Welcome to the Geek Choice Blog

Well Apple on Monday announced so very great things but one thing that was interesting is that iOS 5 is available to developers. But what would you say if you could get it without being a developer? Well it looks like Mert Erdir has found a backdoor. Anyone can do this and the instructions are extremely simple.

Warning: While this operation should be simple and inconsequential, we are not responsible for what you do to your iPhone. Proceed at your own risk.

Download and install iOS 5
1. Download the iOS 5 IPSW file from the web (it’s easy and readily available. Just Google it and torrent it down).
2. Update your iPhone using iTunes. To do this, connect your iPhone to your computer, click on the Check for Update button with the Option (Mac) or Shift (PC) key pressed. Select the iOS 5 IPSW file from the place you downloaded it to.
3. Wait until it upgrades. A new activation screen will appear.

Activate iOS 5
1. Triple click the home button. This will activate the Voice Over.
2. Triple click the home button and Emergency Call will appear.
3. Click on Emergency Call and, while it’s switching, swipe with your three fingers down.
4. The Notification Center will appear!
5. Click on the Weather widget. The Weather app will load.
6. Click on the home button to exit to the iPhone’s springboard.

That’s it. Your iPhone is activated and fully operative. Enjoy and thank Mert Erdir for this.

Once again this is just information I have found and we are not responsible for anyone who try’s what Mert Erdir has found. I just find it funny that Apple wouldn’t protect the OS better for anyone to really get it.

Amazon has finally broken into the streaming music realm. The Amazon Cloud Player is the name and streaming YOUR music is its game! Unlike other streaming music sites like Pandora or Spotify it lets you stream your music library from any PC or Android device. I have read a few things about this Cloud Player and will share some information I feel is interesting. If you have iTunes at the start of using cloud while it uploads your music it will also take playlists that you have already created from iTunes. The layout of Cloud seems easy and organized and it also lets you skip around to different points in your music library obviously something that you can’t do on the streaming music players today. The music quality is about the same as any other streaming music player. The cloud is free for the first 5GB of music but most people will need a bit more. You can spend $20/year which is basically 1GB per $1. All though this is a very interesting idea from Amazon which could possibly be huge if people decide not to put music into own android phone.

It’s just been 24 hour but IE9 has hit the ground running and taken the internet by storm. Internet Explorer 9 has been downloaded over 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours since it’s release on Monday night. That is over 27 downloads every second or if you really growing. Although even though those numbers are nice to see, Firefox still has IE beat. Firefox version 3.5 was downloaded 5 million times in 24 hours and Firefox 3 in 08 was downloaded a massive 8 million times in one single day. But that number is a bit inflated if you figure that back in 08 there wasn’t many browser choices that were as secure as Firefox. Now with Google Chrome, Safari and of course the newest version of Firefox on the way this new Internet Explorer might actually be comparable to the likes of Chrome and Firefox. Below is a video of the IE9 launch event that can fill you in on what IE9 is all about!

Apple has announced a new in-app subscription charge to the companies that have applications on the itunes market that offer subscriptions through the app via your iPad or through your iPhone and iPod touch. So for example say you have an iPad and found the Netflix app while searching on your iPad for new apps but don’t have a subscription set up for this service. Well if you sign up through the application on your iPad, apple wants to take 30% of that application subscription. It’s always been the case that no matter how a person subscribes to a service the company who created the service would keep it.

So is this a good idea? It could be to make apple richer. But what does that mean for the customer? Well hopefully the companies that have apps for the Apple brands find ways to get customers to subscribe for their service outside of the itunes store, like via the web. But if there is still a massive influx of people subscribing on the App store will it force companies to sit there and take the hit or just leave the app store all together. Now you could pose the argument to me that the companies could just charge a bit more on the app store to make up the difference in lost profit. Well I am sorry to shoot you down but Apple has asked that the subscriptions be the same deals as you could get outside of the app store. So if you paying 9.99 a month for Netflix, it won’t be a different charge if you signed up in the app store.

Now the final piece to the puzzle that makes this so grand is competition. The Android marketplace is also going to be releasing a subscription service. Allegedly it will be a 10% charge versus Apple’s 30%. This could mean companies could jump over to Android and leave Apple behind. Apple does still have a strong hold on the market share however Androids being clawing up the ranks. Android is making a smart move by undercutting Apple here. Apple is setting a precedent with these charges and Android is following just a very small rate. With this, Android could see an increase in market share if companies decide that doing subscription services through Apple just isn’t work the money they would have to pay out to them. So what do you think? Is this a good idea or bad idea? I personally am not sure yet.

