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The 404 Podcast 496: Where all you need is a self-addressed stamped envelope

We've been promising you guys 404 stickers for the past year now, and we're happy to report that we finally have them in the office! We literally have 15,000 of them in boxes at our desks just waiting to ship out to our faithful listeners, so if you want a stack and a handful of 404 temporary tattoos, all you have to do is send a self-addressed stamped envelope with the appropriate postage to CNET NY (address in link), care of "The 404 Podcast - STICKERS.

A note to our international fans: we're happy to send stickers and tattoos out to wherever you live, but please make sure the postage on your envelope is correct, or they'll get lost in limbo somewhere. Thanks for your patience in advance, we prepare and seal each envelope ourselves so it might take a little time for them to get back to you.

It's our second day back in the office, but it's also the first time we're back together for a normal episode. There's a ton of voice mails to get to, but we get right back into our usual fare with the death of Spiderman 4. Sam Raimi just announced that he's pulled out of the directing role and some speculate that the studio will use James Cameron's screenplay for the next movie in the arachnid-superhero franchise. Speaking of movie news, we also check out the new A-Team movie trailer featuring Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson, and Jessica Biel- oh my.

Big thanks to everyone who sent us happy new year voice mails over the break, and keep them coming. Now that we're back, we're anxious to play more on the air, so phone us up at 1-866-404-CNET and give us a piece of your mind! Stay tuned during the second half of today's show to learn about the back end technology behind JDate and other popular online dating Web sites.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

EPISODE 496 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Sharp launches two new Netflix-ready Aquos Blu-ray players

LAS VEGAS--Sharp trotted out two new Blu-ray players for 2010, the BD-HP70U and BD-HP24U, both of which offer Netflix video streaming. Neither offer any unique new features, but Sharp is touting them as having "cutting-edge" video and audio performance--and energy efficiency.

Both players deliver Full HD 1,920 x 1,080p video resolution at 24 frames per second over HDMI along with lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. As for energy efficiency, Sharp says the the BD-HP70U and BD-HP24U offer a target use of just 14 watts of power in operating mode and 0.4 watt in … Read more

IE TV is A-OK

TV Toolbar is an add-on for Internet Explorer that provides links to legitimate, high-quality TV shows, movies, and more. Although the toolbar doesn't give you access to anything you couldn't find yourself, having the links in one well-organized place is an advantage.

The toolbar's interface is attractive and integrates well with Internet Explorer. Mouseover tooltips explain each of the icons representing the toolbar's major features. Users can select from lists of television channels, shows, and movies, and the toolbar will link to legitimate content hosted on the networks' Web sites or on sites like Hulu. You … Read more

Check all your accounts at once

You could go online to check your bank account and Netflix queue, or you could open up Personal Assistant and find a dashboard for all your online accounts--or at least five of them, if you stick with the free, standard version. After building a portfolio from an impressive array of social, financial, productive, and shopping services, Pageonce's assistant will display them as buttons on a screen. Tap to view your banking transactions and total balance, travel itineraries, social commitments, and friends' status updates from a slew of social networks.

The app's 256-bit encryption helps keep data secure. There … Read more

Clunky translation software

Occasionally we come across a program that has the potential to be really great but is ruined by a terrible interface. LEC Translate DotNet is one such program. This suite of translation utilities allows users multiple ways to translate text on their computers, but the way the program is laid out makes it utterly frustrating to use.

The program is composed of five different utilities, ClipTrans, FileTrans, LogoTrans, and MirrorTrans. Do you have any idea what any of these do? Neither did we. And opening each one revealed interfaces with absolutely no direction. The only way to figure out what … Read more

Simple Taskbar hider

Taskbar Eliminator is a very basic program that allows users to quickly hide and unhide their Taskbar. The program works fine, but it's made to do only one thing, and it's not very intuitive the first time out.

The program's interface is sparse, and even worse, there's no way to know how to access it without reading the publisher's description. We find this a pretty major failing; a program should at least be able to explain for itself how it should be accessed. Instead, the program hid our Taskbar immediately upon extraction, leaving us scrambling … Read more

Top Gear at the Britcar 24: The electrifying conclusion

Yesterday I posted up a video clip featuring the guys from the critically acclaimed BBC program Top Gear as they modify a simple streetcar BMW to get it ready for a 24-hour Britcar racing event. I figured since I got us all involved in this adventure, we might as well see the finale of this very amusing Top Gear episode.

Part 1 of this clip ended with Top Gear's Jeremy, James, Richard, and The Stig managing to qualify for the Britcar 24 Hour Challenge, but at the cost of their makeshift race vehicle. Part 2 begins with the diagnosis … Read more

Top Gear gets ready for Britcar racing

Over this past weekend (October 2-4) the Silverstone raceway hosted the Britcar 500 race, a 6 hour race featuring European super sports cars slugging it out endurance style. I've tried to be patient and unfortunately I've found scant video worthy of this event to post up on this blog. However, in the process of looking for video for the Britcar 500 I stumbled upon this great clip about preparing a street car for a 24 hour Britcar endurance race, courtesy of those blokes on BBC's Top Gear.

Top Gear is an Emmy award-winning show produced in Britain … Read more

Ask the Editors: Why does my laptop's Wireless-N speed cap at 130Mbps?

Like most editors at CNET, I often receive questions from CNET readers about specific problems. Here are a few that were brought up to me in the last month.

Q: My laptop's Wireless-N adapter only caps at 130Mbps even though my D-Link DIR-855 can offer 300Mbps speeds. What can I do to boost the wireless speed of the laptop?

A: That might already be the best you can get. Wireless-N (802.11n) comes in different "tiers" with different amounts of streams (also referred to as antennae). Each stream offers a throughput speed up to 150Mbps.

While most routers are dual-stream and cap at 300Mbps (future ones can even support multistream, offering speeds up to 450Mbps or even 600Mbps), a lot of adapters built in to laptop and notebook computers to conserve the battery life use the single-stream standard. This means they cap at 150Mbps (which translates into something around 130Mbps, which is plenty fast, by the way). Also note that the throughput decreases as you increase the range. Generally the optimal range for the Wireless-N is between 15 feet and 70 feet away.

Q: Does my laptop have to have a dual-band adapter to take advantage of dual-band routers, such as the Linksys WRT610n, the Apple Airport Extreme or the D-Link DIR-825?

A: No, it doesn't matter how many bands an adapter supports; wireless networking devices only connect to one another in one band at a time.… Read more