Join WoW

Now is the best time to start playing WOW and here's why:

With the new Recruit-A-Friend program you can earn an exclusive Zhevra mount, receive a FREE month of game time, and gain access to other exciting in-game benefits. From the moment your friend creates a character and starts playing you'll both earn triple the experience when grouped together and have the ability to summon one another from anywhere in the world. Also, for every two levels of experience your friend earns, they can grant one level of experience to one of your lower-level characters.

Find out more here:
World of Warcaft Site

WoW Trailer

Hack your Ipod touch

Hacking your Ipod touch/Iphone can have amazing benefits. I just hacked mine and I have SNES, NES, GBA, and GB on my ipod. Thats not all I can customize my themes with hundreds of themes to choose from.

Find out how to do this and more with these links:
http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/
http://www.ipodtouchhacks.com/ipod/touch/jailbreak/

GBA EMU on Ipod

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is being released tomorrow and is highly anticipated because of the success of RE4.

IGN Review below

iGoogle

iGoogle is a recent addition to the ever growing search-engine for google. It allows you to customize your google home page with quotes, weather, stocks, gmail, IM clients, and 100s of other helful gadgets. It is very simple to use and you can start customizing your home page right now.

What is Niche Marketing?

Niche Marketing is a business directed toward a certain market to promote a product. Many people use niche marketing when they start their own businesses. It gives you the upper-edge by allowing you to sell to a market that could be overlooked by major monopolies. Markets include anything from cooking to video games and anybody can start their own.

Here's a video that better explains:

Why not to buy a high-end gaming rig

High-end gaming rigs are just a huge waste of money. Say you buy a rig for $1,500 with all the latest components, they will all be outdated in a few months. Its better off to get a mid-range system and overclock the cpu, add an SLI card when the time is right, and of course up the RAM.

Playing games on the highest settings is not worth the cost because you can upgrade in the future for much less and then bump up the settings. A good motherboard is pretty much the only part you need to have top notch for upgrading reasons.

Building your own PC is also a money- saver since companies like Dell, HP, Sony, etc normally limit upgrading and overclocking options. I bought my computer from http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ Which is pretty much a custom PC put together for you. I had my PC for about 4 years and I overclocked and upgraded many times to keep it running quick.

How to Reviewed

How to Reviewed is a blog "dedicated to reviewing the "how to..." guides out there."

I think this an appropriate site to post here because I will be talking about all types of tech, including home brew and hacking. And surprisingly there are legit sites out there that many call "scams" or whatever. I have used similar guides in the past and had no problem with them. I suggest taking a look at it if your a beginner to homebrew, or lack the desire to figure things out on their own.

The Console War

Every 5 years theres a new generation of consoles and there is always competition between the different manufactures. The the current generation and the generation before both have competition between Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. Judging by sales and general gaming knowledge it is hard to tell what will be "the console" for the next generation. For instance the PS2 dominated the Xbox and Gamecube in the last generation of consoles. So wouldn't one think Sony would pull it off again? I didn't think it mattered who sold what last gen., what really matters is what is the best console for each specific gen.
I knew that the 360 would do better than the PS3 before either was out. I was right and the 360 has a bunch of factors that make this so:
1. The 360 came out a year before the PS3 or the Wii, giving it a year for people to buy it and grow on it.
2. Xbox Live is probably the biggest reason since most games today have online capabilities. Live gives players an organized way to play with friends, chat, customization, and more. They even took it a step further with movies and TV episodes that are available for purchase or rental, some in HD. Of course theres a small fee but the amount of players on Live is huge compared to the Ps3.
3. The 360 was just more affordable than the PS3 aswell, more than $100 cheaper at one point.

But what blows me away is the amount of Wii sales. The Wii is outselling the PS3 and the 360 by over 20 million units. According to www.vgchartz.com the Wii currently sold 47 million units worldwide, the 360 almost 29 million units and the PS3 20 million. This amazes me because gamecube in last place for the last gen. and Ps2 was on top. Nintendo steeped up this gen with an affordable console that the whole family can enjoy. However the PS3 might be able to make a come back because of the new Official HD video disc being Blu-ray. Also with some solid new games and services that are sure to released.

Nintendo has, is, and probably will hold a grip on the handheld platform. The GB through the years has defeated every opponent it faced. The PSP is the only contender that puts up a good fight. Still Nintendo pulls through with 99 million sales for the NDS compared to the 45 million for the PSP.

What the next genaration holds in store for gamers is unknown and always leaves the questions. What console will be on top? Who will drop out? Who will join? Personally I dont think anyone will be dropping out. Nintendo however should watch out for what the itouch or next ipod has in store for the gaming world, as well as cell phones and small computers

For more stats on console, games, and country specific sales check vgchartz.com

Coming soon: services that show step by step how to use your PSP to the fullest and how to play back-up games on the 360 so stay tuned...

