@methodshop

PICS: Ouch!

Every once in awhile a photographer will capture an amazing moment in time. That moment can be anything from a beautiful sunset, a silly face on a baby, or even someone just before a severe onslaught of pain overwhelms them and everyone nearby vomits uncontrollably. These pictures are of the latter.


methodshop

Labels: pics

Ever dream of transforming your computer's QWERTY keyboard into a synthesized drum machine? Maybe not, but doesn't it sound like fun? Just press any letter on your keyboard and QWERTY Drums will play a drum sound or sound effect.

QWERTY Drums might be the most fun you've had in your cubicle since your company's last holiday party. What are you waiting for? Go serenade your cubemates... but this time try to keep your pants on. And don't press the "v" key over and over again you dirty bastard.

[hat tip Holiday Matinee]


methodshop

Labels: games, music

Tekkeon's NavDock is a home media center all wrapped up into an iPod dock. The NavDock lets you navigate your iPod through an on-screen menu to play videos, photos, and music on a connected standard definition television.

NavDock browses directly through your iPod menus, so finding and playing music and videos is easy. And you can use the 16-button remote to adjust or mute volume, shuffle, repeat or skip songs, and fast forward or rewind through music or videos. The remote offers a 5-way navigation pad and quick keys that you jump directly to the videos, photos, music, or settings menus.

And the damn thing isn't even that expensive. But it's also not perfect. If you want to connect your iPod to your TV, should you splurge and get an Apple TV, buy a cheap $5 AV iPod cable or get the NavDock? Let's find out.



methodshop

Labels: gadgets, ipod, review

If you've pressed the "More" button lately when using Google Maps, you might have noticed a new layer feature called Webcams. In addition to being able to see real time "Traffic," and a "Street View" for a specific location, you can now see live video from any nearby webcams. It's a really handy layer for Google Maps users. For example, the next time you want to check out Lincoln Tunnel traffic, you can see Google's traffic data as well as a live camera outside the entrance and exits.

The available cameras in the Google Maps Webcam later are compiled by the http://Webcams.travel.


methodshop

Labels: internet

If you grew up during the 1980's, then perhaps you might remember playing an 8-bit shooter called Duck Hunt. Released for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) in 1985, Duck Hunt was one of the first games to use the "NES Zapper" or light gun.

At the time, my little brother and I didn't care how the gun worked, we just didn't want the dog to laugh at us. Sometimes we would hold the light gun against the glass of the TV and try to cheat. 20 years later I'm more interested in learning how the game worked than preventing the dog from laughing at me.

So how does the light gun work? How exactly does Duck Hunt know what you were pointing at when you pull the trigger? According to an article on The Straight Dope, the gun isn't shooting the TV, it's the other way around. When you pull the light gun trigger, the entire screen blackens briefly and a white duck flashes on the screen where the duck(s) are located. If the photo sensor in the light gun detects a quick flash from dark to light, then you have a dead duck (and a non-laughing dog). Basically the TV shoots a light pulse and the "gun detects it, not the other way around."



Finding a working NES, light gun and original Duck Hunt cartridge can be a little tricky and require some time searching around on eBay. If you're looking for a quick fix, you can play an online Shockwave version of Duck Hunt here. You'll have to settle for a mouse instead of a light gun, but you'll probably have fun anyway.


methodshop

Labels: games

Mobile games developer Gameloft has released an updated version of The Oregon Trail. The game costs $5.99 in the iTunes App Store and introduces several new gameplay elements to the elementary school classic.

The game now includes 5 skill-based mini-games, side-missions and random events like bandits. Of course, everyone's favorite gameplay elements like hunting and random outbreaks of disease are still included.

iTunes Download: Oregon Trail for iPhone & iPod Touch

For you youngsters out there who don't know about the original Oregon Trail game, it was an educational computer game about American pioneer life that has a long history in North American school districts and homes. The game was inspired by the real-life Oregon Trail and was designed to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the trail. The player takes the role of a party of people, of a selected profession, traveling across the Oregon Trail in a Conestoga wagon.



