Brian's Latest

Monday, December 22, 2008

Space & Rocket Center Trip

Here are the photo's from our trip to the Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. Enjoy.

[UPDATE:] I added even more pictures to the album, check it out!

Space & Rocket Center

http://youtube.com/v/KMhuAtyFCrw

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Untitled

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Untitled

Saturday, December 13, 2008

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Friday, December 12, 2008

The Mom Song

My Mom found this...I think it's a joke but I think it's a reminder too.... ;) Love you Mom.

Samantha's sixty seconds with the Storm

Tonight before we started dinner I showed the latest smart phone, the Blackberry Storm, to my wife as we waited for our meal at Johnny Rockets. Now Samantha is pretty tech savvy. She was able to pick up my iPhone and pretty much figure it out in her first five minutes with the device. But she is by no means an uber-nerd such as myself.

I actually liked the interface and the phone itself. The weight was a bit more to me that the iPhone but that wasn't all bad. It felt a little more comfortable in my hand than the iPhone. The owner of the phone was kind enough the share his opinion, and I paraphrase, "I have a phone that should still be in beta." But enough about us, here is what the non-tech thought:

Image via Wikipedia

Immediate frustration with click screen
She found the click screen difficult to use. This may be because she is used to my iPhone and was trying to do what she was accustomed to.

Found menu hard key quicker than me
Again a force of habit for myself, but she did find the menu hard key quicker than I did.

Found games and camera quickly
She was able to quickly find the games and the camera very quickly after she figured out the click was a physical push on the touchscreen.

Figured out how to email picture taken with camera
Samantha had no trouble emailing a picture taken with the camera (because she quickly figured out the menu hard key) and was able to email a picture she took.

Began to navigate quicker
As she got more comfortable with the touchscreen and UI she was able to navigate the device more fluidly.

Found audio and video
Easy enough.

Tried to pinch zoom
I noticed that when she was searching through the photo roll on the phone she was trying to pinch zoom. Another iPhone habit.

Played movie trailer successfully
She was able to play and then stop the playback of the movie trailer that was already downloaded on the phone.

Didn't like it
Was the brief response as our food got to the table. She felt the biggest problem was the click touchscreen and that "clicking was difficult" to do. In the end she preferred the iPhone's interface more than the Storm's.

And that was all I could get from her before she started into her burger and onion rings. At least the meal wasn't a loss!

Special thanks to @camaross for the use of his Storm!

http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrystorm/

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Barenaked Ladies: Snacktime!, a Free Holiday Download, and CD Giveaway | Geekdad from Wired.com

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Untitled

Monday, December 8, 2008

Barenaked Ladies: Snacktime!, a Free Holiday Download, and CD Giveaway | Geekdad from Wired.com

The always awesome Barenaked Ladies have a free download of holiday themed song...just in time for the holidays, as well as a CD giveaway. Check out their interview with Wireds Geek Dad and then get to downloading!

MacDailyNews - What if Steve Jobs ran one of the U.S. auto companies?

If Microsoft Built Cars...

Thank you MacDailyNews! I've seen this before but as always MDN gives it a good spin. Check out the article after the break.

If Microsoft Built Cars...
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Your car would inexplicably get slower over time and, every 3-6 months, it would simply grind to halt and fail to restart. At this point, you'd have to reinstall the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.
4. Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, was three times more reliable, fast, and easy to drive--but most people wouldn't know it or believe it.
5. Apple car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
6. Microsoft would replace the oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
7. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, not knowing that they had been available in Apple's cars for many years.
8. Microsoft cars would come with 5-year-old Apple car paint jobs, but they'd be the same crappy Microsoft car underneath.
9. If you were involved in a crash, you'd have no idea what happened.
10. Before deploying, the airbag system would ask "Cancel or Allow?"

Apple's Security Paradox - Forbes.com

Apple's Security Paradox - Forbes.com

Check it out. You would think that the more market share Apple gains the virus levels would increase, especially with Apple's apparent terrible response time to reported infections. But according to F-Secure that trend is reversed on Macs with the number of threats decreasing. Read on for some Apple fan boy love and remember that anti-virus is important and free from ClamAV for Mac!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

I am so happy

The semester is almost over. Next week is finals. Tomorrow is the SEC
championship. I might pass English as long as I do good on my final
and the essay I revised today. All my other classes are going well.

