The O-Talk Podcast

Now that I'm making good money, I think it's about time for me to revive an old project of mine. It has been a long time since I have done any upgrades to my computers and its time to do so.

Recently, Windows 8 beta was released. I tried it out and I would like to share it with my readers.

I finally got my brand new Android phone. I decided to go with the LG Optimus-T, mainly it was in my budget of $200 USD. I refuse to sign a 2-year contract that will only screw me over like it has happened to me in the past. Come on in and check out what's inside.

As for accessories, it's pretty basic. I tossed out the cheaply made headphones because I have a bluetooth headset. I do like that the data cable is also the charger because it cuts down on having a ton of extra cables that get missed placed. It's also nice that it includes a 2 GB micro SD card.

As for the list of apps that I'm currently running:
Chrome to Phone (sending websites from my computers to my phone)
Android 2 Cloud (sending websites from my phone to my computers)
DropBox (For my files on the go)
TweetDeck
Skype
Crunchyroll
ScanLife (QR code scanner)
CNN
Wake on Lan (Turning on and off my desktop from anywhere around the world )
Utorrent remote (managing my torrents)

Damn, my phone looks even better with the mobile version of my site running. If you want to check out the mobile version, just scan the QR code on the right side bar with your phone. You must have a QR reader in order to scan it.

For the first time ever, I'm happy with the phone I have. It does everything that I expected from it with ease and it feels like an actual phone in my hand and not a child's toy. Damn, I'm slowly turning into an Android fanboy.

Lately, I have been having cellphone problems. At the moment, I currently own the Nokia 5230 and it have been a horrible experiences for me. After being happy with it for the first 3 months, Nokia released an update for it and all hell broke loose. Touch screen is not responsive at times, the screen whites out, sometimes static sounds will come from it, and it turns itself off and on. I must get a new phone, and an Android phone looks mighty fine right now.

A few months ago, I made a post on a working desktop that ending up in my hands. I was going to make it my mission to start modding it to my desire. The thing is, I forgot about the project until now. As of right now, changed the power supply and added a 4 port USB PCI card. I also changed the list of things I need for it.

If you don't know by now, I hate germs and I tend to clean like there's no tomorrow. The one thing I hate using are keyboards. They have the same amount of germs as a toilet and when ever i use a public keyboard, I use hand sanitizer right away. Once a month, I clean my keyboards with Cyber Clean. However, once a year I do a deep clean.

I first pop out all of the keys. Then, I vacuum out any dust, paper, and hair. After that's done, I use a dry toothbrush just to remove anything that is stuck.
The way I clean my keys may seem a little crazy, but it works.I first let them set in a warm water and diluted bleach solution for 20 minutes. Then I individually scrub each key with liquid detergent. Then final step is to rinse them out and let them air dry overnight.
Now that keyboard is so fresh and so clean.

For the last couple of days, I have been given several laptops for free. The thing is, I had to do minor fixes here and there. At the end of it all, I gave them away to people who really needed a computer. Somehow, a working desktop has ended up in my hands and I decided to keep it. I'm parting to upgrade it like there is no tomorrow.

The parts I need:
PowerUp GEN-9010 Internal All-in-One Flash Card Reader - $12.99
Corsair Dual Channel 2 GB(2 x 1 GB) DDR2 Memory - $54.99
EVGA GeForce 9500 GT 512 MB DDR2 Video Card - $54.99
Western Digital 500 GB Hard Drive - $39.99
HP BD240I Blu ray Combo Drive - $99.99
Sabrent Mini Bluetooth USB Wireless Adapter - $9.99
Two Samsung 20 inch Widescreen LCD Monitors - $149.99 (each)
Razer Orochi Bluetooth Gaming Mouse - $74.99
or
Razer Deathadder Gaming Mouse - $46.99

Since it's a mid sized case, I won't be able to add more things to it. Some of these parts I will need may change because either I found something better or a cheaper alternative. If there are any parts you would like to recommend, just tell me in a comment below.

I have been needing a new cellphone for the last 2 months. My old phone had a lot software issues and that could not be fixed. I contacted T-Mobile if they could just replace my phone but, the model of my old phone was discontinued. So, I upgraded to a brand new smartphone.

