FedEx Employee Throws Monitor Over Fence

I saw this video clip on the morning news and couldn't believe what I saw. The FedEx Employee just tossed the poor guys monitor over the fence. I then looked the video up on YouTube and found the one the owner of the screen uploaded. Turns on the man was home and all the FedEx guy had to do was right the door bell and the owner would have been right out. Now he has to return the damaged screen and wait for a replacement all due to this lazy employee. Here, watch the video with over 2 million views yourself.

Battlefield 3 Stat Graphics!

I found this amazing website that has custom banners and graphics for any Battlefield 3 soldier! I added one to the footer of this blog for my player! Get yours right here: bf3stats.com

The site also lets you manage custom leader boards so that you can compete with your friends! The best part is that this is all free and it's AMAZING!

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Nerd turkey

Here is the Nerd turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/ynug37

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Astronaut Turkey

Here is the Astronaut Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/my24pw

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Old Chap Turkey

Here is the Old Chap Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/tpk63z

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Pirate Turkey

Here is the Pirate Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/7gmtj5

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Surfer Dude Turkey

Here is the Surfer Dude Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/nxjnga

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Wizard Turkey

Here is the Wizard Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/y4rs2x

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Disco Turkey

Here is the Disco Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/zskwej

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Skiing Turkey

Here is the Skiing Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/nj8q4p

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - ToFurkey

Here is the ToFurkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/68gtgj

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Football Turkey

Here is the Football Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/gxkgjz

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Princess Turkey

Here is the Princess Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/eaxjuv

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Turkey On A Bike

Here is the turkey on the bike Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/enz2bt

Making a RAM Disk - Turning RAM into a Hard Drive!

I was browsing around the Internet, as I spend most of my time, and I discovered the idea of a RAM disk. A RAM disk a section of your computers RAM that, through software, is being accessed as if it were a disk drive. The benefit of this is the increase in speed RAM can provide over a hard drive.

To do this I needed some software and after a few quick Google searches I can across a program called RAMDisk from DataRam.com. Their free version of the program allows for up to 4GB of RAM to be assigned as a drive letter on your computer. Now currently in my computer I only have 4GB of RAM so this program would work for me just find.

The program was very easy to set up. After downloading and installing it I launched it and selected the size of the drive I wanted to create and then I selected why type of formatting I wanted. After that I created my RAM disk and was able to access it in Windows Explorer.

DiskRAM - Making a 1GB RAM Drive

1GB RAM Drive

The speeds of the drive were very impressive. I used a free program called CrystalDiskMark to speed test the sequential read and write speeds of the drive. I was getting speed results of around 2.4GB/s. Which is well over the average of 76MB/s I was getting with my SATA II hard drive.

SATA II Hard Drive Sequential Read/Write Speeds

RAMDisk Drive Sequential Read/Write Speeds

This software also has many neat features like saving the RAM drive to your hard drive when you turn off the computer and loading it back when you turn it on. This is some great software and I am happy to have such a fast RAM Drive! Now to get more RAM, XD.

Test Your Hard Drive Speed

For a few day I thought that my hard drive was under performing. I just didn't that the loading screens on BF3 should have taken that long. In search for an answer I found this great free program that would test the data transfer speeds of your hard drives! CrystalDiskMark

SATA II results from CrystalDiskMark

EA Origin Customer Support Sucks

Recently I was having some problems getting Battlefield to play correctly in full screen. I kept getting some strange errors about an unknown Direct X error. I tried a few things but still couldn't get it to work. So I finally decided to give EA a shout. This how the conversation went...

"
You are now ready to chat with Ajay.
you:
Hello
you:
When I try to play Battlefield 3 in full screen on a 1080p monitor I receive a DirectX Error.
Ajay:
Hi there.
Ajay:
Thank you for the clarifiation.
Ajay:
Let me look into this issue.
you:
Here is a screen shot of the error if it would help - http://bit.ly/TNA-001
Ajay:
Thank you for the information.
Ajay:
I appreciate your patience.
Ajay:
The issue you are facing is due to direct x installed on your computer not being upated.
Ajay:
For this issue you are suggested to contact to Microsoft support at http://support.microsoft.com/
The chat session has ended. Please contact us again if you need further help.
Chat session has ended.
"

All he did was say get lost and see IF Microsoft can help you. I have never seen such horible support. He doesn;t even say bye or anything, just get lost and ends the chat.

