TechLifeBlogged

A new web site launched today: The Site for the Cure

From the site: The Site for the Cure is a site which allows anyone participating in any charity event such as a walk, race, run or ride for charity to talk about what they are doing and why they are doing it, to talk about the event, and to link to their own sponsor page in order to raise sponsorship funds. The Site for the Cure allows people to search by name, location, cause, and event for people to sponsor.

People want to participate in these kinds of events so they get some web space and put up a 'sponsor me!' page. The problem is, some times that URL they end up with is something completely NOT memorable. Not to mention ugly on a t-shirt or business card. You've seen them. Things like blahbalhbla.com/px=147852&pg=personal&

fr_id=1286&et=1dDLRk-SEBTdIdJGLzuw..&s_tafId=154282. TheSiteForTheCure gives them another place to post their link and a nice domain name to give out that is memorable.

You can chat with other people in the forum. There are topics like: General Chatter, Training Tips, Wanted: Training Partners and Event Reviews.

There's even an RSS feed to keep up with the site and new people as they create their links.

Check it out and use it for your next event.

Here are some very cool pics of the Space Shuttle getting ready for launch: Space Shuttle

Perspectives you don't get on the news or as a casual observer.

iTunes now has a feature where if you previously bought a few songs off an album, you can now buy the rest of it and get .99 cents credit for each of the songs you already have. E.g., most albums on iTunes cost $9.99 so if you already bought three tracks you can download the rest of the album for $7.02. Before this you were stuck buying the whole thing for $9.99 and you would have another copy of each of the song you already had.

Smart marketing.

via: newsvine

arstechnica: Earlier this month, a consortium of companies including Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and Google submitted a device to the Federal Communications Commission for approval that would use the so-called "white space" in the analog television spectrum for wireless Internet access.

Not too much is know about this 'white space' device. If the FCC passes it there will be a jump start on using the current analog TV spectrum before the February '09 cut over to digital. It appears the big winners will be those in rural areas who don't currently have a broadband solution because signals in this spectrum travel a long way.

ArsTechnica: The RS-DVR would store programming on servers at the cable company rather on set-top boxes. For less than the cable company's $9.99 per month DVR rental fee, users would be given 80GB of space on a Cablevision server on which they could remotely record shows to be watched at their convenience.

The MPAA says that store and forward deal is illegal unless you get authorization from copyright owners. No no they just don't want a cheap method for fast forwarding through commercials to proliferate.

Customers lose again. Business models need to change. They need to come up with some other method or create more innovative commercials that people won't want to miss.

As if flying isn't scary enough...

BBC: The pilots of a Chilean passenger jet reported seeing flaming debris fall past their aircraft as it approached the airport at Auckland, New Zealand.

Early reports said it was a Russian satellite but that wasn't do to come crashing down for another 12 hours. NASA says it was most likely a meteor.

Do you Twitter?

I'm an early adopter but I'm not sure I get the whole Twitter deal.

Where do you get your news?

This is one of those lost facts about Southern California. Wrigley, the owner of the Chicago Cubs, used to bring the team out here for spring training to Catalina Island. Catalina is about 26mi off the coast.

I just found this while I was looking for something and it made me laugh. For those outside the state, Huell Howser is this guy who does these shows about California on PBS stations. Many don't like him because of the cadence of his speech. I think its funny and adds to the show.

I also had to post this because I'm itching for baseball season to start.

 Most tours leave from Long Beach

ArsTechnica: Deutsche Telekom's Musicload said in a letter distributed last week that customers are having consistent problems with DRM, so much so that 3 out of 4 customer service calls are ultimately the result of the frustrations that come with DRM.

The evil Dr. M!!

Amazon Unbox allows you to purchase or rent your favorite movies and TV shows to download and watch on your PC – all in DVD quality. And if you have an Internet connected Tivo Series 2 or 3 you can download movies right to it. Purchased movies can also be transferred to various Plays for Sure devices.

Rent a movie...no lines! no late fees! no waiting for the mail!

Note: If you want to buy a Tivo you can get up to $170 off the Series2 80hr, Series2 80hr Dual-Tuner or Series2 180hr Dual-Tuner TiVo DVRs. Plus get $15 in Unbox videos if you register your new TiVo DVR with the Amazon Unbox service by April 30th.

HUGE list of links to helpful documents. If you do any work with Microsoft Virtual technologies, this is where to start.

(Virtually) Everything You Need to Know About Microsoft Vitalization Technologies

Microsoft has released Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).  Included in the release performance improvements under Windows virtualization and for SQL Server.

More info: "Windows P2 Goes Live" and the Official SP2 Page

via

AP: Actor-comedian Sinbad had the last laugh after his Wikipedia entry announced he was dead, the performer said Thursday. Rumors began circulating Saturday regarding the posting, said Sinbad, who first got a telephone call from his daughter. The gossip quieted, but a few days later the 50-year-old entertainer said the phone calls, text messages and e-mails started pouring in by the hundreds.

Do you use Wikipedia? Think it's any better or worse than any other source of information on the web?

I guess Sinbad will have more stuff for his stand up routine.

How was your first week of extra daylight? I love going home and it still being light out but it's a drag to wake up in the dark.

