Channel 4 eyes Bez for new Osbournes-style reality TV show

The NME is reporting that Channel 4 are considering a new reality show featuring Bez ( of the Happy Mondays ), who recently won the same channel's Celebrity Big Brother show. Bez's next door neighbour Shaun Ryder may also feature in the show which sounds like it would be similar to The Osbournes. Is there life in the Reality TV genre after all?
Thanks to georgek for the tip.

From Open Source to Mega Force.

BetaNews | Second Mozilla Developer Joins Google: "Following news that lead Firefox engineer Ben Goodger has been hired by Google,
fellow Mozilla developer Darin Fisher has announced that he, too, has
joined the search giant. With at least two high-profile browser
developers under its belt, rumors have begun swirling about Google's
future plans with the Mozilla platform."
It must be a dream come true for these two guys. I see no harm in the fact that Google wants to create an Internet Empire by making a twist of it's own on the already succesful Firefox product. I love that browser so much that I would in fact want a big company to back it up financially.

Jon of p2pnet.net on why does he bother to post news

p2pnet.net - the original daily p2p and digital media news site Freedom of speech and instant communication between a huge numbers of individuals is one of the great things that the Internet has provided to us the “common people”. Jon from p2pnet.net has an article regarding on why does he maintain his news site. I suggest you give it a quick read just to realize the privileges you get by using the Internet.

Bit Tornado 0.3.10 is out. Get it from TechSpot

Bit Tornado 0.3.10 Download - TechSpot: The everpopular Bittorrent client Bittornado has been upgarded by 0.0.03 points to 0.3.10. This appears to be a small bug fix release. I use this client since it's one of the fastest one's around plus it's gui is quite simple and it needs no special tweaking. Go fetch..

SAMSUNG introduces new Portable Media Center

SAMSUNG's "Portable Media Center" First it was Creative that introduced the Zen PMC with a 3.8' screen, now Samsung brings it's own version with a 3.5' screen and a 20Gb hard drive. Both considered gadgets for the ubergeek, both run on MS Windows PMC Edition, both are relatively new to trust. My guess is that the 3rd generation of this type of gadgets will be worth the $ needed to buy them. I waited some four years since the first mp3 player was introduced and I bought the 60Gb Zen Xtra packed with features on a normal price, so waiting is actually good sometimes..

eXeem is just out but wait there's eXeem lite on the loose too..

eXeem lite After reading a few reviews on eXeem ( most of them concerning spyware and a possible Trojan the program installs ) I found out about eXeem lite ( remember kazaa lite ? ) the spyware free version of the program ( it must be an illegal derivative of the original in some way.. ). I suggest you give this one a try first, adware is the last thing you need on your pc.

eXeem open beta is out for public review

www.exeem.com Yes it's true, the much anticipated and hyped p2p bittorrent client eXeem is out. I haven't tried it yet so I will post my review after some extensive testing. the frontpage of the site looks quite professional though.

Me and Anta @ Marmaras 21-23 Jan 2005

Yet another image from this great weekend, this one was taken on day 2 over at Marmaras village, it was a bit cloudy and quite chilly, we did enjoy it a lot though..

Spontaneous Weekend Holidays are the best

parthenon
Originally uploaded by alexk7110.

I had no news over the weekend 'cause me and my girlfriend Anta grabbed an opportunity and went on an unplanned weekend over to Porto Carras Hotel. We visited the nearby villages of Marmaras and Parthenon. The above image is from Parthenon.

First ever BLOND GUY joke...

Our regular correspondent georgek has sent this in..

An Irishman, a Mexican and a Blonde Guy were doing construction work on
scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building. They were eating lunch and
the Irishman said, "Corned beef and cabbage! If I get corned beef and
cabbage one more time for lunch, I'm going to jump off this building."
The Mexican opened his lunch box and exclaimed, "Burritos again! If I get
burritos one more time, I'm jumping too. The blond opened his lunch and
said, Bolognaagain! If I get a bologna sandwich one more time, I'm
jumping too."

The next day, the Irishman opened his lunch box, saw corned beef and
cabbage, and jumped to his death. The Mexican opened his lunch, saw a
burrito, and jumped, too. The blonde guy opened his lunch, saw the bologna
and jumped to his death as well.

At the funeral, the Irishman's wife was weeping. She said, "If I'd known
how really tired he was of corned beef and cabbage, I never would have
given it to him again!" The Mexican's wife also wept and said, "I could
have given him tacos or enchiladas! I didn't realize he hated burritos so
much."

Everyone turned and stared at the blonde's wife. The blonde's wife said,

"Don't look at me. He makes his own lunch!"

Google upgrades Picasa photo management software.

Picasa: Photo management software, free from Google. Find, edit, share photos.
Picasa is a free photo management tool from Google that not only sorts your family albums, it also adds some effects and most importantly posts your images on Blogger, all that for free. If you're a novice on imaging or simply want to share your images with family and friends online you might want to give it a try.

A State of Trance no longer on ID&T radio.

