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Bike Lust
After a few years of relative stability, the new bikes are pretty amazingly cool. Here are some highlights for lusting: * Giant get lighter with TCR Advanced. These are super popular frames from Taiwan. The new TCR Advanced has a new seat tube design that eliminates the need for seat post. It just clamps to…
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Linksys Network Storage Link
Product Review. A very clever product from Linksys. This is basically a small computer that takes USB 2.0 drives, runs Linux on an Intel Network processor and comes out on TCP/IP as a SAMBA server. It’s an incredibly cheap way to build a Network Attached Storage system for a home. Only $75, this means that…
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Guide to Moviemaking
Tom’s Hardware Guide Video: Making Digital Home Movies, Part 1 – Software. Finally a decent guide to all the software you need for video editing. I agree with them that Sony Vegas (formerly Sonicfoundry, I got mine as Video Explosion Deluxe), but it is all the same package is very nice. They have a bunch…
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Tour de France on the Web
OK, some amazing ways to catch the Tour de France other than on a TV: * Wireless Sign-Up 2004 Tour de France – 14:28:42 GMT. This gets you results texted to your cell phone * “Listen Live”:mms://adv.mirrorimage.net/event/mimg/evt20040702/audio. This link works if you have Media Player. It uses the mms: link so it doesn’t work in…
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Camera Bags
Been looking for a good camera bag that will fit a 35mm SLR and a long lense. Lowepro seems to have many good choices here including according to: * “Photo.net”:http://www.photo.net/equipment/bags/. As usual, the best reviews are here. Phil really likes the Tamrac bags though. Loves the huge Lowepro Trekker AW. * “Photography Review”:http://www.photographyreview.com/pscCamera,Cases/Backpacks/PLS_3139_912crx.aspx. Main issue…
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PC Buying Guide
These Anandtech buying guides are just awesome. Rather than writing my own, I’ll just do the difference in opinion I have compared with their analysis: h2. High end See AnandTech: Buyer’s Guide: High End System – July 2004 for base recommendations. Here are the deltas to get a machine cost (without monitor) of $2200 but…
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No RAID-0 needed for desktops
AnandTech: Western Digital’s Raptors in RAID-0: Are two drives better than one?. I was going to get a pair of 74GB 10Krpm drives in a RAID-0 to just get screaming desktop performance. Indeed, it does look like that RAID-0 double actual disk throughput, but because a single drive also has caching and lookahead, the real…
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Laptop Lust
Sony VAIO VGN-X505VP Review. So it costs $3,700. This is the utlimate machine. Thinner than a quarter, it has DVD, 1.1GHz Pentium M, 512MB Ram.
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Great Photo Processing
Film Processing, Photographic Lab, Printing – A&I Photographic Lab. Just a note, after a year of use, we really love A&I’s photo processing. With a year or so to go until I go digital, this has been a nice compromise. Get a wonderful 35mm camera (Nikon N80) and some great lenses (50MM F/1.8 and 70-200MM…
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Driver license times
Drivers Field Office Information. Hey, they even put the time you have to wait for a drivers license on the web. How cool is that!
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Tour de France is here!
Well, its Tour de France time and the fever over here is high. Lots of bikers hanging out here. Here are some great places to look by google pagerank: * “Official TdF site”:http://www.letour.fr/2004/us/index.html. The official site. Wow, it all begins this Saturday if you can believe it! This site is great for the official results.…
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Fountain Pump
Fountain pump – Little giant model 369 – free shipping. OK, here’s the power of the Internet for you. My Dad’s fountain pump broke and it is one google query to find this site that has about every pump in the world.
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GPS Update
Took a basic navigation class today and realized I’m under gadgeted on marine hardware, so here’s an update: * GPS Receiver Information, Software, and Hardware Reviews of Garmin, Lowrance, Magellan and other GPS Receivers. This is the most amazing site. I used it two years ago to pick a Magellan Sportrak Pro. Its still a…
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What is your XP Product Key
Magical Jelly Bean Software – Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder v1.41. A nifty utility that tells the current Windows XP product key. Useful when trying to diagnose things.
