Google Zeitgiest: End of '05

Google has released its Zeitgeist for the year 2005, providing several interesting trends between events and search queries. It is truly interesting how what we search for is effected by what is happening in the world. Definitely check it out!

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2005.html

Get an AJAX-based desktop

Get an entire desktop with simple applications over the Internt

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Swiss government switches 3,000 systems to Linux

Novell Inc. Tuesday announced an agreement with the government of Switzerland to replace the software in 3,000 of its servers with the company's SUSE Linux operating system.

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XBOX 360 file system cracked

The Xbox 360's file system has been cracked, a huge step in cracking the Microsoft software and allowing the platform to be used as a normal computer--and even put Linux on it!

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XBox 360 only $150 in Japan! Prices slashed after only 4 days!

If you live in Japan, you can get an amazing deal on an XBox 360. Apparently no one wants them, they are all waiting for the PlayStation3 coming out as early as next March.

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Strange new object found at edge of Solar System

A large object has been found beyond Pluto travelling in an orbit tilted by 47 degrees to most other bodies in the solar system. Astronomers are at a loss to explain why the object's orbit is so off-kilter while being almost circular.

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Violent video games alter brain's response to violence

A brain mechanism that may link violent computer games with aggression has been discovered by researchers in the US. The work goes some way towards demonstrating a causal link between the two - rather than a simple association.

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Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB - the best iPod competitor?

Creative has prepared a new competitor to Apple's iPod G5: the Zen Vision:M 30GB. It features more codecs for video, an FM Tuner, and a built-in mic. Take that Apple!

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USB Gadget X-mas List

Here is a site that has all the USB gadgets and toys you'll need. Anywhere from USB Humidifiers to vaccum cleaners. Check it out.

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U.S. to Release New $10 Bills on March 2

The trees won't be the only thing sprouting new colors come springtime. Americans' wallets will have more red, yellow and orange as the first of 800 million redesigned $10 bills start showing up in cash registers and ATM machines on March 2.

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That Google feeling, but on the cheap

Why do some search terms on Google or Yahoo cost advertisers $12.47 while similar ones sell for 18 cents? Sometimes, it's a lack of imagination, says Pinstorm CEO Mahesh Murthy.

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Skype 2.0 Beta: Now With Video!

The Skype 2.0 Beta has been released for Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP. The new version includes support for video, on XP. You can download the new beta here:
Skype Beta Download

World AIDS Day

Today, December 1st 2005, is marked as World AIDS Day. Around the world, people are showing support by wearing a red ribbon. We have shown our support by displaying the Virtual Red Ribbon on our site. It is located in the sidebar as well as below. Check out WorldAIDSDay.org for more information on how to show your support and help out.

Nokia Begins Shipping Internet Tablet

Nokia began shipping their Debian Linux-based "Internet Tablet". The tablet does not have cell-phone capabilites, but can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots to access the Internet. It is the first handheld device to show the full width of the page. It then allows you to pan and zoom the page via controls on the side.

Fix iTunes Delayed Startup Freezing and Problems Importing Music

One thing that happened to me and a few other people is that iTunes freezes or is delayed on startup and freezes or crashes or delays when importing music or connecting an iPod. The fix for this is very simple. If you have a newer computer the reason it does this is usually because of a problem with your CD drive(s). IDE or SCI bus drives may be interfering with one another. This may be cause of running a Virtual Drive. I may be assuming wrong but I am assuming that people running one know how to disable it using the Device Manager. If this isn't the case and your computer is older you need to updsate your Bus Driver. The best way is to find out your chipset and go to whom ever makes your motherboard which is different than your PC maker and go to their support page. If you have no virtual drives running, your computer has new hardware, and your Bus Drivers are up to date than the problem is that you have your IDE and SCI drives on the same driver and you need to reconfigure them.

By 2009 80% Of laptops will be widescreen

Read this article describing why the notebook industry plans on continuing this trend toward widescreens on notebooks. Very interesting read!

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Best Free Proxy List

By far my best and favorite proxy list is http://netspy.ukrpack.net It contains a list of proxies that are effective and seem to work well. Also they have great speed and the site is the easiest to use. For people who have Firefox there is a great extention called SwitchProxy Tool. It allows you to very easily change your proxy and even has a a feature that allows you to create a list of several proxies and alternate them on a time intereval. If you are even thinking about using a proxy on Firefox you must download this.

