What You Need

• A Windows PC (Linux dudes, you already know how to do this, right?)
• A Mac
• A router to connect them

Before we get into sharing between computers directly, are you sure you don't just want a NAS?

Talk to Me, Girl

So, assuming that your PC and Mac are both sitting comfortably on your network, wirelessly or otherwise (if you haven't gotten that far, you need more help than I'll be providing right here), there are a couple of different ways for the various machines on your network to talk to each other and share files. Think of 'em sorta like languages.

• SMB (Server Message Block) aka CIFS (Common Internet File System) is Windows' preferred network file sharing protocol, and luckily, Macs speak it, so this how your computers will most likely be talking and sharing stuff. Vista and Windows 7 use SMB 2.0, which is mo' faster for file transfers.

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is one you know and love, if you've ever spent any time on the internet. It's one option for sharing stuff between your Mac and PC.

• NFS (Network File System) is the protocol Unix-based systems like to use for sharing files, which both Windows and Macs can understand. A lot of NASes use it.

• AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) is like a secret language for Macs, 'cause Windows sure as crap don't speak it. But from Mac-to-Mac, it's what makes sharing just work (when it does).

Things That Will Help

My goal here is to show you how to share files between your PC and Mac easily, and for the most part, without worrying about things like IP addresses or diddling with your router's settings. But! If you want to make troubleshooting easier—this kind of networking is more voodoo than science—there are a few things you could stand to know and do beforehand.

1. Know your router. Or really, know how to get into it. For most routers, punching the number soup 192.168.1.1 (Linksys, for instance) or 192.168.0.1 (D-Link, for example) into your web browser will take you to the router's settings, where you can fiddle with things (which you hopefully already did to protect your network).

2. Make everything static. If you take your computer on and off the network a lot, odds are, your router isn't going give it the same IP address every the computer jumps back on, because it hands those addresses out dynamically (you might recognize this as DHCP in action, if you're wondering what that acronym refers to). For consistency's sake, it's not a bad idea to assign your computers static IP addresses on the network, so they'll always have the same address—I at least give my desktop PC and Xbox static IP addresses—just in case something else is broken.

Look in the router settings for a reference to DHCP reservations or static DHCP, which is most likely under the general settings tab. Hit that up, like so, and you should see a list of computers on your network, along with their MAC addresses (an ID tied to the actual networking card in your computer) and currently assigned IP address (something like 192.168.1.102). If your computer's already connected to the network and listed here, it's real easy to give it an unwavering address on your network, a matter of a couple checkboxes.

If, for some reason, your computer's not on the network and you wanna give it a static address, like 192.168.0.104, you're gonna need to know its MAC address. On a Mac, just open the Network Utility app and select AirPort—it's the "hardware address." In Windows Vista and 7, go to Network & Sharing Center, and tap view status link next to your connection. Hit "details" in the pop up box and note the "physical address." On XP, bring your network connections, double click the one you want, flip to the "support" tab, and hit details. It's the physical address. Now that you have the MAC address for your computers, you can assign a set IP address to each one, that it'll have every single time it's on the network, which is a handy list to have.

Getting Ready

Okay, let's get our machines ready. We'll start with the Mac, 'cause it's a little easier.

Mac
1. Setup a user account for sharing, either under Accounts or Sharing -> File Sharing in System Preferences. (Unless you just wanna log in from Windows using your regular Mac login, then you can skip creating a sharing account.) Click the little plus sign under users, and then you pull can a name out of your address book to use for the account, or setup a whole new one.

2. Open system preferences, go to sharing if you haven't already, and check the box for file sharing. Click options, and enable AFP (if you've got other Macs you wanna share with) and SMB. Crucially, make sure the account you're gonna be logging in from Windows with has SMB enabled.

3. To pick the folders you wanna share with other users, click the little plus sign and browse to the folder you wanna give access to. Maybe it's your pictures, maybe it's your whole Home folder. You'll need to add each folder individually, especially if you wanna give different people access to different folders. (If you're logging in from Windows with your standard Mac account, you'll have access to your whole hard drive anyway.)

After you've picked the folder you wanna share, then you just pick the user you want to share with, and how much access you want them to have. Read-only, write-only or read and write.

4. Note your computer's name on the local network. It's sitting on top of the main file sharing setting page. And, if you've got AFP turned off, you'll get this dialog, noting the IP address Windows users can access your stuff.

5. Go back to the main system preferences page, then click on Network. Go to the main connection you'll be using, like AirPort, and click advanced. Go to WINS, and set your Workgroup to the same one as your Windows PCs (probably either WORKGROUP, on newer Windows machines or MSHOME on XP).

Windows 7 and Windows Vista
In Windows 7 and Vista, the Network and Sharing Center is where we'll be spending our time. (Here's Microsoft's own guide, if you wanna check it out.)

1. First, make sure in your little path to the internet up top, you've got a picture of a house sitting between your computer the internet globe at the top. That means you've got it set to private network, so stuff's a little more exposed to other computers on the network. If not, click customize to the right of the network name, and set it to private network.

2. In Vista, you'll notice the big ol' Sharing and Discovery section up front and center. In Windows 7, it's under advanced sharing settings. Go in there, and you'll want to enable network discovery, and make note of your Workgroup (so you can make sure your Mac is on the same one) which is listed here. Also, you have the option to turn off password-protected sharing, so that you don't need an account on the machine set up for sharing. Obviously, it's less secure, but if you prefer convenience, that's up to you.

3. Now for some voodoo that's not required, but it'll make life easier and might be something you need to come back to if stuff isn't working, because OS X and Windows shake hands like goons (really it's about tweaking the LAN Manager Authentication Level, so OS X has an easier time connecting to Windows). If you have Windows 7 or Vista Ultimate, go to the Control Panel, then Administration Tools, then local security policy. Hit local policies, then security options, and look for Network Security LAN Manager Authentication Level. There, you want to switch it to "send LM & NTLM, use NTLMv2 session if negotiated."

If you're in Windows 7 or Vista Home Premium, you don't have access to that, so you'll need to registry hack it up. Open up regedit, and look for this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA\

Double click on LmCompatibilityLevel, and set the value to 1.

For more on this, just Google "vista mac NTVLM2." (Sans period.)

4. Now, we'll need to set up an account to share with. (Again, you can skip this if you're just going to use your regular Windows login from your Mac, though you'll need to have a password on the account for it to work best in Vista.) Go to User Accounts in Control Panel, then to Manage Accounts. Create a new account.

5. If you're going to be logging in with your main administrator account, you can skip this step, since you'll have access to everything anyway. For all other accounts, go to the folder you want to share, right-click on it and hit properties. Click the sharing tab, hit "share," and then you can add users to the share list, along with their permissions. Windows will share it, and give you the network path where you can access it. Alternatively, go to Computer, right-click, and check out the system properties and note your computer's name on the network and its Workgroup (make sure the Workgroup is the same as your other computers, it makes life easier).

Windows XP
XP's interface feels pretty damn ancient when it comes to Networking. Anyways, it's mostly the same stuff, just with a slightly uglier interface. I found this guide helpful when I was trying to remember where everything was.

1. Like before, you'll need a user account and password setup. Go to control panel, user accounts and create a new one, if you need to.

2. Make sure you're on the same workgroup as everything else—XP Home defaults to MSHOME, so if you need to change it, right-click on My Computer, hit properties, then go to Computer Name, and go to "Change" if you need to switch up the Workgroup.

3. Go to the folder you wanna share, right-click, hit properties, and switch over to sharing. Allow it to be shared over the network, and allow users to change files.

Sharing Stuff

Okay, if you've done everything correctly, and the gods are pleased, what you should see on your Mac in your Finder Sidebar under the Shared tab is your Windows computer. (Make sure Shared is enabled in your Finder sidebar preferences, or you won't see it.) Then, you should be able to just click on it, enter your user account and password, and voila, you can get right at everything just like you hoped.

On your Windows 7 or Vista machine, you should be able to click Network, and see all of your connected computers, including your Macs. To login, as Ross McKillop points out, your username is the name of the Mac followed by the OS X username, like this, minus the quotes and period: "MATTBOOK-PRO/matt." In XP, you'll go to My Network Places or Workgroup, and it should be the same deal, though you can just stick to the actual Mac username and password. Life's good.

Update: BTW, if you have Apple's Bonjour—Apple's zero configuration networking dealio, which powers music sharing in iTunes—installed on your Windows machines (it comes with iTunes), the discovery part of the guide above—the parts pertaining to locating the other machines on your network, should just work. That is, your Windows machines should just show up in your Finder sidebar and your Mac in your PC's Networking page, though you still need the accounts setup properly to actually share stuff.

Sometimes, things don't work like that. PCs don't show up in the Finder automagically, you can't login easily from your PC. Network discovery just isn't always that reliable. In that case we go all manual mode. Remember earlier, when I had you note your computer's name on the network and setup a static IP? That's where this comes in handy. So, know either your computers names, or their IP addresses on your network.

On a Mac, it's pretty simple. Go to Finder, tap command+k and punch in:

smb://computername or smb://192.168.X.XXX

The latter is the PC's IP address, which should be something like 192.168.0.105—unless you have a weird setup—though the last two numbers of it will obviously vary. The computer name is easier and usually better, especially if you don't have a static IP address set up.

It'll ask you what volume to mount (what folder you want stuck on your Finder Sidebar under shared, essentially), and a login, and then you're good to go. If prefer the cmd+k approach, you can add computers you tap a lot as a favorite, so you don't have to type it in every time.

It's pretty simple in Windows too, actually. Either in the Windows Explorer address bar, or the Run command type:

\\MACNAME\Folder or \\192.168.X.XXX\Folder

And it should give you the option to login there, giving you access to all of your stuff. Using the full address of the folder you're trying to get to will help with making sure the authentication pop-up appears—otherwise you might just see automatically what's publicly shared and not the stuff you're trying to log into.

Shortcuts

Logging in every single time would be a pain in the dick, but luckily you can make shortcuts to this stuff. On a Mac, as Gina points out here, under Accounts, you can add a network share to login items, so it'll connect every time you start up your computer. In Windows, you can either create a shortcut by right-clicking on the share, or you can add your Mac's shared folder as a mapped network drive, so it'll connect to the folder every time you fire up your computer.

Your Tips and Tricks

There is more than one way to tackle this particular angry bear, so if you've got your own tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our weekend How To guides.

And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let us know. Happy sharing!

