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11 items tagged "Toys"

Jeremy Zawodny's blog

Pandora vs. CDs

Posted: August 24th, 2009, 9:43am CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

I've been using Pandora for streaming music on-line for a while now. I enjoy it so much that I pay the roughly $5-$6 per month for a higher quality stream and because I want to do my part to make sure they stay viable as a business.

What's so great about it?

Pandora is unobtrusive, easy to use, and really good at finding similar and related music that I'm likely to enjoy. I'm always amazed at how good it is when I create a new station.

Just a few weeks back, I told Pandora to create a "U2" station. A few hours later, I realized that I'd been listening to an excellent selection of tunes.

I never get bored of the music on Pandora. It's just a part of my day, always playing good music to keep me happy while I'm coding or fixing things.

I feel like an idiot for the thousands of dollars I spent on CDs years ago, not to mention all the time and effort that went into digitizing that library multiple times (my own code, iTunes, WinAmp, etc.).

If I thought I could get any real money for my 550 CDs, I'd just sell 'em all and send the Pandora crew a nice check with a note: "Keep up the great work."

If you've not yet used Pandora, I highly recommend it. You'll be surprised by how often it plays music you like, even with the most minimal input from you.

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Hulu Desktop vs. Hulu in Browser vs. Nexflix (Flash vs. Silverlight?)

Posted: May 29th, 2009, 12:46pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

For a while now we've had a computer hooked up to our large screen television and stereo system. A couple months back I upgraded the motherboard, CPU, and memory so that we could start using the Windows 7 release candidate and Windows Media Center on it. The new hardware also meant we could play back high definition video.

Aside from playing back photos in Picasa and various video files, we also stream music using Pandora or play from our library using WinAMP or Media Center. For streaming video, we'd been using Hulu a bit (which is Flash based) and Netflix (which is Silverlight).

Yesterday we tried out Hulu Desktop and attempted to watch the Glee pilot. Hulu desktop crashed on the first run after install (could be a Windows 7 issue) but then ran fine upon restarting it. But the video quality was low and quite jerky. It used a lot of CPU too. This made me wonder if it was really taking advange of the video capabilities of our system.

It was bad enough that we switched to watching the show using the browser-based streaming. Hitting the full-screen high quality version acually played better there and used less CPU. So the desktop application clearly needs some performance tuning.

I compare all of this with Netflix streaming which uses Silverlight and the difference is clear, even in 720p resolution we tend to keep our display set to. Microsoft has done a good job of tuning Silverlight for video. If I recally, they have very good H264 support built-in.

That said, I'm glad to see Hulu Desktop out. It makes a lot of sense to have an app that can be controlled via IR remote instead of the wireless keyboard we had been using.

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I love my Samsung NC10 Netbook

Posted: May 2nd, 2009, 12:26pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

A couple months back I got a Samsung NC10 Netbook. I had been on the fence for a long time, trying to decide among the an Eee PC from Asus, the MSI Wind, and the Samsung NC10. Right about the time I was going to finally do it, the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE was announced. I read a lot of reviews from folks who'd bought those netbooks and eventually settled on the NC10.

The main deciding factors, in order, were: keyboard layout, build quality, ease of upgrade (mine has 2GB RAM and a 320GB disk, twice the standard in both departments), and Linux support.

The MSI Wind was okay in most of those areas, but based on the many reviews I read, the NC10 was a little bit better across the board. So I ruled the MSI Wind out on that alone.

The Eee PC 1000HE had just been announced and would have required waiting a few more weeks. Plus, its keyboard had a few quirks--notably the right shift key being too small and offset. Keyboards are really important to me. It had the advantage of a claimed 9.5 hour battery life vs. the 7-8 claimed on the NC10.

However, I picked the NC10 and couldn't be happier. Running Windows XP, I routinely get 7 hours of battery life with Wifi on and the screen brightness set low (don't need it any higher most of the time). The wireless range is excellent, keyboard feels right, and it's surprisingly snappy.

