Highlander On Hulu! Sweet!

What can be better than a bunch of guys (and some girls) swinging swords at each other without a care in the world?

Okay, a lot of things can be better than that. But it looks as if Hulu.com has added all six seasons of Highlander! :-)

Here is the first episode below (note: for those of you outside the US, you can use Open Hulu to view these shows).

Dream Car Come True? (Aptera)

Imagine a car that can go 300 miles a gallon (120 miles for electric). Well, imagine no further...

While the Venture Vehicle is still the car I am eying, although I think the Aptera comes in at a close second...mainly because its more expensive. ;-)

Sweet! iPhone Battery Extender (Within 24 Hours)

It looks like I can finally order my iPhone battery extender via Mophie, as there never seems to be enough energy for the phone to go around.

Here is a video review, courtesy of iPhone Buzz:

I'll have to put this on the "must have by next month" list, as I am cash right now (or rather I have the cash, although I don't feel like breaking my budget).

(Hat Tip: Macworld)

Video: LG Vu Phone (iPhone Killer?)

It looks like there is another "iPhone clone," this time by LG (note: to my knowledge LG was the first that came out with the touch screen, but Apple popularized it).

Sprint (via Samsung) released a similar version earlier, although it may need a few more months of development as the phone was crashing in front of the tech press.

LG seems to be more of a finished product, although ironically it seems to be exclusive to AT&T (just like the iPhone). Verizon and Sprint must be hating that. :-)

Sprint Releases iPhone Killer?

Finally, a phone to take on the iPhone! (although I am still in love with mine).

Its called the Samsung Instinct, and from the video below it sure does look fairly interesting.

Its from Sprint, and they are promoting this phone on NowIsGood.com (hat tip: CrunchGear).

They are releasing it this June, which should help them compete against AT&T. It only holds 2GB of memory, although hopefully they will be offering more (as I am approaching 2GB on my iPhone).

My only advice to Sprint is to make sure there are a lot of "third party apps" to go along with this phone, otherwise they will only be able to retain people on their own network at best (as the iPhone is already gone over 1,300 apps).

Radio On My iPhone?

Hey, this is definitely something I never dreamed stumbling upon. And the best part is not even TechCrunch mentioned this (although Eric did suggest something to this effect).

Basically its a "radio" station for your iPhone. It will stream music to your iPhone, giving users the ability to choose which genre they want to listen to (or better yet, the Beatles if that's all your into).

Here's a video explaining the details.

I came across this while searching the iPhone Web Apps, and users can access on their iPhones by pointing their browser at http://www.FlyTunes.fm/.

Update: Corrected post for grammar.

Update: Engadget posted about this about two months ago. You just can't win.

iLuv My New iPhone

So I finally ordered an iPhone, and despite a few headaches with FedEx, transitioning over to my new phone was pretty seamless.

One thing I did catch my attention was how much AT&T's customer service has improved since like--forever (but this might be do to the fact that they bought out Cingular, whose support rocked!).

Unfortunately, I can not upload any images from the iPhone to this blog (the Safari browser does not function very well on blogger.com), but I will upload a picture of the iPhone later on (or better yet, a video!).

Update: Corrected some spelling, plus here is the video of a quick snapshot of the iPhone.

Note: For those of you looking to purchased a refurbished iPhone, you can find the link over here, and as far as the Obama videos go, you can check out Yes We Can as well as the Building A Religion on YouTube).

So My Mean Uncle Wants To Help Me Buy An iPhone

It looks as if my mean Uncle may be giving me the necessary cash in order to purchase an iPhone later on this year.

(KlTV 7 News) Individuals earning 3,000 to 75,000 a year get a rebate of 300 to 600 dollars. For families making up to 150,000 annually, your rebate could be up to 1,200 dollars, plus an extra 300 for each child under 17. But how exactly will the rebates affect taxpayers like you?

Rebate checks are coming as early as May for millions of Americans.

Since you probably have to make at least $75,000 to get the $600, that probably excludes me from the full rebate (note: you can figure out how much you will probably get thanks to this handy dandy calculator).

Unless I can locate a decent smart phone in the next few months, my future phone choices will be: do I choose the 8gb model or the 16gb?

