Adam Ostrow over at Mashable.com was the one to bring the “beta” coffee offer from Joffrey’s Coffee to my attention.

The idea is simple in that up to 10,000 bloggers can go to their site, fill out the form, and not only will you get some free coffee, but you’ll also get a link back to your blog from them. The links are a little momentous to pick through, but Google should pick it up and count it as a little bit of link love for you.

The free coffee you’ll receive is a new flavor named “Jamican Me Crazy” which is a blend of caramel, vanilla and coffee liqueur. I’m not one to thrill to flavored coffee, but it’s free, and I’m a sucker for free. Hopefully it will be good, but if it’s not, I’m out 30-seconds of my time filling out their form.

Last time I looked, they were still under 1,000 slots filled, so there is still plenty of time for my readers to run over and snap up one of those 10,000 spots.

I have mocked the idea of “beta” tests before, and this one is such an obvious gimmick to get bloggers to talk about it, and… wait… aw man! I fell for their obvious marketing gimmick! -sips coffee- Curses.

Before I even begin this, let me stress that my dislike of Oprah Winfrey has nothing to do with her being African-American.  I bring this up because the last time I made an off-hand comment about Star Jones, I had to spend the next day explaining how my dislike had nothing to do with her ethnicity.  Same goes for Oprah, she annoys me, as does 99.9% of the population in some way or another… I’m very equal opportunity in my dislike of people.  It’s a thing.

So, I have been home sick all this week (I won’t disgust you with the details), and naturally I have caught more daytime television than I normally do, and a couple of times I have found myself coming across Oprah.

Now, I already dislike her for the mere fact that she unleashed Dr.Phil and Rachael Ray onto the daytime television world, but seeing her actual show… I get it even less.  What is the allure of this woman?  Is it the fact she feels compelled to yell her guest’s names?  (William SHHHHAAAATTTTNNNNEEEERRRR)  Or perhaps it’s the fact that her audience screams like Howler Monkeys whenever she says they’re going home with something?  I mean, honestly, how many of the women in her audience were THAT excited to be going home with the remastered DVDs of the first season of the original Star Trek series?

I think where she totally lost me (not that she ever “had me”) was her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.   While it seemed like a good idea on the surface to give underprivileged girls in Africa an education, there has been numerous controversies over how the girls are allowed to interact with their families, not to mention the allegations of sexual and physical abuse by an administrator.  If you’re going to set up a program such as this, it is your personal duty to make sure every person is fully vetted, and safe guards are put in place to protect against such things happening.

I’m all for people doing good deeds in the world, and I’m all for them having success, but I would like someone to explain to me WHY she is successful.  When I have talked to Oprah fans, they always say things like, “She’s so wonderful!”, but when you ask them “Why?”, they kind of look at me blankly like, “Don’t you get it?”

Er… no… I don’t.

I don’t get why she can put her stamp of approval on a book, and it sells millions of extra copies.  Because that was such a good thing in the case of A Million Little Pieces.  I just don’t get so much about her.  So, here it is Oprah fans, leave me a comment and tell me WHY you love her, why she is the greatest thing ever, why does she make you her fans into rabid Oprah-zombies?

It happened the other night, I was watching Big Brother After Dark on Showtime 2, and I realized I have officially become old.

As regular readers know, I have been a faithful viewer of Big Brother since season 1 (though I skipped season 2 as I hated the format change), and each season I complain about “the hamsters”, the Internet nickname for the Houseguests. Well, this year, I think the casting people finally went too far.

There has always been a sense that the producers hoped for “wild and crazy” times, and, true, we did get a streaking man last season (Zach), and back in Big Brother 4, we got full on sex (David & Amanda), but this season… let’s see, where do I even start?

The concept alone, “Til Death Do Us Part”, pairs each contestant with another one, and they work together, get nominated together, evicted together, and, oh yeah, have to sleep in the same bed. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if they hadn’t matched everyone up with their “soulmate” that the producers picked for them.

We have Natalie, the former stripper/Hooters Girl, who had a boob job that looks like 2 oranges were shoved in to her chest. She has had two abortions, but attends church regularly. (I’m not making a judgment call on her abortions or church going, but don’t the two kinda contradict each other?) And thus far this season she has… er… “orally pleasured” her partner in the game, Matt, at least twice. (they’re pictured to the right here)

The most infamous Houseguest so far this season has to be Adam. Up until today, Adam worked in public relations for the United Autism Foundation. Notice I said “up until today”, because when Adam leaves the house, he will discover he has been fired from his due to referring to people with Autism as “retards” while in the house. It may have been excused as an off handed comment, but when some of the other Hamsters called him on such a comment, he said he could call them whatever he wants because he works with them. This comment also led to Lowes pulling ads from the show, so I’m sure CBS is none too thrilled with him either.