Oh well, I was able to ask some of my friends for help and they were able to help me solve the problem.

Siri For Android

As many of you probably already know the iPhone 4s has recently been released. Once of its biggest feature is Siri. If you do not know already, Siri is a digital assistant right on your phone. You can verbally ask it questions like; "How is the weather?" "What is the time in London?" Etc. It will respond in a female voice with your answers.

Android has had a feature like this already built in since Android 2.2 but it is very limited. True Knowledge has release an app in the Android market called Iris. (Anyone see something Internet about the name of the app, XD) Iris is currently only in alpha testing so it doesn't work very well but it is free. I was able to ask it questions like: What is the weather in Chicago, Illinois? Who is Bill Gates? I was also able to use it to place calls and send text messages.

For the most part it worked well but it still needs a lot of work. For example; Sometimes when I asked it just; What is the weather? It returned the title of a book. Is I say what is the temperature it just says cold, I must say what is the EXACT temperature for a number.

With time I think that this app could go somewhere, it would be cool so have an assistant right in my pocket to add reminders and events to my calenders and do all sorts of things. Hopefully in time this app will get even better.

15% Off Battlefield 3 PC - Limited Edition on Amazon!

I recently played the open beta of Battlefield 3 and it was just amazing. I am not much of a video game player but this was just amazing. I figured that I would buy the game for $60 once it comes out but then I found this link on Amazon for just 30% off the retail price! So now I can just pre-order it for $41.99! Note that this is for PC!
Use the following link to check it out! Battlefield 3 Limited Edition Pre-Order 30% Off!

UPDATE: It is now only 15% off. That's $50.99

Phantom of the Floppera - Floppy Music

Remember the old floppy squares we used to store our 1.44MB of data on? Has anyone had the wonderful experience of installing Windows 95 on a computer with floppies? Well I have and it's not much fun... Especially when one of the floppies goes bad...

Now I have found an even better use for these obsolete disks we probably all have laying around, make a musical instrument out of them! Check out these two YouTube videos I found!

So which one did you like more? Let me know in the comments!

How To Troll

If you spend much time on the Internet you have probably heard or seem the results of a troll. You know, those people on the Internet that are just looking to cause problems? Or as Urban Dictionary puts it,

"One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument"

Now one may ask, why would someone want to be a troll? Well it's simple, it can be a lot of fun to see people go crazy from your small actions! So during my surfing yesterday I stumbled upon this very well written image. I thought it described methods of trolling and the mindset of a troll so well that I just had to share it with all of you. My favorite is step two, it's so true.

I hope that you found this as useful as I have, sometimes it's fun to troll; just be careful not to take it too far!

Steve Jobs dies at age 56

Late on Wednesday, Apple released the news that co-founder Steve Jobs had passed away.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," Apple's Board of Directors said Wednesday in a statement.

Apple put this webpage up on their website for him. http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

This news comes soon after Steve resigned as the CEO of Apple. It appears that he was in fact very ill. Steve Jobs had been fighting a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

Steve Jobs will now be remembered as the man behind the iPod, and most importantly the iPhone. Although I was never a big fan of Apple, I still feel sorry for this loss.

Facebook Adds Some Features

Facebook has made some updates to their website. It only makes sense that they make this changes with more competition from Twitter and Google+ threatening their company.

This morning I checked my Facebook as I usually did and I was greeted by a large amount of messages point out the new features that had been rolled out over night. Below are some of the new features!

Portal Full Version Free On Steam Until September 20th!

A long time ago when Portal first came out it was free to download. That was my first Steam game ever. I still have it installed but it's on its own account all by itself. I wanted to also have Portal on my main Steam account so now I can because I just downloaded it for free!

From now until September 20th, you will be able to download the full version of the original Portal game to your Steam account! Isn't that just awesome! You can follow this link to Download Portal For Free!

