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Benq DW-1620
X-bit labs – Articles – BenQ DW1620A DVD±RW/R Drive Review: Joker in the Pack or a New Winner?. I just happen to have one of these drives. It does pretty well, but you have to get the B7T9 firmware update to solve lots of the bad DVD burning problems. Naturally, you can’t just go to…
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Samsung 193P
For some reason, it was just about impossible to find the manuals and drivers for the Samsung 193P in their “download”:http://www.samsung.com/download/Model_Select.aspx?type=Monitor&typecode=2&subtype=LCD&subtypecode=202&model=193P&filetype=UM&language= area. Here is their manual and also their Magictune software. You need this since the machine has no hardware controls at all. Everything is done in software. Their “Magictune”:http://www.samsung.com/Products/Monitors/magictune/ is on a throwaway CD…
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Mini ITX performance
I’m just about to buy a mini ITX machine to do DVD playback and other small games and things for Grace. An interesting test to see how a small form factor machine does. mini-itx.com – nehemiah m10000 review. The benchmark shows that with 256MB of PC2100 RAM and Windows XP, it does DVD playback just…
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Simulations
All this playing of Combat Flight Simulator reminded me how much I loved Harpoon and F-15 Strike Eagle before the kids arrived. Here’s an update to what’s going on. The short news is that there isn’t as much action now, but there are still some interesting new titles that are “modern jet”:http://www.gamespot.com/finder/findgames.html?catid=130, “helicopter”:http://www.gamespot.com/finder/findgames.html?catid=127 and “submarine”:http://www.gamespot.com/finder/findgames.html?catid=125…
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Kid Games
Connie asked, where are all the educational games. Seems like there aren’t anymore to buy. So, off to look at PC Gamer to find some. Here are some others have ben playing based on their ESRB rating at “gamespot”:http://www.gamespot.com/reviews.html?type=byesrb&platform=pc&order=asc&time=oneyear as well as their top 100 “kids games”:http://www.gamespot.com/misc/top100_kids.html?tag=gs_lnav_topkids: * “Simcity 4”:http://www.gamingexcellence.com/pc/games/132/review.shtml. This is the simulation that…
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Minh Thai Solution
Solving the Rubik’s Cube These instructions can be used to solve a 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube and also a 2x2x2 Rubik’s mini cube starting from any combination of colors on a mixed up cube. They are from Minh Thai who held the record in late 1981 of 26 second. The method is # 1. Solve the…
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Alex’s latest obsession is the Rubik’s Cube. Here are some hints for you, Alex: Rubik’s Cube – how to solve the Cube or cheat. There are many sites around the Web that can give you detailed steps for solving Rubik’s cube, and many are very good. However, if you want a quick run down of…
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Notebook instead
After looking at a Mac Mini, these mini ITX systems, I wonder a little bit why folks don’t just get a notebook instead. Essentially most of the technology limits get solved by low power notebook technology anyway and you get a free screen you can use on the road too. Dell has the Inspiron 1150…
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VIA Motherboards explained
“VIA Epic Motherboards”:http://www.mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=2. A good explanation of the many VIA motherboards that folks use for PC-based versions. A little complicated but essentially, * PD boards are older in either 600MHz or 1GHz both fanless for embedded applications * Older M boards that are 600MHz fanless or 1GHz with a fan but are optimized for multimedia…
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Mac Mini customization
They are so cheap to experiment with that everyone is hacking away at the Mac Mini: * HOW-TO: Turn your Mac mini into a media center – Engadget – www.engadget.com. A good source for how to actually get it all connected. Points out that one problem is that storage isn’t much, but if you are…
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Mini ITX
These systems are the closest that you can get with a PC form factor to an iPod mini. Some resources include: mini-itx.com – news. A great site showing both mini-ITX and the upcoming nano-ITX from VIA. “Hush Technologies”:http://www.hushtechnologies.com/start.html. I bookmarked before, but these guys make nice looking mini-ITX. “Logic Supply”:http://www.logicsupply.com/default.php. A do-it-yourself resource for making…
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wayback amchine
Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Pretty amazing site, it has snap shots of tongfamily.com dating back to 1998. I started the thing in 1996 and I wish I had been smart enough to keep snapshots like this. Pretty fun to look at.