The business is going slow. I don't have the time I would like to
dedicate towards it and it turns out were in a recession. So there
haven't been to many calls. Stupid recession.

So I am going to try to write here more with dealing ground breaking
material that entertains and informs you, my readership. I need to
make sure I try to keep good on my commitment to myself that I would
maintain this site. Stay tuned.

Brian M. Bufalo
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com

Friday, December 5, 2008

Trying out Twitted Feed

This is another post that is a whole lot of nothing. Just testing out
Twitter feed as well as firemail on the iPhone. So far I love
firemail. When will the rotating keyboard come to Mail? My semester is
ending soon and I hope to put up a good long post then. Until then
thanks for your patience.

Brian M. Bufalo
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com

Brian M. Bufalo
bmbufalo@gmail.com
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com
205-383-3283

Friday, November 21, 2008

All is well again

So far my computer is up and running again. Most likely culprit was
Zone Alarm. I think I will still use it, just not on my main desktop.
Also I learned how truly valuable my iPhone has already become. In
fact it may become my main blogging tool as I can email in a post
anywhere and on my own time.

In current events the iPhone 2.2 update has been released on the world
and I must say it is fantastic! The improvements to Safari, Maps,
over the air podcasts, and overall speed and reliability are wonderful.

Safari includes a search box at the top next to the address bar,
making searches quicker and easier to access. Maps now includes
Googles Street View which put me in front of my old apartment in San
Diego in seconds. Podcasts can now be grabbed over both 3G and wi-fi
making the iPhone the ultimate multi media device on the market.
Everything seems snappier after the update as well. Flipping through
the home screens felt faster and more responsive.

All in all an improvement in the OS. We are still holding our
collective breath for copy and paste as well as a couple other
features added. All in due time it would seem.

Brian M. Bufalo
bmbufalo@gmail.com
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com
205-383-3283

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Today is officially ruined

Not only did everything go wrong today at work but I got home and my
desktop gave me this error.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Only In Alabama...

Only In Alabama....

2 dead in argument over Ala.-LSU football game

1 hour ago

EVERGREEN, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say an argument over Saturday's Alabama-LSU football game led to the shooting deaths of a couple at a home in southern Alabama.

Prosecutors identified the victims as Dennis and Donna Smith of Brewton. The shooting happened about 7 p.m. Saturday at the home of Michael Williams in the rural community of Owassa.

Williams was arrested and charged with two counts of murder.

Investigators told the Press-Register newspaper in Mobile that Dennis Smith, an LSU fan, called Williams, an Alabama fan, after Alabama's 27-21 overtime win and an argument ensued.

The Smiths went to Williams home. Investigators said Smith had a pistol and Williams had a shotgun and fired. Donna Smith was a relative of Williams' girlfriend.

Information from: Press-Register, http://www.al.com/mobileregister

Copied from AP
The Associated Press: 2 dead in argument over Ala.-LSU football game

http://youtube.com/v/UQvw8rvcQxg

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Testing 1...2...3

Trying out a free Blogger blogging tool on the iPhone. That is all.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

NC Neighbors -- VOTE '08

Do not forget to vote Tuesday. And if you are voting for McCain, the polls open Wednesday!

Friday, October 31, 2008

YES WE CAN! - NEW MUSIC VIDEO

http://youtube.com/v/zN_NNZyh43s

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Embedded Live Blogging with Google Docs

One day when I can travel around as a great and well known blogger who is rich and famous I will have a use for this feature of Google Docs and Blogger. For now I'm a poor college student with no life but here is a link to those wonderful directions on how to really be a Google Docs power user. I did see this as a way to create and automatically updating resume on my blog and have added a link to it here. Now when I update my resume on Google Docs, those changes are immediately available for the world to see. Not that it is impressive by any means (don't laugh) but I recently had an interviewer check out my blog and he mentioned there was no resume available there.

Managing Your Finances

This is just a group PowerPoint project I participated in for school which has been slightly edited from the original to exclude my classmates full names. This is also a test of embedding content from Google Docs to Blogger so it's really not a full on post. Now get back to work!

