Author Archives: Guest Contributor

Verizon Wireless is launching broadband over the air. Anywhere you are you will be able to get DSL like speeds. This service was avaliable with a defunk company called Ricohet, but has resurfaced a few years later with better technology in place.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoptions/broadband/index.jsp

You’ll need the data-only Verizon Wireless PC 5220 card*
installed in your laptop
$79.99 monthly access gets you unlimited Verizon Wireless NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess service**

Speeds of 400-700 kbps, capable of reaching speeds up to 2 Mbps

In coverage areas, you can get up to 400-700k throughput, outside the service areas you can expect ISDN like speeds.

With the avaliablity of cafe internet connections like starbuck’s T mobile domination, airport hot spots, malls, stadiums, etc, this service might be a hard sell because of the high monthly service rates…

Back from hiatus!

One of the problems with living digitally is nagging little injuries keyboards and mice can give you– such as RSI, tendonitis or carpal tunnel. Up until recently, if you had one of these types of injuries, your solutions were pills or an injection into the area that was acting uppity. Now, there’s iontophoresis. What is iontophoresis you ask? Well, this website describes it as “the process by which drugs, usually dexamethasone and lidocaine, are introduced into a joint or small body part via electrical current.”

I’ll let them have non-invasive, that’s the point after all, but effective? This website indicates it is only about 57% effective. I always wonder why we have treatments with success rates like these available. Roughly one out of two is not the best odds I’ve heard. If someone asked me if I wanted to ride a plane that successfully landed 57% of the time I’d turn it down! I reckon this treatment is available and in use because they don’t tell you the effectiveness of it, they just stress that you don’t have to have an injection (which sounds good to someone like me, I am not a fan of needles).

I guess overall, if you’re afraid of injections, you should give iontophoresis a try. If you’re a fan of monster movies, might I also recommend you try iontophoresis. There’s nothing like electrical current carrying medicine into your carpal tunnel to make you feel just a little bit closer to Frankenstein’s monster.

Divx media has always been pretty cool, easy to use but never took off in the tangilble media/ entertainment market. Remember the horrible idea of requiring people to buy discs, and only allowing the consumer to watch it 5 times?

Anyways, back on point, “X Software has created a unique software product,” said DivX’s Chief Operations Officer Kevin Hell. “Video Vault allows consumers to import, convert, and organise their video library using high-quality, highly compressed DivX technology and export those videos back on a wide variety of devices including DivX Certified DVD players, Portable Video Players, Wireless Media Servers and more.”

Why would you use this? Well, if you happen to have any movies, clips, etc that you want to take off of your harddrive and save them on the web, but the best part seems to be making it stream with a multitude of different devices. Will plugin’s be an issue watching your childs first softball game on your PDA? Well, they ‘ ensure compatibility with DivX Certified devices”

Sounds cool. Good for traveling salesmen that miss out on a lot of movies at home, and require the significant other to upload the latest movie online for them to watch..Save’s some dough!

Navtech has a new technology. Well, it’s not exactly new. The mapmakers for search engines have incorporated property listings with their maps. Associated with Google and Craigslist, you can search all over America for housing in your hood. With colored tear drops that locate where current listings are available, it gives the user an easy view of properties in relation to where they are located within their cities.

Posting both for rent and for sale, it is a useful tool to see where your future home could be. Data can be sorted by location, price, rent / buy and listing date. When you click the link, it gives a little more info in the dialogue box that pops up and previews any pictures that are related to the property as well as links you with the current Craigslist listing.

One problem upon first experience was some of the listings were out of date. I clicked on multiple listings with one search and I ended up with a pretty poor ratio of actual listings that were still valid and or not canceled in Craigslist.
It’s a great start, and when it comes to property searching, pictures definitely paint a thousand words.

..In your browser window I should say. A friend of mine just bought a dog online. Enough said.

Where’s the “humanity?”

Phishing, pronounced the way it looks, is when a thief or scam artist tries to obtain your personal, sensitive information. For example, bank account numbers, credit cards, social security numbers, passwords, or anything else that only you are supposed to know. They have very clever ways of deceiving victims into thinking they are a legitimate source and therefore getting you to divulge your private statistics.

It can come in the form of an email saying they are your bank, typically requesting you resend your password and account numbers. Another technique is sending confirmation that your information is correct, including your ATM PIN and card number, or credit card numbers with the code that’s normally on the back, along with the expiration date and the full name on the card.
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As a segway to my previous entry, “Old Skool,” I only believed in keeping that SONY Walkman of mine because I did not have another tape deck in the house. (That was a shot of reality as well, for my VCR is seeing its usefullness fading other than being a glorified digital clock.)

Here comes the PlusDeck2. www.plusdeck.com
It is a tape deck for your PC. But not only does it play your old worn out cassette tapes, it also can be used to create MP3’s of the old classics in your shoeboxes. It may not be the prettiest thing to be mounting into a drive slot on your PC tower, but its definately useful for people like myself that want to put my MC Hammer collection and one hit wonder cassettes onto my computer or Ipod.

The specs:

• Records sounds, MP3 files, and internet streaming audio from PC onto Tape
• Hi quality record/playback as Hi-Fi audio
• Convert cassette tapes to into MP3 files
• Full-logic controls
• Dub voice with mic on Tape.
• Tape Speed 4.75cm/sec
• Wow & Flutter 0.09%(WRMS)
• Frequency Response 30~18,000Hz
• Separation 40dB
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio 55dB
• Fits in open 5.25″ drive bay

Are you a pack rat? Well gosh darnit, I am. Living in 686 square feet in some of the most expensive real estate in the universe doesn’t help the habit at all. As I was cleaning out my ‘beloved belongings,’ I came across my old SONY Cassette Walkman. Wow has time passed since I used you. I used to rock to Kenny Loggins and Debbie Gibson on this gem, now it was relegated to the bottom of an Office Depot fold together white moving box in the catacombs of my closet.

Memories…from the corner of my mind….Now my Ipod Mini is the new king.