What's New is Old, a Slurpcast.

One Infinite Loop - a tribute to steve jobs

2011-10-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at CPK in San Francisco, CA.
The team dedicates this show to the passing of Steve Jobs. Each of us shares our personal experience with him, and opinions about his success and failures.

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To the Moon, Private Sector!

2011-08-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes, Bob o' Rob & Frankie at CPK in San Francisco, CA.

In this show: Steve Resigns from Apple, HP drops Desktops & Web OS & Touchpads kinda, China gets iPhones kinda, Windows 8 is cool kinda, and other funny tech news.

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Showing our age

2011-05-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at a hidden meeting place in San Francisco, CA.

In this show: Early loss of show control, Japan disaster site storage facility, Rapture delays, Thoughts on Microsoft & Skype purchase, Google Wallet may not work, Pay me in BitCoins!, Kindle usage not so great, Yes you can get a great laptop now for under $500.00.

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A ton of good in this world

2011-04-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at the Mel's Drive-In, in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, iPad iCade, 360 Netflix Kinect Update, Asus Honeycomb Tablet, RIM Playbook, Windows Mobile used to run a lot of apps, Repulsive Forces on Muni, Bob & Wes talk about Afro's, 1961 Yuri Gargarin first man in space controversy, and other random bits of tech opinions.

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Shatner woke up the Space Shuttle

2011-03-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at the WestField Shopping Center in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, wes talk about Elizabeth Taylor's passing, William Shatner broadcasting a wake up call for the crew of the Space Shuttle, online news has taken over paper news, orders for iPad2's have slowed slightly, the FCC has a spine?, starting to see applications being supported by consumer appliances and automobiles. Bob also speaks a bit about smoking.

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Apple sold a ButtLoad of iPad2's

2011-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at the California Pizza Kitchen in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, we talk about the crisis in Japan, iPad2 sales, what would we be without GPS?, old box of cereal for sale on eBay from 1972, Mark wants to take a bath in a tub filled with Captain Crunch Whistles, Hadron Super Collider is really a time machine and Wes gets his hands on an HTC ThunderBolt.

As always, Mark talks about his Kraps.

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Our thoughts on iPad2

2011-03-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at the California Pizza Kitchen in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, we juggle our thoughts about the iPad 2, Apple starting to allow development and interpreters on iOS devices, public transportation with cloth seats can make you sick, color photos of SF from the 1906 earthquake, who is going to ever watch all the video on YouTube! Enjoy the show!

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Serial Ports on Everything!

2010-11-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at the California Pizza Kitchen in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, we ponder on in-flight wifi, companies do have a responsibility to make sure their web sites are accessible to people with disabilities, Palm will take over the world, Symbian OS, is the new MacBook Air any good?, FireSheep, SkyFire, and Samsung Android Phones.

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Joe, Wes, Mark & Steak

2010-10-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Average Joe at the Daily Grill in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, we introduce our guest, "Average Joe" who comments on our stories and adds his own thoughts to topics like Android phones, craigslist reaches 2billion posts, now you can implant a layer of LED's under your skin, AT&T fails us again as we wait patiently for a Verison iPhone, FireSheep, Kurzweil, Justine Bieber, Atari 2600 the size of a deck of cards, and other deep and cranial stories.

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Bob & Wes without Mark

2010-09-30T20:16:00.000-07:00

Wes & Bob o' Rob in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, Bob and Wes talk about the new AppleTV, Segway, SETI and Viking system that may have actually found life on MARS. Bob makes fun of Mark and his Crap Apps. Enjoy the show!

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Audible Pain

2010-07-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Mark, Wes & Bob o' Rob at the top of the WestField Mall in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, Mark, Bob and Wes talk about Drugs, The Smart Car, Mac Paint, ShamWow, William Shatner, Back to the Future, The first Drum Machine, and other ramblings.

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How many times can you fall off a cliff?

2010-07-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

Mark & Wes at the California Pizza Kitchen in San Francisco, CA.

In this show, Mark, Bob and Wes all talk about iPad, Flip Book, Computer Shopper Magazine in 1996 and what you could buy back then, old LCD displays, how many ways the word 'meat' can be used in a joke, what is the future of Microsoft Mobile, Adobe vs Flash, Nicholas Cage is probably the worst actor ever, Tron Legacy, and 3D will not die out soon.

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Mark Has no Gas

2010-06-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Korean Bulgogi House restaurant in Concord,CA, (AGAIN).

Sites of Interest:

Piechart showing why people buy Macs and other Apple products.
Microsoft announced the Project Natal technology under the name "Kinect". The name reminds Mark of Microsoft's KIN1 and KIN2 phones.
Chart showing where Americans moved in 2008.
Apple CDMA iPhone 4 rumor given new wings.
What is Apple Inc.'s role in task force investigating iPhone case?
Giant Jesus statue hit by lightning and burned.
Horizon MiniPak personal fuel cell charger hits shelves for $100.
Futuristic New Release: Vinyl and CD on One Hybrid Disc.
Senators propose granting president emergency Internet power.
Teardown of new Mac Mini.
Nintendo 3DS Release Date And Pricing To Be Revealed On September 29th.
Google TV.
Adding a Set-Top Box To Your TV Is Nothing New.
Frequency chart of TV bands.
Xbox 360 250GB first unboxing.
New Xbox 360 has red dot of death, instead of red ring? Not quite.
How to get rid of the Windows Blue Screen of Death.
How to make an old Mac into an iPad holder
YouTube now has a Video editor.
Apple Store application.
Early cassettes were pink and came in cardboard boxes.
New unibody Mac Mini.
MSI replacing BIOS with UEFI firmware interface sometime this year?
Disco: massive data - minimal code.
The Farting Preacher needs fart odor neutralizer pads.
Critical apps that should convince you to get an iPhone, not some other smart-phone platform: Fart Detective, Fart Studio, Fart Piano, Fart Drums HD, Torture Box.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

Baby Decks DJ -- the world's first dual scratch turntable for the iPad, a fully portable DJ rig.
Mellotronics M3000 for iPad -- the most accurate and thorough digital simulation of the classic 1960s tape replay instrument.
StudioTrack -- Multitrack Recording songwriting tool for musicians who want to capture musical ideas and record songs on their iPad.

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

Clinometer --measures the slope by all edges of the device in every direction. When the device is put flat on the table a bubble view will fade in.

Paper Airplanes!

2010-06-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark Wes, and guest Bob O'Rob in a secret conference room in San Francisco, CA munching chips and pretzels and slurping sodas.

Sites of Interest:

Details about the iPhone 4 and IOS 4.
There are rumors that Skype will support the iPhone 4's front camera for video chats, but we can't find any definite information.
Mark said he will put IOS4 on his iPad, but the date for that has not been determined, Apple just says "in the fall".
How to make paper airplanes from phone book pages.
Make your own cardboard cutouts of Steve Jobs and the iPhone 4.
New version of Ubunto Linux is available: Lucid Lynx.
Asterisk, a free, open-source telephone PBX
You can interface real phone lines with Asterisk via ethernet boxes like these: Linksys 3102
Bletchley Park WWII archive to go online.
The NSA has a Museum -- The National Cryptologic Museum.
The Kryptos sculpture at the CIA headquarters. The Dan Brown book Mark was thinking of is "The Lost Symbol".
Free coffee at Barnes and Noble stores if you have a Nook reader or the B&N iPhone app.
Coffee: Drink Up to Prevent Diabetes?

We apologize, but after Bob left, the mixer was set wrong so only Mark's microphone is live, and therefore Wes is a little hard to understand.

Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench .
Farmville and Guitar Hero announced for iPhone.
Warning: be sure you buy an iPhone to make sure you can run these fine apps: LED iPocket FlashLight, Bad Calculator, Dumbbell for iPad, Fart Drums HD, Fart Piano Free HD, FatBooth, Less Cigarette, Spin It HD, and Werewolf Me
The movie "Splice" is very disturbing, and "The Human Centipede" is a lot worse.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

BirdPie and Twitpad -- Unofficial and official apps to play the live stream for Leo Laporte's TWIT.tv network and netcast.
Da Vinci HD, Rembrandt HD -- High-quality scans of all of each artist's paintings for only 99 cents.
Space Wallpapers HD -- Over one hundred space photos in beautiful HD glory to use as iPad wallpapers.
Categories -- App for jailbroken iDevices only, lets you create groups of icons on your iPad or any device that doesn't have IOS4.

What is wrong with AT&T

2010-06-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Korean Bulgogi House in Concord, CA.

Sites of Interest:

AT&T Data plan changes for iPhone and iPad.
How does the purchase of radio spectrum affect cellphone rates (PDF)?
Rumors of iPhone for Verizon continue.
Google ditches Windows on security concerns.
Macs are susceptible to viruses just like Windows is.
Microsoft's Project Natal close to release, will be called "Kinect".
The World Carrot Museum.
Rumors that Hulu may start charging, publish an iPad app.
Roku set-top box for watching Netflix movies.
Details about the forthcoming Google TV.
Google Wave is now available to everyone, but Mark wonders is people actually use it very much??
Apple rejected an app to sync iDevices over wi-fi; but it is available as "Wi-Fi Sync for jailbroken devices.
Videos of Steve Jobs' comments at D8.
Microsoft Windows Embedded Compact 7.
Roll-up computer screens and prototypes of entire roll-up devices.
And Now the Smart Toy, taking Simon to a new level.
The Square credit card reader has to generate it's own power.
Mastercard Money Send faq.
Maker Faire.
Playing the Dr. Who Theme With Millions of Volts of Electricity.
Tesla coils can make music as midi instruments.
Iota Flex wrist band wants to be a MiFi for voice and text.
Play SNES on your jailbroken iPad, with an iPhone as controller .
Python script turns any song into a swing number.
Sprint advertises a 4G network, but it isn't really.
A Guide to Facebook’s New Privacy Settings.
Please don't buy an Android phone, or Blackberry, or anything else but the iPhone platform so you can run important applications like these: Farting Zombies HD, Brainless Zombie Quiz HD, iToilet, Chalk Screecher. EmoKill, Fart Blower, IQ Profiler, and SnowCat.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Prince of Persia Retro -- For the first time on iPhone, relive the classic adventure that started it all!

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Angry Birds HD -- Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds’ eggs. Use the destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs’ fortified castles.
Geared for iPad -- The first and only Gear-based game with absolutely no snap-grid. Geared delivers complete and total freedom to the player, bestowing every puzzle with a near infinite array of choices
Ndrive USA HD -- This does not seem to be in the app store at this time.

More Tech Anniversaries and Computer Music History

2010-05-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes, and at Flippers Gourmet Hamburgers in San Francisco, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Duke to shut Usenet server, home to the first electronic newsgroups.
How to use Usenet for Warez.
Celebrating PAC-MAN's 30th Birthday.
Google had this Pac-Man game as it's home page for the anniversary.
Listen to this recording of a woman calling her help desk to get rid of the Pac-Man game on her home page.
Mark tried one of these AT&T 3G Microcells, but had problems with two of them and returned it for a refund.
IOS 4.0 for iPhone.
AT&T Will Finally Allow iPhone "Tethering" -- For $20 Extra A Month
Pandora devices in the home.
Hackers can remotely disable your car's brakes
The laser turns 50.
The Evolution of PC audio
What the Internet knows about you.
RetroN 3 Video Gaming System.
YouTube Adds Colored Tags in Comments.
Is your iPad keeping you awake?
iPhone gigaputt virtual golf game.
Interview with Mick Jagger about copyright.
BE sure to buy an iPhone, not Blackberry, Android, etc. so you can run these critical apps: Zombie Farts HD, Magic Mover, and Boink.

SORRY, BUT THE BATTERY IN OUR RECORDER DIED AT THIS POINT, AND WE DIDN'T REALIZE IT, SO THE SHOW ENDS EARLY

Sony Dash Chumby Slash Flash Player Subtracted by Angry Steve

2010-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

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Mark and Wes at Indian Flavors in Berkeley, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Steam for Mac opens a portal to May 12, steps through.
First YouTube Video EVER Celebrates Its 5th Anniversary.
Happy 10th birthday, Pocket PC/Windows Mobile.
Microsoft confirms, kills Courier in one fell swoop.
Google Kills Verizon Nexus One, Suggests HTC Incredible.
Adobe's CEO: Jobs' Flash letter is a 'smokescreen' for 'cumbersome' restrictions
R.I.P. Floppy.
Ubuntu 10.04 'Lucid Lynx' arrives on the scene.
HP buys Palm: the liveblog.
Sony's Dash goes on sale, officially this time.
Celebrating the 30th Anniversary, Post-it Brand from 3M Proves It Has 'Sticking' Power.
Romey and Michele's High School Reunion.
Rob Cockerham's Costco prank.
Nolan Bushnell Has Returned To Atari... Again...
Earthly pleasures come to Google Maps.
Very important applications for the iPhone platform, so please don't buy Android or anything else that can't run these: Wart Healer, A Faster Magic Sand, MeowLingual Cat Translator, My Cat Mood Decoder, Mud Splat, IPeeInABottle.

Wes' iPhone/iPad Applications of the week:

Musophobia the Particle Painter -- a highly unconventional painting application, denies the single brush painting convention, and delivers a novel interface for drawing by up to 999 particle-brushes at once. And instead of using the brushes, you can merely interact with them: set them in motion on different trajectories.
Gas Tycoon 2 HD -- a development of the genre where you have to lay a pipeline from sources to consumers of ready-made elements by their rotation in opposite directions.
Men's Health Magazine -- each month, get the same world-class workouts, tips, and in-depth feature stories that appear in the print edition, with enhancements.
TN3270 -- emulates an IBM 3278 terminal for easy access to IBM Mainframes.
GoDaddy.com Mobile -- Manage your domain names and other services from godaddy.com, view Bob Parson's videos and commercials.
GoAruna Files -- Manage, share and have access to all your files at home, at work and on the go.

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

Pocket Weather World -- Good app to display weather in any city, and their server sends push notifications on a schedule that update the icon for the app to show the current temperature without needing to open the app.
Scan for all -- take a picture of a barcode on a product or ad. Supports 1D and 2D barcodes to give you access to multiple formats.

How Much Fiber do you Need to be Healthy?

