The Best Ways To De-Stink Your Stuff 
In Memoriam: Our Favourite Apps And Services That Have Gone Belly Up 
How To Prepare For A Move Overseas 
From Saucy Pics To Passwords: How To Share Sensitive Information 
How Do IKEA's Prices In Australia Compare? 
New flybuys Earns Discounts Faster (But They're Not Good Discounts) Telephony geek Brian Aker controls his entire home phone system using the free, open source Asterisk software which does some crazy stuff, like IM’s him whenever the phone rings, sets custom MP3 hold music, and—my favorite—forwards annoying telemarketing calls to the very loud sound of monkeys screaming. Hit the play button to hear Brian’s recent five minute presentation at the Ignite Seattle tech event. Thanks, Brady!
MEGATONik managed to snap up this leaked songlist for Guitar Hero 3 before it was deleted from the forums over at ScoreHero.
I’m still hanging out for Rock Band, because Don’t Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult is one of my all-time favourites. Ever since I heard it during the end credits for Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners, I’ve been in love.
But enough of that. GH3 is due out in October, so it won’t be too much longer until we can play these tunes.
Full list after the jump!
Rumor: Guitar Hero 3 setlist leaked [MEGATONik, via PlayStation Universe]
The Wrap-o-matic is having a break today. Too much Halo 3 clogging its flux capacitor. In its place is the Condense-o-tron, taking everything good from last night and, uh, condensing it here.
Mass Effect Character Creation I think the mention of bare-chested ladies will sell at least a million copies of Bioware’s latest RPG.
LucasArts Unleashes The Force On The Wii Guess who’s handling the port? Australia’s own Krome Studios. Chasing more info as we speak.
Team Fortress 2 Beta Live If you’re reading this, and the beta isn’t downloading while you do, then you’re doing it wrong.
Justify Your Game: Rez Ever seen Japanese game developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi squirm? Now’s your chance!
Warmonger Rains Destruction In October Here’s a phat gallery for this free, downloadable and pretty-looking shooter.
The folks over at PS3Tag got bored and decided to do a little digging into who exactly owned the Sony Defense Force website. Seems PS3Tag is affiliated with SonyProtectionGroup.com, and were tired of getting associated with the SDF. As it turns out Narutoboy of the SPG was emailed by one Rob Foor of the Sony Defense Force regarding a link exchange. Now if you check the WHOIS info on Wii60.com, Foor’s name shows up as the registrant of that domain. Both sites share names servers, and at one point they even came out of the same IP address. What this basically means is the website that “started in May of 2006 after Sony announced the price of the PS3 would be the now infamous ‘$599 U.S. Dollars‘” and the website that takes pride in pictures of Xbox 360′s covered in urine are run by the same guy. Way to cover your tracks. I’d compliment the SPG guys for their detective work, but Foor just made it far too easy. Commence public flogging.
We have proof that will bring to light the true nature of the owners of SonyDefenseForce.com [PS3Tag.com]
As I’m sure you’re aware, the TV and movie content owners in Australia have really dragged the chain on selling their content online. Pay TV operators tend to do this a bit better (I remember paying a couple of pounds per movie for a download from our ISP/pay TV provider NTL in London way back in 2000/2001. But what if you don’t want a pay TV subscription just to download movies on demand? Even Apple’s iTunes store lets us down in that department, which is why their launch of Apple TV seemed so hollow – why get an IPTV box when they won’t sell you the “V” to watch with it?! I just read a post from Last 100 which gave an overview of 11 (count ‘em, 11) video download services in the US. Of course they’re mostly US only, but the article did mention a couple which sell globally. Jaman specialises in independent and world cinema rental/purchase for Mac/Windows – and claims to be working on a hack to allow it to work with Apple TV. I’ll definitely be checking out Hungry Flix – which specialises in non-DRM independent and niche videos. The writeup says it’s “radically different” to other offerings:
“All videos are offered as non-DRM’d MPEG4, so as to be compatible with both Mac, PC and Linux, as well as many portable devices, media extenders and set-top-boxes, and the service specifically targets portable media players such as Apple’s iPod or Sony’s PSP.”
Video Download Stores Compared [Last 100]
Multi-platform browser Opera has released v9.50 Alpha which extends its support for BitTorrent by adding a uTorrent compatible Peer Exchange feature. This will hopefully speed up transfers and reduce tracker load I’ll emphasise again that it’s an ALPHA release – and I’m not an alpha girl at all – in fact I’m even a reluctant Beta user – so I’m not going there. Play wisely, and make sure you’re backed up. :) The Windows version is downloadable here. The Linux versions are here.
IAC recently purchased the majority of indie developer and Torque engine creator GarageGames, and today the two companies announce the fruits of that transaction. InstantAction.com will eventually be a completely web-based action gaming portal, dedicated to serving high-quality video games without requiring downloads. I’m imagining it as a sort of Games.com, only instead of Scrabble and Yahtzee there’ll be… well, action games. The companies are introducing new technology that will enable graphically-rich, multiplayer games to run in standard web browsers. You can visit InstantAction.com right now and enter your email address for early public beta access, with the site expected to launch in early 2008. As well as the games portal, InstantAction is also launching a Game Development Fund aimed at encouraging new developers to create games for the internet. Personally I am kind of afraid of this. The last thing ADD boy here needs is quick and easy multiplayer action games at his fingertips.
It’s important to work in an ergonomic, body-friendly environment to avoid problems like RSI, but a lot of ergonomic products cost an arm and a leg. To get around the high price of ergonomic chairs like the popular Aeron line, blogger Jon Aquino made his own version (pictured) of the Aeron. This very faux Aeron might be a bit over the top, but I’m curious: How have you designed an ergonomic workspace without breaking the bank? What products would you never skimp on? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.
Do-It-Yourself Aeron Ergonomic Chair [Jon Aquino's Mental Garden via DIY Life]I’ve become a bit of a fan of the Zen Habits blog lately, and they’ve published a couple of posts over the past couple of days which both deal with the very practical notion of how to build good habits. Incremental change seems so hard – the results are often so gradual that it feels like you’re not getting any payoff for your efforts. But this post offers some practical tips on how to establish and maintain habit changes – by making it harder to *not* change. The gist of it is that you need to increase the positive feedback you get from doing the new habit, and increase the negative feedback you get if you fall off the wagon.
Set Up Habit Changes So It’s Hard to Fail
They’ve also published a post for those trying to change their spending habits. I found this one offered a couple of good ideas about how to incrementally change your spending habits by reversing what they call the “hedonist treadmill” which sees your spending increase along with your income.
“Put even little expenses into reverse. I only saved a couple dollars by going to 7-11 instead of Starbucks, but I started creating a habit of working the treadmill in reverse. This kind of action will give you confidence in your ability to control your spending.”
I’ll be a guest on Melbourne community radio station RRR’s computer show Byte into It tonight – Wednesday, 19 September. The show is broadbast from 7pm-8pm every Wednesday, and is hosted by Phil Wales.
If you’re not in Melbourne, fear not. You can listen to RRR streaming online, or download the Byte into It podcast. More information here.
And while I’m writing reminders, another one for the Melbourne crowd – our competition to win tickets to the Pixar: 20 Years of Animation exhibition at ACMI closes Friday morning. You have two days left to get your entries in, so get to it!
