Archive for October, 2007
The Definitive Dracula
Posted by Joe on October 31, 2007 · Comments Off
The kids are out doing their thing, so I’m settled in with a cigar, a scotch, and Bela Lugosi.
Filed in: SL
Asus Eee Editor’s Choice
Posted by Joe on October 25, 2007 · Comments Off
The Asus Eee mini-notebook gets 4 out of 5 stars and an editor’s choice award from Laptop Magazine. Read the exclusive first review.
Filed in: SL
Music Recommendation — Rissi Palmer
Posted by Joe on October 23, 2007 · Comments Off
Rissi Palmer is billed as Country/Pop, but she has a very traditional country sound (think Shania before she went all ‘pop’). Her self titled debut album dropped today, and it can be purchased as a DRM-free digital download for $8.99. It can also be purchased on some sort of circular plastic disk for just a dollar more.
Go buy the album or a few tracks, and I’m not just saying that because Rissi is a fellow Missourian.
Filed in: SL
Xbox 360 Arcade Has Landed
Posted by Joe on October 22, 2007 · Comments Off
The Xbox 360 Arcade is officially available today, at a price of $279.99:
REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 22, 2007 — Just in time for holiday, Microsoft Corp. today released a new Xbox 360® console that delivers games and content to everyone in the family for an incredible value of $279.99 (U.S. estimated retail price)*. Available in stores beginning today, Xbox 360 Arcade console is the first Xbox 360 console to include five family-friendly games, a wireless controller, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to enable high-definition output if desired and 256 MB of memory [...]
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Zune Me
Posted by Joe on October 22, 2007 · Comments Off
I just bought a “rich brown” Zune 30gb from Woot!. I’m very excited to own one of the ugliest tech products of all time. Of course, the $79 price tag doesn’t hurt. Besides, brown is the new black.
Filed in: SL
Ultimate DIY-er Makes Helicopter From Junk
Posted by Joe on October 22, 2007 · Comments Off
This guy has too much free time:
Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts.
He’s actually managed to hover his first helicopter several times, and learned to fly from the internet and action movies.
Filed in: SL
Amazon One-Click Patent Shot Down By US Patent Office
Posted by Joe on October 18, 2007 · Comments Off
One of the dumbest patents granted in recent history has got to be Amazon’s “One Click” ordering patent. Clicking on a buy button and, you know, buying something — it seems rather obvious. Now it looks like parts of the patent have been struck down. Unfortunately, not because it’s a stupid and obvious idea, but because it’s a stupid and obvious idea someone else had already patented:
But when Calveley examined the 1-Click patent’s claims at the USPTO’s website, he recalled a patent for Digicash filed in 1996, the year before Amazon.com’s [...]
Filed in: SL
Apple Accepts Inevitable
Posted by Joe on October 17, 2007 · Comments Off
Apple opens up iPhone to 3rd party developers:
Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.
There. Was that so hard?
This is good, too:
P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to [...]
Filed in: SL
Asus Eee Pricing Official
Posted by Joe on October 17, 2007 · Comments Off
The least expensive Asus Eee — the one with just 2gb of storage and 256mb of RAM — will be $299. That’s a hundred dollars more than originally rumored a few months ago, but not bad…a good pda or smartphone will cost as much or more. Of course, if downward pricing pressure continues in the laptop market, we may soon see ‘full featured’ laptops with bigger screens, hard drives and cd/dvd players at this price point. It will be interesting to see what black Friday deals come to light in the next five or six weeks.
Filed in: SL
Aliens On The Internet
Posted by Joe on October 17, 2007 · Comments Off
I’ve been hearing good things about the new show Aliens In America, so I just watched the first two episodes on the CW web site. It’s a pretty good show, if somewhat familiar (friendship, popularity, teen angst, fish out of water, be yourself, yada yada). I’m more impressed with how willing networks are becoming to stream their shows online. More, please.
Filed in: SL
AT&T Soon To Suck Slightly Less
Posted by Joe on October 16, 2007 · Comments Off
AT&T Wireless gets a little bit more customer-friendly:
Starting next month, customers who change a wireless calling plan will no longer be required to extend their current contact with AT&T or sign a new contract.
Customers who terminate a contact early will no longer have to pay a flat early termination fee. The fee will be lowered during the term of the contact.
The pro-rated early termination fee policy goes into effect next year. It’s certainly a step in the right direction…being charged a $200 termination fee even if there’s only one month left on a contract is [...]
Filed in: SL
Asus eee Models Announced
Posted by Joe on October 16, 2007 · Comments Off
The four Asus eee models that will soon be available have been announced. We even et specs, but no pricing as yet.
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Konrath Offers Up A Free Drink
Posted by Joe on October 14, 2007 · Comments Off
I read and enjoyed J. A. Konrath’s debut novel, Whiskey Sour, a few years ago. If you like mystery/suspense novels, it’s a good read. For a limited time, you can download Whiskey Sour as a free PDF on the author’s site.
