A Trapped Teckno tNerd

G-Crushing!

2009-02-10T01:43:00.004-05:00

Last week Google came out and absolutely crushed their gMail design by changing around the buttons that allow you to send and delete emails by making them completely image less (CSS). They also created the ability to "Move To" which allows you to automatically label a piece of email and archive it in one button. Even though this may not sound like a huge thing, it breaks gMail away from the shackles of images and allows them to be easily 're-skinned' via themes. Google this week, might have one upped itself with something completely crazy for us iPhone users.

For the longest time there was only one way syncing between iCal and Google Calendars unless you relied on third party software. Perhaps a month or so ago, Google released the ability to sync both ways between iCal and gCal but since they were considered network servers, you could not sync them to the iPhone...until now. Yesterday, or today they set up an Exchange (email on its way apparently) service that allows users of gCal and Google contacts to sync with your iPhone. Unfortunately, if you do this you actually erase all of your calendars or contacts. This is fairly crap-tacular if you relied on all your calendars...however you could boot up iCal, use the collaboration tool to set up your exhisting gCal accounts and drag the local calender items to their corresponding gCal calndar. There really is not a huge work around for the contacts however, I have no need to sync my contacts.

Testing the sync over the air was great and pulled down all the needed information from the Google servers. There are a couple hickups, specifically since you can only sync up to 5 calendars and you actually need to log onto the service via your phone to allow the phone to sync even more then one calendar when you first set up the service (I got crazy tripped up on this issue...maybe I should read the full instructions). Besides a couple of minor bugs everything is syncing between gCal, iCal, and my iPhone. Kudos to Google for getting all of this stuff together and making life with calendars just that much easier. Also a huge thanks needs to be given to Apple for creating an amazing phone along with an amazing computing experience.

As you all can see I am totally psyched about this along with my pik of the day which is something I got hooked up with on the accident:

Mobile Lacie Rugged 500 Gig hard drive (Triple interface: F400, F800, USB 2.0)

An Ebook Prize Fight

2009-02-07T11:32:00.004-05:00

Due to a ton of craziness this blog has been left a little on the dormant side of life which makes me a super sad individual. Beyond the regret, last year I produced right around 100 quality(?) posts and this year I am going to one up myself and shoot for the elusive 200. So last year basically came to a halt at 150 meaning that this year will come to a screeching halt around the 350 mark. This is an incredibly ambitious idea with the year that lies ahead but I am going to except the challenge and go at head full speed.

On a much greater not, Google has just released a basic ebook reader for the G1 and the iPhone which is a direct poke in the eye to Amazon and their upcoming Kindle 2 announcement on the 9th of February. There have been quite a few leaked pictures of what could be the new kindle. However, late last night several other pictures and an other wise recession proof price ($359) was leaked prior to the Feb 9th date. Yes it is a super sexy thin monster with all the ebooks that you can easily purchase and download from Amazon but is it worth the hefty price tag?

To start right off, yes I believe that the new Kindle or the 'Kindle 2' is completely worth the price of admissions. This is of course a very premature jump up before you wiped action, but for people who are constantly on the move and love to read this is exactly what the doctor ordered. A great example is a 4'X3' bin that I have to lug with me whenever I move because I do not want to give up the books that are inside. With the kindle, all your books are right there with you in a package that weights under 1 pound...astonishing. Anyway getting back on track, both the Google and Amazon service offer two different perspectives on reading.

Google gives you a great ability to read the tomes of yore along with a hefty amount of books that had a limited print availability. This is great if you really get down on the literature with Sense and Sensibility or Faulkner. If you are looking for a recently released title you are otherwise SOL with the Google service and should look towards Amazon's large ebook library. These differences are really the only ones that can be compared since Amazon offers hardware with their service where Google is simply the service. I am super excited to see the new Kindle in action mainly because I have always wanted one but the first iterations got such bad reviews. However, it is too intoxicating to step into a Barnes and Noble and have the new book smell wash over you. Comment up on what you love: Easiness of the ebook revolution or classic paper books?

The Dark side...or the Black Side, Whatever.

2009-01-30T23:33:00.005-05:00

There is always some kind of black side to any business. Be it selling out to someone who has absolutely absurd ethics, being there because you 'need' the money, or simply performing actions (yourself) that is against company policy. Fannie Mae almost felt the sting of what is known as a logic bomb after they let go some of their IT employees. For a lot of people out there the word logic bomb does not set off to many sparks in your head. Because of this we have the internet (we all know my explanations are paltry at best):

From the desk of Wikipedia:

A logic bomb is a piece of code intentionally inserted into a software system that will set off a malicious function when specified conditions are met.

In Fannie's case the specified condition was actually the 31st of the month. Luckily someone found the mischievous piece of code and dropped their balls on it...problem solved right? Well no, because this one action puts to shame the entire IT industry. IT folks usually struggle their freelance or corporate way and really do not need any kind of help when it comes to being unappreciated or taken as goof-offs. Most of us hustle like no tomorrow in order to bring people peace in the complex world of information technology. Corporate entities out there, not all of us are mischievous, insipid fools who are only looking out to screw you. A short rant and the pic is an ode to an phenomenal Lost episode on the 28th.

Inspired

2009-01-28T13:02:00.004-05:00

It is very 'un-often' that something strikes me upside the head in such a way that it actually inspires me to sit down and toot about it. However, since the demise of the 1up show along with Lan Party I have been in a bit of a dump when it comes to gaming podcasts. I had downloaded Rebel Fm and the Geekbox and both of them were easily better then the 1up shows even with horrible audio equipment and limited mics. It was not until Robert Ashley released A Life Well Wasted that I truly understood and lamented the loss of such an amazing job that these guys have recently felt.

Some of the fondest memories of my childhood (early 90s) were reading through EGM and Computer Gaming World which for some reason just kept coming to my house, month after month regardless of a "known" subscription. Robert put it best in his podcast saying that at that time it was completely uncool to play video games and if you did you were automatically labeled as "one of those people" and ostracized throughout your school. The magazines gave us hope and relief that there were people out there that shared the same kind of passion as us kids did and actually got paid to do it.

For a while game Journalism will be a little darker however, we can and should not grieve over the issue at hand. All of these people have gathered an enormous tribe behind them and with that alone they will succeed as long as they themselves want it. Sure it might not be quite the same easy lifestyle enjoyed before, but you must remember that there will always be a market for video games. I say keep writing, podcasting, living and breathing video game journalism and people will be there every step of the way. Keep up the good work all and we will hopefully get to listen to the shananigans that will be every week, peace!

In addition: Jeff Green said it best: "Boobs in barrels."

Kindle 2.....um, hear those people cheering? I don't

2009-01-28T00:12:00.002-05:00

This really would not be much of a tech blog if we did not give Jeff Bezos the kind of props that he deserves for his big keynote next week (Feb 9th) at the famous(?) Morgan Library and Museum in New York. The kindle has been as bad as the Nintendo Wii when it comes to finding one actually "in stock." This could definitely be due to the titanic following spurred by the spur wearing Oprah, or if you are from the south O.f.rah. A lot of heresay has been thrown around the web today mainly from the hands of venturebeat and Kevin Rose about the likelyhood that this will be the Kindle 2 debut.

You would kind have to be living under a rock for the past 5 or so years to come out and say that this is not a the new kindle. And if perhaps it is not the new kindle and in fact some kind of other, unknown hardware anoucement then huzzah for Bezos. So since we basically have it down that the new kindle is comming, who believes that it will be anything like the pictures Boy Genius posted a while back? If you actually take the time to read around apparently the big problem on the old kindle was keyboard placement and wonkiness. However, making medicine pill buttons will not solve this problem; nor keeping the fugly if-white color. What the new kindle really needs is the ability to share annotations with your friends who have the same ebook. This annotation sharing could turn into a sort of open forum about certain instances in each ebook and would lead to an amazing community all centered and talking about books. Basically it would allow you to have an infinite amout of people book club which would be so cool that it is almost mind blowing. Oh yeah Bezos, make it affordable huh? Keep the books around 9 bones but cut the cost of hardware. How does 150 sound? Pretty friggin amazing to me, peace all.

PixelSpills

2009-01-25T18:48:00.004-05:00

I am potentially psyched to bring the readers of this blog another blog specializing in Web-bey-tastic design at www.pixelspills.com. If you do not already know, Pixel Spills is my business that makes me real world money. Pixel Spills has always been about crushing people's mindsets when it comes to the staunchy world of IT and Social Media Consulting however, now we are going to start (or try) doing what I have always truly held close to my heart, web development. This new blog will be incorporated right into the Pixel Spills web page and will hopefully begin some type of video or podcast about design subjects. All of the video (even the stuff that I post on this site) will be all done through Viddler. In addition to this, and if you read perhaps a couple blogs down I am beginning the process of doing free IT consulting on Sunday afternoons. All of this footage will be Ustreamed as well as being done through a medium called Copilot. So I want you to tell your friends, your family members and everyone! Be there or be square all; oh and do not worry this blog will be kept alive and focus on hilariousness and stupidity found within the world of IT, tech and gadgets. Peace all

Flying High on 4's

2009-01-23T19:31:00.005-05:00

No everyone, the title should not allow you to fly in to a drunken stupor about how one should not drive and drink even though you are actually driving in international waters. For everyone else please feel free to beat the crap out of me due to my lackluster support of this (and for any) blog over the past week. What I have been doing though is an amazing testament to the amazing-ness of the capability to learn...with your brain. The test is to be able to learn 4 different things, each over the course of 1 week and spend 40 hours a week on it. This is all on top of actually working part time running an It and Social Media consulting business and designing web experiences on the side. Oh, and also trying to level myself on the way to the new cap in the 'time be damning' World of Warcraft. So what has my amazing brain absorbed in the way of learning this week? The simple answer is Cocoa and Objective-C development.

The complex answer would of course be the total crazyness that is Apple Frameworks and how to develop for a platform that is built on a language that I have really never coded for. All in all the idea was great but things were so complicated that they got changed and re-morphed twice over the span of the week. Happily though, I will be spending the 4th week on re developing my ideas on the entirety of Cocoa programming. The other two weeks will focus on Wordpress development and PHP which should be an equally less daughnting issue. Everyone needs to get totally pumped because it is the weekend and you should have an unlimited amount of time to crush any and all things they love. Continue to be happy all.

FREE IT Consulting!

2009-01-16T22:10:00.003-05:00

Hello all! I am so pumped about this it is not funny. having been an IT consultant for almost 5 years now I have definitely been around the block (Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD). Sure there have been great times and nasty times but all in all no one should complain when they love helping people. In addition, I love Seth Godin's work and believe that there are some truly amazing marketers out there, despite hanging out with some truly horrible ones in my day. In one of Seth's last posts he mentioned doing free IT consulting on a site called CoPilot. I had never used CoPilot before and therefore intrigued, I surfed on over and found it to be a very simple, easy to use protocol for assisting people over the web.

Taking Seth's advice, I am going to begin doing free IT consulting every Sunday from 11am - 4pm mountain time. So if you are interested or want to have me help out an ailing family member shoot me a twitter @bradendouglass, email me at freeitconsulting@gmail.com, or google chat me up at gmail address. Again get pumped, this will begin this Sunday the 18th. And again, thanks Seth.

It Is Not Really How You Do It...

2009-01-16T19:17:00.003-05:00

Well actually folks, folks in this regard being huge companies, it does matter how you do it. If you mess up and understand, if only for a moment that it was your fault then it is fully on your hands to take responsibility and correctly apologize to your tribe. Be as real as possible because in the end that is all we, the user care about. One of the best letters concerning this dire matter was written by the CEO of Hulu, Jason Kilar.

Apparently Hulu axed their entire It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia content making everyone who has ever watched the show through the awesomeness that is the Hulu service a little po'ed. Hulu did this without a note to the users or a warning that the content would be removed at a set time in the future. People raised a stink and demanded some type of exclamation and who better to deliver it then the CEO. It just seems lie CEOs still love to sit back and bury small holes in their mountains of money in order to hide from their users. Seeing a CEO accomplish a problem with a letter of apology is not only warm and cuddly but it shows that perhaps things are officially changing within the world of CEOs (especially those involved in newer startups). Another man who hits these problems in a refreshing yet still completely professional manner is host of Wine Library TV, Gary Vaynerchuck (I spelled it right on the first try, huzzah). Gary understands, maybe more then all of us why people like to see the real side of human beings.

Remember, to be completely true to your tribe and don't for once think that this comes easy. People need to work at it every day, devising ways to implement themselves into their community and how to do it in an effective and pleasing way. Never slack and always hustle, peace y'all!

