Crossover Crisis: Swap Thing!

Saving a parallel Swap Universe from jackbooted copyright thugs and bad Hollywood event movies! One ripped disc at a time. Reviewed in this episode: Transformers 2, Valkyrie, and the Daredevil: Director’s Cut.

A crossover crisis mashing rgbFIlter with the Laroquod Experiment. NO COPYRIGHTS WERE INFRINGED IN THE CAPTURE OF THIS VIDEO. But to the extent possible under law, I waive all of my own copyright and related or neighbouring rights to this work, and grant them immediately to the Public Domain, via the Creative Commons.

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Watchmen Blu-Ray “Maximum Movie Mode” takes Movie Magic, throws it out a window

Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” is finally coming to Blu-Ray on July 21, 2009, and with it is what just might be the most comprehensive special feature set, well, ever.

Dubbed “Maximum Movie Mode”, it takes the idea of the director’s commentary to an entirely new level, in that the director walks into the shot and dissects the scene, literally giving a frame-by-frame explanation of how it was made. The highly detailed walkthrough plays like a tutorial, including behind-the-scenes video, prop and stunt explanations, and easter eggs (watch for Snyder’s cameo in the Comedian’s apartment during the opening scene.)

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Sony Walkman Turns 30, 13 Year Old Gives It a Spin

That’s right.  The Sony Walkman has been around for 30 years now, revolutionizing portable music forever by allowing aural connoisseurs to listen to whatever they want, whenever they want.

In celebration of the advent of the Walkman, the BBC Magazine had 13 year old Scott Campbell put down his iPod and try living for a week as if it was 1983, when cassette tapes ruled the mobile music roost.  There’s a LOT to recommend in the article, but my favourite line has to be…

I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

You can read the full article ” Giving up my iPod for a Walkman” here.  For purists, I’m not sure if he was using THE original Walkman or a ‘newer’ model, like the Super Walkman…

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rgbFilter’s “OMG the World Is Officially Losing Its Mind” post, or, NAMBLA

So let’s see, what’s going on in the news today. Well, there’s Iran, Iran, Iran, garbage strike, Iran, Iran…Yup, seems like pretty standard fare.

…Oh what’s this on the cover? Michael Jackson? Dead? STFU!!

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HTC Hero Announced - Best Phone UI ever?

HTC held a launch in London, England to announce their new phone, the HTC Hero, running Google’s Android. The first thought that ran through my mind is “Oh great, HTC launches a new Android phone, big deal.” That is, until I saw videos of it in action. This phone could be huge.

What really sets this apart is the user interface, which HTC is calling the Sense UI…

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Mobile Flash Coming This Fall

In it’s Q2 2009 earnings presentation, Adobe mentions that Flash 10 for smartphones should hit beta October of this year.  This should mean a better quality (or, finally, the capability) of most smartphones from Nokia, Microsoft, Palm and Google amongst others to play robust Flash content on the go.  We’re assuming the beta will hit all these operation systems at the same time, and should provide a consistent Flash presentation environment.

There are two major phones missing off that list though: RIM’s Blackberry line, and Apple’s iPhone.  I’m not exactly sure why the Blackberry isn’t in the line up, but seems pretty obvious why the iPhone is foregoing Flash 10 (unless there’s top secret negotiations between Apple and Adobe).

When Flash is mentioned in the mobile space, the two things that generally come to mind are invariably ‘Flash enabled browsers’ and ’streaming video’.  Despite these obvious points, I believe it’s the ability for individuals to create applications and games outside the App Store ecosystem that presents the real challenge to Apple.  They don’t shy away from pulling applications it doesn’t like on its mobile platform.  Standalone Flash 10 based apps such as games and even replacement GUIs would fundamentally interfere with their top down control of content.

For example, a number of stand alone Flash apps currently run under Windows Mobile, including a now MIA iPhone like application launcher.

Letting customers customize their phone experience to that extent is outside of Apple’s business model, so don’t expect them to make it easy on you.

UPDATE:

The new HTC Hero Android phone running flash in the browser, including flash games, can be seen on Adobe’s web site here…

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iPhone 3G S launch in Toronto, on June 19th 2009

Last Friday we went to the iPhone 3G S launch event at the Toronto Eaton Centre Apple Store…this post is a little tardy, but better late than never!

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Acer Aspire Easystore H340 Review

Overview:

I’m sure we’ve all been faced with the dilemma of running out of hard drive space, and wondering whether it would make more sense to upgrade an internal drive, or plunk down the money for an external solution.  When contemplating getting yet another hard drive to add to my system (as dictated by the paltry 24 GB I had left free on my last drive), I realized it was time to look into some sort of network addressed storage (NAS) instead of dogpiling yet another drive in the computer, or worse yet, another external drive.

My timing couldn’t be better, as fellow rgb’er Alex mentioned he just picked up an Acer Aspire Easystore H340, a Windows Home Server system selling for less than $500 with a 1 TB drive.  When he pointed out to me that Acer was also running a promotion until the end of May that meant  doubling down on storage and tossing in a second 1 TB drive for free, I decided to make the call.  The Easystore is not only significantly cheaper than most other 4 bay NAS solutions (including some that don’t even bother supplying ANY storage drive).

But, would a netbook class processor with 4 drive bays be robust enough to run Windows Home Server?

When the surprisingly heavy box arrived, it was time to find out…
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Cheapest way to get a Blu-Ray Player? Part 1 (And no, stealing one doesn’t count)

Okay, it’s been a long while since I lasted posted an article, so here goes…

This article is based on something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.  With more and more movies coming out on Blu-Ray, it is getting really tempting to pick up a Blu-Ray player (it’s a battle that’s still raging with me, but that’s another story).  But since most of my hard-earned cash is going towards bills and such, that got me thinking…

Let’s say you’ve spent your hard-earned cash on a beautiful big screen LCD HDTV, and you don’t have much left for a Blu-Ray player… What is the cheapest way to get a Blu-Ray Player?

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CRTC Bell Hearings Continue - Let your voice be heard!

A ‘Swipe File’ Controversy and the Anxiety of Influence

Rogers says that the Revolution is here - at least until June 19th

Palm Pre has 30 lives

Apple’s WWDC 2009 keynote: What, they sell more than iPhones?

Episode 017 - Drag Me To Cells