April 13, 2005
This Blog is Dead — Long Live the New Blog!
04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
Ok, the wait is over. This will be the last post for this (old) blog, so you’ll have to update your bookmarks and RSS feeds to the new Zoinger. The new blog is located here (http://www.zoinger.com/words/) and the new RSS feed is located here (http://www.zoinger.com/words/feed/).
The index page for this (old) blog will now be located here (http://www.zoinger.com/old_blog.html) if you are interested in reading any of my old posts. I’ll also have this linked to from the sidebar of the new blog.
March 23, 2005
Your Home RFID Starter Kit from iAutomate
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Gizmodo posted this about the HomeSeer RFID Starter Kit sold by iAutomate.com. Kind of cool. With the kit you can…
- Control the lights, HVAC, garage door or security system when your car approaches or leaves your home.
- Detect if vehicle is in the garage.
- Detect a person entering or leaving a room or area.
- Arm or Disarm Security by individual tag.
- Automatically open a “pet” door when your pet approaches the door.
- Control, Lights, Music, and Temperature
…among other things. Not so sure about how secure all of this is (i.e., controlling your security system, etc.), but here’s a link to the user manual that might have some details. The HomeSeer RFID Starter Kit runs $477.95 (ouch!).
BTW, it uses COM ports! Uhhh… have they heard of this new thing called USB?
TiVo vs. MCE vs. Cable Box — by Ed Bott
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You just knew someone had to have a Tivo and a Windows Media Center box and a cable-company PVR now didn’t ya? Actually, I wouldn’t think anyone would have three PVRs, but whatever. Ed Bott’s the man.
Ed reviews all there PVRs in a head-to-head match up based on a recent NYT review of the Tivo (the article is behind their firewall now, so why link to it?).
Ed gives a slight advantage to WMC with the cable box a distant third. It should be noted that Ed’s Tivo is a series one, but even a series two probably won’t have changed the results. Ed also notes that Microsoft has been steadily making WMC better and better over the years, so watch out Tivo (and others).
P.S. Too bad that Ed didn’t have a MythTV setup to run in his review.
P.S.S. With WMC 2005, you can actually buy the OS separately instead of having to purchase a complete system which was the case with previous WMC versions.
March 20, 2005
The Pocket Fisherman — 92nd Gadget of All Time
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Wanna catch a real lunker? Then Ronco’s Pocket Fisherman is for you! The Fisherman clocks in at number 92 in MobilePC’s The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time.
Also making the list are the Pez Dispenser at 98, the Trash-80 (erh, the Radio Shack TRS-80) at 87, the Space Pen at number 80, Atari’s Pong at 70, Sony’s ground-breaking digital camera the MVC-HD5 at 48, the SanDisk CompactFlash card at 38, Apple’s PowerBook 500 at 22, Tivo Series1 at 10… and at number 1… well, I’ll let you read the article.
March 10, 2005
Installing MediaWiki on 1and1 Hosted Server
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MediaWiki is the wiki software that Wikipedia runs on. I downloaded it last night and installed it in about five minutes on my 1and1 hosted Unix server. Man, that was easy… now I just gotta figure out what I’m going to do with it!
To install MediaWiki on 1and1, make sure that you have created your MySQL database, then just plug in the appropriate information into the MediaWiki set up screen that loads in the set up process.
February 19, 2005
Support Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation Fund Drive)
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The non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation, creators of Wikipedia among other projects, is having a fund-raising drive. If you want to support this awesome web resource, you can get information on donating here. If you have a PayPal account, donating is point-and-click painless… so no excuses.
A9 is Hiring 'Block View Drivers'
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A9, Amazon’s search service, is hiring ‘Block View Drivers.’ These are the folks that drive around major cities talking street-level pictures of businesses for A9’s Yellow Page service. Here’s a bit of the job description:
While on the job, you will drive a specially equipped vehicle with GPS, a digital camera, and computer hardware/software to collect geo-referenced imagery. The ideal candidate will have experience with all of these technologies, and will be confident in his or her ability to troubleshoot any hardware and software problems that may arise.
For a little background on how they took these pictures, check out this.
Google recently purchased Keyhole, so I am sure they have something cooking along the same lines. For a ‘preview’ of what might be coming, check out Microsoft’s TerraServer. I’ve noticed that they have updated some of the urban landscape photos recently. Here’s a shot of the Baja Fresh location in Palo Alto, CA. How about a Double-Double from In-n-Out? Some trick stuff is coming…
February 09, 2005
Humpty Dumpty back Together Again — Installed New Laptop Screen
04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
As I talked about here, I recently broke the screen on my laptop. I found one on ebay, and it’s all good now. So for $170 and a couple of hours of personal assembly/disassembly time, my laptop is back in action. Sure beats $1200 bucks for a new one.
If you ever decide to replace a screen yourself, make sure you look around for the best price. I found that the prices ranged from $170 to around $500. I got excellent service from my seller at ebay… the darn screen got to my doorstep a day or two after I hit the “Buy it Now” button.
Here’s a before shot…
February 07, 2005
Classic
10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
More here
February 06, 2005
Adding Category Link to Posts
05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
I’ve been doing some more house cleaning on the site. Today, I added a category link to each post, added the display of the number of posts in each category to the sidebar and added a link to the main archive page just above the footer. Again, all fairly easy to do.
Laptop Screen Replacement
01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
I woke up this morning, and fired up my laptop only to notice a strange pattern on the display. “WTF?,” I thought. Damn, I had broken the display sometime yesterday when the laptop was in my car. I think I must have set something on the top of it. Lesson number one learned: Don’t remove your laptop from it’s protective bag when transporting it. I had taken the laptop out so I could use the bag for my camera which I was taking some shots with. Ended up protecting the camera, but not the laptop.
I really thought I was out $1500 bucks to buy a new laptop. However, a friend mentioned that you can buy replacement screens for laptops. First, I had to figure out how to remove the screen. Apparently, they use all sorts of different displays in laptops of the same model, so you have to physically remove the screen to find the screen part number. My was a HSD150PK12. With some patience, a small Torx wrench set and some instructions on the web, I was able to remove the screen in about an hour.
I found a HSD150PK12 on ebay for $170 shipped. I’ll be psyched if this all works out. The screen is on order, so I’ll tell ya in a bit.
Top Tip:
I took several shots with my digital camera while I was removing the display — basically, any time I thought that I might get confused on how the parts are aligned. I learned this from working on automobiles (e.g., a carburetor has about 10 trillion small parts and springs).
February 04, 2005
House Cleaning
11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
I just approved a bunch of comments. Sorry it took so long. Still getting the hang of MovableType.
January 28, 2005
Pardon the Mess
05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
I spent most of the day yesterday transfering over my old posts from TypePad to my hosted MovableType account. It was not easy. In addition, I am transfering over my domain name (zoinger.com) to 1and1 where MT is being hosted.
I’m transfering over my domain from Yahoo! because they insist on placing a framed ad at the bottom of the page when forwarding a domain name. It’s just plain fugly. If the Yahoo! folks had a clue, they wouldn’t do this. I mean, who in the hell is going to click on a framed banner ad at the BOTTOM of a page? I’d like to tell the people at Yahoo! that it’s idiotic to do this, but good luck getting help from their customer “support.” Yeah right.