The original Oregon Trail game was developed by John Hoffmann, Anthony Stone and Pablo Jara Meza in 1971 and produced by MECC in 1974. The game was inspired by the real-life Oregon Trail and was designed to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the trail.

Oregon Trail was very popular among American elementary school students in the mid 1980s to early 1990s. Many students in the United States had access to the game at school in computer labs full of Apple II computers. 20-30 years later the game has become culturally iconic and there remains an aspect of nostalgia for those who grew up playing the game. The game is also ridiculed for featuring incessant dysentery and dysentery-caused deaths.




methodshop

Labels: games, review

What should a major fast food chain, like Domino's Pizza, do when two employees create a PR nightmare by posting videos of themselves tampering with customer's food on YouTube?

A few years ago, the typical corporate response might have been to pull the videos off the Internets, hide their heads in the sand like an ostrich and wait for the PR storm to pass.

But like fighting fire with fire, Domino's smartly chose to fight their social media nightmare using social media. Patrick Doyle, president of Domino's USA, quickly posted a video response to the "Disgusting Domino's Pizza Employees" video on YouTube and setup a Twitter account (@dpzinfo) to answer questions from concerned customers. As a result, Domino's is being praised for their actions and might be able to spin this public relations disaster into something slightly positive.




The "Disgusting Domino's Pizza Employees" videos had already spread across the Internet like wildfire and there was no way the company would have been able to pull all the videos and contain the damage. The videos, filmed at a Conover, NC Domino's Pizza, had already been embedded on thousands of blogs (including methodshop.com) and social networking profile pages. Confronting the problem with honesty and speaking directly to the public using social media was a very wise decision.




Hopefully Domino's sales won't be too bad. But we wouldn't expect customers to flock back to the local Conover, NC location anytime soon.


methodshop

Labels: internet, social networking, video

Is your iPod or iPhone frozen? This can happen for a number of reasons and does not necessarily indicate a serious problem. Sometimes they just need a reset much like the way your computer needs a restart once in a while.

Restarting an iPod or iPhone is a simple procedure that will not erase any of your music, data files, or customized preferences.


Sometimes the iPhone just gets confused. For example, the iPhone may be powered on but it won't respond to any button, switch, or touchscreen input. Try pressing and holding the Home button on the front of the iPhone for 6 seconds until the active program closes.

If this technique does not resolve the issue or the iPhone is in a different state such as showing a persistent Apple logo on the display, then you should reset the iPhone.









methodshop

Labels: gadgets, iphone, ipod, tutorial

Do you have a bunch of VHS tapes sitting on a shelf gathering dust, but you're not about to toss them out because you spent a bunch of money on them, love the movies, but aren't ready to spend more money to replace them with DVDs?

Well convert 'em! Gizmos for Geeks put together a quick round-up of a few products that will help you convert your VHS paperweights to DVDs. For starters, companies like Panasonic have VHS/DVD combo player-recorders that are the simplest to use, but are the most expensive of the bunch.

The other solutions are software/hardware combos that can not only convert VHS tapes but pretty much any video source to a variety of digital formats. The Honestech VHS to DVD (which does not have the best name) can convert practically any analog source you can feed into its converter box, and has some very nice software to manage the process as well.

If you have more than 5 to 10 tapes, then it quickly becomes worth it to spend a bit of money on one of these up front and not $10+ on each of the DVD replacements.

You can read the whole article here.

methodshop

Labels: converter, dvd, hardware, software, vhs, video

Want to generate a ton of bad press for your company and get yourself fired before the end of the day? Yes?! Then there's a lot that can be learned from these two Domino's Pizza employees from Conover, North Carolina.

The Domino's workers posted a video on YouTube of themselves blowing boogers and farting on customer's food. YouTube users were so disgusted, they not only posted thousands of comments on the video, but tracked down which Domino's Pizza store the video was made and complained to Domino's corporate office. As a result, the two employees in this video were fired only hours after posting the video on YouTube. They claim the video was only a joke and the food wasn't served. If you rather not take your chances, you might want to avoid this Domino's Pizza location until further notice:

Domino's Pizza
509 10th St Nw
Conover, NC 28613
USA

Yuck! If YouTube takes the video down, you can watch it here at this alternate location online.

