Im sure everyone whos into modding their Xbox 360 has run across the name Commodore4Eva once or twice and probably for good reason. The guy has been hacking away at the Xbox 360 DVD-Rom Drives for a while now.

Commodore4Eva, which already. The Xtreme firmware for TS-H943 Xbox 360 is a backup firmware modification that can boot all game. Mozilla Announces Firefox.

Adding to his newest goal he has announced he is working on an Xtreme v5.3 FW for the Hitachi and BenQ Xbox360 DVD Drive and he’s also working at adding some new features to firmware. His Own Notes include: Coming soon for Xtreme firmware _______________________________ * DVD movie region free!!! * 360 games using file iso/raw data hybrid – much smaller iso size * New Xtreme V5 for Hitachi and Benq drives Thanks Commodore4Eva And for those waiting for this, he also said their is no ETA on when it will be done or released.

I recently stumbled across a great new extension that every Firefox lover should have. It’s called Foxmarks, and what it basically does is this: Say you’re like me and have a million Bookmarks because you never know when you’re going to need that article again or you just found a sweet site that you someday plan to come back to (like mine). Well you’re at your best friend’s house or maybe you recently formatted or you are dual booting Windows Vista and you don’t have a copy of your bookmarks on hand. Well lucky for you your friend has Firefox installed.

Knowing that you had installed Foxmarks on your PC and sync it to their servers you can access your bookmarks with ease. Simply download Foxmark and sync it to their site and obtain your backup bookmarks. Grab this Extension and give it a show. The heat is on for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Everyone knows that Sony is losing money hand over foot to manufacture the PS3 and would have more to gain if they could cut cost. One of the best ways to reduce manufacturing costs of any high-end electronic device is to shrink its size. For both the 360 and PS3, the big move is from a 90nm process to a 65nm one. Sony indicated in a recent press conference that the company had already started production of parts of the PS3 chipset on a 65nm process. Microsoft previously announced that the Xbox CPU would be moving to 65nm technology in the first quarter of 2007 however, rumors are that this migration might not be complete until the 2nd quarter. Who will be more victorious? The winner may be the company that reduces the cost of their platform the fastest.

When it comes to replicating high definition content, there has been quite a lot of publicity about Blu-ray costing a lot more than HD DVD to replicate in bulk, mainly put down to Blu-ray’s design that makes it impossible to modify existing DVD stamping equipment to replicate Blu-ray discs with. Even the adult film makers have been complaining about Blu-ray’s costs. However, one thing that has not been made clear is how much of a difference there really is between the two competing formats. Well, Wes at WesleyTech went to investigate by contacting a few optical disc industry contacts and with some very interesting results: The first plant (kept confidential) which replicates both formats mentioned it costs $1.15 per 15GB HD DVD and $1.30 per 25GB Blu-ray disc based on a quantity of 25,000. DVDs cost $0.50 per Dual Layer disc for the same quantity at this plant. While Blu-ray looks more expensive to start with, let’s not forget the capacity difference, where a single layer Blu-ray disc is closer to a Dual Layer HD DVD disc capacity. At the second plant, which produces Blu-ray only, he was quoted $1.35 to $1.45 per disc based on a quantity of at least 25,000.

They also do 50GB Dual Layer Blu-ray disc replication at $2.15 to $2.25 per disc also based on a quantity of 25,000. The third company, ProActionMedia makes their pricing publicly and while their pricing is more expensive than the first two plants Wes contacted, it clearly shows the difference between Blu-ray & HD DVD disc replication publicly on their Website. For a quantity of 25,000 discs, ProActionMedia charges $1.45 per 15GB HD DVD disc and $1.59 per Blu-ray disc.

However, as a Single Layer HD DVD is not enough for some movies, the movie industry often has content replicated on dual layer HD DVD, which costs $1.69 per disc based on a 25,000 quantity from this replication company. Finally, one interesting point Wes makes about the replication costs is that most HD movies are replicated on Dual Layer HD DVD and Single Layer Blu-ray media.

As a result, it actually works out move expensive to replicate movies on HD DVD in most situations. Of course, this does not include setup fees and other costs such as authoring, AACS copy protection, packaging, etc. As a result, these extra costs will need to be added to the replication costs. At this stage, some would ask just how much the setup costs would be.

Well, Wes had a look into this by contacting his first plant again and published another. Apparently for a replication of a large quantity of discs, the plants normally waive the mastering fee.

As the studios typically use 30GB Dual Layer HD DVD and 25GB Single Layer Blu-ray media, let’s take a look at the fees for these: The plant charges $3,000 for 30GB Dual Layer HD DVD and $2,500 for 25GB Single Layer Blu-ray media in setup costs and $1.30 per disc of either of these two formats based on a quantity of 5,000. So for this small quantity, HD DVD works out cheaper when the setup fee is taken into account, assuming the studio can manage with Blu-ray’s 25GB capacity limit for its Single Layer format. Even for larger quantities where the setup fee is waived, both these two formats work out at the same price from this plant. So in the end, while Dual Layer Blu-ray replication costs more to setup and replicate than Dual Layer HD DVD, most movies do not need to avail of Blu-ray’s Dual Layer capacity. Even if a movie does need Blu-ray’s Dual Layer 50GB capacity, then if the studio decided to also release it on HD DVD, they would either need to either reduce the quality to fit on a 30GB Dual Layer HD DVD or release two HD DVD discs to retain the quality, not to mention the extra costs associated with two HD DVD discs instead of a single Blu-ray disc! Further information, including cost tables can be accessed in this and in this; both on WesleyTech. How badly does Microsoft want to promote the Zune?

