Keep track of your torrents w/ TVTAD
Submitted on December 14th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Software and Video and Windows
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Like most of you, I have a few favorite TV shows I like to watch religiously, but with as hectic a schedule as I’ve had recently, it’s been a little difficult to keep up with the latest episode of anything, though fortunately, many of my favorite shows are in reruns right now. Regardless, if you won’t be home to see the latest episode of Lost (or whatever you watch), there are a few options: TiVo or broadcatching. Broadcatching is one of my favorite uses of BitTorrent in that you can subscribe to an RSS feed for a torrent site, create filters for your TV shows, then use a BitTorrent application to download a file automatically when it’s found in the feed.
The most popular way to do it is through Azureus with the RSS plugin, but there is a cool little application now which makes it a little easier called TVTAD. WIth TVTAD, just enter the names of the shows you watch regularly, and the application will scrape popular torrent sites for new episodes of that show. The program is free, and only available for Windows.
Control iTunes via keyboard w/ iTunesKeys
Submitted on December 14th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Productivity and Audio and Windows
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Regular readers know I’m a big fan of iTunes and the way it organizes music, but one problem I have with it is that it doesn’t support keyboard shortcuts (and you productivity nuts know how useful those can be!). Fortunately, there is a third-party piece of software called iTunesKeys which lets lets you create your own shortcuts.
With iTunesKeys, you can control music playback, display track information, rate songs, and more. The application sits quietly on your computer’s system tray (from where you can also control iTunes, by the way) and works in the background using very few system resources. If you’re a big user of iTunes, this is definitely a must have application. iTunesKeys is completely free (donations accepted) and available for Windows 98 and later and requires iTunes 4.5 or later.
iPod (with video) tips
Submitted on December 14th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Portables
No. of comments (2)
Engadget has asked the readers to submit iPod tips in the comments. There is some pretty good stuff in there, of course mixed in with a good deal of trolling. Check it out here.
Vow not to buy a Sony BMG CD for 2 years
Submitted on December 14th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Shopping and Security
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With all the press surrounding Sony BMG lately, particularly the rootkit DRM fiasco, people are getting angry at the music giant. Now, its a basic rule of business that if you lose customers, you lose money. So, David Webster has started a pledge, saying that if you sign it, you pledge “I will vow not to buy a Sony BMG audio album/single for 2 years, but only if 100 other people do, too.” You can find the pledge right here, and, as of this writing, over 109 people have signed it. You can only sign it until New Years’ Eve (December 31), so if you’re going to sign it, sign it now!
No, we’re not dead
Submitted on December 7th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Announcements
No. of comments (12)
I apologize for the lack of updates the past few days. Regular readers know we update anywhere from five to ten times a day, but I recently started a new job which is taking up quite a bit of my time. Between that, the couple of hours I spend at the gym daily, and my family and friends, I’ve had a difficult time finding the time. The site is not dead though, and I’ll resume regular posts as normal starting tomorrow, even if I have to wake up at 6 every morning. Thanks all for understanding and keep visiting!
Where’s the podcast?
Submitted on December 2nd, 2005 by admin
Filed under Announcements
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As some of you know, we used to do a weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) podcast here at TipMonkies, but it’s been missing in action for a little over a month. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails asking what happened to it so let me explain. The podcast is NOT dead, it’s just on a temporary hiatus. Our host is kind enough to provide us with 10GB of bandwidth per day (300GB/month), but as the site has been growing tremendously in popularity over the past month or two, more and more of that bandwidth is being used up by site visits, images, etc. As a result, I’ve decided to put it on hold for a bit while I look at some good hosting options (by good I mean cheap and with tons of bandwidth). To you regular subscribers (which is a few hundred of you), my apologies. The podcast WILL be back for sure, before the end of the year, this I promise. If you’ve never listened to the podcast, check them out right here, visit our Odeo channel, or find us on iTunes. Expect another announcement as we get ready to relaunch the podcast in the next few weeks.
Y!Q Beta Greasemonkey script for Firefox
Submitted on December 2nd, 2005 by admin
Filed under Browsers and Software
No. of comments (2)
A few days ago, when I was writing the Ultimate Guide to Yahoo! Services, I found a pretty interesting offering from Yahoo! called Y!Q. The service is still in beta, but should offer an interesting service for site publishers by giving contextual search results to post with a one-click interface. Even though it’s still in beta, Yahoo! just released a Y!Q Greasemonkey script for Firefox users so you can use the contextual search on any site.
After installing it, highlight some text and press the Y!Q button to get search results on your selection. You can get full installation instructions at the Y!Q for Firefox site, and remember, you must have the Greasemonkey extension installed for this to work.
Ask A Monkey: The Two-in-One Edition
Submitted on December 2nd, 2005 by admin
Filed under Ask a Monkey
No. of comments (8)
Dear TipMonkies,
What’s the easiest way to transfer files from my old computer to my new computer? I want all my files, pictures, and just about everything. -Robex
Dear Robex,
The easiest thing to do would be to burn everything on CD or DVD. By everything, I mean anything you might have in your My Documents folder. Any applications you might have installed will simply have to be reinstalled, no way around it. If you have a little bit of computer expertise, I’d say the best thing to do would be to move the hard drive from your old PC to the new one and set it as your master drive. This way, you already have all your stuff, nothing new to install, and you get an extra hard drive to play around with for music, movies, or whatever. -Martin
How to stream almost anything w/ VLC
Submitted on December 2nd, 2005 by admin
Filed under Audio and The Mac Side and Portables and Networking and Windows and Video and Linux
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One of my favorite media players to use, particularly for videos and DVDs is VLC, which is available for Windows, Macs, Linux, and a few other operating systems. It’s free, lightweight, and supports nearly any format you could possibly imagine. Because of the small resource usage and its ability to run even on PocketPCs, VLC makes a great tool to be able to stream video from one device to another. Imagine being on the road with a PocketPC, bored out of your mind…you could easily fire up your portable and connect to your PC using VLC and watch any movies or listen to any song you want, all for free. Engadget has posted a guide on how to stream almost anything with VLC which is sure to be very useful for a lot of you. If you use it, let us know how!
Free Music Friday - Radiohead
Submitted on December 2nd, 2005 by admin
Filed under Music
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I’ve been a huge fan of Radiohead for many years now, and am probably one of the few who actually kept listening to the band through their more electronic phase (the Kid A and Amnesiac albums), and enjoyed the more experiemental stuff. This week’s Free Music Friday edition is a mashup Radiohead album mixed by Panzah Zandahz called Me and This Army: Radiohead Remixes. The album features 16 tracks, many from the aforementioned experimental phase, and craftfully melded together with vocals from fantastic (mostly) underground rap artists. You’ll hear vocals from MF Doom on “Change the Beat”, the Jurassic 5 on “Wicked Child”, and one of the best tracks on the album, “Daytona 500 (My Iron Lung Remix)” featuring Ghostface Killa from the Wu Tang Clan. If you’re a fan of either genre, or simply want to hear what a well mixed album sounds like, do yourself a favor and pick this one up! Please note that Panzah Zandahz is selling the album, so if you like it, be sure to send him some cash.