A Little Bird Once Said...

2009-01-11T15:33:00.003-05:00

How amazingly cool and phenomenally addicting Twitter can be. If you truly have no idea what Twitter is stop on by their homepage here and try them out. For all the rest of us lets take a second of silence to bask in what makes twitter such an amazing channel for thoughts, marketing, fun, and updates........aight. TwitThis is a great new Twitter service that allows you to link through to your twitter or others about what you are doing right now. In this case if you take a chunk of moment out of your day and look at the upper left hand corner of each post there is a new button that reads 'twitthis'. This opens up a whole new world for you all to twit about a post I wrote, that you are reading. This post might inspire you enough or probably just disgust you into twittering to your tribe about how awesomly atrocious of a writer I am. I want all you trolls out there to give it a whirl, especially since you do not need to have anything besides a twitter account.

On an even huger twitter moment, it looks like 2008 was a complete blast for them. They apparently grew a wooping 752 percent. That is a truly astounding number for any startup in which all kinds of cool graphs and numbers can be seen here at Mashable. Alright all, have a great weekend and we will see you tomorrow!

Blog Inspired

2009-01-09T21:58:00.002-05:00

Maybe it has been the warm air, maybe I have been staring into the eyes of this young child and crying about my childhood, or maybe it is just that work has been dominating my life lately that Tkubed has gone a little to the wayside. Today we breach that with an amazing link up. We all seem to use such great phrases that are beyond understanding to the "old folks" of the day when we are on the inter web. Have any of you wondered, just sat down and wondered where these crazy acronyms originated from? Nope, well neither have I but with a little inter web luck has brought the answer to our feet. The article can be found here, peace.

What will Definitely Be Awesome

2009-01-04T16:39:00.002-05:00

Ok lets face some facts, 2008 was full of changes both hard and fun but...2009 watch out! My prediction is that 2009 will be the year of the blog both mine and the unconquerable amount that plague the 'interweb.' Blogs in 2009 will be the main media source for people who are looking for any kind of information (although most of the stuff out there is inherentely incorrect or rife with personal ideas that are downright hilarious). By main, I mean main; forget watching the nightly news and reading the New York Times everyone will be reading their own favorite blog. Ok now that I threw down a fairly easy resolution for the world, what do you all think is going to be an incredible dynamic shift for the 2009 year? Forget about the economy and all the depression or recession malarky and focus on something fun and different. Oh, and comment up you trolls and lurkers out there, google analytics knows about you.

In addition, what is your most rediculous picture of the 2009 new year?

A Merry Drinking Day

2008-12-24T01:13:00.003-05:00

Welcome to yet another holiday approved inebriation fest. Expect items of concern to worsen throughout the new year. Alcohol consumption seems to be off the charts during the winter festivities named 'Christmas' and 'New Years.' But not too worry because this blog will put all of that swaying fun to work with a great drinking game for everyone with an inner geek (and really who does not have a little inner geek somewhere in them). The wisest wizard is a role playing game where you and your mates attempt to level up and build a staff out of used beer cans (as one should know, each staff's powers manifest themselves in different ways; apparently the staff in the picture can conjure up stuffed cows). Besides being possibly the greatest reason to drink until you drop, who would say no to a wizard staff built from PBR cans. So everyone get up and go down to your local "Bud's east *insert town name here* liquor store" and pick up a 30+ rack of your favorite watered down excuse for beer and have a merry good time.

On a lighter note, and I mean what could be lighter then playing drinking games that involve medieval weaponry, everyone needs to have a wonderful Christmas. These are the times to drop the design and coding work (unless you are way behind) and be with the loved ones in your life. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and peace be with all

Exciting Changes

2008-12-21T22:57:00.004-05:00

Yello all! I have not been around too much lately and it is mainly due to my crazy schedule that just got a lot less hectic. Moreover, I have been doing a ton of research on the blogging software in the world and have come up with a great design for a new blog through Wordpress. This new blog will be a much more focused effort to keep people in the loop of design and mainly web freelancers and the lives that we live. However, this blog will still remain around mainly due to the fact we just went through a redesign a month ago as well as a great opportunity to play with Blogger's amazing and fun technology.

As per usual I will keep you all in a daunting and an imaginative loop of of darkness about our location and simply say it is snowing. Lots of snow actually and none of which is at all appreciated. So God, listen here friend, how about we sacrifice the ski season (another hint) and just say we leave it to pot and lets have some blessed sun. Worth a try right? Besides the snow the other humongous fail of the week goes to loosing another job to what could have been the fault of this blogger or the general stupidity of the user...who knows (or cares). What this does mean is there will be WAY more time spent caressing the huge user base on Tkubed.

Returning is an old favorite on this blog is the weird "what Braden is into this week" reviews. Follow after the drop

MailPlane: This app has an amazing amount of integration with Gmail right on your dock. Most designers out there have a pretty long number of Gmail accounts and this app makes it a trifle effort to control them all. In addition, it gives you some robust controls over gTalk, some nifty, still in gLabs functions, growl notifications, and iPhoto integration for sending great pics. Not too sure about the price they are asking but well worth the download and try period. Maybe the folks over there will throw me some promo codes for you all.

Mint iPhone App: Who knew anyone out there could really live without an iPhone. I hounded it for a long time (check some posts from last year) but now it is completely natural to check stocks, play games, find directions, or be depressed with the weather forecast all within the reach of your pocket. Moreover, Mint is a wonderful "webby" way of managing money and now they have an app to watch your little assets over your phone. It is not the most secure thing in the world but if you really are having a hernia about this niggly issue simply log out of your account. Props peeps at Mint, keep it up you all are amazing.

WoW Miniatures: Anyone who is a geek remembers the pain that came with Warhammer minis. You had to have a steady hand like a crack whore with trimmed fingernails just to be able to pain the little things. Blizzard and Upper Deck have solve this problem with pre painted minis that actually look amazing and an interesting game that goes along with it. The game, just like the card game appears to have a great amount of promise and should be a staple to any nerds stocking this Christmas. Check them out here.

Facebook Soars

2008-12-18T16:34:00.003-05:00

During this nice downturn of jobs, generally due to stupidity we are seeing a steep rise in boredom. Bring on the likes of the homework steamroller known only as "Facebook." Apparently the user base of Facebook is growing at a rate of 600,000 to 700,000 users a day. This is a phenomenal number of people, or if you crave some closure on the word phenomenal; there are around 700,000 on the waiting list for affordable housing or around 700,000 people on the national terrorist watch. Who knew a little network way back in 2004 that at the time only appealed to college students would grow to the behemoth it is today. This just shows each and every one of us that taking risks and trying something new is not always an automatic fail. Although I am sad that you can not down Facebook ads for being pornographic (this function I felt disappeared after this tweet(this tweet not found)) but we should all regale at Facebook's success. Oh yeah, and props all to understand the picture.

Cutting Corners

2008-12-18T11:51:00.004-05:00

Getting "let go" is always a bad thing. Most of the times it is due to downsizing issues or other random reasons that frankly are nonsensical reasons. However, getting laid off a week before Christmas is a huge slap in the face. Here is the issue at hand: You work for an employer that has already laid off plenty of people simply because they can not find enough "expensive work" for them to do. Lets start by defining "expensive work." This type of ideal is found in high functioning businesses that only choose to do the projects that they want to. Often times these projects are for multi-millionaires or simply done to raise the firms self image. This creates a problem especially now when the credit crunch is putting these millionaires back into their portfolios and off buying new homes. The problem already is visible, you have walled yourself into a community of people who are not buying and you have removed extra workers from being able to find business in other areas via research.

Stepping back yet again, lets look at what this firm wants to be thought of. They want to be open and building a community among themselves but none of them talk to each other unless they absolutely have to and although the entirety of the studio is open it is dead silent. In addition to all this basic shit, you have two people in charge who have no idea the first thing about running a business or basically anything that starts with the letter B. After working with these people as a part time gig for half a year I realize all these little problems but they, like any problems with a company should not deter an employee from attempting to better the overall firm. However, betterment seems to have been cut off for these folks which is shame because they could have done some truly great stuff. Good luck all in your separate endeavors because lets face it, it is going to end up like it really quickly.

Vacation

2008-12-11T13:48:00.001-05:00

Hello all those readers out in the internet. This week I am technically OOF or out of the office for all you unhip type. HOWEVER, going from somewhere completely remote to a place where you can find absolutely whatever you want whenever you want it should yield better connectivity. What a slap in the face I had when this was completely wrong. Having lived with little connectivity and cell phone service before this was not too hard except when it comes to missing out on great blogging abilities and random bills. All will return to normal next Tuesday when I somehow get back to civilization / leave it far far behind for the remainder of the winter. Lots of things have happened and everything will be updated in due time. Peace all.

Top 10 Geek Picks (2008)

2008-12-04T21:02:00.003-05:00

Having mentioned several ways to save money and help make people more happy during the holiday season, as well as getting the gift picks right, I present a top 10 gift ideas for your local (or lovable ) geek.

1./ HP Mini 1000: The best netbook out there right now (399-500$)
2./ Crank Bros 19 Tool: All Geeks love Fixie's so help em out with this great pocket tool (20-30$)
3./ Drobo FW800: Unlimited storage for..well, everything (500-1000$)
4./ Canon G10: By far the best point and shoot camera out there (450$)
5./ iTunes Card: Good for music, videos, apps, etc (starting at15$)
6./ Apple In Ear Headphone: Great sound and soon to work great with the iPhone (80$)
7./ Flip Video Mino: For easy access for the video blogger (159.99$)
8./ Xbox 360 60GB: Amazing console, great games, just classic and worth it (300$)
9./ OCZ 16gb ATV USB Drive: Great padded casing, lots of room, and fast (30$)
10./ WRT45Gl Wifi Router: Great basic router that is open to Linux Firmware (60-80$)

iPhone 3g Vaja Limited Case Review

2008-12-04T18:26:00.004-05:00

Iphones are absolutely saturating the smart phone market and causing some serious gains. The phone itself is a well crafted piece of sexiness and I should know, waiting in line on launch day for a long time always makes one appreciate something much longer. Even though the iPhone is a fairly sweet piece of kit which includes a consistent bit of durability. However, just like all ipods, one should look into purchasing some kind of protective film or case to cover the expensive and shiny investment. If you have any idea about the world of "DAP cases" then you have heard of a company called Vaja.

Vaja makes leather cases from only the most premium dead cows from Argentina. They incorporate great colors and patterns to compliment any digital item (even laptop cases). By knowing this I was one of the first people to jump on their original iPhone 3g Limited Edition Red and Black Case. Since then they have released one in an all brown color and an all white color. The outside leather is called "Floater" which is actually a fairly dumb name for some leather that is very coarse and seems to be very strong. The interior of the case is lined with Caterina leather which is very svelt and quite a contrast from the exterior. This allows the iPhone to have a classy ride encapsuled in something that will not easily scuff like most leather.

Overall this case is amazing. It gives complete access to the top of the case and all the side functions without having to flip open the screen cover (a lot of people do not like this idea however, it works extremelly well and you can flip it open very easily with your thumb). The outside floater leather always seems to look new although I never hold anything else in my front right pocket besides the phone. Before I finish the review you all need to give me a scale on how to rate the items that I do. Who likes the 1-10 or whatever, give me something cool cause if you don't I will come up with something and it will be simply odd. Give me an idea and I will give you some ups on the blog and my twitter. Ciao!

Nip Tastic Temps

2008-12-04T16:54:00.004-05:00

Yep, you guessed it, it is freezing cold here (here is classified due to the generous amount of fans who would absolutely hound the crap out of me if they found out my location). Beyond the dimming light, shrouded in an impregnable veil of money is the Christmas season and boy is it coming up fast. So what might you ask should you do about all those hard to buy for people in your household? Well how about ask them? Christmas becomes this bonkers time where you spend money to show off your economic status on presents that you "think" will be well received. Well never fear, a solution is here and it is called Google documents. By setting up a simple two column document and sharing it with the fiancee we both can share links to great things we would enjoy way more then a guess for Christmas.

Sure this is not the "correct" or timeless way of doing things but Christmas is really about being with each other, help people out and taking a day away from your usual binge drinking routine (especially before new years hits). So take the time to be smart this season even if you have to play the game a little different.

