Posts Tagged ‘help’
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.
2 Comments »This week for TVazine, we go through a review that I thought was all but lost. A couple months ago, a hard drive crashed and with it – a few of the video reviews I did early on that were not published yet. However, I do back up systems, and found that this video was saved in a backup I did the month before.
It was a copy that I already edited down, so I couldn’t put it into 720 format, but I was able to do a little tweaking on it. I also am playing with some new title intros, so let me know if you like the new intro.
In the meantime, we review the Fretlight guitar – a special guitar that connects to the PC via USB, then lights up the fretboard to direct you on how to play certain songs. This guitar is great for learning and comes with software to help out.
We look at the guitar and where it stands as a musical instrument and a teaching tool.
1 Comment »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?
No Comments »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.
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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?
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No Comments »It’s the Podcasts’ 1 YEAR Anniversary -GeekKon – CES – Interview with Walt Ribeiro – Future Segment – Paythefan – TechPodcast Roundtable
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The Economy is in Danger. Banks and Institutions are in a financial pickle. With the fall of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of bad business decisions and a Blind eye to investors building more homes than Americans need, financial institutions could collapse upon themselves. To protect their money, they could make it harder for Businesses to get loans.
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No Comments »It is with great pleasure to say we have aligned ourselves with Careersaver.com, the leader in Adaptive Learning. CareerSaver is the place to go if you are an IT professional that is working on getting certified. With Interactive Software, Audio, Video, Books and Expert advice, CareerSaver is committed in getting you, the IT professional, the tools to pass that next Certification Exam.
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The big word of the week is “RAIN”. We got a lot of it. It pretty much slowed everything down to a crawl yesterday. The main Interstate was closed for only a few mile stretch, but in order to get everyone to their destination, they had to go on the only alternate route. And that was already crippled because of construction.
So driving up north last night went from a 1 hour trip to 3. Today is not better, for someone apparently caused a big accident on that only road. I think I’ll just fly in….
I’ve been playing with a band called “The Trailer Kings”. Pretty cool stuff – all straightforward cover music. We had fun at the Edge of the Dells last night and tonight it’s the Baja (If I can get to it). Will be lots o fun. I may need a place to crash tonight though….
No Comments »Web Apps. Can we live without them anymore? What did we ever do without them? Webware put out it’s top 100 and we’re going to go through them and see what was good, what was bad, and what was… well, you know..
Webware is a site dedicated to watching what is popping up out on the internet. Any application that a web developer puts out will be checked out and reported on by this organization. It’s a good thing, too. There are so many out there, it’s tough to keep up.
On April 21st, Webware put out the list of the top 100 apps. There were ten categories, each with ten winners. There were 5000 nominees, and 300 apps were chosen as finalists. Over 1.9 million votes were cast to dwindle this list down to 100.
According to Webware, most of the winners were also winners last year. There were a couple apps that pushed their way onto the list. This might not be as easy next year as Web Apps are expected to be more widely used within 2008.
So here are the top picks:
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No Comments »The story of Exploding laptops is not a new one. The Lithium battery in your laptop expands to the point where it breaks the encasement. Dell, Sony and IBM ended up recalling a series of batteries to prevent computer loss.
Today scientists announced they had made a solid, non-flammable polymer to replace the liquid electrolyte that is used to make the batteries. The science is new, and wont see the light of the public eye for 3 to 5 years, mainly because the polymer needs work to hold a longer charge. However, will this help the laptop not explode?
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Podcast (quickcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:00 — 2.3MB)
3 Comments »
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