I am starting to get things wrapped up here and getting the notebook and all my gadgets together to leave for the weekend. I am going down south to Boca Raton (where I used to live) to attend a family wedding. Should be nice to get away from home for a few days and see some family that I do not get to see often enough.

Just not looking forward to the 4 hour drive, also hoping that the hotel has some decent wi-fi so I can do some blogging. Gotta love needing that constant connection to the internet.

So I recently started to use Parallels on my 1.83 GHz Intel Mac mini and have realized a few things. I have both Vista Home Premium and XP Home installed.

1. You will need way more than the minimum 512mb of RAM, I have 1GB and its not enough. Soon I will venture into opening up my Mac mini to make it 2GB of RAM. I am not sure why I ordered it with 1GB in the first place, oh well live and learn.
2. I no longer think of Windows as an OS. It now seems like just another application that I would run on my Mac.

Overall its pretty good for me, I need to run Windows for some of the work I do (login & programs) and really hate PC’s, so the option to use Parallels on my Mac mini is great. It also means one less computer that is constantly running in my house. Have you used Parallels and what are your thoughts?

[UPDATE] As of Thursday May 3rd at 6:15am I have sent an invite to everyone that requested. Some of the emails did not go and gave me an error. (mostly if not a .com address for some reason) If you did not receive your invite and you sent a request please re-email me and I will try again.

Other than that I hope everyone is enjoying andI am going to wrap this up and close it off today, if anyone else wants to share they can leave a message in the comments.
So far I have given away just about 100.

Nick Starr was nice enough to hook me up with a Joost invite earlier this morning, so I now have 1000 to share with others. Well not quite a 1000 anymore, I gave some away already but still plenty left.

If you want an invite send me an email to areyouageek (at) gmail (dot) com with your email. I will send the invites out as the requests come in.

I am a Blogger, I mean Bastard

Just what I said I did not want to happen, I did not want this site to die. I had and still have good intentions on keeping this alive and kicking. It just seems that I either have no time or I have no energy. Because of that most of the so called posts have been my del.icio.us links. Not very exciting I know. I understand that this is not a high traffic site or anything like that but there is a nice group that is here, I enjoy the email from the friends I have made doing this, both the podcast in the early days and the blog as of late. Someway I will keep that alive, just give me time to figure out how and what.

I do not want to make this all about Apple and the AppleTV because this would really deal with any streaming media but…

<rant>

Recently I have been hearing all about how streaming and syncing the AppleTV is such a pain and that it takes so long to sync and how the streaming does not work all that well. Keep in mind I have not used an AppleTV yet.

However I do not get it…I have an (Intel Core 2 Duo) Mac mini in my upstairs office that I use as a media server, it is hooked up to my network via Wi-Fi. I also use an older Airport that is about 2 years old now, that is plugged in and set up in my office. Downstairs I have a Mac mini (slightly older) hooked up to my entertainment center using my HD tv as a monitor and hooked up to my Onkyo receiver, again attached to my network via Wi-Fi.

I have been using this Mac setup as my media center for almost a year now, always streaming media from my iTunes library on my mini upstairs. I almost always use Front Row when using any content, whether it be movies, tv shows, music videos or even music. I have them all.

Aside from the occasional not connected or not found glitch that a simple reboot will fix, there is no issue while streaming. It may take a few extra seconds to start a movie or tv show, but nothing with music even when on Shuffle.

Streaming media can work on your home network even without the latest and greatest router, even over wi-fi. 

</rant>

Had to rant.

Well, that is something that I could have said for a while now, but I will also be blogging over on Gadgetell. I started earlier this week and have been getting some posts up over there. I am really excited to be part of the team and hope anyone that reads over here will check out my posts over on Gadgetell as well.

I will of course continue to update and write over here as well just like I always have. Just give me some time to get settled into Gadgetell and then I will continue to be a geek here!

Fun Stuff, this is a Ransom Note Generator, have fun and make some messages, you even have your choice of Yellow or Plain paper. What fun that could be had with this.

You can click on the image above to see the larger version.

