Archive for July, 2007
Old DVD Burner Dies, Replacement On The Way
Posted by Joe on July 31, 2007 · Comments Off
The TDK 440N 4X DVD burner we bought 4 or 5 years ago finally died. It served us well, burning hundreds of DVDs and CDs until finally just wearing out. The TDK drive was a steal at around $120, and it wasn’t too picky about blank media. Rarely did it produce a coaster.
But tech always gets cheaper and better, and it’s now easy to find fast name brand drives for less than $30. We just ordered a Sony NEC Optiarc burner. The drive burns single layer DVDs at 18x and dual layer at 8X. The price was right: $28.99 shipped from NewEgg (yeah, we’re suckers for free shipping). [...]
Filed in: SL
‘Free’ Works In The Works
Posted by Joe on July 31, 2007 · Comments Off
An ad-supported version of Microsoft Works 9 is now available for free according to reports. However, no download link is currently available.
Ok, this isn’t very interesting — especially while no download link is available…and there are probably better free options…not to mention free online applications like Zoho and Google Docs & Spreadsheet. But it’s interesting that Microsoft is now looking at alternative software distribution models that fall somewhere between “give it away until everyone else is out of business” (Media Player, IE) and “make [...]
Filed in: SL
Secrets Of The IT Department
Posted by Joe on July 31, 2007 · Comments Off
In Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You, the Wall Street Journal explains why our IT departments lock down our computers — and offers up some ways to get around those barriers. Topics include: How To Clear Your Tracks On Your Work Laptop, How To Visit The Web Sites Your Company Blocks, and How To Look Like You’re Working.
Filed in: SL
Free Real-Time Virus Protection
Posted by Joe on July 30, 2007 · Comments Off
Three good — and free — anti-virus programs:
Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic
Active Virus Shield from AOL
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
We use Avira, and it seems to work just fine. You don’t have to pay for the latest and greatest commercial anti-virus program to be adequately protected. As long as you’re running (and updating) something, you’re ahead of the game.
UPDATE (08/09/2007): AOL is no longer offering Active Virus Shield. They now offer McAfee Virus Scan Plus-Special edition from AOL. It’s still free, but you’ll need an AOL email account [...]
Filed in: SL
Geek Squad Should Fire More Geeks
Posted by Joe on July 30, 2007 · Comments Off
A 3 month Consumerist.com sting operation netted video evidence of one Geek Squad employee copying porn files from a customer computer. Consumerist refused to name the employee, instead blaming the company. A few other whistle blowers have reported similar shenanigans. But now that Geek Squad is finally taking steps to stop the file copying, Consumerist is accusing them of being on a “witch hunt” because a supervisor at a store where abuses were reportedly going on has been fired.
Apparently Geek Squad is supposed to get their employees to stop breaking the rules without punishing [...]
Filed in: SL
Bionic Woman, Other New Shows Leaked Online
Posted by Joe on July 30, 2007 · Comments Off
TV networks are finding it difficult to keep new fall shows under wraps:
At least half a dozen highly anticipated broadcast network fall pilots have been leaked online. Copies of NBC’s “Bionic Woman,†ABC’s “Pushing Daisies,†The CW’s “Reaper†and several other shows were available Friday for illegal download on sites such as Torrent Spy, The Pirate Bay and Mininova. Most of the titles appear to have been uploaded within the past week. The first copy of “Bionic†was listed as uploaded two days ago, while the earliest “Reaper†[...]
Filed in: SL
Use Your +3 Feather Duster of Doom
Posted by Joe on July 30, 2007 · Comments Off
Chore Wars is a little hard to describe. From the site:
Chore Wars lets you claim experience points for household chores. By getting a few people in your house or workplace to sign up, you can assign experience point rewards to individual chores, and see how quickly each of you levels up.
Dungeons and Dragons meets cooking and cleaning? I’m intrigued, but not enough to actually sign up and start doing chores.