This is not to mention the massive make out party in the pool between Adam, Alex, Chelsia (who was topless), James (who was naked), Joshuah, Matt, Natalie (who was topless), and Sharon. This was all preceded by a strip off between Chelsia and Natalie which set off the entire night.

Yep, it’s official, I’m old. All this did was make me shake my head and wonder about these “kids” today.  This isn’t to mind all the talk of rampant drug use discussion (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy), not in the house mind you, just in general, and you have to wonder where casting finds these people.  True, you have to be a fairly large narcissist to go on a show such as this, but this whole cast just takes the cake for insanity.

And I know what you all will say, “Sean, just stop watching!”, and I’m trying, but it’s like a train wreck!  I can’t not look at the gore!

Steve Ballmer is a moron.

I’m not sure why Microsoft allows their CEO to ever interact with the public because all he ends up doing is embarrassing himself or the company. This time he decided it was a good idea to imply that iPod users, such as myself, are nothing but thieves.

While at a gathering with the media in London this past weekend, the ever-present subject of Digital Rights Management (DRM) came up. For those unfamiliar with the term, DRM is a form of file encoding that dictates where the file may be played, and locks the music to a given device or account holder. It has been a highly controversial part of the technology world for several years now, and most consumers wish it would just go away as they believe when they legally purchase a file, they should have the right to play that file where and how they choose.

In general, content creators such as music companies and movie studios have disagreed. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, wrote in an open letter, entitled “Thoughts On Music“, that the music industry needed to abandon DRM, and it seemed they are following him.

So, while Mr. Ballmer was being asked about DRM by the press, he said:

“We’ve had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is ’stolen’.”

Excuse me? You reach this conclusion how? See, here’s the flaw, iTunes Store just became the second largest music retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart. Now, mind you that iTunes Store purchases can only be played on Apple products such as the Apple TV, in iTunes, and, oh yeah, on iPods. On Christmas day alone Apple moved 20 million songs via the iTunes Stores, in theory, on to iPods.

Mr. Ballmer went on to say:

“Part of the reason people steal music is money, but some of it is that the DRM stuff out there has not been that easy to use. We are going to continue to improve our DRM, to make it harder to crack, and easier, easier, easier, easier, to use,” he said.

However, Ballmer conceded it isn’t going to be an easy battle to win. “Most people still steal music,” he said. “We can build the technology but there are still ways for people to steal music.”

Those are wonderful sound bites for the media, and they’re good for scaring corporate business partners, but again I would ask for proof.  I mean, I would hate to speculate that Ballmer/Microsoft are attempting to scare content providers that they are screwed without DRM, and that said DRM could be provided by them.  Microsoft would never go that route.

-cough-

Are we to believe this “easier, easier, easier, easier, to use” DRM will play on iPods?  Somehow my gut tells me we will hear it won’t work with iPods, but boy howdy, it sure will work on the Zune, Microsoft’s joke of an MP3 player.

Any way you slice this, this was a poor choice on Ballmer’s part, something he is not unfamiliar with, and insulting the 42 million plus iPod owners isn’t going to win you any fans.

No matter what you may think of YouTube, the idea that Pakistan could take down the site globally is frightening in it’s ramifications for the Internet as a whole.

The whole debacle started on Friday when Pakistan ordered access to YouTube be blocked due to videos including the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that caused such a stir last year.  When the telecoms did as the Pakistani government ordered, all traffic requests for YouTube were sent to a virtual black hole where the data was discarded.  The problem became global when somehow their traffic redirect got sent out to one of the twenty largest data carriers, PCCW of Hong Kong.

As this was a new request for a data reroute, from a known source, PCCW updated their databases accordingly, and that sent the data out to smaller data centers, propagating the problem on a global scale.  Todd Underwood, vice president and general manager of Internet community services at Renesys, told the Associated Press that, basically, Pakistan accidentally told the world they were YouTube, and hence all traffic for YouTube was directed to their black hole of data.

This whole situation scares the living heck out of me.  If a global redirect was accomplished this easily, what is to stop cyber terrorists from doing something bigger, and grander?  Redirecting the IRS website for when you pay your taxes?  Redirecting government traffic during a national emergency?  Sending cat lovers to a dog lovers site?  The potential problems this makes one ponder are endless.

