Posts Tagged ‘computers’

You might remember the products. You might remember the hype. Then, you are tooling down highway 41 years later and all of a sudden you think to yourself – “Hey, whatever happened to…”

Failed ideas. Maybe it was a great idea, but wasn’t made right, or design errors brought it down. Maybe it was just a bad product. Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see if we cannot repeat these errors again.

Oh yeah, why 16? Well because we could.

The Computer Watch: Whether it was the Ruputer, the MSN Direct ‘Smart’ Watches, the Timex Data Link Watch or another gadget watch – BTW – I remember having a “Transformers watch”. It was awesome!

Still, the Dick Tracey style communication watches, the “Computer on a wrist”, never really hit it off. I even remember a watch that gave you directions. You would put in the paper tape and turn a little dial to indicate where you are and where you are going.

Read the rest of this entry »

Then I fixed it.

The new laptop arrived Friday afternoon. I spend Friday afternoon and evening doing basic configuration and Saturday fine-tuning it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Day Off - Sort of
A late Ramblings this week as I decided to stay offline last week. It was a long week and I was playing all weekend. It has been a while since I last took more than 24 hours off a computer, so that is a big feat for me.

HP Tech Forum

I had a fun time talking and working with Andy McCaskey and Kara Karsten with SDRNews. We had such a blast. We also put forward the mobile interview booth rig. We call it the “MacGyver” rig. Nonetheless, it was connected to uStream and we were able to conduct a few interviews for the event. Check out all the info on the Twitter log at #HPTF.

Great to meet some new bloggers: Shane Pitman of Neowin, John Obeto of AbsoluteWindows. We had a great week along with Halley, Tom, Calvin and Rebecca from HP and Buzzcorps.

Fryes at Vegas

Also got to go to Vegas again. While we didn’t run around town as much as with CES (everything was contained in Mandalay Bay), we did venture out to go to Fryes. It’s actually my first time at Fryes and I was pretty impressed. Of course, it was Vegas, so the store has a big slot machine up in it’s store front and stacks of coins as barrier posts. The inside was very big and complete. Andy had to get a new scratch drive since the one he brought died. We got what we needed and headed back to the safe Mandalay Bay

Mandalay Bay

Wow. This is a city contained in a building. That is, if you have the money for it. My room – which I call the “Bob Newhart” room – was decked with all the amenities. TV in the bedroom and the bathroom. You can connect an external device easily and be watching a movie while soaking in the tub.

The casino area was always hoppin. There were bands both on the “Sushi Pop” and “House of Blues” stages. Restaurants all over the building. A small walk and you are at “theHotel”. They even have their own beach – where we watched the Beach Boys play a set. Well, it was a short set for me, since I had a flight to catch.

Podcast on the show floor

I had the unique opportunity to record the show from the HPTF Expo floor. It was great because I didn’t have to set up a rig, do a show, rip it down and go to another area to post. I would also like to thank Simon Calder for helping out with the show notes so I could focus on other things.

What I got out of the show

Of course, there were a lot of things I have learned from this event. I have run server rooms before, but I was a little out of touch with the current technologies. FCoE was the big one I learned about. Also building a server is a lot different than before. Greener, more powerful and reliability were the best parts.

The Keynotes were just amazing. Learning about how these big companies are working on green technologies is amazing. Dr. Michio Kaku and his views for the future were amazing. A “Smart toilet” is definitely something to get excited about.

The Weekend

I got back to Madison at 8 AM on Friday. It was a long trip (5 hours, turned into 7 due to timezone changes). What was worse was on the trip back, I was not really impressed with the airline I flew. The one thing I noticed is they were not really friendly.

An example: We flew through a couple storm fronts during the trip. Most airlines would say “This is the Captain. We are seeing some turbulance, so please remain in your seats and buckle your belts. Thank you.”

The airline I was on? Well: “Please buckle your seatbelts”.

The airline also had screens drop from above. While I would normally invite this, I was in a evening flight. I had difficulties sleeping when something like a video monitor is playing. Of course, I didn’t pack my sleeping mask. Therefore, I was stuck watching “Confessions of a Shopoholic”. While other people loved this movie, I didn’t find it as interesting.

I got home around 9 AM, in which I proceeded to collapse on the bed for a couple hours. Woke up, caught up on some work I missed during the week, then headed off to play a show. Since it was out of town, I had to pack for another night away from home.

