I’m not much of a gamer, but I did buy an Xbox 360 last summer. Anyway, I finally found the best use for it… “beaming” your media from your Mac to it (music, photos and movies). The only annoying thing is all the music you buy from the iTunes Music Store doesn’t work […]

I was talking to the SBC/AT&T guys that installed the Internet connectivity at the job site today and having fiber to the door is going to have some really cool advantages early next year (right now they just run phone and 6Mbps Internet across it). At that point the “standard” Internet connectivity on it […]

This is kind of funny.
Move over Bud. College life isn’t just about drinking beer. In a rare instance, Apple Computer Inc.’s iconic iPod music player surpassed beer drinking as the most “in” thing among undergraduate college students, according to the latest biannual market research study by Ridgewood, N.J.-based Student Monitor.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060608/colleges_ipods.html

Dude, this issue has been bugging me for months on my Mac… A couple apps would never play any sound (most notably Macromedia Flash). Anyway, I finally was able to find the solution, so hopefully someone searching Google will find this post useful.
Go to Applications -> Utilities -> Apple MIDI Setup
Check the Audio Output […]

Sony discontinued their entire Qualia line of high-end products. Okay… no biggie, but maybe they should come out with something to replace the products that are now gone. For example the Qualia 006 (KDS-70CQ006) was a 70″ rear projection TV with SXRD technology and it was freaking AWESOME. No seriously… AWESOME!
Sony now […]

I really want to upgrade to a high definition TV, but get this…
I live in the middle of one of the most technologically advanced cities in the United States (like I can get a T1 on a fiber connection to my place for around $100 including local loop charges) and I have 6Mbit DSL for […]

Not sure if these are fakes of the forthcoming iPod AV or not, but if they are real, I’m gonna have to get one of these things.

If they are fake, they are pretty well done.

When Apple finally rolls this out (in the next 2 months hopefully), it’s going to be damn cool! Hopefully no need to buy DVDs anymore.
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0603videoipod.html
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0603movies.html
Hopefully they also will come out with an AirPort Express that can do video (current one only can stream audio).

Does anyone know if the Windows Media Center Extender that is built into the Xbox 360 is a true client application to the Windows Media Center PC?
Basically I’m wondering if you could have 2 TVs, each with an Xbox 360 attached to it, both streaming unique content from the one Media Center PC.

You know what I want to know? Who in the hell invented the iPod? I know a ton of people played parts in it, but who came into work one day and thought… “Gee, this would be cool…”
Because whoever that guy was, Apple should give him a bonus.

Does anyone have a solution for playing music purchase at the Apple Music Store outside of iTunes or an iPod?
I’m going to be having a central audio distribution system in my house, but I just realized that music I purchase from the Apple Music Store isn’t going to work on anything outside of iTunes/iPod… […]

The rumors have started about Apple releasing a “true” video iPod at the end of March or beginning of April. If the rumors are correct, they will go from a 2.5″ screen (on current iPod’s) to a 3.5″ screen and do away with the click-wheel, and instead use an on-screen touch-panel interface.
Think Secret can […]

I need to get a good pan/tilt/zoom camera for the site of the house construction (to automatically make a time lapse of the house being built and also just to see what’s going on at any given time).
I’ve done a little research on it, and so far the Canon is the best one (for the […]

There has been a bunch of hoopla lately about CableCARDs finally coming to market this summer, so I decided to read about it a little more…
The CableCARD system basically lets you insert a PCMCIA card into your TV and then you don’t need a digital cable box to receive high definition signals. The CableCARDs […]

Look, I’m psychic (again)… “Hopefully that’s Front Row 2.0…” Funny
Quote:
“Apple’s Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be, Think Secret sources have disclosed. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleidoscope, will feature an Intel processor and include both Front Row 2.0 and […]

Speaking of downloading movies, I wish Apple would hurry up and deploy a full blown Apple Movie Store (they obviously have the ability to do video with the iPod Video and their ability to sell TV shows). If they sold DVDs you could download for $10, it would be the end of retail DVDs […]