My fellow tippsters at Neowin.net found that Microsoft has decided that every user who sets MSN as their home page will be entered to win one of 50 Zunes. Its simple Step one: set your home page to MSN. Not using Internet Explorer? No problem, Microsoft has a page that explains how to do it in Firefox, Opera, Netscape and Safari. Step two: enter your E-mail address so that you can be contacted if you win.

Of course you can change it right back (or not change it at all?), but Microsoft hopes the majority of users will fall in love with the site right away. Sure, many people will enter the contest and avoid MSN for the rest of their lives, but many fools will be convinced that keeping MSN as their home page will get them a Zune, someday. What are the chances that those ignorant people even know what a Zune is?Giving away free Zunes? Sure, that gets them off the shelves. Microsoft seems confident that if they get enough units into circulation, the devices may start raising eyebrows.

Someone should tell Microsoft that a first generation product never gets far in a saturated market. Oh yeah, and free Zunes don’t generate much revenue. It probably comes down to advertisements on MSN’s page. I guess the company just wants to push this model for as long as they can, before they start shelling out new ones. Instead of bothering with this useless marketing move, they could go ahead and hire more engineers and think of something to beat the clickwheel. But why do that when you can do something that needs less effort?

Oh well, this may actually do some good. Maybe some users won’t have spyware sites as their home page anymore. .

Hey all you downloading junkies It appears uTorrent has released a new version µTorrent 1.6.1 Build 488 Stable uTorrent is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint. It was designed to use as little cpu, memory and space as possible while offering all the functionality expected from advanced clients.

Update Fixes Include: — 2007-02-13: Version 1.6.1 (build 488) – Feature: Select upload/download speed for a torrent through the rightclick menu – Feature: Added encryption box to speed guide – Change: Don’t check as many pieces at the same time. – Change: Misc WebUI changes. – Change: Switch to JSON for webinterface – Fix: Problem with category list in the gui when updated from the webui – Fix: WebUI not clearing state between requests. – Fix: Redirect also index.html to guest.html – Fix: Added On Now shows the time it’s added, not loaded.

– Fix: JSON uses ” instead of ‘ – Fix: (a) Upnp fix – Fix: Show pause icon when checking is paused. – Fix: Fixed problems with XML parser – Fix: Don’t allow two message boxes to be shown in the RSS window – Fix: Changed some window titles – Fix: Fix malformed.torrent exploit – Fix: Boss key field is now larger.

Apache Needs no introduction. The legendary web server app that probably almost every website runs on. Synaptic/Adept/YUM Package managers for making installing of software on LINUX systems more effortless. Konqueror Window File Managers simply cannot get better than this. Konqueror’s competitors - Finder and Explorer are nowhere near as good as it is. Beryl/Compiz Beryl is a compositing window manager for the X Window System.

It is a fork of Compiz. It has many cool features, such as, Blur, Water, Desktop Cube, Animations, Trailfocus, Expose-like features, and Fading Windows.

AmaroK Brilliant music player that is a great replacement for iTunes. Features include Podcasts, Internet Radio, Lyrics, Wikipedia information about the currently artist. Highly extensible with scripts and themes. The recent release also features a music store for digital music downloads.

K3b Windows users would say Nero is way better than K3b in terms of features. But why the hell does a person who just wants to burn some discs also need a media player, an always-on media cataloging software, audio editor and other useless crap.

K3b does what its supposed to do, has a great interface and does it perfectly. Apollon (frontend for giFT) This program is one of the best P2P software out there without doubt.

It supports the FastTrack, Gnutella, Ares and OpenFT networks and has no added spyware. MPlayer + MEncoder MPlayer is that media player that you’ve always wanted - the one that can play absolutely anything and doesn’t cost an arm, a leg and a couple of toes. And if you’re part of “the scene” there’s no better software than MEncoder to to rip those DVDs, and convert them to AVIs. And if you’re not hardcore geek enough to handle the command-line interface there are about a couple of thousand GUIs for these two programs floating around the net. Deskbar The Deskbar applet for the Gnome Panel searches liles and folders, Wikipedia, browser bookmarks and history, dictionary, Del.icio.us, address book contacts, Gmail and opens programs, web pages and even triples as a calculator. Screem HTML/XML Editor A very good HTML/XML code editor for creating websites. With Screem, you can use the markup you want rather than what the application thinks you need.

Recently, I received a new laptop from Compaq. Upon receiving it, I did the traditional 'installation of Windows from scratch' on it to remove a lot of the garbage that is preinstalled on these machines.

Then I got really busy installing tons of great software that takes care of pretty much every software need I have. Not only was all of the software free, every piece of it was open source, which means that the code is peer-reviewed; no spyware here! Firefox Replaces Internet Explorer If you haven’t switched to Firefox for your web browsing needs, do it now. It stops annoying popups and it has tons of amazing plugins that can make surfing the web even better. The first thing I do on any new Windows machine is run Internet Explorer just long enough to download Firefox. Thunderbird Replaces Microsoft Outlook or Eudora Thunderbird is an email client that has five big things going for it: it’s free, it’s full featured, it’s lightweight and runs quick, it has an unparalleled spam filter, and it protects you from those ridiculous phishing attacks by clearly indicating which emails send you to a bogus website.

If you’re not already using a web-based email solution, Thunderbird should be your client. Sunbird Replaces Microsoft Outlook’s calendaring functions Might as well get the Mozilla trifecta out of the way by mentioning Sunbird, which is the Mozilla Foundation’s calendaring program.