2010-04-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes, and guest Kyle at the Out the Door Vietnamese Restaurant in San Francisco, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Kyle thinks he is a geek, however he might be a nerd or a dork. Here's the test to find out.
60+ years of Radio Shack catalogs.
The Netflix app for the iPad (and soon for iPhone/iTouch) lets members watch complete streaming movies on the device from Netflix's wide variety of movies available to Watch Instantly.
We all love the idea of the iCade that we discussed on a previous show -- the Ipad Arcade Cabinet but there's a problem. Click on the Buy Now link and you will see.
iPad accessories. Why doesn't it have USB ports instead of these specialized connectors. Yes, USB would require device drivers, but those could be written over time.
The iPad has been jailbroken already, but the method has not yet been made public.
MobileMe Will Find or Erase Your Missing iPad.
Over 1,000 Communities Apply to be part of the Google Fiber Test.
Google changes its name to Topeka.
Would you trust the kind of people who write an ugly, difficult to read, website like this one to develop Internet 2?
Wes likes the book: Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time.
Microsoft Live Game Room.
The Arcade Ambiance Project.
Microsoft Project Natal and Sony PlayStation Move.
You should buy an iPhone, not Android, Blackberry, or any other platform, so you can get great apps like these: A1 ClapClock Meccanis , TheInsulter, FunFart-restaurant, PooPong, Plunger.
Lucid dreams and how to trigger them.
Frog Migration: Omen to China Earthquake Disaster

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

If Found, + -- provides a valuable service of having a message placed on your background wallpaper, so if a good person finds your phone, they can find you, even if it is locked.
Age Calculator -- will take a birthday as input and calculate exactly how long you've been alive, not just in years, but in months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes?
iSeismometer -- just leave your iPhone on a hard surface with the app fired up, then tap somewhere nearby and watch what happens

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

MapQuest 4 Mobile --brings over a decade of digital mapping experience to your iPhone with unique features to help you get where you’re going. LikeVoice-Guidance, our latest addition to Driving Directions, for a more hands-free experience.
Navigon MyRegion US West, Central, East --One of the original high-priced turn-by turn navigation apps, now available for rhe third of the US you need, at a much lower price.
Reeder --RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader and has a good set of features.

Kyle's iPhoneApplication of the week:

Sleep Cycle alarm clock -- An alarm clock that analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you in the lightest sleep phase - a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed.

Do you want your PC inside a keyboard or monitor?

2010-03-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Saigon Bistro in Concord, CA.

Sites of Interest:

A technical history of Mac operating systems.
The Cell-mate headset for i Phones and others similarly shaped.
Mark is amazed: SanDisk ships 32GB microSDHC card for $200.
Can I have my futuristic transportation already?
The World's Fair was held in San Francisco in 1915 and 1939.
The Physics Behind Four Amazing Demonstrations.
Some iPhone App Sites Demand Money for Reviews.
The world's ten oldest jokes revealed.
If you want to write a realistic fart app, you had better understand the science behind farts.
No more 4-track cassette recorders. A video about how these worked.
Free: 137 Years Of Popular Science online.
What Really Happened to Mayor McCheese?
The Commodore name licensed again for a line of keyboard PCs.
Dormiphone: The Tape Machine For Your Subliminal/ESP Needs.
Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, tape-based, polyphonic synthesizer.
Styletap, thePalm Pilot emulator for jailbroken iPhones
Caching Apple's Signature Server to allow jailbroken iPhone 3GS to revert to a previous version of the OS.
Great iPhone apps that should convince you to buy one instead of Android, Blackberry, etc: a Fart Smeller, Zombie Apocalypse, Butt Muffler, Football - real kick, Dog Translator, Swearing Machine, Attention: Drunk People, Mad Eyes, and Swami Paws.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week

RokuRemote -- Remote control your Roku Soundbridge Internet radio.

gFlashPro Flashcards & Tests -- Learn anything from chemistry to ancient history, study for a professional certification, or take a minute to relax and enjoy some trivia, anywhere and anytime.
Study Cards -- a series of apps on to help you study different subjects

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Wi-Fi Finder -- The largest offline directory available of paid and free Wi-Fi Internet access - over 280,000 locations in 140 countries worldwide!

slate.com -- Access to the latest Slate.com articles blogs, and videos.

Nobody has Jobs!

2010-03-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Szechwan Chinese Restaurant in Orinda, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Leo lePorte's best Tech Guy caller ever -- her stolen WiFi disappeared.
Wes likes his Ipevo Mini Network Storage Adapter for only $59
Mark thinks this is a milestone: Kingston unveils 256GB thumb drive for well-heeled memory fiends
Cool Leaf transparent acrylic touchscreen keyboards
MITS Altair replica kit
Compass Table Is the Most Fun You'll Ever Have With Coasters
Recognizr app is coming for some cell phones
Apple removes Wi-Fi scanners, 'minimum functionality' iPhone apps. Mark is concerned that fart apps might be next.
Comparison of the touch screen accuracy of various smartphones.
Is Coffee Good or Bad For You? The Pros & Cons of Coffee Drinking.
Table and bubble chart about which food supplements actually work to promote health and which are bullshit. (Mark loves saying "bullshit bullshit bullshit").
Clive Sinclair created Big Trak, a new type of car and he doesn't use computers or cell phones.
What type of music helps you be more productive?
We all live in a yellow drum machine.
The Linux Sampler Project.
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version.
Why you should buy an iPhone instead of other platforms: to run essential apps like these:i RubberDuck , Hot Basketball Ko , iCuckoo Push, Amazing Dirty Sex City Names, Aerial Accidents Top 20, Kama Stick, Fart Harmonica Pro.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

Trillian -- organize and stay in touch with your IM and social friends while on-the-go.
DailyFinance -- only free app with real-time quotes, tracking for multiple portfolios, customizable news from 3,000+ sources and professional-grade charting.

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

3D Sun -- not useful to the average person, but Mark was blown away that mankind has reached the point that such a thing is possible for the average person to carry around.
DirecTV-- TV Guide for the DirecTV system, and you can easily set your home DVR to record shows remotely from your iPhone.

Mobile Phone Experiments in 1913

2010-02-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Monsoon Masala Indian restaurant in Pleasant Hill,CA.

Sites of Interest:

Mr. Edison's Kindle -- article about 15 modern products that, believe it or not, had their beginnings in Edison's time.
8 Bit Weapon Chiptune Sound Library.
How to fake DNA tests.
What iPad Apps Are Going to Feel Like.
Dumb terminals connecting to mainframe computers.
This is the notebook Mark just bought.
Clear Classic USB Joystick lets you enjoy old school gaming on a Mac or PC.
How unique -- and trackable -- is your web browser?
How 8-track tapes work.
Exidy Sorcerer: The 8-Track Computer.
Concrete5 is a free open source content management system.
The Apache web server.
Don't buy an Android phone Windows Mobile, or Blackberry, only buy an iPhone so you can run these essential apps: iTeether, massage chair controlled by iPhone, Got Smell, Cupcake Tic Tac Toe, Voodoo Doll, and Hologram Building.
Website with good quality free technical ebooks.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

Teavana Perfect Tea Touch -- features everything you need to blend and steep your favorite teas including a musical tea timer.

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

MobileRSS -- feature-rich Google Reader client for your iPhone and iPod touch,

Touchtone or rotary dialing, which costs more?

2010-01-21T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Chef Chao's restaurant in Rheem, CA.

Sites of Interest:

MadTV made this video about the iPad before it was announced.
History of the Apple Newton.
Apple hired back one of the developers of the Newton.
Details of the new Apple iPad.
Haiti Earthquake Survivor Calls iPhone a Life Saver.
Haiti Earthquake Relief: How You Can Help.
AT&T Seeks to Phase Out Landline service.
Spike Jonze video about robots in love.
Online fan club for the other Spike Jones.
NEC’s “Battery-Less” Remote Control Could Be The Future Of Gadget Power.
The famous Dan Brown novel that Mark couldn't think of was The DaVinci Code.
The Plastic Logic QUE ebook reader.
YouTube Redesigned With Films, User Uploads in Mind.
YouTube's Next Venture: Movie Rentals.
Home page for the legitimate uses of BitTorrent.
The Texas Instruments watch we discussed in a previous show is being used to unlock doors.
ATM Card Skimmers Are Getting Frighteningly Sophisticated.
Speaker system for pregnant women.
Watch Any Vimeo Video in Freaky ASCII-O-Vision.
Interview with the father of videogames, Ralph Baer.
You should buy an iPhone instead of any other platform so you can run essential applications like these: SafeCab, Voice Band (video of it), Anti-Aging, Boobs and Sneezes, and Werewolf Me.

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

PetSnap -- With 32 different sounds and useful features, PetSnap could easily attract your pet’s attention and assist you creating wonderful pets’ photos!

CES, VES, and Laptop TV

2010-01-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Bo's BBQ in Lafayette,CA.

Sites of Interest:

New Google "near me now" features for iPhone and Android.
Google takes a new approach with China.
China is now the largest importer of cars
2010 Will Be the Year of 3D TV
How different types of 3D glasses work.
3D without glasses, works very much like the 3D postcards you see in souvenir shops.
Nvidia 3D vision card and glasses for 3D on your home PC. Mark was wrong in being skeptical about this. He was assuming 3D would need polarization on the display screen and forgot the technology where the glasses have electronic filters that turn each eye's lens transparent and opaque in sequence to match the left and right pictures blinking alternatively on the display.
TV goggles exist, but never seem to be good enough.
The director of Avatar and Titanic made a 3D IMAX documentary called Ghosts of the Abyss about finding the wreck of the Titanic and exploring it with mini submarines containing IMAX cameras.
Interview with James Cameron about the technology used to film Avatar.
Good video of the Sony Aibo robot dog in action, including interaction with a cat.
Video of Bigdog, a Military robot that look like a double-sided dog.
Video of the Manoi Go break-dancing robot.
Digital Mobile TV meant for portable devices.
Sugar-powered phone, pour coca cola into it.
Free Photoshop Online.
The Sony Dash can run Chumby applications as well as other multimedia functions.
SBSettings for jailbroken iPhones Offers Faster Method to Manage iPhone Settings
Article critical of the Sound Exchange website.
Touch the Future with Light Blue Optics.
New Sony eBook readers have touchscreens and free cellular network access for downloading books and periodicals.
Philip K. Dick Estate Sends Google Cease And Desist Over Nexus One Name.
Pacman re-written for the 1976 Fairchild VES/Channel F/System II
"Demo apps" people used to write to show off their programming skill
The jailbreak ProSwitcher does multitasking on the iPhone looking just like the Palm Pre.
Please don't make the mistake of buying an Androd phone, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile. Only the iPhone can run amazing and essential applications like these: Mr. Dumb - Toilet, Marco Popo, iThong, Pet Snap, Nude-it, and Drunk Dialer.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Labyrinth 2 --The creators of the original iPhone Labyrinth game bring you Labyrinth 2 - the groundbreaking game taken to the next level.
GoodReader -- Read huge PDF, or TXT files, flawless performance with files over 1 gig in size, and re-flows the text to fit the iPhone screen.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

HuffingtonPost.com -- Take the Huffington Post with you, and get the latest news and opinion --even when you are on the go.
Dragon Dictation -- Voice recognition application powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text.
Mailme Voice -- The quickest way to get all those things that you need to remember straight to your e-mail inbox.

Frankie's back from Russia

2009-12-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark, Wes, and guest Frankie at the Swad restaurant in Lafayette, CA

Sites of Interest:

The little-known Jewish holiday of Christmas Eve.
Most Bay Area cellphone carriers now work in the BART Transbay tube. That article shows problems at first, but the service seems to be good now.
Comparison of prepaid cell phone plans, including unlimited plans that compete with Metro PCS.
If you aren't familiar with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's personality, please watch this video first so you will understand the context, then watch this Video of a guy who says Steve Ballmer personally fired him because he wasn't enthusiastic enough about the word "Bing!"
Mark's puppy is a Bichon Frise.
Nettop computers are miniature desktop machines that use basically notebook components so they are very small and use little electric power. Mark got an Acer Aspire Revo 1600 for $200 and is happy with it for the price.
Taffic and runway lights with incandescent bulbs are being replaced with LED lights because they last far longer and use less electricity, however because they run so much cooler, they create a hazard in the winter.
World Climate Report, a blog skeptical about global warming.
If you are truly concerned about global warming, the best thing you can do personally to save the planet, is to eat your pets
Here are the pictures Wes took of his trip to Thailand.
San Francisco mayor backs mandatory cell phone radiation labels.
Inform 7 is a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language.
USB Hourglass random number generator and random number generators based on radiation.
Twitter co-founder starts a new company, Square, that lets individuals and small businesses accept credit cards for payment using a tiny cube accessory that plugs into the audio jack of iPhones and other cell phones. See a video here.
Mark sees a similarity between Square and the beginnings of PayPal, which started as a way to beam money from one Palm Pilot owner to another.
Google goggles is an Android app that lets you take a photo of a product or building and lookup information about it by matching your photo to others of the same object that Google knows about. Google says Goggles will eventually be implemented on the iPhone.
Wes saw the Rama IX Bridge in Bangkok, which was dedicated to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on his 60th birthday.
The latest rumors about an Apple Tablet device.
Reference manuals for the Apple Newton including a scripting language for end-users
Be sure to buy an iPhone, not a Blackberry or Android device so you can run fine applications like these: iboobOrButt, Bing, Pull Santa's Finger, iLust, Stool Scanner (Fingerprint Test), ISOCK-the talking sock!, Assassin FPS, and Pie Fight.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

RacerCoaster -- race a powerful racing buggy over roller-coaster-like race tracks?

Mark's iPhone Attacks

2009-11-26T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes, at the California Pizza Kitchen on Van Ness in San Francisco.

Sites of Interest:

Fertility treatment may produce fewer baby boys.

Why we know from genetics that grandmothers play favorites.

This is the blood thinning drug that Mark is taking that requires a lot of testing to get the right dosage

Twitter to make money in 2010 with non-traditional advertising

What is the President and his staff looking at?

Wes mentioned this EZ430 sports watch and development platform. Mark ordered one from here for only $49 which includes the watch and all the tools. The ordering website didn't actually work to complete the order, so Mark ended up calling the phone number listed in the error message page and ordered it by phone.

Buffalo USB 3.0 hard drive now on sale and also a USB 3.0 PCI adapter card.

Mark bought Wes one of these for Bah Humbug day.

Darpa’s Simulated Cat Brain Project a ‘Scam’?

Tesla Motors IPO coming 'any day' now

Changes to Sarbanes-Oxley to ease costs for small firms

Mark explains why you should only buy an iPhone, not a Blackberry or Android phone or Windows Mobile, because seriously only iPhones can run these essential apps: Balloon Boys, Banjo Hoedown, CatPaint, and Sexy Fruit.

Geohot's jailbreak for latest iPhones and ipod Touch's including ones with the latest firmware. But note that the very latest models currently being sold by Apple have a serious problem with this: you must connect the device to a computer and re-do part of the jailbreak every time you reboot the device. This is a serious issue for an iPhone because if you are out and away from your computer and something happens to force you to restart your phone, you will be without a phone until you can get to a computer to do the "tethered boot".

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

iTimeZone -- World time clock that lets you enter a past or future date and time as well as the current time and see the corresponding date/time in other cities.