As I’ve mentioned before, my company warehouse is only 300 feet from my house. That being the case, I have a tendency to wander back and forth during the day, which makes it difficult sometimes for people to guess which location I’m at, and hence which phone number they should call.  I’ve often thought it would be nice if I had a phone number that rang both places, but never really wanted to invest in another phone line, so I’ve allowed everyone play “Guess where Sean is!”

Well, leave it to Google to buy an emerging technology called “GrandCentral” and solve all of these problems for me.  I only learned of this service yesterday, and I have to admit caught me completely off-guard, but it is revolutionary for people who are constantly on the go.  Well… if you live in the United States at least.

What it does is allow you to sign up for an account, pick a virtual phone number for the area code of your choice, and once you’ve picked the number, you enter your work number, home number, and cell phone number.  When someone calls your virtual number it will ring all three of them at once, allowing you to choose which line you want to pick up if you are near two of them at the same time.

What kills me is the number of features that come along with this:

• Did you pick up on your office line, but need to leave?  Hit a button on the keypad and move the call to your cell.
• Is someone about to tell you a phone number or directions, and you have nothing to write on?  Hit “4″ on the keypad to record it to your voice mail.  (yes, the other party is notified you are recording them)
• Customize the ring the caller hears on their end.  Doesn’t serve a real purpose, but it’s fun.
• Voice mail sorted by caller.
• Set which phones will ring by individual or group that you placed them in your address book.

GrandCentral is currently in a private beta, invite-only mode, and all features are, for the moment, free.  Things such as the call record will be considered “premium services” when the site launches, though there is no indication when that will be.

So far, only playing with it for a day, I’m thrilled with it. Will I still be thrilled when I have to pay for all/parts of it?  It will depend on th pricing, but I’m thrilled with the concept.

Now, am I a total tease?  No.  I have three invites if anyone wants them.  Just leave me a comment on this post and I’ll set you up with an invite.

The Mafia has had a broad history in film and on television, and one thing that has always bothered me is how fans always seem to focus only on the violence in the stories. True, the mob life is a violent one, but there is so much more to it then just that. Just like anyone else in the world, these are people with dreams, hopes, families, and failings, but it seems to get lost sometimes in the shuffle. So, I’ve gathered up five scenes from various works that revolve around the mafia that I feel best demonstrate how the lifestyle is about more than just killing.

I will warn you there is a lot of strong language in these clips, but it is unavoidable.

Donnie Brasco (1997)

Donnie Brasco was based on the true story of an FBI agent infiltrating the mafia to bring down certain members from the inside their own organization. Given the subject matter, and the angle it was approached from, the world of the mafia was a bit less glamorous than most portrayals we see. This scene about how Al Pachino’s character will introduce Johnny Depp’s Donnie Brasco is fascinating for displaying the subtleties of the mafia hierarchy, but when Pachino asks Depp for money, it shows that not all mafia members always have a wad of cash on them, and wear gorgeous ties. It was nice to see a work cut back on some of the “glamor” that always permeates these works.

Godfather, Part II (1974)

“You broke my heart, Fredo,” says so much about the mindset of a mafioso. ‘The Family’ comes before family, and this scene demonstrates it probably the most clearly when John Cazale’s Fredo has betrayed Al Pachino’s Michael in Godfather, Part II. While for most Italians there is nothing more important than their families, for someone in the mob, there is nothing more important that “the family”, and if it means that a member of your blood does wrong, then that’s the way things are, and they too must go.

Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese is arguably one of the greatest living filmmakers, if not one of the greatest ever, so picking one scene from all of his mafia moments is next to impossible, but it had to be done. The “Then He Kissed Me”/kitchen walk scene from Goodfellas is powerful and amazing as a moment of artistry, and as an example of showing how a mafioso of the time period was treated like a prince. Ray Liotta walks through like what is happening is perfectly normal, handing out $20 tips like candy, having a table added to the dance floor for them, while Lorraine Bracco looks on in amazement. Finally she asks, “What do you do?”, and it dawns on the audience just how odd and surreal this life truly is to an outsider.

Married to the Mob (1988)

Perhaps a mob comedy may seem like an odd choice for this list, but a husband/wife argument between Alec Baldwin and Michelle Pfeiffer over their child knowing where a gun is, and how their house is a mish mash of things that fell of trucks, seems to fit. Life isn’t always easy for the wives of mobsters, and while The Godfather Trilogy showed this from a dramatic point of view, this scene seems to be a bit more “real”.

