Darren Kitchen

I looked at one of these when I got my Aspire One. I was intrigued especially after seeing the custom versions of the HP Mini-note that H.D. Moore (of Metasploit fame) is selling at http://ipwn.mobi/products.html You're right the screen is beautiful, superior to the Acer's mere 1024x600 resolution. They share the same keyboard, only difference is material, which I must say feels wonderful under the finger tips. The all metal case is a dream. The whole thing looks like HP met up with Apple behind the iPod factory and got pregnant. The touch pad takes some getting used to. I'm not sure who came up with the bright idea to put left and right click on opposite sides of the touch pad but let's bake him a cake and shove it in his face. The rest of the hardware specs, aside from the CPU, are comparable to the current crop of netbooks (aspire one, eee pc 901, etc). This is not scientific at all but in the few minutes I was playing with it, it did feel a little sluggish. I'm, not saying the Atom is on par with today's dual cores but as far as mobile chips is concerned I'm quite pleased. Coupled with a good amount of ram I've been able to do my usual mega multitasking office and graphics stuff just fine at work. I'd wait for an Atom version. On another tangent: This reminds me of Pocket PC circa 2000, when you had Casio, HP and Compaq all running the new CE platform. They all ran different processors, HP with SH3, Casio on MIPS, and Compaq on ARM. As the market proved itself and the Compaq iPaq gained a big lead over the others the rest of the OEMs entered the race and things pretty much standardized on ARM. Later on they all went Xscale which was the 5th gen of ARM. I commend Via and Transmeta before them for their effort but as history shows when it comes to these small parts a leader will arise, typically Intel, and everyone will fall in line. You can already see a trend with the wireless chipsets on all these netbooks. Atheros anyone? This is still the beginning of the netbook explosion. Sure we'll all remember Asus and the eee PC as being a big part of starting it but as these little guys become more prevalent you'll see more and more OEMs get into the picture and they'll try all sorts of stuff to differentiate themselves (touch screens, fingerprint scanners) while attempting to copy Asus' success. The more players we have in the area the better since competition will drive innovation and hopefully keep the prices of these guys around that $400 sweet spot. Oh yeah, and if this goes anything like the MP3 player thing did... I'm drawing similarities between the Diamond Rio and the eeePC and all the others little guys catering to a small niche audience which will eventually go mainstream... You may see an Apple or Dell do one (that's not necessarily better) and put big marketing dollars behind it pushing it to the mainstream. No the Macbook Air doesn't count, that's white plastic bling for the cult of mac and I don't think the upcoming Dell 910 is it either, they're going to miss one of the three requirements. 1. Small (Between the size of an eeePC 701 and 1000) 2. Cheap ($300-600, at least two versions about $100 apart) 3. Good enough (enough hardware and performance to do the basics on win or linux)

Snubs posted that, she didn't realize she was logged in as me on my Aspire One. Regardless it's supposedly Quoted For Truth though I prefer QFE.

Sure no problem. If you have some resources to share to knowledge us up we'll start researching and put a segment together :)

Not going to be a problem. That's one of the things we specifically looked at before signing with Rev3. They want our show to stay the same. While they're helping us with production and advertising they're intent is not to change the show. Why change something that's already successful? For example, later this season I plan to do a segment on hacking the Roku Netflix box. Oh, and guess who's sponsoring this season premiere episode? Netflix. :)

QFT

I think the word you're looking for is knew. I know, it's a tricky one. You see the K is silent. Just like you should be if you don't have anything nice to say. :)

Far from. I really care about the community because to me its the biggest reward to doing the show. I've been working to make it a better place. Shannon has done a great job of outreach outside the domain, on social networks, and I've been working to get our noob servers and bbs servers back up. We need to organize events and projects outside the standard LAN Parties and integrate them better with the show. Now that we're going weekly I think this is doable. I'm really interested in hearing constructive thoughts on what would make this community even better. And to that point if you want to volunteer some effort helping to keep things going like the forums, wiki, game servers, bbs, microblogging network, jabber service, etc just let us know.

