Show #14 - 01.28.2006

[Download Show #14 as MP3]

News

• Big torrent sites enter the top 200
• Torrent Spy
• The Pirate Bay
• mininova
• According to reports, because of the downtime of Isohunt.
• Which interestlingly enough got around $6,700 in dontations since January 16th to help get their site back online
  
• Blu-Ray Digital Rights Management Cracked
• Done by the same person who cracked the HD-DVD encryption
  
• Possible Backup of Blu-Ray media
• Space need to backup media is quite large
• Content makers are putting too much effort into technology that crimanalizes the consumer

Software / Hardware / Power Web Picks

• SmugMug
• Started in 2002.
• Similar to Flickr, but for serious photography nuts.
• There is no free version of the service, only a 14 day free trial. Minimum of $40/year.
• Cool photo interface, uses Dynamic JavaScript to update the image without refreshing the page.
• URL updating even though JavaScript is being used so the back button actually works.
• Top 10 Magic Trick Tutorials (Free)
• Snap Card - Make an audience selected card appear on your hand.
  
• The Revolver - (Taught by a kid) Makes each card on the deck flip over.
• Coin into Can - Coin forced into closed can
• Coin Matrix - Make coins transfer beneath cards
• Drop Change - Throw a card onto a deck and it instantly changes into a different card
• Pen through a dollar - Pen through a $100 dollar bill
• Spin Change - A card instantly changes to a different card while being spun around
• Glass Through Table - Amazingly simple yet effective trick where you force a glass through the table
• Tear a Phone book in Half - Not so much magic, just damn cool
• Self tying shoe lace

Penny Pinchers

• Cascade DTP
  A very well organized CSS driven page layout, for visual design of material complete with font selections, colors, background and more. Text areas can be visually arranged and graphics positioned as you go - Cascade DTP generate the style sheet codes for you and you can save it as complete HTML pages or copy the CSS code to be used with your favorite HTML editor. Additional features include optional design grids, scrollbar scheme editor, browser preview and more. A delightful application. 2MB Windows Freeware Found at: http://www.price-media.demon.co.uk/cascade.html
• Programming in C.
  A very comprehensive site covering the Programming Language c, from it's history of origin to course notes on the technique. This collection of notes is under copyright, but is openly
  available to read, so you can learn a great deal here on the subject thanks to A.D. Marshall. Included are UNIX System Calls and various interesting and valuable subroutines using C. Found at: http://www.tudogs.com/programming.php
• Superstat Professional
  A fast, and easy way to add a web counter to your web page, which displays the number of visitors to your web site, it also keeps statistics on the number of visits each hour and each day. Superstat is a free, fast, responsive, quick loading and reliable service with invisible tracking and accurate real-time website statistics with detailed visitor tracking and analysis
  Freeware, found at: http://en.superstat.info/index.htm

Security & Privacy

• Strong Password Generator
• Gives password and trick to remember it
• v,I?%3 / virgin , IPOD ? % 3
  
• Can select password length
• Helpful if you do not wish to use something like KeePass to create/store your passwords
  

Gamer's Corner

• [Derek] Sony fixes PS2 backwards compatibility on PS3 with firmware update
• There were issues with how the PS2 games looked on the PS3
• There was jagginess and artifacts on screen
• This solves a major issue many people had with the PS3
  

Editorial ("Power Up")

• [Derek] My Vista Super Review
• New Start Menu
  
• Windows Search - Sort of works, sort of doesn't
• E-Mail Searching if you use Outlook is great
• File searching, only for the files they recognize
• File Copying
• Still takes forever, it appears to take longer for smaller files now
• One file fails in the middle of the copy, and your whole copy is bust
• Windows Networking - Sucks from a power-user/administrator's perspective
• File Browser
• Parent Directory Button?
• Customizable Tabs on the left
  
• Printing - Microsoft convinced printer manufacturers to let them package the initial drivers and to not even offer them on their website