[googleapps domain="docs" dir="EmbedSlideshow" query="docid=dp7dhq7_306ct3g8jff" width="410" height="342" /]

Monday, October 6, 2008

Google's New Spreadsheet Features

Google is going to kill Office despite what certain individuals may state about the state of cloud computing and it's implications. It's coming, like it or not. The new interface in excellent and as long as they keep adding to the interface and feature set there is a good chance we will never have to use the MS Office suite again! Check out the links for more information.

http://docs.google.com

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=112475

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/10/google-spreadsheets-redesign.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10058796-2.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

Friday, October 3, 2008

Ubuntu 8.10 in 27 days!

<script src="http://www.ubuntu.com/files/countdown/display.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

http://www.ubuntu.com

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Electorial Map 2008

Some really cool interactive 2008 election maps and coverage from Google.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Untitled

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/09/11/remembering-the-victims-of-911/

Friday, September 19, 2008

Heroes Chapter 3 starts this Monday

-- Brian
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com
bmbufalo mobile

Friday, September 12, 2008

Today Forever

This day has a lot of meaning. The repercussions of this day have brought us to where we are today. There is so much different and changing in our modern era. But there is so much that is the same. People everywhere want to raise families, love each other, and make a difference in their world. No matter how much conflict here at home and around the world we are all the same. We are all people.

Never forget, always forgive, find peace with yourself and your world and have a great time along the way.

--
Brian

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-chrome-now-live.html
http://www.google.com/chrome

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

First Thoughts on Google Chrome

I wanted to make a quick post on my initial thoughts of the new browser to hit the mean streets, Google Chrome. First loading it up it looks pretty plain-jane but I come from the Mac world where I know better than to be fooled by simple exteriors. So I played around and dug a little deeper. Google Chrome offers the standard stuff, set your homepage, type an address, get some tabs going.

The stroke of genius comes in from how simple and efficient many of these tasks were made. Not only do you use the address bar to type in http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com but you can also kick off a Google search (or those other guys search engine...if you really want to change it) and have direct results. It was a pleasant surprise to find but Google may want to make it a bit more obvious. It took me about an hour of using it to figure that part out. The new tab screen shows you your most frequently used items that gets more accurate over time as Chrome gets used to your surfing habits. Also the tabs are independent of each other so if your Hotmail craps out on you you can still feel safe that your porn is still there.

Not to mention that if you do frequent some less than questionable sights and don't want someone to know, you can use the incognito feature and surf without retaining any of your browsing history, similar to what the Beta of Internet Explorer 8 has.

If some tab's become sluggish or unresponsive, Chrome has a task manager independent of Windows Task Manager that lets you see what process are running and end those nasty pages while (supposedly) keeping everything else going.

My favorite feature was the ability to create independent applications a la Prism of your favorite web applications like Gmail, Remember the Milk, and FriendFeed. With a click and a couple check boxes I can have seamless access to my most used programs. Google Gears is built into the browser so everything syncs up nicely on or off line.

Under the hood there is a very powerful new Java engine as well as the same rendering setup Apple's Safari has, WebKit. Initial testing (which I will have to post in a follow up) shows Chrome has a much lighter system resource footprint and just feels much snappier to respond to that any other browser out there.

Not to say this is a gush fest. The most common complaint I've see of Chrome is the lack of extentions or support for Firefox extentions which I second. But this is a beta release and adding in extentions to trouble shoot while trying to fix your own code could be a small nightmare so I don't really blame Google for not including that in their first release. That is not to let them off the hook, though. I expect it in the near future! There is very little clutter. This is both a strength and a weaknes for the browser. While there is not a whole lot to to scare a new user, if you are used to a whole bunch of options being thrown in your face, it may take you a bit longer to find. The only other thing I can find to complain about is that when I middle click on a link it doesn't open up in a new tab like I have become dependant on it Firefox. But again...something to hope for! Google Chrome's beta release for both the average, and, even the power user is a very enjoyable web expreience.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Where I've Been

The last couple of weeks have been an absolute blur. I have gotten into college without spending any money (yet). I mean that literally. I am going to class without paying a dime of my own. My financial aid paperwork is still in process so I am going to class waiting for the last of my information to process. The down side to that is I have no books, no supplies, and close to no gas money to get there. It sucks. And I still have to pay tuition, bills and get Lucy to a vet visit soon. So it's been stressful. For these reason's I have not had any time to post here. And I miss it. I miss finding fun new things (at least to me) and telling this blank page why I like it and why you might too. But the Man (and Mom) say's to get a good job I have to have a piece of paper stating my four years has been spent learning stuff and things. So school comes first.

