The Geekcast

The Geekcast #124 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: ************** Tech news: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast ************** Test A Geek: Enjoy a new edition of Test A Geek ************** How To: Opt out of unsolicited mail, calls and cookies The New York Times a while back rounded up ways to opt out of solicitations online, from junk snail mail, to telemarketing calls, to Doubleclick web site ad cookies. Here's a quick list of each type of opt-out: Phone solicitations: donotcall.gov Junk snail mail: Direct Marketing Association: http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/offmailinglist.html Email: "Whatever you do, do not respond to an unsolicited e-mail message when it gives you the option to opt out of receiving more e-mail. That is a trick used by spammers to confirm they hit a live address." Credit card offers: OptOutPrescreen.com Doubleclick ad cookies: Ad Cookie Opt-out Lexis Nexis public database: Opt Out of Lexis Nexis: http://www.lexisnexis.com/terms/privacy/data/remove.asp ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast ************** Hack: Hide user accounts from the Windows XP Welcome screen The Windows XP Welcome screen. Pretty pictures for each user account. What a nice thought on Microsoft's part. The only trouble is - I want to create an administrator account, and not have others tempted to try getting into it while they are on my computer. When windows XP is not joined to a domain, it displays a welcome screen when it first boots: The welcome screen displays all of the local users on the system, except the built-in administrator account that was created during setup. If we want to hide a specific user from the list, we need to create a special value under this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogonSpecialAccountsUserList Under this key you simply create a new DWORD value - the name matches the users name exactly, and the value is one of the following (Decimal format) 0 - Hides the user just from the welcome screen 1 - The user is shown Before you start putting values in this key, I want to warn you. This tip is particularly dangerous. If you make the wrong move, you could make it nearly impossible to get back into your system. Don't blame me if you hose your system! To disable the users I want, I browse to the registry key on my system. Now I want to hide all of the accounts except one, so I add each of the accounts shown on the welcome screen, and give them a value of zero. That's all we need to do. I log off, and now I only see the one remaining account. Here's the big question. How do you log on as a hidden user? If you are running windows XP Professional you simply need to press CTRL-ALT-DEL twice, and the standard logon screen will be displayed. This has one pitfall - it will fail to work if a user is still currently logged in. If you are having trouble getting it to show, then reboot and press it twice before any users have logged in. Secondly, if you are running Windows XP Home, you will need to boot in safe mode to use the hidden account. The CTRL-ALT-DEL trick does not work for XP Home. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #123 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: Enjoy "I Love My Mac" by Daphne Kalfon. You fan learn more at www.ilovemymacthesong.com Also,these songs are available in the iTunes Music Store, so be sure to check it out. This will be a short show due to my hectic schedule. ************** Tech news: iPhone updates & Apple TV. ************** Test A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast ************** How To: Access wifi on the go If you've ever been on the road with your mac and needed to find an access point, it can be difficult at times. You could use the airport menu at the top of your screen to check for access points but that is slow and it doesn't tell you the signal strength until after you've connected. An easier way to go is with iStumbler. iStumbler is a wifi locator for OsX. The program is small but will detect access points wherever you are. The advantage of iStumbler is that it will not only detect wireless internet but you can also use it to detect bluetooth devices and bonjour services that are floating in the air. iStumbler is small and not complicated to use at all. Once you fire it up, you can see all available networks, their security status and signal strength. The application is clean and blends right into the OsX interface. Of course, iStumbler is free and can be downloaded at www.istumbler.net ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #122 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype especially if you're not a mac user. Many people also believe that it's only for buying music and they have no idea that it's also a jukebox. For anyone looking to go a different route than using iTunes, these programs are for you. What you’ll need: First, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to enable your iPod as a portable hard drive. You can do this via startup key commands. Check your manual for more information. Once you’ve got that done, you’re ready to soup up your iPod. Sync music and movies with Floola. Floola is a freeware, cross platform application that lets you copy music and videos to and from your iPod from and to any computer. Floola lets you sync both audio and video to your iPod, which is a must for anyone with a video-capable iPod. Floola is actually capable of doing a lot more - like managing your music, playlists, and artwork, finding and removing duplicate songs, integrating with Last.fm, and playing your iPod’s music on a computer. However, the important thing is that with Floola you can add music and videos to your iPod from any computer, and all it takes is a simple drag-and-drop. That means you’re no longer locked into any one computer or iTunes library. You can add music or videos to your iPod from a friend’s computer just as easily as from your own. And since Floola is cross platform, that means that you can put the Windows and Mac versions of Floola on your iPod and add songs from either a PC or a Mac. To install Floola on your iPod, just download the OS-appropriate version and drag the app to your iPod. Double-click it and you're ready to go. Foola is available for free from www.foola.com *** Sync podcasts to your iPod with MyPodder. MyPodder is a freeware, cross platform program for downloading podcasts directly to your MP3 player. Although Floola claims to support podcast downloading and management, people have reported having trouble getting the podcast feature to work. When dealing with podcasts, MyPodder is by far the more robust solution. In order to use MyPodder, you’ll need an account with the Podcast Ready web site. Then just follow along with the instructions for installing MyPodder to your iPod. After it’s all set up, you can run MyPodder off your iPod on any computer to update your iPod’s podcasts. The current version of MyPodder does a great job of adding your downloaded podcasts directly to your iPod as it downloads them, so you don’t even need to use Floola to add those downloaded MP3s to your iPod. You can manage all of your podcasts from MyPodder. You can download MyPodder at http://www.podcastready.com/download.php *** Play your iPod’s music on your computer with Pod Player. When you’re not listening to your music on-the-go on your iPod, you can use the freeware application Pod Player to playback your music on any computer you plug your iPod into. Pod Player is available from http://www.ipodsoft.com/site/pmwiki.php?n=podplayer.Homepage ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast ************** Hack: Mac tip: Sync iPhoto libraries across multiple machines. Please note that the full instructions have edits to them at the end and the commands shown through the steps may not work correctly. Please reference the original article for any updates and corrections. As always, backup your data in case you make a big mistake. Losing digital pictures without recovery can be devastating! Original article: http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/weblog/comments/mac_tip_one_iphoto_library_to_rule_them_all/ If you’re a Mac user whose family has several computers and you all want to share all your digital photos, you’ll want to check this out. If you have more than one Mac in your house, sharing pictures can sometimes be difficult. iPhoto has a great feature that allows other users on the network to get at the photos on your Mac. The downside is that the Mac would have to be running iPhoto whenever someone wants the photos. Now the main component of this hack is to have a spare Mac as a file server. You can keep a duplicate of your photos on the server, run iPhoto on the server, and then others can access those all they wants. First, you needed a simple way to synchronize the photos from the main Mac to the server. One Mac should be the primary repository for photos. To do this we will use the Unix terminal command ‘rsync’. (Warning: If you’re not familiar with the Terminal program, take some time to familiarize yourself with some simple tutorials online. It’s a powerful program that if misused, can do damage to your data. You’ve been warned.) Your first stop should be an excellent tutorial at Lifehacker.com which covered using rsync when backing up files between a Mac and a PC. Here we’re doing something a little different. Open the application “Terminal” in your “/Applications/Utilities” folder. At the command prompt, type the following: rsync -azv --delete --exclude '.DS_Store' /Users/domenicbettinelli/Pictures/iPhoto_Library_1/ dombett@10.0.1.187:/Volumes/Neptune/Pictures/ That is the rsync followed by a series of switches and parameters. The exact syntax doesn’t matter, but here’s what some of it means. In the block of -azv, the first time you run the command, you change the “v” to “n”, which sends it as a dry-run, telling you what files would have been sent and/or replaced if it had been an actual sync. The --delete parameter tells the server to replace any changed files on its hard drive with the files from the primary Mac. The --exclude '.DS_Store' ignores those invisible little OSX files that are in every folder and don’t need to be copied. The parameter /Users/(your name)/Pictures/iPhoto_Library_1/ is the path to the original iPhoto library on my primary Mac and dombett@10.0.1.187:/Volumes/Neptune/Pictures/ is the path to the folder on the server. (This bit—dombett@10.0.1.187:—is found by opening “System Preferences” and selecting “Sharing” then clicking on the “Services” tab. Now select the check box next to “Remote login” and you will have enabled ssh, which I explain below.) The first time you run the rsync command with the -n switch, you should look to make sure everything appears correctly. *******Make sure that you do not have any spaces in your source or destination addresses. This could cause rsync to delete lots of data.