TripIt--That link will take you to search page which shows several apps that interface with the tripit.com website.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Blower Real Air -- Simulates an air blower on the screen, including making a special sound that somehow causes a tiny stream of air to blow out of the speaker port!

Crazy Text -- Lets you create messages in inverse and upside-down text.

Is it time for Droid?

2009-11-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Le Chaval restaurant in Walnut Creek CA

Sites of interest

David Pogue on how the Motorola Droid is a "manly" phone
Apple tablet rumors again
How to build a Hackintosh
Apple Mac OSx updates flipflop on support for Atom processor
Recovery.gov and Layar app layer
Acer Liquid handheld with Android OS 1.6
Second Canadian cellphone carrier gets iPhone, but has to switch to GSM to do it.
Microsoft will drop Spot watch technology in 2012
inPulse SmartWatch for Blackberry
This is probably the digital ink watch Wes was talking about
US losing domain name registry and non English characters for domain names
The Motoroa Droid in the U.S. doesn't do multi-touch
Hybrid cars in 1901! by Ferdinand Porsch
Good article for starting out with Google Wave, once you get your invitation code and a complete eBook reference guide.
Microsoft Comic Chat stilll lives and can still be installed
Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will
At prankdial, you can send prank phone calls to your friends for free! Just select the type of prank, enter the victims phone number, and send away
It's very important that you get an iPhone because Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile can't run these apps: Metrognome, Monkey Sheep poop fight, Furious George, Swine Flute, Mega Fart, Bed bug identifier
New Comcast bandwidth throttling scheme

We had to cut off the show early at this point because the recorder battery was going dead.

Shit Wes' Dad Says

2009-10-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark, Wes, and Wes's dad at the Hotel Mac in Pt. Richmond, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Bully Sticks are NOT tendons or processed meat strips, no! Bully Sticks are 100% ____ _______.
History of the PC bus standards: ISA, Micro Channel, PCI.
New eBook reader from Barnes and Noble, the Nook. Mark thought this was the vaporware Plastic Logic reader that we talked about on a previous show because the announcements for that one months ago said it would be for B&N. It turns out the Plastic Logic Que announcements were true, but their reader will be a competitor to the Nook that will also be displayed in B&N stores and also use their eBook library.
Mark's speculations were wrong, Sir Alan Michael Sugar did not invent sugar or the Sugar OS on OLPC devices. But he did have a part in computer history.
Will Linux take over from Windows on the desktop? Probably not, but it is used a lot on server machines, along with FreeBSD, another open-source OS based on UNIX.
How Algol and PL/I relate to other computer languages.
Mark's memory was totally wrong about the Apricot computer; it had nothing to do with the Apple II and was more of a PC clone, but not quite.
Very funny: Conan O'Brien interviews the REAL Intel employee rock star who co-invented the USB bus, not the fake actor in the TV commercials.
Google drops Tele Atlas as their provider of U.S. maps, now creating their own maps with the help of crowdsourcing.
Google Maps asks the public to help design models of the buildings around them.
Details of the Google Book Search Settlement.
Wes' dad used to wear a Timex Datalink watch that loaded data from a PC by watching a sequence of rapidly flashing bars on a CRT monitor or a flashing LED. He now wears the later USB version of such a watch.
WikiReader, the complete Wikipedia in a handheld device.
AT&T officer kind of admits US iPhone exclusivity may end.
The ARCHOS 5 internet tablet is unusual because it's not a cellphone, yet uses the Android OS. Here is a video demonstration of the device.
Warning, you'd better buy an iPhone because BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android, and WebOS phones cannot run essential applications like these: Virtual Kelli, Cry Translator, Hoax Factory, Prankster Kit, Chicken Kazoo, Sexy GrandMa, and Sexy GrandPa.
Mark thinks this would make a great iPhone app: http://hotchicksplungingtheirtoilets.com.
Justin Halpern is 29, lives at home with his mom and awsome 73-year-old dad, writes down the shit his dad says, and tweets the best ones every day on twitter account @shitmydadsays. (You don't need to be a twitter user; just click on that link to see his tweets.) Here is an interview with Justin.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Net Scan - Scans the WiFi network your iPhone is connected to, discovers Mac and PC hosts along with any other (even hidden) network servers and devices, shows related network information and services they run.
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Tweetie 2 - Wes' favorite iPhone app for reading and sending tweets.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

iNet - Same idea as Net Scan mentioned above.
Best Camera - App for taking and editing photos. The name comes from the author's book The Best Camera is the One With You; i.e. your cellphone.

Phill Schiller is not Vince Shlomi. Steve Balmer is really Peter Boyle.

2009-09-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Korean BBQ Plus in Concord, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Is it true that in Second Life you can walk uphill both ways to/from school (in the snow)?
Read news fast with Google Fast Flip.
Are there problems with iPhone 3.1?
The Jailbreak is out for 3.1 for the older iPhones and iTouch's, but not for the 3G(S) or latest iTouch's.
Saurik's article criticizing Apple's closed app store, and details about the eventual jailbreak for 3G(S) with 3.1 and what you should do to prepare for this.
The History of Turntablism, and now DJ's have Pioneer's new CDJ-2000 DJ deck.
History of mechanical music clocks.
Kanye West crashes the Video Music Awards, then he crashes a presidential speech, President Obama calls him a jackass, and a website where he disses your website.
Mark likes Baby Gramps because he plays the banjo at least sometimes.
How large can memory cards get? Toshiba announces a 64 GB SD card. The largest microSDHC we found for sale is 16 GB.
The Broadcom chip in the new iPhone Touch is capable of 802.11n.
The new iPod Touch models don't have a camera, but it looks like a prototype did.
Does David Pogue have a conflict of interest? And his new book The World According to Twitter.
Twitter hash tags.
Look at this guy's prediction about the iPod nano camera.
The next eco supercar: the Steenstra Styletto.
Electric cars have been around since the 1800's.
Information and news about the upcoming Windows 7.
Carbonite.com offers unlimited offsite backup to their Internet servers for less than $5 per month, and you can save 20% if you buy via this special deal.
Buddy Backup is an example of software that lets you backup to a friend's hard drive over the Internet for free.
Bing Visual Search for popular iPhone apps. Mark is confused on how to use it to find fart apps, since farts are invisible.
Steve Ballmer gets mad at a Microsoft employee for using an iPhone, and gets physical with Guy Kawasaki's MacBook Air.
The most amazing video of Ballmer's presentation style.
Video about the Steve Jobs reality distortion field and details on how it works.
Wes' stupid BlackBerry can't run these basic iPhone apps, and neither can Android phones: Waiter Rater, I Got a Man, Virtual High Five, DollEye, Virtual Sushi, Fat Mama's Pussycat Playland, and Blood.
Krapps.com is a blog with more examples of the KRitical iPhone apps that aren't available for other platforms.
OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Driving Test - teaches the material and simulates the written driving test and at the end presents you a detailed score which you can e-mail yourself. Works for multiple states, but Mark is skeptical because driving laws can be different.
iChess - Play against the iPhone computer or a second player.

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

Waze - free, 100% user-generated, social navigation app that allows drivers to build and use live maps & real-time traffic updates to improve their daily commute.
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Choose your own Android!

2009-09-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Bo's Barbeque in Lafayette, CA until the wasps and loud band-with-no-banjo forced us out, and then we went to a Starbucks.

Sites of Interest:

It's the 40th anniversary of Nerf. Mark has one of these Nerf toys and this iPhone app to control it (although he hasn't gotten the app to work yet, possibly because his missile launcher looks identical, but has a different brand name on it).
Wes complains about the Sima Hitch device we talked about last week.
This is the type of wasp that attacks us in Lafayette (not our video). Search this page for the word "wasps" to see how to trap them.
Comparison of all Android phones so far, including the new Motorola CLIQ.
Warning: Android and Blackberry phones can't run these important iPhone apps: Urinals: the Game, Pocket Bacon, Barf Puke-A-Thon, Puma Index, Sexy Flashlight Sexy, Hell Chicken, D-color_Picker, Blow and Touch, and Fart Tester (is that the picture of a nose? Do we have dirty minds?).
Steve Jobs: video at the Apple Keynote event, and interview with David Pogue.
The new iPod Touch models don't have a camera, but it looks like a prototype did.
Mark wondered whether the new iTouch models have VoiceOver for blind users. Yes.
Demonstrations of the video on the new iPod nano models.
Did Yoko Ono And Sky News Just Ruin Apple’s Beatles Surprise?
Tenth anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast.
SimplifyMedia lets you share streaming music and photos with other computers and iPhones.
What's new in iTunes 9?
Boxee plays personal and Internet media along with social networking features on a 10-foot user interface so it works well on a computer connected to a large TV monitor with a remote control.
New features in iPhone 3.1.
Apple explains iPhone OS 3.1 Exchange Server changes.
Caching Apple's Signature Server.
Oracle tries to stop Sun's bleeding: Is it too late?
The IBM 5100 Portable Computer in 1975.
Reminisces of the first computer virus.
Facebook Lite is here, and some like it better. As if that isn't sufficiently twitter-like, Facebook also added tagging of friends using the "@".
WordPress is the first blogging platform to implement RSS Cloud.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Flickr - shoot, upload and share photos & videos, geo-tag your photos or add them to a set. View your photos by set and tag. (Marked mentioned Google's Picasa software and service.)
craigsphone - Craigslist viewer for iPhone 3.0 and above only! (Will crash on older OS.)

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

C64 - Commodore 64 emulator along with 5 games. This is pulled from the app store at the moment, but hopefully will be back.
I Am T-Pain - gives you Auto-Tune in the palm of your hand, using the same Antares audio technology T-Pain himself uses in the studio to record his music.

Cross-Platform Fart-App Compiler

2009-09-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Pizza Antica in Lafayette, CA.

Sites of Interest:

The movie "9" comes out on 9/9/09. The 9 Experiment is here.
Information about USB On-The-Go.
The Apple Camera Connector let you copy photos from certain digital cameras to your iPod.
Wes is buying the Sima Hitch USB Transfer Device.
Review of the new Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Snow Leopard adds an anti-malware scanner and here's an example of Mac malware in the wild. Macs have security vulnerabilities, and malware could target Macs. Everyone says not to worry because there is no incentive to write such a thing, but Mac owners do online banking, etc., just like PC owners do, and are far less likely to have their systems protected by anti-virus software. So Mark wonders why malware authors wouldn't go after Mac user's passwords and other valuable info? And how do we know this isn't happening, since Mac owners don't run software to look for them?
Snow Leopard: the 64-bit reality.
Inside the new Microsoft retail stores. Everyone forgets that Microsoft had a retail store before. Wes heard that the San Franciso Microsoft store will be in the old Virgin Megastore building a block from the Apple store, but we can't find any articles saying that. Mark thinks it would be funny if Microsoft opens their store again at the Metreon, since that is also only a block away.
Microsoft is trying to compete with iPod's with their new Zune HD.
Wes said GoDaddy blocks China, but it seems like it's China doing the blocking from time to time and our impression is that China has nothing against GoDaddy itself, but sometimes finds objectionable material on a site hosted by GoDaddy and blocks a range of ip address that includes other GoDaddy-hosted sites.
AT&T will allow MMS for iPhone on September 25, 2009.
Happy 40th birthday, Internet. Watch the video!
Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia, is a parody of Wikipedia. This is the article that Mark couldn't remember: Free Kevin.
Wikipedia will test a new policy for handling updates of articles about living persons.
Wikipedia to Color Code Untrustworthy Text.
Wes' stupid Blackberry can't even run these common iPhone apps: Weekly World News, PocketMoney Launcher/Flashlight, Real Calculator, Mosquito vs Human, Full Metal Penguin, Blu Wave SAD Light Therapy Device, BustedHot (the redneck dating service), and Tickle the Beaver.
If you're happy and you know it, syntax error.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

Boxcar - We've talked about this before, but Wes is anticipating a new version which will work with Facebook and some email services.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Expertise : Pure Silver Analyser - Uses the magnetometer on 3gs' to determine whether a piece of jewelry placed on the screen is pure silver, or is an alloy with ferrous metals.
Tip Calculator Revolution - Does the same functions as any other modern tip calculator, but has a cool look and controls.
Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite - Create, open & edit Microsoft Word & Excel files, and read PDF's.

Show me how to strengthen my fingers again?

2009-08-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at Pizza Antica in Lafayette, CA.

Sites of Interest:

Wes' stupid Blackberry can't run these ordinary everyday highly-useful iPhone apps: Treadfinger, Static Chic, SEX-A-MA-PHONE, iDontFart, or the Amazing Radiation Detector.
Computer History Museum in Mt. View, CA.
Are developers for Windows Mobile worth more than 99 cents?
Build an Apple-1 replica from a kit.
Web-based Apple ][ and Apple IIgs emulators, including virtual disks for nearly every game ever made for these machines. Mark said The Prisoner is missing, but Prisoner and Prisoner II are there now in the Apple 2 Disks section. The first one won't start, and Mark has no memory whatsoever of how to play II or why he used to like it.
Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X with Wine. (This is an acronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator".)
Judge ordered Microsoft to stop publishing Word and pay $hundreds of millions in fines. Microsoft will appeal.
Internet slowly wakes up to PayPal's quiet fee hike.
DJ Mouse Lets You Sit and SPIN!
Send a tube full of anything you want into space for only $8,000. I wonder if a Woot Bag of Crap would fit?
You can be a passenger on an orbital spaceflight for free.
The game of Geocaching is placing and locating hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then sharing experiences about them online.
Uncouth Facebook postings closing doors for job candidates. Our friend @besz wrote an article about the ethics and legality of employers snooping at your online profiles.
If you insist on snooping at people's online activities, Spokeo is an efficient way to go.
Archos confirms Sept 15th Android event, readies AppsLib app store.
The lolcat Bible Translation Project, translating the entire Bible into LOLspeak.
Mini documentary about the Moscow Cat Theater.
Enhanced, or Augmented, Reality apps coming to Android and iPhone. But they might make you look like a dork.
An iPhone app that emulated the Nintendo DS was pulled from the app store in several days.
Mark and Wes compared the RSS reader apps Newsstand and Byline. Both synchronize with Google Reader.
The multi-platform VLC media player has gone beyond version 1.0.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

iWine Simulator - Have you seen the iBeer app but want something more classy? iWine Simulator is the solution for you!
Geocaching - provides real-time, direct access to Geocaching.com's database of worldwide geocaches, with GPS assistance to find them.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Singing Glass - amaze your friends by tapping a tune on the pre-filled crystal glasses, or rubbing the rims to produce haunting glassware shrills.
Quicken Online Mobile - sign up for FREE Quicken Online and add your accounts to start tracking your finances from your iPhone.
Notifier - On a jailbroken iPhone, install "Notifier" from Cydia and an icon called "Reminder" will show up (I don't know why the names are different, but that's how it works). You can configure this to put icons at the top-right of the screen showing that things like a call, voicemail, email, SMS, etc. have been received, and the alert sound/vibrate for these events can be repeated. The icon will disappear when you open the appropriate app to handle the event.

