I retired our almost-eight-year-old HP LaserJet last week, replacing it with a Brother HL-2270DW wireless monochrome laser printer. The HP still worked well, but Debbie was having problems connecting to it via our network, and it was getting low on toner. When I discovered that a new, factory-fresh HP toner cartridge would cost the same… Continue reading Wireless Laser Printer
Category: Technology
Blu-Ray: Consumer tech with pro headaches
Khoi Vinh is a well-respected designer (he reworked the website for the New York Times) and is in demand as a speaker at tech and design conferences around the world. In other words, he’s a bit of a geek. And thus I find his experiences with and observations about the current state of Blu-Ray to… Continue reading Blu-Ray: Consumer tech with pro headaches
Digging the QR Code
You’ve seen them here and there, and you’ll see them even more frequently in the future – those black-and-white squares that look like a dying dot-matrix printer spit them out. They’re QR Codes, and they’re tiny gateways to all kinds of good stuff. QR Codes (the “QR” stands for “Quick Response”) were created in Japan… Continue reading Digging the QR Code
New Camera: Canon S95
Wired has published its 10 Most Significant Gadgets of 2010, and there aren’t many surprises. Apple landed three devices on the list: its iPhone 4, the MacBook Air, and the iPad (Wired’s #1 pick), which seems to annoy some of Wired’s readers to no end. But what really caught my eye was the inclusion of… Continue reading New Camera: Canon S95
Getting i on Music
I saw this on Facebook earlier today but didn’t take the time to watch it until my pal Jeff emailed a link to me. It’s definitely worth 7 minutes of your time. See, this is what happens when geeks are allowed into worship bands. The next thing you know, we’ll have rappers doing the preaching.… Continue reading Getting i on Music
Quantifying Melodic Similarities
I read a science fiction short story many years ago where the plot involved someone composing the last possible piece of music. Every combination of musical notes had been created. I don’t recall the author (it sounds like something Bradbury or Lieber or Ellison would come up with), or even the rest of the plot… Continue reading Quantifying Melodic Similarities
Apple to increase iTunes previews to 90 seconds
It’s about time, literally and figuratively. The AppleBlog reports that iTunes song previews (for tracks longer than 2.5 minutes) will be tripled in length, to 90 seconds. I’ve long argued for this change. Thirty seconds simply isn’t long enough to decide if you like a relatively unfamiliar song (or a familiar one in a new… Continue reading Apple to increase iTunes previews to 90 seconds
New Toy: Voyager Hard Drive Dock
I recently filled up a 1TB internal hard drive with Time Machine backups. I ordered a 2TB drive to take its place, and put the full, bare drive in a drawer for safekeeping. A couple of months later, I needed to access some of the data on the old drive, so I pulled out a… Continue reading New Toy: Voyager Hard Drive Dock
The baddest geek in the ‘Bucks
So, I stumbled across this – a mock-up of an add-on iPhone QWERTY keyboard – and while it’s somewhat interesting in concept, it’s still far from an ideal solution for those who can’t seem to master the phone’s tiny virtual keyboard. But it made me wonder whether the iPhone plays well with the dockable keyboard*… Continue reading The baddest geek in the ‘Bucks
The Biggest Time-Suck Ever
Only time will tell as to whether my installing the Netflix app on my iPad this afternoon will be the greatest or the worst decision of my life.* I’ve already spent two hours watching a documentary on Cream** (the band, not the dairy product, although that would probably be interesting too, as long as I… Continue reading The Biggest Time-Suck Ever