Category: Tech

Did you know all the things you can search for on google… I just found this page that lists them all and has examples. Wow, fascinating.

I’m pretty sure we’ve discussed this enough that McBlog readers know what a browser is, but in case you know someone who might still have questions, check out whatbrowser.org. It’s a site that helps explain the most used application on your computer.

Last week Microsoft jumped into the FREE anti-virus software war with their Security Essentials Software. According to reviews by people who know more than me, this thing is really good for FREE. Other free programs usually miss one or two of the bad guys, but Microsoft scored flawlessly. So with an investment of $0.00 we are now running this at home, and you might want to too when that free 6 months of Norton runs out on the new computer.

Download Now!

Feeding my addiction last night I played Gino in battle tanks for “practice”. It would’ve been a pretty standard game except for the fact that Gino hadn’t learned the lesson that Cotton taught me. Watch this:

Will you please comment on this post ONLY if you subscribe to the McBlog feed. Just wondering how many people read us via a RSS reader.

So I’m kind of excited, our Xbox 360 got the red ring of death! Why is that exciting? Well I was already talking to customer service b/c the optical drive didn’t recognize some games… they wanted me to pay for fixing it. But luckily Microsoft added 13 million to their budget to extend full coverage to any red ring of death xbox to cover the cost of replacing/fixing it. So the bad xbox went to TX via UPS yesterday… I’ll keep you posted as to what happens, but I’m expecting a refurbed in the mail by next Wed.

SO I just found the coolest thing on a mac since the easy share desktop feature in iChat. It’s called GeekTools, and it’s geeky. The image to the left is my desktop at work (2nd monitor). The cool thing is you can put in little scripts that go and do things, like grab the date and time and pretty much any text from the internet. I’m grabbing the current weather and a weather image. This keeps my basic needful info up to date and plastered as if it was my desktop so there aren’t any stupid clickable widgets. Plus since they are all little scripts who’s refresh rate you can control it takes very little CPU power compared to widget/dashboard systems. I highly recommend pimping out your mac with geektools. Here’s how:

• Grab a cool desktop image
• Download and install GeekTools 3.0
• Fill in all the geeklets you want & make em pretty

For the nitty gritty of how I accomplished the image above, hit the more link.

Alright, who’s ready for this!? Ryan has setup the VPN and he and I have played a test game. It’s freaking AWESOME! So this Saturday 8pm-12pm EST we are having our first Warcraft III lan party from your own house, (or at your own mini party). If you want to play or if you think you’ll ever play in the future, leave a comment on this post so Ryan knows to make you some login credentials!

What do you need?

1. Computer + network connection
2. Full version of Warcraft, ROC and Frozen Throne, RUN UPDATES before playing!!
3. Mic + Speakers

Mac OS 10.5:

1. Download VPN software, Viscocity (30 day free, $9) or Tunnelblick (opensource).
2. Download TeamSpeex app, drag to apps folder (install)
3. Run your VPN software. Import connection settings from config file Ryan provides (each person has their own special credentials). I’m trying viscocity, so I go to preferences and click the plus sign, import connection, select ryansvpn.conf where I left it from downloading. Close prefs.
4. Connect: click icon in menu bar and click Connect ryansvpn. You are now on the local network.
5. Run TeamSpeex app, enter server: 10.14.80.98, put in your name and join. By default you join the main chat, if we play team games and only want to talk to teams you’ll have to bounce over and join the appropriate team channel. GAME ON!

10.4 or lower users, see comments

Windows

1. Download VPN software, OpenVPN (opensource).
2. Download TeamSpeak & install
3. Run your VPN software. Import connection settings from config file Ryan provides (each person has their own special credentials).
4. Connect: click connect to ryansvpn. You are now on the local network.
5. Run TeamSpeak app, enter server: 10.14.80.98, put in your name and join. By default you join the main chat, if we play team games and only want to talk to teams you’ll have to bounce over and join the appropriate team channel. GAME ON!

Please post any question or concerns in the comments, Ryan and I played for about 30 minutes running teamspeak and it was SO fun to be able to talk and play sheepseekers. This is going to be AWESOME!

Firefox 3.5 is now available, go get it now to be the coolest person today. And for those of you willing to take my tech advice, here’s some special content in HTML 5 format that only you can see. 🙂