Geeky Fun Stuff!
As a break from the normal depressing B.S. I’ve been posting, I’m going ot spend some time talking about some cool stuff I use day-to-day. Everyone always seems surprised (or confused) when I mention this stuff to them because they’ve never heard of it before. Software I use, Videocasting, Personal video recorder, cool sites on the web … whatever I can think of. Worth checking out I hope. 
Firefox web browser and the evils of Internet explorer.
If you are still using Microsoft’s web browser or Outlook Express, you should be shot. I firmly believe that. These programs only serve to infect your computer with spyware, ad-ware, and computer viri … and contribute to Microsoft’s insane monopoly on the internet. Simply by visiting a web site, or looking at an email and you can be infected … and proceed to infect all your friends as well as give up your computer to internet hackers to be used for whatever malicious deed they desire. Go download Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client. It’s the only sane thing to do. Once you try it, you’ll never want to go back. Firefox is great application and very customizable via it’s many extensions. There are dozens of things you could add to the browser ot make it more fun and useful, but there’s also some things you really should live without. Here’s a list:
Adblock - install this and never see another annoying web advertisement or popup.
FiltersetG Adblock extension - extend adblock by keeping it up to date with all the latest advertising tricks.
Tab Mix Plus - increase the functionality of the tabbed browsing interface with something that is capable of saving sessions and recovering from browser crashes.
IE view - let’s you open certain pages in Internet explorer when you absolutely have too (because microsoft doesn’t follow internationally agreed upon web conventions). Use for hotmail and windows update.
Themes - Make the browser look like you want it to. My current favourite theme is ‘Metal Lion’
StumbleUpon - surf the web’s most popular sites. Enter in your content preferences, click a button and see what you get. I find all kinds of neat and informative stuf this way.
Videocasting and Televison over the Internet
Tired of the same old boring television shows? reality tv, not feeling so real anymore? lol. Time to check out some alternative content. This stuff is finally hitting mainstream and getting some press (check out this month’s edition of WIRED magazine). You can watch all kinds of stuff over the internet for FREE (or a small donation, usually optional) Right now it’s mostly technology related or for pure entertainment. You can either visit all the sites individually and download the shows, or you can use something like the Democracy player or itunes, to search for and manage your downloaded content. If you want to know what’s out there, visit IPTVshows.org - it’s a website that has a list of available shows and sends out notification when a new episode is released. I started helping maintain this site a while ago and it’s kinda cool. here’s a list of some of my favourite shows:
Hak.5 - Trust your technolust!
commandN - tech ,web, news, video
MobuzzTV -Daily tech/web news briefs
I’m Starvin with Lois - Be inspired on how to eat when you have zero cash to buy anything.
DigitalLifeTV - techy stuff from software, gadgets, HDTV, to whatever.
Diggnation - Top stories from the social bookmarking and technology site Digg.com
Personal Video Recorders (PVRs)
Tv shows never seem to be on when i want to watch them … and if they are, I have to endure about 20 minutes of commercials every hour that I watch. Someone calls or visits when stuff is on air, and you miss it. What to do? Easy. Use that old computer to record directly from your cable. Watch it when you feel like it. Skip through commercials, pause live TV. All you need is a TV capture card which sell for about 100-200$. Money well spent. ATI all-in-wonder, hauppauge, DVICO FusionHDTV - these are the brands you need to look for. Then all you need is some software that does the recording. Many options here:
For Windows: BeyondTV, Yahoo Go!, GB-PVR, MediaPortal, SageTV, Meedio
For Linux (cheaper solution, but a bit more tweaking). MythTV, Freevio, GeeXboX, many others.
OK, that’s all I got for now. Perhaps I’ll add more later. Time for a nap!
