Simply quit iTunes, if it’s open, then open up Terminal (Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities) and copy and paste in the following command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

Your result should look something like this:

Now enjoy the ability to rate your music with 1/2 stars! This increases the variety you can rate how great a song is!

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This is all fine and dandy... except when I opened up the new µTorrent Beta for Mac it seems to be missing the one thing it does best, the RSS handling. :( Oh well, a future update someday will hold what I so desire.

Here’s where one of this week’s company come in... Big Huge Labs is a site that aggregates a whole slew of Flickr tools and toys all on one page.

Now on my more important photos I always add a link to “View This Photo On Black” so if someone wants to see the photo in the raw without all the Flickr tools and options that take away from the experience. Instead, the viewers gets the following experience.

Some other cool tools Big Huge Labs provides for your photos are adding a digital matting, puzzles to purchase, mosaics, calendars, movie posters, magazine covers, CD cover, blog headers, or maybe you would like to add cartoon bubbles to a photo with captions.

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Now that you have the two essential components needed to create the best ‘automatic’ RSS downloader let’s start the configuration!

Step One: Open up Transmission and go to the Preferences window and the ‘Transfers’ tab.

Now copy my settings into your prefs window and make sure to check the ‘Auto Add’ box at the bottom and select a folder where you want Transmission to always watch for new torrent files.

Step Two: Navigate on over to tvrss.net and find an rss feed that fits your liking and copy the url. (example, here’s an rss feed for one of my favorite shows: right-click on Dexter and copy link)

Step Three: Open up NetNewsWire and click into the pref pane. / ‘Downloading’ tab / ‘Downloads Folder’ tab

Now, choose the folder you made before to download your files to.

Step Four: Now just hit the subscribe button on the top left and paste in the RSS url! Then select an episode and hit the download button at the bottom left of the window and it will download the torrent file to the folder Transmission is watching which will cause Transmission to start downloading the episode to your desktop. Ta-daaaa!

The other great thing about IMAP is you can see and edit all your online folders that Gmail provides from your desktop and your mobile device. The downside is these folders really clutter up your inbox... also I don;t want to see my spam email, that’s why I have the spam filter in the first place... so the solution comes with Google Labs!

Scroll halfway down and look for “Advanced IMAP Controls” and click enable. Then go to your settings and the labels tab (or just click here). Now you have complete control over what folders are visible when you access your IMAP email!

Now your iPhone can be much less cluttered, and when you delete emails on the road you won’t have a full inbox when you get home!

Along with being really cool it can be controlled with some pretty basic key commands that make it even more fun!

Check it out:

• • + and -: Increase or decrease the intensity (brightness) of the particles; multiple presses further increase or decrease the intensity.
• A and S: Add or Subtract particles to the visualizer. You can make the visualizer as complex (or sparse) as you wish.
• R: Reset the intensity and particle count to their default values.
• E: When in nebula mode (press N), this greatly accentuates the nebula clouds, making them very easy to see. (If you’ve used the M key to change modes, you may find that the nebula clouds aren’t visible; it seems they’re only used in certain modes.)

Chrome is smooth and simple to use. The url bar doubles as a search bar, the tabs are above everything and out of the way, but they don’t feel out of place. Bookmarks are imported from Firefox automatically, including the toolbar bookmarks. My favorite part is that Google thinks of everything... when you open a new tab the window shows you your most visited sites in thumbnail form and has a list on the side of recent sites. How cool is that?

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If you’re used to normal digital point-and-shoot cameras but you want to get a much better picture quality and a more organic feel to shooting photos this is the perfect camera to help you transition from a general point and shooter into the world of amateur photography.

The learning curve is very minimal if you’ve ever used a standard 35mm SLR film camera, digital SLR cameras work almost exactly the same. Anyone can easily pick up a D40 and take amazing pictures, it’s as easy as learning how to use the zoom and then the rest is generally the same as any other digital camera.

The main reason to step up to a dSLR of course is to get better picture quality. The D40 is a 6.1 megapixel camera, which seems low for a high end consumer camera/low end professional camera when compared to some Olympus 10.2MP camera you can find at Target for $250... but the megapixel rating has nothing to do with quality, just physical picture size. When you take a picture with a dSLR your camera actually opens a shutter and looks through an aperture for a given amount of time which exposes a certain amount of light in, and that image information is recorded digitally to an SD card just like a film camera would record that information to the mylar film.

The colors dSLRs are able to capture are simply amazing! Where you really notice the difference in your photos is in the saturation and clarity of colors and shadows. This seems basic, but the ability to capture black as ‘black’ and not just ‘dark grey’ is absolutely crucial to presenting colors as they look in real life.

For instance: the photos below are cropped from larger versions to accentuate the differences. On the left the photo was taken with a standard point-and-shoot (Canon PowerShot). Notice how it looks grainy and the colors are dull. Whereas the photo on the right was taken with a dSLR (Pentax K100D) and you can right away see how much more clear it is and how the colors really pop out. You can see how shadows really make a difference if you look at the difference between the boy’s hair in the two pictures; the dSLR lets you really see the true colors and definition of everything in the photo, where with the standard camera everything just looks dull and flat.