Educationaliss

2008-12-02T13:43:00.005-05:00

Pownce friends, pownce on someone and then shed a tear for a truly great platform for sharing links / mp3s / videos with friends in a Twitter like environment. Pownce was recently acquired by Six Apart and will close their doors soon. However, there will undoubtadle be another web 2.0 app, perhaps by the same people that mimic Pownce's great functionality. Anyway, there is a short ode to the death of yet another great web app caught up in all of this financial malarkey; jou will be missed.

The real intention of this post was something that I was realizing the other day (refrain from worrying since it is not that big). How many of you out there love to listen to podcasts? You were exstatic when you were given the ability to download them directly to your iPhone and they happen to be one of the prodominant ways you aquire your news? But have you ever thought how hard it was to begin to like new ones? Personally, it took me a long time to like and love the ones that I pine for week by week. It all began with Diggnation (episode 3, 4 or something) and I did not really like it. But it ended up a weekly thing, it was a struggle at first but once I got to know Kevin and Alexis's personality it was all uphill. Does this mean that we internalize podcasting or netcasting much like we read books? You start with a character that you know nothing about and you usually need to slosh through a good 100 pages to truly know if you are going to enjoy it or not.

Now I am a podcast freak but, I never started that way. I sat down day by day and week by week and eventually saw the magic behind the curtain and I do not regret a bit of it. A lot of things would be way better in this world if we actually took the time to fight through stuff instead of giving up on it on the outside. Podcasts are cool and they are a start but there is a whole world we throw over our shoulders because we do not want to take the time to understand it. Pony up folks!

Steel Baby, Stainless

2008-12-01T15:23:00.004-05:00

Google Chrome is a spectacular browser, no matter what anyone says. It is mind bendingly fast, works very well with Google Docs/Gmail/etc, and against all the hater's ideas, Google did remove the clause in their ULA that claimed anything you posted on the internet through Chrome was property of Google. Of course this is all well and good for the folks who still run a Windows PC as an every day machine and not just for games but, for the people who use Mac OS X or Linux on a daily basis are a little up the river.

We could use the Crossover Cromium port but it really just looks like what you get on Windows XP. So it looks like we are stuck waiting it out until the end of the year (MAYBE!)...or you could check out Stainless. Stainless' simplicity is an almost identical match to that of Chrome; with it's single search and url bar (brilliant), extreme light weight, and how it actually looks like it belongs on the Mac. Personally, I have been using it for a couple of days now and it is blazingly fast and very lightweight (compared to firefox with 1 extension). Of course there are some problems due to it being very early in its development phase.

Sometimes it is so lightweight that OSX does not realize you have jumped from one window to Stainless. The options literally get stuck to say finder or iTunes. This can be solved by simply minimizing and bring the Stainless window back into view. It also does not show you a view of all of your visited sites, like Firefox and Chrome have on their smart bars (which both work very well in my mind). Overall these issues can be overlooked because of the speed and horsepower that the browser brings to the desktop. Check it out here (Leopard Only..segway into previous post) and give me some feedback on what you all think, ciao. Oh, also give share the browsers that you have in your dock, or on your desktop (quick launch). Currently I am rocking 4: Safari, Cruz, Stainless, Firefox.

A Rant

2008-11-29T17:27:00.003-05:00

What year is it folks? Last time I checked it was almost banging on a new decade. Not to seem mean but if you have a computer that you bought in say 2002 (especially a laptop), yeah go a head and throw it away. Treat yourself to a new and shineyer netbook or just save some money and pick up a very nice macbook. You probably do not know it but that old, slow, molasses running clunker is doing two really bad things to your life.

1) It is sucking a lot of energy and unlike the laptops and desktops of today it does not care how much it sucks, it just keeps on going and going and so does your electric bill.

2) It decreases productivity by slowing down what you do during the day. It also breaks frequently and requires you to pay someone who charges 100+ dollars an hour to fix it.

What I am trying to get across to you folks is, pack it up, sell it or simply be a good citizen and recycle your old and bogged down computer. You, of course could throw a version of Linux on the slow juice drinker like puppy Linux or my favorite being OpenGeu. If you do not want to use the Linux desktop then by all means go out and buy yourself a new computer. Quit hanging on to stuff you know slows your life down, aight? Peace. Sorry for the rant all but it is getting rediculous.

Wisteria Wednesday

2008-11-26T15:17:00.003-05:00

For everyone who does not know what "wisteria" is it is a pale violet color that is reminiscent of the plant (and its color) it is named after. In addition, the hex code for this is supposedly #C9A0DC and was introduced into the Crayola coloring box in 1993.

We all dislike getting up around 5 a.m on Black Friday so that is why you are definitely here and looking for some solid deals today. Starting out HP is offering huge deals on all of their laptops either through deals on ram and solid state drives or through percentages off the entire systems. Tiger Direct has great deals on some Acer laptops (almost 100 dollars off from the Aspire One). Perhaps you are looking for a Desktop, an external hard drive or a great Samsung monitor then stop off at Buy.com and look at their plethora of deals. All of these deals usually last until around Friday where, Apple is supposed to release some mean Black Friday deals on their website as well as in Best Buy stores.

Perhaps the best deal out there is the inception of a new, and potentially awesome Nintendo DS. It appears that Friday will mark the appearance of two new DS packs. One will be sky blue with a custom carrying case and brain age, the second will be an amazing Mario Red with the M stamp in the shell (along with the new mario game). By far the Mario DS is going to go like hotcakes and will definitely be on my travel wish list for the Christmas season. Hope some of these deals help cull people from sitting out in the bitter cold and waiting to punch a coked out soccer mom in the boobs for that last Mario DS (unfortunatly you get to since these are only available in store). Good luck all, ciao.

Let's Light Some Stuff Up!

2008-11-25T13:17:00.004-05:00

First off, please raise your hand if you afforded and kept your original Amazon Kindle. The Kindle was Amazon's start into the whole paperless book business and was far from a complete fail (except for the price, 400, WTF mate). There had been a lot of rumors and wants tailored toward the Kindle 2 which was rumored to come out for the Christmas season, then not again. The first rumor was propogated with some photos of the new player which apparently ARE the photos of the real Kindle 2 (pic in this post is on of those said "photos"). I know this all seems a bit confusing but, there seems to be some love at the end of the tunnel.

The Kindle 2.0 will be released in 2009 and it will look like the picture to the right. Apparently, there will also be a student version with a bigger screen and lighter price tag. I say bring it on Amazon, make it able to share bookmarks, underlining, and notes with other Kindles and you have sold me...oh and maybe a smaller price tag.

A Slew Of Newness

2008-11-24T17:26:00.003-05:00

Well it has been quite a while...aka several days since this blog has seen a relatively odd post fly by. But in its lack a lot of news has come about and I am about to throw it all on to your laps. If you have been around this blogs blocks for long you know that I have fallen quite in love with the new round of netbooks. Especially that of the HP Mini 1000 which is definitely one of the best ones (and will be through the winter giving festivities) on the market today. What with itss 10.2 inch screen, its 92% real sized keyboard and now its offering of 3g like speeds. Apparently and also secretly, HP released a little refresh of the netbook with a 3g sim slot near the diminuative battery. Hint, hint all this is definitely on my wish list for the christmas season so if any of you were thinking....yep. Now that was easy wasn't it.

Also in the news this Monday is the Bailout of the Citigroup. This means that all the people out there that might have bought a couple of faltering shares last week now look to make a fairly handsome profit. Props to you all, just let me stop beating my head off from my desk in order to make you your celabratory cake.

And for a coup de gras, it looks like several sites out there are hinting that the iTunes croud might be going completely DRM free. Sony, Universal and Warner seem to be allowing the music giant to sell their music without all the suthorization issues. This would pull a lot of smart people away from the Amazon music store (which has always been DRM free) and back to iTunes. It would be great to be able to hear some music on last.fm on your iPhone and pop over to iTunes and buy tracks and albums you hear and love with no restrictions. After all, have we not been doing that with CD's for years? Alright all, my Monday update is FIN and I am back off to work. Before you leave though a question: do you know what DRM is? If so do you just live with it or do you break it? Comment up ya lurkers, ciao!

Dell Mini 9/12 Wuv

2008-11-20T21:11:00.002-05:00

Well folks seems like Dell has released some great case designs by Tristan Easton for their new netbook crowd. I looked at the Mini 9 on T.Kubed a couple of weeks ago and absolutely fell in love with it immediately (besides the weird bar that dell threw into Ubuntu). Linux based netbooks (and you CAN do the Windows with the Mini 9 and the 12) are not really for the consumer, "I want my computer to work when I want it to" crowd but they run really well, they manage the solid state hard drives better then windows, and have a lot of different flavors you can pick through. The designs on the laptops do cost an extra 50 bones and there are only 5 of them for now but they are super cool and will hold you out in the crowd. I have been personally waiting off on the whole netbook thing but this little buddy is definitely on my wish list for the Christmas season. You don't like it, tell me why folks. Caio.

Spotlight Da Blog

2008-11-19T15:39:00.002-05:00

Alright guys and gals, I have definitely been fiddling around with this for the entirety of today and am very please to scream "Cha-Ching." All of this great news should be floated right (CSS joke for all you web junkinots) and you will see a weird looking black bar along with an arrow. This is the blog search and damned if it did not take a better part of a day of playing around with jquery code and CSS to get it to function like it is supposed to. So all is good everyone, search away and see what you come up with. Peace.

The Tkubed Branding

2008-11-19T15:23:00.004-05:00

Hello all, I have been talking to some of the avid readers and trolls about the confusion of the blog title. Tkubed is actually pronounced (tee.cubed) much like you pronounce what holds up a golf ball along with multiplying one number by itself three times. This stands for a Trapped Techno Tnerd and originates actually from someone's nick name. The original nick name was 10 foot Tall Techno Todd and was given to a man who really did seem like he was 10 feet tall (and he really loved techno as well). The name actually refers to someone who could be considered normal or even awesome and who works within the realm of technology. Feel free to go a head and use it in any conversation and change it at will. However, this blog will always cater to the people who are awesome and still love something that makes you oh so not awesome like technology. So keep it real out there folks and keep on reading.

Redesigns, Microsoft and Dominoes

2008-11-19T02:43:00.004-05:00

Well all, it has happened. This blog has gone through quite a few little changes over the past 4 months. Many have been good and some have been downright awful but, this is a definite when it comes to the new look and feel. It is very simple yet allows you all (not really sure who you all really are) to easily see past content as well as comment and subscribe via rss. All these features are key and I am uber glad to be able to bring them to you tonight, very late tonight.

Speaking of other changes to design, tomorrow marks the largest change to the Xbox 360 content section. Microsoft is getting rid of the old "blade" concept in favor of something a little more colorful, spaced out and avatar-rific. Now some folks who have their hands on the update are giving mixed reviews about the avatar system (think nintendo mii's). The avatar should be a great improvement over the simple gamertag and should allow people who have multiple player accounts to easily manage them instead of the old log out and in fashion. Unfortunatly, as the previous Wow post signifies I am a little strapped for cash these days (saving for the big day) and am actually going to build myself a nice and long cat 5 cable to run from our upstairs router since the wireless adapter is quite expensive. In addition, if you run over here you can see that Microsoft is starting up their engines by reducing their flash Zune team's price tags (I loved my flash Zune and they are definitely a great device if you run Windows only...but who reading this REALLY does that anymore). The Zune is a great piece of hardware but MSFT needs to get off their rears and simply opening the device up instead of requiring software.

The grande finale of this post is going to be something that will make us twice as lazy and therefore twice as fat as we already are. It appears that some folks stumbled upon a new widget built into our favorite drool box recorder the TiVo. It appears that you know will be able to actually record television and order Domino's pizza at the same time. I am definitely on the line between cool and extremely useless with this one but as an upside I do not actually own a TiVo. What do you guys (and gals) think about the idea of ordering your favorite italian or maybe even asian food over your set top box? Also feel free to hate on or love on the new design. Ciao.

Sketchy

2008-11-17T17:19:00.007-05:00

If anyone has ever had some kind of interest in Architecture or interior design then you probably have looked at Google Sketchup. Sketchup has always been a free for both Windows and Mac (no idea why they have been lagging on the linux version for so long) and has given aspiring 3d artists or just folks who like to a play, a good opertunity to. Monday marks a great day for you people who have been waiting for Google to update their Sketchup platform. Sketchup 7 looks very familiar to its younger brother but probably has quite a few little easter eggs in it. One obvious improvement is its speed which, on a mid 2008 Macbook Pro used to lag like a three legged dog. 7 seems to start up fine and keep on plugging away without any seemingly obvious memory leaks.

Hopefully soon I will be able to play with it and write up a propper review however, for now it will be let lose upon an Architect firm to see how they like it. Hopeful opinions will be here shortly.