No sir, you can't train that Zombie

2009-08-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Peet's Coffee & Tea in Orinda, CA .

Sites of Interest:

On Earth, most methane in the atmosphere is produced by the ongoing, unstoppable farting of living things.
Wes' stupid Blackberry phone can't even run the basic iPhone apps such as ManWax, Raoul the Dancing Pancake, My Little Cockroach, Gobbler, and Zombie Weatherman.
Mark is reading the book: Zombie Survival Guide, and loved the movie Fido.
Original District 9 short film.
Radio Shack asks for our help changing their signs to "The Shack".
Twitter is not popular with kids.
Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline, among other achievements. Here is a Pascaline simulator that works for only a few seconds, and then you are supposed to buy it. Cheap plastic adding machines that looked and worked like the Pascaline were popular before electronic calculators became cheap. Slide adding machines were also cheap and popular and worked on a similar principle.
Consumer 3D cameras are coming back in digital form. Fuji has a FinePix REAL 3D handheld model and Novo has the Minoru 3D webcam. The Stereo Realist camera was pretty popular in the film era.
YouTube is experimenting with letting people post 3D videos that can be viewed in various formats. Tutorial on how to prepare your 3D videos for uploading. Watch this sample 3D video and note the dropdown box under it called 3D View Style.
The Khronos Group is working on a 3D standard for the web.
How 3D postcards and posters work.
iPhones and other U.S. GSM cellphones are open to an SMS hack.
T-Mobile releases the myTouch, a thin Android phone with on-screen keypad. They got publicity for this with a parachute display over San Francisco.
Lenovo will release an Android phone in China shortly.
FAQ about USB 3.0.
Mathematician Cracks Mystery Beatles Chord.
Share, the IBM mainframe user group, turns 50.
Philippe Kahn, the real founder of Borland, and the fake Frank Borland.
A 16-year-old boy died in at a boot camp for Internet addicts after being beaten by supervisors.
Feedrinse will take in any RSS feed, filter it to your specifications, and give you a new RSS feed consisting only of the filtered items.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

preFlight Airport Delay Status - easy to use display of real time airport delays, closures, and current weather conditions for all major U.S. airports.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Balloonimals -beautifully-rendered balloon animals spring to life when you blow into the microphone on your iPhone.
Signalscope - turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a powerful real-time spectrum analyzer and oscilloscope.

Find Ghosts? There's an app for that!

2009-07-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the LeCheval Vietnamese Restaurant in Walnut Creek, CA .

Sites of Interest:

Mark used his iPhone to test the restaurant for ghosts using GhostRecorder.
Creative Labs introduces Zii Plaszma, the StemCell Computing Platform.
Early BART ticket counterfeiting. Cap'n Crunch caught doing this.
Hackers counterfeiting San Francisco parking meter cards.
O.R.B. Bluetooth Ear Ring: wear it as a ring on your finger, open it into a Bluetooth headset.
How the old Napster worked. Shawn Fanning's latest venture.
Steve Jobs spotted at the Apple campus and backstage at a Coldplay concert.
Various rumors of new iPod Touch and Apple Tablet devices.
Build an appliance or your own custom Linux distro with Suse Studio.
Sprint buys Virgin Mobile.
Microsoft, Yahoo! agree on Internet search partnership.
Jerry Springer plays Billy Flynn in the musical "Chicago" in London and maybe Broadway.
David Pogue's "Take Back the Beep" campaign, and his book "The World According to Twitter".
Apple releases a software update for the iPhone SMS security problem.
Skype As We Know It May Not Exist Much Longer, eBay Says. Mark always thought eBay purchasing Skype was a stupid idea and this story is only part of the problem. Meg Whitman was the CEO of eBay when they bought Skype, so Mark wonders whether she should be campaigning for California governor.
Wes likes the IPEVO Wi-Fi phone for Skype.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Lunar Module 3d - unique lunar-lander style game that mixes classic arcade action with realistic environments.
Currency Calculator - multifunctional calculator which allows you to work with multiple currencies. All currency ratios are provided by a professional currency exchange rate provider.
AP Mobile - Select news from local newspapers and broadcasters and combine it with the best of the AP's videos, photo galleries, and national and international coverage. Has rare push notifications for important stories.
Tweetie + Boxcar - Wes likes this combination so he can use his favorite Twitter app, yet still get push notifications.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Star Walk and Pocket Universe - On an iPhone 3GS, these use the GPS, compass, and accelerometers to let you aim your iPhone in any direction and height, and they will show you what is in the sky at that point plus a lot more info.
B&N eReader - eBook reader from Barnes and Noble. Buy digital books and download them to the reader.
TripIt - forward your travel confirmation emails and TripIt creates a master itinerary for your trip, with detailed information about flights, hotels, rental cars and much more.
Sudoku Grab - capture a Sudoku puzzle from a newspaper or book using the iPhone's camera. Solve it on the iPhone, or let the app solve it for you.

Full Metal Chopsticks

2009-07-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Ohgane Korean BBQ in Oakland, CA .

Sites of Interest:

Amazon CEO apologizes for removing George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm digital books from Kindle machines that had already purchased them.
History of Amazon Acquisitions and Investments, including Zappos.com for $920 million.
An old article about the history of Novell Netware, showing its importance at the time.
iPhone factory worker committed suicide (or was pushed?) after being interrogated (tortured?) about a missing prototype.
Plastic Logic will ship an ebook reader using AT&T cellular data service.
New version of Palm Pre webOS lets it sync with iTunes again, and the legal fight begins.
A Blackberry firmware update offered by UAE mobile carrier Etisalat was designed to spy on users.
Mark thinks this and this are a lot worse than a country spying on Blackberries.
CEO of AT&T said iPhone will not always be exclusive with them.
Google maps had the moon for some time, and now the Google Earth program can be used to view the moon.
Top 20 signs you are a twitter addict.
Disney Japan will offer micro-SD versions of movies along with the DVDs.
Best T-Shirt of the month: Amish Gone Wild.
Microsoft announces Windows 7 RTM gold master disc.
A history and evaluation of IBM's System R and SQL
Wes likes the O'Reilly "Head First"series of technical books.
Wes' stupid Blackberry can't even run the FartBot iPhone app.
iPhone Fart App Legal War on the Daily Show.
Accidents related to factory robots.
Robot Cannon Goes Berserk, Kills 9.
IBM PS/2 personal computers with MicroChannel Architecture.
Rumors that the next iPod Touch will be just like the iPhone, but without the phone.

Wes' iPhone/Blackberry Applications of the week:

Later Dude Pro - Blackberry app to create call back reminders.
Cube - single player and multiplayer first person shooter that provides satisfying and fast oldskool gameplay; kind of like Quake.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

SimplyTweet - Mark's favorite Twitter app this week (he always changes his mind). Includes push notification for your Reply and Direct tweets.
BoxCar - Provides push notifications for Reply and Direct tweets, but that's all it does. Useful if your favorite twitter app doesn't already have this function.

iGPUtrace - For iPhone 3GS only because it uses the new GPU and the compass. Just a demo of what the GPU can do, but fun to play with because it demos a virtual reality by moving the iPhone around in front of you.
RedLaser - realtime barcode scanner, supports all standard UPC and EAN barcodes and looks up the products in a database. (Mark said it was a jailbreak app and it is, but he found out that it has also been in the App Store for a while so anyone can buy it.)

Is your iPhone 3GS Broken?

2009-07-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Korean Bulgogi House in Concord, CA .

Sites of Interest:

Mark mentioned hostgator.com for hosting WordPress blogs and many other types of web pages and services.
Wes' stupid Blackberry can't even run basic iPhone apps like these: Fartoscopes, Big Mouth, and TubaFollow.
Zoho has free and low-cost productivity, collaboration, and business apps. They just added a way to export your Access databases to the web.
Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics and is also credited with having written the first high-level language compiler, and for leading the effort to develop the COBOL programming language.
History of Borland International, and Will The Real Frank Borland Please Stand Up?
Fancy fast food: yeah, it's still bad for you, but look see how good it can look!
Universal/TuneCore deal opens major doors for indie artists.
Peter Pancreas Pimple still uses WebTV.
VLC media player 1.0 officially released after more than 10 years of work.
The Story of the Fail Whale, and the Fail Whale in Pop Culture.
Why are SMS messages limited to 160 characters?
History and myths about why railroad tracks are the gauge they are.
Cheap Trick brings back the 8-track.
Radio Station Broadcast Cartridges are similar to 8-track tapes.
YouTube videos of the Star Spangled banner played on a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and on a ukulele. Explanation of the electronic bat.
Pandora lives! SoundExchange cuts deal on webcasting rates.
Google Chrome OS vs. Android on notebooks.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

ModBox Module Player - universal Tracker Format Player that plays Amiga and PC module computer music, e.g. Protracker, Fasttracker, Screamtracker.
The Sexy Ladies of SHOW -brings you the incredibly beautiful women from the pages of SHOW magazine.
Babe on a Beam - balance the little cutey on the beam and unlock new powers. But go easy with those controls... it's a long way down!
Linux Cheat Sheet - a quick reference guide for all the Linux command lines necessarily to manage a Linux server.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

iTwitter - Full-featured Twitter app including filtered groups; can do everything in landscape.
TweetDeck - Also full-featured Twitter app with filtering; won't do landscape; synchronizes filters with TweetDeck for desktop machines.
Epocrates - Information on 3,300+ drugs, including dosing, adverse reactions, pricing and pictures, interactions, pill identification.
Run Pee Mobile - tells you which points in a movie you can safely "run" and "pee" without missing a hugely important plot point.

"Bing" goes the sound of Microsoft

2009-06-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes at the Back Forty Texas BBQ in Pleasant Hill, CA .

Sites of Interest:

When we recorded this show, the Palm Pre had not yet been released and we were going by rumors and pre-release reviews. The Pre is now out and available in Sprint stores. Mark played with one and liked it a lot more than he thought he would.
Same story with the new iPhone: our show was going on rumors, but the iPhone 3G S has now been announced and should be available for purchase on June 19.
If Mark decides to get the new iPhone 3G S, his old 3G should get better than normal value on eBay because he has been careful to maintain compatibility with Yellowsn0w so his phone can be unlocked to work with foreign SIM cards.
iPhone OS 3.0 is supposed to have Parental Controls to restrict which tier of apps can run, and therefore Apple may relax their restrictions on types of apps in the App Store.
History of the Xerox Corporation and how xerography works.
Ditto machines were a very cheap way to make multiple copies of a master. You can still buy one!
Muscular Men Have More Sex Partners, but Poorer Health.
Gummi bear surgery. WARNING: This Instructable contains graphic images of Gummi Bears being cut open.
Wes likes squarespace for setting up blogs and other websites.
Actor David Carridine was found dead in Bangkok, Thailand under strange circumstances.
Literal Video Versions of music videos. Watch that one, and there are plenty more from that producer and the Related Videos.
Windows 7 is expected to be shipped on 10/22/09.
The first phone-company operated mobile phone call was made in June, 1946.
Ham radio operators can make phone calls via an autopatch device installed in a repeater.
The CarterFone device (click that link, then scroll down to that section) let businesses build their own radio phones.
Adobe Design Catalyst is a new interaction design tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.
San Francisco is the first city to take city services requests via twitter.
Gary McKinnon, aka SOLO, is a Scottish hacker facing extradition to the United States to face charges of perpetrating what has been described by one prosecutor as the "biggest military computer hack of all time."

Microsoft introduced a new search engine to compete with google: Bing. To further compete with google, the Bing 411 service is like GOOG-411, and seems to be the Tellme service that Microsoft bought.
Bill Gates owns the image management company Corbis.
Samba and WebDAV are alternative methods of accessing files on remote machines.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

Flight Control game- Air traffic control is the world's most stressful job, but not for you. You don't need heading angles, flight rules or meteorological reports, you're a natural! A prodigy! A born controller! Just touch and drag the planes to their runway.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Alien Composite Sketch - Have you had a close encounter with Aliens. Perhaps you’ve been abducted and no one believes you? Well now you can give the authorities an accurate description of their identities.
Meat Clock -Now iPhone and iPod touch owners can proudly display the current time in meat! Includes animated seconds t-bone.
The Moron Test - Are you a complete idiot? What about your friends, coworkers, and family? Buy The Moron Test and find out!
Arcade Bowling - In the tradition of Skeeball, everyone’s favorite Boardwalk bowling game, use your fingers and steady aim to flick “laser” balls down the alley and up the ramp into the scoring holes.
QuickOffice Mobile Office Suite - Enterprise-grade Microsoft Word and Excel Office functionality with leading-edge innovation and unparalleled ease-of-use.

The Mail Order Tapeworm

2009-04-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark, Wes, and guest @besz at Bo's BBQ in Lafayette, CA .

Sites of Interest:

We make jokes about being sick because this recording was made when the Swine Flu scare was going on.
Apple removed the Baby Shaker iPhone app from the app store.
History of the word "computer". Comptometer operators should have had that title.
Were the people who wired plug boards the first programmers?
Purse that is a cross between a Nintendo and a Commodore 64.
History of Commodore Computers and pictures of the Pet.
The Remington Rand Univac was the first use of a high-speed printer.
Early-day line printers used chains and other mechanical technologies to print one entire line at a time.
Computer music using an IBM 1403 chain printer.
Modern video of making music with vintage personal computer equipment.
Will people pay for custom Facebook URL's?
Mark thinks this is all bullshit bullshit bullshit: the Tapeworm Diet.
Wes mentioned worms that eat infected flesh, but he probably meant medical leeches.
Get your free "chimp id". Mark has one.
The .tel domain suffix is kind of like a chimp id, but more organized for business use and it's not free. The price for a .tel domain name varies with the registrar; the cheapest Mark found for .tel is mydomain. @justinhayward does support for the .tel concept on Twitter. Mark has one, but he doesn't do much with it.
In October, 2005, Steve Jobs was still saying there would be no video iPod.
How to make a hole in one, right there in your office.
Bes' HTC TouchPro phone and Wes' Blackberry can't even do these simple things that every iPhone can do: Pimple Popper, Dart Anyone, Table, Monkey-Fart, Parent Remote, Mr. Elephant Fart.
The Time Magazine poll for the World's Most Influential Person was rigged.
The 2 Girls 1 Cup video.
Mark thinks this is a stupid name for a website about things you like (as opposed to things you lick): likaholix.com

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Wolfenstein 3D Classic - You are OSA super agent B.J. Blazkowicz and you must escape from Castle Wolfenstein and defeat the twisted Nazi regime!
Vir2L® Base Jumper - Base Jumper does more to capture the spirit of the old beloved games than anything Nintendo has released in 13 years.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

10 Balls 7 Cups - simulation of the Skeeball game, including winning prize tickets.
My.tel - The official free app from Telnic to manage your .tel domain.
Party Whistle - Just blow into your microphone and enjoy the realistic sounds and animations of a party whistle.
KFC Grillz - Hold the iPhone in front of your mouth and talk as you impress your friends with your new grill. The grilled out mouth speaks in time with your voice!
TweetStack - Group your Twitter friends, search terms, and TwitPics into fully customizable "stacks", all of which reside on the tab bar and show you the number of unread messages.

