mjm wired ;)  

From Microsoft's own website. In order to run Windows Vista in any other mode than Home Basic (i.e. no effects, and with removed functionality) Microsoft recommends the following: 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor 1 GB of system memory 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space Support for DirectX 9 graphics with: WDDM Driver 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum) Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware 32 bits per pixel DVD-ROM drive Huh? Most personal computer manufacturers cut [...]

"Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Everytime I visited a friend or relative with digital cable, I always thought "how cool". Yeah, so I have digital cable now, I didn't choose to get it, it's sort of just there, so I sort of use it. And it's somewhat of a disappointment. Yeah, not as nice as the brochure. Biggest pain: It effectively killed my urge to channel surf. You know when there isn't anything on, but you just want [...]

I've been doing some research about switching my wireless provider so when it comes to the end of my current contract I can seemlessly carry over to my new provider. So in preparation I called and verified what the process is. For any cellular/wireless provider "porting" is the term for switching your number from one provider to the next. In the technical section, I read that porting wireless-to-wireless should technically only take 2-3 hours. However it is fairly typical for it to take 1 [...]

To better serve my readers (all 3.5 of you), I'm splitting off all my Linux related content to my new Linux only blog: Linux with Doubts (don't worry I'm using WordPress this time around). I'm somewhat skeptical of several aspects of this marvelous OS, and hence the title. I hope to focus my main site more on me and this new blog on the boring stuff that makes me a geek. We'll [...]

Not a week goes buy where I don't hear someone complain about having to give their credit card to some questionable merchant online or identity theft. Whenever I mention the concept of temporary credit card numbers, everyone always looks suprised and ask me "is there such thing?". Well yes, and I think more people should use them. Basically the way it works is your credit card provider (Discover, American Express, etc.) must give you some sort of website or application to generate temporary numbers. [...]

I guess the great big news in the internet world today is that the United States Supreme Court ruled against the makers of Grokster, a popular file sharing program. Basically if anyone makes something that promotes copyright infringement, then they can be held liable. Now I don't care to discuss the merits of this case. The bottom line, for me, is that I do not see anything wrong in someone actively sueing people who intentionally violate copyrights. However I am at odds with the [...]

I've been holding out on an MP3 player for over a year now. My biggest frustration with things like the iPod is that they have bad battery life and support few sound formats, and their compatibility is mediocre. ... So if I were to list my requirements they would be: * Play MP3, WMA, Ogg - (I ripped most of my CD's to Ogg format) * 10-15 hour battery life - (iPod does 6?) * Can act as a removable USB2 hard drive in [...]

A coworker recently setup a Comcast Digital Video Recorder (DVR), which is basically a mini-computer recording TV onto a hard-drive much like a VCR. He listed an amazing and convenient feature set which almost impressed me. I asked him one simple question: Must it be left on 24/7? Answer: Yes. He admitted that he didn't like that part either. This brings up my frustration with many similar new gagdets, appliances and most software. Either no one conceived that such a basic feature (turning it [...]