Sunday, September 02, 2007

Week in Review at BrentEvans Geek Tonic

We covered a lot of good stuff this past week. Netflix hacks, arcade mods, Home Theater PC news and how-to's, MySpace Music Downloads and more. To make sure you don't miss any future posts, subscribe to the RSS Feed

Here's a quick recap of the past weeks posts

College Football Schedule Maker - Customized for You
If you are a college football fan, doing a google search I just stumbled upon the coolest thing since.... well since college football! It's a simple, but very useful college football schedule creator. The website tool allows you to display the football schedule customized by team, conference,…
Control Your HTPC with your iPhone or Smartphone
Snapstream's latest beta release of Beyond TV (version 4.7) was officially announced last night. One unique feature included in this version is a cool new feature they call the Firefly Nano (named after their Firefly Remote for HTPC's) for those of you who have an iPhone or SmartPhone. For…
BeyondTV 4.7 Public Beta Released
Snapstream officially announced the latest public beta of Beyond TV 4.7.1 last night. There are several improvements and some very nice new features for this latest version of BeyondTV including: Faster HDHomeRun Tuner - QAM tuning with Beyond TV and the HDHomeRun is now much faster. Before…
Last Day for free TV Guide for MythTV GBPVR and MediaPortal
As I've mentioned before , tomorrow is D-Day for those of you who use MythTV , Media Portal and GBPVR along with Zap2It Labs free TV guide data. Beginning September 1st (TOMORROW), Zap2it Labs will cease offering the free TV guide data those HTPC programs have been relying on (Note: this…
MySpace Music Still Being Downloaded
Here we go again. Last week I posted about a website that offered a way to find and download songs from Myspace for free - you know the music that was meant to be streamed (not downloaded) on MySpace pages. Well after posting about that MySpaceMP3.org site, that site was taken down before the day…
Flickr Hack - Post an Image in the Comments
Here's a quick and easy flickr tip. If you use flickr like I do, you likely comment on others photos from time to time. If you want to add an image along with your comments here is how to do it: Find the photo in your flickr stream that you want to post in the comments Select the "all…
Monitor Your Network through-put for Free
If you are running Windows XP and need to know how much throughput (speed and amount of data moving through the network) your network is experiencing, you can use the performance monitor that comes will all Windows XP installs. Here's how: Select Start>Run Type in performon and…
Tetris for Geography: United States, Europe and Africa Versions of Statetris
Here's another teacher tech article for you. If you are teaching or learning geography and want a fun, easy way to learn there is a web game called Statetris that is a simple cross between Tetris and name-that-state (or country for the Europe and Africa versions). Here's a screenshot of the…
DIY Underwater Camera Housing for Under $50
Here's a how-to on making your own underwater housing for your digital camera or camcorder - all for under fifty dollars! He used an igloo insulated water jug, a sheet of plexiglass, PVC fitting, metal door handles and some other misc. parts to make a very impressive container that allows you…
Integrate Your Netflix Queue with your HTPC
At home I run all of my TV, DVD, Music etc all through my Home Theater PC (HTPC). One of the latest tricks I've been doing with my HTPC setup is to integrate Netflix into the setup. In particular, I use a Beyond TV add-on that monitors my Netflix Queue (my list of movies to be rented) for movies…
Visualize iTunes Top 100 with iTunes TreeMap
Today I was searching for a website with information about the iTunes Top100 by genre. I could have just opened up iTunes to see this, but I was looking for something more. What I found was a Treemap that tracks the iTunes Top 100 songs as they move up and down the charts - updated daily. On the…
Camera Hack: Disposable Camera Fisheye Creation
Loren Lloyd has created a fisheye lens hack with a cheap, disposable camera and a not-so-cheap fisheye lens. Quite ingenious. Found on Flickr Here's a photo he took with a fisheye lens:
Funny Story From the Past: Self Driving Car Next Year?
Just two years ago, Engadget had a big story about the GM Self Driving Car that would be launched in 2008. The story hit the front page of digg.com and created a bunch of buzz. Problem is, it isn't going to happen in 2008 at least. I'm guessing its probably because of incompatabilities…
Build Your Own Arcade Game Seat
I know many of my readers enjoy home gaming including Xbox, Playstation, Wii etc. There are many others who share my love of the old arcade games and have built MAME machines to emulate those old arcade games. I'm still in the research phase of my MAME arcade project, but in the meantime,…
Netflix Hack - Find Watch Now Movies You Were Going To Rent Anyway
This one isn't as much of a hack as it is a feature of the Netflix Watch-Now (now called watch-instantly) website. Netflix will monitor for movies you have in your queue to see if any of them are currently available with the free streaming, Netflix Watch-Now selection. For instance, I had the…
How To Embed YouTube and Google Video into Powerpoint
Today I have two different methods to embed a YouTube or Google Video into your PowerPoint presentation. The first one uses Keepvid to obtain the video and then converts the video into a compatible video format for use in PowerPoint. Read How to use this method to embed YouTube or Google Video HERE…
CableCard Rules relaxed: Big News for Home Theaters?
I bring what I think is huge news for Home Theater PC (HTPC) owners everywhere. As reported by Ars Technica, there is now an approved DRM method that allows encrypted cable TV to be recorded and streamed in the house. I know news with the acronym DRM isn't typically received as good news in any…
BusinessCard iPod Stand
Want a quick, very cheap and easy stand for your iPod, iPhone, PMP etc? Just use a standard business card. I know, it sounds kind of cheesy, but it really works to hold your iPod at the right angle for video viewing. Plus it folds flat to carry in your wallet. Here's the business card…
Analyze and Clean Up Your Hard Drives
If you're like me, you have a ton of music, video and other files on your hard drives. I have multiple drives with files spanned across all of them on my network. So how to you manage and keep track of all of those drives? I have for you a collection of drive managers that can help you out. …