Homebrew

Ive used homebrew with a few devices in my life and i must say homebrew is quite fun and interesting.
What is homebrew? Homebrew is software, sometimes called hacks, that allow users to program their own content for the platform. On popular platforms there are often many sites with people making software, so you dont have to program your own. Homebrew allows users to run emulators such as GBA, NES, SNES, Sega Genisis, and more on a device that wouldnt normally allow it. Thats not even the tip of the iceberg, other software includes calculators, user-games, web browsers, video players, cameras, read ebooks, almost anything you can think of.
What are some devices for homebrew? Well, almost any modern gaming sytems, phones, and mp3 players are able to be hacked to use homebrew if people are willing to put the time into it. Some of the more popular ones are the Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, Sega Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox360 and the Ipod touch/Iphone.
Does homebrew cost anything? Homebrew software is free but CDs,DVDs, storage cards, and depending on the platform, some cheap tools might be needed

My homebrew expierence: When I was about 12 or 13 I somehow came across an article that explained how to use the Dreamcast for homebrew. I was able to view downloaded videos(some had to be convereted) on my dreamcast without any cost other than a few CDrs and almost no effort. Then I did the same for emulators like NES, and Snes, it was fun to play the old games I havent played in so long on my dreamcast. Those are the 2 things i remember doing the most on the dreamcast but there is plenty more that I could have done. Then for my 15 birthday I got a PSP for a gift and soon discovered its potential for homebrew. The PSP was portable so I had my emulators with me at all times. It already played video and music but there were other apps that allowed other formats of video soo that was nice too. Once I started using the PSP I put the dreamcast aside because the PSP had much more processing power. I was able to load different firmwares on it using homebrew, back-up my UMD, games, and mess around with fun apps on the go. The storage for the games and other apps kept getting better because larger memory sticks were always comming out. Today there is a 16gb card, now thats alot of movies ,music, games, and emulators. Ive also just started using homebrew with my itouch and its just as great.

I will definitely be posting more articles, guides, news, and anything that will help people in the future so check back soon. but in the meantime heres some sites that have the apps and instructions on how to use homebrew on your platform.

http://pspupdates.qj.net/
http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/
http://hacktheiphoneitouch.blogspot.com/

Youtube is always a good resource to find out about how to use homebrew

The Blackberry Storm

For Christmas I decided to get an upgrade for as my present from my parents. I upgraded from the LG enV to the Blackberry Storm. I was looking forward to having a touchscreen phone with the web browser, media player, and email. However when I finally had one I was disappointed. Then I sent it back for a Voyager, which I'm happy with. Physical Q-WERTY keyboards cant be beat.

1. The screen that clicks: I found using the click screen very irritating. While using the Q-WERTY keyboard I often typed to fast and wouldn't press down fast enough and mess up what I was typing. Not only that but it started to hurt the fingers after typing a long message.
2. The battery life: It was average for a smartphone I guess, although I couldn't go through a day without charging it. I would charge it overnight then use it from 8AM-6PM and it would die and need to be charged, which was very annoying because I simply don't have a few hours to let my phone sit on the charger during my day. This is without even using the media player for music or video, that would have killed the battery even quicker.
3. Texting and Emailing: Everything in this area is very straight forward and easy to use. The only downfall in the click screen. Includes AIM, Windows Messenger, Yahoo, Gmail, and so on.
4. Media: With the 8GB card that comes with the phone space is not a problem, so you can fill up your phone with music and video. The Storm has a 3.5mm jack so any standard headphones can be used. The quality of sound is pretty good and videos look great on the screen. I had no real issues in this area.
5. Games/Apps: There are 2 games that came with the blackberry but there wasn't any other games available at the time(there still might not be). The Verizon app store still hasn't been launched for the Storm, threre is a few apps that can be downloaded from sites like google and facebook but still not enough.
6. Calling- Calls sound good, I never really had low bars either. The Storm has blue tooth support and speaker phone. Nothing special here, pretty standard
7. Camera: The camera works pretty well and quality isn't bad. However I had some software issues where the camera would randomly come on and would be hard to turn off, other than that I didn't see any issues.
8. OS: The concept for the OS works fairly well, except the it is really slow at times and the accelerometer sometimes takes up to 10 seconds to flip when the phone is moved.

The bottom line: The Storm brings some good ideas to the table, but the sluggish OS, frustrating click screen, lack of apps, and no wifi make this phone a flop. If you are picking between this and the Iphone, the Iphone is a clear winner. The biggest problem is not being able to enter text fast, and since you will do a lot of typing on this phone I cant reccomend it.

The Classic Ipod VS. Zune

Many often ask the question "What is better the Apple Ipod or the Microsoft Zune?". Well there may not be a clear answer since both have their Pros and Cons. So having througly used both products I will enlighten the public with my view.

I bought a Zune 80 around a year ago for $250 over an Ipod Video for a few reasons:
1. The Zune had a bit larger screen so viewing videos and pictures
2. FM Tuner
3. Compatible with the Xbox360
4. Wireless sync

Overall I liked the Zune, it was easy to use, I liked the wireless sync and just was an overall great product.

but why is and Ipod better? (IMO)

The Ipod Video despite lacking a few minor features the Zune has, has a lot bigger market.
I found it much easier to find accessories such as an i home. I looked and looked for a simllar product for the Zune and I could not find one until recently. Not only that but I see alot more car adaptors, tv input cables, docks, cases, you name it for the Ipod. Itunes is another major benefit of the Ipod. The Zune does have its own marketplace for music but it just can't compare. Itunes has more music,movies,tv episodes,applications, books, etc than the Zune store.

The bottom line: For the average joe the ipod is a better choice just because it has so many accesories and itunes has such a large library. The Zune is for the more tech savy people who want something different