At least work has slowed down! Nothing is breaking and that is a great thing! And my personal business has picked up. I've got two computers here I am working on now! So there is some positive in all of this...it's just everything has been coming at once and it's a bit overwhelming.

I have been posting to Twitter still so check there for my latest updates and I'll try to get back into a schedule here as soon as I can.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Untitled

I apologize for slacking on the Hoover Movie Crew posts. Between work and school starting next week this has been a very busy week! The posts will return shortly!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Free Streaming Music Online From Jango

I know that I have a new internet addiction every day but I have to rave about this one. Since I've had to wait till I came home to check it out and have only played with it for about an hour there is not much to review but I am already loving Jango. The first "Wow" moment came while I was editing the usual social profile information prevalent in every Web 2.0 application out there. As I updated my profile, chose different options, and basically clicked through the site the music never stopped. I know that's nothing jaw dropping but it was so slick I just relized it. In fact I don't think I would have taken the time to write this up had I not figured it out.

Jango offers your ususal profile options and the ability to network with your fellow online socialites. But what I love is the music is front and center with this site. I built a playlist of my favorite artists and started playing tracks right away. I really liked this over Last.fm where it seemed like I had to play music offline before it figured out what I like. Also, since this computer is the house hub for music, a lot of the music is not mine. So now Last.fm thinks I love hard core gansta rap and every girly country song out there. Trust me when I say Gretchen Wilson is not my favorite performer. But you wouldn't know it from Last.fm. With Jango I build the playlist's I want and the artists they recommended pretty much were the mainstream bands I love. I'm not much of an indie listener (that is slowly changing, however) so I don't know if your tastes are outside of the norm, but modern rock was well represented.

I think Jango needs to maybe offer an offline player and continue to expand the music selection. Even lacking these features this might just be my favorite online music player. Just added there cool jukebox to my Blogger blog!

UPDATE: Further research has shown that this has been out since late last year so I may be late to the party but I found Jango through this TechCrunch article and the unlimited beta updates are available there:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/01/beta-invites-for-social-music-site-jango/

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Hulu

I have been telling family and friends about this service for a while now but apparently they are not in the loop. Or maybe it is because I really do have no life. Whatever the case I have been performing an unofficial and financially imposed experiment where I don't watch TV. I know that's been done and probably for the same reason (like most starving college kids we can't pay the bill for another week) but I am going to see if I can survive off of online content only because that bill always gets paid...that and food. I am, for the same reason, doing my online content on the cheap, or in the case of Hulu.com, free! Now this experiment will probably last until I get to the upcoming payday, but I may not go back to watching TV.

Granted this is not for everyone. There is a small but growing catalog of films including documentaries, action flicks, drama, comedies, and more available on Hulu. The TV content on Hulu, if recent, is usually a day or several behind live broadcasts on the actual tube. For me that is no big deal. The only show I try to catch every week is Burn Notice and it comes on Hulu the day after airing so I have no qualms. For me the best part of Hulu is catching up on TV. After getting out of the Navy I realized that there was a pop culture hole in my life the corresponded to the four years I spent sailing the seven seas as I cruised around Hulu discovering all kinds of thing's I've missed like Hero's season two (I am going to go back and buy season one when I get paid!) and Firefly, which I saw the movie but never watched the series and The Dresden Files which I never saw before but loved!

Speaking of Firefly, Hulu made a big splash in the whole digital streaming content marketing sceam scean (say that five times fast) with Joss Whedon who created Firefly, Buffy, and Angel, recently released Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog to the masses via Hulu only. There is a version available to purchase online on iTunes and you can still stream it on Hulu but the show which was originally launched as three acts was broadcast online only. There was no TV or movie or strait to DVD option here. The low budget, under an hour musical romantic comedy has generated some huge buzz and is extremely entertaining...especially if you want to see NPH sing! That's right, Neil Patrick Harris (a.k.a Doogie Howser, M.D., the blog father who is available to watch on Hulu) stars as Dr. Horrible. It's a pretty great gig and Whedon's strategy is great. Random people like me bable on endlessly about how this is the wave of the future.