Google wants to be the center of the information universe, so how long do you think it will be before they make a car stereo (which is much more than a standard car stereo of course)?
It can be done now if you want to hack it together, but it would be nice if it was […]

Why do people pay $2 or $3 for a cellphone ringtone of a song? I don’t get it because most cellphones these days lets you just use an MP3 as a ringtone. Get a freeware/shareware application that lets you cut a certain part of a ringtone (no point in having a 5 minute […]

Okay, this kind of sucks… I now have the most bad ass computer monitor you can get sitting in my office (a 30″ Apple Ciniema HD), but I have no computer I can actually USE it with. hahaha
I ordered a new computer specifically for the monitor (the monitor was a gift/bonus), but I’m not […]

The best thing about Windows is Windows Media Center, and it’s not as good as it could be (it lacks the ability to record HDTV). Apple really needs to come out with the TV recording solution I think, and it could be huge if they were to beat Microsoft to market with a HDTV […]

After rumors have been swirling the last few weeks about Apple releasing an iPod that can do video, it’s official now. They have a 30GB and 60GB iPod with a slightly larger screen that is capable of doing video (realtime decoding of MPEG4 and H.264 with 260,000 colors). Pricing doesn’t change ($299 and […]

If you are buying an HDTV anytime soon, make sure it has at least one HDMI connector on it. It’s pretty much the new standard for connecting audio/video (and soon computers) together. It’s built upon the older DVI interface, but it adds digital content protection for the content owners (keep the studios happy) […]

How come there isn’t any good options for a high definition digital video recorder? TiVo doesn’t have one, Windows Media Center can’t do it, etc. The only one I’ve run across (that didn’t end up being some home brew Linux setup) is the one built into some of Mitsubishi’s high-end TVs.
Weird.

If nothing else, Apple really does come up with cool ideas. They came up with the iPod, and seem to come with with something completely new as far as iPods go just about the time the competitors are getting around to copying their previous idea.
Anyway, today Apple did away with the iPod Mini model, […]

Looks like the iPod Linux guys have finally figured out how to play video on an iPod. Pretty neat for all the dorks out there. I’m not going to risk messing up my 60GB iPod Photo, but maybe I’ll mess around with my 1st generation 4GB iPod.
Check it out over here.

I was waiting for this year’s CES show to see what is available for a car stereo/navigation system for my new car.
It looks like there are some cool new things this year…
Realtime Traffic Map
Alpine and Pioneer have navigation systems that overlay realtime traffic data on your navigation map (data includes traffic speeds, accidents, etc.) and […]

It looks like Pioneer might be following Alpine’s lead and making an iPod adapter for their car stereos. I couldn’t find any info about it anywhere, but if you look close at the AVIC-N1 specs on Pioneer’s website, it has a little note saying it’s “iPod Adapter Ready”. Hmmm… interesting.

My perfect system would be this:
Double DIN touch-screen controller
Video out (to drive monitors in rear headrests)
Navigation system that can be controlled from the touch-screenIt doesn’t seem like a terribly tall order, but I don’t think I have any options. Some stuff is close, but nothing is “complete”.

Alpine System
Pluses

Touch screen is cool because it gives […]

I poked around a little bit, and found out Alpine has a touch-screen compatible navigation system after all (NVE-N099P), which is the one piece missing from the setup I want. The only problem is that it’s only available in Europe and comes with road maps of Europe. I can’t find any dimension specs […]

The issues I have with the factory stereo in the 2005 H2 really bothers me enough that the the first thing I would do with the truck (assuming I get one) will be replace the factory stereo.
I did a little research, and so far, the best option I can find is an Alpine based system, […]

Did a little research on the stereo options for the Hummer 2 today. New for 2005 is the option for a touch-screen navigation system. Sounds cool, but check this out…

If you get the navigation system, you can’t have the CD changer.

The DVD that holds the maps goes in the normal CD/DVD slot on […]