It’s the end of the month, and it’s also Friday, so I’ve got some bookmarks for you. I missed a couple weeks, but I’m back with more links for you today. Sorry for the lapse! As always, if you want a link to your Twitter account, just follow me on Twitter and tweet the following:
@joetech I want a free link in your Bookmark Friday post : http://www.joetech.com/suggests/bmftw
This week, we have just one:
sajicrossroad
Bio: I am an 18 year old who loves gaming and rpg games. I am also a blogger and a tech freak. Visit my site sometime and drop of some comments.Thanks
Site: http://heartnet.pinoygaming.net/
Now for some bookmarks!
Phoenix Astronomical Society – Did you know you could see Mars last night with the naked eye? There’s so much going on if you look up at night and a friend pointed me to this site to keep more informed about local stuff going on.
Animoto – I haven’t had time to really play with it, but this looks like an awesome way to make your photos and videos fun to share.
Amazon Mechanical Turk – Mturk is often forgotten, but is a great tool for getting some help getting stuff done without having to actually hire anyone or find contractors on your own. This is especially useful for getting tons of tiny things done in bulk.
Read before you rent a car – Think your own auto insurance covers everything when you rent a car? Read the fine print. If you don’t, you could be out a lot of money if you have an accident.
SERPs page 1 ranking – While this might not apply to some of you, those with web sites should read this article on how to land on the first search results page in Google with minimal effort.
Recently, my rear projection TV went to the electronics graveyard. Because the cable company was still delivering my wife’s favorite shows as well as mine, we ran out and bought a brand new LCD television. What’s that got to do with HDMI? Two things, really. First, I didn’t have HDMI before, and second, I probably wouldn’t have seen the difference. Now I have a new TV and it looks great, so this HDMI cable from Optimization-world.com couldn’t have come at a better time.
It turned up in the mail a week or so ago, and tonight I hooked it up to give it a shot.
HDMI vs RCA
I decided to use my DVD player as a test device to connect to the TV with my new cable. Before tonight, I had it hooked up via a traditional RCA cable. It’s a little harder to see it from a photograph, but here’s a side-by-side comparison (you can see a zoomed WAY in shot here).
You can tell a little from the above photo, but it’s definitely more evident in person. The video quality improvement was noticed even in the DVD player’s splash logo screen. I’m excited to now be able to watch movies with a little more clarity.
What about those expensive cables?
Although I’m finally starting to see the differences in having HD and better cables, I’ve never really been a stickler for these things. So to be honest, I’m not qualified to really say how this $12.99 HDMI cable might stand up to one of those well-branded (and you pay for it) cables. I can’t say if spending more money on an HDMI cable will get you a better picture (and by better, I mean enough that you’ll notice).
The website gives this assurance:
Optimized Cable Company’s cables are specially designed for hi-def video and audio signals for professional and home theater installations, using 1080p, 1080i, 720p and 480p. All of our cables are made using high quality cabling, shielding and jacket material. We use gold plating for increased connectivity, longevity and signal strength.
In addition, the literature that came with this cable points out that it’s HDMI certified at the same HDMI facility as Monster HDMI cables. I couldn’t find any information on that from either site, but I did find a 120Hz refresh rate HDMI (like the one in this review) Monster cable for $79.95. Does that cable offer a difference I can see with the human eye for the extra $67? I really can’t say without comparing side-by-side, but let’s just say I’m content with the cable I have here and will probably save the money when it’s time to buy another cable.
Conclusions
While it’s hard to come to a verdict on the benefits of spending more for a fancier brand name, this cable provided great image quality and made me a bit sad that I’ve had this new TV for almost a month and have been using RCA cables. If you have the option for HDMI, make the move. If you want to do it for a really comfortable price, check out Optimization-world.com.
There are many things that are certain on the Internet. One of those things is that Chuck Norris is a cyber-idol. Another is that people will never cease to surprise me with how creative they can be. You may or may not know it, but Google offers up some very helpful (and sometimes funny) suggestions while you search and these suggestions are based on common search queries. After remembering some really funny suggested search phrases people found, I thought I’d see what I could find on my own.
Chuck Norris can…
We’ve all heard it before. Chuck Norris is a god and can do anything. What I wasn’t aware of is some of the creatively specific things people on the Internet are convinced he’s capable of. My second favorite is “Chuck Norris can divide by zero”.
My teeth…
The rest weren’t funny, but seethrough? Really? I think you should get that looked at. And how many people typed that in to make Google suggest it?
I smell like…
Some of this is gross, but maple syrup? Kinky.
I laughed so hard I…
Surely it’s a song lyric or title, but that fact that this “I laughed so hard I…” phrase made me laugh earned it a spot here.
What’s your favorite of the ones above? Have you found your own? Share in the comments!
HP is doing something pretty awesome that I’ve just got to share. They want to know what my dream office would consist of if I would just spend the day shopping at their site and just for sharing, they’re letting me give away a $100 gift card to one of my lucky readers. How cool is that? I was just thinking about getting a better home office set up, too, so the timing is perfect. I know you want to know how you might walk away with a $100 HP gift card, so let’s jump right to that first.
