I’m starting on another “refresh” of my workspace at home: this is becoming a distressingly regular (annual?) activity that I’m hoping to put an end to soon. The objective this year is pretty much a total rebirth: minimizing/reducing, painting, and possibly re-flooring and new furniture. The first step was to excise a bunch of “stuff” from this rather small room, and to get ready for the painting which I intend to do myself.
I have been following the development of solid state drives (SSD) for what seems like decades. The advantages of no moving parts and virtually zero random access latency are compelling, but the prices and capacities have not been where I needed them to be for practical use. That is nearly no longer true and SSDs are entering the mass market level for some particular purposes (notably laptops). Naturally, since it is on the leading edge, I’m all over it: I just bought a 128 GB SSD on my own dime for my work laptop.
Continue reading Solid State Drives (SSD) and real-world performance
The folks at Ars Technica would like you to believe that now is the time to buy a PS3. My interpretation of their thesis: the PS3 doesn’t really suck that bad, and if you don’t buy it you will lack a full understanding of the current “state of the art” in console gaming. I find the reasoning in the article to be rather shoddy, really: it only applies if you have a bucket of money sitting unused and don’t already have a console. I particularly don’t like the implication that I’m being shallow or ignorant by making the decision *not* to buy a PS3.
A week ago I mentioned that I had purchased a lamp that simulates a sunrise. I promised at the time that I would provide some kind of a review after a week or two of use, and I think I’ve experienced enough with this lamp to offer some reasonable impressions. The results are good: waking up to ersatz sunlight helps make my day a bit better.
Continue reading Observations after a week of waking up to the (simulated) sun
I have been contemplating acquisition of a “sunrise simulator” lamp for a while, and finally got one yesterday. The NatureBright Per3 is more or less a bright LED lamp with a clock attached. A bit modern looking…but not too garish:
After a single day of use, I can’t really offer a review, but I can say this: I’m awake, and probably in a better mood than I normally am at this time of day.
I decided to play a nice, enjoyable game on my XBox 360 tonight after a week filled with Vista and PC hardware problems. And what should greet me?
Yes, the fated Red Ring of Death. And yes, I took the pictures that went into the above animated GIF, so this is my actual RROD 😉
Continue reading It just can’t get any better… XBox 360 RROD ends my lovely week
A lot of folks these days have at least part of their home network on wireless ethernet, or WiFi. I have two wireless access points in my house, for example, and plan on adding a third. Wireless networking has security considerations: unless your WiFi network is encrypted, someone outside your home can use your bandwidth or, potentially worse, intercept your data. Wireless security was improved significantly a few years ago with the introduction of WPA (WiFi Protected Access) after the previous security method, WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol) was “cracked”. Since then, wireless networking has been pretty much secure against any intrusion. Until now…
Continue reading Thin wedge driven into WPA wireless security protocol: TKIP compromised
I like coffee. I’m not a connoisseur: I prefer something like a basic arabica blend- more or less what Tim Hortons or McDonald’s serves. I may not define good coffee as something pooped out of a civet’s butt, but a good cup of coffee (based on my definition of “good”) is a crucial part of every day. I drink perhaps three or four 12+ ounce cups per day in total: more than I should, but less than some.
Irene can’t drink coffee any more, so brewing an entire pot each morning is not efficient. And a regular brewer isn’t very effective at producing a couple of cups- the magic that takes place when the hot water passes through the ground beans loses effectiveness. And instant coffee is barely a substitute: yes, I drink it, and it serves the minimal purpose of something calling itself “coffee” I.E.: jumpstarts my brain, but I can’t really say I enjoy it very much.
As a result of these factors, I’ve been exploring various single cup brewing systems. The “to go cup” brewers you can buy for $15 suffer from more or less the same problem as trying to run two cups through a brewer designed for a pot: the water and the coffee don’t intermingle quite the way they are supposed to. That leaves fancy gizmos like the Tassimo and Keurig single cup brewers.
I was visiting a news site with my OSX Leopard based MacBook Pro two days ago and was prompted to install RealPlayer in order to watch a video. I’ve never had any particular problems with RealPlayer in the past, so I said “yes”, and didn’t really think much more of it.
Continue reading RealPlayer causes Mac Leopard network problems?
