After two days at the factory, Apple has informed me that they could not reproduce my problem. I knew I should have included brightly colored stickers and instructions. Now I’m stuck driving two hours to my nearest Apple store and hopefully having them replace my iPod for me.
Category: News
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Eggs make electronics shopping memorable
Newegg.com review
I’ve been using NewEgg for the past several years as my main source for computer hardware and almost refuse to buy anywhere else. Between personal and business I’ve purchased close to $15,000 worth from them and still counting.
Their prices are hard to beat and their shipping is some of the fastest I’ve ever seen. They have an egg-cellent search engine for drilling down exactly what you’re looking for and the user interface is simple and no-nonsense.
They specialize in electronics and computer hardware and software but sell a variety of other products including household appliances that range from refrigerators and microwaves to washers and dryers. Imagine Best Buy being crushed by a giant egg falling from the sky and you get a good idea. Oh, and for all you Mac fans out there, they’ve got those too.
*Disclaimer*
NewEgg.com is not in any way associated with this, though maybe they should license it as their theme song
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Vista Vs. XP
I’ve often wondered just how bad Vista really is on system performance, so recently when I purchased a couple of Acer laptops I decided to install XP on one and leave Vista on the other for a few tests. Basically I’m just running Geekbench and a battery life test, nothing crazy.
For the battery test, I merely pointed the browser to a URL set to auto refresh every 30 seconds and disabled all power saving features.
Both computers are the follwing:
Model: Acer Aspire 4715Z
Processor: 1.73GHz Pentium Dual Core
RAM: 2GB RAM[ Vista ]
First, I ran Geekbench. The system scored a moderate 1911, but of course the system shipped with a bunch of bloatware, so in the interest of fairness I removed all the pre-installed software and ran Geekbench again, it then scored 1922.The battery life gave out after 1 hour and 45 minutes of doing nothing but browsing the internet, that’s pretty sad.
[ XP ]
Running Geekbench on XP with no drivers installed, resulted in a score of 1939, only slightly higher than the Vista machine.After installing all the drivers and re-running Geekbench I ended up with a much more statisfying score of 2168. Not as large of a difference as I expected, but still a noticeable improvement.
The battery life saw a huge jump though, ending with 3 hours and 14 minutes while browsing the internet.
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To protest, or not to protest…
…that is the question.
So I was running late to work last week, on a day that I really couldn’t be late, and of course, that was the day I got a speeding ticket. Now, I haven’t been ticketed for a long, long time so I qualify for STOP class. But the ticket was for only $69. STOP class is $75, and will cost me a Saturday, of which I don’t have many available.
I’ve never actually gone to court for one of these, but does it work? Will I actually have a chance to get out of my ticket if I go? I had a friend tell me that alot of times the cops don’t go, and if they aren’t there, you can’t get charged. Which makes sense when you think about it. What about those speed traps, a month later, do those cops go sit in court all day long and wait to see if anyone shows up?
I’ve also heard this interesting theory. I was told that if you send in your payment for the ticket, plus an extra $5 or so, they end up sending you a check back for the overpayment. If you were to then throw away the overpayment check, the ticket doesn’t go onto your record as a citation, but rather as an incomplete transaction. What?
That can’t really work can it? Well, we’re about to find out ladies and gentlemen because I am writing and sending a $75 check to those lovely people down on that county court. Keep your fingers crossed.
What do you think I should do? Let me hear about it in the comments.
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equinux releases TubeStick hybrid
On May 1st, equinux released their new TubeStick hybrid for the modest price of $129. The TubeStick hybrid is a new TV receiver for the Mac, designed exclusively for North America. It features two receivers: One to watch digital over-the-air HDTV broadcasts and one for digital HDTV (QAM) cable or regular analog cable TV.
It’s a pretty sweet piece of hardware, that actually makes me wish I watched TV, just so I could buy one.
$129 (with free shipping) will get you the following…
- USB 2.0 Stick for ATSC, Analog and Cable TV
- TV Software “The Tube 2”
- Printed quick start guide
- Extensive PDF manual
- Antenna with magnetic base
- External antenna adapter
- Break-out Cable (S-Video; Composite)
- USB extension cable
The TV software “The Tube 2” seems pretty robust, offering a timeshift buffer that allows users to go back and record a show from the moment they started watching it. It also includes automatic synchronization with iTunes, so as soon as you stop a recording it converts it to your preset format and adds it to your iTunes library.
Another great feature is their free TubeToGo service, it allows you to upload clips to a web gallery and view them on your iPhone, iPod touch, or another computer. It also includes the ability to add, remove and even schedule recordings.
Turns out the TubeStick also ships with a Windows driver, and works with Windows Media Center. Not bad at all.