Technology

The wife has had a few issues with her computer lately. I don’t mess with it anymore, thus we have less stability issues because I am not installing the latest and greatest thing. She used to have AOL on the computer with a free version of an antivirus but we aren’t using it anymore so I need to install something else. With the girls surfing the net on that computer it is almost imperative that I get antivirus software on it. There are several sites that offer free antivirus downloads including the one I linked to at freeantivirusinfo.com

The offer the free Norton Antivirus download on their pages, you can see some reviews if you haven’t ever run Norton, which is one of the top of the line AntiVirus programs out there. It’s been updated to be compatible with both Windows XP and Vista, and now includes unlimited Virus definition updates for free. Up until recently you were only able to get access to six months of definition updates.

I don’t guess I will have any free time until Monday to install it, but I definitely need to get it loaded on to her computer as soon as I possibly can.

My Linksys router finally died a painful death or something last week. I don’t think I took a lightning strike or anything, but I have had intermittent problems over the last few months, but I honestly thought it was Charter Cable giving me the issues. I had been using a wireless router as just an access point that was plugged into the router, so rather than going out and spending another $65 I ended up using the wireless router. to get things up and running again. It kind of pisses me off because I like Linksys and I will probably eventually go back and get another one. Unfortunately my warranty was long gone on the one that died.

I was wondering where all these extra google hits were coming from. Apparently everyone is looking for Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Spoilers which of course I posted something about back in May. It’s actually just a short post and a link to Harvey’s site. Hopefully he’s getting a few hits off of it as well.

Technorati : Harry Potter

Just recently Verizon has started rolling out EVDO in my area. I am ecstatic. I like being able to access the internet over bluetooth when there is no other reliable connection around such as in my backyard or when Charter is down, and this is much faster.

I have also taken to watching the evening news when I am outside smoking as well. I don’t watch much TV, and damn sure not the news but this is different. I used to hate the little hand held TVs as well, and even though I love gadgets I would never pay money for something like that, but watching it on my teeny tiny screen just seems so appropriate for me. I don’t know what it is, but hey keeping up on current events on some medium besides the Internet is probably a good thing.

I am going to start piecing together a couple of computers over the next few months. One is going to be the new media PC for the living room and another for the bedroom, but if there is any extra left over I want to upgrade my computer. I am really interested in getting a new Viewsonic monitor, or maybe even a couple since my Nvidia card has dual head output. My old boss had a really nice and huge Viewsonic flat-screen that I want to get. Oh well, mine will be the last to get upgraded. I will probably look into getting the wife a laptop before I consider getting myself anything new. Maybe by Christmas since things seem to be going so well at work.

I’m a gadget freak. I blog about it every once in awhile and even started blogging on a tech site because I love them so much. They don’t even have to be useful things, although as I get older I tend to ignore most of the bling and other useless junk and want stuff that I will use every day. My current wish list includes a new cell phone, one of those really nice radar detectors, a new media center PC, and maybe some Bluetooth stereo headphones. I hate earplugs and those little bitty earphones that come with mp3 players, but I like a nice set of headphones that actually sit on my head. I would only end up using them here at my computer, but at least it would quiet things down for everyone in the living room 🙂

One thing that I think is really cool that I have not had the opportunity to purchase is a digital picture frame like the ones over at Digital Framez. I toyed with the idea awhile back of making one myself using a linux based PC and a touch screen but it is pretty cost prohibitive just for a few photos. I did use my 3Com Audrey for the same thing for awhile, but it certainly doesn’t even look like a picture in a frame. Some of the digital photo frames over there are just really sharp.

Check this one out for instance,

it’s a ten inch frame with remote and includes a 256 meg SD card to put your photos on. It includes a 5 in 1 card reader in case you have a different photo card you want to use, a USB post, infrared remote, stereo audio output for earphones or speakers, a built-in speaker and will play back jpegs as well as mpeg movies. There are a few different styles to choose from. This thing is pretty cool for just under $200. I might be able to put something together for $200 but it certainly wouldn’t have as many features or look nearly as nice. The next time you are looking for digital frames then one place you might want to shop is Digital Framez.

For some reason I am getting an error 500 when I try and visit the archives page or my category archives. They are dynamically generated in order to speed things up here and they have been doing a pretty good job of it. Not sure why I am getting the error, once I am back in town I will take a look and see if I can get it fixed up. I also need to upgrade to the next beta release, hopefully that will take care of it. I may also need to clean up the sql databases. I don’t have the link to my cpanel and stuff on the laptop or a decent ftp client so it will have to wait until then.

Earthfrisk is one of those Social Bookmarking sites that are around on the net, but this one also combines media with it. I just ran across it today and so far it looks pretty cool.

User post different links and other media and you pick the ones you are interested. It’s a good way to check out new content that you may not have seen before. Some of the best content on the Internet can be found here. You can post links to blog entries, articles, and videos as well. There are already a ton of links there to check out and joining is easy. You can also post your own pictures as well.

What’s cool is that it’s not only links but an active community where you can join in on the discussion on various subjects and categories as well as vote on them. If you want other users to vote on your articles they can be posted as well.

What it comes down to is that EarthFrisk is not controlled or guided by the admins but by the users themselves. Anyway, it’s a pretty cool place to find interesting topics and links, so go check it out.