Gizmodo brings Fantastic Patchwork Panoramas Using Just the iPhone Camera. Thanks to PeeJay for the link.

Not that type of balls you sicko! No, this is Beware of The Orbs! passed on from a coworker and particularly funny to me. Darren says this spawned Face Ball.org.

I just found a great place you guys can go for my birthday and Christmas! Check out /Film's great pointer to Marc Ecko’s Star Wars Collection... some fantastically nifty star wars shirts. Just remember to get 'em in XL for me k? :)

Ever get confused about whose frakking who and who is whose kid and who is a cylon or not? The IO9 BSG Frak Tree has all the answers!

Cool article on Improving boot time on a general Linux distribution, a good read. That said, I haven't booted my linux system for a couple of months, so in this new world of always on computing a fast(er) boot isn't nearly as important as it used to be. That said, the machines I work with at work are servers with what feels like 10 or 15 separate bios modules that take forever to start up. A boot takes in the range of 5-10 minutes, 90% of that being the system booting up the ILOM bios, SATA controller BIOS, other controllers, and then it boots up linux (which is fast enough).

I'm quite sure doing this in real life would be somewhat of an HR issue, however the Diet Coke Mentos Booby Trap video looks damn funny!

Well, the latest in the GNOME stable series appeared today.... the GNOME 2.24 Release Notes are online and have details of all the gnomey goodness in this release.

I'm not hugely impressed with the release (based on the notes) so far, it's definitely evolutionary, a new messanger tool included, tweaks to some software, tabbed file browser, new/better screen controls, new backgrounds (is this really such a big thing that it makes the release notes?!), and other stuff along the same lines. Maybe it's just that GNOME is a mature platform and there's not a huge amount of improvements you can make. I see this as a similar problem in Windows and MacOS as well...

Still, I'm looking forward to using this myself when the packages are up for my distro.... :)

Paul Thurrott noted Microsoft actually updates Ultimate Extras. Sadly the content (one game, a sound theme and some backgrounds) are "junk". Not worth the extra $$ paid by Vista Ultimate users and definitely yet another blow to the faces of the dedicated Microsoft customers who believed MS's promises about what they were going to do with UE.

Nice reference find: 19 ffmpeg commands for all needs.

For Google's 10th birthday they have released the Google timeline, all interactive and googly.

Quantum of Solace - Trailer 2 is up and going in SD and HD. Another trailer that makes me really want to see this movie :)

Your political opinions, or those on Michael Moore aside, the fact remains that his Slacker Uprising has been released online for free in streaming, mpeg4, xvid, and torrent links (for the price of an email address of course).

Looks like he's taken a page from the NiN playbook and is offering the DVD for sale as well (though for free).

This is too cute not to share, check out this I Kissed A Dog mashup song.

Engadget has a T-Mobile G1 first hands-on. So is it good enough to compete with the JesusPhone? Sadly not a lot of commentary, and only a few pictures.

Looks like the embargo is off, and you can head over to the Adobe CS4 Learning Center to see videos and features from CS4. Lots in other photoshop and photographer blogs as well.

Thanks to /film comes Tim Goddard’s Star Wars LEGO Diorama. All I can say is "wow.

The apple-ness of this office aside, it makes me feel funny in the pants. That's a lot of monitors!

The next time someone questions my choice in pets, or number of pets, or accuses me of being a crazy old cat man, I'm going to point them over to this guy and his anteater. OK?

The Portal: Prelude Official Trailer is now up on Vimeo. Also at http://www.portalprelude.com/

The mythtv mailing list pointed to the FLOSS Media Center State of the Art, a document with charts and graphics of all the various FLOSS PVR solutions out there.

Posted so I don't lose them again, two great best-of craigslist posts:

• WARNING!!! - why not to shave your ass
  
• Do not eat fat free potato chips - another warning
  

Google has got a feature available now from the settings -> labs area called the Google Attachment Detector Feature. This is similar to the feature in Evolution which will warn you if you say something in your email about attaching something and then don't. Great feature for forgetful people like me :)

Darren threw over a link to IO9 where they have some Frightening New Footage from The Day The Earth Stood Still. Looks very very cool.

Joel on Software has launched a new project called Stack Overflow... basically an answer to the crappy results out there for programming problems.

So the links. Here's the blog and the actual site. It basically looks like "digg for programming problems" which I'm undecided if this is just a following of a fad or a decent idea. On one hand if it was digg for programmers it'd be lame, but for programming problems it has potential I believe.

Kevin Smith has the Zack and Miri Make a Poster and the Toronto Film Fest reaction over on his blog. I'm looking forward to this....