Filed in: SL
Free Resourses For Beginning .NET Programmers
Posted by Joe on July 30, 2007 · Comments Off
The Microsoft Beginner Developer Learning Center is a free resource for beginning programmers with little or no experience:
Welcome to the Beginner Developer Learning Center – a centralized learning environment specifically targeted to beginning programmers. Here you’ll find a rich array of learning content that starts with the very basics, and guides you through step-by-step to becoming a fully-fledged developer!
The site, coupled with the free Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions, makes it a lot easier to get started with .NET programming. There’s even a Kid’s Corner. [...]
Filed in: SL
Wikipedia Guy Creates Open Source Search Engine
Posted by Joe on July 30, 2007 · Comments Off
Jimmy Wales, the creator of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is working on an open source search engine:
The new site, due to launch by the end of 2007, will combine human-assisted editing with computer-controlled searches. Earlier this year Wales’ commercial startup company, Wikia, purchased the rights to web crawler platform Grub.
Grub users download a program which makes uses of their computer’s processing power while the machine is left idle. If widely adopted, such an arrangement could reduce the need for Wikia to set up a web crawling network of its own.
Let’s hope it’s [...]
Filed in: SL
Just Blackle It
Posted by Joe on July 29, 2007 · Comments Off
Displaying a black background requires less energy than displaying a white background. That’s the idea behind Blackle, anyway. Ok, it’s jut a Google search page with a black background, but a few points are awarded for cleverness. And while black backgrounds aren’t going to save the planet, some people do find dark backgrounds and light text to be more readable.
Filed in: SL
Cisco Ditches Linksys Brand
Posted by Joe on July 29, 2007 · Comments Off
Linksys home networkig products are well known, with a pretty good reputation for reliability and quality. So it makes less than perfect sense that Cisco, which bought Linksys four years ago, is ditching the name in favor of it’s own brand. The fact that the average consumer (outside of the enterprise) hasn’t a clue who Cisco is makes the move even stranger. I don’t worry much about brands myself, but that kind of thing is important to a lot of people, and Cisco will need to spend a lot of money marketing to consumers who are already familiar with the Linksys brand.
My own [...]
Filed in: SL
YouTube To Block Copyrighted Content
Posted by Joe on July 29, 2007 · Comments Off
YouTube has plans to begin blocking copyrighted content by September:
Google Inc.’s YouTube hopes recognition technology will be in place in September to stop the posting of copyrighted videos on the popular Web site, a lawyer Friday told a judge presiding over copyright lawsuits.
The lawyer, Philip S. Beck, told U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton in Manhattan that YouTube was working “very intensely and cooperating” with major content providers on a video recognition technology as sophisticated as fingerprint technology the FBI uses.
He said the company planned to have the [...]
Filed in: SL
Backup, Share And Store Files Online — More Than 80 Options
Posted by Joe on July 29, 2007 · Comments Off
Mashable has posted a bookmark-worthy guide to 80+ online storage and file sharing sites. As I’ve mentioned before, I use Mozy.com for online backup of crucial files.
Filed in: SL
Video Game Tournament Hits Big Time
Posted by Joe on July 28, 2007 · Comments Off
Tomorrow at noon, CBS will broadcast a video game tournament as a sporting event, a first for a US broadcast network.
CBS sports will be airing an hour long special on the Louisville circuit stop of The World Series of Video Games, Presented by Intel, the world circuit of video game tournaments.
The special is set to air on Sunday, July 29th at 12pm ET/9AM PT on CBS, and will feature the best players in the world competing at Guitar Hero II, EA Fight Night Round 3 and World of Warcraft. Expect to see some tough competition as the players compete for a piece of the $90,000 prize pot.
Be sure to [...]
Filed in: SL
Start The Web With Only2Clicks
Posted by Joe on July 27, 2007 · Comments Off
Only2Clicks.com is a simplified and customizable start page. The site features screen shots to go with each link, and tabs for easy organization. Only2Clicks looks like a great way to organize a core group of bookmarks, even if you don’t set the site as your home page.
Only2Clicks.com
Filed in: SL
Dvorak Drinks Cool Aid
Posted by Joe on July 26, 2007 · Comments Off
John Dvorak, Mac user.
