Steve Gibson of GRC fame spits out another useful tool:
It simply displays if some newer hardware features are available on your PC. The screen-shot is verification that the 64bit PC I built almost three years does support DEP.
DEP: Prevents buffer overflows in hardware - this a very big deal. Of course the operation system must support DEP too. Which versions of Windows support it is unclear, but 64bit Vista and XP should support it. Hopefully Steve Gibson will extend his utility to test DEP with an actual buffer overflow
Hardware Vitalization: Hardware support for running Virtual Machines - they should run with no speed degradation
You can see all of Steve’s free utilities at his circa-1995 website:
http://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm
After a period of dumbing down his Security Now podcast is again one I highly recommend:
http://www.grc.com/SecurityNow.htm
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts, Technology at 1:58 AM MST
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Update (2nd July): Since this post I have reverted back to using Juice
Receiver which although not designed for video has fewer glitches. If anyone knows
of a more reliable solution please let me know.
IPTV is about where podcasting was when I started manually downloading podcasts in
the summer of 2004 [i.e. in its infancy]. Within only two years podcasting has made
a small dent in the nation’s listening habits, with high awareness in the high spending
demographics that advertisers salivate over. Will IPTV do the same?Already we have several aggregators; the one I recommend trying is Democracy Player.
It is open source and runs on all popular operating systems, but did not work with
on my install of Vista Beta 2.
Like iPodder Lemon before it Democracy Player installs
with several pre-selected channels, which just like iPodder downloaded large quantities
of utter garbage to my hard disk. I suggest deleting the pre-selected channels, clicking
on Channel Guide and using the iTunes like interface to select from popular listings.
As the following screenshot shows I am trying out ABC news, Ricky Gervis, and TWIT’s
h.264 feed:
This is early days for the software and this player does work perfectly as a media
server. I view the content from xbmc over a SMB share, which works fairly well but
all the media is deposited into one folder with often cryptic filenames. Hopefully
a future build will create a directory for each feed like Juice Receiver does for
podcasts. Finally it is worth noting that Democracy Player uses Bittorrent under the
hood so downloads should be fast – there are no custom port settings yet so I have
temporarily enabled UPnP on my NAT Router.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as IPTV, Podcasts at 8:41 PM MST
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It appears Craig Shoemaker’s Polymorphic Podcast is a year old this month. As a side-effect
of running through his year as a podcaster Craig gives out some great tips on how
to start, grow and publicize your own podcast.
This special show is under 15 minutes long and I recommend everyone listen to it. If
you are interesting in achieving a ‘fame goal’; MVP, Podcaster, CEO
of Disney or whatever than take tips from Craig and get yourself noticed:
http://polymorphicpodcast.com/podcast/files/PolymorphicPodcast-2006-01-11.mp3
http://polymorphicpodcast.com/shows/anniversary1/
Note: Craig did mention this blog in this show, but I had already decided to
make this post. Hearing my name on a Podcast is always a big deal to this shy
geek - thanks Craig!
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other, Podcasts at 9:10 PM MST
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HanselMinutes (.Net and Tech
Tools)
Scott Hanselman has utilized Carl Franklin’s skills (or vice-versa) to deliver
a well produced podcast right out of the box.
Scott agrees with me that many podcasts are full of fluff and he tries hard to be
different. He has often said that Podcasting Sucks, and I would like to know how he
fills in his ‘dead time’ while commuting, keeping fit and mowing the lawn.
On tech news I now have such a leap over anyone I know it is untrue.
Back to Scott; you probably know already he lives technology 24/7 and I cannot believe
how much he knows about such a breadth of subjects. He must sleep 4 hours a day or
do research as part of his day job. On the podcast he talks about many of the tools
he uses + thi week gave some interesting information on his use of the xbox 360 and
other media servers using UPnP but
Scott brushed over the issues Carl alluded
to.
