Tag Archives: Awesome

I Love Newegg, You Should Too

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You know that part of your brain that makes you do stuff unconsciously, but slowly enough that you have to wonder if it was deliberate?

Case in point…

You are watching TV, and some botox-faced newscaster mentions something about a stolen wallet. Your find your hand checking the contours of your pockets, making sure that your wallet is still where it should be, by your junk. You feel yourself reaching for it, and try to take control from the brain stem…take charge…you got it. Nope. That was impulse, dog.

Well, I don’t rock a wallet in the traditional sense. I use a binder clip to keep my credit cards from migrating to the floor. I also have the same knee jerk reaction to computer part prices as most would have with the wallet example. Hear of a computer type product…look on Newegg.

Remember that HP touchscreen tablet I was pining about a few days ago… check this out:

newegg is nice

when did robot become a bro...nice?

That is 20 USD cheaper than I saw on HP’s website, and that is without a NewEgg promo code. Get a promo code and we make that twenty dollar savings from the HP site looks small. Small, like my wallet, which once again, is a binder clip.

Even writing about my binder clip makes me check my pocket for my binder clip. I feel for you wallet folk. Check out Newegg…it’ll work itself out. If you feel really bad, check out Savings.com on the regular. The Newegg promo codes are just one of many that those guys toss out there.

FWIW, I want that HP even more. Gutted with Ubuntu Unity…that’s the stuff dreams are made of. Nerd dreams are dreams too…nerd dreams are dreams.

Buy an HP… Really

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Maybe I am a bit jaded. I have spent far too many hours digging around in Dell laptops…that might make a guy sort of jaded. Maybe it is the fact that I am tired of all of the Dells sitting around my garage; time for a new toy, perhaps. Regardless of the root cause, I’ve been taking note lately to the HP discounts hanging around out there, and I really want one.

Case in point. Last week at work, my home slice bjordan and I were talking about Unity, and how Ubuntu might be dropping the ball on their netbook OS. I suggested that it was pretty much designed to be run on a tablet, and that it (was) getting good reviews from some power users, even though I hate the term “power user.” Long story short, we both decided that perhaps our netbooks needed upgrades…a la touchscreens. There are kits available to upgrade the Mini 9′s screen to a touch…but, why do that, when this bad boy is on the market:

hp image

FTFY = Fixed That For You, FYI

The HP TouchSmart units are awesome. Especially the TouchSmart tm2t series. Imagine that bad boy, WITH WINDOWS TOSSED STRAIGHT THE CRAP TO DEV NULL, running Ubuntu 10.10 with Unity…perfect. No hardware issues, with a slick touchscreen interface. I would love to get my hands and fingers on that sucker…swivel touch swivel awesome. For the win, of course.

Motor Shield Assembly Steps

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Good news…you don’t have to listen to me blather on. At least blather on too much…there will be some blathering.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was feeling lousy about failing to post some junk. Junk and stuff…electronics…programming is uber-super…blathering again…et…cet…etcetera.

awesome lab

awesome lab...an absolute must

make a list

diagrams. come in handy.

clamp

asterixes astericies astericxses

soldering x3

doot doot doot doot deet deet doot deet doot deet deet

nipple clamp

BOOOOO

looks better

divert your gaze upward

fin

Fin.

donedee

crocodile done-dee

Old Cell Phone Uses

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I am now an official Android fanboi. It would be impossible to hide that fact. Granted, I have yet to root my Droid 2, but I am at least ninety something out of a possible one hundred ‘big into’ this OS. Pretty pumped I waited for Snapdragon…pretty pumped I feigned the urge to get a first generation device…pretty pumped that Apple and or AT&T are not around my neck of the woods…you name it. I’m in a good place, cellularly.

+1 use of the word ‘cellularly’

Regardless, I am left with the problem of what to do with all of my passé phones.

+1 tilde

I have a stack of Verizon phones sitting around, with very little use. Zero use, in fact, unless you can count ‘looking at and laughing about how ridiculously horrid technology was two years ago’ a use, which in fact I do not. Good thing I found a site that will give you money for your mobile phone. Not just a bit, either. That is, of course, unless you are still rocking the Zach Morris phone:

slater

and you can sit backwards in your chair...

Damn right A.C. is going to sit backwards in his chair, Preppy.

You know what is cool about SellMyMobile? Not only will they give you money for your cell, but they are saving the environment as well. My old Blackberry may not be as worth as much as the big hitters (iPhone, iPad, Nokia N8, etc.) but it will at very least stay out of a landfill. There are some toxins in that sucker…gold too, but also toxins.

Hit that bump up there to see what I’m talking about. Worth a shot, especially if you have a sweet phone that you are looking to monetize. Reduce, Reuse, Monetize. I think.

Droid 2 or Nexus One 2.2 Plus

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The proof is in the pudding (or in the froyo?) on this guy. Droid 2, hands down. Sorry Nexus fans.

I ran a benchmark test on my Droid 2 running Froyo. Here are the results, in slick, colorful, sideways bar graph form.

droid2

crappy pic...awesome font

Sorry for the awful picture quality…I had to log into my dual boot, in order to use Dell Webcam Central (garbage) to snap a picture of my phone. Turns out, my phone is also my camera, and I have yet to grab a screenshot app. Whatever. I’ll summarize the results.