It’s extremely easy to use and works great Replaces Microsoft Word Want a good word processor but find Microsoft Word too expensive? AbiWord is my favorite replacement for Word. It’s lightweight (meaning it runs quickly) and includes pretty much every feature in a word processor, plus it can save files in formats that you can exchange with Word and WordPerfect users, plus open any of their files, too. OpenOffice Replaces Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint If you want to replace the rest of the Office suite, your best bet is OpenOffice.

It includes very nice replacements for Excel and PowerPoint (and workable replacements for Access and other Office elements). ClamWin Replaces Norton AntiVirus or McAfee ClamWin is a slick anti-virus software that’s quite easy to manage and is unobtrusive while keep your system free of viruses. Gaim Replaces AIM, Windows Messenger, etc. This is a very clean instant messaging program that allows you to be on AOL Instant Messenger, Windows (MSN) Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger simultaneously with one program. GIMPShop Replaces Adobe Photoshop This is a version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program that does a pretty solid job of imitating Adobe Photoshop - a regular user of Photoshop can adapt to it quite quickly.

It’s very richly featured and runs quite well. Gnucleus Replaces LimeWire, BearShare, etc. Sure, LimeWire and BearShare are free, but why not just get the same basic software without all of the spyware? Gnucleus is pretty much identical to those software packages - but without all that extra junk that slows down your computer. VLC Media Player Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, etc. If you get tired of having tons of media players on your computer, get this package that runs pretty much every media type you’ll run across without breaking a sweat.

Juice Juice lets you effortlessly subscribe to podcasts, organize them, and listen to them at your convenience. Audacity If you’re interested in recording your own podcast, Audacity and a microphone are pretty much all you need to get the job done. Filezilla Replaces WinFTP Many people occasionally have a need to FTP files to other computers; if you ever have the need to transfer files in such a fashion, FileZilla will do the job slickly and quickly. Keynote Keynote is basically designed specifically for the task of taking notes on a laptop.

If you ever find yourself in a meeting or a presentation with your laptop open and want to jot down notes and organize them just a bit, Keynote is unquestionably the program for you. MusikCube Replaces iTunes If you’re not already committed to downloaded music from the iTunes Music Store, then MusikCube is the best choice available for a music organizer and player. It organizes your mp3s, makes it really easy and really fast to find them. Handbrake Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few movies on my laptop for travel purposes. X-Chat 2 Replaces mIRC X-Chat is a free IRC client.

KeePass KeePass is a program that securely stores and manages the abundance of passwords we all use on a daily basis. TrueCrypt TrueCrypt enables you to convert a memory stick into a strongly encrypted data storage device, meaning that you can store personal data on it without worrying about losing it and having personal information get out and about. PDFCreator Replaces Adobe Acrobat PDFCreator creates a virtual printer on your computer that, if you print a document to it from any program, creates a PDF of that document that can be read on any computer with Acrobat Reader on it. After installing PDFCreator, all you have to do is print like normal and out comes a PDF! Freemind Freemind is a 'mind mapping' software program.

In essence, it enables you to brainstorm and link together ideas quickly, creating 'maps' of concepts similar to what you might do on a whiteboard. NASA Worldwind Replaces Google Earth WorldWind is very similar to Google Earth in that it allows you to browse the globe. While it isn’t strong for creating maps (but why not just use Google Maps for that?), it is utterly incredible for viewing three-dimensional landscapes of any place on earth. Notepad2 Replaces Notepad Notepad2 is a replacement for the traditional Windows Notepad that just adds a few sweet little features: multiple documents; line, word, and character counts; and some highlighting of tags. GanttPV Replaces Microsoft Project If you do any project management GanttPV does a brilliant job of managing the task quickly, easily, and freely. If you need to move to MS Project later, you can export from GanttPV to Project GnuCash Replaces Microsoft Money or Quicken GnuCash is a slimmed-down version of the bloated Microsoft Money and Quicken packages.

The interfaces are incredibly simple - it functions much like a checkbook ledger on your computer. True Combat: Elite Replaces Quake IV, Halo, etc. It’s basically a third person combat game, but the graphics are spectacular and the game is quite addicting. I always wanted to have someone to hold, someone to love. And now that you've come into my life.

(Inside card) - I've changed my mind. I must admit, you brought religion into my life. (Inside card) - I never believed in Hell until I met you. As the days go by, I think how lucky I am. (Inside card) - That you're not here to ruin it for me. Congratulations on your promotion. Before you go.

(Inside card) - Will you take the knife from my back? You'll probably need it again.

Someday I hope to marry. (Inside card) - Someone other than you.

Happy Birthday! You look great for your age. (Inside card) - Almost lifelike! When we were together, you said you'd die for me.

(Inside card) - Now we've broken up, I think it's time to keep your promise. We've been friends for a very long time. (Inside card) - What do you say we stop? I'm so miserable without you. (Inside card) - It's almost like you're still here.

Congratulations on your new bundle of joy. (Inside card) - Did you ever find out who the father was? You are such a good friend. If we were on a sinking ship and there was only one life jacket. (Inside card) - I'd miss you terribly and think of you often.

Your friends and I wanted to do something really special for your birthday. (Inside card) - So we're having you put to sleep. Happy Birthday, Uncle Dad! (Available only in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia.) 14.

Looking back over the years we've been together, I can't help but wonder. (Inside card) - What was I thinking? Congratulations on your wedding day! (Inside card) - Too bad no one likes your husband.