Sorry double post but I figured I'd update the thread with my ongoing thoughts on this little guy. As mentioned above if you're rough with these devices and don't need the extra storage go for the SSD model, it's less expensive anyway. The touch pad buttons are starting to get to me. I keep reaching for the buttons under the touchpad instincivly and they're not there. Dragging with the right-click button requires doing an awkward maneuver where I cross fingers. It's like playing Galaga as a righty. I am impressed with the AC adapter. While I wish it could be as compact as the eee pc charger I am pleased with its recharge performance. My eee basically doesn't increase battery life if plugged in while on, it simply keeps the device running. To charge the 701 I have to shutdown and wait at least an hour. This guy seems to charge and run at the same time and charges pretty quickly. I took the aspire one to work with me for the first time since I got it (I only go to the office once a week and telecommute the rest of the time. The office is 150 miles away). I had it hooked up to usb keyboard, mouce, monitor and running Outlook, Visio, Word, RDP, Photoshop, Firefox and Digsby open without a hiccup.

Dude it's all good we all have our days I'm glad we're cool :)

damn that sucks. we could really use a wiki moderator. if anyone is interested let me know.

Dude I don't know, or want to know, what your beef with me is but I think you read into my review all wrong. First and foremost I'm not advertising for Acer. I'm not down with guerrilla, viral, sleezy, whatever you want to call it marketing. If I'm getting paid to pimp something you better well believe I'm being upfront about it. As far as my benchmarking methodology is concerned I explained that it wasn't a scientific benchmark, merely an observation in real world practice. :) Leave this to the professionals ? Sure, if I was trying to write a professional review. You see, that's not what I wrote. I wrote this assuming the reader is already familiar with the hardware, the specs, etc, and this is my _personal opinions_ about it. Hell, the whole thing starts out with a little story about how I was introduced to the damn thing and how badass it was to get recognized at a PC shop in Toronto. There are a ton of places online to get a much better review of the Acer Aspire One from professionals, just as you've pasted. That is if you're interested in ports, specs, and dimensions. ;) Maybe I shouldn't have called it a review. Maybe opinion-editorial would be better. I only figured some of you guys would be interested seeing as how it is that one of the most frequent thing I'm asked about from viewers is what I think about different notebooks, especially with a hacking angle. Bottom line: Yes, I'm not a pro at reviewing hardware. Then again I'm not a pro at hacking the gibson. I'm not a pro at cinematography, script writing, interviewing, business development, post production or a few dozen other things I do but then again _that's the point_. <_< PS: The real review you pasted was pretty good and compliments my op-ed for those who aren't familiar with the Aspire One. And as I neglected to mention, the glossy exterior is in fact a fingerprint magnet. :)

