After running the ZNC IRC Bouncer for about four months now I am pleased to say this is the easiest, and most stable IRC bouncer I have used to date. I have had many people ask so I thought I would write up a simple blog post on some tips, tricks and features of ZNC.

If you do not already have ZNC install please follow the installation guide on the ZNC wiki at http://znc.in. This wiki contains almost everything you need to know. I highly recommend you read the wiki. It is well worth it. Don’t worry windows fans there is a Windows version for you

One of the best things about ZNC is that it can buffer conversations in channels and play them back next time you connect. If you are like me this feature can have it’s up’s and down’s. I am connected to three IRC networks and close to 70 channels. If ZNC were to use it’s default buffering/playback settings my clients would scream for help when I connect. Don’t worry a simple command in the ZNC status window will solve all that.

/msg *status setbuffer <#channel> <linecount>

If this looks like gibberish let me explain. /msg *status will send a msg to the ZNC status module. Setbuffer is the tells the status module you want to set a new buffer for…. you guessed it <#channel> lastly <linecount> is the number of lines you would like ZNC to buffer and play back to you on connect (default is 50 lines). Mess around with these settings to make them just right. The smaller the buffer the quicker your clients will connect.

So by now if you have read the wiki you are wondering what modules you should load and setup. Well mostly this is up to you. However I have made a list of the most common and useful along with a few any iPhone user must have.

awaynick – Allows ZNC to change your nick name when the last client disconnects from the ZNC server.
chansaver – Join a channel and ZNC will remember it and join you to that channel each time your client connects.
kickrejoin – Simple enough rejoins a channel when you are kicked. Be warned this script does not take into account if you have been banned. If ZNC ever gets stuck in an endless loop trying to join a channel just type /part <#channel> in the ZNC status window to remove the channel from chansaver.
nickserv – Authenticates your nickname with nickserv.
Prowl – Allows ZNC to send messages to Prowl for the iPhone when you get highlighted or PM’ed.
Colloquy – Sends Push notifications to the Colloquy application when you get highlighted or PM’ed.

That really about sums it up. If you do have anymore questions about ZNC or having trouble with the initial setup leave a comment or join our live chat.

As many of you might know I work for a large electronics retailer. While at work on Tuesday I was pleasantly surprised by a Microsoft rep. entering the store and talking about Windows 7. This (from my perspective) was unheard of and the service desk and computer sales associates were very impressed, myself included. The rep. came in told us about some of the key features of Windows 7 and talked to us about ExpertZone a way for retail employees to take a few simple courses and get a free copy of windows 7 before it’s launch.

I could go on about the details but that is not really want I wanted to discuss. What is more that obvious is that Microsoft is becoming aware that the happier you make the people selling your product the better you are in the long run. To better explain this lets take a blast to the past.

During the month’s before the Windows Vista launch I knew very little about Vista. We were given very little training materials and did not even get a computer to demonstrate the product until a week before it’s launch. This made it very difficult to not only explain the features of Vista it made Microsoft out as the bag guy right from the start.

My point is that we did not like it because we knew little about it and in turn would quickly agree with any customer or fellow employee that said the almost famous term “Vista Sucks”.

I do commend Microsoft for taking the time to realize that the people at the bottom of the food chain, the sales associates, can change the outcome of the product and that training is key when releasing something new. I hope Microsoft continues this approach to all it’s future releases. With Windows 7 being the great OS that it is and Microsoft playing their cards right they might just be back in the game of OS wars.

Comments? Questions? I would love to hear them.

I have decided to give you a very interesting post for the day. You might be asking wtf is this guy talking about? A business paradox?

Let me explain. Say you own a small business and your business sells ties. Say that across the street a larger tie selling business pops up and is offering ties at a cheaper rate and is more innovative at selling ties. You might think how the hell am I going to compete with this larger and more powerful tie company?

You could always copy the ideas of the larger tie company and offer similar if not identical services but then you risk getting ridiculed and called a “copier”. Not to mention the inevitable lawsuit that would follow for “copying” ideas.

The best solution would be to think up new and improved ideas, right? This would require thinking outside the box and what some think would be countless hours of time formulating innovation. Honestly you would end up thinking to hard and spending all that time for nothing. Trust me I have been down this road and it does not end well.

So what if I said you could beat out your competition just by stealing? Now before you go off and call the popo. I am not talking about stealing ties from your competition. I am talking about stealing ideas. This does not mean you need to go all Mission Impossible. It means stop thinking about how other tie companies are beating you and think about how other companies not in direct competition with you are doing their business.

