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In: Tech
With: 0 Comments

About a year ago, I somehow happened upon a request from computer case manufacturer CoolerMaster to browse their new website and provide feedback on areas where improvements were needed.  In short, the site was terrible, with coding errors, navigation issues, and worthless search capabilities. I provided feedback thinking that they would actually value it and make some improvements. They didn’t. Even worse is the fact that I was signed-up for their newsletter in the process. I have one of their computer cases and thought the newsletter may be of interest. It turns out it wasn’t, so I used the unsubscribe link and unsubscribed. I recievedRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 38 Comments

About 6 months ago, I started my search for a wireless network camera that would allow us to watch our little girl while she slept (or didn’t sleep) in her crib.  My list of requirements were pretty simple: I wanted it to work in complete darkness and I wanted it to work with the Firefox web browser. My search turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated, as pretty much every camera from every major vendor (such as Linksys) was Windows Internet Explorer-only and most of them didn’t have Infra-Red lights for night-mode usage. Additionally, many camera models had very negative reviews due toRead More →

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In: Life Reflections
With: 4 Comments

The first year with little Ainsley has been fantastic and it keeps getting better. I’ve relished every day with her. Looking back at pictures from a year ago (and even 4 months ago), it’s surprising to see how much she has changed. I spent some time in Windows Movie Maker and put together a photo slideshow video.  Here it goes:Read More →

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In: Tech
With: 5 Comments

I’m astounded that Microsoft has not figured out that people take photographs with their camera rotated 90 degrees. Not every photograph is in landscape mode. However, Windows Vista thinks that they are. All modern cameras contain a sensor that detects whether a photo is taken in portrait or landscape mode and the picture is tagged accordingly. Most software auto-rotates the photo accordingly. But not Windows Vista and not Windows Movie Maker. You have to manually edit/rotate the photo yourself. It’s time for Microsoft to become more customer-focused and start including these features in Windows.Read More →

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In: Automotive
With: 5 Comments

10 years ago today, on July 25, 1998, I took delivery of my 1999 Porsche Boxster. During that time, I’ve experienced 43,000 miles of top-down convertible bliss. My rule-of-thumb is that it should be driven only with the top down. I don’t want to be one of those top-up-on-a-beautiful-day people. Early each year, I look forward to first clear day above 40 degrees so that I can put the top down, the collar on my jacket up, the heated seats on, and enjoy the brisk prelude to spring. I’ve been determined to keep the car throughout the changes in life that typically cause owners toRead More →

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In: Automotive
With: 0 Comments

The one performance technology that has been lacking from Porsche vehicles is a dual clutch, electronically controlled manual transmission. The wait is now over. Porsche was the first to develop this technology (about 25 years ago) but one of the last performance brands to implement it. Below is an excellent video explaining how it operates, but the benefit is instantaneous upshifts and downshifts with perfect engine speed matching. It will be available in the Model Year 2009 911 and 2010 Boxster/Cayman. Some additional details: This is a 7-speed transmission. 7th gear being is an overdrive gear for fuel economy.  Max speed is obtained in 6thRead More →

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In: Reviews

I’ve read many glowing summaries of the new iPhone 3G. And I agree with all of them. I can’t wait to get one myself on July 11. However, despite Steve Jobs claiming that Apple listened to customers to incorporate everything missing from the first generation iPhone, there are still a few misses. Here’s my list of what I wish would have also been included in the Apple iPhone 3G. MMS – It’s still not possible to send pictures to other cell phones. Sure, you can e-mail pictures, but the iPhone is a cell phone and should include the ability to send picture messages to otherRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 2 Comments

I’m very annoyed by the fact that I spend $30+ to purchase a Blu-ray movie and yet still forced to watched advertisements, trailers, and FBI warnings. Several years ago, SlySoft released a version of AnyDVD that allowed users to overcome these User Prohibited Actions for regular DVDs. Today they announced version 6.4.3.2 of AnyDVD HD that gives users the same features for Blu-ray. AnyDVD is a program that runs in the background on your Windows computer. When a DVD or Blu-ray disc is inserted, it dynamically re-authors the content of the disk so that when you use your favorite DVD or Blu-Ray software player, allRead More →

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In: Tech
With: 33 Comments

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Solution) is a great way to store (and optionally share) large amounts of data. It’s cheap, fast, and reliable. If you’re a casual user, you may not know that you do much more than just store and sever data of HTTP, as long as you use an advanced application such as Bucket Explorer (or read through the S3 documentation and code it yourself.) Here’s a list of 9 features you may not have known about. Torrent Tracking and Seeding: Amazon S3 can server as an ultra-reliable torrent tracker; share/seed the files from your local PC and let S3 act as theRead More →

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In: Home Theater, MBA China Trip
With: 20 Comments

Windows Media Center can automatically download the metadata (cover art, movie name, cast, plot summary, etc.) for DVDs. If you place a DVD in your drive, this occurs automatically. However, if you backup your DVDs to a server and access the moive via Windows Media Center, this data is not available. But there is a work-around and it involves creating a DVDID.XML file when you back-up the DVD to your media server. Here’s how you do it. The easiest way to do this is to use My DVD Settings, a program created by Gelano over at TheGreenButton forums. Unfortunately, Gelano and his program have bothRead More →