LATEST ADDITIONS

If you know what an API is, then this news will interest you. Everyone else can skip it. Oh, wait. Actually, this is seriously important for everyone, not just code jockeys. Netflix has announced that it's releasing its API at the Experience AJAX...

Iron Man was one of the hottest releases of the fall season, and was supposed to be a coming out party for the triumphant Blu-ray format. Instead, it's turned into a headache for Paramount. In particular, sometimes success is your own worst enemy....

Time for an annual act of self-promotion. Every year, usually around October 1, my book Practical Home Theater: A Guide to Video and Audio Systems goes into a new edition. This year's edition is the eighth, cover date 2009, ISBN 9781932732108, and is easily distinguished by its pale blue cover, which replaces last year's off-white. Annually refreshing the book gives me a chance to review and expand what I know about home theater technology as well as bring readers up to date. This year's big news is the DTV transition, scheduled for February 2009, which is mentioned throughout the book. The most poignant aspect of the update was pruning out a lot of material about HD DVD, leaving only one fat graf of historical summary. HDMI got some attention as I flagged the latest versions and added more material about the distinction between Category 1 and Category 2 HDMI cables. Before long, I'll be taking the page layout I've recently labored over and stripping it down to a pictureless Word file, typing new material into the book over the next year for the following edition. Practical Home Theater is the only book on the subject to get this kind of ongoing attention. If you buy it, I hope it serves you well. Annual act of self-promotion completed.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/dawnofthedead.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>When a mysterious virus turns people into mindless, flesh-eating zombies, a handful of survivors congregate in a local mall to make their last stand against the foul beasts.