Last week I stumbled on a deal over at Woot!: a refurbished Asus EeePC 900A (1gb RAM, 4gb SSD) for $160. My addiction to shiny things had me clicking on the “Buy” button before I could stop myself. Considering my original 4G Surf cost twice that (albeit over a year ago) it was too good [...]
Windows 7 RC upgrade
This past weekend I decided to jump in and start using the Windows 7 RC full-time on my home desktop. Rather than do a (recommended) clean install, I wanted to try the upgrade from Vista Home Premium. To prepare, I made a full image of my PC with DriveImage XML earlier in the week (which [...]
Windows 7 peace offering?
Microsoft made publicly available the first (only?) release candidate of Windows 7 this week, so I downloaded the image and then installed it at work on the same laptop I had put the beta on a few months ago. One interesting thing I noticed was the new login screen background, which has what appears to [...]
Finally got into the Trillian Astra beta
Thanks to a tip from Lifehacker I finally snagged an invite to the Trillian Astra beta program. It’s puzzling that the Cerulean Studios guys are just handing out the software now. I “applied” for the beta a long time ago (seems like years) and was never selected or notified. I’ve been a Trillian Pro user [...]
The DTV switchover in hurricane country
So the original February 17th deadline for the digital TV switchover has come and gone but only a handful of stations have shut off their analog signals thanks to the DTV Delay Act. Is everyone confused yet? One thing I don’t think a lot of people here in hurricane country have thought of (even myself, [...]
Windows 7 Beta
Last Friday Microsoft released the public beta of their next operating system, Windows 7. I tried several times over the weekend but was unable to download it (and I wasn’t alone). Finally this morning I was able to grab the 2.1gb ISO, and the download was surprisingly fast. I did a clean install of Windows [...]
One way to fix Vista: buy a new PC
I’ve complained about my Vista woes here before since I upgraded from XP back in April. Well, apparently the solution to my Vista problems was just to buy a new PC. Thanks to a 20% off coupon found through my slickdeals.net RSS feed, I purchased a “built-for-new” (i.e., not refurbished) Dell Inspiron 530 desktop from [...]
Interesting analysis of Gates/Seinfeld commercial
By now you’ve probably seen the new Microsoft commercial featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld which premiered during Thursday Night Football last week. When I first saw it, I wasn’t impressed. “The future. Delicious.” Seriously? This is Microsoft’s counter to Apple’s hilarious “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC” ads? Churros, shoes, and moist, edible PCs? [...]
I love my iPod. I #$%@ HATE iTunes!
I love my 30gb iPod Video … I really do. The interface is simple and elegant; the hardware is a marvel; its changed how I listen to music, and what I listen to: I don’t listen to radio at all anymore, I listen to podcasts (or when the podcasts run out, music!). So why, why, [...]
Vista SP1 “reliability” update
Microsoft has released “a reliability and performance update for Windows Vista SP1-based computers.” According to the KB article, the update specifically addresses a problem with e-mail clients and ZoneAlarm, so maybe it will fix my Vista woes (no mention of a VPN fix, though). I’ve downloaded and applied the patch, but I’m in no rush [...]