I jumped from OpenDNS to the new Google Public DNS after Gruber did.
The speed difference between the two during real world browsing has been negligible. In fact, a recent BrowserMob article has me reconsidering the plain-old Comcast DNS servers.
Download the Java utility from BrowserMob to run your own speed test.
java -jar browsermob-dns-perf.jar
To test your ISP’s DNS as well, add the IP address(s) to the command like so:
java -jar browsermob-dns-perf.jar 123.456.789.012
The Show taskbar notifications setting in Windows 7 Media Center (found under Settings>General>Startup and Window Behavior) toggles the appearance of a little red dot in the taskbar when a program is recording.
It does not refer to hiding the silly balloon notifications that appear even when WMC is running, as I and ths guy mistakenly thought.
The dot is a handy notification when the WMC interface is closed. I'd recommend leaving this setting enabled and also clicking the up arrow next to the task bar, choosing "Customize Taskbar" and selecting "Show icon and notifications" for the Windows Media Center icon so that it is always visible when a show is recording.
Zune HD
TV Shows recorded via CableCARD on Windows 7 are saved as copy protected WTV files. These recordings can only be played on the computer that recorded them or on a Windows Media Extender such as an Xbox 360 or a Linksys DMA2100.
Microsoft has announced that some content may be marked "copy freely" by the content provider after a forthcoming firmware update for the ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is released. We're still waiting for the update, and there's no way to know how many shows will be free of DRM, but it's a promising trend.
It's easy to immediately start cursing DRM and mocking the futility of it all, but I have a different critique. Continued...
Thanksgiving weekend has afforded me some time to catch up on my backlog of podcasts. With the exception of Kevin Pollack's Chat Show, all my favorite podcasts come from the TWiT network.
Episode 88 of FLOSS Weekly is an interview with Linus Torvalds and is well worth a listen. Linus is spectacularly interesting both with regard to his thoughts on programming and his opinions of the open source movement in general.
Throughout the interview, the father of Linux is funny, down to earth and likeably smug.
Randal Schwartz (host): Any last words that you want to share with our audience?
Linus Torvalds: No I don't ever have any last words just because [I don't have] a message for people. I don't care enough. You can all rot in hell, I'm doing it for my own reasons.
Readers might be interested to know that Linus is currently running Fedora, uses alpine for e-mail and MicroEMACS for code editing. Oh, and he doesn't care about Twitter.
FLOSS Weekly on TWiT
Searching the App Store for a sleep timer yields a half dozen or so competing results, but did you know iPhone has basic sleep timer functionality out of the box?
I'm not sure how long this feature has been around, but tucked away in the Clock app that ships with the phone is a Timer feature. When the timer finishes, the default action is to play a ringtone, but by tapping the "When Timer Ends" button, you can change this behavior to "Sleep iPod."
Play a song/playlist/audiobook/podcast/etc. using the iPod app as you normally would
Hide the iPod app by pressing the Home button
Start the Clock app and tap the Timer icon on the toolbar
Set the timer duration
Tap the "When Timer Ends" button and select "Sleep iPod"
Tap the "Set" button to confirm your selection
Tap the green start button and drift off to sleep
Both the Clock and iPod apps are examples of iPhone apps that continue to run in the background. This means that if you want to fall asleep listening to a video, you should be able to set and start the timer before playing media with the iPod app and still trust that the timer will function properly.
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