Other Helpful Networking How Tos:
• How to Remote Control Your Computer From Anywhere With VNC
• How to Back Up All Your Stuff for Free, No Hard Drive Needed
• How to Kick Your BitTorrent Addiction with Usenet

The list includes tricks for assigning application shortcuts, search engine keywords, customizations, mouse and keyboard shortcuts as well as several tricks for people using dev builds. Hit the link for the full details. [Lifehacker]

Even though they've been providing the same great service for ten years, I had never used DynDNS before (ah, the joys of working from home and having a dynamic IP that stays fairly stable), but I just signed up and it's sweet. Just register a subdomain at DynDNS.com for free, which will then map itself to your dynamic external IP address automatically in one of two ways: by logging into your DynDNS account on a router that supports it (many do) or downloading a free update client for your computer that can also keep everything synced.

Then you don't have to remember a nasty number when you want to access your network from an external computer. Nice!

Please keep the constructive comments coming in our Saturday How To guides—they're a great resource for everyone involved. Also thanks to twonjosh for sharing his method of dealing with dynamic IPs. [DynDNS]

This guide is intended for folks who understand the basics but may have only just started to scratch the surface of what BitTorrent clients are capable of. If you're even more hardcore than the tips here, feel free to drop some knowledge (and links!) in the comments for everyone's use. Spread the love.

Throughout this guide we'll be using two of the most popular multi-platform BitTorrent clients, Vuze (formerly called Azureus) and µTorrent. Both apps take two fundamentally different approaches: Vuze packs in just about every feature you could imagine, including a search tool, social-networking-like sharing among friends, a content guide, and much more. µTorrent on the other hand is the opposite: sleek, simple and barebones. The choice is yours.

Lots of our pointers here will take advantages of some of Vuze's newest features, but we love µTorrent too. Where applicable, we'll highlight standalone applications that can help bring some of Vuze's integrated functionality to µTorrent fans.

Set up Your Router's NAT and Transfer Limits
This is, without a doubt, the single most important thing you can do to ensure the highest possible BitTorrent performance. And it's also something often overlooked by casual and even intermediate Torrenters.

BitTorrent clients pipe all of their network traffic through a single "port" on your network. But your router likes to partially or fully block traffic that doesn't come through on all the "standard" ports (like port 80 for web traffic, for instance). So you want to make sure your computer has a clear and open channel to all that data you're going to be sucking down by setting up "port forwarding," which lets your router know to which computer on the network it should send traffic on certain ports instead of blocking it. Make sense?

1. In your Torrent client's preferences under the "network" or "connection" heading, find out which TCP/UDP port it's using. Keep the default, but for the record, you can choose basically any number you want (but read Vuze's "Good Port Choices" article first) and if you have multiple machines on the same network using BitTorrent you'll want to choose unique port numbers for all of them.

2. Now, open up your router's admin page. This is pulled up by going to your router's IP address in a web browser (commonly 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1). Sometimes you'll have to enter a username and password; Google around for your model's default name/password if you can't remember it. Users of Apple's AirPort routers should use the AirPort Utility app.

3. Now, the terminology for what you're looking for is called different things by all the router companies. Some call it "port forwarding," others call it "virtual servers" or "port mapping"—the terminology is surprisingly varied, but it's usually listed under an "advanced settings" tab if there is one. The site Portforwarding.com can help you locate yours if you're having trouble.

4. Once you've found where this all goes down, enter the port number from your client in step 1 for BOTH UDP and TCP fields (you'll enter the same port number for the "private" or "local" UDP/TCP fields). You'll also enter your current machine's IP address (found in Network preferences on both OS X and Windows).

Note: If your machine is a laptop and you're frequently connecting and disconnecting from the network, you'll want to set up a static local IP address so you don't have to switch your router's settings every time you Torrent.

5. Hit save, and you should be good to go. Your BitTorrent client will have a network test built in somewhere in the preferences—use that to make sure your connection is clear.

6. Now, the final step, is setting a limit to your uploading speeds. As you know, BitTorrent simultaneously uploads to other peers while you're downloading, and to ensure solid download speeds you must upload. But you don't want these uploads to take over your limited upload bandwidth, especially if you're on a cable connection. To be safe, cap your uploads around 20 kb/s. This is a good general ballpark that'll ensure good download speeds and won't clog your pipe. If you're on FIOS you may want to kick that up a bit, but play around.

Vuze has a tool that can help you auto-configure your speeds too—probably worth experimenting with in the prefs.

Cover Your Ass
All the regular disclaimers apply: don't be an idiot when you're downloading stuff you probably shouldn't. Here are some tools and strategies to make sure you keep yourself virus- and subpoena-free. But like always, no guarantees! Proceed at your own risk! Etc.

1. Don't seed more than is absolutely necessary. The RIAA/MPAA/NARC's number one priority are heavy uploaders. Not to say that the downloading part is any less illegal, but if you stop seeding and delete your .torrent file after it's done downloading, your odds of staying safe are significantly higher.

Note: If your carefully crafted code of online morals compels you to continue uploading beyond the amount you shared during the download, feel free, knowing that it increases your odds of getting a friendly note from your ISP. And, please, do seed any files that are intentionally being distributed via BitTorrent, like a Linux distribution or Creative Commons licensed stuff from friends like Nine Inch Nails. You can't get hurt by that.

You could make an argument that Torrenting is mainstream enough to survive on many thousands of people seeding very small amounts (ie: the amount uploaded while they're downloading), or you could make an argument about the double (triple? quadruple?) paradoxes that surface when contemplating the morals of consuming vis a vis sharing in the gray to grayish-black Torrent market. But I'm not your dad—what you do is up to you.

2. Go for torrents with a lot of seeds and good comments. If hundreds of people are seeding a file, the odds of it being of good quality and virus free are higher. I know this may seem contradictory to point #1, but you're not in this for the geek cred. You're in this for you. So go with the herd. Also, comments on torrent sites will often have some shreds of useful info—if a lot of people report strange behavior with the downloaded file or a mysterious password lock, skip it.

Also, seeking out the geek legends of the Torrent community will go a long way to ensure good downloads. Choose people like aXXo's Torrents where possible.

3. Use the Bluetack IP filter to keep known baddies out of your life. The folks at Bluetack maintain a list of IP ranges of known spammers, virus seeders, and undercover snoops like Media Defender who might bust your ass. To add the list to Vuze, go to Preferences -> IP Filgers and type in the following URL into the auto-fill field: http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/level1.zip

Update: Someone who should know has advised us against using Bluetack for a whole litany of reasons, most shocking of which is that Bluetack is some elaborate ploy to mess with P2P networks from the inside. Over my head, but for what it's worth, maybe don't use Bluetack.

4. Look at private torrent sites. Even though Oink's hallowed days are over, there are still a number of good, private BitTorrent sites, where your odds of getting hit with random malware or a federal subpoena are lessened. But they may take some conniving to get invited to, and you'll likely be forced to upload a certain amount to keep your membership.

5. Moderation, moderation. When you can, watch on Hulu, or heaven forbid, buy from your favorite artists. And the less massive your bandwidth usage, the less likely you are to draw the ire of your ISP (or their monthly bandwidth cap).

Autodownload Your Favorite Shows via RSS
For serialized stuff like TV shows, you can easily set up Vuze to subscribe to popular series via RSS and auto-download them every week. It's nice. µTorrent lovers should check out TED, a cross-platform standalone app that does the same thing.

1. In Vuze, search for your favorite show. Once you've found the newest episode and added it to your download list, click the orange RSS button under "Subscribe." The subscribe window can also look at other files in your library and subscribe to those too.

2. You'll see a lot of different options, all seemingly the same. Choose HD where possible, and if there's an EZTV option, choose that—it's a reliably source of good torrents. Then, new episodes will appear in your Subscriptions area automatically, and you can pull them down.

Stream to Your Game Console or Transcode For Your iPod/PMP/Phone with Vuze
The newest version of Vuze added a seriously useful transcoding and streaming tool—just when you thought there couldn't be anything else crammed into this app. But it's great, and works perfectly to auto-detect a PS3 or Xbox 360 on your network and stream your downloads to your TV without any annoying configurations.

1. Enable the streaming add-on under the "Devices" option in the left pane.

2. If your PS3 or Xbox 360 is on and connected to your network, it will automatically show up as a device. Simply drag a file from your library to the icon for your console, and it will be available in the expected area (in the Video menu of the PS3's XMB and the My Video Library, as another PC, on the Xbox 360).

3. The tool will also transcode to iTunes in sizes optimized for iPods, iPhones and Apple TV using the same process. Just drag the file from your Vuze library to the iTunes icon, and after a somewhat slow conversion time, it will be copied to your iTunes library. Pretty sweet.

Next Steps
There are plenty of places you can take it from there. Like setting up a dedicated, always-on torrrent machine, either with a spare PC or a standalone NAS box with a built-in Torrent client. Then you can take advantage of web-only interfaces to access and manage your downloads from the road.

Sounds like pretty good fodder for a future how to, doesn't it? Keep your eyes peeled.

So that's about it! Like we said before, if you have more tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments—your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let me know. Have a good weekend Torrenting, everyone!

Image courtesy of, you guessed it, Jason Chen.

This just in: a hands on tour, impressions and gallery of screenshots of the new OS donated by our helpful readers.

NEW IPHONE OS 3.0 FEATURES

The new iPhone OS 3.0 adds over 100 new features including—at friggin' last—cut and paste.

• Copy & Paste text. When you double-tap over text, you will get a "cut, copy, and paste" bubble dialog. Double-tap again and a "paste" bubble will appear if there's anything stored in your clipboard.

This works across applications. You can expand your selection points using your thumbs and, if you accidentally paste something you didn't want to paste, just shake your iPhone to undo it.

• Copy & Paste photos. You can also copy and paste photos. Now you will be able to select multiple photos by tapping the action button, copy some of them, and paste them in an email, ready to send.

• New Spotlight. iPhone OS 3.0 will allow you to search across the entire information contained in your device, no matter where, as soon as the information is supported it. If an application is written to support the new Spotlight, its data will also be available in the search.

In this screenshot you can see Spotlight bringing results from your address book, maps, your iPod, and apps in your springboard.

• Search in Mail, Calendar, and iPod. These Apple applications have specific search interfaces. The search in Mail doesn't support the message content yet, but it supports searching in IMAP servers—that will save a lot of time logging into Gmail.

• 3G Tethering. This feature will allow you to connect your iPhone 3G to a laptop, to use it as a modem to access the internet. Carriers still have to sign-off on it, and probably charge more for it. None have announced it yet.

• Landscape keyboard. Apple has added the landscape keyboard mode to other applications, like Mail, SMS, and Notes.

• Multimedia messaging. A big one to send rich content to people without mail-enabled telephones: The new MMS function will allow you to include everything, from images to sound to vcards (no word on video, however.) Personally, I find these usesless having email, but some people seem to want it.

