Literally Everything

Weekly Music Update: May 6, 2008

2008-05-09T17:32:00.003-05:00

This week was an interesting one in the music industry. We saw new releases from Gavin DeGraw, Clay Aiken, and Tokio Hotel, as well as new singles from Coldplay and Jason Mraz and Maroon 5. What a week!

I was very impressed by the Gavin DeGraw album, especially its lead single, "In Love With A Girl." It's catchy enough to keep you listening, but its not just another infectiously annoying pop-song. The whole album is strong, but nothing blows me away. However, I do recommend it if you've been a Gavin fan in the past.

Here's the single I'm talking about:

Clay Aiken released his new album, "On My Way Here" this week. I'll be honest - I am not at a fan by any means, but the CD doesn't disappoint. It's solid, but it certainly is not a must-get.

Tokio Hotel kind of came out of no where the past few weeks, and their new album entitled "Scream" surprised me. The young group from Germany seems to have hit something big with their lead single, "Ready Set Go," but similarly to other punk/pop releases recently, it leaves the listener hanging for the remaining tracks. It's not my favorite genre, but if you are into that - by all means check it out. If nothing else, take a listen to the single.

The singles this week blew me away! Coldplay and Jason Mraz both hinted at new albums this week. Jason's new album comes out next tuesday and its going to be amazing from what I have seen so far. He pre-release 3 or 4 tracks on iTunes and they were all fantastic. Coldplay also showed off two tracks from their forthcoming album due in June. Maroon 5 released a remix of their hit, "If I Never See Your Face Again" featuring Rihanna this week as well, and if there is anything I want to bash in this update - it's going to be the decision to put these two artists together. Maroon 5 has officially sold out, and it's really too bad because Songs of Jane was so good. If you want to see what I mean, take a listen to the remix. I understand why they did it, but its disappointing to a see a band with so much talent make that kind of choice.

Check back next week for another update!

Iron in Ocean to Slow Global Warming?

2008-04-29T15:58:00.005-05:00

Global warming is an issue that appears nearly daily on the news and in our newspapers. The Ice caps are melting, the temperature is rising, and our carbon footprint is only getting worse. Our carbon emissions are getting worse and due to this the average temperature is rising by a small amount each year, but this small amount can do a lot of damage. But there is one idea that can help us.

Everyone knows of the lowest member of the Marine food-chain, Plankton. It may be small, but there is a hell-of-a-lot of it in the ocean. Plankton is a plant, and plants, unlike humans, need CO2. Co2 is what is doing the damage to our wonderful planet, it does this by trapping the heat in our atmosphere and thus causing the temperature to rise. You can now see why humans are such a problems, we produce billions of tons of CO2 each year. Anyway, back to Plankton; the more Plankton in the oceans, the more CO2 gets used up by the Plankton, and thus lowering the temperature in our atmosphere.

This is where iron comes into play. As some of you may know, iron is used fertilize many plants, and scientist plan to use it to fertilize plankton, and make the population grow exponentially. Causing more and more CO2 to be used by plants, and another plus is more oxygen for us. Yes, there are other fertilizers that might do a better job than iron, but iron is the only one that won't harm the ocean, other fertilizer are made up of many chemicals that can be harmful.-Evan Doyle

[Via HowStuffWorks]

The New iMacs

2008-04-28T13:52:00.003-05:00

The new iMacs came out today from Cupertino, CA with faster processors and more power. The new iMac 24-inch can handle a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo now, and the 20-inch has its lowest speed of 2.4GHz, which is still a very nice machine. Up to 1 TB HDD in the 24-inch and standard 2Gb RAM in all machines. Starting at $1,199 these iMacs seem more and more appealing. their no laptop, but for someone who need a powerful workstation at home, the Mac Pro is no longer your only option. With a full 3.06GHz chip, 1 TB HDD, and 4Gb at RAM there is no messing around, especially for under $2,700. OR get the stock 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac for $2,199.

Also today came the 24-hour shipping on all Mac Book Air purchases. Took a little longer than expected, but most likely due to the high demand for the product.

Thats all they gave us from Apple Headquarters today, but hopefully it will be enough to hold us over until WWDC. -Evan Doyle

Spring Photo!

2008-04-27T20:53:00.002-05:00

It is now spring and we need to show it. Here is a picture that I took in my yard of Spring! I am very excited for the warm weather, as it is fairly warm now. I am an avid photographer and love taking photos of nature. I use a DSLR Nikon D40 and have a few lenses with more on the way. I am getting more and more into it. Im not a pro, but I am not a novice either. I encourage all of you to get out there and take photos, of anything you desire. If you have any questions about getting started, shoot me an email at evanjdoyle@gmail.com or head to my Flickr page here. -Evan Doyle

"Hero" Sings Hey Jude

2008-04-25T23:52:00.002-05:00

Possibly the best video on the internet?
You cannot miss this!

iPhone Second Gen. Rumors

2008-04-25T16:47:00.007-05:00

With WWDC approaching fast, the buzz surrounding the rumored iPhone 2 is huge. Everyone wants this to come, including myself. We have heard plenty of rumors - one that says the new iPhone will have two cameras, one on the front and one on the back from Digg's own Kevin Rose. Who knows what we are going to get, Engadget has made a post of a picture of what they believe is the second gen. of the iPhone, and some details. This, to me, is very believable because this is about the time when Apple would give their products to select employees before the launch a month or so later.

So, rumors thus far;

-Dual cameras (front and back, for video ichat)

-GPS

-3G(basically confirmed)

-8gb, 16gb, and 32gb storage capacities?

-New glossy black plastic backing(no more aluminum), with white Apple logo.

-May be a little thicker than first gen.(most likely because of GPS)

We will just have to wait and see for sure, unless there is a big lead from Cupertino, which I don't foresee happening. All we know is WWDC in San Francisco is going to be exciting. -Evan Doyle

[Via Engadget]

Download: The True Story of The Internet

2008-04-25T14:45:00.004-05:00

I just finished watching this two-part series on the Science Channel. I didn’t leave my chair when I was watching them. they were so interesting and knowledgeable that I felt like I was part of the dot com revolution.

I highly recommend this program, it can be seen OnDemand from Comcast under TV Entertainment>Discovery Channel>Science>Cool Tech. I am not sure about other TV providers. But you can hit up the website here for more info and air times for the show. -Evan Doyle

About Me

2008-04-25T14:41:00.003-05:00

I know that the blog has been down for a little while now. So if you forgot me, here i am.

My name is Evan Doyle, and I part of the Literally Everything team. I am the main Technology blogger for the group. I am weeks away from my eighteenth birthday and located in New England. I have loved Technology since I was little, and I don't see this love stopping any time soon. I grew up in a family of 'technologically inclined' or geeks as some of you make call them. I plan to go to college fro Computer Science or Engineering, I haven't decided yet. My top schools are Carnegie Mellon, RPI, WPI, Clarkson, and Syracuse.

I am very excited to get started with Literally Everything and will hope to start blogging daily about everything Apple, PCs, Photography(DSLR Mainly), and anything else. I am not going to limit myself to Technology on this blog, so you may see me post about anything.

If you want to contact me in anyway you can reach me at the following;

Evanjdoyle@gmail.com

Pownce

Twitter

Flickr

Enough about me, back to the blog!

Literally Everything Returns - Version 2.0

2008-04-24T23:27:00.003-05:00

Welcome Back - Version 2.0

Welcome back to Literally Everything. You’ll see what we have to offer in the coming days as we launch but I’d like to take a few seconds to explain what we’re all about this second itme around.

Literally Everything is a new, fresh, unique place to find something interesting. It’s all in the title - Literally Everything. And we mean that. There is no boundary we will not cross. It’s the anti-specialty site. That seems overwhelming, but we hope that this allows everyone who visits us to find something they enjoy.

Furthermore, everything is tagged with specific categories. For example, one day we might release an article about new music releases, one about an amazing YouTube video, one about a new Apple product, and one about some crazy offbeat happening. You might have a particular interest in Apple (don’t we all), so you can choose just to view the stories we’ve published on Apple.

There’s more customization to come, but we think this is going to be an interesting start. Check back and see what we have to offer in the next few days, and feel free to tell us what you think at literallyeverything@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you again, its been a long time.

Dan Hoffmann

Executive Editor

The Da Vinci Code Killed a Woman?

2007-03-17T13:56:00.001-05:00

Since the Da Vinci Code was first published, it has sold more than 60 million copies, centres on a sinister plot by Catholic organisation Opus Dei to kill the book's hero Robert Langdon before he discovers, via clues in Da Vinci's paintings, that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and had a son.

Caroline Eldridge, a 38 year old graduate student from of the Wimbledon College of Art and prominent art critic and painter, killed herself because she was convinced of an aspiring plot against her love. Apparently Eldridge had been studying Da Vinci's art when she stumbled upon The Da Vinci Code. She then became obsessed with Da Vinci's paintings and the mysteries that had surrounded his work. She was so obsessed with the mysteries that she started to suffer delusions about her and her family being in grave danger because she had information on Leonardo after working on an exhibition about his paintings. While studying Da Vinci in Rome, she had a particular interest in his famous Vitruvian Man drawing, which features on the cover of The Da Vinci Code. A dying murder victim in the Dan Brown novel also arranges his body in the shape of the drawing as a complex clue for investigators.

Eldridge had no prior signs of mental illness, except for a slight case of anorexia when she was a teenager. According to her father, Eldridge had become delirious in Rome, so he father flew to Italy to bring her back home. When Mr. Eldridge found his daughter in Rome, she was working long hours in a panic state of mind designing costumes in the wee hours of the night, so Mr. Eldridge was able to bring his daughter home. Mr Eldridge and his wife Susan referred her to a doctor and she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and sent to a psychiatric unit at Wotton Lawn hospital in Gloucester.

After a month in the psychiatric unit, Ms. Eldridge was sent home, but still had delusions about a plot against her. Then on May 25, while staying with a group of friends, Eldridge complained of having stomach cramps and not felling well, and eventually admitted to her friends that she had taken an overdose. She was taken to Cheltenham General Hospital but died of multiple organ failure on May 31.