*********** When you run this command, you will be asked for a password. This is the password for the “dombett” account (or your equivalent) on the server. Remember it. Now, once you’re sure everything is good, run the rsync command again, but this time replace the “n” in “-avn” with “z”. At this point, the sync will begin and depending on how many photos you have, it could take some time. Be patient. The first time is the longest and after this, it should go very quickly unless you add tons of photos or makes lots of edits to your primary iPhoto library. The next step is to automate the rsync to update every night. For this we use a built-in Unix utility called cron. But to put a nice easy-to-use face on it, download a utility called Cronnix. It offers a means by which we can have the Mac run a regularly scheduled action, whether it’s opening an Applescript or launching an application or, in this case, executing a Unix command. Click on “New” and then on the “Simple” tab. Paste the rsync command you’ve been using into the “Command” box. Then put in the time you want the command to occur. If you want to happen every day, click the check boxes for “Day of month”, “month”, and “Day of week”. The checked box means “every”, as in “every day.” For hours and minutes, enter the time you want the command to be executed each day (using a 24-hour clock). In my case, I want the sync to occur each night at 11:30 pm. Click on the “New” button, then click “Save” and quit. Now every evening at 11:30 pm, my iPhoto library will be synchronized with the server. Passwordless ssh logins There’s one problem though: Every time it runs, it will ask for the server password, meaning you would need to be there to enter it. Don’t worry; we have a solution in the form of passwordless ssh logins. For the purposes of this tutorial, this is what ssh is. Entering that command in the terminal allows you to take control of another computer as if you were sitting in front it instead of your own, which is what we’re doing with the rsync command. Pretty powerful stuff, which is why they don’t make it easy for you to let just anyone come in and muck about in your system’s innards without being an authorized user. So what we’re going to do is tell the server that when it sees an ssh connection from this one computer, to accept it without demanding a password. Here’s how to do it. In Terminal, type cd ~, Return, then cd .sshand Return. Next type ssh-keygen -t dsa and Return. Assuming you’ve had no error messages so far, at the next prompt type scp id_dsa.pub dombett@10.0.1.187:~/.ssh/Palantir_dombett_id_dsa.pub, replacing dombett@10.0.1.187 with the ssh info for your server we got up above in the rsync section. As for Palantir_dombett_id_dsa.pub, you can replace Palantir_dombett with your primary Mac’s hard drive and your user account. This is the public encryption key file for ssh. At the next prompt, type ssh 10.0.1.187: (use your server’s IP address) and Return. Your prompt should change slightly to reflect the fact that you’re now in control of your server. Type cd ~, Return, cd .ssh, Return, cat Palantir_dombett_id_dsa.pub authorized_keys (replacing it with the name of the actual public encryption key file you just generated.) To quit the ssh connection to your server type ~. (tilde-period). At all prompts for your password, enter your server password. If you’ve come this far without errors, you’re now set up for passwordless ssh logins. The next time the rsync command runs, it won’t ask for a password. Automating iPhoto on the server Of course for all this to work properly, iPhoto must always be running on the server, but when a sync occurs iPhoto needs to be restarted to recognize that its library has changed. It would be a real pain to automate everything else, but have to remember to go to the server everyday and quit and relaunch iPhoto. Happily, this can be automated too. Open a text editor on the server, whether TextEdit or TextWrangler or TextMate or BBedit or what have you. Type the following into a new window: #!/bin/bash osascript -e 'tell application '"iPhoto"' to quit' osascript -e 'tell application '"Finder"' to delay 20' osascript -e 'tell application '"iPhoto"' to activate' What this little file does is run a batch of Unix command that call Applescript from within the Unix environment to quit iPhoto if it’s running, wait 20 seconds to give it time to quit, and then restart it. That’s it. Save the file as “restart_iPhoto.sh” to your /User folder and then open Terminal. You need to turn this text file into an executable script so type chmod u+x ~/restart_iPhoto.sh and hit Return. From the prompt, type restart_iPhoto.sh and Return. This should quit iPhoto (if it’s running), pause, then launch it again. Now to set up a schedule. You could download Cronnix to this computer too, but here’s the Unix way of manipulating cron. In another text file, type the following: #minute hour mday month wday sh 30 01 * * * sh /Volumes/Neptune/restart_iPhoto.sh Substitute your own path/to/file.sh. Save the text file as “restartiPhotocron”. Now, back in Terminal, type crontab /Volumes/Neptune/restartiPhotocron and hit Return. Type crontab -l to make sure that it went in correctly and you’re all set. Now, ever day at 1:30 am, the server will quit and restart iPhoto. Because this will run two hours after the rsync, this gives plenty of time for all the copying to be finished first. Final steps The last step is to turn on Sharing in iPhoto on the server. First, you need to open a hole in the firewall for iPhoto to see through, so open up “System Preferences” on the server and then click on “Sharing”. This time, click on the “Firewall” tab. Check the box next to “iPhoto Bonjour Sharing.” Quit “System Preferences” and switch to iPhoto. Click on “Sharing” and then select “Share my photos”. In my case, I chose to share all my photos (may as well since you copied them all over there), and then set my shared name to “Server’s photos”. You can require a password for access if you want. Go back to your other Mac, open up iPhoto, and if you have “look for shared photos” set in your preferences, you should see “Server’s photos” in the source list. You’re done! Epilogue and final thoughts With a little experimenting, I’m sure this method could be adapted for iTunes and other programs that keep a library of files and share them out. I’m also sure that some of these steps are a bit of kludge and that an experience Unix and/or scripting guru could clean my method up a lot (after he shakes his head in disgust at this mess). On the other hand, I had fun figuring this out on my own and learning quite a bit in the process, which is half the reason I do it. (The other half is that great feeling of satisfaction knowing that you were able to go from “I wish I could…” to “I did it!” ) Any comments, questions, and most importantly corrections and advice would be greatly appreciated in the comments below. Update (Apr 9, 07 11:20 pm): I think the rsync command I'm using needs to be adjusted a little in order to ensure that it's syncing everything in the folders of the iPhoto library. This should work: rsync -azv --delete --exclude '.DS_Store' /Users/domenicbettinelli/Pictures/iPhoto_Library_1 dombett@10.0.1.187:/Volumes/Neptune/Pictures. You have to take the trailing slashes off the source and destination. The other problem I've encountered is if a user is still sharing the library, the program on the server won't quit. I need to find a way in Applescript to make it quit, which I'm sure is possible even if I have to resort to the brute method of a kill command. Update (Apr 10, 07 5:14 pm): Jason advises in the comments that we should add the -E attribute to the rsync command in order to make all the proper Mac OS X metadata gets copied as well so that it would take this form: rsync -azvE --delete --exclude ‘.DS_Store’ "source" "dest" http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/weblog/comments/mac_tip_one_iphoto_library_to_rule_them_all/ ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #121 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype it's also frontrow. From the terminal, ssh to the Apple TV: ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local Now remount root as read / write. (Enter frontrow for the password.) sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/disk0s3 / At this point you can use Fugu (our scp file transfer frontend) if you prefer. Otherwise, use the commandline scp to copy the following files to the Apple TV. But before you can preform this step you need to mount all the DMGs you downloaded and uncompress ATFiles so you can have the necessary files handy. Now, copy the ATVFiles plugin, Perian and AC3 QuickTime components to the Apple TV. (As always, depending on the location of these files your command will differ.) scp -1 -r /Users/Engadget/Downloads/ATVFiles-0.2.1/ATVFiles.frappliance/ frontrow@AppleTV.local:~ scp -1 -r /Volumes/Perian 0.5/Perian.component frontrow@AppleTV.local:~ scp -1 -r /Volumes/A52Codec 1.7.2/A52Codec.component frontrow@AppleTV.local:~ If you have the MPEG-2 QuickTime component then you can copy that too, but otherwise it's probably not worth the $20. scp -1 -r /System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeMPEG2.component/ frontrow@AppleTV.local:~ Now we need to use ssh to move the files to the proper directory so QuickTime can find them. ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local sudo mv ATVFiles.frappliance/ /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns sudo mv Perian.component/ /Library/QuickTime/ sudo mv A52Codec.component/ /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/ sudo mv QuickTimeMPEG2.component/ /System/Library/QuickTime/ Now we need to restart Finder so it will load the plugin, you could pull the power (easy way) or you could run a couple commands (slightly less easy way). Here those are, if you're paranoid about unplugging your unit; find the pid to kill: ps ax | grep Finder This will return a line with the pid for finder. Now kill Finder's pid. (Ours was 512 when we wrote this.) kill 512 After Finder restarts we will see a new menu item named Files, which allows us to play movies stored in /Users/frontrow/Movies on the Apple TV. So we'll copy a movie there, shall we? (Again you can use scp, or Fugu if you prefer.) scp -1 ~/Movies/Gothika_480p_XviD.avi frontrow@AppleTV.local:~/Movies/ All you have to do is select the clip to play from the files menu. You're AppleTV is all set now! Full instructions w/ pix are available at: http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/how-to-play-divx-and-xvid-on-your-apple-tv ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast Video Review #2 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: Enjoy a video review of the new iPod game iQuiz. It costs only $0.99 and is available from the iTunes Store. ************** Tech news: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** How To: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #120 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: There are currently no items of note. ************** Tech news: Apple rumored to be working on iWeb Pro. According to an unconfirmed report via macrumors.com, Apple is working on a higher end web authoring application to complement iWeb. "iWeb Pro" is said to offer an easy to use web authoring interface for small to mid sized companies. While the current version of iWeb is more of a complementary tool to .Mac, "iWeb Pro" is said to be a complete stand alone product. Vista sales propel Microsoft's profit to $4.93 billion. Microsoft Corp. posted a 65 percent rise in quarterly profit, topping Wall Street estimates from better than expected demand for the Windows Vista operating system. "The strength of Vista is really driving this," said Kim Caughey, analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. She added that the company had set "manageable expectations for the full year 2008, which generally allows them some headroom." March NPD sales data shows Nintendo beating competition. The Wii has dominated hardware sales in January and then performed a repeat performance in February. Nintendo has gone three in a row, as they dominated the competition for a third straight month with both the DS and Wii. The hardware sales break down to the DS selling 508,000 units and the Wii selling 259,000 units. This brings the Wii to a total of 2.1 million consoles. In comparison, the PS3 sold only 130,000 during the month and its total is almost half of Nintendo's at 1.2 million consoles. The Xbox 360 sold 199,000 during the month, for anyone keeping track. ************** Test a geek: Enjoy 3 more trivia questions. ************** How To: Get Vista Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows XP It was only a matter of time before people started cloning Windows Vista features and adding them into Windows XP. One of the more favorite Vista features is the thumbnails that popup when you mouse over the taskbar. And now you can use them in XP as well. The utility used for this is called Visual Tooltip, which is a hybrid dock / thumbnail applicaton. With a few tweaks to the settings, we can make it work just like Vista thumbnails. To make your thumbnails look the same as mine, just follow these couple of steps. Download and start the application, and open up the options from the tray icon. Increase the size of the sliders to make the thumbnail bigger, and then uncheck the option for “Size proportional to the target window”. Click on the Display tab, and then uncheck the “Show window title” That’s all there is to it. Download Visual Tooltip 2.1 at http://chsalmon.club.fr/index.php?en/Visual-tooltip-about ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: MAC: Make Skype video larger, for free. Skype video is great but if you want to get a bigger picture, it's not so easy. Luckily with a few small changes to configuration files, you can make your video instantly bigger. You need to upgrade to the latest Skype release (2.5.0.85 or later for mac and 3.0.0.216 for PC), quit Skype, and then edit the config.xml file in your settings directory ("~/Library/Application Support/Skype/[skypeusername]/" in OS X). You should see an entry that looks similar to:

