at Rev3 reads this, they will start changing the naming conventions for each new episode, but I wanted to make it public anyway. Consider it a security vulnerability proof of concept.

That being said, If you enjoy Revision3's podcasts, you should donate. I just hate the monthly system. I would rather donate when I want, and I will probably donate more in the future. But I wanted to be INFECTED now!

Podcast of the Day - President's Weekly Radio Address

It's been around since at least 2005 (probably longer) but it's hilarious. It's a weekly parody of Bush's radio address. It's one of the funniest podcasts I've ever heard. OK, so they're not all winners, but most of them are. For your listening pleasure, I have embeded one of them right into this page, so you're probaly already listening to it. Enjoy!!


Update: I took the sound clip off, cause it was getting annoying. If you want to hear it, click the link.

A Little Late For Easter

Yeah, I know. I've been picking up a couple of stories and sitting on them because, well, I'm kinda lazy. So... Easter came and went. Maybe you had a nice uneventful day with the family, but it turns out the easter bunny had a busy week. First, he got his ass kicked in a mall in Wisconsin. Then he goes nuts and punches a woman in the face in Florida. And he ended the day on a rampage.

Flashbag - Bloated and Useless

Here's a new idea from Russia with love. It's called the Flashbag and it's a usb flash drive that inflates depending on how much stuff in on it. So when you copy files to it, it gets a little bigger, when you delete files from it, it gets a little smaller. It does seem like a cool idea, but it also seems almost completely and utterly useless. I wouldn't want a USB disk that could fit in my pocket in the morning and enhance my package by 3:00. It's just one of those wierd things that you would expect to come out of Japan.

Does anyone remember the Reebok pumps?

Google Calendar

For those of you out there who haven't heard yet, Google has released their Calendar web application. For some reason, I hadn't heard much about it. I knew they were comming out with something, but I didn't know that it was already public. Anyway, if you have a gmail account, you can sign up for the calendar too by going to calendar.google.com (or just click the link below). My first impressions are pretty good. The layout is good, and there is a fair amount of customization that can be done. Also, something that I have already become addicted to is having SMS alerts on my cell phone when I have an appointment comming up. Supposedly, the calendar will become more integrated with gmail, and hopefully you will be able to add invitations that come from Outlook, with one click. But it's not there yet. The calendar sharing is nice, but as I am kind fo an exile from the geek community, I have no one to share my calendar with :( but I also don't have much stuff on it. Adding appointments is pretty easy. I like how you can just type in something like "7pm Dinner with Les" or "Lunch with Pam at 1pm". I did have a few problems with getting the integrated RSS feed working in firefox, but have not done a lot of testing with it. Basically, this is obviously beta software. And not Gmail beta either. It's got a ways to go but it looks like a really good start.

Now if only I lived in San Fransisco and could get free Google WiFi too. Oh well.

Simpsons Movie Trailer - Woo Hoo!

It's real! I'm so excited. Watch it low quality here, or click the link for the high quality apple version.

DEA Cop Shoots Himself in the Foot

This found it's way onto the net a while ago, but I just discovered it and it's funny as hell. This DEA agent is giving a presentation on gun saftey when he shoots himself in the foot with a Glock .40. Also now he is suing the DEA for releasing the video tape. Watch the video below, and then click the Link to read about the lawsuit from The Smoking Gun. :)

New York Hack - The Blog of a NYC Cab Driver

Hi guys, just thought I'd post about a blog I discovered the other day. It's called New York Hack (incase you don't read titles) and it the online journal of a female NYC cab driver. Not that being a female makes any difference, it's just a very cool blog, from a very interesting perspective. Oh also, she's a really awsome writer and apperently just scored a book deal. I always thought being a cab driver would be a great inspiration for ideas, but obv, I never put it into practice. Also, if you're reading this M.P. (the author of the blog) hope you don't mind me leeching your pic of cabs at the airport. (it's hosted by blogger, so i don't think you would). Any way, click the link to take a look.
:)

New Domain - TheBoredomBlog.com

Hi all. In case you haven't noticed, I've shelled out the cash and actually bought a domain for this site. It's still hosted here at blogger.com, but now if you ever want to tell your friends about me, it's a lot easier. Just tell them TheBoredomBlog.com, and they'll get here. Thanks for everybody's support.
Later

P.S. I heard a rumor that the 1st official episode of the BK Broiler might be comming out next week. It's just hearsay mind you, but keep an eye out for it.

Internet Explorer Exploit used by phishers

Ok, this is actually a very important post for anyone that uses Internet Explorer. I'm serious. If you're reading this and you use Internet Explorer, PAY ATTENTION! There is a new exploit that has been discovered that is being used by phishers (people who fish for your information) that lets IE open a web page that is controlled by the phishers, while displaying a valid URL in the Address bar. Let me explain this simply, because it's really quite important. Pretend you get an e-mail that looks like it's from your bank (lets say Chase). This e-mail says that you need to update some of your info and provides you with a link to chase.com so that you can log in and do this. When you click the link, the site look like the real chase.com. It used to be that you could look at the Address Bar to see what URL you were actually at. If the Address Bar didn't say "http://www.chase.com" you'd know that it was a phony site set up to collect your login credentials. But now, with this new exploit discovered (that phishers are already using) you could be at a fake site, and the Address Bar could still say "http://www.chase.com". To see if your browser is vulnerable, click the link below and run the test (to run the test, you have to click the link labled "Test Now" on the new page, after clicking the Link at the bottom of this post). When you do, a new window will pop up that is a page that is owned by the security company. If your browser is vulnerable, then the address bar will say www.google.com.

OK, so your browser is vulnerable, what do you do? Well the best way to secure yourself from this, and other, IE vulnerabilities is to stop using Internet Explorer all together, and Get Firefox. If still want to use IE, then the only way to prevent this from happening is to disable Activ Scripting. Of course, this will cause a lot of legitamite web sites to stop working correctly, but hey, you wanted to use IE.

Any way, give it a test, it's a little scary to see the results.
Click the link
Later.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Well? Can you guess? If you haven't figured it out yet, the problem is that this picture was taken today, April 5th, 2006 in New York City. April 5th! It's fucking snowing right now!!!!!! THIS IS INSANE!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF THAT FUCKING BROADWAY MUSICAL!!!! Anyway just thought I'd share this rediculous turn of events with the rest of you. So that's all for now, I'm gonna go hide under my desk and wait for the 4 horsemen. :)

Podcast of the Year - Infected by Martin Sargent

This is just a little post for all you uninformed internet monkeys out there. There is one podcast that holds a special place in my heart. Well actuall down and a little to left of my heart. (Sometimes it makes my left arm feel numb.) Anyway it's called Infected by Martin Sargent. I've ben listening for a couple of months now and I'm proud to say that I've been infected. Why don't you get infected too!

New RSS Feed

Hi all! I just want to let everybody know that I've got a new RSS Feed running through Feedburner. If you are already subscribed to my feed, then please switch to the new Feedburner feed. If you haven't subscribed, well nows a great time to do it! If you click on the link you will have the option to subscribe with some of the bessed we-base feed readers out there, or your personal software one. I will be adding some custom subscribe buttons too, but it might take me a little while. Anyway enjoy the new feed!

