I apologize for not updating lately, I spilt Gatorade on my Keyboard a few days ago and had to send off to NewEgg.com for a replacement. I could barely survive those few days without my wireless keyboard, it drove me to the brink of insanity. But now that I have a new one I'm okay.
I spent the better part of the day designing a new web page, that is going to completely change the face of my sites. I am headed in a new direction, in the direction of internet radio broadcasting! I'm hoping to start with broadcasting shows about Games and Consoles, then maybe work my way to a second broadcast focused on Computers and other such technologies.
I discovered an amazing thing today called iPodder. You guys will have to check it out on your own because it's getting close to my bedtime. Basically it lets you gather internet radio broadcasts and it will stick them in iTunes for you. So that you can listen to Personal Blogs, Tech Blogs, News Blogs, or whatever you want on your iPod. It will automatically download new content as it becomes available. I'm already hooked on the show GAMERadio. I plan on making my first Podcast (iPodder Broadcast) similar to that show. I have a lot of game news that I want to get to, but don't have the time with this new site. I will make sure that my first episode will quench your thirst.

DOWNLOAD THIS PROGRAM NOW!
This is not a suggestion, this is me telling you that you need to download this file now! I just downloaded Google Desktop about twenty minutes ago, and I think it is the greatest thing in the world. I downloaded it, walked away from the computer to get some work done, and when I came back my computer had taken a step to the next level. Google Desktop is EXACTLY what Microsoft has wanted to do for the past 5 years, but never perfected. Instead Microsoft decided to put it off until Longhorn comes around in 2006. Google Desktop categorizes your computer just like how it categorizes web pages. It searches through your files, sorts them out into keywords, stores the files according to date and relevancy, and places it all in an amazing interface just like its online companion. The page that Google presents for the program doesn't do it just. It says that it will sort through your AIM, Outlook, Internet History, Text, Word, Powerpoint, and Excel files. That is only the tip of the iceberg my friend.


Google quickly categorized 19,892 files on my computer within 20 minutes. By the way, it only searches for new items when the computer is idle, so that it won't take up your precious system resources. The result of the system scan looked like this. Pardon the messed up formatting.

Number of items Time of newest item
Total searchable items 19,892 --2:22am
Emails 0 ---
Chats 2 --1:52am
Web history 851 --1:30am
Files 19,039 --2:22am

Then Google seamlessly integrated the search function right into their web page. So that when you use your web browser (it better be Firefox!) you have a "Desktop" tab to search your computer.


When you are reading an AIM conversation, it even gives you a link to "chat with [whomever]", and the link will start aim and bring up an IM to send to the designated person.


I couldn't possible imagine a program more essential for just about any computer user. Whether you are a business person, who needs to keep track of records scattered all over your computer. Or if you're a teenage chatter who wants to check what Jessica said last week about Danny on AIM. There are a million reasons to use Google Desktop, but the one thing that makes me secure about using this program is that it is made by Google. The people who changed the face of search engines, email, blogging, and many other things. And this is going to be the next big thing.

Somehow the Windows Networking Problem has evolved into something tremendously horrible. I was able to get Windows (XP Pro, SP2) to connect to the Xbox by setting the Xbox in the Netgear main ethernet port, then making my computer the slave in any of the 1-4 slave slots. This way, my computer thought that the Xbox was the internet, so windows configured itself to be able to access the Xbox. At this point Windows properly applied itself to the router IP. Only I was not able to talk to the Xbox in this configuration (probably because of a bad router setting), so I removed the ethernet cords and connected the Xbox and computer directly with a Cat-5 cable. When I did this I had a connection with my Xbox up and running for about 30 seconds, then Windows would reconfigure itself to what it thought I wanted (which I don't), and kick me off my Xbox.
So after all of this, I have concluded that the only way to talk to the Xbox, besides Microsoft fixing the problem, is to properly use a router and connect through the router ports. I love how Microsoft thinks that it's best to let the computer configure itself, and completely took away my ability to modify my internet connection. Thanks again Microsoft!
For now, I am going to try to deal with just not connecting to the Xbox, unless if I have an urgent need to fix something. The only items that need to be placed on the hard drive are Nintendo 64 roms and some updated XBMC files. Speaking of which XBMC just upgraded to v. 1.1.0 today!

If you have an iPod, old or new, do yourself a favor and download Ipod Agent right now as you read this article. It is critical that everyone gets this program because it may one days save your very life!...Or at least make your life a tiny bit better.
iPod Agent software allows you to do the folling with your ipod/computer:

* Transfer songs from your iPod to your PC
* Transfer Outlook contacts, appointments, notes, tasks, and mail to your iPod
* Fetch weather forecasts and put it on your iPod
* Fetch RSS news feeds and make them viewable on your iPod
* Fetch local movie showtimes and make them viewable on your iPod
* Fetch daily horoscopes and make them available on your iPod
* Transfer the contents of any folder on your PC to your iPod
* Copy any text file to your iPod
* Create listings of the songs on your iPod in plain text, HTML or CSV formats.



So if you have two computers at home, and want to transfer your music library from one computer to the other, you can easily download the songs from the iPod using iPod Agent. There are lots of fun little things you can do using this software, but I am sticking with the basics (weather forecast, movie showtimes, and news feeds). Check out the iPod Agent website for more information.

I just started a Gmail account, yay! So as soon as I get a chance to test the waters out enough to give a fair review, I will post a review and comparison to Yahoo! Mail. I have a feeling Gmail is going to win.
Also on the horizon, I'm going to mention the Ipod Agent software, which allows you to make the most out of your Ipods. I will also leave some praise of Doom 3, for the PC. When I'm not doing school work, I'm probably playing Doom 3 (or Call of Duty, I love it too!). I have a lot of great Tech stuff I want to post about, but so little time! Well, I'm off for bed this evening. I have been trying to update some minor flaws in the site template, for this site and 2 others that I'm working on. As a side note Blogger supposedly updated their tech support. Have a good night all, and I look forward to posting soon. This weekend at the absolute latest.

Considering that most of my friends are in college, I thought I might do them a favor and forward them to a little program called OurTunes. What does OurTunes do, you might ask? OurTunes allows you to download music from other computers on the same network that are sharing their music through Apple's iTunes. Here's what you need to do to get it to work. First, download iTunes from Apple.com. Second, open up the Preferences and set it to allow your computer to share and look for shared music. Third, download OurTunes. Assuming that you have a recent version of Java running on your computer, which the majority of people will, run OurTunes and iTunes at the same time. OurTunes should automatically find the shared music and let you get downloading immediately. But make sure that you are able to listen to other people's music through iTunes prior to downloading, this way you will know whether you are able to get a connection to the networked computers. This is just a fast runthrough of what to do, for more information about OurTunes or iTunes check out the links.