Enjoy!

Manage Assignments with Homework for Android

This is my first year at highschool with a smart phone and I wanted to take advantage of that. In past years I have used Assignment Notebooks that I would purchase from the school to keep track of any homework that I might have due.

To take advantage of my phone my friend found an app in the Android Market called "Homework." This amazing FREE app allows me to organize all of my homework in one location.

I can add assignments and upcoming exams after each class and then use the widget on my home screen to see what I have due and when it is do as well as check it off once it is done.

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Virgin Mobile Phone Replacement Finally Arrived.

If you haven't heard yet from my previous blog posts I have had some difficulty with my new LG Optimus V smart phone from Virgin Mobile since the fist day that I got it. It for some reason just would not charge properly. i would plug it in at night and the next morning the battery would be completely dead. It just would not charge properly.

What Do You Do When You Are Bored?

I don't know why but I have never been this bored before. At least this gives me an excuse to write for this blog. I usually have something up my sleeve to do but I just don't this time. I guess I could go and watch some YouTube but that just doesn't seem very interesting considering I have been doing for the past three months day after day. Summer is coming to an end and school will be starting up again. It will be interesting to be an upperclassmen this year. (I'm a Junior) I signed up for a Computer repair class but will probably end up teaching it. Anyway... What do you do when you are bored?

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Just Got My Driving Permit!

I may be a little behind the others in my class being that I just got my permit when they already have their license but I really don't care. I just don't see what the big rush to drive is. The farthest I usually go from home is the mailbox on your average day. Yes I know that sounds bad but what else am I supposed to do? I'm a geek that sits at his computer all day. Once school starts I will be taking drivers ed. It should be fun to see how many mail boxes I can take down! :)

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How To View A Forum That Requires You To Sign Up.

Have you ever been searching for something on Google and when you think you have found a relevant search result you click on it and it's a forum that wants you to create an account in order to view the topic? Well I have this neat little trick to bypass this.

Create An 800mbps Wireless Network With LEDs?

LED Throwies!

You head that. There is this new technology being developed that would give a wireless network the capability of reaching speeds of 800mbps. That's almost three times as fast as the current wireless network leader, wireless n, with speeds of 300mbps.

The only current problem with this new technology is that the Wireless LED transmitter and receiver would need a clear line of sight in order to function properly. Even with this set back the technology may still be worth something.

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Read Deleted Tweets!

Sometimes people will not be thinking straight and will mistakenly tweet something that they may regret later. What is nice is that Twitter has a delete tweet feature meant for these situations. Unfortunately the deleting of the tweet will be useless due Undetweetable.

It's Legal To Make Copies of a DVD or CD in Britain!

It is awesome that someone finally gets the idea! It is claimed that Britain has made it legal to copy CDs and DVDs. This does not allow the copying of these materials for resale but instead for back-up and other personal uses.

It also allows the use of copyright materials in parody's and other similar material without the need to get copyright permission.

Although this is now legal in Britain and not legal in the United States I don;t think that rules like these stop anyone anywhere from making personal back-up copies of DVDs and CDs. They do get scratched up fairly easily.

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Power Your House With Your Car!

Nissan's Electric Leaf car now has this neat new feature called a two way charger that allows you to power devices and even your house from the batteries inside of your car!

The idea for this originated in Fukushima due to the disaster that has recently occurred there with their power plants. It is said that this new charging device for the Nissan Leaf could actually power a household for two days with its 24 kilowatt/hour battery.

This is a neat great idea! It's almost like siphoning gas out of your car's gas tank to power a small generator except it's simpler and easier for the everyday person to do!

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Find your lost, stolen, or misplaced phone! - Find My Phone

Have you ever lost your phone? I have. It happens. With this neat app I just installed from the Android app store you can send your lost cell phone a text message and it will automatically respond with its location and a link to a relative location in Google Maps.

Virgin Mobile Punishes Customers For Company Mistakes.