Ah, it is February 14, 2011 and I wanted to write something that had a bit of technology and love to mix this article up for the fact it is Valentine’s Day. Alas I couldn’t think of anything that mixed both things, so I figured today I would talk about something in the tech world that I think I am in love with. That is streaming Netflix on your Android. Now I personally watch Netflix on almost a daily basis. I do this by streaming movies and TV shows through my XBOX or PS3. Now that down the line I could do it with my phone while I am traveling? Well that just makes it that much more special.

The breakdown is simple. Qualcomm is creating a new snapdragon processor that will allow you to play Netflix on your Android mobile device. This new technology is suppose to give users instant selections unlike on most mobile devices where watching a streamed video on a mobile device has been anything but instant. Now this new technology will be in smartphones and tablets and the new processor can run at 2.5 GHz and has the ability to process data 150% faster than most of the fastest mobile chips to date. The finally bit of information about this hardware will be able to play movies in high quality but also keep your battery life efficient.

It just about that time for Microsoft to start doing what it does best, fixing issues with its operating system that didn’t have time to fix before they launched. Now don’t get me wrong, we also have some cool updates to go along with it but the service pack also provides fixes for your Windows 7 OS that you may need.
The update I am most excited about that comes along with SP1 is the Remote FX. What the Remote FX does is it provides 3D graphical updates. This will allow for full remote experiences including multiple displays. So the RemoteFX is able to do these renderings of the 3D graphics by locally rendering the screen image on the remote PC after being compressed and sent down to the remote host. This will help improve video streaming across remote sessions which right now is a major issue of virtualized computing.
Now that Windows 7 is over a year old it is about time for the SP1 to launch and I am actually very happy to see that they have added something as significant as RemoteFX. This will surely improve the experience of people who remote into desktops from home or work. Thank you Microsoft for adding a nice improvement to Windows 7 in SP1.

The company has told some applications developers, including Sony that they can no longer sell content, such as e-books, inside their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.
Apple declined Sony’s iPhone application that would let consumers purchase and read e-books purchased from the Sony Reader Store.
Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division.
This move will most likely have an effect on companies like Amazon.com and others that sell e-book readers that compete with Apple’s iPad and offer free mobile apps so consumers can read their e-book purchases on additional devices. An iPad owner, for example, has not needed to own a Kindle to read Kindle books bought from Amazon.
The alteration may signal a change for Apple. The company has made more money selling hardware than music, e-books or apps. If people could have access to more content from more sources on their iPhones and iPads, then they would buy more devices.
The move is also startling, as Apple has indicated as of late that it would be more collaborative, not reducing the amount of collaboration, with periodical publishers and other pleased producers that want more control over how to allocate content on the iPad.
“This sudden shift perhaps tells you something about Apple’s understanding of the value of its platform,” said James L. McQuivey, a consumer electronics analyst at Forrester Research. “Apple started making money with devices. Maybe the new thing that everyone recognizes is the unit of economic value is the platform, not the device.”

Ever since the birth of the computer and it’s evolution to the PC and Macintosh, researchers have been working hard on creating the quantum computer, a new algorithm that will make the already fast computer capable of unparalleled speeds.

But new developments have created an interesting question that might be answered by regular software, not superpositions and uncertainty principles: can classical computing match the quantum speed with software algorithms?

If you are not a quantum physicist or a computer wiz like the professionals at Geek Choice, then you are probably wondering what the first two paragraphs mean and why you should pay attention to them.

Work on the super-fast computer is based on the algorithm, which is a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task, like running the internet or playing a video game. It starts at an initial computation and then proceeds through successive states, until eventually the number reaches a terminating final state.

It is the transition from one state to another that is the key to the original question posed earlier.

Some transitions are deterministic, some are randomized, but with the quantum algorithm is a large quantity number that can be solved faster than the classic, or regular algorithm.

John Watrous, who works at a university for quantum computing, had this to say on the subject: “We could try to build quantum computers to solve problems but we could also just design new algorithms to solve problems.”