Here's my review: http://www.darrenkitchen.net/acer-aspire-o...c-701-as-haktop It occurred to me the other day while reviewing past footage that essentially I’ve had the same notebook computer for the last 3 years. I guess that’s not too bad but when I got my Dell Inspiron 700m it was already a year old. Then earlier this year I picked up the Asus eee PC thinking it was an adequate replacement. I was wrong. While the eee PC 701 is a great fun machine to play with it lacks in some key areas. Namely after much time with it the shortcomings of the keyboard, screen and processor really got to me. Thankfully Asus has addressed these concerns with its plethora of models since the original 701 series came out, all of which look like decent rigs. The only problem is the price of these newer models has raised considerably. Enter Acer’s Aspire One. I first heard of this bad boy when visiting Pronobozo in Toronto for the Pure Pwnage Episodes 16-17 screening. He was between desktops and had picked up this inexpensive netbook to get by. My first impression was amazing. The 9″ glossy screen, atom processor and spacious keyboard had me at first sight. Then when he told me the cost I was immediately sold. The following day I walked down to Canada Computer at 366 Bloor St. in Toronto to pick one up. Awesomely I was recognized by one of the sales guys. “You’re that guy from Hak5, right?” I love Toronto. Unfortunately they were also remodeling that day and didn’t have any in stock. The other sad fact was that the Canadian version, which had come out a few weeks before the US version, had a multilingual English/French keyboard. It’s kinda a big deal to me, I’m pretty picky about the location of the \ and / keys, size of enter, shift, and backspace, and placement of ~. (This coming from the guy who started on an IBM PC-XT with an 83 key keyboard. F11, what’s that?) So when I got back to the states I checked it out again and when I found the 120 GB version on sale at a shop near my office I immediately picked it up (along with a case of bawls). Now, after a week of abuse and testing, I present my report on the Acer Aspire One AOA150. Cons # it dropped in price by $50 2 days after I bought mine (then again I had a feeling it would after reading the gadget blogs but wanted it now so that’s on me) # battery life only 2.5 hours on the 3 cell # won’t boot off SD card (at least with the stock bios. hopefully this gets fixed) # no integrated bluetooth. (not difficult to mod in if you can work a soldering iron, else grab one of those itsy bitsy usb bluetooth dongles that don’t protrude much) # fan and hdd louder than eee pc 701. quieter than my old dell but not silent # parts are expensive. 6 cell battery alone is $100 or so I’ve read. Should have waited for the 160gb/6-cell version to come out for the same price I got my 120/3. # touchpad is obviously multi-touch capable but the drivers don’t support it. # touchpad left and right mouse click buttons are in weird placement. takes some getting used to. # acer’s own support site is lacking in the driver area. thankfully aspireoneusers.com had ‘em Pros # The glossy 8.9″ 1024×600 LED backlit screen is bright and beautiful. The least expensive screen of its size in the netbook arena. # The keyboard is spacious. Nearly as big as my Dell Inspiron 700m in size and everything is laid out perfectly. No funky key placement on the US version like the EEE PCs, HP MiniNotes, MSI Winds, Cloudbooks, etc. Full size shift, enter, backspace keys. Effortless typing. Good response. Ok travel. No learning curve. # The HDD is roomy and not too loud. I’ve got the 120gb version. A 160gb version with a 6-celll battery came out with the recent price drops. If you get the inexpensive 8gb SSD version with Linux instead of XP you’re in for a treat. The Aspire One has two media card reasers. A muli-format on the right which accepts major formats including SD and Memory Stick and an SD card reader on the left which, when occupied, gets added to the available space on the SSD. How cool is that? # The hardware is solid and commonly supported. The Acer Aspire One AOA150 shares the same graphics and network chipsets as the Asus eee PC 901. This is great news if, like me, you plan to use BackTrack on the machine as a module for this hardware have already been created. ;) # This thing packs performance. I benchmarked it against the eee pc 701 and it was no competition. I benchmarked it against my old Dell Inspiron 700m and again, smoked it. In Windows it’ll run Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Open/MS Office and any other app I use on a day to day basis (VMWare Server not included). # On the Linux side I’m very pleased with its performance as well. It boots BT3 in seconds and most importantly has the horsepower behind the wireless chipset to really do some packet sniffing/injection. I benchmarked it against my ALFA (AWUS036H / Realtek 8187) running on a BT3 VM on a dual core host and it totally spanked it cracking WEP (my test AP, not my neighbors cough). I started a dump minutes after the ALFA box and a few minutes later when I stopped ‘em both the ALFA had 67,000 IVs where the Aspire One had grabbed over 177,000. (The eeePC 701 had 49,000 but I started it later. Not a perfect test) # Nice color selection. I picked up the blue one. The mac-envy white looks pretty good too. I’m sure @snubs wouldn’t mind one in pink. And for you Zune fans there’s one in brown. Yeah. # The 120gb version came with a legit XP license. Kinda nice to have. Then again when I’m done with this thing it’ll hopefully be tripple booting XP, BackTrack and OSX. ;) # Stylish. The glossy cover, accent colors and intelligent button, led, webcam and fan placements are appreciated. Too bad it soaks up finger prints like a CSI agent. Maybe some stickers will remedy that. # Plenty moddable ;) Final Thoughts The hardware is solid. Construction is pretty good, a slight step up from the eee pc 701. This won’t be my last netbook in the foreseeable future but it does have some staying power. I’d like a version with a 10″ and slightly larger screen, a 6-cell battery, and a bios that’ll boot off SDHC but until then I’m content on this new box. It really feels like it’s more than just a toy. I’m giving my Dell a rest. We’ll see if I pick it up again. Starting at $320 and bridging the gap between small and actually useful this thing gets four scoops of technolust from me. Yummy.