The Sopranos

Maybe not a scene not a lot of people would have thought of for a moment from The Sopranos, but Frank Vincent’s speech as Phil Leotardo about what happened to his family name, and his brother, says so much about Italians, and part of what caused the mob culture to continue here from the old country. As someone who spent years trying to find out what our original family name was, I can relate to some of what goes on here.

What exactly is my name?

Well, it’s Sean P. Aune… not Sean PAune… which I get a lot due to the domain name and my email addresses. And the “P.” is for “Patrick”. I’m used to people screwing up the pronunciation of my last name, but it’s when people screw up my first name that I go “Really? Have you never heard of Sean Connery? Sean Penn? Sean Young… okay, yeah, bad example.”

So, for the record:

Sean - pronounced “Shawn”

Aune - It depends on where you are. We pronounce it “ON…e”. The Word “ON”… the letter “e”, not “one” like the number. It’s a Norwegian name, and they pronounce it “Ah-v-knee”. Apparently in Norway it’s as common as “Smith”, but not so much here.

Now, why am I a pretentious bastard and insist on using my middle initial? That was a decision I made when I opened my business, and it carried forward in to my writing career. “Sean Aune” just looks too short to me, and with people messing up pronouncing either one or both of them, I wanted something in there they could at least identify. That, and I’m proud of my Irish heritage, but “Sean Patrick Aune” would just be too much to go by, and in a domain name?  It would be awkward at best, so SeanPAune.com it was.  I’ve also purchased SeanAune.com, and it points here as well, but it will always be known as my full name with middle initial.

In all the times I’ve looked around the web, I’ve only ever found one other “Sean Aune”, and he’s a Canadian. The funny part is I found a news piece about his being the captain of a Curling team back in the 1990’s, and apparently still plays. I find this amusing only because I happen to love Curling and would love to play it someday.  What an coincidence.

The Parents Television Council is back… oh how I have missed them. Mind you, my true love is the American Family Association, but they have been oddly quiet lately. (Call me? I miss your nuttiness)

For those unfamiliar with them, the PTC is one of those groups that is convinced they know what’s best for you when it comes to what you see on television. They, and their ilk in the AFA and similar groups, feel that they are the guardians of morality on television. It boils down to that only G rated fare should be on television, and anything beyond that shouldn’t even be allowed to air because no one should be exposed to such material. The last time I wrote about them was in December of 2006 when they were all upset over a video on the Internet… you know… not on television.

At least this time they are sticking to the medium that is in their name, “television”, and taking on CBS over the airings of the critically acclaimed series, Dexter.

True, Dexter is the story of a serial killer who only kills murders who can’t be brought to justice, all the while he works as a forensics expert for the police. Yes, the subject matter is a bit grim, and it is about murder, but you know that makes it so different from CSI… and CSI: Miami… oh, and CSI: New York… and Cold Case… or any other number of shows about murder that treat us to graphic depictions of violence. True, Dexter aired on Showtime originally, and these episodes have been cut own for over-the-air broadcasting, but the PTC say it wasn’t enough and are calling for a boycott of the advertisers who supported the show.

Mind you, Dexter is airing Sunday nights at 10 EST/9 CST, after the “watershed” hour for adult material to be aired. It does carry a TV-14 rating, and they warn of the content of the show. All of this means nothing to the likes of the PTC though, they won’t be happy until every show has been sanitized to within an inch of its life. They are saying this is magnified by the issues of mass killings all over the country, and how insensitive it is of CBS to air a show about a serial killer when there has been so much tragedy.

Um…

Don’t get me wrong, I feel nothing but sympathy for the families that have been touched by those senseless, violent actions, but a serial killer and mass murderer are very different creatures psychologically. Also, add in that in the case of the recent shooting sprees (Kirkwood, MO and DeKalb, IL) were committed by people with known mental conditions, it is highly doubtful they were influenced by things such as television shows. I think it’s tasteless of the PTC to even bring them into their “argument”, but I have come to expect arguments from them to not always be connected to reality.

As I have said more times than I can count, you have the ultimate control over what you watch; if you find something offensive, you simply turn the channel. You control your TV and what is shown on it, and when you allow groups to force their morality on to the airwaves, we all lose and art suffers. Sure, there is some stuff that should never air, I would have problems with a show glorifying bestiality, but I also know I can turn the channel any time I want. I mean, if I wanted to rally behind getting something offensive off of television, don’t you think I would have forcibly had Rachael Ray

While it’s not clear if anyone has actually requested a refund for buying an HD DVD player yet, Toshiba is making sure every one knows it’s not going to happen. They also said there won’t be any “sweetners” because the equipment still has an “inherent value” in that it can play CDs, DVDs, and your HD DVD collection.

