Links from the Gregg Zone

1) Found an interesting site looking at the other half of the electric car problem. Charging stations; it looks like this area is heating up, this article refers to startup charging companies starting around the country, and there are embedded links included for most of the listed projects. If I was much younger looking for opportunity I might look at a business installing charging stations for apartment buildings, and condos. http://www.green-energy-news.com

2) As long as I am on the car topic, how about Google’s new auto-automobile drives itself, in traffic, using freeways. I watched some competition on auto-piolet cars a while back, but they were on a special track, not in traffic. http://www.nytimes.com

1) I have put up links about the crystal caves in Mexico a few times in the past, just noticed the National Geographic is going to have a special on them airing tonight. The link is just announcing the airing; I will have to wait for it to come out on the net to watch it. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/into-the-lost-crystal-caves-4636#tab-Overview

4) This is a very interesting article about some upcoming meteoroid showers. Looks like next year may be the show stopper. I do not usually get to excited about them, always curious but not enough to drive away from the lights. I may make an exception next year. http://www.examiner.com

5) The geek link for the week is about an entire room becoming a computer display, every table, the floor, even the people. Not quite sure where the value of all this is, but if it can be done with current technology I suppose somebody somewhere is doing it. http://news.cnet.com

Earl's Cyber Steals and Deals

TaxiMike let us know you can ge the 3 user family pack Windows 7 licenses and software for $145 - $144.99 & this item ships for FREE

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $15 off with promo code EMCZYYV28, ends 10/13
Limit 5 per customer

NEWEGG TECH DEALS

Frys has the Patriot LX 16GB PSF16GSDHC10 SDHC Memory Card for $35 - $10 rebate [Exp 10/21] = $25 + shipping. Shipping is $2 or pick up in store for free. Features Class 10 speeds and complies with SDA 3.0 specs.

Buy.com offers the refurbished HP Pavilion p6310f Athlon II X4 630 2.8GHz Desktop PC (no monitor), model no. HPAY018AAR, for $429.99. With free shipping, AMD Athlon X4 630 2.8GHz quad-core processor, 6GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB 7200 rpm hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 9100 256MB graphics, DVD burner with LightScribe, 15-in-1 card reader, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

TigerDirect.com offers the used Apple iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz 17" Widescreen All-in-One Desktop, model no. MA590LL/A, for $499.99. With $11.98 for shipping, that's the lowest total price we could find by $117 and the least expensive Core 2 Duo-equipped 17" iMac we've seen. It features an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2GHz dual-core processor, 17" 1440x900 widescreen LCD, 1GB RAM, 160GB 7200 rpm hard drive, dual layer DVD burner, 802.11n wireless, Gigabit Ethernet,
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, iSight webcam, and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

SupermediaStore.com offers the A-DATA 32GB Class 10 SDHC Secure Digital High-Capacity Card, model no. 32GSDHC10, for $74.99. Coupon code "AAB3977C" cuts it to $56.77. With free shipping, that's $1.77/GB,

SanDisk 8GB Cruzer USB Flash Drive
Buy new: $39.99 $14.95 FREE SHIPPING

For its "M" Club members only, mwave.com offers the ASUS 23" 1080p Widescreen LCD Monitor, model no. VH236H, for $169.99. This $20 mail-in rebate cuts it to $149.99. With free shipping, that's the lowest total price we could find by $19, although it was a buck less two weeks ago, also after rebate (since expired). Features include a 1920x1080 (1080p) resolution, 20,000:1 contrast ratio, 2ms response time, 300 cd/m² brightness, built-in speakers, one HDMI input, and both VGA and DVI inputs. Rebate expires October 31

Office Depot has the Cyber Acoustics CA-3602 2.1 PC Speaker System for $30 with free in-store pickup. Shipping to home option is $10. Features a 5.25" woofer with a single voice coil and 2" radiators.

Dell Business has the Dell PowerEdge T110 Server for $615 - $286 off with coupon code 4B9$MGJQXSF?FV [Exp 10/29] = $329 with free shipping. Features an Intel Core I3 550 3.2GHz processor, 2GB 1333MHz, 160GB 7200 RPM HDD, DVD drive and onboard SATA

Motorola announces Droid Pro

The Pro looks like a Blackberry, with the iconic keyboard sitting just below the screen. It comes pre-loaded with Android 2.2. It has a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera, 3.1-inch display, 1GHz processor, and a dual-mode CDMA/GSM chip for worldwide roaming

Android gaining popularity with new smartphone buyers

Not only was Android on top, but by a pretty great margin too. Android took 32% share in the six month analysis, which left BlackBerry OS and iOS in the dust at 25% and 26%. According to the data, the iPhone 4 had been released a full-month when the data had been collected.

