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Items of Note:

Our big update to The Geekcast is coming! We’re overhauling the website and will be featuring new artwork for The Geekcast very shortly! To celebrate, we will have an awesome giveaway for our listeners. Details are coming soon, so stay tuned.

Big shout out to Edward from philly ghostbusters. Emailing him back and forth about the applecon show on Oct 16-18th. There might be a decent ghosbusters prescence there. I mentioned The Geekcast and referred him to our Ghostbusters episode on June 18th. He said he will definetly be checking out the show.

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Geek This Week:

Aaron:

After giving the netbook lots of thought and really thinking what I would do with it, I have decided to pass on purchasing the computer. The two biggest factors are that I wouldn’t have a use for it outside of my house (where I have my much more powerful iMac) and also I have an iPhone. My iPhone does everything a netbook does AND it fits in my pocket. I realized I have Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, web, music and tons more on me at all times.

Gozer:

My little cousin got an xbox with call of duty world at war. Played for about four hours saturday night. Luckily my wife had plans with her friends and she was out late! Got a bit into the multiplayer more. The big problem i had with modern warfare multiplayer was that if i played with friends i couldn’t tell where they were. Gears is much easier because it is a smaller scale action game and easier to keep track of where people are. World at War somewhat solves this by recognizing who you are in a party with and will highlight your friends names in people so it’s easy to distinguish them from other people you’re playing with. Fantastic idea.

Still playing Arkham Asylum. Really enjoying the pacing of the game. Switches up the gameplay from detective mode to fighting to stealth. There is an awesome sequence with scarecrow somewhat early on in the game. You have to investigate the morgue and all these voices start talking to you. In surround sound this kinda started to freak me out a little bit. Then the morgue is torn apart into this alternate dimension looking arkham that is floating in space. In the middle of you navigating around is a huge scarecrow searching for you. Awesome wow moements like this really make this game incredible. Tried out some of the challenge modes. Did the stealth mode where you have to k.o. 6 guys secretly. I knocked out 2 guys near the glass floor, then i laced the glass floor with explosive gel. 3 other guys came over to investigate to guys i just knocked out and i was just watching and waiting until they al got onto the glass floor. When they did, i detnated the gel and took out 3 guys at once. Awesome.

Rented Halo ODST and Beatles Rock Band. Haven’t played it yet. Halo ODST has 4 player coop and you play as just some regular dude instead of master chief. There is also a separate disc for multiplayer and firefight which seems like a more intelligent version of gears 2 horde mode. There is also no teabagging in firefight.

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Tech and Gaming News:

iPod Touch Outsells Zune HD

If online sales are any indication, then the Zune HD isn’t helping Microsoft close the gap with Apple in the lucrative MP3 music player market.
Apple’s 32GB iPod touch was the second top seller (behind Kindle) in Amazon’s electronics category as of Thursday, while the 32GB Zune HD ranked only seventh. The 16GB Zune HD was a lowly 16th on the list. The 32GB iPod Touch and 32GB Zune HD are both priced at $289. The 16GB Zune HD sells for $219.

Microsoft formally unveiled Zune HD last Tuesday. It features a touch-screen interface powered by organic, light-emitting diode (OLED) technology and Nvidia’s Tegra HD graphics processor for fast action. It also includes a new Quickplay menu that puts consumers a click away from favorite tracks, videos, and other content, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft also launched a companion service that allows consumers to download HD movie files from the Zune marketplace for purchase or rent. The files can also be played on consumers’ televisions or PC screens.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220000899

Google adds support for push Gmail via Exchange ActiveSync

Google Sync’s pretty awesome as it is, but it’s had one glaring flaw in its implementation: no support for Gmail, just Calendar and Contacts, which means you aren’t able to get true push email delivered. Well, they’ve gone ahead and completed the holy Google trinity today with the introduction of Gmail support into the Exchange ActiveSync mix, so any phone with Exchange support should theoretically be able to get in on the action. We say “theoretically” because they’re only quoting support for the iPhone and Windows Mobile at this point, but it seems like anything that can speak the EAS protocol should be able to make this happen. Let us know your trials, tribulations, and successes getting this set up in comments, won’t you?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/22/google-adds-support-for-push-gmail-via-exchange-activesync/

Netflix CEO: iPhone streaming coming… eventually

It seems that the rumors of impending streaming accessto Netflix content from an iPhone were extremely premature. According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the company is currently focused on adding streaming capability to game consoles, Blu-ray players, and connected “Internet” TVs, while mobile streaming is further down on the list of priorities.

