Friday Linkage

It’s Friday again and here is a list of stuff I have found throughout the week that was cool, interesting or just a little out of the ordinary.  Feel free to email or Twitter me with any suggestions for next week.

One Thing You Don't Need To Be An Entrepreneur: A College Degree
Music Executive Ridiculed at Pirate Bay Trial
10 Essential Money Skills for a Bad Economy
Import Facebook Photos Into Your iPhone Contact List with Photo Phonebook
Stupid Idiots Want to Repaint the Sears Tower Silver Because They're Stupid Idiots
Ground Zero
Michael Cera says yes to Arrested Development!!! Finally!
An Easy to Understand Chart of the Financial Collapse
NBA Michael Jordan 10 Best Dunks
Image of the Day: Why, Japan, Why?
Four useful sites for college students
Barack Obama's Favorite Videogame: BlackBerry BrickBreaker?
Flickr Photo Download: Shuttle Endeavour: Incredible View

What is going to happen to Best Buy?

With the demise of Circuit City there are many questions circling about what is going to happen now.  Best Buy’s stock was beaten up badly during the winter season when everyone was uncertain of the economy and consumer spending.   From $45/share all the way to $16 at one point.  But this was no surprise because with the liquidation of Circuit City people were getting great deals on electronics, and Best Buy couldn’t keep up without hurting their margin. 

Best Buy did the smart thing which was weather the storm and wait for them to go out of business. They were waiting on the sidelines ready to pick up the pieces.  But are they going to truly be able to take advantage of this weak market without their biggest competitor?  Not if Microsoft has a say. There are rumors surrounding what exactly is going to be in Microsoft stores, but the fact is there are going to be Microsoft stores.  No one is really sure yet what is going to be in these, but it’s clear they are trying to compete with both Apple Stores and Best Buy.  There is a funny slide show mocking Microsoft with their Vista blunder by eWeek (here).   I’ll be interested to see if Microsoft has enough of a following to have a successful go around at this business or if they will flop just like the Gateway stores circa 2000 did.

Remember GoldenEye 64?

I was in middle school when GoldenEye was first created and I remember sitting in front of the TV for hours on end.  It had a great single player game along with one of the best multiplayer modes ever.  A group of passionate gamers have created a new version of GoldenEye with updated graphics for Windows PCs.  The game is awesome and definitely one to check out!

If you have the same desire to relive GoldenEye 64 with updated graphics, sound and a few new maps, follow these instructions..  First, you’ll need to have Half-Life 2 (GoldenEye Source, as it’s called, is a free modification for Half-Life 2) and a fairly new computer.  Then you’ll need to head over to this site and download the 512mb file to install GoldenEye Source.  Here are a few screenshots I took while playing to entice you:

And a video to see the game in action:

My Foray in Blu-Ray

I recently was giving a Blu-Ray player for a gift and I finally get to enjoy a pure HD signal.  In addition to the Blu-Ray player, I signed up for a Netflix account to rent some Blu-Rays (buying them can get expensive and I made the mistake of accumulating a massive DVD collection that just wasn’t worth it).  Here are my thoughts on the player so far.

I got the Samsung BD-P2500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Playerand I couldn’t recommend it more.  The player is very simple to use and also has many advanced features any nerd would want and/or need.  The Blu-Ray movies look stunning and the sound is fantastic.  The only thing I dislike are the loading times.  Apparently this player is one of the better ones and it is a problem with many Blu-Ray players.  It’s not the end of the world though. 

The reason I wanted this player more than other players was its support for Netflix streaming.  There are some pros and cons with this system, but for the most part it was worth the extra $100 compared to the model without Netflix.  The first thing I noticed was the inability to browse the Netflix selection on the player itself.  You need to use a computer to manage your streaming queue. Maybe a firmware upgrade can fix this.  The other problem is some of the streaming content doesn’t look very good.  Netflix has some of their streaming content in HD, but the selection just isn’t very good yet (unless you really like Heroes).  The normal content is fine if you just want to watch a movie and you don’t really care about the quality (dramas come to mind).

I’ve been very happy with the purchase so far as well as with my subscription to Netflix.  Anybody else have experience with Blu-Ray or Netflix?

I Got A New Computer, Now What?

So you just got a new computer and your not sure where to start.  Maybe you have had many computers or this is your first one.  Regardless of your situation, this guide will hopefully let you avoid some of the headaches of a new computer.  Thanks to Jeff for the idea for this blog post.

