Hugh's Worthless Blog

The latest tech news besides the release of new versions of both Chrome and Firefox, was Apple 's announcement today of their new tablet, the iPad . I know lots of people will make fun of its name by referring to feminine protection devices, but it actually looks like an interesting device at a reasonable price point of just $499 for a 16GB 1.5 pound device with a 9.7" touchpad. It basically looks like an iPod touch on steroids, so it will not fit in your pocket, but will easily slip into a backpack or briefcase to be hauled anywhere. All versions support built-in WiFi and support all iPhone/iTouch apps so it will be usable from day one with a billion applications as well as being a general purpose document viewer, media player and browsing platform. I am not sure why someone would buy a Chome OS netbook instead of an iPad unless it was a whole lot cheaper. And speaking of Chrome , I have been playing with the new version 4.0 of Chrome and Chromium which includes the new B...

One of the gifts I received this past Christmas was an inexpensive banana tree from WalMart where we can hang a bunch of bananas so they do not get all bruised and mushy on the table. The problem, of course, is what happens when there is only one banana left? The solution: the banana hammock! My daughter, who is now a freshman in the engineering program here at Wash U , pondered the problem over winter break since she had a month off with little to do. While she was at home she designed and implemented a simple wire design to hang a single banana from the tree when it is the last one on the bunch. So today, we were finally down to one banana after I had taken banana #2 here for lunch. My wife took a picture of the remaining banana in the hammock and e-mailed it to both my daughter and myself. Such is the value of  technology these days! I just had to share the picture here because I am such a geek. If anybody wants to purchase their own incredible banana hanger we will cust...

The hard drive of one of the Dell laptops (an Inspiron 1420) in our department died so I ordered a brand new 500GB drive for it from NewEgg.com which arrived in a day. The hardware replacement was a piece of cake, but then it was time to rebuild the system. We are not using Windows 7 much here yet, so I do not have the media for it so I was ready to install XP SP3 on the laptop and give it back to the laptop's owner. "Oh no, I am used to Vista so you can just install that on it." Unfortunately, we do have copies of Windows Vista Business, so I went ahead and installed Vista on the laptop along with all the Vista drivers downloaded from the Dell support site . The system seemed to be running just fine. Then it was time to run the updates to make sure everything was all patched up safely. I initiated the windows update routine during lunchtime, around 12:30pm, thinking it would take maybe an hour since there were 93 updates weighing in at about 250MB to download. The dow...

My son's TI-15 calculator is getting dim so I had to find a new battery for the thing, which is a CR2025 lithium coin battery. I did a quick check at Walgreens.com and saw that they sold them, but only as a pair for $6.99. That is a reasonable price, but I only need one of them! So I checked some other sites, and again ended up with my latest favorite local retailer, Micro Center , which is conveniently located at the Brentwood Promenade near Target. They have individual Duracell 2025 coin batteries there for $1.99, although I noticed I had to search using 2025 instead of CR2025. I also needed two CR2032 batteries for my garage door remote, so I will get those there as well (also $1.99 each), so my total cost will be $5.97 plus tax instead of $13.98 plus tax at Walgreens. I also have a friend in my department here at Wash U who just purchased a brand new ASUS T91 netbook and wanted to purchase a 32GB SDHC card to use as additional storage. Online we could find several optio...

The TV weather forecasters were actually somewhat accurate this time and with about 3 inches of the cold white stuff on the ground, we received the arctic blast of cold air last night. Since my son had the day off from school yesterday (which was supposed to be their first day back) I decided what is good for him is good for me and I took the day off too, even if I only would have had to drive one mile to the Brentwood Metrolink Station. Then last night we received the fateful call at 9:45 telling us that Ladue Schools was closing classes again today due to the cold weather, We had seen many of the neighboring districts ( Clayton , Brentwood , Webster , U City ) already scroll by on Channel 5 while watching the Jay Leno Show , so we were expecting it, but needed confirmation so he could turn off his alarm and sleep in again. So my son was able to get the full week off from school, giving him a full 2 1/2 week winter break. I, however, decided I should come in to campus today so I d...

One of the items our family received for the holidays was a lovely 40" Samsung 1080p LCD HDTV. Since my son has an Xbox 360 we needed to get an HDMI-M to HDMI-M cable (about 6 feet long) to connect the devices. The question then became where to find a cable at the best price. I was not in a big rush since the 360 experienced a red ring of death on Christmas eve and had to be shipped to Microsoft for warranty "repair" (i.e. replacement). I looked online to see my options. I started with Best Buy who had a cable available for $12.99 online, but the cheapest cable available at the Brentwood store was $29.99. Target was similar with an online cable for $19.99 but the cheapest one at the Brentwood Target being $32.99. Not to be outdone, Wal-Mart had an online cable for $15.86 but its cheapest one in the Maplewood store being a Sony model for a whopping $39.88. I also checked my newest favorite store, Micro Center (located right next to Target, in fact) which is where we...

The 49ers put an appropriate end to the St. Louis Rams sad 2009 season by clobbering them in the second half to insure that the Rams maintain the worst record in the NFL. The Rams were actually leading 3-0 at the half, but I am sure most people assumed they would collapse in the second half, and they did so in typical fashion. I had wondered if we would see a Rams' victory or a real snowstorm first this winter, and it looks like the storm should win. They are again forecasting snow this week (Wednesday evening into Thursday morning) and we can all see if anything materializes this time. We actually received more snow than they predicted two Sundays ago (Dec 27) so you never know which way it will go. I know that snow made our church service attendance plummet even though the roads were not all that bad. And right now we get to experience this lovely cold wave that is making my walk from the Metrolink station to our building quite a cold one. I am anxiously awaiting the 2010 op...