Dude funny you mention that I got an Aspire One on the 20th! And yeah, it rocks the eee PC 701 in so many ways. The ATOM chip rules and I love the "REAL KEYBOARD". I benchmarked packet injection against the eee and it pwns at that too. rawk!

hak5darren (who'da guessed it)

I jumped on the 701 with the quickness and most recently picked up the Acer Aspire One. These things are just so inexpensive and useful I love 'em. The others I'm keeping an eye on is the Dell Inspiron 910 and the HP-MiniNote line.

Nice, looks like someone figured out the Hak5/TYTL mod. ;)

You can watch the live show from last night at http://www.hak5.org/backstage/fridays-hak5-live-available

@nicatronTg Hak5 will still be at hak5.org so if you don't want to go to revision3.com you'll never have to. I hope you give it a chance and download a few eps in September.

Hey guys thanks for all the feedback. I'm wanting to add more features faster than I can keep up. I'd really like to add your code into the mix as well as toss in some fun stuff like maybe simple multiplayer games but I'm leaving for Toronto tonight and won't return until Monday. I'll check in to make sure everything is running smoothly periodically. I want to first bring attention to the awesome Adobe Air Setcam app, it totally rocks my socks. http://hak5.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=9526 Also, thanks to SomeoneE1se the code has been much improved so I'm pasting the latest version here. Feel free to run your own local copy to test features. I built this initially using recycled code from a project I used to run called "6" with WAMP, which I like a lot better than XAMPP on Win. At first I wanted the wall to support spaces and linebreaks which would make ASCII art easier but at the same time I want it to be friendly to newcomers who are probably expecting it to wordwrap. Anyway, the code: Write.php &lt;?php if (isset($_POST['name']) &amp;&amp; !empty($_POST['name'])) { $imploder = 'sdf93jdfe873ifjaj489fb397fgdkw38372brlksuc8934uf8ws6gfk34hv7wbt394ap'; $blocked = array( "fuck", "Fuck", "FUCK", "shit", "Shit", "SHIT", "cunt", "Cunt", "CUNT", "gonna give you up" ); $replacewith = array( "frak", "frak", "frak", "shazbot", "shazbot", "shazbot", "cookie", "cookie", "cookie", "gonna rickroll the hakwall. That would be lame." ); $name = str_replace($blocked, $replacewith, stripslashes(htmlentities($_POST['name']))); $msg = str_replace($blocked, $replacewith, stripslashes(htmlentities($_POST['message']))); $check = file_get_contents('ip.ip'); //Check ban list if ($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS" || $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS" || $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS" || $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS" || $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS" || $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS") { die('You have been banned for being lame. Come back when you grow up.'); } //Check spam user if($check &amp;&amp; $check != $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']){ //text to smileys =) $msg = str_replace(":(","&lt;img src=\"smileys/sad.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":(\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace(":(","&lt;img src=\"smileys/sad.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":(\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace(";(","&lt;img src=\"smileys/cry.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\";(\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace(":@","&lt;img src=\"smileys/mad.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":@\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":)","&lt;img src=\"smileys/smile.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":)\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace("=)","&lt;img src=\"smileys/smile.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\"=)\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":D","&lt;img src=\"smileys/laugh.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":D\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":d","&lt;img src=\"smileys/laugh.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":d\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":p","&lt;img src=\"smileys/tongue.