And I really think this is where we are headed. Verizon is pushing out more and more fiber optic cable to more people and AT&T is doing something similar. These connections will actually increase a connection almost ten fold and still have room for live TV streaming simultaneously. Pretty impressive. So jump on the wave and watch something for free...or at least add based. It's a pretty small price to pay to sit through a couple 30 second adds to watch Pitch Black or Battlestar Galactica for free!

How To Add Star Ratings to your Blogger Blog -- Blogger Buster

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Latest Discoveries Around the Interwebs

I was using HelloTXT to update my status. I don't want to bash HelloTXT, but now I see why there was a whole lot more buzz around Ping.fm on the all glorious interwebs. HelloTXT offers you the ability to update multiple "micro-blogging" and social sites around the web such as Twitter, Plurk, Pownce, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, Facebook, Myspace, and more. Ping.fm does the same thing. HelloTXT allows you to update your status from a Jabber/Google Talk client, email, and SMS (unless you are with Verizon...) and supposedly integrates with Facebook as an app. I haven't witnessed a working Facebook app, then again, Facebook keeps changing their mind on how apps are supposed to work so who knows.

What sets Ping.fm ahead is that it allows you to do all of this (except SMS as far as I can tel but is easily overcomed by texting the email address they provide you with) as well as set up groups based on your mico-blogging, status updates, and blogging preferences. If you are reading this post then it was sent via Ping.fm (UPDATE: and cleaned up later in Blogger). The best part is it will post this to not only my Blogger account where I do most of my posting, but my Myspace blog will also update. I have a group set up for my status updates so those quick "I'm eating pizza" updates are sent only to those services I choose and the more deep but brief messages to to the micro-blogging services I prefer. On top of these features you can update from more IM clients (Gtalk, Yahoo, Messenger, and AIM) and they have a iGoogle gadget and Facebook application. I didn't have the time to play with the Facebook app but it look functioning which is better the HelloTXT and I will give it a longer try and send a dent with my thoughts. Facebook's new interface is rolling out today and Facebook isn't responding to my clicks. There is also the option to send in not only text but pictures which is hosted on Ping.fm.

It looks like a great start and it's still on beta so I expect a whole lot more features to trickle out. This is going to be my new one stop shop for all my quick updates and maybe even take over for my blog posts. I would love to have more options when posting to blogs. So far it looks like it's standard text and a title only but one can hope a more full featured blog editor will roll out soon.

UPDATE: I think I will wait until a better Blog editor is out as I am not only have to clean up my horrible grammer but also add links, pictures, and any other rich media by editing the post outside of Ping.fm.

My other discovery today that has been clogging my Gmail account has been ProBlogger's Darren Rowse experiment that has really put a boost on my social interactions out there. I want to shout out to all those who have subscribed to my various social spots and look forward to the discussions! Thanks for the adds. If I didn't add back don't be offended, I either got a bad vibe and already hate you or haven't got around to it and if you haven't, follow the link and check it out.

One last thing I would like to post is a question for the comments as I want to know if my comments are working and that question is this: Is anyone using Hulu.com? I love it and have become obsessed and I know there are many more out there and I wanted to know what your thoughts and opinions were about it. Have you used it? If not, why? If so, what are your impressions?

Brian
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com
http://ping.fm/lZTxw

Thursday, July 17, 2008

How To Add Star Ratings to your Blogger Blog -- Blogger Buster

Thanks to the amazing blog, Blogger Buster by Amanda, I now have star ratings under every post. I had to manually copy and paste the code into my Blogger template.

Go ahead, rate away and be sure to check out Blogger Buster!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The best Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux analogy EVER!

Ever tried to explain one operating system to another? Well now you have the best analogy ever:

From VistaNews - Vista vs. Leopard vs. Linux: "Using a Mac is like living in a downtown penthouse. You have everything done for you and it all looks very slick, but you pay a high price. You have a doorman to pamper you and somebody else takes care of the maintenance, but you can't make a lot of changes to the property.
Using Windows is like living in the suburbs. You get more square footage for your dollar but you have to mow your own lawn and when something goes wrong, you have to fix it yourself or pay someone extra to do it. You can make changes to your property but you might have to deal with deed restrictions or city ordinances or homeowner association rules.
Using Linux is like living out in the country. Compared to the other options, property is dirt cheap and you can do whatever you want to it without having to follow codes and get inspections. But you'll probably have to do a lot more of the work yourself and you need a lot of building expertise or else you may get yourself into big trouble and find your house falling down all around you because you didn't do it correctly."

