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In: Tech
With: 35 Comments

I’ve been an iPhone user for almost 2 years and have resisted hacking it because it provided almost all of the functionality I needed. In fact, that is still the case, but I finally was pushed over the edge when I needed an Internet connection for my computer for 5 minutes and wound up driving for 30 minutes to get one. So to enable tethering, which I will use about 5 minutes every 2 months, I jailbroke my iPhone. Along the way, I found a lot of other great functionality from third-party apps downloaded via Cydia, a third-party alternative to the iPhone Apps Store. TheseRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 2 Comments

I’ve been a TiVo user since 2001 and I’ve owned 7 TiVos. It’s a great product because it is extremely easy to use yet offers an impressive array of features.  However, I think TiVo can offer even more functionality without compromising, and perhaps improving, the simplicity of the user experience.  Here are my ideas: Seamless multi-room experience: I want every TiVo in the house to display the exact same recording content even though it’s distributed across multiple boxes. Single Season Pass / To Do List: I don’t want to manage Season Passes on each TiVo, I want them to talk to each other and comeRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 3 Comments

I purchased a MSI Wind netbook (i.e. small, cheap laptop) for my wife to use as her personal surfing-the-internet device. Overall, I’m very pleased with the performace and size, making it perfect for casual use.  Here are my pros and cons lists: Pros: Small Size: I knew this was going to be a tiny little PC, but I was still surprised by the diminutive size when I took it out of the box.  The Wind can be packed away in pretty much any bag and you don’t even know it’s there. Nice Appearance: The glossy black plastic looks quite nice for a PC in thisRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 11 Comments

I installed the Windows 7 beta (32-bit) on my wife’s MSI Wind netbook with great success.  In fact, it was flawless.  So I decided to give it a try on the second Media Center computer (HTPC) that I just finished building using the 64-bit version.  My results were as positive this time.  Here a summary of why Win7 Beta didn’t work for me on my HTPC: Drivers. The drivers for the motherboard (Nvidia 9400) wouldn’t install from Windows Update and were over a month old.  (At least I was able to install the latest drivers on the Nvidia website.) Lockups. The PC locked up twiceRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 2 Comments

Like Dave Zatz and Matt Miller, I made the leap into the netbook pool with a new MSI Wind. Technically, I guess I really made my wife take the leap. She has been in disparate need of her own personal laptop as I am just too overprotective of and particular about my ThinkPad T61. What I really wanted to buy her was a top-of-the-line MacBook, but we just couldn’t justify the price.  (Even with the Live.com cash back, the lowest price I could find was $1,300.)  After reading several blog posts and listening to a couple of podcasts, I got the idea to purchase aRead More →

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In: Tech
With: 4 Comments

I think Microsoft should be given credit for single-handedly stimulating the economy. Consumer spending is down, most of the Black Friday deals are lame, but I’m purchasing things that have been on my Wish List for years.  Why?  Because I can get 25% cash back if I purchase an Ebay Buy It Now item and pay for it using PayPal. This is such a good deal that I’ve I installed the Live.com search Add-on for Firefox and replaced Google as the default search engine.  I’ve found the search results to be just as useful as the Google results.  Live.com earned bought my loyalty. 🙂 HereRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 4 Comments

Note to readers: this information was current as of early 2010. Since then, ATI, Intel, and Nvidia have all released video/audio solutions to allow bitstreaming of the original Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams with the use of playback software such as Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. The below content, from early 2010, is for historical reference only. If you’re a home theater enthusiast, you want the highest-quality audio and video possible, and that means Blu-ray with lossless audio (Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio) and the best video compression codec (VC-1 or MPEG-4 H.264 AVC HP.) Most people would choose a Sony PlayStation 3 orRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 8 Comments

I’ve been searching for some wireless headphone to use while watching video on my iPhone when on the treadmill. My objective is to not have a cord connected between me and my iPhone – I don’t want to accidentally knock off my iPhone and damage it. After comparing options, I was excited to try the Jaybird JB200 Bluetooth headset. So I headed to my local Target and purchased a pair. Here are my findings: Pros: Wireless design Smallest wireless headphones on the market Does not completely block outside noise (so you can still hear traffic if you’re running/biking) Lifetime guarantee against failure from sweat intrusionRead 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: 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 →