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Contact info: | Feed: feeds.feedburner.com/geekcast | Website: TheGeekcast.com | geekcast@gmail.com | Skype & Gizmo: Geekcast | 206-98-geek-1 | Show notes: send blank e-mail to geekcastpodcast-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |
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Items of Note:
This episode continues a series of product reviews in each Geekcast to help you all with your holiday shopping.
The Podcast Alley drive is on for December! Please vote for The Geekcast on podcastalley.com.
***** Microphone Fund Update:
With generous donations so far, here are the totals raised so far:
Total donated so far is $35.00!
Charity = $18.50
Microphone = $14.50
Please read below to learn more about the drive to help those in need and also help the show. Big thanks to all who have donated so far, including Daniel, Mark and the rest. Lets keep it up so we can meet both goals!
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The Show: I currently record into a $5 Radio Shack microphone, which you can probably tell. The most practical microphone I’ve found is the Samson C10U, which is professional but also affordable. The C10U retails for $79.99.
The Charity: Given that it’s the holiday season, I would like to help those who are less fortunate.
The Idea: I ask that each of you donate $2 to The Geekcast. For each donation I will give $1 to charity and put $1 aside for a ‘microphone fund’. Because there are many great charities, I am listing more than one organization to give to. Please visit their websites to decide which one you wish to help out.
The American Red Cross www.redcross.org
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) www.eff.org
The Salvation Army www.salvationarmyusa.org
UNICEF www.unicef.org
Starlight Foundation http://www.slsb.org
How we all win: The charity / microphone drive is a win-win situation for everyone. Here is a breakdown of what would be done with all donations in any outcome:
-50% of all donations will be put aside for a ‘microphone fund’ until that sum reaches $79.99.
-If the sum of $79.99 is reached for the ‘microphone fund’, 100% of all subsequent donations will be given to charity.
-Choice of charity is to be determined by the donor. If no charity is specified, funds will go to a charity of my choice from the list above.
-If the ‘microphone fund’ does not reach $79.99 by 1/1/06 all money donated will be given to a charity listed above, regardless of sum.
How to donate: Click this button to donate $2 and start the ball rolling.
Donate to The Geekcast
Please select only from the charities above, as they are legitimate charities and there is no fear of donating to a scam. If you wish to donate more than $2, feel free. Unless specified, 50% of that donation will be split. If you wish for more to go to the charity, a minimum of $1 has to go to the microphone fund. Updates will be given on each episode of The Geekcast. Thank you to all who help out the show and also help out those in need.
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Tech news:
While most Internet users think they are safe online, they’re not. According to a new study released Wednesday by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance about 80 percent are exposed to common Internet threats, the study found. More than half of the participants either had no anti-virus protection or had not updated it within the last week, researchers found. About half did not have a properly-configured firewall, and four in ten didn’t have spyware protection. Taken collectively, more than 4 in five consumers lacked at least one of the three types of basic protection. Still, 83 percent told researchers they were “safe from online threats,” the study found.
Apple adds more TV shows to iTunes. Apple has added more content for all you generation 5 iPod owners out there. Releasing new and classic shows, all content in this release is coming from NBC and Universal. Some of the shows include Law & Order, The Office, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, and my childhood classic: Knight Rider!
Google makes some tweaks to GMail. After checking my emails and things this morning, I found there to be new features with GMail. The features added and changed are as follows: Trash is now called Delete and the stars are taken away inside the Trash folder. Google Talk ads are up. Google is still keeping the 100 invites.
RIAA wants lyrics to be illegal. PearLyrics, a Mac OS X tool for displaying song lyrics of the track currently being played in iTunes, is no longer available due to a cease and desist order from Warner/Chappell Music. “As a freeware developer I can not afford to risk a law suit against such a big company, although personally I don’t see where pearLyrics should infringe any copyrights handled by them,” pearLyrics creator Walter Ritter said today. “After all pearLyrics only searches and accesses publicly available websites, displays, and, at the users wish, caches its content.” The legal threats by Warner against Ritter are part of a larger campaign by the company to rid the Internet of lyrics websites. “What disconcerts/disappoints me most is that now, after fighting against illegal filesharing (something I can fully understand) and trying to shut down lyrics sites, Warner/Chappell seems to want to dictate Internet users what applications they are allowed to use for searching and browsing content on publicly available websites,” Ritter said.
