Boxee Event @ Webster Hall 3/24/09

I attended the Boxee meetup at Webster Hall last night. It was packed...I've attended concerts with shorter lines. For those of you who know the area, the line blocked all of the entrances for the movie theater and was almost all the way to 12^th Street when I got there--and I was on time.


For those of you unfamiliar with Boxee, it is a great solution to getting your streaming media and online audio/video content to your HDTV, HTPC, or laptop. From their website:

on a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.

The two big announcements of last night were the addition of Pandora, of which I am a huge fan and avid user, and Radiotime. Boxee is still in the alpha stage, hoping to go to beta within the next year. If you're looking for a program for viewing some great (free) online content and aren't scared of using alpha software, go to Boxee's website, sign up, and download the software. I can almost guarantee you'll enjoy it. For more information on last night's event, head over to Boxee's blog.

On an aside, I also attended the Pandora meeting here in New York, last January at Housing Works book store. I was one of the lucky ones to grab a free hat, which I wear everywhere. I left it at my parents' house when I visited this past weekend, so I wasn't wearing it last night. And of course, who stood next to me? Tom Conrad, who had great things to say about Boxee adding Pandora:

Pandora for BlackBerry is here!

The long-awaited BlackBerry application is finally here! I'm kind of late posting this, but better late than never. If you have a compatible BlackBerry (Bold, Curve, and Pearl on Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon as of this posting) point your phone's Browser to www.pandora.com/blackberry and download.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Pandora, it is a free, completely customizable internet radio site. Stations are made with a song, artist, or composer seed. Your stations are changed every time you thumbs up or thumbs down a song, as well as when you seed additional artists. It's amazing stuff. Check it out if you haven't and give me your thoughts.

Restore the Show Desktop icon in your Quick Launch toolbar

After a number of customers called me having the same issue, I'm sharing the solution here. They all deleted the "Show Desktop" icon in their Quick Launch toolbar. Without further ado, here is how to restore/recreate the Show Desktop icon to your Quick Launch toolbar in Microsoft Windows XP.

• Open Notepad


• Paste the following text in a new document

  [Shell]
  Command=2
  IconFile=explorer.exe,3
  [Taskbar]
  Command=ToggleDesktop



• Go to "Save As"


• The filename should be ShowDesktop.scf and the file type should be "all types" (be sure the file is not called ShowDesktop.scf.txt). Save it in a place where the file won't get deleted on accident, but where you can still find it if you need it again. Click "Save"


• Drag and drop the file you just created to the Quick Launch toolbar.

Note: You can change the name from "Shortcut to Show Desktop" to "Show Desktop" by right-clicking on the icon and choosing "Properties."

Wireless Smartphone Syncing (Update)

Update to Blackberry/Mac Wireless Syncing:

If you use Microsoft Outlook instead of the calendar in Mac or Mozilla Thunderbird, I saw an ad for gSyncit for syncing Outlook with your Gmail or Google Apps. Not sure how good this software is, as I haven't used it myself, but if you wanna wirelessly sync your smartphone and your Outlook calendar and contacts, follow the original steps, using this software instead of Spanning Sync. It works with your calendar and contacts, and the software is only $10.

Jailbreak and/or Unlock your iPhone or iPhone 3G

Unlocking your iPhone is pretty straightforward. It's a lot easier than people think, and reversible if you need to bring it to Apple to get fixed or something. Nowadays, iPhone unlocks are purely software based and don't require the use of weird SIM cards, or opening your phone.

Be sure to use a non-AT&T SIM card in the phone while unlocking it. T-Mobile works best. If you have an AT&T SIM in it, some features like Mail can become un-usable.

• Go to ziphone and download the software for your Mac or PC (it's better for Mac. don't ask me why, PCs just aren't as good with it)


• Plug your iPhone in via USB and click either "Unlock, Jailbeak & Activate" or "Jailbeak & Activate"


• Wait a few minutes, and you're all done

Note that if you update your software after you do this, it'll be locked again and you'll need to unlock it. Also, if you have to return everything to it's previous state, use "iErase BL 3.9 baseband (refurbish)" under the "Advanced" tab in or the "Restore" button in iTunes.

Publish your blog posts automatically to your Twitter

This came about after I created this blog and wanted to not have to
think about publishing it to my Twitter. It's pretty quick and easy--and free.

• Go to friendfeed.com and sign up for an account


• Add your blog under the Blog section


• Go to "Account" in the top right corner


• Under "Feed Publishing," add your Twitter account and password

Your blog posts will be now added to your Twitter feed, for all of your followers to see.

Stop Voice Dialing from your pocket on your BlackBerry

I've had mostly great things to say about my BlackBerry 8830, 8330 (Curve), and 8130 (Pearl). The number one thing that killed me with all of them, especially with the 8830, was the fact that I kept hearing the voice dialing program annoy the crap out of me and everyone around me. By the time I bought the Pearl, this is the first thing I do when I take the phone out of the box.

• Go to Options


• Go to Screen/Keyboard


• The right convenience key by default is set to Voice Dialing. Change it to Keyboard Lock (make sure you know your password!), Nothing, or whatever you want.

Add your Gmail account to your BlackBerry and not receive your sent messages on your device

BlackBerry's built-in mail program is great, except that when using Gmail, it ignores your filters created in the web interface. Also, your sent messages show up in your Inbox on your handheld, as does anything that you normally filter to skip the Inbox.

To Prevent Sent Messages from Going to Your Handheld:

• Log into your BlackBerry Internet Service Account online (if you have Verizon, it is blackberry.com/go/vzw)


• On the line that contains your Gmail (or Google Apps) account, click the filters icon on the right


• You are going to add a new filter. Call it whatever you want


• Under "Apply Filter When," select "From"


• Under "Contains," write your account name, e.g. user@gmail.com


• Click "Add Filter"


• You will no longer receive copies of your sent messages sent on your handheld.

Note: If you have any filters set up to auto-archive messages in Gmail, create another filter on your BIS Account to match the Gmail filter.

Backup discs on your Mac using Disc Utility

Mac OS X has a great versatile built-in program with a number of uses. One of its best uses? Making copies of discs. Disk Utility makes it easy to make an
exact copy of a CD or DVD that can be stored on a hard drive as a disk image, which can then be burned.

Here's how:

• Insert the disc you want to backup into your Mac


• Open the "Disc Utility" app (Applications > Utilities Folder > Disc Utility)


• Highlight the disc you want to copy


• Click the "New Image" button on the top left


• Choose what you want to call it and where you'd like to save it


• In the Image Format drop-down menu, choose "DVD/CD Master"


• Now click "Save"


• If you click on the disk image, you’ll see it works just like a CD or DVD. You can store the disk image anywhere on your computer. You've now got a backup in case the original get scratched, or if you don't want to take a whole book of CDs with you on a trip

To burn the backup image to disc:

• Insert a blank disc


• Open "Disc Utility" and look for the disk image of your CD or DVD, on the left side of the window. Usually it’s at the bottom of the list of drives


• Highlight the image, then click "Burn"

Clean up your iTunes Library

I was given this program called Tuneup after repairing a guy’s laptop charger. I’ve got 60k+ songs from being a DJ, knowing people, working for a radio station, and doing work at some production companies. It’s been over 10 years in the making and I’ve gone through some external hard drives. My collection was a mess. I had 2k songs with no tags at all for starters. This program is amazing. It doesn’t delete duplicates, but you can do that on your own.