Washing Wifi Cards

Over the past four years, I've gone through a number of wifi cards for my laptop. I believe that I'm currently on my 5th one. I typically buy the cheapest one available at Fry's, usually in the $20 range. The first 3 would constantly overheat and die. My fourth card died when the protruding end broke off. The reason the end snapped off was my fault. I jammed my laptop into my bag with the card still plugged in on a cross country flight. I was on my way to attend an industry certification class. The class ends with a 10 hour test in which I needed to use my laptop to be online wirelessly. So the night before the test I went to the local mall to hit up Radio Shack for a new card. The cheapest one they had was a Netgear WG511T for around $50. I initially hated paying that much, but I had to have it for the test. The wifi card works great and has never overheated. But there is another reason I recommend the Netgear card over the cheap ones. One morning I needed to send a work email first thing when I woke up. After I sent the email, I removed the card from the laptop. I did not want this card to break like my last one. When I removed the card, I put it in the pocket of my sweats. I then proceeded to take a shower and get ready for work. As you can guess my sweats ended up in the laundry and it happened to be the day my wife did laundry. About midday I got a call from my wife telling me that she found the card in the washing machine. My initial thought was that the card would never work again. I let the card sit for a few days to make sure it was completely dry. To my surprise, I plugged it in and it worked perfectly and has been working ever since. The card also has that freshly laundered smell. Now I just have to decide what electronic device to send through the spin cycle next. My laptop is looking kind of grungy. As a side note, I'm back to my old habit of leaving the card plugged when I put my laptop in my bag.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

The digital camera that saved my marriage

About 5 years ago my wife and I decided to buy our first digital camera. If I remember correctly the camera was a birthday present for my wife. Whenever I buy a new gadget, I want to get the most bang for my buck. So I spent some time researching different cameras and ended up getting a Minolta Dimage Z1. I believe we spent between $200 to $300 on it. This model is in between a point and shoot and a SLR. The camera has 10x optical zoom and 3.2 mega pixels, which was a lot at the time. We thought this camera was great at first. I think we overlooked the issues with this camera just because it was digital. The more we used this camera the more we hated it. Approximately a third of our pictures would not turn out. When we would preview images on the 1.5 inch screen they would look fine. We would then transfer the pictures to the computer only to find out that the image was blurry. The other thing we hated about this camera was how bulky it is. The bulkiness would cause us to not want to take it places. Every time my wife would use the camera, I would hear about how bad it was. The scene is reminiscent of early "John and Kate Plus Eight" episodes where Kate is yelling "I hate this camera!" From what I could tell, it looks like they may have the same camera. Thus this electronic device was starting to be a tension point in our marriage. Every time we would use it, we would talk about buying a new one.

So, this Christmas, I once again began researching digital cameras. Not having much money to spend on new gadgets, I limited my search to cameras under $150. I narrowed my search down to four different cameras and went to Best Buy one evening to try them out (this was the same night I lost my blue tooth headset). That night I walked out with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3. I picked this amazing camera for $109. I actually ended up spending about $60 after some BB rewards and a much appreciated $50 gift card from the in-laws. This camera is incredible. My wife and I find ourselves taking pictures all the time now. The camera is easy to use, super compact, and takes great pictures. It also has some unique preset scene modes like food, baby, and pet. It makes you want to take a picture of your food just to see what the mode will do! At last things are good once again on the home front when it comes to taking pictures.

As a side note it also makes a decent video camera. This past week I went with my wife to her ultrasound appt. to find out our baby's gender. The previous night she had asked me to grab a DVD to record the ultrasound on. I forgot. We realized this while sitting in the doctor's office waiting room. I had to come up with something, she still hasn't forgiven me for accidental taping over our son's ultrasound. I remembered this camera had a video mode, so I decided to try it. The video turned out really good, especially considering we were in a pitch black room with only a computer screen on. By the way we're having a girl.

Touch Screens

I've seen the future and it will be filled with touch screens. Currently I'm writing this post from an iPod touch. The inspiration for this prediction is not the news that every cellphone manufacturer under the sun has just released a touch screen phone, but my 2 year old son Ethan. I often let him play with my iPod touch. He knows how to turn it on and start the app. he wants to use. Over the last week he decided that all electronic screens should be touch screens. I have found him both at my laptop and desktop touching the screen trying to get it to respond. He was not just putting his grubby paws on the screen like most kids, but deliberately tapping on icons to see what would happen. So with this in mind, I find it baffling that highly educated people struggle with using touch screens. Part of my job is to work with programmers to create custom touch screens to control audio and video conference systems. We try to create the user interface so that anyone can use it without training. I often get requests from clients for quick start guides. I recently had a client request a step by step description on how to make a phone call using the touch screen. The screen looks like a telephone keypad with a button labeled DIAL and another labeled HANG UP. My point is, if my 2 year old can figure out how to use a touch screen, do I really need to create instructions on how to make a phone call from one? Touch screens are going to be more and more of a part of our daily lives, so let's embrace them. By the way, I don't remember having any instructions for the iPod touch.

Blue tooth Headset

This post is not a review, but a rant over my frustration with my blue tooth headset this past week. I have a Jabra BT8040 blue tooth headset for my cell phone. I bought this one because it was the cheapest quality one that can work with two cell phones at a time (multi point). Yes, I carry two cell phones, one for work and one for personal use. Last Tuesday I went to Best Buy to buy a new digital camera. I'll write about how cool that is later. I put my headset in my coat pocket and went on my way to feed my tech addiction. When I returned home, I discovered that my headset was no longer in my pocket. I spent the entire week searching everywhere trying to find my electronic earring. Yes, I know I look like a dork when I use it, but I have lost the ability to hold a phone to my ear. By Sunday, I had given up hope of finding the headset and resorted to researching the latest BT's available. After my son's nap we went on a walk up the street to Fry's Electronics. They had a sale on a print server that I couldn't pass up. While browsing the geek's paradise, I saw that they had one BT8040 sitting on the bottom shelf for $10.00 less than what I paid for the one that I lost. I decided to resist and not make an impulse buy. I attribute this decision to not wanting to deal with the Fry's employee manning the wireless row. I swear that he is Harry Tang from the first season of Chuck. He was telling everyone to buy Motorola because they sound better. Anyways, I get home and tell my wife about not buying the BT and she told me that I should have bought it. So I drove back to Fry's, snuck past Harry Tang, grabbed the BT, and made my purchase. When I got home, I charged the battery, updated the firmware, and paired it with both phones. This morning when I got to work, my wife called to ask if I had my new headset. Of course I did, I'm addicted to the thing and wasn't going to make the mistake of loosing it again. The reason she called is that she had just found the one that I lost sitting in a plant outside our front door. So I guess this means that I'll have to get two more cell phones and now have a matching pair of electronic earrings.

First post

Following the example of my Wife, I decided to try blogging also. My goal is to try to post something related to technology once a week. I'm not the most diligent and organized person, but there is always hope to change.