Even as an owner of an HD DVD player I have to say this is the right decision on the part of Toshiba. As I said back when I wrote about why Steve Jobs was wrong to give a refund in regards to the iPhone, if you are an early adopter of technology, you have to expect things like this to happen. I knew exactly what I was getting in to with buying the HD DVD player when I did, and I didn’t expect any hand holding as I took the leap.

Steve Jobs explained it best in his open letter to iPhone whiners customers about wanting a refund when the iPhone dropped in price:

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

It’s all part of the technology “game”. If you want to play the “game”, then you need to expect to lose once in awhile, it can’t be helped. Sure, it feels nice to “win”, as the Blu-ray adopters did, but it’s not going to happen every time, the law of averages simply says that if you are an early adopter, you will “lose” sometimes.

I think this speaks to the current technology environment, though. There are so many innovations happening in so many fields that it is becoming more common for people to be early adopters of something or the other that never have been before.

Somewhere along the line there is a disconnect happening, a sense of entitlement that doesn’t make sense to me.  When you buy a car, do you whine when the next model comes out?  Do you whine when there’s a price drop?  No, you expect it and you deal with it.  So why do consumers feel they are owed something, or are somehow slighted, when there are changes in gadgets?  It makes no sense to me.

In short, yes, HD DVD is dead, and there will not be any new discs coming out in the format, but you still have a very nice DVD player that will upscale your standard definition DVDs to near high definition quality.  You bought into it, you knew the risks, you deal with it.  And, again, I have no clue if anyone did actually ask for refunds, but I sure hope no one did.

We all dream about getting to our destinations faster, but isn’t there a point when we go too fast?

Reaction Engines in Oxfordshire, England are working on a hydrogen-fueled concept plane that would have a sustainable speed of 3,800 miles-per-hour.  In loose translation, you would be flying at Mach 5, and could get from England to Australia in five hours.  According to the reports by the BBC, not only is it fast, it’s huge!  It is expected to measure 156 yards long, twice the size of current jumbo jets, and carry 300 passengers.

What worries me (beyond the dangerous fuel… size… and speed) is that in none of the pictures I’ve seen can you spot windows… anywhere.  Not even for the cockpit!  How are they going to pilot this thing?!?  “Well, you’re going so fast anyway, just point in the general direction you want to go, and pray.”

While I love my trips to Japan, I’ve never been a fan of the 10 & 1/2 hours it takes me to fly there, and 9 hours coming home, and of course I’ve dreamed of doing it even faster.  I think there is a line you have to draw though where you just say “People aren’t meant to go this fast inside of an atmosphere.”  More power to them developing it, but I don’t see my behind sitting in one of their seats.

As was speculated the other day, HD DVD is dead.  Toshiba has made the official announcement in Tokyo just a few minutes ago.

Oh well,  I should have known I would be the curse that would kill it, but what ya gonna do?

Now… bring on the clearance sales so I can pick up some cheap final discs!

It’s that time again… computer buying time.

For the most part, my Compaq Presario V2000 has served me well, but I am in to so much heavy blogging work in the evenings now that I am starting to see a lot of sluggishness. Also, if I want to stay with Windows XP, I need to do this before they stop selling it on June 30th. So now comes the age old question of what do I go with?

I’m leaning towards staying with Win XP only because A) Vista will give me headaches and B) Mac Book Pros START at $1,999. For now I’m looking at a Dell Vostro 1500, but I am open to suggestions as to make and models. I’m thinking Dell because I’ve been happy with the last two desktops I bought from them, and I like the idea that the Vostros come with with no pre-installed trialware.

So let’s hear from you! What brand do you swear by? What model? How would you configure a new laptop? Yes, I’ll even entertain thoughts on talking me into a $2,000 Mac Book Pro, hit me up with all of your thoughts!

Well, it isn’t 100% official yet, but it looks like Toshiba is prepared to pull the plug on HD DVD fairly soon.

I knew this was coming once Warner Brothers said it was going Blu-ray only, it was just a matter of when. Last week was the killing blow when Netflix said it was dumping the format, and then Wal-Mart also announced they were. Seeing as Wal-Mart had been one of the biggest pushers of HD DVD, their departure pretty much sealed the fate of the format.

So, what do I do now? It’s too late to return my Toshiba HD-A35, and that’s fine, I just view it as having a really nice DVD player with upconversion.

When will I go Blu-ray?  Well, this brings me back to why I went HD DVD in the first place, and the fact that the format isn’t finished yet.  Profile 2.0, the firmware that will catch Blu-ray to where HD DVD was at launch, isn’t due for release until October of this year.  So, the first wave of Profile 2.0 players come out, they’ll be high priced through th holidays for sure, you’re looking at 2009 for the price drop.