Note: For international readers who do not understand the joke, I am referring to my Uncle Sam.

Saving Up For An iPhone

So I was debating between purchasing a brand new LG Voyager or LG Venus--or switching away from Verizon in order to pick up a brand new iPhone (and signing my economic soul with AT&T...scary).

In the end it was not the fact that the iPhone had cover flow, or that Voyager has vibration feed back when you touch the screen, or even the customer service of either (Verizon is rivaled only by Apple, although AT&T brings them down a notch).

It was the apps baby!

Or more specifically, the programs I could add to customize the phone.

LG Voyager has 22 Apps of which I only found three to be really useful.

LG Venus has 27 Apps of which I found a pathetic two to be of any use to me.

Apple's iPhone has a whopping 738 Apps (and counting), of which I found too many to ignore to be useful! (I'm still going through them!)

While I have the funds to purchase an iPhone (for $399), I don't have the cash (right now) to both purchase an iPhone, cancel my account with Verizon ($175...ghetto!) and pick up a plan with AT&T (who's customer disservice is unparalleled...at least it was many moons ago).

The iPhone Has Been Hacked!

Yeah, I know, I am a geek, but I have been drooling over getting the iPhone for quite some time, although I didn't feel like selling my soul to AT&T.

Now it seems that someone has liberated the iPhone, which is good news for Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint fans!

(Engadget) The iPhoneSIMfree.com team called us up to prove their claim that they cracked Apple's iPhone SIM lock system, and prove it they did. (No, we don't have a copy of the unlock software, so don't even ask us, ok?) The six-man team has been working non-stop since launch day, and they're officially the first to break Apple's SIM locks on the iPhone with software. It's done. Seriously. They wouldn't tell us when and how they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that they'll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so). We can hardly believe the iPhone's finally been cracked. No, scratch that -- we just can't believe it took this long.

Again: we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com's software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US.

What makes this really ironic is that later on today, a second company also accomplished the same thing!

I am still trying to figure out if this would be legal for me to use (although according to this lawyer it is, but I'll have to get a second opinion) but it looks like an iPhone is definitely in my future...although I might have to choose between that and the OQO.

Video: I Dream Of iPhone

It's coming out this month! :-)

I hear you can even shave with it.

Joking aside, I would seriously consider this phone, although I think I would be loathed to leave Verizon for Cingular (as Verizon's customer service is second to none).

I wonder if I could hack it and use it with my Verizon service? Although if I probably did, I would be sued into oblivion by Apple, not to mention the whole "jail time" thing.

Sigh...I ask for too much.

Maxthon Browser It Is!

So after experiencing even more problems with Firefox (see previous post for details) and testing out several different browsers, I have decided to go with Maxthon browser, with IE7 as a backup.

Maxthon seems to combine the best of the three most popular browsers online:

It has the the speed of Firefox
It has the security of Opera
And last, it displays the glory of the web like IE7

But the main reason for converting over was this:



Unlike the other browsers, Maxthon has a built in measure to prevent it from consuming too many resources.

I think IE7 has something similar (although not quite as effective) while Opera and Firefox both simply continue to grow, although the latter at an alarming rate.

Now if only I could convert my GreaseMonkey hacks and Firefox extensions over, then I would be perfect!

Note: Maxthon is a little weird in Blogger WYSIWYG, although I'll have to troubleshoot it some more.

PC World Is Full Of Surprises

Warning: You are about to enter the geek zone. You've been warned.

So PC World did a review of the top 100 best products in technology today, which includes everything from game consoles to software to music platforms to more geek toys!

Google Apps seems to have killed off all of their competitors, taking the top spot, something the Googlers seem to be really excited about.

There were also a few surprises along the way including:

• Yahoo! Mail Beta (27) beating Google's Gmail (31)
• Paint.net (19) beating Google's Picasa (36)
• Nintendo Wii (3) beating Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite (18)
• Pandora.com (17) beats Apples 80 GB Ipod (26)

This really has been a very interesting year in technology. I'm disappointed that OQO did not make the list, neither did several other applications as well. Oh well, better luck next time I suppose!

Firefox Is Becoming Evil Again

I am really getting irritated with Firefox lately. Although the browser is awesome, its major weakness is the fact that it is a glutton when it comes to memory use.

