Archive for July, 2008

Hospitals… the final frontier?

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

My fellow Trekkie geeks would know that this will have something to do with Star Trek and hospitals. There is some interesting news in the way of hospital communications. Have you ever thought about how much more efficiently doctors could work if they had communicators with them. Though it doesn't have the Starfleet icon on it, I'll be glad when these devices are in more hospitals. Engage!
'Star Trek' communicators free up doctors' time

A Google Challenger Steps Up to the Plate

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Ex-Google employees unveil a new search engine today out to challenge their former employer: Cuil, pronounced "cool," launches with 120 billion web pages in its index.

Search Engines: Cuil Search Engine Out to Challenge Google

Italy to charge Google over taunting video

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Google faces criminal charges because of a video posted on the company's Italian Web site showing a teenager with Down syndrome being taunted by classmates in a Turin school.

Italy to charge Google over taunting video | Coop's Corner : A Blog from Charlie Cooper - CNET News.com

The Norton Scam (aka Principles of Marketing 101)

Saturday, July 26th, 2008

Sometimes I wonder why people look at me with such surprise when I tell them to ditch the Norton Internet Security software they shelled out 60 bucks for just a month ago, in favor of a free antivirus program like Avast (our personal favorite) or AVG.  After all, common sense would tell us that the $60 Norton product must provide superior protection to any free antivirus, right? (more…)

The Computer Cable Guide

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

A neat website that was brought to our attention, that I thought might be useful to some of our clients-

You've finally bought the new monitor, better printer, or SLR camera, and you're ready to test it out. Only one problem Your new toy didn't ship with a cable, and you're not sure what you need. The manual says something like, "DVI-D Dual-Link Cable," but what does that look like and where can you find one? Computer cables can be confusing and expensive, and you'd rather not waste time or money by buying something you don't want or need.

What Does That Look Like | The Computer Cable Guide

Post-War comments

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

As some of you may know, the war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray officially came to a dramatic conclusion on February 19, 2008 when Toshiba, the world's largest manufacturer of HD-DVD players at the time, called it quits. This came after several studios that once either backed both Blu-ray and HD-DVD or HD-DVD exclusively, decided to switch to Blu-ray exclusively. Incidentally, 20 years earlier, another format war effectively ended. That one did not end in Sony's favor, as they were the main proponent of the superior quality BetaMax format that eventually lost out to VHS. This time though, Sony, Blu-ray's brainfather, came out victorious.

The question now for the masses is no longer what format to get, but what Blu-ray Player. Since many factors, including steadily decreasing prices and more offerings of HD channels, have cause people to get high definiton televisions, the logical next step is to get a Blu-ray player with which to watch high definition movies. Yet, with the average cost of a new Blu-ray player still being around $550, some are deciding to wait it out and watch the prices falls. Others have decided to bite the bullet and get the most out of their movie watching experience right now. What do you plan to do?

But, hold on and drop that chalupa! Just when you thought it was all over and settled for another decade or so, Pioneer, which plans to starts selling Blu-ray players this year, decides to up the ante with a new HD format that may hold up to 16 times as much data.

Here we go again?