Records Set, People Tooted

2008-11-13T15:59:00.003-05:00

This is definitely some kind of record for this blog blown completely out of the water with four posts in one day. It is definitely going to be much more of a quickie then the other short posts (weird downtime at the office throughout the day). As we all know from the declining markets, except for their late Thursday rally that the folks at GM are in some serious amount of hurt. They however allowed Jeremy Clarkson to hoon around in a new Vette while Chrysler, the noobs forced Hammond to pony up and buy a Challenger instead of borrowing it for Top Gear's trip from San Fransisco to the Bonneville salt flats. Anyhoo, you can buy your very own Save GM shirt, created by the folks at Jalopnik at their cafe press shop. I personally am giving a strong thought at the one to the right. What do you all think? Oh right, you SHOULD by one because if you do you are saving the economy.

40 Bones!

2008-11-13T13:17:00.004-05:00

Anyone who is...well anyone knows why today is so much more exciting then 2 days ago. Sure we should recognize all the veterans out there but how can we do that when the WoW expansion: Wrath of the Lich King is in a store near you? Yes, yes today marks a day when any geek, alcoholic, nerd, or casual gamer has taken the day off to explore the world of Northrend in all it's graphical gorgeousness. This game is a religion, a God, and a lifestyle to millions of people out there which is actually quite a scary topic. People have lost wives, jobs, countless hours of sleep, and a ton of money to play WoW. Blizzard has truly made a market that is filled with drooling lore giblets, afixed to glowing computer screens waiting for their next fix.

So if for some reason you have a lot of missing employees today then take the time out of your cushy exec job and give them a call on their cells. They will have no idea who is calling so they will probably pick up the phone thinking it is a guild member or some friend talking about cool new loot. Little will he know his excited voice will automattically negate the idea that he is sick. Give it a whirl folks, ciao. Oh and btw, if you do not remember I peaced out on Azeroth last month due to downsizing on hours at one of my jobs. If this had not happened I guarentee I would be right there along these folks and calling this day as vacation.

Storm's A Commin'

2008-11-13T13:04:00.003-05:00

The blackberry storm has been on the mind of smart phone folks ever since we were titillated with the idea of a touch screen phone (ala iPhone) that actually gave tactile feedback like a traditional QWERTY keyboard. Well the phone is finally here and it will be sold through Verizon (Nov 21) with their very sexy 3g network for 159.99 with a two year contract. Verizon may have one of the best 3g networks out there (in the US) and has some fairly competative overall service. With a price that is 50 bones off that of an 8gig iPhone and a screen that actually might work, this might be a serious contender.

The bad though folks: It is only got 1gig of built in memory (it has an sd expension slot but who wants to deal with cards anyway) and it is on the verizon network (verizon loves to software cripple their phones and has been doing it wildly for years) only for now. Also. blackberry is notorious for building very cheaply built handsets that love to break into piece when instantly hitting a solid object or burning up when entering any little puddle. Lets all hope that RIM has got their act together and fixed all their niggling issues. Well any competition is good competition and lets hope RIM can pull it off. Koodoes, ciao

Prego Drunks

2008-11-12T16:59:00.003-05:00

Yep, this sure is not the first place to say it but I definitely want it here saying that it IS OK to consume alcohol at a sane amount during pregnancy. A study out of the UK (the pro drinkers out there) proved that women who have several drinks a week are much more stable and able to interact with their children when they are born better then those who abstain or binge drink. This is definitely a genius survey and it should even lighten the emotional load that occurs when women are flooded with loads of hormones through pregnancy. Does this mean they will refrain from being vehemently distraught towards everyone around them? Probably not, but they will probably be much more relaxed, be able to make much more thought out decisions. And it seems that women seem to be able to handle child birth and child rearing in much more orderly form after a pregnancy where consumption was taken at a minimum. Thumbs up? Maybe gals, but one survey is one survey and I would take the drinking easy while you have a bun in the oven. Be safe, be seen.

Back on Track

2008-11-07T14:54:00.002-05:00

Getting away from he forced amount of blogging per month has completely refreshed my mind and will allow me to focus more on information for the scant amount of readers who thumb through this blog. During the short amount of down time a ton of blogging researched was read and previewed and a whole lot of ridiculousness ensued. Apparently most "pro bloggers" (actually I still can not comprehend this idea, guess it makes me not up for the position) actually take a span of 3 hours to complete 1 blog post.

This is completely nuts since it seems like most of the posts on many people's blogs are often times merely several lines long. If it takes most people 3 hours to write something that can be regurgitated in 45 seconds then there might not be too much hope for us. However, looking back at many posts on this blog, many of them take as much as 1 1/2 hours and as little as 5 minutes. These statistics, again seem to ramify my likelihood of NOT being a pro blogger. But no matter, each post will be tailored to a specific crowd...like the illiterate.

Well being a lover of all things fruit, it appears that Apple and At$t are up for allowing the iPhone folks to tether. You can tether the phone to small animals, cars, even laptops if you so fancy. Anyway, tethering usually allows you to share an internet connection (in this case 3g) with a laptop or desktop. This is handy when you are in an airport and do not want to pay for wireless or out in the middle of no where and you need some computer access. Many At@t smart phones already allow this option but with a higher monthly price. Bring on the tethering and bring on free tethering and bring it on soon. Thanks all.

i-Pawnage

2008-11-06T12:09:00.003-05:00

Everyone was definitely on the iPhone 2.1 software update like jackals on other smaller jackals. However, it seemed to have delivered, with my phone at least, a whole heap of Apple app crashy crashy. As rumors build of version 2.2 we are finally starting to see some interesting stuff that Apple is cramming into the little amaz-o-phone. For example, it appears through these pictures that we are going to be able to download podcasts on the fly over the 3g and wireless networks. This is a phenominal step towards a complete multimedia experience and should excite a lot of you people. I do fall into the folks that listen to music on my iPhone but most of the time I listen to podcasts or netcasts only. With this update, none of us have to be away from a great podcast again. Wired caught a little of the story here.

Cruz

2008-11-05T15:04:00.003-05:00

As you all probably do not know because you never take the time to check out newer and cooler things, the Mac has a new WebKIT browser. Well when I say new, I mean more like a couple weeks old. Having used Cruz since the day it came out, I am prepared to say that it easily bests the likes of Safari (Safari is also built on WebKIT). Having never really been a fan of Safari, besting it is a relatively simple task. What I will say is that it is FAST, not as noticeably fast as Firefox 3.1 beta but it is right up there. It also has a very nice black theme to break up the brushed aluminum look of Leopard, as well as the ability to have three different sessions running in the same window.

When I say sessions I mean you can surf three different sites in the same "box" without having to rely on tabs (which it also does include). This is a GREAT ability since I can run my gmail in one box, surf in another, and still do LogMeIn sessions in another. Along with that, you get a thumbnail plugin that allows you to see a coverflow view of, say Digg news articles. The thumbnail plugin is not as useful but it is still a great idea and will give other folks a launch platform for other plugins (As of now plugins are not used in Safari). As a side note, Cruz also allows the user to make tiny url's right in the browser which is super cool to me but may be useless to most. All in all, Cruz is fairly light and sexy, two things that a web browser definitely needs (it even has a kickin icon). Go and try it here everyone.

Idiot Love Cold Weather?

2008-10-30T21:01:00.002-04:00

Apparently the good ole north (Canada that is) thinks that they are the kings of multitasking. Seems like someone like John McCain might take this as an offensive maneuver since the man loves to tout that he can talk and air quote like mad. Techdirt has unearthed a bill proposal from the love-able northerners that demands that playing video games while driving is potentially dangerous and therefore should be strictly disallowed. Good job Canada! However, tomorrow is going to be a big pole day around the office when it comes to everyone playing video games while driving. Lets all hope for the best concerning this bill ya'll.

A Netbook worth it...Maybe

2008-10-29T12:35:00.005-04:00

HP guys, hp is back on the netbook bandwagon with their release of the Mini 1000 which is a bit of a knock off from their old Mini-Note 2133. However, this new guy has an all plastic shell, (aluminum was standard on the 2133 and is ridiculous on a netbook) web cam, 92 percent sized keyboard (great for NanoWrimoers), and a very functional and cool looking tack pad. Of course being a netbook all you anorexic freaks out there are drooling over the size. Well you should be happy that it crams itself into a 10.3 in (L) x 6.56 in (W) x 0.99 in (H) interesting designed, swirly 2.5 pound shell. You also seem to get a choice of an 8.2 or 10.2 screen with the same 1024 X 600 resolution, a 8, 16 gig SSD or 60 gig spinner, a sweet atom processor, and windows Xp home.

All and all the design of the shell, the size factor, the hope that winows 7 will fly on it, and the keyboard size should be what draws people in. At 399 it is a great deal and should be on most if not all of our netbook wish lists for the christmas season. Looks really cool folks and that is comming strait from the mouth of a certified netbook hater.

MyFace

2008-10-29T00:19:00.002-04:00

Facebook is always a heated topic in the world of web 2.0, 2.5 if you want to be super technical. Because of this, you see Facebook on the top of the ip block on the company black list. This has always been a perplexing fact because why would a company, where many people are suppose to coalesce in order to complete a random, often times useless task in a set amount of time. Why on earth would locking people out of this increase their productivity? Well seems that my almost dead cries have fell onto someone who happens to work for the BBC.

The BBC released an article that ramifies my very point. Why would you search out the very brightest people and hire them then never utilize them to their fullest? These social networks allow someone to release a question and allow the entire company to look over it and perhaps find a potentialy great. Instead of people worrying so much about what their actual employees are doing maybe they should spend that time to make the employees much more effective in the company. This idea comes accross much like these new layoffs: there are the companies that layoff people because they are scared of their money and there are companies that do not layoff their employees and use the idle to come up with new projects. So do you want to be the stagnant company that goes for the layoffs or do you want to be the radical that looks for change?

An oddly Sad Day

2008-10-27T15:07:00.004-04:00

Most of the world we live in is experiencing a real problem when it comes to our amount of cash flow. We seem to have been floating above our means for some time and now the tell tale direction of it all is going disgustingly south. We are seeing what I might call a second round of layoffs at one of my static jobs. Being sort of wounded in the whole attack, I have decided to do something that I have yet to do for almost 2 years: turn off my World of Warcraft account. Yep Azeroth, for now we are done. Love ya all, peace. On a much higher note, I am up for being on board with any start up. Need a PHP / CSS programmer, maybe even more...who knows? I am putting myself out there boys and girls and you can use me any way you want to.

Netbook Revival

2008-10-26T21:41:00.002-04:00

Yep, the word netbook should be placed in either the Guinness Book of World Records or Websters dictionary; you decide. A sorta new netbook has sorta hit the streets and Engadget has an article about it here. Dell has finally put their money where their mouth is and released their 12 inch Inspiron Mini. Being less then one inch thick and weighing in at 2.7 pounds (2.72 for the uber nerds) the Mini looks to bring some serious power to the table with it's 1.6 ghz atom processor, 80 gigs of "space" and 1 gig of ram. This new contender will definitely stew up the netbook pot and give the envy 133 / macbook air a good run for their money comming in at 600 dolla-ry-d00s. Of course this is all a huge amount of speculation since it is now only offered in Japan (maybe US next month).

ON a side note, We are definitely on track with the amount of posts this month along with the 3 to make up for our neglect last month. However, this will be the last time this occurs. I will try and get close to the 20 mark but for the remainder of this blog being with blogspot, the time will shift from quality to quantity. Thanks all.

Get Scrappy

2008-10-26T21:07:00.002-04:00

Yello all, sorry about the new banner. It is definitely one of those temp ones that will change with a good amount of time...like tomorrow. However, I have been doing my a much better time of scrapping around the internet and stumbled upon an interesting post by Paul Graham.

Paul talks a lot about how right now, in this fist of economic uncertainty their exists great start-ups. During the .com bust great companies like digg and delicious came out of no where and they are going to stick around because they were born in hard times and will survive in them as well. Bring it together all, keep those ideas a flowing, and meet cool people that will either help you out, or be a great investor. Oh year, and just like Paul says, keep the day job, it might suck but it is consistent income.

Post Update

2008-10-24T16:53:00.004-04:00

Having just hit the submit button on the last post, I worked my internet sniffing over to digg.com and found this article posted by appleInsider. This seems to be the origin for the Cnet article and definitely contains a lot more information on what is going on with the possibility of a new Mac Mini. The article is worth shooting over to just for the pictures alone and the possibility of ditching the optical drive for a second hard drive. Go and read, y'all!

