Movie Rentals & Purchases Via The Playstation Store

I was reading through the user agreement for the new patch for the Playstation 3 and saw a section about three fourths of the way through that discussed movie rentals and purchases in both standard definition and high definition. After reading through it and finding nothing questionable I turned on the playstation and downloaded the new update. The store now has a video section where you can rent or buy movies and tv shows both current and classic by the season. The prices are no different than going to blockbuster. I am unsure what rights you have if your hard drive crashes or you lose your purchased content. It was not spelled out in the user agreement if you could download again by showing proof of purchase or if it was just your loss.

Regardless, if the content selection continues to grow I don't know if I see a reason to visit Blockbuster anytime soon (I rent maybe once a month). And those who own xbox 360's have been given the ability to download Netflix rentals, there may not be much of a future for walk-in movie rental stores.

Also, if anybody is considering moving up to BluRay, I would urge you to consider a Playstation 3. I bought mine so I could watch my high definition video that I filmed, but after buying it, I realized it was also useful as a media reciever by setting up a media server on my computer (check a box in windows media player) and for watching bluray movies, listening to music through my home theatre via mp3 and wma's, surfing the web on the tv, video conferencing with anybody else who owns one (all of these things are free by the way) and if you are into games, you can also play those on it.

Parody Based On Probability

This is probably what happens when we assume too much.

DivX On The PS3: The Rumors Are True

The below is taken from a DivX newsletter:

You may have heard the news about PlayStation 3 support for DivX video. Well, pop the bubbly because it's true. We have indeed made a deal with Sony to add DivX video playback to their popular PS3 gaming console.
And that's all you get for now. While I wish I could answer the most obvious question and tell you exactly when the DivX-laden updates will be released, I can't. Sorry. I know it's a little out of character for gamers, but try to be patient. I mean, you could always go play a game while you wait. I hear Mrs. Pac Man is fun ... the boards change! Imagine that.

That is great. No more round about ways to get DivX to play on the PS3. Here is what I have been doing in case anyone is interested in playing back DivX or a plethora of other files on your PS3. I have been using Nero Ultimate 7 with its media home server and Nero Scout additions to transcode files on the fly and stream them wirelessly to the Playstation 3 for playback on the television. It works great and with the latest updates the only thing I cannot get to work is the DivX HD files. I hope that the officially supported update will include this ability.

Here are two links with two different options of playing media from your PC to your TV via the PS3 (media that Windows Media Server will not recognize). Enjoy!

Option 1: Tversity (free)
Option 2: Nero Ultimate 7 (free if you already own Nero Ultimate 7 or 8)

Microsoft Office: Who Needs It?

I have been using a program called OpenOffice.org (yes, it actually has the .org in the name) for about 5 years now. I have no regrets. It allows me to do everything I ever needed to do with Microsoft office plus I can even export to a pdf file (which I use often) and did I mention it is free? That's right, free. It is open source software which means there is no corporation looking to clean your pockets; it is a collaboration of people who saw a need and took to developing an office suite that could fill that need and do it in a way that did not cost the user anything.

So, what does it have to offer? It can convert freely to and from Microsoft Office formats such as .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc. as well as rich text, its own proprietary formats and it has a built in spell checker as well as grammar. It comes with a word processor called Writer, a scientific calculator called Math, a spreadsheet application called Calc, a slide show program called Impress, a database application called Base, and a drawing program called Draw.

I would encourage you to download it and give it a try. One thing I did not like with Writer is that it shows a text border. I quickly turned this off by going to view and removing the text border. Simple as that. Everything else is just how I like it. I also was able to import and export formulas out of Calc and only a few needed some minor adjustments when working with excel, nothing big though.

So, if you can have all this for free, why are you still saving to buy that next version of Microsoft Office? Oh, one more thing, this works on all versions of Windows, on Macs, on Linux, and Solaris.

You can download it here.

You can read more about it here.