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The New Orleans arrangement of “O Holy Night” that was featured on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is available for free download.
A group of New Orleans musicians led by Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews played the new version of the Christmas classic as part of “The Christmas Show” episode’s story line.
The musicians are really Hurricane Katrina survivors as they played on the show. The vignette was coordinated by the Tipitina’s Foundation, an nonprofit organization dedicated to helping New Orleans musicians affected by Katrina.
An MP3 of the song can be streamed or downloaded from NBC’s Studio 60 music site.

Via CNET

Years from now, your children will laugh about how you had to “stay in range” of a Wi-Fi signal in order to stay connected to the Internet when you were young.
HP is bringing a new laptop in cordination with Cingular to bring you the Internet anywhere there’s a cellular tower.
The laptop has built-in WWAN (wireless wide-area network) connectivity that enables users to connect to the Internet via cell phone tower instead of only WLAN (wireless local-area network, or “regular Wi-Fi”). It connects via WLAN also, but you no longer need to get upset when the independent cafe you are trying to support has spotty Wi-Fi.
Via CNET

Posted a couple new videos on YouTube…
encounter’s man on the street: Christmas

Scrap Iron at Austin Street playing Amazing Grace Done Right

I got a new toy to play with today for my tech column.
It’s a PowerCost Monitor from Blue Line Innovations.
A special monitor hooks to your power meter outdoors which sends information to a reader inside your house.
I’ve been doing some un-scientific experiments to see how the thing works and to see just how much power I’m using.
My loft has four florescent bulbs in the main living area. With those four on and things like my refrigerator, stove, microwave and stereo system plugged in I’m pulling only 4 cents an hour in cost. Run all of that 24 hours a day and you end up with $28.80 for your electric bill.
When I went and turned on all the lights, lamps and fans in the loft my cost shot up to 34 cents an hour. That equates to $8.16 a day or $244.80 a month. Luckily we don’t do that.
Add the AC to that (granted its not running hard its only 59 degrees out) and the price jumps to 38 cents a day or $273.60 a month.
Wow.
And here’s an interesting statistic.
I figured out that using four 100 watt bulbs costs me a nickel an hour. Figure that out to a monthly cost and it’s $36 a month to run the lights on my ceiling fan.
Compare that to 1 or 2 cents an hour to run the fan on high. That only costs $14.4 a month.
I decided to go buy four 15 watt florescent bulbs at Target. They cost me $16. As I figure it, they barely make a dent in my hourly rate. They cost less than a penny an hour or $4.32 a month.
What a difference. I’d say the light is fairly similar. Not as bright, but GE advertises it’s 15 watt florescent bulbs as equivalent to a 60 watt bulb. So definitely enough light for a bedroom.
Now if I just change all the bulbs in the house we might see a big difference.
I am seeing a couple oddities though with the monitor.
I assumed my laptop would pull a lot more wattage but it doesn’t seem to make a dent in my cost.
And apparently my ice box kicks on about every 30 minutes or so and pulls roughly .17 kilowatts (or $2.50 an hour).
But the device costs $50 or so (I think) and helps make you fully aware of where your monthly electric bill is going.
It also keeps a total account of how much you’ve spent since the last reset so you don’t get a huge surprise at the end of the month.

Microsoft released free developer tools on Monday that will allow amateurs to make their own video games.
XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 is a framework for creating games with the C# programming language, a content pipeline for incorporating 3D-rich content, and includes libraries of 2D and 3D content that can be applied to games. XNA games can be played on the Xbox 360 itself or a Windows PC. The development tool package is free to download, though a subscription service is required for developers to share the games they create with anyone else.

Read more from CNET

This is a little dated, but while looking for other information I found this unique design for roofing tiles:

A roof tile that harnesses solar energy to heat water and generate electricity, has been invented by an Australian industrial designer.
The plastic tile is filled with solar cells and connects to a house’s hot water system and electrical wiring.
Sebastian Braat, a graduate of the University of Western Sydney, says the tiles are designed with urban dwellings in mind – particularly the new generation of so-called “McMansion” style suburban homes.
It may not look great, but think of the electrical savings.
Braat says it takes about 200 tiles to generate a maximum of 1.5 kilowatts – more than enough for an average three-bedroom suburban house over a year.
Other researchers suggest looking at how the roof’s pitch may change the efficiency of the tiles as well as how so many joins may lead to increased leaks in the roof.