If you're not lucky enough to have already seen Primer, a first-time film by Shane Carruth that he made simply because he wanted to, you can’t actually see it right now. I saw it at Gnomedex last fall – it was the closing night event, and while only a portion of us who attended the conference watched the film, those who did thought it was great.

And you will too.

Primer is the sleeper movie that will make it’s way into lots of living rooms this spring, via DVD. You can actually order it now from Amazon.com for shipping when it's released.

Primer won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize last year. If you like movies that make you watch, challenge your mind, tell a great story, won't let you forget about them, and which successfully don't fit the typical Hollywood mold, this one you will want to see.

Carruth made the film on a $7000 budget, which is amazing. Just knowing that, watching the film is a lot of fun. Add the fact that it's well-thought-out, well-writen and generally very well done and you get a lot of bang for the buck.

"An engineer builds a machine (quite by accident) that can transport the user back in time. But his discovery comes with an ominous caveat, because at the heart of this puzzling device, nothing is as it seems on the surface. The narrative inventively blends a patchwork story line with overlapping streams of dialogue that help build tension and suspense..."

Tell Blockbuster, Hollywood, NetFlix.com and others you want to see this film when it comes out on DVD on April 5th. Or pre-order now like I did.

Microsoft has published what is a typically-simple, top-layer look at what the authors position as important information for parents to help them protect their kids online... But, while it's certainly a start, it won't get parents far enough.

If parents want to have a better understanding of what kids do online that can get them in trouble, there are other better, more complete resources out there for both kids and parents. Remember that learning together will prevent many problems, and creates a communication "common ground" for families in an area where kids often have the knowledge advantage.

But - if you're completely lost when you see words like "133t5p33k" or "!337$p34k," this short article at microsoft.com is geared toward you.

An announcement by Bill Gates at the RSA conference: Internet Explorer 7 is set to be released for testing this summer, says Microsoft. It will include anti-spyware functionality, and will not wait for the next version of Windows.

• Info on the IE Blog
• Microsoft press release
• Reversal: Next IE update divorced from Windows (news.com)
• Microsoft to Release New Internet Browser (Yahoo! News)

(from some random web forum, via Tim)

Where would I be without FeedDemon? Between it and Outlook, most of my "content" is organized, filed and (quite intentionally) segregated into workable chunks-o-stuff.

And now FeedDemon version 1.5 is out! From the web site:

This new version offers a ton of new features, but here are the highlights:

• Powerful podcasting tools to automatically download audio files and copy them to your iPod or other media player (that's right - FeedDemon supports media players other than the iPod!)
• Integration with Bloglines and NewsGator Online Services
• Flickr and del.icio.us search channels
• Per-channel newspaper styles
• Improved popup-blocking under XP SP2
• Support for favicons throughout the user interface
• Numerous performance improvements

See the announcement on Nick Bradbury's weblog - He's the quite excellent author of FeedDemon.

If you ever wondered how to spell out the American Idol theme music, well... there ya go.

Now, aren't you glad you read this blog?