Filed in: SL
Surflizard At The Opera
Posted by Joe on July 26, 2007 · Comments Off
Firefox seems to be getting more slow, bloaty and buggy with each release. Recent odd behavior includes all links on a page, and all buttons on the program itself going dead (including back, refresh, tabs, etc.). I’m running version 2.0.0.5, and all the bugginess began very recently. However, the bloat and sluggishness has been getting worse for a long time. This is a shame, as I’ve used the fox almost exclusively for years — only switching to IE when a web page simply demanded it (due to bad design).
Now, I’ve decided to give Opera a chance. It opens quickly, pages [...]
Filed in: SL
The Case Of The $150 Laptop
Posted by Joe on July 25, 2007 · Comments Off
Larry Dignan at ZDnet ordered the $150 Medison laptop that has bloggers buzzing today. We assume this laptop is a scam, and don’t have $150 to throw away. However, we’ll definitely be jumping on the bandwagon if this turns out to be legit. But don’t count on it — even a laptop with these modest specs would probably have a manufacturing cost of more than $150.
Specs: 14 inch LCD, Intel Celeron 1.5 GHz chip, 40 GB hard drive, 256 MB of memory, Linux OS
Here’s another optimist who ordered one.
Filed in: SL
Steve Jobs, Button Hater
Posted by Joe on July 25, 2007 · Comments Off
What’s Steve’s beef with buttons ?
Buttons have long been a hot-button issue for Apple’s CEO. Bruce Tognazzini, a former user-interface expert at Apple who joined the company in 1978, says Mr. Jobs was adamant that the keyboard for the original Macintosh not include “up,” “down,” “right” and “left” keys that allow users to move the cursor around their computer screens, giving it a sleeker appearance than other personal computers have. Mr. Jobs’s reasoning, says Mr. Tognazzini: Omitting the cursor keys would force independent [...]
Filed in: SL
Joost Hits A Million Users, Could Go Public Soon
Posted by Joe on July 25, 2007 · Comments Off
Joost has already signed up one million beta users, reports TVSquad. Co-founder Niklas Zennström is quoted as saying the service could go public by the end of the year.
Filed in: SL
Cheap PC
Posted by Joe on July 25, 2007 · Comments Off
Computer Shopper offers a guide to building a decent PC for $250. The parts are better than you think — ATHLON 64 3400+, 1 GB of RAM, 80 GB hard drive.
You may be able to buy a computer pre-built for around the same money, but probably not with the same features.
Filed in: SL
Many Choices For Internet TV
Posted by Joe on July 24, 2007 · Comments Off
last100 has a roundup of 8 newish tv over ip applications. The only one I’ve used is Joost, which is very impressive.
As always, try InviteShare for an invite to many of these beta sites.
Filed in: SL
Harry Potter And The Neglected Blog
Posted by Joe on July 23, 2007 · Comments Off
No posts yesterday…we were too busy reading the book-which-shall-not-be-named. We can’t think of anything more unneccesary* than a review of the fastest selling book in history, so we’ll just say: good read.
* True — J.K. and her publishers overreacted to the few early (and spoiler-free) reviews. Most authors would kill for a tiny bit of the attention this book has gotten. But seriously, does anyone at the New York Times think their early review convinced someone to buy or not buy this book? And if not, what was the point of the review?
Filed in: SL
The World That Could Have Been
Posted by Joe on July 23, 2007 · Comments Off
From BetaMax to BeOS, CNET UK looks at the losers of the format wars.
Filed in: SL
OLPC Laptop Begins Production
Posted by Joe on July 23, 2007 · Comments Off
One Laptop Per Child ramps up for production. From The Register:
The One Laptop per Child project has started production, with the first children in the developing world expected to receive their computers in October this year.
The ultimate aim is to get the device down to $100, though the initial run will cost $176, according to the BBC, which is providing a breakdown of costs. This places responsibility for the higher price on the screen and Wi-Fi.
A very big, very expensive experiment is about to begin.
Filed in: SL
© 2011 Surflizard. All rights reserved.
Proudly designed by Free WordPress Themes.