How do I use Bittorrent?

Bittorrent is a big mystery to a lot of people.  Check this out for everything you need to know about Bittorrent.  I recommend using uTorrent for a client.

Technorati Tags: bittorrent, utorrent

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas this year!  Have a safe holiday, everyone.

GIMP is great

I started getting into photography about a year ago when I got my Nikon D50. It’s a really fun hobby. Well, just now I’m starting to learn about photo editing, which is something I’ve always shied away from in the past. A lot of the software out there seems just too simple and not robust enough (Picasa, for example), but Photoshop was always just way over my head. You need a college class to figure that out, plus it’s prohibitively expensive.

Enter the GIMP.

No, not that gimp! The GIMP is a free photo editing suite available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It does most things that Photoshop does, and, as I said, it’s free! There are plenty of good tutorials online that teach you how to do cool stuff. For example, I learned how to do selective colorization the other day. Here’s a result, which my wife will probably kill me for, but it looks cool.

So, if you don’t have $700 to spend on overpriced software, check out the GIMP. For most people, it’s all they’ll ever need.

Technorati Tags: gimp, photography, editing

I heart Charlie Weis

If you have ESPN Insider, read Ivan Maisel’s blog today.  If you don’t, then I’ll illegally post what he wrote for you here.  It needs no introduction:

He may be loud and he may be big, but even Charlie Weis can be inconspicuous. On the night that Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn did not win the Heisman Trophy, the Fighting Irish coach stood behind a pillar at the far end of the lobby outside the Nokia Theater. If you came down the stairs into the lobby and craned your neck to the left, you might have seen Weis, which is how he liked it.

When public figures like Weis are in a public setting — that is, one they don’t control, complete with civilians — they lurk on the edge of it. To dive in would be to surrender their time and their shield. Speaking of which, I can remember being in South Bend some years ago for a banquet at which then-coach Lou Holtz would speak. He stood in the second-floor lobby of the athletic building, self-pinned against a trophy case, sipping a diet Coke and girding himself to go on stage.

So Weis is off to one side, and I walk up and re-introduce myself and congratulate him on going 10-2. And here, from memory, is what he said:

“Listen, it’s a polite thing to say, and politically correct, but if I’m happy with a 10-2 record, I’m going to get fired,” Weis said. “The two losses were not close. We’re not where we want to be. But I’m telling you, with the players we have coming in, including a couple of recruits that nobody knows are going to commit to us, we’re going to be a lot better. A couple of years from now, you are going to remember that we had this conversation tonight.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll remind you. No, you remind me.”

“I won’t have to,” Weis said. “We’ll just look at each other, and you’ll know.”

You can’t hear tone of voice online. On the screen, Weis might sound arrogant in that exchange. He didn’t in person. He is fixed on a prize, and he intends to claim it.

One other thing: that’s why journalists love unscripted moments. That’s the real Charlie Weis

Charlie Weis is freaking awesome.

Seinfeld in Oz

This is a must see for any Seinfeld fan who’s ever seen an episode of Oz.  Funny, funny stuff!

Family Guy Never Gets Old

Quiz Answer

If your last name is Heffernan, you believe the photo in the post below is either a coffee maker or a bomb.  Nice work guys.

McDonald comes closest to getting it right with his answer of “computer”.  The photo is actually a picture of the first hard drive ever made by IBM in the 1950’s.  It weighed over a ton, and had a storage capacity of only 5 MB (enough space to hold about one MP3 file).  Stuff like that fascinates me.

Quiz

What is this?

Any guesses?

Infamy

In case you didn’t realize it, it’s Pearl Harbor day, everyone.

Idiots

I’m all for farting on airplanes, ok.  You would think that it’d be a bad idea because so many people are around to catch you, but if you do it right, that’s the reason it’s the perfect place.  No one really knows who did it.  One word of advice, if you do decide to indulge yourself, don’t do what this moron did.

Music labels starting to get it?

Here’s an interesting bit of news today: some major record labels are going to begin releasing unrestricted (read, sans DRM) MP3’s of popular artists to gauge demand for such a product.

This is fantastic!  The major reason I have resisted iTunes up to this point is because of the embedded DRM in anything you buy there.  I’ve heard horror stories about people losing their entire music collections when they change PC’s or MP3 players because the DRM only allows the files to be on one machine.  That’s ridiculous.

I would gladly pay for songs that I can do whatever I want with.  It’s a convenience and usability issue, not a financial issue.  If I pay for something, I own it.  I can do whatever I (legally) want with it.  Let’s hope this takes off.

Technorati Tags: DRM, music, mp3, labels