The Geek Down The Street Blog

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Microsoft Creates PC vs Mac Website

August 11th, 2010

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Microsoft has launched a PC vs Mac website that hilariously points out the shortcomings of the Mac OS. One can only assume they are finally fighting back against the long running Mac vs PC television commercials. I for one am happy that Microsoft isn’t just letting it slide anymore. Here are some quotes from the site:

Macs don’t let you choose.

PCs give you a lot more choice and capabilities for your money. You can get the PC you want, in the size and color you want, with the features you want. You just don’t have as many options with a Mac.

Macs might not like your PC stuff.

Plain and simple, if you’re a PC user, lots of your favorite stuff just might not work on a Mac. With PCs outselling Macs 10 to 1, the reality is that most computer software is developed to run on PCs.

Macs don’t let you choose.

PCs give you a lot more choice and capabilities for your money. You can get the PC you want, in the size and color you want, with the features you want. You just don’t have as many options with a Mac.

See the full site HERE.

Porn Industry to Cash In on iPhone 4’s Face Time Feature

August 1st, 2010

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Digital Trends reports:

It was only a matter of time before the porn industry took advantage of Face Time on the iPhone 4.

It’s a maxim of technology: Invent the newest gadget and the porn industry will find a way to cash in.

So when Apple Inc. launched the iPhone 4 and its FaceTime videoconference feature, it didn’t take long for adult-entertainment companies to develop video-sex chat services and start hiring workers through Craigslist.

With more than 3 million of the phones already sold, the adult industry stands to make big money on this new way to reach out and touch someone — even if it puts Apple, which has always taken pains to keep its iPhone apps squeaky clean, in an awkward spot.

In at least five cities, Craigslist ads seek models specifically for video sex chat on FaceTime. Many of the ads even offer to throw in a free iPhone 4 for the new employees.

FaceTime lets people call another iPhone 4 user and have live video conversations over a Wi-Fi connection using the front-facing camera on the new model. In one TV ad, a soldier uses it to get a look at his faraway wife’s ultrasound pictures.

Intel’s New Photonic Chip Can Move 100 Hours of Digital Music in 1 Second

August 1st, 2010

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Mercury News reports the chip which is the size of a postage stamp uses light via 4 lasers to transfer data. Intel says data transfer speeds can hit up to 50 gigabits per second. The company says they hope to see this technology in everything from PCs, printers and scanners to iPads, digital cameras and HDTVs although it won’t be commercially available for at least 5 years.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Gets Rooted

July 13th, 2010

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Canada’s most powerful Android phone finally has root access. The developers at xda-developers.com posted instructions on their forums. I personally rooted my device using the simple 5 step process and can now tether over wifi. Wifi tethering was the feature I missed most after I upgraded to the X10 from my rooted HTC Dream. You can check out the specs of the Xperia X10 in my previous post.

Gmail Gets Rich Text Signatures

July 13th, 2010

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Until now Gmail users were only able to have plain text signatures. That mean no changing font colour or size, no images and no links. Google announced rich text signatures on the official Gmail blog today.

From the blog post:

“The next time you log in and visit the Settings page, you’ll see a rich text editor in the signature section. Here, you can customize your signature by adding pretty formatting, links, and images — or decide to leave things nice and simple.

Gmail also now supports a unique signature for each email address associated with your account. So, if you send mail using a custom “From:” address, you can use a different signature for that address. From the Settings page, you can edit the signature for each account by changing the email address that appears in the dropdown menu.”

Here’s my new signature:

5 Reasons Android Is Better Than iPhone

May 31st, 2010

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Admittedly some of these reasons will be resolved with iPhone OS 4, but until it’s out these are the reason I would NEVER buy an iPhone.

1. Openness – Apple has to approve any app that is submitted to their store and the approval process is hit and miss at best. Steve Jobs recently launched a war on porn for instance. I personally don’t want to watch porn on my 4.3 inch screen (I have a computer for that), but if I did want to why can’t I? It’s my phone! Google doesn’t have an approval process, any app that is submitted to the market is automatically approved. In fact you don’t even have to submit your app to the market, you can decide to just host/sell it on your own website. If an app is malicious in any way Google will pull it though.

2. Customization – I don’t like the built in Android browser so I use Skyfire or Dolphin and will likely use Firefox when it’s out of beta. I don’t like the default SMS app so I use ChompSMS or Handcent. I don’t like the built in keyboard so I use the aptly named Better Keyboard. Maybe I don’t like having only 3 built in home screens, I can use aHome or Open Home. If I don’t like the names or icons of some of my home screen apps I can change it with BetterCut. I think you get the point, Android is very customizable.