• Support for new calendar types. In iPhone OS 3.0 you will be able to subscribe to calendars on the web using two protocols: CalDAV—supported by Google and Yahoo—and subscriptions via the .ics format—which is what Apple uses in iCal.

• Improved stocks application. The stocks application now allows you to read related news, so you can enjoy yourself learning about the latest market scandals, stock crashes, and executives getting bonus packages from government aid while their companies sink into hell. Thank you, Apple.

• Stereo Bluetooth A2DP audio. You will be able to pair your iPhone 3.0 with a stereo Bluetooth A2DP device, like headphones or speakers.

• Note syncing with iTunes.

• Automatic login in Safari. The new version of Safari will remember login credentials, so you won't need to introduce your username and password again while accessing Scoreland your work intranet.

• Shake to shuffle music. If you are in your iPod application, you just need to shake it to start the shuffling mode. Hopefully this will be optional for sports people out there.

• Wi-Fi auto-login. In case you have a subscription to a paid hotspot, your iPhone or iPod touch will autolog into it.

• Anti-phishing. Mobile Safari now can warn you against malicious sites trying to scam you.

• Extended parental controls. Adult content filters can now be applied to movies, TV shows, and applications, in addition to web sites and music (porn apps, here we come).




NEW APPLE APPLICATIONS

Apple will include new widgets in the new version of the iPhone operating system:

• Voice memo application. Obviously, allows you to record voice or any other sound, so you don't forget any idea or want to play FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper.

• Send and receive files. A dedicated application to exchange files between iPhones or iPods touch.




NEW THIRD PARTY APPLICATIONS FEATURES IN IPHONE OS 3.0

The new iPhone OS 3.0 adds 1,000 new APIs to extend the capabilities of new applications.

• Peer-to-peer Wi-Fi Bluetooth connectivity. A new API will allow for two iPhones to connect directly—peer-to-peer—via Bluetooth Wi-Fi, without needing any Wi-Fi network.

They will be able to discover each other using Bluetooth, and then start a Wi-Fi connection transparently.

This opens a lot of possibilities. I doubt they will allow you to pass music, but you would probably be able to pass any other information, as well as directly communicating between applications in the two devices. One example: A pets game that allows two dogs to play with each other.

This feature could be combined with push notification, so your iPhone may receive a note from another iPhone, inviting you to play a game one-on-one.

• Browse remote content. While the built-in iPod application doesn't allow you to browse songs in other people's iPhones or iPod touch, third-party applications will allow you to do that, according to Apple's Forstall.

• Use your iPhone/touch to control peripherals. A new API will let you use your iPhone or iPod touch as a control to your accessories. In this example, the iPhone is being used to equalize the sound in a loudspeaker.

However, the applications are endless. Johnson and Johnson is releasing LifeScan, an app that connects to a glucose monitoring device. The application can even alert other people automatically, in case something is wrong.

There other less serious apps, like creating the most perfect sex device ever (NSFW).

• Maps inside other applications. New applications will be able to use Maps directly, which is now an API.

• Turn-by-turn directions. Developers will also be able to create turn-by-turn applications using the GPS information from the iPhone and combining it with their own maps, without depending on 3G connectivity or Google.

• Push notification finally coming. Hopefully this time it will be true. Push notification means that your iPhone OS 3.0 applications will finally be able to receive messages from the intarwebs automagically, so you can have an Instant Message application and have your iPhone vibrate or make a sound when a new message comes in, even if the application is not running.

• Voice communication in applications. iPhone 3.0 applications will also be able to access a Voice over IP service. This means that you will be able to chat with other users while playing against them in a game, for example. This won't use the telephone, but the internet over a Wi-Fi connection.

• Rumbling. Games—or any other application—will also be able to rumble, like your console joystick.

• Audio recording. Audio recording will also be possible from third-party applications using a standardized API, instead of custom workarounds.

• Access your music from applications. Future applications will also be able to access the iPhone/iPod music library. This means that applications will be able to play your own music while they run.




NEW FEATURES IN THE APP STORE

The new OS will also offer an enhanced App Store, opening new possibilities for developers and consumers.

• Subcriptions to apps.
• Purchase additional content for apps, like new cities for a city guide application.
• Purchase additional levels for games.

Basically, this will allow developers to sell more things on top of their apps, and to consumers to expand their experience with those apps.

• This will work straight from the applications, so you can purchase new things through the software itself, even while it still goes through the App Store internally.




PRICE

iPhone OS 3.0 will be a free upgrade to all iPhone users, including the first generation (not all features will be supported in the first generation, like Stereo Bluetooth support). iPod touch users will be able to but it for $US9.95.

If you dare, you can sign up for the beta here.

So when should you use HDR? It's simple: when you're trying to capture a scene with a wide range between its lightest and darkest areas (aka dynamic range) as accurately as possible. Your camera's sensor can only capture a small portion of the light that your eye can take in and process, so to make up for that, HDR images are created by combining the pixel information from several pictures into one 32-bit Voltron-file that contains the full dynamic range of each of the individual shots used to create it.

Take this range of shots of the Cairo skyline I took last week from the top of the highest minaret of the Al Azhar mosque in that lovely city. Neither one of the three accurately exposes the whole scene—in the shot that captures the sky correctly, the buildings below are too dark, and when the buildings are exposed accurately, the sun behind the clouds gets blown out, losing all detail. So this is the perfect situation for an HDR image.

But in many cases rightfully, HDR has a reputation as a gimmick that can easily be abused to turn your photos into dreadful, over-saturated, tacky looking messes of clown vomit. But if your main intent is to accurately capture a scene as your eye sees it, you can come away with some believable but still otherworldly (for a photograph, in a good way) images. In the end, it all comes down to personal preference; you may think my shot above looks like garbage. That's cool, save your comments, photo snob trolls. You're free to make your shots look however you want, and here's the best way I've found to do just that.

What You'll Need:
• A camera that has auto exposure bracketing (not essential, but without it, you'll have to set the range of exposures manually and will need a tripod). At the very least you'll need manual exposure controls.

• Photoshop CS2 or higher (you can also use specialized HDR software like Photomatix, but for this guide I'm using Photoshop CS4).

• Some knowledge of curves and histograms in Photoshop. This video tutorial is a great start for curves.

Take Your Shots
As mentioned before, you'll get the most bang for your HDR buck with scenes that have both extremely bright and extremely dark areas of interesting detail to bring out. So choosing the right scene is an obvious first step.

1. Set your camera to auto exposure bracketing mode, which takes three (usually) sequential shots at three different exposure levels: one correctly exposed, one overexposed, and one underexposed. You can usually specifiy the amount of exposure stops to under- and overexpose—you probably want the maximum range, which is usually a full two stops in either direction.

2. You want to take the three shots in the quickest succession possible since we'll be merging them later and you don't want moving objects to foul that up. So turn your camera on burst shooting where possible and hold down the button, firing off three quickies without moving. This is where you'll need a tripod for cameras without AEB to keep the shots uniform.

Note: If you can, shoot in RAW. Photoshop can handle RAW files just fine, and the extra exposure information within compared to JPEG will make your HDR images all the more juicy. Also, the more source images you have the better, so if you do have a tripod and are shooting an immovable scene, bringing more than 3 images to your HDR file will only give you more detail to work with.

Create Your HDR Image
3. In Photoshop, go to File -> Automate -> Merge to HDR. Select your three images, click "Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images" if you think they may be slightly crooked, and then hit OK. Photoshop will chew on them for a while and then present you with your 32-bit HDR image.

You may notice that the file you have now doesn't look so hot. That's because a 32-bit HDR image isn't useful in itself unless you have a $50,000 HDR monitor. To look good on your screen and on paper, it must now be "tone mapped" into an 8-bit image that selectively uses parts from each exposure to accurately represent the scene.

4. Before we head to tone mapping, save your HDR as a 32-bit Portable Bit Map file so you can start fresh again if need be.

Tone Mapping Your Image
How you tone map the HDR file determines whether your result will look great or like the aforementioned clown vomit. We're using Photoshop here because it's more closely tuned, in my opinion, to achieving real-world results than HDR-specific software like Photomatix. Here, though, personal taste is everything, so if you like your images more or even less saturated and otherworldly than I do here, feel free to experiment, of course. They're your photos! It also helps to keep an eye on your originals as you're doing this to make sure you don't stray too far from reality.

To become a skilled HDR jockey in the tone mapping department, you'll need to be at least a little bit familiar with two fundamentals of digital imaging that tend to hide in the background for most users—the scary-looking graphs known as histograms and curves, both of which look like they belong in your school text book.

But no need to cower in fear! Watch this video right now to get the basic gist of curves (and also, essentially, histograms).

Now, armed with that knowledge, to tone-mapping!

5. With your 32-bit HDR file open, go to Image -> Mode -> 8 Bits/Channel. This will bring up the tone mapping window, which has four options in the drop-down: Exposure and Gamma, Highlight Compression, Equalize Histogram and Local Adaptation. The first three, to varying degrees, are automatic settings. To say I understand the specific differences between all four would be lying, but I do know this: Local Adaptation is the only one that lets you manually futz with the image curve, giving you the most creative control. Choose that one (but feel free to experiment with the others, of course).

6. Here's where things get kind of abstract. If you watched your tutorial video, you'll know you want to use the eyedropper tool to isolate areas of the image you want to work with, then create an anchor point and move that section of the curve into the ligher or darker area of the graph. You can start with the easiest adjustment, which is dragging the lower-left portion of the curve to where the histogram begins—this will make the darkest parts of your image pure black, which you want for good contrast.

7. Your next goal should be to fiddle with a point higher on the curve to make your whites whiter. So grab a point up there and move it into the top portion of the graph until the whites are to your liking in the live preview.

8. And finally, choose a point in the middle and work the midtones. Again, preference is key, but you'll want something that, in the end, represents a classic S-curve for the best contrast. In the end, you want an image that has black blacks, white whites (but few to zero completely washed out areas), and detail through the midrange. Your image may still look not so good when your curve is done, but that's OK.

9. The last step in the tone mapping process is to mess with the good ol' Radius and Threshold sliders. Again, like many things in Photoshop, I have no idea exactly what's being jiggered here, but these essentially control how HDR-ed out your HDR images will look, if that makes sense. The wrong setting will peg the image's edge detail, resulting in some yucky looking mess. I like to keep a little bit of blown-out highlights in the image too, to remind everyone it's still a photo.

So fiddle with these sliders until the live preview looks good in your esteemed opinion. Again, your image won't look perfect, even now. The object here is to strike the right balance between detail and a natural look.

