USB Heated Knee Pads - Gearlog

Continuing the theme of USB devices I don't need, but would buy for a dollar.

USB Heated Knee Pads - Gearlog

Country Charm on 10 Acres

I don't know anyone planning on moving to Wisconsin or Minnesota, but if anyone is interested. A friend's parents are selling their house. I have visited, well over 10 years ago, and it is very nice.

Take a look and pass it on if you know anyone.

Country Charm on 10 Acres

GrandCentral: The New Way to Use Your Phones - Inbox

This is a great concept and I am giving it a try. Please give me a call if you'd like at 281.971.5818 to see what it sounds like and take a look.

GrandCentral: The New Way to Use Your Phones - Inbox

Microsoft's New Black Xbox? - Gearlog

Just in time for my birthday...

If I can only score a HDTV to view this wonder on...

Well, one can dream can't they.

Microsoft's New Black Xbox? - Gearlog

Convert Video Tapes to DVD with one Button - Gearlog

For 130 dollars, this might be a great solution to move VCR tapes and camcorder recorders to DVD. Sounds like a great time saver and a good way to move formats.


Convert Video Tapes to DVD with one Button - Gearlog

Cellblock Images

Astros iPod Usage

It appears that some Astros and others is Major League Baseball are using iPods to store and watch scouting footage. This is very cool!

Slashdot | iPods Becoming Entrenched In Major League Baseball

Fox News Alert or Free Advertising?

This was a Fox News Alert yesterday at lunch. The fox ticker counted down the number of devices found and the number remaining (not yet handled by the bomb squad). Since I couldn't hear the audio, I was wondering what these mysterious packages were. Here you go:

Mysterious LED Billboards in Ten Major Cities Thought to Be Terrorism - Gearlog

This seems more like free advertising than news.

at&t from Colbert Report

For those that want to be kind...

Finally, a way to get off of friends mailing lists...

Thanks. No.

Courtesy of Larkware

Thanks for Nothing!

I believe that Bill O'Reily started the stupidity. What am I talking about?

The 10 minute free podcast. Joining the ranks of the worthless ad for membership to get access to my full show was Dan Patrick (ESPN) and Keith Olberman's Big Show. A few weeks back ESPN Radio offered this gem of a radio show (part of) as a podcast to members in the ESPN Radio Insider. Last Friday, they start advertising to check out their new podcenter. To my delight I found the Big Show was on of the podcasts included and15 minutes later I discover they include a lousy 10 minute preview of the Big Show and you still have to become a member for the whole show (which is only one hour).  The worse part was that the 10 minutes they include is the tease for the rest of the show.

My thought is that if they broadcast it over the air, on satellite radio, and over the web real-time.  They can provide the entire content as a free podcast.  I do realize that downloading a podcast does cost money in the way of bandwidth, but I am fine with leaving the orginal advertising on the show, especially for shows that are of high quality. 

This whole trial free podcast thing has to stop or at a minimum needs to be clearly stated before you subscribe to it!

 

Bye Bye Acrobat...

Working with computers on a everyday basis, you get familiar with the must have programs Office, IE, Winzip, and Acrobat.  Though you can get good alternatives, even free for Office, IE, and winzip (yes, winzip isn't free), Acrobat has always been a standard for viewing... well Acrobat files or PDF files as some might call them.  And since it is free what is the problem?

 

The problem with the most recent version (7.0x) of Acrobat is:

• Acrobat is huge (60 MB+ on the Hard Drive)
• Acrobat wants to startup when your computer does (check the startup group)
• Frequent updates
• Uses huge amounts of system memory (RAM).

With these issues and others (feel free to comment on your Acrobat issues), I was excited or maybe even more appropriately elated to find Foxit Reader a alternative PDF viewer.  Foxit Reader, like Acrobat Reader is free, but unlike Acrobat reader is only 1 MB to download.  You don't have to install Foxit, just unzip it to a location and open it once (after removing Acrobat reader) and it will open all your PDF files automatically. 

You will loss the ability to open a PDF directly in IE or Firefox (requires a download of the PDF to your desktop to view - hacks available to restore this function, but I am already tired of typing so I won't explain... Just Google it).  I also noticed a printing issue to a Konica Copier (inversed the text color to white with black boxes around it), but if you can live with these two small issues I recommend kicking Acrobat (the bloated) reader to the curb for Foxit Reader.

Thanks to DL.tv for mentioning Foxit Reader.

And for those who need to create PDF files try CutePDF Writer (also free)