Headsets

A few months ago I bought a wired headset for use in the home office. The Plantronics M110 headset has a standard 2.5 mm plug and fits most home wireless phones and many cell phones. This headset will not win you any style awards, but it will make sure the person on the other end hears you. Plantronics has a number of options for those requiring a bluetooth headset. I suspect the "boom mic" on my headset helps with the sound quality.

The M110 headset has gotten a number of comments from people I talk to while using it. It easily outperforms my previous headset with a similarly street price. Sometimes in a wireless world, a wired option is better.

The Conficker Eye Chart

The Conficker Eye Chart is a brilliantly simple test to see if malware is blocking your access to three security sites.

Seeing this image is not enough, click the link to see the real test!

LED Lights

LED based light bulbs for the home have historically been rather pricey, around $40 a bulb in 2005.

But last time I was in Sam's Club they had reasonably priced LED lights in among the CFLs. For example: Flood Lights and Accent Lights. These are priced where similar CFL's were 4 or 5 years ago, and use considerably less power.

Doing a quick search at Amazon turns up a few options for less than $20 a bulb: 2 watt PAR20 Blue LED Flood Light and 3-Watt G19 LED Bulb.

Perhaps LED home lighting is with in reach of mere mortals.

Pre-schooler iPhone Apps



What do you think, is there a market for pre-schooler iPhone apps?

The iPhone and iPod touch are both expensive, but as can be seen in the video above very young children can master the user interface. If you watch the over the shoulder view, you will notice she gets out of the Fun Calc app, into the calendar, decides that isn't what she wants, closes the calendar, and relaunches the Fun Calc application.

Ink or Laser

I had a conversation over lunch about ink-jet vs. laser printers for the home office.

A quick look at Amazon reveals that a color laser printer can be had for less than $250. Examples:
HP Color LaserJet CP1210 Printer

Print accurate 600 x 600 dpi documents at speeds of up to 12 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white and 8 ppm in full-color. The 264 MHz processor and 16 MB of on-board memory help to keep the LaserJet CP1210 performing at its best over the long haul, and with a maximum monthly duty cycle of 25,000 pages, this printer can handle large-capacity jobs with ease. The large capacity 150-sheet paper tray ensures less time refilling paper.

Samsung CLP-315W Color Laser Printer

Vibrant, professional color is now within your reach with the compact, wireless Samsung CLP-315W color laser printer. This easy-to-use workgroup printer fits easily into an office network and look good while working quickly and quietly. This stylish printer also features a black control panel and delivers full-color printing at 4 pages per minute (ppm) and sharp monochrome laser text at 17 ppm. Along with its great design and compact size (just a 15.3 x 12.3-inch footprint), it's network-ready via both Ethernet and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) as well as able to connect to a PC using USB.

There are even Color Laser all-in-one printers in the $300 price range:
Konica Magicolor 1680MF Color Laser All-In-One Printer

Meet the Magicolor 1680MF Konica Minolta's newest and smallest color laser all in one. With a height of only 14.8", this compact multi-tasker features professional-quality printing, copying and scanning all in one small package. Don't let its size fool you, this desktop dynamo delivers 20 ppm B&W and 5 ppm color. It also features 1200 x 600 dpi resolution and Simitri HD Polymerized toner for bold graphics and crisp text page after page.

This is just what I found quickly on Amazon, there are probably many more options at other sites, and plenty of multifunction options around the $500 price range. Worth checking out, as I hate the economics of the ink-jet printers.

Best Apple Shirt Ad

Don't know where it originally came from, but this one is an eye grabber.

Develop 4 iPhone or Nintendo?

Apple recently announced that they have sold 30 million iPhones and iPod Touch's. That makes the iPhone a sizable market for development. This blog post explores the option of developing for the iPhone or the Wii if you are a recently unemployed game developer.

The whole idea of capitalism is that central planning doesn't work. Opening up a fair market maximizes creativity. With the new game controls, the Wii could inspire amazing creativity that Nintendo never envisioned.