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Sun Peaks Restaurant Reviews
There don’t seem to be many of these reviews, so here is what I and the kids thought. From our biased opinion focused on good food, fast service and nice people mainly. Here are our top picks in rough order of restaurants: “Mantles”:http://www4.deltahotels.com/hotels/hotelinfo.html?categoryId=2&hotelId=38. This is in the Delta Sun Peaks. They have got the friendliest…
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Sun Peaks There and Back Again
Sun Peaks Resort – Winter 2004/05. Just got back from there and before I forget, here’s a data dump on having a great time there…. h3. Seattle to Sun Peaks It is about 330 miles and we’ve never gotten there in less than seven hours including a break for lunch and the usual kid stuff.…
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Security hole in MovableType
Movable Type – News – Movable Type 3.15 released Version 3.15 fixes a vulnerability in the mail sending packages for all Movable Type versions in which the user has enabled comment notifications. This vulnerability allows a malicious user to send email through the application to any number of arbitrary users. Enough said. I enabled comment…
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Mac Mini as HTPC
a little ludwig goes a long way: mac mini as htpc. Ludwig loves his for HTPC use. I kind of agree it is the right form factor etc. Only small point is that he does say, and for once the mac is the price leader — compare with windows-based systems that people are “building:http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BuildingYourOwnWindowsMediaCenterEdition2005HomeTheaterPCSystem.aspx That’s…
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Back to Skiing
Had a great time skiing, back at it after a year with a torn ACL. It is amazing how you knee won’t hurt if everything else aches :-). In any case, I had new boot, bindings and skis, but only got to use them a few times before blowing out my knee last year. Here’s…
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Sony VGN-T140PL
VAIO T140 Notebook (Sony-VGNT140PL) – PriceGrabber.com. John “Zagula”:http://zagula.com was using my laptop and loving it. Here John is a link with the lowest prices. Newegg has them for $1845 delivered.
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Getting towed
Nothing like getting towed. Actually, it hasn’t happened to me since I was 18 years old in Chicago, but that’s another Rock’n’Roll High School story. If it happens to you, here are some things to know: * “Finding your car”:http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/transportation/parking/parkingtow.htm. It is actually not very clear where car disappears if you get towed. There are…
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Linksys WRT54GP2
TomsNetworking Product Reviews : TomsNetworking :. _Here is the perfect combo device for $100 or so. It has Wifi, router and also is a 2-port VOIP phone system. Quality on Vonage was only OK according to them._ The bottom line for me is that the GP2 is a very good, feature-rich, hardware based firewall /…
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USB Phone Charger
ZIP-KIT-NK1 ZIP-LINQ Retractable Nokia Phone Charger Kit at TigerDirect.com. NOw that I have USB connection for just about everything, I can charge my Blackberry, iPod, Bluespoon AX headset all from my laptop or any USB connection, the only thing left is my Nokia 6620 phone. Here’s the $20 solution from Tigerdirect. Its got the right…
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USB External Hard Drive
Deb asked me what’s the cheapest way to upgrade her Dell “Inspiron 8100”:http://www.gamers-depot.com/hardware/notebooks/dell/inspiron8100/001.htm and not have to buy a new laptop. A great question since laptops are not that upgradeable and they are expensive. She was thinking about buying a new 60GB hard drive and an additional 256MB of memory for a $300 upgrade. Given…
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Joysticks
Joystick Directory at Joystick Review. No one seems to be playing flight simulators anymore, so the reviews I’ve seen of joysticks are usually a couple of years old. Microsoft has even exited the business, although ebay has quite a few SideWinder “Force Feedback 2”:http://www.joystickreview.com/microsoft/sidewinderforcefeedback2.asp’s around. Thye have a great rating of 89.5 out of 100.…
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Sun Peaks
We are off to Sun Peaks. I’m actually kind of amazed how little information there is on the web about this ski resort. Well, maybe we can be the top hit 🙂 Anyway, here are some resources: * Sun Peaks, British Columbia – Reviews and travel information. There are a bunch of sites like epinions…
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hdtv capture
HTPCnews Forums -> Recording HDTV FAQ Q. Can I record my satellite provider’s HDTV feeds? A. No you cannot. The satellite vendors employ encryption and use a different signal encoding scheme than OTA or even cable. Q. Can I record my cable provider’s HDTV feeds? A. Yes and No. Yes, you can usually record the…
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htpc software
Home Theater PC News – Your Source for Everything HTPC Related Then you will want to look at building an HTPC around Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005. MCE 2005 is a copy of Windows XP SP2 and a PVR/media center rolled into one. MCE requires a fairly new system with MCE certified drivers…
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Flash Drives
“Flash Drive Review”:http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/usb-flash-roundup.html and X-bit labs – Articles – Five Flash Drives with USB 2.0 Interface (page 6). A good review of flash drives if older 2003 review. The net is that drives have very different performance depending on the speed of the flash they use. Most are 8-10MBps whereas the Apacer HT203 is about…
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Another Dothan Benchmark
GamePC – Battle at 90nm : Power Consumption and Performance Compared Our Doom3 benchmarks show the “Winchester” Athlon64 in a more positive light, besting the “Dothan” Pentium-M by an advantage of about a single processor speed grade. The opposite is seen in Far Cry, where the Pentium-M bests the Athlon64 in terms of performance per…
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Office 2003
JR.com: MICROSOFT Office 2003 Student and Teacher Edition in Office Productivity Suites:. _If you’ve got kids, here’s a very affordable way to get Office 2003. For $130, you get a copy of Office that can legally be installed on three machines. That’s a big discount over Office 2003 Standard and even compared to the Microsoft…
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Terapeak
Terapeak: eBay Marketplace Research. A pretty amazing site. This is a research database of what is actually selling on ebay. BTW while we are at it, check out our “ebay”:http://stores.ebay.com/Marketing-Playbook to get autographed copies of the Marketing Playbook. Category Research Understand category patterns & make informed decisions.