The Student Nerds Blog

I was wondering when the fabled WiMax was going to launch.  For those of you who don’t know what WiMax is, it is essentially Wi-Fi (or High Speed Internet) everywhere you go.  Similar to a cell phone connection, except at a much higher speed.  I’m not surprised Comcast is the first to roll this out.  They are the evil monopoly that clinches Chicago, and makes outrageous profits I’m sure.  They will be rolling this service out to Chicago hopefully by the end of 2009.  I don’t think for the suspected $30 extra dollars on top of our triple play this would even entice me at all.  I have a Blackberry that I can tether. Not to mention I leave Chicago more than I am here.  This service serves no purpose for me.  Let us know if you are excited about WiMax at all?

I signed up for a Google Voice invite about 3 or 4 months ago when they first announced the service. On Friday Google announced that they would be sending out those invites to people who have signed up. I constantly checked my email on Friday hoping I would get my invite. Well, it’s Monday and still no invite.  Why do I want Google Voice so bad? Watch the following video and you can also read about Voice’s features here . Google, please send me the invite and also enable Number Portability. Now. Thanks.

In honor of Michael Jackson’s passing I’m going to start today’s blog post with a video of one of his best moonwalks.  Have a good weekend and listen to the King of Pop this weekend. Click here if you can't view this video Links: Giant Cowboys Stadium LED wall caught playing Xbox 360 during downtime Google Docs Backup Software Become a Gmail Ninja Awesome Internet thing: Bill Murray does Carl Spackler Soccer in South Africa Giant Wraparound Screen Shows Air Traffic in Real-Time Five things missing from the iPhone 3GS Google City Tours Google Account Recovery via SMS HTC Hero Android Phone Hands-On (With Video) Google Voice Invites Going Out to Reservations List This iPhone is Freakin' Hilarious

There is an interesting site out there now that lets you sign up for free.  Its Alice.com .  It’s a personal shopping site that lets you sign up and have all of your necessary shopping be done by someone else.  It pulls all of your monthly or weekly usages together.   So you can see how much money you are spending on certain  things like cereal.  They claim to have the lowest prices on the market, and allow you to use coupons.  This site is very similar to Amazon.com where you can sign up for reoccurring purchases on things like paper towels and toilet paper.  But you can also have your body wash, razors, coffee, etc ordered and delivered to your house for free.  This is very similar to Mint.com with your finances but this is for your normal daily use products.  Let us know if you sign up its worth it, because its free!

I’ve been thinking about this lawsuit involving the RIAA and Jammie Thomas-Rasset.  She was ordered to pay $80,000 per song that she downloaded or $1.92 million dollars.  $1.92 million for 24 songs? This is absurd and luckily I’m not the only one who thinks so.  I’ve been reading many articles on the topic and there seems to be some hope for this woman.  This ruling could actually be unconstitutional according to this PC World article. The constitution has rules against “grossly excessive” punitive damages and I think most people would agree that $80,000 per song is grossly excessive.  There have even been some music artists that have been critical of the RIAA and Moby has even said the RIAA should be disbanded. The music industry is really in a bad situation with this. They are punishing their customers and there have even been studies that say people who download music illegally end up buying more music . They will eventually come around but th...

Happy Friday! Enjoy the weekend. Here are the links: Woman Hit With $1.92 Million Fine in RIAA Case Should AT&T be allowed to be the iPhone's exclusive carrier? Huawei's E583X wireless modem turns 3G to WiFi, beautiful lights Best Recipe Organizer? Google Voice’s Secret Weapon: Number Portability Watch Streaming TV with StreamTorrent The Story of the Beatles in Two Minutes We Are Hunted - The Online Music Chart TweetTabs: Realtime Twitter Trends Obama Announces Plans To Run For McCain's Senate Seat In 2010 iPhone 3.0 Update: 10 Hidden Features iPhone 3G S or Palm Pre?

If you are using Mozilla Firefox it’s likely because someone Nerdy like myself or Praz has told you to.  But you may not know why exactly you are using Firefox over Internet Explorer.  The big difference between the two is the customizing that you can do with Firefox.  There are themes, add-ons, or extensions.  Most people browsing the web  with Firefox are not using any of these and it’s a shame.  I am here to try and make it as simple as possible to jump in and make the web browsing experience much more fulfilling.  I want to focus on add-on’s and extensions.  The problem with the add-on’s to date is that their are so many and its hard to figure out which ones are actually useful.  Now the Student Nerds have created a collection so you can use the same ones we do. To see the addons that we recommend you can visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/studentnerds

We’re going to start a new feature for the blog where we will rewrite posts about awesome websites, programs or tips that we use on a daily basis. Today’s repost is about Dropbox . Our original post on Dropbox can be found here . I recently shared some files with a friend of mine and he asked me how I was able to quickly share the files with him without using email. I couldn’t use email because the file was too big so I used Dropbox. I figured I should write another post about Dropbox because I think everyone should be using it (if only to backup your important files). Let me first explain what Dropbox ’s primary feature is. Dropbox will backup your files to their servers quickly and easily.  You can then install Dropbox on any of your computers and Dropbox program will keep the folder in sync on all of those computers.  I use Dropbox in a few different ways. Here’s what I do with it: Download torrent files to start downloads remotely. Here is a guide on ...