New Ways to be Gross with Twitter

2009-04-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Pleasant Hill, CA at the Monsoon Masala restaurant.

Sites of Interest:

Office chair that measures farts and sends twitters .
Brain-Twitter interface. There have been similar machines that read brainwaves as an input device to a video game.
There are websites where you type commands and a virtual actor obeys them. E.g. Virtual Girlfriend.
Long before twitter you could leave community messages on cards.
The Community Memory system of public terminals.
Optical signaling is an ancient method of long-distance communication.
History of the Vocoder instrument, first demonstrated by AT&T at the 1939 World's Fair.
The Legend Group turned into Lenovo and acquired IBM's Personal Computer Division.
Version 9.04 of Ubuntu Linux was released.
Nintendo Gameboy turns 20. You can play the old games on emulators.
For several days, the Apple.com home page was taken over by a counter supposedely showing the number of app downloads as this approached one billion.
Apple iTouch 3.0 firmware will unlock the Bluetooth capability that was already in the hardware.
Broadcom is first with a Bluetooth 3.0 chipset.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi share the 2.4 GHz radio band.
How Bluetooth got its name.
Donald Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming".
Acer confirms it will make an Android phone, but this guy is skeptical whether Android will become popular.
Mark thinks this is a very weird name for a website about things you like: www.likaholix.com.
Oracle is buying Sun for a mere $7.4 billion.
Wes is trying to sneak Blackberry applications into Slurpcast.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Yowza! - Launch it and it finds deals in your geographic area. Show the cashier the deal on your iPhone screen, they scan the barcode, and you save money.
CraigsMobileList - Wes' favorite app for accessing the craigslist website.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

PocketMeter - It emits sound and measures the time it takes for the echo to return. Point it towards a wall or floor, touch the screen, and it will show you the distance.
3 Numbers - Currency & units converter, tip calculator, and calculator all in one. But the special thing about this app is the steampunk look. To understand the true meaning of "steampunk", visit the Kew Bridge Steam Museum in London.

BlackBerry and iPhone Battle at Strada

2009-04-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Berkeley, CA at the Caffe Strada.

Sites of Interest:

Where are they now? 25 computer products that refuse to die.
Wes mentioned the vaporware Peapod electric car, and Mark pointed out that the Electric Time mini cars are available today.
The Nopopo Batteries from Japan will recharge with urine, blood, and even apple juice! But remember, liquids only, no po po!
RIM removed an application from the Blackberry app store, Wattpad eReader.
History of the Hewlett-Packard company, starting with the sale of oscillators to Disney.
40th Anniversary of the Request For Comment method of developing Internet standards.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen started their computer carreer with Traf-O-Data while they were in high school.
Bill Gates rocks! (Starting at 4:23 into this video)
The real portable Commodore 64, and Ben Heck's vision of what a Commodore 64 laptop would have looked like.
How to turn the lit-up Apple logo on a MacBook into a second LCD monitor.
Frequent IMs with your boss make you more productive.
BumpTop reminded Mark of the old Microsoft Bob add-on for Windows. But now that he watched that video to remind himself what Bob was really like, maybe they're not similar at all.
Wes' stupid $400 BlackBerry can't even run the most essential iPhone apps like iPimpler, i-Chirp, iTrigger Fart Version, I Crush Your Head, or Burpy.
Wes' BlackBerry is so useless that he might as well get this or this instead of the real phone.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

i-c-LiveCams -Live streaming video from cameras around the world
Howcast - View videos from howcast.com wherever you are.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Skype -Phone calls and chats through the Skype system.
SullysFlight - Mark has this, but it no longer seems to be available. It was a subset of X-Plane, which is still an active app.

Model Airplanes

2009-04-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Moraga, CA at the Ranch House Cafe.

Sites of Interest:

Steve Jobs maintains grip on Apple.
Some Safeway stores now have free Wi-Fi as part of a rebranding marketing effort.
Remember ICQ?
Tesla is working on an electric sedan.
Mark sounds skeptical that Tesla will ever ship anything, but they claim they have already delivered 250 of their Roadster model. Video of a real owner showing off his Roadster.
The idea of battery-powered cars is older than you think.
Solar-powered birdhouse with perch that lights up at night to attract bugs for the birds to eat.
Submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.
iPhone firmware 3.0 has been jailbroken, but you probably shouldn't try it yet.
There are lots of rumors that new iPhone models will be out this summer.
Is this article accurate about Obama's gift of an iPod to the Queen of England? No? How about this one?
President Obama gave Gordon Brown a box set of DVD's.
One of Google's April Fools jokes was that Google Apps can now be written in Fortran 77.
Information and video tours of a typical Google data center.
Flywheels are now used for Uninterruptible Power Supplies in competition to batteries. (Mark called these "gyroscopes" because he was thinking of something that spins.)
The Apple 1 and a history of the Apple Computer Corporation.
Nomee, TweetDeck, and PeopleBrowsr are software/websites that help you organize your feeds from various social networks.
Wes likes the hi5 social networking system which claims to be the third largest in the world, but Mark never even heard of it. They are having a funding crisis.
Mark couldn't remember the free dating service with the fishy name. It's PlentyOfFish.
Write applications for .NET using the MONO IDE on Mac, PC or Linux.
Mark likes the free SyncToy program from Microsoft, and mentioned it because it uses .net.
Is voicemail obsolete?
Mark's favorite voicemail transcription service is VoiceCloud.
Western Digital goes solid state, acquires Silicon Systems.
iFart was the #1 seller in the iPhone app store.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Bump -Somehow it knows when you bump two iPhones together, and will transfer contact information.
TapTapCards -Turns pictures on your iPhone into real picture postcards that are snail-mailed to your friends.
Color Splash - give photos a dramatic look by converting them to black and white, while keeping your chosen details in color.
iControl Cat - remote control for your cat, just like TV remotes. Mark particularly liked this because, believe it or not, he bought one of these and it didn't work either.
Farthoven -this sort of fart app has been done before, but Mark liked the name.

The Alien Habbit

2009-03-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Lafayette, CA at Pizza Antica.

Sites of Interest:

Medieval Tech Support for this new-fangled thing called "books" on "paper".
IBM's history and a history in ad pictures of IBM typewriters, including the Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter (MT/ST).
The Friden Flexowriter used paper tape to do very early word processing.
The new mp3HD format and information about the various MPEG standards.
Fingerprinting blank paper using commodity scanners.
Statistics on iPhones and iPhone apps as of March, 2009.
It's hard to believe, but Wes' stupid $400 Blackberry can't run any of these essential applications: Buzzbuka, Bikini Fart, iGoniometer, Drop It, or Dangerous Finger.
StumbleUpon is a social application for sharing great web sites.
TJ-2 was a very early computerized word processor.
php and Microsoft's ASP are extensions to HTML that coordinate with processes running on web servers.
Web developers can get free, unlimited IP address geolocation with MySQL.
Alexander Bain invented the fax machine earlier than you'd think.
The concept of dithering is used in both audio and graphics processing. This technical article goes into great detail, including some history of the word.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Alpine Racer - like Nintendo 64's skiing game.
PocketMoney - Lets you track your cash flow, understand your net worth, and improve the overall health of your finances.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Emerald Chronometer - Models of high-end mechanical watches with many of the most complex "complications" found in real watches, plus refinements found nowhere else.
Bell & Ross - Another beautiful simulation of a real mechanical watch.
Mint - Sign up for an account on mint.com, add your online banking and credit card accounts, and access them anywhere.

Wiffy

2009-03-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Orinda, CA at the Serika Japanese Restaurant.

Sites of Interest:

Compact Disc turns 30.
Remember the first CD Burners?
The longevity of optical media.
Audacity - an open source cross-platform audio editor.
Wavosaur - a free audio editor for Windows that supports VST plugins.
The Mentalists use iPhones as instruments; and another cellphone orchastra based at Stanford University.
The latest iTouch models can now be jailbroken.
History of WYSWYG.
The LOGO programming Language.
The Forth programming language.
The Pentium Chronicles.
We have mentioned the Will It Blend site before, but now there's Will it Fart?
Pastor Gas.
Kid uses a fart machine during a City Council meeting.
Google will shortly have free phone services, so sign up for the waiting list. (If you have a Grand Central number, you can keep it and Google has probably already converted it to the new system.)
Tellme has free voice phone services for the public.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

TextFree Unlimited - Buy this app and then send and receive unlimited free text messages from an iPod touch or iPhone to any US mobile phone. They have a free lite version of the app to check it out.
Things - Todo manager that synchronizes with Things for Mac.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Toodledo - Todo manager that synchronizes with the toodledo.com website, and via that, it can sync to Outlook.
Farty Face - Select or take photos of your arch-nemesis (or best buddy) and blast away!

$1,300 Power Bars

2009-02-27T23:07:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Concord, CA at the Fry's Electronics Store .

Sites of Interest:

Legal stink over fart apps.
Mark and Wes bought these Poqet PC devices back in the day, and still have them.
Sony P Series tiny notebooks are still bigger than the Poqet.
The technology behind the movie Coraline.
Mark suspects the $1,000+ "power conditioners" at the Fry's store are just glorified $5 power strips and in the real world don't make any difference to audio and video quality.
Mark guesses that this is the "store on Locust" with the $80,000 amplifier; but their website doesn't show anything like that.
The Amazing Randi has a $1,000,000 challenge about audio cables, but Mark was wrong in the details.
Startup.com, the movie.
Big Blue's employees really, seriously, used to sing these IBM company songs.
President Obama introduces RECOVERY.gov.
If you have a U.S. GSM cell phone (AT&T or T-Mobile), the trapcall service will show you the caller-id of people who try to call you with their id blocked; plus other services. This really works and Mark uses it.
Mozilla's Bespin framework aims to build an interactive Web-based code editor.
The WebKit open source project let's you design your own custom web browser.
Mark mentioned a street in London that protects pedestrians who walk while texting. This turned out to be a hoax.
The old Commodore Amiga with Video Toaster, could do this, but it takes 21st century engineering to actually make toast from a video machine!
How to build an aquarium from an old Mac.

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

He didn't have any this week. Mark was shocked.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Tootin Pooch -- the world's first dog-fart app.

Pukey Pete -- quite possibly the first puke app. Mark may branch out from fart apps and become an expert on puke apps as well.
Ocarina -- turns the iPhone into a serious ancient flute-like music instrument.
Fartarina --a mash up between Ocarina and a fart app.
SignalScope -- turns your iPhone into a powerful real-time spectrum analyzer and oscilloscope.

A Garden Hose in Paris

2009-02-12T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark and Wes in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Indian restaurant.

Sites of Interest:

Amazon officially announced the Kindle 2.
E-ink devices will soon be in color.
Modern Flash Memory is like the ancient core memory in that they both retain their bits when power is removed.
Wes mentioned an idea from the TED Conference, Homo Evolutus.
Bill Gates released mosquitoes to an audience at Ted.
Mark thought this Hello Kitty lineman's handset was for sale, but it's just a hand-made gift.
History of the early day web browsers.
The public first had access to the Internet via a Shell Account, which is character-mode access like a DOS or UNIX command line. Using TIA and other programs, people could do graphic web browsing on their cheap Shell Account.
In 1999, the World's Smallest Web Server was the size of a box of matches.
Basic Stamp and Arduino are popular systems for making prototype electronic and robotic projects.
Today's Front Pages can also be viewed via a U.S. map.
Years ago Mark and his cat wrote a daily email newsletter called WebSkulker. The site is still up so people can look through the archive, but don't try to subscribe. Wes mentioned the Dancing Baby phenomenum and Mark remembered that this WebSkulker issue discussed it at the time. Scroll down for the article "Dancing skulkers". The links still work after all these years, but the links within those pages generally don't.
New YouTube cult classic: David After Dentist. Another classic: audio of Christian Bale going crazy on a movie set. And finally a mashup of the two.
The Truth in Caller Id Act of 2009 is working it's way through congress.
How capacitance screens like the iPhone's work. You can buy a stylus that will work for this type of screen, but you can also make one yourself -- the Related Videos show other home-made ideas. Gloves that will work with iPhone and other capacitance screens.
Chutzpah award for Wells Fargo.
Early history of Compaq Computer.
Computers that weigh 1.5 tons.
Will there really be an ASUS Eee Phone?

Wes' iPhone Application of the week:

Spell Check -- Look up words to verify spelling and to get definitions. The dictionary resides in memory so no Internet access is needed.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Fart Army -- Mark thought Wes would like this because Wes used to play with little green soldiers.
Remote Fart -- Search the wifi network to find other users, then cause fart noises to come out of their iPhone.
Tilt Meter Pro -- Mark's favorite app for using the iPhone as a level tool.

Boobs Not Allowed

2009-02-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes in Concord, CA at the Korean Bulgogi House.

Sites of Interest:

Scandal in the FartApp space: FartnBurp claims to be the first to have farts and burps in the same app, but we reviewed one last week which had that and more.
The author of a great Rubik's Cube solver talks about marketing his product against fart apps.
Some women should not be allowed to call them "Panties".
How MapQuest Works.
History of Microsoft on the Web, including IIS.
Abacus Online Museum.
Synth Pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey in a music video. Wes thought he was the creator of the Oramic, but that was Graham Wrench who built this for Daphne Oram.
Mark found this 1-terrabyte hard drive for under $99.99. (That offer is sold out, but you can probably find others like it.) He said this was $1 per gigabyte, but it's actually $0.10 per gigabyte which is 10 times more amazing.
Solid state "hard drives".
Boobs And Booty Banned From The App Store -- but there are ways to cheat.
How to re-program temporary road signs to say what you want.
New version of Google Earth lets you explore beneath the oceans, and has many other new features.
Mark points out that virtual reality will never seem like real life until smells can be recorded and played back. Maybe something like this?
The technology behind Benjamin Button.
Bug Labs -- This company makes a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine.
MuxTape -- A place for bands to post their music, and for listeners to create mixes.
The Kindle 2 was a rumor when we did this recording, but has now been officially announced.
Videos of the Apple Newton 2100.
A New Zealand man bought a used iPod that turned out to be full of military secrets.
VMware Fusion is popular for running Windows on a Mac, but Virtual Box runs on many other platforms, is open-source, and freeeeeeeeeeee.
Microsoft has a new virtual machine product, Hyper-V, meant for running server systems.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

ModPlayer -- plays mod files. Duuuuuhhhhhh.
Speedtest.net Speed Test -- Test the download and upload speeds of your iPhone's Internet connection, whether wifi or cellular.
Tweetie -- Full-featured app for interfacing with twitter.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Slurptastic -- cleans your screen from the inside.
Jaadu VNC -- Expensive, but best app for remote control of a PC, Mac, or Linux machine. The instructions show how to install a freeeeeeeeeeeeeee VNC server on the machine to be controlled.
TwitterFon -- Mark's favorite Twitter app. He was wrong when he said it didn't have a way to mark favorite tweets; he later figured out how to do it.

