There's a lot to talk about this week, from the celebrity death toll, to more tech updates. This week we were saddened by the loss of Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett and surprised (though not necessarily shocked) by the death of Michael Jackson. We talk about how the Internet could barely handle the MJ coverage, and Google thought the mega searching was an attack. From there it's good bye to Extreme Tech as we know it and it looks like Microsoft is finally getting into the anti-virus market.
This past week, the truth about Steve Jobs' medical condition was revealed, Google Voice was getting a lot of buzz and of course in politics you can't ignore the mess in South Carolina. All this and more in our first segment.
Our major segment is an all out cigar orgy. We share our thoughts about the special CAO LX2 eLements Tour sample pack. If you ever wondered what each tobacco in a cigar blend would be like by itself you'll have to listen to hear how the three individual puros stacked up to the wonderful CAO LX2.
Due to the major segment being all about this special cigar experiment, we forego our nomal cigar and libation pairing.
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After yet another unscheduled week off, Mike and Jim return on the heels of their 100th episode with another collection of news and notes. Lots to talk about from Jim's new Kindle DX to some of the things brewing on the politics front.
In our second segment, Jim provides the 2009 update to some of the Internet Security things you should be thinking about as your browse the net.
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Okay, for those of you keeping score at home, this week would have been the next episode of the mind of men. For a variety of reasons, we had to push the episode to next week. Talk to you all then.
With great pleasure, we present our 100th Episode of the Mind of Men. This week we take a walk down memory lane offering some, ummmm, highlights from our humble beginnings in episode one and then sprinkle it with a bit of our latest thoughts.
From there we offer some interesting stats on how many of you are out there enjoying our content. And of course it's a weekly round up of interesting news items.
Our cigar and libation pair for this show is very special and nothing short of exceptional, so listen in, enjoy and get ready for the next 100!
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Er ah... Okay guys, as you know, we have episode 100 coming up next. As such, we really want to do a good job and make it a special episode. Both Mike and Jim have been crazy busy over the last couple of weeks and while we managed to get together last weekend we only had enough time to smoke our cigar and drink our libation - certainly not enough to do a full episode properly. We are going to get together again this weekend and will be doing episode 100 then. Once again our apologies for the somewhat uneven schedule over the last few episodes. As you all know from the show, Mike recently assumed full control over his company has has been very busy working with it. Jim lost his job, found another and is in the process of selling one house and buying another, so to say things have been crazy would be an understatement. Once again, our apologies and we hope you look forward to our 100th episode. By the way - there is still time to send us a comment or good wish for the episode to feedback@mindofmen.com. If you want to record and audio file and send it, that would be great - we'll try and play it on the show. Otherwise, and email is fine too.
This week on the show the guys record this episode right after an exciting Kentucky Derby.
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This week on the show we once again thank our listeners sharing some more feedback. From there both Mike and Jim share some new job updates (polar oposites as they are). BBQ Season is starting up and Easter was just the excuse Jim needed to break out a Turducken.
In tech news, Windows Live email's recent outage caused quite a stir, the founders of the Pirate Bay website were convicted in a Sweedish Court and Microsoft is claiming 96% of the netbook market. Ebay is spinning out Skype and Blackberry launces their AppStore (with some problems which Jim has found a fix for).
In other news, South Park's creators received a strange gift, Somali Pirates took a US ship over and paid the price, the President relaxes Cuban travel restrictions, and Tax Day saw hundreds of protests nation wide and CNN's coverage was suspect.
In this week's main segment, Jim completes his series on Digital Media, focusing on Video.
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Okay, guys, apologies here. I had to bail on Mike at the last minute for our Friday recording session and as this past weekend was Easter with all of the family related stuff that entailed, we just did not manage to get together to do an episode. On top of that, things have suddenly gotten very busy in my life. I'll be going into a lot more detail on our next show, but items involved are a job change and a move out of the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts. Both of these changes have been pretty sudden meaning that there is a lot of work to do and not much time to do it, so things may be a bit chaotic podcast-wise for the next couple of months. Long story short, our goal is to try and stick with our regular schedule, but we do ask everyone's indulgence for the time being. Our current plan is to be back next week with another show. On the agenda is part two of our ripping and playback series with a look at video. In the meantime, you can always enjoy the archives - go back and listen to our first 10 shows or so - it will be just like hearing them for the first time... Jim
This week on the show Mike and Jim start off with some great listener feedback and then jump into some tech news, politics and some other stuff just for fun.
In this week's main segment, Jim covers Audio Encoding and Streaming. If you've ever wondered how to rip your CDs to digital format or just want to improve the way you do it, this episode is for you. Jim starts off with a discussion of the popular Audio Codecs and then covers the topic of hardware and software streaming.
This week's Cigar and Drink Pairing
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Jim's List of Components for the $500 Gaming PC
(all components prices from newegg.com as of 3/23/09)
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This week on the show Mike and Jim share some great listener feedback and once again put a call out for followers on twitter (show: @mindofmen; Jim: @mindofmenjim; Mike: @mikevilla) and wonder if anyone in the greater New England area would be up for a Mind of Men Herf. With all we hear about the downturn in the economy, Jim points out a positive side - the value of the dollar and suggests now is the time to buy Whisky overseas.
