The ScooterBlog

Got an e-mail noting that Geeks.Com is having a sale … and in typical “must have it all” fashion, this would be the wish list … prolly a lot of duplicates in here, but still stuff that I think would be useful at least once! Obviously, I lack the $300 to make any of this useful, but hey, maybe someday.
Bluetooth and 802.11b/g USB Dongle
Cigarette Lighter Panel and Cup Holder for 5.25″ bay (no jokes!)
Blue Color Bluetooth Dongle for $10
AA Rechargeable Battery 4-Pack (2300 mah)
VOIP Skype-Compatible USB Phone for $20
4-Camera Surveillance System (no cameras) for $40
3.5″ Drive Enclosure with Audio/Video Playback for $130
USB Battery Charger for $5.50
802.11b PCMCIA Card with Router Capability for $8.50
WiFi Detector for $11
802.11g + Bluetooth Internal Card for $24
Serial + Parallel Card for $7.50
USB + Firewire HD Enclosure for $30
Cassette Tape to MP3 Converter for $85
PSP Memory Stick Duo Pro 512MB for $41
Basic DVD Recorder for $74
Hummer CD/MP3/FM/AM Player for $37
Basic 3.5″ HD Enclosure for $17
Battery Up-Size Converters for $3
PSP Emergency Charger for $6
PCMCIA TV Tuner for $50
Universal Power Adaptor for $25 (Works with my iBook!)
Luminiferous Message Board for $9
High-quality 3.5″ HD Enclosure for $23
USB 7.1 Ch. Internet Phone for $9

So I’ve thought about this more and more … if you’re not determined or worried about having CD quality or completely flawless sound for an application, what’s wrong with using FM Transmitters for wireless audio?

The idea came to me today when I saw this from Geeks.Com. It’s a FM Transmitter that they’re selling for $10, looks like at least average quality. I’ve seen similar type items out there in regular stores too at about the $20 range. I already take advantage of FM modulation for my XM Radio in my car, and likely will do so for my house too in the near future. When I saw this link though, it hit me … why shouldn’t people use FM Transmission for other wireless audio uses, or just to rid yourself of a wire or two?

It has one major advantage: affordability. Instead of buying special speakers or adapters to transmit the sound over a 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz band, you use the cheaper and already available FM bands and transmit music through that, and as long as the transmitter is of decent quality, it should work across rooms too through an apartment or small house.

There are disadvantages … you lack security, so don’t be listening to your private phone calls through this or anything you wouldn’t want your neighbor to anonymously hear, and you do revert to a FM quality sound. But in environments where you have an audio source and don’t want to run a long cable, and/or where you want to stream basic audio, this may be an option. There’s also the issue of powering the device … this transmitter features a mini-USB port, so you could in theory power it from the PC itself which is very nice, making it useful as a PC device.
I may try this in my bedroom. I have a boombox setup in a corner of the room to get it out of the way, and I’m thinking about bringing my PC upstairs in order to use it more until I move, it would sit in another corner of the room. I don’t want to run a 50-foot audio wire, nor do I desire the hassle of reaching back and getting to the AUX port of the stereo. This might just do the trick instead!

So I haven’t had a chance to post my random thoughts from the weekend anywhere for this past Saturday’s Halo 2 4v4 Tournament … to put it nicely, it was insane!

24 teams, 96 people, $1,800 in prizes, and a total of 13-1/2 hours of constant Halo 2 play. Which is probably more work then my XBox (which I brought in) has done in the last 2 months! In the end, StrongSide’s team won again, I think this is his third or fourth win in a row going back to last year, but he got challenged moreso then anytime I’ve seen previously too by the team of David Durham, Jordan Blackburn, Chris Arozarena and Aaron Elam (one of Strongside’s normal partners!). It made for some really good play, and a couple of really good videos (which I will possibly upload here, bandwidth considering!).

From administering the event, it could not have gone smoother. I had Ben, Pat Jeanneret, and Ryan there helping watch and score matches, and then the 4v4 went pretty smoothly all things considered. We needed a few more chairs (but also didn’t expect 96 players), and the worst acting kids were a couple of 12 year olds, one of which whom tried to steal a figure, and the other one whom whined that he was being bugged, UNTIL Jeanneret watched his match and found the true story, and then mouthed off to me and Matt so much to get banned from the store!

Proof positive that nothing is perfect, but this was about as close as it gets. I don’t know what we’re going to do for the next event. Some want a new venue, other of us are pondering raising the price again and limiting the number of teams, so it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other, but I know the next one will be just as good.

Here’s the link rundown for the last couple of days:

• Nintendo E-Reader Development Tools – Like most things console, it even appears there are some serious development tools for the Nintendo GBA E-Reader! For those who never knew about this, it was supposed to be a way to getr 8-bit NES games onto the GBA, as well as enhancing games with “dotcodes” to allow more levels and enhancements. The only 2 games which really did that were Pokemon Ruby / Sapphire and Super Mario Advance 4.
• Restoration - This program, while I have not tried it, appears to be the perfect freeware enhancement to the Recycle Bin. It can detect still recoverable files, not only on hard drives, but also on memory cards and flash disks where the recycle bin isn’t even being used! So if you are a dope and delete something you shouldn’t, this may be your saving grace.
• Retrogaming with racketboy – A good looking site which talks about new stuff coming out from old retrogaming, as well as a seller of 1MB/4MB Saturn RAM cards, which typically are pretty hard to come across. He’s getting out of the business though, so get one while you can!
• OpenOSX – A port of the long-running PC emulator Bochs, but for OSX, and now apparently optimized for Intel processors, which may give it a heads-up on the Virtual PC in the very short term. I doubt this would work for anything on a G3 though!
• Handbrake - Mac users already swear by this as the easiest way to get DVD content onto their Macs, but now there’s a PC port too, and the Mac one will also be “universal” shortly, so now everyone can enjoy freeware conversions to a PSP or iPod.
• Windows XP Fixes, Tips and Tweaks – Another digg discovery, apparently has 350 good solid tips on optimizing Windows XP. Thoughts?