In this example lets use a a fictional company called Buy Club. The Buy Club stores give shoppers memberships that allow them to exclusively shop their stores and get discounted prices. Why could you not just steal the membership idea for your business and offer something innovative your competitors don’t? Thus solving the Business Paradox

I strongly feel that most people try so hard to find out what “thinking outside the box” means and not really thinking outside the box. I am sure if you look at some of the most innovative ideas in business you can narrow the origin of said ideas to many companies across many fields. Overall thinking outside the box is more literal then we might think. Think outside your own market and steal ideas from other markets. In the end making you the innovator by not constricting your ideas to one field.

Thoughts, ideas? Leave a comment!

What the hell is Snow Leopard? I keep hearing that it’s just a service pack or not worth the $29 dollars and more recently I have been hearing that Microsoft is laughing at it’s imperfections. Hey Microsoft take a quick look at Windows 7 because it is far from perfect.

However this does not answer the question. Is Snow Leopard a big deal for all the Mac fanboys and fangirls or is it just some elaborate scheme to exploit money from the population to gain revenue and profit. Let’s admit Apple has been down some bumpy roads lately. Just look at the app store’s developer relations and you can see just a few potholes at 1 infinite loop.

I see no reason why Snow Leopard could not have been a free upgrade. Some even say the feature enhancements could have been delivered via software updates and the processes simplified by spanning it over a few months. I am sure that some would argue and say “Well the core architecture has changed and thus well worth the twenty-nine dollar upgrade.

Lets get serious! We are still far from perfecting the 64-bit model and even further from utilizing it’s full potential. When would a consumer ever need to allocate 2 exabytes of memory. As I see it this is the only real upgrade to Snow Leopard as most other upgrades were already offered via hacking or cracking Leopard or using 3rd party software.

Overall I see this as a pathetic attempt to either 1) Represent that they are still ahead of Microsoft by releasing an incremental upgrade before the launch of Windows 7. 2) Add long wanted features to a seemingly identical Operating System to gain a fair amount of profit (Five Million Copies * $29.99 = $66 million in revenue). Regardless I am highly disappointed in Snow Leopard and expected more from Apple.

If you are still debating on getting the upgrade. I would hold off until the 3rd party developers make better use of the 64-bit model and unleash the full power of Grand Central Dispatch.

Agree? Disagree? Leave your comments.

Geekologist.net has always been a very interesting project for me. I have learned many things about social networking, blogging, and connecting. So far with Geekologist I have been doing everything in my power to gain site hits and improve the overall “view” of the site in hopes to “strike it rich”. What I have learned is that you just can’t have a great looking site and a great content to become overwhelmingly popular.

My new approach is going to be more laid back and direct. I am going to post what I enjoy or cool things I find online that I would like to share. I am calling this venture Technobabble.

The site will still retain all it’s original posts and comments. I just feel it is about time I start just making content and stop thinking about “what is good”, “what is bad”, “what will get me the most hits”. In the end thinking like that just takes the fun out of it.

Today Google made a rather large, and ambitious, announcement. They announced a little thing called Google Chrome OS . All uncreative name choices aside, this seems to be the fabled Google OS. According to everything we know right now, Chrome OS will be targeted at the Netbook audience, an ever popular trend in the Personal Computer arena.

Here are a few facts you might want to know from the post.

• A lightweight OS targeted at Netbooks.
• Slated for product release in the second half of 2010.
• Designed to work on x86 and ARM processors.
• Built on a Linux Kernal. (Quoted from the blog, “Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.”)
• Open Source.

One thing I noticed is it did say Open Source, so I’m assuming it’ll be free. I mean most, if not all, of what Google does is free, however considering this is an entire operating system, you never know how it’ll go. Also, although they did say it was targeted to Netbooks, they did in fact mention full blown desktop setups and such. So, with that said, we have to wonder how capable this system is meant to be. Will it just be watered down for Netbooks, or will it be lightweight but capable for everything?

This also brings up the question of Microsoft’s, and to a lesser extent Apple’s, response to the whole situation. Linux was pretty much killed as an OS for the Netbooks when Microsoft announced it would extend the life of Windows XP. And with Windows 7 just around the corner, I’m sure Microsoft thought it had the Netbook market wrapped up. Of course they’ll probably just pull the “We have a very capable, well built, Operating System with loads of software already made for it.” but that may not be enough. Of course, Apple has denounced Netbook’s in general, so it’ll be no surprise if they don’t care in the least. If anything they may support it, as it would certainly hurt their competitor.