So as you may already know I have been going through much trouble with my new LG Optimus V cell phone from Virgin Mobile. We have been going through trial and error trying to figure out what the exact problem is. After a month of having, and paying service for, a defective cell phone they have come to the conclusion that the phone needs to be replaced.

The Pirate Bay Is Down - July 2011

So I heard that The Pirate Bay is down. I am not sure why but you should all know that it's not just you.

Someone probably tripped over a power cable or something. They should be back up soon. I'll let you all know what I find out! Just use the social network links in the right sidebar to follow for updates!

UPDATE: Looks like The Pirate Bay is back online!

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Juice Defender Crashed My LG Optimus Launcher

The LG Optimus V doesn't have very good battery life. I was already doing what I could to try and prolong the life of the battery. I had finally came to the conclusion that it was time to let an app conserve my battery power.

I had read around online and found Juice Defender. I downloaded the ultimate version of it and it was working perfectly. I was already noticing slightly more battery life before I had to recharge it. Last night I turned the phone off as I always. This morning I turned on the phone and the home screen launcher would continuoisly crash rendering the phone useless.

To fix this I turned on my phone, went to the android market on my laptop, and downloaded and installed launcher pro. This allowed me to use a different home screen launcher on my phone. Once usinging Launcher pro I wanted my old launcher back that I had gotten use to. To get it back I un-installed Juice Defender and everything started to work normally again!

Let's hope that my phone continues to work and that Juice Defender will fix this problem on the LG Optimus V.

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Happy Birthday Twitter!

Today, July 15 2011, marks the fifth year since Twitter was first opened to the public. It was originally called Twttr inspired by Flickr. The original idea behind Twitter was a SMS driven social network. It was designed to be mainly operated through plain 140 character text messages.

On July 15, 2006 there were 244 tweets sent in the entire day. That is the total that is sent in one tenth of a second today. The website took 16 months to get to 600,000 users. Now that's how many people sign up on an average day.

This was the original blueprint for Twttr  that was drawn by Jack Dorsey.

Twitter Facts

• Twitter was originally called Twttr after Flickr. This was because it was originally designed to be used through cell phone with a 5 digit American SMS short code.
• The first Twitter Message was published by Jack Dorsey. It said, "just setting up my twttr"
• Twitter made not a single dime in profit for the first three years of its operation. 
• Twitter means "a short burst of inconsequential information"
• An average of 150 million tweets are send per day.

 

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How To Take A Screen Shot On Android Optimus V

I was searching for an easy way to do this. I had found a method which required me to download and install an Android SDK and have my phone connected to my computer in order for it to work.
So this new way to do it is with a very small app from the Android market called "Shoot Me"
The description of the app says that it requires the phone to be rooted but I was able to take screen shots on my LG Optimds V with no problems.
So try this on your phone and let me know how it works!

--

Another handy tool is this Android VNC Server. You can remote control your phone wherever you are!

Clearly English Isn't His First Language - Virgin Mobile Customer Support

I have been in contact with Virgin Mobile about my new cell phone recently. This is because I received a broken charger with it and they said that they would send me a replacement overnight. Well it has been about a week and this is their response.

Hi Andy,


   I've apologize at this time your orders still stuck in submitted status will contact the wwarehouse via email to see of the chargers backorder..

Teareney F.
Social Media Team

That was their exact response. You would think that they could at least spell check their e-mails before sending them...

I just want my charger. I will be leaving on vacation soon and would really like to not have to plug my phone into my laptop every time I would like to charge it.

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Bad Power Adapter - Android LG Optimus V

My new Virgin Mobile LG Optimus V Android phone has recently stopped charging. It was strange because I would plug the phone with the provided USB cable into the provided wall charging unit and it would start to charge. Then minutes later if you show the phone not charging but the battery widget I use said that the phone was still plugged into the wall. So I am not sure what exactly is going on.

I tried the phone on my computer and it charged just fine. So I tried using a spare wall wort usb charger that I had for an old mp3 player and it's charging just fine. The only problem now is that it takes forever to charge. This is probably because the original LG charger had an output of 5.1 volts at 700mA and my old charger just has an output of 5v at 600mA. It isn't much but when you factor in the total output wattage you are looking at a .57 difference in watts. I guess that could be enough to cause slow charging...

