My home theater setup was graced with both a DVD Changer and a TiVo unit this past Christmas. The changer is the Panasonic DVD-CP67S, a sleek, silver, 5-disc progressive scan unit with all the trimmings. In addition to DVDs, it will play audio CDs, VCDs, MP3 CDs, and Windows Media discs. Using the component video …
I found out quick that using the Microdrive along with my iPAQ to play MP3s on the road wasn’t a perfect solution. The Microdrive would only hold about 50 songs, suck the iPAQ’s batteries dry, and using Windows Media Player is not exactly my idea of fun. At the same time, I was looking at …
Since I have several gadets that use the CompactFlash standard for expansion media, I purchased a 340mb IBM Microdrive during a recent promotional offer ($50 rebate, so the hard drive, plus a USB CF reader, was only $100). This tiny, quarter-sized hard drive is amazing. Used with my Pocket PC, I can store a few …
My USB hub was a Christmas present. With the digital camera, wireless network device, web cam, and iPAQ all vying for the two USB ports on my PC, I was getting a little sick of constantly switching cables around. This powered four-port hub from Belkin solved that problem and brought the ports up onto my …
Once I got broadband access, I decided to try out one of those eyeball-shaped Internet cameras. I chose Logitech’s USB QuickCam Pro. It was a snap to connect and configure: install the software, plug in the USB cable, and you’re up and running. Using SpyCam I was able to set up my own WebCam! It …
This is technology of a different sort, but still cool. While in Arizona earlier this year on vacation, my wife and I stopped at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. The visit rekindled our childhood interests in astronomy. For our combined birthdays, we bought an Orion XT6 Dobsonian: a Newtonian reflector telescope with a 6″ mirror …
Having a home network is very cool and convenient, but having to switch back and forth between my main PC and my laptop on the same desk was getting to be a pain, literally. The placement of my laptop on my desk left no room for my legs and was causing me to hunch over …
Over the Millenium New Year’s weekend I was bitten by the home theater (or HT) bug. Since at the time I already had a DVD player in my laptop (using Margi’s DVD-to-Go, now discontinued) and a decent big screen TV, I opted for a receiver. I chose the Pioneer Elite VSX-24TX. It’s a Dolby Pro-Logic/Dolby …
Since I have a digital video camera of course I want to be able to edit video on my PC. Since most digital camcorders have IEEE 1394 ports (also called Firewire (by Apple), or iLink (by Sony)), I also have a Firewire card: the inexpensive PYRO 1394DV card from ADS Tech. The PCI card provides …
My digital camcorder is the Sony DCR-TRV8. It’s a miniDV camera complete with 10x optical zoom (120x digital zoom, but who uses that?), digital and picture effects, 12/16-bit PCM sound, audio/video output, 3″ flip out LCD screen, and a ton of other cool features. Since it’s now several years old, it’s been supplanted by much …