Question: John would like to know why YouTube videos don't play on his Vista computer.
Answer: The first thing I can think of is that your version of Vista might be the 64-bit version. If you have over 4 gigabytes of RAM, you definitely have the 64-bit version. This version is superior to the older, 32-bit technology in many ways, most notably the amount of memory Windows can see. YouTube videos play using a plug-in component in your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, whatever) called Flash. There isn't yet a 64-bit version of Flash available, so the best thing to do for now, is to use the 32-bit version of your browser. The whole 32-bit, 64-bit thing is one of those technical things that makes folks' eyes glaze over, but it’s something we'll have to be aware of until everything becomes 64-bit. We'll have a link in the show notes to Adobe's statement on this problem.
Cool Site: Widgetbox: Social networking is all the rage nowadays. Widgets are just boxes you can put on a website, Facebook page or whatever that display something of interest to your site visitors. Widgetbox is a website that lets you create many different kinds of widgets. You can put these on your website or your Facebook page to add slideshows, countdowns, videos from YouTube or Vimeo, whatever you're interested in. They have 171,272 different widgets, and if they don't have what you want, you can create your own. Several of their most popular are a Super Mario game, Baby-Ticker – The Baby Countdown Pregnancy Ticker, which is cool because it lets you see an animated image of your baby during your pregnancy; cyber-pet, an electronic pet; a Mario Time Trial game; and Maukie – the virtual cat.
Cool Gadget: Withings WiFi Body Scale: This week's gadget has a big "weird factor" to it. For anyone who has battled with their weight, you know that it’s good to have peer support. It's nice to hear, "Have you lost weight?" from time to time. You've got Twitter followers that care about what’s going on with you. How to combine those? The WiFi Body Scale can be set up to let your followers know when you step onto it. Not only that, it will include how many pounds you've gained or lost. Hmm. Whaddaya think? Too much information?.
It's All "Geek" To Me: BitTorrent: BitTorrent is a peer to peer file sharing mechanism that works similarly to how springs and tributaries fill a large river. Like many Peer-to-Peer programs, you need a program called a BitTorrent Client to download files using it. BitTorrent takes advantage of the fact that most ISPs have slower upload speed than download. With most Internet providers, you can download a "river-full", but you can only send a tributary, or even a spring's worth. For a file you want to download, BitTorrent gets chunks of the file from as many different computers as it can find. These small chunks don't take long to send. That way, you can download large files faster because your Trinity River is being filled by many smaller springs and tributaries of data.