A test was ran to challenge a new algorithm, which a regular computer can run, and it was paralleled with a quantum algorithm. The new one matched the efficiency of the quantum.

This means that the algorithm could some day be used in commercial computing, especially in programming, where it can be used to get a fast answer using very little memory.

Over time, the fixed disk on a computer becomes fragmented. Fragmentation is where related information is scatter over the disk, requiring numerous head movements and causing the computer to slow down. It can also cause the computer not to shut down properly, or to hang when you try to shut down. When it gets to that point, it’s time to format the drive and reinstall the operating system. All data will be lost! But have no fear my dear, there is always a simple solution to may seem like a complicated problem at first, once you complete it the problem will no longer be an issue.

To avoid the problem becoming something bigger than it might seem, you should defragment your C drive about twice a year. To start a defragmentation, go to “My Computer”, right mouse click on the C drive, left mouse click on “Properties”, select the “Tools” tab. The last item is “Defragment Now” – click on it, then click “Analyze”. Windows will indicate whether or not your drive needs defragmentation. If it does need defragmentation, do it by just clicking on the defragment button. If it does not, check again in six months.

If the drive is still fragmented after you try to defrag it: Try doing a Scandisk – the first item on the tools tab – sometimes called “Error Checking”. When it starts, be sure to check “Automatically Fix Errors”. If Scandisk cannot complete it means that you have a corrupt file system. This can lead to numerous problems, and must be fixed, or eventually your computer may not start.

The defragment program in Windows is not very good. There are many situations where it cannot defragment a drive. Fortunately, there are after market defragmenters available. Go to www.diskeeper.com for a good version.

If Diskeeper will not solve the problem, it’s time to reformat your disk, and re-install your operating system. This process of reformatting should be done with professional help. If you would like, the technician’s over at Geek Choice will be more than happy to do this for you. Be sure to back up your system before this.

The whole purpose of cleaning up your hard drive is to improve performance and make sure that it runs smoothly. After a while, it can get real frustrating trying to do simple tasks on the computer like internet or running a program if the C drive is full of unused files, temporary internet files, and programs you do not use. Get rid of it!

Personally I use Piriform’s CCleaner, or “Crap” Cleaner, whose name lives up to its task of getting rid of the crap that piles up in yourhard drive. This program actually has a defragment process that you can use with ease, with options to back up the system for you. I strongly recommend that if you are having problems with your computer, and you think that this might be the cause, consult a professional or someone who knows their stuff about computers.

Good Luck!

Today the standard for cutting edge is getting sharper, and the need for the fastest most capable machine is in a high demand, but can you really get that with Dell, Asus, or Sony? The answer is no, not if you want a truly custom PC which you “put together”, one that actually has the hard and software you actually wanted on there. Why not be different? Instead of purchasing the run-of-the-mill, regular or even premium PC with added options, check out this increasing trend called “Boutique Builders”.

Recently a friend of mine went online and was excited because at the Sony store it enables the customer to choose the color, what programs to add or take off, and even the ascetically pleasing choice of an inscription written on your m0niter! All this is nice, if it had something to do with performance. Sure it has the i7 processor speed, and all the RAM and GB to float your boat, but the same things that float your boat can capsize it.

Unfortunately most of the programs he thought he said NO to, such as Internet Explorer, were staring back at him when he booted up his laptop for the first time. Forget the funny business and go to an independent dealer.

The reason for picking a custom built PC depends on what you want to use it for. If you are looking for a pure gaming giant then choosing the right graphics cards and the best video cards specifically designed for top-performance is the way to go. Some need the best computer for their occupation, say a photographer or a video producer, in which the stock PC will not cut the cake they need something more.

Something more is all in the details, like what type of processor, OS, and specs you want. Wouldn’t you want to know exactly what is put into the computer you bought? It is easier to order a computer from the store, yes that is true; however, what about all that annoying trial software and advertising that clutters the computer you paid good money for before you even use it? Plus you get the cool feeling like the computer is special because it is really yours.

In the beginning of the custom built PC no one really jumped at it because of how expensive they were. Building your own PC meant spending the life insurance on it, so people went to the stores and settled for one already made for them. Now it is different, now the boutique builders have low costs and high end products.

So whether you are just curious or you are serious about this and want to say goodbye to being a boring normal person, check out these websites that offer a custom built PC for cheap.

Alienware

Digitalstorm

Falcon Northwest