Like we didn't see that one coming. First it was a change on airtime, two weeks later the show came to a full stop. In a newspost over at Armada Records , Armin van Buuren states that ID&T radio decided to stop broadcasting one of the longest running Trance shows, A State of Trance. Armin is looking into the possibility of taking the show on another radio, until then you can log in at ETN.fm to satisfy you trance music needs.

Love Beer ? Visit BeerAdvocate.com

Beer Reviews & Ratings | BeerAdvocate.com Having spent a huge amount of my clubbing life in bars and pubs beer is a huge friend of mine, well stout to be exact. I had some great news this morning since our correspondent georgek pointed this website to me. A must visit for all Beer fans.

Reinvigorate.net web statistics will be back soon..

http://www.reinvigorate.net/ One of the most elegant web statistics host Reinvigorate is having some issues with it's current host. I thought of mentioning this since the former is such a great source for web stats and it is widely used by bloggers, this blog is amongst them. Being free and open source my guess is that it should spread widely, although you may have to wait a couple of days to sign-in.

Soundtrack : code 46

Soundtrack : code 46 A few days back I watched the indie movie code 46 starring Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton ( Minority Report ). The movie itself was a tad confusing, although the photography was amazing. One thing that really stood out was the soundtrack. Amazing landscapes and post-rock sounds resembling the works of Mogwai and Sigur Ros come from the David Holmes and Steve Hilton group called Free Association. You can get a glimpse of what the soundtrack sounds like at Amazon.

Zeropaid.com - Arghhh you a Pirate?

Zeropaid.com - Arghhh you a Pirate?: A very interesting view on filesharing by moneoa about the fact that it is not piracy in it's true form. Read on..

Inspiring Flash animation by Hoogerbrugge

Our correspondent georgek has brought the work of an amazing flash animator to our attention. Visit his 2 sites , it's quite worth it.

[ Hotel ] an interactive tale by Han Hoogerbrugge
and

<-----N-A-I-L-S------> portfolio.

"Give David Fincher a good scenario and a fat budget "

There, I said it. It's been quite some time since Fight Club was released and not that many gems have come after that, well except Donnie Darko and a few others.
I am your regular moviebuff. I love to rent, go to the theater, buy and mostly enjoy movies. My guess was that while I was growing, films would get better each year. Wrong ! I have been witnessing the fall of the movie industry, in the last 6 years at least. It seems that there's nothing I can do about it, except of 'course bitch about it in this blog.
In my previous post, the one about the first guy from China arrested for fileswapping, the only thing I mentioned was the guy's bad taste. I was totally wrong with that statement, he was in fact sharing big Hollywood blockbusters. "Miss Congeniality" was one of them. That's where it hit me. WHERE ARE THE REEAAALLLL BLOCKBUSTERS DAMMIT ?
Give us some great sci-fi, based on story and not meaningless effects.
Give us some great comedy, without resurrecting old comedians on pointless jokes. Find your new guy straight outta college, yes the one with the radical ideas.
I could go on forever. What I am really saying is : "Give us something new"
Thanks for your time. If you happen to agree with me comment away on this post. If you disagree, prove me wrong. Please!
My English may be poor but then again I am Greek. You wouldn't read this if it was written in my mother language now, would you?

Slashdot | First BitTorrent Arrest in Hong Kong

First BitTorrent Arrest in Hong Kong : Associated Press has more info on Hong Kong's first file sharing arrest. A 38 year old man, not identified, was found sharing "Daredevil,""Red Planet" and "Miss Congeniality". For all I know they should arrest him on bad taste only and then have the studios blamed on the crappy movies they produce lately.. Holywood should have a reality check..

Object Dock 1.1 has been released.

Head over to http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/ to download the free version of Object Dock 1.1 . ObjectDock is a free program that allows you to have a nice animated launchbar/taskbar on your screen that reacts to your mouse when you hover over it.

The image above is from my homemade theme..

Robot makers say World Cup will be theirs by 2050

Scotsman.com News - Robot makers say World Cup will be theirs by 2050 Now that's a game I wanna watch, I was never a soccer fan ( in fact I was never a fan of any kind of sports, well maybe snowboard ) but this game would be fascinating to watch. My guess is that human's would still win ( you can't beat style ) but not for long.. Would the game be considered legal though ? I want to see the pedal of the robot team's fans, GO CYBER, GO DIGIT GO GO.. Now that's funny..

World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records

According to Blizzard Entertainment the game World of Warcraft has sold more than 600.000 units in the US, Australia and New Zealand during it's initial release this holiday season. Although I am not a games fan I thought of mentioning the news since this particular game has a huge fanbase in my country and European release dates are yet to come ( John this one is for you my man.. ).

Icq2go, flash based icq service comes quite handy.

I just found out today that the good old chat application called ICQ has a flash based web frontend. In real english that means that you go @ http://www.icq.com/icq2go/ and you click the start icq2go icon and a popup window with an icq message center appears.. If you are a member of the network in an internet cafe that doesn't offer icq or you simply don't want to install the software itself all you have to do is visit the page and voila!
New members can sign in on the spot so no hassles there..

Electricity loves chatterboxes !

