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The Geekcast is sponsored by GoToMyPC. Try it free for 30 days at http://www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast
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Items of Note:
Welcome to a revamped version of The Geekcast! We have a brand new website over at GeekcastOnline.com and brand new artwork! I’ve put a whole bunch of work into getting things up and running but they are totally cool. In addition to these new things, I am proud to announce that The Geekcast will be returning to its roots and podcasting twice a week! The secondary show each week will feature new episodes of The Geekcast in a ‘classic’ style. The show will be more hardcore tech-oriented and feature some notable guests along with fantastic discussion of what’s going on in the tech world. Look for two episodes of The Geekcast to hit your podcatcher in about two weeks. To celebrate this….
We have a contest!!!
Win a copy of the movie Mind Meld! We have two copies of the movie Mind Meld to give away via iTunes. The contest begins today and ends on Wednesday, November 4th! To enter, send an e-mail to geekcast@gmail.com with your name, e-mail address and home town.
“Tailored to the most hard-core Star Trek fans, Mind Meld gets you up close and personal with the stars of the original television series. Its premise? Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner sitting together and having a quiet, earthy chat about old times. There isn’t much new information about the show–though old cast resentments are addressed–but viewers learn a great deal about the personal lives of everyone’s favorite spacemen. The two discuss the pressures of filming a weekly show and the difficulties of maintaining one’s dignity as an actor while wearing pointy ears. The personalities of both men shine through and it becomes obvious why they were cast as they were; Nimoy really is more thoughtful and reserved, while Shatner is extroverted and showy. The best part of Mind Meld is witnessing the genuine fondness the two men share for each other. It’s clear that they really were (and are) best friends, even when the cameras stopped rolling.” –Ali Davis
This contest is only open to U.S. residents and you must have existing iTunes account.
Gozer’s sitting this episode out, taking care of some personal stuff. Don’t fret, Allen is here to be part of the show!
A shout out to Kory and Dave over at TechTubs! Enjoy a promo for their fun show and look for an upcoming episode where Gozer and I guest on their podcast! http://www.techtubs.com
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Geek This Week:
Aaron: Tried Gmail push on my iPhone via Google Sync and their exchange setup. Talk about epic fail. For the first 20 minutes my inbox showed ALL mail that had come in within the past 3 days, even if it was archived or deleted. Then while looking through it further, I come to find out that if you delete a message from your inbox, Gmail archives it!?!? Talk about confusing. These hiccups combined with the battery drain took me right back to the tried-and-true GPush and IMAP setup.
Allen: AT&T may be allowing VoIP on the iPhone.
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Tech and Gaming News:
Gmail also hit by e-mail phishing scheme
Hotmail users aren’t the only ones who’ve been hit by a phishing scheme over the past week. Google told BBC News on Tuesday that Gmail users have also been affected by the hackers who posted passwords online.
The problem is far more widespread than was disclosed on Monday, possibly affecting Yahoo and AOL e-mail accounts as well, according to BBC News.
Google described the issue as an “industrywide phishing scheme,” BBC News reported. BBC News said it has seen two lists posted online with “more than 30,000 names and passwords” from Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail, and other service providers.
“We recently became aware of an industrywide phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for Web-based mail accounts including Gmail accounts,” a Google representative told BBC News.
The representative said that Google immediately “forced passwords resets on the affected accounts.”
Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.
Despite Google’s and Microsoft’s awareness of the problem, it doesn’t seem that users are out of the woods just yet. Google’s representative told BBC News that it will continue to force password resets on newly affected user accounts.
Like Microsoft, Google was quick to point out that the phishing scheme was a “scam to get users to give away their personal information to hackers” and not an internal security issue. It didn’t say how users fell victim to the scheme.
Google’s admission that Gmail users were affected by the phishing scheme comes on the heels of Microsoft acknowledging that over 10,000 Live Hotmail accounts were compromised by the scam. The passwords apparently first hit the Internet on October 1.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10368361-2.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea.0
Verizon to release Android handsets
Update at 5 a.m. PDT Tuesday: Google and Verizon Wireless announced they are forming a partnership to “leverage” Verizon’s 3G network and Google’s Android platform to deliver mobile applications, services, and devices. They plan to co-develop “several Android-based devices,” and Verizon will release Android handsets in the next few weeks, the companies said.
Google and Verizon Wireless plan to hold a joint press conference Tuesday morning on the eve of the CTIAWireless IT and Entertainment Show, they announced late Monday night.
Details were scarce, and a Google representative declined to comment on the nature of the conference. But given the timing and participants–Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam–it seems the companies are ready to talk about plans for Google’s Android mobile operating system.
Verizon has yet to release an Android device. At present, the carrier leans on Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones, as well as Windows Mobile phones. But rumors have been building for months about Verizon hooking up with Google on a number of Android-powered phones from companies like Motorola and HTC: The Boy Genius Report reported Sunday that Best Buy plans to offer an Android device for Verizon’s network.
