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GEEK HUMOR: We've Come A Long Way, Baby.
2007-11-14 16:48:00
Just to prove the good ol' days weren't always better comes this video from CollegeHumor .com.
More About: Baby , Geek , Long

SEARCH: Everything You Know is Wrong...If You're Using Google.
2007-11-08 19:37:00
Take a look at this entry from Download Squad along with the embedded video to understand why your searches on Google  don't always lead where you hope.  I don't know if TrueKnowledge.com will live up to expectations, but it sounds amazing.- Hutch
More About: Search , Wrong

WIKIS: Net Egalitarianism Cuts Both Ways
2007-08-22 03:19:00
People lie on the Interweb.  I know, it's hard to believe.  I can remember when we used to tout the fact that three guys in a coffee shop could create a presence on the web that rivaled Fortune 500 companies.  The Internet was our great equalizer in the world of ideas.  Little did we know that as we quietly sipped our lattes that the big, bad industrial machine would use this very tool against us.  Such is destined to be the legacy of the wiki.  A Wired blog recently reported on how some in government and industry may be using the wisdom of crowds to sabotage what has become a grand experiment in data sharing, specifically, Wikipedia.  While some of those contributing to the so-called WikiWatch may see a conspiracy behind every edit, the obvious abuses by some organizations makes one wonder if the open wiki model can survive....or could it be that some experts might actually believe they know a bit more than rank amateurs?- Hutch
More About: Wikis , Cuts , Alita , Cuts Both Ways

LEARNING: An Army of Uno
2007-08-14 07:08:00
As if our military didn't do enough for us already, now they're out to help us learn the basic phrases we'll need the next time we travel/parachute in to some exotic locale.  Someone say Azerbaijan?  That's right, you can now learn some basic cultural and linguistic information courtesy of the U.S. Army using the Field Support Modules for free.  Go to http://fieldsupport.lingnet.org/ and say all that you can say.- Hutch
More About: Learning , Earning

MAPS: The Earth, Your Way
2007-07-18 23:22:00
Google continues to amaze, especially when it comes to how we view our planet, or our backyard, or our neighbor's pool. Mapping is becoming a big thing for Google. I spend a lot of time mapping, plotting, geocoding, etc. everyday and though I use very specific GIS tools for most of my final products, but I still tend to use Google tools a lot. Google Earth is great, and I love the idea of placing 3D objects from Google SketchUp on our virtual planet. However, I am very late (about 1 week in fact) in reporting that our old friend Google Maps has received yet another face-lift with addition of Google Maps Widgets. Thanks to the openness of Google's API, you can create/use various widgets within Google Maps that take care of a variety of tasks, or supply information. My favorites thus far are Elevation Contours, Wikipedia Mapplet, and Circle Filter. I didn't count all of them today, but I'd guess there are at least 100-150 widgets currently available. So even though Google Ea...

iPHONE: iWant iAnswers Without All the iHype
2007-06-29 20:53:00
If you want answers to all your "Can the iPhone...?" questions you need to read David Pogue's recent article on the subject.  I for one was astounded to learn (and glad I wasn't waiting in line before I found out) that the iPhone cannot serve as a modem for your laptop--at least not yet. - Hutch
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TAXES: Follow the Money
2007-06-18 21:28:00
I don't know where I originally saw this posted (I've looked and looked and can't find the attribution--forgive me), but someone has taken the time to develop a detailed and graphically interesting view of where our tax money actually goes. Now, before any of you wackos out there get all up-in-arms, remember, this chart only applies to those of us who actually PAY taxes (and no, your state sales tax doesn't count). The rest of you freeloading whiners don't need to worry about all this grown-up stuff. - Hutch DEATH AND TAXES: www.budgetgraph.com/posterUPDATE: I finally found my original source - one the blogs from a regional paper (the Tacoma News Tribune) posted it.
More About: Taxes , Money

TECH: Who'll Start the Rain?
2007-06-15 20:29:00
As the wise Mr. Twain once quipped, we all complain about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.  Sadly, the ol' scribe may have now been proven wrong.  Someone has taken Twain's witicism to heart and is using the weather service to report false storms in the Great Lakes/Midwest area.  Evidently the false reports of severe weather are causing a lot of panic--after all, who's really anxious to take a trip to the land of Oz.On the bright side, the reputation of meteorologists hasn't suffered any--no one has really noticed they're any less accurate than before.Ain't technology grand?  Well, of course it is.  The anonymity of the net is a wondrous thing--if you know how to stay anonymous.- HutchSee story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here.
More About: Tech , Rain , Start