Future of Web Apps - Presentations

2007-03-17T13:00:00.000-05:00

The web is changing everyday. Social networks are becoming incredibly popular, and overall it seems as though people are looking to do different things online then they were 10 years ago. If you're interested in the future of websites and web applications, then check out The Future of Web Apps. It's a conference held many times a year for different sectors of the web. They've had some incredibly sucessful guests from web companies like Yahoo, Google, Digg, Del.ici.ous., Flickr, Last.fm, Amazon and TechCrunch. The best part about this whole thing is that if you don't attend the conference, you can still access all of the presentations online. If your interested in hearing many of these Web 2.0 pioneers speak, then I highly reccomend this site.

Funniest Classified Ads Ever

2007-03-16T20:17:00.000-05:00

As I was surfing through our offbeat news sources, I couldn't find anything worth writing about. This really caught my eye....here are some of the funniest classified ads i've ever seen.

Save Some Cabbage

2007-03-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

Developers can now register for WWDC '07 and save 300 smackers on the ticket. June 11-15 in San Fran baby. No idea how long this will be available, but my guess is a few weeks. Get to it. That IS a leopard background in the picture. sign for things to come? :-)

(Dan: Please don't be the case...I need Leopard before June!!!)

Naked Intruder Found Asleep On Couch

2007-03-13T18:54:00.000-05:00

I spent quite a while trying to come up with a picture for this one...
A California man alledgedly broke into a woman's home and fell asleep on her couch naked. The woman called the police early Saturday morning when she woke up to find Michael Bonnie, 36 on her couch covered by nothing more than a blanket. Police arrested Bonnie for residential burglary and indecent exposure. And that's really the whole story.

Incredible Pictures

2007-03-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

As featured on Diggnation Episode 88...
These pictures are beyond amazing - perfect photography timing...

Man Claims That He Is A Werewolf

2007-03-10T15:15:00.000-05:00

A former Wisconsin inmate told police that he was a werewolf and could change shapes after he was arrested for burglary on Monday. Robert Marsh, 39, appeared in front of the Fond du Lac County Court with a wide variety of criminal charges against him. Apparently, Marsh had claimed that he was a werewolf and was involved in a witch religion.

Explanation: He had a high blood alcohol level, and they found marijuana on him when he was arrested.

Apple Shits on PCs

2007-03-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

With a new teaser up on the Apple Store banner, Apple sends a message to all PC users to skip the hassle of the PC upgrade and go with a Mac 'the ultimate PC upgrade'. Apple says that everyone needs to go beyond Vista(I love you Apple), and get a Mac. I if Vista is just a copy of OS X, why not just get the real thing?

(Evan is clearly not biased)

Samsung's Terabit Plan

2007-03-08T20:01:00.000-05:00

Here's another installment of the great sci/tech stories from our guest writer, Ben Itzkowitz.

Samsung , a company producing some of the leading flash-memory chips in the world, has recently announced a new generation of chip that may be able to hold twice as much data as before without increasing circuit board size. Flash memory today uses a single layer of silicon that can store anywhere from a few megabits to a few gigabits of information. Researchers at Samsung have been able to prove that using multiple layers of silicon (instead of just one) is the key to creating more storage space on the memory. Today, we essentially use a 2-D structure in flash memory. By transferring over to 3-D architecture in the silicon layers, it is possible that one day in the near future a one-terabit flash chip composed of around 8 layers of silicon may begin use and production.

From mobile phones, to USB drives, to MP3 players and laptops, flash memory is found everywhere in our technological world today, greatly increasing the possible benefits of creating larger capacities in the same amount or less space. In recent years, it became popular for two different reasons. First off, it offered an alternative to spinning hard drives, which took up room and was generally very delicate. Since flash takes up much less room because it is solid-state memory, it also is much less prone to damage. The second reason is that it, unlike other types of solid-state memory such as random-access memory, is nonvolatile meaning it can retain data without power consumption. As already stated, silicon is what makes flash memory possible. Because silicon chip size has been consistently decreasing over recent years, so has flash drive memory. However, scientists predict that within the next few years, flash memory may begin to face fabrication hurdles because at a point, some things can only get so small before they are too small for practical use or too small to be manufactured correctly. Currently, flash memory chips contain features about 60 nanometers wide, and are fabricated with lithography machines that carve them out. Some engineers believe that the lithography systems needed to make the small etches in the silicon we use today will only be able to shrink until about 2009. Even then, if flash memory devices were to contain features on the silicon layers smaller than 30 nanometers in size, then the chips would face physical limitations such as leaking in the cell, also known as information loss.

Because of these future limitations, Samsung’s Soon-Moon Jung has begun to devise a way to use existing fabrication technology to increase flash capacity. He proposed that stacking the existing silicon layers on top of one another would do the trick. Two elements were required to do so according to Jung, which were minimizing the amount of extra area used for their stacking architecture, and keeping the number of fabrication steps down so as not to drive up costs. The technology would really work just like a parking lot where the lower level first fills up and it goes upwards from there. However, the only trouble found was that the structures to support the second layer of silicon (think in the parking garage the concrete columns) would take up valuable space otherwise used for storage. In order to decrease the space taken up by these supporting pieces, the “windows” that needed to be opened up to create them had to be strategically placed throughout the chip. Another trick that was used to create the second layer was to simultaneously fabricate the wire connections between the first and second layers. This ensured that costs would not rise because individually placing the connections would be more expensive to make. Although these technological obstacles were overcome, a different challenge in terms of performance came up that was much more difficult to maneuver around. Because of the second layer’s electrical nature (it isn’t grounded), only one cell of memory can be erased at once. On the other hand, larger chunks of memory cells can be erased at once on the first layer. By designing a specific electrical scheme that was able to ground the second layer as well, the data could then be erased in chunks there too. However, this extra component would also add to costs as well.

Although the prototype memory chip is only capable of a capacity of 32 bits so far, the results are very encouraging because they demonstrate the concept well and have successfully taken advantage of multiple layers of silicon in flash memory. The only hurdle that may need to be overcome in the future seems to be manufacturing costs. Obviously more silicon layers require more money, and since flash memory is driven by price, the larger quantities of storage might not be worth it if prices are too high. Possible solutions might be to mix different types of solid-state memory together or to engineer the layers of flash memory with even further minimized manufacturing steps. Over all, however, since Samsung can already utilize its existing 2-D flash memory manufacturing methods, much larger 3-D storage devices may be in store for the near future.

iPhone's First Customer

2007-03-07T20:41:00.000-05:00

This is a rare sighting of Mr. Jobs in public at his kid's soccer game listening to/talking on his iPhone/iPod. The person who posted the photo on Flickr has informed us that he was in fact talking. It's amazed that he is standing all alone with his iBuds in - I guess the people of Cupertino are just used to him at this point.

Check out the photo on Flickr that has been generating all of the buzz.

App. of the Week

2007-03-04T19:00:00.000-05:00

Well, a week has gone past and now it is time for a new App. of the Week! this week I will be telling you about a free app. from Google, that will release you from the depths of Map Quest. I am sure you have all heard of Google Earth. But do you use Google Earth for more than just to play with and look at your house? Well, you should be using it for more than that. Google Earth is a professional App. and the directions feature on the new Google Earth 4 really outdoes itself. Also their are a lot of ways to find places such as school, churches, malls, or pretty much anything you are looking for using the layers command key. Also the upgraded 3-D buildings in large cities across the globe really add to the directions feature and also makes Google Earth 4 that much more better to use. Google Earth 4 is free, but there are professional versions for a price, the prices vary. you can get you paws on Google Earth 4 here. Have fun.

The Hiccups Have Stopped

2007-03-01T18:01:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: We just got word that Jennifer's hiccups have finally stopped! Just this week alone, she had been to an infection disease specialist, a neurologist, a chiropractor, a hypnotists and an acupunctrist. Early Thursday morning, Jennifer reported that she still felt a little sick but a lot better than she in weeks.

Florida teen Jennifer Mee just can't stop hiccuping. In fact, for more than three weeks now, the 15-year old St. Petersburg teen has hiccuped close to 50 times a minute. She has visited countless doctors as well as tried all of the standards methods. She's had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. None of the drugs she has tried have helped. Neither has holding her breath, putting sugar under her tongue, sipping pickle juice, breathing into a paper bag and drinking out of the wrong side of a glass. Even Jack Bauer couldn't scare them out of her.

Hiccups are caused by involuntary contractions of the diaphragm, which causes the vocal cords to close for a split second, making that hiccup sound we all know and love.

Jennifer's mother, Rachel Robidoux, recently put something in the local newspaper calling out for help. "I'm just looking for some answers where somebody's gone through this," Robidoux told the St. Petersburg Times. "At this point, we're willing to do anything.

UPDATE: We just recieved this comment from Kate...

I hope this reaches the teen and her mom who put out the plea for relief. I tried to reach the papers that carried the AP story but of course they do not take comments. Kind of ironic, since the title says the mom puts out a plea...how will she find it?
I posted a story for you/her on divinecaroline.com. Here is the link.
http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22182/26806

You do not have to hold your breath or jump on one leg. Just drink. I have suffered my whole life and this always works. Please let me know if it works for you or if you need further explanantion. You can always comment to me.
I know you will find relief. This even works on my children who seem to have Mommy's hiccups.

My best wishes for your relief!

Free on iTunes

2007-02-26T19:52:00.000-05:00

I know everyone is bummed about the delaying of Apple TV so here is something that might help you cheer-up. you can get the Rules of Engagement premiere on the iTunes Store for free. I know everyone loves free..anything, I personally have not watched it yet, so tell me how it is.

Hello. Oscars iPhone Ad.

2007-02-25T20:52:00.000-05:00

The highly rumored iPhone ad just played on the Oscars a few minutes ago. It featured many different actors in movies saying "Hello" followed by an animation of the iPhone and the possible slogan: Hello. Coming in June. As soon it's up on YouTube ill bring it to you below...Check back in a little while - every Mac fan/rumor monger is running to their computer so it won't be long.

UPDATE: The ad has now played for a second time...and Apple was announced as an official sponsor of the 79th Academy Awards.

Check out our other top stories on the homepage.

App. of the Week

2007-02-24T21:53:00.000-05:00

As I was scanning the net a few days back I came upon a sweet little menu application on TUAW's site. The application is called SoundSource. It goes on your menu along with all of your other useless things you download, but this one is useful, for me at least. As a podcaster I am always switching between my speakers and my headset. SoundSource makes it insanely easy to do that. this may be a simple yet very useful tool for us podcasters. You can get a hold of SoundSource here along with a lot of other sweet freebies.