Hahaha +dwebb. Web 2.0, it's a catch phrase we have heard over and over again and we have seen a number of online sites utilizing this new technology. Ajax coded websites are popping up all over the place, and we are seeing the traditional desktop applications go web based. Will these sites ever replace your traditional office, not sure, but they provide a nice resource for anyone on the go, and for people who telecommute. We no longer have to worry which computer our favorite bookmarks are on, if we have office installed on our laptop or not, nor do we need the latest version of Photoshop for quick simple image editing on the fly.

I have used several of these service and they work fairly well, although I do still find myself going back to more powerful desktop based apps, these sites definitely have their place and will only get better with time. OFFICE 2.0 List: Bookmarks: del.icio.us, BlinkList, BlogMarks, Blue Dot, Clipmarks, Cogenz, ConnectBeam, Diigo, Furl, Google Bookmarks, listal, LookLater, ma.gnolia, Netvouz, Raw Sugar, Simpy, Spurl, Yahoo!

My Web, zurpy. Calendar: Google Calendar, 30 Boxes, CalendarHub, Epointment, HipCal, Jotlet, Kiko, Planzo, Scrybe, Spongecell, TimeBridge, Trumba, vivapop. Contacts: LinkedIn, OpenBC, Plaxo, Plugoo. CRM: SugarCRM, Relenta CRM, Salesboom, Salesforce.com. Database: Dabble DB, Caspio Bridge, eUnifyDB, Google Base, Lazybase, MyOwnDB, QuickBase, Zoho Creator.

Desktop: Google Homepage, Clic!Dev, Computadora, Desktoptwo, eskobo, eyeOS, Favoor, HomePortals, NetVibes, Nowsy, ORCA Desktop, Pageflakes, Protopage, Windows Live, YouOS, YourMinis, Zimbio. Email: Gmail, Hotmail, Mailroom, Simdesk, Webmail.us, Yahoo!

Mail, Zimbra Collaboration Suite. Feed Reader: Google Reader, Bloglines, FeedLounge, Feeds 2.0, NewsAlloy, NewsGator, Newshutch, Rojo, Wizag. Operating System: Zoho Virtual Office, Firestoker, goowy, Joyent, Nsite. Presentation: Zoho Show, AJAX-S, Empressr, fliptrack, gOFFICE Presentations, Preezo, S5, Scooch, Slide, Slideshare, Spresent, ThinkFree Show, Thumbstacks. Spreadsheets: Zoho Sheet, ajaxXLS, EditGrid, gOFFICE Spreadsheets, Google Spreadsheets, iRows, Num Sum, Sheester, ThinkFree Calc, wikiCalc. Weblog: WordPress, Blogger, Blogtronix, TypePad. Word Processor: Zoho Writer, ajaxWrite, gOFFICE Word Processing, iNetWord, RallyPoint, ThinkFree Write, Writeboard, Writely.

Calculator: Google Calculator, Calcoolate, Instacalc. Drawing: Gliffy, ajaxSketch, Cumulate Draw, Imagination Cubed, LiThA-Paint. Fax: eFax, InterFax, TrustFax, and more. File Sender: YouSendIt, Approver.com, DropLoad, DropSend, Krunch, MailBigFile, Gigafile. Group Manager: CollectiveX, AirSet, BlueTie, Central Desktop, eloops.com, Foldera, GroupLoop, GroupSharp, HiveLive, TeamWork Live, Todoz, WebEx WebOffice.

Notepad: Gmail, Fleck, Google Notebook, Helipad, Magnoto, Posticky.com, shortText.com, SnapBits, SNIPPit, StickyTag, stikkit, Workspace, Wridea. Photo Editing: PXN8, Phixr, Pixer, Snipshot, and more. Photo Manager: Flickr, 23, AllYouCanUpload, Riya, SmugMug, Zenfolio, Zoto. Clipboard: cl1p Command Prompt: YubNub, JS/UIX. Desktop Publishing: gOFFICE Desktop Publishing Development Tool: Ning, Coghead, Dapper, Mashery, Morfik, Pingdom.

Document Manager: EchoSign, Alfresco, Blinksale, FreshBooks, Koral, ShareMethods. Expense Tracker: foonance, billQ, ClearCheckbook, Mvelopes, OneStatement. Feed Processor: Feed Digest, FeedBlitz, FeedBurner, Feeds2Be, SocialMail, Spanning Salesforce, Teleflip.

File Manager: fluxiom, Backpack, Box.net, Omnidrive, Openomy, Streamload, Strongspace, Xmail Hard Drive. File Server: S3 Form Designer: Wufoo, FormLogix, FormSpring, Icebrrg, jotForm, Sidewalk, Sidewalk, The Form Assembly. Instant Messenger: Meebo, Campfire, eBuddy.com, Gabbly, JumpChat, Kool IM, Lingr, Mabber, MSN Web Messenger, Wablet. Mind Mapper: Mayomi Music Player: MP3tunes, ajaxTunes, Jinzora, last.fm, Pandora, Streampad. Outliner: iOutliner, iJot, Listigator, ListPool, Nelements, SproutLiner. Personal Organizer: Zoho Planner, Athyrium, MyTicklerFile, SynapseLife, Tracks, TracksLife, voo2do.

Polls: Zoho Polls, dPolls, PollGenius, PollPub.com, QuestionForm. Printer: Kinko's, Big Blue Saw, Lulu. Project: Zoho Project, 1time, Basecamp, Confluence, Devshop, DreamTeam, ProjectPipe, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow.com, Side Job Track, teamwork. Scanner: scanR, Mytago.