MICROSOFT: Dive, Dive, Dive
2007-05-30 17:22:00
If you haven't seen the propaganda videos yet, head off to microsoft.com/surface and watch them.  On the one hand, a touch-sensitive table/monitor has some appeal (and perhaps a niche audience), however, isn't this just a bigger and less maneuverable version of the iphone's touch screen?  I don't know if this will be any more successful than last year's failed Origami project, but it looks interesting initially.  Perhaps Uncle Bill figured that if people weren't interested in micro PCs, they might just love massive monitors.  My final thought: In the end, if you can't tip it up and watch a movie on it, who will use it?- Hutch
More About: Microsoft , Micro , Dive

SCIENCE: Inconvenient Facts
2007-03-20 04:49:00
Is there such a thing as global warming? Perhaps, but it's not what you think it is. Take a look at some of the stuff Uncle Al forgot to put in his Keynote (READ: PowerPoint for Macs) Presentation from this recent BBC documentary: The Global Warming Swindle. Watch out for the human-haters, gate keepers of the new religion, roaming about out there, they don't want you to hear this stuff.Click here for Google Video Search - Hutch
More About: Science , Facts

FRAUD: Journalism, Research and Best-of-Breed E-mails
2007-03-08 20:09:00
I recently read an article from Slate.com regarding their being duped by someone posing as a BMW exec. Was it the Armani suits, expensive lunches, Rolex watches, and (need it be said) BMW that fooled them? No. It was an e-mail address. The article mentions the ol' adage which states, "On the Internet no one knows you're a dog." While that may be true, evidently journalists have difficulty even knowing how to look up basic corporate information (re-read the portion in your journalism textbook on "fact checking"). That pup can come back to bite you. Sure, they come clean in the article, but I find it more than just a bit satisfying when the high-and-mighty media gets taken in one of these scams. Sorry, it's just the blogger in me. I wonder how many more of these we never hear about? Enjoy the article here:http://www.slate.com/id/2063114/ - Hutch P.S. Perhaps the folks at Slate need to start listening to the Security Now podcast on a regular basis.
More About: Mail , Fraud , Research , Journalism , Journal

MEDIA: Who Needs Knives and Spoons?
2007-02-27 02:52:00
I don't know about you, but I've become accustomed to taking my media with me. Now, I haven't yet succumbed to the video iPod yet (that's more my teenage son's style), and when you have a beautiful 17" screen on your MacBook Pro, why not use it? However, that same machine also sucks battery life when you're playing a DVD. Sure, I could copy the files to my hard drive, but who has 4-8 GB handy for every movie they want to take with them? To the rescue comes Media Fork, an offshoot of the likes of Handbrake for Mac/PC/Linux. It'll rip your legally owned DVDs to various resolutions (and yes, it'll work with your iPod). Thus, you'll save disk space, and power. Now if I could only get a 200 GB flash RAM drive, I'd be saving battery life all over the place. - Hutch A special shout out to our friends at FreeMacWare.com for sharing the love on this one.
More About: Need , Spoon , Knives , Needs

LIFE HACKING: Who do you want to be today?
2007-02-09 18:57:00
Though not overtly about technology a recent series in the News Tribune poignantly makes the case that identity theft is quite personal. Yes, tech was involved (hence, it makes its way onto the HutchTech blog), but social engineering, the dark-side of life hacking, is really what identity theft tends to be about. If you're a person with an identity (and I trust most of you are), you owe it to yourself to read Sean Robinson's excellent tale, spun here: A Case of Identity- Hutch
More About: Life , Hack , Today , King , Want

HUMOR: Vista Upgrade Decision Making Made Easy
2007-02-01 17:13:00
I don't know about you, but I've been torn about upgrading some of my PCs to Vista . Sure, I've played with it on a test box and in a virtual PC, but am I really ready to make the commitment? On the one hand, there's better security; on the other, there's the intrusive, draconian DRM for HD technologies. Now, thanks to the guys at BBSpot you can walk through the decision making process in a few simple (and humorous) steps: Vista Upgrade Flowchart. - Hutch
More About: Humor , Decision , Made , King