Great, well, at least I’ll enjoy the HD DVDs I bought already and just bide my time again.  Still, an interesting war to watch play out, too bad it’s over.

More and more companies are turning to Internet downloads to deliver media in to our homes, but, for now, you mainly have to watch them on your computer. While this may be okay for watching something as short as a YouTube video, it’s not always the optimal way to watch a feature length film. So, how do you get all of this wonderful content on to your television? Mind you I am focusing on your standard computer user and not the higher-end users who know all about media centers and strapping a Mac Mini to the back of a television.

Apple TV

Though some critics have referred to the Apple TV as the “iFlop“, due to it’s sluggish sales, there is no denying how easy this device makes getting content to your television. The only problem is the content you are limited to, which is mostly Apple downloads via their iTunes Store. You can, however, stream home movies and photos from your TV with it, making that time family picnic show up on your TV with just a few clicks.

With the recent “Take 2″ update, you can also now rent movies and make purchases from Apple directly on your TV with no need for a computer, and YouTube videos can also now be streamed directly.

Buffalo LinkTheater Wireless A&G Network Media Player

The Buffalo LinkTheater will do wireless and wired network streaming of video over your home network, but at the expense of responsiveness or support for popular file formats. There’s limited music streaming support, and it won’t play iTunes files if they are Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected or not, which seems silly considering how prevalent iTunes has become thanks to the iPod.

Considering some of the reviews the unit has gotten, it’s probably best to avoid it, but it needed to be included here so you were at least aware of it.

D-Link DSM-330 DivX Connected HD Media Player

The D-Link DSM-330 DivX Connected HD Media Player device is fairly new, and not available in the United States yet, but it is expected to be fairly soon. For those of you in the United Kingdom, you can enjoy streaming your DivX content over your home network to this device, and then enjoying it on your TV. It supports DivX, Xvid with MP3 or PCM audio, WMV9 (transcoded on PC)MP3 (up to 320kbps), MP3 Playlist, WMA (transcoded on PC), JPEG (grayscale, RGB & YCbCy only), JPEG 2000 BMP (non-compressed)

The DSM-330 uses either Ethernet or Wi-Fi for the streaming from computers, and has no local storage on the device, so you’ll need to make sure you network is up to snuff to handle such intense streaming.

Microsoft Xbox 360

It may surprise some people to know this, but you can actually stream videos to your Xbox 360. The reason it is not that well known is that it’s not always the easiest thing to do. People have been doing it for ages if they have the Windows Media Center operating system, but people who have Windows XP, the far more common flavor of Windows, have some problems getting it to work. The other problem is that it only natively supports WMV (Windows Media Video) formatted files, which is far from being the most popular of file formats.

There are solutions out there for transcoding your files to work with the 360 such as guides and tools, and you can also buy some movies and TV shows directly from the Xbox Live marketplace. With far easier solutions out there, this should rank pretty far down your list as possibilities if you’re just starting to look into doing videos on your TV.

Netgear EVA8000

The Netgear EVA8000 will give you wireless and wired network integration, but besides focusing on streaming all of your video and audio formats, it also gives you the ability to pull up portions of your desktop such as a web browser or your email, and access them right on your TV screen.

Overall, the Netgear device aims to be more of a true hub for your digital life with the ability to play content from most major online services, play DRM protected WMV files, plug in your camera and other gadgets, and playback your AVI files. There doesn’t seem to be much this device doesn’t aim to do for you.

Sansa TakeTV

From SanDisk, the TakeTV takes only three steps to get your MPEG4, Xvid and AVI files displayed on your television.

1. Plug the device into your computer to move the files to it.
2. Plug the device into the cradle connected to your computer.
3. Play.

It is super easy to use no matter what level of computer user you are, but if you are an experienced user, it is almost scary how quick and easy it is to use. The only problem I have found is a couple of Xvid videos that played on my computer with no problem, did not play at all on the TakeTV, but it seems to be a very small minority of files. You can read my more detailed thoughts on this device here.

Sony Playstation 3

Besides being a game console and a Blu-ray player, the Sony Playstation 3 is able to connect to your network and play back Divx and Windows Media files.

Though the system has been around for some time now, these functions didn’t show up until recently when they released the 2.10 firmware update late in December 2007. While it is fully certified by the DivX company, some people have found problems with some of their XviD encoded files. Usually the two video codecs are interchangeable, but it doesn’t seem to be always the case with the latest in the line of Sony game systems.