   Built-in iSight
 Modify that to read:

   640
   480
   Built-in iSight
 When you've finished, your contacts will be seeing you in glorious 640x480 instead of the standard 320x240. PC: Install the latest public version of Skype 3.0 or newer for Windows. Open config.xml in Skype settings directory. Find the section under / . Add the following additional parameters in it. (It probably already has some other settings in , just leave those there.) 480 640 ATI T200 AVStream Analog Capture 25 https://developer.skype.com/SkypeGarage/SkypeForWindowsExperimental/HighQualityVideoCalls ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #119 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype just ask Internet Explorer. Today, Apple's browser of choice is Safari, based in part on the open source KHTML codebase and enhanced regularly through Apple's WebKit project. It's a fast browser but sometimes, Safari can slow to a crawl depending on a variety of factors. Here are some ways you can speed up Safari and take it's speed to the next level: Remove cached files in ~/Library/Safari, particularly the cached favicon data files. Remove the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist preference file (implicated in slow launch times). Turn off AutoFill to improve browsing speed on pages with many text forms. You can shorten the names of bookmarks to improve bookmark loading. The original article from MacFixIt.com has many more tips including using the Activity Window (available under the Window menu or via Command-Option-A) to monitor individual page elements as they load and enabling Safari's Debug menu to reveal an option for examining some of Safari's internal caches, including its JavaScript cache. To read the entire article and speed up Safari even further, check out the full text at http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20070416000657464 ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: Boost your wifi signal with an asian strainer When working on your computer and borrowing open wifi, you may need to boost your computer's ability to pick up signals so you can get your things done. You can make a common WiFi Thumbdrive into a beefy wifi extender with little work and it's an easy setup. Currently one of the better ways to make a parabolic antenna is with an asian cooking strainer. People have reported 20% better wifi with this little hack. Items you need: a) Cooking strainer from Asian food market. The strainer must be parabolic and have a tight mesh. A wooden handle on it will help with mounting. b) USB Wireless Thumb Drive (g or b/g) c) USB extension wire Building the unit: 1. Using cutters or snips, cut out a hole JUST big enough for the USB extension cord in the middle of the strainer. 2. Squeeze the tip of the USB cord through hole. 3. Adjust everything so the thumbdrive is at the FOCAL POINT of the parabola. 4. Fasten the USB cord in to place. Testing the Signal Strainer: 1) Find your favorite access point. 2) Get as far away as possible while keeping line-of-sight. 3) Use software like NetStumbler to see the signal strength. 4) Adjust your Signal Strainer where necessary. Overall you should get better signal strength and see the difference in NetStumbler. You also may pick up access points you never knew were around! Check out the entire how-to along with pictures at http://www.instructables.com/id/EC0S9C3F0HPZCGN/?ALLSTEPS ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #118 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: Enjoy I Love My iPod by Daphne Kalfon. You can learn more about Daphne at http://www.ilovemyipodthesong.com or get your own copy on the iTunes Music Stores. Enjoy a fun retro ad I created in GarageBand. ************** Tech news: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Test a geek: Enjoy another edition of Test A Geek on this episode. ************** How To: Find royalty-free pictures for your projects When building a website or writing an article for a publication, it is very important to have pictures to use for your projects. Normally when newspapers or professional builders need an image, they use a subscription to one of the many wire services out there such as Getty Images. These services work great but if you don't have a large budget to work with, your options may be limited. A couple of websites have cropped up within the past few years to offer royalty-free images that fall under the Creative Commons license. The first website is www.everystockphoto.com. This website is an aggregator used to search the web for all creative commons photos. The site targets designers, developers, photographers and other media publishers who want better, easier access to license-specific media on the web. Everystockphoto.com takes your search and returns results that allow you to use the images as you see fit while working within fantastic rights management guidelines. The site features an integrated search, allowing users to bookmark their photos with private and public tags. The site is also working on other social networking aspects such as rating systems and recommendations. The site is easy to use and returns very relevant results. You can try it for yourself at http://www.everystockphoto.com/ A secondary site that you will definily want to check out is the Stock Xchng. This site is one of the many searched by Everystockphoto.com and comes up near the top of most searches. This site has tons of content that should please even the obscure searches. In addition to search you can browse through the categories of their huge gallery containing over 250.000 stock photos by more than 25,000 photographers. The pictures are high quality and clearly show the rights you are allowed to use them with. In addition to supplying pictures there is a forum as well to get answers to whatever questions you may have. Both of these sites are free and allow you to get great pictures. You can check out Stock Xchng at http://www.sxc.hu/ ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: Replace the hard drive in your iPod With Apple announcing today that over 100 million iPods being sold, there are plenty of people out there who have older versions that need some upgrading. As time goes on your drive will wear down and could need to be replaced. Other people may just want more space on their player. The following is an excerpt from a fantastic tutorial I found online. Read the entire hack at http://www.command-tab.com/2007/03/11/upgrading-ipod-hard-drives/ What to Buy Which hard drive to buy depends on your specific iPod model, so like any half-decent attempt at an upgrade, a little research will be necessary before purchasing. The main factor that will affect your decision is the height, or thickness, of both the iPod and hard drive. Since day one of the iPod launch, Toshiba has produced all the hard drives employed in the full size iPod lineup. As technology advances, however, the capacity of each platter increases while the dimensions remain fixed. This is good news for iPod upgraders — the longer you wait, the more you can store. Apple’s iPods are fairly easy to find a matching replacement/upgrade hard drive for, as you can generally tell which thickness drive you need just by holding the device in your hand. If your iPod was the thicker of the series when you purchased it, it takes the thicker, two-platter hard drive (examples include the higher capacity models such as 40 GB iPod and 60 GB iPod photo). The thinner models (like the 15 GB iPod and 30 GB iPod photo) take the thinner hard drives. The new iPods with video capability are a different beast, as the drive technology and space requirements have demanded smaller hardware. With that in mind, Toshiba engineered a new connector on recent drives that is vastly smaller than the previous models. These new drives sport a Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) connector, which, unlike the older iPods, requires no pressure to connect the cable. Simply holding the hair-thin ribbon cable in place and folding down a clamp-like lock will secure all 40 pins in a staggeringly small — and fragile! — connector. The connector on the new iPods’ logic boards is now no wider than your thumbnail, and it, too is quite delicate. Such is the way of ever-shrinking consumer electronics. Tools of the Trade Before you decide on a hard drive, you’ll also want to purchase a few tools to ensure the job gets done right. While you’re able to pry most iPods apart using a tool as simple as a butter knife, the professionals use the following to make entry, upgrading, and close-up as seamless as possible. Apple’s “black stick” This nylon-based pry tool is key to almost any iPod upgrade, as it provides a strong lever to get into the edges of the case, while its plastic properties leave next to no marks or chewed-up spots along the edges. Best bought from Stanley Supply & Services. IC puller or hemostats (both available at your local RadioShack) A straight razor blade (for 5G iPods) Picking a Hard Drive Depending on your iPod thickness and model, you can choose from the hard drives in the article. You can find many of the drives on eBay and online retailers, but the most prevalent ones will be models used in iPods that shipped in the past. Opening the iPod 1G through 4G iPods aren’t as tough to open as the newer 5G and later iPods, and can be popped open by pushing the metal backing one way while pulling the plastic front the opposite way. In doing so, you create a small gap where you can slide in the nylon pry tool and undo the five plastic clips along one of the two longer sides. The inside top and bottom of all iPods are not secured. Other World Computing has some detailed take-apart videos which should help give you a good idea of exactly how to get inside. To open a 5G or later iPod, try the first technique above, and use a razor as a last resort. Once the tool is in and has a little room to work, carefully remove the razor and set it aside. Use the pry tool to work the rest of the side open. The Switch After cracking the side of the iPod open, carefully disconnect any audio jack or battery ribbon cables attached to the back panel. Undoing these connectors often requires the use of the nylon pry tool again, or careful pulling with hemostats. The hard drive is then exposed. Install the new hard drive in the same direction as the old one, making sure all pins and plastic guides line up perfectly. Move the metal back panel close to the iPod and reconnect all the cables you unhooked to get into the device, and snap the panel back onto the plastic clips. Restoring in Disk Mode Pressing any button will power on your iPod, and you should be able to hear the new drive spin up. Unless the drive is preloaded with the correct software you will get a “sad iPod” face. This is OK. Reset your iPod and immediately hold the Disk Mode keys as soon as the screen blanks for the reboot. After it’s detected, iTunes will load the proper software onto your iPod, and it will be as good as new and with more capacity! ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #117 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: Welcome back to The Geekcast! ************** Today's episode features a conversation between myself and Phil Zaninni of Mac Nation. Visit Mac Nation at http://www.macphilly.com/wordpress/ As per the show, here is the code if you want to use XPad: Name: xPad User Email: support@getxpad.com Code: X6893-2055-5686-9378 **************