NASA Manager: The children ar our future (spouses)

"The headquarters office of a senior NASA manager was searched and computer equipment was seized in a child pornography investigation, according to court documents and an online report.

The NASA inspector general’s office served a search warrant on the agency headquarters office of James R. Robinson, in-space propulsion technology program executive, on Wednesday.

A copy of the search warrant on The Smoking Gun Web site said a filter on NASA’s computer system that searches for flesh-colored tones alerted technicians who found 189 images of underage child sexual activity on Robinson’s work computer.

The search warrant also said Robinson’s computer had been used to send movies of child pornography to an undercover postal inspector and used a private account to correspond about pictures."

I really just can't even comment on this. It's fucked up enough. Shame on you NASA guy!

DOOM DOOM DOOM!!!

Board your windows, lock your doors, put your head betwixt your legs and hide under your desk! The Apocalypse is comming and we're all gonna die!!! "But Geoff, why are we going to die?" I hear you ask, "How do you know?" Well my faithful readers, I know the apocalypse is comming because of the newest musical on broadway. So, you ask, what kind of musical could possibly turn our brave and loyal blogger into you're average crackpot doomsayer? Well it's a new musical called... (wait for it) The Wedding Singer. That's right boys and girls, Adam Sandler's The Wedding Singer is now a Broadway musical. It's not even one of Sandler's artsy movies like Spanglish or Punch-Drunk Love. The freakin Wedding Singer is on Broadway!!! Like I said, DOOM!

Quote of the Day

"You can make something idiot proof, but they will always make a better idiot."
--Unknown

Downloading YouTube Videos

Hi all my blogger buddies! I just discovered a neat little website that lets you download all those crazy videos of stupid people doing stupid things from YouTube.com. The site is called FileLeacher and I found it throuhg Darknet. You have to go through a couple of different steps to make it work but it looks pretty cool. Now I just wonder how long it's gonna take YouTube to close up the hole. For details on how to play and convert the files check out the Darknet post about it. Enjoy you crazy peda-- I mean videophiles.

ZDNet: "[..] if you own an iPod, it's got CRAP in it [...]"

This is a direct rip from dapreview.net. I'd make comments but pretty much everone know's my stance on DRM. This is a very good and informative video about why DRM is bad, and I think everyone needs to watch it if we're ever gonna stop these corporate machines from telling us what to do with our content. Below is the dapreview text (check out their site if you never have.) but click the link below to see the video.

ZDNet has a very interesting take on the whole Digital Rights Management deal that is going on at the moment. Instead of calling it DRM though, they call it CRAP, which stands for Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection.

David Berlind, the executiver Editor, actually gets really excited about the whole deal. He explains that there are three big companies out there trying to force their proprietary DRM systems on the consumer. Should a consumer however decide to switch from an Apple DAP to Sony DAP he will not be able to play the music he has legally purchased.

That's why he recommends not to buy any products with "CRAP" inside them, because they are restricting your rights as a consumer.

Cool Site of the Day - Vox Machina

This is a cool site i found today courtesy of Dvorak's Blog. It's called Vox Machina and it's a text to speech web app. The reason this is kind of cool is because there are a lot of different and newish voices that you can play around with. One problem, no easy way to download the mp3 you created (but if you do a little html hunting it can be done. Enjoy!

Download Of The Day - Push The Freakin Button Pro

Ok, so I obviously stole the Download Of The Day title from Lifehacker, but I like lifehacker and I think of it more as inspiration. Anyway, I just stumbled upon a really nice little app called Push The Freakin Button Pro. It lives in your system tray, and watches for windows to show up (ones that you specify), and click specific buttons on the windows when they appear. It's made my life a lot easier considering how many times a day my comp crashes, and how many error messages I get when it recovers. But you can also set it up to record macros and do all sorts of neat little things. It's a $30 program, and I say it's well worth it. Click the link to check out the app.

Monday Morning on the 4 train

Good morning bloggerinoes. Did you have a good St. Pattie's weekend? Well enough of the chit-chat, I'd like to tell you a little story before I start my work for the day. I take the 4 train every morning from brooklyn heights, to 42nd Street and it's always packed. Today was no exception. The problem with a packed train in NYC is that there are always assholes on it. Always. They're either taking up 6 seats, or wearing a backpack 3 times their size and knocking people over, or they're pushing their entire back up against the pole so nobody else can hold onto it. These people piss everybody off, not just me. I've often complained with other New Yorkers about these assholes, but usually I never say anything to them, untill today.

This morning I was standing on the train, minding my own business, and watching the beginning of "The Weather Man" on my TAVI. I was standing. I noticed that someone sitting next to me got up to get off at a stop, and when they did, the person in the seat next to them, slid over to occupy two seats. No I don't want to come off as an ignorant racist, or anything like that, but this guy was "thugged out". I say this, because if this situation had taken place in the middle of the night, on an almost empty train, I probably would not have said a word.

But it was 8:40 am on a packed 4 train, I was already in a bad mood, it this just did it for me. Another man, tried to sit down next to the "thug" but he would not move over. It made me happy that the mad made it a point to sit anyway. He squeezed himself in between the thug and anothe person, but there was still a good 1 foot of space that the thug would not slide over into.

I finally spoke. I told the guy to just move over and stop being a dick. By the time I realized what I was sayign it was too late. The thug said "What!?" and I said again, "I'm sick of people being dicks on the subway for no good reason. Move over, let the guy sit down, and stop being a dick!" Well the thug moved over, and when the train got to Grand Central, I walked as fast as I could up to my office. I was shocked that I had said something, but it felt good. It felt good to hear a handful of other people on the train agree with me, and scold the thug.

I'm writing this, not to praise myself, but to tell other people out there. When somebody is being an asshole, just for the sake of being an asshole, say something. It really makes a difference. All it takes is that one voice to get everybody started.

DON'T BE A DICK!

St. Patties Day Special - A toast to green heros and villians

Happy St. Patricks Day everybody. In the spirit of the holiday, I've found a very special web site that gives tribute to all our favorite green super heros and villians. If you've ever read a comic book in your life, then take a look. :)

Quote of the day

Guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. Guns just make them go really really fast.

What do you use your Dell for?

I can't express how funny this video is.

I'm Sorry

I know, it's just wrong. And stupid. And wierd. But watch it anyway.

Cool Internet Tool - Subway Navigator

Here's a cool tool I just discovered on Lifehacker, called Subway Navigator. You can look up the maps from subways in just about any city in the world. You can also choose your start and destination stations, and the navigator will tell you what trains and transfers to take to get there. However, like everything in life, it has one big flaw, no firefox support. IE and Netscape only (does anyone still use netscape?). Anyway, click the link to check out the site.

Man attempts bank robbery armed with a helmet and a bag

Here's a fun news story for the day. A man in Nicosia, Cyprus (don't ask me where that is) walked into a bank while wearing a motorcycle helmet, and carrying an empty bag. He demanded money. Now wouldn't it be nice if we could end the story here, say that the guard arrested him, and he's just a big dumbass. But sadly, that is not the case. The bank gave him the money and let him walk out the door. So the dumbass of the day award definately goes to the bank. I'm wondering how many people are thinking, "Hey, I should try that" right now.