Adobe hits Reader users with 23-patch 'whammy' - Computerworld

"Adobe patched 23 security vulnerabilities in its Reader PDF viewer on Tuesday, most of them critical, including one that has been exploited by hackers for at least a month or possibly much longer.
If you are running Adobe's reader get your updates!

AlaskaJoe

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 10-03-10

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 10-03-10. You can listen live every Sunday from 11AM to 12PM Pacific that's 2PM to 3PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat.

Today's App Corner

Today we will talk about two apps that are supposed to allow hands free text messaging.
Vlingo: Vlingo is free for Android, $6.99 for iPhone. Also available for Blackberry, Nokia, and Windows. Allows hands free text messaging and email.

StartTalking: Available on Android only. Allows hands free text messaging only.

Links from the Gregg Zone

1) Well the choices for solar are starting to get interesting again. Somehow I think it is going to be hard to top “spray on solar cells”. Just spray almost anything even your clothes, if solar can get that convenient the small batteries and the pollution they cause in manufacture, and disposal might go the way of the buggy whip. http://www.newscientist.com

1) The Goldilocks planet has been in the news quite a bit last week, after reading several articles I ran across this one. This story may become much more interesting in the next few months it seems there was an unusual “light signal” picked up from that exact location two years ago. I remember it in the news, but I did not make the connection. Sometimes stuff like this takes off, it will be interesting to follow for a while. http://www.dailymail.co.uk

3) The Nuclear U.F.O. Disclosure news conference was last week, a lot of disclosure talk in the ufology world lately. Hard to discount high ranking military people in charge of our nuclear defense, after all I have to believe someone vetted for those jobs would have to be extremely competent. Here is a link to some video, I will be trying to look up the submitted text referred to. http://beforeitsnews.com

4) I have always been fascinated by origami this shows just what can be folded with a dollar bill or two. Want to get an idea of scale, just brows down to the one with the quarter. I cannot imagine trying to make folds that tiny. http://thedesigninspiration.com

5) It is not often I run across something that grabs me about a computer game, I am wondering if this is not the beginning of something deep than meets the eye. They are referring to building a working computer inside of a computer game. Sounds like an early step to A.I. to me. http://www.techdirt.com

There's an app for that...

Starting today, it is now illegal in Massachusetts to use a cell phone's texting, email, and other "non phone" features while driving.

Well, for those that need to keep up, there's an app (or two) for that. Hiawatha Bray from the Boston Globe samples a couple.

I will take a look at the free Android ones for this week's App Corner.

RIM, Hewlett-Packard, May Slash Prices to Chase Apple's IPad, Analysts Say - Bloomberg

RIM this week joined HP, Acer Inc., LG Electronics Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Dell Inc. in announcing plans to sell tablets. The new rivals will probably grapple for sales by appealing to consumers’ pocketbooks, said Rhoda

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 09-26-10

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 09-26-10. You can listen live every Sunday from 11AM to 12PM Pacific that's 2PM to 3PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat.

Links from the Gregg Zone

1) First link up a TED video on sustainability and how much can be done by motivating the world’s biggest companies. The numbers are pretty alarming presented the way they are here, meaning by that by some very qualified people studying in a very in depth manner. This might just work, I was pretty impressed with the fact they are making progress on some very big problems. http://www.ted.com/talks

2) An old story back in the news… the red rain in India is coming back around, I had totally forgot about looking for a follow up on this story. In case you missed it this was about 9-10 years ago when a red rain fell on an area of India, trying to determine why it was red they discovered it was full of some very strange cells. Some are saying it is proof of panspermia theory, that being that life is everywhere in space. The article was not as informative as I hoped but still interesting. http://www.technologyreview.com/

3) I have been using both Chrome and Firefox browsers for a while now. I prefer Firefox in general, but Chrome does a better job when watching my T.V. news shows. I have been wondering if Chrome just handles my low bandwidth situation better, anyway an interesting comparison article here http://blog.internetnews.com

4) This business of a new physics every few months is getting interesting. We are just getting a grip on just how much we don’t know. All I can say about this article is if you can read it and understand what they are getting at you are way ahead of me. I just keep trying but I am not sure why. http://news.yahoo.com/

