Lab Rats, Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers’ new weekly videocast, now has a home on the web all it’s own aside from the old website they were using before (which still works if you have it bookmarked!). The new Lab Rats blog has status updates on the upcoming video (due tonight) and more information about the show. It’s in the links on the side in case you miss it, but here you go anyway!
It’s been 28 episodes of TWIT already? Amazing. TWIT videos are being distributed via BitTorrent links in the show notes, see the link below. This week’s hosts are Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, Robert Heron, Roger Chang, David Prager, a fine group indeed, and they’ve gathered to discuss this week’s topics: Digg.com’s new venture capital (nearly 3 million dollars!), Comedy Central’s ventures into IPTV, the death of privacy online, Bill Gates claiming not to fear Google (yeah, right), the new Open Office, the move that all US Passports will be using RFID by next year, IMDB’s 15th birthday, Martin Sargent’s pending podcast (we’ll stay on top of that for you guys!), and much much more! Head on over and download the show now!
It’s also worth mentioning that while I was kind of down on last week’s show, this isn’t to say I didn’t like it-I thought it was really entertaining and educational, and as you can tell I make use of Creative Commons licensing quite frequently. The show was definitely stimulating and interesting, no doubt about that-just not what I’m used to. I guess that’s what I should have said! Anyway-try this week’s TWIT on for size!
This Week In Tech [TWIT] Episide 28 // October 31, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
This week’s topic of discussion on Security Now! is WEP and MAC Address filtering; where Steve and Leo discuss probably one of the best ways to lock down your wireless network; to use WEP, hide your SSID, and to filter MAC addresses so only computers with those hardware addresses can get online using your wireless network. I do it, so should you! But even so, this will only really protect you against the drive-by wifi user; it’s not real protection against anyone insistent on cracking your wireless network for one reason or another. In fact, the most dilligent of snoops can get past all of these somewhat easily, and Steve and Leo explain why all of the above are great methods for most users, but how there’s more to be informed of and more you can do to protect yourself.
Security Now! Episode 11 // October 27, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
This week’s DiggNation is chock full of story goodness. Kevin and Alex wrap up the top stories from Digg.com this week, including PlayStation 3 backwards compatibility, Google to take one craigslist with Google Base, hunting for fake words in the dictionary, clever use of AJAX, and ways to make your mornings that much easier but still be on time for work. Lots of information covered this week. Check it out:
DiggNation Episode 18 // October 26, 2005 – [ episode notes | download links ]
The first real episode of Lab Rats is up and live! The fourteen minute videocast with Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers features the great introduction to the show, appearances by The Cats that Andy mentioned in his interview with us [ http://www.techtvforever.net/?p=208 ] and the topics of discussion are how to secure your wireless network using WEP or WPA, step by step! Definitely a good one. If you can’t snag the show right away, just come back a little later-understandably their servers are getting absolutely hammered right now!
Lab Rats Episode 1 // October 25, 2005 – [ episode notes and download links ]
I’m a little late on this, but here we go nevertheless! This week’s Digital Life TV aired on Tuesday the 25th at 9PM EST, and topics this week include exactly how good the video is on the new iPod, how the iPod stacks up against other video players on the market, the recent release of Quake 4 and whether you should drop the cash on it or wait until it’s cheap in a few months (with Che Chou of 1up.com [ http://www.1up.com/ ]), and if you are going to drop the card, why you should avoid ATI’s X1300 Pro “bargain” video card (with Jason Cross of ExtremeTech [ http://www.extremetech.com/ ] ), and much much more! Head on over to download this week’s episode now if you missed it!
Digital Life TV Episode 11 // October 25, 2005 – [ episode notes and download links ]
CNet has a pretty comprehensive FAQ on what exactly identity theft is, how it happens to people, and how you can protect yourself. As if we all didn’t know what identity theft was by now, but the article goes into some really impressive detail about how people get your personal information and what lengths crooks will go to in order to become, essentially, you. They also disavow a number of popular misconceptions that identity theft is all about the internet; the entire article is full of good questions and informative answers. Additionally, the article gives you a lot of “protect yourself” info that anyone can find useful.