The Geekcast Announcement 3/22/07 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast I'm still here, just no new shows due to that pesky life thing.

The Geekcast #116 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: I'm not feeling so great today, so this will be a short episode. ************** Tech news: Tech news will return next time. ************** Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** How To: Manage duplicate songs in iTunes iTunes has many useful features that make it one of the best music managers out there. Even better is that both mac and PC users can take advantage of it's feature set. One of the hidden utilities in iTunes is the ability to view duplicate files. The reason you may want to do this is if you have CD's from one artist that perhaps has the same song on both. Duplicate songs take up extra space and also can throw off any smart playlists you have if you're constantly alternating between which version you're listening to. To view all duplicate files, click View, Show Duplicates. At this point your library will only show the duplicate files. You can now go through the files and delete anything you have that isn't needed. It's recommended to listen to the tracks first, just to be sure you're not removing a song that has a live version or an alternate version you like. Some songs can be named the same thing but sound different when listening. By going through this area, you free up space and keep your library neat and organized. ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #115 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: There are currently no items of note. ************** Tech news: AT&T/Cingular May Give Away 18 Months of iPhone Service. Jim Cramer from RealMoney.com has notes from AT&T regarding their plans for the iPhone. His column suggests that AT&T will be using the iPhone to aggressively target customers and implies that they will provide significant discounts in service. He believes a strategy is coming where the iPhone's $500 price is preserved but the service contract is greatly reduced. Dell Begins Selling Desktops Without Windows Pre-installed. The n Series Desktops come with a Pentium D or Athlon X2, and an unformatted hard drive ready for Linux, BSD, or any other free OS. Dell advertises that their new open-source n Series desktop solution provides customers with a DimensionTM E520, E521 or C521 desktop without an installed or included Microsoft OS. An added benefit to this program is that it will help reduce the price of this system. Dell's n Series will ship with a copy of FreeDos. One in five Windows installs are non-genuine. Microsoft disclosed Monday that over one in five Windows installations were deemed non-genuine through the company's Windows Genuine Advantage program, which requires users to validate their operating system before downloading updates from the company. Since WGA launched in July 2005, over 512 million users have attempted to validate their copy of Windows, Microsoft said. Of those, the non-genuine rate was 22.3 percent. 56,000 reports have been made by customers of counterfeit software, which grants that user a free replacement copy of Windows. While high, that number is less than the average software piracy rate around the world, according to the Business Software Alliance. The BSA reports that 35 percent of the world's software is pirated and a Yankee Group study noted that 55 percent of organizations report instances of counterfeit or pirated software. Universal and Sony prohibit Zune sharing for certain artists. Sony Music and Universal Music Group are marking certain artists of theirs as "prohibited" for sharing, meaning that certain tracks you've purchased from the Zune Marketplace will not be able to be transferred to another Zune via it's highly-touted sharing feature. It looks like it's roughly 40-50 percent of artists that fall under this prohibited banner, and the worst news is that there's no warning that a song might be unsharable until you actually try to send it and fail. Music industry divided over digital future. With global music sales down for a seventh straight year, the talk at an annual industry meeting in Cannes, France, has become heated over how to develop digital sales against competition, particularly illegal downloads. Global sales are expected to be down again for 2006 despite digital sales almost doubling to $2 billion and the popularity of music being as strong as ever. Critics of the major players in the industry argue that they have been distracted by the fight against piracy and in doing so, hindered the growth of the legal business. In response, the accused argue that they had little choice. ************** Test a geek: Enjoy another edition of Test A Geek on this episode. ************** How To: Send anonymous text messages If you've ever wanted to send a text message to someone and you didn't have a cell phone, this website is the place for you. AnonTxt is a simple website that allows you to send a text message to anyone's cell phone in only 3 easy steps. The advantage of using AnonTxt is that the message is sent anonymously so you don't need to worry about anything being traced back to your phone. The website is straight forward and simple to use. The first item you fill in is your name or an alias. It's important to remember that AnonTxt appends their name to any message they send, so be sure to remember this before you send it. Once you put that in, place a subject into the second spot. Finally, enter their 10-digit number. Once you're done, hit send and it's off to their phone. You can have some fun with your friends and send them some funny messages using this service. As always, AnonTxt is free and can be found at www.anontxt.com ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: Recover missing Address Book data in OsX A person's address book is one of those items that is very hard to replace. With these databases carrying all our data, we don't remember phone numbers anymore and it's tough to keep track of everyone we come in contact with in our lives. It's important to backup the data in your address book but unfortunately, many of us don't backup. Luckily for all OsX users, you can recover lost data from your address book even if you didn't back it up. BTW, to back it up the folder you'll want to include is ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. Recovery of your address book is simple if you didn't do this. Here's what you can try: Address Book is smart. It keeps a little backup of its own in a AddressBook.data.previous file inside the directory mentioned. To restore it, all you need to do is quit Address Book, delete the dead AddressBook.data file and rename the backup to AddressBook.data. At this point when you re-open the application, your data should now be back. Good luck! ************** The geek's view: **************

The Geekcast #114 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: There are currently no items of note. ************** Tech news: Apple posts profit of $1 billion, sells 21 million iPods. Apple said Wednesday that results for its fiscal 2007 first quarter ended December 30, 2006 included record revenue of $7.1 billion. "We are incredibly pleased to report record quarterly revenue of over $7 billion and record earnings of $1 billion," said Steve Jobs. "We've just kicked off what is going to be a very strong new product year for Apple by launching Apple TV and the revolutionary iPhone." During the quarter, Apple shipped 1,606,000 Macintosh computers and 21,066,000 iPods, representing 28 percent growth in Macs and 50 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter. Apple to air 'special' Super Bowl ad on Feb. 4. A deal between Apple Inc. and Apple Corps to bring the legendary music catalog of The Beatles to iTunes could see an announcement in the form of a Super Bowl commercial, according to a report published Wednesday. Citing "sources with knowledge of the project," the Toronto Sun said remastered tracks from the Fab Four's catalog are slated to be made available for downloading from Apple's iTunes Store as soon as next month. The Sun also reported that the arrangement between the two Apples is for an exclusive three-month restricted distribution deal through iTunes that would likely prolong the release the actual remastered CDs. ************** Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** How To: Save money on college textbooks The idea: sell cheaper books to students, bypass the textbook monopolies—and make money Anyone who's bought textbooks from their college bookstore knows the frustration of how much the books cost. Even more frustrating is the ridiculous buyback policy the stores have. The phrase "a new edition is out" is the worst thing to hear when selling back to the store. Nothing is more useless than an outdated Calculous book. Now a group of small Web sites is trying to provide students with a cheaper alternative. One of the up and coming sites is called Chegg.com. Chegg allows students to buy and sell used textbooks and other school-related goods and services for free. It's a huge market, generating $11 billion in revenue and $3 billion in profit a year. Chegg provides goods at lower prices than traditional campus outlets. While the margins on used textbooks are often as high as 40%, a $100 textbook that might be resold at the campus bookstore for $70 would go for about $50 on Chegg. This is a deal for the buyer and more money in the pocket of the seller. Users of Chegg say they can cut their expenses by a few hundred dollars. To use Chegg, you simply register for an account and list your books. The listings are campus-specific so that you aren't mailing heavy books through expensive shipping services. Once your books are listed, people on your campus can search for books and find what you're offering. If you list your book for less than the store but more than the buyback, it is a win-win situation. Once someone locates your books, they send a payment via the site and you deliver the books in person. Chegg is a simple concept that can save lots of money for all involved. It's a free site and can make the life of a student much easier. Check it out at www.chegg.com Parts from businessweek.com ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: Snap Snap is a small program that runs in your Windows system tray. To keep all your windows organized, Snap takes all windows and causes them to snap to each other and the desktop while moving/sizing. You can hold down ALT while sizing/moving to toggle off snapping. The program is small, works extremely well and is one of those utilities that just does its thing and leaves you alone. It's a fantastic little program and of course is free. Check it out at: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~iheckman/allsnap **************

The Geekcast #113 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype they can't be played in a CD or DVD player. Restoring from a backup disc 1. Open iTunes. 2. Insert your backup disc. 3. iTunes will ask whether you want to restore from this disc. Click Restore. ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast Special Annoucement Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: This is a quick note to tell you that the show will be back in full force on 1/2/07 or 1/3/07.

