The Color Pattern Geek Clock is the perfect geek gift. You’ve seen those crazy geek clocks and watches that display the time in hexadecimal format. Only hardcore geeks can read those. Why not have a clock that looks as “techie”, but anyone cal learn to read? This Color Pattern Geek Clock is the perfect solution! Everyone that comes over will talk about it - and everyone will be able to tell time using it! Cool and useful.
Amazon is having a 50% off Blu-Ray Movie sale! It’s really funny too, since just yesterday I blogged about the LG Blu-Ray player. I checked my email this morning and saw this sale, and wow - it couldn’t be more timely! I don’t know how much I’ll spend, but I think I’m going to get about 6 of these while I can. They’ve got some great titles on sale too, like No Country for Old Men, The Doors, Gangs of New York, The Bank Job, Pirates of the Caribbean, and my favorite “Crash”!
They have like 83 Blu-Ray titles on sale, but it only goes until August 29th. You can get a deal on the pre-order of Iron Man too while you’re in there.
The LG BH200 Blu-Ray HD-DVD Combo Player is now much more affordable than ever before, and even though Blu-Ray is now pretty much decided on as the standard for surpassing regular DVD’s in HD format - having the “HD-DVD” format option available is a bonus! If you’re wondering what the big deal is about a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disc versus a traditional DVD movie - all you really have to know is that it’s displayed at nearly TWICE the resolution! If you thought a traditional or progressive scan DVD movie was a pretty good picture - if you own a flat screen LCD or Plasma television, you OWE it to yourself to upgrade your DVD player to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD!
Having said that - the LG BH200 is the one we picked because it not only plays in full 1080p output, but this player upscales the picture of traditional DVD’s to Full HD as well! It’s already setup to handle the “BD-Live” features touted ahead for Blu-Ray discs, but the LG “Super Blu Player” will also do MPEG’s, H.264 Quicktime, and DTS-HD audio as well. Oh, of course it has HDMI 1.3 out too. It also has S-Video and Component outs, but who would want to use those?
Guess what - it has USB “media host” too so you can set it up to access digital pics and MP3’s. Plugin your external hard drives, portable drives, or flash sticks for quick access and review of your multimedia files. The one thing we noticed was that this thing was practically silent when playing discs. It even has a network ethernet jack!
This would be a good treat for yourself and the old home entertainment center before you have to start saving to buy other people Christmas presents! Or, you could even put it away as an early present for that special someone.
Here are the best prices you can get on the LG BH200 Blu-Ray HD-DVD Combo Player:
I came across the Ziotek Wireless Night Vision kit ZT-812C2 the other day, and it’s the first kit I’ve seen with “night vision”. I reviwed some wireless and IP cameras awhile back, but the Ziotek bundle has high quality picture and sound - and it’s weather resistant, meaning you can mount them outdoors. The range of the wireless cameras is over 350 feet, and the system can be used with a TV, VCR, or other monitors or recording devices. You can switch between the two monitors with the push of a button. If you monitor your home or business, this can be a great way - but I love the fact that these are wireless. That’s such an advent of technology - the ability install security without running camera wires all over!
With this two camera set you can literally see in the dark. These compact cameras provide excellent color video with sound and are weather resistant for use outdoors. The desktop receiver has an adjus With this two camera set you can literally see in the dark. These compact cameras provide excellent color video with sound and are weather resistant for use outdoors. The desktop receiver has an adjustable antenna for fine-tuning reception and a remote control so you can switch monitor channels at the push of a button. The cameras can be powered using 9V battery with battery clip or with 110VAC (battery, clip and AC adapter included).
We need to find some “floating shelves” after the post about our new surround sound system the other day. You know, the kind that look like they’re just floating on the wall. Since we have a flat screen hanging on the wall - what the heck do we need a TV stand for? I want to get that audio equipment off the TV stand, take it out, mount it on the wall and free up room in my living room!
I’d been thinking about this for some time, and the floating shelf concept was one I had in the back of my head, but hadn’t seen anything even remotely like what I wanted at the store. I took 5 minutes to search Amazon today - and lo and behold they have exactly what I need!
This set of floating shelves is only $100, much cheaper than anything else I say, it’s quality and can hold heavy weights like a big audio video receiver, they are stylish, come in three colors, and very functional! It’s exactly what I wanted and they are on order now! You can check out the floating shelves here!
These audio rack shelves came in a close second, and if I had wanted something on the floor - this would have been exactly what I chose. Maybe when we put a system together for the basement family room this is what we’ll get!
We just bought an RCA RTD217 home theater for our living room. It was kind of unexpected, but I thought I would blog about it because it was such a good deal. I’m no audiophile by any means, and I’m pretty geeky when it comes to computers and gadgets - and I do have a flat screen LCD hanging on the living room wall. But for some reason we just never got any kind of surround sound or home theater system. Probably because I spent the money on an external hard drive or something else.
So I’m in the store and we see they have some display models on clearance - and I took a look. They had 2 DVD players and one was HDMI output that was pretty cool. But then I saw this RCA surround sound system for half off the retail. It was 250 watts (50 per speaker), a 5 disc DVD changer, AM/FM radio, but the thing that sold me was the fact that it would play CD and DVD data disks, Windows Media, DivX, PhotoCD’s - just about anything. The selling feature was the fact that it had a USB port on the front that said it would accept both USB flash drives or external hard drives!
So at half off we couldn’t resist - we snatched it up and took it home. I hooked it up to the 5 prong component cable to our flat screen, wired up the speakers, and fired it up! It has 4 levels of subwoofer, both surround and stereo modes, DVD’s were awesome (progressive scan), and we sent audio from the TV back to it so the cable could play through it on the AUX channel.
