Storage Options

Well .. I decided to let you all have a little freebie of one of my 50 Tips and Tricks for the Average User. Enjoy!

What will be your 'File System'?
People often go directly to the main hard drive for storage, but the problem with an internal hard drive is it limits how much space you can have depending on how much money you wish to spend. You an get a lot more bang for your buck with external drives. Also, if you deafult to the hard drive, space gets filled up very quickly especially if you work with images, sounds, and other types of media. A widely used technology would be the USB flash drive. Most cost around $20 and can hold a Gigabyte of space, which is fine if you are dealing with text documents. But if you only rely on USB Flash Drives, you are limited to what you can store. A whole new type of storage is an External Storage Drive. Basically an external storage drive plugs into your computer via USB or Firewire, and can hold large amounts of files. Storage drives can run up to 500 Gigabytes, and if you get a "Drobo", you get like 10 times that. A Drobo is a storage robot that you plug multiple hard drives into, and it tells you when you need to insert a larger drives. It also protect your data from damage sections of your hard drive, retrieving the data that may have been lost otherwise. Although External Drives can run up to over $200, but its well worth it when you realise all the versatility of a drive.

Apps for the iPhone?

Well its offical. Steve Jobs just recently announced that the iPhone with have an SDK so all of you who upgraded to 1.1.1 and missed your iPhone applications, you can bet on them being back. I mean the iPhone is such a advancement in cell phones... why not take it further with so apps that will possibly make it one of the most versatile phones ever!

50 Tips and Tricks for the Average User

I am going to write a Article that contains my most used 50 Tips and Tricks about the internet. If you have any you want to add email me at area62b@gmail.com

Leopard .... Finally!

So, I know all of you Mac users have been waiting for one of the most awaited OS for awhile, Leopard of course, but you will have to wait until October 26th to get to use it. No, I am not speculating. Official Release Date : Mac OS 10.5 launches Friday October 26th at 6:00pm.

Now where have we seen this tactic used before? Take the iPhone for example. About 6 months of hype, and finally about halfway through June, they have to pick one of the remaining buisness days. So very typical of Apple.

The Price for a single copy will run at $129, and $199 for a 5-User Single Residence Family Pack. Nope, No upgrade price ..... we aren't dealing with Microsoft here.

ATA - Most uninformed flight attendants ever

So I got this story from http://consumerist.com. Basically, a Man using his iPhone decided to watch a movie on his iPhone, now while he was watching it a Flight Attendant came over and told him that he can't use cell phones on the plane. The man simply said that he was not using the cell phone part. The flight attendant left, and then came back later. After a few more times, they had to fly to the nearest airport, where police were waiting for him. After the attendant changing his story 3 times about why the man couldn't use the cell phone (which he wasn't), the attendant gave up and he was free to go. Complete story is here as usual.

1) Does this attendant have any knowladge of the current events AT ALL?
2) I think the man should get a BIG apology for being detained for no valid reason.
3) The attendant should be fired for being so completely rude.

Thats what I think, aside from the fact that the attendant is a complete idiot.

More Tech news coming up, there will be a schedule outage for the blog at 4 PM PDT.. though because I am on a school computer I can't find out why.

Hopefully a few more posts will be out soon.

Vista Strike 5,000,642

Ok, I never actually kept track of how many ways Vista is a complete waste of time, space, energy, a self space. But its up in the millions.

So The "Dutch Consumers' Union" asked Microsoft for Free Copies of Windows XP for all of the people that had bought Vista, but were having problems with the new operating system. Microsoft refused, boycott of Vista began. A much more "informative" post awaits you at Vista.Blorge.com . (Yes, that is a link to the post, not the website). I personally would like to make this Article a little more comical, and because I know what all of you are thinking (yes, I have finally achieved the title of "omniscient"!) I am more than happy to display your thoughts on my blog. (Enjoy!)

First of All .. RIGHT ON! If Microsoft can't use 5 years of Research and Development to actually program a decent OS, why the heck should you keep it?
and then ... Microsoft Refused ... Everyone knew that was going to happen because Microsoft doesn't like people not paying for things. Hence the "Genuine Advantage Program" that you get programs that probably come packaged with Windows.

Some of the problems includes printers, fax machines, and input device in general, also the computer was crashing and the hardware were slow.

There was an option started to let people with Vista move to XP, unfortunately for the consumer this only applied to Ultimate Editions and Business. Because where does Windows get its bulk of money from? The Businesses who buy 1,000 copies of the OS to use on their computers.

I am just going to put it straight out that I am not a Microsoft Hater, I love that they are trying to improve their OS and make it more secure and look better. Right now, Windows is starting to implement security features found in Macs. I love that they are allowing Windows XP to continue to be sold longer, and I think that there are so actually decent products out there. But Windows Vista was a big flop... and they are just going to continue digging themselves into a hole.

Also, Falko one of our new authors will begin to cover all sorts of Gaming news, while I will continue to be the Sarcastic Blogger that I am today.

