Archived News starting from 01-21-2006 and earlier
BlogWhile checking my
referrer logs I noticed a
popular referral link that was not
referral spam. PCWORLD did an
article on December 24th ranking the 50 greatest gadgets of the last 50 years and Snappy ranked #39. Originally sold for $400 you can now find them for under $10 on eBay and in my opinion they are still the best bang for the buck for video capturing. I've used mine to power my
GnomeCam for over 4 years now. Naturally my obsession with Snappy turned into a
popular support page that now
ranks first on Google. The editor most likely included my site in their review because of the ranking, but I prefer to believe it's the in-depth analysis and hard-hitting support options available on such a sophisticated web page. Now go
buy yourself a Snappy!
Every year I make a trip to Cobo hall for the
NAIAS and once in awhile I'm impressed with the show. Sadly this year
was not one of those years. Every company had great concept cars and alot of new models being introduced but none that reached out and touched me. I did notice more turbo / supercharged models coming out to help with fuel economy and maintain performance so maybe the open wounds of the 1980's and unreliable forced induction systems are finally healing. An addict of forced induction it was nice to see more factory options appearing. The SuperChief is misleading, at first appearing to be a huge gas hog but then revealing itself to run on various fuels (including gas, ethanol, and hydrogen) making the truck itself a gas hog but the the engine powering it very eco friendly. Now they just need to drop it into a passenger car for an eco-friendly hot rod. Despite the lack of excitement, we did manage to have a great time trying to get kicked out, hiding in trunks and jumping over guardrails. Unfortunately we were not around for the
naked woman that posed on the Dodge Challenger. Yeah you thought that linked to the photo didn't you. Well if you find it link it in my comments.
After
two LAN parties in a
row of first person shooter games,
Duane and Dan decided to organize some
real FPS games out at the ranch of Dan. A bunch of coworkers and I purchased
Airsoft rifles and some face protection and we were ready to shoot each others eyes out. For our first time ever it went quite well, and was definately a good excuse to drink beer.
Today was the
Jan Lan, a now yearly event for fellow computer gamers to gather in celebration of first person shooter computer games. This year was again highlighted by Unreal Tournament 2004 and FarCry but the eyeball killing action of Quake III was not as intense. This year was also a record in terms of people attending, with 7 on 7 at once (14 active players) for a total of 17 counting the early and late shifts. The larger number of people made game setup more difficult (which cut into game time) but the additional people resulted in a higher percentage of antics. A few people also brought airsoft guns for physical first person shooting when we got bored with virtual. An excellent LAN, looking forward to the one next weekend at
Ron'sMore and more new hires at the place I work are sporting a "faux-hawk," a term given to me by a co-worker. He explained it to me after my look of confusion but instead of explaining it here I'll just
link to a definition. I thought it was a joke at first but after a google search I learned it passes as a legitimate name for a hairsyle. Ever since bell-bottoms (faux bottoms?) exploded on my college campus without warning in the late 90's I've felt out of touch with trends, so I'm sure this style has been around for awhile and I'm only now catching a whiff of it. Unfortunately I can't strive to keep up with this trend (thus falling from the elite social status I once held) due to my lack of hair down the center of my scalp. All I can do is hope for the reverse fauxhawk© to catch on soon. Yeah, that's a © you see which means I have marketing rights to this one so BACKOFF
Lastnights
new years party was a blast. A shooting range, foozball, air hockey, nintendo, fireworks and liquor kept everyone entertained. No vomiting of any kind this year and I still wound up with more liquor than when we started. A full 24 hours after the party the last partygoer left at 8:00pm tonight with a virus-free computer. Thanks to everyone that came, hope you all had fun.
Heading to lunch today, I passed an uncommon sight. A cop apparently hit someone then jumped the curb and landed in deep snow. The front end was pretty tore up despite the cop cattle guard. We lauged as we drove by and three of the four people in the car snapped a camera phone shot.
Duanehad the best one, so here it is for your enjoyment:
While talking with the Morlocks about their newfangled cable box, I decided to search around for remote scheduling for
XP Media Center and found
MCE WebGuide. It truely is a dream come true. The author took the time to make the interface mimic the MCE interface so it's easy for anyone familiar with MCE to use it. There's even a stripped down mobile version for scheduling from your phone. If you access it locally, you can also click a recorded program and play it on the computer. This could be done before through simple file sharing, but it's a much richer experience with the full interface. It requires turning on IIS and installing .NET 2.0 framework on the MCE machine, then making it accessible through your firewall if you want to schedule stuff from anywhere. Opening another port was not something I was looking forward to, but the convenience is worth the script kiddies. Oh yeah, it's free! (Although I donated, it's really that good).
Digerati \dij-uh-RAH-tee\,
plural noun:Persons knowledgeable about computers and technology.
This came across on the
word of the day today and I realized a good 75% of the people I associate with fall into this category. Apparently the word has been around for some time but I've only just now heard of it. I interpret the word to encompass geeks and nerds, but you aren't necessarily a geek or nerd if you are a digerati. Now that I'm armed with this new word expect me to overuse it immediately.
Today I assisted the
Morlocks in their move from my basement to
Beta (the house that will never sell). Due to lack of furniture, their cable modem is currently
setup on a chair and the DVR is
hooked up to a 12" TV, both perfect photo opportunities. After having them in my basement for over a month and a half, Missy and I will be going through Morlock withdrawal for awhile. Fortunately
Ron has volunteered to visit from time to time and play Planetside in my basement to help us deal with this painful withdrawal.
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