This Week in Tech

Jul 10th 2005

This Week in Tech 13

Lucky Episode 13

Hosted by Patrick Norton

TWiT: This WEEK in TECH, Episode 13, for Sunday, July 10, 2005.

Records live every Sunday at 5:15pm Eastern / 2:15pm Pacific / 21:15 UTC.
Category: News
  • Kevin has been working hard on migrating Digg to a whole new bank of servers.
  • There's a picture of the old TechTV studios on Kevin's MoBlog. No, we can't afford to rent them.
  • BitTorrent now in Opera browser Technical Preview.
  • Is BitTorrent mainstream?
  • There are lies, damn lies, and statistics...
  • Are there non-voting based ratings for Podcasts?
  • iTunes 4.9 ratings look to be subscription based.
  • Windows Updates on Firefox? Try Windiz Update.
  • Google wins typosquatting dispute hopefully there will be fewer nasty redirects out on the web.
  • Cell phone cameras and image hosting sites such as Flickr are providing unfiltered documentation of world events as they happen.
  • 3:51 PM Wednesday is the first Shuttle launch since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
  • What do you call a Senator when they're no longer in office?
  • Another millionaire is going to the International Space Station.
  • Usually the pr0n0graphers lead the charge into new online mediums, but a Wired columnist notes that 'the market for erotic podcasts has been woefully underserved'.
  • Roger forgot to mention the Wired online columnist is an ex-Screen Savers webmistress.
  • Roger is happy running windows 2000, except for Adobe Premiere.
  • Roger begs for new graphics cards from the office stash .... Patrick gets graphics cards from friends out of pity.
  • Roger: if you recognize us from TV... don't stare, just ask.
  • Robert Heron joins in around 25 minutes into the podcast.
  • Have you read about the Florida man arrested for using open unecrypted WiFi and charged with a 3rd Degree Felony.
  • Are you legally liable for what someody does on your open wifi?
  • Robert: do you worry about broadband before you move? Don't assume the data online about availability is correct!
  • Patrick and Robert have given up landline phones... but Verizon Wireless has reception issues in Patrick's new neigborhood.
  • He's oggling a Wilson Cellular Amplifier
  • Robert is right: the extra four pins on the new 24 pin ATX power supplies do snap off.
  • Phrack.orgis shutting down... #63 is last issue and there's a call for papers.
  • A number of TWiTs are going to DefCon 13.
  • Yippee: Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica starts July 15th on SciFi!!!
  • Prager and Roger and divided on War of the Worlds.
  • We heart johhny depp.... but we're nervous about Willy Wonka.
  • Alex wants to know if he does a clean install of Windows XP... can he still use is recovery CDs to restore his previous OS? (Yup.)
  • Prager (not to mention the rest of the TWiTs) use external dries for backing up software or even full system images over a USB 2.0 or FireWire connection.
  • Dave Mullins heard our conversation about backup software (especially Retrospect ) in Episode 12.... he suggests we check out Double Image or Double Image-O "Full or incremental backups are available. The backups are copies of the files, no proprietary software required to access your backup data. I like that because if my system is hosed, I can just grab the drive, plug it into another machine, and go."
  • Patrick was thinking about getting a $40 Zalman CPU cooler to go with his new Antec TruePower 2.0, but found the $13 CoolerMaster XDream III that's 20 db quiet... Robert says: watch the $13 CoolerMaster. Make sure it's on right: otherwise it won't touch most of the cpu!
  • Beware of Dust Buffaloes inside of a system... Yoshi taught Robert about Positve Case Pressure , ie, overpressurize your case to keep dust out... or you can use pantyhose to protect your system.
  • John emails us and says check out Goo for turning a wall into a projector screen. (Warning... the goo biz is run by a buddy of Johns... relief: Robert's reviewed it and thinks it's excellent.)
  • Erick, aka DJ NoirTech "ran into a deal over at Costco this weekend" and wants Robert's call on the Philips Ambilight 42 inch 16:9 HDTV-Ready LCD TV, 1366 x 768 $2,999.99.
  • By the way, HDTV shoppers: Costco has a generous return policy on TVs. That makes it a great place to buy a TV you might return. Don't abuse Costco's return policy!
  • Robert's been playhing with new HD video compression schemes for PCs.
  • Some DVD players are quirky about brands of dual layer DVD media. .... and it's not cheap.
  • TDK ARMOR PLATED DVDs are nifty. Tough to damage, very kid proof... and TDK licenses the technology to other companies. It's the reason BlueRay DVD burners won't need a caddy.
  • Bad news: Wil Wheaton is out of the world series of poker. Good news: he's doing an audio book of Just A Geek.
  • You can slipstream updates into Windows XP install disks.
  • $7.5 million for the Texas Hold 'Em winner at the World Series of Poker.
  • Robert's been having some problems with the QuickTime HD beta, it's working fine for Patick.
  • Fun with FM tuners and iPods.