If you would like to add anything that I have missed, drop me an email at area62b@gmail.com

Orange Box: Feedback Announcement

As we all know, the Orange Box was released on October 10 of 2007, including older games like Half Life 2 and Half Life 2: Episode 1 as well as the new games Portal, Half Life 2: Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2 (*Disclaimer: To all Halo 3 customers who chose to buy the game and take all the hype away from the Orange Box, prepare to get seriously owned in the ***). I will be providing reviews to all of the new games in the OB in the following month.

Google SketchUp

I recently began using Google SketchUp from who else? Google. As fancy little device that allows you to quickly and easily design buildings. Although there arn't as many features as most 3D modeling programs, SketchUp gets the job done, and what else? Its free!

On Todays Episode of Who wants to break their gut laughing.....

For probably the last hour I've had a ball reading all of these big companies with more lawyers than they have products, send emails to Pirate Bay, and then see the hilarious responses. If you have a free minute or two head to http://thepiratebay.org/legal and read the hysterical responses.

A Push-Up Counter?

News is slow today, but I thought I would put this one up for a laugh.

Its called the "Konami's Push-Up Counter" and basically its a Japanese version of the "That was easy" Staples button, with a digital counter in front, not that you could read the counter while you are doing push-ups. It goes up to 999 push-ups, and if anyone gets that far please send me a picture :)

As always you can find a picture and the sarcastic commentary behind it at http://www.engadget.com or click here for the direct article link.

You Tube - Copyright? Yeah Right...

Following up on the fact that YouTube is about 70-90% copyrighted material, I like how Kevin at http://www.copyrightings.com/ put it in his post , The fact that lawyers have been able to prove most of their content is non infringing is right on. You should be able to post anything on the internet as long as your not selling it for cash. We should be able to look and listen to this stuff when we want to, you guys can charge us for the content, but after that it should be our content, DRM free and completely open so we put it on any device. And I think we are going to start seeing a lot more of that which is a big step up.

Security Now!

Security Now is a podcast by Leo Laporte with Steve Gibson produced by the TwiT Network at http://twit.tv/. I contstantly listen to all of the Twit Podcasts including Security Now!, This week in tech, Windows Weekly, and more.

Security Now! with Steve Gibson is a weekly podcast released on Fridays with a very informative hour of Security. Steve has made things like Wizmo, Spinrite, and everything found at GRC.com

I highly recommend this to anyone wishing to try something new. But try another TwiT podcast if you are a beginner.

Most News to come!

Windows XP : Maximum Capacity

Heres a little tidbit for those of you that don't already know, Windows XP apparently cannot handle more than 4 GB of Memory. But a little new fact is that it will only show up as 3.3 untill you disable PCIx Remaping in the BIOS.
This is of course if you are using the 32-bit version of Windows XP. When you go to a 64-bit version, the computer can handle up to 16 Terabytes of Ram, more than enough I believe.

YouTube - Copyright? Yeah Right....

I love what Jeff Atwood from Coding Horror had to say about YouTubes Copyright Page :

Take a minute to read YouTube's copyright tips
page. I'm serious. Read it. It's full of gems like this:
It doesn't
matter how long or short the clip is, or exactly how it got to YouTube. If you
taped it off cable, videotaped your TV screen, or downloaded it from some other
website, it is still copyrighted, and requires the copyright owner's permission
to distribute.
It doesn't matter whether or not you give credit to the
owner/author/songwriter—it is still copyrighted.
It doesn't matter that you
are not selling the video for money—it is still copyrighted.
It doesn't
matter whether or not the video contains a copyright notice—it is still
copyrighted.
It doesn't matter whether other similar videos appear on our
site—it is still copyrighted.
It doesn't matter if you created a video made
of short clips of copyrighted content—even though you edited it together, the
content is still copyrighted.

He is so completly right. If you go onto read more of the post, you will love what he has to say about all of this Copyright Jibber Jabber.

The only real reason they have a page up like their "How to tell if your content is copyrighted page" is so that in a court case or some kind of legal matter, they can say "We did this, this, and this to try to block copyright material." when really they don't care. They don't care that we have copyright material, they really don't care, which is fourtunate for us as the consumer because we are able to access all of this great content in one place.

More Tech News coming your way!

The Waterproof Computer

Now I just had a crazy Idea for this gadget. Imagine you are sitting in a pool at a hotel. You want to order a beverage. You just go to one of the Handy Dandy Waterproof Computers, order a drink, and the Hotel Staff bring it to you. You could also use this for placing orders for room service while you are down at the pool and want food to be there when you arrive. There are many uses for this new gadget from Flytech. And there are many many uses for this new fangled gadget! If you add a touch screen it would be perfect for Hotel, Backdoor Pool, and many other uses.

 

My Friend Falko just signed up to Author for the blog, be sure to look for his posts in the up coming days!

iGoogle

Oh iGoogle,

The wonderfull way to get all of your blogs, feeds, and email in one home page everytime you open up the webpage.

As you can probably already tell, I use iGoogle a lot to check on all of Feeds, so I can turn around and talk to you guys about them here. Some of my favoirtes are Engadget, Slashdot, The How-To-Geek, and many more.