Anyway I am currently sending emails back and forth with someone somewhere with virgin mobile. I hope that they can send me a replacement by the end of the week because I will be going on a trip next week and I would like to have a charger that I can rely on.

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MSI 870A-G55 Gaming Series Motherboard Review

My new computer had this great motherboard inside of it. So far I have had no problems with it. It provides fast speeds, easy overclocking, and some neat features. The board was also not very expensive. I only spent about $90 at Newegg and it also had a rebate but I didn't want to go and star ripping the UPC off of the box.

Google Takeout - A Quick Way To Take Your Data With You

Google has just launched "Takeout." No this is not a fast food division but a fast data application. This new feature allows you to download everything that you have uploaded and inputted into Google applications. With Google Takeout you can download your contacts, Picasa photos, and your profile information all with a few clicks of a button.

This is a great new feature. It should hopefully help Google's new social network to gain the trust of it's users. It would allow them to download all of their personal information and then be able to close their account. This is a large benefit in comparison to Facebook. As we all know Facebook puts on an attitude that once you upload personal information and documents to Facebook server's; it's theirs and you are never getting it back. With Google Takeout you have the assurance that you can access all of the information you have shared and remove your Google identity from the Internet.

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iPhone and Android Binary Wallpaper

Someone recently requested that they would love to have the background of my blog on their phone as a wallpaper. Well since I have nothing better to do, here it is! You may download it for your iPhone device and your Android device!

Download

• Android (Mirror)
• iPhone (Mirror)
• Original (Mirror)

[Due to recent filesharing sites getting shut down these links have gone bad. I will be replacing them very soon, just bookmark this page and check back in a few days and I should have them updated by then. Thanks! 3-3-2012]

If any of these links go bad, I'm sure they will, just please leave me a comment, bookmark this page, and come back within 24 hours and I should have the link all fixed up! You can also contact me on Twitter and Facebook if you have any problems! Thanks!

Get An Invite To Google+

I just got invited to Google+ and now would like to share the love with all of you!

So if you would like an invite please like MyTeenTechBlog on Facebook or Twitter then complete the form below! Note: Please be sure to use the Google Form link at the bottom the this post to submit your e-mail. Please do not use the comments section for emails. Thanks!



Follow @MTTechBlog


Click here after following MyTeenTechBlog to submit your email.

Update: Google has closed invites for now. I will let you know if it re-opens. You may continue to submit emails using the form above and I will just add them later when they open it again.

Update Two: It appears that the invites are once again open. There may be a limit as to how many I can send but I will continue to share Google+ with everyone. So just follow the steps above and I will invite you to Google+!

DO NOT POST E-MAILS IN COMMENTS PLEASE. USE STEPS ABOVE! THANKS!

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Google Changes Their Look - New June 2011 Interface

Google has just updated their search engine and website design. They have made a few new changes to the homepage and the search results.

Before the change search results had the url under the result. Everything is was very simple and plain. Now they have a new theme with more color. The also have the URL directly under the title. In my opinion I like this new look much more!

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Google Launches Social Network - Google+

Google launched their new social networking addition to their website. It is called Google+. Although currently in invite only beta testing it still looks very interesting. This is the latest attempt on attacking the social networking buisness. Social networking is a largee part of society on the Internet and Google just said, "It's On."

Apple Sucks. Stupid iTouch needs to be restored.

For no reason my iTouch decides that it would be a good time to freeze up and make me redo the firmware. Great. I was just browsing in Safari and then the stupid device decided to turn off and reboot with the stupid "Connect to iTunes" screen.

So now I am sitting here waiting for the over sized bloatware to download. I also just realized that I have no recent back-ups of my iPod. These means that all of my settings, contacts, notes, and all my personal information is GONE. Thanks a lot Apple.

Ohh well, at least I just got a new smart phone running ANDROID! SCREW YOU iOS!

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Team Fortress 2 Is Now Free!

