nifty-o-matic

Hey — want to find a DVD ripper for your iPod. Something that is quick, easy, and can help you copy your DVDs to your new Apple iPod? Wondering why you would go to iTunes and purchase (for more probably) a video that you already own so that you can watch it on your iPod?

Good question, isn’t it? Well, I stumbled across this software. It is an easy to use converter software to convert videos and DVDs to mp4 files, which can be loaded directly onto your iPod, iPhone, or Microsoft Zune player! It will convert files from mpeg, Divx and .avi to an iPod compatible format.

It’s called Video-2-iPod DVD to iPod Suite and it is downloadable software that you can be using in just a couple of minutes from now. You can go to school or work tomorrow and impress your friends! Think about it!

Click here to read more about this wonderful software!

Last.fm, if you haven’t heard, has recently announced that you can now stream entire tracks and entire albums for free (!) from their website! It’s legal. They’ll be paying the artists directly. So, there is no excuse not to head over find the artists you like, be it Jimmy Buffett, Britney Spears, Radiohead, Justin Timberlake, or maybe The Beatles you will find what you want to listen to there! They also have streaming videos you can watch.

And if you are an artist, you can have your music featured on their site. How cool is that?

Read the blog on Last.fm that tells about this new development!

(Also worth reading is a lifehacker post about how to get the absolute most out of last.fm. Worth the time to read definately!)

Wow! I must say I’m impressed. The new Apple MacBook Air is announced yesterday! It is an amazing machine to say the least. Very thin. Very Light. Very BIG screen (13″) for it’s size.

How thin? 0.76 inches (just over 3/4 inch!)

How light? How about under 3 lbs!

How big? 13.3″ screen 1200×800 resolution.

How wireless? Yep. You can wirelessly connect, WiFi built in. 802.11n.

How much room? How about an 80 gigabyte hard disk - or a 64 gigabyte solid state flash memory hard drive? Wow… noiseless that one, but the flash will cost you an extra $2000.

How about a full sized keyboard? Need one of those?

How about 5 hours of battery life and a built-in web camera?

Microsoft has decided that to make up for the poor performance of Xbox Live over the holiday season that they will give away a free game to Xbox 360 owners. Microsoft hasn’t announced yet what the game will be, but it will be coming from Xbox Live Arcade.

Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live is quoted as saying that he was dissatisfied with the performance of Xbox Live while all the new owners were trying to register their systems, and caused the system to have “intermittent” problems. Xbox 360 has sold over 17 million units in a little over 2 years and recently had the much anticipated “Halo 3″ title released.

Read the story here.

How do you go about choosing a cell phone?

I go about it by doing research. I’ll look at the phones online and find the ones that fit what I need from a phone, from size to bands to features. Then I’ll look around to see the cost - can I afford these?

And then we take the plunge and find a store that has these phones. There you can pick them up and look at them up close. Sure they are attached to this retractable little cable, so it feels like someone is always pulling the phone away. And the picture on the screen always looks great because it is simulated and a photograph! The buttons may or may not push and in short it is a non-working model! You don’t even know if the weight is correct!

So how, short of reading the manual, are you supposed to know if this phone will actually work in a way that you like and can use?

Internet to the rescue! This website, call TryPhone, will let you see how the phone works for real, by interacting with a model of a working phone. See how to dial it, input data, change the settings, etc.  Its pretty cool. It is a bea website and not all phones are available, but still, if you plan to order a phone online or even from the store, you’d like to know how the thing works and if you like it. Great site! I give it a thumbs up!

If you can’t get your hands on Apple’s iPhone, this is a great way to test drive it!