Itching to at least get a few system enhancements I looked into where I could make some upgrade improvements. I started with my video card. I occasionally like to play games on my PC so this was a good place to start as I had an Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT with 512Mb of RAM which could use an upgrade now that I have a Samsung T240HD 24-Inch LCD HDTV Monitor capable of a 1920 x 1200 resolution. So I went to Tom’s Hardware which offers a great post every month that breaks down which video card is the best to buy at various price points. Here’s the post I read and my timing appears to have been pretty good.

As mentioned in the video there were 3 cards tied in the $150 price range. There were a few key reasons I chose the 5770 over the others. It’s a newer generation card and the only one of the 3 that supports Direct X 11. Secondly I it was the only one that supported 4 video outs. It has 2 x DVI 1 x HDMI and a DisplayPort. Lastly the card uses the newer 40-nm semiconductor process technology which uses less power and produces less heat. This makes this card the quitest of the bunch as well which is an issue for me. My last several cards were pretty loud when playing games.

So having decided which card to buy I now had to decide which company to get it from. There are quite a few of them that OEM the card and each offers small distinctions between them and in some cases they will vary in speed. I headed over to Newegg since the reviews on there usually provide some good guidance as to which computer hardware to buy and I found the Sapphire to be the highest rated of the 5770′s on there. I headed over to Amazon to see if they had the card which they did for $10 less than Newegg and no tax.

So I tested the card with Call of Duty 4 and it ran beautifully at 1920 x 1200 resolution giving me well over 60 FPS on average. It also ran very quiet the entire time. I’m very happy with this card.

I also decided to go from 4GB of RAM up to 8GB since I was moving to the 64 Bit version of Windows 7. This should offer me some more headroom to run multiple apps without worrying about gobbling up memory. For this I found a great deal on some Corsair 4 GB (2 X 2 GB) Memory Kits for $79.99 a pair. These were very cheap for some highly rated memory designed for over-clocking which I wasn’t planning on doing anyways but what the hell. They look pretty cool with their heat spreaders too. More sexiness for inside the case to go with the pretty Saphire girl which nobody will ever see.

I then decided to remove the 2 x 500GB Western Digital drives that were running in RAID 1 fashion to be replaced with a single 1TB drive. I figured I didn’t need the RAID 1 inside my machine anymore having recently built a RAID 1 NAS. I just need to make sure that I’m continually backing up to it. I chose the Seagate Barracuda ST31000528AS 1 TB SATA Version 12. I like that I’m removing one more moving part, hot and noisy item from my case.

Lastly I decided to replace my DVD Burner which was the only thing using the IDE interface. I wanted to replace it with a SATA version so I could remove that ghastly looking cable (which nobody will ever see) with a nice clean SATA version. I chose the Plextor PX-880SA 24X DVD Burner with LightScribe and 2MB Cache. This also was a high rated drive at Newegg and I purchased it there for a mere $39.

I became a huge fan of being able to quckly brew a single cup of coffee. I also really enjoyed my Senseo, but alas the unit died on me recently and I was prepared to replace it but had been hearing buzz about the Keurig Coffee Brewing System and decided to do a little research.

Everything I read about it pointed to a pretty good system. So a few weeks ago I’m walking the aisles of my local Costco when low and behold I came upon a special Keurig package deal. It was for the Keurig B60 model, came with a ton of sample K Cups (the single serving cups used) and even included an adapter to use your own coffee as well. I figured I had to try it and snapped it up.

Overall the system is somewhat similar to the Senseo but there are a few noticeable differences. For one this unit is built much better and feels sturdy. The K cup system is also a lot cleaner than using the exposed coffee pods. No muss or fuss having to clean parts after a brew. Brew time appears to be about the same. The Keurig does have 3 cup size settings (small, medium, large). You can really only use the first two settings with standard K cups, I tried the large but the coffee tasted to weak for my taste. The large option is nice if you brew your own with the adapter where you can control the strength.

The system came with a ton of sample coffee’s and so far I’ve enjoyed the Newman’s Own Organics Special Blend (Extra Bold) brew the best. It also came with a selection of Teas as well as hot chocolate. There seems to be huge support from coffee makers for manufacturing K cups. So basically it has great support in the market and seems to be sold and stocked in many outlets now.

I do admit that I miss the forthy crema that the Senseo used to generate but I’m willing to trade it for the better tasting coffee the Keurig makes. If you are in the market for a single cup brewing system you should definitely take a look at the Keurig. Overall I’m very happy with it. they also offer smaller models than the one I got.