As for the iPhone, Hastings told Reuters in a recent interview that it’s “something that’s likely to come over time,” but that it would not be available in the near future. “We will get to mobile eventually, including the iPhone.” Let’s just say those aren’t very encouraging words.

Still, it’s probably just as well that Netflix isn’t focused on mobile streaming on the iPhone as long as network operators block streaming video applications (with YouTube and MLB.tv being notable exceptions) from the 3G network. While WiFi streaming may be seen as better than nothing, it isn’t a truly mobile solution—more like an “at home but away from the TV” or a “stuck in the airport terminal” type of solution.

Perhaps recent FCC proposals for network neutrality or adoption of 4G wireless networks will likely change all that, but for now, there will be no Netflix for your iPhone.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/09/netflix-ceo-iphone-streaming-coming-eventually.ars

Nintendo confirms $199 Wii for September 27?

It might sound confusing at first, but it all makes sense, we promise. The folks at Nintendojo were apparently on a retailer conference call where Nintendo “confirmed” the new $199 Wii price, which will supposedly go into effect on Sunday September 27. Only problem is that we have to take Nintendojo’s word for it — not that we have any reason not to, but for now we’ll have to just call this an “unconfirmed confirmation” until Nintendo can summon the courage to fess up to the $50 price cut to a couple of corroborating sources. It’s not like those multiple flyer price leaks are knocking anybody off the trail, but we usually like to hear these things from the horse’s mouth — or at least from a retailer’s shelf — before we go into all-out celebration mode.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/20/nintendo-confirms-199-wii-for-september-27/

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Test a Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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How To: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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Open Source Software: Filezilla: FTP Client

Everyone has their favorite FTP client, and my new one is Filezilla. Filezilla supports all major connection types including ssh and ssl, bookmarks, transfer queues, multiple connections, speed transfer limits, filters, and more. There isn’t a whole lot you can do with it that you can’t do with any other FTP client, but you can do everything you need to with it in one program. Unfortunately, the server program to run your own ftp server from your computer is windows only, but if you need to connect to an ftp server regularly, give filezilla a try.

Filezilla is easy to use and has tons of features including:

Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X and more
IPv6 support
Available in many languages
Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
Drag & drop support
Configurable transfer speed limits
Filename filters
Directory comparison
Network configuration wizard
Remote file editing
Keep-alive
HTTP/1.1, SOCKS5 and FTP-Proxy support
Logging to file
Synchronized directory browsing
Remote file search

Filezilla was also mentioned in episode 86 of The Geekcast. If you want to hear that episode, head on here: http://www.geekcastonline.com/2006/03/the-geekcast-86.

Filezilla can be downloaded at http://filezilla-project.org/

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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast

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The Geek’s View: X-men origins: Wolverine

I really liked it! My wife liked it too. There were lots of negative reviews of this movie. I am not extremely familiar with Wolverine and the comics but i felt that watching this movie gives you a full understanding of his origins. The movie starts off with Logan as a little kid and how he discovers his powers. It also goes into his shaky relationship with his brother Victor ” Sabertooth” Cool scenes of them fighting in various wars together and other humans discovering both of their powers. Yes there were alot of cheesy parts, cameras zooming back while someones holding a dead loved one and cool guys walking away from explosions, but overall i thought it was action packed and it looked great on blu-ray. DTS master audio but no extras on the disc! Is there a separate disc for extras! I couldn’t find it!

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Related Episodes:

1. The Geekcast #191 – IPTV
2. The Geekcast #140 – Tips for Punch Out for Wii
3. The Geekcast #86
4. The Geekcast #128 – Get Hulu Back on Your Apple TV