I decided to get the Nokia 5230. I went with this phone because I like Nokia and I like the design. This phone comes with data cable, 4 GB mini SD card, and hands-free headset. This is a full touch screen phone, which is nice. I do have one problem with this phone, when its plugged to a computer via the data cable, it does not charge the battery. There is an online app store However when compared to Apple's, is sucks. At least the Twitter and Youtube apps are free.

Since the day I got my new computer I have been meaning to get some speakers for it. The thing is that most laptops have a poor to mediocre sound quality. Another reason why I need some speakers is that I get this crackling sound from my laptop. I decided to go to Wal-mart due to it being close to my house.

These speakers look nice and they are pretty small.

But the price is too high for something that small. The funny thing is that those same speakers are being sold at half the price.

I'm in the line waiting to pay for some speakers that I found. This is interesting, even though it is the middle of October, Christmas trees and decorations are being sold. I bet that by next year, stores are going to start setting up for Christmas in July.

I ended up buying these speakers for $14.99. I could have paid $10 dollars extra to get the sub-woofer but I really don't need one at the moment.

My setup is almost complete, all I need is a 500 GB external hard drive and a second monitor.

For a long time, I have been needing a new cellphone because the one I had was not working properly. For those who don't know, I used to work at a cellphone store and I learned that cellphones are designed to only last 2 years. The reason behind that is to get the customer to upgrade their phone which gets them stuck in a 2 year contract. If you try to leave your cellphone provider before the 2 years are up, you must pay $200 dollars per line. That is one reason why I was reluctant to get a new phone but I needed it. I bit the bullet and signed a 2 year contract to get a new free phone.

What it has and does:
1.3 MP camera
Built in MP3 player
Takes micro SD cards
Makes phone calls

It looks pretty cool to me and I'm happy with it.

You can go wrong with the Gurren Lagann logo as the wallpaper.

I still have not picked my ringtone and thats where you come up. Just tell me which on the 4 possible ringtones below I should use.

1)Burn my dread
2)Pursuing my true self
3)Okkusenman
4)Transformers theme song

W00t! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh sh*t son, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Well, now that I have that out of my system, I finally got a new computer. I waited to buy my new computer around the end of the month because that is when all of the back to school deals appear. Yesterday, my parents told me that they would pay for it as a present. They thought it was ironic that a person who is majoring in computer programming did not own a computer. What I got was a Dell Inspiron 15.

Stats:
Glossy 15.6" wide-screen display
Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T4200
2 GB ram
160 GB hard drive
Integrated Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Windows Vista Home Premiun (ew)

Yesterday, I spent the day shopping around at various stores looking for a new computer. After much thought, I decided stay with PC instead of Mac because Mac computer are really expensive and my budget is about $600 dollars. I found 3 laptops that I personally like but I can only pick one.

I picked:

Yesterday, I notice that some of the channels at I'm subscribed to on Youtube had the same video titled, HULU TUBE - PHASING YOU OUT OF YOUTUBE. I watched the video and I was shocked by the many changes Youtube is going to have.


It seems that Youtube is going to become somewhat like Hulu, which means that they are going to start having television shows, movies, and music. Sounds great but all of the user created content is going to be summed in one catagory, videos. The ones who are going get the short end of the stick are the smaller Youtube users starting out, evidence of that is the number of views that a video gets. You have notice, The number of views and rating don't add up. I have seen videos with over 1000 ratings but only 500 views. If you want to learn more, watch the video below.

The format war is a never ending battle between the different media formats to see which format will reign supreme. Every single time when a format becomes king, in a few years, its empire will fall as if it was nothing. This war greatly affects us because if you don't adapt quickly, you will be left in the dust. The current war is between the DVD and the Blueray but in reality the war is between physical media and the digital download.


Physical media has been around for a very long time but the internet came in, it has not been the same. Lets take the newspaper for example, it has been around for centuries and it was the only way how people got the news until the radio and television came along. Sales drops for the newspaper but it was going still going strong until the internet stopped it in its tracks. The newspaper is still being printed but in a few year it will be a relic of the past because anyone can get the latest news in a matter of seconds for free.


DVDs and CDs will have the same fate as the newspaper. There are a lot of DVD rental services that are now offering streaming and/or download services because they know that people will stop getting DVDs. Think about it, would you prefer to drive to the store, hope they have a copy of the movie you want, wait in line, and drive back home or pay $5 USD and have the movie streaming on your TV. Microsoft stated that the Xbox 360 will not get a blueray adapter but they will focus on the Netflix downloading service instead. I would not be surprised that in 10 years, store's movie section will not be around and will be replaced by media downloading machine section.