So what do the big shots at Domino's Pizza's corporate headquarters think about all this extra attention they've been getting online? According to this video response on YouTube by Patrick Doyle, president of Domino's USA, everyone in the Domino's family is "sickened" by the actions of these two employees. In the video Doyle goes on to apologize for the incident, assures customers that the Conover, N.C. restaurant where the videos were filmed is being sanitized and describes the steps his company is taking to ensure such an incident doesn't happen again.





methodshop

Labels: internet, video

Don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch? As long as you have a "click wheel" model iPod, you can still play games from the iTunes Store. Unfortunately your selection is dramatically reduced compared to the App Store, but there are still some good games available like Bejeweled, Sims Bowling and Texas Hold'em.

REVIEW: iPod Click Wheel Games

Here's the complete list of iPod Click Wheel Games available in the iTunes Store (as of April 2009):

• Asphalt 4: Elite Racing
• Bejeweled
• Block Breaker Deluxe
• Bomberman
• Brain Challenge
• Bubble Bash
• Cake Mania 3
• Chalkboard Sports Baseball
• Chess
• Backgammon
• Chinese Checkers
• Crystal Defenders
• CSI: Miami
• Cubis 2
• iQuiz
• Lode Runner
• Lost
• Mahjong
• Mini Golf
• Monopoly
• Ms. PAC-MAN
• Musika
• Mystery Mansion Pinball
• Naval Battle
• PAC-MAN
• Peggle
• Phase
• Pirates: Aegir’s Fire
• Pole Position: Remix
• Real Soccer 2009
• Reversi
• Royal Solitaire
• Scrabble
• The Sims Bowling
• The Sims DJ
• The Sims Pool
• Slyder Adventures
• Song Summoner
• Sonic The Hedgehog
• SPORE Origins
• Star Trigon
• Sudoku
• Tamagotchi: ‘Round the World
• Tetris
• Texas Hold ’em
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour
• Trivial Pursuit
• UNO
• Vortex
• Wonder Blocks
• Yahtzee
• Zuma

methodshop

Labels: games, ipod, itunes

Like shopping on the go? This week Amazon.com released a free application for trackball BlackBerrys like Bold or Curve. The new application lets users search, browse, purchase products, view customer reviews, track packages and access their wish lists while on the go.

You can download the new Amazon app from your Blackberry's web browser by going to http://amazon.com/bb


methodshop

Labels: gadgets, mobile

Bugs tend to freak us out. Mosquitoes, spiders, wasps, centipedes... you name it. If it crawls, bites or buzzes (especially anywhere near our faces), then we squirm, swat and run. But what's worse than a little bug crawling on, or biting you? How about a really, really big one?

PICS: The Biggest Bugs On Earth


methodshop

Labels: pics

Used to paying $0.99 for a song on iTunes? Brace yourself... Apple put an end to uniform pricing in the iTunes Store this week.

But don't worry, the change in price could be in your favor. Apple now offers 3 pricing tiers for music sold in the iTunes Store ($0.69, $0.99, $1.29). The change in pricing is in response to music labels demanding to charge more money for their popular songs.

So how did the competition react? Amazon, Rhapsody and Wal-Mart all raised the prices of their most popular downloads. So much for shopping around for the best deal. It almost makes you want to fire up BitTorrent and get your tracks for free.


methodshop

Labels: itunes, music

Don't have time to Twitter? Do you dread composing lengthy 140 characters tweets? Who doesn't. Move over Twitter, here comes Flutter to the rescue.

Flutter messages, or flaps (like a hummingbird's wing) are limited to only 26 characters. One full English alphabet is the maximum flap. Seriously, if you can't express your thoughts in a full English alphabet then you might want to take some lessons in brevity from @TheMime.

Flutter can also import messages from other social networking sites, like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, and automatically shorten them to 26 character flaps. For example, lets say your friend Tweets this "working on some new designs for the album cover and watching project runway in my underwear lol!" Flutter would automatically shorten this message to say "wrking 4 project underwear."

