well, its been a while since i’ve posted and i apologize for that. silly work, life and summer stuff.  anywho, i thought i’d get back to posting on more regular basis (in case i actually have followers/readers, j/k i love you all!).

today post is an op-ed blog on what i am predicting or think (hope?) a few of the next big things will be in the upcoming few years.  we just saw twitter hit mainsteam this last march, facebook a while back, iphones are common place, wiis can be found on the shelves.

so, whats next? keep reading for this geeks predictions and geek ramblings.

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xbox, tv, life, htpc, PlaystationStore, iphone, windows7, x360, laptop, Zune, ps3, windows, mac, apple, vista, opinion, culture, geek, applications, pc | 11 Comments »

MP4 video files are the new mp3 of video or so it seems.  my psp, iphone and ps3 all use these type of files while numerous other devices do too (appletv, xbox360, cellphones, ipods, zunes, etc).

After finally deciding to upgrade my PS3’s harddrive (again) to a 500GB drive, i decided to start tagging my mp4 movies.  i’ve been using the Zune software and iTunes as my main music/video players lately.  so by instinct i updated all of the metadata for my mp4 videos in the zune software.

later that day, i came back and imported a tagged file into iTunes and did not get any of the metadata transferred over.  i then started looking into other apps to do this; however after doing some digging in the zune software found the problem or quirk.

when you update metadata in the Zune software player, the player itself will have to recreate the mp4 file w/the tag info for it to properly tag. so if you tag about 70 some movies like me; you have to wait quite sometime for all 70 files to get the metat data updated.  i found this by going to my movie folders and seeing a mp4DC.tmp file that kept growing and then resetting and would eventually be identical in size to my mp4 files.

i believe that the zune player is updating the container which in turn houses the metadata info so it has to offload the video while it does this (?? i’m guessing here).  So just be sure to leave Zune open after updating metadata! 

this also will expain why your pc may seem like its working really hard after you imported your full mp4 library into the zune software. (noticed it on my wind and was worried my harddrive was about to die).

ps3, Zune, random, x360, geek, applications, apple, windows, psp, general gadgets | 1 Comment »

well, i admit it.  i love my iphone.  don’t let my sony ericsson comrades know or my fellow blackberry addicts!

i received my first gen iPhone from my tech-rx bossman Q, about two months ago now and haven’t looked back since.  at first, i thought i’d get bored with it or annoyed at not having a physical keyboard.  however its two months later and i’m still using my iPhone as my main phone.

sure, its not a perfect phone (no picture messaging, copy/paste, no video recording, meh-camera quality), but its pretty close given the proper applications.  So, what applications (official App Store and unofficial Cydia) do i have on my iPhone? i thought you’d never ask!  keep reading for my must-have list!

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review, iphone, fanboy, culture, opinion, applications, apple | 2 Comments »

so yes, i did in a way sell out by getting an iphone (first gen, thx Q!!).  however i know for sure i wasn’t going to go as far as to sell my cellular soul to ATT for 2 years.  i now have about 2 months or so left in my contract w/T-Mobile and plan on going month to month from here out (if possible). 

so… what good is an iphone thats locked to ATT when i’m on Tmo? not much, lets change that! keep reading for the screencast.

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culture, fanboy, iphone, geek, handheld, apple, opinion, applications, general gadgets | No Comments »

Apple’s iPhone has been out now for sometime; long enough for Apple to release a second version, the 3G iPhone.  Prior to the 3G iPhone release, Apple had not really tried to push its ‘jesus’ phone into the corporate landscape; however with the 3G model Apple in turn added Exchange Push Email support and synchronization via Activesync to the iPhone 2.0 OS (2G iPhones also get the update)

Up to this point, I would never consider comparing an iPhone with a Blackberry fair since each device seems to be aimed for a different market sector (iPhone = consumer, blackberry = corporate/business).  But things have changed and both Apple and RIM are venturing into sectors they had left alone until now.  So today I will be giving a comparison of an iPhone 3G to a Blackberry Curve/8830 (I’ve used the 8830 for quite sometime but decided to include the Curve since it is basically the same as a 8830 except that it has more consumer extras vs corp on the 8830).  Keep reading for the details on the comparison