Building a computer this small and light is really an exercise in design compromises and I thing Samsung nailed it perfectly. I've traveled with it a few times and used it all day at the MySQL Conference without having to worry about being near power outlets.

The 2GB RAM is more than enough for anything I'm likely to throw at the Atom processor and 320GB is enough space for all my music, pictures, and pretty much everything except my extensive video collection.

I use the NC10 a bit day to day. I think of it as a "couch computer" in addition to use in travel and at a conference. But I've also hooked it up to a HDTV to show off pictures to family and that worked just as well. I could easily see doing a day's worth of work on it with an external monitor and mouse.

A couple weeks ago, I grabbed the latest Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) and booted the NC10 off a USB stick to see how it worked. Much to my surprise, it seems that everything worked well without any tweaking. I'll probably stick with XP for now, but it's good to see that Ubuntu would work for me too.

If I was looking to buy now, I'd look really hard at the Samsung NC10, ASUS Eee PC 1000HE, and the Samsung NC20 (the 12" model).

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HTPC Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Recommendations?

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 5:28pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Dear Lazyweb,

As of a few weeks ago, we have a computer hooked up to the 66 inch TV full-time. However, it currently has a wired keyboard and mouse, both of which are less than optimal when you'd prefer to keep your ass on the couch and pick a movie from the server upstairs.

So I'm soliciting recommendations for a wireless keyboard and mouse (or keyboard/mouse combo) that has decent range (20-30 feet, ideally) and doesn't take up too much space. The keyboard doesn't need a numeric keypad or even full-sized keys. It's only going to be used to type a small amount: occasional hits to IMDB and renaming a folder or two.

The mouse should be a reliable two or three button optical that can tolerate occasional attacks by our cats and possibly even a spilled drink.

On option that is highly rated but also highly priced is the Logitech diNovo Edge 2-Tone 84 Normal Keys 9 Function Keys USB Bluetooth Wireless Mini Keyboard. Reviews claim is has excellent size and range. But the touchpad mouse seems a bit funky. However, I do like the idea of it being built-in so there's only one object to deal with.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Jeremy

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Open Source Queueing and Messaging Systems?

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 2:49pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]
Dear Lazyweb,

I'm interested getting an idea of what open source message queueing systems exist that are fast, stable, and have some good replication (think multi-colo) and fault tolerance built-in. The idea being, of course, that some processes want to send messages into a queue (of work to be done) and other processes will fetch those and do stuff with them.

Ideally, I'm looking for a system that allows for different message priorities--meaning that I'd like to be able to mark some messages as less important, so it's okay if we lose them in a crash. It'd also be handy to have the ability to set expiation times on messages.

Bonus points for stuff with good Perl libraries.

Put another way, if you wanted to run something like Amazon's SQS on your own infrastructure, what would you use as the building blocks?

Stuff I already know of (some of which doesn't meet my own criteria):
- Open AMQ
- Apache ActiveMQ
- ejabberd
- Spread::Queue which uses the Spread Toolkit
- RabbitMQ
But surely there's more. Feel free to spew others in the comments below...

And even if you don't know of any others, I'd love to hear about your experience with any of the above or already commented systems.

Update: A lot of folks are replying with "what's wrong with XXX in your list?" I haven't tested these yet. I'm looking to see what the landscape looks like before I dive in.

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Great Pancakes with the Presto Cool Touch 20 Inch Electric Griddle

Posted: July 30th, 2008, 10:42am CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

We recently bought an electric griddle so that I could make more than one pancake at a time. After reading a few reviews, I confirmed that the 20 inch electric model from Presto was the way to go.

While it's available on Amazon.com (and here), I bought locally and got the chance to put it to use last weekend when some of the family were visiting. I was surprised and impressed by how quickly and evenly it heated. But that was really just the beginning.