The majority of this guide will relate to Windows users but there may be some helpful hints for you Mac users as well.  Some of the steps are of my personal opinion and are optional (I’ll mark those with an asterisk).  Here we go.

1. PC Decrapifier – We covered this program on The Student Nerds Blog before and it is the first thing I would run on a new computer.  This program is capable of removing all of the crap that computer manufacturers install on you computer.  Most of the time they install a trial anti-virus program (we’ll get to this later) and a trial of Microsoft Office.  They also install a bunch of other junk that you’ll just never need.  If you missed the original article, click here to read up on how to use this simple product.
2. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition – If you did not uninstall your current anti-virus program with PC Decrapifier, go to the Control Panel and remove whatever anti-virus program that came pre-installed (I’ve been seeing some version of McAfee lately).  Do yourself a favor and never pay for anti-virus software and just get the free version of AVG.  It does a great job of keeping you safe at the best price possible ($0).
3. Firefox (/w Foxmarks*) – I recommend this browser to everyone I can.  It is stable, fast and more secure that Internet Explorer.  It also has a great library of extensions that can make it even more usable.  Foxmarks is one of those extensions and it allows you to sync your bookmarks (and passwords if you wish) to the Foxmarks server and to any other computer you use.  This extension is great even if you only use one computer because it will constantly backup your bookmarks so you’ll never worry about losing them again.
4. Copy files from your previous computer – If you are replacing a computer with a new one, you’ll probably want to have your files on your new computer.  These files will include your documents, pictures, music and videos.  There are a few ways to do this and I’ll just briefly touch on them. 
   1. External Hard drive – You can copy your files from your old computer to an external hard drive and then copy them to your new computer.
   2. Over a Network – If you are on a network (wired or wireless), you can share the files on your old computer and copy them to your new computer. You’ll need some technical know-how for this one.
   3. Burn the files to a CD or DVD – This is probably a very easy procedure if the files you have can easily fit on a CD or DVD.
      *If you want to move your iTunes over, here is a guide to do that.
5. An Office Suite – If you don’t plan on buying Microsoft Office, you can opt for the free (and very capable) Open Office.  It can open all of your Microsoft documents and is a great alternative to the expensive Microsoft product.
6. Mozy or Dropbox (*Optional) – I highly recommend backing up your documents and any other important files you couldn’t live without.  If you are backing up less than 2gb, I would get Dropbox as it allows you to sync your files between many computers and also has a great web interface.  If you have more than 2gb, Mozy is a great service (they also offer 2gb for free).  I pay $55/year for unlimited space to backup my files.  I currently have about 115gb of files backed up with them and I highly recommend their service.

This guide should get you started on using your new computer in the best way possible.  If you have any other recommendations, leave them in the comments below.

Random Friday Links

Here are a few things I found this week that didn’t make it to the blog.

Make Your System Clean Up Old Downloads Automatically

Size Of The Universe

Skittles Vodka Tutorial

TribesNEXT - Online Multiplayer Support for Tribes 2

Pod to PC Transfers Music from Any iPod, iPhone Onto Your PC

The Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan - Open Source Funding

Animusic?

*Post by Arjun Sharma
One morning, a couple high school friends and I were surfing the internet and we came across an incredible video clip. The series is entitled Animusic and the song we were watching was “Starship Groove.”  You have to check out these clips.

My buddy Tyler switched away from it pretty quickly, but Frank and I were like "wait, what the hell was that." Thus began our love affairs with Animusic. Another awesome song is "Pipe Dream."

The reason this post is so short is because this material speaks for itself. This shit is awesome.

De-Crapify Your PC

So you just got a brand new PC and your computer manufacturer loaded it up with a bunch of programs that you’ll never use.  You should reclaim that hard drive space and also help with how fast your computer boots up.  PC Decrapifier is free program that can remove a majority of the programs that Dell, HP, Acer and Toshiba load on their computers.

PC Decrapifier is very simple program to use.  Here’s what to do:

1. Download and run the program.
   
2. Create a Restore Point
   
3. Select the items you wish to remove
   

Once you’re done, I would restart the computer and you should have all of that “crap” off of your computer.

Product Recommendations

Being a Nerd I am constantly reading about new products coming out and also buying gadgets that I probably don’t need.   Who really needs to own 3 iPods? I mean really, one for running (a Nano), one as a portable HD (2nd Gen 20gb), and one for entertainment (1st Gen iPod Touch).  Even if I won’t actually buy a gizmo, I still read about things that I might want.  We at Student Nerds are going to be dedicated to making those decisions for our readers and friends.  In the next month or two, we will be launching a monthly feature for our top recommended products.