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":p\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":P","&lt;img src=\"smileys/tongue.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":P\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":O","&lt;img src=\"smileys/shocked.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":O\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":o","&lt;img src=\"smileys/shocked.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":o\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(";)","&lt;img src=\"smileys/wink.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\";)\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":S","&lt;img src=\"smileys/sick.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":S\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":s","&lt;img src=\"smileys/sick.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":s\"/&gt;", $msg); $msg = ereg_replace(":roll:","&lt;img src=\"smileys/roll.gif\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\":roll:\"/&gt;", $msg); //BB Code $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;strong&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;/strong&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;em&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;/em&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;u&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;/u&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("[LI]", "&lt;li&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("[/LI]", "&lt;/li&gt;", $msg); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;strong&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;/strong&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;em&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;/em&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;u&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("", "&lt;/u&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("[li]", "&lt;li&gt;", $msg ); $msg = str_replace("[/li]", "&lt;/li&gt;", $msg ); $file = @fopen("UNIQUE TEXT FILE.TXT", "w") or die('Write Error!'); @fwrite($file, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'].$imploder.$name.$imploder.$msg); fclose($file); $fileIP = @fopen("ip.ip", "w") or die('Write Error!!'); @fwrite($fileIP, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']); fclose($fileIP); $filed = @fopen("UNIQUE LOG FILE.LOG", "a+") or die('Write Error!!!'); @fwrite($filed, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] . ' ' . $name . ' ' . $msg . "\n"); fclose($filed); echo "&lt;b&gt;Message Posted ". $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] . "&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;"; } else { echo "&lt;b&gt;Please Wait!&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;"; } } ?&gt; &lt;center&gt; &lt;form name="Graffiti Wall" action="&lt;?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?&gt;" method="post" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"&gt; Name: &lt;br /&gt; &lt;input type="text" name="name" size="14"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Message: &lt;br /&gt; &lt;textarea rows="3" cols="15" name="message"&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;input type="submit" value="Write on the Hak5 Wall" name="submit"&gt; &lt;/form&gt;&lt;/center&gt; show.php &lt;html&gt; &lt;head&gt; &lt;meta http-equiv="refresh" content="4"&gt; &lt;/head&gt; &lt;body bgcolor="#000000" text="#ffffff"&gt; &lt;div style="font-size:700%; font-family:courier new; font-weight:bold;"&gt;&lt;?php $file = file_get_contents('UNIQUE TEXT FILE'); if($file){ $data = explode('sdf93jdfe873ifjaj489fb397fgdkw38372brlksuc8934uf8ws6gfk34hv7wbt394ap', $file, 3); if($_SESSION['ip'] != $data[0]){ echo $data[1] . ": \n" . $data[2]; $_SESSION['ip'] = $data[0]; $_SESSION['name'] = $data[1]; $_SESSION['msg'] = $data[2]; } else { echo $_SESSION['name'] . ': \n' . $_SESSION['msg']; } } else { die('File Access Error!'); } ?&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/body&gt; &lt;/html&gt; I've replaced sensitive data in the code above. Kinda forgot to last time and, well, some of you found the log file ;) Okies I'll check in when I can over the weekend. Have fun guys and I'll post pics from PurePwnage in Toronto when I get back. Cheers! PS: links on the setcam page to this thread, the adobe air app, and the privacy policy were added.