A Mini Revival

2008-10-24T16:39:00.003-04:00

The MAc mini has seen its fair share of haters out there but Cnet, through a horrible article seems to think that it is going to make a return. Although the little scrumptious thing is a throwback to the Mac cube, it seems like it would be a fairly powerfull beast in the right hands. Sure it is not going to run your "run of the mill" high end games, cad software, etc but if you want a machine that does repetative tasks (ie torrenting) then these things would probably bring the house down. Actually I have been searching for a little box just like this to do all my home needs and a revision would sure be intriguing. However, in terms of dollars it would be much cheaper to throw some simple components in an ubuntu powered Shuttle and call it a day. Anyway, long live the mac mini and a great entry level computer for the pocket starving mac user.

While You Were Out

2008-10-23T12:57:00.003-04:00

All us techies have been bombarded with the idea that our jobs are in danger just because quite a few companies are doing percentage layoffs. To be worried that you will be fired is a pretty common human mechanism but, and I have a bit of experience with this, it is a very good thing. It allows you to pursue different avenues, meet new people and even learn things that you never thought you would do. Cnet put together a fairly good article that concerns these very thoughts. So instead of me regurgitating you go read.

A Truly Great Game

2008-10-22T12:55:00.004-04:00

Most of us disliked the blocky, heavy, and homely design of the original xbox. Moreover, most of us simply thought it was designed to play the ridiculous and overly hyped Halo. However, in doing so you would have missed a great game known only as Fable. Eventually, it did come to the PC which is where I played it over the course of a winter break from college. I absolutely fell in love with the game, the decisions and all of the repercusions that came with them. On the 21st of this month Fable 2 was released for the much sexier, much sleeker, much more powerful xbox 360.

Fable 2, just like the game it preceeds is an absolute gem! These RPGs are from from the Japanese RPGs or the famous World of Warcraft. Fable 2 will do something that none of these games will do; it will put a huge smile on your face and keep it there throughout the emntirety of the game. There is no tedious grinding, instance running, etc which makes it a great game in it's own regard. Fable 2 extends the idea of consequences through actions and anything you do, any decision you make has a repercussion somewhere during the game. I could go on and on about the beautiful world it is, the intricate details, your dog, the fighting system, etc but what needs to happen is you need to go and play it. Sure it is not WOW but it never tries to be either. A game that you can play and smile about is rare, real rare and threrfore worth the time to go find a copy.

US Unhappiness

2008-10-21T12:12:00.003-04:00

In most cases when someone refers to the word "us" they are talking about the group of people they are around. In this case we are talking about "US" meaning the United States. Seth Godin, who in my mind is a mastermind when it comes to marketing and the economy at hand blogged here about how Americans never seem to be fulfilled in their lives. This want drives us to desire more and more or simply just negates our systems from ever being satisfied. To tie this all together, Cnet wrote an article here describing how Google, Facebook and Yahoo are having a difficult time selling their website changes.

The most amazing comment from the Cnet post was from someone complaining about the vertical tab bar in the new iGoogle home page:

"Google has decided to unilaterally change the layout of my page. If I can't find a hack or a Greasemonkey script to undo this, good-bye Google, hello Yahoo!"

It is wonderful to see people and their passion accumulate onto the internet but do you (mainly the new facebook hater) really think that everyone else who uses facebook, or in the above case iGoogle, feel the same way as you? Another post found on 10.21, also at Cnet mentioned some designer who had refused to upgrade his software and was still designing on software that was more then 10 years old. All of these posts prove that we panic when there is any kind of change in our lives and when there is little change we tend to want more and more. I say find great easter eggs in web site change, accept that software will change so change with it, have fun, be happy, and be flexible.

A Teetering Divingboard

2008-10-18T11:54:00.003-04:00

We all know that we are heading strait into the red with an imminent recession. However, most of you only know this because of what you hear on Fox News day in and day out. This is not a shot at your intellect but simply a huge shot at how much this word is thrown around the newsroom and into everyone's willing ears. So with the, so called troubling times ahead people are worried about the longevity of certain .com business.

Cnet has recently posted an interesting article on several web 2.0'ers that are bound to close their doors when the real recession floats their way. On the very top of the list is everyone's favored Twitter which has actually been in the news lately for it's unknown business model along with its CEO founder swap. I will come to the forefront and say that I simply adore Twitter and everything the little micro blog who could has done for connecting people in the internet's community. Without Twitter on this list I would have simply looked over it as another pot shot on what will disapear in the iCommunity. So how do you all think we can help Twitter and the other folks in the web 2.0 world that we love?

Well I am going to put it out there that we off load some of the server space onto our own homes. There has been plenty of talk about taking the business away from the office and saving the world through telecomuting with your peers. So why not help these companies out by telecomuting their server space? What would happen if a bunch of us got together, asked for static IP's, opened up some ports, and put some big hard drives in a Ubuntu LAMP box? Let Twitter or whatever have remote access to it and simply let them offload some of their problems onto the people who love them. Open it up to a true community (of course it would take a lot more work then what is described but is very doable). The economy might beheading south for a bit but that does not mean we need to sit idly by and watch our most beloved web 2.0 die in our face.

Office for the Economy

2008-10-16T17:30:00.004-04:00

Microsoft office is a key dominator in the world of office suites. Everyone knows what anyone is getting on about when they refer to the term “word” and everyone has created some kind of material on it in the past years. One thing that we also know is that it is incredibly expensive, bloated, and if most haters have their ways, the new iteration and the ribbon is rubbish. Well if you hate it so much why not move to an open source, free alternative.

In walks OpenOffice. A suite that has always been free and has been hanging around for many years. As of late (Monday actually) there has never been a Mac native OpenOffice. It has always been ported over to the Mac under the name NeoOffice. Well, time to rejoice my Mac loving comrades, OpenOffice 3.0 will work spectacularly under the Mac Intel architecture. Actually, this entire post was written in OpenOffice just to see how stable it was under a simple test. It opens faster then Word 2007, it has all of the basic word, excel, powerpoint, access functions, it does not cost a single dime and is completely customizable. The world of paying for expensive suites, especially when it comes to Mac specific clients, is over. Recommend it to your friends or simply download it here.

Net-er-riffic

2008-10-16T16:53:00.003-04:00

One thing that we are not too keen on here at Tkubed is lack of horsepower. If your technology or even your car (extends to bicycles) does not include a lot of rampaging horse powers then it is far from getting this blogs paltry seal of approval. I have actually decided to call give the seal, perhaps in hopes of raising its own sexiness and usability, some kind of acronym. Any good ideas out there? Shoot me a response and maybe you could WIN...maybe not but anything could happen.

Anyway, getting back on track, horsepower is not an absolute, it can be easily substitutued with a hefty amount of sexiness or sex. Worth mentioning: depending on the amount of sexiness a lot or a little is needed to substitute horspower (case by case basis). All of this babbling brings us to the point of Netbooks. They seem to be a very cool concept, expecially with a flavor of the linux month club. However, they seem to be a real let down when one surpasses the need for simple email, word, and internet surfing. Personally, they seem to just be a simple macbook air which after their last update blows most netbooks out of the water with it's bigger screen, thinness and horsepower all packaged quite nicely (please refrain from flaming about this concept, I know the Air is not a true nebook). Enter the Asus Eee C s101. It is a simplistic, sexy (who does not love the color brown?), and powerful little pc. With its 32gig ssd (16 for windows) and expansion slot for more memory you have a powerful little pc with a heaping amount of sexiness. Props to Crave.uk for a great preview.

Lost Data

2008-10-12T20:10:00.002-04:00

Anyone who spends any moment, maybe even just a franction of a moment in the IT world knows how very important people's data is to them. In the education world, you could simply throw it over you shoulder and explain to the child that the back up "missed" them or something and everything would be kosher (I originally misspelled this word and "wrote cosier" which come to find out is a kind of knitted hat for your teapot to keep the tea hot when removed from the burner). However, in the world of business if you lose even a simple file people throw temper tantrums like nothing the child from the private school has ever seen. There exists just one exemption to the above rule which can be fixed by simply being a general backup nazi.

Complete laptop missplacement or generally whatever had a lot of data on it has been stolen or "misplaced." This is of course an OK event as we have seen with many government officials and their stolen goods which often contain quite a few of yours and my social security numbers. Through some good ole studies it looks like folks found out that it is mostly their own employees that cause these breaches not hackers. This also means that the IT pros out there are not creating overly complicated security systems that do not work it can merely be chalked up to a healthy amount of stupidity. The article can be found here and maybe if you lost some company laptop you could read it and figure out why you feel a little far from the tree.

It is Official

2008-10-12T01:44:00.004-04:00

Yep, we know officially have an official seal of sexiness or for short sex. So if anyone needs to wonder what I am banging on about when I say some piece of hardware is sex well, you now will. Official seal can be found and printed to the left and I grant anyone free right to reproduce and modify to their hearts will. It is pretty ruff at the moment and might...might go through some kind of finalization and committee work. But I doubt it.

Space

2008-10-08T18:14:00.002-04:00

It is really, really, big...yep. So big actually that we as a species pine to stuff space with random things. In the case concerning computers we attempt to stuff it with music, videos, documents, and other great files. The problem being that those files seem to simply get bigger and bigger without any kind of management committee or overhead budgeting office (much like the spending of the good ole US these days). And please feel free to not get US messed up with us.

Anyway, as blogs go we should be linking things to our community right? Well as a point to all of the above rambling, here...nope I meant here...nope here. Seems that Kingston has crammed a whooping amount of space into the size of a thumb drive and even gave it quite an attractive price. I thought my 8gig thumb drive was big but this is just plain sexy. With the shrinking size and raising space of flash drives these days it should not be long before my dual platter 2 tb usb hard drive could be considered a dinosaur.

Having only tested the SSD in a Asus EEE pc I must admit the flash drives are very quick and very appealing if there was one for 400 some odd dollars at the 240gig range. But since that is a completely rediculous thought for right now it looks like we are going to have to wait it out.

Be Safe, Be Seen

2008-10-06T13:14:00.004-04:00

This link was forwarded to me by a very, very nice human being and the mere fact that I am about to rip it apart both saddens and titillates me. Yep, so we all know that this is voting season..or something like that and people seem to have some real problems when it comes to the folks who actually understand (I must admit, somewhat) the political system we are in.

Sure we all care about the economy right now; shit you gotta be an idiot not to care how these banks are spending your money. But are we sure that Toby McGuire knows that this election, I mean THIS election is going to decide the world? He said the world, and I mean he is some type of superhero so he MEANS the world. All these people who we watch on television are poking us in the rear to go and vote. It is super admirable but viral idea making during a time like this? I need to work my knuckles to the grind just to get by; I do not have time to go and VOTE! Come on folks, keep it together.

A Car Review

2008-10-02T15:10:00.004-04:00

If you love cars, much like I do there really is no substitute for hilarity, information, and informality as their is with the UK based show Top Gear. Today however, you all are going to be graced with a little review of the early 2000 based Audi TT. This post was spurred from me witnessing a very prominent, pipe smoking individual driving one.

To begin, lets take a quick look at aesthetics. On the outside the Audi looks very much like a low slung, cabriolet but enhanced with Audi's engine and 4 wheel drive technology. The small and minute lines go well with the car and the overall outward aesthetics make one think that it is a very nice car. However, this is where we need to stop. The car itself seems to be made to look (and once you wedge yourself in it unfortunately the ride and the power) are designed very much like those of a fine woman's hand bag. Sleek, sexy but nothing over the top and nothing that could or even should really make you want to own one.

On the upside they are fairly cheap, reliable and great in the snow (much like all Audi's). However, these compromises should ultimately push someone elsewhere. Perhaps into the seat of a VW Gti which happens to be a much more refined, fun and safe car. Or maybe an Alpha; the main thing is, any self respecting human should never find themselves in one unless they accept that it is a very sphelt way to transport him or her around town. But is foremost NOT a sport car. Looking back at this post and the seriousness of it I will make sure in the future to keep my car reviews to twitter.

Video GamES!

2008-10-01T16:03:00.002-04:00

Video games can be the bane of people's existence. They can take over your lives and make you a brainless fool who can merely chuckle and talk to your other friends about the same games you are playing. OR they can be a creative and most of the time amazing distraction from the real world (as long as you practice sensibility and restraint this can be a very good thing). Gamepro has compiled a list of 35 of the best video games (so says Gamepro) and is definitely worth having a look at. The link can be found here.

One of the best things about the list is how anyone over the age of 20 has probably played every one of them. Some highlights from the list; for the folks to lazy to read themselves.