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Announcement: 1 for 3 in real improvement
Quite a lot happening on the PC front. Intel announced their new 775 pin socket, new chipsets and new Pentium 3.6GHz. The amazing thing is that with all that technology, it ain’t faster than the current generation or the Athlon 64 in many cases. That’s amazing. AMD also announced their new 939-socket family. Some slight…
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Zoo Tycoon
Scenario Walkthroughs. Alex is loving Zoo Tycoon. Its actually a hard game with lots of math required. Here are some scenario walkthroughs to help get through a game.
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OGM Files
Lazy Man’s Guide to Ogg Media (OGM Files). I’ve been encoding movies into the Ogg Media format (OGM). This has Xvid for the video coding and Ogg Vorbis for the audio. A great guide.
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Lookout for Outlook
Lookout email search for Microsoft Outlook – Lookout Software. Outlook is definitely becoming a platform. Thank goodness the object model is finally decent. This utility lets you do a google like search across all your mail.
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Buying Cell phones online
OK, here are folks doing activations online. * “Amazon”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/301185/ref=sd_str_wi/104-2743300-6001541. Their big cellular store. They have incredible discounts as well because of their scale. * “Let’s Talk”:http://Letstalk.com. These guys are no. 3 google hit when you search for “cell phone” I’ve used them before. * “Point”:http://Point.com. The one that I use quite a bit as well.…
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Dean Allen's Refer Script
textism: Refer Spamming. If I ever reinstall referrer lists, I’d use Dean’s stuff plus the patch that eliminates spammers bots from Eric Goldberg.
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Great case to get…
Tom’s Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: THG’s 15-Case Power Tower Round-Up – Lian Li PC-V1000: Innovative Interior. A really cool mid-tower case with an innovative design. Nice addition for that new computer I’d love to get đ
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Mac Blogging
:: w.bloggar FAQ ::. Once again, trying to figure out how to have a good too for offline blogging on the Mac since SharpMT and w.bloggar and zempt (my favorites on Windows depending on the day) don’t run there. Here are some solutions from w.bloggar: * “iBlog”:http://iblog.soapdog.org. * “BlogApp”:http://www.objectivelabs.com/blogapp.php I tried this thing Ecto, but…
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Best Monitor: 19" LCD
Tom’s Hardware Guide Displays: LCD Comparison: 17″ & 19″ Under 20ms – Samsung SyncMaster 193P. Kind of the cutting edge right now is the new Samsung 193P. Looks good and is fast for games as well.
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Mountain Bikes 2004
Now that my knee is better, time to start thinking about a great mountain bike. Some things have changed, but here’s a quick review of bikes I’ve looked at: * Intense Spyder XVP Reviews, Specs and Shopping. The Intense Spyder has gotten incredible reviews. Main issue though is wearing out bearings. Many complaints on mtbreview.com…
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AMD Athlon 64: Newcastle chips are here!
“Tom’s Hardware”:http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040601/index.html and “Anandtech”:http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2065 both report on the new socket 939 newcastle core chips shipping. Here’s a summary of performance: * The Athlon64 3500+ at 2.2 GHz and 512 kB L2 cache probably is the most attractive new processor. With an initial price of around $500, it is more expensive than the Pentium 4 at…
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Myr Retrievers can target each other
Ask The Virtual Judge: A Magic: the Gathering Rules Lookup. Wow amazing, there is a virtual judge. Alex’s question was can two Myr Retrievers target each other. Answer yes, so if you sacrifice two you can get them both back.
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Magic Rules
Crystal Keep – Magic – Rules. We keep debating the rules for Magic. Here are the official rules and rulings.
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iPod Competitor: the iRiver iGP 100
iRiver iGP-100 – Convenience, Continued. Well, there are other iPod mini competitors now. This one uses a 1.5gb hard drive and is half the price of the mini. Also plays MP3, WMF and even Ogg Vorbis (my personal favorite right now!). Also connects as a USB hard drive to Windows, so no special software is…
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Seattle Times on Fishing
The Seattle Times: Fishing. A great resource for the latest on fishing in the SEattle area from the Seattle Times. Of note is that Cedar River is opening for catch and release. That Pine Lake is opening up on the Issaquah plateau.
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Hepa Filter
ABT Electronics – Product Page. Ok, we tried the Sharper Image filter, but the ozone just made Alex wheeze, so we’re headed up market to a HEPA filter. Mad by Whirlpool, this one is supposed to capture really tiny particles. We’ll see.