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Monday, July 16, 2007

SpaceTime - A Vista's Sista Browsa!

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CATEGORY: INTERNET

Okay, so I have to admit I was ready to make fun of this Vista-visual rip-off thingy and call it "all form, no function". But as I kept watching the flash demonstration to find grounds to tear this thing apart, I found the most curious thing happening. I was digging it! I was actually being smitten by the thing I had planned to ridicule! How silly am I, I ask you now? How silly do I sound, saying "You REALLY godda check this thing out! Don't miss the 3D tabbed browsing and 3D eBay part of the video on their page. It's really cool stuff!"

In a way I shouldn't be surprised at myself. Not that I don't dig Firefox and it's nearly infinite extensibility. It's just that I have to admit that I do fall prey to eye candy wherever I can find it. I figure if I gotta look at my computer for God-knows-how-many-hours every week, it might as well look like an awesome thingy! Ya know? So I typically do the whole Stardock thing and a bunch of other stuff that I can't tell you about now, because then I won't have anything else to blog about in the future and I'll have to go back to my day job. (Yeah, like I've ever made a dime from this thing!)














Your Voice:
So are you gonna try it? Huh? Huh? Huh? Click "comments" below to let us know!










Sunday, July 15, 2007

Life in the 1500's - Unbelievable!

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CATEGORY: INTERESTING!

It is SO interesting to learn where the old sayings that our society still uses actually came from. It's even more interesting to me how we say things all the time that we actually have no clue what the real meaning of that saying is; only what it has come to mean over the years. I've always found etymology fascinating, I guess that is why this post hit me the way it did. I hope you are thoroughly and unequivocally entertained!




Your Voice:
What are some sayings that you can't stand hearing? What are some that you actually use? Let us know by clicking "comments" below.







Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Future Of Laptop Computers (I Hope!)

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CATEGORY: COMPUTERS

In a giant leap forward for mankind, Asus has come up with a laptop that will sell for a measly $189. Dubbed the "3ePC", it is able to find it's way into that price range by taking advantage of hardware that is not necessarily "bleeding edge", yet is still highly capable. For a little context, it was just six years ago when we were all dying for AMD or Intel to break the 1 GHz processor barrier, and when they finally did it seemed like we couldn't imagine what we were going to do with all that power! Now we find ourselves in a world talking about computers with 8 processing cores and I'm beginning to wonder the same thing all over again - "What is the average user going to do with all that power?" I surfed the web just fine on that 1 GHz computer (actually a blazing 950 MHz AMD Thunderbird, to be exact!) and I have a feeling I'll still be able to do it just fine, even with the lowliest of today's new computers. And that's where I believe this laptop will really shine - as a simple check-your-email-and-surf-the-web kind of machine.

Another reason the 3ePC is able to sell for so little is that there is no internal hard drive installed. This would leave you the option of getting yourself an inexpensive external hard drive (usually well under $100), or you could rely on the included 2 GB solid state drive. In that scenario it would make sense to take advantage of the blooming online storage industry as a repository for all of your other storage needs. Popular services such as Box.net, XDrive or Amazon's S3 offer well-known and reliable storage solutions, and lesser-known services like UploadingIt or Filefront let you leave your files there at no charge, and in the case of Filefront, with no space limits. Taking advantage of these sites while using a simple solid state drive in the laptop is a nice way to keep the cost low while giving yourself a place to put the files you collect while browsing. Sure, it's not going to appeal to every user, but they are certainly going to attract a lot of us who admit that they just don't need all that speed to do simple tasks.

There's also those (me included) who like to have their cake and eat it, too. In that case, the Asus 3ePC is simply a specific tool for a specific job, not a swiss army knife. When I want to surf the web with portability but need a larger screen than a smart phone can offer, it's tough to beat $189 for the price/performance ratio the Asus offers. And for those times when I really do need to "tear it up", I just go home and sit in front of my multi-core desktop machine. Sure, it's not very efficient, portable, or cheap, but it can do everything that that little laptop can't.


