The HTC Hero has tickled my fancy, I’m not really a fan of HTC but I’m curious to try it out, especially with this being the third iteration with a lot cleaned up.

They have worked on integrating, Twitter, Facebook, and Flicker seamlessly into the one. The only one that really interests me is Flickr but a lot of people would enjoy the other application. And this time around they have Adobe Flash support for the phone. And now that the Android Market has had time to develop it won’t be an issue to find some applications that will suit my needs.

• 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen
• 5-megapixel cam with autofocus
• GPS
• 3.5-mm headphone jack
• 512MB of onboard memory with microSD expansion
• Flash support

Link: Coolhunting

Now that they have all launched Blackberry its interesting to compare all the services. I will be doing that at a later point but Viva packages seems interesting, they went for the idea of more expensive packages, but they are quite interesting.

• BB 15 KD – 200MB Local – Pay as you go for International
• BB 25 KD – 1 GB Local – 20 MB International
• BB 44 KD – Unlimited Local – Unlimited International

One other note you can switch between these plans at any point in time without any contractual problems, if you traveling you can take BB 44 and if you are just in Kuwait you can switch it back to BB 25.

I have to say that they give you a better bang for your buck for the packages, unlike Zain. I think Zain might lose a few customers if they don’t offer more value. I for one only use my BB for data and connectivity usages, not really calling people from this phone so switching to Viva does seem very appealing. The idea of having unlimited data is unprecedented for international use and never has been offered before, and that looks very appealing.

Link: Viva

Kingston are always making those jumps in USB Storage. Now they have 128 GB, 64 GB, and 32 GB with the smaller ones costing $213 and $120 respectivaely. I’m assuming the cost of a 128 GB stick is a little more then a netbook laptop.

Link: Gizmodo

I’m always interested in new hardware, what I have always found interesting is SSD drives and what they are doing with them. Fusion io came with the idea of a PCI Express SSD with 256 GBs and priced at $4000+ but this time around they teamed up with Fatal1y to come up with “budget” priced PCI Express SSD. You still can’t boot from this PCI Express card but the read and write speeds are ridiculous, there are some firmware updates which my add some new features but thats at a later stage.

Link: Gizmodo

I have to ISP coming in and I have two different technical setups for them, but both of them are the same idea. An ADSL modem which is a attached to a router which handles the network. For past couple of weeks my internet from Qnet has been acting up, I have done pretty much every possible conceivable solution to try and remedy this but to no avail. I have decided to do some testing with my modem, I have feeling that its life has come to an end after 6 years of good service, its a Thompson ADSL Modem but I can’t really do any configuration on it when I try to access it, so I wanted to replace it. Called my Qnet and all they offer is the Linksys ADSL which was crap from Kems, I asked for a Cisco modem but they said that it is only for corporate customers and they don’t have that in stock.

I’m judging these modems by a few of the points listed below, the main point is stability and no issues then I go on to other testing.

Key Points for successful modem:

• Faster Connection, with the newer modems surfing is substantially faster due to the better architecture, a Cisco modem is much more stable and faster the a Linksys modem and I have tried that first hand
• FTP and VPN access without any issues
• Extra features such a Port Forwarding, VPN configurable, Black or White Listing IPs & MAC addresses, DynDNS, and Wireless options

I have taken the options into my own hands, and after reading up online I decided to do some testing on affordable regular ADSL modems to post it up later. All the below have decent reviews and had their own problems and what they were good at, I’m going to test it to my preferences and see what I come up with as a winner.

• D-Link ADSL Modem/Router/Wireless
• D-Link ADSL Modem/Router
• Actiontech ADSL Modem/Router/Wireless

Wicked Lasers have been making the coolest looking lasers I have seen period, they look like those used by snipers and these could probably be used by snipers the beam can reach so far. They titled it as “The worlds most powerful hand held laser”, and I can believe it after looking at the laser. The Spyder II GX Laser for $1,700 is a military-grade hand held laser that’s sort of a like a laser pointer, only much, much awesomer. Airtight and water resistant, I don’t know if its water proof I’m curious of its capabilities under water but that would be an expensive test. Its also the first hand held laser to have some sort of cooling system so you won’t burn your hand after shining it for two minutes. If your goal is to cause chaos in the world then this is for you, if you are asking about the price then don’t even bother.

Link: WickedLasers

I never thought that there would be a curved screen such as this. A 43 inch display in a curved widescreen format, its resolution is around 2880×900 double WXGA, a 10′000:1 Contrast ratio, single link DVI-D and HDMI inputs, on screen display, and probably the coolest screen to hit the market. You can have it by July with a very nice price tag of $8,000. The one part which seems to be missing in the description is that there is 9 inch back end resembling the good old CRT monitors from back in the day. Still for the techi who can afford this its one interesting piece of equipment, makes working on panoramic photos and editing IMAX movies easy as pie.

