Ah, say it with me: Aurgasm.

Now get your mind out of the gutter and think about a different kind of pleasure. We’re talking musical euphoria! Aurgasm updates about once a week or so, and serves up a fresh dose of music from a different group, artist, band, and/or genre every post. The author of the blog doesn’t limit himself to one genre or style either, and he even takes submissions for music ideas to cover, tracks to hear, and albums to check out. What’s even better is that the blog sports a button player, that lets you click the little “play” icon right next to a song title and listen to the song right inside your web browser. If you dig the track, you’re free to download the song to your hard drive! That’s right, you heard me, free music.

The tracks are always good, free, and the diverse coverage of songs and artists and genres on the site give you a great opportunity to find out about some bands you always liked, or learn about an artist you didn’t know you loved until you hit that play button to sate your curiosity. You can provide feedback in the comments to what you heard, and the author occassionally will post a few tracks, ask for feedback, and then post his favorite feedback on the front page; that’s right, it’s interactive! Head over to Aurgasm and check it out, and if you’re like me you’ll want to add it to your bookmarks.

[ Aurgasm ]

Taiwanese company BenQ claims that Apple has been in discussion with several Taiwanese telephone manufacturers in an attempt to design and produce an Apple iPod with cellular phone capabilities. BenQ says that they’re not the company that’ll be working with Apple on the design and manufacturing, but their parts manufcaturers have relayed the knowledge to them and that apparently it’s “common knowledge” among parts manufacturers in Taiwan.

I don’t know what to think, to be honest-I don’t think Apple needs to reinvent the wheel on this one-an iPod with telephone capabilities is one thing admittedly, but a whole new brand of cell phone with iPod functionality is another. Additionally, as even the article states, Apple’s biggest competitor in the cellular/music combo market would be Motorola, a company with whom Apple has a partnership to include iTunes functionality with the ROKR and now the SLVR. I’m skeptical that Apple would want to upend a partnership with the second largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.

That being said, if they took the different route and developed an iPod model, separate from its regular iPods, with telephone capabilities that targets a niche market, that could be completely different; but targeting niche markets isn’t always a good idea-depending on a select group of people to wholeheartedly adopt your product, especially when there isn’t a gaping market for it, could be a considerable risk. Only time will tell what Apple is really planning to do and whether or not this article is full of it, so until then, take this one with many many grains of salt.

[ Smarthouse :: iPod Phone Confirmed ]

I figured we hadn’t done a good old fashioned gaming article, so it was about time we did! Over at Australian gaming site BigKid [ http://bigkid.com.au/ ] a writer there raises the very real possibility that the immensely popular World of Warcraft, [ http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ ] published by Blizzard Entertainment (or Starcraft and Warcraft fame, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so) very well be contributing to the lack of good games on the shelves for the PC, and might be overall contributing to the death of the PC gaming market.

The stipulation is simple; because WoW is so incredibly popular and it’s a pretty fair bet that everyone knows several people who are playing the game, the sheer popularity of the game has both made people stop purchasing and looking forward to other PC games that are coming to market in the near future and simultaneously made PC game distributors and producers less interested in pushing the best possible titles out there because they know that the market is all but dominated by World of Warcraft. Blizzard, of course, raking in the dough from monthly fees and the rapid expansion of the game around the world, has no reason to see anything wrong with this model, so they’ll continue doing what they’ve been doing, and current WoW players are looking forward to the World of Warcraft expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, that’s expected from Blizzard sometime late this year or perhaps next. (although Blizzard has not announced a release date)

The argument in the article is solid, but the discussion in the comments is almost better; point and counterpoint to the article are raised and there’s an excellent discussion that will help you see both sides of the argument. Some people contend that the former reason is the cause for the latter and the World of Warcraft really is to blame for the stagnation of the PC gaming market, and others believe that if game producers made games of the calibur and quality of World of Warcraft, we wouldn’t have this discussion, but instead the market is flooded with “Generic First Person Shooter 17″ and “Crappy Video Game Version of Flopped Movie” and so on. Head on over and check it out. What do you think? Feel free to post in the comments what your opinion is, whether you’re an active gamer or not!

[ BigKid :: The Dangers of Monogamey ]

Happy Birthday Mac OS X! It’s been five wonderful years since OS X was first released, and it’s truly risen to be one of the best, most secure, easy to use, and well designed operating systems in the world. No diss to my friends at Microsoft, but OS X really does take the cake for being an attractive and complete operating system that’s easy to work with, easy to tweak, easy to install, and easy to troubleshoot. Great work from the dev at Apple, and here’s to many more birthdays to come!