The next thing that worries people often times with dSLR cameras is they think they will be difficult to use or figure out all the different settings... well the Nikon D40 takes all of that frustration and throws it out the window! You can just throw it in automatic mode and it will figure everything for you except how close to zoom in; that includes ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focusing, flash, white balance, and the list goes on!

When you do get to a level where you want to experiment a little the camera has built in pointers to help you shoot perfect pictures too. So say you’re in a dark room and you need a flash, the camera will tell you that you should turn on the flash because of low light. Also, when you are changing settings like ISO you are shown examples of what the different setting should be used for. This makes the Nikon D40 not only easy to use, but much more fun when you can get professional quality photos without even opening up the manual or taking a photography class!


Pros: High quality ‘prosumer’ level dSLR camera with interchangeable lenses, very cheap ($475 on Amazon) for a dSLR with a kit lens included, can shoot in RAW, high quality 6.1 megapixel sized photos, very easy to use as a beginner, excellent color capturing capabilities.
Cons: The msrp of $499 for this camera is not cheap by average camera standards, it can’t even compare to the size of a simple point-and-shoot camera

The Bottom Line: The Nikon D40 is for the aspiring photography hobbyist, not the layman nor the professional. This is a perfect stepping stone from general picture taking to the world of professional digital photography. It’s cheap, comes with everything you need right in the box (except an SD card), and it’s very easy to use and catch amazing photos with. This is a great buy, DEFINITELY check it out if you want to capture life’s very best memories to remember for the rest of yours... just as you lived them!

Overall: 8.5

Usability: 7 This is a very easy dSLR to use if you know anything about cameras, but it’s not for the layman
Customizability: 8 Interchangeable lenses, the ability to add on filters, and external flashes is awesome, some old lenses won’t fit properly without expensive adapter rings though
GUI: 9 very appealing indeed, beautiful screen that tells you every pertinent piece of information you’d need to know to take simply amazing photos
Coolness: 10 This camera turns heads left and right... and it takes photos that do the same!

These screen often show deep blacks as dark grey. I’ve posted my screen calibration profile though, that seems to be quite accurate and true at presenting colors in a realistic light. Just downlod the zip file, unzip it, and place the calibration .icc file in the path included, then choose it from the display color settings in the system preferences.

You will notice a lot of iPhone-like features, which is awesome because why not use ideas that are already great and work well, but Android steps it up and takes iPhone features and improves upon them in a way that makes the device much more fun and easy to use.

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You do have to do some pretty serious surgery to your walls... but if you're handy, determined, crafty, or think you are any of the above ;-), then this is a definite must check out product!

Weird and kind of creepy if you ask me. All I did was mention Comcast and they are right there trying to help me, I didn't say I had a problem, all I said is that I was trying to find a local store... I'm not one to usually care about privacy issues, but this is pushing it.

In addition to the basic features, you can also monitor your calls on your computer as they come in, listen to the calls as they are being recorded to voicemail, block callers, record calls, one number that can ring different phones depending on who's calling, switch to another phone in the middle of the call if you need to be on the run but aren't ready to hang up, special rings, and ringback tones too.

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Cork'd can also log all the wines in your cellar for you with vintages, varietals, scores, average prices, reviews, and quick easy to use tasting tags (for example: cherry, honeydew melon, raspberry, apple, et cetera). Once you have an account, get some drinking buddies and recommend wines to each other! It's a great way to find the best wines at reasonable prices, let someone else try them first... :)

Afloat is an app that lets you make windows transparent and adds various other superfluous effects to all cocoa apps.

A quick FREE download and you'll all ready to go! Just open up any cocoa application (Safari and iChat for example) and click on the "Window" menu item. Any option with a little cloud next to it is a special Afloat add on.

You could always see who was on Facebook right now by going to "Friends > Who's Online" but now you can go one step further and talk to those that are online right away. The chats are instant messages just like AOL Instant Messenger so there's no need to wait for a reply like in a personal message or wall post. Want to check it out? Go to Facebook right now, look on the bottom right corner of your window and you'll see the new chat box. Neat huh?

This recorded data is then sent by satellite back to home base and is actually posted on their website every 10 minutes!!! Wicked cool!!! The information that is recorded is ridiculously in depth too, the best parts are the height of the swells, the length of the period between swells, the water and air direction, water and air temps, et cetera. Check it out, there's even an RSS feed!

Here's what the site looks like


Here's what that looks like in google earth with a photo selected

As an additional note, you can also hold down the shift button while pressing the volume keys to mute the "pop" that you hear when pressing the volume key.

If you want to permanently silence the volume-adjust beeping, uncheck "Play feedback when volume is changed" in the Sound Effects preference pane and it won't bother you again (helpful for podcasting or other situations when you might need to adjust your volume on the fly)."

Macworld has this slightly old, yet still accurate article on how to set up your screen quickly and accurately. It was a great help when trying to match my two screens so they were similarly and accurately displaying color.

Or you could write an Applescript that says the following:

This is what I do because I use the scripts menu item and I can access and run this and other commonly used scripts with just a quick click. I like menu items a lot, what can I say? :)

With the Flickr account you are given unlimited storage, unlimited photo sets, a permanent online archive for your photos, ad free browsing and sharing, account and photo statistics, and the photo quality has essentially no resolution limit.