In summary: All developers should try out this podcast, I enjoy just
listening to how someone of Scott’s intellect talks about tech. As with 95% of podcasts
some sections bored me and it is a little ad heavy. If anyone knows
of a media player with a skip forward/ back button please let me know.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts at 9:34 AM MST
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Given that my recent review of the Polymorphic Podcast was based mostly on vague memories amends have been made and I listened to six recent episodes since. The original ‘review’is repeated later, but be assured that the new text is still honest sans-hype. Always
covering positive and negatives is something of a trademark; it even got me fired once! After dumping the ‘difficult guy’ the project limped on using the same architecture for two more years, it cost millions more in taxpayers money before the Government agency finally caught onto their game. After three years the only product was a stack of high-dollar invoices! The moral? Save millions of dollars by hiring (and listening to) honest developers. In my thirteen years of IT consulting people playing politics has never helped a project. We were getting close to an enjoyable rant there, but let’s get back to the review:
Polymorphic
Podcast (.Net specific)
Craig Shoemaker has made great progress with this podcast which he clearly puts a lot of effort into. Craig appears to be a full time .Net developer and produces semi-scripted well planned introductions to .Net technologies spliced with interviews of .Net luminaries.
Much like DNR the interviews depend on who is being interviewed and Craig makes a pretty good Larry King extracting the most from his guests. I would be slapping the guests around for technical accuracy, but that is a one good reason I do not have a podcast! Talking of technical accuracy; not once did I hear Craig give out inaccurate information. He obviously researches before pressing record.
Audio quality is often a bug-bear of niche podcasts. In true ‘my laptop has a built-in-mike and I want to podcast now’ style the audio was initially terrible; I think Craig did it on one those ‘plastic-cup-tied-to-a-piece-of-wet-sting that ran to his neighbor’s house’ type device we all played with a kids. He was probably underwater at the time too, speaking through his nose… I could go on <g> Download his first podcast
and take a trip back to podcasts in early 2005.
Seriously like many other podcasts from early to mid 2004 the audio was bad, but it is now high quality well put together audio and it was wonderful to hear a podcast hero Scott Fletcher give a professional intro and exit piece (I love Scott’s podcast on podcasting and hope
he does not fade).
Advertisements/ sponsors: Many podcasters are attempting to monetize their shows, and considering the effort involved who can blame them? Given the number of ad-free podcasts still available the Slashdot review is only show where I put up with advertisements, because the content is worth it. Fortunately Craig’s advertisements are pretty unobtrusive with none disturbing a show’s main content; evidently he thought hard about how to advertise.
In summary this is a must try for mid-level .Net developers. .Net newbies will be lost because unlike DNR Craig makes some assumptions of the listener’s knowledge. Sadly book-consuming, blog-devouring seniors devs will not hear anything
new. For the senior guys interesting in podcasting, this is still a good example of how an amateur can produce a professional sounding show.
So was my first review really ‘that’ bad? Here it is unaltered:
From memory the audio quality used to really bad, but I caught some of the recent Atlas show and it has improved massively.
While typing this I am playing an episode in the background which activated a few neurons. This show has a format somewhat similar to .Net Rocks and has obviously taken ideas from Mr. Curry et-al. I am pretty sure the technical content is somewhat mid-level with a reasonable amount of non-technical content (like the ‘.Net Praise emails’ etc). Non-tech content is great when delivered with Rory Blythe’s humor, but as I subscribe to 20+ podcast feeds this ‘time-filler’ is why I skipped the shows quickly. Still I am sure many people enjoy this show.
In summary I have may have rated this show unfairly. Please flame me publicly below or email and I’ll amend this entry
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts at 8:21 PM MST
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Remember the debate over the word podcast? Bet you probably know someone who a better word for ‘compressed audio file transmitted via http and an RSS enclosure’ right? Media Cast, Radio Me, Audio Blog are just a few of the plethora of suggestions we heard; PodCast was just to aligned with Apple for most of us. How many times have you been asked if podcasts only work on iPods when try to explain podcasting to a (non-geek) friend, it is almost every time for me. Well it is too late Podcast is a word, and wait it gets worse, it is the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. This must be true as it says so in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast) LOL! You all heard the rumors about Adam Curry right? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=adam+curry+wikipedia
Many of us were rooting for a less device specific term, but even after five product generations Apple’s iPod is still the MP3 player cool kids ask Santa for. Alternatives are available, but even I as a hard-core specification scouring, value demanding geek ended up with an iPod. After seeing endless conformist white ear-buds in Europe I would really like to change it but there is no good alternative to the iPod mini yet;
witness the higher than new prices of used iPod minis on eBay now it has ceased production. Atlanta’s tech-crowd seem have to labeled me as the local podcast guy, so I am upholding the un-elected position and giving everyone another nudge to check out at least few of my favorite podcasts.