Well it's true, this page not only has RSS support ( Google it please.. or just click the red speaker icon on the bottom of your firefox while visiting this page ) it also has a chatterbox so you can comment and most possibly curse in real time ( although the cursing part is done by kids.. ). All you have to do is click the "Talk in my flooble chatterbox!" link under the Archive and a popup chatbox will magically appear. After that just write your name and a comment , well I am over-explaining things aren't I ? Chat away then..

24 season 4 on FOX with a 2 hour start plus 2 hours on Monday.

FOX Broadcasting Company: 24 The much anticipated season 4 of the superb FOX series 24 started airing yesterday in the States. Major changes in the cast lineup will most likely give the series a fresh twist. Truth is that I really liked the original cast, I just hope the new actors will live up to the standards set by the original cast and surpass them if possible. Let's see what happens..

Have you heard about the new DivX ?

The new DivX6 announced at CES and due for release in March, will not only have integrated subtitles ( guys @ K.I.S.S. and Philips please make a firmware to support them soon ), but also a menu system ( what DVD? ), and to top it all off multichannel audio ( now that's an insult..). The files will be in an .avi container ( existing DivX playback devices should be able to play them with a small update).
Now if everything goes as planned the former hacked codec in it's 3rd reincarnation will be one of the dominant ones in future devices. Microsoft tries hard with their WMV containers but if I recall correctly it was DivX that had the first players on the market and DivX that is always a favorite ( along with XviD of 'course ) amongst the net film and series distributors.. Well think for yourselves.. It's gonna be a great race.

Forecastfox - Weather extension 4 Firefox

Forecastfox - If you use Firefox give this extension a try.
Click Forecastfox @ mozillaupdate to get the latest version. The code needed for Thessaloniki ( my city ) is GRXX0019 , it's listed as Salonica a fact I didn't know from the start.. I never understood why my city has to be listed with 3 different names..

ETN.fm has launched !!

ETN.fm The joint venture between ETS-Global and Transhpere internet radios called ETN.FM launced it's website today. I was happily impressed by the quality of the site's design. The content delivered through that webstation ? Only top quality trance and progressive sounds to enhance you daily music needs.. give it a try..

Wired 13.01: The BitTorrent Effect

Wired 13.01: The BitTorrent Effect Wired has a five page interview with Bram Cohen, the creator of the great p2p app called Bittorent. I am sure by now most of you know what BT is. During this summer, files transfered through the torrent network used 50% of the total bandwidth used by p2p apps so in one way or another all you computer buffs must have given it a try..

ZDNet India : Flat-panel TVs can't topple tubes--just yet

ZDNet India : Flat-panel TVs can't topple tubes--just yet: "Consumers scrambling for sexy new flat-panel televisions may want to tune in to this less-publicized feature of the trendy boxes: They don't deliver pictures as clearly as traditional tube TVs do."
Now don't tell me I told you so... This one goes out to all my friends who rushed to give their hard earned cash to buy a flat box.. with a sloppy picture..

Is it me or is Blogger one of the classiest blog sites around..

I guess it was the stylesheets that pulled me in and the overall design of the main page that gave away a friendly approach. You should judge for yourselves..

DVD Decrypter 3.5.2.0 is out..

"DVD Decrypter 3.5.2.0" is out and it bypasses various types of protection while doing some small miracles with the burning process plus some small fixes.
When I started making Divx movies some years ago I used SmartRipper since it was considered a superior ripper but from what it seems some years later Decrypter is the one that stood out. I guess it was the burning engine that really helped it take off , oh that and the fact that LIGHTNING UK! had some more spare time for codding this great app.. anyhow rush off to Doom9 to download it, it always comes in handy..

First Divx certified DVD recorder that also records content in Divx format from LSI

From www.Doom9.org : How about a standalone DVD recorder that not only knows how to encode to MPEG-2, but also supports DivX? LSI Logic's new DiMeNsion 3 is the first DivX certified single chip DVD recorder that not only plays DivX content, but also records to the DivX format. The chipset can also handle SACD and DVD Audio.

All I need is cable Tv ( not available in my country anyway ) or a DVB card and I am all set for my tv shows.. oh wait we don't get US channels on sat TV anyway, bummer I'll have to keep downloading..

Human Beans: PowerPizza

Link> Human Beans: PowerPizza
Of all the things I would expect to see on the net this one is by far the most peculiar one.
Is it a pizza, is it a laptop bag what is it ? You have to see it to believe it. It's a laptop bag disguised as a pizza box.. go figure..

Suprnova.org is down, now what..

It's been 2 weeks since the largest torrent site openly available to the public ( Suprnova.org ) has been shut down. Despite the fact that I couldn't find anything worth downloading from that site ( at least during it's last few months of life ) I seem to miss the fact that I had a central point of information on all the latest downloads available through p2p.

MPAA and RIAA try their best to ban activities over p2p networks. What these organizations don't get is that most Europeans ( especially Greeks like me ) would have never heard of some of the US TV series and International music that we first download over p2p and later buy on DVD and CD respectively.

Quite a few rumors have spread about a new app called exeem ( p2p, torrent app without the need for a server ) but early opinions seem to be of no satisfaction. I guess time will tell..