Since the Apple TV is running MacOS X, it is possible to install arbitrary codecs and have it play. To my knowledge however, it will only identify .mov, .mp4, and .m4v as playable (and you can’t load .avi or .wmv into iTunes anyway, so no sync of those files to it). The first portion of this is for advanced people only, but I imagine a cottage industry will arise for Apple TV box mods.

For the past two weeks I’ve been researching on how to convert DVD subtitles to MPEG-4 TTXT (Timed Text) using both Macintosh and Linux tools, and arrived at a curious realization when reading various HOWTO’s on the Linux side of things. The interesting thing about most of them is that they advocate the use of .ogg or .mkv containers. For those of you who don’t know, a ‘container’ is the file format that stores the video sound and text components of a movie.

For everyone making a legitimate backup copy of your purchased DVD content, cough cough, I have a suggestion. I see a lot of people using DVDShrink or DVD2OneX (under Windows and MacOS respectively) to shrink dual layer DVD’s to the easier-to-find 4.7GB variety. Invariably they select the entire content of the DVD and shrink it, causing a quality reduction ranging from 40 to 70%. Figure out what you’re going to use the single-layer copy for.

How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever. - David B. Norris

I read an article today about a bittorrent client which casually mentioned this: On regular swarms, it performs about the same as any other client. But it also opens 500 simultaneous connections (compared to the Mainline client’s default 80) so it hoses your router almost instantly. Which speaks to a long-term annoyance of mine. Why are consumer routers from D-Link, NetGear and Linksys so poor? The Internet runs on real protocols that have real requirements, and the average consumer is only stifled by a router that can only hold up under casual web browsing and e-mail checking.

For those keeping up with the news, December 30, 2006 should be a day that lives in infamy. On this day a chain of events was completed which seals the United States, the largest and most powerful nation in the world today as an International outlaw state. Let’s review. In 2003 this outlaw state invaded Iraq under the pretext of exigent circumstances - that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the means to create them.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Bell Canada has a long history of dominance in telecommunications, and rightly so. It has until now been the sole owner of a communications infrastructure that can deliver voice communications between local people and the remote corners of the world.

Truth, like a modest little flower in the wilderness of life, is surrounded and almost choked by the luxuriant growth of the weeds of error. If you would find it you must be ever on the lookout. If you would see its beauty you must brush aside the weeds of error and the brambles of bigotry. If you would possess it you must stoop to get it. Be not content with one flower of truth.

Parallels has released an amazing update to their virtual machine software ‘Parallels Workstation for Mac’. To me, the single most notable new feature is called ‘Coherency’, which causes Windows applications to run right alongside Macintosh programs in windowed mode. No more dedicated desktop window for the Windows OS. This mirrors the functionality of Classic, a technology Apple employed to enable MacOS X to run legacy applications right alongside their OS X apps.

I hate ringtones. Sing-song sounds coming out of people’s pockets is not my idea of amusement - a phone ringing is jarring enough, but it’s magnified a thousand-fold when one is forced to listen to 45 seconds of sprightly latino music blaring as loud as a little 1" speaker can possibly blast it before the phone’s owner wakes up and takes the call. However! Some custom ringtones actually sound like a phone ringing.