The Technology portion of my site, including Reviews, How-Tos, Home Theater, Computing, Gadgets, and Web Development.
After reading an informative post by Paul Stamatiou on blog traffic, I decided to join Technorati and see what it has to offer. Truthfully, I didn’t even know that it offered user accounts and statistics, but it apparently it does. Anyway, to get things started, here is a link to my Technorati Profile.Read More →
I just posted a revised version of my home theater calculator. The new revision adds the following enhancements: Added feature to allow calculation of Visual Acuity Viewing Distance based on eyesight of the viewer. (The default is 20/20 vision; changing the input to 20/10 vision with show that the viewer will be able to spot resolution deficiencies at much greater distances due to more acute eyesight.) Fixed bug in the aspect ratio input that caused international users to have problems (problem was related to using “,” as decimal delimiter instead of “.”) Added cells to the far right of the spreadsheet to allow changing andRead More →
I was ready to abandon the Philips Pronto platform, but the new Pronto Professional TSU9400 and Pronto Script save the day! Background: I’ve been a user of Philips Pronto remote controls since the original TSU-1000 was released in 1998. Since then, I’ve upgraded twice and I carefully consider each new product cycle. I’d become a bit disappointed because new product releases seemed to be “two steps forward and one step back.” (For example, the TSU7000/TSU7500 still does not have automatic backlights behind the hard buttons.) Also, Philips released a new product, the customer-installer-only TSU9600, a year ago but offered no third-party support for features orRead More →
Overview: A frequent question I receive is “which HDTV should I buy?” The answer is not simple and represents a significant monetary investment. Sure, a bunch of future displays were probably just announced and there is always something better on the horizon, but at some point it’s time to pick a technology and pull the trigger. Due to my price and space considerations, most people focused on HDTV displays ranging from 42″-50″ that are available at most local big box retailers. This write-up summarizes the general recommendation I give when someone asks me the question. Flat Panel or Rear Projection or Front Projection? This isRead More →
In 2006, a RAID array linking together multiple 500GB drives was required to reach the 2TB (2,000 GB) limit and operating systems were just starting to implement solutions to break through this barrier. Now, with single hard drives exceeding capacities of 4 TB (4,000 GB), the need to break this 2TB limit is extremely common, and your operating system may not be able to handle it. If you don’t plan ahead, your operating system will only be able to address the first 2 TB and all that extra storage beyond 2 TB will be unusable. Here is an overview of some of the methods youRead More →
I receive a bunch of questions in reference to my 1080P Does Matter article. Some of the questions are along the lines of “Do I really lose the benefits of 1080p if I sit too far away from a small screen? How? The lines of resolution don’t go away.” While the lines are still there, you’re eye can’t detect them, but I haven’t found a simple way to explain this. Then I came across this article and picture (via digg) that demonstrate a great, simple-to-explain example. quoting http://bloggerwhale.blogspot.com/2007/03/dont-trust-your-eyes.html# In the pic below you can see two faces. A normal face on the right and aRead More →
I have a front projector in one room and a flat panel display in another. Instead of purchasing separate sets for components for each display, I’d rather just use a HDMI distribution box so any source could be routed to either display. Unfortunately, this is turning out to be an impossible dream. Most of the devices available are HDMI splitters, so they can display the same source on both displays. However, they can not display different sources on different displays and this is the functionality I really want. A HDMI matrix switch is required to do this. The Gefen 4×4 HDMI HDTV Matrix Switch willRead More →
I recently discovered that X10 Wireless Technologies Inc was trying to post false customer testimonials on my site. Upon further investigation, I also discovered that they “The X10 Gang” has been trying to game Digg.com as well.I found 8 users that I believed to be part of The X10 Gang. I looked-up the Digg and Submission history for these users and found 25 total stories. Of these 25 stroies, 23 either pointed to an X10 website or to a story about X10. These users only dugg stories submitted by one another — but didn’t digg any submissions by any other users. Furthermore, there are twoRead More →
I recently wrote a short review of the Harmony 1000 touch panel remote. Yesterday afternoon, that post received a suspicious comment entitled “Screw Harmony, the iconRemote Rocks!” from someone using the name illuminati and the e-mail address [email protected]. The problem is that the comment was posted by an employee of X10 Wireless Technology Inc and they did not divulge their affiliation. I’m not making baseless claims — I have proof and can share it if necessary. In my opinion, this is deceptive marketing and is in violation of the marketing code of ethics. The comment told the story of how the person purchased a LogitechRead More →
I found an interesting article related to my 1080P Does Matter post (as well as my Home Theater Calculator.) It gives some additional perspective on the resolving power of the human eye. One key difference I noticed is that it states the resolving capability of our eyes to be 0.01 degrees, where as I’ve used a figure of 0.0167 degrees (0.6 arc-minute vs 1.0 arc minute.) This is not a huge difference; both are estimates based on the average eye. I’m just glad that the values are so close. The figure I found most interesting was the total resolution capability when taking everything (eye, eyeRead More →
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