For those friends and family reading this blog and wondering about Kiersten, she’s still pregnant. Our induction was re-scheduled for Monday because the hospital was too busy to take us. I’ll let everyone know when Kaylee gets here.
Archive for January, 2007
I had Verizon FIOS installed just over a week ago, and having put it through its paces, I’m giving my thumbs up.
I decided to make the jump from Comcast after debating prices vs. features and picture quality, finally settling on a FIOS package relatively equivalent in both price and features to my current Comcast package. I placed a call to Verizon, and ordered the 5/2 Internet service, the premier package television service, the “movies” add-on, 1 DVR box, and 2 standard boxes. We have three TV’s in our house, and each television requires a box with Verizon. With my order complete, and installation date scheduled (about 2 weeks out), the wait began.
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III - This guy retcon’s A New Hope to make up for the giant suck that is the Star Wars prequels. A great read.
Do you cook? Do you find yourself mincing fresh garlic often? Then buy this garlic press, right now. It’s amazing.
I used to scoff at people who spent gobs of money on a 9 or 10 megapixel camera simply because they felt, “the higher the better.” These people would often loose out on great features or niceties because the blew all of their cash on the CCD. Didn’t they know that 6 megapixels were plenty for a great 5×7 print, and a pretty damn good 8×10? Now I find myself in that crowd.
I’ve been doing some photography work over the last few days, plowing through last years images, and doing more post-processing now than I’ve ever done before. I’m beginning to realize that, while 6 megapixels may be fine for a straight off the camera image, it’s terrible for one that’s been cropped and adjusted. Some of my pictures have been reduced to the equivalent of a 2 megapixel camera, and make for ugly, pixelized prints. I have neither the space nor need to work in RAW 100% of the time, so I’m left using full size JPEGs with the “fine” compression setting on my D70. These are not holding up well after post processing.
So, I’m looking over my used photo gear, and doing some math. I think I could sell my D70, my old FE2 (sad, but I never use it) and few older lenses for about $800. That’s pretty much the cost of a D80 body, which would give me 10 megapixels and a lot more breathing room. Plus, I get all the other new features and settings they’ve added. This will be tricky, as I must not expend any real cash on this. With a baby on the way and Christmas bills still being paid off, I don’t have any the spare. Hey, at least I’m not after a D2X!
Secure VNC with Hamachi - Very interesting. I’ve been looking for a good way of supporting friends and family with VNC while they’re behind a router. I still want a cross-platform, single-click UltraVNC for clients, though.
The same thing we do every night, Pinky - Try to take over the world!
- No third-party apps: Guess I won’t be running SSH on this baby.
- Non-removable battery: Yeah, because that worked so well with the iPod.
- Pure touch screen: Sorry, a touch-screen dial pad is bad enough. I touch screen keyboard should lead to some interesting emails.
- No 3G: HSPDA is the future of GSM data, and for $600 my phone better have it.
- 5-hour talk time: “Hi Mom, how are you. I just got my new iPh… <NO CARRIER>”.
- No over-the-air sync: No Blackberry connect, no Exchange ActiveSync, hell not even .Mac.
Basically, it’s like this. The iPhone is a consumer-oriented convergence device. It’s not designed for people who actually use their smart phone for productivity. It’s designed for the collage kids on HowardForums who think a 2-megapixel camera is a must have feature in a phone. I’ll stick with my Q, thanks.
Ads in airport security trays - Step 1: Place ads onto trays seen for 1 second before being filled with junk. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!!!
No 80’s playlist can be complete without Wham!, and possibly Toto. Specifically, Everything She Wants and Africa, respectively.