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Items of Note:
The Geekcast is back! After a long vacation from the show to deal with the real-life issues of moving, I am back to bring you the wholesome goodness of this show.
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Test a geek:
This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.
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Tech news:
Cablevision launches 50 Mbps service in NY area. Cablevision has increased speeds of its residential and commercial broadband service as the fight between cable operators and phone companies intensifies. Cablevision, which serves parts of the New York region, announced that it will sell premium broadband services with download speeds of 30 megabits per second and 50mbps to its residential customers. The company will also increase download speeds on its basic service from 10mbps to 15mbps at no additional charge to customers.
Over 1 million Windows to Mac converts so far in 2005. The momentum generated by Apple’s iPod and related products continues to translate into new Macintosh sales according to one Wall Street analyst who estimates that over one million Windows users have purchased a Mac in the first three quarters of 2005. In a research note released to clients on Monday, Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf said the number of Windows users purchasing a Mac appears to be far higher than the firm had previously anticipated. “If we assume that all of the growth in Mac shipments during the past three quarters resulted from Windows users purchasing a Mac, then purchases by Windows users exceeded one million,” the analyst said. “Indeed, the number of Windows users purchasing Macs in 2005 could easily exceed our forecast of 1.3 million switchers in 2006.”
Unsecured Wi-Fi would be outlawed by N.Y. county. According to a new proposal being considered any business or home office with an open wireless connection but no separate server to fend off Internet attacks would be violating the law. Politicians in Westchester County are urging adoption of the law–which appears to be the first such legislation in the U.S.–because without it, “somebody parked in the street or sitting in a neighboring building could hack into the network and steal your most confidential data,” County Executive Andy Spano said in a statement. The draft proposal offered this week would compel all “commercial businesses” with an open wireless access point to have a “network gateway server” outfitted with a software or hardware firewall. Such a firewall, used to block intrusions from outside the local network, would be required even for a coffee shop that used an old-fashioned cash register instead of an Internet-linked credit card system that could be vulnerable to intrusions.
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How To: Fix router hiccups
When dealing with routers, they are sometimes finicky. A slight power outage or spike can cause them to drop their connection and act as a roadblock to your internet connection. Depending on if you have cable or DSL, you may not be able to get back online if this happens due to how these devices work.
Cable modems and some DSL modems have a kind of ‘memory’ feature. When you plug a PC or router or anything else into it, it logs the MAC address of that device and will work exclusively with that device. This feature comes into play when a router drops the ball. If you feel your router may be blocking your internet, here’s a quick fix:
1. Unplug the DSL / Cable modem’s power
2. Unplug the router’s power
3. Plug the modem’s power back in and then wait 30 seconds.
4. Plug your router back in.
9 times out of 10 this will fix your issue. This boot-up procedure is very specific and your router must be powered up after your modem. Running through this simple process can save on frustration and also a possible call to the help-desk.
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Ask A Geek:
Michael wants to know if it’s possible to remove the DRM from video on the iTunes Music Store. He also wants to know if you can authorize iTunes without internet access.
Answer:
The video on the iTunes Music Store can possibly be broken, although no ‘hack’ could be found when I searched. The big player in the DRM-removal game, jhymn, is currently great for audio files. While jhymn doesn’t work with iTunes 6, it’s possible that a future version could support video. One thing you can try is to import your video into iMovie and export it out as a standard MPEG file. This does work for audio files, so a video file could work too.
As for offline iTunes authorization, that is not possible as a call to Apple’s servers is needed to unlock your protected files.
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Hack: Put Front Row onto any Mac
When Steve Jobs debuted the new iMacs, there was another ground-breaking product brought to market called Front Row. Being the first foray into a media center environment, Jobs demonstrated the program which displays pictures, plays music, DVD’s and movies. Keeping with Apple’s trend of simple and elegant use, Front Row is definitely something people want. There was one downside to the announcement: Front Row is only shipping on iMacs. If you have a different mac, Front Row is now possible for you too.
First you need the Front Row program, which is available as a torrent on the link below. Once you have this downloaded the installation is really easy. Just take the FrontRow.app file and put it in two places: your Applications folder and your Core Services folder (hardrive -> system -> library -> core services)
There may be instructions to replace the “BezelServices.framework” file in the PrivateFrameworks folder. DO NOT DO THIS AS IT IS NOT NECESSARY AND WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS.
After you have copied these files over, reboot your mac. The installation is now complete. You should put Front Row in your dock so it’s easily launched. Just launch it and then hold Esc for 5 seconds. Now watch the magic happen.
http://thefifthrule.com/T5R/?p=76
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The geek’s view: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast.
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