Team Fortress 2 Is Now Free In Steam! I actually have not played this game. I am not much of a gamer but I do enjoy playing around once and a while. I just heard that Team Fortress Two is now free so I am currently downloading a copy. Too bad it's like 8GB... AT&T really needs to provide some better Internet speeds where I live. Here is a video of the game that I found on YouTube! Looks like fun!

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LG Optimus V - Pre-Paid Virgin Mobile Android Smartphone Review

LG Optimus V

I recently purchased the Virgin Mobile LG Optimus V Android Smart phone. Overall I am enjoying it very much. It's a good solid smart phone. Especially considering that it's a pre-paid phone. I am under the age of 18 which means that I can not get a contract phone. Yes I know I could ask my parents but this is just easier and simpler for all of us.

 
So this phone is running Android 2.2 which, as my first Android device, is AMAZING! I have only owned it for about a week and I already know that it's a much better platform then iOS on my iPod Touch. It just has more customization. Also, it's Google, so you know it's good.

Dropbox Leaves Accounts Unsecured For Hours!

So on June 20th Dropbox made a little mistake. They unknowingly left some of their user account unsecured. This meant that for a few hours that day anyone could log onto someones account and all they would need to know is their email. They could log in with any password.

This bug was live on the Internet for four hours. That's a lot of time for personal accounts information to be at such a risk. It doesn't make sense how such a large and fast growing company can make such a serious mistake.

This is what Dropbox released on their blog.

Hi Dropboxers,
Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom could have logged into an account without the correct password. As a precaution, we ended all logged in sessions.
We’re conducting a thorough investigation of related activity to understand whether any accounts were improperly accessed. If we identify any specific instances of unusual activity, we’ll immediately notify the account owner. If you’re concerned about any activity that has occurred in your account, you can contact us at support@dropbox.com.
This should never have happened. We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again.
-Arash

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New Domain Names! ICANN allows the purchase of custom top level domains

ICANN, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Which manages the Internets top level domains, has released news that they will be alllowing the purchase of custom top level domains. For those of you that don;t know what a top level domain is, it's the few letters that follow the url and the "." - for example ".com" ".org" ".gov"

At the moment ICANN regulates the TLD's that can be used. They are the ones you see every day. Now they are going to allow companies to purchase their own top level domain. So let's say "money" bank wanted a new domain name. They could purchase money.bank and when people went to money.bank in their web browser they would be able to visit the company's website.

This is an interesting idea but it's just going to lead to more confusion on the Internet. Sometimes it's already hard to remember if a website is going to be website.com - website.org - website.us - website.ly - website.info - you get the idea.

The thing that should keep the average person from buying a bunch of custom top level domains is that ICANN is going to put a fee on them. Right now a .com domain can be purchased for under $20 a year. Well if you wanted a custom TLD you would have to dish out an extra $185,000 as an evaluation fee. And then you will have to pay a renewal fee every year in the 200,000 dollar range.

Fortunately this should reduce the amount of spam that is put onto the new TLD's. Without these large fee's the Internet would be an even larger mess.

What do you think? If you had the money what domain would you buy? I would want a ".matrix" domain! :)

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How to hide updates from the App Store on iPhone and iPod Touch

I have a jailbroken device and sometimes there are updates that I just don't want to install. To fix this I found this little tool from Cydia.

The tool is called "Update Hider" and it's available in the default Cydia repositories. Just do a search for it and you will be able to download this amazing tool!

Update Hider from Cydia

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How to Install Custom Firmware CFW on your Sony PSP - Works With All Firmware!

Hello everyone! I spent many hours the other day trying to figure this out. Now that I know exactly how to do it I have composed this guide to show you how you can install custom firmware onto your PSP.

In this guide you will use a Pandora Battery and a Magic Memory Stick to install custom firmware onto your PSP. The Magic Memory Stick can be made using any memory stick you have that is at least 100MB. (I would recommended using a 4GB SanDisk because that's the one I used.) The Pandora Battery you will have to buy. There are guides online showing how you can make your own Pandora Battery out of a regular battery but that still require an additional battery that you may have to buy and once you convert it into a Pandora Battery you can't go back. The Pandora Battery that I ordered only cost about $8 with free shipping and it has a switch so that I can use it as a Pandora Battery and as a regular battery.