Desire of the Day - The Slanket Blanket

It's time for another desire of the day kiddies. It's that thing you've always wanted, but never knew you did. It's called the Slanket Blanket, and all it is is a regular old blanket, but with built in sleeves. Looks great for gaming / laptop use / remote control / reading / anything you can do from your couch! It's not very techie, but it does look pretty cool. Check out the link to see all the colors and activities that can be accomplished with this giant step forward in blanket technology.

Desire of the Day - The Chopper Computer

No, my desire of the day is not the girl, it's what shes sitting on. It's a super-fast PC made by Chopper Computers. This sucker basically is a road-worthy chopper minus the handle bars, wheels, and engine. The specs on it look amazing too. And to add to it, it's liquid cooled. I've always been skeptical of liquid cooled machines, but they've been popping up more and more lately that I just might have to get one (when I save up some money that is). But ya know what, if I can't have the machine, I'd still take the girl (just kidding Lesley).

Desire of the Day - LG 100 inch LCD

Today is the beginning of my new series of blog posts called "Desire of the Day." Every day I will try (emphasis on the word try) to post about at least 1 new gadget or piece of electronics that I desperately want. Today, it's LG's 100 inch LCD display. Isn't it pretty?

The Real Life Simpsons

It's really funny, just watch it.

The World's Fastest Bug

So, it's 4:15 on a Monday afternoon. I've been coding away all day trying to succesfully parse several different combinations of xml statements, and all I want to do is jump in my car and drive for hours. So what happens to pop up in my RSS reader? This aswome little number courtesy of engadget. This guy put a combo drive in has VW bug. A standard engine for driving on public streets, and this insane Jet engine. Why? I have no freakin idea, but I want one!!

The Truth about DRM

I have here (click The Link to see it) a very well written and thought out argument as to why DRM is wrong for everyone. Even the companies who lock down their stuff with it. More people are realizing it. When will the RIAA and MPAA and even the New Yorker realize that we want to buy content, not licenses. I highly suggest that everyone read this article. It describes the situation far better than I could ever hope to.

Confess-O-Matic, For The Catholic On The Go

Well it's time for another mildly contraversial post by your friend, Geoff. It's a website called the Confess-O-Matic. Just type in your sins, click the cross, and your sins are erased electronically. I have to admit, if I was a catholic, or at least gave a crap about my eternal soul, this would be my home page. The problem with it is that there is no penance. I mean sure it works, but without the anal rape, it's just not the same.

Don't work so hard

Well it looks like this blog is turning into a big list of random videos... so here's another one

Intel Mac Ad Reloaded

This was taken from a blog called HSN and it's really funny.

Hidden Passageways if your very own house

This is a company called Creative Home Engineering. They sell a lot of very cool stuff to mak you feel like Bruce Wayne. Check out the videos and animations. I swear, when I have a house and 10 grand, I'm totally getting something from these people.

read more | digg story

Mrs. Ronald McDonald

There's not a lot I can say, just watch the clip.

Mortal Combat Viral Ad

This is a really funny viral ad that has come under some scrutiny by the ASA. Sorry about the aspect ratio - everyone looks tall and skinny.

TAVI 020 Review

Here you will see a full, fair and unbiased review of the TAVI 020 Portable Multimedia Center. I would like to preface this review with the following statements: 1) I have absolutely no relation to New Media Life (The company that makes the TAVI) beyond me buying their product. I have not been influenced by them in any way shape or form. 2) Because I am sending a link to this review to a handful of other tech sites, I will try to refrain from cursing, as I do in my other posts. This is not an editorial (though it is partial opinion). So there ya go, no relation, no swearing, now let's get to the TAVI

Overview:
The TAVI 020 is a portable media player made by a company called New Media Life. And I gotta say, as a geek and a media obsessionist (is that a word?) it's a pretty nice one. It's clamshell design may not be that new, but it's a refreshing change in our current dap and pmp marketplace.


It feels a little heavier and more fragile than it should, but it makes up for that is specs. The TAVI boasts being able to play a ton of different media formats (MPEG 1/2/4, DivX 3.11/4/5, XviD, mp3, ogg, aac, ac3, ...) as well as a few other nifty features. But does it stack up? We'll find out. If you just want to know the final judgment click here.

Package Experience:
What is your first encounter with a new personal electronic gadget? The packaging. Now I personally, have almost always ignored this aspect of new products, but since it's one of the aspects that is attributed to the "iPod Experience" I decided to take some notes.




The product's packaging is pretty simple. A white box, with a green line-triangle shape that is the company's logo, and a window to let you see the device itself. Open, the box is still pretty simple looking.



There is the TAVI, and next to it is a green box that contains all the cords and cables you'll need to connect it to everything. Underneath it is a pouch case for the TAVI and what looks like a green CD case, except it hold only a manual and no CD. This made me excited, and I'll talk about why in a bit.

When everything is removed from the box you have the TAVI, the manual and warranty, the pouch (which is a little too big), a video/audio cable for hooking up to a conventional TV, a USB cable for connecting to a computer, a USB host adapter (USB -> mini-USB), an A/C adapter a crappy pair of ear buds and a strange little keychain of some sort. Over all it's a pretty complete package minus a few extras that should hopefully be available soon.

Design & Form Factor:
The design of this device is really dependent on personal preference. I personally like the clamshell design, as it keeps the screen protected and allows for a bigger screen (3.5 inches as compared to the iPod video's and Zen Vision:M's 2.5 inches). However, the unit is a bit bigger than I expected in terms of length and width, making it get a little uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time while it is open, however this is mostly due to a different design oversight which I will go into later. It also seems very well constructed. It's weight may contribute to this, but it definitely doesn't feel like a toy. I believe that it is made of plastic (not sure) but it doesn't feel like it. It could be a thin polycarbonate, but I'm not sure. Either way it feels pretty sturdy.


As you can see, the top of the player is home to a small, single-line LCD display, and the left side of the player has controls for volume, play/pause/track skip, and A-B Repeat, as well as the headphone/composite video jack. The combination of those two features mean that you can turn on the unit and navigate to/start playing either music or FM radio without having to open the device. That is a design point that was very well thought out. The absence of an "outer UI" like that has led to the downfall of many clamshell devices.

When the device is opened you have home button, directional pad (with OK button in the middle), and a back button. Above that silver square section is a sound button, and context menu button (a very nice touch) and a slider control thumb pad type of thing. The two things of note here are the context menu button and the slider. Think of the context menu button as a windows right click. It works on any menu and brings up a bunch of options relating to whatever you are doing. The thumb slider works well, and is easy to control. It is basically there to do the same thing as the directional pad. Sometimes it seems pointless, but it is invaluable when scrolling through a long list of songs or videos, or fast-forwarding/rewinding through long tracks. The one problem with it is that it gets in the way when holding the player open and one handed (which is what I do when watching videos on the subway). When holding the player this way, my instinct is to put my thumb on the slider, so that I don't accidentally press the d-pad, but as soon as I do, I get a reaction as if I was trying to fast-forward or pause. This leads me to one of the devices flaws, there is really no place for a vid-watcher to put his/her thumb when holding the device one-handed. This is not a huge problem, I've gotten used to holding the player in one hand, and with two hands it feels great, it's just a small annoyance.