I am constantly getting questions about what kind of computer to buy.  I had a friend ask me what kind of computer he should get for his fiancé.  The first question I had to ask was his price range and from there it was simple for me to make a recommendation.  We will make our picks for each category and subcategories.  For example, under laptop computer we will have (desktop replacement, artsy (mac), netbook, or value buy with good performance).  That way we can cover the basis for what people reading may want.  The categories we will cover might start off with the staples (Computers, Digital Cameras, Video Cameras, Soundsystems, Gadgets),  then we will move to recommendations on sites linking where you can buy and we will give the seal of personal approval.  We will also branch out and cover things that our readers ask about on a day-to-day basis, so we can make sure to satisfy what you want to buy but are uncertain about brand or specs.  Look for it on the main website soon.

Sync Facebook Events to Your Google Calendar

I use Google Calendar to keep track of my schedule.  It has birthdays, events, important dates for Student Nerds, holidays and even the 4 day weather forecast.  I have it sync with my iPhone and Outlook on my laptop.  It’s very convenient except for the fact that I had to manually add Facebook events to my calendar.  I could rewrite the guide I found, but I’ll just link to instead today.  It has some great pictures and it’s very easy to follow.

How to Sync Facebook Events with Google Calendar

Work Less, Make More?

I was on a plane reading the most recent Inc. Magazine and came across an article about Markus Frind and his website Plenty of Fish.  He isn’t particularly smart, good looking, driven, or any of the common recipes for success.  He is a normal guy that took a market that everyone was charging for the service and created a website to offer the same service for free, and at the lowest possible cost to himself.

Apparently it was a hit idea, because he walked into his office one Monday morning and had a check for $180,000 from VideoEgg who wanted to advertise to his users.  He is getting calls daily from companies wanting to advertise to his users. Why you may wonder? Well, its because of his 1.6 billion page views each month. There are only 10 sites in the US with more than that.  When asked why he hasn’t updated the site or made it better quality, he said that would change the overall idea of the site.  If he made everyone's picture look good and perfectly square then no one would click on the profiles to see the people and one extra page view to advertise on, so he thinks change would be bad. 

Why am I writing about this fairy tale success story that is probably unrealistic.  Well its because without knowing about this story we at Student Nerds have actually been employing this strategy without knowing exactly why.  We took our site which was costing us around $250 dollars a month, and now we have cut that cost to virtually nothing.   This is important because while we keep tinkering with the site until we have it the way we would like, we aren’t incurring any more costs.  We are also building a site that is hands off; a site that eventually should be able to manage itself.  We will have a site that offers a service unlike anything else on the market and will hopefully change the way we find computer/electronic help in our homes and business’.

Get Rid of Windows?

*This post was written by Arjun Sharma, not Michael Prassel.  This is a small bug in our blogging platform.

I'm writing this blog from the latest distribution of Ubuntu Linux. I've been flirting with this operating system for about three years and I've finally found one that is compelling me away from my beautifully pirated/hacked version of Windows XP.  I haven't wasted any time in Terminal yet. Ubuntu is the version of Linux that is, arguably, the most mainstream and user-friendly. At the same time, it is the one that is most actively working towards becoming user-friendly.

Many of the awestruck moments I have had with this operating system in the past couple days came as a result of deficiencies they previously had that I saw them overcome. These aren't the sorts of things the average computer user are going to be compelled to come over for, but for those who have tried Linux before, I offer this news (if you haven't used Linux before but are still reading, scroll to the bottom by the stars):

1. NTFS partitions are seamlessly mounted. Gone are the days of opening the Terminal and painfully copying over commands and then trying to figure out why stuff isn't loading. It automatically detected my hard drive and all its partitions; double clicking the windows partition mounted it instantly.
2. Wireless works out of the box. I loaded the Ubuntu Live! Disc, and it found the network.
3. Everything works out of the box. I just reformatted my Windows at the same time I installed Ubuntu. Ubuntu had my wireless card, my audio card, my video card, and my USB working perfectly on loading. Windows needed downloaded video and audio drivers before things worked right.

You all should give Ubuntu a try if you’re sick of dealing with the problems of Windows.