Toning Your Image
Now you have a good old fashioned 8-bit image that contains some elements of all three of your original source files, tone mapped. The final step is applying some of Photoshop's basic tools used for any photo in order to bring out the most detail possible.

10. First, Levels. Even though you set contrast with your tone curve, you may still be able to fine tune it with levels. So under Image -> Adjustments -> Levels, make sure the black and white sliders are aligned with the left and right edges of your histogram mountain to the extent that it pleases you.

11. Next, Image -> Adjustments -> Shadows/Highlights, one of Photoshop's most magical tools. Here is where the areas of your image that previously looked too dark will reveal their glorious hidden detail. Slowly raise the Amount and Tonal Width sliders under Shadows until the detail comes out, but not too far into ugly boosted-out territory. Do the same for Highlights.

12. And last, Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation, where you probably want to boost the Saturation just a little bit to get the colors popping to your liking.

And that's it! You should now have an HDR image that captures that amazing scene like you remembered it, without the clown vomit!

Like always, knowledge dropped in the comments of our Saturday How-To Guides is essential.Don't feel like my way is the only way—if you've got something constructive to share, please do! Happy HDR-ing this weekend everyone, and please do post your results in the comments. I want to see,

First, How Slow Motion Actually Works
Understanding the basic principle of slow motion is helpful for both properly following and bending the format's rules, so bear with me for just a second. The film effect has its origins in overcranking—in the early days of film, camera operators literally cranked the film reel when shooting a scene. By cranking the reel faster, they saw their films projected more slowly.

Why? That's where we get to the basic premise of slow mo. Slow motion captures a bunch of pictures very fast—at least 120 images per second, and often 300 or more. Meanwhile, video typically plays back at an eyeball-friendly 24-30 frames a second.

So when you play back those 300 fast images at the speed your eye is happy with, you have a huge excess of images. Your 300 images may have been filmed in one second of real shooting, but they will last for 10 seconds on screen—slow motion is born.

And while digital video has traditionally struggled in capturing the high frame rates necessary for true slow motion, many new cameras work just like overcranking, shooting hundreds of lower-resolution pictures per second. The tips here concern cameras and camcorders capable of high speed frame rates—not just cameras from Casio, but camcorders from Samsung and JVC, a Japan-only camera from Ricoh and LG's Viewty cameraphone. This is not about slowing down your regular-speed footage in some kind of video editor.

1. Use Lots of Light
When you shoot slow mo, you are taking pictures quickly. And when you take pictures quickly, light has less time to create an image in your camera. Shoot in plenty of light, or you will get dark and gloomy slow-mo.

In real terms, that means that super high-speed shooting might not work indoors. On the Casio EX-F1, for instance, you can shoot 300fps indoors, and maybe 600fps if you're near a window, but you can't pull off its 1200fps setting without adding bright light. For the same reason, night shooting may very well be out of the question, depending on your particular rig and just what you expect from the image in terms of detail—artsy stuff may be fine, but don't expect to film a hummingbird under the soft glow of the moon.

2. Mind Your FPS
As stated above, slow motion really doesn't work very well on camera systems not designed for it in the first place. So if your camera only shoots 24 or 30 frames per second of video, your slow motion will be merely faked by whatever editing software you use. (It'll suck.) This is about capturing life you normally can't see: The flitting of a bug's wings, the popping of a water balloon, the fleeting microexpression of joy or pain on a person's otherwise complacent face.

Choosing the right frame rate for your subject is of vital importance. Here's a chart with exemplary clips to get you started:
120fps: Baseline slow motion, just a quarter the speed of real life; it's the go-to speed for sports replays



300fps: Good for narrative slow motion like walk scenes, love scenes and displays of manliness (see aforementioned Top Gun)




600fps: The beginnings of slow-mo porn, human movement becomes less narrative, more anatomical





1000-1200fps: Human subjects move too slowly for this rate, now you're into explosion mode; 1200fps is the fastest Casio's EX-F1 can shoot




5,000-10,000fps: Bullet-time explosions, shards of glass split and float in the air...and you can see the intricate design of lightning. Storebought cameras can't do this—yet

3. Think Outside Stabilization
You're always better off shooting on a tripod for optimum clarity, but if there's one time you can really stretch your imagination with shooting video, it's slow motion. Because you are shooting so many frames in such a limited space, you can take advantage of time stretching to make video appear more stable.

So not only can you shoot most slow-mo clips without a tripod, but you can even toss your camera in the air to try that crazy shot you wanted. It might not come out, and you might want to insure your camera first, but why not push the limits? We're talking 300-1200 frames per second. That's a lot of room to fudge things.

4. Compensate for Slow-Motion Side Effects
The downside to shooting in slow mo is that you almost always end up with more footage than you need. Remember, six seconds of shooting produces one minute of video at 300fps, two minutes at 600fps. Some cameras let you trim your clip right there on the spot, and you should take advantage of it, as it frees up wasted memory, too.

Another issue is aspect ratio. As the frame rates go up on the Casio EX-F1, they get longer, slimmer and lower in resolution. At 1200fps, you get strips of video 336x96. Our friend Robert Woodhead made up for this in his Mentos and Diet Coke video by stitching four vertically oriented videos together in Final Cut.

The final problem with slow mo is sound, as in, there is none. That's the reason you often hear music playing over clips. It's not necessary to add music, though clearly Tarantino enjoyed that part.

Still, the ultimate reality about slow-motion shooting is that it's surprisingly simple with today's equipment—not necessarily any more difficult than normal video if you are shooting with enough light. Until this meme is done (and in our book, it most certainly is not), go out there and shoot with confidence. It's an interesting artistic medium that's just become democratized to the public, so let the whoring commence.

Today's Slow-Motion Cameras, Camcorders and Cameraphones
• Casio Exilim EX-F1
• Casio Exilim EX-FH20
• Casio Exilim FC-100 and FS-10
• JVC Everio X
• Samsung HMX20
• Ricoh CX1
• LG Viewty

If you liked these camera tips, check out our guide for getting started with a digital camera.

BEFORE INSTALLATION
You've got to walk before you can fly, friends.

Minimum Requirements
• 1GHz processor
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB open on hard drive
• 128MB graphics memory with DirectX 9 support (optional, to run Aero)

Download a Copy
Windows 7 available from Microsoft until February 10th here:
32-Bit Windows 7 (use if you have less than 4GB of RAM)
64-Bit Windows 7 (use if you have 4GB of RAM or more)
Otherwise, you'll have to use Bittorrent.

Get a Product Key
You get a product key when you sign up to download the beta, but if you've somehow got the beta bits but no product key, go here. They'll set you straight.

Make a DVD or Copy to a Flash Drive
Either burn the Windows 7 image file to a DVD, or put the image file on a 4GB+ USB drive and use a mounting program to load it.

Dual Booting It?
If you want to keep your current OS and programs intact, check out how to set up a dual-booting installation of Windows 7.

INSTALLATION
You have a few options. The simplest is upgrading from your current Windows OS, but that can only be done from Vista. The other two options are a clean install (on a regular machine or on a netbook) and a Boot Camp install on the Mac.

Upgrade Install
This is by far the easiest way to go that will preserve all of your programs. Just create your Windows 7 DVD or flash drive and open the installer on your desktop like any other program. Windows 7 will take over from there.

Clean Install
A clean install is necessary if you are running XP, but it's also great for Vista users who want to start from scratch or would like the peace of mind of dual booting with another OS. To start from scratch, format your drive as you normally would and when you reboot, use a DVD with the Windows 7 installer image burned on it. That or boot from the DVD and follow the Custom options for a clean installation.

If you'd like to dual boot, you'll need to set up a partition first. Lifehacker has a great guide for that. Just make sure the partition is at least 16GB. With a new partition in place, most users will be able to reboot their system with the Windows 7 DVD in the drive and install the OS to said partition. But if you activate the partition and restart before the OS is installed, you could be in for a hell of a long night of troubleshooting.

Netbook Install
Netbooks handle Windows 7 surprisingly well. Just keep in mind a few points. Storage is a premium on most of these systems, so many will not be eligible based upon that criteria (you need 16GB free). And Aero is not happening since these systems lack the video memory. But there's a complicated workaround to activate Aero if you enjoy the torture of a laggy machine.

Boot Camp Install
If you own a Mac, you're looking at a Boot Camp installation of 7. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions can work, but older Macs are best sticking to the 32-bit version. Boot Camp 2.1 supports the 64-bit installation in most recent Pro-branded systems.

Have your Windows 7 DVD (or flash drive with a mounting program) ready, and open up Boot Camp. You'll need to make a new partition that's at least 10GB in size (we'd recommend more, since PCs require at least 16GB). Follow the prompts, and Windows 7 will install.

One catch to keep in mind, however, is that you may need an OS X DVD to load necessary drivers into Windows 7 after installation is complete.

EXTRAS
Set a Backup Drive
Vista made backing up easy, but now you can easily customize just what files and folders you'd like to backup. Go to:
Control Panel -> Backup Your Computer -> Set up backup
It'll guide you from there.

Setup Index Folders
Make sure that Search is including the folders you want...and only the folders you want.
Start -> Search Programs and Files -> Type "index" -> Select "Change Search Options..."

Rock a Second Monitor
Oh, you know you've always wanted to. Now that you have Windows 7, hook up a second monitor in just two steps. Hit Win+P and choose an option. Done!

[More info about Installing Windows 7 and dealing with Boot Camp]

Before you drop the dough on a whole new system, here's a list of upgrades for squeezing a few more months, years even, out of ol' faithful, during these trying economic times.

If your Windows PC is seriously Dark Ages material, you might want to try converting it into something altogether different, like an NAS or media center. But stick around here if you're riding that thin line between acceptable day-to-day use and the scrap heap and try these quick and cheap upgrades first.

1. Reinstall Your OS
Over the years, operating systems inevitably pick up random pieces of clutter that start hogging your limited resources and bring your system to its knees. Forget spyware and malware cleaners—they're often just as guilty of mucking up your machine.

No, the best way to start fresh is of course to reinstall Windows. It's a pain, but thankfully there are a number of tools that will make the process easier.

• nLite and vLite for XP and Vista respectively are great tools for not only automating a large chunk of the reinstall process, but also for slimming down and customizing the installation to make sure you have a version of Windows that's optimized for your old hardware

• Kevin from Lifehacker also has a great guide for slipstreaming XP Service Pack 3 onto a custom install disc so you can avoid hundreds of Windows Update downloads after you reinstall using the older XP disc you probably have lying around.

• There are a ton of tools to help back up your data before a reinstall, but an easy no-brainer (especially if things have gotten so bad that you can't boot) is to boot with a Linux live CD like Ubuntu and move your files from your Windows volume to an external drive before wiping it.