I know that people are usually looking for a media player to play their shows on and something that plays different kinds of media and something simple. Other then building your own media PC this is the best and simplest player I have seen around, 1080p without a hitch, doesn’t matter if its an External HD which is Mac formatted or PC formatted but this is your best bet and very simple to operate. Just attached the external drive with all the shows and movie, choose what you want and enjoy.

• Thumbnail and list views – Browse your content by filename or by thumbnails of photos, album covers and movie cover art.
• Media Library – This unique feature lets you view all your media by media type in one menu regardless of its location in folders or drives. You can view content by categories such as genre, album, artist and date. / Search – Search by genre, title, artist, filename and partial filename
• Create custom slide shows with a variety of transitions and background music
• Movie viewing – Fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom, and pan; View subtitles – Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
• Music – Fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat; Supported USB Device file systems: FAT-32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)

File Formats Supported

• Music – MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
• Graphics – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
• Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264)
• Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8)

Note:

• MPEG2/4, H.264, and WMV9 supports up to 1920×1080p 24fps, 1920×1080i 30fps, 1280×720p 60fps resolution.
• An audio receiver is required for surround sound output.
• AAC/Dolby Digital decodes in 2 channel output only.
• JPEG does not support CMYK or lossless.
• BMP supports uncompressed format only.
• TIF/TIFF supports single layer only.

Price: $110
Link: Amazon

I picked up this list from the Maximum PC April 2009 issue, there are some publications which are still worth buying in print and this is one of them. PC Geeks over the years have developed certain skill sets, some are through education, some through knowledge, and the majority of it is through breaking stuff. Well this is a list of things that I can relate with and I know a few people that can as well, there are people with a lot more skills and I’m one always willing to learn.

• Knowing the difference between the board connectors; PCI Express, DDR Memory, Dual Channel Rimm
• Benchmarking a PC
• Know basic HTML tags
• Bypass the Government content filter
• Run all your essential Apps on a USB stick
• Getting through to the real technicians of customer service
• Use photoshop to doctor a photo
• Wire your home with your know Ethernet and know how to crimp it
• Say NO to extended warranty
• Mooch Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere
• Use a DSLR in full manual mode
• Install a Hard Drive in a Laptop (Laptop broke down in the first month, damn annoying)
• Protect your Wi-Fi
• Take apart a damage external hard drive and extract the data
• Pull off an elaborate prank
• Set up a RAID configuration
• Securely Erase your data (They don’t know how to do that at Lockheed Martin)
• Solder like your life depended on it (I used to do that when I worked on my R/C Cars, would probably do some damage to a mother board)
• Rip CDs to FLAC
• Stream your movies, Music, Photos, and anything else to any location in your house
• Dual-Boot your PC
• How to hack a Windows Computer or Router
• Watch TV Shows on the Internet (Legally)
• Installing and configuring a Virtual Machine
• Protecting your tracks on the PC
• Run multiple monitors
• Know the important Linux Commands
• Avoid DRM at all costs
• Use Remote Desktop
• Rip a DVD to H.264
• Find everything you need to know Online
• Install Third-party firmware on your router
• Be an addict to Star Wars or Star Trek
• Be able to use the command prompt like a pro
• Be able to change your own tire
• Connecting to the ECU of your vehicle to tweak, or flash, clear codes
• Play Halo1/2/3 and still don’t want to sleep
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I got my Flip MinoHD a while back now but I didn’t have a chance to really use it except a little recently. The box is nice and compact, comes with a few wires, a pouch, and the manual. The camera is smaller then I expected, its smaller then my Blackberry 8900, fits very nicely in my hand. Switched it on and it has some very simple settings, and you pretty much point and record right away. It records at 720p video which you can connect to your computer through USB, the USB connector is built into the Flip MinoHD, its at the top and flips out, then you connect it to your computer to either take the videos or charge it, to charge the Flip you also connect it to the USB.

It has very simple operations when recording, you just have one big red button to record and point in the direction that you want. There is a simple built-in software which I used to create the test video below. The sound recorded quality is excellent and so it the video quality, if you are looking for a simple point and shoot video camera for under $200 then this is the perfect camera. I was looking to use a camera to mount to my bikes while riding and mount it to the car while driving to make some fun videos, and it really did the job. You can do edit the video insert any effects but that must be done in something like Adobe Premiere.

• Holds 60 minutes of HD-quality video (1280 x 720 resolution at 30 frames per second; 16:9 widescreen) on 4 GB of built-in memory
• Weighs only 3.3 ounces, sleek design, fits into your pocket or purse
• Features one-touch recording and digital zoom
• Flip-out USB arm plugs directly into your computer to launch built-in FlipShare software
• FlipShare software lets you save and organize your videos, simple editing, make movie, email, or upload online

I honestly think they did a great job with this camera targeting a specific usage for it. I do think there is room for improvement but I gave it high marks because of the video quality I kept getting and sound capture, and overall extreme ease of use. Now you can the Flip UltraHD which does a little bit more for the same price, so I would go for this one at this point.

Price: $199
Link: Amazon
Rated:

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