The Humpy Thing

2009-02-05T00:54:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes in Oakland, CA at Sura Korean restaurant.

Sites of Interest:

Information about Carpal Tunnel syndrome. Article that claims mice are more the cause than keyboards. Catalog of weird types of keyboards for people who do have this.
Mark bought this vibrating Wake UP alarm which alerts you if your head nods forward while driving or in a movie. He bought it from an English language website in Korea which took an American credit card and shipped the item quickly. There is no link directly to the item, so go here and in the Title box search on exactly this string, including the brackets: [ICONIC] Wake Up
History of Unisys, a union of Burroughs and Sperry Rand. The old Univac computers are in that timeline, long before the merger.
The Mojave Experiment: Microsoft punks users to show people like Vista.
How to control your humpy thing.
Mark liked the movie My Bloody Valentine 3D.
Watch all the episodes of the cult classic TV show The Prisoner for freeeeeeee, and read about the remake.
Download movies very cheaply in various formats.
Website that helps you sneak into multiple movies in a multiplex.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Find an Apartment -- Lets you search Craigslist, Google Base, and more for apartments.
Gym Buddy -- Keeps a record of your workouts.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

iBurp On Your Fart Ahhhh -- Select burp, fart, and relief noises, all in one app!
Byline -- RSS reader that does two-way syncing with Google Reader.

Would Steve eat at Nama Sushi?

2009-01-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at Nama Sushi & Teriyaki.

Mark and Wes talk about Steve (you know which Steve) and his health and what he admitted. What went on at MacWorld? Where is the promised iPhone firmware with push notification? Apple NetBook? Newton? Why does Mark think that Steve needs a visit to McDonalds? Bits about Windows 7.

Sites of Interest:

We clown Steve Job because this quote shows he would be against our "What's New is Old" show format.
The truth about iMeat.
The "Whipple procedure" is sometimes used for patients with pancreatic cancer. If Steve had this, it might explain his weight problems.
Sign up for the Windows 7 public beta test.
The Windows Blinds product lets you "skin" a large number of visual elements of Windows and applications, including letting you make XP look much like Vista.
Microsoft is extending the date for Windows XP.
Joost doing better in the marketplace with it's new web-browser-based player.
Fart Studio, your all in one flatulence solution.
The QWERTY keyboard was designed to make you type slower. Everyone believes that the Dvorak keyboard invented by Dr. August Dvorak is faster, but that may be a myth!
JibJab to keep the laughs rolling.
The last factory to make player piano rolls has stopped production.
Actress Hedy Lamarr invented spread-spectrum radio using piano roll technology.
Pour yellowsn0w on your jailbroken iPhone 3G to SIM-unlock it so that it will work with almost any GSM SIM card in the world.
Freeeeeeeeeeee Internet dating sites.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

iAmAMan - Free calendar application meant to be used by men to secretly track multiple women's monthly cycle.
Eternity Time Log - Time tracking and reporting application.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Touch Physics and Crayon Physics Deluxe -Similar game/puzzle apps that let you draw objects with crayons on a blackboard, and they start moving to the laws of physics to let you solve the puzzle for each level. The serious bug in Crayon Physics was fixed in the latest version, so try it.
Tag Reader and Seadragon Mobile - Mark mentioned these because they are written by Microsoft for the iPhone, and he thought that was weird.

7-11, Ice Cream & Christmas

2008-12-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at the Tokyo Lobby.

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark figures out a way to intercept Wes on the bus using a system called Nextbus in order to take BART to the east bay together. We're thinking about changing the name of our show from WNO, to simply "SlurpCast". In this show, we talk a bit about the in-ear headphones that Wes got at the Apple store and Mark ordered via the Apple website. Mark feels that these are not as good as other in-ear headphones, like the Shure model he used before. Wes thinks that the lack of good movies has something to do with the writers strike. The Day the Earth Stood Still was yucky, although Gran Torino was good. Fart applications for the iPhone outnumber the total available applications on the Samsung Instinct. Ever hear about Usenet? Wes talks a bit about this old valuable part of the internet, but both of us get interrupted by the background noise of some darn college students.

Sites of Interest:

The Nextbus system works with a few public transit systems around the US to give you GPS-based predictions for when the next bus will arrive at your stop. Their web server is good at bringing up very simple HTML when it sees you are contacting it with a dumb cellphone browser. The Routesy iPhone application interfaces with Nextbus data for San Francisco only.
The new Apple In-Ear stereo headphones have a microphone for phone use and a remote control.
The Spoofcard website and telephony servers let anyone on any phone in the US make phone calls with fake caller ID and altered voice. Mark inadvertantly kept calling this "spoofstick" because he was mixing this up with another service called VoiceStick. There is an iPhone jailbreak app called SpoofApp available through Cydia which makes it easier to use Spoofcard from an iPhone.
Applications for Franky's phone, the Samsung Instinct.
Opera - A very compact and creative browser for many operating systems, including some cellphones.
The history of computer Spell Checkers. Also an interesting article on why the spell checkers in search engines are very different from the ones in word processors.
Usenet - An underrated resource for valuable information. Wes' favorite usenet application is Agent.
The Internet is for porn.
Doug Engelbart demonstrated personal computing, networking, the first computer mouse, etc. in 1968.
Videos of a Russian doll Theremin orchestra and a cat playing a Theremin. There are Theremin simulatorsfor the iPhone.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Chopper - a game that reminds Wes of Chop Lifter for the Apple II.
Allrecipes Dinner Spinner - an app that helps you choose a meal that's healthy for you to make at home.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Keep In Touch- a contact manager that reminds you to keep in touch with people on an appropriate schedule.
WifiTrak - a Wi-Fi finder that shows you whether an access point that appears to be open will actually let you connect to the Internet without needing validation.

Franky goes to Hollywood.. or San Francisco?

2008-12-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

Mark, Wes, and guest Franky in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Indian restaurant.

Click here to listen to the official audio show

We have a guest this week: Franky, Al Bernay's disciple. Franky goes to Hollywood -- literally, that's where he lives; but for this week he was visiting in San Francisco. The audio quality in this show is excellent because we used a PZM microphone, however there is a lot of GSM noise because Mark's iPhone was too close to the recorder and Wes was more agressive than normal in editing this show to eliminate some of the noisiest spots. They talk about Myst Online, the new domain suffix .tel, the dBASE database management system, Radio Shack (ewwwwwww), CompuServe and Tymshare, and of course lots of iPhone stuff.

Sites of Interest:

Radio Shack's PZM microphone, which may or may not actually be PZM.

Franky's Facebook page. Franky Goes to Hollywood, the movie. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the music group.
Franky's cell phone is a Samsung Instinct.
Myst Online goes open source.
The new .tel TLD and how it is very different from other domain suffixes.
History of the dBASE database management system.
Read historic Radio Shack catalogs online.
History of the CompuServe system.
There are now over 10,000 iPhone applications in Apple's app store.
A software hack to SIM unlock 3G iPhones -- meaning allowing them to be used on any GSM carrier instead of being locked to AT&T, for example -- will be released on 1/1/2009. If you already upgraded to firmare 2.2 using iTunes, then you won't be able to unlock using this method. If you have not upgraded yet, follow these instructions on how to upgrade only the firmware and not touch the GSM modem chip.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Joost - play videos from joost.com.
Woman Calendar - Men and women have very different reasons for using this; it's pretty expensive, but Wes thinks it's worth it.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Copy/Paste - This is a little complicated to set up, but pretty easy to use and really does give you limited Copy and Paste functions for the iPhone.
FindInPage - The podcast was edited so that a mention of this is inadvertently mixed in with the Copy/Paste discussion. FindInPage is a jailbreak app which is installed with Cydia, and edits your bookmark file to add a "Find in Page bookmark". WARNING: the current version of this app sometimes destroys your bookmarks instead of adding the new one, so wait for a revised version to show up.
Pull My Finger - Stupid audio app which has a bunch of fingers to pull. Guess what happens.

In-ear headphones not

2008-11-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

Mark & Wes, in Rockridge, CA at Pasta Pomodoro

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Our intro audio sample comes from the movie WestWorld. Mark reminds us about the Gopher protocol, and how that works. Wes remembers the text web browser Lynx. Why is Symbian supporting Lotus Notes? Why do companies who purchase other software companies, screw up the software products? Mark gets a phone call from a reporter investigating 911 fraud. Ever notice that bus and train riders who use laptops seem not to be aware of the fact that anyone can see their private information? Dell is now offering professional designs on their netbook line for an extra $50. Should employees get paid to wait for their computer systems to boot up? Near the end of the show, Mark and Wes talk a bit about the tools we use here to create the RSS feed and issues around the rich text editors involved.

Sites of Interest:

New Apple In-Ear headphones with microphone and remote control.
Griffin Clarifi iPhone case with macro lens.
Craigs Crime List, a site where people can report crimes that happen to them on CraigsList.
Ted Nelson coins the word "hypertext", predicts the world wide web.
The Gopher protocol preceded html.
Lynx is a text-only web browser that some people still use.
Nokia S60 adds support for Lotus Notes.
A history of computer spreadsheet software.
VU-Calc for the Timex Sinclair ZX/81.
Mark's comments about Steve Jobs and lowercase characters were wrong. He had read this Steve Jobs speech in 2005 and thought he remembered Steve making such a claim.
News story about a modern-day blind phone phreak being arrested.
Example of a privacy filter so people next to you can't see your notebook screen.
Comparison of netbooks. Mark says that Fry's had only one when he visited several weeks ago, but they have a few models now.
Article about companies not wanting to pay for booting and shutting down computers.

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

Frotz - text adventure games for the iPhone and iTouch.
iBlogger - a tool for blogging on your iPhone or iTouch.
iHotness - am I hot or not for the iTouch or iPhone.
CraigsMobileList - A better way to view CraigsList content on your iPhone.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Sniff_jazzbox - an example of Mark's love for stupid audio apps.
New version of Google search app has speech.

How to make BART go faster

2008-11-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA at Yu Sushi.

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Wes isn't ready for the G1 phone yet, but is thinking about getting one once other carriers start offering their own Android phones. Mark doesn't think that the T-Mobile network is all that good, so holding off on the purchase of a G1 specifically may be wise. Was UNIX originally a public domain operating system from Bell Labs? Mark ponders the question of what device may have been made to emulate another, in the 1800's? Some guy hooks up electrodes to his face to move facial muscles based on the sound of music. Mark invented a device for a psychology lab to analyze thinking patterns. We end the show with an update on Al Bernay and the discoveries found at Al's place.

Sites of Interest:

Ancient Rome layer added to Google Earth.
Google G1 phone is gaining momentum?
IBM 7090 - first computer to be used for animation.
More on the history of early computer animation.
Tron was pretty early, but not the first computer generated film.
Blade Runner - the last analog sci-fi film.
Dark Star - another famous analog sci-fi film.
Unix history chart and First Unix manual with 60 commands, 11/3/71
CP/M - Operating System by Digital Research.
History of MS/DOS and speculation on why IBM used it instead of CP/M for the PC.
The first timeshare system Mark used was CP/CMS and he evaluated a VM/PC.
How to emulate VM/370, the successor to CP/CMS, on any modern PC!
Apple's DOS Compatibility Boards.
Microsoft's CP/M card for the Apple II.
DOSBox - An x86 emulator with DOS.
Univac computer first to predict elections, Eisenhower/Stevenson
How to turn a human into a remote-controlled robot. Watch the video!
Eye-tracking technology is useful for testing usability of software and websites.
Google uses searches to track the spread of flu.
Frankie helping Mark go through Al Bernay's things:
Picture of Al in "the basement" in late 1960's. Note the homemade circuit cards hanging from the walls:
A couple of these circuit cards that survived:
The homemade switchboard that Al used to control his phone lines:
Cherry-brand slide matrix switch that Al labeled to install into his equipment, but not sure if he ever used it:

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

SiAX - SIP and IAX2 VOIP app, install from Cydia for jail-broken phones only
iSkream - Stupid, but fun, audio app.
iOscilloscope - Draws oscilloscope display from iPhone microphone sounds.

I want the Woot BOC

2008-10-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at the Plearn Thai Restaurant.

What's that Mark? Did you say Bag o' Crap? You still couldn't get one? Mark describes something called a woot-off, and tells all about what happens near the end of one of them. What does "MUD" stand for? Hmm.. Mark's friend has a hard disk issue that SpinRite fixed. The Android phone was released to a crowd of people in SF, but the experience was less than its competitor's waiting line. Mark and Wes discuss potential software for Android, and the T-Mobile plan for the G1 phone, which doesn't seem that much different than the iPhone AT&T plan.

Sites of Interest:

Woot, and their occasional Bag of Crap.
WNO's Listener Pull for the week: Sparrow, who is a developer of the popular Nirvana MUD internet adventure game.
What does "M.U.D." stand for? Wikipedia claims that Wes and Mark are both right.
ChaCha.com: where any question gets answered, and YOU can make money helping to answer them.
SpinRite is probably the best hard drive data recover software solution available.
The first Android phone was released by T-Mobile. See the rate plans as part of this FAQ.
Android has an app store kind of like the iPhone, but more open.
Android has a "kill switch" so google can remotely remove an app from your phone.
AT&T has a data-only iPhone plan, but only for people who have a hearing or speaking disability.
Scotch Tape can generate X-Rays; watch the detailed video.
Do you remember Word Perfect?
Mark changed his mind and now remembers Wordtech Systems of Orinda California began by making keyboard stickers for WordStar, not Word Perfect.
Call Wes' cell from an unblocked land line, and MetroPCS will show your name as well as your number.
Joost will now run within your web browser, and legally streams TV Shows and Video.
Hulu is another legal service for streaming commercial video.
Mark owns one of these Curta Calculators. It was widely used in car rallies, and here are detailed instructions from 1979.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

Theriminator - An emulator of one of the first electronic synthesizers, the Theremin.
Mark mentioned that synthesizer pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre designed these speakers for the iPod.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

The Brightkite web service now has an iPhone app.
WinterBoard - Theme your jail-broken iTouch/iPhone.
Crazy Skeleton - the ultimate Halloween costume accessory!
Debugger - Peer into the circuitry of your iPhone and get rid of any bugs.

Where does the cheese go?