The Geekcast #112 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: This is a quick edition of The Geekcast. Enjoy a little tech and an easter egg at the end of the show. ************** Tech news: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Test a geek: Three questions, three answers. Enjoy a brand new edition of our quiz segment. ************** How To: Free up space in GMail GMail is fantastic in the amount of storage space you have but at times you want to clear it out. There are filters you can use to help delete messages off of GMail but not delete something important. 1. Start big and narrow down. The trick that works best is to first delete stuff that you absolutely know you would never miss and then narrow down deletions to stuff more on the borderline. It's both safer and faster. 2. Add labels to certain senders to avoid losing important emails. You know there are people whose emails you want to keep about 99% of the time. Create a filter that only shows messages that are from that certain group of people. You can use Gmail's advanced search operators to do so using the "or" (|) operator. For example, From: john | paul | ringo | george returns all emails from either John, Paul, Ringo or George. Set your filter to label those messages with a good, safe name. I used "nodelete." Careful: Although the OR operator should include all messages from everyone included in the search, it acts a little quirky and sometimes leaves out messages that should, in theory, be included. Since you're doing this for the sheer purpose of protecting your messages, it might be safer to create your filters one name at a time. Now you can exclude all messages in this label from your upcoming search and destroy missions. 3. Eliminate heinous offenders. Although the has:attachment search operator yields a good list of space-hogging messages, it does not give you the option to sort by file size. So, with 2.7GB of email to sort through, it's pretty worthless. But, you can search by file type and narrow down file sizes a bit that way. You can use the following search phrases: filename:wmv -label:nodelete filename:mov -label:nodelete filename:mp3 -label:nodelete (this one can be weak since MP3 is common in text) filename:doc -label:nodelete filename:pdf -label:nodelete For each of those phrases, go through the message and decide what to delete. This is the most time-consuming step, but it's not that hard. Remember that if you press shift while selecting two messages, Gmail will select all messages in between. That's useful for big chunks of messages to go. 4. Delete stupid forwards. You should have a filter to label all Fw:, Fwd:, Forward:, etc. emails with a Forwards label. Create such a filter by simply specifying the common forward subject lines listed above. Then, use this search string: label:forward -label:nodelete and start deleting manually. 5. Delete emails from people that send you nothing but junk. 6. Carefully delete emails from those people in your nodelete label. 7. Empty trash and delete spam. Gmail does not do this automatically, so don't forget to throw out the trash when you're done and go ahead and empty your spam while you're at it (even though spam doesn't affect your quota). This also gives you one last chance to give your deletions a glance to see if you deleted anything you didn't mean to delete. Tip via lifehacker.com ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #111 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: There are currently no items of note. ************** Tech news: Microsoft Vista Goes Gold. After five years Microsoft has said that development of Windows Vista is complete. Windows chief Jim Allchin said Microsoft signed off on the code less than an hour ago. "It's rock solid and we're ready to ship. This is a good day," Allchin said in a conference call. Allchin said Vista will go on sale to consumers Jan. 30. He said that Microsoft is releasing Vista in five languages. The French, Spanish, and Japanese versions were actually signed off on before the English version. The software maker has scheduled a November 30 press conference to announce the new operating system, along with Office 2007. The release of Vista will mark the first full fledged update since Windows XP in 2001. MacBook's get Intel Core 2 Duo Processors. Apple has released new MacBooks featuring the Core 2 Duo. The newest member of the Apple portable family comes in three configurations: white 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz, and black 2.0 GHz. Apple claims these new chips give up to a 25% boost over the previous MacBooks. The top of the line model also features a 1GB of RAM standard, a double layer SuperDrive, and 4MB shared L2 cache (as opposed to 2MB in the other models). The entry level machine starts at $1,099. Don't Want to Get Sued by the RIAA? Just Disable Wi-Fi Security! OUT-LAW.COM has reported that Tammie Marson of Palm Desert, California responded to a file-sharing lawsuit from the RIAA by stating that her wireless network was not secure, and that therefore the file sharing seen on her network could have been from any passerby. The defense worked, and the RIAA dropped the case. As an El Reg article points out, "If this becomes a popular defense, it could seriously hamper a huge number of file-sharing lawsuits taken in the US against individuals. It also looks to be a trend in defense against movie file-sharing lawsuits." Microsoft plans to shut down its MSN Music Store this month. A report on CNet's News.com claims that the store originally launched in a doomed attempt to battle iTunes will soon begin directing music fans to either the Zune Marketplace or RealNetworks Rhapsody websites. This is poor news for Microsoft's existing hardware partners, as it clearly shows that for Redmond, support of the 'Plays for sure' program is waning as the company applies its muscle into its Zune player. While MSN Music says that people who have already purchased songs in the WMA format will still be able to use their songs, it clearly also shows the threat proprietary standards expose users to, should parent companies decide to withdraw support for them in future. TWIT Lives On. In response to all the postings about the possible death of the TWIT podcast, Leo Laporte has posted on the TWiT.tv website saying the show will continue. He writes: "I had no idea what a storm my little sentence would generate. Hey, I was tired, dispirited, and trying to figure out how to do a show without any contributors. I really didn't mean to scare you! Thanks so much! I've exchanged emails with all the TWiTs and we've agreed to keep the show going, with some new systems in place to reduce burn out (including my own) and keep the shows fresh." ************** Test a geek: Three questions, three answers. Enjoy a brand new edition of our quiz segment. ************** How To: The Windows File Shredder When you delete files from your computer, the file itself is not deleted. You only delete it's entry on your harddrives 'table of contents'. This is how people like the FBI can recover files from a computer. If you have sensitive data that must be fully deleted, there is a way to have a file 'shredder' on your system that will not just delete it's TOC entry but also overwrite the file itself with 0's and 1's so that the file is gone forever. The shredder consists of two items: The SDelete utility, freely available from Sysinternals, and also a small batch script that you will write in Notepad. First, download SDelete onto your computer and save the SDelete.exe in your C:WINDOWSsystem32 directory. Now we will create a batch script that will make our shredder. Open Notepad and enter the following: @echo off echo .* * *W A R N I N G * * * echo . echo .The File(s)/Folders(s) Will Be Permanently Deleted! echo . echo .Press CTRL-C to Abort and Terminate Batch Job Or... echo . pause sdelete -p 4 -s %1 pause Once you have this in your document, save the file as shred.bat on your desktop right next to your Recycling Bin. Now any time you want to delete a file, just drag and drop those sensitive files onto the icon to make them disappear forever! Please keep in mind that this will do the job for most people but if your data is extremely sensitive, you may need an alternate solution. Also please note that any file you 'shred' will almost certainly be gone forever, so be sure you want to delete it. ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: How to Save a Wet Cell Phone Ever dropped your cell phone in the sink, or even worse the toilet? Did you ever leave it in your pocket and run it through the washer? It usually means you have to replace your phone, but sometimes if you're fast you can save the phone. Before we begin, please note that this WILL void your warranty and this may make the phone even worse. Please know that you take all responsibility by performing the steps below and I am not responsible for your phone or any injury you may sustain from this. Here's what you have to do: 1. Remove the Battery. This is one of the most important steps. Cutting power to your phone is a crucial first step in saving it, then remove your SIM card, some or all of your valuable contacts could be stored on your SIM. 2. Dry your phone. You need to remove as much of the water as soon as you can to prevent it from getting into the phone. Use a towel or a paper towel to remove as much of the water as possible. 3. Allow the phone to dry. Since you do not want to ruin your phone or lose all the numbers in your phone book, you need to allow the phone to dry. Also, ringtones and graphics stay with the phone, not the SIM. Also, don't try putting the battery back on to see if it works as this would risk damaging the phone with a short circuit. Leaving your phone in a bowl of dry rice will help to expedite moisture evaporation. 