That covers 2 days’ worth of finds. Maybe a thoughtful post soon.

Well, time to get back to normal with some links for today … I’ve got a bunch!

Share a mobile phone connection with a wireless router – Some guy took a mobile phone, an access point which can be overwritten with OpenWRT, and a cable and now can surf the Interney anywhere that his GSM can reach on his phone. Very good stuff.
(Extra props for the OpenWRT site using WordPress!)

How to data-mine with Google – This is a nice page which talks about the different things you can do to “mine” data from google. I’ve used it to find some links that I did not even know existed for places to our web site.

10 Cool Things To Do with the Mac Terminal – This article talks about how you can have some fun on the Mac terminal and change up some cool things. Nothing exciting here, but the web site in general looks quite good.

2.60 Firmware Capable Of Playing Tetris (PSP) - I lack shock about this … the person whom has been programming Tetris for the PSP has it working with 2.60 firmware! The door hasn’t exactly spring wide open on development past 1.50, due to its enhanced complexity, but this might help it out even more.

Will freezing your hard drive help you recover data? – All I am going to say about this link is that I did do it once to save a hard drive. After that, you’re on your own!

How to use RSS Feeds on your Wordpress Site - This may be something that I try on the site soon, regarding adding RSS to this site here for stuff that I very much enjoy.

Do people believe in cerficiations? - This is one that I still need to read. But considering my current desire to get an IT job, I’d want to know more and more about whether or not people do still use the certifications as a way to determine whom gets the job.

How Nintendo sells their DS systems (Joystiq) – Joystiq is one of my favorite blogs, and this is a nice story about how the DS has done such a good job of marketing itself, so much so to the point that it’s sold out in Japan for the next month!

Well, this is the new stop for the ScooterBlog, and hopefully the final one! I went out and got me some basic hosting ($4 / Month) and a domain name ($2 for a year, woo hoo!) from GoDaddy.com, and decided to finally make the transition to WordPress. There were some fun parts with the process: LiveJournal importing was a pain in the butt, and I had to have the hosting switched to Linux to make it work right, but it’s up and running now and it looks quite good! All of the old LiveJournal posts will eventually be in the “LiveJournal” category.

The only negative? Previous comments are gone, but I do need help testing the new comments as well. Feel free and leave a comment for testing purposes.

I am likely going to move my other blog over to this as well and combine it all into one, and then based on what people are looking for, it can be broken down by category 100 different ways. I’m about 40% of the way done with that, and it’ll come together with time.

I’ll also get back to regulalry scheduled posts today and back to regular updating of all that is happening. Talk to y’all soon!

You know a program is good if it’s good enough to get you to keep your laptop at home, because it’s so easily accessible. That’s what I did with Hamachi today. Since I’ve been so infrequently using my laptop at work (the PC eMachines one), I just left it at home on Hamachi and I’ve used it more today then I have all week.

I haven’t had time to do some of the things with the eMachine at work that I wanted to so this is a better thing for the days it seems.

Ok, this shouldn’t be the only reason you show up, but if it pushes you over the top, then by all means, I’m flattered!!

I’m going to be working Friday Night Live tonight! I’ll be there until about Midnight tonight, and likely as always, working my old post at the front door, in charge of the all important jobs of drink tickets and conversation, the only way it should be!

I will definitely have my DS with me for some Mario Kart action, and if people want me to, I’ll bring my PSP with me to try out and demo the Google feature of downloading to a PSP. I haven’t even tested it myself but it shouldn’t be too hard to do.

Oh yeah, I doubt I need to remind anyone … the Halo 2 4v4 tournament is only 8 DAYS AWAY! It’s shaping up to be one of the biggest ever, and I want to get the kind of turnout to put that prize amount back into the 4-figure numbers again, so TELL FRIENDS!

Something is happening to Office unless you use it for more then just a basic way to type a document … it’s becoming useless. Between this program and a couple of smaller online options, the need for Office isn’t what it used to be.

The major home project … OpenOffice may be the best freeware alternative to Microsoft Office to come along yet. With a good word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program and full compatibilty with Microsoft Office files, it’s a program you can jump to without having to sacrifice very much.

The small on-the-go writing … There are now online programs which can do the basic functions for you so that you don’t have to go spend big bucks on software. Zoho Writer and Writely are two online word processors currently in beta which offer most basic word processing features (and you can collaborate too!), and NumSum offers a simple online spreadsheet program, although it’s worth mentioning that NumSum does not offer private stored spresdsheets, so don’t expect great security with this program.

This is just a small sample of some of the things that are out there, but it’s showing one thing … these are the precursors to a day where there is less software on your PC and more on your web browser.

This is both a statement to how much extra crap I have had, and how easy it is to get rid of …

* Cancelled cable … this will end up only saving about $15 a month, the bill is split, but with me never being home enough to use it, why have cable service? There’s a one-room satellite setup where I’m living anyways, I’ll be just fine.

* Re-did my cell phone plan – T-Mobile just introduced a plan which saves me $35 a month, but makes me commit to a year. No problem, I like T-Mobile a lot.

* Cancelled GameFly and NetFlix – Awesome services but I have not been able to use them to their full capacity. I put my NetFlix on hold in order to avoid billing but keep the queue, and the GameFly holds your account for 6 months before a total deletion. I’ll re-up on these later when other expenses drop.

All in all, it’s $15 + $15 + $23 + $35 = $88 every month starting in February. Over three months, that’s $250 … could get me an iPod, or a nice addition to my other planned savings!