HACKING: CHEAP BUT NOT FREE
2007-01-18 21:43:00
I am what you might call, frugal.  Okay, maybe you'd call it stingy, but I just can't bear to part with my money (or my department's money) when I don't have to.Today at work our HP cp1700 informed us that the yellow ink cartridge had expired.  Mind you, it didn't say it was "low", just "expired".  Never mind we were printing a black and white text document and didn't need yellow.  The printer refused to continue in its duties until we coughed up some coin for its alma mater ("Don't make me call the mother-ship").  Funny thing is the cartridge is still half full.Now, I had heard the horror stories online about this issue and read about the lawsuits, but I had never experienced the utter frustration that is HP customer satisfaction for myself.  Thankfully, my mighty minions of meta (READ: people  on the Internet) were able to rescue me from the terrors of pointless purchase peril.Doing a quick Google search (no, it's not a verb), I came across fixyourownprinter.com an...
More About: Free , Hack , King , Cheap

WEB APPS: Houston, We Have a Vision
2007-01-10 05:43:00
Apollo.  No, we're not talking about the god of Greek mythology, nor the U.S. manned missions to the moon.  No, not even the fighter pilot from Battlestar Galactica (both original series and SciFi channel version).  No, Apollo is the code name for Adobe's venture into taking Flash and Adobe Reader out of the browser and onto the desktop [see video here].  They're not alone.I've been anxious to see things like goowy or iscrybe come to fruition as local clients that work seemlessly online and off.  I may be connected to the net 99% of the time, but as a laptop user that 1% is still important to me.  I can't commit to google calendar if I can't get to it 100% of the time.  Now it sounds like ajax developers, java developers, and adobe developers are seeing the opportunity to be everything to everyone, regardless of their online status.  Since these development platforms are all mutli-OS compatible, you can develop one app and get it out to everyone at once.  And you ca...
More About: Have , Sion , Houston , Visi , Vision

iPHONE: Add Me To The List...
2007-01-10 05:26:00
Yes, I will probably be one of those sheeple who charge down to the Apple store the first day the iPhone is available.  I've been waiting for a smart phone, and my Razr (though I love it) just doesn't cut it.  I've gone the PDA route and found that to be too limiting and slow--besides, the ham hocks I call hands just weren't made to hold a stylus.After all the waiting and hype I was honestly expecting the iPhone to disappoint.  Other than the knowledge that I'm going to have to find an extra $50 in my monthly budget for EDGE connectivity, I was severely impressed with Mr. Jobs announcement.  When he said the iPhone was a monumental leap forward, he wasn't kidding.  I'll be anxious to see what the other guys do in the intervening months before the iPhone's release.  Guess it's time to slow production on those Treos and Qs.- Hutch
More About: Iphone , List , The List

GAMING: Greetings, Dr. Falken. Do You Want To Play a Game?
2006-11-08 03:28:00
I've been reliving some of that cold war, 1980's, Red Dawn angst by watching Jericho on CBS, and I recently screened Wargames for my teenage son (who, quite to my surprise, enjoyed it immensely).  So imagine my post-apocalyptic joy when Macworld mentioned a game (PC only for now, but available for the Mac soon) called DEFCON: Everybody Dies.  It's the old Global Thermonuclear War game (which I sorely loved on my C64) on steroids.  The downloadable demo has both single player and online multiplayer modes.  I haven't fired it up yet only because I knew that if I did, this post would have been delayed...significantly.  Just remember, in a game where everybody loses, it can still be fun to try and lose the least.- Hutch
More About: Gaming , Play , Greetings , Game , Want

FUN: Find a Career in Law Enforcement
2006-11-02 20:20:00
I'm not a cop, but I play one on TV. In my pre-teen years I remember getting hold of a detective kit. It came with fingerprinting powder, cards and tape, evidence bags, crime scene logs, and a face-kit for building suspect pictures based on witness descriptions. Well now, thanks to the Interweb and a little German ingenuity, you too can play detective and help your witnesses build a suspect sketch. Check out the flash tool at flashface.ctapt.de. You're supplied with a bevy of eyebrows, facial hair, and noggin shapes that'll make your head spin. So grab your badge and go find that "person of interest" with renewed confidence. - Hutch
More About: Fun , Men , Force , Find , Care

