Monthly Archives: September 2012

Google Doodle Celebrates 46th Anniversary of Star Trek

google

You are probably are aware that Google frequently transforms their usual logo into a variety of interactive ones called Google Doodles. They created one to celebrate the 46th Anniversary of Star Trek. It’s awesome!

The letters in the word Google have been given eyes and are wearing Star Trek uniforms. The crew of the NCC-1701, from Star Trek: TOS (that’s Star Trek the Original Series for those of you who aren’t Trekkies), are represented in the Google Doodle. Start clicking around, and you are bound to find something interesting. Click on the Google Doodle version of Uhura, and her communications earpiece sparkles.

I love that Google included things that appeared in different episodes of Star Trek: TOS. Tribbles fall out of panels, and form a large pile on the floor. Kirk beams down onto a planet and fights a Lizard Man, (and abuses the poor “Red Shirt” that beamed down with him in the process). This Google Doodle is a delight for fans of Star Trek.

Here is a video of everything that the interactive Star Trek Google Doodle does, in case you missed it while it was “live”. When I watched the video, I realized that I missed a few things while I was playing around with this Google Doodle.

Test Your Music Knowledge with Songpop for Facebook and Android

Android, application, Facebook, Music

I am a sucker for trivia games.  In fact, I pride myself on being what my wife has called “a fountain of useless information”.   I think (hope) she means that lovingly.  That being said, she’s not bad at these games herself and, in fact, is quite good at those involving music.  When an Android app called “Songpop” came to my attention I had to try it out.  As it turns out, you can also play it via Facebook and you can challenge others to a game.

The app is free (there’s also a $1.99 version), but you will have to purchase additional categories if you choose to play via the mobile version.  The Facebook app appears to be totally free, or at least I haven’t yet encountered restrictions.  There are categories for almost every imaginable style of music.  Choose your favorite and then listen, and attempt to identify, each of the five songs you will hear a brief clip of.  You will only get to hear a couple of seconds of each song, but you do get a multiple choice selection for the answer.

Once you have made your five answers then you can send the challenge to another person and they will get the same category and same five songs to try and identify.  If you and your opponent both ID the same number of songs then whoever did it in the least amount of time will be the winner.  Your opponent then gets to choose the next category and play the first round.

Get the app from the Google Play Store or from the Facebook App Center.

 

GNC-2012-09-06 #797 Utter Chaos

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This has been one of my busiest weeks in ages and the hits keep on coming. Possible travel plan change so I may have a surprise for you in a few days ;) This is an absolute monster show… Also pretty amazing to have the trolls come out at night in the chat room. They seem to expect a 100 people hanging out in the middle of the night.

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Amazon Shows Off New Devices in TV Ad

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Amazon is expected to release a new line of Kindle devices when they hold their big Santa Monica, California event later today.  Rumors seem to indicate not one, but two new Kindle Fire tablets, as well new versions of the Kindle e-reader.  All of this has been expected for a little while now, especially when Amazon mysteriously announced last week that the Kindle Fire was “sold out”.

What wasn’t expected was the ad that aired during last night’s NFL season-opener between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.  The ad, which was a full one minute in length, showed the new devices, but gave no information on what exactly they were.  However, on closer inspection, there appears to be a larger version of the Fire tablet, perhaps a 10 inch, shown.   That would be the biggest bombshell, since it has been reported that Amazon would announce two 7 inch tablets.

What appears to be a 10 inch tablet is shown around the :35 mark of the ad (posted below, and every geek should appreciate the inclusion of the George R. R. Martin book).  Amazon has been rumored to be working on a larger version ever since before the original 7 inch was announced, but we have been led to believe that they had deemed it not marketable enough for release.

There have also been some recent leaks of an updated Kindle Touch reader, with a higher-resolution screen.  Electonista reports that “The most important change, however, will be the integration of an LED backlight, supposedly combined with battery improvements that allow the unit to go for weeks on a charge, a major selling point over tablets for e-reading purists.”

We will find out later today how close any of this speculation has come to actual reality.  The Amazon event kicks off at 10:30 am PDT, 1:30 pm EDT and will be streamed live on the web.

Playing Local Media on Vizio Co-star with aVia

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This is a followup post on the Vizio Co-Star. One of the hardest problems I was having was trying to play the media that was on my local network. First I tried to figure out PlayPoint which comes as a default app on the Vizio Costar with no luck. I then installed Plex since I have a Plex server installed on my Mac.  It worked sometimes. For example I would start to play a movie and it would play fine. However if I left the Plex app and then went back in and tried to play the same movie, sometimes it would play, other times I would get an error message. It also wasn’t see all the contents that was on the server. For me working occasionally is more frustrating than not working at all. After trying different settings without success, I started to look for another option. I then tried the GTVBox app, which is $2.99 in the Google Play Store. It didn’t recognize any of the media that I had and so it didn’t work at all. Still searching for something that would work, I started going through apps in the Google Play store that were recommended for Google TV and I found one called aVia.  aVia is free of charge and according to it’s description  it can play most video types. Since it was free of charge I decided to give it a try, to my surprise it worked.