TiVo

The TiVo is currently limited to videos you acquire through the Amazon Unbox Service. When you download the files, you are given the option of having them delivered to your Internet connected TiVo, but you can’t do the choosing from the device itself.

There are ways to play other types of files on TiVo, and there are instructions on how to do so, but don’t be surprised if it violates some portion of your warranty.

Your Laptop

Most people don’t know that you can actually connect most laptops to your TV and display your screen in full-sized glory. Once you’ve done this there is no need to stream content to another device, or have any go between, you are simply turning your television into a giant monitor to display whatever content it is you feel the need to show, whether it be movies, music videos, YouTube or anything else. The only drawback to this method is it pretty much sacrafices your computer to do nothing other than showing the media you’ve selected.

To do it you’ll usually need a S-Video cable, and something like the Belkin produced cable I pictured here. You plug the 2.5 mm end of that cable into your earphone jack and the audio ends into your TV input. You then run the S-Video between the corresponding jacks and switch your video output to an external source. Each computer is slightly different in how it does these steps, so make sure to consult your setup guide.

So, which solution is best for you? It’s all a matter of preference and if you want the device to do more than one thing for you. You technically can get started right away with just a couple of cables if you want to just use your laptop, or do what I did and set up an old laptop just for showing files. I then chose to personally to go with the TakeTV due to its compact size, but the solution that works best for me may be totally different from what works best for you, so weight your own needs accordingly.

And this is certainly not a complete list of every solution out there. Do some searches, visit forums, read up on the subject, and you may find you have something sit in your house already that will work for your needs. Leave a comment and let me know what worked for you!

In the “I still don’t like the title of this movie” department, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has its first trailer out. Roy instant messaged me, asking if I was going to rag on it like I do a lot of trailers, but this one honestly left me indifferent… which was disturbing the more I thought about it.

The first three movies in this series very much filled you with wonder and awe in their “serial” appeal, but though this movie looks like the other ones, in the short span of the trailer you get two jokes about Indy’s age. I’m just not that interested in two hours of, “You know, when I was younger/I’m too old” etc comments. And, okay, this isn’t a spoiler since it’s written on a crate in the trailer, “Roswell, NM” is clearly seen in the trailer on the side of a military looking crate. Aliens? Aliens with Indy? Oh why didn’t they stop at the third one?

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Fox released the first picture of Hugh Jackman from the fourth film related to the X-Men franchise, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While it’s nice to see another appearance by Wolverine, there are a few comments here:

1. Really? This is the most exciting picture you could release? It looks like a publicity shot from the first movie, and not the first publicity shot from a stand-alone film.
2. Let us hope it is better than the third movie.
3. Is it just me, or is that unwieldy title a hint at the idea we will get more “X-Men Origins” movies?
4. Let us hope it is better than the third movie.

Are you sensing a trend here?

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It seems Michael Bay has finished his outline for Transformers 2.

I think my headaches are already starting.

He’s promising more robots this time around (but no Dinobots, he said), and gave no other clues as to what we can expect. The first film (which I reviewed here) was a disaster of a production, and all of the fault fell squarely on Bay’s shoulders. Considering how much money the film made ($706,471,251 internationally off of a reported $150 million budget), there is no reason for Bay to change his tactics in the style of this film: all style and no substance.

On the off chance that Bay does actually look at the web… Mike?  Please, for the love of all that is holy, remember the movie is called “Transformers” and not “Random Humans With Thread Bare Personalities”.  Let us see the robots doing their thing, let us hear their personalities, bring in some aspects of the cartoon, and for crying out loud… LEAVE THEIR NAMES ALONE!

But, alas, I know Mr. Bay can’t make a real movie to save his life, so… here comes more pain.

I can’t believe it, but I think I’ve been swayed from my love of playing nothing but Halo 3 on Xbox Live.

Triston McIntyre, of GAMER.BLORGE.com, told me while we were co-workers that I should give Call of Duty 4 a try. I mumbled and grumbled that I was fairly loyal to Halo, but since he was such an ardent supporter that I decided to trust him and give it a try.

Well, Halo 3 has not returned to my Xbox since.

This is strictly about the online portion of the game, as I found the COD4 off-line portion too short, just like I did with Halo 3.  I think game makers are starting to ignore the single players games a little much, and need to remember that not everyone gets online all the time.

That aside, I’m loving the online version of COD4 far more than Halo 3, like a lot more.  For those unfamiliar with either,both are First Person Shooters (FPS) where you are placed in to the role of someone fighting some form of enemies: in Halo it is either other soldiers or aliens, with COD4, it is alway some form of soldiers.  The perspective is always that of looking from behind the gun, or just slightly behind your character depending on the weapon you’re using.