The McMissile

2007-02-21T22:30:00.000-05:00

Jessica Hall is now serving a two year prison sentence after launching a "missile" at a car. Okay fine, it wasn't a missile. It was a McMissile. Hall, of Jacksonville, North Carolina was convicted by a Virginia jury of forcefully propelling a McDonalds soda cup full of ice at another car. Here's the deal.

On a hot day in July, Hall was heading north on Interstate 95 with her children in tow. Traffic slowed and another car tried to cut her off twice. In a rage, she threw a cup of ice into the other car, where it flew across the driver and landed all over his girlfriend. The driver of the other car, Pete Ballin, 36, and his girlfriend, Eliza Fowle, 28, were heading home to the District after visiting her father in North Carolina. "It was gross and sticky and got all over me and the front of our car, the dashboard and the windshield," Fowle said of the launched drink. Apparently, Jessica was just trying to keep up with her fathers' truck when Ballin cut her off, and she was forced into the shoulder.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney George Elsasser argued in court that had Ballin been hit by the drink, he might have gotten into a serious accident with injuries.

At least Ballin isn't suing McDonalds because their ice is cold. But hey, you never know, the"Caution: Ice is cold" label wasn't there.

    

Beatboxing Flute?

2007-02-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

We've all been getting a little bit lazy, and posting on the site has been slow. But Alas! I have an amazing video for you from the depths of the YouTube vault. It's Beatboxing Flute player Greg Pattillo performing...and I must say its worth checking out. UPDATE BELOW

UPDATE: More madness...Here's Yuri - the harmonic beatboxer.

Florida Teen Can't Stop The Hiccups

2007-02-15T20:50:00.000-05:00

Florida teen Jennifer Mee just can't stop hiccuping. In fact, for more than three weeks now, the 15-year old St. Petersburg teen has hiccuped close to 50 times a minute. She has visited countless doctors as well as tried all of the standards methods. She's had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. None of the drugs she has tried have helped. Neither has holding her breath, putting sugar under her tongue, sipping pickle juice, breathing into a paper bag and drinking out of the wrong side of a glass. Even Jack Bauer couldn't scare them out of her.

Hiccups are caused by involuntary contractions of the diaphragm, which causes the vocal cords to close for a split second, making that hiccup sound we all know and love.

Jennifer's mother, Rachel Robidoux, recently put something in the local newspaper calling out for help. "I'm just looking for some answers where somebody's gone through this," Robidoux told the St. Petersburg Times. "At this point, we're willing to do anything.

UPDATE: We just recieved this comment from Kate...

I hope this reaches the teen and her mom who put out the plea for relief. I tried to reach the papers that carried the AP story but of course they do not take comments. Kind of ironic, since the title says the mom puts out a plea...how will she find it?
I posted a story for you/her on divinecaroline.com. Here is the link.
http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22182/26806

You do not have to hold your breath or jump on one leg. Just drink. I have suffered my whole life and this always works. Please let me know if it works for you or if you need further explanantion. You can always comment to me.
I know you will find relief. This even works on my children who seem to have Mommy's hiccups.

My best wishes for your relief!

Search Engine of The Day; Wednesday

2007-02-14T22:08:00.000-05:00

Today is a wonderfully snowy Wednesday and I have another search engine that I love and use very often. LookSmart is a great for everything and it is my alternative to Google or Googe today. LookSmart lets you search within classifieds and all other types of categories. It's great for finding downloadable music.(down with DRM.)

Search Engine of The Day; Tuesday

2007-02-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

I am starting a new search engine of the week segment, here's todays installment.

For Tuesday I will be talking about Google Book Search. We all know how great Google is, but I do not think everyone is utilizing all the tools of Google. One of the great tools Google has is Google Book Search Beta. This will find hundreds to thousands of books depending on your search. You can narrow your search by seeing all books (includes segments of books or Full Books (every page in the darn thing). This is a great tool for research project, I am doing one now on 'the rise of computers and technology,' and I showed Google Books to my English teacher and he is in love with the site. English teachers and their books. Also gives you publisher/ISBN/all the info you need for a great bibliography.

P.S. If you are doing a bibliography and are to lazy to type everything out. Hit up www.ottobib.com and just choose the citing format (MLA, APA, Chicago...) and paste the ISBN in the box and it will generate the bibliography for you.

Incredible Skydiving Footage

2007-02-13T18:12:00.000-05:00

This is one of the most amazing videos I have ever seen. It shows British skydiver Michael Homes plummeting 12,000 feet to the Earth after both of his parachutes failed to open. You can see him saying goodbye to the world as he races down to the ground. Michael's friend, who jumped from the same plane caught the whole event on camera. It's amazing that Michael was able to survive.

Watch both videos here.

Web 2.0

2007-02-10T13:42:00.000-05:00

Here's a little Saturday treat for you guys. It's a really interesting video about Web 2.0 and how it's changing the way we use the web. Check it out - I think it's really well done.

Literally Everything: Feburary 7th, 2007

2007-02-07T21:42:00.000-05:00

We have a new episode ready of the Literally Everything podcast featuring some of the stories we've been talking about for the past two weeks. Check it out in the player below...
Feel free to send us a comment about the show to literallyeverything@gmail.com

Click here to get your own player.

Re-Live The Great Ads

2007-02-06T17:50:00.000-05:00

There were many great superbowl commercials this year, but a few of them really take the cake.
To vote for your favorite superbowl commercial visit the YouTube Supervote.

Doritos:

Bud Light Great Apes:

But He Has Bud Light:

Snickers:

You can also find highlights of Sunday's game on iTunes here.
(I don't think we could possibly promote Apple anymore at this point.)

App. of the Week

2007-02-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

This week I would like to tell you about two apps. that are not essential to running Mac OS X , but are there to make it better for all.

First I would like to introduce you to DeskTunes. DeskTunes is a little app. (about 156kb) and will place a picture of the artwork, song name, artist, and rating in the lower left corner of your screen when you have iTunes minimized. I use this app daily and it is on my start up list for all my apps. It is great to have for quick references to what your listening to right when your computer starts up. Get it here.

This brings me to my next App. Dashboard KickStart, everyone hates waiting for the dashboard to load and it is even worse when you have under 1Gb of RAM(I used to be in that spot). Now all you have to do is add this app to the list of apps you have open at start up and it kick starts your dashboard for immediate use whenever you need it. I use this often because I have a great Artwork/lyrics finder for whatever is playing in iTunes and I do not like waiting for it to load up all i have to do is press F12 and bam there it is. You can pick up this handy little application here.

Thoughts On Music by Steve Jobs

2007-02-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs released a statement today talking about the music business, where he thinks music is going and how it will never end. He has some interesting things to say regarding DRM and how many people across the globe want it to be open for iTunes music to be able to be put on other devices from other companies. I'm not going to tell you the whole story, read it for yourself. Devote five minutes to gaining knowledge at least once a day, and look at the bright side it is from our leader. you can find the statement here.

Man Seeks World Chili Eating Record

2007-02-05T15:39:00.000-05:00

For most, even a tiny bite of raw chili pepper means a burning mouth and an instant run for water. But Manuel Quiroz can guzzle down dozens of Mexico's spiciest chilies, rub them on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without even blinking. (He is crazy.) The 54-year-old Mexico City taxi driver says that he has made thousands of dollars with his unique and crazy talent and he wants to become the world champion chili eater. But he needs to find an organization that would crown him with that title.

"Chilies don't sting me. They don't affect me. It's just like eating fruit," Quiroz said at a market in the Mexican capital. People stared in amazement as he crunched on a habanero, the hottest chili pepper in a country that likes its food spicy.

Quiroz discovered the talent when he was 7. He realized he was immune when he never lost a chili eating contest. He has just never felt the heat.

"I'm the best. No one can rival me," he said.

Quiroz says that he plans to try to get his abilities recognized by Guinness World Records. As far as he knows, no one in the world can swallow more chilies than he can. Even with this bizzare talent, he has never been examined by a doctor to find out if there is a medical explanation for his extraordinary endurance to the spice.

"Why would I go and see a doctor?" he said. "There is nothing wrong with me. Eating chilies makes me feel great."

Kevin Rose, Alex Albrecht in Go Daddy Ad

2007-02-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

As usual Go Daddy showed a very racy ad this year during the superbowl. This year Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht from Diggnation
appeared in GoDaddy's ad. While you can only see them for about 3 seconds, it is still pretty awesome. It is truly amazing that they started out as a small little video podcast, and now they're on superbowl ads.

Check out the ad here

Also: The rumored ad from Apple featuring the Beatles did not show up. What's next on the rumors front?...an Apple media event Feburary 20th. I'll believe it when I see it.

iPhone Cake

2007-02-04T02:40:00.000-05:00

After searching on Flickr, I found this image. Yes that's exactl what it looks like, an iPhone. Apparently people cannot wait until June (as can't I) to get their hands on maybe Apple's most anticipated release yet. Also, Flickr contains images of homemade iPhones made out of LEGOS. The cake looks pretty good, I wonder how it tasted?

Grinches Literally Stole Christmas

2007-02-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

The creativity of theifs just gets more amazing each day. Today, a couple has been charged with the theft of UPS packages during the holiday season. They didn't hold up a truck or a UPS store, they actually took the packages right from the customers' front doors. Marcus McCoy and Tanya White of Harvey, Illinois, face up to 15 years of prison if they are convicted. Apparently they snatched several packages from homes less than two weeks before Christmas. How did they do it? They followed a UPS truck and picked up all of the packages that the driver had delivered. Someone tipped the police off after they became suspicious of the car following the truck for an extended period of time. I guess this time the two grinches really did steal Christmas.

By the way, if you haven't had a chance to check out our newest episode of the Literally Everything Podcast, then click play below for a little taste of our show. We'll be working on a new episode in the next few days, so keep an eye out for that. Thanks!

Click here to get your own player.

