A few of these actually leaked from her Facebook profile! Others are from her recent FHM shoot and her davenport underwear shoot. Enjoy..

I also found this video from behind the scenes of the famous stephanie rice underwear shoot for davenport underwear.

Stephanie Rice Underwear Shoot

Anyway the first Dexter book is called Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. We had to goto about 3 differnt stores to find it because it was sold out - the show has just started airing on regular tv here so I’m guessing alot of ppl are getting into it.

So far is very good she says, I can’t wait till I get my turn to read it. We’ve already ordered the rest in the series from Amazon.

Here is the order of the books, because it was hard to find out -

Order of the Dexter Novels by Jeff Lindsay:

1. Darkly Dreaming Dexter
2. Dearly Devoted Dexter
3. Dexter in the Dark

There is a fourth book coming out next year too called “Dexter By Design”.

You can buy all the Dexter books and other Jeff Lindsay books on Amazon.com.

Finding things to download

I use a couple of sites to keep track of what’s been released in the scene so I know what to download. RLSLOG.net is a great one, and they usually have posts up within a couple hrs of relase. Each post has the release name, imdb links if it’s a movie and links to samples/screenshots so you can check quality.

All you need to do is copy/paste the post title from RLSLOG into Easynews Global Search to find the relase.

Other good sites are IMDB’s DVD Rental Chart (chances are if it’s out to rent, a dvdrip will have been uploaded) and NFOHump.com (formally NForce.nl - great list of scene releases for movies, software tv). CAT and EZTV are great for checking when TV shows air!

Effectively searching Easynews

There are a number of tips that will help you when searching for files to download on Easynews depending on what kind of files you’re looking for.

Movies: Search for “Movie Title DVDRip” if you don’t know the scene release name.

TV: Search for “Show name S01e01″ where S01 is the season and e01 is the episode. If you’re looking for the whole season of a show, just leave out the e01 - (EG: Dexter S01 would return all epsiodes in Season 1 of Dexter.

Music: Just search for the artist and album title, throw in the year if you need to Narrow the results.

Using the Zip Manager

The Zip Manager is one of the best features of the Easynews web-based client. You can easily throw multiple files into 1 single zip file for easy downloading and sorting. I use it for grouping songs of an album, or tv show season. Just tick the box next to the file you wish to download, select a zip group at the top of the results page and click “zip manager”. You can do this with as many files as you like, just make sure you choose the same Zip group.

Best EasyNews Plan

This really depends on your usage. I’m on the 20gb for $9.98 plan which is plenty for me. It’s really great because your download quota will roll-over to the next month if you don’t use it.. so if nothing much is worth downloading you can save those gig’s for the next month! Great for HD content!

Well there you have it, some more Easynews tips! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments and I’ll try my hardest to answer!

Take a quick look at some American news sites compared to the official tally..

Source: Beijing2008.com (Official Site)

Vs.

Source: NBCOlympics.com

Other American news outlets are following suit..

NYTimes: http://2008games.nytimes.com/olympics/medals.asp

Fox Sports: http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/medals

I guess if you can’t win, just change the way you figure out the winner until it looks like you win. That’s the  American way!

1. FFDShow

Forget codec packs, this is all you’ll ever need. FFDShow has played every audio and video file I’ve ever thrown at it, and the best part is - its free (GPL!). Install it once and never worry about codecs again. Pro tip: setup the normalisation filter and all your audio will play at the same volume.

Download: Free-Codecs.com (free, domain sounds dodgy I know - but the site is clean)

2. ESET NOD32 Antivirus

Everyone has their favorite and this is mine. I’ve played with basicly every AV product out there and this wins for me hands down. It’s solid, has a small footprint, doesn’t annoy the shit out of you with popup and the results speak for themselves.

Download: ESET.com (30-day Trial versiona avaliable, $59/1yr - It’s worth it)

3. FlashGet

The FlasGet site says it all - “Best Download Manager”. Great for pulling insane download speeds with Easynews. I like the simple interface, and the fact that is just works. Has all the features I need (scheulding, secure site support, multi-threading).

Download: FlashGet.com (free)

4. Filezilla

Filezilla is a great little free FTP client, opensource too! A great example of how great software doesn’t need to cost a thing. For anyone who runs a website, this is a must-have.

Download: Filezilla-Project.org (free)

5. 7-Zip

Say bye-bye to that expired WinRAR trial.. say hello to 7-Zip! From the website:  “7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio.” It’ll unpack all popular formats (RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS) and has the same right-click functioanily as WinRAR (except its free!).

Download: 7-Zip.org (free)

6. Foxit Reader

Don’t waste your time with Adobe Reader’s bloat - Foxit Reader is smaller (2.55M), faster (loads in 1-2sec) and free! No need to worry about compatibility either, Foxit will handle any PDF on the web.

Download: FoxitSoftware.com (free)

7. FireFox

Faster, more secure and more customisable, Firefox is the web-browser that needs no introduction (but I gave it one anyway). FF is catching groud fast on IE in terms of market share which is a pretty mean feat considering IE ships with Windows and most people are lazy!