Today alone I had to restart my computer three times because I couldn't satisfy its hunger with my computer's resources. Even with the various hacks employed.

I am sticking with Internet Explorer 7 for now, although I may consider using Opera.

And thus begins my search for a new browser again. Sigh...

Update (5/22): I discovered (yet another) useful hack that may solve my Firefox woes.

I seriously hope the Mozilla team finds a fix to this in Firefox 3, as this is getting to be quite annoying.

(Reaganwuzthebest on Free Republic) Here you go, THIS is what you need to change, VERY SIMPLE!

Find this line using the about:config in the URL = browser.cache.memory.enable

Click or double click on it so it reads: FALSE It should turn Bold also, to note the change.

I tried it, loaded up on as many pages as I could find and WHAMMO! Memory never exceeded my limits and dropped down to the 22k evertime a page would finally complete loading!!!

I'm still testing out Opera as a back up alternative, although I have to admit the web looks a lot prettier in IE7 and Firefox than Opera. Yeah, I know, I'm picky...

Joost Is Where Its At!

So after searching Google for like an eternity (okay, so it was like ten minuets, but it felt like an eternity) someone finally invited me to check out Joost.



For those of you who do not know (or care to know), Joost is like a combination of YouTube and your television set, except its all legal and free.

You basically watch TV through your internet connection, and the cool thing is that there are a whole lot of channels to choose from. And if you're a sports fan, you'll definitely love this!

It's still in beta, so you need an invite to get inside, but if anyone wants to check it out, let me know by shooting me an email.

Note: First I have to figure out how to invite people, so give me a day or two at the most.

Snakes On A Plane Spin Offs?

Of all the social networks that I've seen online, Facebook by far is the one with the least amount of clutter.

While surfing on Facebook, I came across this group called Snakes On A Plane Spinoffs which lists some pretty funny titles for a movie I will never see.

My top ten favorites?

• Cats on a Bus
• Chimps on a Blimp
• Elephants on an Elevator
• Geese on the Hindenburg
• Komodo Dragons in School
• Lice on Rice
• Turkeys in Turkey
• Rhinos on a Roller Coaster
• Snakes in Plane Clothing
• Wookies on a TIE Fighter

But despite all of these glorious titles, nothing can beat this:



Sometimes you don't need to visit the theatre in order to be entertained.

Google Docs In My Gmail?

It looks like I am going to be putting more of my life on Google's servers, this time future business projects (as long as it is legal that is).

(Google Docs & Spreadsheets Blog) Whenever those of you who use Gmail receive a spreadsheet or a document in an email, you will see a new link next to the "Download" link that says "Open as a Google document." Click on that and the attachment will automatically be imported into Docs & Spreadsheets and added to your personal document list where you can make changes, invite collaborators and search for it later. We hope you like it.

If they continue doing cool things like this, Google will end up being a portal--that is if they are not one already.

Note: Is it me, or did Google finally open up comments on their blog?

Spam Invading My Gmail

The problem is not getting to be ridiculous. It's just a bit annoying to go from no spam for months on end to about five a day.

What's even worse is the fact that spammers seem to type either in all caps, or unable to spell out half their entire message.

If you are going to spam me, at least use proper grammar. You would think they would teach these things at the "annoy planet Earth" spam conferences, assuming that spammers actually attend them.

Video: Must Have Computer...

Is it me, or doesn't it not seem fair that the defense department gets all of the fun. (Hat Tip: Hot Air)

On a more realistic side, I think I may purchase this beauty.





Sigh...

Update: Corrected video size of super cool computer (first video). Also inserted credit.

Contact Me Via Skype

I know most of my American friends have either Yahoo!, MSN, Gtalk, AIM or use them all via Trillian.

That's all great and dandy, but I think I am going to ditch all of the other instant messengers (with the exception of Gtalk if Google decides) and stick with Skype.

There is just so much I can do with this chat/VOIP/telephone program, that puts the others to shame.

So if you want to chat with me, my screenname on Skype is HiddenNook or you can leave a message if I don't pick up.

Update: Added photo...and on a further note switching to Skype may not be that bad.