It’s that time again, time to review some of my cherry picked smaller stories of the week for those that might have missed them. This time round we’ve got an Adobe Flash update that doesn’t suck. OK, sucks a little less. Flash 10.1 beta was unleashed to the willing public with GPU video acceleration for certain Nvidia cards on Windows, but perhaps more importantly reduced CPU usage across all platforms. What does this mean? YouTube that doesn’t make your Mac or PC red-line that’s what. A step in the right direction Adobe, maybe Flash isn’t a lost cause after all. I’ve certainly seen some improvements on my netbook and Mac. (more…)

You’re the proud owner of an Original or iPhone 3G, but you just can’t help but ogle your mates 3GS ever since he got it. With it’s fancy new compass, voice recognition and video recording, your Original/3G is starting to look a bit tired. Problem is, you’ve got at least another couple of months on your contract left and the networks are charging extortionate amounts for early upgrade. You could try buying a PAYG iPhone 3GS and sell your old and busted iPhone taking the hit on the difference, but that’s probably just as much as the early termination/upgrade fee O2/AT&T wants from you. So for the time being you’re stuck with an iPhone 3G.

OK, it’s not like that’s the end of the world, it’s still an incredibly capable device, plays some great games and can use almost all the apps that the 3GS can. But what about those features that set the 3GS apart? Well with a few apps and tweaks you too can get your 3G to do almost all of the new tricks the 3GS has and give your old trusty an extra burst of life. (more…)

The holidays are just around the corner, and with this tough economy its hard to figure out what to give your loves ones. What’s a geek to do?! (dum DUM DUM!!!!)

Well, do not fear, Jessica is here! I am here to provide you with a list of geeky gift ideas to give to your geeky love ones. A list of 5 things that are inexpensive and expensive.

Literally, I come bearing gifts!

$1 – 10: Get the Hint Mini Sticky Notes (ThinkGeek & Urban Outfitters) $4.99-$6.00

Fuck Post-Its! this will communicate a strong message to yourself and others. Sometimes we cannot find the right words to communicate how we feel. We’ll these sticky suckers will do the trick!

For more gift ideas, READ AFTER THE BREAK!

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Freddy vs Jason, King Kong vs Godzilla, The Donald vs Rosie. Some of the most recognizable names in history have also sparked some of the greatest rivalries of all time. The engineers at Apple and Microsoft are no different, going toe-to-toe many times over the past few decades. Apple creating their iPod line and Microsoft creating the Zune line. Now the two similar foes do battle in our arena; The Apple iPod touch 32GB vs. The Microsoft Zune HD 32GB. (more…)

So what do you want for Christmas?

Christmas is just around the corner and surely you nerds and nerdettes have already started shopping for that special someone. With so many choices, how does one make a final decision to spend your hard earned cash? With dozens of companies vying for your attention here’s a quick guide to some of the coolest gadgets and toys the market has to offer in 2009.

1:The Titanium Spork, one of the strongest metals known to mankind meets one of the most vertile gastronomic tools ever invented. Its corrosion-resistant, light weight and super strong. From soup to steak, this baby will do it all,for $8.99 you cant go wrong (via Thinkgeek)

More gift ideas past the break. (more…)

Need another way to spend your day slacking off and losing money? Well, another Woot Off! is going on right now. See if you can get some deals in before Black Friday. Oh, and don’t try to get a random bag of crap.  I’ve been trying for 5 years and finally gave up on it. It’s crap I tell you! (Yes, I’m whining.)

Go to Woot.com and spam that refresh button.

NASA is giving everyone a chance right now to see what goes on before and during a shuttle liftoff with the Atlantis crew. God speed to those crew members.

Welcome to Pixelated Geek’s Weekly Tech Wrap-up, a quick and humorous run through of some smaller stories from the world of consumer electronics and technology.

First batter up is the hideous looking OpenOffice Mouse. This beast features a full 18 buttons, 63 programmable profiles and even an analogue joystick! What more could you want from an instant carpel tunnel surgery inducing monstrosity? How about a soon to hit street price of $75 (£45)? Obviously not a fan of the Magic Mouse, a World of Warcraft-loving gamer decided his mouse didn’t have enough buttons and went ahead and set up a company to do it better. WarMouse is aiming this at the OpenOffice, MMO playing crowd and they might go potty over it, but I think I’ll stick to my trusty Logitech thanks. (more…)

The ATI 5870 series

In recent years, few graphic cards have managed to capture the imagination of the PC building community. The recent release of the ATI 5800 series has turned the market on its end and people are lining up to get their grubby little paws on the latest iteration, the 5870 series. Its the first card on the market with native DirectX 11 graphics technology, the card boasts 2.15 billion 40 nanometer transistors, pumping out 2.75 teraflops of power,  1600 stream processors, a memory bandwidth of 153.6GB/sec and a clockspeed of 850mhz. The graphics powerhouse supports up to 3 displays simultaneously with independent refresh rates and resolutions or they can be combined into one large display using the new ATI Eyefinity system. Dual-Link DVI and displayport with a resolution of 2560×1600 is included as is HDMI 1.3 with a native resolution of 1920×1200.

5870

The 5870 can support up to four cards in CrossfireX mode for an incredible boost in power. This beauty definitely has the hunger of a beast, requiring at least 500 watts (600 is recommended for crossfire) to run a complete system. It also requires two six pin PCI-E connections. This baby is fantastically powerful, vastly outperforming its brethren, but this greatness comes at a terrible cost. Finding one of these beauties for sale has proven difficult. Retailers like Microcenter and Newegg have had a hard time keeping the cards in stock and with good reason; ATI has had major supply issues trying to churn this thing out. With demand well outpacing production, we may not see another large shipment of the 5870 till very close to the holidays. While this powerhouse does exist (and exist very well it does!) it certainly doesn’t feel like it does. Overall ATI’s new top dog very much lives up to its own hype and is king of the pack when it comes to graphics processors. Nvidia, the ball is in your court.

Shea Dog - Perscription - Gunnars

For the people who are lucky enough to read and not hear this, congratulations on having working eyes. We all take our eyes for granted, especially us nerds and geeks. For the computer programming or hacking geeks, you don’t mind staring at a screen full of code and text for hours on end. For you hardcore video gamers, you don’t mind drying out your eyes because blinking is for noobs and that fraction of a second can mean a disastrous and maybe embarrassing headshot. And for the web and graphic designers, you tend to get so close to the screen because you’re either using a touchscreen Wacom or you need to zoom in virtually as well as physically.

Yes. We are eye abusers and we just let it happen cause most people think regular prescription glasses or contacts will help. Sure, they help, but have you noticed sometimes that your eyes still dry out, you get headaches at the end of a long day of gaming, designing, or coding? Or how about your eyes getting so tired that you sometimes see double taillights on the car in front of you on the drive home from work.

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