Bestdamntech Podcasts on Geek Force

Best Damn Shears

Sun August 10 2008

Do you hate cutting weeds and trimming shrubbery around your home or business? So do we! Thats why we invented the Best Damn Shears!

Leave ColdPlay Alone!

Tue June 24 2008

"After hearing accusations that Coldplay's Chris Martin stole a song from unknown band Creaky Boards, Schmidt lashes out in defence of Coldplay in thi... read more

Best Damn Tech Show, Period. 06.03.08

Tue June 10 2008

Geeks wanting to participate in a Guiness World record are being called upon to participate in "Download Day" which represents the release of Firefox ... read more

Geeks wanting to participate in a Guiness World record are being called upon to participate in "Download Day" which represents the release of Firefox 3.0. The folks at Firefox are looking for the title of most downloads in a 24 hour period. The day has not been set but will occur some time in June. Sign up at http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/ The D: All Things Digital conference commenced, opening with the comedy duo of Gates and Balls, showing off some features of the new Microsoft 7 predominately multi-touch and banking on this new system to bring them out of the toilet. Google is wooing developers, at their recent inaugural Google I/O get-together. Some 2500+ web developers were plied with orgasmic delights like Gears, HTML5, Javascript/AJAX and Android. MySpace has already deployed a new email system using Google Gears offering the ability to sort message on your desktop. AOL also announced that they will be jumping on OpenSocial with open arms In an attempt to combat apparent lagging broadband adoption here in the States (well behind other countries like Korea, Australia, Canada and Europe), the FCC is proposing that the company buying the newly planned spectrum auction must provide free wireless access nationwide. They will still have the ability to place restrictions on content.Rand, Iggs and Adam check out Verizon's 'My Home 2.0' event featuring Ryan Howard from the Philadelphia Phillies. Adam cooks burgers and hot dogs while helping Iggs solve his personal network security issues. Schmidt facedAround the World Wide WebGoogle is by no means the only street mapping system in the world, in fact geo-mapping company MapJack out of Hong Kong and Thailand has been doing the rounds, currently featuring several cities in the US and a couple of Thailand. They tout better quality images, more features and a more immersive experience with additional backpack carrying cameras walking the streets. Columbia is jumping on board the new XO laptops, ordering 65,000 of them. The addition of XP was the clincher. Plus the secret compartment for storing drugs made the deal a winner. Meanwhile Dell, Acer and HP are also vying for a spot in the cut-price PC market following the success of OLPC and the recent Asus EEE PC which sold for $299 and is almost at 2 million sold. After seeing the popularity of these machines Windows is extending support of its XP sub-notebook OS and slashing the price to $32. read less

Best Damn Tech Show, Period 05.27.08

Thu May 29 2008

Redlasso.com (Jim McCusker), Rachel. Schmidt, DrdrewBest Damn News HeadlinesAnswering question from last week as to 4th most popular search engine....... read more

Redlasso.com (Jim McCusker), Rachel. Schmidt, DrdrewBest Damn News HeadlinesAnswering question from last week as to 4th most popular search engine....AOLGoogle extends lead over competition last month growing to 61.6 percent, up from 59.8 percent in March seemingly proving unstoppable. Also proving that even a merger between Yahoo and Microsoft would not be enough to topple the giant.Larry Page made the trip to Washington to appeal to the powers-that-be for access to the unused TV whitespace in an attempt to blanket the whole country with free wifi. He also talked up a possible Yahoo-Google deal citing a near monopoly in communications if Microsoft and Yahoo were to bed together.Microsoft launches cash for search service that pays users a rebate for buying products they found through the company's Windows Live search engine. Gates claims that MS will partner with more than 700 retailers including eBay Inc, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot.The One Laptop per Child program is planning to resume its BOGOF program where users can purchase the laptop and donate one to a third world child. They announced plans for the 2nd gen, dubbed XO that should be closer to the $100 goal. They also announced a partnership with Microsoft to offer their operating system for cheap (but not cheap enough at this stage as they still have to work out the licensing agreement.) They also have a new domain at www.laptop.orgSchmidt facedhttp://badvista.fsf.org/blog/don-t-give-microsoft-the-remote-controlMicrosoft plays a little too nice with the FCC. Iris on the Virushttp://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/05/22/vulnerabilities-in-ical-pose-potential-security-riskTech TipsAround the World Wide WebEurope is planning a 'big brother' campaign in a bid to counter terrorism. Their plan includes the creation of a digital vault which will contain information on every email, internet visit and phone call. This central repository will be made available to Home Office officials.Tech this out- This one straight from the "Oh my God, this is the biggest news ever!" files. Facebook is planning a redesign. They're talking about tabs folks. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=509854&id=21073243776#pid=509854 - Napster launched its new mp3 store touting some 6 million unprotected tracks not without its bugs though- HP launches a green initiative for printers...the HP DeskJet D2545 Printer is made almost entirely out of recycled plastic.- Mahaolo are opening up to everyone. The editors will be monitoring but anyone can edit content.- Speilberg has entered the gaming arena with Boom Blox. Teaming up with EA, it has been described as "This is a wacky, addictive puzzle game with precious little story and surprisingly bland characters"DrewmorsSite of the Weekhttp://www.howcast.com/http://ww.redlasso.com read less