Gmail Your Location

Google just released a location aware application called Google Latitude a few days ago.  Following up on that, the Gmail team just announced on their blog that you can now add your location to your signature in Gmail.  The way Google determines your location is based on your IP address, but this can be a little inaccurate.  If you have Google Gears, this method can be much more accurate.  This is how you enable the new feature.

To enable this feature in your Gmail account you need to do two things.  First go to Settings, and then the Labs tab (You can also click the Green flask in the upper right corner of your main Gmail screen).  Scroll down to the bottom and you’ll see a Lab called “Location in Signature.”  Select Enable then click Save Changes on the bottom of the page. 

Now you need to go back to your Settings and in the General tab, scroll down to the Signature section.  Make sure “Append your location to the signature” is checked.  Save changes again and it should take you back to your inbox.  Now when you compose a new email or reply to one, it will add the city that you are sending the email from.

Here is an example of what it looks like in action:

This obviously raises the privacy issue again and it’s a completely opt-in feature.  Some people will also not want to share where they are all the time.  I enabled the feature but my locations mostly consist of Chicago and a few suburbs (not very exciting).  Let us know why you are or are not enabling this new feature in your Gmail account.

Speed Up Your Computer

There are many ways you can speed up your computer and also how fast your computer starts up.  This tip is for Windows users and should be something that you check on every computer you use.

Msconfig is a built in program in Windows that allows you to control what programs start up with your computer.  This has two benefits as I mentioned before:

1. It allows your computer to boot up faster.  There aren’t as many programs starting at once when you boot up, so you’ll be able to use your computer faster.
2. It keeps programs from running in the background that aren’t necessary for you to use your computer.  This allows the computer to run faster as well.

To use msconfig, click the Start Button then hit Run. (If Run does not show up, you can hit the Windows key on your keyboard and hit the R key).  Once you see the run box, type in msconfig and hit enter.  You’ll be greeted by the following screen:

Now click on the Startup tab and you’ll see a list of programs that start with your computer.

Go through and uncheck any programs that you know you don’t need starting with your computer (iTunes, Quicktime).  If you aren’t sure about the program, don’t uncheck it.  Feel free to post any questions in the comments if you want to know about certain programs.

Share & Track Your Expenses

Living with a roommate can definitely help cut down on expenses.  You get to split not only the rent, but the TV, internet, gas, electric and household items.  The problem is when you need to figure out who owes what and how much they owe.  Today, I’m going to show you a great website that simplifies the process.

Billshare is a very simple service that will split bills among 2 or more people.  First, sign up for an account then invite your roommates to join.  Then, whenever someone gets a bill, they just need to go on the website and click “Add new receipt.” When this is finished, an email will get sent out to all of the other roommates and the website will tell them a new bill has been added.  The other roommates can then log in and tell Billshare when they have paid there roommate. 

Billshare also gives some useful stats on your expenses and keeps a running total of who owes what.  Give it a shot and simplify your bills.

Twit-Lash

I’m completely bought into the twitter phenomena,  I’ve written about it here before a few times.  And given that the service has grown to over 6M accounts in just 3 short years, there are a lot of people who seem to agree with me. 

But today I read the 1st thing that gave me pause.  It was a post from the very smart blog Naked Capitalism.  The gist of which was that anything worth writing, should probably take more than 140 characters to do so. 

“You can't say anything complicated or nuanced in 140 characters. I am sure readers will provide some cute counterexamples, but try explaining Plato's cave in those confines. Can't be done. You might allude to it, but you could not present it to someone who didn't know about it already. And Twitter encourages people to accept a medium that severely constrains communication, and calls a defect a virtue.”

Now I don’t know if I buy everything the author says here, but I do think that the points she raises merit discussion, and not just in regards to twitter, but to all online communication.  One of the greatest virtues of online is brevity and an 2nd is timeliness.  Facebook status posts, instant messaging, blog comments.  We have come to accept and rely on all of these things as being inherently good, and part of their value proposition is how quickly we can banter back and forth, how they so closely resemble a conversation.  But is that good? As other forms of longer form communication seem to wither against the competition provided by the web, are we losing the value that comes with patience and reflection.  When the news only came once a day, or a week, did we read closer and expect more?  When letters took weeks to get to their recipient, did we chose our words more carefully? I don’t know if these things are the case, or necessarily a bad thing, but I think they are good questions.   

Broadcast Your Location to all your Google Friends!

Can you imagine pulling up a map on your smart phone and being able to see where all your friends are at any given time?  Well, Google has made that possible with Google Latitude.  Bar hopping will be simple now; no need to text/call all your friends with your whereabouts. They can see where you are and just join you.  This takes the Facebook stalking to a new extreme. 