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geek, handheld, fanboy, review, iphone, applications, mobile, mac, hardware, Blackberry, opinion, apple | 11 Comments »

well,with my new laptop i’ve decided to use Vista as my main OS on it since it runs Vista very nicely/like vista should be ran.  (which is kind of funny cuz vista is like xp was; us users were unwilling to spend more money to upgrade our hardware for the OS.  however once we did, we realized it wasn’t that bad of an OS and now are finally loving, ie windows xp).

vista seems to rely more on metadata tags for searching.  the os as a whole integrates its ability to read this metadata very nicely.  i’ll give you a quick example of my just recent use/waste of my time tagging every digital photo i had (prob around 8,500 only).  this process took me about a week to do off and on.  i am using vista’s built in photo manager (it is a pretty decent one, i used to use picasa in xp but vista’s native app is pretty good) to tag the photos and organize; photoshop cs3 of course is my flavor of editing software…

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culture, life, cybershot, geek, applications, vista, opinion, windows | 3 Comments »

as many of you may or may not be aware but next week WES2008 will kick off down in Orlando.  what is WES?  WES = Wireless Enterprise Symposium, basically its THE blackberry event of the year.  i will be attending the conference/convention this year and hopefully will be posting updates from the event. 

so, what is this viigo appliation?  basically its an RSS reader for your blackberry.  however, viigo offers several deeper features such as partnering with CTIA and WES to let you view your conference/convetion schedule; allows one to import ones own Bloglines, Google Reader, or My Yahoo! links. 

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blogging, applications, mobile, Blackberry | No Comments »

i love my data and information and would be pretty lost if my system did die on me. however, as a geek that sees and fixes a ton of computers that will die without any warning i always recommend that everyone should do a complete backup each month or so of any data that they believe to be essential. if you use it everyday, that is what i classify as essential (ie calendar, outlook pst files, favorites/links, music, papers/docs, program installation files, serial/registration info).

this weekend i finally decided to go and purchase a nice 500GB external HDD to do my monthly backups and archivals to. prior to this weekend, i was making 5 DVD backups of my personal data (no apps or music) and then storing them at my bank box in my parents town (remote location, another good thing to think about). however i realized that i have a ton of other ‘bulkier’ data that i wanted to archive/save but didn’t want to burn 100 DVDs to do it, thus the external hdd.

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culture, life, review, geek, applications, hardware, windows, opinion, general gadgets | 7 Comments »

Happy New Year to everyone!  This last year was a pretty crazy year in regards to technology, gaming and being a geek.  Today’s post will be a personal recap 2007, and what i thought was the biggest trend from it.

2007: The year that gaming really went mainstream?

2006 yielded an estimated 12 billion dollars in revenue for the video game industry however 2007 could end up being an even better year.  This year we saw the X360 sales thrive (not counting japan of course) w/the release of much the anticipated Halo3 (which itself set a record for most copies sold on release for any media; movie, music, game).  We also saw gaming go mainstream with the help of the casual gaming system, Nintendo’s Wii (ie money printing machine, hehe).   Sony’s PS3 also started to pick up steam in sales with the price drops and release of two new models; however the PS3 was/is still trailing the pack in sales but has seemingly helped the next-gen format war for blu-ray vs. hd-dvd (x360 did not include the hd dvd, optional drive vs sony making blu-ray a requirement in the ps3).

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fanboy, blogging, Zune, launch, ds lite, life, x360, iphone, osx86, ps3, wii, opinion, gaming, linux, hardware, applications, console, culture, geek, handheld, apple | 2 Comments »

being as big of a geek as i am, i admit that i am a bit disappointed in myself for not really getting onto the whole linux bandwagon a while back.  linux, imo, is the uber geekiest of all operating systems and should come naturally to me since i did mess around in AIX (unix variant) and kornshell scripting.

a few weekends back, i fixed up an ‘about to be junked’ laptop and was able to revive it w/a few hardware swapouts (new hd, memory) and a full disassemble and clean (pop was spilled on it).  since i now had a decent laptop along w/my tablet i figured i’d remove my vista from my tablet (since it ran a bit sluggish and i downgraded my memory to a 512mb stick) and in turn install ubuntu.

