If you're an avid user of Youtube, you might like this little tweak. Some current videos have links like "Watch In Hight Quality" underneath the video screen. Some videos don't. For those that don't you can still somewhat force the video to play in high quality.
The next time you're watching a video look at the address bar and at the end of the address add the following text &fmt=18.
So the original link would look like this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9W55utXqwTw After you've added the text it should look like this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9W55utXqwTw&fmt=18
As I was reading yesterdays newspaper I came across and article that was extremely disturbing. As a current Time Warner customer I am very disgusted that they have implemented a trial plan in Texas to measure the amount of internet one uses.
The idea behind a metered internet service means that you are given a cap of internet usage and if you should happen to pass the cap they give you, you pay extra. Rather than making technology better and figuring out a way to go with the times Time Warner has decided that their greediness comes first. Anything to make an extra buck.
Who will this affect? If you are someone who uses iTunes, Netflix, Youtube, or if you're a video game fanatic who plays online, this will directly affect you. The majority of us don't really use the internet to the point where a cap would affect us, but that's only because most of us aren't using intensive online media services yet.
Say you're a Netflix user, and rather than have the DVD shipped to your home you use one of their upcoming features of watching the movies online through your computer. Well, if you did this you'd easily pass the cap set by companies like Time Warner and in turn pay the extra that they want to charge you.
What about if you like watching tons of Youtube, Break, Dailymotion, videos online? You better watch what you watch because it'll cost you if you pass the limit set by your ISP. Forget about purchasing movies through iTunes, as well as music.
The thing that I don't understand is that we already pay for the SERVICE, so how is it that any ISP can justify a pay per use fee? What's more ludicrous is that AOL already tried this a long time ago with their Pay Per Hour fees and we all saw how horrible that went for them.
So if Time Warner Cable brings metered internet service to New York, rest assure I will no longer be a Time Warner cable user. I would rather buy an aircard and use that for my internet, or switch to Verizon FIOS/DSL which I believe won't be part of the greedy trip.
Perhaps this video can explain a bit more how messed up it is what Time Warner is doing. 2012: The Year The Internet Ends
If you live in Texas and you are part of this "Trial" period for metered internet, make sure you don't give Time Warner any of your money.
As someone who works in the technology field, I'm going to shed some light on some of the terrible tactics used by some computer companies (in this case Lenovo) in order to get you to spend more money than you should.
Lenovo is a company that bought out IBM's personal computer department. That means that if you get an IBM Thinkpad, or Netvista computer it's coming from Lenovo now. While the majority of the time you'll never experience what I'm about to tell you, it's good that you know so you won't be as shocked as I was.
When I have to purchase computers, the first thing that I look for is the manufacturer's warranty. Most computer companies offer a one or three year warranty. Of course with the three year warranty you will pay a bit more for the same computer, but it's better to go this route. When your purchasing computers, the best thing to ask about any warranty is "What does this cover".
I say this because I purchased a computer about a year ago with a three year warranty. As it turns out the battery on this computer went bad. It's not that the battery worn itself out as I've had other older computers still work with their existing batteries. The actual battery just died out for no apparent reason.
So the first thing I do is check the status on the warranty. The computer is still in warranty till the year 2010. I call Lenovo tech support to get the battery replaced and the guy on the other line tells me that the battery is out of warranty. I tell the guy, "I think you're wrong. I just checked the status of the warranty online and it's valid till the year 2010". The guy then proceeds to tell me that the computer is in warranty till 2010, but the battery has it's own warranty.
You can imagine the look on my face at this point as I try to have this person explain to me how the battery is not part of the computer. The tech then tells me that the battery is considered a "wear and tear" component and thus not part of the hardware. I ask the tech if the hard drive, keyboard, and LCD display don't incur wear and tear, because they often have to be replaced and are always covered under the warranty. The dummy of course had no answer.
As it turns out, your computer is broken up into pieces that the warranty can differentiate when it comes time to get them fixed or replaced. It seems like the hard drive which also experiences "wear and tear" can be covered by warranties but not a battery which you would figure is one of the most essential pieces to a laptop computer.
The lesson in all this folks: Don't ever buy from Lenovo. Before Lenovo purchased IBM's laptop and desktop department's I'd say IBM was great. Now I would recommend you either get an HP or any other brand and make sure you check on that warranty before you buy.
Well folks, it was too good to be true. One of the very first serious attacks has happened to Mac OS X (everything from 10.2 to 10.5). There is a Trojan Horse out there for the Mac OS called OSX.RSPlug.A. In reality it's not a Virus because it doesn't replicate itself and it only supposedly changes your DNS.
What does all that mean in English you ask? Well, when you connect to the internet your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has what is known as Domain Name Servers (DNS) which tell your computer where to navigate itself in the internet. Without DNS your computer wouldn't know how to get to this Blogger site.
