The Raging Tech

VideoJug How-To: Avoid Trapped Arm Whilst Cuddling

VideoJug offers a wealth of information and How-Tos in video format on almost any subject. As they say, if they don’t have it, you don’t need to know how to do it.

I first learned about VideoJug from Thrillist Nation, an e-mail newsletter I subscribe to (via Thrillist.com), and this one seems particularly useful for anyone who may at some time or another, cuddle up next to a significant other.

How To Avoid Trapped Arm Whilst Cuddling In Bed

Emmersive Sci-Fi Podcast “The Leviathan Chronicles”

The audio book has long been a literary tradition pretty much since the first years of audio recording. When radio became widespread, serial-format shows were often broadcast in the evenings after most American families had finished dinner and were settling down.

Now, we listen to broadcasts in all sorts of ways: iPods, streaming audio, the radio, satellite radio, or via a subscription online such as a podcast (which can in turn be played on an iPod or in iTunes or another audio player).

The serial-format radio drama still exists today! A neat one I recently discovered called “The Leviathan Chronicles” is divided up into chapters, available as episodes of a podcast online.

From what I can tell from the first chapter, it appears to be about a Chinese and an American sub that wind up in the same trench at the same time. An accidental firing sets off some sort of an energy pulse below the surface of the ocean. A year later, a government agent is called in to investigate what happened, because the signal from under the ocean was answered… from space.

So far, the presentation is pretty engaging. The background audio sounds like the ocean up against the outside of a sub wall, so you feel like you’re actually listening in inside a submarine. Also, instead of just a straight read-through, there are actors reading the lines of the characters, and a sexy female British voice reading the narration.

Bye Bye, DRM - Hello Manageable Music!

Since the legitimate sales of digital music downloads began, record labels and recording artists have been looking for ways to protect their intellectual (ha, if you can call it that) property. Copyright law alone was not enough to enforce rights protection, so before many would let their music be sold online, they required a system to prevent copying and distribution.

That’s where Digital Rights Management (or DRM) came in to play. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA) was passed in the United States, making the circumvention of any digital or electronic system designed to prevent copy or distribution of works illegal and prosecutable with huge fines. These DRM systems qualified under the DMCA, and that made the RIAA and MPAA very, very happy.

Unfortunately, there was no standard on DRM, and so each online retailer of digital media invented their own proprietary system. This lead to issues with media not being accessible on all PC platforms, mobile devices, or other arguably Fair Use methods of enjoying your purchased content.

As a result, more people turned to illegally downloading content to get higher-quality, DRM-free media that could be played (or at least converted to play) virtually anywhere. Also, the delivery times from Peer2Peer networks was faster, and often lead to movies and music being leaked before their official release.

From a marketing perspective, what was the community at large saying about how it wanted its media? Free is obviously nice, but people know free either means advertising or lack of legality. Some labels and artists and film studios started to realize that customers want media fast, in high-quality, early releases, and they want to be able to enjoy that media on anything that will play it.

iTunes led the way towards the DRM-Free movement with higher-quality iTunes Plus music unencumbered by DRM or other restrictions. They have by no means released the entire iTunes Store in this format, but offer many artists already. Amazon followed up next by making their entire store DRM-Free mp3 format downloads. And just recently, Rhapsody joined the pack by offering DRM-Free downloads on a per-track basis.

Also, Verizon Wireless is jumping on the bandwagon by partnering with Rhapsody, and will soon allow VCast customers to download music from Rhapsody DRM-Free, by way of a $15 / month subscription for the music rental, or a per-track purchase just as you would from Rhapsody’s program on the PC.

Will DRM-Free music turn more “pirates” into legitimate customers? Will you purchase music, video, etc. that you’ve previously downloaded from Peer2Peer networks? What devices do you use to play your media besides your computer? Let me know in the comments.

-The Raging Tech

Network Solutions offers PerformanceClicks

If you’re easily confused by terms like CPM, PPC, keyword purchasing, SEO, and the like, you’re probably not quite ready to manage your own internet marketing campaign. If you’re a small business or website operator, or even a large corporation, you’ll want someone helping you put your business out there for people to find, both in search engines and on web sites.

When you need performance advertising, you want to pay for your results. This can happen in one of two ways: you either pay someone to show your advertisement in “Bill Board Mode” where you pay every time it’s shown, or some systems are a pay per click program.

Network Solutions, the company most people know for their domain name registrar services, is promoting their PerformanceClicks program. This is perfect for people who don’t have time to manage their own keyword and internet search engine marketing. They can customize an AdWords or Yahoo campaign, or both, and get your business in local and global search results.

With enough information about you and your business, they can customize a marketing solution to drive only the targeted customers you want to your website or business. Why throw advertising dollars away on a hit-or-miss guessing game when you can have experts efficiently target your ads and write effective copy for you?

You can choose either a full-featured custom plan for around $400 a month, or if you’re on a tighter budget, there are several pre-packaged starter plans for around $125 a month. Hiring a full-time internet marketing agent or a firm to do this for you would cost you almost that much an hour, instead of per month.

Plus, you can order up customized landing pages, which means whatever topic your ad was on is what page your visitors will land on, making it easier to turn clicks into sales. And ultimately, sales, or ROI (Return-on-Investment) is what it’s all about.

The Raging Tech on “Nom”

For those of you not familiar with the term “Nom” - it basically is an onomatopoeia (a word that represents a sound) to describe the noise one might make when scarfing down a delicious treat.

For example: “Hey Jimmy, this cupcake is delicious… NOM NOM NOM NOM.”

The “Nom” also carries with it a connotation of enjoyment, delight, and ferocity in consumption of the treat in question.

You may have heard the expression “I love you like a fat kid loves cake.” If this expression has validity, it is likely that if you give a fat kid cake, you will hear him make the “nom nom nom” sound. If you don’t believe me, give me some chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate chips inside. I will “nom” the heck out of that cake.

more cat pictures

DepositNow! Online Check Deposits

A relatively new service called DepositNow! (they’ve been around since 2004) allows small business owners, eBay power sellers, online retailers, and other people who might need to deposit a lot of checks, scan their checks and deposit them online from a normal computer.

This technology has often turned people off, because previously when you purchased a check scanner, that’s all it could do: scan checks. DepositNow! has developed their own check scanner that’s about half the price of other check scanners (about $225 USD) and can be used as a regular scanner as well.

Unfortunately, depositing checks online is only available to customers who bank in the United States. However, this could be a really useful service to anyone who has to daily make bank runs to deposit checks, especially in light of the recent rise in gas prices. The savings on gas almost make this scanner pay for itself after a month or two!

Think not only about the money you’ll save, but the time: instead of wasting time running to the bank before opening your store, you could be done in less time without leaving the office, and tend to other things that might need more attention. Or maybe just use the time to sit and have a cup of coffee and relax!

Visit DepositNow to sign up for online check depositing, use promo code “THE RAGING TECH” and you’ll receive $25 off the price of the scanner. That’ll also get me $25 if you become their customer, which will help me put gas in my car!

James McAvoy & Ron Perlman in New Hobbit Movie

Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson’s latest incarnation of The Hobbit is still in the planning stages, and rumors abound about who and what will be involved.

Del Toro was recently quoted as saying he wants Hellboy actor Ron Perlman in the film, possibly as Smaug, although he says he also has ‘other plans’ in store for the actor. It’s also been mentioned that they may be recruiting tiny actor James McAvoy in the role of Bilbo Baggins.

Actors Ian McKellan and Andy Sirkis will bring back their roles from the recent Lord of the Rings trilogy of films.