Month: May 2006

We’re a little late on this, but better late than never, and this is definitely a video cast that you don’t want to miss. Becky Worley’s back on the tech scene with Hook Me Up, which is being produced by Yahoo! Tech [ http://tech.yahoo.com/ ] in association with iFilm [ http://ifilm.com/ ] and promises to take people living in the technological stone age and give them a massive upgrade and being them into the 21st century. A real geek’s dream, a real hook up, if you will!

The show looks excellent so far and has clocked in three episodes already:

Hook Me Up // Episode 1 :: My TV is Older Than Me!
Stephanie is addicted to reality TV, but the junker in her living room is painfully old. Watch the Hook Me Up crew bring Stephanie out of the dark ages and show her the light…of her new TV, that is!
[ Hook Me Up // Episode 1 ]

Hook Me Up // Episode 2 :: No Lights, Camera, Action?
Seun is a film student, aspiring to make the next big blockbuster or perhaps next insightful award-winning film. But the problem is she’s got no camera! The Hook Me Up crew goes all out to get her the gear she needs to be a filmmaker.
[ Hook Me Up // Episode 2 ]

Hook Me Up // Episode 3 :: World-Class World Cup TV Setup
Colin is a soccer fanatic, but he’s much too far away from Germany to enjoy the World Cup in person. So to help him out, the Hook Me Up EMTs (Emergency Makeover Technicians) bring the World Cup to Colin, in style!
[ Hook Me Up // Episode 3 ]

This show is going strong and more than worth watching; and the website provides awesome tips and tricks for buying your own TV or setting up your own home theatre if you’re not a candidate to get hooked up. Also, if you think you are a worthy hook-up cause, you can apply right there, and vote for who’ll get hooked up in the next episode! Sound awesome? We thought so. Check it out:

[ Hook Me Up Homepage | Hooke Me Up Episode Archives ]

Also, Becky Worley is keeping a Hook Me Up blog at Yahoo Tech; that’s worth bookmarking too!
[ Yahoo! Tech :: Becky Worley’s Blog ]

This week opens up with a new DL.TV, where Loyd Case stops by to fill in viewers on what happened at Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) last week, and Robert and Patrick talk about digital cameras; what to look for, new features on digital cameras these days, and image editing and management applications on the net. All this, tech news, and viewer questions including whether Vista Beta 2 will run under Boot Camp and response to the possible pricing of the Nintendo Wii.

DL.TV Episode 65 // May 30, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]

This week on Weezy and The Swish is one of my absolute favorite tv personalities; G4’s Adam Sessler! Love him or hate him (and personally I’ll fight haters to the death) Adam brings the hilarity to the crew for another glorious episode and gives us an inside look into the craziness of the video gaming world and the people inside it, and gives us the lowdown on some of the events he saw during his coverage of E3 a few weeks back.

Weezy and The Swish Episode 51 // May 29, 2006
[ episode notes and video | download ]

New logo this week, along with some new topics. Included with the news this week are Dell’s launching retail stores, Nike’s deal with Apple, Flirting in traffic, cleaning your keyboard the Mikey way, and more. This, we hear from Jeff, and the weekly web picks cap off another excellent commandN.

CommandN Episode 47 // May 29, 2006
[ episode notes and download links ]

How to reformat your hard drive and reinstall your OS is the topic of choice for this week’s episode of Lab Rats; Andy and Sean take you through wiping a hard drive clean, formatting it, and reinstalling Windows, all in one short show. Topics to consider that Andy and Sean point out in the show; make sure you back up your data and documents first, and also reserve a good chunk of time to do this, because it won’t be quick.

Lab Rats Episode 28 // May 29, 2006
[ episode notes and download links ]

This week on GeekDrome, the crew reviews Art School Confidential and The Borat Movie, and take a look at the previews for GridIron Gang and Flushed Away. Additionally, the usual in comics; comics for people who love comics and comics for people who don’t dig comics, and a ton of video game news, including looks at the new Super Mario Brothers.

GeekDrome Episode 27 // May 29, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]

Among the stories that Alex and Kevin cover on this week’s DiggNation include some of the hits at Digg.com this week, like the first running photos of MIT’s $100 laptop, a barrel roll while pouring iced tea, a 14-year old that got rich scamming others, Apple strikes a deal with Nike, Dell strikes back and gets into the retail business, and an awesome mosaic! This, more stories, and the usual dose of beer-induced hilarity.

DiggNation Episode 47 // May 25, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]

This week on FLOSS Weekly with Chris DiBona, Chris is joined by Jimmy Wales, the father of Wikipedia, and the two discuss perhaps one of the largest, most well-known open source projects in technology today; including its roots, the software that’s running Wikipedia, and how the community manages to police itself and manage itself, and how the central group of administrators bring them together.

FLOSS Weekly Episode 7 // May 26, 2006
[ episode notes | download ]

On this week’s Security Now, Leo and Steve chat about an encryption utility that’s close to my heart that I’ve been using for a good long time to secure my thumbdrive; TrueCrypt: [ http://truecrypt.org/ ]

Steve and Leo discuss the program, it’s features and flexibility, it’s open-source goodness, and best of all, it’s price: free!

Security Now! Episode 41 // May 25, 2006
[ episode notes | homepage | download ]

This week’s Inside the Net is all about a topic dear to all of our hearts, ths issue of Net Neutrality. Leo and Amber are joined this week by Michael Giest, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, and they discuss why Net Neutrality is an important topic, why it should be standard, and why it’s even silly for the government to have to consider such a law although now that they have, it’s necessary for them to pass it. Among other topics, the crew talks about fair use, home recording of media, intellectual property laws, and the creative commons.