So why is COD4 winning me over?  I feel like I’m accomplishing something as opposed to just going around shooting people.  Yes, they are both video games, but Halo 3 gives you medals and ranks that earn you nothing but shiny things to look at; COD4 unlocks more weapons, special weapons, and challenges as you increase in rank.  So while you’re going around fighting your enemies, you’re also thinking, “I need to get another headshot to finish off that Marksman achievement.”  It adds another layer of fun to the game and extra value.  What do you do when you max out your rank, and finish all the goals?  Well, when you hit rank 55, you get to start all over if you like, but with new rank badges that indicate this isn’t your first time through the game.

The biggest selling point to me, and one I can’t even begin to guess why it happens, is that there aren’t nearly as many idiot running around shouting how “gay” something is, or how wonderful it would be to be raped.  It’s not that this is some sort of intellectual game, but there certainly does seem to be a higher maturity level in the players and how they act inside the game.  My theory is it has to do with the game being far busier than Halo 3; you almost always have a vulnerable direction you could be shot from, or your thinking about finishing your challenges, you don’t even have time to talk, let alone be annoying.

Overall it is a far more satisfying experience in the multi-player game than Halo 3, and that is something I honestly never saw myself saying.  I have been a die-hard Halo fan for some time now, and now it just seems like a far less satisfying system.

So, if you’re looking for a game, RUDEBOY71 is my handle and you can join in a game and you can promptly kick my behind.

A little while back I downloaded Google Talk on to my beloved BlackBerry 8830.  It’s a great little piece of software that gives me all of my normal Google Talk functionalities: status, chats, saves the chat histories to my account, and so on.

Now, here’s the problem.  I downloaded the program and set it up with my editors that every night I go to bed, log in on my phone, and set my status to “Sleeping/msgs fwd to phone”. (I hate text speech, but it’s needed here)  The idea was that I have bosses all over the planet, I actually do not blog for anyone who lives in the United States, so sometimes they need to reach me at odd hours.  Since it’s a work situation, I am perfectly okay with them waking me up to say “Hey, your article needs an imge corrected” or “Can you rework piece X?”

However, the problem is my friends have decided I’m not actually sleeping, and just being a lazy butt that hasn’t changed his status.  I have been woken up several mornings now, well before my alarm going off, to “Hey, Sean, are you asleep?”… No, my status message says that for fun… My answers are usually the Internet equivalent of a grunt, and then they continue to talk since I am obviously awake… YOU WOKE ME UP!

I have spoken all the friends who have done this, and vowed not to repeat their transgressions, but it got me to thinking about other things, such as are we TOO connected now?  It’s nice to be able to log in once in awhile to check on things, but with all of the abilities to stay connected now, it’s like I lways have a tether on my leg.

Yes, I realize I could just turn it off, but I feel with the international flavor of my bosses, I have made the right choice to let them get a hold of me.  Now if I could just get all of my friends to believe my status message a bit more so I could get some sleep!  It’s the Internet folks, I would assume you know how to read!

(and, as a note to the few who have done it, we’ve talked and you know I’m not THAT annoyed… just slightly)

Well, it looks like it’s all over.  The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) didn’t get exactly what they wanted the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP), but close enough.

So, when do you get new TV shows?  The Watch With Kristin column over at E! has a huge list done show-by-show, but basically, expect sitcoms back in mid-March, and dramas sometime in April.  Some of the most interesting tidbits is no 24 this year as it’s just too late, Heroes is done for this season, as is Pushing Daisies.

In other words, it’s a blasted mess.  Watch your guides closely for what’s new and what’s not.

All I can say is that at least the writers are getting some of the money they deserve.

Wow… this could get ugly, and fast.

Yahoo has officially rejected the offer from Microsoft.

“After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments. The Board of Directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders.”

Excuse me? Microsoft undervalued Yahoo? THEY OFFERED A 62% PREMIUM ABOVE THE CLOSING PRICE! If any one has “undervalued” Yahoo, it’s the stock market, not Microsoft. I still don’t see the point to this merger, personally, but it’s obvious that Microsoft wants them, and the maker of Windows said some fairly ominous things in their reply.

“It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.

We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.

A Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. Furthermore, the combination will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.

The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.”

I think it’s pretty obvious that Microsoft is going to go after Yahoo in any way they can. Why they really want them seems to still be a mystery, but it looks like there is no way they’re giving up until Microhoo! comes to be.