cpuhack

Insane Amount of Grey Market Music

// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Media, Music

The SXSW Music Festival starts in about a week, but you can hear it now. The torrents available following the link contain 1,038 songs (5.6GB). If you’re wondering why I would call this “Grey Market Music”, it’s due to the distributing parties not being the official content owners. However, the SXSW 2010 web site is streaming the songs in MP3 format (128kbps) via their publicly available Shoutcast server, 24/7 and gratis.

In English, this is like recording the radio and sharing it with your friends. No harm, no foul, so enjoy!

Click here to visit the SXSW 2010 (Unofficial) torrent site…

Chrysler legal is a bunch of dicks

// February 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cars, Sign of the times

One of my high school alma maters (for the record, I went to three high schools in total) is being harassed by Chrysler over the symbol of the ram (animal).

Read the absurd story here…

DVD Movies – Pirate vs. Legit Customer

// February 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Sign of the times

Click the pic for a better view

Is Windows Home Server any good?

// February 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Computers, Server, Windows

Simple answer, Yes.

Why? Windows Home Server (WHS) has a pretty strong value proposition. Over the past holiday season (particularly December 2009 ), HP MediaSmart Servers were available for $199 (USD). That’s a complete computer system to store your files, and do some amazing things…

Remote computer and file access
Automatic backup of computers on your network
Third-party add-ons (free) to enable web serving capabilities, BitTorrent client, and more
Place to run MagicJack without being bothered
…only limited by your imagination

How? If you want more performance than a nettop-style HP MediaSmart server, you can do that too. My own WHS is made of spare parts leftover from upgrades to other computers, but still far outclasses the HP MediaSmart servers. If you go the DIY route, target your hardware to the Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) platform. SBS 2003 (Small Business Server) is at the core of WHS. I gather this is just for the limitations of SBS, as you won’t find Exchange 2003 hiding anywhere.

Where? If you want an HP MediaSmart server, I’d keep an eye on dealnews.com. For the DIYer, an OEM license of WHS is available for about $100 (USD) from newegg.com.

MIT For Free

// February 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Learning, Science

If you’re the type of person that likes to soak up knowledge, then this is for you. MIT offers course materials online at no cost (you don’t earn college credits either) through their OpenCourseWare program. At 1900+ courses (and growing), the breadth of course material is astounding.