Ever hear great music but never find anything similar, or are you just trying to find new music? There is a great site that actually analyzes music for certain qualities and rebroadcasts new, similar music. It's called PANDORA. Check it out!

There is a new Windows exploit afoot, and it affects people on fully patched versions of Windows XP. It works by masquerading in a WMF file, and when viewed it will open a door to lots of nasty malicious stuff.

So, the moral of the story is...

BIG HUGE WARNING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ARTICLE:

iPods are expensive. The methods below involve modification of the firmware on the iPod, so you could very well "brick" your iPod. If you are careful and pay attention to the fact that this only works easily on v1-3 iPods and you need to use a different method for v4 and the minis, you should be fine, but you need to be more experienced with this sort of hacking, so be careful. Just don't let the power go out while you try this.

Everyone wants a video iPod because it natively support playing videos on the go...but even with this modern technological marvel there is still some annoying conversion that is necessary to make it play videos without copyright protections and all that nasty stuff.

Luckily for us, there is a way to play video, on non-video iPods, and with some work it is very possible. Keep in mind it will obviously work better on a newer iPod with a color screen, but with this added advantage it is necessary to go through some extra work to get iPod Linux installed correctly. You can find this guide later in the article.

In order to accomplish this, we will use a program called iPod Linux, which can be downloaded from here: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ipodlinuxinst/ipodlinux-installer-1.2.1.zip?download

IMPORTANT:

This method only works on iPods version 1-3, but for the fourth generation and the minis you need some extra steps. They can be found here: http://ipodlinux.org/4G_Installer You NEED to be a little experienced for this process, it is not very newbie friendly.

Before you execute the installer, turn your iPod on and make sure it says "Do not disconnect", which is also known as disk mode.

Run the installer, and you should choose the original Apple firmware to boot by default. This means that when you turn your iPod on, it will look normal, but when you hold the rewind button while the iPod is booting, you will be able to boot into the iPod Linux operating system for the iPod, which will give you video playback capabilities.

Continue to install the software to the iPod by following the installer.

Once successfully installed on either your V1-3 or v4 iPod or mini, you can now use a program called MoPiD to convert and transfer video to your iPod. http://joeyjwc.x3fusion.com/sp/win/mopid/index.html

Now all it takes is an input video file, a transcode and a transfer of the converted video to your iPod, and you can watch video in grayscale. If you have a v4, you can watch in color, which is well worth the extra work r acquired to get Linux on those 'pods.

CREDIT:

• The iPod Linux project, for making the operating system bootable on the iPod
• Author of MoPiD, for making video convertable for the iPod
• All the contributers to the iPod Linux wiki, and the writers of the tutorial to install the system
  

Everyone has lots of internet connections around their house, and frequently these connections are wireless. Most of the time, it is possible simply to either have a laptop with WiFi or a PC with WiFi and connect to open networks with the Windows built-in WiFi client. Cheap, free, and easy wireless internet.

Sometimes people are smart and they like to secure their internet, and when this happens we have to use some toolz.

When people secure their internet using WEP (which stands for something long, it doesn't matter), they set a key with which all the people who want to connect need to input into their client software (which is most often Windows). If you have the key, you can connect, if not you cannot.

WEP is, however, very insecure. Using AirSnort anyone can obtain the WEP key of a network, and thus obtain access to it. Keep in mind you must have a supported card to do this, check the site for more information.

Of course, this is really mean to do to someone. This is probably most useful for people who have forgotten their WEP key, because it is not like the average joe computer user is going to know how to hack a WEP network.

But we do.

To start, you must have AirSnort installed correctly. Since it is a native Linux program, they developers never really targeted it towards newbies, so to install it you have to jump through some hoops. A really good guide on getting the program running in the first place is here: http://airsnort.shmoo.com/win_setup.html

After you have it all installed and running, simply leave it running in the background. It will capture and analyze network traffic, and eventually you will have a WEP key. If the particular network has lots of traffic, you will likely have a key in a short amount of time but if it is a light traffic network you will need to stimulate traffic or leave your computer on for a much longer amount of time.

Stimulating traffic is weird and probably not worth the time required to make it work. It is recomended to try another network if this does not work.

Hopefully you can get a connection, and eventually test out the potential of WiFi.

CREDIT:

• Authors of AirSnort, for making it possible to crack WEP keys using their network analyzation tool.
  

Awhile back a company called Nullsoft released an incredible MP3 player named Winamp. It functioned as the typical MP3 player, just like iTunes. Later on they added something called Shoutcast, which was basically a way to listen/broadcast music online.

Today there are thousands of online stations, and most of them broadcast at the quality you would expect from a well encoded MP3 or CD.

To start listening, first download Winamp from Winamp.com and install it.

In the latest version, there is a little feature called Media Library, which includes access to the thousands of currently broadcasting Shoutcast stations. Just double click on one to start listening, for free, to high quality music.

You can also broadcast using Shoutcast, but it requires a good upload speed as well as the ability to secure the server using a firewall. It is also illegal to broadcast copywrited music without a license, but privately no one will know. We will post a guide to this later on.

CREDIT:

• The Nullsoft development team for creating a system by which to broadcast and listen to high quality, 100% free internet radio.
• The broadcasters on Shoutcast, which spend thousands of dollars a year to obtain licenses to broadcast commerical free, high quality music 24x7
  

For those of you using Google sattelite views, you may want to consider trying out Microsoft's new service, named Live Local.