It’s likewise not clear whether we are talking about a smartphone, a Netbook, or something else entirely. It will be interesting to see how Verizon’s traditional policy of tight control over the software that runs on its network meshes with Google’s free-and-open approach to Android applications.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10368202-265.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0
RUMOR: AT&T to Announce Google Voice for iPhone at CTIA
Tomorrow marks the start of CTIA, a wireless conference in San Diego. In attendance will be key AT&T executives, two of which are slated to give keynote speeches. So, what will they announce?
Rumor has it that AT&T may use the event to reveal that their 3G network will now support Google Voice and Skype for all AT&T phones, including Apple’s iPhone. A source tells the Washington Post that while deliberations are still in progress and no final decision has been made, executives have been contemplating “the decision for weeks and … have said they were close to accepting voice over Internet services on all AT&T phones, including the iPhone.”
While we already know that AT&T blames Apple for the original rejection of Google Voice, should AT&T announce support for VoIP applications on their wireless network, it will be a landmark moment.
The rumor implies that AT&T and Apple would finally allow Google Voice as a native application in Apple’s iTunes App Store, a decision that could be the result of heat both companies received surrounding a recentFCC investigation of the matter. It also means that VoIP applications, like Skype, which already works on the iPhone via WiFi, would actually be able to be used on-the-go, via AT&T’s 3G network.
While we await official word from AT&T, tell us what you think of the potential Google Voice for iPhone announcement in the comments.
http://mashable.com/2009/10/06/att-google-voice/
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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: gPartEd Partition editor
Anyone who has had to dual boot a computer to run multiple OS’s or has otherwise wanted to partition a drive after installing an operating system on it has had to use a nondestructive partition editor, the most popular being partition magic. However, partition magic is expensive and isn’t totally reliable. Enter gPartEd, the gnome partition editor, which does essentially the same thing as partition magic, but free and with a lot more choices. With it, you can partition a new drive however you want to in any filesystem you can think of.
How is it useful? Well there’s two major uses for gPartEd: destructive and nondestructive partitioning. First allow me to explain destructive partitioning. Destructive partitioning/formatting destroys any data on the disk, so it’s used on new drives or drives you want to completely erase. Say you just bought a shiny new terabyte drive and need to format it since they always come unformatted and unpartitioned. When you first plug it into either a pc or mac and boot, the OS will see the new drive and ask you how you want to partition it, or you could otherwise use the built into windows or mac partition tools to format it how you like or use the bundled with your drive software. For most people and most situations, either would be totally acceptable options, however if you want more control you can use gPartEd. Say you wanted to use your new drive with both windows and mac and want to use NTFS for large files since fat32 doesn’t support over 2gig files. Using gPartEd you can format 500 gigs ntfs and the other 500 to hfs+, then when you plug it in to your pc it will see the NTFS partition and the mac will see the hfs+ one. You could do this with the built in programs, but it’s a lot more steps and a lot more complicated.
More importantly than destructive is nondestructive formatting/partitioning. Say you decided to make the leap and want to try Linux running natively on your box and want to run it along side windows on the same hard drive but don’t want to erase everything and start over. Using gPartEd this is simple and elegant. All you need to do is boot it up off a live cd or thumb drive, since you cannot partition a drive that is being run, select the drive, move the slider to how big you want the new partition to be, select the file format, and hit go. gPartEd will move any data that is on the part of the disk you are resizing to make room for the new partition, then resize the drive and add the new one.
gPartEd is only compiled for Linux under gnome, so you will need to run Linux to use it. Fortunately, it is included in most major Linux distro’s and is also distributed on the web site as a live cd so you can merely download the iso on the site, burn and boot, and you’ll be good to go.
Next time you need to repartition a drive, give gPartEd a try. You can download it at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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The Geek’s View: Doodle Jump for iPhone
When it comes to games on the iPhone, small “pick up and play” games seem to reign supreme. Nowhere is this more evident in the Top Paid Apps section of iTunes. Every app in the top 50 are games and even more impressive is what currently stands at number 11: Doodle Jump.
Doodle Jump is a simple game where you try to get as high as you can jumping from one platform to the next. Along your way up you will run into broken platforms that crumble if you jump on them, springs, jet packs, and propeller hats that fly you higher, UFOs that will abduct you unless you shoot them first, black holes that will suck you in if you get too close, and various monsters that you need to kill. As you jump higher and higher, the platforms start moving, the monsters start appearing and the game gets progressively more challenging.
What keeps this game addictive is the fact that the creature’s jumps cannot be controlled as far as time goes. He is constantly jumping, which means the game is very difficult to stop. The game goes even further by limiting you to three pauses per game, meaning you better make time to play once you start.
One great feature of Doodle Jump is that it integrates Facebook and Twitter posting of your scores and it will also use those scores to make a leader board for you to see where you rank amongst your friends. Along your way up, you will see markers on the side of the screen indicating how high other players of Doodle Jump around the world have managed to get to. These in-game score markers are a first among the iPhone games and have been getting rave reviews from the players and review sites.
The game looks to be hand-drawn (thus giving the app its name) but nothing in this game feels cheap. Doodle Jump is a solid app that can provide tons of fun while on the go and playing a game only takes a minute or two. There is zero training or skill needed to get going with this game and at 99 cents, Doodle Jump is a steal.
Doodle Jump is available on the iTunes App Store for $0.99.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=307727765&mt=8
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Related Episodes:
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