#28 Grim Fandango: One of the greatest adventure games of all time. Still lots of stuff to haul around but manageable and old Lucas Arts hilarity.

#20 Fallout 2: Possibly one of the best turn based post apocalyptic RPG. No doubt anyone who is a fan of games is a fan of the Fallout series and is wetting themselves for the upcoming third game.

#13 Half Life 2: Nuff said

#12 Sins of a Solar Empire: Amazing strategy game on a truly solar system stage. Fun and some very well thought out multyplayer.

#10: Company of Heroes: First World War 2 strategy game to really capture my imagination.

#7: Starcraft: Nothing needs to be said about the brilliance of this game. Another one of those "I can't wait for the sequel to arrive titles."

Missed Connections

2008-10-01T13:47:00.002-04:00

Well as you can all tell I definitely missed the 20 blog posts for the month. However, out of a damn good amount of fairness I did hit the 17 mark which is way beyond anything that has happened before. So out of even more fairness to the community I am going to keep this staunch effort together and MAKE UP for my lackluster September attempt. So in the age old spirit of the butt pat, lets hope for the October best. Big high five for everyone who is standing behind my questionable blogging abilities. Oh yeah, and this one counts, look at your watches, ya freaks.

Picking Your Exploration Date

2008-09-29T13:26:00.004-04:00

Picking your nose can be one of the most serene and peaceful things you can doing during the day. You can go deep and explore the inner crevices of your nostrils or you can slightly brush over it with your thumb in order to remove what little debris you feel. I know this is an odd choice of post but I have been slowly realizing how integral this action is to getting through the day.

Everyone has their little nuances even before they stick their fingers in their nose. They might look around to see if anyone is watching, throw up a flare to distract the people who are, or even simply make sure there are spectators for the upcoming event. Sometimes one is rewarded with a nice juicy item that can be rolled in your fingers (disgusting but very common) or perhaps flicked like a penny from your hands. Just make sure all; if you are going to pick freely and frequently, make sure you do so with the washing of your hands. You do not want to be introduced to the head of the firm with some residue hanging off your fingers, your palm, or anywhere else they can show up if you end up using the flick method. Be careful, be a professional, and pick at will, peace.

An Onslaught

2008-09-26T00:00:00.003-04:00

Well all, today needs to be blogged and...and well frankly there is not much there. So in the spirit of things I would like to share some insight on the onslaught of...well idiocy that one might run into in a day. Mind you this post is not to produce negativity but when there is a road block in your life in the shape of a human being and you can not get around them, AND they are prohibiting your effectiveness at work then they need to be removed...pronto. On a much less negative note these did not all incur over the course of one day. Yep, I have been saving these up for you, the reader and boy, maybe you are in for a treat.

Scene: On a street corner
Action: Longboarding
Random guy one: "Nice board man but how can you support fiberglass like that? It kills the earth and is not renewable, man, it is just as bad as driving your car."
Me: I look down at my board, up at the man, down at my board, back to my hand, back to the man, back to the car coming our way.

Scene: The office
Random Co-worker: Now we have all had these people and they are the ones where you give them an answer and then they just sit there, waiting, and staring right back at you. Maybe we should all carry a bag of cookies for people like this

Scene: The Road
Cop: "Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?"
Me: I look down at my bike, back to the cop, then back to a car doing 10 over. "No Officer I don't"

Scene: The Bedroom
People across the wall: LOTS OF SEX SOUNDS (real loud)
The person beside me: Wide awake

Scene: Soccer
Mom: "Eh I said that my little girl needs to be moved to the other team because her and -insert name- do not like each other."
Coach: Blank stair

Sorry they are not all that great, but I am up, wanted to write, and da blog was a beckoning. I will leave you now with a truly great idea.

Something bad Has Happened

2008-09-24T16:52:00.003-04:00

Finding yourself on the Republican side of the world these days is very much like finding yourself on the wrong side of an elephant with a large amount of laxatives. Well maybe not quite that deep but close enough. Repubs are heading towards the democratic hippie sides of things due to the idiocy raised far above the heads of republications. However, on this day, republicans or especially liberal republicans rejoice because you can now see, albeit somewhat small a hole in the mound like heap of shit. The Bush administration has finally dug their heads out of their lower intestines and said NO to the RIAA and potentially YES to peer to peer clients or "pirates." It basically stops federal prosecuters from applying civil lawsuits to peer to peer clients. The article can be found here and might I say Huzzah...HUZZAH!

What You Have Been Waiting For

2008-09-23T13:15:00.004-04:00

Crazy days are here and gone and now, now you all can be graced with the wonder that includes the a whole lot of stupidity. If people do not know, I am very avid biker and often times take a moment and actually ride one to work in the morning. This leads to a great regiment of good health but often time allows you to open your mind and watch for cars and other objects that could possible careen into you. Maybe it is my 14 or so concussions over the years or perhaps my sense of duty towards my own body, but keeping an open mind while biking can be extraneous but very needed. However, now we have yet another problem on our hands.

I decided, due to the high amount of stalkers that I have acquired through this blog to blot out the location on the police vehicle. At first we were in wonder what was going on when a police officer (k9 Unit, thumbs up buddy) rushes to pull over someone on a bike. Apparently this lost individual which is obviously riding some kind of hippie built townie had no idea that the kop was after them since this is within 172.6 yards away from the actual stop sign. If she is as lost as we think she has no idea that she is going to be slapped with a 125 dollar fine and some points on her license.

I myself have been pulled over by these folks and have no idea why there is a problem with all of this. Major cities like Chicago, NyC, San Fran, and Boston don't really take the time to actually go after bikers who do not come to a complete stop at a sign or light. You hear of some instances here and there but they are always fue and far between. Here though, I have witnessed the popo actually sitting just up from biker frequented stop signs who are out to yank everyone who does not come to a complete stop. And who should?

If you are dumb enough to pull out into cars then we have a serious problem...real serious actually. But if you are looking for some kind of death wish then by all means, go ahead and step out into it, let it be our choice. We chose to get on the bike that morning and we do not need cops who are bored taking it upon themselves to give us a form of fines. We all know that the economic times are tuff but lets actually try and do your job. How hard is it for a biker riding a townie to outrun a car? How hard is it for someone driving a stolen car to outrun a ridiculously large SUV? What am I saying? Life is better on a bike and people should use restraint when in ridiculous situations with iPhones.

Drofo

2008-09-20T20:23:00.002-04:00

Being a network engineer or maybe wanting to be one is sometimes difficult. Having run the notorious and very old yet very stable Novell for several years, the inception of something that can break every weekend is somewhat odd to me. Leopard Server seems to be the beast that I simply can't seem to tame in this world of corupt hard drives and moronic server setups. Maybe it is just me but I can't seem to wrap my head around why an Apple server can not find the library folder unless it is written down ten times, burned 9, sketched in dog shit, sketched back onto paper and then finally stapled to an apple atopt someone's head.

If you can't tell I am frustrated, not at pple, but how an unfortunate turn of events can make my hair just a wee bit grayer. Baa, work on a Saturday? Easily remedied with some simple booze.

Toot Away

2008-09-18T16:35:00.002-04:00

We have no idea...or at least I do not specifically know how many people actually visit this blog on a per weekly basis (per daily is just ridiculous). But I believe today will be the first time I toot an upcoming post.

Now for all that keep up with this, I love to ride fixed gear bikes. But it seems, expecially where I currently reside the cops are super happy about pulling over the carbon neutral bicyclist and creating dangerous problems for motorists instead of actually probably doing their real job. This post is to come...don't hate, some of us work. Anyway, I would also like to congratulate myself with a HAPPY 100 posts (pic above says it all)...2 posts late. Never really knowing where this blog was going has made it a very trying task but it looks like we are on target for the 20 posts this month and by the end of this next 5 month period we should hit 200! Sweet bitches, peace.

Reacurring

2008-09-18T00:33:00.002-04:00

Life...well it is not always perfect and the life portrayed in Jerry Seinfeld's and Larry David's is definitely not perfect. Hence why it appears that Jerry and Bill have been kicked out of Microsoft's new, non nonsensical add campaign. Who is in, might you pine for? Well it appears to be someone who looks vaguely familiar...actually much like comedian Hodgeman who plays the "I am a PC" in the apple adds. It seems like Microsoft tried their humor and it just is not working. Now their plan seems to be a full frontal attack on what actually, has not made the Apple commercials all that special or memorable. Buck up Microsoft, you have plenty of the market share; bring back the idiocy and bring it back with some flare. Ny Times article here.

Sippin on Jin and Juice

2008-09-15T18:50:00.004-04:00

Is not what the folks at Microsoft are doing. A few posts ago I spent some serious time reviewing all of the ridiculous that did not ensue in the Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft adds. The boys at WTF are at it again and have since released another add that no one can seem to figure out. Penny Arcade took a jab at the whole escapade with their comic from today which can be found here. Microsoft might have some grand scheme of marketing but it sure seems like they are falling fairly flat with what they are trying right now. Movie after the jump.

'Murican Sensativity

2008-09-14T18:24:00.003-04:00

No post before has needed some type of disclaimer more then this one. If you take a second to search the blog for the word "turducken" and take a second to think about the word that is numero-uno in the title you will have a good clue on what is about to unfold. If this is a sensitive subject for you, well cowboy up or go cry into your crotch..whichever you feel the need.

American football is a rather large part of our autumn Mondays and now....and I doubt God would bid it, Sundays. But if we were to really take a second and look back into football's past we can see its origins stemming from european football (soccer for the yokels) and rugby. Rugby first came about around 1823 at the Boy's Rugby Club in England and soccer probably showed up a little earlier in the 1820's. It transfered to the US through the Harvard and Yale ivy's where they used to play football (the stuff we know it now) every Mondays, in which they called "Bloody Mondays." Boy-huh? Things have sure changed since then.

What seems to have happened during the migration of rugby to the states the Ivy leaguers thought things were to0 difficult and bloddy. This is indicative of the American decree that if something is hard, make them easier instead of fighting through it and being stronger at the end. Instead of keeping true to the "hardcoreness" and finess of soccer and rugby, we decided to be babies and stay to the easy, cushioned, and untechnical high ground.

Acrtually all of this makes perfects sense since most people who actually watch football want to sit on their rear ends, sipping beer on Monday nights and not really have to think; simply get up really quickly and shout some incoherent remark when something good, or bad happens. This is assisted by horrible anouncers who have so many numbers on each player they probably could tell you what kind of food the players ate for dinner. In addition the screen is bombarded with little arrows and numbers since we as the watcher can not read the white numbers painted onto the field or remember how many downs are left. Nope, no brain needed.

I say bring back Bloody Mondays and get rid of the sluring maniac that is John Madden. Take away all the nanny pads along with the helmet and let them basically play rugby in which you can throw forward. This would make the game a lot more fun, hardcore and maybe fans would actually need to pay attention to know what is going on. In addition, I am almost positive this would lower heart attachs, strokes, spousal abuse and raise short term memory retention. We all love when NASCAR cars crash (why else would you watch it) so why do we love when a bunch of people protected by pads crash into other people. One good tackle and someone doesn't get up? Makes you think a little more then this current "sport" does.

Palinic

2008-09-11T23:36:00.005-04:00

Being a political science major, one aquires a certain distaste for most systems of government. Not because they do not work (most do) but rather simply the people that we deem fit to represent those systems. The one character we all need to be referring to is our charter Polar Bear Club member Sarah, spelled with a z Palin. If you find yourself in a group of people and one happens to slip and mention the fact that they believe Sarah to be the next Vp you calmly get up and and you slap them as hard as you possibly can right in the ear.

What should make people unhappy is the fact remains that there are quite a few educated folks out there that find themselves leveling with republican doctrine. However, the folks that actually call themselves republican are so far gone that there really is no verbage to describe their actions. They simply place the "repub" name on themselves and call it a day as they proclaim the possible force needed to cull Russia. One word comes to mind Sarah and that word is simple, simply no. Now this is NOT a vote Obama ad(the man is not a patriot...not even close). However, we need someone to take a close look at healthcare, education, jobs, quality of life, and perhaps put on the backburner the bid for superiority that we crave. Whoever this is, probably will not get voted into office but if we all simply take some shit from Douglas Adam's stick: "don't panic." Positivity will get us through and not much else, certainly not people obsessed with abortions.

A New Breed?