Google to sell more ads than anyone else

This year, Google will sell more ads than any other media source in the world. Google sells ads for its AdSense program. Google uses the ads on the search results to provide relevant text ads related to the search query. People can also sign up for the program to place the ads on their own site, and then get a cut of the profits per click. AdSense is the program we use to place ads on this site.

Killer Tech-News About the Blog

Just wanted to let you all know about what's to come very soon.
First, the most notable change to our site is the addition of ads. As much as we hate ads and don't want to put them on the site, it is a good way for us to collect money to add more stuff to the site.
In the next few weeks we will be getting a domain name for the site. I am currently working on a new design for the site that will add more fucntionality but still have similar characteristics to the current theme, and still have part of the site be a blog-style news portal. Because killertech.com is taken, a slight name change is planned.
Also, as was obvious, last week we did not post a podcast. Hopefully we will get around to making one soon. Maybe once the new site is launched and we have some more freedom as to what we can do.
More information is to come!

Remove Windows XP's Messenger's Ads

Kill MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger from your processes completley.
1. Search for links.txt and open in notepad
2. Delete all info in the file so it is empty and save
3. Right click the files and choose properties. Then check as Read-Only
4. Find MSN's logo.gif and delete it or rename it something else
5. Now if you want your own picture get it and rename it logo.gif and make it what ever you want
6. Now go to http://www.ceruleanstudios.com and download Trillian, the best chat program in the world that is compatible with everything you would ever use to chat. Trillian is my personal favorite because I don't have to run AIM, WIM, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, and any IRC or ICQ you want!

Lamborghini Gallardo

A Lamborghini Gallardo at Grand Central Terminal

Cleaning up your PC

For all you people who download freeware and random apps know after a few years it adds up and will fill up your computer. Here are someways too keep your hard drive on empty and your ram usage low with all those damn .dll threads.

For one, clear out your temp folder. Go to run and then put in %temp%. Then delete everything in this folder that you can(you cannot delete files being used so don't worry if it says it cannot delete) and leave ones that won't delete.

Now delete your internet cache. Your internet chache is a folder where your web pages are stored for quick viewing later. To delete open your web browser and under options check clear cache and stored pages as long as clear cookies. There is an option for how much space your browser is allowd to use for these files. Depending how big your hard drive is you can set that yourself.

Delete your custom or downloaded fonts! Fonts often use up a lot of space and slow down word processors. Too many may cause your word processor to crash frequently.

After you have done the above the its time to defragment your hard drive. As you probably know go to Start-programs- accesories-system tools- disk defrag. This helps a lot and should be done 2 or 3 times a year depending on how bad you are with installing and uninstalling programs.

If you really know what your doing you should clean out registry files from old programs. This file may help you. www.jv16.org

Apple to hold another press conference

Apple will be holding yet another press conference on October 19th in New York. Apple had a press conference on Wednesday to announce the new iPod Video and upgrades the iMac. It is unknown what will be the topic of the press conference, but it will likely be updates to Apple products.

Incredible High-Res image of Earth from Space in winter '04

A NASA satellite image of the earth from Winter of 2004.

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Digital Life

On Saturday, I will be going to Digital Life at the Jacob Javitz Center. Digital Life is a computer conference held annually at the Javitz Center. There are usually several product announcements and plenty of free stuff to go around. I will have all the highlights posted to the blog with my cell phone and cell phone camera, as well as a post Sunday morning. I think we will also be doing the podcast on Sunday, because I won't be able to do it on Saturday.

Video iPod Announced

Apple, in their special "And One More Thing..." event, announced the much anticipated video iPod. The new iPod has a larger screen than the normal iPod (it's color) and is 30% thinner. It comes in black or white, in 30GB or 60GB models.

Apple also announced a new version of iTunes (version 6) and new thinner iMacs.

Skype Podcasting Update

Along with the help of Google, I found a script (that the Linux Link Tech Show uses) that allows you to record both sides of a Skype conversation. This will allow us to record the podcast over Skype. We will test and play around with the script, and hopefully be able to use it for this weekend's first show.

Killer Tech Podcast to be Launched!

I would like to announce that starting this weekend, I will be recording the first ever weekly Killer Tech Podcast! I have set up the ability to record the podcast, upload it, and post it and make it accessible to any podcatching program. The podcast will cover technology news and new gadgets, just like this blog. It will discuss topics both on the blog, and not mentioned on the blog. I am also looking into the ability to record over Skype, so both DIRTRIDER32191 and I can be on the podcast. The podcast will be in 64KBps MP3 audio. I will be posting more updates as I figure out how this will be done.