My Video Demo

Other Resources

• Review of the Keurig vs. Senseo vs. Tassimo
• Keurig B50 Review at Geardiary.com
• Keurig Coffee Makers on Coffee Geek
• Chowhound discussion of Pod coffee makers

I ordered it and was a little skeptical but after having it for 2 days I have to say it’s an amazing deal. I also ordered a silicone skin from the same vendor for about the same price and as you can see from the picture it still fits well in the case. It uses a magnetic flap for the cover. Both the headphone jack and speakers are exposed well with the phone sitting in the case. I was also pleasantly surprised to see it had an X (unintended logo for X PRIZE :) I highly recommend this case if you are looking for something similar.

The third party that sells this through Amazon is Bargaincell.com and the case is listed on their own site for $12.50 which would still be a good deal.

Go snap this up before they’re gone.

I was pretty amazed when after doing a little searching around on dealnews, techbargains, and fatwallet I was able to find a 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB dual channel kit) of DDR2 memory for only $70 with free shipping at one of my favorite online merchants newegg.com so I decided they were too cheap not to buy them. I could then easily get about $30 for the 1GB dual channel kit I already had in the system making the upgrade net at only $40, but I decided to be nice and put the memory in my son’s computer.

As I went to the page to provide you with the link I come to find out that they dropped the price another $5 to only $65…amazing…Here’s the Link

My wife’s current hairdryer had just died. It was a pretty good one that had cost her ~$100 (I had no idea they could cost that much). But she really liked it. We went to Costco and she bought some $20 model they had over there and had been using it but knew that she didn’t like it as much. Being the tech gadget freak that I am, I decided to employ my research and purchasing skills as if I were buying some new computer accessory, to find her the best hairdryer I could as a birthday gift.

So I searched around for some reviews and comparisons of top hairdryers out there. The best I found was “How to pick the best professional hair dryer” at Missiko.com and “Buying The Right Hair Dryer” from CBS News. After reading each of these it became clear that a two rose to the top which were the Farouk CHI Turbo & Rocket Ionic hair dryer as well as the T3 Evolution Tourmaline hair dryer. I learned about what makes these higher end hair dryers so much better based on use of negatively charged ions, tourmaline, and ceramics. So my next step was to find some user reviews for each of these which I found over at a commerce site called Folica.com. They had a good number of user reviews for the Chi Turbo, Chi Rocket as well as the T3 Evolution. After thinking about it some more I decided to get my wife the Chi Rocket. Needless to say my wife was very happy not only with the hair dryer I bought her, but with the research I did to make sure I got her the best one.

Guys, let me tell you, going through a process like this to get your lady a tech gadget can go a long way in getting her to appreciate the nuances of getting better gear. It can also open the door to her understanding why we go through so much trouble selecting our gear. Hopefully she will understand this as I decide which High Def DVD player I will be purchasing soon.

To determine the list of possible hosting providers for my move I decided to limit my search to those recommended on the WordPress site. This is how I originally chose Yahoo before determining my needs had outgrown them. After viewing the small selection of sites listed I saw that the only one supporting the ability to host multiple domains on one account was Bluehost (disclosure: I am an affiliate now that I’m a happy customer). So not only was I able to host multiple domains now, but I was going to pay less as well.

Signup & setup was a breeze. They offer the ability to auto-install WordPress (as well as a ton of other open source packages. see image) with just a few clicks. They have a very clean control panel to access all the features necessary and as an added bonus they already have phpMyAdmin installed which was useful when I had it setup on my own server for accessing the WordPress mysql database when necessary to make changes as well as for doing backups. The ftp service has been very snappy as I’ve had to migrate over much of my old site data.

The support has been great and I’ve been very impressed with the pro-active emails they send keeping users up to date on changes they’ve been going through as they expand and improve performance. It’s great to see my site is running smooth. No longer do I need to worry about the problems I was having with the old server. I can’t recommend Bluehost enough which says a lot since I’ve experienced a multitude of hosting providers over the years. I think if you’re looking to host your own WordPress site you can’t go wrong choosing them.

But don’t just take my word for it. I found a great site called Web Hosting Unleashed that provides user reviews and feedback on hosting companies. You can find the feedback received for Bluehost here and compare them to other potential hosts you are considering. Another hosting provider I have heard several people recommend is Midphase.

Update Bluehost now offers unlimited domains with their accounts!

The promotion requires you to take a digital photo of a creative way to use your old drip coffee pot. I sent a picture of mine filled with candy for use on Halloween. If you’re lazy you can google for an image like the one I found here or go to flickr or somewhere else.

You will also have to pay $15 for shipping & handling and they state that it will be 6-8 weeks for delivery, but that’s a small price to pay for the great machine. Also the promo ends on 12/31/05 or after they give away 2500 machines, so act quick.