Hot on the heels of this momentous event is going to be Apple’s 30th anniversary, but we’ll get to that when it happens. Right now we have a very nice article from Ars Technica about the 5 year journey and what it meant for Apple, the horrible death spiral that the company was in prior to Mac OS X, and the continued slow and painful death that Mac OS 9 seems to keep going through-seriously guys, let OS 9 go. It’s okay. It can die now. The author of the piece, John Siracusa, has written about the Macintosh for a long while now, and has plenty to say about it, from where the OS came from to where it is today. It’s a fitting homage and is very honest, and worth reading. Allow me an excerpt from Siracusa’s piece:

I see a lot more Mac users today than I ever saw in the pre-Mac OS X era, but few of them remember what it was like in the beginning. They’ve never argued with someone who’s insisted that “only toy computers have a mouse.” They didn’t spend years trying to figure out why the world stuck with MS-DOS while they were literally living in the future. They never played the maze. (Dagnabbit!)

Today’s Mac users appreciate the refinement, the elegance, the nuances of Mac OS X. Today, the Mac grows on people. It seeps into their consciousness until they either break down and buy one or retreat to familiarity, perhaps to be tempted again later.

The original Mac users had a very different experience. Back then, the Mac wasn’t a seductive whisper; it was a bolt of lightning, a wake-up call, a goddamn slap in the face. “Holy crap! This is it!” Like I said, transformative. For the rest of the computing world, that revelatory moment was paced out over an entire decade. The experience was diluted, and the people were transformed slowly, imperceptibly.

I couldn’t agree more. Read the whole article below:

[ Ars Technica :: Five years of Mac OS X ]

Well well, what was first a rumor that just happened around the internet a week or so ago has finally become absolute truth; Dell has indeed purchased Alienware. Why bother? Well, for some small part I’m sure that Dell has had difficulty selling its XPS line of high-end gaming computers to consumers who are interested in hot-looking, powerful gaming computers. Who knows what’ll happen to the XPS line after the purchase is complete, and in good news, Dell won’t try to Dell-ize Alienware (as parodied in the image above), Alienware will be operating as a wholly owned subsidiary that reports to Dell but isn’t directly managed by Dell. Kind of like how Tim Horton’s isn’t managed by Wendy’s, for example.

Tasty.

No, not donuts; the fact that Alienware’s image and product allure hopefully won’t be tinged by Dell’s presence; a lot of people buy Alienware systems partially because they want the best product and partially because they have way too much money, but I would believe to a large extent because computers like Dell just aren’t for them, no matter how snazzy they try to make it look, or how many case lights they add. It’s definitely good news that Dell won’t try to brand Alienware systems or get involved in it’s day-to-day operations, and allow Alienware to continue operating, just with a new overhead owner. But yes, the question remains-will Dell continue this way and allow Alienware the wiggle room it needs, and how will this change effect Dell’s core customer base? Will it alienate them, or will it not faze them at all? Will they continue looking to Alienware as a maker of premium systems, or will they move to a company like Voodoo PC or Falcon Northwest? Time will tell, but if Dell plays this right and leaves Alienware alone, it’s probably a sure bet that Alienware will continue to do well.

[ New York Times :: Dell to Buy Alienware, a Maker of High-End PCs for Gamers ]
[ Yahoo! Finance :: Dell Enhances its Commitment to High-Performance Computing with Planned Acquisition of Alienware Corporation ]

image courtesy of PC Magazine

I saw this in the print edition of PC Mag earlier this week, and lo and behold they put the instructions and all the informaton online for the masses to consume! So get this, using a space of about 16 feet x 12 feet, you can put together the ultimate gaming room, complete with consoles, game server, four PCs networked together to play against one another, and if you have more space to use, you can add as many computers as you like, and PC Magazine shows you exactly how to do it, where to set your gear up, what stuff they used to make the ultimate game room just what it is, and even links you to the special software they designed to run on the game server that runs the scoreboard that’ll give you up to date stats on who’s winning the current round of whatever game it is you’re playing.

This is probably one of the coolest DIY home projects I could think of, and sure it’s expensive if you’ll be buying all new components for the computers you’ll be using and whatnot, but PC Mag has it down, everything from the stylish and quick-response LCD monitors at the game stations to the surround sound speakers for that shiny TV that’ll be in there connected to that XBox 360 we know HAS to be in there!

The plans, the gear, all of it’s in there, so either take it as a literal buying and building guide for your ultimate game room, or take it as a template and design your own!

[ PC Mag :: Build IT: The Ultimate Game Room ]

So Microsoft announced this morning that Windows Vista, originally slated for release around November of this year, and pushed the consumer release back to January 2007, while the enterprise releases will still take place around the end of this year. In a bombshell press release from yesterday afternoon, Microsoft claims they are “on target to go into broad consumer beta to approximately 2 million users in the second quarter of 2006. Microsoft is on track to complete the product this year, with business availability in November 2006 and broad consumer availability in January 2007.”