Another note, is that the podcast feed is located at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Killer_Tech. The feed, when added to a podcatcher, will automatically download audio as it becomes available, when posted on this blog. If you subscribe to it in a normal RSS news reader, you should be able to get all the posts to the blog. However, for receiving the RSS for the site, it is still a good idea to use the Atom feed (http://killertech.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)

Just 2 days until the latest version of Ubuntu Linux is released. On October 13th 2005, Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) will be officially released as the stable version of the Ubuntu Linux Operating System. The Breezy release is the third release of Ubuntu Linux, which debuted in October of 2004. Ubuntu releases a new version of the Debian-based operating system every six months, or April and October of every year.

The new version is the second Linux-base operating system to come with Gnome 2.12, the latest version of the popular desktop environment. Breezy also debuts a new boot screen (instead of the text boot) as well as the latest version of OpenOffice.org 2.0.

Breezy is also the first release for a subproject of Ubuntu, named Edubuntu. Edubuntu is geared at designing an operating system for use in schools.

Breezy is already available in the Preview Release (released several days before the stable release). You can download that and install it and then update packages as they become available and end up with the stable release. Also, if you already have Hoary or Warty installed, you can upgrade to Breezy right now.
For more information, check out the Ubuntu Web Site.

Peer to Peer File Sharing at its Best

In todays world of P2P filesharing it can be hard to do anything without problems of some sort. KaZaA is very popular but it contains spyware and is heavy on your machine. I found a great alternative with the same content that works exactley the same without all that bad stuff. www.k-lite.tk is free and contains nothing bad. To properly install it simply uninstall KaZaA if you have it installed and run an anti-virus program to eliminate spyware and addware. Then install KaZaA Lite and you are good to go.

Google Launches Web-Based RSS Reader

Google has launched a new addition to their family of web-based tools you can use: an RSS Reader. Google's newest beta project is a web-based RSS reader with an interface similar to Gmail. The page includes the ability to import/export feeds with the use of an OPML file, add new feeds by URL, and search for new feeds using Google.

Restore Registry Defaults in XP and 2003

If you have accidentaly or victim of getting your registry screwed up and wish to restore it to default its easy. There is a special string with the default version at HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT.

A great refrence point for people who screw around with thier registry too much and good for all the subsequent new users on a machine.

Remove Unwanted Popups in XP

Once and a while you may get a popup or two when your browser is closed. These are not from the site you are on or from Windows. This is usualy result of spyware that pulls them and other stuff (spyware ect.) off a server straight to your computer! Lucky for you and me this can be easily fixed and this worked for me.

1. Right click My Computer and select Manager.
2. In the console that opens click Services and Applications and then click services.
3. Select messanger service and turn it off. also set the startup type for Messanger Service to Disabled.

Office 12 to have native PDF support

Microsoft has confirmed that Office 12 (the next version of Office) will contain support for the popular PDF format. PDF has grown in popularity and a number of tools have been created, including Adobe Acrobat for creating and viewing PDF documents. Office 12 will be the first Microsoft Office product to contain PDF support, but there have been plenty of free tools, including the free rival to Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, which has had PDF support for over 2 years.

Crack Internet Explorer Passwords

If you have parents or at a public place with Internet Explorer and it is password protected to restrict content a simple regedit can put you in control. It deletes the password for Microsoft Internet Explorer so you can change its settings or view restricted sites. ALWAYS BACK UP THE REGISTRY YOU EDIT!

1. Start-Run-regedit
2. Type HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\\Policies\Ratings
3. There are two enteries: Rating and Default. Delete Ratings. DO NOT TOUCH DEFAULT!
4.Do a search of your C Drive(or what ever drive your system folder is in) for ratings.pol and delete it.

Now you should have reset Internet Explorers password and can download FireFox so you won't have that problem again.

Wikipedia is better than Encyclopedia Britannica

Those who have voiced skepticism over the reliability of information found in Wikipedia should take note of this. The collaboratively assembled encyclopedia maintains a page devoted to correcting errors in its chief offline competitor, the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica.

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Change IP Address in Windows XP

One thing any Internet user should know is how to change their IP Address. This little piece of information is the first thing many sites can see about you as soon as you visit. Thankfully, unless you have a static IP Address for running your own web server, IP addresses can be easily changed.

How you change your IP address depends on how you connect to the Internet. If your computer connects directly to the Internet or you would like to change the IP address you have on your LAN, you can use the command prompt utility called ipconfig.

