Geek & Technophile

I'm an IT Professional, geek and technology 'edge case'. I enjoy keeping up with the latest devices, technologies and news in the IT world. On this site I post some of those things I find most interesting. I hope you find them interesting as well.


Twitter: ""

November 17 2008

TiVo Pizza, Slydial, FireFox 3.1 Tearing

Here are some interesting links from today:

  • TiVo, Domino’s team up to make us all fat
    Here's the deal: when a Domino's ad or product placement shows up, TiVo users can click through with their remote controls to order pizza, or can access an on-demand ordering screen through a TiVo menu. It's similar in theory to the deals that TiVo has with Fandango for movie ticket ordering or with Amazon.com for ordering products related to TV shows, except that you get a pizza.
  • Slydial Makes It Even Easier To Avoid Awkward Human Interaction
    a free service that lets you dial any mobile phone number and get directed straight to voicemail. It may sound counterintuitive, but it can be a godsend for avoiding awkward phone conversations – I’ve had it saved in my phone’s ‘Favorites’ menu since the service launched (though I’ve never used it, honest).
  • Firefox 3.1 gets tab tearing
    The latest Firefox 3.1 development release features the announced option for tab tearing: drag a tab out of its current window, and it is removed and opened on a new one, providing a more intuitive way to organize your web browsing.

November 17 2008

Small Biz Websites & USB 3.0

Here are some interesting links from this weekend:

  • 10 rules for your small business home page
    If you're in business and reading this article, chances are your company has a Web site. Before we all go to Web 2.0, does your site measure up to Web 1.0?
  • USB 3.0 to Deliver a Tenfold Speed Increase
    Tighten your seat belts. Data transfer is going into overdrive as the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus, better known as USB, prepares to make a tenfold jump in speed.

    That means the vast sea of USB devices — from HD camcorders to hard drives and music players — will be able to transfer music, video, photos and other data much, much more quickly.

November 15 2008

iPhone for Business

  • Businesses warming up to the iPhone
    the iPhone is making a guerrilla attack on the business world, brought into the corporate world by influential executives, CIOs rethinking their approach to deploying technology, and younger workers who move seamlessly between their personal and business lives.

    There are several high-profile businesses, such as Genentech and Disney (both with strong ties to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, of course), that have declared their intentions to work with Apple on deploying iPhones inside their corporations. That seems to be having the effect of increasing the overall number of business smartphone users, however, rather than turning the iPhone into any kind of "BlackBerry killer."

November 13 2008

TroopTube, Office Live, Wordpress Optimization

Here are some interesting links from today:

  • Military launches video-sharing site for troops
    After banning YouTube and other social Web sites on all overseas computers in May, citing bandwidth and security issues, the U.S. military on Tuesday launched an alternative video-sharing Web site for troops, their families, and supporters.The new site is called TroopTube and has a look and function very much like YouTube, with one major difference: a Pentagon employee screens each video upload for taste, copyright violations and national security issues.
  • Next version of Office heads to the browser
    Microsoft will offer browser-based Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in two ways. For consumers, they will be offered via Microsoft’s Office Live Web site, while businesses will be able to offer browser-based Office capabilities through Microsoft’s SharePoint Server product.The company has been pushed into this arena by Google, which has been offering its free Google Apps programs for some time. In competing with Google, Microsoft is touting the ability to use Microsoft’s familiar user interface, as well as the fact that all of the document’s characteristics are preserved.
  • 10 Best Tips for WordPress Optimization
    This WordPress optimization guide is a collection of useful tips and tutorials on how to speed up your WordPress site.

November 12 2008

DVD’s & Internet Addiction

Here are some interesting links from today:

  • Burn almost any video file to a playable DVD
    Putting any old video file – like the DivX/Xvid-encoded videos you’ve downloaded with BitTorrent – onto a DVD to play on your TV can be a daunting task. There’s plenty of software that tackles this sort of thing for a price, but as a lover of open source software, free’s always my first choice.Luckily for all of us, authoring playable DVDs from just about any video file has gotten a lot easier in the open source community. This week I’m going to show you how to burn those downloaded TV shows to a DVD you can play in your living room using the free (as in speech), open source application, DVD Flick.
  • Chinese Doctors Officially Classify Symptoms of Internet Addiction
    The Beijing Health Ministry is soon to adopt “internet addiction” as a disorder along with compulsive gambling and alcoholism in the official diagnostic manual. Doctor Tao Ran, who treats sufferers at Beijing’s Military General Hospital, says the threshold is around six hours a day and one of the following symptoms in the past three months: “yearning to get back online, mental or physical distress, irritation and difficulty concentrating or sleeping.” So, um, yeah, I’m addicted, along with ten percent of users under eighteen in China, according to a study cited by a state official.