DESIGN SCORE - 8/10

Features Rundown:
What makes this device so sweet is its features and performance. So here's the meat.

Computer Connectivity:
I said earlier that I got excited when I didn't see a CD in the box. That's because it meant the TAVI had to connect as a removable hard-drive, and sure-enough it does. For the not-so-technically-inclined, this means that you can plug it into any computer, with any operating system (post win98 SE) and it will just work. You can browse what's on the player and copy files to and from it simply with Windows Explorer (or Konqorer or whatever the Mac alternative is). The layout on the device is also very simple. The folders are labeled Music, Video, E-Book, Record, Support and Update. Just copy the files you want into the correct folders and your done, and yes you can have as many folders within folders as your heart desires. Although this seems simple enough, there actually is software included with this device. It's called myTAVI and the installer is located in the Support folder on the TAVI itself. Later on, I will detail my encounters with this software.

CONNECTIVITY SCORE - 9.5/10

Music Playback:
A nice thing about the music library on this device is that you can view/play all your music via either a folder view, or a database of id3 tags. So you can have your music set up any way you want of your computer, and you'll still be able to navigate it on the player. There is an interesting issue with the id3 database though. When I copied a few folders full of music to my player via Windows explorer, I noticed that I could only access my music through the folder view on the player. This meant that I couldn't shuffle all my music at once because it was all in separate folders. I checked the all tracks menu option, and none of it was there even though all my music is tagged appropriately. After messing around for a few minutes, searching for a way to update the music database, I tried installing the software (I hadn't yet). I installed it on a different computer than the music came from. After the initial install and update, the program finally started and claimed it was "synchronizing" my player (it did this automatically). When it was done, I closed the program and unplugged my player, and voila, all my music was now listed in the TAVI's music database. I had full access to the artist and album menus and had no problems anymore. This is one of my complaints about the TAVI. There should be an option on the player itself to update the music library database. Hopefully this will be included in the next version of the TAVI O/S. To get back to the good, the TAVI can play damn near any audio file you through at it (except FLAC). Types include mp3 (32-320kbps and vbr), ogg, aac, ac3 and wma. I assume it will also play wav but haven't tried that. Also note, that although it does play aac files, it won't play anything bought from the iTunes music store (unless properly cracked). Sound quality is excellent and the player has support for Dolby 5.1 digital surround sound when hooked up to an external speaker system. There is also playlist support, but I from what I can tell, the playlists must be created Using the MyTAVI software. No M3Us. Not a big deal for me, but it may be for some of you.

MUSIC SCORE - 6.5/10 (lower due to need of syncing to update library DB - will raise if fixed)

Video Playback:
This is why I decided to get the TAVI. The video playback is spectacular. The 3.5 inch screen is gorgeous and it will play so many different types of formats DivX 3.11/4/5, XviD (even with ac3 audio), MPEG 1/2/4. On thing though, is the serious lack of QuickTime video support (also doesn't play wmv's but I don't think too many people care). The reason I say QuickTime video support (including H.264) is important is because of vid-casting. With vidCasts today, something like 90% of them go through iTunes, so most of the feeds are either mov or m4v. The TAVI can play neither of these, and converting them is a huge pain in the butt. Once again though, this could be something planned for future upgrade. At least I really hope it is, cause I really want to put diggnation on this sucker. Anyway the rest of the video capabilities are freakin sweet. Fast forward and rewind are quick and responsive. Loading of videos is very quick. 3 different view modes (Normal, Zoom, and full screen) are good. My favorite aspect though, which is a necessity for a device designed to watch movies on, is the resume and bookmarking features. Whenever you stop a video, the TAVI remembers where you were, and when you decide to play it again, it asks you if you want to resume or start from the beginning, or start from a bookmark, which you can make while watching a video, by holding down the OK button in the middle. This is a feature I have gotten used to with my MediaPortal PC and simply couldn't live without. My only complaint about this is that I wish it were included for audio playback too so that I could resume those long podcasts. It's time companies stopped thinking of audio purely as 3-minute songs.

VIDEO SCORE - 9/10 (low because of no QuickTime support)

Radio Playback:
One of the features of the TAVI is the FM radio, which a lot of devices are slapping on these days. A nice thing about the radio on the TAVI is that you can choose what country you're in, and that will define what frequencies are available. The TAVI also has a really nice auto-scan feature which creates "channels" for each frequency that has a signal. You can control the radio, and see what station you are listening to with the player closed, just like with the music library, but with radio, the track skip/back instead changes channels. (You can also tune manually with the player open). The reception is decent, but I suspect it depends on your headphones, because the TAVI uses them as an antenna. You can still play the radio through the built in speakers, but you have to have headphones plugged in to use it at all.

RADIO SCORE - 8/10

Photo Viewing:
Photo viewing on the TAVI is pretty slick. Images look crystal clear and load up fast, even big ones. Funny thing is that most of the stock photos that come preinstalled on the TAVI were corrupt. Only JPG support right now, but unless you're putting we images on there, it's all you'll need. Personally, I've never seen a use for photo viewing on a dap or pmp.

PHOTO SCORE - 8/10

E-Books:
It's hard for me to comment on this because I've never read an e-book. However it does seem that the TAVI could handle them pretty well. It only supports txt files, so pdfs and those like it won't work. Cool thing about this is that you can set the TAVI up to auto-scroll through your e-book. Not much of a selling point, but a nice feature.

E-BOOK SCORE - 8/10

Voice, Radio & Line in Recording:
One of the features that the TAVI boasts is the ability to record from 3 different sources. It's even got a built in mic for voice recording, a feature which I was looking forward to using. But when I tried to access the "Record" option of the TAVI's main menu, I was greeted with a message that told me recording would be available in the next TAVI OS. WEAK! How are you going to advertise your product as being able to do something, that it can't yet do. I even upgraded my TAVI's OS and the record feature was still locked out. This makes the TAVI feel like an unfinished product, but if it is supported like it should be, it could be a near perfect product.

RECORDING SCORE - 0/10

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with someone at New Media Life, and they told me that the Record feature will be available via an upgrade at the end of this month. So we'll just have to wait and see.

Browse:
Browse is an option in the main menu that allows you to browse the TAVI's filesystem from the player itself. It gives you access to all your standard file manager functions. You can move, copy, rename and delete files, all right from the TAVI. This is a very nice touch. This also makes it feel more like a geek's gadget, but our numbers are growing, so hopefully there will be enough interested geeks to make this thing work.