2008-09-09T19:29:00.004-04:00

As none of us know because you should be working hard enough to not have time to surf the web during the work week. Or for the folks who actually get paid to do this, take it from me; it is not as glorious as it sounds....well actually it is. Wait, where was I going with this?? Oh yeah! Itunes 8 was released today along with a slew of new ipod nanos and a slick new ipod touch.

Starting with Itunes 8, the big thing is Genius, which compares your music and attempts to make intelligent guesses on other groups you might like. This is basically the same service that Pandora and Last.fm use. In addition, they have introduced grid view which media player 11 had way back in 2005. Beyond all of this, I think Itunes is much faster, it syncs with my Iphone much quicker and easier and seems hands down a much more native app on the Macbook Pro.

Because I own an Iphone I could care less about the Ipod touch but the new 16gig colorful nanos do look very cool. They have a very curvy design and a Zune like accelerometer that allows you to control certain parts of it via shaking the nano or putting it sideways into landscape view (Zune only does landscape). They look very cool and the Nanos seem to be they direction Stevie is going these days. Unfortunatly, I still would rather have the big Classic, but with almost no update to the current Classic today, it looks like this could be the last iteration of the big ipod. Sniff...16gigs is 50 bones cheaper and very small....more then 16gigs needed with genius and smart playlists? What do you all think?

Props

2008-09-08T16:19:00.003-04:00

Being in the business of...well business you find yourself in quite a few sticky situations. When it comes to web business we need as much help as possible. So to simplify things, and I did not really like it to tell you the truth, I have reverted the blog design back to something more "open" and recommend everyone to visit boagworld for an amazing podcast. They may be from the UK and but they know what they are talking about when it comes to the coding for the world wide web. And for my second recommendation: Smashing Magazine, another great publication for help on for all those late night coders. Peace.

Windohs!

2008-09-06T00:43:00.005-04:00

Now, as most people do not know, the whole point of being anonymous is to never be found. This is often a practice rarely employed on the world wide web and is a must at TKubed. However, this post is going to key some people into the fact that: no I am not a marketer.

For all the digg watchers out there, you probably witnessed that the new rubbish that is the windows commercials (Jerry Seinfield included) graced national television on the night of the 4th of the 8th. It being a windows comercial, included a dinosaur heapen (steaming) amount of nonesense. A quick synopsis of the entirety of the video includes Jerry trying to sell Bill on some shoes and how he should wear them in the shower. To appeal to some minorities (none of which would be watching Sex in the City on TBS) they included a sentence in spanish and finished with a small green screen and the vista logo...no words included. Oh and...by the way, eating technology, not a good thing Bill, I watched a dog once release a half eaten remote and I swore it looked like red tiberium (diagram for ungamer folk to the right) from the Command and Conquer games. The video can be seen here but to save 1 minute 24 seconds check out the fine senator in perhaps the best sound clip for random insertion into one's life.

Are We Males a Little Tepid?

2008-09-03T15:30:00.008-04:00

Being one myself I must admit that us 20 something males have a thing or two to learn about being proactive in our community and lives. This might be so true that it has grabbed the attention of attention seeking whore newsweek.com (article). The article itself is actually a long read which is uncharacteristic for this topic...aka it was written by a women. Tony is a hard name to decipher but through some clever googling I think it actually is a male...which is a good thing.

Taking a few looks through the article we see some very key elements of why this article has reached the top of digg today.

"In almost 400 interviews with mainly white, college-educated twentysomethings, he found that the lockstep march to manhood is often interrupted by a debauched and decadelong odyssey, in which youths buddy together in search of new ways to feel like men. Actually, it's more like all the old ways—drinking, smoking, kidding, carousing—turned up a notch in a world where adolescent demonstrations of manhood have replaced the real thing: responsibility. "

-BINGO. These two sentences pretty much sum up a good amount of men who find this type of life a nessesity. We all think that being more drunk then the next person or bragging about who they did last night is more manly than simply taking on the responsibilites of life. This is of course not 100 percent of the 20 something population but it is growing daily.

"Meanwhile, saddled with an average of $20,000 in student debt and reared with a sense of entitlement that stops them from taking any old job, the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents has nearly doubled since 1970"

-Aw yes, living with your parents because you are too proud to take a job that will pay the bills. Sure, this survey is pointing at american youth which means that most of us are scared to do manual labor or simply get a little dirty but why should you be picky when you are 24...money is money and any skill learned at any job is valueable for the rest of your life, not to mention the stuff you learn from your co-workers. I know I sometimes feel this, but I love to get dirty, let me pull wires through a crawl space, work for a landscaper on the weekends, be a valet when the job is available. Our problem is that we hate to serve other people...it makes us feel all..human which is clearly wrong...right.

"If the domestic man does appear, the study finds, the guy who pants in Lamaze class rather than a stranger's bedroom is portrayed as freakish, fuddy-duddy and frequently religious: an uptight Boy Scout in a Peter Pan culture"

-Oh to true...and very well put.

"almost 20 percent of college guys said they would commit rape if they knew they wouldn't be caught"

-WTF Mates. Although 20 percent is not tremendously high but anything over 0 percent in this catagory is simply wrong.

-Everyone should read the complete article. It is not powerful enough to make someone change their mind about their attitudes but maybe just maybe, it will make you think...just a little. Baby steps for the adolescent.

Blingtastic Experiences

2008-09-03T14:17:00.003-04:00

Ok. so I might have missed a day but I made up for it with the double post two days ago so I am still on track for the 20 posts this month. Anyway....CHROME!

Playing with the beta of Google's new browser has been, an absolute charm. Running it under Vista Home Premium on my Macbook Pro was as easy as downloading and installing. No fuss, no real google adware, and nothing really to get in the way of someone simply clicking yes through all the prompts. So a big thumbs up for an easy beta install.

From there the experience only got better. The layout of Chrome is astonishing with no extra information or bars to clog up the bottom, the left or the right side of the browser. This lends itself to be safari - esk where they want you to have a complete and unhindered browsing experience. If you look simply upward you are welcomed with a simple and elegant single bar that will process a .com address or search a word in google. This process has been tried before with Firefox and Opera however, it was often times hard to discern if the browser was going to search or attempt to complete the url. Chrome battles these issues with a simple "search google" preface before the word you typed. This makes life both easy and quick when it comes to finding what you need.

When it comes to browsers the entire world is concerned with the amount of memory that one takes up. Firefox used to be a huge memory sucker, IE...don't even get me started (Beta 8 I sorta like), Opera...no, and Safari...boring. Chrome for the moment processes each seperate tab as another spot in memory which seems to speed up browsing and make the browser fairly stable for its beta itteration. However, it does seem to take up more memory then trusty firefox but...for now atleast, it is a beta and should be a memory hog.

This is a fairly simple run through of the browser but it must be said that the browser is itself, very simple. However, this does not detract from a wonderful, clean and well thought out browser by the folks at Google. With so many browsers populating the world most of the normal folks stick with trusty old IE but if Google can get its Chrome name out there then I think they have a good a chance of taking a large portion of the market. Moreover, this will probably be the same browser we see on the Android setup later this year which will make the experience competetive for all us iphone safari users. I say bring it, and bring it hard Google. Complete that OS we all know you have in the works and grab that market share. Shuttle PC, Google OS, Chrome, Lightened Simplicity.....utterly amazing.

One last thing though....get this on the Mac port asap and I will browse with it every day.

Double Dipping

2008-09-02T01:47:00.002-04:00

To the left of this post there used to be a picture of some rather inept folk, who probably went to college, attempting to write the word "school." Well this was old and is now changing to something that I think is awesome. These pictures will be just little snippets of what I think is worth actually spending my money on. Most often there will be a post to accompany but perhaps not. For example, that bike; I want it. If you are reading this and you would like to donate it please feel free to comment. Check it out at surlyville.com under the heading bikes - steamroller.

A Candide List

2008-09-02T01:23:00.003-04:00

As anyone knows who might have at one time frequented this blog, I am not one to be consistent when it comes to blogging. In now way over the past two years since I have had this thing been fallen into more then single digits when it comes to numbers per month. Moreover, there have been numerous posts addressing this issue and ideas and explanations on how I am going to promptly fix it.

It is several months before new years but I am going to go forth and make a Labor Day (that is right it is capitalized due to the lack of imbibing that is characteristic with the day) resolution to have more then 20 blog posts, per month for the next 4 months. Lets see if I can do it folks, lets get throw the world of technology a bone and see if it is possible. If you want to submit anything feel free to via comments on the last post and I will address it immediately. Here is to the future all!

How about no

2008-08-05T12:23:00.004-04:00

If this is truly the catch phrase of the new madden game then I would like to say...simply, no. Whatever you are on, huffing, smoking or generally using...stop it. And even more how do you think this makes you look EA? Pull it together men!

A General Bored Good Time

2008-08-04T01:47:00.008-04:00

What happens when you mix:

and

You get ronpaulforums.com. This place can not be explained on this here blog because the complexity of the humor is beyond understanding. Feel free to peruse, abuse and whatever else you want to do with the many people that frequent the forums. Have fun

2008-07-28T17:18:00.003-04:00

Alright, so in my quick haste to find this picture it looks as if only some of it has come up. What it is is a place where you can go and blow your whistle at someone who is using pirated software. Then if these people do a report and it comes up positive you might be eligible to win 1 million dollars. Lets brake this down from here shall we?
If you or anyone were to blow the whistle on someone who is a supposed "pirateer" then you would be blowing it all over the place. Most of us DO use pirated software (I can't because I own a tech business) whether it be Adobe suites (overpriced) or Office suites (Overpriced). Perhaps we have hit a relative idea. Maybe if software companies would lower the prices of their actual software there might be more people buying rather then pirating. For now though, you should know that you are not going to make too many friends by blowing a whistle in their face. Especially when you have zero chin...I mean zero. Oh, and their catch phrase "know it I report it I reward it" has more spelling and grammer mistakes then most of my blog posts. As long as there is windows, there will always be pirating; get used to it and stop crying. Result.

Lasting Remarks

2008-07-23T13:17:00.002-04:00

Yello all my non listeners (readers really) out there. I have spent the larger part of my time in my new state to acquire what one might call a "yob." All is well and blogging shall resume in its very random interval. Twittering has also died down to my large time investment with the yob but we are going to try and up the ante there as well. Stay tuned for the same un-reversible humor, quaint technology reviews, and an overall good time. Bloggings shall comence once again....NOW!

Iphoner....emty?

2008-07-11T01:48:00.003-04:00

Huh, well, where we are...RIGHT now there seems to be a lack of what needs to be dubbed "Iphonery."

Iphonery (V): 1) The action of doing something completely ridiculous in order to acquire a
"special" piece of technology.
2) A shorter phrase then "poop socking with the Iphone."

The AT&T store has literally been un-inundated with people, tents, wafting smells, beer, and drive by's. We shall see in the morning how things go but it looks like it will not be too hard to get my grubby hands on a shiny I-Phone.

A Packer Too Late?

2008-07-10T09:39:00.003-04:00

If anyone kept in touch with this blog over the few days during the last Iphone release, you would know that I poked fun at a good many folks who wasted *insert a measurement of time here* precious moments of their lives. Moreover, we all know and love the hilarity that is the professional line extender Greg Packer. However, in 2008 we seem to have a new kind of professional hitting the streets. The infamous Greg is on no one's radars (as of 7:41 Central time on the 10th of July) while we seem to have some political clout...."special" folk waiting out the New York store.

Last Year most people could just simply walk into the store after the smell had wafted out and simply pick up an Iphone without any hassle. Perhaps it will be the same this year, since most of the people will probably be inclined to keep their remaining Iphone's for atleast one more year. Even though I may have mocked the idea in the past...me, this writer (sort of) will be out and about tomorrow morning and in full Iphone swing by the end of the day. Don't hate me because I can wait.

Down Time

2008-07-06T04:05:00.003-04:00

Well, my lack of any sort of posting is due to my actual lack of laptops. Mine was supposed to be fixed but is now is in some sort of unknown area which would and should tic most people off. I hope it can be fixed but if not I am leaning towards a MBP if they give me the full retail but if they cut perhaps shoot for the Dell XPS m1330. New hopeful job though would coddle the MBP so hopefully one might be coming my way fo free motha! Once the laptop comes a knocking posting will resume.

Tis Been A Long Time Since High School...

2008-06-19T19:00:00.006-04:00

As we all can see here there seems to be a some high fives going on in this small...Catholic, hmm...New England town. This is a small blue collar town relying heavily on the fishing trade which, as of late has been passed off to the "little industrial folk who could": the Koreans. Time feels this is the only underlying factor that is leading to the race to getting pregnant, which again is a very odd proposal. However, a small public school passing out 150 or more pregnancy tests in a year is ridiculous. What are the parents doing to educate their children these days? To put it as a magician named Gob might say: "I mean COME oN!."