If you are new to coffee pod machines. I can tell you that they are great. I am the only coffee drinker in my family. I also simply want one quick cup in the morning before I go to work. These two items make me a perfect candidate for this machine. You simply place 1 or 2 pods in the machine, fill it up with water and your cup is ready in just over a minute. The cup also takes great with a crema lining the top of the cup. The only slight negative is that the coffee pods are a bit pricey (about $.42 a cup for 2 pods), but for small usage I’m willing to pay the price. It’s still cheaper than Starbucks and you don’t have to wait in line.

If you didn’t get in on the promotion or simply don’t want to wait you can get more info such as reviews and pricing on the Senseo at Amazon here

Here’s also a link to the product page at Amazon for the pods.

Commentary
I chose this camera because I wanted a reasonably priced Ultrazoom (10x optical+) camera. It was a pretty tough decision between the Canon and the Panasonic. I came across an incredible deal on the Canon and jumped on it. After having received the camera, the first thing I tried (strangely enough) was the video mode. I’ve been on the hunt for a tapeless camcorder as well and recently purchase the Panasonic AV100. I had been pretty impressed and had now abandoned my Sony tape DV Cam. I have to say that after doing A/B comparisons between the Canon and the AV100, I am extremely impressed with the Canon. Although the resolution may not be as great on the Canon, it more than makes up for it with its low light and accurate colors over the Panasonic. I will be selling my Panasonic and use the Canon exclusively until I come across a better and more affordable tapeless cam (currently looking at the JVC Everio).

Resources

2/22/06 Dpreview has posted information on the newly announced Canon S3 IS Camera which will be replacing the S2. The biggest difference is that it now has a 6 megapixel sensor but there are many other new features as well. You can read more at the site by clicking here

12/12/05 BoingBoing put up a blurb on the FZ5 today here with great praise. I’m surprised there was no mention of the Canon.

I ended up getting the Canon S2. You can get more info on it HERE. The dealmaker for me was the video mode of the Canon. The interesting thing is that my brother ended up getting the Panasonic FZ5.

I am about to buy a new ultra zoom digital camera and have been doing research on the current crop of contenders.

Here are the four current choices as I see it. There are other Ultra zooms, but only these provide what I believe is a required feature…Image Stabilization

I personally have limited my decision to either the Canon or Panasonic. The Panasonic has been out for a little while and has gotten great reviews. All of these cameras are priced similarly in the ~400-500 range. I was just about to pull the trigger on the Panny and then heard about the Canon. I’m waiting to see some reviews before I make my final decision.

Here’s a great side by side comparison of the Canon, Panasonic, Sony, and Konica
Link Here

I believe that the difference in picture quality between the Canon & Panny will be negligible and what’s important to me is the quality of the image stabilization (the Panny has this as well), the autofocus in ultra-zoom modes, and the shutter speed.

Some key advantages of the Canon over the Panny are:
* External Flash capability
* Manual Focus
* Slightly higher resolution (5.0 vs. 4.9)
* Much better movie clip ability (640×480 vs. 320×240)
* Batteries (4 AA’s vs. custom lithion rechargeable) a positive due to price but could be considered a negative as well due to additional weight (Canon 17.8 vs. Panny 11.5 oz) and shorter lifespan

Another thing to keep in mind is that Panasonic also has the FZ20 model which has the external flash and manual focus ability, but is somewhat larger than the FZ5 and should be dropping in price right now.

I’ve been watching these closely and hope this is helpful to anyone else considering an ultra-zoom camera.

Resources for top Ultra Zoom Digital Cameras

Item	Canon S2 IS	Panasonic FZ5	Sony DSC-H1	Minolta Z5
Reviews	dpreview.com steves-digicams.com	Dpreview.com Stevesdigicams.com Dcresource.com	Steve’s Digicams	coming
Pricing	Pricegrabber.com	Pricegrabber.com	Pricegrabber.com	coming
Product Page	Canon Site	Panasonic Site	coming	coming
Manual	Canon Manuals	coming	coming	coming

More Panasonic FZ5 Info
coming soon

Canon S2 IS Info
Quote from dpreview: “For fast action (where the focus system still isn’t fast enough), I’d go for the Panasonic FZ5″
Steve’s Digicams compares the S2 to the Sony H1 and neglects to mention the Panasonic which I find very strange.

Sony DSC-H1 Info
coming soon

Minolta Dimage Z5
coming soon

Update 6/21/05
I ventured to my local Circuit City today and they had the Canon S2 sitting right next to the Panasonic FZ5. After handling both for about 10 minutes I can easily say that the FZ5 is much nicer to the handle. The S2 is very big and bulky in comparison and weighs more. Between this and the quote I list from dpreview, I am starting to lean towards the Panny.