Then we brought in the external hard drive, and that’s when the surprise came in. We plugged in a 300GB Western Digital Mybook and brought up the menu on the TV. MP3’s played fine, pictures were great, but we couldn’t get it to play any video at all. Not Windows Media, DivX, MPG, anything! Arghh! We went back and read the manual and found out that the USB port only plays AUDIO!! Crap! All is not lost because we can still play data discs, but that means burning one every time. I guess we just have to get some rewritables. I still say that at half off it was a good deal. Let this be a lesson to you if you go shopping for a home theater with a USB input jack!
I am however, going to start searching for a stereo system that you can hook up external drives too and play video!! I’ve heard you can “hack” the menus of some DVD players too (through the firmware) and this is something that we’re certainly going to look into.
Memory Cards keep getting lost? Get a “Memory Card Case” to organize them so you have them all in the same spot - each and every time!
I can’t tell you how many times I went to the Camera case and all the memory cards were gone. Or the times that I grabbed my digital camera and either no memory card was in it - or the card in it was full of pics (I wasn’t sure if I could erase yet). Flash memory cards are small, and the microSD ones are smaller than a thumbnail.
Of course, there’s already something you can buy to fix this problem - and it’s a “memory card case”. There’a ton of ‘em on eBay - and they don’t cost that much at all. In fact, it’s probably more expensive to replace a lost flash memory card than it is to get the case, not to mention the cost you can’t put on precious memories and pics and if they aren’t on your PC yet. These would make excellent gifts for Christmas or any occasion - you should stock up now!
Gorillapod - the digital camera tripod with a twist
Looking for an innovative flexible tripod for your digital camera that will go anywhere and work in the worst of situations? I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to temporarity “mount” my digital camera for either a good picture or some short video.
I play in bands out in the bar and you can’t always get right in front of the stage for good pictures or video. And who wants to hold the camera steady for 10 minutes or more anyway? They make these little flexible tripods you can wrap around a post, pole, or nearly anything and then mount your digital camerea temporarily on. If you use your digital camera a lot, I highly recommend you get one of these and stick it in your bag. It’s definitely worth the $20.
Gorillapod uses its 30 adjustable joints to grip to trees, fences or posts–anything it can wrap its legs around–to provide a steady and secure platform for your digicam! No more hunting for flat surfaces at eye-level: just wrap or hang Gorillapod on any handy object and get in the picture! tripod,”camera tripod”,”flexible camera tripod”. Click here for the latest price. This would make a really cool gift idea for just about anyone.
Oh - you can find (different versions and sizes) of them on eBay as well:
Looking for a “Hi Def Camcorder”? The “Canon Vixia HF10″ is not only affordable, it records direct to flash media - which is why we think it’s the best bang for your buck right now!
I was shocked and amazed when I saw the Vixia HF10 for the first time. Weighing less than one pound and only a little less in size than a water bottle (3″x2.5″x5″ this little wonder is amazing. The one feature that makes it stand out most is the fact that it has an internal flash memory of 16GB. Wow! No more silly tapes, no spinning disk hard drives - none of that! And it has a slot for SD or SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) flash memory cards. You can buy a high capaticy SD card now for around $35, so that’s a big pro! Canon is not the first company to make a flash drive based digital camcorder, but they may be the first to do it as well as they have - especially at this price!
Here are the features of the Canon Vixia HF10:
12X Optical Zoom (200X digital zoom)
16GB internal memory and SDHD card slot
SuperRange Image Stabilization
2 hours 1920×1080 Full HD Recording time
2 Channel Dolby Digital Audio
External Mic Jack
Mini HDMI Out
2.7″ LCD Screen
I’ve read a lot of really positive reviews, and it’s amazing to me that you can now buy an HD Camcorder for under $1,000! The Vixia HF10 got a 5 star review from c|Net - watch the video review:
One of the things that the video highlighted that I forgot to mention was the fact that you get about an hour of HD record time per charged (included) battery. What you want to do is order one of the double size aftermarket battery packs that will get you about 2 hours of recording time. It will stick out a bit and make the Vixia HF10 a slight bit more bulky - but it will be worth it.
Most places online are listing the Canon Vixia HF10 for $1,000-$1,200. The reason I wrote this review today was that I saw just this morning that Newegg (practially my favorite online electronics store) has it listed for only $829! I consider that a steal since my last digital camera was over $600. This would make the perfect gift for a birthday, Christmas, or Father’s Day! Newegg even has free shipping, how can you beat that with today’s price of gas?
The Socket Sense Expandable Surge Protector Strip is something I wish I had a long time ago! It always seems like I have some kind of big bulky adapter to plug in that spans more than one outlet. This nifty little gadget just slides out at any outlet to expand and give enough room for big adapters where needed. I think all surge protectors should do this. I can use one of these in my living room entertainment center, and also at just about every computer in the house, in addition to carrying one in my musicians gig bag for the stage (where I have all kinds of adapters for effects)! Where could you use an expandable socket surge strip? click here to check prices for the “Socket Surge”.
My name is John Pratt and I like all kinds of geeky, gadget tech stuff. I maintain web sites, write a little code, fool around with Wordpress, Ubuntu, play lead guitar in a band, and have a general fondness for computers electronic 'thingies'!
here!
this little wonder is amazing. The one feature that makes it stand out most is the fact that it has an internal flash memory of 16GB. Wow! No more silly tapes, no spinning disk hard drives - none of that! And it has a slot for SD or SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) flash memory cards. You can buy a high capaticy SD card now for around $35, so that’s a big pro! Canon is not the first company to make a flash drive based digital camcorder, but they may be the first to do it as well as they have - especially at this price!