Hello Vista and Office 2008 for Mac

2007-01-30T20:37:00.000-05:00

As probably all of you know, Vista came out today. Horray! Now wait a minute there, don't judge me too quickly. I am still an Apple fanatic, however after playing around with the version they had at my local CompUSA, I was surprised to see that it's not so bad after all. I'm not sure if it's windows roots that have gotten ahold of me, but I really, really like the interface. Sure it has some of the same great features that OS X has, but let's face it, it's a hell of a lot btter than Windows XP. I havn't had a chance to test it out fully, but so far I really really like it (until I get attacked with millions of viruses that is). Something I really like about it is the preview that it gives you of the items you have down in your watchamacallit, taskbar I guess. So I just installed bootcamp on my Macbook and I'm going to run out tonight and buy the Home Premium Upgrade. I'll test it out a bit and see what the puppy can do.

On a side note there have been some interesting photos of a Mac running Microsoft Office 2008. I really like the improved interface of the application, however it looks to me like it's a Microsoft version of pages. Click Here to see them.

Apple Releases Colored Shuffles Swiftly

2007-01-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

Well, this a is a shocker. It is to my knowledge that the Apple store was down this morning for an hour. and When the store came back online there was an announcement about new colored Shuffles. the colors are pink, green, blue, orange, and the original silver. Apple has never done an orange iPod before so maybe it's something to look forward too when it is time to release the next gen iPods. Still just 79$ the new colors are already in stores and also are shipping. you can view some high res pictures here, and see the iPod Shuffle homepage here.

Apple TV Drops 15 Spots on Top Selling List

2007-01-30T19:54:00.000-05:00

Apple's new product the Apple TV had dropped 15 spots on Apple's top selling list. It was in first place a week or two back. I guess it could because the Macworld hype is dimming down, but with the shipping of the Apple TV in 2 days could this be troublesome for Apple TV selling projections? I'm sure it will go up the first week of Feb.

Check out the Apple TV here

Our 100th Post

2007-01-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

The three of us here at Literally Everything are really excited to bring you our 100th post. We've come such a long way in the past few months and we've have a lot of fun bringing you some great stories. We're also really happy to see that we're about to have the 7000th unique visitor. Because of this really good news, we've set our readers up with some really great reading content. This weekend we cranked out 6 or 7 really cool articles. Check all of them out below. I think they are some of our most interesting stuff yet.

We're also really excited to inform our readers that we're working on a fully independent new site design. Soon, we'll be moving away from a blogger template and launching a really beautiful site with many more features. We want to be able to make it easy to find our stories, podcast, and many other new things still yet to come. We look forward to bringing you guys the new site in the next few weeks.

Thank you so much for taking the time over the past few months to stop by and check out what we have to offer. We hope that you will continue to see what's coming in the future at Literally Everything.

Sincerely,

Dan Hoffmann
Literally Everything Editor

App. of the Week

2007-01-28T13:11:00.000-05:00

This is a new weekly segment I'm going to be doing. It will mostly consist of shareware apps. and hopefully I'll let you know about some free apps.

This week I have two apps for our readers to check out. They are both very useful alternatives to AIM. One of them is for Mac OS X and the other is for Windoze.

First we have Adium for Mac OS X. this is a free app. that you can find on there website here. I personally use Adium on my Mac and I have used iChat before and it just doesn't make the cut for me. Adium is so easy to use. It can also be personalized very easily by anyone. With Adium you can have many accounts; for eample AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, .Mac, ICQ, Google Talk, Bonjour, and many others.

Second is Gaim for Windoze. On Gaim you can also have many types of multiple accounts all online simultaneously. It is very useful for direct connect and sending files. You can even encrypt your messages(useful if your a spy). You can download Gaim here.

Rhode Island School Bans Talking

2007-01-27T15:24:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, there was a similar story that we posted that explained how a school banned hugging. However, this school has taken it one step foward and has banned talking. The Catholic school made a new set of rules that required its students to remain seated and quiet, but only during lunch. The school made this rule in response to three choking incidents that they had recently experienced. The principal explained that if the lunchroom is loud, staff members cannot hear a child choking. Amanda Karhuse, of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said that students should not run wild during lunch, but that they also should not have to remain silent. The principal's letter also spelled out other new lunch rules, including requiring students to stay in their seats and limiting them to one trip to the trash can. Any child who breaks the rules will serve detention the next day. What is the American school system coming to? First no hugging, then no talking, what's next, no learning?

Vista Release Upon Us

2007-01-27T13:59:00.000-05:00

We all know that the Vista (can't believe I capitalized vista)release is upon us and with Dell taking orders for pre-installed Vista computers starting tonight, the threat is real. But just to remind you of the complexity of Vista buying/using heres a little comic strip I saw on Digg earlier this morning, and your alternatives :)

JoyofTech

Arrested: Suspect Caught With Pants Down

2007-01-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

Police said they caught a 16-year-old robbery suspect who previously avoided them them after his baggy pants fell down, causing him to stumble as officers chased him.

"We literally caught him with his pants down," Lt. Jack West said.

The teenager, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, is suspected of robbing a man at gunpoint and stealing another man's car after beating him with a brick, West said. The suspect had been running from the police all week. An officer saw the teen standing on a street corner, and called in for two backup officers. They were able to corner him by running in in all directions. "He started to run, but his low-riding pants fell down and he stumbled to his knees. The teen was booked on warrants for armed robbery, carjacking, two counts of aggravated battery and being a child in need of supervision.

Behind The Scenes: Digg.com

2007-01-27T09:37:00.000-05:00

I'm sure many of readers know about Digg.com, the social news and networking site for technology based information. Well, this is a really cool treat for digg fans. Scott Beale from Laughingsquid.com.
He got an inside look at Digg, so check out the photos and article here

Sell Your Soul on eBay. For Real.

2007-01-24T23:24:00.000-05:00

And now for our first installment of our new news series, What the hell were they thinking?

eBay has become an incredibly popular way to sell and buy used or new items on the web. But one man decided to take the business model a little too far. Australian Nicael Holt is selling his life on the internet auction site. At the moment, the bid is nearly $5900 and he says he will go through with it if the buyer will pay cash. The 24-year-old philosophy student says he'll also make a documentary if the top bidders turn out to be the real deal. It might be worth it to check back tommorow on eBay after Nicael has slept on this one.

Podcast: January 23, 2007

2007-01-24T15:40:00.000-05:00

Our new episode of the podcast is finally here! This one turned out really great, check it out below.

Click here to get your own player.

Windows Goes Down In Times Square?

2007-01-21T22:35:00.000-05:00

As we all know, Windows can be a great friend, or it can just fail miserably and turn against you at all the wrong times. Well, this is one of those times. A Windows based system goes down in Times Square. Take a look at choice number one for the boot disk. A floppy disc? Woah.

How to Build an Invisibility Cloak

2007-01-18T18:53:00.000-05:00

This is the second installment in our series of science articles from a great guest writer, Ben Itzkowitz.

One day, partially due to the research of David Smith, a physicist at Duke University, all the Harry Potter fans and Star Trek fanatics may unite in a moment of joy when the first invisibility shield makes it debut. Although not even proved yet in the way humans would imagine an invisibility shield, the new technology has shown itself to have great potential. The idea was sparked when Dave Schurig, a colleague of Smith’s, introduced the idea of using a class of composite materials to manipulate light in ways that could render an object invisible to the eye. In September, Smith and Schurig proved together that their method of invisibility was not just a crazy hypothesis, but instead a provable idea. They had just succeeded in cloaking a small cylindrical object from one part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which was a part of the microwave range. The researchers began with microwaves because of their very long wavelength. This long wavelength made the cloaking effect substantially easier to achieve than with visible light (much shorter wavelength). By tightly controlling and bending the microwaves as they passed through a custom-built material, the two researchers were able to let the microwave rays circumvent the cylinder. In this method, the microwaves would not be absorbed nor reflected, only bent around an object. If this were possible today with our visible spectrum, a person looking directly into the shield would, in essence, see straight through to what is behind.
To begin, Smith and Schurig needed to find something that could bend an incoming beam of electromagnetic radiation around an object in an extremely precise and tightly controlled manner. By using a recently created class of materials known as “metamaterials”, they were able to achieve this. These metamaterials were composed of thin, rigid sheets of fiberglass insulator. On these sheets, neat rows of conducting metal were placed in shapes such as loops, coils, or tiny rectangles, all which were used to direct incoming electromagnetic radiation in a specific way. The challenge in doing this was to find the right shapes and dimensions for the metal circuitry (loops, coils, and rectangles) to precisely bend and move the light around its original trajectory, and then right back onto it again. In order to do this, the metal circuitry needed to be able to move the excited light electrons in specific ways, which would in turn control how the incoming electromagnetic radiation was bent. After some time, the researchers were able to cloak a small cylinder only 5 centimeters in diameter and 1 centimeter tall from microwaves. So if the cloaking effect could be achieved with microwaves, why hasn’t it been done with visible light?
The reason for this is that light has a much shorter wavelength. Where microwaves have a wavelength of about 3 centimeters, visible light has a wavelength ranging from 400 to 700 nanometers. Since the cloaking effect can only happen when the metal stamped on the metamaterials is smaller than the wavelength of light being shown at it, visible light would need those stamps of metal to be around 50 nanometers wide. This can be done with highly inefficient methods, and it would therefore be very hard to mass-produce. Another obstacle between the scientists and achieving the invisible effect with visible light is that a certain configuration of metamaterials would only be able to cloak one color of the spectrum at once. It might be possible to cloak each part of the spectrum for a microsecond at a time, making the object being cloaked seem transparent, but it has so far proved impossible to cloak all colors of the visible spectrum at once. As for Harry Potter’s flexible, cloth-like, invisibility cloak, there is no chance of that being developed any time in the close future.

An update on our podcast series:
We've been a bit delayed in getting a new episode out. We look forward to releasing one this weekend. Thanks!

iWoz

2007-01-18T17:21:00.000-05:00

I was recently at Barnes and Nobles picking up some Moleskine(best notebooks ever) notebooks when I picked up Steve Wozniak's new book iWoz. I bought it at the hefty sum of 25 bucks and took it home to start reading and fell in love, can't put the book down. I've fallen asleep reading it two nights in a row now. If you don't know who Steve Wozniak is he is the co-founder of Apple Computers Inc. and he also invented the personal computer. Apple I and he also created Apple ][ and many others. He left Apple a few years back to retire. This is a man who just wants to have fun in his life, and he does it every way possible. He joined a Segway Polo league and wrote this autobiography about all his adventures leading up to the founding of Apple. He pulls many pranks on people and always has fun doing it. One of his best pranks IMHO is the two dollar bill story. Just wanted to let you guys know, get this book, it's worth the 25 bucks hardcover, or if your cheap get the paperback.