2008-10-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Chow Restaurant.

Tonight we find our two nerdy friends eating food at a small hidden away place underneath a heat lamp eating simple Italian meals. Mark doesn't get the joke on Melissa's myspace profile and goes on to describe the official definition of a 'myspace picture', and what it means to not understand camera usage. Mark speaks about perspective, and how the process of catching flying balls is, in reality, an easy algorithm. Microsoft is no longer supporting their old Spot Watch paging in the next version of MSN Messenger. Mark describes what bubble memory is and how time was involved. 4.13% of the HTML passes WC3 Validation? Also, what do Mark and Wes think of this new restaurant?

Sites of Interest:

What causes GSM cellphone noise?
WNO's Listener Pull for the week: Melissa.
Simple algorithm for how people and dogs can catch balls and frisbees.
MSN is phasing out the ability to send pages to Spot watches.
The IBM 5100 Portable Computer (Project Mercury)
What Google searches looked like in 2001.
If you dig a hole straight down, where will you come out? Probably not China.
The Grid Compass 1101 - Bubble Memory Laptop.
Bubble memory never caught on.
Early computer memory devices worked by wasting time.
In Mark's first job, he had one of these amazing Wang calculators on his desk. He can't find any references right now, but remembers it used an acoustic delay line memory.
Opera study on W3C standards compliance.
Internet Explorer 8 will be standards compliant.
Flock 2 Browser adds social networking features.
Mark and Wes use Digsby to handle all their instant messaging needs.
Voipcheap and Poivy let you call landlines and cellphones around the world often for free, or a lot cheaper than Skype.
How to store data so people hundreds of years from now can read it.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

iDrink - the iTouch application to stir up your drink palette.

Mark's stupid iPhone Applications of the week:

Using these you can even impress the harmonica-playing bus boy at Hometown Buffet! iBeer, iMunchies, Harmonica.

I'm Loopt for Android

2008-10-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Restaurant.

Mark and Wes console each other about their stock market losses. In our fantasy, our podcast is better than KenRadio. Use your phone to display membership cards? Of course you can, so long as the bar code is visible and the facility approves. What tools were available in the old days of computer game programming? Take for instance the Atari 2600? Woz used the 6502 processor for the Apple II, and used it because of the manufacturer handing out free processors at some conference he went to. Steve Jobs and Woz created Breakout for Atari. At what point in history were KeyPunch Operators highest in demand? Could YOU live off of unemployment? T-Mobile reports high numbers of pre-orders for the G1 Android Phone. Digsby is really one guy?

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

KenRadio is one of the podcasts that inspired us to start our own.
Scan membership cards and keep their images in your phone, instead of filling up your wallet.
The MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor chip was the heart of the Kim-1, Commodore 64, Apple II, etc. Commodore later bought the chip manufacturer.
Punch card computing with wire plugboard programming for tabulating and reporting functions.
Keypunch machines.
Magnetic drum memory, and how real programmers wrote code for early machines with drums as their only memory.
Mark loves the FileTracer shareware program and has used it for years, but there is no Vista version.

The "Everything" free program does basically the same function as FileTracer, but it does support Vista so Mark is happy again.
The GoPhone unlimited data plans are being dropped. GoPhone sim cards will work in cellular modem cards and devices used with notebook computers.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

WikiMe - Automatically displays GeoLocated Wikipedia articles for landmarks near you. This is perfect for traveling to strange cities and immediately seeing the tourist attractions around you.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Loopt lets you see where your friends are on a map, and shows pictures and brief descriptions of other Loops users near you who opt in to that service.
WhosHere is similar, but only for the function of showing other users near you.

Stanfords Restaurant & Bar

2008-10-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at Stanfords Restaurant and Bar.

Wes meets Wes, at Stanfords, where he and Mark discover what a 'butter burger' is. Mark discusses how to train a Cat by using a clicking device combined with treats and warm fuzzies. Apple drops the developer NDA for applications created for the iPhone, but what does this really mean? Wes complains the the Sarah Connor Chronicles will end of life soon, but then nothing good lasts forever. Mark bought the domain name RapKids.com for Wes' recording program in Byron County, and much of the music used on the WNO PodCast comes from his work with 360. If you followed Mark's advice and jailbroke your iPhone or iTouch, he has a slight warning for you, and describes what you must do NOW to protect your iPhone if it gets 'bricked'.

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

The good lord willing and the crick don't rise.
The cat training revolution.
Apple drops the iPhone SDK NDA, possibly because of the controversy over the Podcaster app.
Google offers a blog search engine that not only lets you search blogs, but automatically shows what stories are active right now in blogs around the world.
Google has an experimental audio search engine where you type in keywords, and it will show portions of videos that contain those words in the audio track.
Wes likes the Sarah Conner Chronicles.
Myspace Music Recording Deals.
Watch the video about the amazing future Plastic Logic Reader.
Duke Nukem gets released for Xbox 360.
The original Adventure game, and you can play it online or on your computer.
The only other video game Marked ever liked was The Prisoner for Apple II.
Z-machine interpreter for Infocom games.
Nintendo releases DSI in Japan; comes to us next year?
Mark's new external battery for charging an iPhone/iPod on the go.
Warning for people who jailbroke your iPhone/iTouch: read this article and keep it handy because you might need it in case your iPhone becomes "bricked". BUT RIGHT NOW, BEFORE YOU GET BRICKED, you must set up the OpenSSH facility, or you won't be able to do what that article says. For Windows users, install the Putty program on your PC to talk to the OpenSSH connection.
TwiddleBit makes Microsoft Project-like apps for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones.
Leo Laporte is already using "Munchcast" as the name for a podcast, but they don't actually record from a restaurant so it isn't the same as our slurpcast.
But Mark wins because he owns shitcast.com! (This will re-direct to slurpcast.)

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

iBlueSky - Mind Mapping Tool

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Backgrounder (for jailbreaked devices only; install with Cydia). Mark has been using this since the podcast was recorded and he finds that it only keeps the background apps running for a while. At some point, when the OS needs memory, you will find that the app may stop running in the background. This doesn't cause any harm; it just isn't as great as we expected.
BeejiveIM - Instant Messaging Anywhere. Kind of expensive; Palringo does most of the same functions for free. But Beejive is worth it because it keeps IM sessions open for 24 hours when you exit the app. (Note that the settings for Beejive and many other apps appear in the iPhone's Settings app; you will not find them inside the Beejive program itself.)

Why not JailBreak?

2008-09-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA at Baan Thai.

Wes knows nothing about condoms. Mark jail breaks his iPhone 3g, which he then explains in more detail. They talk about how this hacking of the internal iPhone device started, and the discovery of the internal encryption key. Is it true that the jail broken iPhone runs applications better than the standard OS? The idea is that apps have more control over the device, than the standard Apple SDK allows. What is Mark to do with all the Esquire Digital Ink copies he owns? Wes thinks Apple watches the ideas that come out of the Jailbreak community to see what they might want to add to the standard firmware. Mark talks a bit about Android, and both discuss the positives and negatives regarding the HTC and T-Mobile introduction that should be more available next month. Is Municipal WiFi even a possibility? The Elvis Card.

Sites of Interest:

Jailbreak your iPhone from a Windows system with iTunes 8 and this link. This is the method Mark used so we know it works. The same website has a similar jailbreak method for Macs. Note that the first iPhone boot after jailbreaking may take a very long time, so be patient and don't think that the process failed.
The two competing App store programs for jail broken iPhone and iTouch devices: Cydia and Installer, and Cydia seems to be the newer method with the most apps. The above method for jailbreaking offers to install both of them, and you should let it. You will find these as icons just like any other iPhone apps, and the links above explain how to use them.
Jailbroken iPhones can be used like a cellular modem for Internet access from a notebook. The best method for doing that is PDAnet which can be installed from Cydia.
Jailbreak app IntelliScreen for showing info on the home screen.
Google hired Andy Rubin, developer of the Sidekick, to lead the Android project.
Android phones will work very closely with google's web apps such as gmail and Google Docs.
The T-Mobile G1 Android phone.
The way you pronounce linux, is...
Video of Steve Ballmore being the PC guy.
Craig of Craigslist has a boring twitter feed.
Google has products under development for you to check out now.
Very funny video of what it was like to use YouTube in 1985.
This is the 25th anniversary of the cellular phone network. Mobile phone history from the perspectives of Motorola and AT&T.
Ricochet wireless Internet was available in some areas of the country in the late 1990's. They used battery-operated modem boxes that you would Velcro to your notebook. This picture shows a Ricochet modem next to a notebook so you can tell the size.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

X-Plane 9

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

Categories (install from Cydia for jailbroken devices)

Polenta and Potting Material

2008-09-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at Pizza Antica.

The show starts out with a story about the first integrated circuit on Sept 12th in 1958. Al Bernay secured his own circuits by using potting material. NASA MARS image anomalies are probably based on image scale. Mark has a theory about UFO's. Have you ever played the 'integrated circuits around you' game? Wes claims he has an integrated circuit... down there... Mark is now using another blue-tooth headset for his 3G iPhone. Can the 1st gen iTouch use the microphone imbedded in the headset for the 2nd gen iTouch? The heating lamp debacle ends up getting solved by upper management. Analog TV signal going digital, but if you live in the boonies, you may not get the new digital signal anyway... Did you even see the Esquire Digital Ink Cover Magazine?

Sites of Interest:

50th anniversary of the integrated circuit.
NASA photographs of Mars that look like forests and trees, and something that looks like a piece of wood.
People think they are abducted by flying saucers.
The Globe is a good newspaper for articles about flying saucers.
The Blue Ant V1 bluetooth headset with speech recognition and voice response.
Mark impresses Wes and the waiter with the iLightr app for the iPhone.
Mark used to like the Zivio Bluetooth headset, returned it, but might someday buy it again.
Transition of over-the-air TV from analog to digital; one town started early as a test.
Esquire magazine with electronic ink on the cover.

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

Pocket Money
The Line Rider app is based on an online game. (Mark gave the wrong URL; he thought it was Line Writer.)

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

My 'Ding-Ding' Machine

2008-09-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Rheem, CA at Tamamis

This show was recorded using Mark's lapel microphones. For whatever reason, you can hear us eat and chew and slurp in high detail. In the show, Mark and Wes ramble a lot about Apple's new updates to certain products, iTunes 8.0, 2.1 firmware iTouch & iPhone update, Nano's potential 508 compliance for sight-impaired users. Mark explains how 'location over Wi-Fi' works, and how people have to drive all over the place to map the Wi-Fi locations. Wes thinks he caused his Wi-Fi to be added by doing something to trigger the location on his iTouch, but Mark is skeptical. What is the deal with the Genius feature of iTunes? Wes can't tell if it actually finds matching songs, and Mark isn't very interested in the feature unless it works with banjo and pipe organ music. Wes has a good way to look for new applications for your iPhone or iTouch, and explains how to do this. Did the 2.1 firmware fix your application crashing problems?

Sites of Interest:

The Homebrew Computer Club.
Apple's announcements of September 9, 2008. (Mark is happy, the new 2.1 firmware did fix his problems with iPhone applications.)
Rockbox has alternative firmware for iPods and other MP3 players.
The new iPod Nano's have speech for blind users.
The new iPod Touch models don't have a microphone, but the headset port now supports headsets with a microphone.
Microsoft Location Finder tries to locate your PC using the Wi-Fi access points near you.
Skyhook Wireless also has a browser-based location service using Wi-Fi.
Navizon is yet another Wi-Fi location service, but pays Windows Mobile users to help them build their database. Mark's information was old; they now pay the big points only if you find cell towers and access points not already reported by other users.
The iPaq H4355, Wes' old Pocket PC, could use the Internet through Wi-Fi.
The Pool-Playing Robot.
New Xbox 360 prices, and they will act as a Netflix player. But after reading those complex instructions, Mark changed his mind and likes the simplicity of the original Roku Netflix Player because it hooks up to your TV and Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection and works standalone without needing a PC, Media Center, or anything like that.
Walter T. Shaw wrote a book and is planning a movie to honor his father Walter L. Shaw, the telephony inventor. Walter T. was a master jewel thief and teaches you how to do it.
The free tip calculator app for iPhone/iTouch has been fixed and no longer makes big mistakes when you ask it to round up the amounts.
Mark has a Star Trek Credit Card and Wes doesn't.
Years ago Mark had an Elvis Presley credit card, but the company eliminated them. In trying to find a picture of one for this podcast, he found that site showing they are available again! But the application form doesn't appear to be working at this time so maybe they aren't available after all.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

Beat Creator

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

Face Melter

Kips cooks with Gas

2008-09-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Berkeley, CA at Kips

This show was recorded in a noisy area of Kips in Berkeley. Wes complains about his bubble drink and how it wasn't blended. Mark talks about Walter/Wendy Carlos and Switched on Bach. He has a pic of what looks like a Moog analog system, but there is a possibility that it is just an analog computer. What is it!? Who is the guy? They talk about the first MP3 player and what it looked like in 1998. Wes talks a bit about the unit that Apple examined before the iPod was created. Also his drink is not blended like it should be. Mark suspects that Google created Chrome in order to have something for Android, as well as a way to halt the payments for revenue to the Mozilla Foundation. He also believes their goal is to get people away from being concerned about applications for specific Operating Systems. Wes agrees and talks a bit about Google Docs. Some people think the earth is only 5000 years old and that we never went to the moon. What's next from Apple? New iPhone? iTouch Nano?

Sites of Interest:

Mark found this picture on a website with unrelated miscellaneous photos, with only the legend: "Moog Synthesizer in the 1970s (a pioneering era of Jean Michel Jarre compositions)". The gentleman in the picture is probably a young Mr. Jarre.
Official Bob Moog website run by his family; website of his company which still makes new music products; and a YouTube channel with videos of him.
Walter Carlos turns into Wendy Carlos.
The first MP3 player from 1998.
But wait, Kane Kramer invented a portable digital music player in 1979!

The Diamond Rio 300 made portable MP3 players practical.
Diamond MultiMedia, makers of the Rio, but more famous now for graphics & sound cards.
Mark's first iPod was the Apple iPod Mini.
Google releases Chrome, it's own web browser. People speculate on why: as an application platform, as a mobile browser for Android, or to save money by cutting down Google's payments to Mozilla?

The Spore Creature Creator is available now, and the game should be available soon.

How to make a replica of the Apollo guidance computer.
Example of a website claiming the Earth is only 5,000 years old.
NASA website debunking moon-landing-skeptics.
MythBusters episode busting these skeptics..

Share your purchased iTunes apps with a friend! This works, but warnings: It might not be legal, and Mark's iPhone app problems started several days after he tried this, but it's probably coincidence because a lot of people have the identical problem.

A GEM of a show

2008-08-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Emeryville, CA at The Emerybay Public Market.