Hey guys, this is the code I whipped together to make the Hak5 Graffiti wall. Toss in a projector and a webcam and it's fun for the whole Internet. Now lets make it even better! :) Write.php &lt;?php if (isset($_POST['name']) &amp;&amp; !empty($_POST['name'])) { $nam = stripslashes($_POST['name']); $msg = stripslashes($_POST["message"]); $nam = htmlspecialchars($nam, ENT_QUOTES); $msg = htmlspecialchars($msg, ENT_QUOTES); $content = $nam . ": " . $msg; //filtering $blocked = array("fuck", "shit"); $replacewith = array("frak", "shazbot"); $content = str_replace($blocked, $replacewith, $content); //write to file to display on wall $filed = @fopen("data.txt", "w"); @fwrite($filed, "$content"); fclose($filed); //write to log $filed = @fopen("data.log", "a+"); @fwrite($filed, "$REMOTE_ADDR $content\n"); fclose($filed); echo "&lt;b&gt;Message Posted $REMOTE_ADDR&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;"; } ?&gt; &lt;center&gt; &lt;form name="Graffiti Wall" action="&lt;?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?&gt;" method="post" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"&gt; Name: &lt;br /&gt; &lt;input type="text" name="name" size="14"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Message: &lt;br /&gt; &lt;textarea rows="3" cols="15" name="message"&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;input type="submit" value="Write on the Hak5 Wall" name="submit"&gt; &lt;/form&gt;&lt;/center&gt; show.php &lt;?php $filename = "data.txt"; $whattoread = @fopen($filename, "r"); $file_cnt = fread($whattoread, filesize($filename)); $msg = "$file_cnt"; fclose($whattoread); ?&gt; &lt;html&gt; &lt;head&gt; &lt;meta http-equiv="refresh" content="7"&gt; &lt;/head&gt; &lt;body bgcolor="#000000" text="#ffffff"&gt; &lt;div style="font-size:1000%; font-family:courier new; font-weight:bold;"&gt; &lt;?php echo $msg; ?&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;/body&gt; &lt;/html&gt; Suggestions?

Thanks guys I'll test the code in the morning and report back. @digip: Snarl_CMD.exe seems to be iffy depending on which version of Snarl you have installed. I'm using snarl_command.exe which was included with RC1 of Snarl. It works fine with the latest versions. I've posted it here so you don't have to go digging. http://www.darrenkitchen.net/temp/snarl_command.rar Snarl_CMD.exe works too but instead of /M for message you specify snShowMessage. Try Snarl_CMD.exe snShowMessage 10 "subject" "body"

So I'm working on little mashup using Snarl and PHP. Snarl is basically a notification system for windows similar to Growl on the mac. It displays notifications on screen (little boxes in the lower-right by default). There is a spiffy little snarl command line tool called snarl_command.exe which accepts the arguments /T # for seconds to display notification, /M with "Subject" and "Body" and the path to a .PNG to use as an icon. What I'm trying to do is fetch an RSS feed every few minutes and display the latest feed item as a notification. Ultimately what I'll use this for is a simple twitter notification script based on an RSS feed from Summize (now search.twitter.com). The feed http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=hak5 displays the results of whenever anyone twitters with the string hak5. Of course this could be used for any feed not just twitter related but hey, I like to see what people are saying about the show ;) So far I'm using the magpierss class to handle RSS fetching and processing. So far it works great at grabbing the feed and passing the latest item to the snarl command line utility but I need help deciding how to best loop the program. I thought about telling it to sleep for 5 minutes then loop, but then if nothing has changed I'll get a duplicate notification and eventually go stir crazy. What do you guys think would be the best way to go about looping this so that it only displays unseen feed items every few minutes? &lt;?php require_once('magpierss/rss_fetch.inc'); $url = "http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=hak5"; $num_items = 1; $rss = fetch_rss($url); $items = array_slice($rss-&gt;items, 0, $num_items); foreach ($items as $item) { $href = $item['link']; $title = $item['title']; //Really we just care about title but meh $desc = $item['description']; //just incase we define link and description echo "Title: $title\n"; //turn off when not debugging //system("snarl_command.exe /T 15 /M \"New Tweet!\" \"$title\" &gt;nul"); } ?&gt; It requires magpierss's rss_fetch.inc which can be downloaded from http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/ Thoughts?

I'm in your sig! /me is flattered. Check out my new sig! Kittens > Babies