New hardware!

I love the smell of new hardware in the morning . . . and the afternoon . . . and the night. We'll just say I love new hardware.

Our latest acquisition is a new notebook for Sarah for her academic pursuits in Collage Station.

It is a HP dv2000 with all the goodies. I slaved over the product configurator for hours, even days coming up with the perfect balance of cool-power-value. One of the cool features is the case. It uses some kind of "inlay" process to get this silver swirling pattern in the shiny plastic/metal-like substance. Click on the picture to get a better look.

I am not sure I should let Sarah take it, at least not right away. Perhaps it should spend some time with me so it can be properly broken in and appreciated before it is released into the harsh environment which is collage. Yeaaaaaah that's the ticket!

Something to think about

OK, so no one guess the name of that cartoon dog. It's from Bugs Bunny, he is Marvin the Martians dog, K-9.

Now if you didn't know it was related to Bugs Bunny or Marvin but you really wanted to know who he was, how would you have found out? Searched the internet for it? Cartoon dog?

One of the next important developments in internet search will be (should be) searching on pictures, graphics and symbols. You would be surprised how often you would use it. Right click on a picture and get back information on who was in the picture, when and where it was, maybe the context of what was going on at the time, links to related pictures, news articles or web sites that used that picture . . . . on and on.

Back in the day, the internet was only text. Only academics and government types used it, then the graphical browser was invented and the WWW was born. People besides researchers and defense experts saw the value and joined in. To make another jump applications (including search) need to work with images (still or moving) and audio the same way they do with text. It's something to think about.

Name that Toon

Look familiar?

Do you know his name?

Clicker

I just got this cool universal remote for my birthday. They are made by Logitech, this one is called the Harmony 360 because it not only controls TVs, stereos, DVDs etc, it also controls my Xbox 360.

You program it using the internet and PC so it can be constantly updated as new components come out. Also it remembers your configuration so it's easy to set back up when your batteries run out.

The coolest feature are the "Activities" that will do things like;

• turn on the TV
• change the input to DVD
• turn on the Stereo
• change the input to DVD
• and turn on the DVD player

Then it's smart enough to know when I push the volume up button, I want to talk to the stereo, not the TV.

It has all kinds of cool features like that. If you need a universal remote

Who is this guy?

Does Wee Willie Webber mean anything to you? It might if you lived within 100 miles of the Susquehanna Valley in the early 70s. And if you knew Mr Webber then you would surely recognized this super hero and his alias.

On the road again

Katie and her bass (it's not a fish Keith) travel to Texas Tech Univ. in Lubbock Tx. for a Jazz camp and Linda and I get to drive her.

For youse guys up in New Jersey, this little trek halfway across the state of Texas is like driving from Cape May to Newark and back twice. And since we will be coming right back the next day, that would be 8 trips between Cape May and Newark this weekend!

For our driving pleasure we will be listening to The DiVinci Code. Linda and I have already read the book and seen the movie but the audio books really help pass the time in the car. This one is only 16 hrs so we will need another one for the pickup trip.

We only listen the the unabridged versions of books. When we have a really long hall I threaten to break out the nuclear option - the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This massive collection spans 56 CDs. By the time we finish it we are all speaking middle English like elves and hobbits and need to buy new tires for the car. You should try it!

His name is - Joey

While enduring my 14th week of agony with Time Warner I got a call from "Joey". A man, soon to become a legend. He spoke like a normal person (not the usual TW torture artists). He asked simple PERTINENT questions. Within 60 seconds we had a Mr. Spock mindmeld going. 13.6 seconds later we had discovered the problem. 5 minutes after that it was solved.

It seems that unbeknownst to me, my service had been downgraded to a "lite" high speed service. Something like a really fast turtle. I wasn't even aware such a useless service existed much less that I had been crippled by this "service" on purpose. Joey clicked the regular service button on his system then put in a special code that gave us the regular service at the lite price for a year.

He shall be called Joey. He gave me his email address. He gave me his cell phone number. He probably won't last the month.

p.s. Stu, thatnks for the tip on the Director

Summer Music

These guys arn't "new" anymore but I still find them fun. I am speaking of Gnarls Barkly Their most popular song is Crazy. Here is a link to a 30 second sample on Amazon.

Click here

It may only be valid for a few days


Good summer fun music even down to the name - Gnarls Barkly