5) Last up an article about how much Apple has changed in just one short decade, this is a perfect illustration of how fast technology is advancing. It really is getting a little scary in a weird way, I am sure anyone my age has noticed this anomaly totally distorting time perception. http://gizmodo.com

Earl's Cyber Steals and Deals

Mwave has the OCZ OCZUSBDSL16G 16GB Diesel Flash Drive

for $30 - $10 rebate [Exp 9/30] + $0 shipping = $20 shipped with free "M" club membership. Rated for up to 28MB/s (read), 15MB/s (write) and lifetime warranty



SuperBiiz has the AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor for $62 - 15% off with coupon code FALL15 [Exp 9/26] = $53 with free shipping. Features 2x1MB L2 cache, 65W thermal power, virtualization technology and 64-bit support. Heatsink and fan included. Excellent reviews at Newegg.



Mwave has the OCZ Obsidian 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model OCZ3OB1600LV4GK for $85 - $15 rebate [Exp 9/30] + $0 shipping = $70 shipped



Tiger Direct has the refu Draft Wireless-N Gigabit Router for $40 + $5 shipping = $45 shippedrbished Linksys WRT310N IEEE 802.3/3u, IEEE 802.11b/g, IEEE802.11n. MWave has it for a couple cents more with free "M" Club membership



MWave has the Sabrent WCM-6LNV 6-LED Infrared Night-Vision 1.3 MP USB 2.0 Webcam with Audio Microphone for $10 + $0 shipping = $10 shipped with free "M" Club membership. Features 1/3" sensor, 6mm lens, 640x480 video, metal body, manual focus ring.



Newegg has the Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive (Bare Drive) for $110 - $10 off with coupon code EMCYXNR36 [Exp 9/25] = $100 with free shipping. From Seagate's line of low-power "green" drives.





Newegg has the Optical Quantum 25GB 4X BD-R 10 Pack Blu-ray Discs (OQBDR04LT-10) for $9 with free shipping. Can store over 2 hours of 1080p high-definition video or 5 times more of standard DVD quality video



Frys has the CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD 1350VA 810W UPS for $95 - $15 rebate [Exp 9/30] = $80 with free in-store pickup or $11 shipping. Features dynamic line conditioning and a LCD diagnostic display. Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) ensures that all your electronics are receiving clean power. Frys ad.





Super Media Store has the PQI 32GB U262 Traveling Disk USB Flash Drive for $50 - $3 off with coupon code ADFAA37C [Exp 9/27] = $47 with free shipping. Features a 360 degree swivel lidless design made of hairline treated aluminum.

Twitter bug spreading, users urged to stay off website :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation

"A new way to cause mischief quickly spread through short-messaging service Twitter on Tuesday morning before the site could fix the problem, as mysterious 'tweets' of blocked-out text propagated themselves and caused popup windows to open.

This was from Rob_Bako in our chat, Thanks Rob

AlaskaJoe

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 09-19-10

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 09-19-10. You can listen live every Sunday from 11AM to 12PM Pacific that's 2PM to 3PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat.

Today's App Corner

This week we have a new app appropriate to the start of the NFL season. It is CBS Sports Pro Football. There are versions for iOS and for Android and they are all free.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cbs-sports-pro-football/id328953606?mt=8 (iPhone, iPod)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cbs-sports-pro-football-for/id391150826?mt=8 (iPad)

http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-july-cbssports-activity-zBxm.aspx (Android)

Links from the Gregg Zone

1) Well it should not be to tough to guess my first link this week, yea the link is just to their main page, but there are lots of story links there. The other thing I did was to go to Youtube used the search term X-prize and watched them all drive around. Of the top three I could see myself in the Li-ion. http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/

2) If you live in the big city and always wondered what the big was with watching the stars, check out the work of this photographer. She does some really nice work with night sky time lapse, sites in Spanish, but pictures are universal. http://www.astrosurf.com

3) I saw this a couple weeks back, forgot about it until I got my Netflix disk today. When I saw this site I thought I would watch some of the old Star Trek T.V. series season one came today. This site tracks the evolution of the different warp drive effects used in the shows and movies. It was an interesting trip down memory lane. http://gizmodo.com

4) Not to sure what to think of this new product coming out soon. Spray clothes in a can, it seems to me that most of the people is see, I just don’t want to see wearing this. However there are most likely a lot of uses not mentioned or thought of yet. http://www.telegraph.co.

5) Last with a geek tinted link, listening to this show it should come as no surprise that in a survey one out of ten people say they would rather have a colonoscopy than clean up their computer. Several other interesting answers about computer habits surveyed http://www.theregister.co