(Just by the way, You can add this to your Google Reader by clicking the feed at the bottom of the page)

iGoogle encases many other tools such as an IP finder, Dictionaries, Google Talk, and more. Now I don't want to sound like an advertisement so I'll stop there, though I would like to see a few more themes and maybe more advanced User Interfaces. It would be a big step in the right direction for a "Multi-Purpose Front page"

The 700 mghz Auction

Its has been talked about for awhile, and I think that the time has finally come to talk about the 700 mghz auction.



As always if you wish to find a more accurate version of this, surf on over to engadget.com to find information about it there... but if you care about what I think .. keep reading!



Basically, as the low numbered TV channels switch from using the 700 mghz channel to digital, the Federal Goverment will host an auction for the new 700 range. You have to have $2.4 billion to even be elligable to enter for the range. But it wont really matter because........



Before the auction even started, our friends at Google decided to propose that the owner of the spectrum could not close down it, meaning that even after someone has bought the spectrum, it will remain open for development.

School is boring

School is boring ....

I have a class called "Arts of New Media" where we are suppose to learn how to design webpages, and all about art. Well, right now I am falling asleep learning about hotspots on an image using "Fireworks". SOOO very boring.

But on to more Tech News..

This is not an "Apple" Blog, this is not a "Gadget" blog, this is not even an "iPhone" blog. This is a tech blog so don't think that every post will have thousands of pictures of the shiny interface of the iPhone.. casuse it wont!

Don't you hate those "Pre-Paid" phones with the cruddy interface? I have a motorola phone that has the smallest screen ever, has a interface that is completely lame, and doesn't even come with half of the features I need!

Take these new Motorola Phones that have just been annouced. I mean how lame of an interface can you get?

Plus the fact almost every phone I see released from Motorola looks the same..
If someone has some whacky or far out Motorola Designs that have been released please drop me an email at
area62b@gmail.com

Have a Happy Technologically Advanced Day!

Apple iTouch

If you have been on the internet for more than 5 minutes in the last 5 months, you already probably know about the device known as the iPod Touch. I am lazy so it will further be called the iTouch.

The iTouch is probably one of the greatest things to come out of Apple, and it is certainly the best iPod ever. And it costs about $1,540 less than the iPhone. Now this is where some iPhone defensive fanatic is going to say "Your Wrong is only Costs $100 less!"

Well get this

24($60) + $400 - $300 = $1,540
24 Months, $60 a Month plus $400 gives you the price of the iPhone with
the 2 year AT$T subscription.

Now on to the part where I tell you what I think.

The Apple iTouch is a revolutionary device, many have said that, many are right. Its costs less than the iPhone if someone wants a music player but can't afford the iPhone with the plan. They are actually hacking the iTouch as we speak and have multiple applications on it. I'd
say if you really want one go out and buy it because it doesn't have the controversey that the iPhone does. Because Apple doesn't require a monthly subscription, theres no reason that they need to brick your iTouch.

Well, thats my post. Its pretty good for being done at 7:00 in the morning :)

New Authors

Well,

I am starting to invite friends that know a lot about Technology to come
be authors on the blog. Lets see how this works out so hopefully we will
get a lot of great new content up!

Well that was a scare!

I just recently started using blogspot.com, so because I own the domain area62b.com, I foolishly without thinking, tried to change it to area62b.com. Well, I found out it really didn't work. You have to edit the CNAME records and everything, and I'm not willing to do that right
now (I'm lazy I know). So I tried to switch back... and it wouldn't display my blog when it typed in my address, instead it redirected me to area62b.com, so I was trying to fix this for about 10 minutes, when I decided to restart my browser (close and open) .. and then it worked! 10 minutes of panicking for nothing....
But hey, at least the blogs up!

Too Many E-Mail Addresses

I'm going to be honest to you all,

I have over 5 emails. I have my domain "admin" email, I have an old google mail address, and I have a new one because the old one has been damaged beyond repair (or at least beyond repair that i can do in less than 20 mintes.) So I would like to manage all my email on one address, and get no spam in it or anything that I don't want. So I have devised this plan at least with my Google Mail addresses.

The First Address is my Spam Filter, Anything I don't want gets filtered out right there.
After that I have it forward everything that I care about (i.e. Things from Friends, Family, and Newsletters) to my main email.

I do something much the same with the rest of my emails, so that way I can only have what I want. Also a more personal reason that I like this method is because I go to a high school, and I happen to check my email much more at school than at home. The problem with schools is that I have to sign an agreement that allows them to record EVERYTHING. That is why nothing with passwords or anything that could compromise the security of my internet browsing experience (because all of my mail is saved in my other accounts, if someone messed around I would sitll have it).

Welcome to the Collossal Waste of the Internet

Welcome,

“If you are a dreamer,come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a
hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!” - Shel
Silverstein

This is my blog as a kid of the new-age of technology. iPhones, iPod Touch, SD Card Based Video Cameras, Wii, DS, Laptops, and more. If you acctually are somewhat interested in my life, please continue reading, because technology is alive and well, at we're ready to ride!

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If you have any ideas drop me a line at area62b@gmail.com