BROWSE BONUS SCORE - 5/5

Battery Life:
When I first started using this device, I was very nervous that the battery life didn't even live up to half of the company's claim. But after running some tests, I have been proven wrong. I have not tested the battery during music playing, but with video I was able to squeeze out about 5 hours compared to the company's claim of 6. This was done playing XviDs at a high res with a 30fps framerate. The reason I was scared when I started using it is because the battery meter works differently than most. There are 4 bars on the battery meter and the first one disappeared after about 45 minutes of play. Then the 2nd and 3rd took about an hour each, and I had one bar left. I was sure it was going to die soon, but to my surprise I got about an hour and a half of play out of that one battery bar, and when it disappeared, I got another 30-45 minutes of play from a meter with no bars. I was pleasantly surprised by this phenomenon. An important thing to note about the battery life is that connecting the device via USB does not charge the battery. Actually it drains it by spinning the drive. This seems like a design flaw. The player should at least be able to not loose charge when plugged into a USB port, since the USB provides power. It's an annoyance, but should be rectified when the company comes out with it's cradle in the 2nd quarter of this year.

BATTERY SCORE - 6/10 (lower because it's not removable and USB drains power)

MyTAVI Software:
The software included with the device seems like a decent piece of software. It allows you to sync music, videos, ebooks, movies and "TAVICasts" to your player. It also handles updates to your TAVI OS (which hopefully will be a good thing). The problem with the MyTAVI Software is that you're going to need it to get all of the features of the TAVI to work. This makes it more of an annoyance and makes the TAVI fully functional, only on Windows machines. Hopefully this will change with future OS development. I expect there will be a way to update the TAVI without the MyTAVI software, and I also expect an update library option to show up on the TAVI itself. That is, if it is supported the way it should be. If looked at as purely a piece of software, MyTAVI is pretty robust and stable, but when viewed as an almost necessary attachment to the player, it becomes an annoyance.

SOFTWARE SCORE - 6/10

Conclusion:
The TAVI is marketed as a full featured pmp for everybody, but I do think that it is geared to a specific audience. If you just want music, there are hundreds of cheaper and more suitable products out there. But if you are a hard core videophile, don't use iTunes (or at least not the music store), and have lots of different MPEGs, and AVIs floating around, or you have a bunch of DVDs that you want to rip and store, this thing is freakin awesome!!! (BTW: I want to mention that If you need/want to rip your DVD's to your computer for use on this, or any other XviD compatable player, check our FairUse Wizard. It's a program that lets you rip DVD's to 700 megs super freakin easy, and they all work on this player.)

Let's get to the Pros and Cons

Pros)
-Design and ease of operation with closed lid
-Sound and video quality is great (HD cables are coming soon according to NML rep)
-Video compatibility is awesome
-Screen is beautiful
-Battery Life is better than most
-AAC audio files and AC3 for video sound
-Updates are pretty simple
-Standard TV and HD viewing is possible with Dolby 5.1 surround sound
-File Management onboard
-Works as USB Hard Drive - No drivers necessary - Plugs into any OS

Cons)
-Price Tag ($500 for 20GB)
-Battery drains while using USB and not removable
-Need for Windows only software
-No QuickTime video support (I'd talk about wmv, but seriously, who cares)
-No recording support - yet

Basically I'm in love with this player. It does have some downsides, but I'm hoping that most of them will be addressed in future update of the TAVI OS. However, I just might return it because a 30GB version is due out on March 30th for only $50 more. It's an expensive player, but if you're a videophile like me, you will love it.

Do you have any questions about the player? Did I miss something that you wanted to know about? Post a comment and I will respond and update the review if necessary. I keep a close eye on my blog's comments so I will get answer any questions. And please, I know I'm not a great writer, so please no flaming re my poor grammar or failure to have a point. Thanks.

GHackett.

P.S. I will take and upload more pictures of the player upon request. You can see all of my TAVI pics on my flickr set.

Dell sues web designer because he has the same name.

That's it! I am no longer a fan of Dell computers! (not that I really was to begin with). But this is insane. There's a guy named Paul Dell and he designs web sites for a living. So he set up one for himself at www.dellwebsites.com. And no Dell Computer Corporation - a multi-billion dollar corporation, is trying to sue him for hundreds of thousands of euros (i have no idea what it comes out to in real money). Anyway, the link below will take you to his support page. He needs help to fight this legal battle. I donated 5 euros, and I hope some of you guys will too.

read more | digg story

Coming Soon - TAVI Review

Ok, so people who read this blog know that for a long time, I have wanted a Creative Zen Vision:M. Well I might have a new e-love of my life and it's called TAVI. It's a full featured Portable Media Player with support for all kinds of different file types (yes even more than the Vision:M). I'm digging the clamshell design, and it seems like this company has put a lot of effort into figuring out what people want, and how to make it simple and compatible with everything. Anyway the only place you can get this little guy (untill March 20th, 2006) is walmart.com, and I will be purchasing one tomorrow. I will play with it for a little while and review it right here on Boredom Beyond Boredom. If I like it I'll keep it, if not, I've got 3 months to return it for a full refund (Thanks Walmart!). This is actually kind of big because there is only one real review for this product online right now, and it's in Korean. So stay tuned for my first foray into a real electronics review. I'm pissing myself with excitement! So long for now.

Google Reader - Review

Hi Kids, it's time to talk about Google. But first let me preface this by saying, because of the short time difference between this post, and my last post, you might not have noticed my last new post. If you haven't read it, do so now because it's about a very important issue. It's called "The Evil RIAA says F..." Well you probably see it now. Go ahead and read it, I'll wait.

Done already? Ok well now for my google review. Today it's all about Google Reader (which you can get to by clicking the link below). Google Reader is an RSS feed aggregater. I know the are a lot of people out there who still don't know what RSS is, so let me explain. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". RSS Feeds can contain any type of information and, in a way, are laid out like a web page, however you won't be able to view them in your standard web browser (which should be firefox if it isn't already). Almost every blog and web site out there has an RSS Feed for it's site because it's become so popular. I've got an rss feed for my blog even (if you look at the links on the right it's labeled as "Atom Feed"). When you plug an RSS feed into an RSS Reader, you get a list of stories you can click through (quickly) and see the stories for each of them. What makes them cool is that they are updated automatically. With a good RSS aggregater, you can add the feeds from all your favorite blog and news sites, and have one place to go for all your information, as opposed to checking each site everyday. It's also important to note that all podcasts are simply RSS feeds that link to mp3 or video files (yes even the iTunes ones).

So now that you know what an RSS feed and an RSS aggregater is, how does Google Reader stack up? Well in my opinion, pretty well. First of all, I have always been looking for a decent web based RSS Feed reader. This way I can log in from any computer in the world, and see the news and opinions that I want to see without having to bounce around a hundred different web sites. With google it's nice because I don't need to invent a new login and password too. But I want to make this a fairly full review so I'm going to go over ever aspect I can think of.

Getting started:
Starting google reader is pretty easy. If you already have a gmail account, you just log in with that, if not you can either use your cell phone's SMS feature to sign up, or get a friend to invite you. It's a pretty slick e-mail service that I have been endorsing heavily for some time. But you don't have to use it if you don't want to. Once you're logged in, you'll see a fairly empty screen. This is because you're not subscribed to any feeds yet, so that's your next step.
NOTE: When I first tried using Google Reader it was painfully slow to do anything, but I believe that they have worked that out as I have not had any problems since that first day.

