End of Zune time: Microsoft will have a hard time selling Zune MP3 players to compete with iPods, after what happened on December 31, 2008.

All 30 Meg Zunes stopped working! Turns out Zunes didn't "know" that 2008 was a Leap Year.

Fix: After 4 AM PST on Jan. 1, unplug your Zune, let your battery drain to zero. Recharge your Zune, then power on. Microsoft says it will then work.

Story here.

Firefox 3.1 beta 2 available for download. You're not still waiting for a vaporware Internet Explorer 8 are you. Download is here.

Prices for consumables: I've already written that if you need replacement toner cartridges for an HP color LaserJet, its cheaper to buy a new printer; the same situation holds true for Norelco razors, and HP Colorsmart Inkjet printers. Norelco HQ8 replacement blade sets cost over $30 for models of their rotary razors. But razor model 7310 comes with new blades, new charger, new motor, and new internal battery, all for under $30. Similarly a set of HP74 & 75 ink cartridges for an C5280 Photosmart inkjet printer can cost as much as $45 retail, but Office Depot was selling a new HP D5360 Colorsmart printer for $24.99 on Black Friday, which includes a new set of 74/75 ink cartridges.

Buying a Laptop - Thanksgiving 2008.

A friend asked me how much they should pay for a PC laptop if they wanted to buy one on Black Friday. My answer:

I wish it were as simple as naming a price. Prices start at about $400 (maybe less day after Thanksgiving) but the lowest priced ones have cut corners, producing machines one will likely quickly regret buying. At the end of 2008, A laptop you'd be happy with a year from now should optimally contain:

1. 4 Gigs of Ram (Not 1 or 2)

2. An Intel CPU (Not AMD), (Not Intel Celeron)

3. An ATI or Radeon Graphics processor with its own memory.

(Not Intel with shared Ram)

4. A 200 Gig or larger Hard Drive (Not 120)

5. 802.11n Wireless Networking (not just 802.11g)

6. Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Operating System.

(Must get the "Premium")

Corners are typically cut on one or more of those items.

A larger screen is nice, but adds to the weight and cost of the unit.

Also when one buys a laptop, A spare battery and a heavily padded (no name) case should also be purchased. A case with a Dell or Sony or other logo on it invites theft. If buying at work these items can easily be justified at time of purchase, maybe not later on when they come from a different line in a budget.

Thus $700 or more for a laptop, and $150 for case and extra battery.

Laptops are great if one needs their own computer at different locations on a regular basis. But laptops, because of minituration, tend to be more fragile and about a year behind on technology; so if the machine is just for home use, I DON'T RECOMMEND one buy a laptop

President-Elect Obama is a Macintosh User.

Story here.

The same folks that refuse to believe the SCIENCE of evolution have been refusing to believe the SCIENCE of polling to predict an election, again to their detriment. The same old "Don't like the message, attack the messenger"

Pew and Rasmussen were the most accurate; coming closest to the
52 to 47% Popular vote total. Most pollsters matched that within their
"margin of error", and all had correctly predicted an Obama win.

2010 Prius








More pictures here.
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Toyota Prius: With the Stock Market decline of October 2008, folks worried about their job, other folks in Houston area having to spend because insurance didn't cover as promised after Hurricane Ike, and Gas prices again below $3/gallon; waiting lists for a Toyota Prius have melted away.

The Prius is a GREAT car: compact on the outside, Mid size on the inside, with lots of bells and whistles even without high priced option packages. And getting around 50 miles per gallon in city driving is not too shabby.

A few add-ons one might consider, unavailable from Toyota are:
Vent Visors, available from autoanything.com .
Body side moldings, available from metrotpn.com .
Auto Door locks, available from priuschat.com It locks the car at startup.

Continental Airlines: You'd think with fuel prices down 25% they could rescind some of their extra charges; like $75 to use Frequent flyer miles. Then I discovered they had put me on a Delta Airlines flight, which might not have been a problem, except with a scheduled 40 minute layover in Atlanta, I disliked being placed in row 28. Couldn't change it at continental.com, as their computer doesn't have access to Delta's seating chart, and going to Delta.com; their website didnt recognize my Continental reservation number. A telephone call to Delta, eventually got them to reveal their own reservation number for my itinerary, which then allowed seat changes (now in row 14) at the Delta.com web site. Got a rent-a-car through Continental.com, which I've since cancelled as Hotwire got me a price 40% lower, while still using Hertz; who knew Hertz now has prices through Hotwire that match Alamo pricing?

Hydrox ! : Hydrox cookies are now available again, although maybe only for a short time. Two links tell the whole story: Wikipedia and the manufacturer's own website. My review is as follows:

A local store (Randalls) has them advertised at two for $5, the regular price will be $3.59 per package, and they come in a 14 oz package, smaller than original. My son sight unseen distrusts them as transfats have been removed and believes they can't have the same mouth feel. My taste test is as follows. They taste 100% like I remember Hydrox, although the creme filling is softer and slightly more squishy than the original. This can easily be taken care of by storing one's Hydrox in a refrigerator. I give them an A-, my son may give them a different grade.

AT&T cant even do rip offs right:
It's a scandal that cell phones are sold for a 2 year contract, but
only carry a 1 year warranty, and commonly batteries WILL NOT LAST 2
YEARS.

So at 15 months age I discover my batteries lasting barely
longer than 1 day, but when new they lasted 4 days.

For a Sony/Ericsson w300i, the ATT website says a replacement Lithium
battery is $59.99 but they are out of stock.