You can find more books by J. A. Konrath at Amazon
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Daring and Dangerous Kids
Posted by Joe on October 12, 2007 · Comments Off
The Daring Book For Girls is now available for pre-order. It will feature chapters dealing with spies, karate, tool kits, history, high-heel shoes, science projects, boys, secret note-passing and a lot more. I think it will be a big hit, and I definitely plan on picking up a copy for my daughter. She and my son have certainly enjoyed The Dangerous Book For Boys.
Filed in: SL
A Symphony Of Praise For IBM Office Suite
Posted by Joe on October 12, 2007 · Comments Off
InfoWorld has a generally favorable look at IBM’s Lotus Symphony office suite. I’ve been trying it out as well, and I’m impressed with the feature set as well as the modern look-and-feel (sorry, OpenOffice.org). What I’m not impressed with is performance. At the moment, Symphony is a big slow hog. Hopefully, performance issues will be resolved by the time version 1 is available (also free, according to IBM), but the fact that the suite relies on Java and Eclipse to run doesn’t leave me optimistic.
Lotus Symphony
Filed in: SL
Yet Another Asus Eee Update
Posted by Joe on October 12, 2007 · Comments Off
The Asus Eee will not be available to consumers for $199, according to this report, but it will be available by the end of the month:
Eee PC will officially hit the Taiwan market on October 16 with the initial batch of shipments no larger than 10,000 units, said Asustek. The company will begin offering the product through Best Buy and Newegg in the US by the end of this month, while availability in the China market may arrive by the end of the year, the company added.
The pricing information is a little disappointing, but even at $249 – $299 the ultra-portable laptop will be a great deal.
Filed in: SL
Microsoft Zune And Good Customer Service
Posted by Joe on October 12, 2007 · Comments Off
Praise for Microsoft’s Zune … from an Apple fan site:
Apparently, Apple would rather lock you out of your iPhone and limit you to a walled garden of features. So you are being tempted to upgrade and gain new apps and other cool things, but it’s a ploy to tempt users who hacked their iPhones to upgrade and reset things to how Apple wanted them.
The Zune, on the other hand, had its software upgraded to that of the newer interface shipping on all new models. Tell me, would Apple think of upgrading their older iPods in such a way? Of course not, they’d rather you buy a new [...]
Filed in: SL
Golden Compass Trailer
Posted by Joe on October 9, 2007 · Comments Off
I have not read the The Golden Compass and sequels, but after seeing the trailer for the movie, I’ll be rectifying that in the near future. I’ve heard the books are great, and it looks like the movie will be amazing.
Filed in: SL
Do That Vudu — Or Not
Posted by Joe on October 9, 2007 · Comments Off
Katherine Boehre looks at the Vudu movie box. It looks like a cool product that could use more content. And given the cost — $399 plus up to $3.99 to rent a movie (or up to $19.99 to ‘buy’ a movie) — it’s hard to see much advantage over something like Netflix. Or the neighborhood rental store, for that matter.
www.Vudu.com
Filed in: SL
Ugly Tech
Posted by Joe on October 8, 2007 · Comments Off
PC World looks at the ugliest products in tech history. No surprise: the brown Microsoft Zune makes the list.
Filed in: SL
Cheap Wheels 2007
Posted by Joe on October 8, 2007 · Comments Off
The ten least expensive 2007 cars. We have a 2006 Aveo (number one on the list), and are happy with it so far.
Filed in: SL
Box Office Bonanza
Posted by Joe on October 7, 2007 · Comments Off
A comprehensive list of movies coming out in the next few months.
Filed in: SL
Music Sharer Not Asking For Help To Pay Obscene Judgement
Posted by Joe on October 7, 2007 · Comments Off
As the RIAA continues to shift its business model from selling music to suing customers, it’s nice to know that the organization’s victims show a little more character:
Jammie Thomas makes $36,000 a year but says she’s not looking for a handout to pay a $222,000 judgment after a jury decided she illegally shared music online and did it on purpose.
“I’m not going to ask for financial help,” she told The Associated Press on Friday. But she added, “If it comes, I’m not going to turn it down, either.”
Filed in: SL
New iPaqs Landing Soon
Posted by Joe on October 6, 2007 · Comments Off
The new HP PDAs are on the way:
If you’ll recall, both WiFi equipped, Windows Mobile 6 devices feature color TFT touchscreens, Marvell PXA310 624 Mhz processors, and Bluetooth 2.0. The devices will be shipping on October 8th, with the 110 selling for $299, and the 210 for $399.
I had actually forgotten about these, but they sound interesting, especially the cheaper 110.
Filed in: SL
Serenity Sequel A Long Shot
Posted by Joe on October 6, 2007 · Comments Off
A Serenity sequel? Probably too much to hope for.
Filed in: SL
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