If you read on the children seem to be enthralled that their little bundle of smell will give them "unconditional love." To preface, geeks are horrible at picking up women...we really are. If you all listen to GFW radio, a member of the brodio comment on their escapades in asking out someone who they find "attractive" working at a local Gamestop. If you don't listen to the podcast, pick it up at Zune Marketplace, Itunes, or 1up.com and listen to the first 10 or so minutes. Backing on track, find someone who is maybe...around your age that will give you some unconditional love. They are far between but take the time to talk to people, get to know them. Men can be pigs..I actually know we can be, but a lot of us are cool and will love you much more then a kid puking and crying at you early in the morning. However, men can't fetch you the kind of money a kid will on the open black market. Yep, peace.

Props to LoneStar times on the pic below. Oh and when I checked the image out it said "pregnant middle school teens!" Two words: WTF mate?

A Spore good Time

2008-06-17T11:31:00.003-04:00

Well...as some of us know, the game that is going to bring us all to our knees from our favorite developer Mr. Wright is just on the horizon. Of course, if you can't understand my jargon or you have been under your anti video game rock for the past year you won't know I am talking about Spore. The creature creator comes out tomorrow but the demo of it has been out on the net for a couple of days. Even though they DO mean demo (almost all of the features are locked) there is an ample amount of fun in it. Moreover, for 10 dollars I can see it a much more interesting and creative way to spend your time over WOW. A video of why it would be cool to have kids ONLY if they had large pincers for a mouth, an eye on their stomach, and no arms after the jump.

Your Morning Load

2008-06-11T10:15:00.002-04:00

As we all know I love cars...everything about them. So the thought of a paper made v12 engine AND the new season of Top Gear? Aww....aww...I gotta go hang out in my bathroom for a while.

No daylight = sex?

2008-06-09T18:00:00.002-04:00

Huh, well maybe it is my upbringing or just my parents grounding me at a young age on the subject but putting constant night with awkward amounts of sex just does not match with me. Wouldn't people sleep or at best drink themselves into oblivion (maybe this leads to all that sex)? However, as always Reuters has an amazing article that talks about 16,500 condoms being air lifted into the McMurdo base in Antarctica. Now these are for ruffly 165 people for 2 months...so if we do some math..yep, that equals: 85 people...ruffly because 165 divided by 2 since it usually takes that many people to actually have sex. Then we divide that number by the condoms getting 201. With only 30 days in a month that would mean that to use them up everyone would need to be having sex more then 3 times a day. Frankly this number is disturbing and maybe, just maybe I regret even blogging / thinking about this.

3G Iphone

2008-06-09T15:48:00.006-04:00

Hello...we knew it and it is now here loud and clear....if not a little late. I am sure most of us do not have a job that requires absolutely no commitment of time (no need to ask) but if you want a quick update...which would mean you would actually read this (scoff!!) then welcome the new Iphone and all its "ahge." Anyway there is little I know besides it being available on July 11th, it DOES NOT have a 5 megapixel camera (kept the old 2 megapixel), 3g connectivity, a whole lot of GPS sexiness, and a beautiful price structure starting at 199(black 8g) and 299(white or black 16g). The best part is that the looks are the sleekiness of this:
One phrase never mentioned by this man: "Awesome apple!"..oh yeah and "I can't wait to get one." Now just to find away out of the uselessness that is Nextel.

The EEE Revolution

2008-06-05T14:53:00.002-04:00

We all know and those who have actually had the brains to touch one, love the Eee pc released earlier this year by the folks over at Asus. However, when they first announced this thing they had a myriad of products that were going to follow suit. Basically a pimptastic line of Linux based hardware that was going to make life easy...and quite frankly much easier for some folks out there. If you move your browser here...but wait!...

Good, you will see the Asus Eee Tv which would be great. Complete integration into your television for a Linux distro...hello wireless keyboard / mouse combo + a full functioning television. Sure this fails to tempt the geeks who modded their orginial xboxes but what of the rest of the...dare I say, normal world? This is a pimptastic step towards people feeling out linux and one that I completely will be on board for.

3g Iphonery

2008-06-04T10:54:00.002-04:00

We all know that WWDC or World Wide Developers Conference is all set to bring good ole Stevey in to wow / flood the world with all that is apple-"ness." One of the largest announcements will undoubtedly be that of the new, 3g capable iphone. In addition, all of us would like to see a redesign for the MBP and MB but I don't know if that is evident this early in the montevina life cycle (however, if they do they will have another customer). Montevina + a new Iphone + a free 8 gig Ipod touch for the purchase of any apple notebook equals a whole lot of sexyness on tap for the comming year.

Sure Montevina may look like a breath of fresh air into the centrino line but don't be fooled by others. It, combined with hopefully (not confirmed) the new Iphone as a modem will equal one hell of a sexy notebook that will be constantly connected to the web. Hopefully, all of these will line up for the following year along with the money to actually afford it all. Once all of it is released and aquired you all will be the very first to know how much it pawns or falls flat. Hmmm...sexyness.

Yep, cool is now official

2008-05-15T13:03:00.002-04:00

An amazing compilation of what you might think is cool but clearly...and I mean clearly is not can be found here. Tread lightly, this is coming off the front page of Digg and looks to be absolutely brow beaten with bandwidth. Most notable excerpts (although I do not believe the long boarding one to be true):

Blue Tooth Headsets:

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: All the other losers have to use their hands when they talk on the phone. Not you! You can talk on your phone and at the same time safely give some loser the finger because they’re only driving the speed limit. It’s Tuesday, doesn’t this asshole know you have your jujitsu class at 24 hour fitness to go to?

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: I don’t give a shit if you’re talking to someone on the other end, when you’re in a Subway Sandwiches and they’re trying to take your order while you say “Listen, you give me that paperwork for the Johnson account by tomorrow or it’s your ass. No mayo. I said no Mayo! Yeah, that’s right, Johnson account on my desk! No pepperoncinis!” it’s pretty god damn confusing and asshole-ish to everyone trying to deal with you. Answer your phone when you have time to hold it in your hand. The only people that should be wearing blue tooth wireless headsets are military field generals and the people that work the day after thanksgiving sale at Old Navy.

Priceless

Sneaky, Sneaky

2008-05-14T10:52:00.002-04:00

Well we all know the headaches that are included in visteh have driven people right off the edge and actually right into the arms of the arms of us contractors to peel the "visitaness" from their laptops and desktops and re install a version of XP. Also, we all know that we are no longer going to be able to buy XP after June which simply means the number of XP torrents out there will balloon like no tomorrow (KIDS! Don't download unless you own!! RIAA will PAWN you!...or whatever).

So now Gates is comming out here and saying that well ya know, we know it is crap but hey, the next one is gonna be better? Really Mr. Gates, Really? Just a couple of months ago you and that vampire on coke you call Ballmer was adamant that Vysta was the future and you had created something that could be fixed. Well guess SP 1 didn't do it for it so get your stuff together and lets release something great and something that will want me to not buy a MBP....doubt it but I guarentee I will load it on there to test it out. Peace!

PS: Don't hate Vaista because it is complicated, it tis cool, just give it a whirl. But if you don't have the hardware, skip XP, own Ubuntu you will be much cooler.

Jones

2008-05-03T11:41:00.003-04:00

Having been an uber geek and indulging myself in the ass crack rock huffing that is the new IronMan last night I noticed something that peaked my interest in the 20 minutes of trailers. The new Indiana Jones movie sees the big screen this summer. Now being an even larger uber geek to the original Jones movies there should be some equally exiting moments in the new Legos Indiana Jones original series that is comming out as well. A couple of clicks around the good ole web and woola! An amazing new trailer showing some in game action / amazing backgrounds and a sense of amazingness for every uber geek (regardless of age) comming soon. Movie can be seen here

Edited for content:

Oh yeah and this one two! I know, how in the world could I forget?!

A film Update

2008-04-29T20:09:00.004-04:00

Ok all, Apologizing for a rather hasty review of the new Ubuntu is in need but not fully thought out. I doubt people are having this problem but it seems that the Firefox beta seems to enjoy locking up more often then kids complain about fingers being hurt (inside joke...hahaha suckers this one is just for me).

Anyway, everyone should be mildly surprised about today, unless of course you were born yesterday or even so you would need to have been born under a rock in some insipidly boring area of the world...say, say...well you fill it in but today was the relase of GTA IV. Which heralds a great day for all of the closet mass murders / serial rapists / general funny folk that spend most of their "careers," if you can call them that on the PS3 or now XBox. But, nigh you would be quite disapointed because there are plenty of people complaining about their copies freezing at the intro movie...which is quite interesting. Oh and then there is someone who got mugged and stabbed in line for the game in London this morning. Jeez guys ("Rockstar"), get it together!

A Bird For FREE!

2008-04-25T16:51:00.005-04:00

Equals?

Hey folks, it definitely has been some time before we have had a good ole talk about the world of open source. If you have been sitting behind a rock or at best (and this probably goes for the most of you) just do not care about open source software. Well read on if you really care but as a good warning...the new version of our ever beloved Ubuntu is sexy at best.

As always Ubuntu, and unlike the nastiness of say Fedora, has an amazing installer. It basically coddles most of our useless hands through formating your hard drive and getting Ubuntu from the live CD to your hard drive. One thing needs to be said though that the installer is very reminiscent of the old installer which is definitely ok.

From the installer to working is fairly simplistic as long as you had your computer plugged up to an internet source during the install. Unlike windows, Ubuntu is fairly good at installing any and all drivers unless you have a video card / Broadcom chipped wireless card. Again it blinks at you, you click the icon, put in your password and check some boxes and BAM easy fix. One or two things have changed in Hardy from 7.10 but most of them are worth the switch.

Transmission is now the default bittorent collect wich is pimp since this lightweight piece of software easily out does utorrent for the pc. And the second is Remote Desktop Viewer which can easily handle multiple VNC connection which is amazing. Ubuntu still has all the graphic slickness that was found in the latter version which allows you to simply wow your friends with glitter that is akin to OSX and leaps beyond Vista. Besides being probably the sexiest version of Ubuntu to date, its blazing startup times, great integration and driver support...well there really is no besides. You people really should get off your duffs and take a test drive. I mean slip the CD in your computer, reboot and BOOM, if you do not like it refrain from hitting the install key and nothing is changed. Easy, simple, elegant.

2008-04-24T14:45:00.004-04:00

Aww...yet another web2.0 wonder from the boys. Shoot me a connection at:
www.linkedin.com/in/BradenDouglass

Long Time Update

2008-04-23T21:09:00.002-04:00

Hey all,

I have been accruing the normal hilarity during my time off from blogging however most of the time is spent solely on that proverbial couple of words: job search. So if things are sparse then you all...all of you who do not really fallow my blog know why.

Sad, sad day, alas Director of IT up for Hire

2008-04-09T14:14:00.003-04:00

http://careers.nais.org/jobdetail.cfm?job=2847907

Oh well, life is full of changes and all of them are for the best. Frankly, I am surprised I got this far. No one said it better then a good friend of mine:

"Maybe you just don't have the ability to work with pussies"

Although I hate the derogatory term I think he hit a nail right on the head. Well all, looking for that IT job, you got one, come on and comment.

To Be or...Not to Be...A Geek

2008-03-31T08:59:00.002-04:00

We all know or have seen, met or even talked to someone who you could very easily, but definitely should not label a "geek." Although these people are usually hidden deep in their mother's houses or "lairs" if you will they often time take the time to get out and meet others....sometime it does not go as well as hoped. Props to these folks.

Oh and the cup reads...."To hot for you" (Too true)

Duty - 0 - Rific

2008-03-25T19:03:00.004-04:00

Probably not knowing about life in the independent school system you would have no idea about the complete "un-funness" that oozes from the word "duty." Some background:

Somewhere way out when independent schools were being formed they decided to suck all the money up that was being paid by the patrons who attended the school and put it into a big bank where it could accrue interest. Each year there has been no deviation and nothing has changed. This pretty much brings us up to now and there is a need for folks to stay after and make sure the kids stay sedate. To counteract this task most of us attend a meeting where we attempt to spice it up by being ridiculous.

Each duty night I will post a phrase on my twitter in which I will incorporate into every response that is needed by a child. Tonight we shall take on a name: Ron Perlman mainly for his amazing role as Turok's grizzled, unkept friend, "Slade" in the new Turok game. You are very much welcome.