Download: Mozilla.com (free)

8. µTorrent

I’m not into torrents so much these days but µTorrent is easily the best BitTorrent client out there (most popular too!). You have the choice of a full installer, or stand alone exe. You’re most likely already using this so I won’t bore you too much with the details, but one of the best features for me is the Web Interface which lets you manage your torrents remotely.

Download: uTorrent.com (free)

9. OpenOffice

Because we all get .doc / .xls files sent to us that we need to open! Why steal MS Office when this great free alternative is avaliable? Check it out today, recoommend to friends!

Download: OpenOffice.org (free)

10. iTunes

I’ve always hated iTunes but lately it’s been growing on me. Especially now with my iPhone I use it everyday and I’ll admit I’m starting to like it. I even use the store to preview songs before I download them (from Easynews).

Download: Apple.com (free, don’t enter your email)

Well there you have it, my list of what to install after a format.

Please add your suggestions in the comments because I’d love to know if you think there’s better apps out there!

So I’m going to show you how to bypass or break the DRM on a few of the most popular formats in use at the moment. Use this info to mashup, mix and rehash the worlds content and make something new!

Read on for the how-to…

How Remove iTunes DRM / Copy protection

Apple have gotten smarter over the years so older methods of copying songs from itunes have stopped working - but it’s still possible.

One way round-about way of getting your song to be DRM free is to add the song as the sound track on an iMovie project and then export the audio after your video has been created. More info on that here.

If you’re a mac user you’ll want to grab a copy of FairGame which will do the above for you - much easier if you ask me.

If you’re still on windows the best way I’ve found is to burn the tracks you want to copy to a CD using itunes and then rip them again afterwards using something like CDex.

Remove DRM from Windows Media Files (wmv & wma)

Windows users can use the wonderful freeware and opensource app FreeMe2 to strip the DRM right out of wmv and wma files. Full instructions are here if you need them, but its pretty straight forward.

Ripping Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies

There a few tools out there (some free / some not) that claim to rip the latest gen of movie disc’s but the best I’ve found so far is DumpHD. It just works.

Ripping DVD’s

This is pretty common place these days but if you’re still stuck on this one I can recommend DVD Decrypter. It’s easy to use and I’m sure even your Mom could use it. You’ll probably also want to grab a copy of DVDShrink if you want to re-burn your dvd’s as retail dvd’s are often too big to fit on a DVD-R.

If you’re on a mac give MacTheRipper a try - from what I’ve heard its great.

If you can think of any other popular formats I’ve missed can you let me know in the comments and I’ll try to add info about them too!

Easynews is a newsgroup service provider. Read the wiki link if you have no idea what that means - but to put it simply its a service that allows you to download music, movies, games and basically anything else you could think of.

I’ve used newsgroups in the past and have been massively turned off by the cumbersome news clients you’d have to use to connect, not to mention dealing with split files and parity.

This is where Easynews comes into a league of its own. They have developed an amazingly powerful web-based client that lets you search, preview and download files from directly in your web browser. You have to use it to fully appreciate just how awesome it is.

After you sign up you’ll wanna login to the Global search client using this link. I’m not sure why but they make it really hard to find the Global client, which to me is really stupid considering it’s the best feature of Easynews.

Anyway after you login you’ll be greeted with the web-based newsgroup search screen -

Just type in whatever you’re looking for into the global search, fine tune it by selecting file type or size constraints (I usually don’t bother), and hit search!

When the results come up you get heaps of info about the file, and for videos you can view thumbnails of the movie before you download!

The best part is, once you’ve found what you want to download the link is just a regular http link that you can download with firefox - or load it up into your favorite download manager (I use flashgot) and hammer the server with 8 connections at once.

I have just a normal DSL line (naked dsl2+ with iinet in australia) here and I download faster then 1800KB/s usually. Its incredibly fast.

There are also a number of more advanced features of the Easynews Global search client - like being able to group multiple files together into a zip filesand download them in 1 hit. I won’t go into them all because to be honest I don’t use them!

Hope I helped someone out there get into newsgroups and finally find an easier more secure way to download things off the net!

But what if there was a pill I could take, a kind of viagra for the brain, that would suddenly spring my brain into an academic hard-on? Let me at it I’d say!

Enter, Provigil. This wonder drug has been around since the 70’s, originally developed as an experimental treatment for narcolepsy, but has lately had a surge in popularity among perfectly healthy people needing a brain-boost.

Advocates promise increased concentration, memory, and IQ with no known side effects? Isn’t this too good to be true? Luckily we live in the age of the internet, where bloggers are the new lab rats. Thanks Johann Hari.

I sat down and took one 200mg tablet with a glass of water… I pottered about the flat for an hour, listening to music and tidying up, before sitting down on the settee. I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I’m thinking of writing. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

But wait there’s more!

My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

Well I don’t know about you, but that just about sells it for me (hey, even Britney’s into it). Too bad you need a prescription (and probably narcolepsy) to buy the stuff. Nothing a quick google can’t fix!