Thoughts and links from the crew of the On Computers Radio Show as we wander the Web.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Earl's Cyber Steals and Deals
\
Next weekend from April 16th to 24th, the National Park Service is offering fee-free entrance to over 100 national parks that usually charge entrance fees. Participating parks include Grand Canyon in Arizona, Mesa Verde in Colorado, Everglades in Florida, Yosemite in California and Devils Tower and Yellowstone in Wyoming.
eBay with JustDeals has the 12-pack Kodak NiMH AAA 900mAh Rechargeable Batteries (K3ARDC-4) for $10 with free shipping. Batteries can be charged at any time, even partially drained. Includes charger.
Dell has the Dell Inspiron 560 Minitower Desktop PC with 18.5" Dell IN1920 HD LCD Monitor for $450 - $50 off with coupon code T8TQ79WHVXCQMF [Exp 4/30] + $0 shipping with coupon code HLSKSR06S9ZG0F [Exp 4/30] = $400 shipped. Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5800 3.20GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB 7200RPM HDD Intel GMA X4500, 16X DVD+/-RW, 7.1 Channel Audio, Win 7 HP x64
FREE TradePub has The CIO's Guide to Mobile Unified Communications for Free. Features information about how to allow workers to communicate and collaborate more effectively with co-workers, customers and suppliers using multiple communications modalities.
Meritline has the PQI 8GB Class 10 SDHC Card for $15 - $2 off with coupon code MLC116490040820NL1 = $13 with free shipping. Supports transfer rates of up to 23 MB/s on devices supporting SD v.3.0 and is backwards compatible with SD v.2.0.
Newegg has the Naxa NCS-774 6.5" 2-Way Car Speaker for $20 - $10 off with coupon code EMCKFKB79 [Exp 4/10] + $2 shipping = $12 shipped per pair. Features a 20 oz. magnet, injection molded polypropylene cone, and 89dB sensitivity
Dell Business has the Dell OptiPlex 380 Desktop for $304 + $0 shipping = $304 shipped. Select free upgrade to 4GB DDR3 memory. Features Intel Pentium Dual Core 3.2GHz CPU, 4GB DDR3, 250GB SATA HDD and 16X DVD-ROM. No keyboard, mouse or speakers.
Tiger Direct has the refurbished Archos 7 Android Internet Tablet 8GB (501521) for $125 - $30 off with coupon code RML22975 + $3 shipping (EconoShip) = $98 shipped. Features 7" 480x800 display, up to 42 hour audio and up to 7 hour video playback, and a micro SD/SHDC slot
Friday, April 08, 2011
Microsoft releases 64 fixes on April's bumper Patch Tuesday
The article includes a nice table outlining it all.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
As schools shift to Google Apps, blind students object
Motorola Xoom Not Zooming Off Shelves
Frankly, I think the two main hurdles for the Xoom are dedicated app availability, which is currently very poor, and pricing. The app situation may improve, but I know that I would be leery of spending that much money on something that just may not have the software support in place. Even when I bought my iPad early on, there were a great number of apps and the count was going up every day.
While the Atrix is an interesting concept, perhaps it is a solution in search of a problem? Is this laptop docking a functionality that anyone is really looking for?
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
The Music Industry Wants You to Pay Again.
(apologies in advance -- this video from Reuters requires Flash and portions of it may be deemed NSFW)
Well, well, well. You thought you legitimately bought that song? You think you own those bits you legally paid to download or ripped from a CD you bought? Then think again. If you store it in the cloud and then want to stream it to your music player or computer the music industry thinks you didn't pay enough. And here you thought you bought it to listen to as you pleased. Silly, silly consumer, you!
No they want you to pay more for the privilege of streaming music you've already paid for. Haven't we already fought this war and won? Remember when they wanted to control our ripping our CDs so that we could not listen to them on our MP3 players and iPods? They tried and they failed; but no, they are back at it. Greed knows no limits. Why even bother to buy the music bits if you don't really have the right to listen to them when, where and how you please?
Looking for malware? Search for porn
Richard Branson launches Virgin Oceanic to explore the ocean's depths
This is one very cool looking ship. I love visionaries with the money to actually make something happen. While Bill Gates may have the humanitarian business wrapped up (and I'm all for the humanitarian business), Branson in his own way is the equal of Gates in a different arena.
Introducing Windows Phone
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
New Look for Our Blog
While there is always a temptation to go all out and get crazy, I tried to stick with a non-distracting and readable color scheme and layout. I also made the text font a little larger. None of the content has changed, only the look. I hope you like it.