Sound Mixer: RAZZ Mixer Task Manager: Ta-da Lists, Bla-bla List, e2doList, iPrioritize, Joe's Goals, Orchestrate, Remember The Milk, Rough Underbelly, TaskFreak!, TaskTHIS, tasktoy, Toodledo, Tudu Lists, Wallnote. Time Tracking: Tick, 14Dayz, Beeplet, Harvest, minutes in a minute, SlimTimer, Time Tracker, Time59, Toggl. Utilities: Timeline, emurse, FiveRuns, MyOpenID, Naymz, simplifid, Zamzar. Video Editing: Jumpcut, eyespot.

Voicemail: SpinVox, Aptela, GotVoice, Odeo. Web Conferencing: Vyew, Webex Web Publishing: Google Pages, Blockstar, Freewebs, Office Live, SiteKreator, Socialtext, Synthasite, Weebly, Weebly, Wetpaint. Let me know if you know of any others. All of us have cellphones these days, but many of us are not sure how to get the best deal based on our usage. Depending on how much you use your phone the rates can vary drastically from vendor to vendor. They are often confusing and lock us into a high monthly payment. Here is a great website that allows you to look at various cell phone plans and compare them based on your zipcode and what type of plan you are looking for.

You have three plan comparison choices: single plans, family plans, and or prepaid. The nifty plan calculator can help you decide on a carrier and plan structure.

Check it out. Being a parent I worry allot about the content my child sees online, and although being a technological savy parent I have the appropriate tools in place to make sure pop-up ads of Swedish lesbians twins doesn't come up when he types in spongebob, I still could use any help I can get. Well to aid me in my quest is a great website called Zoo.com. Is a child-friendly search engine that filters out sexually explicit material.

The site is designed for kids ages 8-13 and pulls search results from the likes of Google and Wikipedia, and news from ABC, Fox, and Yahoo. But has no image-search capability, so it weeds out 'adult' words while retaining suitable results. For example: (A child using the search term 'breast cancer' will get plenty of information, but the word 'breast' delivers no results.) Check it out +dwebb. 2Prong is an anonymous registration website that allows you to keep your email address safe and hidden from the spam mongers of the net.

It is great for all those websites that make you register to get something, and then whore your email address out to various vendors so that they can fill your inbox with unwanted crap like 'Refinance Your Home' or 'Get Viagra Now';) Before you check out the site, be sure to purge your clipboard of anything important; 2 Prong copies the automatically-generated email address to your clipboard when you visit the site. Check it out +dwebb. Here is a little list I found humorous, and wanted to share: 20 Ways to Annoy Someone: 1.

Specify that your drive-thru order is 'to go.' If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others. Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will 'swipe your grub.' Name your dog 'Dog.' Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions 'to keep them tuned up.' Reply to everything someone says with 'that's what you think.' Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your 'astronaut training.'

Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with a can of Lysol. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up. Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you'll be saying more any moment. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you 'like it that way.' Tell 1-800 operators they sound gay and ask for a date. Sew anti-theft detector strips into people's backpacks.

Hide dairy products in inaccessible places. Order a side of pork rinds with your fillet mignon. Change channels five minutes before the end of every show. Tape pieces of 'Sweating to the Oldies' over climatic parts of rental movies. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints by the cash register.

Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets. Repeat everything someone says as a question. Okay maybe I can deal with companies cutting back on support, shipping jobs overseas and making me talk to Ghandi for 2 hours while my mouse flutters helplessly across the computer screen. However when I get dumped into the endless loop of press 1 for this or 2 for that, I get a little annoyed. When I purchase something I expect that if it doesn't function like it should or breaks after the first time I use it, I can call and actually get a live human being to calm me down, and tell me it's gonna be alright, even if it isn't;) Well here is a free site called Gethuman.com that allows you to do just that.

It has a database listing of companies and the steps to get someone live. Check it out. Websense is a thorn in the side of many who want to surf their favorites sites in private, without the man telling us what we can and can't view at work or at school. We have this where Iwork and even though I can view pretty much anything with my access level, many of my co-workers can not. So Here is a little tutorial for them to get around this annoying little problem.

• Type the URL you want to go to in the box. • Because stupidcensorship.com is itself blocked by Websense, you need to find another proxy avoidance site. More are created daily.

• The way this works is that the proxy avoidance site is hosted on a non-filtered connection. The page is routed through that connection to your computer.

• Since websense can't block a secure site use the only draw back is that it's slow. Also you can sign up for a mailing list that details the newest proxy avoidance websites here: Don't let them tell you what u can't do;) +dwebb. We all have them, neighbors who annoy us or get on our nerves playing music too loud or doing other kooky shit. Well here is a little trick to fight back. If you have an ipod or other FM transmitter, you can effectivley silence the radio or broadcast your own stuff coming from their stereo. Here's how: 1.) Get an iTrip mini (if you have an iPod 3G(with the 4 buttons and dock connector), 4G (black and white screen or color screen that cannot play videos; click wheel) or iPod mini), an iTrip Nano (for iPod Nano) or the new dock-connecting iTrip (for video or nano).

All of these are easy to use and have extendable aerials. 2.) Extend your iTrip's aerial.

On a iTrip mini, the aerial should be underneath a white sticker on top. On the dock connector iTrip, it should be on the back (you will need a pencil or pin to access it) and on the iTrip nano, it is under a sticker on the bottom).

3.) Using a standard FM radio, try and get to the same station that your noisy neighbours are listening to. Once you have found it, tune your iTrip to it.

4.) Next, get as close as you can to your neighbours' house without looking suspicious. Then finally play your music over your iTrip and you should hear YOUR favourite songs from THEIR stereo! To improve your signal quality, skin the aerial and stick it into the AERIAL IN port of an FM signal booster.

