Google?

Google Search - Check
Google Mail - Check
Google Calendar - Check
Google Docs - Check
Google Photos (Picasa) - Check
Google Reader - Check
Google Blogs (Blogger/Blogspot) - Check (http://mad-hacker.blogspot.com/)
Google Analytics - Check
Google AdSense - Check
Google Contacts - Check
Google Maps - Check
Google Music Beta - Check
Google Talk - Check
Google Tasks - Check
Google Voice - Check
Youtube - Check
Google Chrome - Check
Google Android - Check
Google cr48/Chromebook - NOT CHECKED!!!!!
        - All I need is one of these suckers that is cheap enough, with a cheap and plentiful data plan and I'll be living in the clouds.

Google Music Beta

A couple of weeks ago I recived my invite to Google Music Beta. Then sat on it until today when I decided, let the uploading commence! Now the big wait as my 12k+ library is uploaded, which is approx. 90GB in size. With my upstream rate of 4Mbps it should take about a week..................or two to fully upload all of my music. Hopefully my ISP doesn't shut me down in the process. Stay tuned for a review.

If you want to know a little more while my music is uploading go here.

What Is Dudeism?

As many of you may not know, I am a Ordained Dudeist Priest. No not the kind you are thinking of, you sick creeper, I mean the kind where we "take it easy" and "abide". Let me tell share with you a little more about it.


"While Dudeism in its official form has been organized as a religion only recently, it has existed down through the ages in one form or another. Probably the earliest form of Dudeism was the original form of Chinese Taoism, before it went all weird with magic tricks and body fluids. The originator of Taoism, Lao Tzu, basically said "smoke ‘em if you got ‘em" and "mellow out, man" although he said this in ancient Chinese so something may have been lost in the translation."   ~ [via dudeism.com]


Still with me, good... want more... awesome. Read more here, it will tie it all togeather.




The Final Storm abides.......

Samsung Galaxy Indulge Headphone Fix

Letting anyone with a Galaxy Indulge know that: even though your headphone jack may seem to be broken, it is not! If you can see even a little bit of your headphone connector sticking out, it's not in all the way. It requires a little bit of force to get it fully in there, and you will actually hear a "click".

I thought I had some broken hardware on my hands until I discovered this. Hope it helps someone.

Full review coming soon!

Paul Baran, Founding Father of the Internet, Dies at 84

The reason you're reading this right now is in part because of Paul Baran, one of the pioneers of the modern day Internet. Baran was born on April 29, 1926 in Poland before his family relocated to Philadelphia in 1928. He passed away over the weekend at the age of 84 due to complications arising from lung cancer, and though he will be missed, his legacy lives on every time you hop online.
In 1959, Baran received his Masters degree in engineering from UCLA and immediately began work at RAND Corporation. It was there that he and two others came up with the idea of packaging data into discrete bundles called "message blocks" to be sent around a network in a system known as "packet switching."
According to The New York Times, Baran's big idea was to build a distributed communications network, one that would be nearly impervious to disruption because it would contain redundant routes for messages if a particular path failed or was destroyed. He approached AT&T with the idea in the mid-1960s but was told his system would not work.
Not only would his idea work, but the government proved it in 1969 when it built the Arpanet, essentially an early version of the Internet based on Baran's ideas. Even today, the Internet is still based in part on packet switching.

You can read much more about this brilliant man here.

via Maximum PC [Paul Lilly]

Podcast coming soon!!!!

Great news!!! Bxtreme and I (Final Storm) are starting a podcast. We will be covering everything tech and trendy, and of course some hacks. It will be a monthly podcast being released at the first of every month, starting sometime in 2011. Sorry for the exact first release date, we are still in the starting stages; getting the website up, setting up our machines to actually do the podcast, and laying down a set format of the podcast. As for the name, we are throwing a few ideas around, but nothing is set in stone. Can't wait to start, and any feedback will be taken with serious consideration.

