Que es?
The Weblog of Brett Singer. Bringing the world what it needs most - a blog.

Note: Sorry about all of the 'hot deals' entries (someone referred to this blog as CorporateShill.com).
The deals and things are being fed into Multineedia.com. We will soon move the deals category over to Multineedia so you don't have to read it, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

eBay to MS Passport - Sayonara
eBay to Retire Microsoft Passport Sign In and .NET Alerts: it doesn't say why exactly, although I think that Passport didn't catch on the way Microsoft wanted it to. The idea that a company that is involved in as many lawsuits as MS is having access to all of your passwords and accounts never sounded like a good idea to me.

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SysInternals Freeware
From Kev, a whole bunch of Windows utilities. Not screensavers and crappy games, but actual useful things.

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What's inside an RPM file?

This file popped up on SingingFish.com (yes, I was searching for Rush videos to post to Webjay, partly to torment Lucas). What's interesting is the .rpm file, which contains a long list of .rm and .ram files, along with comments about each one.

The first few lines:

# Rush videos
#
# URLs, including filenames, are CASE SENSITIVE.
# 2112.net Apache server makes all filenames lower case, and appends long filenames to 8 characters.
#
# Play will be random, except the first file will always play first
# All are encoded at 90Kbps (Real "112K Dual ISDN" setting) unless otherwise noted
# Files are indexed in the following 5 categories:
# Rush TV station identification(s)
# Very high bandwidth videos
# 90 Kbps Performance Videos
# Miscellaneous 90 Kbps Rush-related videos
# Lower bandwidth videos
# 30 files, 84.5 MB total

# Rush TV station identification
http://www.2112.net/vertigo/rtvecho.jpg


# Very high bandwidth videos

# "Spirit of Radio" live, handheld amateur video, Fresno 2/8/94, 5:03, 8.19 MB, 225 Kbps (180.8 Kbps video + 44.1 Kbps audio)(Real "256 Kbps DSL/Cable" setting)
http://www.2112.net/vertigo/rushhbtv/spirit.rm


# 90 Kbps Performance Videos

# "A Farewell To Kings" (4.0mb) 90Kbps
http://www.2112.net/vertigo/rushhbtv/aftk.rm

Worth noting is the "Play will be random, except the first file will always play first" line. So I guess .rpm is a kind of playlist file. Does RealPlayer recognize .rpm and always play a random selection? Or is this a server setting? Will companies EVER stop making new playlist formats?

Here's the file as text for those who want to see it in its full Rushian glory.

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