Found Via: [techyum]
Ransom Note Generator: [Link]

I am glad to have helped out where I could. Having owned many iPods I feel at least partially responsible for this great task.

I have owned:
1. 3rd gen 15gb
2. iPod mini 4gb (1st gen mini)
3. 4th gen 40gb (black & white display)
4. 4th gen 60 gb Photo (color display)
5. 5th gen 60gb (white)
6. 5th gen 80gb (white)
7. 1st gen iPod Shuffle 1gb
8. 2nd gen iPod Shuffle 1gb Silver
9. 1st gen 4gb iPod nano (black)
10. 2nd gen 4gb iPod nano (silver)

Wow, 10 iPods, even sounds like alot to me. The ones listed in bold are the ones that I still have and use, the rest were either sold to family members or on eBay to fund the newer models.

Read: [Apple]

With my somewhat recent purchase of a Canon HV10 digital video camera. I have been getting real excited by internet video, of course the recent AppleTV helps that excitement. Now, I have no plans to launch any sort of video podcast or anything like that. Even though I did register areyouageek.tv, it just forwards this blog. I am however having a lot of fun messing with some home family video’s. I have an account on Blip.tv and also upload some to my .mac account to share with family and some friends. My main for reason not fully enjoying video is the time it takes to encode video. I am working on my Powerbook and its sometimes slow, of course I have been shooting in HD, so that adds to that time factor.

I have been taking some video’s and I have been learning to edit using iMovie HD. Nothing fancy for me yet, at least let me learn the basics first. I am excited about this new device that has been announced, the Elgato Turbo.264. This Turbo.264 should be available in the US by the end of April for $99. I can only hope this is true, because I will run out and get one ASAP. The only downfall for me is that although it will encode my HD video clips to H.264 the maximum output is limited to 800×600.

But that would work well for me because my main concern is that I can upload these to web to share and for that I would downgrade the quality anyway.

Via: engadgetHD

I have had an interest in a subscription service for a while and never really got into Napster. I already spend way to much money on music and a monthly “all I can eat” may actually save me some money. I tend to always buy complete albums even if I have only heard one song.

I had a Napster account when they first when live with the legal service. They had run a promo when they first started that the first 1000 people who signed up for a year service also got a free player, and it was a nice player. I cannot remember what the player was, but it was real nice and worth more than the year subscription cost. I signed up, got the player in the mail, and had it sold to a co-worker within minutes. I made $50.00 and still got to listen to Napster for “free” for 1 year on my Windows machine that I had at work. After that I canceled the service.

I do have an interest in the Zune, I love Apple and really like my iPod but being a tech junkie, I like to try out what is available, just to be able to compare and play. The Zune has gotten some decent reviews and I read a few Zune Blogs just to keep up. I would most likely (if they offer this) sign up for a year service, if I was given a decent free player.

This would be ok for me for 2 reasons, I have a Windows machine set up that I need and use daily for work and could actually use the Zune Marketplace to at least listen at that machine, and I also have an AUX input in my car so I could use the Zune easily in the car. For that alone it would be worth a years worth of service to really see what they offer.

I do not think that I will ever leave Apple or the iPod but it’s still nice to see what else is there. I live in an Apple house, my wife has a MacBook, I have a Powerbook, we also have 2 Mac mini’s in the house. Also once we replace our bedroom tv with a new LCD or Plasma I will be getting an AppleTV to go along with it. I use iTunes for all my music, a decent amount of TV shows and love to get some music video’s as well and I am sure once Apple offers more movies I will get some more of those as well. So I am an Apple person, some may call me an Apple Fanboy. But I am still open to what else is there.

A free Zune with subscription may be just what it would take to get me to really check it out. Right now I have no interest in paying for a Zune, not worth the money considering I already have 2 Shuffles a nano and an 80gb Video, and no I don’t use all of them, 1 Shuffle sits most of the time, but the other Shuffle get used often and the nano and video get used daily.

Would a Free Zune with subscription get you to buy a membership? And if so what do you currently have and use?

Via: tuaw.com