4. Heat your phone. Apply enough heat to your phone to cause the water to evaporate without water-logging your digital screen. One of the best things you can do to save a cell phone is to set it on the back of your computer monitor or TV screen over the heat vents. This is usually the perfect amount of heat to fix your phone. The convection action of the heat vents will help carry away the moisture in your phone. Leave the phone on the heat for at least 2-3 days. 5. Test your Phone. After you have waited 3 days, make sure everything is clean and dry looking and re-attach the battery to the phone and see if it works. If your phone does not work repeat step 4. If it still won't work, try taking your cell phone to an authorized dealer. Sometimes they can fix it. Alternative Alcohol Soak Method: 1. Soak your phone in Alcohol. Alcohol attracts water and it will dissolve all the water in the phone, which will then pour out of the phone with the alcohol. Any remaining alcohol will evaporate. Alcohol will not harm your phone but may mess up glue from stickers and the like. Use 95% alcohol, not the regular 70% rubbing type. Do it outside!. Be sure to remove your battery first. When done, leave your phone outside for a day or two to dry. Warnings: Don't heat the battery or it could leak acid. If you use an oven or hairdryer, make sure to remove the battery first. If you use alcohol make sure to do so outside, and do not apply heat in any form, not even the gentle heat of a monitor. Do not hook up the battery till the alcohol smell dissipates. Do not apply too much heat to your phone as mentioned above. You don't want to melt or burn your phone. ************** The geek's view: Hacking Democracy With election season here, and just passing, it was interesting that HBO decided to run a documentary about electronic voting and its flaws. The movie is an hour and a half long and follows a woman who is an advocate against electronic voting. The movie begins with the findings that a woman was able to download the source code of the Diebold voting machines and then see that it is not secure. The process for the machines allows for only the company manufacturing it, to know how it works. Auditing companies, government offices and the public are not allowed to know how the software works, due to it being a trade secret. As flaws in the software are found, the woman begins trying to get answers to how this could happen and to make sure elections are not rigged. Diebold is represented in this feature, being seen giving a presentation to a local government to get them to by their voting machines, along with footage of a California hearing about their alleged fraud. The experiences of the involved parties are very interesting, ranging from a Florida office illegally throwing out 1-week-old voting audit records, to Ohio recounts that look fishy, to the exact way the machine can be hacked and not show up on any audits. Hacking Democracy is on HBO. Check your TV Guide, TiVo listings or the link below for more information. http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/index.html **************

The Geekcast #110 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype Caches - DashboardClient folder, you'll find that the Dashboard cache can be very big. Some users report that their cache can be in excess of 20mb, which is not needed and these files are what hinder the performance of Dashboard. To speed it back up again, delete all the files in the DashboardClient folder. Dashboard now loads almost instantaneously and will have a noticeable performance boost. ************** Ask A Geek: Sam asks: Hey Aaron, ive been working on a pc platform for ages, but I'm really looking to buy a mac now. I was wondering which mac you thought would work best. I'm gonna be doing mostly web authoring but some audio, image and video manipulation. Answer: When it comes to buying a mac, your tasks are the first thing you should check into. The fact that you're going to be working with a lot of media and crunching numbers with rendering, dictates a lot. If you are going to be doing this semi-professionally, a mid-range or high-end iMac should do the job. If you're going to be working with mostly video then you'll want to get as much processor speed and RAM as possible. A big harddrive doesn't hurt either. In this realm, you'll want to go for an iMac stuffed to the gills with add-ons or bump up to the Mac Pro. Your best bet is to head into an Apple Store and speak to a specialist. Unlike many stores, they will not try to up-sell you to a system you don't need and you'll get exactly what you want. Don't forget to use the student discount! ************** Hack: Cleaning your keyboard. Cleaning your keyboard falls into the hacking category because many people just wipe the surface of their keys and that's it. Today we're going deeper. We're going to go under the keys and not give up and replace the keyboard. Every year or so, you'll notice there are spots on your keyboard where some grime has built up. Additionally, all the crumbs, dust and hair around your computer gets under the keys as well. We'll want to get our keys back to factory condition and have a nice clean surface for our fingers. Before we begin, a few things: 1. This may void your warranty or damage your keyboard. Proceed at your own risk. 2. NEVER work on your keyboard while it is plugged into your computer or with the batteries in it if it's cordless. 3. You will need some paper towels, a flathead screwdriver, windex, and if you have some, a can of compressed air. The first thing we'll want to do is make sure we can reassemble the keys in the correct order. You will be surprised how hard the layout of the keys can be when you don't have a reference. Your best solution is to take a quick picture on your digital camera and get the picture on your computer, so we have a map later on. To remove the keys, take the screwdriver and place it under the key on one side. Gently pry the key up. It will easily pop off. All the normal square keys should come off within a minute or two. The rectangle keys and the spacebar can be a little more complicated. Some keyboards have metal bars or additional support for these keys, so be sure to pay attention to how the key is attached before you remove it. Take notes if you need to. Once the keys are removed you'll want to empty the board of the junk in it. Flipping it upside-down over a garbage pail works great or you can use a vacuum, being careful not to suck up a loose part or damage the board. This is when the compressed air can be handy. Once the board is clean, we can clean the keys. You should spray a paper towel with Windex and wipe each key clean. NEVER spray anything into your keyboard!!! Wipe down each key. Be sure to use a cleaner that is not abrasive or will remove the letters on each key. Allow each key to fully dry. After everything is clean and dry, it's time to reassemble. Load up the picture we took at the beginning so we have a point of reference. Take a key and line it up onto the space it belongs. Gently but firmly, press the key down as if you were typing on it. You will hear the key click into place. Be sure to push squarely down and not on an angle. Once the key is attached, you may want to press it once or twice in Word or Notepad to be sure you put it in the right place and that it works. Repeat this 108 times more and you're keyboard will be ready to go! Be sure to test the keys as you go so your letters are in the right spot. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #109 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: With the fall being a busy time for me and slow in the tech realm, this will be the first Geekcast Short editions until more time is free and more is going on in the tech world. This updated format will allow me to put out episodes as frequent as I want, without spending many hours just searching for content. Listener feedback: Alistair e-mailed me with the following message: Just a thought on the Gmail HTTPS hack on Geekcast 107 and how this is not actually going to increase security unless you are using it in basic HTML mode, that most people will not. The standard Gmail system appears to be implemented the an Ajax implementation where the actual email data is passed in the background using Javascript. The address and protocol used is defined in the Javascript and is not going to change when you change the transfer protocol is changed in the address bar. Although I have not had time to completely disassemble the Gmail front end, it would not surprise me if the email was already encrypted even thought the HTML from end is not. ************** Tech news: Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion. Google announced Monday that it is buying YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, more than 100 million videos online. Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Global Crown Capital, said that Google's purchase of YouTube could be viewed as a preemptive strike against Yahoo, which has been rumored to be in talks to purchase social networking site Facebook. In a statement, Google said YouTube will operate as an independent unit of Google once the deal closes and will retain the YouTube brand name. The companies added that no YouTube workers will lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition and that Google will maintain its own online video business. Steve Jobs To Keynote Macworld San Francisco 2007. Coming as little surprise to veteran Apple watchers, IDG World Expo announced that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would deliver the opening keynote address at Macworld Expo San Francisco. The expo will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center from January 8-12, 2007, with the keynote on Tuesday January 9th at 9 am Pacific at Moscone West. Last year's keynote brought software updates including iLife and iWork 06 and Mac OS X 10.4.4. Also, the first Intel Macs were announced 6 months early in the form of the iMac and MacBook Pro. Microsoft to lock pirates out of Vista PCs. Windows Vista will have new antipiracy technology that locks people out their PCs if the operating system isn't activated within 30 days after installation. If Vista is not activated with a legitimate product registration key in time, the system will run in "reduced functionality mode" until it is activated, said Thomas Lindeman, a senior product manager at Microsoft. In this mode, people will be able to use a Web browser for up to an hour, after which time the system will log them out, he said. The new technology is part of Microsoft's new "Software Protection Platform". It will be part of future versions of all Microsoft products, but debuts in Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn". Those who install Vista themselves, for example on existing PCs, will have a 30-day period to activate the operating system and validate with Microsoft that they have a legitimate license. "During those 30 days, you get warning messages, it counts down. During the last three days they get very frequent," Lindeman said. If ignored, after 30 days Vista will display four options. The first will allow the user