I swear that this is the way to stream media. This is what you do. Go to http://www.orb.com. Download the software from the downloads page. (Direct link to downloads here.) Install the software. Create an account. Login from PC web browser at my.orb.com to test. Next use the Wii’s web browser to go to my.orb.com, login and enjoy! You can now access all of your drives and file from any internet connection as long as Orb is running on your home PC. I recommend using the File Browser if you have NAS because all of the pictures, music and videos on NAS don’t show up when you go to Videos, Audio or Photos. You should tweak the settings both on your PC by right clicking on the Orb icon in the system tray and clicking Configuration and by changing the settings online by clicking on settings. I love this and I spent 2 hours yesterday watching TV shows I recorded on my big screen.

Anyone who has listened to the the latest Buzz Out Loud from CNET will already know the rumors, but an inside source at Microsoft has said that SP3 for XP might include DirectX 10. I suppose Microsoft has finally realized that the only appeal of Vista to the average consumer is DX10 and that its not worth over $100.

Also flying around is the fact that XP SP3 performs faster than SP1 for Vista by at least twofold. A benchmarking test on Vista took 80+ seconds to complete whereas it only took 35 on Xp.

Many people have been rolling back to XP for this very reason as highlighted by some of the new Mac vs. PC commercials. Another email on BoL pointed out , however, that some people are rolling back to Mac OSX Tiger from Leopard because of lack of third party support.

Although the Mac probably has less compatibility issues because of Apple’s tight hold on hardware, the point that all new OS’s have problems is noted. But come on Microsoft, its been almost a year now, shouldn’t that be enough time to get your act together?

Vista is starting to look like the second Millennium Edition, an operating system so bad that XP had to replace it post-haste. Will that happen to Vista? The same caller seems to think so as he also says that his source has pinpointed the date of the next Windows iteration in October of next year?

Hopefully this one won’t be so bad that it has to be split up into five affordable but retarded versions and a crazy-expensive Ultimate Edition.

Grand Illusions Ltd. sells a pen that essentially never runs out of ink. This is because, although it may appear normal, the special writing utensil is a specially crafted shaft of metal. Here is the original story:

A stainless steel pen, 8cm long. However when you unscrew the top, the ‘nib’ is a solid piece of metal. There is no ink, yet this pen will write on virtually any type of paper. This is what it looked like when we tried it on a piece of normal paper…

How does it work?

In the Medieval period, artists and scribes often used a metal stylus in order to draw on a specially prepared paper surface. Generally known as Metalpoint, or Silverpoint when the stylus was made of silver, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Rembrandt all used this technique. http://www.silverpointweb.com/index.html gives a lot of information about how it works.

The pens we sell are a modern version (and do not use silver). The solid metal ‘nib’ consists of a metal alloy, that leaves a mark on most types of paper. If you use the sort of paper typically used in printers and photocopiers, the pen leaves a mark that looks as if it was made by a pencil. However the line will not smudge, and cannot be rubbed out.

Since there is no ink, there is nothing to dry out, so the pen will work just as well in 25 years time as it does today. And of course it never needs sharpening!

I would guess that in time the nib would begin to wear down, as you are leaving a small amount of metal on the page. However this has got to be a much slower process than with a pencil, which wears down pretty quickly.

If you are planning to write the definitive 21st century novel, I would recommend a regular pen. However as a scientific curiosity, we like this pen a lot.

The pen comes in a very smart, circular, silver colored metal presentation tin, and would make a very unusual gift.

The pen retails for $31.48 before tax.

Seriously, how did these captchas even get generated?

Apparently if one’s cpu fan fails while running windows, the computer may start randomly playing classical music. I have a hard time believing that this article is not a joke.

If you don’t know about digg I’d like to say that you probably live under a rock, but the internet doesn’t work that way. Even though digg is the largest social bookmarking site, lots of people don’t know about it. I prefer digg because many of the stories posted there are actually interesting, not just lolcats or stupid videos, and that its hard to digg up a story thats not good by bribery. So, from now on, all of the blog posts will have a “digg this” button.

Never juggle bowling balls.

And yes, this is fake.