Chuck vs….
Bismo has us watching the TV spy farce ‘Chuck’ on DVD. It’s a lot of fun. Here’s a sample.
Add comment March 12th, 2010
Bismo has us watching the TV spy farce ‘Chuck’ on DVD. It’s a lot of fun. Here’s a sample.
Add comment March 12th, 2010
Some years back, Panasonic had an ISP business in Japan called hi-ho. They had a series of bizarre, addictive, animated commercials that Eric and I enjoyed watching. I remember Eric wasn’t even a teenager yet, so it had to have been a while ago. This one has a winter theme.
Eric liked this one…
…and this was my favorite.
Tech note: these are the first videos I have made using CamStudio.
Add comment March 6th, 2010
A week ago I talked about the leak around the water feed pipe coming into the basement, and my clever way of getting the water to go into a bucket.
The seal around the pipe failed during an exceptionally heavy rain that fell on top of snow, so my next challenge was to plug the gap around the pipe. I used Loctite epoxy putty.
All you have to do is cut the amount of putty you need, then kneed it to activate the epoxy. Once mixed you have 10-15 minutes to mold it before it sets. I don’t know yet whether or not the leak is fixed, but if it is all it took was half of a $4 tube of putty.
Add comment March 6th, 2010
My Blu-ray player is a Sony BDP-N460. On Amazon.com there is some controversy about its streaming video performance with Netflix Watch Instantly and Amazon Video on Demand. I also regularly use a Roku HD for both of these services, and occasionally I watch Netflix with my son’s Xbox 360. Each unit has its advantages.
I have captured 15+ minutes of streaming video from the BDP-N460, so those who may be interested in buying one can see for themselves how it works. There is an old 1 GB flash drive in the back for BD Live, that has no effect on streaming video playback. The Internet service is 25 Mbps Verizon FiOS.
Follow-up: It has been suggested that a better demonstration would be to compare the BDP-N460 to the Roku HD when playing a HD video from Netflix Watch Instantly. Here is the comparison, taken with a Canon digital camera sitting on top of a Panasonic 720p front projector.
Add comment February 14th, 2010
Microsoft may now have a worse public relations problem than Toyota has:
I don’t automatically take Windows updates. I set XP to notify me and then I click “Advanced” to review them. That way I can ignore Office-related changes that don’t apply to my home computers. But yesterday all of the updates looked like necessary security fixes, so I took them on my desktop and netbook computers. If I have to deal with this BSOD problem I will be very, very unhappy.
I don’t know how widespread these crashes are. The update was released two days ago, and news of the XP failures doesn’t seem to be in the non-technical media.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1764&tag=nl.e589
1 comment February 11th, 2010
Last week, Stephen Colbert was shamelessly (when isn’t he shameless?) begging/pleading/demanding to be given an Apple iPad — or, as he called it, the Tampad. Last night he whipped one out at the Grammys.
Add comment February 1st, 2010