[ Microsoft :: Microsoft Updates Windows Vista Road Map ]

Bad news? Perhaps, but Vista is all but complete, so I’m not entirely sure why they’re bothering to delay broad adoption to the OS aside from giving IT professionals and businesses time to roll the operating system out, beta test the operating system among their own people, and to give software manufacturers, device driver writers, hardware manufacturers, and PC makers more of the time they’ll desperately need to make sure all of their products are compatible and up to snuff and work with Windows Vista for the consumer market.

There’s a really good discussion going on over at the Guardian UK Technology blog about the topic, and the post there is being updated with more information and analysis from elsewhere in the technology world. It looks like current reasoning behind the additional delay is that not all PC manufacturers could get on board with OEM licenses and shipping PCs with Windows Vista before the holidays.

What do you think? Will you be upgrading to Vista as soon as it comes out, or are you holding on to Windows XP for a while longer (or heaven forbid something earlier!) until you’re sure the time is right? Let us know in the comments!

[ Guardian UK Technology Blog :: Microsoft Delays Windows Vista Until 2007 ]

The venerable Microsoft Watch [ http://www.microsoft-watch.com/ ] is all over this one too, head over there for some more analysis and quotes from Microsoft officials who have commented on the delay.

[ Microsoft Watch :: Vista Delayed Again ]

TechDirt [ http://techdirt.com/ ] has an excellent writeup of what you are and aren’t liable for if someone out there is using your wireless network for nefarious purposes, whether it’s your friends that come over and bring their laptops or whether someone’s parking outside of your house and downloading copyrighted or illegal material to their computers using your open wireless access point. Essentially, if you are legally sharing your wifi, you are a service provider, and for that you are NOT liable for what other people do on your wifi. Some people have even left their wifi purposefully open specifically for this reason.

It’s definitely a good blurb, and there’s a lot of good information in the comments section as well, so check that out for more information. I have to admit that you can get around the issue altogether by securing your wifi, but I definitely understand the compelling arguments to leave your wifi open and share your internet access with your neighbors and community. Regardless of what you choose to do, make sure you go into it with both eyes open!

[ TechDirt :: Are You Liable If Someone Does Something Illegal On Your WiFi? ]

Now this is the coolest DIY project I’ve seen in a long long time. I have to admit though, this thing would be horrible if you were on a deadline or something and sitting right under it trying to work away on a project.

The fact that it’s an alarm clock is just that much more frightening. There’s a complete how-to over at Spark Fun Electronics, the group that put the clock together, and they’re more than happy to show you how to put one together for yourself and make the beauty happen.

Toss on a GPS and the clock sets itself without your help, and it’ll definitely wake you up on time. Not like you could sleep with something that huge and bright on your wall. Anyway, check out the how-to, it’s gold, and very very detailed.

[ Spark Fun Electronics :: 2x12ft GPS LED Wall Clock ]

Looks like Microsoft has seen the error of their ways when it comes to developing a web browser. Hackers and malicious software writers are going to keep poking holes in your product if you don’t keep innovating and keep changing it, and your users will grudgingly accept it but quietly hate you if you don’t add features and functionality and essentially hang you out to dry.

Like some people I’ve heard who read this story claimed, “Sounds like they finally heard of Firefox.” While I’m not going to completely draw that comparison, it definitely sounds like Microsoft sees the success of Firefox’s frequently updated builds and versions, and the rapid ability to add features and close bugs and holes by releasing a new version every couple of months, and wants to duplicate that success and flexibility on the developer’s end. It doesn’t hurt to drive marketing and anticipation for your product when you can communicate to the community what features are coming in the next release.

The Information Week article says:

Speaking at Microsoft’s MIX06 conference in Las Vegas for Web developers, Gates said Microsoft’s Internet Explorer version 7 Web browser, expected later this year, is long overdue, and the company plans more frequent browser updates in the future. Microsoft released a refreshed version of its “beta 2 preview” of Internet Explorer 7 on Monday.

…

As technologies and programming tools for the Web change rapidly to allow software that spans a PC’s hard drive and the Internet, Microsoft has been too slow to update its Web browser, said Gates. While Microsoft was busy assembling a platform of technologies for programming online apps, its browser had lost market share to the open-source Firefox software and Apple Computer’s browser in the years since an IE upgrade. “In a sense, we’re doing a mea culpa and saying we waited too long to do a new browser release,” said Gates. Microsoft plans to release updates to IE more frequently, perhaps as often as every 9 months to a year. “IE7 is not the end of the line,” he said.

This is definitely good news. IE 7 is definitely an improvement by leaps and bounds over IE6, and is definitely something to give Firefox a good run for its money as a full-featured modern browser, but time will tell whether or not it’s the best or whether or not waiting for the release of Vista is just too long a wait to stop the Firefox parade from rolling on.

[ Information Week :: Gates Vows A New Internet Explorer Every Year--Or More ]