Adding Feeds:
Google makes it pretty easy for RSS n00bs to find and add feeds to Google Reader. Just type in what your looking for in the search box and search. When you find the feed you want just click on subscribe and your done. But Google doesn't know about every RSS feed out there, so you can also type in the address of a feed into the search box (my feed is http://boredombeyondboredom.blogspot.com/atom.xml). When you do this, google will find it and allow you to preview the feed before you subscribe. (Actually google will force you to preview it first, which I found a little annoying but not detrimental). Anyway, once you have added a feed, you can go back to "your reading list" or search for more.
NOTE: I have noticed that when I add a new feed on Google Reader, only the top item will actually show up in your reading list at first. This worried me but if you give it some time, new items will appear on your reading list as they appear in the feed.

Reading Feeds:
I've heard a lot of people complain that Google Reader is flawed because it doesn't separate the feeds and instead gives you one long list of all the news items from all your feeds. Well I actually like it that way. In that format I wind up looking through all the headlines instead of just the ones I check religiously. But the previous statement is also untrue. You can view one feed at a time if you click on the "edit subscriptions" link that is above the feeds. You are then presented with a list of your feeds, and if you click on one, your news list below will only show items from that feed.

Neat Stuff:
Google Reader is a really simple feed reader but it does have a couple of really nice features that make the whole experience more pleasant. First of all, the page scales depending on your screen resolution, and the size of your browser window. You can see this effect by resizing your browser while GReader is open. The feed list slides up and down, and the item display will never be too wide. This is really helpful when you don't want to do a lot of scrolling. Nice thing number 2) the news list scrolls using the wheel of a mouse. I'm one of those people that constantly uses their mouse's wheel. I don't use any mice that don't have them because it makes scrolling through pages so much easier. So I was very excited when I discovered that my super long news list could be scrolled using the wheel, even though there were no scroll bars. Very nice indeed. Nice thing number 3) Google remembers what items you've read and what you haven't. Much like standard e-mail, each feed item is marked as either read or unread in Google Reader (unread items are in bold). So you can read 20 items on one machine, and not waste time reading the same ones on another machine.

Overall I think Google Reader is a pretty cool and extremely useful tool. After all I'm still using it. And since I don't get paid by anybody, why would I lie, or even bother with this review if I didn't think it was worth wile? Google's been getting a lot of bad press lately but even though not everything they release is gold, it's good to know that they're still pushing stuff out there to see what works and what doesn't.
Keep it up!

The Evil RIAA says FUCK YOU to consumers!

That's right, the RIAA is at it again. No matter how much you want them to just die already, they keep on coming. So what is it about this time? They want to cripple your iPod. Right now, the RIAA is making new rules for the Digital millennium Copyright Act, and in a filing yesterday these assholes said that ripping a CD you bought, and putting that music on your iPod does not constitute Fair Use, and neither does making a backup copy of a CD for yourself. In case you missed that, let me put it into layman's terms. The Recording Industry Association of America is now claiming that if you buy a CD, a physical CD for whatever the hell they're charging now adays, and you put that CD into your computer and put the songs from that CD onto you iPod (or other mp3 player) it should be illegal. And the same goes for making a copy of that CD for yourself. Does that make sense? Am I the only one that is outraged by this? WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?! Ok, now this does not mean that doing this is illegal right now, but it means that if we the people let the RIAA have it's way, it will be. Seriously people, we can't let the fuckers push us around anymore. Call or write your senator or congressman, but also click the link below to see the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) article on it. And if you have a few buck, donate to the EFF. They're the ones keeping the internet the way it should be, free!

The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed

Here is a great example of what the movie studios should be doing. If you have any interest in sci-fi action movies, but hate everything that comes out of Hollywood, take a look.

New feature on BbB

A new feature here at Borerdom Beyond Boredom is the digg section on the sidebar. There you can see all the stories I have been digging recently. Nothing huge, but neat all the same.

Transformers Come To Life!

This is a really cool video of a real transformer made in Taiwan. Freakin Cool!

Novell creates kick ass desktop power for Linux

Remember Novell? Didn't think so. Anyway they have contributed to the X.org project and it is freakin cool as hell. I can't really comment on it, I just wanted tose readers of mine, who don't check digg.com religiously, to see it. make sure to watch the movies that are on the page (streaming flash works well without having to download).

read more | digg story

Is Kinko's Ripping You Off On Purpose?

Hi faithful bloggerinoes. I've got a question for you. Have you been to Kinko's lately? If so, were you using one of their computers? Did you notice anything funny? I just got back from one and I am very disturbed. As you may know, when you use their computer's, you pay about $0.45/minute for use and $0.50/page for black and white prints. But are they actively trying to force you to sit at the machine longer than you should have to?

The first thing I noticed when I looked over Kinkos's computer cubicles were the old-looking machines. It looked to me that a lot had been done to the machine to make them look as old as possible. One detail was that the little silver Dell circle was ripped off of every single machine (even thought the label on each monitor says "Dell Workstation #x"). Once I sat down, I realized that the Microsoft and Intel stickers were still on theses desktops. They were P4's with the "Made For XP" sticker. But what operating system was loaded on? Slow as all hell, Windows 98! Now, I didn't go through all the checks to find out exactly what this box was packing, or what processes were running in the background, after all I was too busy spending almost 7 minutes getting to gmail to download 19k zip file. But I knew this was running a crippled version of 98, because when I plugged in my USB flash drive, the driver install dialog popped up. The dell didn't even know what it was!

Anyway, aside from crippleing perfectly good computers, Kinkos also gives you the slowest internet connection known to man. It felt like I was sharing an ISDN with about 5 other machines. Now understanding what's availible, what equipment is used, and prices of services like a cable modem or DSL, I can only conclude that Kinko's is purposefully trying to rip people off. The one I visited is in Brooklyn, NY and I can't vouch for other Kinko's in other areas, so post some comments about your experiences.

Later

TopDesk 1.4 - Cool alternative to ALT+TAB

Hi everybody. I haven't posted in a little while, so I thought I'd show this little app I just found today. It's called TopDesk and its a really neat alternative to ALT+TAB for switching between programs. When you hit a hotkey on your keyboard, or move your mouse over a certain hotspot, TopDesk will tile all your open windows and you can click on the one you want to see. You really have to try it out to see how cool it is. I haven't been using for too long, but it doesn't seem to hit the system resources too hard either. So take a look and post your comments here.

Time to Go Buy Those Avril Lavigne and Sara MacLachlan CDs

No, not because of the artists themselves, but because of the record label they're on. Nettwerk Music Group, a Canadian based music label that represents MacLachlan and Lavigne (as well as others) is taking on the RIAA. This is huge! They are representing the defense in an RIAA suit against a Canadian named David Greubel who faces a $9,000 fine after investegators found 600 downloaded songs on his family's computer. They have even agreed to pay the fine, if Greubel looses the case.

It's good to know that at least some record labels realize that the RIAA has been overstepping it's bounds with these suits. Click the link to learn more.

A Geeks Guide to Joining a Gym

I just did what was possibly the most stupid and degrading thing I've ever done in my life. I joined the New York Sports Club, and I've decided to share my experiences in the hopes that I can put the nerves of my fellow geeks to rest. I'd like to start by going over the basics of my visit.