First open a new Command Prompt window in XP. The Command Prompt can often be found in the Programs menu under Accessories. To familiarize yourself with whats going on, type "ipconfig" (without the quotes). This shows your IP address and other stuff like your internet adapter and modem. For an extended view put in ipconfig/displaydns. This will show you more stuff that can come in handy when digging up IP's for servers at work or at school. Now, to renew (change) your IP, type "ipconfig/renew". Now you have a new IP address.

If you are a broadband Internet subscriber and have a separate stand-alone modem, the easiest way to change your IP address is to unplug the modem, wait 30 seconds to a minute, and then plug it back in. This will force the modem to go out to the ISP again and get a new IP address. Often times there will be a way to reset your IP address somewhere in the modem's options but this varies by modem brand and ISP, and can often take longer.

If you would like to check your IP address (before or after changing it), you can use a service like ShowMyIP.com

Firefox Tweak

One reason I love Mozilla Firefox so much as a 56kbps internet user is because of its ability to view pages faster than you would belive. This is awesome and without a doubt will increase your speed. This works for nix systems and Windows too. I am unsure about Mac.

1) Ok fire up the fox

Just a heads up these settings make you download sites considerably faster, BUT they put a great deal of overload on the sites you visit

2) type in "about:config" the address bar and then hit enter

You'll see a whole load of options here you will need to change some of the values.
These ones:

network.http.max-connections = 64
network.http.max-connections-per-server= 20
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server= 10
network.http.pipelining = true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = 100 or 200 (choose one)
nglayout.initialpaint.delay = 0
network.http.request.max-start-delay = 0

if you can't find "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" your going have to make it. Just right click and hit new integer.

network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy = 10
network.http.proxy.pipelining = true
network.http.proxy.version = 1.0

now close down firefox and start it up again.
Firefox now burns servers like crazy!

Windows Media Player Vs. iTunes

A hard decision faced my many; is WMP or iTunes the better music player. As an iPod user i am forced to use iTunes but I do not necessarily think it is better. Here is the way it is.

iTunes is great software for music playing. Everything about it is good, except some may not like the way your library is viewed. It is one big list and you change how it is categorized by clicking the tabs at the top. Playlists are easy to make and are viewed by a bar on the right side. WMP uses a system of menus similar to right clicking the start button. The visualizer for iTunes is stunning. In preferences you can change it to go over 30fps. I saw it go as high as 93 fps without causing a problem. Also there are so many scenarios you will never see the same one twice. Also they are more fluent and visually pleasing than the ones in WMP. One thing I dislike about iTunes is that the installer comes with Quick Time. It automatically installs itself and puts itself in the quick launch bar. Then it installs a process called qttask, ituneshelper, ipodhelper. Although these do not at all slow your computer I am not happy when they are there. You kill them with process explorer and they re generate. I even did a regedit and they appeared to be running in the background. This shouldn't bother you or stop you from getting iTunes, although I do not like it because I am deep in thread/handle .dll hell.

Over all I find iTunes as my personal favorite but if you prefer a menu system(which I do) WMP is for you. For you broadband users, it may be worth to download iTunes to see if you like it. It installs clean so there should be no problems.

Tutorial: Ubuntu for servers

Ubuntu is primarily known as one of the most popular desktop distributions.
But you can also use it for servers!
This guide shows how to set up a web, mail, and ftp server with Ubuntu 5.04 "The Hoary Hedgehog" and demonstrates the details with the help of 21 screenshots.

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Get an iPod Nano in the color you want

Colorwarepc.com sells products manufactured by other companies but in color combinations not available from the originaly manufacturer. You can now order an iPod nano in virtually any color you want. There is also a wide range of other products available. These products include Mac Minis, XBoxes, and iPod Photos. Colorware will also take an existing item you own, and change its color to your specifications. This is a really cool site and you should definitely check it out!

DIRTRIDER32191

I have added DIRTRIDER32191 to the blog members. DIRTRIDER32191 is a friend of mind, and will be contributing to the blog, in addition to myself.

Windows in todays computer world

As a full time Windows user, and part time Linux user, I feel obligated to discuss what Windows is in today's world. The user friendly operating system Windows by Microsoft is losing its appeal fast. Why? People don't realise how vulnerable and insufficient it is. The common user wouldn't think twice when his computer crashes or thier copy of Norton picks up a threat. One of Windows biggest threats and reasons for its problems is simply the Interent. It is nearly imposible in today's world to use the internet or communicate via email without a form of protection. Norton or MacAfee? Not to be trusted. They are too popular and most viruses are designed to work around them. The best things to do too keep Windows safe is to use software outside thats 3rd party or warez. AVG is a step in the right direction and is available for free. My favorite and free utility is Spybot Search and Destroy. For viruses running in the background, Process Explorer at sysinternals.org is great but for my bandwidth (56kbps) doing a regedit is the best for my time and money.