Now get out there and pick your property!

http://www.flickchart.com

Flickchart makes me angry...at myself

My begging worked!

My beta invite was quickly accepted after some (slightly) subtle pleading on FriendFeed. After that Flickchart effectively took over my day after I set up my account! I went about pouring through the site and found one thing was the common denominator. This site made me angry. I was angry that I had to choose if Return of the Jedi was better than The Green Mile. How could you ask me such a thing (Return of the Jedi won)? Plus the taunting above each movie poster? Too much to bear. I must love the punishment, though, as I couldn't stop rating films.

Flickchart displays two films for you to choose between. You can click on either movie poster to choose one or select "Haven't seen it" to be presented another film from their large database of flicks. If you don't quite remember the film you can click "Watch Trailer" and see a clip if there is a trailer available. Each time you rate something the chosen flick shows up on the right hand side with a link to buy it on Amazon (just in case you don't already have the Indian Jones trilogy) and the left hand side shows your current Top Twenty All Time Films. Any films you select "Haven't seen it" also shows up on the right hand side, again with a link to Amazon for your capitalistic pleasure. If you need to take a break from rating movies, you can start discussing some of the mash-ups in the 'Discuss' section. There is where you can debate out once and for all who would kicks more ass: Captain Kirk or Luke Skywalker (Luke...duh, he has the Force!).

There is the customary basic profile editing features and tucked away in the settings section is the ability for you to have "Seen a movie" or basically put it back into the queue for it to be rated by you.

I did have a couple times when I rated a movie and I would get a...Fail Whale but a much better one about a 1908 Russian Space Impact and I only got it twice. The only other basic surfing complaint is it can be slow sometimes. I was on a T3 and the load times between movie selections was taking an above average amount of time. May have been a momentary problem as at home on DSL it was much snappier. It could have been the ad-blocker as well...not sure. Feature additions that might be nice (I've already asked for some of these and will get around to asking for the rest latter) is a "Neither" button that would allow you to not like either movie displayed. This is just a convenience thing, but I can dream. The ability to post a HTML snippet on my MySpace page (in the films section) or on my blog would be great to let my friends know what I like and I could check out what they are into as well. This could help out the "viralness" the the site as well; see also Facebook app and FriendFeed integration.

I don't know what these guys have planned to make money off of this project but my guess (or recommendation) might be that they talk to MovieTickets.com or Fandango and let you but upcoming movie tickets for the new releases. I could also see them doing merchandise and other things to promote films or even tie in with Hulu or Joost to actually watch full length films or clips of your favorites. Netflix integration is on the way according to ReadWriteWeb. I think this site has a whole lot of potential and am excited to see what the future brings for them.

Oh...and if I don't post back here for a while you know I'm over there rating movies!

Flickchart

ReadWriteWeb's Take

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/flickchart_your_list_of_best_m.php

Found originally via Coffee and Celluloid

http://coffeeandcelluloid.com/2008/07/14/flickchart-finding-the-best-movies/#

Brian

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Flickchart - Hot or Not of Movies

I haven't had the opportunity to use it but this looks like a very interesting concept. Flickchart lets you very simply rate your favorite and not-so-favorite movies by letting you choose between which two movies is the best. It then develops a list of your top favorite movies and lets you discuss your favorites with friends.

Now if they would give me an invite to the beta I could give them a better glowing review...hint...hint...

Flickchart
http://www.flickchart.com

Coffee & Celluloid
http://coffeeandcelluloid.com/2008/07/14/flickchart-finding-the-best-movies/#

Brian's Latest - Now Mobile by Mofuse

I thought it might be too good to be true but I tried it out and it is not just good, but great! Mofuse dropped the fee for the Pro version of their hosting site and is offering mobile website hosting for everyone for free! Not only that but all you have to do is punch in your web address or RSS feed address and presto, you get your own website for your iPhone or other mobile web capable device. Brian's Latest Mobile is my mobile site which I am still in the process of fixing up. Mofuse imports your feeds and, in the case of using a blog, displays the top feeds as your content. You can also customize the content, add HTML, change the design and colors, upload logos, and more!