2. Buy a New Graphics Card
A huuuuge part of what we humans perceive as slowness while using a computer are delays and hang-ups in the graphical UI—something that doubling or quadrupling your available video memory and beefing up your GPU rendering muscle will go a long way in alleviating. Graphics cards are super cheap these days, so think about dropping $100 or less on a new video card for your system and see where that gets you before going full monty on the replacement. As you probably well know, Newegg is the place for cheap hardware—for $150 or less you can do very well with a variation on the solid Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT or ATI Radeon HD 4850.

3. Max Our Your RAM
Many of you may be saying "duhhh" here but this can't be more of an important point—if you haven't maxed out your RAM yet, do it. Now. Just like graphics cards, RAM is super cheap, especially if you're running a common motherboard configuration. So head to Crucial or OWC, have it scan your system, and price out some new RAM sticks for you. Remember—matched pairs (in terms of size) are always faster than unmatched, and to taste every last bit of a 4GB upgrade, you'll need a 64-bit OS.

4. Get a Bigger Display
This one is more of head game than an actual upgrade, but I swear, every time I hook my laptop up to the big 22" widescreen monitor here in the office, my machine feels about a year or two faster. Something about having more screen real estate just helps. Plus, once you do finally get a brand new screamer, you can just swap it right over. Cheap LCDs are our daily Dealzmodo Roundups bread and butter, so keep an eye out there for a good bargain on a decent brand.

5. Get a Bigger, Faster Hard Drive
You can never have too much storage. So abiding by this rule, a few bucks spent on a new HD will at the very least free up more space for virtual memory on your boot volume. You could also look at a 10,000RPM drive for a desktop or a 7,200RPM drive for your laptop, which will undoubtedly be faster than your stock drive. Don't worry so much about your new HDD's cache size so long as its at least 8MB (which is common), as anything higher tends to offer diminishing returns. For everything else you'd want to know and more about getting a new hard drive, check out yesterday's Giz Explains on HDDs.

6. Optimize Your Boot Time
Another psychological downer is waiting 5 minutes for your machine to boot. Again, Lifehacker to the rescue: Less than a month ago, Gina published a complete guide to streamlining your Windows startup speed—make that your first stop.

7. Clean Out Your Browser
Your web browser is where you spend most of your time—and just like Windows, Firefox can get bogged down in bloat. If you have a ton of extensions installed that you never use, disable or remove them. You can also dive into the world of about:config and follow the numerous guides to tweaking FF's guts for more speed. Opinions on whether these are real or placebo is mixed, but even so, there are a lot of cool things you can do.

You can also make the leap to Firefox 3.1 (still in beta) with its drastically sped-up TraceMonkey rendering engine. Here is a guide for safely playing with the Firefox 3.1 beta without touching your Firefox 3 profile.

And if you're using Internet Explorer, um, stop it.

8. Ditch Windows Entirely
If things are really dire (on the money or performance front, or both) you might want to think about making a switch to Linux—especially if your main PC usage entails not much more than your typical web browsing, emailing, IMing and media playing/managing. There are a million and half tutorials out there for switching to Linux (Ubuntu's own is pretty good), which will almost certainly run considerably faster on your hardware than Windows does.

Special thanks to the Lifehacker folks for just doing what you're doing.

Dealzmodo Hacks are intended to help you sustain your crippling gadget addiction through tighter times. If you come across any on your own that are particularly useful, send it to our tips line (Subject: Dealzmodo Hack). Check back every Thursday for free DIY tricks to breathe new life into hardware that you already own.

Your regular Dealzmodo hacker John Herrman will be back next week.

This is a guide that, if followed, will unchain your Apple TV from its cruel iTunes tether, turning it into the useful living room conduit of music, video and web-based content it should have been all along via the media center software Boxee. Boxee can be installed fairly easily via the ATV's USB port to bring Hulu and Comedy Central streaming, playback of any video or music file anywhere on your network in virtually any file type imagineable, and a bevy of internet A/V sources like Flickr, Last.fm, NPR and BBC podcasts and tons of others—all upping the usefulness and fun of Apple's notoriously underachieving box by a factor of 10, easily. If you have an ATV, Boxee is a must-install, and it's 100% free. Let's get started.

The stock Apple TV has never been able to decide what it's supposed to do. Is it a device to store all your videos? Its built-in hard drive would suggest yes, but the fact that everything needs to be piped through iTunes makes this a hassle if you store your videos in any other way. And why are we downloading and storing anyway? Streaming is the way things are headed, and for streaming, Apple TV doesn't make a ton of sense, especially when a box a quarter its size and a less than half its price can bring Netflix's massive library into your living room with zero download delays and zero added cost, soon in HD, even.

Aside from adding the golden goose of Hulu streaming, Boxee's other main advantage is freeing your Apple TV from its direct connection with your iTunes library. No longer will it be necessary to convert all of your video files into iTunes compatible formats to get them to your TV—Boxee will let your Apple TV read just about any video codec you can throw at it (full list of codecs here - only thing it chokes on is 1080p video; 720p works fine) from any computer or network-attached storage device on your network, or read files off the Apple TV's own hard disk—all while leaving the default OS untouched and 100% functional. So let's do this.

What You'll Need:

• Apple TV with software version 2.0 or higher

• A USB flash drive 512MB or larger

• ATV USB Creator [download: 1.0.b7 version - Mac only, for now]

• An invite into Boxee's semi-public alpha (use this link especially for Giz readers to jump the line a bit)

Prepare Your USB Drive

Just like the iPhone, the Apple TV is basically an OS X computer (running a 1GHz Intel processor), so Boxee installs just like a regular desktop app in the Applications folder, which is hidden normally. Why Apple hasn't opened up the Apple TV to third party developers is anyone's guess, but thankfully, with a prepared USB stick it's all pretty painless.

1. After unpacking the ATV USB Creator application, start it up with the USB flash drive you intend to use mounted. Select "ATV-Patchstic" as your installation option and "Boxee for Mac" as the installation type. At the bottom, select the BSD location of your flash disk. You can find this with System Profiler under the USB section (probably a good idea to unmount any other USB drives so you don't accidentally wipe them).

2. Click "Create Using ->" and your USB stick will be formatted and loaded up with the appropriate software.

3. Power off your Apple TV (by unplugging it), drop your USB patchstick into the ATV's USB slot, and plug it back in. You'll see Tux and a bunch of code streaming on your screen as the software installs.

4. When it's done, remove the USB stick and restart the ATV.

Download Boxee via the Boxee Launcher

5. The USB patchstick installs a launcher that can then pull down the latest version of Boxee from the web. The first thing you'll want to do, then, to ensure you have the latest version, is update the launcher itself. Go to the new option "Boxee" in the ATV menu, choose "Update" and then update the Launcher.

6. Now, go to the new Boxee menu and choose "Update" -> "Boxee alpha..." to pull down and install Boxee itself. Once it installs, select "Boxee" from the new menu "Boxee/XBMC" menu to start it up.

Configure Boxee

7. Enter the user account you registered on boxee.tv (via our invite link above). Boxee also adds some nifty social networking features—if you have any buddies also using it, you can see what they've recently watched, added to their collections, or recommended to you via Boxee's home screen.

8. First thing you'll want to do once you're in is make sure Boxee displays perfectly on your screen. Settings are accessible by pressing "left" on the ATV remote at any time, so go to "Settings - Appearance - Video Calibration..." to set overscan and sizing options.

Add Your Sources

Right now, under the "Videos" menu, you can browse and stream the complete offerings from Hulu, Comedy Central, Revision3, and a ton of other web video sources. But Boxee really shines when it can play your media files from anywhere on your network.

Add an SMB Share

This can be a network attached storage drive (you've read our guide for getting the best NAS setup, right?) or simply a shared folder on a Mac or PC on your network (to share a folder in OS X, enable File Sharing in your Sharing settings, enable SMB shares under "Options" and add your media folder. Boxee will then auto detect your shares.

9. In Boxee's Settings menu, select "Media Sources and Applications -> Network Sources" and choose "Add New Source." Select your share in the menu that comes up and mark it wither Video, Music or Photos. Boxee will now monitor this folder and add any TV shows and movies it recognizes (complete with cover art, episode descriptions, and the like) to the main videos menu (Boxee's full of little surprises like this). It won't catch everything though, so you can always access your added folders manually by choosing "Sources" under the main Video menu.

Access Apple TV via SSH For Copying Media Files

Aside from streaming from SMB shares, Boxee can also of course play files stored locally in its own file system. You can connect to the Apple TV via SSH/SFTP for copying files directly over your network and accessing your Apple TV's main file system.

10. In an FTP program like Transmit or Cyberduck (but using SFTP), connect to appletv.local with the username and password both set to "frontrow" - this will log you in to your Apple TV's file system, which has a structure exactly like OS X's. You can also connect via SSH from the terminal if you prefer the geekier side.

11. In the folder /Users/frontrow you will find folders labeled Movies, Music and Pictures. Any media added to these folders will be automatically recognized and playable after copying.

Torrent RSS

Yeah, Boxee can also download Torrents. It comes with a listing of public domain movie and TV Torrents under the "Public Torrents" source, but you can also have your Apple TV download whatever Torrents you want.

12. To add a Torrent to Boxee's download manager, simply copy the .torrent file to the Users/frontrow/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/Torrents folder using the SFTP technique above and it will immediately begin downloading. Awesome.

Uninstalling All Traces of Boxee

Should you want to wipe your machine totally clean of any Boxee related tinkering, it's easy. Fire up a Terminal and type in the following commands, each on their own line:

ssh frontrow@appletv.local

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Boxee.app/

sudo rm -rf /Applications/XBMC.app/

sudo rm -rf /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/XBMCLauncher.frappliance/

rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/BOXEE/

rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/XBMC/

What's Next For Boxee

Boxee is on the move. Over the course of three alphas I've used (I can't believe this is alpha software) over only the last month or so, this thing has improved by incredible bounds—interface is getting better, weirdness and inconsistencies getting less common, all good signs.

Eventually, Boxee wants to be in set top boxes and on every platform (Windows is coming before the end of the year)—since it supports practically every audio and video codec known, it's aiming to be the Firefox of multi-platform connected AV setups, featuring plug-ins and add-ons of its own. It doesn't support DRM of any kind, so don't hold your breath for Boxee to be picked up by any of the majors. Fine with me.

Feature wise, Netflix streaming (yessss) and ABC.com are first on the Boxee folks' list.

Boxee's an open source app, so its forums are a lively place to ask for help and suggest more features to the main developers, who hang out there often. If you run into any bumps, that's the place.