DIRTRIDER32191

New Palm Treo Runs Windows Mobile

Palm, Microsoft, and Verizon Wireless are all set to hold a join conference tomorrow to announce the unveiling of the Palm Treo 700. The big news:it runs Windows Mobile 5.0.

The Palm Treo has had 2 models, the 600 and the 650, both running Palm's operating system, Palm OS. It is Palm's flagship smarthphone. All Palm models have run the OS and it has been a rival from birth to Microsoft Mobile. It is still unclear whether or not Palm OS is still going to be used.

SCO to use Open Source Software

Even though there is not much of any reason to use SCO Unix, SCO has become a well-known company in the open-source world. SCO has been trying to bring down Linux, by claiming that it has a copyright on some of the code in Linux.

But now, SCO has apparently signed a deal with mySQL, an open-source company that sells database software. The deal says that SCO will bundle mySQL with their products. This comes as a surprise, for two reasons. First that SCO has appeared to be against Linux and open-source software, and second, that it has stated concerns about the GNU General Public License, which is used by mySQL to license its products.

Creative Commons License

I have added a Creative Commons License to this blog. Under the license, you can use the text of this blog for non-commercial use, as long as you attribute it back to the Killer Tech Blog. Any works that include material from this blog must be shared under the same license as this blog.

Also, please note that many of the images I use on this blog come from other web sites. Therefore, the images included on these pages may not be covered by the same Creative Commons license that the text of the blog is covered under. Therefore, the images are subject to the conditions provided by the author or page they originated from.

License information is available below, as well as at the bottom of each page of the blog.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Mozilla Firefox 1.07 on Ubuntu

I use Ubuntu Linux as my primary operating system, and I encountered a problem many other users have been facing since the new Firefox version was released to the Hoary repositories. If you have the backports repositories enabled (not the default) you may have both the main and backport firefox release packages installed. If this is the case, when you upgrade Firefox, it will have an error. I went on the IRC chat, and user Cyphase was able to help me get this problem fixed.

You need to uninstall all the Firefox packages in the command line. Then reinstall the non-backports version. Your configuration should not be changed, and Firefox will start normal after the reinstallation. The commands to use in the command line are listed below. You will need to use sudo to complete these actions.

First, paste the line below into the terminal and hit enter:
sudo apt-get remove firefox firefox-gnome-support mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support
This command will first ask for your password, then uninstall the packages listed along with some other dependencies.
Once that command has completed successfully, paste and run the command below:
sudo apt-get install mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support
This command will install the new main packages for Firefox. Once that is finished, you can run Firefox and it should run. Check in the Help Menu under About Firefox, and it should show version 1.0.7.

You can also see the instructions on Cyphase's blog. (http://cyhpase.homelinux.com/blog)

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 has been released. The main fix in this release is a patch to prevent urls passed to Firefox from external programs to be parsed by the shell, which could allow a potential hacker to compromise the system. This only affects *nix based systems running Firefox. There are also various other security flaws and bugs that have been fixed as well.

Order your new Ubuntu Breezy (5.10) free CDs now!

Since today Ubuntu is taking orders to ship free CDs of its new OS version, Breezy Badger, to be launched in October.

Get your orders out, and order plenty to go around!

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Apple To Start War With Microsoft And Dell

Steve Jobs on Microsoft and Dell: "Microsoft is copying us with its operating system... Dell's trying to copy us with its hardware. That's fine but we'd like to not give them a map and show them where we're going to go. At least they can follow our taillights."

Isn't Apple #2?

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Google begins limited test of Wi-Fi service

Google has finally confirmed the rumors started in Silicon Valley in July! Google is beginning testing on free Wi-Fi hotspots at different points of interest in Mountain View, California, where their headquaters are. The rumors were started that Google was going to roll out a Wi-Fi service after Freeva, a Google-sponsored company started a hotspot at Union Square in San Francisco. The rumors went so far as to suggest that Google was buying up excess fiber-optic cable to create their own network across the country and allow the whole country to connect wirelessly for free. The rumors were also free by the recent discovery that wifi.google.com redirected to google.com, instead of a 404 error, and that wifi.google.com/faq.php led to a strange FAQ on the Google Wi-Fi security tool.