NEWS: This Isn't Your Father's RSS--Or Is It?
2006-10-31 17:39:00
I love my RSS readers (yes, I use more than one), however I despise truncated content. I know that these poor, old web sites need traffic for advertising revenue, but that's what the ads at the bottom of each feed are supposed to help with.On the other side of the information equation, I get tired of subscribing to e-mail newsletters. I get too many of them. I don't have time to read them. By the time I do read them, they're no longer fresh news. Sadly, I often lie awake at night worrying about what possible nugget of knowledge I've lost when I hit the delete key. Not really.So what's a news-hungry, RSS-savvy, e-mail-newsletter-hating tech guy like yours truly supposed to do? Well, according to Scott Bourne on a recent episode of MacBreak Weekly, you turn to SimplyHeadlines.com. SimplyHeadlines lets you pick from various pre-screened feeds, or add your own. So, I took the plunge and subscribed to a daily digest of one of my favorite blogs, and here's the result:Now, you'll no...
More About: News , Your , This , Father , Our Father

MEDIA: TV for Your PC
2006-10-26 06:17:00
Granted, if you have a modern desktop computer, a good size monitor and a comfortable viewing area, you've always had a way to watch TV via your PC: hardware add-ons.  Media ready PCs and laptops are now even available with built-in tuners and Tivo-esque recording options.  However, in the age of iTunes, bit-torrent, and the downloadable movie, where is commercial TV going?  The answer is quite simple: online streaming.I've recently had issues with my Comcast broadband service giving me intermittent connectivity, but even so these online streaming options have been worthwhile.  Say, for example, the IR blaster on your PVR decides not to change the channel and record the latest episode of your favorite show?  Or maybe you don't have enough money for the generation 3 Tivo, and your PVR won't record two shows at the same time on different channels.  Well that knock on your door isn't opportunity, it's the networks looking to retain some advertising revenue.I am of those peo...
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NOSTALGIA/GAMING: Admiration for Aging Emulation
2006-10-25 16:59:00
Back in the day, I was the proud owner of a Commodore64. And while the sound and graphics (especially on my 19" color TV) seemed to blow away the competition, I have to admit that I always suffered from a bit of Apple II envy. Quite frankly the Apple II had the games that appealed to me (Wizardry, Time Traveler, Ultima), and most of these never made it to the C64. Well, envy no longer, VirtualApple.org has all this and more available for free (donations accepted) online. I heard about this on a recent episode of TWIT, but evidently this thing has been on digg and slashdot for a while too. Sadly, you will have to use IE on Windows to play (this is the reason God created Parallels for your Mac). I plan on spending a rainy day living in the 80's soon. You should too. - Hutch
More About: Gaming , Nostalgia , Aging , Mira , Ming

SECURITY: FEMA For Your PC
2006-10-23 17:04:00
Perhaps my titular comparison is a bit unfair, but it helps make the case. On a recent episode of Security Now, Steve and Leo were discussing the issues related to zero-day exploits--those nasty security bugs that get released into the wild with no notice from the evil-doers and little or no anticipation by Microsoft. And they have little possibility of being patched quickly. So what's an average user to do? Prayer definitely comes to mind, but remember, when the floodwaters are rising consider the boat and helicopter you're sent to be signs of divine intervention. A group of heroes has risen to the challenge and come to our PC's rescue: ZERT, the Zeroday Emergency Response Team. If you're a super surfer, rely on public wifi for connectivity, or just need to make sure you're safe from the daily onslaught of nefarious ne'r-do-wells that roam the cyber highways, you need to check them out. Now I've been trying not to be too cocky about such security issues since I've ma...
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FREEWARE: App Hungry?
2006-10-23 06:39:00
Whether you're frugal, or (like me) just plain cheap, you need to check out Software for Starving Students at www.SoftwareFor.org. A huge list of amazing open-source, freeware, and donate-ware software is available for download in ISO (for Windows) or DMG (for Macs). You can check out links to the homepages of individual apps if you just like to browse, but if you want it to feel like Christmas has come a bit early, download the whole thing, burn it to a CD, and wrap it up. - Hutch
More About: Free , War , Freeware , Ware , Hungry