3. 2 way over the air sync – Whether I edit a contact, calendar entry or emails on my phone or my computer it’s instantly synced over the air.

4. Not being tethered to iTunes – If I want an app I just fire up the market on my phone and download it right to the phone, no computer involved. If I see an app on a developers site or a blog and I want it I just open Barcode Scanner, scan the QR code and I am taken to the app in the market on my phone. If I WANT to browse for apps on the web I can go to AndroLib.com and browse all the apps there.

5. Choice of handsets/carriers – The choice of carrier issue is more of a problem in the US as the iPhone is available on all 3 carriers here in Canada, but every carrier now has a very good choice for and Android phone. As for hardware, if I need a physical keyboard I can get the HTC Dream (G1 in the US) or the Milestone (Droid in the US). If I don’t like Motorola I can get an HTC, if I don’t like HTC I can get a Sony Ericsson. There are many choices.

Bonus:

6. Integrated Google apps – From free turn by turn GPS with Google Maps to learning about stars and constellations with Google Skymap to using my camera to search the web with Google Googles to having one number to ring many phones and voicemail to text for free with Google Voice. The Google apps make Android a compelling choice!

VLC Media Player

May 25th, 2010

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VLC is an audio/video player that will player just about any format you can throw at it. Download it here.

How To Rip A DVD

May 25th, 2010

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I’m going to show you two ways of ripping a DVD and encoding it into a file that you can stream to your TV or watch on your computer or iPod. The FREE way and the EASY way.

What you’ll need:

Free Way

Handbrake – Download here

DVD Decrypter – Download here

Easy Way

AnyDVD – Get it here. AnyDVD costs about $25.00, it runs in the background and decrypts the DVD on the fly. You can download a 30 day trial.

Instructions: (for the easy way install AnyDVD and skip to step 11.)

1. Install all the required software using the recommended settings.

2. Put the DVD disc in your drive and open DVD Decrypter.

3. A popup asking you to choose the region may appear, choose number 1 (USA, Canada)

4. Click tools, then settings.

5. Click the file mode tab. Change file splitting to none and click OK.

6. Click mode and select file.

7. Click edit and choose Select Main Movie Files.

8. Click the folder icon under the destination.

9. Choose where you want to rip the DVD to and click OK. I usually choose the desktop, you can delete this file later.

10. Click the start button! This will rip the DVD to you hard drive. It will take some time.

11. Open Handbrake.

12. Click source and choose either the drive the DVD is in (easy way) or click video file and select the vob file created by DVD Decrypter and click open.

13. Choose a format to convert the file into. For streaming to your TV or watching on your computer choose Normal for iPod or Apple TV choose the device you have.

14. Click the browse button under destination. Choose desktop and name your file make sure to add .mp4 to the end (movie title.mp4). Click save.

15. Click the video tab choose a target size and click 2-pass endcoding.I like to have my movies to be 1GB, I find 1GB offers decent picture quality for a small file size.

16. Click the Start button! The movie will start to encode, this will take a while.

17. Play the movie with VLC or your favorite player or sync in to your iPod!

Rogers launches the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

May 15th, 2010

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Rogers recently launched the newest Android phone called the Sony Erricsson Xperia X10. It sports an 8.1 megapixel camera with 16X zoom and face tracking technology, a Qualcomm 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, it comes with a 16GB memory card and has a new multimedia player app. Curiously though it is still running Android 1.6. This new handset is far and away the most powerful Android phone available in the Canadian market. More details at Rogers site.

Cobian Backup

April 28th, 2010

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Cobian Backup is in my opinion the best backup software out there including paid solutions. Developers description “Cobian Backup is a multi-threaded program that can be used to schedule and backup your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network. FTP backup is also supported in both directions (download and upload). Cobian Backup exists in two different versions: application and service. The program uses very few resources and can be running on the background on your system, checking your backup schedule and executing your backups when necessary. Cobian Backup is not a normal backup application: it only copies your files and folders in original or compressed mode to other destination, creating a security copy as a result. So Cobian Backup can be better described as a “Scheduler for security copies”. Cobian Backup supports several methods of compression and strong encryption.”

Microsoft Creates PC vs Mac Website

Porn Industry to Cash In on iPhone 4’s Face Time Feature

Intel’s New Photonic Chip Can Move 100 Hours of Digital Music in 1 Second

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Gets Rooted

Gmail Gets Rich Text Signatures

5 Reasons Android Is Better Than iPhone

VLC Media Player

How To Rip A DVD

Rogers launches the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Cobian Backup

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