No one knows yet how far Google plans to take this project, but Google says the idea was started by an employee during Google's corporate program that every employee should spend 20% of their work time working on an unrelated project. Many of Google's new services have spawned from this kind of development.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Linux Firefox Vulnerability

A bug report has been filed to the Mozilla Firefox Bugzilla that a new vulnerability has been discovered in Firefox, only on *nix based systems. The vulnerability is created through the commands passed to Firefox through the shell when Firefox is called upon to open a URL from an external program (ex. Mozilla Thunderbird). A potential hacker can send an email to a user and when the user click on a url in the mail, and Firefox is sent a shell command to open the URL, the hacker has the ability to run various commands which could lead to a compromise in the user's system. It has been confirmed on Fedora Core 4. There is currently no patch or workaround available yet.

Creative Zen Micro Photo

One of the main goals of the Killer Tech blog is to give you the latest technology news. But more importantly, what I wanted this blog to be, was a portal for awesome new gadgets. Up to now, in this blogs short existence, we haven't really featured any gadgets. However, we have found our first match, and it is definitely a piece of killer technology.

It's the new Creative Labs Zen Micro Photo. This is the iPod Photo killer. I have a Zen Micro, and this takes the Zen Micro to the next level. Let's get the specs:

Screen: 1.5in OLED Color Screen
Battery: 15 Hour Lithium-Ion
Storage: 8GB Hard Drive
Other Capabilities:
Photo Storage
Integrated FM Tuner (with the ability to record)
Integrated Microphone

Overall, this looks like it is going to be a solid player and a nice addition to the Zen family of players. I have had absolutely no problems with my Zen Micro and this one is better in every dimension.

Steve Jobs talks tech

In an article on Macworld, Steve Jobs discusses Apple's role in the Motorola ROKR, the possibility of a video-capable iPod, the future of the Macintosh line of computers and much more on where Apple is heading.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/09/20/jobsparis/index.php

New G4 CEO named

Neal Tiles is now the official GEO of G4, the video gaming TV network that was TechTV. The former CEO was the main person behind killing all the good TechTV programming. There is a chance that the new CEO will try to restore G4 to TechTV, which was a much more popular network.

Opera browser goes free

In the latest version of the popular Opera Web Browser, the banner ads embedded in the browser application window have been removed. The browser is now officially completely free. Previously, you had to pay for the ad-free version. I test drove the new version, and while it seems to feature-filled and loads super fast, I miss some of my favorite featurs from the Firefox browser. Unfortunately, the Opera browser has no room for user modifications and plug-ins the way Firefox does.

5.1 Dolby Surround Sound With Any Pair of Headphones

Dolby Headphone technology allows users to wear any set of headphones and listen to music, watch movies, or play video games with the dramatic surround effects of a 5.1-channel soundtrack.

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Killer Tech Google Group

The Killer Tech Google Group is finally here! With this Google Group, all the readers of this blog, and me, can interact more easily than just with this blog. So check out the Google Group and post your thoughts on anything we did or did not cover on the blog. All the posts to this blog should automatically get sent over to the group so anyone can comment and start a discussion right in the topic. Enjoy!

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Dell Enters Linux Arena

A new player has entered the Linux arena! Dell has introduced a new laptop, an addition to their Latitude line of systems, that runs Mandriva Linux. Although it isn't my preferred flavor of Ubuntu, it is a start from Microsoft Windows XP. HP has also recently announced that they will be selling Ubuntu laptops soon, with desktops to follow.

As for the new Dell's specifications, the Latitude 110L comes with:
Mandriva Linux installed
1.4 or 1.7 GHz Intel Celeron/Pentium M Processor
RAM ranging from 256MB to 1280MB
DVD Drive
starting price of $930

Is Microsoft Beginning to Support Linux?

Microsoft recently announced that the Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1 will add support for the Linux platform. Previously, Microsoft has not supported Linux in any of their products. They have also made comments about the rival operating system such as, "Linux is a cancer...". It is quite likely that Microsoft will slowly begin to open up to the operating system as it builds up speed in both the business and personal home user markets.

Could Linux Become Unstable?

News Article In Short:
The Linux kernel is becoming increasingly versatile and feature filled. As more features are added the kernel may get more and more unstable, like the Windows kernel.

My Opinion:
Linux has a larger community of developers than Windows and therefore, more testing is done, and more bugs can be fixed. It is much easier for Linux to add features and for all of them to be tested and any bugs fixed than Windows is with only the Microsoft development staff testing and fixing bugs.