The $100 HP gift card contest
You know I love contests, so I’m pretty excited to point out that you can enter to win a $100 HP gift card right here on this post! You can enter by leaving a comment on this post letting me know which HP laptop is your favorite. That’s it… super simple. Of course, like with any contest, you want to make sure you adhere to the contest rules. This contest runs through September 14th, 2009, but that’s no reason to wait. Enter right now by commenting below and don’t forget to let me know which HP laptop is your favorite.
My dream office
I spend most of my time working on my couch at home. It makes it easy for me to still be near my wife while I get work done and it’s just comfortable. Working on the couch, it’s important to have a laptop that can do everything so I don’t have to move to a desktop somewhere in another room just to edit photos or something. Backups are critical and my drive fills up quickly with review videos and photos, so I picked a 2TB drive for offline storage and another for backups of the first and yet a third for incremental and full backups of the laptop. For those times I need to scan, print, or just need to work at a desk, I picked out a universal docking station, an Officejet J4580, and the monster 27″ widescreen HP monitor. Here’s the full setup I picked out:
- HP HDX 18t Premium series laptop with the Intel Core2 Extreme Mobile Processor,
8GB DDR3 memory, 1TB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive and a Blu-Ray +/-R/RW
- HP 2709m 27″ Diagonal 16:9 Full HD Widescreen Monitor
- HP Universal Notebook Stand
- HP Officejet J4580 All-in-One Printer, Fax, Scanner, Copier
- HP 2TB Personal Media Drive (x3)
The coupon
They also want to make sure you know about the HP $30 stackable site-wide coupon*. If you’re going to go shopping, you should save a little money, right? Stackable means it can be used with the other offers like free shipping on certain orders, sale prices, etc. If you visited the online store already, you probably saw what I’m talking about.
* $30 off orders $150 or greater at HP Home Store. Use coupon code SV2132. Valid through 10/31 or while supplies last. Restrictions and exclusions apply.
I need to point out something in the (not really) fine print above. While it says 10/31, I’m told it’s actually only going to last for about a week, so if you’re going to take advantage of it, do it quickly.
HP has some great computers and everything else you need to get your home office started or just upgrade your current setup. Combined with the coupon and the contest, HP really is making it easy to have a great dream office.
To be fair, he was peeing on the storage shed outside my house. Remember yesterday, when I posted the Archerfish surveillance system review? I included a video showing a guy peeing on my storage shed door, but the lighting out there is no good. The Archerfish system gave me a great first line of defense, providing me with proof that it was a person (not just a large dog), a general build of the guy, and more importantly, a good timeline. Now I just needed a good photo of him to go with it. This morning, at about 3:30 AM, I got my photo.
It’s not the best photo, but I’m working on cleaning it up and his face is burned into my memory. If I see him again, I’ll know. This guy has been peeing on our storage shed door for months, and it’s been happening more lately. About a week ago, I noticed the same thing happening to one of my new neighbors. After such a long time, we finally got the video with the help of Archerfish and filed a police report. Without some way to ID the guy, though, we couldn’t officially do anything. More importantly, he didn’t know he was caught and would surely keep coming back. That’s when my wife and I put together a plan to get the guy’s face on film while also letting him know he was busted. We didn’t know if he was bigger than me or if he’d try to fight my camera away or what. More concerning to me was the idea that he would walk by, do nothing wrong this time, and see me standing there with a camera. I didn’t want to tip him off before getting my photo and my chance to confront him. So we came up with a (hopefully) solid plan.
We took a nap, woke up at 2:30 and headed outside. I armed myself with my Canon Rebel XTi DSLR, a Pure Digital Flip Ultra video camera, my phone, and my LED Lenser flashlight and jumped in the back seat of the car. I rolled the back window half way down so I could get a good photo and stayed low. I was in a pretty uncomfortable position for about 45 minutes, but I was ready to pounce if he came by. Luckily, he dropped by, as expected, and walked toward me, between my wife’s car and the storage shed. For a second, I was certain he saw me because he turned and looked right at me. Then, he proceeded to urinate on my storage shed door as he had done many times. I sat up, pointed the camera out the window, and fired off a shot to get his attention (the flash was on, of course). He turned to face me, and the look on his face as the second picture snapped was priceless. Though it was a split second, it seemed like a long time that he sat there dazed before I said “don’t come back”, which was his cue to take off. I jumped in the front seat, started the car, and followed. I saw a silver truck pull out quickly and as I followed it, it sped up, eventually losing me in the neighborhood when I stopped to grab my phone.
After months of wondering and then worrying that I might never catch this guy, I finally got him! The best part is that he looked ashamed and scared that he got caught. I have a feeling he won’t be coming back. I’ll leave you with this video recap of what Archerfish confirmed was happening regularly outside my home.
I’d love to have a name for this guy, so if you recognize him, email joe@joetech.com.