Band Gigs

Saturday was a day of playing. We played a friends graduation, then it was up to the Dells for our regular show at the Baja bar. There were 4 different Bachelorette parties that night and they were not in the Baja at the same time. As one party left, the next one showed up. Crazy.

New Guitar

While we were in transit to the Graduation party, we stopped at a local music store. There, I found a used Acoustic / Electric guitar. I picked it up as a spare for future shows. It needs some work to it, but not much to make it ready to play out.

Lazy Sunday? Not.

Of course, the day started out with this post. A quick breakfast, then it’s getting things ready for the week. Have to work on “Week in Tech History”, then I have to figure out how to put together the new video studio. Lots of soundproofing to do.

I suppose I should get to it. Thanks again to everyone for a great week. How do you top that?

High school student builds computer cooled by mineral oil. Everything is submerged except the power suppy and the harddrives. Read the full story here:

When Brandon Glorioso told his teachers he was going to build a computer inside a fish tank filled with liquid, some of them said it would never work.

Two weeks later, he proved them wrong. Glorioso, a senior at North Carroll High School, is already playing games on his custom computer, which he built entirely out of spare parts he had lying around the house. The only cost he incurred was $94 for a 4.5-gallon bottle of mineral oil to fill the tank.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been testing a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook.

Here’s what I found.

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.7MB)

How to put a PC in a car? How about a full dashboard that is monitored by PC? Hyundai wants to help out.

Hyndai KIA Computer Display

Andy McCaskey talks with Michael about how computers are getting integrated with vehicles. Wifi in the car and a great alarm system are some of the features they talk about.

Save 10% on your Godaddy.com order using Promo Code ‘Pod125′

Visit Rawvoiceoffers.com and use the Promo code ‘HYUNDAI’ for more info.

During CES, they gave both reporters and bloggers chances to catch up and upload their content through the respected lounges. During the week, these lounges uploaded tons of reviews, audio comments, videos and a lot more. The fine folks at CEA even provided computers as to work from (if needed).

We take a quick walk through the Blogger lounge.

This week in tech history in 1998, Apple announced it would discontinue the Newton OS and handheld. Steve Jobs said in a press conference that Apple would be focusing on Macintosh computers.

Other interesting notes in Tech History this week – There are 8 days of tech history – Stage 6 shuts down, Netscape goes Open Source, Netscape is discontinued. Intel introduces the PIII processor and “Gigabyte” – a female Belgium hacker is arrested. She hacked to show the public that girls can be hackers, too.

Brought to you by GotoMeeting – Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days – No CC needed: GoToMeeting.com/techpodcasts.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.0MB)

Gotta love the folks at HP. They have some great new note and netbooks. In this Primary Channel, Andy McCaskey talks with Kevin about what they are showing off at CES. Notebooks that can match a Macbook Air and Netbooks that are even smaller. Someone please get me one?

Save 10% on your Godaddy.com order using Promo Code ‘Pod125′

Visit Rawvoiceoffers.com and use the Promo code ‘HP’ for more info.

I started a new group a couple months ago to not only get new podcasters interested, but also have existing podcasters get together and talk about different aspects. I decided that if it’s a meeting about Podcasting, it should be a podcast itself. Therefore, we recorded the first Madison Podcasters Group Podcast.

I decided that since this isn’t really a centric item and there is a lot of good information, then it will be added to the Quickcast. It will also have it’s own group, too.

The subject of the first podcast group – how easy it is to set up and make a podcast. We talk in general about setting up a mic to a computer and recording it, how much it’s going to cost you and how difficult it really is to set up a podcast.

There is some great information out of this hour. The sound is a bit ‘hummy’, I have tried to work out the noise. It is chuck full of some great material, so please bear through the hum and check out the show.

Next month’s meeting will be: How to host your podcast. 3-03-09

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (33.7MB)

Brought to you by Citrix’ GotoMeeting – Free 30 day trial – No CC needed: GoToMeeting.com/techpodcasts.

You’ve been working at your job for years. You’ve made lots of money for the company and are the most loyal employee they know of. Yet, tough times are ahead and the company decides you are one of the 10% they have to let go to stay afloat. It’s a frustrating thing to have happen, but what are you gonna do?

Now let’s flip that: You are at your job and survive the cut, but now you are in the position to take up a part of that person who was laid off.

As companies like Intel and Google are looking at trimming the fat, it makes the average consumer wonder – what will our customer experience be without 10% of the workforce?

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.1MB)