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In short, it's a gorgeous application that lets you organize and edit your photos, create awesome slideshows, prints, or webpages to show off your photos. This video will show you what Lightroom is and the quality of photos you can make and edit.

Click here for some cool video tips on how to get started and use some of the more advanced features.

Oh, you see a few distros of Linux up there you say? Yeah, Fusion can handle any OS you throw at it... 32 or 64 bit! That includes any distribution of Linux, Windows 3.1 to Vista plus server editions, Solaris, Novell NetWare, Free BSD, and pretty much any other OS that can run on an Intel processor.

With VMware Fusion you can enable Unity, which lets you run Windows apps right on your Mac desktop right along side your Mac apps. You can then minimize them to the dock, use them with Spaces and Exposé. You can actually save programs to your dock just like normal Mac apps and when yo want to open them you just click on it like a regular application and it opens on your desktop just like normal. Above you can see my desktop running the Windows version of Firefox and Minesweeper right alongside with Apple Mail, Adium, and iTunes.

You should really check it out, there's a free demo on the VMware site, and I found my copy for $39 on Amazon.

Some tv shows come with commercials, but they are 30 seconds or less, so you're back to your show in no time. Plus the ads that I have seen are usually not too bad, I've seen only Chevrolet and Saturn commercials, both cleaver ads that show how economically sound their hybrids are. definitely no "as seen on tv" ads here!

With a nice clean slick player, Hulu really has done it right. I have moused over the video so the controls are shown in the screen shot above, but normally you would just see the video playing in a nice black gradient surrounding, or you can view in fullscreen with nothing but your video on the screen. It's pretty awesome, go check it out for yourself!

If you're on a Mac check out either the full featured awesome Twitterific ($15), or the barebones, stripped down, widget app, Twitgit (free!) and you can update your Twitter feed in seconds just as if you were updating your aim status, it's that easy.

This app is really awesome and the only thing I wish they would add is support for more applications.

Above is what this what you see overlaying the desktop when you hold the menu button for 2 seconds. You get a global menu that gives you access to a whole bunch of the Finder native options. (i.e. dashboard, exposé, front row, screensaver, sleep timer, shut down, restart, also you can open any application or file).

So I knew that I could pair my computer to my remote so I tried doing what Apple says, hold the menu button and next/fast forward for 5 seconds in front of your IR sensor... nothing. I try it again... nothing. finally I found out that if you hit menu and select for 5 seconds it works great! Apparently, Apple doesn't know all there is about their own products though, a little weird.

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You just have to head to over to LeopardDocks.net or Dockulicious.com, and download any theme you like, then click the import dock button and select the .zip file then select it and hit set dock. Couldn't be easier!

The 17" now comes with an LED backlight screen option. Both 15" and 17" models support gesture tracking, and sport the new NVIDIA 8600M GT 512MB graphics card. I can't wait to get my hands on this newly updated 6MB cache 800MHz frontside bus over my 5 year old 167MHz FSB 2MB cache 1GHz PPC with 1 GB ram... :( soon he will have a new home.

Other than the new Leopard-metal-rounded look, other features include: the newest version of Gecko (1.9) which is the rendering engine, cool new add on manager, the address bar also will now search your bookmarks and history as you type, and my personal favorite... over 350 memory leaking issues were fixed! As with most pre-releases, this version breaks a lot of add-ons, but the most important ones still work for me. Everyday developers are updating their add-ons to work with the most current versions too, so that's a plus. Download your copy here.

Your options are at an interval of specified hours, once a day at a given time, once a week at a given day and time, or once a month on a given date and time.

We'll just have to wait around a little longer for a 3G version though I guess :(.

Enter in, for instance, "House" into "Show Name" and check the "Exact" check box so that the search does not include shows like Desperate Housewives or Run's House. Then hit return, or click search. You will see a list of what shows they have available.

For most circumstances you'll want to choose a feed that is not 720p quality, so choose a file that is any other option as listed under the "Quality" column. Then click on the file you'd like to download, and save the file to your desktop. The file should look like the following:

If the file looks like that just double click on the torrent file from the desktop and it will open Transmission and It will start downloading the actual file. If it looks different, right click on it and select "Open With" and select Transmission.

For optimal downloading go to Transmission in the menubar and then click on "Preferences" click on the bandwidth tab and set your settings like this:

This will ensure that your internet speeds won't go down while you're downloading, which will keep everyone else on your network happy :). Any further questions? Contact me!

Although on the pricey side of $59 bucks, this is awesome for keeping your desk clean and the your screen at the right height, plus easy access to 4 USB 2.0 ports! Not to mention it is a very study aluminum to match the metal of the display of the cinema displays and iMacs.

These guys have done a great job at creating something that looks great, not customizable at all, but looks awesome!

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This group of young musicians are currently working on their debut album as Jaye Drew and a Moving Train.

Hopefully Apple will embrace this processor series in their new MacBook Pro they will release on January 15th, that'd make me just about the happiest man ever!

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