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life, ubuntu, tablet pc, culture, applications, windows, opinion, linux | 5 Comments »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZYuNdA-Jcw

(whats with not being able to embed video in wordpress?? or is it just me?)

more to come! psp and remote use upcoming..

update: youtube embed fixed! q and davak are the men! hehe.. thanks guys!

fanboy, life, review, vaio, culture, applications, windows, opinion, mobile, hardware | No Comments »

i admit it, i don’t always have a solution for a problem and in turn need to use the power of the web and google to assist. 

for the most part, most ‘howto’ and ‘help’ web sites are pretty good.  however, every once in a while i’ll run into one that REQUIRES you to register to view any of the responses.  an example, experts exchange (http://www.experts-exchange.com)  is a site that is like this.

i HATE these type of sites.  the most annoying part about these sites is that google seems to always put them at the top of most searches.  why would i want to join a site and in turn have to pay a fee to register to see a fix that was submitted by users? like most people, i just move on and find a more ‘helpful’ site that i can read the fix w/o having to register or pay.

this is why i applaud and love TechRX since you can read any of the recipes, without having to sign up or register or pay.

just a quick rant of mine i had to get off my chest, back to my research.

life, blogging, geek, applications, opinion | 1 Comment »

i don’t know about you but i love graphic equalizers and visualizers. theres something about seeing music converted into random forms that makes me happy (perhaps a few flashbacks from the college days, hehe).

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handheld, applications, mobile, music | 2 Comments »

well, i figure its time for me to do a follow up post on my recent experience on getting Mac OSX 10.4.6 on my HP TC1100.  previously i was having some major problems getting OSX86 to install and to even boot after install.  sadly, my situation/experience has not changed in regards to getting OSX86 installed and running on my TC1100 tablet pc.

my installation will take over 5 hours to complete (if it does complete) but never boots.  i have tried using all of the known flags for darwin to see if that would speed up the install but none of them seem to have any effect (ie tried platform=x86pc and acpi, tried idehalt=0 and cpu=1, nothing seems to help).  i also have tried using a different install dvd (10.4.6 and 1.04.8, both JaS versions w/the amd/intel patches built in), different harddrive (since my 80gb died, but should be back this week), removed my 1GB memory and used only the builtin memory (512mb), removed the battery; again still over 5 hours to install and no luck on booting.

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geek, culture, tablet pc, osx86, applications, hardware, general gadgets, apple, mac, pc | 1 Comment »

just recently two huge breakthroughs were made in the PSP underground/hacking world.  Noobz and Archaemic found an exploit in the game Lumines that basically allow all PSP firmware versions (1.5 to 3.50) and allow it to run homebrew.  this is a pretty huge find, so much so that for a few days Lumines sales on amazon exploded, at one point its sales were up 5,700%! whoa.

however, this is not the first instance that a game exploit/buffer overflow has been the entry point for hackers into a gaming console.  with the xbox there came to be a way to softmod it via a hacked game save file, i believe the game used was mech assault. 

the gamecube also had a game hack too, that game was phantasy star online. it allowed users to even put linux on the gamecube.

so i’ve always wondered, do developers purposedly leave the rare exploit in their code in hopes to drive their own software sales due to the exploit? even though the console maker and other software makers may not like the idea, it really seems to be plausible thought.  one that i am sure that most devs would ever speak of. 

anywho, i also see that the iphone activation has been hacked, DVD Jon has figured out a way to emulate the apple activation servers, however you will not have any cell phone abilities (but give this some time, once the sim card lock has been broken, a combination of this hack and a future one could allow those non-cingular/att users to have actual working iphones; not saying it will be me but ya never know.. i like a good hack!).

peace

wii, culture, geek, handheld, ps3, fanboy, osx86, xbox, ds lite, console, applications, windows, web, hardware, mac, gaming, psp, modding, mobile, vista, pc | 1 Comment »