PRODUCTIVITY: Busy, Busy, Busy
2006-10-21 22:22:00
I just saw the article about Scrybe on TechCrunch--you owe it to yourself to take 7 minutes out of your busy schedule and watch the video on the Scrybe homepage right now.  I don't know if this will resolve ALL my issues, but this system looks to be quite powerful and resolve some of the problem that many of us face: online/offline availability, powerful task lists, web-based availability with desktop app versatility.Check it out now and sign up for a beta invite.- Hutch
More About: Product , Productivity , Prod , Busy

FAV5: Serendipitous Findings
2006-08-16 01:58:00
Amazingly, the Internet still manages to surprise me once in a while. Here are five of my accidental discoveries of late: Gruntmedia.com - Home of the videogrunt and podgrunt podcasts. Don't even know what a podcast is? Watch the first episode of podgrunt. I haven't gotten through all the available material, but from what I've seen so far I'm greatly impressed.Gotuit.com - Another one of those "catchy" play-on-words sites that hosts media content. But this isn't a free-for-all like YouTube, no here you can watch sports, news, etc., and actually pick a channel to watch. I know IPTV has a long way to go in the next few years, but if you want to see how it might look, check this out.Goggles - No, I didn't misspell Google. Goggles is a simple flying game you can play using Google maps. Give it a try--I managed to crash my plane on the moon.YouOS - Thanks to TechThisOut! for the heads-up on YouOS, the web-based operating system. Now, I've played with Goowy and Netvibes, b...
More About: Find , Serendip

BLOG: Loving the Sound of Your Own Vox
2006-08-08 21:59:00
Posting on blogspot since 2004 has been a great joy, however, there is a new game in town and it may not be a flash-in-the-pan. Vox.com is a new blogging service from Six Apart, the people who brought you Movable Type and TypePad. Blog ging front-ends are nothing new (heh, you're soaking in it), but vox has brought together the worlds of easy-blogging, and social networking. Check it out for yourself: hutchtech.vox.com. I'll probably continue to double-post for a while, but eventually a full switch may be in order--something I thought I'd never say. My only complaints are that I'd like some more themes and that I haven't found an easy way to keep my stats or use my blog-roll for adding my list of links to the site--but hey, vox is still great.A special thanks to Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur for pointing it out on Inside the Net.- Hutch
More About: Sound , Your , Loving , Ving

TECH LIVING: Knowledge is Power - Be the DIY Expert on Everything
2006-08-07 18:11:00
I am a long time fan of Stephen Colbert (Stranger's With Candy, anyone), and so when his manic grin graced the cover of Wired Magazine this month, I was more than pleased.  Mr. Colbert was supposed to show us how to be an expert on everything.  But my joy was short lived as I realized that he was only writing the lead-in article, funny though it was, to a series of short lists about DIY expertise on various topics: optimizing your web site, how to work smarter, how to shoot like Spielberg, etc.  While each of these was supposed to have been compiled by a well-known expert in that field, I nearly quit reading in quiet protest.  I was promised a helping of Colbert, but was given only miniscule taste.  Good thing I kept reading though--the rest of the stuff is actually enjoyable.  Maybe even useful.  If you don't get the magazine, check out the online version here.  Just promise me that when you do become an everything-expert, you won't let it go to your head.- Hutch
More About: Living , Power , Tech , Everything , Knowledge

TECHTV: Business Week Magazine Diggs Kevin Rose
2006-08-06 19:33:02
Business Week has an interesting read on the new Silcon Valley rich kids [click here], including Tech TV alum Kevin Rose of Digg .com.- Hutch
More About: Business , Magazine

STORAGE: Free Storage at What Cost?
2006-08-04 21:26:00
I love all this free storage we're getting now, but what gives? Is bandwidth the only cost left on the Internet? TechCrunch has a great article [click here] on AOL's new offering (5GB), with links to Streamload (25GB) as well. Don't forget to check out their earlier storage round-up too. - Hutch
More About: Storage , Free , What , Cost , Hat