LifeHacker [ http://www.lifehacker.com/ ] to the rescue again! For those of you who would love to have access to all of your files from wherever you go and whatever computer you might use, and would also like the ability to transfer files to your home computer or home network, this trick is for you! I know I’d love to be able to transfer files back and forth between my home and work computers, so I figured I’d share the wealth here. Read on:
[ http://www.lifehacker.com/software/home-server/how-to-set-up-a-home-ftp-server-130806.php ]
LifeHacker has a whole series of “home server” articles, so if this one suits your fancy or even doesn’t and you’d really like to try something else, look em all over and see what might work for you:
[ http://www.lifehacker.com/software/home-server/index.php ]
One of my favorite sites, LifeHacker [ http://www.lifehacker.com/ ] has a few tips that I know for a fact a lot of people need; TinyURL etiquitte. Too often people use TinyURLs for everything without remembering that when you use a TinyURL you lose the context of the link, so people don’t know what they’re clicking.
For example, if someone says “Check out this awesome link! -tinyurl-” and you hover over the TinyURL, you have absolutely no idea what you’re clicking on. It could be not safe for work while you’re sitting in your office, it could be signing you up for spam, it could be a virus or trojan horse, you’ll never know, because when you hover over it, you’ll only see the tinyurl link in the status bar of your web browser. Lifehacker explains further why TinyURL can be bad, and actually more annoying than anything else-I came across this personally, on an old mailing list I was on, some of the people who posted links insisted on using TinyURL for literally everything, making their links absolutely worthless. Read on, and the comments are good too:
[ http://www.lifehacker.com/software/web-surfing/tiny-url-etiquette-132763.php ]
Also, LifeHacker suggested today a service that shrinks URLs but also leaves some context so clickers know what they’re clicking on:
[ http://www.lifehacker.com/software/web-surfing/alternative-short-urls-with-burl-133131.php ]
10 Episodes of Security Now, imagine that. Bringing comprehensive security information to the general public in language they can understand, Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte continue to trend this week by discussing wireless access points. This week they pick up where they left off last week by giving us listeners the lowdown on Rootkit Revealer, the application they discussed last week, by pointing out that sometimes you’ll find false positives with the application. Aside from that, this week the duo discuss the still ever-present open and unsecured wireless access points and the risks involved in operating a wireless access point that’s wide open to the rest of the world and why you should lock yours down, not to mention how. They also discuss using VPN when using wireless access points and how important it is to encrypt your data while you’re using someone else’s access point, or even your own. Enjoy!
Security Now! Episode 10 // October 20, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
Episode 2 suffered a producton failure, but Episode 3 is up and ready to go. This week on the show, Andy, Mike, and their callers chat about the prevalence now of high-quality OLED screens, the new video-capable iPod and the Creative Zen Vision (which hasn’t gotten much media attention for some strange reason), complete spyware removal, and much much more. The site isn’t all prettied up yet, but give Andy time, he’ll get there! Check it out:
CyberWalker Mondays Episode 3 // October 24, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
After a one week hiatus (if you didn’t notice, there was no TWIT last week) another TWIT is in the can! This week’s hosts are Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, and Alex Lindsay, with special guest Lawrence Lessig [ http://lessig.org/blog ] of Creative Commons [ http://creativecommons.org/ ]! This week’s video is already up and available via bittorrent, as you’ll see at the episode notes page. Sadly, I have to admit that this week’s TWIT isn’t really the format that I would have liked; I prefer the larger panel discussions and the traipsing from topic to topic that lends itself to massive show notes and a great deal of information, but this week’s seemed to be a bit more slow and dull, although the subject matter was very interesting. I like departures like this, delving deeply into important topics (and Creative Commons is very important!) but at the same time it was missing the vividity and life of the previous TWIT podcasts. Oh well, can’t hit them all out of the park, or please everyone for that matter-I’m sure lots of people loved this week’s!
Regardless, the chief topic of discussion this week is property rights. No show notes since well..that’s pretty much all that was discussed. Check it out!