Then plug a TV aerial to the RADIO OUT port of the signal booster. If your booster has more than one RADIO OUT/TV OUT, plug in as many aerials as you can into the relevant ports and place them as close to your neighbours' house. You can get better coverage! Enjoy your peace and quiet;) +dwebb. Well boys and girls, I haven't been around much these days and have been bogged down in other stuff, but I wanted to start posting again, and let you know I haven't died;) If you constantly receive messages you'd like to ignore from the same persons or Gmail's spam filters aren't too good for you, it's time to create a blacklist.

How to do that in Gmail? Go to Contacts, click on Groups and create a new group (let's say 'Blacklist'). Click on 'All contacts', check the email addresses you don't like and add them to the group (at the bottom of the window). Each time you send a message to someone not in your Contacts list, Gmail will automatically add the person for you. So if you didn't reply to a person, you'll have to add the mail address in the last step. Go to Groups / Blacklist and click 'Compose to group'. Copy the text from the 'to' field.

Paste it here and click 'convert'. Then click on the resulting text and copy it.

(This is a simple JavaScript. No address will be sent to a server.) 5. Create a new filter. Paste the text obtained above in the 'from' field, check 'Also apply to.' And 'Delete it'. If you want to add more addresses, edit the filter by appending ' OR newaddress1 OR newaddress2.

OR newaddressN' in the From field. Note that if you only want one or two address, you can create just the filter described above, by adding the address in the From field.

If you want to block many addresses, it's time consuming to do this manually by copying each email address from the contact list. We all like things that are free, so here is a new way of making Long Distance phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. And Canada for free within the U.S. Using the free VOIP program called Skype. The makers of Skype are now offering their SkypeOut service to any phone number in Canada and the United States for unlimited calling for FREE till 2007! Unity3d Obfuscator Keygen Crack.

I used this other night and it worked flawlessly. The quality was awesome and it didn't skip a beat.

1.) Download the Latest version of. 2.) Use the SkypeOut service to make your call. Read more about it. Well here is another little goodie to come along and offer up free music to the masses.

I don't think this one will last long if the RIAA has its way, so grab wat you can now kiddies:) The website is called Sideload. What is Sideload you ask?? Well Sideload.com is a website that aggregates popular free music tracks on the web that have been sideloaded into, the online Music Locker. Sideload.com is an easy way to find great MP3 files from bands all over the internet. You can quickly preview tracks and store them permanently in your Locker with one click! Check it out. Here is a list of the 10 best LiveCD distributions dealing with security.

These distros can be run entirely off the CD without any install on the machine. They are great for penetration testing and offer portability. Best of all you get to choose which flavor you need at any given point just by switching a cd. Some of them are: 1. BackTrack BackTrack is the result of the merging of two Innovative Penetration Testing live Linux distributions Whax and Auditor. Check it out.

Operator Operator is a very fully featured LiveCD totally oriented around network security (with open source tools of course). Check it out. PHLAK Mainly based around Penetration Testing, PHLAK is a must have for any pro hacker/pen-tester. Check it out or at the mirror.

Auditor The Auditor security collection is a Live-System based on KNOPPIX. With no installation whatsoever, the analysis platform is started directly from the CD-Rom and is fully accessible within minutes. Chec kit out. L.A.S Linux Local Area Security Linux is a ‘Live CD’ distribution with a strong emphasis on security tools and small footprint. Check it out. Knoppix-STD STD is a Linux-based Security Tool. Actually, it is a collection of hundreds if not thousands of open source security tools.

Check it out. Helix Helix is more on the forensics and incident response side. Helix is a customized distribution of the Knoppix Live Linux CD. Check it out.

F.I.R.E FIRE is a portable bootable cdrom based distribution with the goal of providing an immediate environment to perform forensic analysis, incident response, data recovery, virus scanning and vulnerability assessment. Check it out.

NUbuntu The main goal of nUbuntu is to create a distribution which is derived from the Ubuntu distribution. Check it out.

INSERT Rescue Security Toolkit INSERT is a complete, bootable linux system. It comes with a graphical user interface running the fluxbox window manager while still being sufficiently small to fit on a credit card-sized CD-ROM. Check it out.

Being a hardcore gamer I play allot of new titles out there. From strategy based games to FPS to adventure style RPG's I love them all. Usually these games are between $30.00 and $50.00 bucks, leaving the budget conscious gamer to be very selective. Well for those who just want to pass the time and not pay anything for some worthwhile distraction, comes a listing of Free Gaming titles anyone can download off the net for free. Some of the titles are pretty kewl and worth taking a look at: Cave Story URL: You get it all right here.

RPG elements. And it all comes in under 1MB. Daikatana--Game Boy Color URL: Straight from the homepage of John Romero comes his blessing to download the Game Boy Color version of Daikatana. Here's the crazy part: It's actually not bad for an adventure/RPG. Dungeon Siege: Copperhead URL: Proof that some good things can come from Dungeon Siege, this sci-fi total conversion is a free game that's good enough to pay for.

More interesting news: A Copperhead take on Far Cry is also in the works. Dungeon Siege: Ultima V: Lazarus URL: More good things from Dungeon Siege. These guys have re-created the classic Ultima V with this Dungeon Siege mod.

