Technically Speaking

Canny shopping

I normally don't bother with the Boxing week sales as I hate fighting for a parking space and then struggling through the crowds of other like-minded twits shopping for minor bargains. However, as you know, I needed a new TV and this seemed like the time. So after scouring the fliers and websites for the best 'bang for the buck', my son and I set off on our little sale trek. First to Best Buy - that was a damn waste for time. Idiot sales staff and no stock make for a rather poor shopping experience. Would be be so hard to place an out-of-stock sticker on those products that aren't available? Obviously so. Across the road to Futureshop for more parking woes and more crowds. Amazingly, parking was OK and the store was much less busy than Best Buy. Even better, they had stock and plenty of it. We tried to do a deal with the purchase of a Blu-ray player, but ultimately it was just a 42" LCD TV that we left with. Didn't bother with extended warranties and nor should you - a waste of money - just my advise. We also needed a stand, but I wasn't going to spend $300 and up for the privilege. I normally don't like Walmart, but they had just the right stand for just under $100 - sold! Took about an hour to get everything setup and running, which left us with a problem. How to get rid of a 42" projection TV. Advertised on Kijiji and it was gone in less than 3 hours. Wow! Things got better. That evening the Futureshop website showed the same TV for $100 less - so next day I was in line for my refund. Just shows that you have to be a clever and observant shopper to get the best deals. Just noticed that it's $100 more now - that was close.

Ruminations

The recent news of the so-called 'Big 3' automakers getting their free money from the taxpayer made me sit down and think about what is happening with our cars. Although the automobile has been with us for 100 years, not that much has changed. We still use fairly inefficient gasoline internal-combustion engines and rely of the reflexes and driving knowledge of the human driver. Now, to their credit, some companies are trying to go the battery and electric motor route and the developments in driverless control are tantalizing and very interesting. However, if you had seen last weeks edition of 'Top Gear' you would have definite second thoughts about the battery route being taken. They tested that darling of the electric car fraternity, the Tesla and found some 'issues'. Yes, it goes like a bat-out-of-hell, but then dies at 55 miles and needs 16 hours (!) to recharge for another go. That's just silly and pointless. However, later on we saw the real future of motoring - the Honda Clarity. This car brings the long sought after fuel-cell concept to reality. Now, here is a car with an electric motor (no noise and very simple to maintain), decent performance and reasonable range (275 miles/440 kms) on a fill-up. In the show, they made the point that this was the best idea. You drive - fill up- keep going. I want a fuel-cell car - it really is the way forward. Are you listening GM, Ford and Chrysler?

Why now?

It always seems that things go wrong just before important dates. Our TV decided to go 'on the blink' NOW of all times. Oh, it's still watchable - if you ignore the horrendous blue shift on the screen. Of course, it's no longer under warranty and we paid $50 to have someone look at the damn thing this morning. It's a Toshiba 42" projection TV bought back in 2004. It's already been serviced for much the same issue about a year ago when it was still covered under it's extended warranty. Now we are told it will cost about $350 to fix. Now, that's just silly when you consider a new LCD 40" screen can be had for around $700. Yes, I know - time for a new TV. It shouldn't be like this though. We have a 20 year old Toshiba microwave that's still going strong, so I know that the company can produce good stuff. At this stage of the economy and my finances (on disability coverage) this couldn't have come at a worse time. Pooh! There is something wrong with a world where throwing away large pieces of equipment is more cost effective than repair. If it cost, say $150, I would consider it, even if it only gave me another year, but $350.....come on! So, I suppose it's off to Best Buy and the like for a new and expensive piece of kit that I really didn't want to have to buy. Well, enough of my whining and complaining. What's done is done, as they say. On a 'lighter' note - here's an invention that has real possibilities. I really like this invention and I think it would actually be a useful product.

Problems sharing?

With the appearance of so many home networks now, storage is always an important issue. Especially the sharing of storage and files. Typically, NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives have been expensive to obtain and a pain in the you-know-where to setup. The arrival of Windows Vista didn't help either as many NAS drives are not supported and, in our house, that meant that one laptop couldn't grab information from our NAS drive. Now, for only $55, there seems to be a very nifty soulution that allows you to network a number of USB drives to Mac, Windows (all versions) and Linux based systems - nice. When it comes to storage, I am often asked, 'how much harddrive storage should I get?'. It's a simple answer - 'as much as you can afford'. Whatever storage you have - you'll fill it up. The ability to easily add more storage capacity is always welcome and especially when all the PC's in the house can use it. I feel that anything that maximises your harddrive usage is well worth it and certainly when it's a paltry cost compared to the alternatives.

All 'present' and correct

The festive season is almost upon us and, even if I am not a Christian, I still enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas. As a slight departure from purely electronica - here is a wonderful collection of Christmas gifts for those hard-to-please people on your list. I had to wait till I stopped laughing so I could write this blog entry. To be honest, I think the Nativity Ducks are just great and get my vote for the best item. The Jesus piggy bank was probably second. Reminded me of graffiti I once saw on a church signboard, 'Jesus saves' - 'not in this economy'. Just brilliant! I think I will just let you look at these offerings as anything I would add wouldn't really help.

Clickety, click

Good old Logitech. Today they announced that they have shipped their billionth mouse! Absolutely amazing. Founded in a farmhouse in Switzerland in 1981, Logitech introduced its first retail mouse in 1985 and reached the 100 millionth mouse mark in 1996. Sales of Logitech mice topped 500 million seven years later. Today, Logitech sells mice in more than 100 countries worldwide and manufactures an average of 376,000 mice per day and 7.8 million every month. In fact, the Logitech founders were of Italian background and their three colour logo contains the colours of the Italian flag – now you know a useless fact – say ‘thank you’. This year also marks the 40th anniversary of the very first ‘mouse'. Although we are told that the mouse as an input device is on its way out – I don’t believe it. I’ve used many different devices over the years and the standard 2 button mouse with a scroll wheel is just about perfect. Also, Logitech are a company that supports its products well and, over the years, I have only had to replace one defective product. Now, that’s a good record after using their products for nearly 20 years. At the moment, my son and I are using Logitech mice, keyboards, speakers and webcams and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. No, I don’t work for them, so I’m not getting anything for saying how good their products are – pity.