Technically Speaking

You're so big!

Now don't get all excited there - I'm talking hard drives here. Or maybe you get excited about that - strange people out there. We decided (my son decided) that we needed even more storage space for 'stuff'. We have three internal and one external drive for the 'beast' downstairs and three drives (one external) for our laptops giving us about 11/2 TB of storage - but that's not enough!! So off to Future Shop for a new external drive - this one. I just think that it's amazing that you can now get this amount of storage in one box for 'silly money' and it's just 'plug and play'. Now, at least for a while, storage is not an issue and we can carry on with our lives. I recall (yes, I'm old) when the first 1GB drives from Fujitsu arrived at just under $1000 a pop and we were amazed at the huge storage space we had to play with - happy days. However, I noticed something with the price now. When my son picked this up on Wednesday it was retailing for $199 - now it's $30 more. You don't think they upped the price for the 10% preferred customer sale on Monday? No, I can't believe that. Would retailers do that?

Over and over again

If you bought a product and it failed and was replaced five times (four times in two years) you would be a little miffed. That is exactly the situation with my son's XBox 360. The infamous RROD (red ring of death) stuck again the other day. Thank goodness he is still covered under the extended three year warranty and will cost him nothing to replace. Considering that the damn thing just sits on his desk and isn't abused, I cannot understand why it should fail like this AGAIN! This situation does however pose the question: what the heck does Microsoft think it's doing? It strikes me that the huge ammout of returns on this product must indicate a real and permanent issue with design, R&D and product development. Wasn't this product tested before release? If this was any other product, people would not buy it and the company would have to produce a superior product. I think that because the unit is purchased just for the games available rather that the particular 'pleasure' of having an XBox 360 in the house that purchasers are willing to put up with this nonsense. Maybe because of this there is no pressure on Microsoft to do better. Hey! If people buy a obviously flawed product and there are no law suits pending, why change? We consumers can be real idiots sometime - myself included.

Ready for light speed?

I don't know about you, but I am really ready to go and spend my money to see the New Star Trek movie. Even though this is not one of the traditional stories that we have come to expect, I am sure this this be a movie for the history books and the Trekkies out there (you know who you are) will have a field day. I found this item while wandering around the 'net and initially thought 'wow! Gotta get one of these!'. Then reality burst in and my sanity returned - such as it is. These items always look so neat and 'cool', but when they actually get on your desk you realize what a lot of rubbish they are. Be honest, you know that the quality will be shoddy and the damn thing will work for about a day before dying horribly. Then it ends up in a drawer somewhere till the wife tells you to throw it away. Over the years, I have tried many webcam combinations from a variety of unknown companies and have always been disappointed. Either they just refuse to work or you decide to upgrade and realize that there are no drivers and indeed no company anymore to support the product. In my experience, I have always found that staying with the 'big boys' always pays dividends. Go to Microsoft or Logitech and you really can't go wrong. You'll find just what you need and no danger of the Borg taking over your desk.

A new breed

Sometimes it scares me how real life can imitate fantasy and science fiction. Take this rather clever idea from Exmovere Holdings that promises a new era of assisted mobility. For someone like myself who has extreme issues with walking, standing and bending, this device would be invaluable. However, there is a downside to the idea as this picture shows. Mind you, if I actually had one of the devices from Exmovere I would have it customized to look like Davos and his device. Hopefully, I won't have any Kaleds to convert to the interstellar menace known as the Daleks. The main issue with any mobile assistive device is typically one of power and range of use. The development of a small, light and almost inexhaustible power source would make all the difference for medical devices like this and in the wider worlds of engineering and transportation. The pipe-dream of the fusion power pack may be getting closer and closer. Until then, we can only look at these devices and think 'nearly there'.

Lights out

I'm not going to bleat on about the good and bad of Earth Hour or whether it was a success or just a publicity stunt. Yes, I know that saving power is a vital step in sustaining our planet and I do my best to help. I make sure that I turn off lights I don't need, use a programmable thermostat and recycle as much as possible. Unfortunately, saving on power, water and garbage doesn't seem to help my bottom line very much. My water bill is about to go up almost $20 a billing now and making me pay about $70 to use less that $20 of water - why should I restrict my usage then? I think that the images from the website here will illustrate the issue better that my words - check out the miserable effort made by Toronto to cut back - even Vegas does better - for shame.