.Net Rocks
Carl Franklin releases an incredible amount of energy into the .Net community. Not least of those efforts is his Internet Radio Show called .Net Rocks. This show predates the word Podcast having kicked off in August 2002, when the dinosaurs were still around burning their downloaded MP3 ‘podcasts’ to compact discs.
This show started out pretty technical with co-host Mark Dunn, really taking off with world famous co-host Rory Blythe and many of us are still weeping at his departure. The show’s format seems to have found a resting place with Richard Campbell helping Carl steer the helm. In 2003 and 2004 there were some terrificly technical shows particularly the ones with Kimberly Tripp, Don Box and Ted Neward. Over the last year the show generally gravitated to simpler subject matter and is now aimed at junior developers looking to keep up with the buzzword alphabet soup. I believe the audience is now very large which is great for Carl and Richard who play the fame game for their business (not a bad thing at all!!).
In summary this is one of the best produced niche shows out there; their audio quality is great and these guys have found a format that works. If you are less than a year into .Net then listen to this show all you can. Unfortunately if you have two or more years .Net you will find yourself frustrated with the amount of technical errors in the show. I still skim-listen to the shows, but am careful not to believe all that is said.
ASP.Net Podcast
This is almost a polar-inversion of .Net Rocks. Wallace McClure (MVP, multiple author, ASPInsider, blah blah blah) really know his .Net and his show would send shivers of terror down a junior developer’s spine. The audience for this show consists mainly of MVPs, Microsoft staff and senior devs, not as large an audience as for the slickly produced .Net Rocks, but very heavy in terms of influentials.
Recently the audio quality has gotten much better, but I don’t recommend digging too far into the archives unless you love listening to am radio while driving through a tunnel (sorry Wally!). This show is very much a bit flipper with a mike talking tech, and Wally often recruits other .Net talent from around the world to share their knowledge and ideas.
In summary this podcasts focuses on content rather than slick production tricks. If you are a senior dev then tune in; I am a fan of this podcasts but still use the skip button now and again.
The Polymorphic Podcast
Craig Shoemaker runs this show and appears to be a full time .Net developer. Unfortunately I have not listened to too many of these shows and must address this… check back tomorrow for a better review, by which time I will have listened to some recent shows.
Frankie’s Friday Flashback (.Net/ Technology)
Another friend of mine here; Frank La Vigne is a compulsive blogger has recently started podcasting.
If you are an amateur thinking of podcasting you must listen to Frank’s first show. He obviously took a lot of time in deciding how to assemble the podcast and it is very close to emulating professional quality. I for one hope he keeps this show up; I know the effort required to make quality podcasts is non-trivial.
TWIT - This Week in Tech
Returning from the Screen Savers Leo Laporte has done an excellent job with this podcast. For a while it was drifting into a just tech-journalists talking about how great they are, with useful subject matter like what their Nanny had for dinner last night (seriously!). If you stopped listening because of this tune in again, they have really got their act together.
The subject is general technology news and all in all I learn a good bit from these shows. Of course when they talk about a topic I understand (.Net, XviD, cars etc) it is obvious they have very little technical knowledge. Probably this is is true of any journalist on any topic, but at my level (bumbling bit flipper) this does not often matter; I just pick up buzzwords and get a feel for where markets are heading. Steve Gibson is the one exception of their crew; if you hear technical corrections being made then that’s Steve talking. In summary this podcast is a must listen unless they drift back into non-tech filler mode.
Security Now
Listening to Stephen Gibson talk about security can actually make my day. This show is about thirty minutes long and is pretty basic for the first 15 minutes. Stick with the show Steve opens up the floodgates in the latter half of the show and I always end-up expanding my knowledge.
In summary everyone in technology should listen to these shows, even managers with pointy hair.
One hour of typing later… well that’s my reviews for today - I have many more shows to recommend but I’ll wait and see if people liked this post first + after a two week vacation I need to grab my running gear and get outside before the pounds tart piling on again.Grrr…. I had nice CSS formatting on this post while creating it in Dreamweaver and Das Blog has zapped it, Grrrrr.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts at 6:25 PM MST
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Podcast
listeners out there will get the (lame) ‘On a Podcast’ gag. Well in
Alabama I was on a podcast, the WallyCast to be precise. I am pretty quiet compared to the MVPs and MSFT employee but
still ran my mouth as normal forgetting that Wally was recording most of the time.