This Week In Tech [TWIT] Episode 27 // October 24, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
Woowoo, a whole 20 Weezy and The Swish episodes! Can you believe it’s been that long already? Anyway, another Weezy and The Swish for your early-week hilarity (I know it keeps me sane) and this week the ladies (and you too, Matt!) chat with the Suburban Homeboy himself, Eric Scwartz [ http://www.suburbanhomeboy.com/ ]. That’s not all of course, but you’ll have to download the show to get your weekly dose of the hilarity we’ve all become used to. Head on over and snag the most recent episode today!
Weezy and The Swish Episode 20 // October 24, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
This week’s Command-N gives us Amber and Mikey taking on the topic of Apple’s new product announcements, and no we don’t mean the new iPod: we’re talking about the updates to the PowerBook and PowerMac lines of computers, as well as the new photo processing software Apple announced called Aperture, how to unfreeze your iPod, among other things! Amber and Mikey also bring you their weekly web picks, review a hot new mp3 player on the market from Creative, and much much more, all in one videocast! Head over and download it.
Command-N Episode 19 // October 24, 2005 – [ episode notes and download links ]
This week’s DiggNation includes some of my favorite beer, and some of the stories that I can attest that I dugg over the course of the week. This week Alex and Kevin chat about the lego DeLorean, the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) DVD Jon landing his dream job in the United States, the global map of Digg users (and you can add yourself! I did!), the first smiley as an emoticon, the guy who discovered that Blizzard was poking around your system and watching what you’re doing while playing World of Warcraft also releases an open-source tool to show you what they’re doing at the same time, and Suicide Girls launching an IP TV network. Sound hot? I thought so-download the podcast today!
DiggNation Episode 17 // October 20, 2005 – [ episode notes | download links ]
For a little humor in your diet, check out this video (courtesy of Leander Kahney and the Cult of Mac blog) of the world’s longest start-up sound. He says the anticipation is better than the payoff, but I disagree, the whole damn thing is hilarious! This definitely made my morning.
Wired has a definitive guide to Spyware and what every computer should know about it, and how to go about protecting themselves. There’s a lot of buzz about spyware in technology circles and rightfully so, but this piece is geared specifically to the audience who throws up their hands and says “why should I care? what is spyware, anyway?” And explains exactly what Spyware is, what it does on and to your computer, and why it should make all the difference in the world to you, and how you can go about protecting yourself from it, and getting rid of what you’ll doubtlessly accumulate. Read this one, it’s worth it.
Here’s to 10 episodes of Digital Life TV! This week’s fine episode features discussion and some inside tips on the new Windows Vista beta that Microsoft dropped yesterday, hosting your own web server on a cable modem (and whether you should bother or not), Tyler Kovacs, CTO of Zvents[ http://www.zvents.com/ ] discusses Ruby on Rails, AJAX, and all that other Web 2.0 goodness, and even a bit about how to get started writing your own awesome Web 2.0 apps, a wrapup of the Digital Life convention in New York City last weekend (I wish I could have been there), and much much more! Join Patrick Norton and Robert Heron and all of their guests for another episode of Digital Life TV; aired live yesterday evening (as it does EVERY Tuesday evening) at 9PM ET, but you can download it now:
Digital Life TV Episode 10 // October 18, 2005 – [ episode notes and download links ]
This week’s Weezy and the Swish introduces us to a G4 insider, chat about Weezy on G4 TV, chat about their listeners, and much much more. I’m downloading the podcast as we speak, how about you?
Weezy and The Swish Episode 19 // October 17, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]
This week’s Security Now! with Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson is about rootkits, or those devious pieces of software that everyone is scared of because of the ease with which they can be applied, how difficult they are to detect, and the full control over your computer that they have. The duo talk about methods to detect rootkits, protect yourself from them, and all of the security utilities that are adding rootkit detection and removal to their suites. Definitely worthwhile if you’re worried about rootkits. Download it now:
Security Now! Episode 9 // October 17, 2005 – [ episode notes | download ]