Network-attached storage options are more abundant than ever, but jumping into the copious bush of NAS can be quite a task, especially if you want a system that plays nice with both PC and Mac. Macs have historically been an unreasonably complex challenge for many networking products, and NAS was no exception. Here I've assessed the usefulness of three different cash-conscious strategies for setting up a Mac-and-PC-friendly NAS: Building a NAS out of an old PC, using a router with an external USB drive and buying a dedicated product.

Maybe you're wondering why you need a NAS at all. The answer is that you have too much stuff to not have one. How do I know? Because even my parents have a billion photos on their hard drive, and they know nothing of BitTorrent and Handbrake. An NAS sits there in a corner, a blinking, quietly purring guardian of all those song, video and photo files. It holds it all, streams it to just about anything else on the network, and even keeps a redundant copy safe on a separate mirrored RAID drive in case the shit really hits the fan. So yeah, you need one.

Here are the three systems I pieced together:
• My DIY system was concocted using FreeNAS software and an older ThinkPad I had lying around. This was technically the cheapest of the bunch.
• My router-based system was an AirPort Extreme with attached WD and LaCie USB drives, which was also "recycling" but cost a bit more.
• The dedicated NAS appliance I tested was a two-drive Synology DS207+, $330 for the box but the drives themselves are sold separately.

To evaluate the usefulness of each financial step up, I used three main criteria: Overall performance, availability of redundant data via RAID 1, and whether it's possible to add in features like media streaming, remote access or integrated BitTorrent.

In a mixed Mac/Windows environment, the main performance factor for Macs is support for Apple File Protocol for connecting network shares. AFP support is becoming more and more common in nicer NAS rigs, but it is still not a given in the cheaper range—every NAS alive supports SMB/CIFS, the more Windows-friendly protocol, so PCs generally don't have a problem. While Macs can connect to NAS using SMB—and also NFS Unix, which you may also run across—performance wise, OS X's SMB implementation is still shoddy compared to the apparently seamless AFP. (SMB also includes foibles such as filename length restrictions that can throw a Mac into fits.) If you're using an NAS to its highest potential, moving a lot of data around, SMB will cause more spinning death wheels and system hangs in OS X than AFP will.

It's up to you whether you want to go RAID 1 or not—you can also merge or stripe the drives for more storage but less protection. For me, redundancy is a must. I want to be able to give a NAS's drives a workout and still breathe easy in the not entirely unlikely event of a drive blow-out. NAS add-ons like BitTorrent, remote access and integrated UPnP are nice higher-end features, but they may not be as important to you.

DIY NAS With FreeNAS
I took an old IBM ThinkPad X31 I had lying around and installed FreeNAS—an open-source operating system based on FreeBSD that is similar to the OS you'll find in most NAS boxes. It offers similar features like RAID if the machine it's installed on has multiple drives, and can do UPnP, FTP access and the like via a web-based admin panel just like most dedicated rigs.

Initial installation is actually not too tough—just burn the FreeNAS live CD and boot it, then follow the install instructions. FreeNAS will re-format your drives to the somewhat obscure UFS file system it prefers (don’t try to run it on already-formatted drives, it’s not worth the immense hassle). I was up and running with AFP and SMB sharing without too much sweat. Like Linux, FreeNAS runs on a ton of hardware, so unless you’ve got something obscure you’ll likely be in business.Verdict: If you're heavy on outdated PCs and you derive pleasure from thrift and tinkering, you should give FreeNAS a try. That said, don't expect your pig in lipstick to be a screamer. Most aging desktops would be an improvement over my 5-year-old laptop with its slow 2.5” disk, obviously, but even considering that, my real-world tests were pretty rough. Browsing large folders of files hung the system on numerous occasions, and streaming of video files (especially seeking) was choppy. As far as extras go, my PS3 recognized FreeNAS's UPnP server but could not read any media, which would probably take some serious hackery to diagnose. Extras like an integrated BitTorrent client are available as well as open-source add-ons, but again, expect some heavy tinkering. Still, if you have unused hardware, try this option first.

Total Cost: Free, ideally; factor in $150 bucks for a few new drives.

Router with Shared External USB Drive
I've had bad luck in my previous, brief attempts at attaching USB storage to routers—rough performance and dropped connections abounded. This was with a few older non-Apple 802.11g routers, but naturally, I assumed the AirPort Extreme base station's AirPort Disk feature for connecting external drives was going to suck as bad. I was wrong.

Verdict: In day-to-day use for media storing, sharing and streaming, the AirPort Disk works pretty much without a hitch. I connected both a WD MyBook Mirror with RAID 1 and an older LaCie 300GB single-disk drive. In both cases, setup took literally 15 seconds after plugging in the drive—there are only a few config options to deal with in the AirPort Utility app to set access controls—and after that, it appeared as a shared volume source on Windows machines and Macs automatically. Browsing files and loading music in iTunes loaded without any noticeable difference from when my library was connected via USB, and streaming large video files to a PS3 with UPnP was skip-free.

Total Cost: $200 WD MyBook Mirror 1TB + $165 for AirPort Extreme on Amazon, so you're looking at $365. Chances are, you already have a USB drive and maybe even the AirPort, so the cost goes down considerably. (I do recommend acquiring a RAID 1 dual-drive, though.) Keep in mind, part of this sunk cost includes a solid 802.11n router, which you need anyway. There are, of course, several other 802.11n routers from the networking biggies that offer a USB connection for sharing. If you've had a good experience with any of these when connecting via both PCs and Macs, let us know in the comments.

Dedicated NAS
A ready-to-go NAS is the most obvious choice for adding network storage, but it can also be the most perilous. Go too cheap, and your box probably won’t support the Mac-tastic AFP. And even if it does, its performance may still be under par and its add-on features may not be good enough to warrant the added expense.

One of the most affordable AFP-equipped, well-reviewed NAS devices is the Synology DS207+ which, at $330 before you even buy the drives, isn't cheap at all. (If you don't have some drives lying around, the total cost will approach $500.) I picked it because, according to NAS aficionados like the folks at Small Network Builder with their handy NAS Charts, it yielded the best value in what I was looking for. Above the improved compatibility, it throws in tasty perks like a BitTorrent manager for downloading directly to the NAS, UPnP for streaming to a compatible TV or PS3, and a nice web-based control interface you can access from anywhere.
Verdict: Performance was the sour note here, surprisingly. While a large file transfer took roughly same amount of time as it did on the other configurations, doing things that required many quick reads, like opening my iTunes music folder with thousands of artist subfolders in Finder, took days on either a MacBook Pro via AFP, or a PS3 via UPnP. Using iTunes to locate the source MP3 file of a song playing hung up the Finder for so long it crashed. Loading a photo library in Aperture or Lightroom was equally painful, with frequent stalls.

I shouldn’t fully write-off an unseen quirk with my particular network setup. The folks at Synology thought everything sounded kosher, but did point out that the AirPort Extreme router I used for testing does not support jumbo frames (a way of optimizing gigabit ethernet traffic) so some gains could be reaped there with a different router. Also, much of my testing was done over 802.11g—browsing on a wireless N connection may fare better, although slowness was apparent on both the PS3 and my laptop when both were connected via gigabit ethernet, which should be blazing.

Dedicated NAS systems do provide extras such as UPnP, remote access via FTP or SSH, a built-in web server, and more. Still, your computer can already handle those just as well. With the drive attached as a network volume, your computer can act as the conduit even if it’s got nothing stored locally, serving media via a local UPnP server (like Tversity for Windows or MediaLink for OS X) and giving remote access to a local drive. A built-in Torrent client is the one I could see being useful, so if you’re a heavy Torrenter, consider that.

Total Cost: $330 for the NAS + approximately $160 (2 x 500GB drive) = $490. Yes, you can go cheaper (especially if you only need a single drive), but you will likely lose the Mac's AFP speed advantage.

Final Verdict
The quickest and simplest route out of the three is definitely an AirPort Disk, and it’s also, somewhat surprisingly, a performance winner in my real-world testing. Still, on a different network setup—if your primary machines are wired, for instance—the results could swing heavily back toward a dedicated box like the DS207+, so this isn't to say dedicated rigs should be written off completely. It’s important to pick the best performing NAS for your setup, but do it while sticking to our strategy: Start by spending as little as possible; if you’re unsatisfied, move up in baby steps.

And yes, Windows-only networks don’t have to jump through quite so many hoops when it comes to network storage, since SMB/CIFS support is the default in low-cost boxes, which works just fine in a Windows-only environment. If you don’t have a network with both Macs and PCs, there are a number of different routes you can take here that may be cheaper or more suited to what you need. Our three options offer a good balance of performance while keeping both platforms (and Linux, too) relatively happy.

NAS-land can get pretty crazy, and subject to the particular interactions of each person's own gear, so by all means throw in your own experiences and recommendations in the comments, and further help folks who are jumping into the NAS game for the first time.

In 2003, we reported on a GPS navigation device that led the visually impaired to their impending doom due to an "inaccuracy" of the system.

Although this new GPS device is not as cuddly as a guide dog, it is made up of one earpiece and microphone, which would allow the blind a certain anonymity, kind of like Daredevil, in that he would no longer need a cane or furry pet, which would leave both of his hands free ... to fight crime, perhaps? [create the future contest via gizmag]

The Phone

How much will an iPhone 3G cost? $199 for the 8GB version, which comes only in black, and $299 for the 16GB version which comes in black and white.

What's changed between the first generation and the iPhone 3G? Honestly? Not all that much. The iPhone 3G has all the features of the first one, plus faster 3G data downloads, GPS, and a better battery life. Externally, the phone's casing is slightly changed, with a thinner edge and thicker middle, but a flush headphone jack and solid-colored back make up the only other major differences visually. Everything else from the screen to the number of buttons and switches on the outside are the same.

How much will it really cost me over 2 years?. That depends on how many minutes you use and how many text messages you want to sign up for, but at AT&T's lowest plan price of $39 a month for 450 minutes, plus a mandatory $30 data charge and $5 for 200 text messages, you're looking at $1975 over the course of two years. Before tax and other fees. Here's how it stacks up against the old iPhone and against other 3G smartphones on Verizon and Sprint.

When can I buy it? If you're in one of the first countries to get the phone, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Spain, Japan and Mexico, it's July 11. Otherwise, it's still unknown. Come July 11, there's going to be a gigantic line of people wanting that phone. You'll have to wait not only for people in front of you to buy a phone, but activate it too—which is now mandatory and takes about 10-15 minutes. If you can wait, we'd recommend going after July 11.

Where can I buy it? In either an Apple store or an AT&T store. There won't be any online orders for this one.