At Amazon.com w300i batteries are $4.17 and in stock.

Citibank Screw Up - A few months back I got a Citibank at&t Universal Savings Rewards MasterCard. The hook is: all at&t purchases matched by any other charge get a 5% credit. ie. If your Cellular bill is $100 and you charged another $100 that month, you get a 5% credit in your card; and for the first year, you'd get a bonus 5%.

All went well the first few months, and I got 10% off. Then apparently in August at&t changed how the charges were submitted to Citibank. They were no longer submitted as "Cingular" which the Citibank computer knew was an at&t charge. It's now submitted as ATTM,
for at&t mobile, which Citibank didn't program its computer to recognize as an at&t charge; as no credits are issued.

I am hopeful that by going public Citibank will correct this error faster and retroactively give credits, rather than wait to see if customers discover the error and call in.

Followup: Two days later I get a call back from the Citibank President's Office, that still wants to blame it on AT&T, but says they're correcting the problem, and an $8.23 credit will appear on my account in 2 or 3 cycles/months. I told them that in the 21st Century, there's no excuse for it to take so long, and if their computer systems are so archaic I need to cancel my account, and I did.

Buying a Prius: Three factors caused me to start seeing about buying a Prius. First my Pontiac Vibe isnt getting any younger. Second Toyota's next generation plug-in hybrid Prius isn't ready for prime time yet, and so the 2009 Prius will be essentially identical to the 2008 models. With gasolene prices now down to $3.50/gallon in Houston, and still dropping, long waiting lists are "melting" away. I identified a dealer that took my deposit for a 2009, put me on his waiting list, and we agreed that I would "only" pay MSRP when it comes in. I was told it might be three to six months. Next day I got to give to the sales manager a piece of my mind when a "Sales Consultant" called me to say that they had a Prius just in, that the person it was inline for declined, and I could have it for $1500 over sticker. I declined and asked that I not be contacted about any Prius they wanted to sell for over sticker (MSRP) price.
I think the dealer is ordering the following. A 2009 Prius Touring in Driftwood Pearl, with Bisque cloth Interior, and option package 3, which includes Deluxe audio system and anti-theft system, Bluetooth, but not DVD Navigation system. Standard now on all but the cheapest Prius is anti-lock brakes, Vehicle Stability System, Cruise control and Backup Camera. All Prius now have more airbags than you thought possible.
I have already ordered Texas specialty license plates KW-82, as 82 Kilowatts is the total output capability of the Hybrid system, so I seem committed.

Our DirecTv HR10-250 a TiVo DirecTv receiver decided after Tropical Storm Edouard had passed through that it only had one signal input instead of two. Having recently signed up for Directv Service plan @ $5.95 a month, I figured a simple phone call would save me from a $79.99 (and up) service call to resolve the problem (wiring or Multiplexor, etc). However DirecTv will still charge for a service call in first 30 days of that plan, so I cancelled the Service Call, and set out to solve the problem myself. First I swapped input lines at the receiver, and the problem moved with the cables switched, so I knew it was upstream from the receiver. Then I traced that line around the house, and found some suspect connections, so I bypassed them all with a new longer piece of RG6 wiring, and voila, problem went away. So I went to my local Electronics Supply store and bought RG6 Cable Clips to mount the new piece of wire nicely, and cut it to exact size needed and added a connector (C110-F). All is fine now, and I cancelled the Service Plan, which is free for first 30 days.

Your Microsoft Internet Explorer is unsafe. Story here. Use a safe browser. Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 protect your browsing from websites that will leave malware on your computer.

Microsoft Vista is bad because it is bad. Sorry Microsoft: Microsoft ran a trick demo of Vista, calling it a new OS "Mojave", and only seeing a demo, and not being able to interact with it, users said it seemed good. Microsoft spins that it means people who don't like Vista really haven't used it. WRONG. People who have used MS VISTA, and have not just seen a carefully choreographed demo don't like Vista. The same day Microsoft's trick hit the news, so did this story of Vista being difficult and a way to work around Vista's all too common crashes. Another user of Vista comments here.

Renewable Energy Breakthrough ? An MIT scientist uses solar energy to "easily" make Oxygen and Hydrogen from water - using an catalyst - and says now you don't need to worry about power from solar at night. Story here. Sounds like such a technique could also have benefits for wind or tidal power also, neither of which is continuous.

Reviving a "clogged" HP Ink cartridge Just over a year ago I bought an HP5280 "Photosmart" printer when it was on sale at Office Depot. It prints, it scans, it automatically will print from Camera memory card to 4 x 6 photo paper, and it will print to "printable" CDs and DVDs. However for Black and white printing I use my LaserJet, at a far lower cost per page, and with little use, the black ink cartridge of the 5280 clogs up (HP74), long before they are used up.
Using Google, I found a web page that suggested how up clear the clogs. First they say run the print head under hot water, and if that fails, soak it in a dish with 50% hot water, 50% ammonia. I had no ammonia, so I used a few flakes of lye from a drain cleaner, to provide some alkalinity. A 10 minute soak revived the cartridge, saving me money, and restoring my faith in this printer.

AT&T offers free security software: If ATT is your Internet provider, they now provide free Security software, similar to how Comcast provides McAfee software. ATT provides Norton software that only can be installed if you're running Internet Explorer 6 or 7 under Windows. As I use Firefox 3.01; that makes the software useless for me. The web page fails to tell whether it daily checks that you're an ATT customer, or if it expires in a year or what.