Monday, April 04, 2011
LizaMoon: What Is It and How to Avoid It (VIDEO)
Sunday, April 03, 2011
OnComputers Radio show Podcast 04-03-11
Countless thousands exposed in attack on e-mail marketing company
Links from the Gregg Zone
1) Well I suppose it was inevitable, we now have the first electric Rolls Royce Phantom, while only a prototype and currently the one and only, if the test market goes well there may soon be more on the horizon. I was very impressed with the induction matt recharging system, eliminating the need to plug in, just park it in the garage over the matt. Research and development seems to me to be the most promising development here as Rolls Royce is unlikely to reach population numbers high enough to change the tide by themselves. http://www.bbc.
2) Okay I have to admit at the moment I have zero idea how this works, and a limited view as to the usefulness of this particular device, but the underlying concept that enables this action seems to me to be very useful as a process in a product line. I do have to admit it is a very cool demonstration. http://www.youtube.com
3) I am not too sure how the future of education will develop due to the digital-evolution we find ourselves in the middle of (actually logically thinking, I guess the beginning of). One thing seems certain, that being some drastic changes in the way we approach the methodology of teaching a subject. If you would like to participate in this new changing format and get paid for it, check this out. http://mashable.com
4) Sometimes things come along that are so potentially world changing it just stuns me trying to keep up. This just may signal the end of fire’s devastating effect on civilization; this promises to be the biggest advancement in fire fighting and prevention that I have seen period. Hard to tell if it can live up to that potential, but I will be keeping an eye open for more on this. http://portal.acs.org
5) With all of the advancements in computer technology and accompanying hype, the talk that we are playing God and all, every now and then we need a little wake up to keep everything in perspective. Here is an interesting article on that. It seems if we combine all of the CPU computing power, and total world storage capacity down to the last smart card, it does not equal one human being. http://arstechnica.com
Take control of Firefox 4
Earl's Cyber Steals and Deals
480 x 320 3.2" display, 3.15MP camera, Android OS v1.5, Bluetooth
HP has the HP Pavilion g7t Core i3 4GB 17.3" Notebook (charcoal gray) for $580 - $30 off with coupon code SAVE30HP = $550 with free shipping. Intel Core i3-380M 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200RPM HDD 17.3" 1600x900 LED LCD, HDMI, DVD+/-RW DL, 6-cell, Win 7 HP x64
Mwave has the IOGear GCS661U USB Laptop KVM Switch for $8 with free shipping. Features all-in-one 3' and 6' USB cable with one USB 2.0 port for USB devices sharing. The USB Laptop KVM Switch is the innovation from IOGEAR, combining easy switching and convenient file transferring between two computers. It allows the user to seamlessly control a second computer with a laptop as the console. The KVM features a toolbar with multiple functions such as file transfer, desktop image scaling and others
Newegg has the Corsair CMFUSB2.0-16GB Flash Voyager 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive for $28 - $10 rebate [Exp 4/7] = $18 with free shipping. Features a 22MB/s read and 7MB/s write speed, durable rubber housing for water and shock resistance, and a 10 year warranty.
Amazon with Tiger Direct has the Viewsonic G Tablet 10" Android Tablet for $300 with free shipping. 1.0Ghz NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, 16GB Storage, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 10" multi-touch LCD, Google Android OS 2.2 OS, 10 hour battery
Newegg has the Naxa NCS-774 6.5" 2-Way Car Speaker for $15 with free shipping. Features a 20 oz. magnet, injection molded polypropylene cone, and 89dB sensitivity.
HP has the HP Pavilion p6780t Series Core i5 Sandy Bridge Quad 6GB Desktop PC for $630 - $30 off with coupon code SAVE30HP = $600 with free shipping. Features an 2.8GHz Intel Core i5-2300 Sandy Bridge Quad Core processor, 6GB DDR3 memory, 1TB 7200RPM HDD and Windows 7 HP x64. HP Pavilion Slimline s5780t Core i5 Sandy Bridge Quad Desktop for $630 - $30 off with coupon code SAVE30HP = $600 with free shipping
Walmart has the Archos 101 10.1" 8GB Internet Tablet for $278 with free site-to-store / FedEx Office shipping or $1 shipping to home. Features an Android 2.2 OS, HD video playback, HDMI out, 10.1" 1024 x 600 display, Wireless-N, microSD slot, and USB port. Amazon also has it for the same price
Ends today. Dell Financial Services is taking 20% off sitewide with coupon code $pring$avings20P [Exp 4/3]. Cannot be combined with any other coupons
EverydaySource.com offers the 6-Foot HDMI 1.3b Male to Male Cable for $5.99. Coupon code "S0403IBAR" cuts it to 99 cents. With free shipping,