Daily Techno-Babble

Yes, I know. It has been a while. A whole summer even. But like all good things (and some bad) its now time to get back into the game with all new rants…err I mean *interesting* content! Over the last few months a lot has changed in the technology industry; the very successful launch of the Apple iPhone has greatly reshaped the cell phone market, the popularization of virtualization technologies complete with the almost dot.com era VMware IPO has made many IT managers stand up and take notice, and the meteoric rise of an entire new broadcast medium in download-able TV shows and movies all are just begging for a post or two. Although it was great to have some time to pursue other interests over the summer I can’t wait to jump back into the fray again with new content and some fresh views on the latest in technology. As always, I will tell it like it is and get right down to what matters the most to folks who not only like technology but need to actually use it daily.

So light the fires and kick the tires….

Just when you thought things could not get any better with the most popular virtualization software for the Mac a whole new version announcement just pops up in your mailbox! A recent email sent to current customers announced the upcoming June 6th release of version 3.0 states that among 50+ new features this version will include 3d support for Windows applications. Upgrade price is about right at $39 for pre-orders and $49 for those who wait till after June 6th to pick up a copy.

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I can’t believe eBay is still in business considering the huge number of scams that seem to pervade the site like flies on you-know-what. Just this past week I attempted to use eBay to auction off two notebook computers and quickly discovered that this was an impossible task thanks to all the scammers who now appear to have almost complete control of the site. Yes, you heard that right. Complete control. The way these scammers work is they send you an email asking to purchase your item outside of eBay, then when you won’t bite they hose your auction using a hacked account effectively preventing you from making a legitimate sale and at the same time sticking you with huge sellers fees from eBay. Don’t believe me? Here is the proof.

Technorati Tags: auctions, ebay, fraud, phishing, scam, scammers, security

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After reading yet another review of a cell phone that I won’t be able to own anytime soon I decided it was time to write up a list of 5 sexy phones you CAN buy right now. Yes, these phones are just as interesting as those sexy phones from overseas and can be purchased today (some even unlocked!). So if you think you know what cool is, or you just don’t think your current phone is going to bring sexy back then check out these 5 sexy phones you can actually own!

Technorati Tags: cell phones, fashion, motorola, nokia, review, shopping, Sony Ericsson

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One of the more interesting blogs (if you could call it that) I have run across over the last year is this very unique site called woot.com. Love to shop for tech goodies and gadgets? This site is just for you. Each day they feature just a single item with one major feature, an incredibly low price! As you might expect, some of the items can be a bit cheesy at times but not always. Once in a while they have something really good, like a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo or some other neat gadget. Where Woot really shines in when they have a “Woot Off” or they put up something called a “Bag of Crap”. The bag, aptly named is basically a mystery prize which could be just about anything (someone once got a 60 inch plasma TV in their “bag”). The Woot Off is a time period where they sell something until it is gone then they put up another product, in a rapid fire type of process. All things considered I think Woot is a great idea and a great use of the internet in a way that plays right to its strengths vs. all the sites which seem to always try to mimic offline stores.

So if you are looking for some cool tech gift this holiday season make sure to check it out, you never know what they might have…

As many of us sit down for our Thanksgiving meal let us give thanks for all that has been good to us over the past year and also to take a moment to consider several honorific geek traditions commonly observed during the course of this day:

Thou shall not watch sports. At no point will anyone watch anything even remotely resembling sports on the television. Football? What’s that? Don’t even consider it and if someone tells you to change the channel from your X-Files marathon just bid them a fond farewell and show them the door!

Thou shall proceed with the ritual drying out of the turkey. Just because you paid over $1 per pound doesn’t mean you can’t dry it out just like Mom used to do with the $0.29 cent version. For added effect, use additional additives in your stuffing such as coffee grinds or the dust you find at the bottom of the cheezit’s box.

Thou shall forget to call anyone. We already know you need to level up so you can get your “epic”. You don’t need to call and tell us about it, we won’t care since we too are spending our day questing (how do you think we dry out the turkey!) for that elusive rare drop which requires you to kill the same mob 200 times or more.

Thou shall play Quake at least once. It’s DM6 or bust and you know you’re the best so have at it, just don’t lord it too much over any guests lest they whine like babies about how you are camping the rocket launcher (you would never do that….)