Mofuse offers the ability to use your own custom domain name so, for example, visiting http://m.braincase.biz might take you to the mobile version of the BrainCase website (it doesn't...yet) as well as tracking and monitoring, and the ability to monetize your sites mobile web experience.

I am going to keep messing with it for my personal blog and see about rolling it out for the company site if it is promising. Until then, check it out...I think this is going to be huge!

Heads up from Mashable.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Great weekend! And Hellboy 2 Was Good, Too!

I really had a great birthday weekend! Thanks to Stu and Co for letting us crash the party! My wife and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. Thanks to all those who showed for Hellboy 2. It was great seeing everyone. I liked the movie even though it was rather slow at times. The movie has some very flashy visuals that are absolutely amazing. The troll market scenes reminded me of the first time I watched Star Wars as a kid on VHS (that part where they are in the cantina with all the aliens sipping mojito's) and how it really sucked me into the film. They could have edited out a couple parts that seemed to drag out the film but there were also some gem moments as well. I especially loved when two heart struck hero's had a drunken karioki bit. Absolutely hilarious. The action was very well done. The main bad guy really had some moves. Elves must have been some kung fu masters back in the day.All in all a great time.--Brianhttp://bmbufalo.blogspot.com

Friday, July 11, 2008

This is a test

I have just tried to setup Intense Debate, a replacement for Blogger's commenting system. Hope it works well. Disqus, you tried but I haven't seen any response on when you will find a fix. Hopefully soon. Until then...it's Intense Debate.

Update:

Intense Debate worked wonderfully! It integrated with my blog perfectly! The only thing it took me a second to realize is that the commenting system only shows up in individual posts not on the front page. Maybe Disqus did work after all? It doesn't matter because Intense Debate allows for you to sign up using OpenID and that was the winning ticket! Excellent software!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Birthday this Saturday

This Saturday is my birthday and we are going to see Hellboy 2 at the Rave at Patton Creek! Come and hang out. Afterward is up in the air at this point (really what bar to go to) but it should be a lot of fun. We will meet about 4pm outside the Rave.Hit Call Me or send me a IM or email for more information.See you there!--Brianhttp://bmbufalo.blogspot.com

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

New DNS Vulnerability To Watch Out For

Be aware there is a DNS vulnerability out that can really compromise your personal information.

The official release can be found here:
http://securosis.com/2008/07/08/dan-kaminsky-discovers-fundamental-issue-in-dns-massive-multivendor-patch-released/

For something that is a bit more user friendly to understand explains it:

just like Web sites being cached by your browser, DNS (Domains
resolving to specific IP addresses) is also cached. From this
vunerability, these "Caching Name Servers" can be easily hacked and
from there, you could have people on, say an entire ISP, going to
whatever site you wanted to. Think phishing, but on a MUCH larger
scale. - Tim Hoeck

Or get a great explanation of how DNS works (and can be evil and good) here:
http://www.scribkin.com/2008/06/13/my-isp-is-a-dns-sellout/

A tool to check your DNS from Dan who found the vulnerability is hosted at:
http://doxpara.com/

And if you use OpenDNS (like I started to a month ago, thanks J. Phil at skribkin) you should not have been affected:
http://blog.opendns.com/2008/07/08/opendns-proven-to-be-the-most-secure-dns/

Thanks to tsudohnimh who started the word on Friend Feed!
http://www.knowthenetwork.com/blog/?p=701

Brian

Monday, July 7, 2008

Welcome Patrick!

This news is a bit dated now but I wanted to welcome Chris Brown's newest addition to his family into the world. Congratulations!

Chris: Thought I'd show you what we've been up to over this way. Stephen is holding Patrick Seth Brown, born 20 Jun 08. 7 lbs, 8 ozs. 20.0" long. Mother and son doing well.

Brian

Sunday, July 6, 2008

July 12th Movie Night and Birthday

Anyone is invited to the celebration of my 25th birthday on July 12th. We will be seeing Hellboy 2 and the time is still TBD. Check back here for times!