The Trojan Horse puts in a malicious DNS setting that you cannot change. Additionally it hijacks your System Preferences and doesn't allow you to do anything. The only issue with this is that every time you do a search it takes you to a malicious search site, and or a porn site.
If you're a girl on a Mac you're probably already safe because the only way you can get this Trojan Horse is by being a dummy. Yes, a dummy. My friend who got this Trojan Horse (who will remain nameless) went to a site and wanted to see some video they had. The site asked him to install some sort of software in order to view the video. After he downloaded the software, he entered his admin password and BOOM he was infected.
I say girls are safe because you gals aren't going around looking for porn, unless you're one of the many girls that I know... but that's a totally different post altogether.
There are supposedly some ways to fix this. One is to have an anti-virus program running on your mac, or by using the Terminal Command program. In my friends case, not even Norton Antivirus for Mac helped. In the end I had to reinstall the entire operating system to get his Mac to work correctly.
You can find some articles on the Trojan Horse at MacWorld and Intego. They have the "how to remove" notes.
In the end, this is more of an annoyance than a real issue. You don't need to think twice about your Mac not being safe. Just don't download and install stuff you don't know about.
Have you ever looked at your cable TV bill? Do you ever wonder why the price is so damn high? Say you have three TV's. One in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in the kitchen. If you have the so called premium plan you'd have all the HBO's and basic cable TV. The plan alone is about 100 bucks, and here's the kicker; you get charged about $11.00 dollars per extra cable box. If you have a cable box for say three years you will have paid about $400.00 in those years per box.
Looking into the bill I decided to see what options there are out there. Did you know that it's not illegal to own your own cable box? That's right, it's not illegal at all, but here's the problem; cable companies can lock down which boxes work with their network. This basically means that even tho you're allowed to own your own box, your cable company can still lock you out.
I searched all over the place for compatible cable boxes and found this box: It's the Samsung DTBH260F HDTV Terrestrial Receiver This box was supposed to unscramble HD channels and of course cable TV channels. Needless to say, it didn't work with Time Warner's cable service. Although you get a couple of channels, not all of them show up even tho I'm paying for them already.
The end result here? Most if not all cable companies out there are kind of evil. You end up paying for the cost of a fully working box, but it never belongs to you in the end. At least if you were going to keep it I'd understand the price of an extra box. There's not much anyone of us can do from this point on. If you know of any other ways or have found other solutions... Please do tell.
Have you ever had a cell phone with too many contacts to copy manually by hand? Switching cell phones can be a bitch only because transferring the contacts from one phone to the other means finding a way to export all your contacts off your phone.
On the Windows world there are utilities like Content Manager which let's you export all your contacts to Outlook Express or Outlook, but there are several things that need to be done before that step. For the complete instructions go to this forum and see if this suits you.
The downside to using a Windows machine is that you will need to have your service carrier tap into your old phone and then give you a *.pbb file which then can be used with Content Manager.
On the Mac side things get much easier. All you need to do is connect your old phone (assuming it has a USB port to connect to a computer) and then open up the application called "iSync". iSync will synchronize all your contacts to the application called "Address Book" on your Mac.
Apple's Address Book has one HUGE fault with it. You cannot export to CSV. I know... I don't understand why Apple wouldn't include that as a feature on that program. At this point you need to go here and download a free application called Address Book Exporter 2.1.2.
This wonderful application lets you export all your contacts to a CSV file. Once you've exported all the contacts, you can either import them to your Gmail account or Outlook/Outlook Express application.
By the way, Apple's Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) still hasn't added the export to CSV feature in the Address Book application.
What goes through your mind when you see this? Perhaps someone was angry and decided to smash it over someone else's head? How bout taking the laptop and smashing it over your knee? There are so many explanations for the cause of this laptop broken everywhere....but will you be ready to accept the real explanation?
The real explanation is that the laptop was run over by a car. Yes, I know...you're asking yourself...how could a car run over this machine and not leave a bit of evidence to prove that it was run over? Yup, there are no tire tracks, no dirt, no marks to show that perhaps it was dragged over the pavement.
Amazingly enough, the hard drive was salvageable for one day as the next day it died out as well. If the hard drive data was not recoverable it would have been a real tragedy because the information inside that hard drive is worth more than the machine itself.
So how many of you have backed up all your data yet? Are you waiting for a disaster like this to happen before you go out and get yourself an external hard drive to save all your pictures, porn, and documents? I've seen it way too often, so do yourself a favor.... go out and get an external hard drive and backup all your stuff there. You never know what can happen to your computer at any given time.
Location: Metsville, New York, United States About Me: I am a plethora of things. I love discussions, different points of view, music, photography, books, the universe, and the ocean in no particular order.
As you can see I have very different opinions and I'm not too shy to share them with you. It is not my intent to insult you if that should happen.
So stay a while and perhaps share your opinion on a post of interest. My Profile!
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