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Test a geek:
–Last Question–
This is a two-part question:
What video game console was named after a move made in a board-game?
1. What is the console? Atari / Atari 2600
2. What is the name of the game? Go
–New Question–
What was the motto or ‘tag-line’ for the original iPod?
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How To: Attach any file to a message in GMail
Google has introduced a new virus scanner into gmail. The scanner, while being good, will sometimes block a legitimate file. Well now you can get around it.
Google doesn’t allow you to send or receive emails with exe, dll, ocx, com or bat attachments even if they are sent in a zipped (.zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz) format (The .rar format is still allowed)
Since you cannot Turn Off GMail Anti Virus Scanning, you can use these GMail hacks to send program file (exe), virus samples and other blocked formats with GMail:
1. Use a free file hosing online service like Rapidshare, Megaupload or Yousendit to upload your file and send the link of the uploaded file in your GMail message.
2. Rename the file: Change the file extension to fool the GMail scanner. The new attachment could contain instructions making it easier for the recepient to derive the actuall attachment type. For instance,
Rename Adobe-Reader.exe to Adobe-Reader.exe.removeme
3. If you have lot of exe files to send, put them in a zip file and change the extension of the zip file as mentioned in the previous step. Remember that GMail denies zip attachments that contain exe files. Pass-Protection won’t work either since GMail can examine exe filenames even in password protected zipped files as the archived filename listings are not encrypted by the Zip program.
4. Use a different compression software like WinRAR which compresses files in .rar format. GMail is currently not scanning or blocking .rar filetypes. But there is a high probability that GMail might support rar formats in future. In that case, you can consider splitting the rar files and attaching them separately (like .r1, .r2..)
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Ask A Geek:
–Question–
Michael asks: “Hey man I have a Direct TV Tivo and I am curious on how I could add and take off video files with my computer. I have tried running linux and xp and cannot get it to recognize the hard drive is there any way possible to do this or should i quit trying?”
–Answer–
TiVo has been touting a lot of the whole TiVoToGo but that is only on a series 2 unit. The DirecTiVo units are one that are an a bit of a no-man’s land where it’s a TiVo box but it’s not because it’s made by Direct TV. Unfortunately the features of this unit are controlled by Direct TV and they currently do not let you use any of the offloading features that a standalone unit does. This has been a major gripe with users of the satellite service.
One work-around is to download shows via bittorrent. There are people who do not have any TV service because there are so many shows released weekly on the file-sharing networks. Alternatively you can trade in your current TiVo for a regular box although you do lose 2 good features in the dual-tuners and also HDTV capabilities.
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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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The geek’s view: Linux Toys II
When looking for a reference for that geek who has everything, you should definitely check out the book Linux Toys II by Christopher Negus. This book is all about tricking out a standard linux install to do things that you never thought a computer could do. Also, due to the small limitations of hardware, most of the projects can run on those older computers you have in the closet or are thinking of throwing out.
The book itself is presented very well and easy to follow. Most importantly Negus keeps in mind that not everyone is not a linux expert. The book has an entire appendix showing basic commands, features and a great introduction to using the free OS.
Among the projects presented in the almost 400 pages include: MythTV, making DVD’s that work on any computer, building a firewall, running a game server and much more. While all this information is freely available online, the advantage to the book is that all the information is put together in one book that is really organized and can be a great reference. Even better, the book can be a great starting point for someone looking to get into linux but who aren’t sure what to do or where to begin.
Along with the book, Linux Toys II also comes with a CD containing a bootable distro of linux, RPM’s, copies of the projects discussed, and much more. Overall this book is great and it’s a lot of fun to go through and see exactly what we can do with the big rival to Microsoft. The book retails for $29.99 and is available everywhere. The book is published by Wiley publishing.
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