I want the Woot BOC

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Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at the Plearn Thai Restaurant.

What's that Mark? Did you say Bag o' Crap? You still couldn't get one? Mark describes something called a woot-off, and tells all about what happens near the end of one of them. What does "MUD" stand for? Hmm.. Mark's friend has a hard disk issue that SpinRite fixed. The Android phone was released to a crowd of people in SF, but the experience was less than its competitor's waiting line. Mark and Wes discuss potential software for Android, and the T-Mobile plan for the G1 phone, which doesn't seem that much different than the iPhone AT&T plan.

Sites of Interest:

• Woot, and their occasional Bag of Crap.
  
  
• WNO's Listener Pull for the week: Sparrow, who is a developer of the popular Nirvana MUD internet adventure game.
  
  
• What does "M.U.D." stand for?  Wikipedia claims that Wes and Mark are both right.
  
  
• ChaCha.com: where any question gets answered, and YOU can make money helping to answer them.
  
  
• SpinRite is probably the best hard drive data recover software solution available.
  
  
• The first Android phone was released by T-Mobile.  See the rate plans as part of this FAQ.
  
  
• Android has an app store kind of like the iPhone, but more open.
  
  
•  Android has a "kill switch" so google can remotely remove an app from your phone. 
  
  
• AT&T has a data-only iPhone plan, but only for people who have a hearing or speaking disability.
  
  
• Scotch Tape can generate X-Rays; watch the detailed video.
  
  
• Do you remember Word Perfect?
  
  
• Mark changed his mind and now remembers Wordtech Systems of Orinda California began by making keyboard stickers for WordStar, not Word Perfect.
  
  
• Call Wes' cell from an unblocked land line, and MetroPCS will show your name as well as your number.
  
  
• Joost will now run within your web browser, and legally streams TV Shows and Video.
  
  
• Hulu is another legal service for streaming commercial video.
  
  
• Mark owns one of these Curta Calculators.  It was widely used in car rallies, and here are detailed instructions from 1979.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• Theriminator - An emulator of one of the first electronic synthesizers, the Theremin.
  
  
• Mark mentioned that synthesizer pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre designed these speakers for the iPod.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

• The Brightkite web service now has an iPhone app.
  
  
• WinterBoard - Theme your jail-broken iTouch/iPhone. 
  
  
• Crazy Skeleton - the ultimate Halloween costume accessory!
  
  
• Debugger - Peer into the circuitry of your iPhone and get rid of any bugs.

Where does the cheese go?

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Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Chow Restaurant.

Tonight we find our two nerdy friends eating food at a small hidden away place underneath a heat lamp eating simple Italian meals. Mark doesn't get the joke on Melissa's myspace profile and goes on to describe the official definition of a 'myspace picture', and what it means to not understand camera usage. Mark speaks about perspective, and how the process of catching flying balls is, in reality, an easy algorithm. Microsoft is no longer supporting their old Spot Watch paging in the next version of MSN Messenger. Mark describes what bubble memory is and how time was involved. 4.13% of the HTML passes WC3 Validation? Also, what do Mark and Wes think of this new restaurant?

Sites of Interest:

• What causes GSM cellphone noise?
  
  
• WNO's Listener Pull for the week:  Melissa.
  
  
• Simple algorithm for how people and dogs can catch balls and frisbees.
  
  
• MSN is phasing out the ability to send pages to Spot watches.
  
  
• The IBM 5100 Portable Computer (Project Mercury)
  
  
• What Google searches looked like in 2001.
  
  
• If you dig a hole straight down, where will you come out?  Probably not China.
  
  
• The Grid Compass 1101 - Bubble Memory Laptop.
  
  
• Bubble memory never caught on.
  
  
• Early computer memory devices worked by wasting time.
  
  
• In Mark's first job, he had one of these amazing Wang calculators on his desk.  He can't find any references right now, but remembers it used an acoustic delay line memory.
  
  
• Opera study on W3C standards compliance.
  
  
• Internet Explorer 8 will be standards compliant.
  
  
• Flock 2 Browser adds social networking features.
  
  
• Mark and Wes use Digsby to handle all their instant messaging needs.
  
  
• Voipcheap and Poivy let you call landlines and cellphones around the world often for free, or a lot cheaper than Skype.
  
  
• How to store data so people hundreds of years from now can read it.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• iDrink - the iTouch application to stir up your drink palette.

Mark's stupid iPhone Applications of the week:

• Using these you can even impress the harmonica-playing bus boy at Hometown Buffet!  iBeer, iMunchies, Harmonica.

I'm Loopt for Android

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Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Restaurant.