It turns out that this little electric wonder makes pancakes that light, fluffy, and far more evenly cooked than anything I've even been able to do on the stove top. And to put icing on the cake, the manual provides temperature settings so that you can cook a few dozen other things: eggs, sausage, bacon, and so on.

The non-stick coating is trivial to clean and the grease catcher appears to do it's job well too.

In summary, if you ever find yourself needing to make pancakes for more than a couple people at once, get yourself an electric griddle!

Damn, now I'm hungry for a pancake...

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OtterBox Blackberry Case Quick Review

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 2:32pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

A few weeks ago I wrote up my BlackBerry Curve Impressions and heard from Chad Atchison from OtterBox. I'd never heard of them before but he said:

I work for a company called OtterBox and we make cases for several smart phones, including the Curve - I actually have one sitting on my desk right now. Anyway, if you're worried about dropping it, etc., I could probably convince our PR girl to send you a free sample.

So I had a quick look at their site and decided to go for it.

About a week later, a BlackBerry Curve Defender Case arrived and it'd been dutifully protecting my BlackBerry ever since then. The thing has been through moving stuff in a storage unit, daily use at home, a week in the Nevada desert, flying in light airplanes, hiking in Yosemite, and random stuff in between.

I'm very impressed with this rugged little case. It strikes a great balance between protection and usability. The plastic keyboard cover does a good job of keeping stuff out of it while still making it easy to type on (well, as "easy" as a blackberry sized keyboard can be). Clearly this is a well thought out and tested design. If you're looking for a case to protect your BlackBerry or other smart phone from the elements, check out OtterBox. I think it'd be worth the money if you want to keep the phone in good shape for a long time.

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ubuntu One of the down sides to leaving Yahoo! is that the notebook computer I've been using for last few years will no longer be mine in a few days. I'm one of those people who used their company issued computer for lots of non-company stuff too.

When I start at Craigslist, I'll be getting a new laptop running Linux. But that's several weeks away and doesn't run some of the funky Windows apps I need or want access to. So I'm going to try keeping work separate from non-work this time around.

What to do?

I have a Thinkpad T43p at home that's been used mainly as a backup sever and lightweight web browser for a while now. It has a 2GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 80GB disk, and a kick ass screen and keyboard. But it's running Ubuntu.

So I'm planning to use the recovery CDs to make it back into a Windows box (maybe dropping in a bigger disk along the way) and using it as my personal Windows machine. But that means I need a system to take over doing backups and that other stuff that the Thinkpad used to do.

My solution is to pull a few cheap parts off Newegg.com and build a low-end (but still probably overkill) machine that'll run Linux and do what I want. Here's what I ended up with.

IN WIN IW-BT610T.300BL Black Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 300W Power Supply	$50.99
Intel BOXD201GLY2A Intel Celeron 220 SiS 662 Micro ATX Motherboard/CPU Combo	$64.99
Crucial 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) System Memory	$21.99
Sony NEC Optiarc Black 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1671S	$18.99

I already own a SATA hard disk I can drop in. Same goes for the keyboard and mouse. Plus installing Ubuntu costs me nothing other than my time.

At a total cost of $156.96 plus shipping, it's not bad for under $200. It'll do the backup and other "home server" jobs just fine and serve as a web browsing station now and then if need be. I almost opted for the Intel BOXD945GCLF Atom processor Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo for even lower power consumption, but wanted to stick with a Micro ATX board for now.

I'm really impressed by what you can get for a cheap these days! The CPU is even 64 bit--not that it matters in this case.

Thoughts?

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BlackBerry Curve Impressions

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 3:13pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]
Yesterday my wife inherited my trusty old Motorola V710 cell phone after hers vanished. I took advantage of some credit I had, plus a pair of aggressive rebates from Verizon Wireless to get a Blackberry Curve at a very good price.

I'll preface this by saying that I've never owned a "smart" phone before and wasn't sure what I was getting into. But so far I'm pretty happy. Having access to some of my favorite on-line apps (in mobile form) is surprisingly handy.