Fish n' Flush

2007-01-15T15:20:00.000-05:00

Admit it, you love your pet fish more than anything, but you neglect them in an aquarium somewhere in the corner of your house and hiding it when guests come over. Why not use them in your toilet tank, That's right, a aquarium that serves as a toilet tank as well. The Flush n' Fish is a fully functional aquarium as well as a toilet tank that attaches itself onto just about any type of two piece toilet. This amazing invention was developed in California by Aqua One Technologies. In more technical terms, it is a filtered acrylic aquarium that is wrapped around an integrated fish tank core. Therefore the fish tank is completely independent from the toilet's reservoir. Since the two are completely dependent, you won't lose any of your fish every time you do your business. However, after evey flush, the toilet valve does launch a jet stream of water into the aquarium and gives the little fishes a swil for a few seconds. The retail price for this amazing device is $299. You'll never forget to feed your fish ever again.

Apple's New Airport Extreme Base Station

2007-01-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

Apple's new Airport Extreme Base Station- I'll call is AEBS for your sake- is more than just what we think about normal Apple's non-improvable products. This new base station works with both Mac and PC and it can hold up to 50 wireless connections. The AEBS is 802.11n which means it works with all types of wireless cards such as the 802.11g cards in the new Apple computers. The range on 802.11n is almost twice as great as 802.11g and if faster too. But the thing that we(Apple Fanbois) love the most about the new AEBS is that there is a USB port on the back, and what do we use USB ports for? Thats right, External HDD. What this means is that there can now be a network storage without buying the RAID HDD from Apple. You can hook up and USB 2.0 external drive and have what apple calls and AirPort Disk. You can also use that USB port to attach a USB 2.0 hub so you can have more and more storage along with a network printer? This is, in my eyes, a very very cost worthy product(179.00 US$) to buy from Apple, if it is needed. For me it isn't I have my 3 T1 connections already in my house. :) With 500GB Network storage, but if any of you readers happen to get your hands on one of these, send us a review(with pictures).

[Via O'Reilly]

Could Bio Fuel Cells Power Portable Electronics?

2007-01-11T21:41:00.000-05:00

For the next few weeks we have some great science content from a new guest writer, Ben Itzkowitz. They're a big lengthy - but I think he has some interesting info in these articles.

With all the concern on global warming these days, many researchers are starting to come up with plans on how to keep the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere down. One idea, already being put into action in some places, is to pump our emitted carbon dioxide deep underground where it can’t do any more harm to our greenhouse gas problems. In Texas, just east of Houston, a research project designed to look further into this radical idea of pumping this carbon dioxide under ground is producing some of its first results. Scientists essentially hope that one day, capturing and then isolating the carbon dioxide under ground will help relieve our global warming symptoms – without harming the surrounding environment. This spot in Texas, called the Frio Formation, is so far providing both pros and cons about how much carbon the earth can really withstand, or if we should even begin to use the idea in the first place.
Some scientists like geologist Julio Friedmann of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory believe that the capacity to store many decades’ worth of carbon dioxide is something that exists underground. By 2050, he speculates, nations could be basically burying five to ten billion tons of carbon dioxide each believe that the capacity to store many decades’ worth of carbon dioxide is something that exists underground. By 2050, he speculates, nations could be basically burying five to ten billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. Next, if the world wants to take this step in carbon management, the correct places to store the compound must be located and researched. So far, saline aquifers are the best candidate because of their extremely absorbent qualities. Saline aquifers are basically sand-stone formations, whose pores are full of salty water. This would let the carbon dioxide become absorbed into these pores to make use out of whatever space possible. Although this may seem like a good idea now, we still don’t know how the carbon dioxide would act over long periods of time, or how we could compact so much carbon dioxide into a small space.
About 10 years ago, an offshore gas platform in the North Sea run by Statoil, began to annually inject one million tons of carbon dioxide into a thick saline aquifer. So far, no unwanted effects have occurred, but in order to monitor it very closely, researchers need to always be watching. Commercial companies like Statoil are too busy to worry about these types of things. This is exactly why the Frio Formation in Texas was originally selected. Led by geologist Susan D. Hovorka of the University of Texas at Austin, it began by compressing 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide into a fluid and then warming it to 15 degrees Celsius. It was then pumped 1.6 kilometers below the surface into a 23 meter-thick sandstone layer (it is a saline aquifer). So far, seismic imaging and other monitoring methods have shown that the carbon dioxide has dissolved into the saltwater or caught in the pores, which is what the team had wanted to happen. However, around the area, water was more acidic than usual. Although this may be good because it creates more space for carbon dioxide storage, it may also be hazardous to the environment above. In more extreme cases, some saline aquifers may contain arsenic or uranium, which would not be good if released into any environment.
As it can be seen, the main good side to underground carbon storage is that it will provide a place to relieve our world of its global warming burden. However, it may interfere with the environment anyways, and possibly become an even larger problem in the future when space to store it is no longer available.

The Best Note Ever

2007-01-11T21:29:00.000-05:00

Someone scratches another car while trying to park, and then they leave this note. This is beyond awesome.

The note reads:
Dear person,
I'm sorry I put a dent in your car. I didn't want to but, I did when I tried to park next to you. I am not leaving my information because you chose to use two spaces and I just wanted to park in one. The scratches are because I used a towel that had sand on it to try to clean the dent/paint off. Beaches are fun.
Please look your car over for the dent and scratches and each time you see them remember not to park in two spaces.

- Sorry !!!

YouTube Is Back Up In Brazil

2007-01-11T20:34:00.000-05:00

A Brazillain judge has decided to lift the order banning YouTube from accessed in Brazil. The site had originally been blocked after controversy over risqué footage of supermodel Daniel Cicarelli made a lot of news. The ban had started as a small scale operation, but within days it affected much of the country. Sao Paulo state Supreme Court Justice Enio Santarelli Zuliani has now asked telecommunications companies and internet providers across Latin America's largest nation to unblock YouTube. The judge suggests a feature to block certain videos instead of having to block the entire site. Without that option, cities and countries are forced to take more drastic action. It's in the hands of video sites like YouTube and Google Video at this point...The question is - is it right to block content on a user-submitted site? I think not.

Cisco Sues Apple over iPhone Trademark

2007-01-10T19:13:00.000-05:00

It was said that just yesterday Apple and Cisco were trying to come to a mutual agreement on letting Apple use the iPhone trademark, but I guess in the long run that agreement did not work out for Apple. They are being sued in Federal Court by Cisco.

Mark Chandler,VP of Cisco, said this statement; "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

[Via BreitBart]

Working at Google

2007-01-10T17:16:00.000-05:00

Google has been rated the #1 best company to work for, but why? Check out this awesome video about what it's like to be a googler.

Apple Announces AppleTV and iPhone

2007-01-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

Well, the MacWorld keynote has come and gone - and we have seen some amazing new products.

iPhone
This new Phone/iPod/Mobile OSX device features a widescreen display with an incredibly high-quality display. It features full cell phone as well widescreen video iPod capabilities. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. It is really is an impressive product with a ton of great features. The phone uses sensors to dim the screen when the phone is near your ear, and it knows when it is being held upright or on it's side. The iPhone also uses wireless technology to allow users to access websites, email, widgets and maps on the go. The 4GB costs $499 and the 8GB $599 (includes a 2 year contract). It is shipping in June.

AppleTV

Apple has just officially announced the Apple TV, formerly the iTV, for both Mac and PC. It will be shipping next month, but pre-orders start today. The device allows you to watch content from the iTunes music store on a big screen tv. Your content on your Mac or PC is streamed wirelessly to the device.
wireless transfer to Apple TV. At first we believed the device may not have been capable of working with HD content, but it seems to be that there is a possibility for HD output. At the moment, there is not yet HD content on the iTunes Store, but that may not be the case forever.

Here are the stats:

HDMI output
support for
• 1080i
• 720p
• 576p (PAL format)
• 480p
includes 40gb drive
includes 802.11 a/b/g/n (yes, n)
stream from up to 5 machines
can sync iTunes library

AppleTV ships next month and goes for $299. That $299 includes the Apple TV, an Apple Remote, Power Cord, and a Quick Start Guide. The dimensions are 7.7 by 7.7 inches, height 1.1 inches, and weighs only 2.4 pounds.

So, thats all the important new stuff, but where's iLife and iWork. Hopefully they will be coming in the next few days. It's possible that they didn't want anything to take away from these two very big, hardware releases.

What Else?

New iPod Ads.
New Mac Ad.
Paramount Movies Now on iTunes
Watch the Steve Jobs Keynote.

108-inch Sharp LCD TV rolled out at CES '07

2007-01-07T15:58:00.000-05:00

With CES '07 starting today in Las Vegas, Sharp was the first one to shock the crowd. They did this with the release of their 108 inch LCD TV. There is no price tag yet but I'm sure it will be a pretty penny. Taller than both you and me standing in at a little over 6' ft tall on the stand they used at CES, this thing towers over the rest. It will be part of the Aquos line form Sharp and will ship "mid summer."

[Via Gizmodo]

MacWorld Photos

2007-01-07T09:55:00.000-05:00

The net is buzzing about MacWorld 2007, and thanks to LoopRumors.com - we have an inside look at the convention. Take a look at some of these photos from the inside of the convention center.

Photos Courtesy of LoopRumors.

Don't forget that our very own Ryan will be reporting back from MacWorld starting on Tuesday. Hopefully he'll get his hands on some new Mac products. Check back Tuesday for more...

Literally Everything Episode 2

2007-01-04T22:11:00.000-05:00

We have recorded and released a new episode of our podcast. Check it out here.

Click here to get your own player.

You can find all the stories from this episode below on the front page.
Info on MacWorld 2007 in this episode as well. We're glad to announce that Ryan, one of our writers will be on the MacWorld floor hopefully getting us some great information. Check back starting Monday for MacWorld coverage.

What I'm Expecting at MacWorld 2007

2007-01-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

MacWorld is a little less than a week away and the excitement overwhelms me already. To tell you the truth I was overwhelmed a long time ago for this event. Now with the new teaser Apple put on their site it just makes me that much more excited for MacWorld.

