Technology Bytes

Tonight’s episode has no Barrett and no Barrett time, but the studio is secured by 4 x 12 lumber so there’s that. Listen in to find out more…

TechBytes 8-22-07 [ 2:00:40 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

These days it seems that external hard drives are more plentiful, more capable and more affordable than ever before.

Scratch that, it doesn’t seem that way at all. It’s a fact of life.

You can find desktop style external hard drives capable of near terabyte capacity for rock bottom prices all the way down to lightweight, USB powered models for computer users on the go for prices that go beyond affordable.

So how do you make something that gets noticed in this market? Simpletech might have the answer with their new portable USB drive.

Sleek in design and rich in features the SimpleDrive Portable Hard Drive has some real sex appeal. And it’s no wonder, the look and feel of the drive was designed by none other than Pininfarina, the same design firm responsible for making Ferrari’s so desirable.

But don’t let the pretty face fool you, this device has what it takes to make it a real contender in the portable, external drive market. 5400 rpm drive speed, hot-swappable USB 2.0, one touch backup software and drive capacity ranging from 60-250 gigabytes of storage.

Easy to use and very handy for all your portable drive needs.

Simpletech also has desktop models available utilizing 7200 rpm drives with capacity all the way up to one full terabyte.

Last week was a fund drive show so we didn’t post a podcast. This week we’re back with a gunfire free episode!

TechBytes 8-15-2007 [ 2:00:40 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

Originally heard during Barrett Time and shamelssly ganked from the Geek Speak Blog here are the major events that occured over the 12 year life-span of Technology Bytes:

The First Year: 1995

• Twelve years ago this month, Windows 95 hit store shelves. The day was August 24th.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer is also launched as part of Windows 95, though at this time there were only 18,957 websites on the Internet.
• In September of 1995, online auction site eBay is founded as Auctionweb, and in December, the first multilingual search engine, Alta Vista, is launched.

The Second Year: 1996

• There are now 342,081 websites online.

The Third Year: 1997

• Domain name business.com sells for $150,000.00.
• Web commentator Jorn Barger coins the term weblog.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone hit British bookstore shelves. In the US, the book is titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

The Fourth Year: 1998

• Kozmo.com launches. This was the site that promised they could deliver just about anything in under an hour. Google opens its garage doors for business.
• The Diamond Rio PMP300 is launched.
• The Recording Industry Association of America, files a lawsuit in the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claiming Diamond Rio player violated the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. The three judge panel ruled in favor of Diamond, paving the way for the development of the MP3 portable player market. The Rio retailed for $200 and had the ability to play 12 songs at 128 kilobits per second.

The Fifth Year: 1999

• SBC rolls out Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Lines to those lucky enough to be close enough to an SBC Central Office.
• Everquest is launched.
• Shawn Fanning founds Napster.
• The original MySpace site is launched as a personal file sharing service.

The Sixth Year: 2000

• On January 10th, AOL buys TimeWarner for $162 Billion, the largest corporate merger ev4r.
• On the 14th, the Dot Com Bubble reaches its peak.
• There are now nearly 20 million websites online.

The Seventh Year: 2001

• Three years after the launch of the Diamiond Rio, the first generation iPod hits the street.
• Online encyclopedia Wikipedia is founded by Jimmy Wales
• Pope John Paul II sends the first papal email from a laptop in his office. Sadly, the name Pmail didn’t stick.

The Eighth Year: 2002

• This year saw the rise of the bootable linux CD distro, Knoppix being the most notable of the group. This is why Knoppix has difficulties with motherboards that have a BIOS created before 2002.

The Ninth Year: 2003

• Apple launches the iTunes Store.
• The first flash mob is organized in Manhattan via the Web.

The Tenth Year: 2004

• Amazon.com makes the first ever full-year profit since its launch.
• Tim Berners Lee becomes Sir Tim Berners Lee, as he is knighted for his contribution to the Internet.
• The Mozilla Firefox web browser hit 1.0 this year, with Houston Geeks celebrating at a local launch party at the Saint Arnold Brewery.

The Eleventh Year: 2005

• Video sharing site YouTube.com comes online.
• The web grows more this year than during the whole Dot Com Boom as 17 million new sites go online.

The Twelfth Year: 2006

• The iPhone and the end of Harry Potter.
• As of August 2006, there are 92,615,362 websites online.

Tonight marks the return of Jay! Yay! But then Peter got sick and had to miss the show… awww.

TechBytes 8-1-07 [ 2:00:40 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

This Friday!

Dean’s Credit Clothing is located at 316 Main St, Houston, TX

The latest version of my Tech Buzz is up at Houstonist. I post it every weekend and it covers local technology news. Hey there’s even a Dwight and Jay mention! Be sure to click over to Houstonist for the latest Tech Buzz.

Jay was out of town, so Peter came into Houston to run the show (with predictable results)! There are no *real* Harry Potter spoilers in this episode, although there are a lot of Harry Potter jokes.

TechBytes 7-25-07 [ 2:00:40 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

The Chronicle has a report on a recent email threat that is suckering users into clicking a virus that comes disguised as an e-card.

In most cases, the subject line informs recipients that they’ve received a greeting card or a postcard from a “friend,” “family member,” “worshipper,” “school-mate” or “neighbour.” When the e-mail is opened, there’s a link to a Web site that uploads viruses to the recipient’s computer.

Please use common sense when opening email attachments and when in doubt, don’t click.

–groovehouse