OK, So let's get started!

Apple Sued by iCloud because of iCloud

Apple's iCloud Logo

So you may have already heard about Apple's new "iCloud" that was announced a few weeks ago. To sum it up it was a massive online storage idea. Well now a company that has trademarked the iCloud title is suing Apple for trademark infringement.

iCloud Communications Logo

iCloud Communications is stating that everyone will now relate iCloud to Apple and not to their company which will greatly hurt their business. So iCloud Communications has asked apple to destroy

"all labels, signs, prints, insignia, letterhead, brochures, business cards, invoices and any other written or recorded material or advertisements" that use the iCloud name.

So we will see how this turns out. Apple is always stealing, but shouldn't iCloud Communications have know that putting "i" in front of their name would cause almost everyone to instantly think about Apple? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Installous Is Down! June 2011

I am not sure on the exact details but it sounds like many people are having this problem. I did a Twitter search for "Installous" and it sounds like many people are having the same problem. It's just probably some server downtime. They will hopefully be back soon.

I also checked out their website and that's not working either. Cydia also says that it can not reach the Installous website either. Check back to this post later to find out when Installous is back online. I will post updated to this blog, My Twitter, and My Facebook page.

UPDATE: Installous is still down as of June 16 at 3 PM EDT, 4 PM MDT, 5PM CDT, 6 PM EDT. I have not been able to find anymore information as to what is going on other then many other people are also having the same problem. Remember, follow My Twitter, My Facebook, and this blog for updates!

UPDATE  2: Installous IS BACK! Their website and app are now working as of 5:30 PM CDT

Pandora goes public!

This really doesn't apply to me but i thought that it was Interesting that Pandora thought that it was time to go public. They now have a stock that you can buy shares of.

The Pandora company has really become popular. I wonder what kind of effect it will have on the over the air radio. Almost everyone has a smartphone with some kind of Internet connection. So instead of running up the radio they can just launch Pandora and get music catered for them.

On the subject of listing to Pandora while in your car, know what would be cool? If more cards started to just have Pandora built in. You have your FM1, FM2, and AM buttons on the radio; well now they should start to include a Pandora button. That would be cool!

Anyway, if you would like to check out the Pandora stocks their stock symbol on the NYSE is "P". You can check them out on Google Finance.

7-ZIP The Best Open Source Archive Manager!

Today I bring to you 7-Zip! I recently, about a month ago, started to use 7-Zip as my archive manager. I am always downloading ".RAR" ".ZIP" ".GZ" ".TAR" ".ETC" and I use to have a program for just about each of those. Now I use 7-Zip. It allows me to manage all of those different types of file archives from one piece of software.

What's interesting about 7-Zip is that it doesn't really have a GUI or a program launcher. It has a file manager but that isn't very effective. What it does have is a right click or shell menu. I can right click on anything and send it to an archive! I love it!

So if you need a good free open source archive manager I would recommended that you take a look into 7-Zip! If you want to grab a copy right now you can use the links below!

Download 7-ZIP

• 7-ZIP 32bit (Mirror)
• 7-ZIP 64bit (Mirror)

Installed Custom Firmware CFW on my PSP!

So I have had this old PSP that I repaired a few months ago. It had a broken screen and a scratched up housing so I replaced the screen and the housing and now it looks like new. It's been sitting on a shelf just collecting dust so I decided that it might be fun to put CFW or Custom Firmware on it.

So I ordered a Pandora battery online for about five bucks and it arrived the other day. It was a cool battery. I read how you could have made your own Pandora battery but that would have still required me to purchase an additional battery so buying a pre-built Pandora battery was the way to go. It also had some cool features. It has a battery indicator on it and it also has a switch so you can actually use it as a regular battery.

Anyway... I got it all downgraded to firmware version 5.00 and installed the CFW! I might make a guide later on explaining how I did this. If you want to know when that guide is published just submit your email in the top right sidebar and you will be notified of any new posts!

Have a great day! :)

Free Angry Birds Game for your computer!