How fast is the 3G over 2G (EDGE)? During the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs showed a demo that compared the iPhone 3G vs. the old iPhone when downloading a large web page with lots of images. Apple's site lists the result of that matchup as 20 seconds vs. 48 seconds, which is 2.4x faster. We've got a explainer about the details of 3G as well, if you're interested.

How does the GPS work? We've got a great tutorial on how the iPhone's GPS works. Long story short, it's A-GPS, or assisted GPS, which means most of the time it uses the cell towers and Wi-Fi to help triangulate (but doesn't necessarily need help). If you're looking to use the iPhone 3G as a GPS in your car for navigation, there's a catch. There's a restriction in the SDK that prohibits developers from using the phone for "real time route guidance". You can still use Google Maps to help guide you if you're lost, but it's not as smooth a system as a real GPS. TomTom may have an iPhone 3G guidance suite already in the works, despite the SDK restrictions.

Will the added 3G and GPS hurt my battery life? Apple's improved the battery life compared to the old version, which ups the talk time on 2G (same as the first iPhone) from 8 hours to 10 hours. On 3G, you get half that. So yes, your battery life will be significantly degraded when you're using 3G instead of 2G. Apple still hasn't provided numbers on how much GPS use will degrade your talk time.

What about that rumor that the iPhone 3G has a front camera? Yeah, not so much. Apple didn't say anything about that during their keynote, and there's been no evidence of it yet. There's a weird anomaly on the demo iPhone that Apple's Phil Schiller was using on stage during the event, but it's probably just a weird fingerprint.

What comes inside the iPhone 3G box? Not a whole lot. There's no dock, but there is a smaller charger that's great for children.

Does the iPhone 3G finally have MMS/picture messaging? Unfortunately not. Not officially, anyway. There are third-party apps already available that give your iPhone a sort of MMS functionality, but it's not great.

Can I tether the iPhone 3G to my laptop to get on-the-go internet? Not out of the box, no. The old iPhone was able to be hacked into doing this, but EDGE speeds meant that people only really used it in emergencies. With 3G, it'll be much more useful. We'll keep an eye on this one.

How durable is it compared to the first-gen? Our hands-on will tell you more about that, but from what we heard, the new backing is a lot more fingerprint-smudgy than the first.

The Software

When will the iPhone 2.0 software be released? At the very latest, July 11, when the iPhone 3G is launched. There are rumors that it can come as early as June 27, but Apple hasn't given any official word yet.

Do I need an iPhone 3G to get Exchange and other businessy features? Actually, no. Apple's site makes no mention of needing iPhone 3G, and specifies that you only need iPhone 2.0 software. Since iPhone 2.0 is available on the old 2G iPhones, you should be in luck.

What's MobileMe? It's Apple's replacement for .Mac, which manages your email, calendar, contacts, pictures and various other things. It's useful for iPhone users because it allows you to sync stuff automatically between your phone and your various computers. Any changes you make on one device gets pushed to the other ones.

Do I need an iPhone 3G to use MobileMe's syncing features? No, you can actually even use it on an iPod Touch, if you bought got one of those by accident.

Do I need an iPhone 3G to use the iPhone 2.0 software? No, you're free to install the new software on your existing iPhone, taking advantage of pretty much all the software features—including the App Store—that are on the iPhone 3G.

Are there limits to what kind of applications I can download in the App Store? Not really. A good 71% of iPhone applications will be free, with the rest starting at a price of $0.99 going all the way up to $999. You can pretty much download as many apps as you have space for on your phone. The largest applications will be 2GB, but we don't think there are going to be very many at that weight. The Sims for iPhone, maybe, if EA ever decides to release that.

Is there going to be iChat? Apple unveiled the AIM application back at the last event, but as far as we know, there hasn't been any talk of iChat (like the one on OS X). As such, we wouldn't count on any iChat Video chat either.

Who's making and supporting games? Unlike the iPod games, which were only made by a select few companies, pretty much anybody can make stuff for the iPhone. Look out for both major game developers and one-man coding shops to make games you want to play.

The Service

Do I need to sign a new two-year contract with AT&T if I buy a new iPhone 3G? Yes, but the good news is that your old contract gets ripped up. If you signed yourself into AT&T's grasp back when the iPhone was launched, you'll only have to stick with them for another two years starting now, not three. It's as if you're an entirely new customer.

Can I activate my iPhone over iTunes like I did the first time? Apple and AT&T want you to activate your phone in stores, but there's a possibility of activating it over iTunes if you somehow didn't do it in the store. However, you will be required to sign an agreement while you're in the store stating that you're going to enter into a 2-year contract eventually, and you'll be penalized if you don't sign up within 30 days. More details are here.

Will my old iPhone plan work with the new iPhone? No. You'll have to sign up for 3G data, which is $30 (the old iPhone plan was $20). If you want those same 200 SMS messages that were bundled with the old plan, you'll have to pay an extra $5 a month. If you want unlimited messaging, it's $20 a month.

Will activating a new iPhone 3G brick my old iPhone? Definitely not. You'll be able to give your 1st gen iPhone to someone to reactivate via iTunes on a new plan.

If I want to keep my old iPhone on the $20 data plan, will it still be around? Yes! You can keep using that for now, until the time that AT&T feels like they really need you off that plan. Thanks adrunkenmonkey

Can I use the iPhone 3G on a prepaid plan? AT&T hasn't confirmed this yet, but we'll try and find out. Thanks KJA.

Update: Reader PJ has pointed out that AT&T's policy is that no prepaid and pick your plan will be allowed with the iPhone 3G.

What are European iPhone plans looking like? You'll have to check your local provider, but from what we've been hearing, O2 in the UK and Telefonica in Spain will get free a iPhone 3G if they sign up for an 18-month plan that's at least $88/month.

What happens a year from now when Apple releases an even better iPhone? Nobody really knows, but it's likely that they'll just do what they did this time and have you buy the phone and renew the contract for another two years. Thanks Gregory.

What's the price for the iPhone for existing AT&T customers who may or may not be eligible for an upgrade? AT&T's just told us that yes, ineligible customers will have to pay the full, unsubsidized price for the iPhone. See the post for more, but basically it won't be $199 and $299. No official price has been set yet.

The Rest

Will there be cases for the iPhone 3G when it launches? Yes. Belkin and Griffin, two of the bigger case manufacturers, have already made a whole bunch of cases like this one for people who really need to protect their phones. Those should be available come July 11.

Can I get a free upgrade to the iPhone 3G? I just bought an old one! Yes, if you purchased it after May 27.

Did some feature that I wanted get added to the iPhone 3G? If the feature you wanted wasn't 3G, GPS, or a flush headphone jack, the answer is probably no. No copy and paste, no video recording and no improved camera, among other things.

Will I be able to use this thing on T-Mobile like I was before? Eventually? Probably. The iPhone hacking team says that they've got a pretty good grip on the 2.0 firmware, which means they can most likely jailbreak it soon after the iPhone 3G is released. With that done, it's only a matter of time that they'll be able to SIM unlock it to use on other networks. The only problem is getting past AT&T's mandatory in-store activation after you purchase a phone.

If I somehow get hold of an iPhone 3G and shove in a SIM from my old iPhone, what happens? That's a pretty damn good question. We're not sure. If the iPhone 3G is straight out of the box, it'll need to be activated. If it somehow already got activated (or, hacktivated), you might be able to just use it on your old iPhone 2G plan. We'll keep an eye on this. Thanks Moe.

Should I sell my old iPhone to raise money for the new one? Sure, if you don't know anybody who's worthy enough for you to give your old one to, you might as well sell it.

Should I sell my old iPhone to raise money for the new one on Craigslist if I live in a lousy neighborhood? No. No you shouldn't.

What's the return policy like? You've got 30 days to get that thing back to AT&T if you discover that your AT&T reception is super lousy at your house, or if you just don't like the thing.

Does the iPhone 3G work like an iPod with iPod accessories? Yes, it works just like the first iPhone does. Most iPod accessories will support the iPhone 3G, but some speaker docks might have some GSM interference static if it isn't shielded correctly.

Can I use the iPhone 3G on Verizon or Sprint? Nope, never. Not even if you unlock it.

Can I still buy your book teaching me how to use it? Sure. Most of the basic functions such as calling, texting, iPodding and emailing are the same in the new iPhone 2.0 firmware as they are in the old one. You or the person you buy it for will still get a lot of use out of it. Plus, you can then lead off all your emails to me with the line "I bought your book, so..." in order to coerce me into responding faster.

If we haven't answered your question, feel free to shoot me an email (it's on the left-hand column) with the subject "iPhone 3G FAQ" and I'll try and update this FAQ with the answer. Thanks!

You can also access all our iPhone 3G coverage by clicking here as well.

Updateds for 6/16/08

If I buy my friend's old iPhone when he updates to iPhone 3G, can I use it as a cheap iPod touch without activating it? Yup! Everything but the calling features should be active, except it will say "No SIM" at the top. Thanks Andy.

In light of MobileMe apparently being an instant push service, will iPhone 3G also support push from other IMAP service providers? We haven't heard any word from Apple that there's any kind of push email besides to MobileMe and Exchange servers, not counting Yahoo, which is already push now. Thanks Andrew.

Will you be able to buy insurance through AT&T like for other standard plan phones? AT&T's Asurion will cover all phones for $5 EXCEPT the iPhone, which is the way it's been since the first iPhone's launch. Thanks John.

What are the chances of Apple releasing an iPhone with increased data storage before the next-next gen iPhones come out? Pretty damn likely. I'd expect a 32GB iPhone some time late this year or early next year. Thanks David.

What will happen to the current Installer.app once the App Store launches? Will people keep updating this or will it be considered piracy? Apple doesn't exactly welcome the current Installer.app and jailbreaking efforts with open arms. However, since the App Store is going to be bringing in revenue to Apple, it's possible that through jailbreaking and Installer.app, you could bring pay-for-play apps for free onto your phone without actually paying for it.

My wife currently has a [insert lousy phone] with AT&T. Will she be able to keep her phone number when she upgrades to the iPhone 3G? Yes. She'll be able to renew the contract for 2 years and still keep her phone number. Thanks John.

I've got international roaming on my AT&T plan now. Can I take the iPhone 3G to various countries, including Japan? We don't have official confirmation of this from Apple yet, it's likely that your phone will work in Japan. The iPhone is Quad-Band, which means it works on GSM/EDGE on the 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz frequencies and UMTS/HSDPA on the 850, 1900 and 2100 MHz frequencies. Because of the reports that Apple's using Softbank to distribute iPhones in Japan, we can deduce that you should be able to roam just fine. From Wikipedia:

SoftBank Mobile currently operates both PDC (Japanese 2G) and W-CDMA (UMTS 3G) networks. SoftBank's 3G network is compatible with UMTS and supports transparent global roaming for existing UMTS subscribers from other countries outside Japan. Subscribers of GSM networks having roaming agreements with SoftBank Mobile can also roam on the SoftBank 3G network by using UMTS handsets.