So, this year at MacWorld I'm expecting a lot from Apple but with Steve Jobs elongated Keynote, I think I will get most or maybe everything I'm expecting. (The keynote is scheduled for a full 2 hours)

I could definitely see the iPhone or iMobile being released, or whatever Steve wants to call it. Next is the new video iPod with a full screen, touchscreen, bluetooth/WiFi. Then I'm expecting the new Apple Cinema Displays with built in iSight. Also this one I'm not so sure on, is a stand-alone iSight, but it would be nice to have the option to get one without having to buy an ACD. Oh yeah and maybe HDMI for those new ACDs.

Next this is what I want really really badly to come out. A ultra-portable MacBook Pro. 12'' screen just like the 12'' Powerbook G4. (Evan wrote this, but Dan says YES I WANT THIS!)

something else I would like to see would be a new Mighty Mouse. Seeing how Apple just sent ideas through the FCC regarding Accelerometer add ons. If you don't know what an Accelerometer is, it's what's inside the Wiimote.

Lots more info on the iTV would be nice, I hope Apple comes out with a new remote for that too. Lots more info on Leopard and iLife '07 and iWork '07.

If we're very very lucky maybe a iTablet? Doubt it, but it would be nice.

Wow Apple is going to cost me a lot of money this spring. (Dan agrees as it will for him as well)

How to Prove You're Not a Witch

2007-01-03T01:37:00.000-05:00

In the ever present danger of being accused of a witch in the year 2007, here are a few tips on how to prove that you are not a witch to your accusers.

Get rid of any pets.

Witches use animals as agents to carry out the devil's commands, so any animals in your posession, including any insects that may have entered the courtroom during your witch trial, me be thought of as your "friends" and offered by prosecuters as more proof of your status as a witch.

Weep.

Witches are unable to weep or shed tears, so try to cry when you are arrested or anytime at your trial.

React to pain during the needle ordeal.

All witches have a devil's mark somewhere on their bodies to show that they have made a pact with Satan himself. During the needle test, any blemish, wart, scar, mole, or other imperfection will be poked to test your reaction to the uncomfort or perhaps pain. It is believed that the devil's mark is immune to pain and cannot bleed, so react heavily and cry out at each blemish that is pricked.

Sink during the water ordeal.

Witches usually float in water because they weigh less than ordinary people. Therefore, during the water ordeal, you will be tied at the hands and feet and thrown into a body of water in the presence of the court and members of the public. When your body hits the water, tense all of your muscles and imagine that you are made of lead or another heavy substance. Take short, shallow breaths before going under rather than filling your lungs with air. If done right and you sink to the bottom , the guards will pull you up before you drown.

What's Next in Tech Series - #1

2007-01-01T22:13:00.000-05:00

The new year is the best time to take a look at what's ahead in our world. Here's a couple bits of technology that are so close, I can almost taste them.

E-Ink

Newspapers are outdated at this point. In the digital age, we can access up to the minute news on our terms. But, there is an advancement on the way for paper news. E-Ink is the new way to get your newspaper and take
it with you anywhere you want without recycling it. The technology uses tiny capsules that create text and images. This can be updated frequently because there is not actually ink on the page. Digital age + newspapers = E-ink. My question is...what's the point? We already have laptops, cell phones and blackberries. (Not the fruit, but the device)

RFID

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. What at first seemed like a strange idea, is finally becoming a reality in many products. It is now being used in everything from inventory management to credit cards. One cool idea is the Ladybag, developed by university students in Canada. The bag uses RFID to track what's inside of it. It lights up if an RFID tagged item such as a cell phone or wallet, it missing.

HD-DVDs and Bluray

What's next in DVDs? Well we don't know yet, but its will be either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray technology that captures the market. They are both DVDs with HD quality, but the winner has yet to be announced. Can Toshiba's HD-DVD beat out Sony's Bluray? Maybe a device that play's both is the best way to go. Why can't we all just get along?

We hope that gives you a little look into what's next in tech. This is just the first in a series of three of these articles. Come back soon to check out what else is in our future.

Here's to 2007

2007-01-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

2007 is here. Time for new resolutions that you probably won't keep anyways.

Apple says there is way more to come.

They are currently featuring this new teaser/greeting in preparation for MacWorld 2007 which will start on the 8th and run through the 12th. Expect big things this year at Steve Jobs' keynote. Literally Everything will have product information and reviews for this year's Macworld. Check back soon, this is going to be a big one.

By the way, the last time Apple did a teaser greeter before Macworld was in 2002. They updated the teaser everyday up until Macworld starting on the first of the year. Could this be the same? We'll find out.

Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T09:13:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year from all of us at Literally Everything. We hope that all of our readers had a wonderful 2006, and will have a great 2007. Thank you so much for reading. We'll be back with new posts tomorrow.

Looking for something to do? Listen to this week's Literally Everything Podcast!

Click here to get your own player.

Colorado Residents Offering Snow on eBay

2006-12-30T14:18:00.000-05:00

I thought I had seen it all. But that was before this story came into my RSS feed reader this morning...
As snow piled up in one Colorado woman's yard, a brilliant idea ran through her mind. I'll sell snow on eBay! The seller is Mary Walker, a snowed in Colorado resident just looking to profit off of mother nature's offerings. "I figured eBay has ghosts and all sorts of weird stuff, so why not snow?" said Walker, who teaches business workshops on employee communications. So far the snow is selling at 99 cents, but bids are slowly rising. Walker isn't planning on sending the snow by FedEx, she recommends picking it up at their home - in a dump truck. 10 different snow piles are offered currently by the Walkers on eBay and their earnings are going to help them buy a snowblower or a pair of shovels. I finally realized that Mary and Jim we're insane when she declared that she really just wanted to give some folks a laugh. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. When life hands you more than 2 feet of snow, sell it on eBay.

Also, don't forget to check out the episode of the Literally Everything podcast. It's all right here for you in the embedded player below. Just click play.

Click here to get your own player.

Dover Church Makes an Uh-Oh

2006-12-29T14:23:00.000-05:00

"Hey mommy why are there dirty videos on the church website?"

This is what some mothers of the Hope Community Church in Dover, NH may have gotten when something went terribly wrong. About a week ago the church decided to change their internet provider. Little did they know that when they did this, that their domain would go up for sale. As soon as it was on the market an Adult entertainment company bought it, and turned it into a website-o-sin. The church members and staff were shocked when they heard the news. The Adult company offered to sell it back at a hefty sum, but the church said no and got a new domain found here.
(We're not going to post the old domain for obvious reasons)

I can understand the reasoning behind them not wanting to buy the domain back. Enough damage had already been done, and at that point there was no way to play it off as a small issue. There was no info or apology about this on the church's new website.

It's amazing that Adult sites would go to that desperate measures just to get some traffic onto their site. (But then again, it really doesn't.)

Literally Everything: December 29th, 2006

2006-12-29T13:16:00.000-05:00

We just launched our new podcast. Check out the first episode in the player below.
Click on the December 29th episode.

Click here to get your own player.

Did you know that...

2006-12-29T03:00:00.000-05:00

Another slow news week is upon us, so here's a bit of random knowledge..
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation!

A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth!

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein!

A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it’s there, though!

A hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute on average!

A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside!

A hummingbird weighs less than a penny!

A ‘jiffy’ is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!

A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court!

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand!

Cat urine glows under a black-light!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!
More Facts are availible here.

Power to Video Editing

2006-12-28T20:57:00.000-05:00

I saw this today on Digg and I was amazed at what computers can do these days. I know that with new stretches in technology we can do about anything but this just puts it in perspective for those who don't know too much about the power of video editing.

Smallest GPS Reciever

2006-12-28T02:30:00.000-05:00

What would you do with a GPS reciever that is as tiny as a baby's fingernail? It sounds like something out of the recently released James Bond movie, but believe it or not this device actually exists. The reciever was recently created by a New Zealand company, called Rakon. Rakon is a thirty nine year old company that has developed some of the best GPS recievers ever made. This small device opens up great possibilities and a number of new uses for GPS recievers, meaning that a device this small can be easily engineered to fit inside a watch or cell phone. With GPS recievers already integrated into many new devices, one can only imagine the possibilities this device could open up, some bad some good. For instance, a device this small could easily be embedded into some human to track their every move and exact position anywhere on the globe. (That is creepy, who knows what kind of stalker freak could get access to that) Uh oh! I think they just opened Pandora's Box.

Man Hasn't Slept for Over Three Decades

2006-12-28T02:04:00.000-05:00

Thai Ngoc is a 64 year old man who has not slept since 1973. Wow that's a pretty bad case of insomnia. Ngoc claims that his insomnia was caused by a fever that occured one night while he was trying to sleep in 1973. In almost 34 years without sleep he has stayed awake for more than 11,700 nights. Ngoc claims that he still manages to function well without sleep and he doesn't think that his insomnia deters him from farming and doing routine tasks everyday. He claims to be very healthy and proves his ordinary health by carrying 50kg bags of fertilizaer down a 4km long road everyday. His wife says that nothing can put her husband to sleep not, "even liquor...[can] put him down". Except for a slight decline of his liver funcion, doctors that have examined him have given a perfect score on his healt tests. Ngoc lives on a big farm taking care of pigs and chicked everyday, without a single ounce of sleep. He has six healthy children and uses his serious case of insomnia to protect his farm at night and prevent anyone from stealling his livestock.

Click here to see more of the strangest people that ever lived.

Woman Goes To Jail For Loud Music

2006-12-27T22:22:00.000-05:00

Ahh..by now you must know that I love to write in sound effects. This story deserves nothing other than an ahh, wow, or what the hell is this? But, when there is absolutely no content between Christmas and New Years, what do you expect.

Yesterday, a Japanease woman was charged with inflicting injury on her neighbor by rocking out to a bit too much to dance music at her house for more than two years. Finally after all this time she has been charged and sentenced to 20-months in prison. The 59 year old woman is Miyoko Kawahara. Apparently, her music gave her next-door neighbor headaches as well as a case of insomnia. What I don't understand is why she was playing music almost 24 hours a day on a stereo that was pointed at her neighbor's house only 20 feet away. "The defendant ignored calls by local authorities and continuously played music at a high volume for some 29 months," Kyodo News agency quoted presiding Judge Hiroshi Furukawa as telling the court. A doctor diagnosed the neighbor with insomnia and guaranteed that they were caused by the noise. Honestly, I don't blame the neighbor for taking action. Kawahara started playing the music almost constantly since November 2002! That would piss me off.