1) Dont Feel Inferior
Being an awkward geek all my life, I had never even considered joining a gym. When I walked into the gym I watched several beefed up guys and girls walk by, and I immediately felt socially unwelcome. If you are self consious, like I am, this will most likely happen to you, but try to ignore it. You will soon realize that there is no reason to feel inferior. All you have to do is talk to someone that works there and you will immediatly understand the true meaning of the word douchebag.

2) Don't Expect Any Help From the Front Desk
After entering the gym, I approached the front desk and was greeting by a fiercely idiotic woman who, i am conviced, had no idea where she worked. I asked about the pricing plans, and she looked at me as if I had two green tentacles extending from my nipples. She asked me to fill out a card with my name, address, phone number, email, and employer. After explaining 3 times that I didn't want anymore spam or telemarketers calling my cell phone, I finally got to speak with a Manager.

3) Know What You Want Before You Enter
Why? Because it's more fun that way. When I finally met one of the Managers (and I use the term loosely because usually managing something requires and IQ higher than 10) he took me up to his office and started going through his schpeel. I inturupted him mid-sentance and asked him what the pricing plans were. He paused for about 15 seconds and then finished his pitch. At that moment I learned that when he wasn't reciting the script he had memorized, he had to think. And in the mind of a jock, "thinking bad, brain hurt."

4) Force the Guy to Get to the Point
Let me make this clear. These people are told to ask you as many stupid and irrelevant questions as they possibly can. I don't know why they are told to do this, but I am assuming it is what their told, because stereroid boy here couldn't think on his own if he was the last person on earth. (I also question if he could read anything besides the numbers on my credit card, but I'll get to that later) He started with the simple stuff, "Where do you live?", "What do you do for a living?", and my favorite, "Why do you want to join a gym?". I paused at the sheer dumbassedness of that one, but then answered, "um... to work out?"

5) Notice Things and Ask Questions
Some things you should notice and ask about, and some you should keep to yourself. But pretty much everything should make you feel better about yourself. For example, I noticed the clothes on my muscle-bound moron manager, and I figured that he had no idea how to dress himself. Or worse, what a mirror is. (I would like to point out that I know nothing about fashion, and have been laughed at several times for wearing things that look strange. But I would never be caught dead in spandex bike shorts and a pink Polo T-shirt, even if my muscles were bigger than my head.) Something else I noticed were the books on my gym-bag friend's shelf (note: gym-bag = gym guy + douchebag). The book I noticed in particular (I swear to god, this is not a lie) was Tolstoy's "War and Peace". Now, I've never read "War and Peace." Hell, I could barely get through "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and I loved that, so it has never crossed my mind to take on a 1500 page epic. But I wanted to test my new gym-bag friend. I said to him, "War and Peace, that's a great book. Wasn't it great when Tony finally killed the leader of the army?" Once again, this is not in here to be funny, it absolutely happened. The fucker agreed with me. "Oh yeah," he said, "it was awsome. But I haven't read it in a long time." Now there is a very slim chance, that I had guessed something right about the book. But I am fairly certain that Tolstoy didn't have a character named Tony.

6) The Stupidness of it All
After enduring almost a half-hour of small talk, with topics ranging from my job to my girlfriend's eating habits, I finally told him to just tell me what the pricing plans were. He explained that he was asking the questions to help determine what plan fit my lifestyle. Starting to get annoyed, I informed him that I wanted to know what all of my options were, and make that decision myself. He then proceded to read the TWO DIFFERENT PRICE PLANS! TWO! Half an hour of mindless (and I mean that literally) chit chat was needed to figure out which of the two plans worked best for me. It was then I noticed that the gym-bag had a shiny Cross pen on his desk, and I was very tempted to shove it through his eye. He said that the more expensive plan would suit me best. I said no. He said that it would offer me more flexebility. I said no. He said that I should consider th... I cut him off and told him to ring me up on the cheaper one (still $79/mo which is out-freakin-rageous). Finally I would be able to leave this place. He started typing my credit card info into the computer. Wow. Not only did he take a full 5 minutes to enter my info, when he handed me the printout, my name was misspelled.

7) They All Assume That You Are as Dumb as They Are
After all that, I was finally handed my one page gym contract. (by the way, I was forced to join this gym, not by the gym-bag, but by my girlfriend. I was dumb enough to make a new years resolution on tape). Before I could read and sign it, the manager took about 30 seconds to find and circle the 4 places I had to sign. Now having succesfully graduated passed the 4th grade, I can spot the word signiture on a piece of paper. Especially when there is a giant, bold X right next to it.

8) Get Out as Soon as Possible
I can't stress this enough. Too much time around these people will slowly lower your IQ. The jerk pulled my new gym card out of his desk, and held it up in front of me. "Now, before I give you this, let me tell you about the classes we offer..." Note to geeks: don't goto any gym classes. They sucked in high school, and they will suck even more as an adult. The only thing worse than talking to these gym idiots, is having them tell you what to do. Anyway, I stood up, and said I was not interested, and grabbed the card.

Conclusion: If you are a geek, and you want to join a gym, don't be afraid. You may not be the prettiest person there, but you'll damn sure be the smartest. But, if you want to work out, but not deal with a bunch of idiots, and you don't have a pushy girlfriend that makes you join (I love you honey), don't bother with the gym. They don't have any magical equipment. Just do some situps and stuff. If you don't know what to do, you're a geek, use the internet.

Well, that's my story. Hope it helps. Oh, and if your from the New York Sports Club and your reading this now (or if your having some else read it to you because you thought reading was for sissies) FUCK OFF!

Free 411

Never pay for 411 again. This isn't new, but I just discovered it from digg. Call 1-800-FREE-411 for nationwide directory assistance absolutely free! How do they do it? If your calling to find a retailer, that they have a competing sponsor, they play a short 12 second ad before giving you the number. Would you rather spend $1.25, or listen to a short ad? No contest! Cool Service! Check it out!

Your Privacy is Being Threatened!!! And so is Your Porn!!!

Well, it looks like good ol' George W. Dumbass is at it again. (Let me just say, to anybody that is a fan of Bush or a Republican, something may be very wrong with you). Now that I've alienated half of my reader base, let me continue. The bush administration is trying to revive the Child Internet Protection law that would make it illegal to make pornographic materials availible to minors. They are making a case to the Supreme Court (Of Pennsylvainya?) to try and enact the law which was struck down in 2004. To do this, they have issued a subpoena to Google for a million random web address and a weeks worth of user search data. But Google is not giving in (thank god!)

The article does say that some other search engines have complied with the subpoena (if you use Yahoo! watch out), but Google knows that it will kill thier public image, if they give in.