to activate online, the second is to run in reduced functionality mode, the third is to enter a product key and the fourth displays instructions to activate by phone, Lindeman said. Microsoft will continue to check if Vista was legitimately acquired, even after activation. This happens, for example, when downloading additional Microsoft programs. Should a license key be deemed illegitimate, the user will be given another 30-day grace period to acquire a legitimate license key, Microsoft said. During this grace period warnings will be displayed and Vista will block access to the Windows Defender antispyware tool, ReadyBoost memory expansion feature and Aero advanced graphics option, Microsoft said. Also, a persistent text will display in the lower right hand of the screen: "This copy of Windows is not genuine." If Vista is not validated after the 30 days, the user will again be locked out. Commodore 64 Games Coming to Wii's Virtual Console. The catalog of retro games available on the Virtual Console continues to grow as Epyx announced that Commodore 64 games will be playable on Nintendo’s new console. The first Commodore 64 games available on the Wii will be: -Impossible Mission 1 & 2 -Winter Games -Summer Games 1 & 2 -Pitstop -Jumpman Junior Apple previews next version of .Mac webmail. Apple is showcasing the next version of the .Mac webmail service. .Mac's webmail has been stuck in 2002 for about 4 years now, so an update will be very nice. The overall UI has been refined, and it looks like Apple is going for a more 'application' like feel using the latest web technology. Drag and drop, message preview, and keyboard shortcuts will be supported. Apple hasn't said when this will see the light of day but it is 'Coming Soon.' Skype lands deal for Wi-Fi access in Europe. Skype's calling service will soon be accessible at The Cloud's Wi-Fi hot spots across Europe, the two companies announced on Tuesday. Although normal online access to Skype's service is free to those connecting via PC, access to The Cloud's Wi-Fi network will require the use of a Skype-enabled phone from SMC Networks and payment of a 6.99-pound monthly service fee (about $13). "We are delighted to partner with SMC Networks and extend the service we provide today with Skype to Wi-Fi-enabled handsets," Niall Murphy, The Cloud's chief technology officer, said on Tuesday. The service will launch in the U.K. in October and spread to other European countries by the end of the year. The Cloud operates more than 8,500 hot spots around Europe. ************** Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** How To: Scroll horizontally on a mac. If you don't have a might mouse, there is a slick scrolling trick built into Mac OS X that allows you to scroll horizontally with any mouse. With a standard scrolling mouse, you can hold the shift key in most applications to scroll horizontally. This has been known to work in Photoshop and Illustrator, NetNewsWire, Firefox, Safari and iTunes as well. Go ahead and try it out! ************** Ask A Geek: YJ Asks: Do you know who is a supplier of goodman usb hubs in the united states? i was looking to buy their new rubik's cube usb hub. Answer: YJ, it seems that the product was announced but no one is selling it yet. Keep an eye on Goodman's website, http://www.gm-tek.com , and call their customer service number if you have other questions for them. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. **************

The Geekcast #108 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype This time to download and install the Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies. It's just a simple download and install. 3. Once you have Remote Calendars installed, open Microsoft Outlook. It may take a while to load the first time you run it after installing Remote Calendars. When Outlook opens, you'll be presented with the Options Screen. You can tweak these as you like, or leave them as the defaults. 4. You'll notice a new toolbar and you'll want to click on the "Subscribe a remote calendar" button (the +.) The dialog prompts you for your Remote calendar's url. 5. In a separate browser, go to calendar.google.com. Click on the down arrow next to the name of the first (or perhaps only) calendar you want synced with Outlook and select Calendar Settings. Right-click on the icon next to Private Address and select Copy Shortcut. 6. Go back to Outlook and paste that url into the "Remote calendar's url" field. 7. Enter whatever you want for a name for this calendar, and adjust any other settings you like then hit Ok. 8. Click on the "Reload all iCalendars" button in the plug-in's toolbar (second from the left) and all your Google Calendars will be imported into Outlook! Click this button whenever you make changes to your Google Calendar that you want imported. Now all your Google Calendar items will work with your Outlook alerts, and you can sync them with your phone or PDA. Tip from Grinn's blog, http://www.grinn.net ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: How to bypass Windows Genuine Advantage easily without patches or scripts Microsoft loves treating all of its users like thieves. From Windows XP's activation until now, there have always been hoops a user has to go through just to use the software they paid good money for. In the great wisdom of Microsoft, they invented Windows Genuine Advantage that allows you to download perks and special add-ons for Windows but only if you have a genuine copy. As time went on, Microsoft began requiring WGA for more and more until today, where you need it even to download Windows updates. This is a big hassle and we can get around this pretty easily. If you don't want to bow to Microsoft's power, follow these steps: 1. Open Internet Explorer 2. Go to the Tools menu and choose Internet Options. 3. Click on the Programs tab and then click on the Manage Add-ons button. 4. Scroll to near the bottom and click on Windows Genuine Advantage, then choose Disable below, click OK and OK again. 5. Close all Internet Explorer windows and reload it. Windows Update should now work fine! ************** The geek's view: Stay tuned for a video showing the Harman Kardon Drive + Play. **************

The Geekcast #107 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: The Apple store in Lake Grove, NY will be opening this Saturday and I will be podcasting from the store. If you see me, feel free to say hello! ************** Tech news: Apple rolls out new hardware and schedules events for September 12th. Apple has just updated the entire iMac line to include Intel Core 2 Duo processors in each model. In addition they have added a 24 inch model as well as lowering the price of the low end model to $999. The iMac line up now includes 4 models: 1.83 GHz and a 2.0 GHz 17-inch, a 2.16 GHz 20-inch and the new 2.16 GHz 24-inch. The 24 inch can hold up to 3 gigs of RAM, has a 250 gig hard drive, an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory (upgradable to the NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory), a SuperDrive, and builtin iSight. Bluetooth and Wifi are built in, and the base price is $1,999. Along with the iMac, the Mac mini also has been updated. Both models now have the Core Duo processor. The $799 Mac mini now has a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor and the $599 model gets you a 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. Pricing remains the same, as do all the other specs. Apple to hold ‘Showtime’ event on September 12th. Apple has confirmed that it will hold a special event on Tuesday, September 12th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, California. The invitation sent out features Hollywood premiere-style spotlights and reads simply, “It’s Showtime.” The event starts at 10:00 a.m. PT. It is rumored that movies will be showing up in iTunes. Analysts have also speculated that Apple will launch a new iPod nano and video iPod models. These are just some of the movies to expect within the first six months to a year: From Walt Disney Pictures: James and the Giant Peach, Pocahontas, The Lion King, Aladdin, Chicken Little, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Sky High, Ice Princess, National Treasure, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. From Disney/Pixar: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars. From Miramax: Cold Mountain, The Hours, Chicago, Cinderella Man, Scary Movie 1,2,3 and 4. From Touchstone Pictures: The Royal Tenenbaums, Pearl Harbor, The Sixth Sense (with Hollywood Pictures), Unbreakable, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Shanghai Noon, Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, King Arthur, Hidalgo, Open Range, Signs, Reign of Fire. From Lion's Gate Entertainment: American Psycho, Dogma, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Open Water, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, The Punisher, Fahrenheit 9/11, Crash, Alone in the Dark, Hostel, Saw 1 and 2. Not all of the above will be available for download immediately but instead there will be a slow rollout over the first six months during which they will be joined by ever newer releases. Pricing is expected to be from $9.99 to $14.99. See new Battlestar Galactica content available online. The first Battlestar Galactica webisode has been released, titled 'The Resistance'. This is a glimpse of what has happened between seasons 2 and 3 of Battlestar Galactica. Sci-Fi is releasing episodes every Tuesday and Thursday until the season 3 premier in October. Vivendi to buy BMG, settle Napster claims. Vivendi's Universal Music, the world's largest seller is vaulting to the top spot in music publishing after agreeing to buy BMG Music Publishing for $2.1 billion. German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, BMG Music Publishing's parent company, also said it would pay Vivendi $60 million to settle litigation related to financing it once provided to Napster. Sony delays PS3 launch in Europe. Sony will delay the European launch of PlayStation 3 by about four months to March and cut its target for worldwide shipments this year by half. Sony had planned to launch the new version of its blockbuster PlayStation console in November, setting the stage for a three-way showdown with Microsoft and Nintendo during the key holiday-shopping season. Ken Kutaragi, the head of Sony's game unit told reporters that Sony will ship 2 million PS3 units this year, half the previously forecast 4 million, but will make up the lost