The Literally Everything Podcast

2006-12-27T10:19:00.000-05:00

We'll be launching the official Literally Everything podcast in a couple days! If you want to get the episode right away when we launch head over to...

Literally Everything Podcast
You can bookmark that, or scroll down to the bottom and subscribe in a ton of different players including iTunes, Yahoo, Newsgator, or just plain old RSS. The podcast is going to be a collection of stories that we discussed throughout the week, and we'll also just chat and have some fun. On the first episode, we'll be discussing Macworld 2007! So check it out if your interested, and when the show is released it will also be available in the blog's sidebar. Thanks again!

- Also -
Joe Cipriano, the guy that does voiceovers for many television stations including NBC and Fox will be helping us launch by posting our information on his site...
Joe Cipriano

Thanks Joe!

Literally Everything Podcast

Best Resources for Everything On the Web

2006-12-26T22:45:00.000-05:00

While reading the latest issue of Wired I came across a page with a few summarized websites. I thought I would touch upon the best web resources.

The first site I'm going to tell you about is a site I use very frequently for finding pictures of words, numbers, or symbols. the site is called The Visual Dictionary and you just go to the home page and type in the word, number, or symbol you are looking for and hopefully they have it.

Second, Digg.com comes to mind. "Digg is the Mack Daddy of news filters." Said by Christopher Null from Wired magazine.I think that quote says enough, but if not Digg is just a great site for finding the latest news for every topic you can think of. Even news that didn't make the front page.

The third and final web resource I'm going to tell you about is one that probably everyone who has ever been in the internet has heard of. Yes you guessed right, WikiediA is in its own level of web resourcing. WikiediA is used by me mainly for quick facts about certain things I'm going to post on, or just something I need to know, or something that I cannot remember and it has been bugging me for hours.

Myspace Looking For A Better Image

2006-12-26T12:39:00.000-05:00

Myspace.com has been targeted a lot this year as the site that is doing everything wrong. Pedophiles, spamming, and inappropriate pictures only scratch the surface of problems they have had to face this year. Luckily, they are trying to fight back. Imagine this. One day you are surfing around Myspace and you see a video that is calling out to you. You click and you are forwarded to a page that is asking for your password again. This is not a true myspace login page. You are being scammed.

MySpace calls itself a "place for friends." Increasingly, it is also a place for unfriendly attacks from digital criminals on the prowl. Myspace's bad image is going to cause a large problem for the site. They can't afford to drive away users, who might switch to one of a growing number of alternative sites. The main problem is - it's too easy to make changes on the Myspace site. With only a few lines of code, users can create elaborate profiles or add tricky links. The good news: Myspace is starting to crack down on these problems. The company is expanding its team of software engineers, lawyers and other experts who look for suspicious activity, educate users on how to prevent attacks and go after the worst offenders. They are also working with law enforcement officials to crack down on sexual predators. Smaller sites with less spam and more strict rules about coding on profiles like Facebook and Digg are starting to look like a better choice for some Myspace users. Myspace's problem it its sheer size. It's becoming difficult to keep an eye on every last user.

Check out today's top stories on our homepage.
Main Page
1. Iowa School Bans Hugging. And No I'm Not Kidding
2. Check out the anwsers to the tricky questions we asked on Sunday
3. Myspace Looking For A Better Image
4. Top Tech of the Year

Tech: Review of what I Got Under the Tree

2006-12-26T12:05:00.000-05:00

This year was a good year for me. I was happily surprised with a new iPod nano Product(RED) 4GB, with my name on the back. For the first day of use I have to say that this thing is sweet compared to my two year old, dying, gold 4th gen Mini. I loaded 300 songs to my nano in under five minutes. and 90 pictures as well. The screen is nice and bright even though it is small.

Also under the tree was a nano dock and 70$ in iTunes gift cards. The dock is the best and I love the way my nano looks in it. Can't activate the gift cards just yet because of all the traffic through the iTunes Store.

Lastly there was an iHome alarm clock. I plugged this thing in and it set itself to the right time. I love this thing. Great sound quality for those little speakers and the screen is nice and big and bright.

Now only what should I buy with my 50$ to the Apple store. I'm thinking a nano case or FM transmitter.

Iowa City School Bans Hugging. And No I'm Not Kidding.

2006-12-25T22:23:00.000-05:00

You know, I understood when schools banned cell phones, but this is just not normal. A junior high school in Iowa City has banned hugging on campus. Yes, they have banned hugging. It's only the most innocent, simple sign of affection in the known universe and they have banned it in an American public school. Apparently they decided to ban the act of affection because girls would hug in groups and stop the extreme flow of traffic during changing class periods. Apparently, there was just too many traffic delays in a middle school that they had to take action. Principal Deb Wretman said they have now instituted a strict hands-off or handshake policy at the Iowa City school. She said it's safe and efficient. Not everyone is happy though. A student recently wrote a letter to a local newspaper expressing her feelings about the rule. Ahhh...I love writing in breathing sound effects...and with these types of stories - it's the only thing I can do.

Tricky Questions: Answers

2006-12-25T21:57:00.000-05:00

A bunch of people actually tried the questions I posted a few days ago, and they left comments. Now lets find out how they did.

Q: You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?  A: If you answer that you are first, then you are absolutely wrong! If you overtake the second person and you take his place, you are second!

Q: Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total?  A: Did you get 5000? The correct answer is actually 4100. Don't believe it? Check with your calculator!

Q: There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?  A: Color and Freeze them first. Take them out of the jugs and put the ice in the barrel. You will be able to tell which water came from which jug.

Q: What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and grey when you throw it away?  A: The answer is Charcoal.

Q: Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?
A: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

Congratulations to the second anonymous that commented on the post. This is what they said:
1) 2nd place
2) 4100
3) Color the water in one, and freeze both, and then put them into the barrel.
4) Charcoal
5) Yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Your New iPod?

2006-12-25T17:18:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: The store seems to be working well today, they were really bogged down yesterday. Apple sold 14 million iPods last holiday quarter and I would expect that they sold a similar number of units this year. I was able to download both a song and a TV show sucessfully today.

If you got a new iPod or iTunes gift card today, here's something to keep in mind. Thanks to TUAW for the good advice.

"iTunes is not normally this slow: You've got to understand what happens on Christmas morning and throughout this week is that the iTunes store is bombarded by all you new and excited iPod owners--not to mention everyone who already had an iPod and got a gift card under the tree. Sure, go ahead and peek around the store but you might want to delay your serious iTunes shopping for a few days until things settle down and the store response time starts getting better."
TUAW.com

The iTunes music store is really slow right now due to extreme demand, it might be better to try it later tonight or tommorow.

Enjoy your shiny new iPods!

NOTE: Apparently I am being blamed for using some content from another blog, TUAW.com. I don't consider that wrong because I happened to give them credit in the article. If a blog, TUAW.com, which I happen to love, posts something really worthwhile in the hopes of spreading the message of how iPods are selling very well and that is affecting the speed of their website, I don't see the problem in posting that. Thank you for letting me know about things you thought were wrong, and I think most of them have been corrected at this point.

Check out today's top stories on our homepage.
Main Page
1. Iowa School Bans Hugging. And No I'm Not Kidding
2. Check out the anwsers to the tricky questions we asked on Sunday

Airline Plans To Allow In-Flight Cell Phone Usage

2006-12-25T14:24:00.000-05:00

Once again, Happy Holidays to everyone! But just because today is special - doesn't mean I can shirk my duties as a professional blogger. Uhh, yeah sure.
In the digital age, airplane passengers have always been inhibited with in flight restrictions on what is okay to use and what isn't. But, there may be some change coming soon. Starting in January, Emirates airline will be launching mobile phone usage on its planes. If this works, they will be the first airline to allow cell phone use. Australian carries Qantas also plans to start evaluating technology that would allow fliers to use cell phones and PDAs in flight starting early next year. Fliers have long been able to keep in touch with those on the ground by using phones built into the backs of airplane seats. But the costs of those seatback phones can be upwards of $10 a minute, plus a connection fee. With Emirates new plan, the cost of calls made in-flight will be in line with international roaming rates, the airline said. Those rates vary by mobile carrier and by location but can be as low as $1 to $2 a minute. There is a reason why this is only occuring on International carries however. U.S. carriers don't allow in-flight cell phone calls, although the FAA is reviewing the safety concerns associated with mobile calls made in the air. The regulatory agency has asked a committee to conduct a study looking at whether portable electronic devices like cell phones interfere with aircraft navigation systems. The results of the study are due at the end of December. The only question for U.S. carries is...Is there economic benefit for installing these service? "Domestically they're not going to bring anyone extra on to their airplane with that service," said airline industry consultant Michael Boyd. This may not be a reality for a while, but it is good to see that some plans are in the works.

Have a great holiday!

2006-12-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to drop in this morning and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays and an awesome New Year to all of our readers. Thanks for staying with us the past few weeks. We have some great new stuff coming next year.

Also, we'll be launching our podcast January 1st, 2007. In preparation we have added a podcast player to the sidebar. We will be working on a full external podcast page, and we will be adding ourselves to iTunes, but take a second to try out the player. Check back on the 1st of the year for our first episode.

Wanna leave us a comment on our blog or podcast? Call 1-206-350-4712 and let us know what you think.

Tricky Questions: Answers Coming Tuesday!

2006-12-24T18:01:00.000-05:00

I don't think we'll have any news to post tommorow morning, so here's a few tricky questions to mess with your mind. We'll have anwsers either tommorow or on monday. Post your anwsers in the comments if you'd like.

UPDATE: I am going to reveal the correct answers tommorow, Tuesday the 26th. We have had a couple comments, but feel free to leave more. Dont cheat though, because some people in the comments may have some of the right responses.

1. You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?

2. Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total?

3. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?

4. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and grey when you throw it away?

5. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?

Tech: Best of 2006

2006-12-23T13:42:00.000-05:00

As the new year approaches I figured I could look back on the best things in 2006. from apps to products to social networking. Let's get started.

Best Application of 2006
I use this application all day everyday. although it only appeals to Mac users, it is still the best app in '06. Parallels is th easiest way to run both Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista without rebooting your Intel Mac.