Thou shall complain about Star Wars Episode I at least once. Sure we waited almost a generation for that movie but what’s not to love? Plenty, and now is the time to air it all out while everyone can’t escape from the clutches of your lack of faith in George Lucas and your hate of all things Jar Jar.

So there you have it, some traditional Thanksgiving day activities for geeks. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Thought this would qualify as Friday humor for those who maybe just can’t wait for the next “critical update”. Of course I can’t help but speculate that maybe Microsoft is considering this as a possible option when most folks skip the Vista “upgrade”!

Since the release of movies on iTunes I have been putting off giving one a try since I really did not have high expectations for the service. Having read all the negative reviews of Amazon’s service and checked out some of what Google Video had to offer I was not impressed. None of these services gave me the “warm and fuzzy” with full length movies that I hoped for and the prices always seemed unreasonable. When iTunes introduced movies I was somewhat reluctant to give it try since the quality of the TV shows (in my opinion) was still lacking and the selection was limited.

Since I was home with a few hours to spare I decided to give the movie “Cars” a try since it looked interesting and I figured it would be a good test of the quality of movies provided by the service. The purchase was exactly the same as buying an album (with the extra “are you sure?” pop up) and I must admit that the download of the 1.3gb movie file did not take nearly as long as I had expected, arriving in about 1.5 hours on my Verizon DSL connection.

Like I stated above, my biggest concern regarding all these movie download services was the quality. How would the picture look on my 100+ inch projection screen? Would the quality of the sound be acceptable? Thankfully my initial fears were quickly dispelled and I am happy to report that my experience was top notch. Once again Apple has exceeded my expectations and made me yet another satisfied customer. The picture quality in the movie was superb, clear and with no visible motion artifacts. I was able to compare the movie side by side with a DVD and could not tell the difference. Sound was also very good but not in Dolby 5.1 format, which for me was not a huge deal but would have been a nice touch. Perhaps the high quality audio could be offered later as the service matures.

Overall I was very impressed with the quality of the movie I downloaded from the iTunes movie section, the quality was right up there with what I was used to with the DVDs I have purchased recently and my only complaint might be that the audio was not in Dolby 5.1 format.

Recently I found myself in the position of having to manage a large number of Cisco routers spread out across a very large geographic area. Initially I was not aware of any tools other than Ciscoworks that were capable of managing these devices. I figured that other products existed but since cost was a factor I was empowered to build an entire management process from the ground up with virtually no budget (sound familiar?). Situations such as this have their disadvantages, not the least being the cost of the tools required compared to how much management one really needs. In this case I really needed to automate as much as possible since I was an “army of one” with little to no funding to back up large software or hardware purchases.

I am happy to report that not only did I find many free or low-cost products to accomplish my goal of better network management, I was also able to far exceed expectations for an automated network management setup that ended up costing less than $2000. In addition to making my life easier these tools also made me look good since now my boss could show off all kinds of screen eye-candy to upper management which is a win-win for all involved.

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All I wanted was to be able to watch TV late at night without disturbing my girlfriend who has to be up for work at 3am. So I decided to purchase some decent quality headphones that I could use to solve the problem. I wanted them to be wireless so I could avoid dealing with the annoyance of a long cable running across the room. I checked out several Bluetooth headphones but ultimately decided that paying $100+ for a pair of basic (non-noise canceling) headphones seemed unreasonable so I headed out to the local CompUSA to see if I could find a RF set that was priced under $100. I did find a pair of JVC HAW300RF 900mhz Wireless Headphones that were on sale for only $29! I thought I was getting an awesome deal….boy was I wrong. To sum up my experience with these headphones, they sucked. They proved far more effective at picking up my neighbor’s 900mhz cordless phone conversations than allowing me to listen to my TV. As if the crappy reception was not bad enough, the battery only lasted about an hour even though it was supposed to last over four! So, I packed them up and headed back to the CompUSA and ultimately ended up purchasing a pair of Sennheiser HD-465 Stereo Headphones which were decidedly not wireless. So here I sit, with a thin black cable running across the room but listening to clear, crisp audio. Problem solved.