DVD or Download?

As technology progresses slowly forward the way we get our entertainment changes. I remember VHS with its big bulky case, and the many times trying to retrieve the mangled mess of ribbon from the jaws of the vcr player. Then the DVD came out with promises of less space consumption, higher quality images and sound, lets not forget the "more durable then VHS tapes" claim that has now led many parents to let their kids use DVDs as a play toy. Only to find out later the disc won't play.

But now with Interactive tv's such as the Apple T.V. and a few others, set-top computers that connect to our Entertainment equipment while connecting us without wires to the World Wide Web. Now every gadget savvy person can sit on their couch and watch just about any movie without having to put in a VHS or DVD. For about $9.00 per month you can watch thousands of Netflix movies, for free you can use websites such as Hulu to watch tv shows and movies.

And at a price cheaper then a pack of smokes or a movie ticket you can download videos to watch anytime you want. Even the gaming market is seeing the trend, watching online videos is available on most popular consoles and rumors are spreading that others will follow.

So whats better? A solid tangible item you can play at anytime as long as your in the same location as it. Or a digital version that can be access from almost anywhere with a decent Internet connection.

Jei

GPS + Goops + Google Earth = Cool!

After wardriving and geocaching I wanted to find something that would let me use my GPS and laptop in another way. A more widely useful way. A free (After buying the hardware) navigator. I already knew how to import my routes from my GPS into Google Earth. Now I needed to see my location in real time. Enter GOOPS a free GPS / Google Earth combining program. Once setup I took another trip to Keokuk and the software and hardware combination worked perfectly. In fact it seamed very accurate in the speed, elevation, and even the tracking on google earth was pretty precise.

The only major downside was the constant rotation of the map while driving and turning corners.

Goops Free and Paid versions can be downloaded from Here.

Sorry I don't have any screen shots, I was too busy driving :P

Jei

Asus 900HA

Finally after more then a year I got my first netbook. I have been following the Asus line very closely and reading through everything hinting at the EEE models. After hundreds of videos, thousands of reviews and what seams like a tireless back and forth act of to buy or not to buy, I finally set my eyes and bank book on the 900HA. One of the most recent releases of the netbook series the 900HA comes complete with 3 usb 2.0 ports, external vga port, built in atheros chipset wireless card, ethernet port, 160Gig Sata hard drive and a gig of ram.

On top of that the 900HA can boot from the Hard drive, Ethernet, USB and SD port. So playing around with multiple operating systems becomes very easy.

Wardriving nuts will definitely get a great deal of pleasure from the 900HA as the wireless card supports "Monitor" mode and packet injection. Even without the EEE mods for linux the display looks fine and works flawlessly.

And for those wanting to know how to get your wireless card out of monitor mode after running spoonwep. Its as easy as:
wlanconfig ath0 destroy
wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0

and to get kismet to work simply edit /usr/local/etc/kismet.conf and find the source= line and change it from:

source=none,none,addme
to
source=madwifi_g,wifi0,atheros

and save.

Soon a rhino 120 GPS radio will be added to my new toy and I plan on heading out and mapping some hotspots with my new geek toy.

Video link comming soon!

Jei