Here is some of the coolest stuff for the week. Check it out and have a good weekend. Star Wars: The Old Republic E3 09: Jedi vs Sith Cinematic Platforms Extreme Makeover: The Email Inbox Edition How to Transfer Your iTunes Library to a New Computer in Five Minutes Apple invites iPhone devs to test AIM/push notification Amazon Kindle DX unboxing and hands-on! Palm Pre runs Doom, smartphone-loving space marines rejoice Video: Archos 9 pctablet resistive touchscreen impresses Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread Jason Jones Visits the NY Times (And Mocks them very well)

I installed the newest version of the iPhone OS (operating system) a couple of days ago and I’ve been very happy with it.  There are a few topics that make this upgrade worthwhile and I’ll talk a little bit about each one.  These are in no particular order. Universal Search – The iPhone now has Spotlight search which allows you to quickly find music, movies, contacts, calendar events, applications, emails and more. You can access the search by swiping to the left on the home screen or hitting the home button while on the home screen. Very useful. Horizontal Typing – They have finally enabled you to use the wide keyboard with the iPhone in the Mail, Messages and Notes applications. This should have been in the very first iteration of the iPhone but as they say, better late than never. Copy & Paste – Another feature that should have been available at launch. I’ve already used this feature a lot and I can’t believe it didn’t have it before. ...

If you are a picture freak with your DSLR, iPhone, or Digital Video camera, I recommend you checking out a site I found on Lifehacker .  Fotopedia is a  FREE website where you can follow your friends albums and geotag your pictures with the location the picture was taken.  It’s a very cool site depending on your obsession with photography.  I am in the process of looking for a DSLR that will fit my lifestyle, and this site will be my favorite for those very things. I enjoy traveling and want a camera to document the places, but I also want to remember where I took each picture.  I am going to make a prediction that geotagged photos will be the wave of the future, and I bet the new iPhone 3G S is going to have the built in ability to do this.  I think much of what Fotopedia is doing might be copied and done better by Facebook considering they are leading photo site on the web.  However, Facebook will need to step up their game with some new features ...

I’ve been out of town for the past few days so today’s post is some of the stuff that I have missed while I was gone. There was also a new iPhone announced yesterday that I will not be upgrading to. There are a few reasons for this. One, the price is too high to justify and I don’t think the new features will be worth the upgrade.  I also read an interesting article about how AT&T might lose their agreement with Apple next year and that is also when my contract with AT&T would be up. I have had AT&T (or Cingular) for nearly 10 years. I’ve seen how their service has buckled since the iPhone has been out and their service is just getting worse. I would have no problem switching companies if the iPhone came out.  Any of you upgrading or have any thoughts on that? Here are the links: 4 Really Popular Prank Call Websites & How They Work Lifehacker Pack 2009: Our List of Essential Free Windows Downloads 3 Web Apps For Staying On Top Of The Music Scene...

I’m going to share a couple tips that the Student Nerds use to make their lives easier. I had both my sister and my new wife get mad at me for not making them aware of a financial management website that makes checking all your credit cards, bank accounts,  or any financial institution extremely easy (Even though we did have a post about it here ). You can pay bills and it will constantly update balances, and send emails when your credit card bills are due etc.  They have gotten a lot of recognition because of the Wall St Journal and NY Times.  The company is Mint.com   and if you haven’t been over there yet you should make your way.  It is safe and secure so you don’t have to worry about that.  The second useful tip is for all the free music listening you can handle. Go over to imeem.com and sign up so you can listen to all the songs free of charge.   They also have an iTouch/iPhone app that is out of this world.   It’s similar...

I came back from my honeymoon and being away from the internet for a week was like not dusting your apartment for months. It became overwhelming.  I had piles of emails for work and personal and I felt like I had been away from my blackberry for years. I had forgot how to type and had gotten left behind with all the exciting tech news as well.   However, the one thing I have been able to sift through and pick out as one of the coolest things yet would be Microsoft’s Project Natal.  If you thought the Nintendo Wii was cool with its magic wand then this Microsoft project will blow your mind.  It is based on voice recognition and movement recognition.  It interacts with you as if it were another human being.  It’s a very cool technology but border line psychotic because soon all the very anti-social people out there will have no need to leave their house at all now. But I am still getting excited for this new project, for this could change the way...

Tonight will be Hulu ’s first attempt to do a live simulcast of a concert.  They decided to broadcast a Dave Matthews Band show the night before their new album is released.  The show starts at 9pm ET and you can watch at Hulu or you can watch it right here on StudentNerds.com. I must say that I was very skeptical of Hulu when it was first announced.  I thought Youtube was going to win out, but after Disney’s investment and the release of the Hulu Desktop software I think Hulu is going to hit a grand slam for the media companies.  They are doing a much better job than the music industry. Thoughts?