Your Voice:
Would you rather pay more and have the most bleeding edge performance, or are you content to live with the "slow by today's standards" machines?
Click here to let us know!










Friday, July 13, 2007

Electric Dreams of One Penny Per Gallon!

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CATEGORY: ECO LIFESTYLE


"If there was ever a car that was inspired by PC technology, it's the Tesla Roadster."

At least that's how PC Magazine sees it. They're probably right. After all, this Roadster is powered by laptop batteries and is cooled just like a computer tower. Pretty cool, eh? But what makes this $92,000 beast (or is it beauty?) so amazing is how it is somehow cooler than both a sports car and any green car on the market. The way they describe how the Roadster initially gets up and goes sounds more powerful than any other car I've ever heard of. But at the same time it also happens to get the equivalent of 135 mpg and costs a little over a penny a gallon to drive! Kinda brings the effect of the $92,000 sticker shock down a notch (or two...)

So who is the mastermind behind this amazing creation, you ask? It turns out that Tesla Motors is the brainchild of none other than Elon Musk. Some of you undoubtedly associate that name with the guy who created Paypal. But others know him as a greater pioneer than his groundbreaking online banking invention lets on. Besides working towards a greener future with Tesla Motors, he is also the founder of SolarCity, a company striving to help Americans make more and better use of solar energy, and SpaceX, a company so forward thinking that they're planning on sending Joe Citizen into space in less than a decade at a price that is a tiny fraction of what these kind of trips cost today.








Your Voice:
If you had around $100,000 for your new car budget, what would we see you driving in? Let us know by clicking "comments" below. And link to a pic so we can see!












Thursday, July 12, 2007

Blatant Trafficking of Little Children!

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CATEGORY: SHOCKING!

Am I the ONLY one 'round here who has the guts to speak up about this insanity? "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade"??? Come on, folks! It's the twenty-friggin'-first century around here! Far as I know, you still gotta earn those critters the ol' fashioned way!

I'd even go's far as to say that this is worse than that time Elmer's had a big ol' marquis proudly displayin' "Senior Citizens - Half Price Tuesdays All Day". It's like "Look. I know they ain't as productive as they used to be, but this is no way to treat all those folks who've done so much for our generation. You GODDA show a lil' respect!"










Your Voice:
So how much would you pay for a little boy or girl? Let us know by clicking "comments" below.









Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Best Site Design On The Web?

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CATEGORY: DESIGN

I was reading Time Magazine's post of "25 Sites We Can't Live Without" and found it thoroughly uninteresting and uninformative (as expected). But in the comments section I found a small, random blurb claiming that a site called 2advanced.com was the best designed site on the web. Of course I couldn't resist checking out that kind of claim, so I did and I have to admit, it was pretty schnazzy! It didn't look anything like the kind of sites going around today, though. It kind of had a... well, you see for yourself.




Your Voice:
What was your opinion? Probably not the best designed site EVER, but was it close? Let us know by clicking "comments" below.








Tuesday, July 10, 2007

An iPhone Alternative For $300?!!

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CATEGORY: MOBILE LIFESTYLE

Wired.com writes about a $300 phone that has the potential to be an "iphone Killer" but for a lot less bling. The caveat? The first generation release of the Neo 1973 GTA01 (based on a version of Linux called "OpenMoko") is being sold as sort of a base system - one that will primarily be useful for developers to write device new device drivers, applications, and an updated GUI. Once those things are realized they will release the second generation phone for $450, presumably with slew of updated features that will elevate the Neo 1973 GTA02 into the position of serious iPhone alternative. Oh, and I almost forgot... the Neo 1973 is not locked to a particluar network so you'll have the freedom to pick whichever carrier you like. Nice move!

Aptustech.com put together a nice comparison chart of the iPhone and Neo 1973 GTA01.

