Underground Media: Reloaded

The browser wars are in full swing again, and Firefox (the current media darling) better watch out! Google's new browser, Chrome, is bringin the HEAT! Small footprint, fast, and intuitive, but thus far, no Linux version. And that's a dealbreaker for me. Until recently... Chrome's underlying architecture is called Chromium, and it's open source. So while Google has been dragging it's feet and appeasing the Windows masses, the Chromium team has been hard at work developing a Linux version of the browser. It's in pre-alpha right now, so a lot of it is still non-functional. And they don't want people to blog about it yet, so I will not provide a link. But the current Linux version is very fast and stable, although there are no functional plugins like Flash. Watch this space for news!

It just hit me today as I was updating my Facebook page. My boss (actually, my boss's boss) requested Facebook friendship. Hmmm, this could be tricky. Ordinarily I am okay some work-life/personal-life convergence in the online world. Many of my employees and peers are Facebook friends, but this would be the first time that someone I *reported to* would have that level of access. Switching into paranoia-mode, I gave my profile a hard look through the eyes of an employer. Starting with my profile pic, I ended up spending the better part of an hour scrubbing my entire profile by untagging pictures, re-wording descriptions, and resetting some of my privacy settings. Did you know that unless you adjust them, Facebook defaults to a fairly loose set of privacy settings? And those settings allow Facebook to pipeline some interesting information out to internet search engines. For instance, I did a simple Google search of my full name. In the first page of results, I found a link to...

In my never-ending quest for the perfect media center app for my HTPC, I have been using the three best available for Linux today. The mighty and reliable MythTV, the stealthy and below-the-radar Elisa, and the wildly popular yet volatile Boxee. Here's my setup: I'm currently using an Acer Aspire 5610 laptop (about 2 years old with the standard Intel graphics, 2 GB of RAM, HDA audio, VGA-out), 42" Insignia LCD HDTV, Yamaha receiver w/ 5.1 surround, and a Microsoft Media Center Edition remote control. Here's what I need: A one-stop solution that will let me watch Hulu, watch TV and movies saved on my harddrive, listen to music saved on my harddrive, listen to internet radio, and browse photos saved online and on my harddrive. Here's my experience so far: MythTV has been my most reliable solution. For over three years it has been THE default Linux media center. (Although it's been around for seven years, it really began life as a TV capture and DVR applicatio...