How much extra daylight are you getting with this new system? For me, it's 27 hours! A whole day of extra light! That assumes I get up the same time everyday, which I don't.

If you want to find out for your house, give this site a try: Daylight Savings Calculator

If you do any work with audio, Podcasting or otherwise, you might want to check out the Levelator™ from Gigavox Media.

Gigavox's Doug Kaye announced this at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo last September. Since then the software has been released and updated and I realized I hadn't posted about it yet.

The Levelator is a free tool available for Windows, Mac or Linux. The main use of it is for spoken word where different mics are used or a phone conference recording where people are coming in a different levels. The software adjusts the audio levels within audio file for variations from one speaker to the next. 

Using it couldn't get any easier. You take your uncompressed source (wav or aiff) and you drag and drop it onto the Levelator application. A short while later you'll get a nicely leveled file put into the same place you dragged the original from. The original is never altered so you'll have it in case you need it again. There is nothing to adjust! Drag-drop-done.

If you are a podcaster or just have some voice recordings around that you want to clean up you have nothing to lose and your audience will thank you!

If you are into tech, the Podcast Academy did a nice interview between Doug and the Levelator developer, GigaVox Audio Engineer Bruce Sharpe. This is an interesting discussion about the concept of the Levelator, the process of development, and suggested work-flows.

mp3: The Levelator - Podcast Academy

news.com: Americans who want a converter box permitting older televisions to receive digital broadcasts will be eligible for federal subsidies, according to new rules announced Monday that clear up some confusion about how the program will work.

In the US, starting in Feb '09, if you receive over the air broadcasts you'll need a converter box if you don't have one already. That's the current date for the switch from analog to digital broadcasts. The converters are supposed to cost around $50 to $70USD and the subsidy coupon is said be be worth $40.

I think retailers are going to cut the price and offer these things for $40 so in the end it's a wash. Especially the big stores like Best Buy, Costco etc. Why wouldn't they? Perfect opportunity to give something for "free" and get people in there who might not otherwise. Maybe they'll have a look around at all the pretty LCD's and Plasmas that they hadn't considered before.

Google produced YouTube selling Gmail

Over on the RSS Blog, Randy points us to this UK video asking people about RSS. I agree with him. Let's ask these people if they know what GSM is. As long as they can talk to or text message a friend, who cares?

Figuring out how to get the product of RSS into their hands in a consumer friendly way that you don't have to be a geek to figure out is what we should be focusing on. Podcasting has an even longer way to go.

If you are running products from any of these companies and are concerned about the new US Daylight Savings Time issues (going into effect 11 March 2007) you might want to check these links.

Apple Inc. -Important for older Mac OS

BEA Systems Inc.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Hewlett-Packard Co.

IBM

Microsoft Corp.

Sun Microsystems Inc.

via: ComputerWorld

Several LEGO models are on sale on eBay with proceeds benefiting the Foundation for Positively Kids, a Las Vegas based non-profit agency dedicated to developing services that provide comprehensive care for Nevada’s medically fragile and terminally ill children. New models will be added to the auction throughout the month of March.

The models on eBay auction are from 'Miniland New England Harbor' which is a section of Legoland California. You can view them here: Legoland California Ebay Auction.

Legoland CA isn't too far from where I work. We went there about 2 years ago on the day the world record was set for the tallest Lego structure. I think the record has since been broken but it was cool. Sections were assembled throughout the weekend by park guests. They were then taken to the master builders who worked on a crane. Here's a couple pictures of it:

All tolled: 92 feet 6 inches

via: Jon's Geek Stuff

Starting today, if you have an XBox 360 Live account, you can download a high definition episode of South Park.

Reuters: The episode, titled "Good Times With Weapons," will be available as a free download to XBox Live members for two weeks. Best Buy also will offer a free HD DVD of the episode with purchase of an XBox 360 console or HD DVD drive from March 20-April 3.

Can someone tell me why this is a big deal? Isn't the attraction of South Park the irreverent I-can't-believe-they-said-that style of writing and the low-def art? Cool you can download HD content to your XBox but why did they pick this title??

CNet  —  Microsoft has quietly released a fix for a security vulnerability that could let Xbox 360 owners run their own applications or operating systems on the console.  —  The update corrects a problem with a tamper protection mechanism on the Xbox 360.

Just got around to taking the Superhero quiz.... I'm Spiderman!

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 90% Green Lantern 65% Superman 60% Catwoman 60% The Flash 55% Hulk 55% Iron Man 50% Robin 45% Supergirl 45% Wonder Woman 40% Batman 35%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Wall Street Journal: One-half of the 24 million households with HDTVs don't actually watch high-definition programs because they haven't obtained the necessary hardware from their cable, phone or satellite operators.

If you are considering an HDTV and you don't have a set top box from your cable company, be user to get a QAM tuner. This lets you see unencrypted HD content from the networks like NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC. Maybe even other small local channels. You have to look for QAM, not every one has it. They'll advertise ATSC but that is over the air and not everyone can put up a big antenna on their house. Those unencrypted channels are part of basic cable too.

Of course, this doesn't let you record that content, you'll need a digital tuner in the device you are recording to or an external tuner like from your cable company. But at least you can get at least some form of HD on that expensive TV.