My computer’s power supply, an Antec NeoPower 480, failed last weekend. It is two years old, which means that it is still under warranty. I contacted Antec through their website and received an RMA number within a couple of days; the power supply is now on its way back to Antec. Fortunately, I still have [...]
My Netgear WGR614 v6 router had served me faithfully for about 1.5 years, but it has been acting up lately: slowing traffic significantly, dropping connections, etc. This morning, it stopped routing packets to the WAN entirely. Will it work when I get home tonight, after being turned off all day? Perhaps. And if it does, [...]
I recently installed McAfee VirusScan 2006 and Personal Firewall Plus 2006. Around this time, I discovered that my ATI video card’s control panel, Catalyst Control Center, stopped functioning: it wouldn’t even open.
It turns out that Catalyst Control Center needs access to the Internet, and Personal Firewall Plus 2006 was blocking it, apparently by default. Click [...]
The following phone conversation just occurred:
Coworker: “I want to buy a new video card.” [NVIDIA GeForce 7800, just released]
Wife: “You just bought a new card. [NVIDIA 6800GT, Dec. 2004] Play with that for a while.”
Have you ever wanted to shoot that virus-ridden, evil-doing box of electrons on your desk, but had second thoughts? These guys aren’t bothered with things like “second thoughts”…
(Be sure to check out the movie at the end!)
Update: For those of us who are offended by the American flag burning that happens every time Newsweek publishes [...]
I’ve been carrying my headphones back and forth to work in my tank bag. This worried me a bit, because nice headphones are relatively delicate. I looked around, and bought this headphone bag from www.goodcans.com. It is a 10″x10″ nylon bag with a soft lining and a velcro closure. It fits my Grados and iPod [...]
Steve Jobs has confirmed that the Mac will transition to Intel hardware in the next year:
In a stunning move, Steve Jobs announced that Apple will begin transitioning to Intel x86 CPUs in its computer products next year. Apple has been disappointed with the performance of the PowerPC 970, especially IBM’s inability to deliver a 3.0GHz [...]
This week marks the 35th anniversary of the jinxed Apollo 13 mission. IEEE’s Spectrum is running a great article about the engineers and controllers at Mission Control during those harrowing days titled, Apollo 13, We Have a Solution. The training, knowledge, and preparation of those controllers and engineers saved the lives of Jim Lovell, Fred [...]
Now that I’ve lived with my iPod mini for a month, I have formed some opinions regarding the device.
The iPod plus my Grado headphones together generally put out very good sound. Additionally, most of my music has been ripped at 160kbps rather than the standard 128kbps for improved sound quality. With this setup, I’m hearing [...]
It’s widely acknowledged that the earbuds that Apple includes with the iPod basically suck. In my own experience, they have no bass response at all–and they hurt my ears. So I went shopping for headphones. My basic requirements were:
Full-size, over-the-ear headphones
Good sound
Comfortable (one would think this would be automatic with full-size headphones, but alas…)
Under $100
First, [...]