ground to hit a target of 6 million consoles shipped by March. Sony said it still planned to launch the PS3 on Nov. 11 in Japan and on Nov. 17 in the United States. Firefly Marathon on SciFi, September 18th. The SciFi Channel is running the entire series of Firefly starting at 8 am Eastern on September 18th. For anyone who's missed this great short-lived show, now is the time to check it out. Google Expands Online News Index. Google is expanding its online news index to include stories published years ago, continuing efforts to create new sales channels for long-established media while it strives to make its own Web site even more useful. The news archive to be unveiled includes old articles provided by a long list of media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and The Washington Post. Other leading information storehouses like LexisNexis, Factiva and HighBeam, also have opened up sections of their databases to Google's expanded index. Until now, Google's 4-year-old news search service has focused primarily on stories posted on the Web during the past 30 days. The new archives feature will only share excerpts from stories related to users' requests, which are expected to range from seminal moments in history to minutiae about sports and science. To see the full stories, Google's visitors will be sent to the Web sites that own the content. ************** Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** How To: 2 ways to get the most out of GMail. Encrypt all GMail use: An undocumented hack makes it possible to not only login securely but also encrypt all of the traffic between your web browser and the Gmail servers. The hack is to simply type in your browser's location bar: https://gmail.google.com You'll notice the "s" that's put into the address. Normally, when you connect to Gmail, you connect to the default http://gmail.google.com and are immediately redirected to a secure login page whose address begins with https. A simple change that makes all the difference. Just make a bookmark to https://gmail.google.com in your web browser's Bookmark Toolbar to make always accessing Gmail in a secure fashion easy. Mange multiple GMail accounts in Firefox: Gmail Manager 0.5.1 is a Firefox extension that allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. It displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets. You can download GMail Manager from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1320/ ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** The geek's view: Stay tuned for a video showing the Harman Kardon Drive + Play. **************

The Geekcast #106 It seems I uploaded episode 104 as episode 106 and so your feed may not have the 2 latest episodes of The Geekcast. Your feed should have episode 106 for 8/30 and a video review #1. If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks. Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: I have created new album art. Your feedback on it is much appreciated. Audio feedback from Mike J. A new Geek's View is going to be released for the Harman Kardon Drive + Play. To give you the full rundown of this great device, it will be a video edition. I hope to have this released within a day or two. ************** Tech news: Apple & Creative Announce Settlement. Apple and Creative announced a broad settlement ending all legal disputes between the two companies. Apple will pay Creative $100 million for a paid-up license to use Creative's recently awarded patent in all Apple products. Apple can recoup a portion of its payment if Creative is successful in licensing this patent to others. In addition Creative has joined Apple's "Made for iPod" program and will be announcing their own iPod accessory products later this year. Steve Jobs, commenting about the settlement said "Creative is very fortunate to have been granted this early patent." 14-year-old girl sues friend over missing iPod. A missing iPod resulted in a lawsuit in Wheaton, Illinois, when 14-year-old Shannon Derrik sued her friend Stephanie Eick for losing her brand new iPod. Shannon lent her iPod to Stephanie, who decided it'd be a good idea to give back the iPod by leaving it on Shannon's desk rather than waiting for her to return from the restroom to hand it over in person, and at that point the iPod went missing. Shannon has sued for $475 in damages and court fees. Apple updated Battery Exchange Program iBook G4 and PowerBook G4. Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances. The affected batteries were sold worldwide from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4. The affected models include: 12-inch iBook G4 A1061 ZZ338 - ZZ427 3K429 - 3K611 6C519 - 6C552 ending with S9WA, S9WC or S9WD 12-inch PowerBook G4 A1079 ZZ411 - ZZ427 3K428 - 3K611 15-inch PowerBook G4 A1078 and A1148 3K425 - 3K601 6N530 - 6N551 ending with THTA, THTB, or THTC 6N601 ending with THTC Cox DVR's getting converted to TiVo's. TiVo has entered into an agreement to make TiVo’s service available to select Cox subscribers. Under the terms of the agreement, TiVo will customize its cable software for deployment on compatible Cox DVR set-top-boxes. TiVo’s downloadable software will allow Cox to deliver the TiVo(R) service in Cox subscriber homes without replacing existing DVR boxes, and without an install appointment. In this way, current Cox DVR customers who wish to enjoy the award-winning TiVo service, can quickly and easily add the benefits of TiVo to their DVR subscription. Microsoft adds 'one-click' sex offender report tool. Young people using Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger to chat online with friends can now make a report to police with one click if they are concerned their online 'buddy' is a sex offender. Microsoft has partnered with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to introduce the safety element to the program. The new Messenger tab and features the CEOP Centre's distinctive “report abuse” icon which links users in the UK directly to online police services. This allows young people and adults to report suspicious behaviour and instances of inappropriate contact of a sexual nature they have encountered whilst chatting in the virtual environment. The tab will appear on both MSN Messenger, and its replacement, Windows Live Messenger. As well as a 'one click' link through to a report to the police, each week, CEOP and Microsoft will provide a new safety tip as part of the tab, for example, how to safeguard your personal details or to how to spot a potential threat. ************** Test a geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** How To: Play mp3's within GMail. Gmail has a built-in player for MP3 attachments. If you receive emails that include MP3 files, maybe a podcast or a public domain recording, you can listen them directly from Gmail. This is similar to the player used for voicemails from Google Talk. When you have an attachment in an e-mail there will be the normal download link but also there will be a Play link. Clicking on this will give you a flash-based player in a separate window. Google's Gmail always has cool features. You can easily find your mp3 attachment e-mail's by creating a filter. To do this you need to add a new label. In the "Has Words" field put mp3 and check the box for "Has Attachment". The action you want is to apply the label you created in the first step. Now any time you have an mp3 in your inbox, you can get to it quickly. ************** Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast. ************** Hack: Rename your digital photos in bulk Digital photography is great but the obscure filenames your camera gives things are just plain old annoying. If you want to rename the 342 pics from your trip to the Grand Canyon it would be great to do this in bulk. Sure enough there is way in Windows to do just this. 1. First, open the folder containing your pictures and select View, Thumbnails. 2. Click the last picture in the folder you want to rename, hold down the Shift key and then click the first picture. Instead of this you can also click Edit, Select All. 3. Right-click the first photo, and select Rename from the drop-down menu. 4. Windows XP will highlight the filename for the first photo, enabling you to give it a descriptive name. After you type in the name, click the white space outside of the photo. At this point Windows will apply the name with a sequential number to each picture in the folder. Within a few seconds, all your pictures are renamed. ************** The geek's view: Stay tuned for a video showing the Harman Kardon Drive + Play. **************

The Geekcast Video Review #1 Show Notes: This is a video review of the Harman Kardon Drive + Play. This is an accompanying episode for The Geekcast #106. Your feedback is always appreciated.

The Geekcast #106 Show Notes: Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com | Frappr Map: Frappr.com/thegeekcast ************** Items of Note: I have created new album art. Your feedback on it is much appreciated. Audio feedback from Mike J. A new Geek's View is going to be released for the Harman Kardon Drive + Play. To give you the full rundown of this great device, it will be a video edition. I hope to have this released within a day or two. ************** Tech news: Apple & Creative Announce Settlement. Apple and Creative announced a broad settlement ending all legal disputes between the two companies. Apple will pay Creative $100 million for a paid-up license to use Creative's recently awarded patent in all Apple products. Apple can recoup a portion of its payment if Creative is successful in licensing this patent to others. In addition Creative has joined Apple's "Made for iPod" program and will be announcing their own iPod accessory products later this year. Steve Jobs, commenting about the settlement said "Creative is very fortunate to have been granted this early patent." 14-year-old girl sues friend over missing iPod. A missing iPod resulted in a lawsuit in Wheaton, Illinois, when 14-year-old Shannon Derrik sued her friend Stephanie Eick for losing her brand new iPod. Shannon lent her iPod to Stephanie, who decided it'd be a good idea to give back the iPod by leaving it on Shannon's desk rather than waiting for her to return from the restroom to hand it over in person, and at that point the iPod went missing. Shannon has sued for $475 in damages and court fees. Apple updated Battery Exchange Program iBook G4 and PowerBook G4. Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by