Thanks Randall.

Will MobileMe users have the ability to perform a remote wipe of their lost/stolen iPhone 3G? It's not one of the features listed on Apple's site for MobileMe, and it's more a business/Enterprise feature. It's unlikely, but we don't know for sure.

Will you need the $45 AT&T Enterprise data plan in order to use Exchange or MobileMe? For MobileMe, no. That'll be available to everybody. We're checking on the Exchange part. Thanks Thomas.

What will happen to my rollover minutes I accrued over the last year? AT&T's preliminary answer says that you'll keep your rollover minutes, but there's no official statement on this yet. Thanks Brian.

I have 2 years of AppleCare through October of 2009. If something happens to my phone in the future and they want to replace it, will I get an iPhone 3G or the old one? That depends on Apple. If they've got any stock of the original one, they'll give you a refurbished unit. If they've only got iPhone 3Gs left, you might get lucky? Thanks Boyd.

After I activate my iPhone 3G, will I be able to sync all the settings from my old iPhone onto it? Yes. When you activate the new phone, iTunes will ask you if you want to sync the old existing data onto it. Do a sync with your old phone before docking your new one and you'll be set. Thanks Andrew.

7/3 Update

Is there a difference between buying the iPhone at AT&T and buying it at Apple? Only if you're a business customer. AT&T says that there's no difference between regular customers, and both stores can do things like transferring your number from another carrier. See here for more details.

What's the final pricing information for AT&T's plans? Here it is below.

What time will the iPhone be on sale on July 11? 8am, so if you really, really want one, you might have to camp out.

What new features are coming in iTunes 7.7, the update that's coming July 11 along with the iPhone 2.0 software and iPhone 3G? MobileMe stuff, parental controls for games, and various other features like using your iPhone and iPod Touch as an iTunes remote. Click here for video and screenshots.

Wait, did you just say that iPhone will be able to control iTunes? Yup. You're getting a free remote control App.

Is there a good reason why the enterprise data plan is more expensive than the standard one? A good reason? AT&T says it's because business customers use more data than consumers, so they charge more.

Is there an upgrade fee for the iPhone 3G on AT&T? Yes. $18, says AT&T.

The guide covers everything from making channel adjustments to positioning your equipment to reduce the effect of big bursts of sound. For the home entertainment aficionado, this advice may be old hat—but may prove extremely helpful for the novices out there. For more info, hit the following link. [Sound & Vision]

Q: I chose sides early in the HD DVD/Blu-ray shenanigans and unfortunately, made the right decision and supported HD DVD. What do I do now?
A: Try and sell your HD DVD player or Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on as fast as you can. Go list it on craigslist or eBay already. The mainstream hasn't heard about HD DVD's demise just yet, which means you can find some chump to buy your player and movies on the cheap. How soundly you sleep at night is up to you.

Q: Really? You mean my player is useless? Won't there be any more movies released on HD DVD?
A: A few more releases that are already in the pipeline might trickle out in the next couple months, but just watch as all the studios abandon the format and go exclusively Blu-ray. You're better off just selling off all your stuff unless you want to keep it around to win our retro Gizmodo tech contest of 2028.

Q: But what if I already have a gigantic HD DVD library?
A: It depends on how gigantic it is. If it's not too big, you can re-buy your library on Blu-ray. If it's huge, you might want to buy a combo player, like the one from LG, in order to ease your transition. Either way, you're going to be out a bit of money. You might want to just shoot yourself in the face now and be done with it.

Q: I chose sides early in the HD DVD/Blu-ray shenanigans and chose Blu-ray. What do I do now?
A: Besides calling up your grandmother to rub it in her face, there's not much you need to do. Just sit and wait for your favorite movies to come out on Blu-ray.

Q: Right, but how long do I have to wait, exactly, before I can watch Batman Begins on my PlayStation 3?
A: Beats me. Now that Blu-ray is the de-facto format, the studios should be falling over themselves trying to remaster their already released HD DVD movies onto Blu-ray. If we had to guess, it'd be within the year.

Q: OK, now that the war is "officially over," is it time for me to buy a Blu-ray player?
A: Maybe. It's still relatively early in the technology's lifespan, which means prices for Blu-ray players are still quite high when you compare it to the sub-$100 upscaling DVD players you can find at Wal-Mart. Plus, the BD library is incredibly thin when compared to DVD, so you might not be getting much use out of the player in your day-to-day movie watching. But if you really do want to get into the HD game (and have an HDTV to back it up), it's finally safe to buy a player.

Q: So you're saying that I'm going to be paying more for these movies on Blu-ray? When will the prices drop to DVD levels?
A: That's tough to say. For example, Superman Returns is only $14.98 for the DVD version but $23.95 for the Blu-ray version. It's going to take a few years yet for that 23 to drop to 14. If you had to force us to guess, we're going to say about three years. That's 2011.

Q: I don't buy movies, I rent them. When are Netflix and Blockbuster going to get in gear and stock a bunch of Blu-ray movies?
A: As soon as the major studios start releasing Blu-ray movies in bulk. If you recall the VHS to DVD transition, it took quite a while for VHS tapes to phase out, and this transition will be quite similar. Again, if you forced us to guess, we'd have to say 2010.

Q: Screw it, I'm convinced. I'm going to go out and buy a player today. Which player should I buy?
A: Unless you're morally opposed to gaming or having a gaming device in your living room, you should go with the PlayStation 3. It's software-upgradeable, plus it's relatively cheap even when compared to standalone Blu-ray players. You even get a gaming system thrown in.

Q: Speaking of gaming, what if I already purchased an Xbox 360 and want to be able to watch Blu-ray movies? Will I have to buy a PS3?
A: Maybe not. Even though Microsoft backed HD DVD and released an HD DVD add-on, they weren't staking their entire console on the format (hence, the add-on). This means that Microsoft has a big minus in their column when comparing the 360 to the PS3 in terms of high-def DVD playback. It's a hole they're going to want to patch up right away, so don't be surprised if you see a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 some time in the near future.

Q: Can you sum up what I, the average consumer, should do at this point in one sentence?
A: Wait one more year for the Blu-ray format to mature, for more titles to be released, and player prices to drop before jumping in.

Before the software, here's the hardware we used to explore WinHoServer. Norco's DS 520 has a 1GHz Celeron M processor, up to 1GB RAM, eight SATA II channels, 3 eSATA ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and a total capacity of 8TB when using 1TB drives. It's got an MSRP of $649, which may seem high for a headless machine, but it's not quite like a standard Windows machine you've used. True, you can make a Windows XP or Vista machine into a NAS that backs up and has RAID and allows remote access, you need deep networking and computer experience to do so. WinHoSo is designed for the average family with more than one computer. And you pay for both the convenience and the upgradeability.

Here are the main features Microsoft will be using to sell this to you.

Backup: Much like Vista itself, Windows Home Server allows you to back up your computer drive by drive to one centralized location. You can even do this with every computer in your house, provided you've got enough space installed on your Home Server. Like Time Machine in Leopard, this is a fire and forget method of backing up that's painless and easy enough for your mom to do (and if she can't, you can always remote access in and do it for her). We set our Vista machine to back up once a day and it's done by the time we wake up in the morning.

Network Storage: Another one of the main features allows you dump all your files off your computer and onto your network. Homes that have more than one machine can consolidate music, photos, and movies so the files can be accessed anywhere. For example, you can stream music to your Xbox 360 directly from the server. It depends on each OEM's implementation of the software, but most have hard drive slots in front that are hot-swappable, plus eSATA ports and USB 2.0 ports in the back for easy external expansion as well. All the drives—including external ones—are consolidated into one big pool that services your network. When you plug in a new drive (as shown above), it will format (assimilate) the drive and add it to the hive mind (Borg Collective).

What's great about this network storage is that it's essentially a poor man's RAID. You can choose top level shared folders on your server for file duplication, which backs up the same files onto another one attached hard drive for redundancy in case one drive fails. There's also access rights for different users so you can keep your "photo" directory separate from your family vacation pics. And since it's an SMB network share, OS X and Linux machines can use it as well.

Remote Access: In addition to being able to access your files through the network, you can also grab them over the internet with remote access. Setting it up was extremely easy, which is a credit to Microsoft to boil down port forwarding and domain registration to something normals can do. To enable it, just head to the settings, switch on the feature, and the server will auto-configure your router via uPNP. After that's done, you go through the handful of steps to register a free domain name (yourname.homeserver.com is the result) and you can now grab your files from anywhere.

What's even better than accessing files from outside your home is accessing actual computers. Home Server allows remote access connections for privileged users (ones you give permission to) to control certain machines on your network. Connecting requires Internet Explorer, so non-Windows PCs are out. This reiterates the point that this is a Windows ecosystem-focused product. However, we couldn't get remote access to work correctly on 3 different machines we tried—it kept giving us a timeout which we suspect is a firewall/router issue—but we'll try again and update on how well remote access works when it actually does.

Monitoring: In addition to hot features like backup, file share and remote access, there's small features that let you keep your home network in check as well. WinHoSo can monitor the status of all computers connected to it via the Network status section. This, as shown above, lets you see the status of each computer's firewall, antivirus and whether any updates are pending from one place. For families, you can see if your kids have disabled the firewall or the antivirus because they wanted to play some trojan-laced game they downloaded.

Extendability: The Windows Home Server platform also serves as a base for plugins, which either extend the functionality software-wise or act as a gateway or driver for some piece of hardware you're using. Announcements for these will come soon, but suffice it to say things sound very promising.

Do It Yourself: For those of you who already have a spare machine you can use as a WHS node, you can already pick up an OEM copy from Newegg for $179. The installation process takes about an hour, after which you'll be set up with your own Home Server without having to buy a pre-made machine.

In more ways than one, the WHS product reminds us of Windows Media Center Edition, a design that started out as a niche product but was updated and improved every year to be so great that it eventually outsold standard editions of XP—and then incorporated full out in Vista.

Microsoft wanted this to be an easy to use product that families can take advantage of without having to think about it. It incorporates well into existing homes that have more than one computer and want to back up/store/share their data. Norco's implementation is a fine example of how this Windows Home Server will work, bringing an all-in-one kit that's both expandable on the hardware side and extensible on the software side. They may have a hard time convincing people that they need this in their homes, but we're definitely sold. [Windows Home Server]

Norco