FunctionsiPhoneNeo 1973
CPUARM11 620MHzARM9 266MHz
RAM128MB128MB
FLASH4 or 8 GB64MB
Storage extensionNomicroSD
Resolution320x480640x480
BluetoothYesYes
WiFiYesNo (Yes in next revision)
USBNoOTG (non powered host)
Camera2MPNo
GPSNoYes
GeekportIpod Like (audio+RS232)I2C, SPI, RS232, JTAG
AccelerometerYesNo (Yes in next revision)


No doubt the hardware of the iPhone is more advanced, but the next revision of the Neo 1973 should bring improvements:

  • 802.11 b/g WiFi
  • Samsung 2442 SoC (400MHz and Camera interface)
  • SMedia 3362 Graphics Accelerator
  • 2 3D Accelerometers
  • 256MB Flash




Your Voice:
Do you think these "all in one" devices are the way to go, or would you rather own the "best of breed" phone, media player, camera, etc.? Let us all know by clicking "comments" below.











Sunday, July 8, 2007

Hack-a-Fox: Tool For Freeing Firefox!

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CATEGORY: FIREFOX

If you're anything like me (and I know I am) you use a number of different computers to do whatever it is you do on web. And you're a pretty rare person if you happen to have the same exact configuration on each of them (just in case you didn't know.) In my case my most powerful computer is the one I actually use the least, and that has everything to do with CONVENIENCE. Yes, the cheapie laptop, one of those $499 Best Buy specials, is the one that gets most of the use around here. If I were doing anything more with it besides using the internet and editing a few images here and there it would surely die a painful and horrible death. But I knew when the price tag lured me in that there would be many a trade-off. The first real world example of that trade-off was when the 512mb of ram got a teency-weency bit bogged down while using Firefox (does having 30 tabs open normally make a difference?) Enter - the reason for this post. (Exit - long winded and completely unnecessary introduction.)

AnalogX, a small but diverse software company, have released a gem of a utility they call Maxmem. The MaxMem utility itself is small as well - not just in it's layout (it simply sits in the system tray), but more importantly in it's memory footprint (it's eating up a whopping 920k as I write.) That's actually pretty amazing! What else can you think of off the top of your head that takes up less than 1mb of RAM that is as useful as MaxMem? Well, I guess you're probably saying "How would I know? You haven't even told me what it does!!" And you would be right - but not for long!

You know when your computer (Windows users only) seems to get slower . and . . s l o w e r . . and . . s . . l . . o . . w . . e . . r . . the longer it remains on? Well, the simplest way to think about MaxMem is imagining it restarting your computer for you and getting you back to where you were working, all in about 10 seconds. It doesn't shut down or move anything, it just frees up memory in a similar way that restarting your system would. A nice time saver indeed! Especially when Firefox tends to push memory consumption to ridiculous proportions many times on my poor weakling of a computer. At least I now have a quick and very effective solution, and so do you!

I have a forthcoming article
written to the computer novice that explains the difference between Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera because I still seem to find a good number of folks who say that they've heard of Firefox but either don't know what it is, or if they do, why they should even consider switching (almost always from IE). In this article I am forced to confront the memory issue that has plagued Firefox users, no matter what their computer, for quite a while now. I'm not going to get into the details here of why that happens, but suffice it to say that most of the "memory hog" issue can now be resolved thanks to MaxMem. And since that is the most important criticism of using Firefox (in my opinion) it leaves very little reason not to join the ranks of the literally zillions of people who now use Firefox every time they surf!

Thuh end.





Your Voice:
What web browser do you use? Why? (I'm only referring to when you actually have a choice in the matter -
most IT guys won't let you pick whatever you feel like.) Let us all know by clicking "comments" below.








Friday, July 6, 2007

The Case For Aliens Rekindled Once More...

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CATEGORY: SHOCKING!