Inside the Net with Amber MacArthur Episode 23 // May 25, 2006
[ episode notes | download ]

The week’s final episode of DL.TV is here, and it’s a doozy. Patrick and Robert spend some quality time with SiN: Episodes and Emergence and update us on some gaming goodness, demo some hot and affordable network attached storage (NAS) devices, and of course hit on the week’s tech news, including the charges facing some students taking part in a MySpace extortion racket, and Nintendo unveiling the pricing of the Wii, and it’s under 250 bucks. All this and viewer questions.

DL.TV Episode 64 // May 25, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]

On this week’s CrankyGeeks, the panel consists of Karen Chu, 1up.com; Sebastian Rupley, West Coast Editor, PC Magazine; Ryder Darcy, Myspace User, and of course, John C Dvorak! The roundtable talk tech and their own backgrounds, and especially on the issue of blogging and MySpace, what the two mediums mean for the future of the net, why they’re good, why they’re bad, and everything in between including everyone’s personal experiences both blogging and with MySpace. Some of the points they hit on are whether advertising in blogs is a worthwhile endeavor, whether blogs are a legitimate journalistic medium, how to police MySpace, how people use MySpace to promote their music or products, and more.

CrankyGeeks Episode 11 // May 25, 2006
[ episode notes and download links ]

They may not be posting about MacBreak on the Twit.tv page because the Mac users are more likely to be subscribed via iTunes, but it’s worth mentioning that two new episodes of MacBreak have appeared in iTunes for downloading.

The fourth real MacBreak episode is titled “Step Up To The Mic,” where Leo and Alex talk microphones, the differences between various mic types and focus on two USB mics that provide podcasters with great sound at a reasonable price.

The fifth MacBreak episodes, titled “There is a Need for Panic” takes an in-depth look at Panic Software’s stellar FTP application for Mac OS X called Transmit, shows you the basics, and then gets in a little deeper with some of the cool functionality that the application offers. If you’re not subscribed to the podcast, you’re definitely missing out, so subscribe now!

MacBreak Episode 4 // Step Up To The Mic
[ MacBreak.com | iTunes :: iPod Video | iTunes :: 540p HiDef ]

MacBreak Episode 5 // There is a Need for Panic
[ MacBreak.com | iTunes :: iPod Video | iTunes :: 540p HiDef ]

On this week’s first episode of DL.TV, Patrick and Robert are back, showing off the new Windows Vista Beta 2, including reviewing the system requirements and whether or not you’ll need a ton of money to upgrade your computer to get the best features out of it. Also discussed this episode are some defragging tips and tricks, tech news like the recent loss of tons of personal information of some US veterans, Sony settles the whole rootkit debacle, Samsung to sell PCs with flash hard drives instead of standard HDDs, the release of Office 2007 Beta 2, and tons of viewer questions.

DL.TV Episode 63 // May 23, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]

Well well! Weezy and The Swish is officially 50 episodes old! Happy birthday? Wel, congratulations anyway. This week, no special in studio guests, but the crew use their mad industry hookups to call up with with film critic Cecily Knobler about her thoughts on The DaVinci Code and other movies, and then ring singer/songwriter Eric Carmen to chat about his singing career and the one song that’s making it all happen. Download away for a dose of hilarity for your week.

Weezy and The Swish Episode 50 // May 22, 2006
[ episode notes and video | download ]

Another week, another GeekDrome! This week is part 2 of GeekDrome’s E3 special, and the crew covers the gear, consoles, and games unveiled and shown off at the E3 conference. Additionally, reviews of Poseidon, and previews of World Trade Center and The Lake House; and comic news, of course. All this and a naked fan, so download away.

GeekDrome Episode 26 // May 22, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]

On this week’s CommandN, Amber’s all on her own, but without breaking stride she proceeds to lead us through this week’s tech topics, like Apple’s release of the MacBook, SkypeOut free, Microsoft’s URGE music store, Vista’s “Get Ready” campaign, and more. CommandN t-shirt price drops announced in the episode too, so if you don’t have one, pick one up now.

CommandN Episode 46 // May 22, 2006
[ episode notes and download links ]

On this week’s Lab Rats, Sean and Andy (and of course, the kitties) show you how to keep your PC in good running order by paying attention to something a lot of people often forget-keeping it cool. The cooler your system is, the better it’ll run, and the longer life you’ll get out of your components. Not to mention, you’ll keep from frying the temperature sensitive bits in your system like the CPU. The crew discusses how to check the CPU temperature and the internal fan speed using the BIOS, and some simple changes you can make to your configuration to use better fans or improve ventilation.

Lab Rats Episode 27 // May 22. 2006
[ episode notes and download links ]

On this week’s episode of DiggNation, Kevin and Alex chug beer and rock to the biggest stories at Digg this week; including Apple’s unveiling of the new MacBook notebook computer, Google tweaks GMail so it can’t crack PDF documents anymore, CPU magazine falls for Thinkgeek’s April Fool’s joke, Creative sues Apple and Apple countersues, and more. All this and the anecdotal hilarity and mishaps you’ve come to expect on DiggNation.

DiggNation Episode 46 // May 18, 2006
[ episode notes | download links ]