Of course, details are few and far between on this new OS, considering it was just announced hours ago. However as time progresses we should start seeing what the folks at Google have to offer in an operating system.

Thanks,
Oliver (lockerhaxor)

Today when logging into my Apple Developer account I noticed a nice little surprise. A new iPhone OS beta was available for download via Apple Developer connection. I have yet to download the beta considering many people are having issues with the network connectivity and such however I did want to point out some interesting modifications in the new firmware.

After reading the Developer Forums it seems as if apple has re-enabled the MMS feature but currently MMS is not working. I still believe AT&T needs to enable the MMS feature on their end but it does seem that MMS will be enabled when the iPhone OS 3.1 is publicly released.

For all you iPhone 3GS users it seems you get a great new feature to go along with the your excellent video recorder (Can you tell I have not upgraded yet?) Apple has added the ability to copy video clips in the editor. I am still unsure where we can paste the clips but I think it will be used mainly to allow us to “splice” two video clips together.

Smaller changes include:

• Modem firmware upgrade bringing the carrier software version from 4.0 to 4.2.
• Adding feature to when the phone is put into “move mode” (when you can move apps) the device vibrates.
• Fixed issue with Voice Command and Bluetooth.
• Phone Keypad now allows you to copy and paste.

Most issues with the beta seem to be with the network connectivity and the iPod app. Some users are stating that the iPod app will not even open. As of now I am going to stay away from the 3.1 beta OS until said issues are resolved and I strongly suggest anyone considering updating to the beta do the same. I will keep you posted when I get more news.

Got questions or your own comments? Leave them below!

The Podium Revolution! The only desktop stand for your iPhone/iPod Touch you will ever need. Alright, sorry for the infomercial type intro but the Podium Revolution is one of the best iPhone/iPod Touch stand on the market. The stand itself comes in both white and silver both built with perfection in mind. A great finish for a great iPhone/iPod Touch Stand.

The Podium Revolution is great for just about anything you can do on your iPhone. Everything from turning your iPhone into a digital alarm clock while you are in bed. To helping you become more organized at your desk. I have noticed myself using the stand to help me keep track of daily tasks and events. Using to turn my iPhone into a digital calendar that updates automatically. If money were no object I would buy an iPod Touch and this stand just for iCal but that is a story for another day.

I highly recommend anyone interested in a great iPhone stand to click the animated image above. Overall the Podium Revolution is a great stand and great choice for anyone looking for an iPhone stand.

Updated way to enable tethering:

Simple! Just go to this website on your phone.  http://help.benm.at/help.php

1. Click on mobileconfigs.
2. Select your Country.
3. Select your carrier.
4. It will ask you if you want to install.
5. Click install.
6. Enjoy your tethering via Settings > General > Network > Internet Tethering

Old way to enable tethering:

iPhone 3.0 is live! So I am going to repost the tethering tutorial. Now there is no need to download anything (aside from the carrier file). Seems you can just run a little command in terminal (Make sure you are on OS 3.0 on a 3G iPhone and iTunes 8.2):

So open up terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

After that, the steps become a lot more simple.

1. Download this file (for AT&T) and mount the disk image (thanks Gizmodo) for other carriers, try here.

2. Option-click on “restore” in your iTunes with your iPhone attached. Browse to the opened disk image file and hit OK. It will update phone settings for a few seconds.

3. You have tethering. Now go into your iPhone/settings/general/network/Internet Tethering and turn it on.

Boom – 3 steps to tethering…

As a side note is highly recommended that you not use this as your primary internet service. Please if anything try to stay under 5GB’s of transfer per month to avoid service termination.

This post is long overdue but I am excited to be getting the opportunity to review the Xpad4Laptop’s and share my opinions

First and foremost this product does exactly what it needs to do. When using the Xpad4Laptop’s it was able to keep my HP DDv2700 series laptop up to ten degrees cooler than just sitting it on the desk.

One of the great things about this cooling pads is that it does not have any fans. It’s design is sound and allow the air to flow in and out of the laptop more naturally or how the laptop was designed.

When comparing the Xpad to other more complex cooling pads the Xpad not only out performed but also provided a more stable pad for the laptop to sit on. (Compared to the rocketfish fan cooled system.)

Overall I think this is an excellent product and recommend it to anyone looking to get a fan-less cooling pad.

As a side note I put the Xpad under my mac mini just to see and to my surprise it was able to keep the mac mini right around six degrees cooler.

P.S – View review coming soon!