"Sixty years ago, a light aircraft was flying over the Cascade Mountains in Washington state, at a height of around 10,000 feet. Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light illuminated the aircraft. Visibility was good, and as pilot Kenneth Arnold scanned the sky to find the source of the light, he saw a group of nine shiny metallic objects flying information. He estimated their speed as being around 1,600 mph - nearly three times faster than the top speed of any jet aircraft at the time. Soon, similar reports began to come in from all over America. This wasn't just the world's first UFO sighting - this was the birth of a phenomenon..."

The deal with this story is that this guy worked for the government and hadn't told a soul that he'd actually witnessed aliens and their crashed UFO in a giant hangar. He was sworn to secrecy because of his job and evidently didn't tell a soul until he was on his death bed. Then, with nothing to lose, he let the following story out.

continue story via This Is London »


Your Voice:
So what's your opinion? Do you think we are really alone? If you are a naysayer, then you also have to make sense of things like this. But if you are a believer, you also have to battle the tremendous odds against life existing elsewhere
(at least the kind of life that is able to communicate with us in a way that we can understand) and that they're smart enough to get here. Click here to leave your opinion.










Tuesday, July 3, 2007

How To Get There (Barely!) On The Cheap

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CATEGORY: ADVENTURE!

John Ninomiya, who runs the clusterballoon.org website, says that the ancient movie “The Red Balloon”, where the kid floats away at the end hanging from a bunch of balloons, was what inspired a lifetime of ballooning for him, and his pioneering work in the field of cluster ballooning. According to Ninomiya, he’s one of six people in the world doing this, and the only guy in North America...
continue story via Gadgetopia »


Your Voice:
How much would "they" have to pay you to try that? Let us all know by clicking "comments" below.








Monday, July 2, 2007

ToonDoo - A Free Web-Based Cartoon Maker

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CATEGORY: WEB 2.0

Not too much to expound on here. ToonDoo is just a simple & super-fun idea! Now all you Gary Larson wannabes can step it up a level by getting all those cartoon ideas you have floating around in your cranium out and into the real (virtual) world!
Click to go straightaway to Toon Doo »


Your Voice:
Take a look at ToonDoo, then check out
StripCreator. Tell us which one worked better for you and why!








Sunday, July 1, 2007

Oboe - Free Unlimited Music Storage!

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CATEGORY: MUSIC

Just got this in my e-mail - thought I'd share it with you:

"Hello!

Congratulations! Your 1 GB Oboe music locker has been upgraded to UNLIMITED STORAGE.

Yes, we said unlimited storage for all of your music - FREE! (no catch, no credit card, completely free) Sync, stream, and listen to your music anywhere in the world, on any computer or web-enabled device. If you don't already have Oboe Sync installed, you can start syncing your music today!

Give a gift to your music loving friends -- forward them the priority code below! They'll get an express upgrade to free, unlimited storage when they sign up with the code. Send it to as many people as you'd like - it will only be activated for the first 3 folks that use it.

Cheers!
--The MP3tunes Team"


Well how cool is that? I'll stick it up here for the first three people to clicky clicky. No complaints allowed if you get beat to the punch. BTW, if you don't know what MP3 Tunes is, you can click here to find out. It's a really cool service! I've started uploading bunches of songs while I sleep in hopes of eventually having my whole collection on the web.

If the whole MP3tunes & Oboe thing is confusing, it's actually really simple. Oboe is just a bunch of hard drive space on the web set aside for your music. MP3tunes is the web-based software application (Web 2.0) that is the actual player, like Windows Media Player or iTunes, that plays the songs you store with Oboe. Now go see if you are one of the three to get the unlimited size music locker!

click here to magically arrive at MP3tunes »
Be sure to use Priority Code 189d17c1d857c8ad when you sign up to see if you get the free locker!


Your Voice:
1. Where do you listen to most of your music? Car? Computer? Portable?
2. Does the idea of having all your music on the web for access anywhere sound appealing?
Let us all know by clicking "comments" below.