Droid 2 with Froyo —— 1384 units
Nexus One 2.2 ——————— fewer unit than 1384
Others Played ——————– far fewer units than even 1384

Not sure what these units are, really, but the Droid 2 is clearly superior. I used an app called Quadrant, which is alleged to be quite legit.

It surprised me that the Droid X is lagging behind 2.2+ that much…it was supposed to be hotter than Hades. The Samsung Galaxy S is making a solid case for itself, sitting well above the Nexus One and HTC Desire.

As for those on the Moto Droid…hang in there. Hopefully you can manage to break your phone under warranty and get something with the Snapdragon under the hood.

****Bonus Bloggage…after I snapped the above picture and put together this post, I knuckled up on the Widowmaker pictured in the background. My knuckles indicate that I once again lost.****

How to Hang a Heavy Bag

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This is not a chipper tale of how-to boastery. Far from it. I cartoonified the shit out of the following pics, in order to further convey the surreal darkness that was involved in this seemingly trivial task. Buckle up…it is not likely to be pleasant blog-reading.

The mission objective was simple enough: hang a heavy bag. The mission-turns-out-to-be-a-little-cooler-and-a-little-more-involved moment came when I realized there was approximately one punching bag length between the ceiling in my garage and the spot where I wanted the top of said bag. I’ll let the pictures tell the story, for the most part. My knuckles are all sorts of funked up, which is an indication of the title’s eventual success. Or aptness. Or giant fail…I’m still very confused.

Enough rambling…first thing I know, I’m standing on my Honda Trail 90, wondering how I ended up with a heavy bag (and Honda Trail 90) before I managed to end up with a goddamned ladder.

boo

Unsafe at any Speed

When in Rome…snap a pic. It’s pretty much all about the photo-documentation at this point.

smoove criminal

uh...

“Uh” is incredibly right. That sucker was bouncing around looking down…not so stable when my arm and or both arms were above my head. Good thing I’m limber. Huh?

My grand idea involved two threaded rings. Innocent enough looking…

oh, nice

oh, nice

…fucking wrong. Far from innocent, when said threaded ring is dropped into spider-central…

darkest hell

darkest hell

Well, I managed to knock most of those webs out of place with my trusty framing hammer. Unfortunately, I knocked them right on that stupid shiny thing I was attemping to arm-fish out of the hole between the particle board, studs, spider poop, drywall, and darkest hell.

I got the stupid thing, did the weird shudder thing with my shoulders/neck for a half-minute, and got back into gear. Survival mode at this point. Darkest-hell-been-and-back-survival mode.

Either my creeped out spider dance brought me luck, or my engineering was sound. Or both…but it worked out, against most odds.

up

Position 1

down

Position 2

It works, and there is a box of delicious OML in the frame. So I guess I’ll count that as a win???

Droid 2 Must Have Apps

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One week into my tenure as a happy Droid user, I have some insight into what an Android user must toss on his or her unit. This is a running list, of course, but solid enough for a post. Post and a pic…

also pictured: thug dood

also pictured: thug dood

I’ll keep it simple at this point. Top five apps I have encountered, as far as usefulness and coolness are concerned.

1) Advanced Task Killer. No questions asked…get this app first and foremost. The battery life on these suckers is awful at best. Multitasking is great, but murder on batteries. Nuke your background crap, and nuke it often.

Nuke it from orbit, if in orbit.

2) Google Sky Map. So awesome it hurts. Bonus: your non-Android-having buddies will bow to your phone’s awesomeness.

3) Google Translate. Como se dice ‘awesome’ en Espanol? Un momento…Impresionante. Get this app, amigos.

4) Robo Defence. Awesome game; good graphics. Perfect for meetings; free version for those non-committal types.

5) Google Goggles. Take pictures of junk, see search results. This is another deal-breaker when it comes to the new tech that you can pull out on these phones. Maybe I’ll post a few result sets of this guy in action…sort of like looking into the future with this guy.

As the forewarning stated, this is far from a static list…merely a snapshot of the stuff I am currently digging with a spoon. I’ll try to keep some updates on the site, when my knowledge and tastes mature.

FWIW, get one of these bad boys. You will most surely not regret it in the least. To the max.

Soldering Station

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Since I’m really dragging my feet in regards to posting anything of substance, take a quick look at my new Aoyue soldering station.

soldering station

also pictured: clutter

It works like a champ…pretty pumped that I heeded Lady Ada’s advice on this one.

I still need to post my Motor Shield assembly pics. I also really need to post some stuff about the Droid 2…which is constantly blowing my mind. Stick around…it’ll happen.

Servo Schmervo… Arduino Sweep

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In preparation for the impending shit-storm that will consist of me, a soldering iron, and dozens of small, fragile components, I decided to see if I can actually get my Arduino to talk to a servo. Well, it turns out that the code is not the issue.

The built in servo library is pretty easy to tackle. A little bit of analogue, a little bit of digital, a little bit of shameless self promotion…

sweep

shameless plug

sweep

messy

Step one…check. I can sweep through 180 degrees. Can I solder to save my ass (and semi-valuable electrical components)…time will tell.

Also, I’m post dating this post. Happy B-Day Betsy.