Viper (maker of car alarms and remote starters) sent me a PR kit for a new system which will allow you to remote start your car with your Apple iphone.
It looks neat, because you can start your car even if it isn't within direct line-of-sight; the system communicates between the iphone and the car over the cellular network.
However, there are a couple of things I wonder about. First, the cost: after the first year, it costs $30/year for service. Is that worth it? Not to me, when I can have a service-fee free line-of-sight remote starter.
Secondly, I wonder about the safety implications of being able to remote start your car without being near it. All remote starters have a cut-off timer which kills the engine if you don't come and open the car within a certain amount of time, typically about 10 minutes. But without being able to see your car, you have no idea if there is some unsafe situation where you wouldn't want to be starting a car.
Viper's iPhone Remote Start System
The Galileoscope
A team of astronomers went to work to come up with a low cost telescope kit, that kids could put together to learn about how telescopes work, and then use to observe the night sky. The result is the very cool looking Galileoscope, which costs only $15 individually, and reportedly has pretty good optics. For example, they used lens designs which reduce chromatic aberration, something that Galileo did not have in his day.
There is a short video about it here:
Here is another
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0.2 Vista Bug
I'm posting this to help others find the answer to this bug.
Vista is running fine, but Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 had me pulling my hair out... after patching it up to v5.0.2 like Adobe says, and importing my catalog from my old computer, like Adobe says... the Organizer application wouldn't run. It showed me a splash screen, then disappeared.
Task Manager told me that it was running, but it wouldn't open a UI.
After much fooling around, un-installing and re-installing PSE, I finally found this article on Adobe's support site.
Apparently, the file monitor service breaks Organizer on some Vista sysems (like mine). To fix it, I simply turned off the service. From Adobe:
Solution
Turn off the Active File Monitor service.
- Choose Start, type msconfig in the Search box, and then press Enter.
- On the Services tab, deselect Adobe Active File Monitor V5.
- Click OK, and then click Restart.
Note: You may not be able to use the Watch Folders function if you turn off the Active File Monitor service.
WIndows Vista: Not So Bad
I needed to buy a new PC, and I found a pretty good deal on a Dell Optiplex 330 (dual core, 2GB ram, 160GB HDD). I decided to take a risk and get Windows Vista (Business), even though I read all kinds of horror stories about how unstable, slow, annoying, buggy it is.
Here is my experience so far (after using it for a few hours)
Good:
- UI is nice. Lots of eye candy, Aero interface is a bit blingy but effective. Decently organized. Lots of options for different views.
- Boot time is OK for me (my old XP machine took about 45 seconds to boot up, the new one takes about 30)
- Ubiquitous search boxes are neat.
- Sidebar is neat.
- Lots of built in goodies like scan/fax, system backup.
Bad:
- The User Account Control thing, the box that comes up and asks you "are you sure" for every little thing is annoying. I appreciate the added security, but I am tempted to turn it off.
- If I ran Windows XP on this machine, I bet it would boot in like 20s.
I also heard that much of my old software would not work in Vista. Not true, so far all this stuff seems to be working fine:
- WordPerfect Office 12 SP1 (but SP2 won't install!) I may break down and upgrade to the latest WP Office anyway.
- Microsoft Office XP
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (with patch)
- FireFox 3.0
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Ad-Aware
- Antivir Free Antivirus
- Quicken 2007 (with patch)
- Roxio Media Creator 10
- Apple iTunes
- Epson Smart Panel (don't care, Vista has nice built-in scanning functions anyway)
- WP 12 SP2 won't install.
Roku Soundbridge Rocks
I recently got a Roku Soundbridge. This is a wireless MP3 player with a large, easy to read text display that plugs into your audio/home theater system. It is a very well executed gadget, worked right right out of the box. It is one of the best gadgets I have ever owned, and has nicely replaced my CD changer.
The way the system works is that you run a streaming server on your Windows, MacOS, or Linux PC which indexes your MP3 collection and streams it on demand to the SoundBridge. iTunes and Windows Media Player already have the capability, or you can install a third party free server. The Soundbridge has a simple remote and an easy to navigate menu system, which you use to browse or search for music. It has a built in display, so you don't have to use your TV to see what you are doing, unlike some competor products. It talks wi-fi, so you don't have to run an ethernet cable to it.
The other really cool thing about the SoundBridge is that it can receive internet radio stations, without going through your computer. I use it to lisen to my local AM radio stations in static free digital glory.
I'm not shilling for Roku, just a satisfied customer.
+1 for Sierra Trading Post
I don't accept advertising for specific businesses (and I don't get enough readers to make much money from Google's ads) but I do like to post reviews when someone provdies good service.
I recently wanted to buy a pair of shoes, and I found that Sierra Trading Post (www.siearratradingpost.com) had them on clearance for a very good price. After I ordered the shoes, the next day, I realized I wanted to add another pair to my order. I used the customer service chat function to ask if I could do that, and the rep told me that the order had already printed and was being packed, so I couldn't. However, she offered to give me a shipping discount for a second order, so it would be as if I had combined the two.
So here's a big +1 for Sierra Trading Post. If you need shoes, clothes, or outdoor gear, give them a look, they have very good prices because they focus on overstock and closeouts.
Tasting 3.5 Year Old Budweiser
So Passover is coming up and my wife says to me, "Are you finally going to get rid of the old cans of Budweiser you keep saving for beer-can chicken? They must be stale by now". As I am sure you know, beer is chametz, and as such, must be consumed, destroyed, or sold to a non-Jew before Passover.
In the past, I had "sold" the Budweiser ceremonially by putting it in with our other non-discarded grain products. I could never drink the stuff, being a certified Beer Snob, and somehow I kept forgetting to use it to make beer-can chicken. Every time I needed beer for chicken, I reached for whatever I was drinking at the time.
So, as a zymurgilogical* experiment, I decided to crack open and consume one of my Budweiser cans, which according to the handy "born-on date" stamp, was 3.5 years old. It had been stored on the floor of my basement, in a plastic crate, at a near constant temperature of about 70 degrees.
Here are my observations:
The pour:
Fizzy, lots of head. Good straw color, perfectly clear. Fierce bubble formation (dirty glass?)
Nose:
Hardly any smell at all. Slight notes of rice. Surprisingly, no metallic odor.
Taste:
Hardly any. The good news is that the can did not impart any noticeable flavor to the beer (I think the cans are plastic coated these days). Any trace of hops that was in the original beer, which would have been very little, is now completely gone. The stuff tasted just a little bit more beer-like than Zima. There is a hint of malt, some sweet rice, and a bunch of carbonation. Lots of mouth fizz.
Finish:
Slight rice sweetness. Very little aftertaste.
Overall, I was surprised and pleased with the results of my experiment, and I can offer this conclusion: if you don't like beer that tastes too much like beer, cellar some Bud for a few years to take the edge off. Serve cold, with a slice of lemon.
The other can was used to make beer-bread.
*Zymurgy is the science of beer.