I'll cut the crap: it basically has very detailed aerial shots of places in the US, specifically named "Bird's Eye Views", and it beats the you-know-what out of Google's service.

Check it out at local.live.com

CREDIT:

• Sorry Linux guys, but the programmers at Microsoft deserve credit for buying really expensive sattelite pictures to crush Google Earth.
  

I don't know about most people, but I think AIM (AOL Instant Messager) sucks. It is really, really crappy for a program that just sends text messages to people. But, as we all know, it is the most popular, so to not use it would be isolation from the rest of society. Here are a few problems with the program and a way to make it cool. Really cool.


Probably the biggest problem with AIM is that it has extremely annoying ads on the top of the buddy list. NO ONE FREAKIN' CARES ABOUT TRUE LOVE ONLINE! You could probably talk about how bad AIM is for years, but instead we will make AIM cool, and without much of a hassle.




















To make AIM cool we will use a program called DeadAIM. This program is made by a guy named JDennis, and was free for awhile, but he decided to make it a pay program and eventually required some kind of subscription fee or something. If you want to buy the newest version, check out jdennis.net, however we have a better alternative. Oldversion.com hosts an older but suitable version of DeadAIM for free.

To make this version of DeadAIM work properly, however, you need exactly AIM version 5.2.3292. You can also pull this off of Oldversion.

First uninstall your crappy current version of AIM, install 5.2.3292, and then install DeadAIM. You now have an ad-free version of AIM, complete with logging capability and probably most significant tabbed IMing.

For those of you that want something totally away from the crap AOL puts together, GAIM is probably your best choice. GAIM has all the capability of regular AIM, but with a better UI (user interface) and the added benefit of being open source, which simply means any problem you experience will probably be fixed very quickly, or at least answered by a community member. GAIM does have its issues however; it does not support certain fonts and that song your buddy wants to send you through (insert idiotic AIM feature here) probably will not work. Which is for the best anyways since it's probably a virus that got onto the buddy's computer through America's favorite messaging service.

CREDIT:

• Author of DeadAim, JDennis, for creating a program that nukes AIM's ridiculous annoyances
• Hosts of Oldversion.com
• Creators of GAIM, which is a great IM, especially in the latest beta
  

Everyone has heard of an emulator at one point or another, but a lot of people are still clueless as to the potential of these great pieces of software.

Today we have lots of great options for playing N64 games. My favorite is a program called Project64, which can be downloaded from here: www.pj64.net

Once you have this great piece of software downloaded, proceed to install it.

At this point you have an N64, but no games. To get the games, first make sure you legally own them. I'm serious, the feds armed with Gamecube assault Wavebirds are going to storm your house if you don't legally own these games.

With that covered, use Google to search something along the lines of N64 rawms, except spelled correctly. You will find certain sites with these rawms, which you can download and play at incredible FPS and have better graphics than an N64.

Controls may be an issue for you; in this case simply get a gamepad or follow the XBOX controller tutorial on this site.

CREDIT:

• Authors of PJ64, who basically had to build a software version of the N64 from scratch.
• Nintendo developers, who make the great games that we once loved back in the 90's.
  

Most PC gamepads are crap. Lets face it: no matter how hard gamepad manufacturers try, they won't be able to match a good old console gamepad. Fortunately for us, there are a few adapters for PS2 and Gamecube, but these require money to buy. And we all know newbs don't have any money, so I reccomend the following method to use your XBOX controller, for less than $4, to play PC games with a gamepad.

Here is a BIG warning to you all that might be uuber newbs: the XBOX controller uses USB. USB carries a charge to devices that you hook up to it, like iPods and PSPs. This means that you must be very careful to not cross any wires during the construction of this cable, because if you do you may get some smoke; in other words your PC usb chips will be fried, your XBOX controller will be dead, and your computer might melt down. Like a nuclear reactor. Not really, but just be careful.

To start, buy this stuff:

This is an XBOX extension cable. You can usually buy a nice long one used at Gamestop for $3. That's really cheap.











This is a regular USB cable. You can find these for super cheap at any major computer store. All you need in the male head, which is the rectangular one that would plug into your computer.






Alright, now that you have all the stuff let's get down to business.

Take each cable and cut it in half, so that you make the best use of your hard spent $5. Take the XBOX female side, and strip the outer layer off. There is lots of nasty wire thread here, just rip it all off. All you need to see are 5 wires on the inside, and they are all colored.

On the USB side, strip the outside off in the same way as the XBOX side until you have 4 colored wires showing. Make sure you have a female xbox stripped cable and a male USB stripped cable in your hands at this point.

Now, join like colors from each cable. On the XBOX side, disregard the yellow wire as it is simply for Microsoft to control your brain. Not really but it sounds like a nice conspiracy theory.

Okay, after the wires are twisted together, carefully tape everything up and make sure nothing touches (remember the warning?).

Now plug it into your PC. As long as no smoke comes out, you are cool and you can procede to the next step.

Download a program called XBCD from here: http://www.redcl0ud.com/xbcd.html

After you install it, you should be able to test your controller out, and then set up each button to a specific function.

In your games, you can now use the controller just like another gamepad.

Keep in mind that FPS games suck with controllers because their engines don't natively support them, so don't try to own others newbs on Counter-Strike with one of these.

CREDIT:

• Authors of XBCD for making the XBOX gamepad useful on the computer
• The devs who made the original XBOX controller