access

Welcome to another week of The 404 Podcast! We're running through several stories on today's episode, including OnStar reading you Facebook updates in the car, Cablevision and Time Warner teaming up to offer "free" public Wi-Fi in NYC parks, carrier pigeons beating the Internet, Americans increasingly distracted by the Internet, a useless product appropriately called the "Textee," and a nerdy new Tumblr that looks at how the Internet and hacking culture are portrayed in film!

Our first story in the rundown is a shameless plug for AccessMainComputerFile, a new blog that pokes fun at images of hacker culture and embellished UI in popular movies like "Independence Day," "Richie Rich," "Terminator 2," and more. Submissions are also welcome, so send over your YouTube links!

Facebook is already a ubiquitous part of daily Interlife, but now OnStar is testing a service that connects your car to the social network as well. The system uses voice recognition and even interprets Web-slang like LOL as "laughing out loud," and drivers can also record audio as status updates without taking their hands off the wheel.

Additionally, if you have an Android-powered phone with Bluetooth, OnStar can receive your text messages and translate them to audio and from there, you can use voice commands to send a reply (like "yes" or "can't talk--driving"). OnStar hopes to have an similar app available for the iPhone soon, but in the meantime iPhone users can download OnStar's MyLink App that shows you service information, tire pressure, and even offers the capability to lock your doors remotely from anywhere in the world.

New York's two main cable providers are teaming up to offer free wireless Internet in select New York City public parks. Before you head out, though, we should mention that Time Warner and Cablevision promise only three free 10-minute sessions per month; after that, you'll be charged $0.99 a day to get on the network. It sounds like a classic bait-and-switch scenario, and we can't see people jumping to pay for public Internet when truly free wireless access is already available in thousands of hot spots around the city.

Everyone complains about sluggish Internet, but a CTO of a U.K. ISP put his own pathetic broadband speeds to the test...against a carrier pigeon. The only thing more bizarre than the test setup is the result: the pigeons were able to deliver the 100MB of video by MicroSD Card faster than it took to upload the clip to YouTube. The stunt is a half-joke, but it makes a good point about the necessity for Net neutrality.

No voice-mails today, so it's up to you to call us up at 1-866-404-CNET and help out the show! You can also hit us up on Twitter or just e-mail us at the404(at)cnet(dot)com!

There are times when you may copy files or folders to your system and cannot access them because the system does not allow you permission to them. In the case of folders, you may see a small "no entry" symbol to the lower right of the folder icon. This may happen after migrating or copying files, but it can also happen when accessing shared resources such as network drives, thumb drives, or external hard drives.

The reason these files are not accessible is a simple mixup in the permissions flags for them. Usually when you copy files, the … Read more

Those users choosing to do their photo editing in Apple's Aperture 3 may find that when ordering a book they have created, the order window may turn white, resulting in a failure to process. This issue generally occurs after filling out the order form and clicking the "Place Order" button. … Read more

Cable companies' fight to keep local sports broadcasts out of the hands of some competitors is heating up as satellite and phone companies pressure regulators to take action.

On Friday, satellite TV provider Dish Network said it would file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against Comcast for withholding the rights to broadcast regional sports in Philadelphia. Comcast's SportsNet channel owns the rights to broadcast live games for Philadelphia's major sports teams, including the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles.

Dish Network has been in talks with Comcast over the past several weeks to hammer out a deal. … Read more

Many people who go to the racetrack are casual gamblers, placing bets based on the horses' names or their lucky numbers. Then there are those who take handicapping a little more seriously. QuickHorse '10 Horse Racing Software is designed for those serious handicappers, and not only because it assumes that users already have a fundamental understanding of how horseracing and wagering works. We can imagine only the most hardcore racing fans taking the time to wade through this program's abstruse interface and difficult navigation.

The program was designed with neither form nor function in mind. All of the text … Read more

One of the hardest parts about large written projects--academic papers, reports, books, and the like--is keeping large amounts of information organized and accessible. TreePad X Enterprise 12 Gb Single-user combines both word processing and database functions to make it easy to organize--and reorganize--all sorts of written information.

The program's interface is cluttered at first glance, with three rows of buttons across the top. We weren't quite sure how to get started, but a visit to the program's online Quick Start Guide clued us in, and the program quickly started to make sense once we started working with … Read more

Microsoft Office 2010 is now available for purchase. We wrote our review for the Office 2010 Professional RTM version, which is identical to the final public release, when Microsoft released it to businesses on May 18. If you didn't get a chance to check out the beta version or an  earlier release of Office 2010, you can now download a 30-day trial version to see which version best fits your needs.

Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student ($149.99) includes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote.

Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business ($279.99) includes … Read more

Monday we told you about Microsoft's ESPN on Xbox Live announcement made at the company's E3 press conference. The service allows Gold Xbox Live members to access content from the ESPN3 portal and stream live and on-demand sporting events right to their consoles.

Unfortunately, a major caveat reveals that not everyone with an Xbox 360 and Gold membership will be able to enjoy the content. According to ESPN3.com and the press release announcing the partnership with Microsoft, only certain Xbox 360 owners with participating ISPs will be able to receive the streams.

In the wake of Google's acquisition and temporary burial of Simplify, Seattle-based HomePipe has launched a similar free service that lets users stream their full iTunes library over the air to their iPhone or Android phone.

HomePipe launched in March with a new take on remote computer access. While consumer services such as LogMeIn or corporate technologies like Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services offer full keyboard-video-mouse, or KVM, access to your computer, HomePipe reasoned that mobile-phone users mainly want their data--for example, to show pictures or read documents locked away on a home PC.

On Thursday, HomePipe updated its … Read more