TUAW points to the very cool project that lets you run OS X on an even smaller portable than the Air. More details are at http://www.maceee.com/.

Course, when you're looking at a $700 cost for a 40GB eeepc 901, you're only about $400 from a full MacBook with better specs and all legal and everything...

Hilarious video shared with me this morning. Simply titled No Jackie Chan Bollocks it came up during a conversation about martial arts. Very funny, sorry if I'm the last person to see this :)

Remember the made-for-internet comedy videos to be done by Family Guy's creator Seth MacFarlane? Yup, they're here in all their burger king corporate whoring glory! :) I'll be watching these on the train to work this morning to see how they are.

Sorry about the slew of apple stuff, but this is more for me to check when I get home. Seems there are some Free iTunes HD TV shows up on iTunes. Seems (according to the comments) they aren't available in Canada. *sigh* Sucks to live in the north it seems. Hopefully this link willl help my 'merkin friends though.

However, these two links claim to get itunes downloads from anywhere, though it's legality and tested-ness is unknown.

The folks over in the MacRumors forums are compiling a List Of 2.1 Features that may be interesting above and beyond the ones noted in the official changelog (which in typical Apple fashion is about 5 lines long). Some nice stuff in there, little fixes like apps going back to where they belong when they are updated. Looking forward to the iPhone version on Friday.

633k has a nice little program that appears to be what I've been looking for, that is, something that will go through my iTunes library and fix all my genre tags from a trusted source (ie: Last.fm).

Anyone have anything else that might do the same?

(Turns out this isn't all that great, bugs in the program (redraw stuff) and it doesn't seem to do all-at-once, you have to tag each artist or each song :( ).

Since MacRumors doesn't have their live event coverage site up, however the Gizmodo Liveblog is up and going for today's 10AM PST iPod-o-gasm is.

Update: So if you haven't seen already, here's the rundown:

• iTunes 8, with new cover view and the genius playlist creator (available now).
  
• The new rumored iPod nano "thinnie" version (as opposed to the 3rd gen "fatties"). Also includes microphone accelerometer for video playing when it's on it's side and coverflow like the iphone/touch, shake to shuffle, and a new headphone with play/pause/next/prev/volume controls on it (like the iPhone/touch but better).
  
• New iPod touch form factor (the iphone look) and hardware volume controls and the new headphones.
  
• iPod Touch/iPhone 2.1 software with the Genius mode and "bugfixes" to increase battery life and other suck. No word on cut and paste though. This is available now for the Touch.
  

Macrumors has the Let's Rock: Rumor Roundup and Expectations for tomorrows apple event. Personally the one thing i'm really hoping for is the new version of iTunes with proper tagging support. I'll be miffed if the new iPods are released as rumored as I just replaced one of the 3rd gen Nanos that was stolen! Ah well, I'm fine and happy with the 3rd gen and the 4th gen (should it be released) better do something pretty amazing for me to want to upgrade.

So I finally understand it.... in a video pointed to by Darren the FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It's Alyson Hannigan.

And really, what's wrong with that?

Mmmm..... Alyson Hannigan.....

Some amazing pics from the World Body Painting Festival 2008 in South Korea. Kinda semi-NSFW in a way, as there are boobies, but they're all painted over and disguised (mostly).

So the Amazon.com: Customer Reviews of Spore are not good, mostly due to the DRM system included in it (3 installs, then you have to start calling EA). Also sounds like the system was dumbed down from the initial presentation (no confirmation on that though). Lots of people are pissed off, and if I were to buy it and not be able to reinstall in a couple of years because a) I had run out of installs or b) the activation servers were removed, well, I'd be pretty angry too.

Anyone played it enough to give a review here?

Isn't it awesome that the server has been so stable lately? Really, it has been... the various blips in service lately have been all hosting company related (other than the swapped hard drive a few weeks ago, which was a planned outage)....

So sometime yesterday afternoon a router or switch at the hosting company blew up, and continued with odd problems (DNS related, looking up subdomains and such) until 11pm or so when I determined there was nothing I could do, it wasn't my fault, and I figured it'd all be magically fixed in the morning.

And like some Christmas miracles, it was! :) Still waiting to hear what the issue actually was though.

So the Mac people's take on the first ad from the newly formed Microsoft-Seinfeld alliance is not good, saying: Microsoft’s first “Seinfeld ad” a bigger disaster than the Hindenburg.

Me, I'm not in the same mindset. If MS had fired back with a "mac vs pc" type ad they'd be playing in apple's playground, which would look even worse. That Apple ad campaign is fairly brilliant, and nothing short of something with the dial up to 11 would have looked like anything less than a cheap (or rather, expensive) knockoff, and the Mac community would have laughed even harder.

