Cheap Media Centers, Smarter Notifications, and a Less-Annoying YouTube

This week on the podcast we're talking about building an amazing but cheap media center, upgrading your phone's notification system, and making YouTube less annoying. We're also answering your questions about BitTorrent privacy, converting audio files, sharing to-do lists, and playing loud music without annoying the rest of the world.

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Top Stories and News



Build Whitson's Sub-$500 Dream Media Center
This week Whitson built the media center of his dreams and it cost him less than $500. It can do everything from download TV shows and movies, play Blu-rays, access video streaming services like Netflix, and even emulate practically any game console for an awesome gaming experience. In fact, it can even handle modern games at reasonable frame rates. There are few limitations and the machine is very inexpensive for all the power it provides.

Upgrade Your Smartphone's Notification System
I don't like notifications because they are so numerous and often pointless and intrusive. To fix the problem, I used an app called Pushover to create a better one. Thanks to all the customization options, I can now get email notifications from people I care about instead of everyone, find out when new TV shows are ready to watch on my media center, and even get learn when the dog runs into a wall. It's pretty great, offers tons of options, and only takes a few minutes to set up.

Four Clicks to a Less-Annoying YouTube
Pash has been annoyed with YouTube annotations for a very long time, and he realized that he could just change a simple setting to make them go away. Even better, if he wants them at some point, they're just a click away on any YouTube player. That and other settings are easy to change and can make your YouTube experience much better. Read this to find out how.

What Is Raspberry Pi and How Can I Get One?
A Raspberry Pi is a small $35 hackable computer that can do all sorts of great things, such as turning a keyboard into a computer or building a computer into your DSLR camera. We haven't got out hands on one yet, but if you have and have done anything cool with one be sure to let us know!

Motorola Launches Official Bootloader Unlocking Tool for Android Phones
Motorola finally announced a bootloader unlocker for their Android phones and then they decided just to unlock their newest phone. Supposedly they're not going to unlock any of the older models and this is just going to be a tool available to new releases. This kind of sucks, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Remember how Facebook's app for iOS was super slow? That's because they basically just built a mobile webapp and had it load in an HTML5 container instead of an app shell. This made everything super slow, but now Facebook rewrote the entire thing to make it much, much faster. While it isn't perfect, it's a lot snappier. You'll enjoy using it because you'll be able to without waiting a lifetime for your profile to load.

Questions and Answers



Is PeerBlock trustworthy? Will it help me protect my privacy when using BitTorrent?
No. PeerBlock doesn't really work well enough to trust. You want to use a combination of private BitTorrent trackers and a trustworthy VPN services. Read this for more information.

What's a good way to convert MP3s to WAVs or vice-versa?
I like Adapter, which works on OS X and Windows and can convert all sorts of audio types with little effort. Whitson prefers XLD on OS X because it's as simple as drag and drop.

A complicated question about shared to-do lists.
There's no good way to summarize Eugene's question, so here's the full text. "I'm a college student and I have an iPhone. I'm looking for a good to-do app to store all my homework assignments. This app needs to be able to share with my friends. So, say I add a task to do math homework and my friend "Joe" finishes it and checks it off the list. In the apps I've tried, that also checks it off my list which doesn't help because I didn't finish it. Both of us need to be able to check it off separately."

There's no great answer to this question because we're not aware of an app capable of this functionality. (If you are, however, let us know!) That said, Google Docs can handle the task. Just make a spreadsheet and share it with your friends. You can use that spreadsheet as a multi-person spreadsheet. It's not a perfect solution, but it'll work on your smartphone or computer which is pretty nice.

My parents complain my music is too loud and the bass is too high. Can I do anything to keep playing it loud and stop annoying them?
Buy a good pair of headphones! Whitson had some issues with annoying people with his loud death metal and dubstep collection and that's what he did. He even wrote a headphone buying guide to share his experience in making the transition.

Downloads of the Week



Chat Undetected (Chrome/Firefox/Internet Explorer)
Facebook Chat now includes a feature that lets you know when a friend has read your message-or when you've read theirs. If you'd prefer to keep that information under wraps, Chat Undetected will do it for you.

Download Chat Undetected

Sticky Notifications (OS X)

Download Sticky Notifications

Servers Ultimate (Android)

Download Servers Ultimate

Cardiio (iOS)

Download Cardiio

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