Mark and Wes console each other about their stock market losses. In our fantasy, our podcast is better than KenRadio. Use your phone to display membership cards? Of course you can, so long as the bar code is visible and the facility approves. What tools were available in the old days of computer game programming? Take for instance the Atari 2600? Woz used the 6502 processor for the Apple II, and used it because of the manufacturer handing out free processors at some conference he went to. Steve Jobs and Woz created Breakout for Atari. At what point in history were KeyPunch Operators highest in demand? Could YOU live off of unemployment? T-Mobile reports high numbers of pre-orders for the G1 Android Phone. Digsby is really one guy?

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

• KenRadio is one of the podcasts that inspired us to start our own.
  
  
• Scan membership cards and keep their images in your phone, instead of filling up your wallet.
  
  
• The MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor chip was the heart of the Kim-1, Commodore 64, Apple II, etc. Commodore later bought the chip manufacturer.
  
  
• Punch card computing with wire plugboard programming for tabulating and reporting functions.
  
  
• Keypunch machines.
  
  
• Magnetic drum memory, and how real programmers wrote code for early machines with drums as their only memory.
  
  
• Mark loves the FileTracer shareware program and has used it for years, but there is no Vista version.
  

• The "Everything" free program does basically the same function as FileTracer, but it does support Vista so Mark is happy again.
  
  
• The GoPhone unlimited data plans are being dropped. GoPhone sim cards will work in cellular modem cards and devices used with notebook computers.
  

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• WikiMe - Automatically displays GeoLocated Wikipedia articles for landmarks near you. This is perfect for traveling to strange cities and immediately seeing the tourist attractions around you.
  

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

• Loopt lets you see where your friends are on a map, and shows pictures and brief descriptions of other Loops users near you who opt in to that service.
  
• WhosHere is similar, but only for the function of showing other users near you.
  

Stanfords Restaurant & Bar

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Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at Stanfords Restaurant and Bar.

Wes meets Wes, at Stanfords, where he and Mark discover what a 'butter burger' is. Mark discusses how to train a Cat by using a clicking device combined with treats and warm fuzzies. Apple drops the developer NDA for applications created for the iPhone, but what does this really mean? Wes complains the the Sarah Connor Chronicles will end of life soon, but then nothing good lasts forever. Mark bought the domain name RapKids.com for Wes' recording program in Byron County, and much of the music used on the WNO PodCast comes from his work with 360. If you followed Mark's advice and jailbroke your iPhone or iTouch, he has a slight warning for you, and describes what you must do NOW to protect your iPhone if it gets 'bricked'.

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

• The good lord willing and the crick don't rise.
  
  
• The cat training revolution.
  
  
• Apple drops the iPhone SDK NDA, possibly because of the controversy over the Podcaster app.
  
  
• Google offers a blog search engine that not only lets you search blogs, but automatically shows what stories are active right now in blogs around the world.
  
  
• Google has an experimental audio search engine where you type in keywords, and it will show portions of videos that contain those words in the audio track.
  
  
• Wes likes the Sarah Conner Chronicles.
  
  
• Myspace Music Recording Deals.
  
  
• Watch the video about the amazing future Plastic Logic Reader.
  
  
• Duke Nukem gets released for Xbox 360.
  
  
• The original Adventure game, and you can play it online or on your computer.
  
  
• The only other video game Marked ever liked was The Prisoner for Apple II.
  
  
• Z-machine interpreter for Infocom games.
  
  
• Nintendo releases DSI in Japan; comes to us next year?
  
  
• Mark's new external battery for charging an iPhone/iPod on the go.
  
  
• Warning for people who jailbroke your iPhone/iTouch: read this article and keep it handy because you might need it in case your iPhone becomes "bricked". BUT RIGHT NOW, BEFORE YOU GET BRICKED, you must set up the OpenSSH facility, or you won't be able to do what that article says. For Windows users, install the Putty program on your PC to talk to the OpenSSH connection.
  
  
• TwiddleBit makes Microsoft Project-like apps for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones.
  
  
• Leo Laporte is already using "Munchcast" as the name for a podcast, but they don't actually record from a restaurant so it isn't the same as our slurpcast.
  
  
• But Mark wins because he owns shitcast.com! (This will re-direct to slurpcast.)
  

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• iBlueSky - Mind Mapping Tool

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

• Backgrounder (for jailbreaked devices only; install with Cydia). Mark has been using this since the podcast was recorded and he finds that it only keeps the background apps running for a while. At some point, when the OS needs memory, you will find that the app may stop running in the background. This doesn't cause any harm; it just isn't as great as we expected.
  
  
• BeejiveIM - Instant Messaging Anywhere. Kind of expensive; Palringo does most of the same functions for free. But Beejive is worth it because it keeps IM sessions open for 24 hours when you exit the app. (Note that the settings for Beejive and many other apps appear in the iPhone's Settings app; you will not find them inside the Beejive program itself.)