As for me, I'm against the law all together, not just the subpoena. I don't know how I would have gotten through grade and high school if it weren't for freely accesible internet porn. (Have I said too much?) I'm not really proud of it, but everybody (every guy at least) goes through that phase at and after puberty when they discover their first really fun hobby. I also don't think that pornagraphy is harmful to children, even young ones. Now, don't get me wrong, I am absolutely against child porn. That's not what I'm talking about here. I don't think that if a kid sees a naked woman, or even a sex act, that it's going to scar them for life. It's a part of life. And I think shielding kids from this stuff for too long actually can be harmful. After all, everyone knew that one person in college, that had been shielded from everything her entire life, and went completely nuts as soon as she was away from home. (I didn't mean that that only applies to women, but the person I knew that was like that happened to be a she.)

Anyway, I've been rambling enough, and got totally off topic. to sum up
Google = good - fighting the good fight for privacy
Bush & Co. = bad - bunch of douchebags (can I say that on the internet, oh wait, I can!)
Adult Porn for kids = good - helps them understand how the world works and why we are here, and gives teenage boys something to do when thier parents aren't home
Child Porn for adults = bad - just really fucked up on so many levels

That's all for today
I think after this article, my counter might actually go down, but who knows. Hopefully the people that read this have at least a mild sense of humor.

Quote of the day -
"In Volotile market, only solid investment is... PORN!!!"
-The moster upstairs in Avenue Q

Create Your Own Simpsons Character!

This is a really funny flash project that someone put together. Make your own simpsons character, and print it out. I've linked to the digg.com story where I found it because if you think it's cool, digg it! You have to sign up for digg.com but it's not like it costs money. It just means that you can submit stories and digg them too. Anyway, really funny little flash app - check this one out Alex!

Fun Telnet Sites

Here's a fun one from digg, it's a list of publicly availible telnet servers. The best one is definately the 1st. Any Star Wars fans out there, click your start button, then click Run, and type in the following

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl 23

it's a funny ASCII version of star wars. I don't know how long it goes for, cause I could bring myself to watch the whole thing, but someone definately had way too much time on thier hands :). Still fun though.

Microsoft Disputes Backdoor Claim

Well, M$ is disputing Steve Gibson's claim that the WMF vulnerability was a backdoor. It's easy to buy their argument, especially when so many different people agree. I still believe Steve Gibson, but we'll have to see what he says on the next Security Now Podcast. I would suggest checking it out. I believe it comes out on thursdays. Anyway, check out M$'s response by clicking the link.

Windows WMF Backdoor?

OK, this is a little scary. There is avary well know Windows expert/developer/pseudo-hacker named Steve Gibson, who does a podcast every week called Security Now. He has done a lot of research into the recent WMF exploit that was discovered in Windows machines (back to 98 i think). And his findings are very frightening. He firmly believes, after examining the exploit, that it was an INTENTIONAL BACKDOOR, placed in the Windows OS by someone at Microsoft. You can download the podcast (Episode 22) on iTunes or by following the link, but I'll sum it up a bit here. The exploit is in the way windows handles WMF image files. (WMF = Windows MetaFile) A wmf is an image file that, instead of being made up of pixels, is made up of code that tells windows how to draw the picture. The exploit was found that when certain stuff is put in the WMF, it could cause windows to run any code the "hacker" wanted, and all the victim had to do was view an image.

What Steve discovered is that the exploit only works when the metafile size variable (correct me if i'm wrong about what it should be called) is set to 1 - what he called the magic number. Technically this is supposed to be impossible, because the smallest a metafile can be is 3, but when it is set to 1, windows, skips a few bytes, and executes the implanted code. This is what led steve to believe that the exploit was intentionally put there by someone at microsoft. Could this be the reason Microsoft patched it forcefully and silently? You tell me!

Being a nerd and a conspiricy theorist myself, I will be keeping up with this story as it develops (or at least, as I hear more about it).

Stay tuned, and for god's sake, post some friggin comments :)

The Growing Phenomenon Known as "Internet"

I found this little ditty on digg.com and it's very funny. It's a toronto news cast about "The growing phenomenon known as 'Internet'". This comes from before the Web. All they show is Usenet newsgroups, but it's freakin hilarious. Check out the link for the video.

Windows Patch Without Permission?

So has everyone heard about the big WMF exploit in Windows? No? Well let me sum it up. An exploit was found in just about every version of M$ Windows that could allow any type of arbitrary code to be run, simply by viewing a specific type of picture. You could view it over the web (vie IE, Firefox, or any other browser) or it could be in your e-mail. It was a pretty big hole in the OS. But now it has been patched by microsoft. Oh, did you not know about the patch? That's because M$ set it to some kind of secret high priority, and even if your updates are set to download and notify only, that patch was downloaded, installed, and your computer was rebooted. I didn't understand why I came home one day and my machine was rebooted, but that little bubble told me that an update was installed. No maybe your thinking, well at least I'm safe now, but think about it. This means that M$ can install anything on your machine, whenever they feel like it, without your knowledge. Now I'm no lawyer, but isn't that what Sony is getting sued for? You paid for your M$ Windows. That's supposed to mean that you own it, not that it owns you!!!

Voice your opinions and stories here folks.
I'll be keeping up with this story as it unfolds.

A couple of good commercials

So here's a few ads that you've never seen. The first is a disturbing, yet somewhat funny VW commercial that (i think) aired once in europe. The second is the best mastercard add that never made it too the air (probably because it wasn't made by mastercard). Next comes the Suburban Auto Trunk Monkey commercial. Don't know if that one is real but it's pretty funny. Here's another great ad by the Breast Cancer Society. Freakin histerical.

For my last commercial entry today, I picked my absolute favorite. It's a take on those stupid macintosh ads (apple can burn in hell)! No it's not the dave chappelle porn ad, it's actually much more accurate. Any PC advocate will love this one.

Well, thats all for now.
Tanke it easy bloggerinoes

New Format

Ok, I've decided that when I have no interesting stuff to post (which is most of the time), I'm gonna put up random entertaining videos I find on google. So it should hopefully be a little more helpful in the cure for boredom.

Terry Tate - The Office Linebacker

Just a very funny video I found on Google Videos. Click the link to check it out.

Don't even mention it

I have been depressed since the giants laid down and died on sunday, so don't bring it up!

Have you taken the Geek Test

The Geek Test v3.1 I scored about 46% - Super Geek! How much of a geek are you?

Best In Show!

CES 2006 - The Consumer Electronics show. It's about 10% useful consumer electronics, and about 90% porn. But this year CNET voted the Creative Zen Vision:M Best in show. I told ya this thing was sweet. Really Sweet! Check out CNet's review by clicking the link.

Diggnation Baby!

Ok, not news at all, but last week I discovered a fun new podcast (in both video and audio) It's called Diggnation, and every week they cover some of the top stories on the social news site digg.com. Also, if you have a TiVO (a real one) and you have the podcasts update, you can go to the tech podcasts and they are one of the default 4. That's pretty cool for a show thats only had 27 episodes. Anyway, check it out, it's pretty cool.

1 In 10 Now Use Mozilla's Firefox

Good news for Mozilla Corp. Firefox finished out the year with a 9.6% market share. That means just about 1 in 10 people use it to browse the web instead of internet explorer!! It's fast, it's safe, and it's got an extension for just about anything!! GO FIREFOX!!! If you're using internet explorer right now, you need help. Click the orange button on the right to get firefox now! And strenghten up that comp of yours!