I will admit it, I like physical media but I know that it will not be around anymore and I'm going to enjoy it as long as I can. So, what do you think of the Physical media versus the digital download war?

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Well, My half dead computer got the Vundo virus recently. It was about 2 days that my computer was acting weirder than usual and discovered that my computer has this virus. I currently run McAfee for strong virus and trojan horses, and Stopzilla for spyware and adware. What sucks is that both program are not working very well against Vundo virus, all they can do it defend during the attacks.


Well, how do you know that you may have the Vundo virus, the symptoms are:

• Vundo will cause the infected web browser to pop up advertisements

• Infected DLLs (with randomized names such as "__c00369AB.dat" and "slmnvnk.dll") will be present in the Windows/System32 folder and references to the DLLs will be found in the user's start up (viewable in MSConfig), registry, and as browser add ons in Internet Explorer.

• Create a virus critical driver in C:/Windows/system32/drivers/ (ati0dgxx.sys)

• Vundo will also impede download progress, stopping the status bar and process in its tracks

• Some firewalls or antivirus software may also be disabled by the virus leaving the system even more vulnerable. Especially, it disables Norton AntiVirus and in turn uses it to spread the infection. Norton will show prompts to enable phishing filter, all by itself. Upon pressing OK, it will try to connect to real-av.org and try to download more malware.

The Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES began yesterday and it is awesome. CES is an electronic trade show that unveils the newest technology that will hit the market later this year and it's held each January in Las Vegas. It is a trade-only show meaning that it is not opened to the general public. I have been reviewing the coverage of CES at Cnet.com and G4TV.com. Seeing all of this great tech coming out later this year is like porn to me. Out of all the new devices that have been unveiled today, I pick 5 of my favorite.

51-inch Panasonic TC-P54Z1 is 1 inch thick and it is wireless. What Panasonic did it that the TV will include an AV box for all of your HDMI cables. It will transmit a wireless signal to the TV, which mean if you have this TV hanging on your wall, it will look clean and organized.

The 12 megapixel EasyShare Z980 IS camera from Kodak has a 24X zoom lens. Yeah, I said 24X zoom lens. I have not seen the picture quality of this camera yet but I think this camera will stack up with some DSLR cameras that are out in the market. I forgot to mention that this camera also supports 720p HD movie capture. This is one hell of a Camera that Kodak has made.

You do get that the EasyShare Z980 IS, you are going to need an SD card with A LOT of memory. The SD Association has accounced that they are going to release the SDXC and it will have a capacity of 2 TB. This SD card will be able to hold 17,000 high quality pictures, 100 hours of HD movies, and 60 hours of audio recording.

The T-Mobile Shadow is a smartphone manufactured by HTC. This phone will have bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a 2 megapixel camera, and a built in mp3 player. Unfortunately, this phone will be running on Windows Mobile 6.1 and everyone knows that Windows Mobile sucks. By the time this phone comes out, my contract with T-mobile will be over and I'm going to start looking for a new phone.

And talking about phones, LG is coming out with a nice looks watch phone. It will have a touch screen, bluetooth, mp3 player and a camera for video conferencing. I think it is a pretty cool gimmick and it reminds me of a gadget one would see in a James Bond movie.

So, is anyone following CES and the gadgets that are being announced?

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Last night, I was cleaning the keyboard of my laptop and I discovered something really bad.


If you can see in the picture below, the hinge of my computer was crack which freaked me out.

With further inspection I discovered that the whole hinge cover came apart.

I just recently which from cable television to satellite. The reason for the switch is that my cable bill of this month doubled in price after I have been a customer with them for over 4 years.

I am going to be losing some channels but its a sacrifice I'm willing to make. In my opinion, to be honestly it is the best choice because during this economic crisis because it's going to save a lot of money.

This is my new satellite receiver, it looks so cool and it reminds me of a Wii.

The guy who set up my satellite receiver made a chaos in the back of my TV stand, before.

After

While in the process of fixing the back of the TV stand, I reorganized the front.

So, do you have cable or satellite and are you happy with it?