By the way, we're just kidding. The Flutter video is a mockumentary about a fictional company called Flutter that wants to take microblogging to the next level. Enjoy.


methodshop

Labels: internet, social networking, video

What happens when you drown a penguin in gunpowder, add a heavy dose of Rambo and throw it all into a video game? Say hello to Penguinz - the goriest penguin Flash game since Yeti Bloody.



Play: Penguinz


With 15 enemies, 4 bosses, 9 weapons, and 39 upgrades... this might be the most mayhem your office cubicle has seen in months.


methodshop

Labels: games

Here is a mesmerizing 5 minute video that runs through the state of our world, the economy, technology and more all by the numbers. You'll find some staggering stats in here.



via Gizmos for Geeks

methodshop

Nambu is very popular free Mac Twitter client that handles saved searches, topic threading, filters, and groups. For example, you can split up the people you follow like family, friends, coworkers, even enemies.

Nambu is a native Mac application designed for multiple social networking services, but in practice it seems like its primary strength is as a Twitter client. It offers support for multiple Twitter accounts, which can in turn be viewed in several different ways. It also integrates support for the tr.im URL shorting service and the pic.im image service.

There's the standard list view which will automatically integrate tweets from multiple accounts into a single timeline. There's a three-pane view, somewhat similar to OS X Mail, with a sidebar allowing you to choose between accounts, and finally a multi-column view a la TweetDeck or HootSuite and you can, of course, choose what appears in each column: main timeline, replies, sent messages, searches(!), etc.. In addition, replies are automatically threaded so they appear indented under the most recent tweet from the person to whom you are replying (as well as within the normal timeline). Another nice feature is that it automatically displays the domain of shortened URLs that appear in your timeline.

In short, I think I've found my new Mac-native Twitter client. Nambu is a free download from The Nambu Network.


methodshop

Labels: review, social networking

Get ready to super-size your URLs. That's right. TinyURL.com is for sissies. Move over brevity, email friendly links and Twitter's puny 140 character limit... there's a fat lady singing and her name is HugeURL. HugeURL.com will take your tiny little links and make them ginormous.





For example, why would you want to link to http://methodshop.com when you could link to a paragraph length collection of random text?

http://www.hugeurl.com/?NzU5ODFlNjIxODEyMTFlMjU0NGZlOTJjYTIx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Is HugeURL practical? Not at all. Why HugeURL.com? Because bigger is better!!! Right?


methodshop

Labels: internet

Did Warner Bros. Acquire The Pirate Bay? Is Qualcomm expanding their wireless coverage with transmitters connected to Wolfpigeons? Careful what you read online today and check your calendar. That's right, it's April Fools Day.

Here are some of the best April Fools Day jokes you'll see online today. Enjoy!

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Reddit Reborn as Redigg - Are the crowd-sourcing wars over? If you go to http://reddit.com today you might think you accidentally typed in Digg.com. For their April Fools Day joke, Reddit mockingly adopted their competitor's design and were reborn as Reddigg!

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Google Autopilot - Too busy to read and respond to your own emails? No problem. Google has a new artificial intelligence technology called Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) that will read and respond to all your email for you.

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Qualcomm's Wireless Convergence - Qualcomm has a plan to help increase wireless coverage: put tiny base stations in pigeons and make their wireless network accessible anywhere in the world. But how does Qualcomm protect their pigeon transmitters from feral cats? By splicing the pigeons with wolves and giving them the skills and tenacity they need to survive in the wild. But how do you control a winged wolf population in the wild? Can you say Sharkfalcon? What about Crocodegle? It gets a little complicated. You might want to watch this YouTube clip from Qualcomm that helps explain how they plan to control all these new winged predators/transmitters in the wild.

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Guardian Switches to Twitter - Sure the newspaper industry is a dieing dinosaur but... switching to Twitter? For their April Fools Day joke, the Guardian informed readers that after 188 years of publishing, the newspaper will now only be available via Twitter. According to "experts" cited in the article, any news story can be told in 140 characters (the maximum number of characters Twitter allows per update).


methodshop

Labels: holiday, internet