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Commentary and discussion on the items that are on this geek's mind

Archive for May 7th, 2007

First public beta of JiveTalk for Blackberry released

May 7

Posted by Tejas in Cell Phones, Tech News | No Comments

I just tried out this killer multi-client chat app and it truly is an evolution from previous chat applications for the Blackberry. It’s currently in public beta so it’s free during this time, although not sure what they’re thinking of charging once it’s officially released.

I highly recommend anybody who is remotely curious – no anyone who HAS a Blackberry – go to www.beejive.com/download on your Blackberry browser and download the version that’s appropriate for your Blackberry.

Give it a shot, at the very worst you can just delete it when you’re done or the beta ends.

Enjoy!

Toshiba HD-DVD and Planet Earth (HD-DVD), what a great couple

May 7

Posted by Tejas in Consumer Electronics, Personal, Tech News | No Comments

HDDVD LogoSo I know it might sound stupid to jump on the proverbial HD-format bandwagon since there really hasn’t been a clear winner between HD DVD and Blu-Ray, I figured I might as well jump in. I went ahead and ordered a Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player from Amazon and of course the Planet Earth HD DVD set (original BBC series) to accompany it.

I got the HD-A2 pretty quickly and it was very easy to setup via HDMI to my Onkyo TXSR803 receiver. Sadly the Planet Earth HD DVD set was delayed and only shipped late last week. I’m anxiously waiting for it to arrive so I can truly test out the capabilities of the HD DVD format. However the few Netflix HD DVD rentals I’ve tried all came across pretty well, quality varied by film and I’m assuming the transfer of that film to HD.

But if you do the math, the Toshiba HD-A2 can be had on Amazon for around $320 plus you get 5 free HD DVD movies to mail away for. Then the Planet Earth HD DVD set usually $99.99 is for $69 which is a decent deal. So basically for ~$400 you get a competent HD DVD player, an amazing series and HD showpiece and five HD movies of your choice. Not a bad deal at all.

By the way, if you do end up getting a Toshiba HD DVD player (whichever model it is) keep in mind that firmware updates are your friends and these players only come with RJ-45 (ethernet jacks) so make sure you are setup to hook this bad boy into your home network to download firmware updates. I did that as soon as I got mine and the update I downloaded had some pretty major fixes such as “pixelation fix”…no joke.

All in all I’m liking the Toshiba HD-A2 a lot and as soon as I get my Planet Earth HD DVD set I’ll post my impression of that. If you’re thinking of taking a HD disc format for a spin this is not a bad way to go.

P.S. I have an Xbox 360 so the HD DVD accessory was a thought but I wanted Dolby TrueHD and other losless audio codecs which are only possible over HDMI which the Xbox 360′s HD DVD accessory don’t support. Ok, enough rambling now.

Enable DreamScene in Vista Home Premium

May 7

Posted by Tejas in Bargains, Computers, Software, Tech News | 8 Comments

For those of you who have Vista Home Premium and are jealous of those folks that have Vista Ultimate because of among other things the whole DreamScene spectacle, never fear because enterprising “hackers” are here.

While browsing the Usenet via Google groups I came across a post by someone with a link to a ZIP file containing some DLLs, a registry import and quite detailed instructions. Figuring it’s worth giving a shot I tried it on my Vista Home Premium install and sure enough it works!

Now this doesn’t allow you to subsequently install Deskscapes as you can on Ultimate but you can use any WMV and/or MPEG video file and set it as your background. Some scouring on the internet will land you a few samples and for those videographers it’s a great opportunity to showcase your handy work.

So without further ado here’s the link to the file.

DISCLAIMER: Read the instructions carefully – do not attempt this unless you are comfortable making changes to system files and the registry.

It’s been a long time…

May 7

Posted by Tejas in Offbeat, Personal | No Comments

Holy cow, it’s been a while since I posted last on the blog. I’ve been extremely busy (not really) with work and personal stuff…that and I’m also too lazy to keep this thing up to date. Since I don’t have any ads on here I don’t make any money so hence no incentive to keep it jammin’ as they say.

In any case, I’ve made myself a promise to try and at least write 2-3 posts a week starting today – my birthday – for the next year and see if I can keep that going.

So to those people that stumble across this blog via Google or by error, welcome and check back for more frequent updates.

Otherwise life is good.