So far I've set up a few favorites in the browser, such as Weather Underground Mobile and Bloglines Mobile. I've also installed a few apps: GMail Mobile, TwitterBerry, and Google Maps Mobile. I expect that I'll find some useful aviation related mobile sites or apps that I need to try out as well.

The best part is that once the service on my EVDO card is shut off, I'll have a cheaper bill and similar capabilities to what I had before--partly thanks to Bluetooth Tethering. And from the looks of it, there are even some Linux tools to play with.

I dig that fact that I don't need to buy funky chargers. USB power is great. I'm finding the interface pretty easy to adapt to, and thanks to some BlackBerry keyboard shortcuts, I'm pretty good on the keyboard.

I thought about getting the BlackBerry Pearl but couldn't see the point of having something with a retarded keyboard when the "real thing" was close in price.

I haven't yet tried the camera and uploading to Flickr. Sadly, there is no ZoneTag.

I have used it as a phone and it's at least as loud and clear as my old phone.

What else is out there that I need to play with? I'm sure there's a lot...

See Also:
- Motorola V710 Data Rates on Verizon
- Cheap Cell Phone Replacement Parts
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Virtualization: VMWare, Xen, or VirtualBox?

Posted: April 16th, 2008, 6:43pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Dear Lazyweb,

I wish to virtualize my computer life. However, I face an abundance of choices from which you will help me select the right one.

I have a Windows XP Pro machine on which I'd occasionally like to run a virtual Windows XP machine and maybe a lightweight Linux server (probably without a GUI). I currently run VMWare server on it and am pretty happy with that.

So is it worth playing with VirtualBox at all?

Secondly, I have a Linux box (Ubuntu) on which I'd like to regularly run a Windows XP virtual machine. I have experience with VMWare on Linux, but also know that Xen may be a good option. Or maybe VirtualBox. Not having it break every time I apt-get and install the latest kernel would certainly be a bonus.

What are the pros and cons here? And are there other solutions worthy of consideration?

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The Blu-Ray and HD DVD Stupidity. When will it end?

Posted: January 14th, 2008, 11:13pm CST

Tags: Toys [edit]

Reading Douglas Crockford's Format War post reminded me of how hopeful I was last Fall. I was nearly certain that the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD format war would have been settled by Giftmas, so that we could just buy the winning format and go on with life.

Instead, we're stuck with the uncertainty of not knowing who will win. Beta or VHS? Err, I mean "Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?" Why must we endure this stupidity again?

I'm content to sit on the sidelines, impatiently, waiting for the scales to finally tip so far in one direction that we have a clear winner. Then it'll be time to buy a nice cheap player and finally put my HD TV to good use.

Or maybe it'll take so long that we'll bypass the discs altogether and stream the HD video on-line from Netflix, Amazon, or whoever.

That wouldn't be half bad either.

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My Security Planet » Tags » Toys

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11 items tagged "Toys"

Jeremy Zawodny's blog

Pandora vs. CDs

Posted: August 24th, 2009, 9:43am CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Hulu Desktop vs. Hulu in Browser vs. Nexflix (Flash vs. Silverlight?)

Posted: May 29th, 2009, 12:46pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

I love my Samsung NC10 Netbook

Posted: May 2nd, 2009, 12:26pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

HTPC Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Recommendations?

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 5:28pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Open Source Queueing and Messaging Systems?

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 2:49pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Great Pancakes with the Presto Cool Touch 20 Inch Electric Griddle

Posted: July 30th, 2008, 10:42am CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

OtterBox Blackberry Case Quick Review

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 2:32pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Building a Cheap Ass Linux PC

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 4:07pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

BlackBerry Curve Impressions

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 3:13pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

Virtualization: VMWare, Xen, or VirtualBox?

Posted: April 16th, 2008, 6:43pm CDT

Tags: Toys [edit]

The Blu-Ray and HD DVD Stupidity. When will it end?

Posted: January 14th, 2008, 11:13pm CST

Tags: Toys [edit]