Best Social Network of 2006
With the hundreds or even thousands of web based social networks out there I had to choose one. This website is used by tens of thousands each day and is not MySpace or FaceBook. You may not use Flickr but you should all get into it. It is one of the best places to see some amazing photography work, even if you are not a photographer. I'm not a photographer, yet I belong to about 40 groups with topics varying from technology to landscapes to DIY photo tutorials. So the best Social Network of 2006 goes to Flcikr. My runner up was Diggnation :)

Best Game of 2006
Comparing all the PC and next-gen Counsel games, I have come to the conclusion that Gears of War is deserving of the title for Best Video Game of 2006. Gears of war debuted this year for the Xbox 360. It was a hit from the moment of release. Selling in record numbers!

Best Product of 2006
With all the new hype of Apple switching to Intel based computers I will have to say that the best product of 2006 is the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro from Apple. It's available in either 2.16 or 2.33 Ghz models with up to 3 Gbs of RAM this machine really brings the power. It also has a built in iSight webcam. Only if I was lucky enough to own one.

A Holiday Story

2006-12-23T13:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I posted videos of consumer products being destroyed, but today I think we should take a softer approach. On Thursday, a woman and her two sons hopped about buses and gave passengers a big "Merry Christmas" and handed each a $50 bill. One bus driver, Max Clemons - recalls what happened on his bus. "She kind of kept her head down. I don't remember ever seeing this lady before," said bus driver Max Clemons. "I had a young man in the back of the bus. He looked like he was going to start crying. He said in broken English, 'She don't know how much this will mean to me at Christmas,"' Clemons said. Another bus driver, Terry Dobson said that there was a lot of excitement. People were calling their family, and it was clear that the money was very important to these people. This really is a touching story, and it's a good reminder of what the holiday season is about.

All of us here at Literally Everything wish all of our readers a great holiday and a happy new year.

Blog for Literally Everything!

2006-12-22T22:23:00.000-05:00

Time is almost up to apply for our blogging team here at Literally Everything. So far I brought Evan on the team to talk about technology, and I would love to have someone covering entertainment or anything else of your choice. Just follow the following directions...

You don't need to have much writing experience. I'm just looking for someone with a strong interest in a particular topic. Drop me an email at literallyeverything@gmail.com. Just let me know about the following things..

Name
Writing Experience
What You Would Like To Write About On Our Blog
Please also include a sample of writing about the topic of your choice.

Thanks essentially it. I would love to bring at least 2 more writers on board so we can produce more articles each day. Once again, the email adress is literallyeverything@gmail.com. Hope to hear from you soon!
The deadline for any emails is January 1st, 2007.

Happy Holidays from Literally Everything. We're looking to some great content and new ideas to be launched in 2007!

Will It Blend?

2006-12-22T15:50:00.000-05:00

With all of the holiday cheer in the air, I thought it might be nice to share some destructive videos! This is amazing series from Blentec, called Will It Blend. They basically just try blending all kinds of things. These are definetly some of the best. Check them out...

12 Year Old Girl Recieves a Special? Zune

2006-12-21T17:28:00.000-05:00

This week in the windy city a mother thought she would be a cool mom, and bought her daughter a new Microsoft Zune media player. She went to her local Walmart and and purchased a Zune for her daughter. Little did she know that the Zune was filled with 'inappropriate videos'. The 12 year old girl came to her mother and asked her mother what was this. Then her mother found out it was a very inappropriate video and that the whole Zune was filled with them. That's one thing I would not want to explain to my 12 year old or any 12 year old girl.

Walmart refunded their whole purchase and gave the mother a 25$ gift card to Walmart. If this happened to me I would make them give me a lot more than 25$.

For a video interview with the mother check out this site.

Infant Is X-Rayed At Airport Security

2006-12-20T22:09:00.000-05:00

I have a short but humorous, and slightly disturbing story this morning. Yesterday, a woman mistakenly put her 1-month old grandson through an X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport. An amazed security worker noticed the shape of a child while screening bags in the x-ray lines (at least we know they actually pay attention now) and immediately stopped the machine. The infant was taken to a hospital where doctors discovered that he had not received a dangerous dose of radiation. "This was an innocent mistake by an obviously inexperienced traveler," said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for the city's airport agency. I sure hope the grandmother was the infant's mother's mother (that was confusing). Because if that was a mother in-law, that is going to be one guilt trip that never, never, never, never, never, never, never ends.

Miss USA Will Get a Second Chance

2006-12-20T16:56:00.000-05:00

By now you must have heard the whole story surrounding Miss USA. Apparently, she's just been having a little bit too much fun. But it may be more than that. After all this talk of Donald Trump taking away her title as Miss USA, she's going to get a second chance. "I've always been a believer in second chances," Trump, who owns the Miss Universe Organization with NBC, said with Conner at his side. "She left a small town in Kentucky and she was telling me that she got caught up in the whirlwind of New York." The media has been reporting her heavy underage drinking problem. In fact, she just turned 21 this Monday. She is going to be sent to rehab to fix the problem that may actually be turning into an obsession. In a tear-choked voice, Conner said, "In no way did I think it would be possible for a second chance to be given to me." Turning to Trump, she said, "You'll never know what this means to me, and I swear I will not let you down."

Snake Found In Toilet

2006-12-19T19:24:00.000-05:00

This was actually a dream that haunted me as a young child. I always thought that a snake would come into the toilet. But, I was a pretty strange young boy. An Australian wildlife worker pulled a 7-foot python out of a septic tank Wednesday after a plumber found it hiding in a woman's toilet, officials said. Peter Phillips, was called in to pull the snake out of the toilet. "The ... resident originally called a plumber because her toilet was blocked," Phillips said in a statement released by the Northern Territory government. "I arrived to see a large python head peering out of the toilet bowl." Phillips removed the snake from the tank because it had become too big to pull it directly out of the toilet. The snake turned out to be a noctural Carpet Python that had taken residence in the septic tank. "The tank was obviously a great home, because the snake was so fat and healthy it was it difficult to retrieve," he said, adding that the nonpoisonous snake will be released. Oh no...This is going to haunt me forever.

Top Ten Games of 2007

2006-12-18T14:54:00.000-05:00

PC GAMER magazine just published their new issue for January '07. The cover story for this issue was on the top ten up and coming games of 2007. I myself as a gamer found this very interesting.

The plot of post of the games is true fiction. I wonder what has happened to the old classics such as DoD and Counterstrike and Battlefield 1942. Now they have such games as Spore and Alone in the Dark. These games do not appeal to me as much as non-fiction games do.

Well if you really want the full list of games you can go here.

The World's Most Dangerous Roads

2006-12-17T00:19:00.000-05:00

Here at Literally Everything, we like to talk about literally everything - and this post definetly falls into that category. The most dangerous roads in the world.

#1 Most Dangerous Road In The World

This is the official federal-government highway to Yakutsk in Siberia, and it is also the only one to get there. As there are no other roads, the motorists are doomed to push through this wet dirt, or wait in week-long 100 km car line-ups (they say women even gave birth there while waiting). This can turn into a major humanitarian disaster during rainy spells, when the usual clay covering of the road turns into impassable mud blanket, swallowing trucks and tractors alike. In the meantime the city has to partly airlift all food products.

#2 Most Dangerous Road In The World

North Yungas Road is hands-down the most dangerous in the world for motorists. It runs in the Bolivian Andes, 70 km from La Paz to Coroico, and plunges down almost 3,600 meters in an orgy of extremely narrow hairpin curves and 800-meter abyss near-misses. A fatal accident happens there every couple of weeks, 100-200 people perish there every year. The July disaster brought the death toll during the previous eight months to 55. In 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank dubbed the La Paz-to-Coroico route "one of world's most dangerous roads."

The Most Dangerous Tourist Hiking Trail

Not a car road, but the most hair-raising experience you can have on your own two legs. This is a heavy-tourist traffic area in Tibet: located close to the Great Wall of China, Suan-kun ("The Hanging Temple") Monastery. Tourists walk on this wooden plank that appears to be no thicker than a foot and a half while holding on to a metal chain suspended on the side of a mountain.

Apple Holiday Gift Guide

2006-12-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

Only nine more days until the big day and there is still time to order your last minute gifts from Apple

A few weeks back Apple posted a new section to their already wonderful site. They added a Holiday Gift Guide. the gift guide consist of Mac product gifts, iPod+iTunes gifts, and even Apple store gift cards.

I found this very helpful when telling my parents what to get me this year for Christmas, and maybe you will too.

Hello All

2006-12-16T18:34:00.000-05:00

The name is Evan Doyle and I've just been added to the LiterallyEverything blogging team by Dan. (Thanks Dan!)

I'll mainly be on the blog team for Tech posts such as Apple material and random other gadgets and gaming topics.

Dan is still on the lookout for a few more bloggers to add to the team. If you are interested please see This Post.

If you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can reach me at evanjdoyle@gmail.com or my Aim evan12129.

Thank you all and I look forward to blogging with you all.

Man Attacks Driver With Antlers

2006-12-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of year and everyone is in the holiday spirit. Unfortunately, one man got a little too excited for Christmas. "Two men were arrested on battery charges Thursday after a road rage incident." That sounds normal, but here's where it turned sour. The incident led one of the men to attack the other with a pair of reindeer antlers and a hand gun. That's not normal. Ronny White, 35, and Keith Ransford, 23, both of Ft. Pierce, were booked at the St. Lucie County jail for alleged aggravated assault. Both were later freed on bond, said sheriff's Sgt. Andy McIntosh. "They got into a first altercation and the one guy tries to attack the second guy with deer antlers," McIntosh said. "It's not an everyday occurrence." White and Ransford allegedly got into an altercation while driving along U.S. 1 in Ft. Pierce, McIntosh said. The men stopped, and White allegedly attempted to attack Ransford with the deer antlers. Both men got back in their cars, crashed into each other, then stopped again about a block away, according to the sheriff's report.

Apparently, the two men got into a fight while driving, and they stopped. That's when one of the men tried to ram the other with a pair of deer antlers. Then, both men got back in their cars and ended up crashing into eachother. They both walked out of their cars just fine, and continued to fight. Neither of the men were seriously injured. That's suprising, because if the car crash or the gun shots didn't hurt anyone I was sure that the deer antlers would have caused some damage.