Best Damn Tech Show, Period 05.20.08

Wed May 21 2008

Best Damn News Headlines CBS BUYS online media company CNET for $1.8billReadBurner Partners with Netvibes - Drew talks about it Ask (IACI) Buys Dictio... read more

Best Damn News Headlines CBS BUYS online media company CNET for $1.8billReadBurner Partners with Netvibes - Drew talks about it Ask (IACI) Buys Dictionary.com for $100mVerizon have announced plans to adopt an open source platform for their phones but will be backing Linux over google's androidMySpace fake user Lori drew, who allegedly helped create a fake MySpace account to contact neighbour Megan Meier who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans which ended up in the hanging death of Megan has officially been charged with "one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorisation to obtain information to inflict emotional distress." Public pressure (and what they call potential copyright infringement) has forced the folks at Sega to pull a marketing website/video for their new game "Offset the evil" by using a campaign that resembled the My Little Pony character. As a result of the backlash they decided "we thought it would be a good time to take it down and move the campaign onto the next stage."Yahoo launched its new SearchMonkey platform for developers to add extra features link ratings, add images like a facebook photo aimed at improving the user experience, kickstarting it with the SearchMonkey developer Challenge awarding up to $10,000 for the top apps. These "enhanced results" will apparently replace the current search results.Finally, Google is continuing to roll out (although there is a waiting list) FriendConnect with the aim of integrating social features like blogging and feedback forms without requiring the skills of a developer. On the other end MySpace, Yahoo and Ebay have jumped on to the OpenID option. One platform not accepting of the Google initiative is Facebook...for his opinion on such issues...Schmidt facedFacedbook bans Google Friend Connect:Facebook is all about openness and data portability, as long as that doesn’t involve openness or portability of data, it seems. Today they wrote a long 7 paragraph blog post to get a single point across: Facebook has banned Google’s Friend Connect access to the Facebook API. They claim that Google's use of the data goes against their policies and wants to work with Google to cometo an agreement, however Facebook's application distributes their info in a similar fashion. Iris on the VirusSafari 'carpet bombing' vulnerability. Apple says 'meh'Tech TipsAround the World Wide Web While Google is starting to blur certain images on their street view option here in the US, they're launching street view in the EU amid privacy concerns. According to one source in France "Unlike in the US, we are mostly beautiful people but we do have some uglies. Generally we like to hide the uglies but with something like this Google streetview, it will be difficult".Tech this out - Comcast has acquired Plaxo - ComScore data has Google jumping to the head of the class by overtaking Yahoo as the most popular website in the US as determined by the number of unique monthly visitors.- Amazon is taking some interest in Animoto, the very cool music video creator- Flash 10 has been made available for public testingTech Biffo I can't decide who the biffo is between, Myspace and the "Spam Kings" or the Spam King to Spam King for the Spam King title. Self proclaimed "Spam King" Sanford Wallace plus another self-proclaimed "Spam King" Walter Rines has been ordered to pay $230 million to MySpace for hijacking other people's MySpace pages or setting up their own and sending over 700,000 junk messages to members. Meanwhile another self-proclaimed "Spam King" Scott Richter is being pursued by the News Corp giant.Site of the Week www.offsettheevil.com read less