Enjoy playing Angry Birds? I know that I do! It's a fun addictive game! Well now I have a way to play Angry Birds on your computer for free!

Just go to http://chrome.angrybirds.com

The only catch is that you MUST you Chrome web browser. (UPDATE! I just played using Firefox 4!)

Enjoy! If you have any questions leave then in the comments!

AT&T Wifi at Grant Part for Chicago Blues Fest!

So I'm currently the Chicago Blues Fest on my iTouch. I noticed that the park is heated up with a blanket of wifi. The only problem is that the coverage isn't the best. Right now I am in the main park and I am getting full bars and achieving a great 1.5 Mbps!

It's nice that AT&T provides this in Grant Park. I just wish they did a better job heating up the entire park...

Location:Chicago, Grant Park

Setting Up A Primary Domain Controller PDC with Linux eBox

Setting up a Primary Domain Controller couldn't be easier! I was looking for a way to be able to have one logon with the same settings and shared files and folders. I thought that it would be fun to achieve this through a small domain controller that would allow me to log onto a domain vs. a local computer.

Now I could have done this with a windows server but I just don't had the money for that. Also you have to pay a hole lot more if you want anymore the like five clients.

So I researched and found a free open source alternative. It was called eBox, it goes by a different name now but I though eBox was easier to remember.

eBox is basically like a Windows server. Everything is wizard and GUI based. The cool thing is that it runs on a stripped down version of Ubuntu and it's all administered trough a web browser.

So I installed, on VMWare, and chose to set up and office environment server. This allowed mento run a mail server and a PDC server. It now works like a charm. (I hope to later post a how to guide on setting up an eBox server. Just subscribe to email updates in the top right hand margin to be notified of future posts!)

So if you need an easy to configure free alternative to Windows server I would highly recommend an eBox server.

Done With Finals!

I have officially ended my Sophomore year of high school. I just finished my consumers education final with about 50 minutes left. (They don't let you leave early....) The school also decided that it would be a bright idea to turn of the guest wifi account. At least my friend has a new Android phone that he can create a hotspot with!!!

Did I actually brick an iTouch 4th Generation?

Many people jump to the conclusion that they have bricked something and it will never work again. This is because they usually do not have the technological knowledge.

Wikipedia puts it as "In the strictest sense of the term, bricking must imply that software error has rendered the device completely unrecoverable without some hardware replacement"

That states that "bricking" a device means that it will most likely never work again. Most of the time when something goes wrong you can just reset it. That was not the solution with my friends iTouch.

I went to jailbreak it for his as a favor. I have done this to my third generation using GreenPosi0n so I thought that it probably wouldn't be any harder to do with his. I double checked that GreenPosi0n supported the firmware on the iTouch and then I went to jailbreak. I plugged in, entered DFU mode, and clicked Jailbreak. It worked for a while and loaded some code. After about two minutes the program said that the device had been successfully jail broken. I unplugged the device, which had nothing on the screen, from the computer and tried to turn it on. It wouldn't boot.

I was like, ok something went wrong. Restore and try again. I plugged into iTunes to do a full restore. The strange thing was that the device was already in DFU mode. So just to be sure nothing was wrong I help down home and power to completely turn off the device. I then plugged it back into iTunes and again, it was stuck in DFU mode. I was worried. This didn't seen right. 

I just went ahead and let iTunes do its thing, restore the iTouch. Once the restore had completed iTunes said that the device would reboot. The device did but one again iTunes reported it as in DFU mode and nothing would display on the iPods screen.

I went and tried just about every other trick in the book to get the thing fixed, TinyUmbrella recovery fix, etc; but nothing worked. I believed that I had actually bricked the iPod. I asked around on the Internet about what I should do next and they all said that I should try to take it to Apple and get it fixed. I wasn't sure if they would even look at it due to the jail-breaking.

I just gave it back to my friend and told him the situation. He said that he would try to bring it to Apple to see if they could do anything to fix it. I hope that he can get it fixed. It has been a week and I have still not heard from him.

What's the moral of the story here? Apple sucks. XD