I love to call it
the ‘Wally Cast’, but the official name is the ‘The ASP.Net Podcast’ and it has a
very sizable audience already. You can aggregate it into iPodder etc here:
Direct links to the
Alabama
>
>
podcasts are:
http://weblogs.asp.net/wallym/archive/2005/10/30/428937.aspx (avec
moi!)
http://weblogs.asp.net/wallym/archive/2005/10/30/428937.aspx
If anyone thinks the audio
is not quite up to par please keep listening; I have it good authority that Wallace
will buy a decent
microphone sometime very soon or someone I know well will nag and nag and nag
until he does <g>
Well
that’s it from me Paul Lockwood, the
hottest thing in podcasting (another
podcaster joke). if you have not tried filling your commute with podcasts yet
then slap yourself on forehead immediately (make it a hard slap too).
>
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts at 8:26 PM MST
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Episode nine
of Steve Gibson’s Security Now podcast covered
Rootkits - I thought I knew what a root kit is but was wrong. As always Steve’s podcast
starts out very basic, but the latter halves normally teach someone of my level a
few nuggets. This week is no exception, I learned that to be infected by rootkit technology
means your operating system has been compromised, and as yet AdAware and cannot help.
You can listen to the podcast or
Google for more information on Rootkits, but the most important point is that SysInternals
have the only tool that can help.
SysInternals
Root Kit Detectors will read your file system and registry without using
high level OS calls and compare the results to those when using OS calls. Any differences
indicate an OS call has been intercepted.
Get the free
tool here: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html
Security Now is here: http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts, Technology at 4:50 PM MST
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While driving to work this morning and catching up on the weekend’s Slashdot Review Andy McCaskey started talking about one of my blog posts. Being linked to from a big name blogger is one thing, but hearing your name come out of your own car’s audio system - well it is just plain freaky. So this is what fame feels like :)
Slashdot Review
is a must listen - during August I am attempting 100% cold turkey on reading blogs via an aggregator becuase I was burning about three hours every night. At first the idea was to still read Scoble and Scott Hanslemann, but I finally decided that anything really important will make Slashdot Review which I hear everyday while driving to work.
In summary
I love blogging, but the podcast bug has bitten hard. It is certainly a better use of time if you aim to keep up with technology. Unlike blogs the communication is pretty much one way which removes the ’social’ aspect unless I make it to Gnomedex next year - people are already starting to talk me into this.
One final word: Please try to use iPodder when downloading podcasts as transfers are done using bittorrent. This means downloads are much faster for you and the podcast provider has little bandwidth costs. Now iTunes supports Podcasts bandwidth costs are not insignificant for popular indie podcasters.
If you are not sure where to start then Check out my old list of recommendations. This Week in Tech has been terrible since I made that list, but they are finally getting their act back together and this week’s episode is much more focused.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts at 6:50 PM MST
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For about two months I have been really looking forward to the 4.9 version of iTunes
- I expected seamless podcast support and most importantly auto conversion to bookmarkable
aac files. When you listen to number of podcasts I do you want a good podcast receiver.
So what did I find:
- Intergration with iTunes is OK - a true GUI directory is sweet although it is
more basic than corporate GUIs I churned out in 1994 on 16 bit 386 machines
- No bittorrent support - this means podcast providers hosting bills will skyrocket if
many users move away from iPodder
- We cannot paste custom urls when a podcast is not in Apple’s directory, like My’lanta for
instance
- There is no Auto conversion to bookmarked files (aac) -aargh, bookmarks
are why I bought an iPod in the first place
- No playlist per podcast - all podcasts are dumped into the same playlist. Do Apple
not realize many people use their iPods solely for podcasts and don’t want to be scrolling
through 100+ files at 90mph on the highway while simultaneously riding the bumper
of a 911 and flipping off the SUV that they just cut up?
Ok enough of a rant already. I tried the Primetime
Podcast Receiver a month ago which looked promising but turned out to be
a little buggy with no bittorrent support either. Hopefully it will improve or iPodder
will add auto bookmarkable aac conversion. It is quite tempting to write something
myself building on my two week hack of my MP3
Jukebox (it looks rubbish but functionally was better than any commercial
MP3 Jukebox in 2001) .
Posted by Paul Lockwood as IPTV, Podcasts at 8:36 PM MST
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