We dug it so much that we gave it a review (check out page 88). Eternal Daughter URL: Addictive, fun, and in the vein of all those early '90s Nintendo RPGs, Eternal Daughter is a must-play bit of freeware, especially for Nintendo fanboys. Flight of the Amazon Queen URL: FOTAQ is a throwback to the simpler days of LucasArts-style adventure games. This classic has it all: crazy Nazi scientists, great dialogue, and lots of puns! If you want the whole experience, download the CD version.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy URL: The classic Infocom text adventure is back, it's an online Web game, and now, technically, it's a graphic adventure. Mount & Blade URL: This isn't a typical RPG. Sure, it's got your standard stat building, but combat takes place with third-person action. It's a little primitive but certainly worth the free download. To see a full list of freebies, head on over to and get your gaming fix. VideoBomb, is a Digg like site which highlights the latest hot viedos from around the web. Users can bomb or rate each video thus forcing it to the homepage based on popularity.

There is some whacky stuff up there, some of which is quite entertaining:) I particularly thought the woman breastfeeding a cat was distrubing yet somewhat facinating. It was like staring at the sun, you know you shouldn't look but you stare anyways;) The site is totally free, although you do have to register to bomb stuff. Check it out.

We all love free stuff right. Well here is a way of grabbing some free music using an application called StationRipper. StationRipper allows you to Record Internet Radio Stations and broadcasts. It will record Shoutcast streams, video streams and podcasts. Some of its features are: • Record Shoutcast Audio and Video streams, and Podcasts.

• Records up to 600 streams at one time. Although the free version only allows 2 streams at a time.

• Auto-download Album art. • Integrate with iTunes - auto-generate iTunes playlists of songs recorded.

• Keeps track of the songs you've already recorded, only keeping the songs you don't already have. Check it out or the application and try it out for yourself. This is a neat little project which involves making a Red Box from a standard Radio Shack tone generator. What's a Red Box you ask?? Well a Red Box is a device that outputs the nickel, dime, and quarter tones used in a payphone. Theoretically one could use such a device to place phone calls at a payphone for free. These were very popular in the 90's and may not work on today's new phone system.

Although I have heard they will still work in some remote areas where time has forgotten;) Check it out +dwebb. This is a great little project for anyone who wants to get the most out of their Xbox. After a couple of hours messing around with config files and online menus, I successfully got my XBOX chipped, flashed the BIOS, upgraded the HD to a 30 GB and installed the latest build of XBOX Media Center.

Release.: Skin.: It wasn't the easiest of tasks without any real, straightforward instructions, most of the stuff I found was written in the Online XBMC manual, or found in various forums, but once I got it working it is awesome. I then bought a wireless game adapter, and networked my Xbox, the media center gives me access to all of the videos, music, Podcasts, audiobooks and photos stored on my regular computer from my TV in my living room. The video and audio streaming worked flawlessly and I can FTP into the box and update and transfer files. I also have a few DVD’s backed up on my computer using DVD Shrink 3.2, which compresses them down to a specified size with minimal quality loss and played them on the Xbox Best of all, there are emulators for all the old gaming systems, specifically, MAME, NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Genesis and more. I can now play all the old arcade classics of yesteryear on my XBOX.

The networked Xbox also can access all my music in iTunes, I can get my playlist listed and the music streams to my TV. There are many plugin scripts for the system available, lots to stream video content from the web, a couple of my favorites are the Apple movie trailers, which works flawlessly and CNN Videos, which is like a video on demand of all the latest news headlines. The XBMC is really quite and impressive multi use media PC. XBMC can be used with the Xbox DVD remote or any of th various Xbox controllers including wireless.

The button config can be a little tricky, but once you figure it out it works great. Here is a great guide on finding free Wifi. With a few simple tools you can tap into your neighbor's wireless connection and begin taking advantage of free high speed internet connection. Essential Items: 1.

Get a good browser, I prefer. Firefox is not only a good browser for surfing the web, but it is more secure and allows you to tweak your internet to go faster.

You will need a wireless network card. Any card should do fine, most networks are G, so a 802.11g card would be the best route to go, also probably the cheapest. Finding Wireless Networks Locating a wireless network is the first step in trying to exploit it. There are two tools that are commonly used in this regard: ( This Windows based tool easily finds wireless signals being broadcast within range ) A must have. It also has ability to determine Signal/Noise info that can be used for site surveys. I actually know of one highly known public wireless hotspot provider that uses this utility for their site surveys. - One of the key functional elements missing from NetStumbler is the ability to display Wireless Networks that are not broadcasting their SSID.

As a potential wireless security expert, you should realize that Access Points are routinely broadcasting this info; it just isn’t being read/deciphered. Kismet will detect and display SSIDs that are not being broadcast which is very critical in finding wireless networks. Attaching to the Found Wireless Network Once you’ve found a wireless network, the next step is to try to connect to it.

If the network isn’t using any type of authentication or encryption security, you can simply connect to the SSID. If the SSID isn’t being broadcast, you can create a profile with the name of the SSID that is not being broadcast. Of course you found the non-broadcast SSID with Kismet, right? If the wireless network is using authentication and/or encryption, you may need one of the following tools. - This is a very easy to use tool that can be used to sniff and crack WEP keys. While many people bash the use of WEP, it is certainly better than using nothing at all. Something you’ll find in using this tool is that it takes a lot of sniffed packets to crack the WEP key.

There are additional tools and strategies that can be used to force the generation of traffic on the wireless network to shorten the amount of time needed to crack the key, but this feature is not included in Airsnort. - This tool is used as a brute force tool for cracking WPA-PSK, considered the “New WEP” for home Wireless Security. This program simply tries a bunch of different options from a dictionary file to see if one ends up matching what is defined as the Pre-Shared Key.

