Next week The Discovery Channel will be airing a plethora of shows aimed at explaining our future world to us lowly…ummm…2007ers.  I thought this WAS the future.  I’m only 27 and I already feel like I’m living in a world that is so much more advanced than what I experienced while coming of age.  The average Joe out there has access to gadgets of all shapes and sizes designed for global navigation, personal communication, mobile audio/video, and a thousand other specific functions that our fathers considered the lore of sci-fi.  So why does it feel like all this crap doesn’t really DO anything useful?

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must learn to say goodbye. With just a few short days until the release of the latest and greatest “Vista” from Microsoft, I think we can all agree that saying goodbye to XP will be easy enough.

I’m sure many of you have seen the recent Mac commercials with two guys standing and talking to each other. One represents a Mac, the other a PC. I’m certainly not going to open up that can of worms, however I think that Macs efforts are aimed at the wrong crowd. It’s like telling somebody that the Matrix sequels weren’t going to live up to the hype. Did we all still go see them anyway? Yes, of course.

For those of you(us) without a life, there’s still hope. For those of you(us) who are appalled at the idea of paying a monthly fee just to play a game we already spent $60 on, there’s hope. And finally, for those of you who have longed to fly around in a world composed of mid-90s era graphic capabilities all while building and selling your way to an early retirement, there’s yet more hope to be had. I’m, of course, talking about the free MMORPG game, SecondLife.

Norwegian officials have decided that Apples online music store, Itunes, is in violation of Norwegian law. Media downloaded from the Itunes store is not compatible with non-Apple devices due to the ‘Fairplay’ DRM embedded into each file offered by the giant online store. This sort of ruling could very well spark a great debate over all DRM and it’s purpose in the rest of Europe and the world over.

Google Apps for domains have been around for a while now, but Google has continued to improve these features dramatically. Their latest improvement was the recent addition of the “Custom URL” locations that allow you to use your own domain name for Google Apps (i.e. mail.yourdomain.com, calendar.yourdomain.com).

Google has just partnered with both GoDaddy.com and eNom to provide internet users with convenient domain registrations for use with their Google Apps. It’s important to note that you are not forced to use GD or eNom, which would be ridiculous, but both of these are solid domain registrars and should suit your needs accordingly.

This isn’t as “tech” related as some of the things I talk about here, but it’s definitely cool enoug to make the cut. If there was ever a resort I would have wanted to exist, it’s Poseidon, a proposed underwater hotel for the those who have more money than they know what to do with. This phenomenon of an idea actually has quite a nice chance of succeeding. It alreasy has a significant amount of funding pledged through investors and companies looking to get in early on the underwater resort.

Poseidon would be a 12,000 square foot “Atlantis” for rich people. Imagine waking up in your hotel room and seeing the colorful endless ocean outside of your window. Talk about a view. The dining area looks amazing, and honestly the entire project looks like it will be a tremendous success.

If all goes well, which I assume everything will, then I expect this to be an extremely popular place to visit. I would definitely be up for a vacation there myself. On the flip side, this entire idea seems to remind me of the beginning of a movie.. One of those movies like “Jurassic Park” where this “resort” turns out not to work out quite as well as expected. Let’s hope not.

Calling all Photoshop lovers. CS2 has been a dream come true for many of us, but Adobe isn’t about to let us go without a nice gift in time for the Holidays. According to AppleInsider.com Adobe plans to release a CS3 BETA this coming Friday.

What’s new in CS3? Well, here’s the list from Apple Insider:

• Vanishing Point 2
• HDR support
• Rotoscoping
• Dicom support
• 3D file support
• Fast Fourier transform filter

It’s looking like this will be a very exciting update. I’ve personally been looking forward to 3D support in Photoshop for many years now. I’m glad to see it finally come to fruition.

Both the Mac AND Windows versions of Photoshop will receive the upgrade on Friday. In order to get this, you’ll need to be a licensed user of course, and the download should be available directly from Adobe’s website.

I was doing some of my daily tech site browsing today and came across something that I just could not pass up the chance to blog about. Carol Orsini of GameDailyXL.com got married recently, but this was no ordinary wedding. Well, at least when it comes to the cake.

She married a non-gamer husband, but it’s quite obvious who had the “controller” in this wedding. She definitely will get a lot of props from fellow gamers! Her custom made wedding cake resembled (almost perfectly) a Limited Edition “Legend of Zelda” gold game cube stacked on top of an original XBOX, then a PS2, and finally a nice shiny XBOX 360. Now that’s what I call a LAYER CAKE!

Don’t believe me? Check out her blog for the full story! (Permanent Picture Links: 1 | 2)

After seeing the console layer cake, I decided to do some research an see what else I could find when it comes to “videogame cakes.” Here’s another really solid idea if you are a Mario lover. (Who isn’t) I give you the Mario & Princess Peach Wedding Cake.

Here’s a nice bit of dirt on Microsoft. While I’m a fan of Microsoft, and I use a lot of their software, I’m not going to let this one go. Earlier this morning, DaringFireball.net posted a very nice find on Microsoft.com. The error has since been corrected, but screenshots exist, and they will be used in this case to call out the guilty.

Microsoft apparently has a very lazy graphic designer on staff. And by very lazy, I mean he (or she) was probably fired today. The logo above was taken from Apple’s website under Industry-Leading Management Tools. And by taken, I mean by Microsoft.

Earlier today, a page in the Vista business section of Microsoft.com featured that exact same logo. Well, not exactly.. It was slightly bigger and skewed ever so slightly.

According to the BBC, some cyber criminals have recently been seeking out IT students for “underground employment.” As computers and the internet have become more advanced, so have the techniques in which information is compromised.

Anybody is capable of basic theft, but when it comes to cyber theft, it sometimes requires the skills of an outsider. What better place to look than at universities and tech schools? Some students are now being paid under the table while they study programming, networking, and other computer related fields of trade.

I’m not surprised to hear this at all. In fact this has probably been going on ever since computers existed. Big brother may or may not be watching, but what about that one guy who sits next to you in class? You never know…

Hacking pays extremely well, but it is also extremely illegal. So parents, if your IT student comes home for Christmas with a new Ferrari (or even a new video card these days!) this might be a sign that it’s time for a little talk.