Next, Mike has long been a fan of the Blackberry, but Jim just made the leap and shares his thoughts. In a few other tech stories we hear about how there are to be no Apple products in the Bill Gates family, a great free tool for recording your Windows desktop, and a number of security and privacy stories round out the mix. In our final two stories, Mike talks about a proposal he read about for merging the Pacific with the Mountain time zones, and Jim finds an article about why Rush Limbaugh is actually bad for the Republicans.
In this week's main segment, Jim completes his two-part series on Home Theater.
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This week on the show the guys start out talking about Jim's new Cigar taste test Test, Cigar Afficianado's Big Smoke coming to New England and the Whiskey event the guys attended last weekend. From there it's time for another Facebook update and some tech. Jim talks about a story from Louisiana story on evolution and Mike talks about the NY Post's chimpanzee cartoon debacle. Next a number of stories around the stimulus and President Obama's budget gets the ol' Mind of Men perspective.
In this week's main segment, Mike provides an update on the state of Digital Imaging from cell phones to digital cameras, Pocket HD cameras to dedicated cameras and printing and output options.
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Sunday, February 15, 2009
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We lead off with some housekeeping, thanking our first donor to the show who wished to remain anonymous. We talk about our experiment broadcasting the show using Stickcam. It went well, so we will probably look to do that more in the future. We also talk about some of the changes taking place on our Mind of Men Facebook group and invite everyone to drop by as well as to subscribe to our Twitter feeds (Mike's is mindofmen, Jim's is mindofmenjim). Mike showed off his new Blackberry Storm, we laughed about the Arod situation, and Mike told us about his 5 minutes of fame on an evening talk radio call-in. We talked about a couple of funny videos we'd seen and wrapped up wit a discussion on the stimulus bill.
In our second segment, we are joined by Carrie Oliver of the Oliver Ranch. Carrie has embarked on a mission to create a more educated steak lover. In the past, unless you lived on a ranch, there is a good chance you don't know much about the last steak you had. Carrie's company provides steaks with pedigrees - you know where the beef came from, how it was raised, and what it was fed. Just as the environment can impact the flavor of a good wine, it can have a similar impact on the flavor and texture of the beef you eat.
In the back half of the segment, Carrie takes us through a guided tasting in which Mike and I have four pieces of meat with only a color coded stick to tell them apart. We try each one, share our thoughts and then Carrie tells us what each one was.
It was a lot of fun and we definitely encourage you to order your own taster's pack and give it a try.
One note - we were doing this via Skype and Jim has not gotten all of the Skype bugs out of his laptop, so apologies for the background noise during the interview. It is not a huge problem, but it is definitely not up to our usual audio standards.
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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This week provided some special challenges as Mike and I had to do this show remotely. Since we moved back to a bi-weekly format we have not had to do this so it's clear we had forgotten all we learned. Jim was in the studio but Mike was on a headset, so while the audio quality is fine, we were not both on the same type of microphone, so you can certainly tell the difference. We opened the first segment talking about the Superbowl and its attendant commercials, discussed Google's glitch, and the new Amazon Kindle. We then touched the Politics realm again talking about Obama's pronouncement of capping executive salaries for companies that take bailout money and the financial community's reaction as well as some other political tidbits. In our second segment, Jim presented part one on Home Theater and discussed the genesis of Surround Sound as well as covered things you need to know when purchasing speakers for your new surround sound setup. We also provided some product recommendations across the price spectrum. We'll be back later with part 2 where we will cover the rest of the components you need for a great home theater setup.
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Sunday, February 01, 2009
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This episodes starts with the guys announcing their Donation Link on the Mind of Men website. From there Jim talks about how he is starting to work on my facebook account, and invites listeners to follow him (and Mike) on Twitter. Jim's Dell D430 died so say "hello" to his new Dell 1318. Of course any change of systems can result in oops and Microsoft's move of My Music to its own folder bit Jim in the butt this week.
From there the stories just keep coming as this super-sized first segment covers food, tech, news, opinion and politics.
From the end of the first segment it's right into the cigar and libation and a mini-episode can be expected next week on Home Theater.
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In this week's episode we start out with some security stories, a bit about Steve Jobs' open letter on his health, the new Mass. data protection law and how TrueCrypt may be a great solution.
Next some news about MacWorld, one switcher's lament, and then we end the segment with a few long overdue rants.
Next, we welcome back Greg Rempe with anther great segment, this time on winter BBQ tips.
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Sunday, December 28, 2008
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This week we offer our last thoughts on the Forum with some listener feedback and introduce our new Facebook Group. Some follow up on our Chirstmas list and what we did or didn't get. A bit of a rant on the weather and an update on Mike's power saga comes next. From there, it's on to some more updates on Jim's media center, how retailers did this Christmas and how Boston's Cigar Bars can breathe a sigh of releif. In tech we talk about why Play Now movies disappear from you Netflix queue, how Apple is pulling out of MacWorld, and PC Magazine publishes its last issue. In privacy and Secuirty the US expands DNA collection and the RIAA has changed their tactics. Our last story offers an Ode to Bourbon from Newsweek.
In our next segment we offer a look back on the year that was for the Mind of Men.
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Thursday, December 18, 2008
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In case you were looking for it, the Mind of Men Forum has been retired. We talk about the reasons for the retirement in show #88 We want to thank everyone who contributed to the forum.
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