15 best Android tablets in the world

If you're looking for a tablet and don't fancy an iPad, then Android is the way to go: while Windows tablets are on the horizon, Android ones are here, they work and they've usually been tweaked to include finger-friendly interfaces too.

We've gone from zero Android tablets to stacks of the things in a very short space of time, and inevitably some are better than others.

via http://www.techradar.com [Gary Marshall]

Movies: 3D Hype

3D technology has been around for a fairly long time. Sure, it's not "true" 3D, but it certainly is amusing to an extent. What I mean by this, is the 3D technology used in movies is simply a way of tricking your brain into thinking your seeing something on more than two plains.

Enough what 3D really is, how about its application? In my oppinion, 3D really has not done much justice to movies. There are two reasons for this: technology and the way it's used. The technology itself is a bit under-developed. Have you ever watched a 3D movie and felt dizzy? Or did your eyes become blurry after watching a full 3D movie?

I think that it's rediculous that someone would use this technology while trying to relax and be entertained while watching a movie. Being entertained (wheather it be from movies or games) should be fun and not painful/uncomfortable.

However, the technologies' limitations are not the only problem with 3D. It's the way 3D is being used that really irritates me. Directors use 3D to pull off cheap "stunts" that they seem to think are entertaining. I'm talking about your classic, "actor throws dagger through the screen" type of stunt. Sure it's kind of cool and can sometimes be used to shock the audience if done correctly, but this is SO OVERUSED. It's incredible how many times this is used. It seems like (for some movies), this is the only reason 3D was used for in the first place.

I think 3D should be used to emmerse the viewers into the movie experience and should not be used soley for shock-value. Some movie do this correctly, and I am so happy they are out there! One such example is TRON. You can have your oppinion on the movie itself, but the 3D in the movie wasn't used for cheap gags like they were in movies I had seen previous to TRON. Also, I think its only fair to mention that TRON was my first 3D movie since My Bloody Valentine 3D. The reason is that the movie left such a bad impression of 3D movies on me, that I didn't think 3D was really worth seeing anymore.

There is still hope! The concept of 3D entertainment is now going beyond stereoscopic techniques. The Nintendo 3DS is using "lenticular" lenses as a way of providing stereoscopic 3D results. But will this still hurt my eyes? Not entirely sure yet, but it's a nice step in the right direction by providing 3D effects without the glasses!

Here are my final thoughts. 3D today can be used by a director to enhance movie watching. But many times, 3D is just abused and makes a movie's effects cheesy. But maybe this is your thing! Your only a sucker for paying for 3D movies if you keep watching them and your always disappointed. It's not for everyone yet, and for good reason. I do think that 3D has a future in movies, as well as other forms of media/entertainment. The 3DS is one such example. It definitely gives me glint of hope for the future 3D technology.

Zorin OS 4

Many people coming from Windows try Ubuntu Linux as their first Linux distribution. But Ubuntu itself, while very good, may not always be the best choice. There are many Ubuntu derivatives and it’s possible that one of those can sometimes be a better bet for those seeking to ease their way into a comfortable Linux niche. Zorin OS is an Ubuntu derivative designed to help make the transition from Windows to Linux as easy as possible.

via desktoplinuxreviews.com [Jim Lynch]

How to Recover From an Email Disaster

We've all done it before: hit the wrong button or pressed "send" too early and dispatched an email with disastrous results. Here are the most common gaffes and what to do the next time your electronic correspondence lands you in the doghouse.


via gawker.com [Brian Moylan]

Does IPv6 Even Work?

With the free pool of IPv4 address space now exhausted, transitioning to IPv6 is set to become increasingly important. IPv6, however, isn't without its own set of challenges; and implementing it isn't as easy as simply flipping a switch.

via enterprisenetworkingplanet.com [Sean Michael Kerner]

Apple Keeps Android Tablets at Bay with the iPad2

The iPad 2 isn't a "magical" update of the iPad, but it's an incremental update that's good enough to keep Apple on top of the tablet market for another year. Sad panda for Android.


via Linux-Mag.com [Joe Brockmeier]