I just got an email from eBay that Star Wars is being released on Blu-Ray next week. I was certainly excited. I’ve seen it in HD on TV and it looked pretty cool. It’s actually sort of funny watching it in HD because you can tell how fake everything is.

Anyway, eBay has the Complete Collection for $89.99. I went to Amazon and found it for $79.99. That’s a good price for 6 blu-ray discs.

Then I came across all the negative reviews for the collection. 2 out of 5 stars. Wow. I usually don’t touch something that low on Amazon. I was surprised.

I like Star Wars. They’re great movies. But I’m not an extreme fanatic so I wasn’t up to snuff on some of the changes Lucas Film has made to these movies. Some of these changes were on the DVDs they released in 2004 so you can see how behind I am… but maybe you are to.

Apparently the studio has added some new special effects and even some extra scenes. This has made certain Star War aficionados very, very angry to say the least. Here a couple quotes from 1 star reviews I read:

“Seriously a sad day for Star Wars fans the world over!!! I always believed in the phrase, ‘don’t fix what ain’t broken’”

“this release not only fails utterly to preserve a major artifact of our cinematic heritage, it goes further in that its producer has made it clear that he will never allow that seminal work to be accurately preserved”

Me personally, not a big deal. I think I’d still pick up the full set. I wouldn’t remember enough to tell if a new scene was added… I don’t think… I don’t know… well, I guess I’d have to watch it to be sure.

What do you think? How do you feel about this? Did you blow a gasket when you learned what crazy George Lucas did to this classic series? Or will you pick up the blu-ray set anyway?

Tell us below…

Have you ever sent or downloaded a zip file?  Then you are already using file compression without even knowing it.  Just about every time you download a file from the internet, it is zipped.  Before you are able to extract the files from the folder to make them usable, you have to unzip the folder.  What is the purpose of file compression?  The main purpose is for files to be transferred  faster and take up less space.  What zipping essentially does is reduce the amount of bits and bytes in the containing folder.

Most computer files have the same information listed over and over and over again. Computer files are fairly redundant in that sense, and what file compression does is simply get rid of all the redundancy in a file. Rather than list the same exact piece of information over and over again, the file compression program lists that information one time only, and then just refers back to it whenever it appears again in the original file. In this way, you can make your original file smaller, send it to someone else, and then have it end up an exact replica of the original file on the other end.

File compression software works off of something like a library. The library contains something like a dictionary. Each piece of information in the file is assigned a specific value, perhaps something like a number, and then rather than repeating the piece of information every time it appears, the program replaces it with the corresponding entry in the library. That way, it simply writes down that short number instead of the whole piece of information, which could be very long.

You could actually recreate the compressed file on your own if you knew what library was used to compress it, much like using a decoder ring when you were a kid to spell out your top secret message. That is what a file compression program does on the other end as it extracts a file and expands it back to its original form – it compares the information in the file against the library and adjusts it accordingly.

But file compression goes even further than this to make your files as small as possible. If it were to only use the library to replace redundant bits of information every time, the file would not be that much smaller than its original size. Instead, file compression software also looks for patterns that get repeated over and over again. If a pattern is found and it is big enough or common enough, then that pattern will be assigned an entry in the library of its own, allowing larger amounts of information to be represented by a single value.

How small your file can compress to depends on the file type, file size and the compression set up. Text files are very easy to compress effectively, but files like mp3s do not contain as many redundancies and therefore cannot be compressed as small. Either way, file compression is a great way to make data transfers more efficient and to economize space on your hard drive.

Make sure you follow us on Twitter @ beyourownit and Facebook @ Be Your Own IT for some of the latest tech news and happenings at Be Your Own IT.

How practical is streaming Netflix movies and TV shows to your iPhone?  Who cares.  I just downloaded the Netflix app on my iPhone 4, and Arrested Development is playing on 3G pretty well.  On Wi-Fi I had no issues.  On 3G, it only stopped to buffer a few times during the show, which is pretty good.  It’s very usable in 3G which makes the app worth it.

I used to be a Blockbuster guy until I switched to Netflix a few months ago.  Before Blockbuster shutdown a ridiculous amount of stores, I was having the time of my life.  I could rent 2 movies from Blockbuster online, they’d get to me in a few days, I’d watch them, return them to a local Blockbuster, they would ship them back and let me rent 2 free movies in the store for free while I was waiting for the next movies in queue to be delivered.  I’ll be honest, sometimes I’d get lazy and not send back movies for a few months (and my credit card would get dinged $14.95 each month), but in my prime I could get 2-4 movies per week, which was a good deal.  The 2 free in-store rentals is what kept me a Blockbuster fan.  Now I don’t even know where a Blockbuster is so…

I finally came around to Netflix because I wanted to stream movies through my Xbox 360.  I rarely rent online movies.  Again, I think I’ve had The Blind Side on Blu-ray for over a month, but I stream movies and TV shows a few times a week, which makes the $9/mo subscription worth it.

The best part is that the Netflix iPhone app is free, and they easily could have charged at least a few bucks for it.  Giving away this “added value” was smart on their part.

So, if you have an iPhone/iPod Touch and Netflix, what are you waiting for?

Here are some screenshots of Netflix on my iPhone:

1) Netflix home screen, 2) After loggin in, 3) Browse by Category, 4) Takes less than 5 seconds to load your instant queue, 5) Instant Queue, 6) Show description screen, 7) Loading movie or TV show, Watching Arrested Development

By the way, I didn’t get a screenshot of it, but after the Arrested Development Season 1 page fully loaded, it recognized that I had watched about 50% of episode 5 on my Xbox/TV and asked if I wanted to resume.  A simple, yet elegant and appreciated feature.

A great piece of free software called Ninite allows you install multiple apps at once without having to tediously click next or install annoying toolbars.

Ninite is a great alternative for those who have just purchased a computer and want to install a bunch of programs at once, or if you are just looking for a couple programs.

Once you have downloaded the Ninite Installer, you will see a bunch of different programs that are available for you to download from Web Browsers such as Chrome and Firefox to Media Players such as VLC and Audacity. There are more than 75 applications for you to choose from. After you have selected which you want to install, let Ninite run as it “quietly” installs all the programs you have selected while you are free to do other things.

If you ever find an application that Ninite does not already have on their install list, there is also a place to suggest new ones as well.

If the CPU or Microprocessor is the brain of your computer system, the motherboard is equally important as it acts as the central nervous system. If you open up your computer, you will be able to identify your motherboard as the biggest circuit board in your computer and every device on your computer is connected to your motherboard in one way or another.

If you look closely at this picture, you will see there are many slots for devices such as video cards, RAM, and sound cards. The CPU hooks up to the motherboard and essentially works as a facilitator between the CPU and the rest of the components throughout your computer. MAKE SURE that you pick a reliable motherboard that will be able efficiently communicate the data around your computer. The last thing you want is a motherboard that has overheated or stopped working. A good thing to look at when buying or evaluating motherboards is the chipset. A chipset is the ‘basic instructions’ and determines many of the boards basic features. Another thing to be aware of is to make sure that your motherboard has enough slots for your RAM and potential USB drives.

Also be aware that sometimes motherboards come with onboard components for video or audio, but beware because most of these onboard components (built into the motherboard) are not up to par with what they should be.

Motherboard costs are usually based on the chipset it has, but in general, the costs are about the same across the board. Look for one that has a built in cooling component for the chipset if you are purchasing a higher chipset, as these tend to run hotter than their less speedy counterparts. Keep an eye out for slots, cooling, and a good chipset, and you will have a good motherboard to add to your computer system!