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Trailer)

Hope to see everyone there!

http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

Convert MP3's to WMA's on a Mac For Free

Something I found today that is a first (that I have been able to find) for the Mac. I spent a good while hunting down a MP3 to WMA converter for Mac. I know it's pretty obscure but my Verizon phone would only recognize WMA files and I'm cheap. Visit youconvertit.com and try it out. It let's you upload a file and convert it to whatever format you select. I haven't demoed if anyone else needs to convert audio (or a whole bunch more) check it out!

Thanks to makeuseof.com for the initial find and write up.

Brian
http://bmbufalo.blogspot.com

Some cheap entertainment

I didn't even have to wait for a package to come in. This made me so happy today at work.

http://youtube.com/v/xP1NVnLY_vU

The Day The Earth Stood Still [2008] - OFFICIAL TRAILER (HD)

I am looking forward to this one!

I Met The Walrus

http://youtube.com/v/jmR0V6s3NKk

Absolutely something everyone needs to watch and heed. Good stuff from John Lennon.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Remote log in

The fact is most of us get board at work. I know I do. The firewall at my place of employment is especially restrictive. So to get around those pesky moments where it blocks a Microsoft forum as an "Adult Website" while researching why the servers are crashing, I turn to my home PC. I know it's not green but my PC at home stay's on all the time. I have it running multiple things (torrents, media server, DVD ripper) and I can't bear for it to be offline and unreachable. I started out forwarding my VNC ports and logging in using that protocol and I still do from time to time. But I got worried that there was no encryption for VNC and I was doing banking and other sensitive things using it.

So I signed up for a LogMeIn account and haven't looked back since. LogMeIn (LMI) is on every computer I own now. It is so effective at providing me with a home remote log in for my Mac's and PC's that is safe and secure and completely done through my web browser. If you need something more advanced they have a paid version but the basic membership is free.

Now from work I can check any website I need to (except YouTube, I don't get any sound) and I find myself offloading a lot of tasks off of my work computer to home when it get's bogged down (I have the fourth best machine in the company and it is still less than two gig's of RAM and slower than hell).

Give it a try.

logmein.com

bmbufalo [at] gmail [dot] com

Friday, July 4, 2008

I want you PepsiStuff

I am a freebie lover. Those who know me know this...if it's free, it's me! So I am asking the interwebs: Send me your PepsiStuff! Every time you drink a Pepsi, keep the cap and email me the code. It will only take a second and you will be supporting a poor veteran living the American dream on this Fourth of July!

Thanks in advance.

July 12th Birthday/Movie Night Special Announcement

I am happy to announce that the July 12th movie night corresponds with my birthday this year! Because of this I feel the need to choose the movie night movie! Come celebrate my quarter-century mark at the Rave Motion Picture's at Patton Creek. Stay tuned for the time but expect a early showing. I hope the rest of the day will be spent drunk. Can't wait to see everyone and have a happy Fourth of July!

Technorati Tags: special announcement, birthday, movie night

Thursday, July 3, 2008

So short a lifespan...Identi.ca's already having growning pains

That title sound's negative but the open source Twitter is already seeing the famed Fail Whales. Identi.ca was all the rage on yesterdays tech blogs claiming to be the Twitter killer. Today brings about timeouts and error messges.In there defense according the there feed on FriendFeed:

I mean goodness, folks. it's open source version 0.4.1 identi.ca and @evan have both been up for nearly 24 hours with something like 3x the number of users expected in the first week. They're doing what looks like a planned or at least anticipated server change. The transparency is amazing. I think the IM stayed up through the change, but there have been DNS propagation issues. Login cookies might not work for a while. - exador23

When you visit the site at http://www.identi.ca it redirects you to http://hewitt.controlezvous.ca. Registering accounts fail (sometimes and attempting to use OpenID errors out. So the growing pains begin. I really hope this service pans out and fixes what we all dislike about Twitter. I knew I should have signed up for an account yesterday!

--Brianhttp://bmbufalo.blogspot.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Nothing to see here, move along

I have imported all the blog entries from Hoover Movie Crew's Blog. It is looking like the move over will be much less painful than I thought. I don't know if this is in the regular Blogger but in Blogger in Draft you can export and import blog posts in the settings. Excellent feature! Makes life simple.

There should be more improvements as the next few day's pass. I'll get this thing straight eventually.

I love tinkering.

UPDATE: I am sorry about the double entries in the RSS feeds.