- If a network is using LEAP, this tool can be used to gather the authentication data that is being passed across the network, and these sniffed credentials can be cracked. LEAP doesn’t protect the authentication like other “real” EAP types, which is the main reason why LEAP can be broken. Sniffing Wireless Data Whether you are directly connected to a wireless network or not, if there is wireless network in range, there is data flying through the air at any given moment. You will need a tool to be able to see this data. - While there has been much debate on the proper way to pronounce this utility, there is no question that it is an extremely valuable tool. Ethereal can scan wireless and Ethernet data and comes with some robust filtering capabilities.

It can also be used to sniff-out 802.11 management beacons and probes and subsequently could be used as a tool to sniff-out non-broadcast SSIDs. The aforementioned utilities, or similar ones, will be necessities in your own wireless security toolkit. The easiest way to become familiar with these tools is to simply use them in a controlled lab environment. And cost is no excuse as all of these tools are available freely on the Internet. The Auditor is a copy of linux that boots from the cd with all the neccesary wi-fi hacking tools pre-installed. The Auditor security collection is a Live-System based on KNOPPIX.

With no installation whatsoever, the analysis platform is started directly from the CD-Rom and is fully accessible within minutes. Independent of the hardware in use, the Auditor security collection offers a standardised working environment, so that the build-up of know-how and remote support is made easier. Protecting Against These Tools Just as it’s important to know how to utilize the aforementioned tools, it is important to know best practices on how to secure your Wireless Network Against these tools. NetStumbler - Do not broadcast your SSID.

Ensure your WLAN is protected by using advanced Authentication and Encryption. Kismet - There’s really nothing you can do to stop Kismet from finding your WLAN, so ensure your WLAN is protected by using advanced Authentication and Encryption Airsnort - Use a 128-bit, not a 40-bit WEP encryption key. This would take longer to crack. If your equipment supports it, use WPA or WPA2 instead of WEP (may require firmware or software update).

Cowpatty - Use a long and complex WPA Pre-Shared Key. This type of key would have less of a chance of residing in a dictionary file that would be used to try and guess your key and/or would take longer. Free Home Inspection Software For Android.

If in a corporate scenario, don’t use WPA with Pre-Shared Key, use a good EAP type to protect the authentication and limit the amount of incorrect guesses that would take place before the account is locked-out. If using certificate-like functionality, it could also validate the remote system trying to gain access to the WLAN and not allow a rogue system access. ASLeap - Use long and complex credentials, or better yet, switch to EAP-FAST or a different EAP type. Ethereal - Use encryption, so that anything sniffed would be difficult or nearly impossible to break. WPA2, which uses AES, is essentially unrealistic to break by a normal hacker. Even WEP will encrypt the data. When in a Public Wireless Hotspot (which generally do not offer encryption), use application layer encryption, like Simplite to encrypt your IM sessions, or use SSL.

For corporate users, use IPSec VPN with split-tunneling disabled. This will force all traffic leaving the machine through an encrypted tunnel that would be encrypted with DES, 3DES or AES. Where to start Apple's iTunes is your first stop. Think of iTunes as a convenient distribution jukebox.

Though many podcasters have their own websites, iTunes makes finding new material easier than searching the whole web -- just browse iTunes' podcast categories to see what's available. Find a podcaster you like, and follow the links in their blogrolls. Or browse the podcast directories: Video and enhanced podcasts Enhanced podcasts can be viewed in iTunes and on the color iPod and the nano (the audio will play on earlier iPods, but they won't display images, of course). Video requires a brand new iPod, but most video clips will appear in the iTunes Video menu, and can be played in iTunes and added to any playlist.

Education • NASA's videos. A NASA astronomer answers questions from kids, like '?' Clever animations illustrate the tricky concepts, providing educational fun for kids (and this reviewer, too). Sebastien, a native French speaker living in the United States, uses audio, video and surprisingly helpful PDFs to give one reviewer optimistic ideas about New Year's resolutions.

For example, see Lesson 1 () and Lesson 22 (). Feeling tired, even grumpy? Watching Sunset from a Rooftop in Florence can make it better. These handheld videos can be jumpy, but the bystanders speak Italian, and that's the dream, to be in some of the most beautiful places in Italy. Check out Show 44: and Show 43:. If you're still wondering what the fuss is about extended podcasts, step into the Chronicle's for a good example. On a color iPod, photos illustrate each section, and clicking on the little thumbnails opens a larger version of the image.

Here's and of the tour. Sports • YOGAmazing Video Podcast.

A tiny personal trainer in your iPod is just right for a short break at work or an impromptu workout at the park. Try out Episode 13,. Fans will enjoy watching other skateboarders ride in these simple, personal videos, like. • NBA Video Podcasts.

Baseball lovers will enjoy the official. Food • Tuscany Pod Travels TV. A group of Italians who podcast video tours at also create charming cooking lessons like this one,. • KCRW Arts & Culture:.

Santa Monica College radio's enthusiastic foodie podcast interviews top chefs and features their recipes. It also offers tips about seasonal produce to look for at the market, at least in California.

It's enough to make you hungry. 'Chocolate Desserts; Ethnic Sides; Vegan Fusion; Swedish Christmas; The Richest Fruitcake; Hanukkah.' In, wine lover Tim Elliott shares interesting stories about varietals and growing regions, tasting notes and reviews of wines he buys at local markets. Here's his Winecast 47 about.

Tech • Diggnation. The podcast expands on selected stories from the popular Digg.com website.

Here, in a, Diggnation revisits some favorites. These popular, are quick skill-boosters on a variety of topics, like or using the. The daily comedy skit recently inked a deal with TiVo that will deliver hundreds of thousands of new viewers. It's about as sophisticated as Saturday Night Live newscasts, but oddly enjoyable geek TV. Check out +dwebb.