Posted in Technology on November 12th, 2007 11 Comments »
On my recent trip to North Carolina, a playing partner had a little portable TomTom. He'd snagged it off of woot one day for $180 - a pretty good deal. I see at the TomTom site there are several models available for use in cars. The TomTom site is a little dense. The $249 has […]
Posted in Technology on November 9th, 2007 9 Comments »
Recently - and I'm rather ticked I missed out on it - both Wal-Mart and Best Buy offered a Toshiba (the HD-A2 I believe) HD-DVD player for $99. It came with a few free movies, too. I'd have bought one to replace my one-year-old upconverting DVD player. After all, the Toshiba did up-converting, had HDMI […]
Posted in Technology on October 23rd, 2007 3 Comments »
I've unlocked my iPhone after virginizing, installing 1.1.1, reverting the software to 1.0.2 to jailbreak/activate, updating to 1.1.1 again, and installing anySIM again. All is working well, and I was happy to see that YouTube works via the newly updated Independence activate/jailbreak methods.
Posted in Technology on October 23rd, 2007 4 Comments »
Amazon recently received a patent for "including a search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting." Gee, I've been doing that on my blog since 2003. I've called it my "404 Search" because I use it to cause a search via the 404 scripts. I've even ported my search from MovableType […]
Posted in Technology on October 22nd, 2007 7 Comments »
I may be involved soon in an enterprise that involves interviewing people, in person, and posting high-quality AAC or MP3 files online for others to download. Video may be involved at a later time, but not at first. I'm looking for a portable, stand-alone video recorder that can record fairly high quality audio. I don't […]
Posted in Technology on October 20th, 2007 1 Comment »
I'm interested in picking up Panasonic's HDC-SD5, but I still can't find an answer to this question: what's the fastest frame rate it can capture on video of SD size or better? The technical specs say the "motion image" shutter speed can range from 1/30 to 1/8000 second. I'm sure it might have to sometimes […]
Posted in Technology on September 27th, 2007 No Comments »
The iPhone 1.1.1 update apparently modifies your IMEI number to a standard testing number, which means unlocked iPhones won't recognize even the original AT&T SIM card. Unlocking an iPhone is not like putting an after-market stereo in your car or painting it, then having the brakes fail. It's more like adding a NOS system, then […]
Posted in Technology on September 22nd, 2007 3 Comments »
Why in the heck can't my iPhone sync some things - contacts and calendars primary among them - wirelessly? Why must I remember to sync something to my iPhone when my normal use doesn't necessarily include docking every day? My computer sits on a wireless network. My iPhone uses the same network. Why do I […]
Posted in Technology on September 20th, 2007 1 Comment »
From Buzz Out Loud #564: First-year students whose roommates brought a video game player to college studied 40 minutes less each day on average, which translated in first-semester grades which were 0.241 points lower on the 4.0 grade scale. I still swear five of us my third year on campus could have probably gone pro […]
Posted in Technology on September 19th, 2007 2 Comments »
DirecTV was supposed to launch 30 new HD channels today (which I was hoping would include Golf Channel HD), simulcast on the same channels as the regular SD broadcasts. Our entertainment needs are pretty simple: I have my old TiVo as a backup in the bedroom (hooked to a tiny 19" TV that's so old […]
Posted in Technology on September 14th, 2007 4 Comments »
I wonder how long it will be until someone's iPhone is hacked and their personal data stolen, say, at a Starbucks or something, because the user didn't change the root password but did install something like SSH. If you've installed Installer.app and SSH, do yourself a favor: type passwd into an SSH session on your […]
Posted in Technology on September 12th, 2007 6 Comments »
Cellular One offers an unlimited data + text message plan for $25. A second line can be added (and "share" the access) for $12.50 more. Unfortunately, the call center fellow (another "Erik") noted that since the iPhone isn't a CellOne phone, they can't "provision" it. Apparently CellOne does't use the EDGE access point stuff (username, […]
Posted in Technology on September 12th, 2007 4 Comments »
I made a call after using this guide. Tomorrow at some point I'll inquire about data plans, but for now it works. I'll also look forward to the forthcoming graphical application. P.S. If you've put SSH on your iPhone, for crying out loud at least run passwd and change your root password to something other […]
Posted in Technology on September 5th, 2007 4 Comments »
I paid $449 for my iPhone something like 17 days ago. D'oh! I'm just outside of the 14-day (or 10-day) window to get a refund. I don't really care. It's a bit of a bummer that my timing was a tad off, but that's all. The iPhone was worth $449 to me then, and the […]
Posted in Technology on September 3rd, 2007 2 Comments »
The final round of the Deutsche Bank Championship (a PGA Tour event) is being played today. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson play in the penultimate group and NBC is providing coverage at 2pm… except on WPXI out of Pittsburgh. Yesterday, a chiron ticker informed viewers that they should check channels 3, 11, 14, or 21 […]