First of all: TheTechBlog.com isn’t quite dead….it’s just resting. Keep checking back as it should be resurrected within a short time, probably with a new look - I’ve grown to hate this template!

Now, here’s some big news! We are launching a new site, and it’s almost complete! The site is Safevideo.com and contains over 200 (soon to be over 300) excellent short videos! The best part is that Safevideo.com is safe for work and safe for home - that means they are clean, and to the best of our judgement non-objectionable. That doesn’t mean they are boring: Some of the best videos available on the internet are at Safevideo.com - check out the top 15 list on the front page!

Here’s some other pages to check out:

Safevideo Sports Pages - Great basketball videos, soccer videos, football videos, soccer commercials, Barry Sanders videos, and even some baseball videos. You can even see the best football catch in college football history: Tyrone Prothro Video of Alabama against Southern Miss.

Safevideo.com has some great Amazing videos also: Free running videos, free jumping videos, extreme sports, etc.

Safevideo.com has some great classic videos like Andy Griffith Videos, I love Lucy Videos, and Classic Commercials

Commercial Videos

Funny Videos

More coming soon….Stay Tuned!

/Chase

by tollie

I’ve posted a considerable series of pictures from the LIFTOFF! of Space Shuttle Discovery on my personal blog, here. It was really amazing to see the orbiter - live - as it separated from the external fuel tank. This particular frame doesn’t look very good, but overall the signal held up and the orbiter could be seen kicking it its jets as it manuevered away. Way to go NASA.

by Tollie

Ok, I confess, Apple’s a weird company. Here’s the latest oddity to emerge from 1 Infinite Loop - Apple iTunes 4.9 (a free product) includes functionality previously and currently offered as features of Quicktime Pro - a $30 product.

Specifically, iTunes 4.9 can play Quicktime movie files full screen and it can also chop up audio files. To play Quicktime movie files full screen, simply drag (or Add, using the menus) the movie file into the iTunes, select the file, and click the black box with arrows pointing outward.

Chopping up audio files is a bit trickier, and almost certainly undocumented, but will work for basic trimming. Select the spots of the audio you want to keep by setting the audio files Start Time and Stop Time info (select the file and choose Get Info - Options) then simply convert the file. iTunes will only convert the audio portions ’selected’ by the Start and Stop times.

Hopefully, Apple - an extraordinarily dynamic company as of late - will realize that providing Quicktime Pro capabilities for free will drive people toward Apple in a way that would be much more profitable than leaving out basic features (such as full screen playback!) from the free Quicktime, expecting users to pay an exorbitant $30 fee for the Pro version.

You might think I’d say Quicktime Pro isn’t worth the $30, but that’s not entirely true - it depends on what you want to do. If you just want full screen playback and MPEG2 playback, then no. You can use iTunes or Quicktime Alternative (on the PC) to play video full screen, and other programs, such as VLC Media Player, to watch MPEG2.

However, if you want to do quick and simple movie editing, including encoding video using the new and excellent H.264, capturing video and audio, or creating slideshow movies from pictures and sound files, then Quicktime Pro makes it as simple as cut and paste*.

* As I realize my dad is still learning how to cut and paste, but he can figure out to mark in and out points using Quicktime Pro, I guess it’s even simpler than cut and paste.

by tollie

I wonder if the guys at Google were hinting at something when they renamed their aquired Keyhole software into Google Earth? Whether or not Google will one day become the worldwide search/email/news/economy/religion, you can’t help but find their rapid development and deployment of new and cool projects fun.

Their newest project, Google Earth, which could also be called Keyhole 3, is the same work-horse used for all those fly-in views you see on the cable news networks. The free version lacks the ability to define those paths and do other advanced operations, but it’s certainly cool enough to play around with.

Notable about Google Earth is that, unlike its predecesor Keyhole 2, Google Earth has lower system requirements thanks to a streaming broadband connection to the Google server chugging down only the data you need and in a way that off-loads your PC considerably.

Personally, on my P3 863MHz, with 384MB of RAM, it runs very fine - fast even, when Keyhole 2 wouldn’t even run. It does require the broadband connection however, so dial-up users need not apply.

Check out this fly-in I did to Chase and Sam’s Elevation at 5 Points, South in Birmingham. The video requires the H.264 codec, which Windows users can get by installing Quicktime 7 Preview and Mac users can get by installing Quicktime 7 via their Software Update.

A funny thing happened today at Elevation, our downtown internet lounge and coffee shop. A friend of ours, Michael, came by and I demonstrated to him the 20 questions game available at 20q.net. He picked an object, not telling me what it was, and I asked him the questions that the computer gave me, inputting his response. Here is a transcript:

1. It is classified as Other. (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral or other)

2. Is it something you bring along? Sometimes.

3. Can it fit in an envelope? No.

4. Can you play games with it? Yes.

5. Is it hard? Yes.

6. Can you use it to hit something? No.

7. Would you find it in an office? Rarely.

8. Does it come in a box? Yes.

9. Is it considered valuable? Doubtful.

10. Can it make a sound? Irrelevant.

11. Can you use it at school? Yes.

12. Does it fold up easily? No.

13. Can it be washed? No.

14. Is it human powered? Yes.

15. Is it made out of wood? No.

16. Does it have a hard outer shell? Yes.

I am guessing that it is a Rubik’s Cube? :

And guess what: it was a Rubik’s Cube!!! Pretty good guess. I hope John Conner’s paying attention to all this.

Chase Thompson

by Tollie

Quick History:

• Netscape was a commercial product, and the definitive web browser.
• Microsoft included Internet Explorer for free in Windows.
• Browser wars ensued.
• Internet Explorer got a lot better with IE 4 and Windows 95.
• Netscape lost. AOL bought Netscape - but kept using IE for AOL.
• Netscape released its original code for free to what is now the Mozilla Foundation.
• Mozilla uses that code to create Mozilla Suite, and it’s successor - Firefox
• AOL attempts to relaunch Netscape based on Mozilla Suite - not very successful.
• Firefox continues development, with its code always free and ‘open source’ for others to use.
• AOL releases Netscape 8, combining Firefox and Internet Explorer into one.

Netscape 8 offers a unique combination of Firefox and Internet Explorer in one product. It allows you to browse the internet with the security and safety of Firefox, yet be able to use Internet Explorer for those ill-behaved sites that only develop for Windows Internet Explorer.

How does it work? Netscape maintains a list of ’safe/trusted’ sites and ‘untrusted’ sites. For trusted sites, pages display using Internet Explorer. For unknown sites, pages display using Firefox. For untrusted sites, pages display using Firefox and with Javascript/Java/Cookies disabled. And of course, you can add to the trusted or untrusted sites lists.

You can also change which browser is used. For example, you can have all sites display in Firefox, including trusted ones - since most will look fine, and only switch over to Internet Explorer if things look strange.

Netscape 8 includes AOL’s instant Messenger and ICQ and two themes, but so far does not offer compatibility with any of the hundreds of Firefox extensions or themes - which is enough to keep me and most using Firefox instead.

• Download Netscape 8
• Netscape 8 - Tour of Features (Flash)
• Netscape 8 Product Info Page
• Read more about Netscape 8

Latest Update: Vulnerability fixed. Firefox 1.0.4 now available.

The following entry concerns the previous version of Firefox, 1.0.3:

Big Security Hole in Firefox-click here for the article

It turns out the more secure browser has a pretty significant security hole in it that will allow a website to install and run malicious code on your system when you visit.