Theres two ways to use this service; one on your phone by going to http://google.com/latitude on your smart phone and downloading/updating the Google Maps application.  Then once you are in the application make sure you hit the menu (blackberry button) and log into the Latitude part of the app.  Once in you can accept friends that have invited you or you can invite your own friends.  The other option is to go into your iGoogle page and add the application.  But make sure you have Google Gears downloaded because it won’t be able to find your location until then.  I have a sneaky suspicion this will put Loopt out of business really quickly.

Blackberry Tethers Free!

I’ve been ”tethering” my Blackberry for a couple months.  More explicitly, I’ve been connecting my Blackberry to my computer and surfing the internet on my laptop through the Blackberry for a couple months.  The connection says it’s 115 kbps, but it feels faster than that.  It’s a good internet experience I’d say, you just need to wait a little longer on streaming videos like Youtube.  I actually streamed a whole episode of some TV show and there was no problem.  I think it was 30 Rock off Nbc.com.  And it’s free! 

It’s gotten me through airports, bus rides, car rides, and one hotel that somehow don’t offer Wi-Fi for free.  This is the tutorial I’ve always used to figure out how to tether:

http://www.blackberryforums.com/blackberry-guides/2019-user-howto-use-blackberry-modem-laptop.html

I would say “use it wisely” but it’s free, so use it however you want.

Find Your Tune with Songsmith

Have you ever wanted to record a song, but you can’t write any music? The research team at Microsoft has a new program that will allow you to sing any song into your computer and the program will determine what music will sound good behind your voice. It’s a pretty incredible program and some creative people have also found out some more humorous ways to use the program.

Microsoft Songsmith in its own words “generates musical accompaniment to match a singer’s voice.” They designed it for the person that doesn’t know how to write music but still wants to record some songs they may have written. It is free to try and $29 to use forever. It’s a very simple process that goes something like this:

1. Pick a style
   
2. Choose a tempo
   
3. Sing Your Song
   
4. Modify Advanced Options (Optional)
   
5. Listen to your Masterpiece

Now, some people have found other uses for this software. They’ve taken popular songs and have run them through Songsmith with some very funny results. Here are some of my favorites:

Firefox Search Engines

Several years ago, I resisted switching away from Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) because things weren’t faster on Mozilla.  It was a Netscape Navigator clone, and it did nothing for me.  It wasn’t until Firefox 1.5 or so came out that things got much faster and FF really made its inroads into the general public.  Firefox still wasn’t faster than IE for me, but there was one thing that made it huge: the search engines.

I’m a person that likes to use one thing at a time.  Either I use the keyboard, or I use the mouse.  If I’m on the keyboard, I use Launchy to launch my programs, then I use shortcuts to navigate everything.  If I’m on my mouse, I use mouse gestures to do everything I want to faster.  It’s my opinion that gestures are generally underused.

So the reason I stuck with Firefox over the faster IE was search engines.  That little box in the upper right corner -  if you’re normal, it is stuck on Google but has the capability to take you to such useless websites as Amazon and Creative Commons.

It is so much more powerful than that.  So much more customizable.  The Firefox website offers access to a number of popular but useless search engines on its main website.  You have to find the somewhat hidden link to the thousands of community-created search engines to get any real value out of the search box(http://mycroft.mozdev.org/).  Do yourself a favor and get rid of amazon, creative commons, and yahoo if it’s on there by default.  In fact, do yourself a favor and get rid of anything yahoo (except fantasy sports stuff).

I use (and this is tailored to me): google (duh); allmusic.com (artist); dictionary.com; ebay; ratebeer.com (see my account by going to www.ratebeer.com and searching “sersdf”); mininova; piratebay; urbandictionary; rottentomatoes; and wikipedia.

Now, of course, nobody else should have those same sites.  But if you tailor it properly, your internet experience will be so much faster.  Say I’m at the desktop and I want to look up a band.  I hit *alt-space*, then *f, enter*, then *ctrl-k*, then *ctrl-down-down*, type *bandname* and hit enter.  The commands prompted by those stars are, respectively, open launchy, open firefox, go to search engines, change search engine to allmusic.com, look up bandname.  If I want to google something, it takes four keystrokes: alt-space, ctrl-k.

Any self-respecting technogeek already knows this, but if it’s new to you, give it a try.  You’ll be glad you did.