However, what MS is good at is the quirky, funny, internal type ads that they do for their conventions and developer conferences (or at least that's what I keep on hearing on Windows Weekly from Paul Thurrott :) .

This new ad definitely is taking this to heart, and has that same feel. It's also obviously not the end of the $30m or whatever huge amount was paid to get the not-all-that-relevant ex-sitcom comedian.

That said, I'd almost say they were trying too hard to be quicky, and seeing this on TV I'd probably ignore it after the first few seconds, and the only mention of anything MS oriented (other than Gates himself) is about half a second at the very last few frames. There isn't even a clear connection between the whole shoe thing and Windows, or software at all. Unless they're saying that if you accept things that you don't want and people can't properly sell you and that take a lot of work to eventually enjoy are worth it. And honestly I'm not even sure if that isn't a huge stretch. Of course, this is probably more of a "hey, look at us, we've got an ad campaign!" message. I think.

Why oh why would you need a Highlander Remake? Really, is it that old a movie that it needs a reboot?

Cute story from snuzzy.com about a Vancouver police officer saving ducklings. Definitely one for the cute files....

Via Digg.... 50 Excellent Body Enhancement Photoshop Tutorials. Good stuff to go through for the photo-geeks out there.

IGN has a Spore Review up for the viewiing. Time is getting close folks!

I know I say this ever time, but Zero Punctuation's review of Eve Online is the best Zero Punctuation ever :)

Askmen.com has the "red band" (read: restricted, read: lots of nasty f-words) trailer up. For those who don't know, Zach and Miri Make A Porno is the latest from Kevin Smith and I'm really looking forward too it. Looks like an awesome cast too.

Google Chrome is up and ready for download. Anyone have any thoughts on it yet?

Update: Couple of quick thoughts after a couple of minutes of use in a Windows XP VMware session (so not full speed or "normal" use):

• Overall pleasant to use, minimalistic look and feel without missing anything huge for day to day browsing.
  
• Some sexy effects, ie: notice the find dropdown when you hit ctrl-f
  
• Nice and fast, though some people are saying that images are a bit slow. JS speed reported as uber-fast, but I don't see anything massive here myself in the sites I normally use.
  
• Right click -> inspect element is nifty, as is about:memory (notice it'll show memory use from other running browsers.
  
• Text entry fields are resizable.
  
• Some common plugins are supported (flash, quicktime, silverlight, etc).
  
• Flash plugin install happened "in browser" and didn't require any sort of restart.
  
• Any page can be turned into an "application" (runs in it's own window without url bar or browser controls) and have shortcuts added to the desktop/quicklaunch bar. This isn't like the mozilla solution for this which lets you run web apps offline.
  
• Browser tab dragging, removing, adding, etc all work nicely and niftily.
  
• Some obvious deficiencies:
  
  
  
  • Windows only
    
  • Missing some useful plugins that will prevent me from using it, most noticeable of all is missing Adblock-plus
    
  • Support for more plugins would be awesome.
    
  • Smooth scroll would be nice as well.
    
  • In the minor tweaks department:
    
  • I'd like to be able to tab down into the awesomebar.
    
  • If you're really fast typing in a URL and hitting enter you could get the google search option if the "just load the damn url" option hasn't popped to the top of the awesomebar.
    
  
  

Another good lifehacker post (especially for someone who just lost their laptop) is How to Set Up a Laptop Security System, ranging from physical security, monitoring, and retrieval. Good stuff!

There was a piece of software that I heard of or saw ages ago for (I believe) macs, which would capture a picture of you when you login or open the laptop and compare it to how it knows you look. If you look similar enough, no problem, if not, it would either ask for a password, start tracking, or something like that.

Anyone know what that was? Or was this just a dream?

Lately I've been re-doing my music collection thanks to a new fileserver and a new computer. Since the new computer is a Mac, the logical choice for music is iTunes. It's not perfect of course, but it does the job, and is the logical choice if you have any iPod type devices. However one of the places where it completely falls down is in realm of tagging, as smart playlists can only get you so far, and sometimes I want to say that something belongs to my "highschoolmemories" collection as well as "hotdancetracks" and dragging those into playlists just doesn't cut it. Enter the power of applescript and quicksilver (sorry guys, this is a Mac only link). Check out how to set up tagging tracks in iTunes with Quicksilver via MacOSXHints.com.

Another method that will work for everyone is from this lifehacker article using the power of "grouping".

Hows this for random.... Google to launch Web browser tomorrow. Paul has a screenshot up as well.

More on the Blogscoped Blog.