To get it to work I had to first install a DLNA server on my Macbook. I chose TVMOBili which allows me to stream up to 10GB free. Anything above that will cost a small fee monthly. Once you download the DLNA server of your choice you will need to set it up by adding the folders that contain the media that you want view on your Google TV. If I remember correctly it added the media folders that were on the Macbook automatically, I had to add the folders that were on the external USB drive manually.  In my case I ended up deleting the media folders that were added from the Macbook, since I don’t have any media on them

Once you are finished installing the DLNA server, you are ready to set up aVia. The first thing you will need to do is go into My Sources and check the boxes next to the folders which correspond to the DLNa servers that you are using.
In my case it is listed as TVMOBiLi.nameofmacbook-MacBook.local. If you click the OK button on your remote at this point it will give you the option of choosing which types of media you want aVia to play. By default it is set up to see Music, Video and Images. If you hit the back button twice it will bring you to the front page which says My Media. To play a media file click on the media type, for example Videos, then Folders, then My Content, then Videos again and then choose either Movies or TV Shows. The folders are then listed alphabetically by title of the video. Pick the folder that the video you want to play is under and then click the video and it should start to play. Originally I thought it could only play mp4 file, however that was not true. I had originally set up the TVMOBiLi DLNA server incorrectly and it just wasn’t seeing the other files. Since I fixed that problem it has played everything I have thrown at it.

There are a couple of things that I am still trying to figure out, like how to restart a video from where you left off, instead of from the beginning. However so far, aVia has been the best way to play local media on the Vizio Co-Star.

OpenSUSE 12.2 Out Now

Linux, Operating Systems, , ,

OpenSuSE logoFor Linux fans, there’s a new version of OpenSUSE out today, bringing the version number to 12.2. Albeit a little late, this new version sees some significant upgrades and changes which improve performance and reliability. OpenSUSE is one of the big 5 Linux distributions so it’ll be a solid release.

In additional to the 3.4 kernel, KDE is bumped to 4.8.4 and Gnome to 3.4. SuSE has always been a strong proponent of the KDE desktop (my personal favourite) so I’ll be checking that out later. LibreOffice 3.5 brings word processing and spreadsheets to the party and Gimp 2.8 is on hand for image editing.

“We are proud of this release, maintaining the usual high openSUSE quality standards.” said Andrew Wafaa from the openSUSE Board. “The delay in the schedule caused by our growth in the last two years means we have to work on scaling our processes. Now this release is out and with the upcoming openSUSE conference in October in Prague, the community has time and opportunity to work on that.”

I run OpenSUSE on my main PC so I’ll be upgrading soon – the distro is downloading via BitTorrent as we speak – but live upgrades are also now supported so I might investigate that for the first time.

The full press release is here.

Bill Nye Stands up Against Creationism

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and don’t necessarily reflect the site or it’s sponsors.

I am going to step on some toes in this article.  If you feel the need to click away then I understand.  After all I want to accommodate everyone’s beliefs, because everyone has a right to be heard.  That being said, Bill Nye, “The Science Guy”, recently made some comments that have raised a fire storm.  Bill isn’t backing down from them, and I support him 100%.

A video began circulating recently showing Nye demonizing parents for teaching anti-science to their children, specifically anti-evolution.  The video was titled, quite simply, “Creationism is not appropriate for children”.  The video has more than 4 million views, with a mix of supporters and detractors, but the vast majority have been supportive – 66,000 likes vs 13,000 dislikes.

In all seriousness, the U.S. currently has one of the worst track records for science education and creationists are largely responsible for this dismal record.  Religion has crept into our politics and states like Texas have even attempted to pass laws against the teaching of what is, in reality, a solid scientific theory.  Bare in mind that everything in science is a theory because it is always evolving as new evidence is found.  Evolution is every bit as solid of a “theory” as the theory of gravity.

Of course, religious groups have been up-in-arms over Nye’s comments with Ken Ham, who runs the Creation Museum, leading the charge.  Nye, in response, has appeared on CNN to defend his stance.  His views are no different than those of the vast majority of scientists, but he has the means to make them heard by the masses.  Sadly, Nye probably can’t change much, but if he sways just a few people away from trying to tell their children that the world is only 6,000 years old, then it will be a victory.