This show was recorded outside of the food court in Emeryville. People thought Mark and I were some strange group of Radio DJ's, and the guard actually came up and started a conversation about our equipment.

In this show, Mark and Wes go back in time to discuss early Apple computers, and tell brief stories of the first Apple machines we both used. Wes talks a bit about the GEM DOS Shell. Forget GEM, Mark used DESQview to run multi-dos sessions... until he discovered that Windows could do the same job. Wes uses his Intel Mac Mini for video editing because it handles HD video fairly well. Us iTouch and iPhone users will be getting a new firmware upgrade in less than a month that should fix the app crashing problems we're experiencing. Nothing is better than a short BB-the-dog story, which Mark gives us, explaining how dogs check their peemail.

Sites of Interest:

This was recorded on Wes' Marantz PMD-660
Belkin GoStudio for professional recording on an iPod
The Mac at 25
The Logo programming environment
Original Mac had networking built-in
Mark liked the Apple III for the device configuration software, but look at the picture: doesn't it look like the keyboard was removable? It wasn't!
The infamous Lisa from Apple. And a Lisa ad with Kevin Costner!
The original Lisa's used the proprietary Twiggy floppy drive
You can see an Apple III and thousands of other items at the DigiBarn Computer Museum
Mark used to rent time on Macs at Krishna Copy to use Pagemaker
The GEM operating system
Sample Vision audio editor for early PC's that ran within GEM
DESQview could multi-task multiple DOS applications
At one point Microsoft added the Windows "cool switch" feature to cycle through multiple applications
Picture of Mark's old giant monitor which was very deep and hung off the back of the desk
iPhone security problem
Mark likes Sanyo rechargable batteries: highest capacity, or Eneloop for long shelf life
False rumor that Steve Jobs died
PSP 3000 to have Dual Shock support
Viruses on laptops at the International Space Station
Paper street maps with multiple layers
Software to make a big photo out of a library of tiny photos
Software to make a photo out of a phrase repeated over and over

Loards Ice Cream & Candles

2008-08-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA at Loards Ice Cream

This show was recorded at Loards Ice Cream due to the fact that there was a live band (with NO BANJO) playing loudly in the mall where the expensive Japanese Restaurant was located. So we waited until after dinner and forced ourselves to eat ice cream out of ice cream cups in order to bring you another wonderful and fact filled episode! In this show, Mark and Wes talk about MacroMedia, Adobe, Flash for the iPhone, Audio Editors, Steve Jobs is angry with Adobe for stating they would create their own Flash for the iPhone, does Steve approve every App Store application? Mark saw The Woz and a friend on a Segway in San Francisco. Mark talks about BART's Segway Policy. Also, did you know you can make your own Segway clone?

Sites of Interest:

The iPhone app WHERE has a sub-function that identifies the mountains near you.
WHERE's mountain id function is based on the website HeyWhatsThat.

The iPhone face detector.
Apple's cost for building the iPhone and the iTouch.

Hunting for the 2600 stereocilia.

Sound Forge has DTMF Blue Box Tones.

Cool Edit was another editor that also could also create DTMF's.
Controversy about Flash for the iPhone.
Steve Wozniak has a thing about Segways and Kathy Griffin.
BART policy about passengers with Segways.
How to build a clone of the Segway.

New PSP to be released in October here in the US.

MameUI32 for XP & Vista.

Before the Atari 2600, Nolan Bushnell liked the Magnovox Oddyssey.
Nolan's new restaurant chain: uWink.

And that comes with Garlic Bread? Or cheese bread?

2008-08-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show.

Mark & Wes, in Oakland, CA at LJ Quinn's Light House.

This episode contains a lot of fresh ground pepper and eating noises. Wes reveals why Quinn's is so important to him. Mark spends a large portion of the show speaking about cell phones in the US versus Europe, carriers, cell phone prices and different rates for calls. Can you really trust cloud computing? Google Docs? Mark invited some phone folks over to his party with interesting consequences.

Sites of Interest:

CDMA is popular for cellular in the US, but GSM is used almost everywhere else.
United Mobile sells multi-country GSM SIM cards. The one with the 44 country code is cheaper for people to call you.
Sample eBay search for cheap quad-band unlocked GSM cell phones.
International call-back services can save you money when traveling.
Save far more by making your own call-back service with Asterisk, among a million other things that Asterisk can do. (Email Mark for details on scripting the callback.)
Wes was thinking about Magic Jack for cheap phone service based on a USB device, but Mark misunderstood and thought he was talking about something completely different.
Voip Cheap is really cheap for overseas calls, and can be part of a call-back service you build with Asterisk.
Mark likes the Zivio headset from Joby, but it's expensive.
PSP now supports Skype.
Wes' iPhone App for Today - Study Cards
Six-CD Memory Training course that Mark likes. But wait, why couldn't he remember the name of it?
Yet another of Mark's inventions was stolen (not really) by this web site.
Good article on the term "cloud computing".
Should you trust cloud computing like gmail and google docs?

Al Bernay - part 2

2008-08-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the official audio show.

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at Bo's Barbecue

This episode is also dedicated to Al Bernay, who passed away on July 10th. Al had friends his family knew little about, and Mark and friends were amazed at how wrong the Rabbi was. Franky looks too young to be his age. Al created his own MIDI files and worked with the Petunia sound plug for the Commodore Pet. Honey bees or wasps, and how to get rid of them. Al's electronic address book was paper, sort of. Why do these people applaud this musical group, when there is no Banjo!? Netshare for the iPhone and possible reasons why it was allowed and then pulled -- twice! Mark likes the way the public perceives the value of apps in the iPhone store and how they complain that a $2 application is only worth $1. What do you mean you don't remember WebVan!?

Sites of Interest:

Al and Franky.
Falling Down - Mark thought the name of this movie was "Going Home". What do you expect from someone who rates movies based on how long he falls asleep?
Sequencer Plus Gold - DOS based MIDI Editing Program, probably not what Al used.
Noah Everyday with music by Carly Comando
NetShare for the iPhone will most likely not be back.
Epocrates has free medical software for various handheld devices, including iPhone.
The iPhone availability updates website is now off the air.
ScribD will post your PDF files for viewing over the web, and will even scan/OCR some types of paper documents/books for free.
Paytrust will receive electronic and paper bills, consolidate them, and help you pay them.
Pixily and Shoeboxed invite you to fill boxes with your snail mail, send it to them, and they will OCR it.
Webvan went out of business.,.
Al loved Kip's because it has a real charcoal broiler for hamburgers and hot dogs.

Al Bernay - part 1

2008-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Emeryville, CA at the Asqew Grill

This episode is dedicated to Al Bernay, who passed away on July 10th. Mark talks about the history of the Mark Bernay Society, the fact that Al was truly the original PodCaster, and his involvement in the beginning of something that affected the future of technology and the generation of kids who took pleasure in experimenting with phones and equipment. This is the first of two shows where we will talk about Al and how important he was to young people, as well as us older ones.

Sites of Interest:

The following websites have a lot of tape recordings that the webmaster and other people made back then by dialing Al's and other lines and recording the calls.

Other web sites mentioned in the podcast:

http://www.phonetrips.com - search for recordings that say "Al Bernay".
http://www.milesofmemory.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=8&Itemid=11 - Play the video "Maps 06" and the chapters of "Maps 07".

Al's web pages. These work best in Firefox with pop-up blockers turned off, and the first one especially may not work in Internet Explorer.

A Stain on the Dumb ASCII

2008-07-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA. Doing the Pizza Antica.

Mark has an issue with a battery refill web site, as they most recently gave him what appear to be defective refills twice. Listeners have convinced me to record the waiter taking our orders, so don't judge us on the food we order. Mark doesn't care as long as the soup makes a solid slurping sound . Mark runs through the kinds of Pizza you can get in Italy, causing me to think of a Tetris cut pie. iTouch v2.0 firmware crashing problems may be due to the apps and not the OS. Wes thinks he knows where Steve lives. Why is the Flashlight application so popular!? OMG! Mark has a 3G iPhone! So Mark goes into a water closet and gets confused. Eventually he learns the correct way to Pee in Berlin. Speaking of Pee-ing, what does Cat Piss stand for? Actually Mark said "CAPTCHA", not "cat piss". San Francisco will now help you find an empty parking spot by cell phone. Esquire Magazine will feature Electronic Ink soon.

Sites of Interest:

The Italian Sausage

2008-07-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Axe & Wes, in SF, CA having lunch at Tart to Tart.

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

New iTunes, iPhone and firmware all around, 20% of all apps on AppStore are free, Twitter is available in free and premium edition on AppStore, iTouch firmware update was delayed, problems with the iTouch firmware update, software quality assurance, 80% of all iPhone apps are free, Yelp, Evernote iPhone app, Shazam to find your favorite song on the radio, Jott, iPhone screenshot capability, 24k Gold iPhone, Nokia and Navteq, Squirt your sphincter, Electronic Toilets.

Sites of Interest:

Problems with iPhone v2.0
Gold iPhone
iPhone Screen Capture
Dual Screen Laptop
Nokia Completes Purchase of Navteq
Belkin Makes Descent iPod Recording Dock
Apple iTunes Apps Store
Toilet Tool

Word Tech Systems

2008-07-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA looking for WordTech Systems.

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

Because Mark is on vacation in Europe, this weeks show is a quick smearing of audio clips from previous shows that go back to 2005. In this set, Mark and Wes reminisce.

Korean Bulgogi House

2008-06-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark & Wes, in Concord, CA at The Bulgogi House.

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

What is tthe maximum length of a domain name?, HD Camcorders, Bill is not really retiring, Steve looked ill so is he leaving Apple?, Gates did Quality Control for Microsoft Products, remember Jaz Drives?, Sleep Texting?

Sites of Interest:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/korean-bulgogi-house-concord - The restaurant where we are slurping.
http://www.thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/ - The longest domain name with lists of the longest stuff.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7475986.stm - Internet overhaul wins approval.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=873516 - DXG-567V HD Camcorder that looks good to Wes.
http://www.preferredphoto.com/viewproduct.aspx?ID=9947764 - Mark's "$100" Kodak camera; sometimes it is that cheap. Works with AA batteries, but you MUST get Ni-MH rechargeable AA's, not alkalines!
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp - Typical Bill Gates email in which he tries to view Microsoft products as an ordinary user.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/05/jobs-hid-cancer-for-nine-months-before-seeking-treatment-damn/ - Steve Jobs hid his cancer.
http://usb.brando.com.hk/prod_detail.php?prod_id=00549 - Use SATA drive as swappable externals.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9098418 - The end of Windows XP.
http://www.watsoncard.com/ - Modern version of the old Watson telephony cards/
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/425382 - Sleep Texting.

The SlurpCast Network!

2008-06-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, California at Swad Indian Restaurant.

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

In this show, we talk about Boost Mobile, Meet Sense, Get Drop Box, Bright Kite, Gspace, Mesh, Drop.io, NullSoft, Mark and Wes should swear more than we do, MySapce is due for a face-lift, possibly never have an iPhone to be used as a Modem, instead of 'bricking your phone, how about Graham Crackering your phone?, Apple probably takes a loss on new products when first introduced, Sprint Instinct, The Zivio Cell Phone BlueTooth HeadSet with a true microphone in front of your mouth.

Sites of Interest:

http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9962810-12.html - CitySense, an urban navigation product.
http://www.brightkite.com/ -Location-based social networking. Email Mark for an invite code.
http://www.getdropbox.com/
- Keeps sets of files synchronized between multiple PC's/Macs, and backed up on the web.
http://www.mesh.com/ - Microsoft beta test system similar to getdropbox.
http://drop.io/ -Yet another site for sharing files with other users.
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp -Easily set up a virtual private network between your machines.
https://secure.logmein.com/ -Remotely control your computers - like GoToMyPC, but free!
http://www.nullsoft.com/ -Subsidiary of AOL that produces Winamp, SHOUTCast, and other products.
http://www.bebo.com/ -Yet another social media network.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo -Noah Day by Day
http://www.myspace.com/carlycomando - Pianist who composed/performed the music for Noah's video.
http://us.kensington.com/html/15462.html - Small rechargeable battery pack that plugs directly into iPhones and iPods.
http://www.palluxo.com/2008/06/21/samsung-instinct-with-haptic-feedback-yes-it-is-iphone-killer/ -Is this the iPhone killer? Not really.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0/releasenotes/ -What's new in Firefox Release 3.
http://www.getgspace.com/ - Turns the 2GB of your Gmail account into free online storage.
http://www.joby.com/products/zivio/ -Vaporware bluetooth headset with microphone that pulls out to be next to your mouth.
http://avanalysis.com/audiotests.html - Series of recordings demonstrating the microphones in several models of bluetooth headsets under various noise conditions.

His name is Sammy

2008-06-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen directly to the official audio show

Mark, Wes & Sammy, in Lafayette, California at Swad Indian Restaurant.
The group talks a bit about (bullshit) Energy Drinks, Microencapsulated Drugs, Scratch n' Sniff, Smell-o-Vision, Cut a steak with a MacBook Air, Netflix Player by Roku, "Do you know who I am?", Linux on your cell phone, Astound Me, Billboards that gather stats about who's looking at them, Mark's feedback on the new iPhone, Mark gives out the answer to the first challenge, The Perverted Captain Crunch Dream, Subvert and Profit,

Second contest is still open. How does Sly Dial work? Listen to previous show (2008_06_05) to win. Answer given out in next show.

Sites of Interest:

http://www.retrofuture.com/smell-o-vision.html - Scratch-and-sniff cards once used in movie theatres.

http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone - What happens if you stick an iPhone in a blender?
http://www.roku.com/netflixplayer/ - Play Netflix on-demand videos on your TV set.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/12/motorola-slashing-20-of-its-research-division/ - Motorola cutting back it's research division.

http://www.astound.net -Bay Area alternate cable TV/Internet provider.

http://thegadgetsite.blogspot.com/2008/06/gigabyte-m528-mid-750-due-out-in-late.html - Interesting new UMPC.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/04/billboards-with-facial-recognition-software-trickling-out - Billboards with cameras watching you watching them.

http://reviews.cnet.com/keyboards/celluon-laserkey-cl800bt/4505-3134_7-31645178.html - Laserkey draws a virtual keyboard on a table.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/12/glass-keyboard-concept-opts-for-cameras-instead-of-keys/ - Experimental keyboard design made of glass.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/ - iPhone 3G.
http://www.gimp.org/ - Like Photoshop, but free!
http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ - Like Visio, but free!

http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/ - Freeware to make sure all your Windows device drivers are up to date.
http://www.shavlik.com/ - Software to manage Windows security updates, mainly for corporations.
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9965215-12.html - Universal printer driver for travelers.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/09/handlink_wi_fi/ - Coin-operated Wi-Fi base-station.

http://www.subvertandprofit.com/ - Make the big bucks by helping websites cheat.