Posts Tagged ‘monitor’

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?

The Guardian reports that Mary Lou Jepsen, who designed the OLPC, has now engineered a screen, dubbed the Pixel Qi, that can work as a computer monitor, a television screen, or “paper” that can be read in sunlight, similar to the Amazon Kindle.

Read the full story here.

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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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Todd Cochrane interviews Matt this year at CES Unveiled. They talk about the following:

• SE-115 Single Driver Earphone $
• Shure USB Microphone X2U (Zero Latency Monitoring) $129.00
• Shure USB PG42 (Vocals) and PG27 (Instruments)

Also, Jeffrey plays with the PG27 and PG42 mics at CES itself on the Backchannel:
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I saw you back in Comdex in 83 – You were a exciting new technology – a marvel to me with a touchscreen.

Ohhhh, ohhh

But times have changed and you are now put to the side – the integration with the phone makes it real nice – and you get tossed in the scrap pile to die.

Ohhh, ohhh

I used your applications

ohhh, ohhh

And all your revelations….

Earlier in the week I read the article “5 things the Smartphone Killed“. While I am not in total agreeance of the list just yet, I do agree on a lot of their items and I can see the Smartphone can totally engulf all the item replacements. Read the rest of this entry »

2 hours of great information. We talked about a lot of great topics.

Hour 1: Browser Plugins, Website, HTC Tilt, Hackintosh

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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: Play in new window | Download (2.3MB)

Podcast (quickcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:00 — 2.3MB)

I am reminded of the old Godzilla movies when I hear “Android”. But in all reality, this is not much different. We just don’t see a cardboard city get demolished by 3 guys dressed in costumes.

Google has given themselves not only a humungous undertaking in aquiring Android, but also a new buzzword that has been passed back and forth many times in the last few weeks. Since it’s silent aquisition back in August, the news has been anything but ‘quiet’. Companies getting on the bandwagon, putting in the hours to make this thing a success. But the real question is – Is this something that the massess want, or will this become another piece of diregarded technology.

It’s safe to say that everyone wants a phone that can do more than take phone calls. Text messaging has become more viable way of communicating. According to www.cellsigns.com, 79% of the US owns a mobile phone, and by Dec of 2006, they averaged over 18 billion text messages a month. That has been steadily growing month by month, so it may be safe to say this number is a lot bigger now. By 2010, they predict over 100 Million people will be text messaging.
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