September 2003 Blog Posts
I finally bought an LCD monitor settling on the Iiyama 4332UT D. I've only had today to try it out but I'm pretty pleased with it so far. I went for a 17" monitor as that seems to be the sweet spot in value for money at the moment. The 4332 has excellent brightness and contrast (250cd/m2, 500:1) and an 85 degree viewing angle. Resolution is 1280 x1024. It's got dual DVI input, built-in USB hub and the screen can rotate. It can even handle PAL, NTSC or SECAM S-Video with an extra attachment. The screen response time is 25ms so it should be ok...
Finally, an attempt to make it easier to enter text on a phone. I'm really slow at entering text (texting is not a word) and would sure like to see a better approach. Don't think it's a good an idea to place the letters in alphabetical order. Shouldn't it be optimized for frequency instead like a Dvorak keyboard?
I've been shopping around the net for replacement ink cartridges for our Epson Photo Stylus 950. Best UK price I could find for a compatible cartridge set was at InkAndStuff. Don't know how good the quality is yet but if you need ink you might want to check them out.
Remember the SETI screensaver that allowed you to participate in the search for extra terrestrial life? Now you can do something for our planet instead. Download this application or service and help crunch a climate prediction model. You need a decent machine and you have to let it run a lot (6 weeks for a P4 1.6).
Arrgghhh. I hope Eolas gets tons of hate mail for this. It's going to force a ton of unnecessary changes and for what? Given what I know about how these things get launched, it sounds like they have an incredibly broad patent to win this. There's something wrong here.
Yeah!!! Unfortunately most of the spam I get originates from the US and stays there in my hotmail account.
I bought an AcoustiPack (Standard) from Acousti Products to see whether I could reduce the noise of my PC by lining my Lian-Li 60 case. It's three sheets of 7mm composite sound absorbing self-adhesive sheets. Well it doesn't work miracles but it does seem to help take some of the edge of the noise. It's a bit cheaper if you buy it from dabs.com rather than quietpc.com.
I'm starting to conclude that some kind of sound isolation cabinet is a better approach to silencing computers. Something like the Cocoon from Plasmic. Then you can build a PC using bleeding edge components and lock...
"IT 4 Communities is an initiative to encourage companies, employees and individuals with professional IT skills to volunteer these skills for the benefit of local charities and community groups." Nice site. First one I've ran across that has more interesting projects than just helping people learn Microsoft Office.
Hey just noticed Microsoft has doubled the annual dividend and the stock price is up to $28. Nice. Lots of speculation about how the dividend might rise further or there could be special one-off dividends. Seems to me Microsoft is trying to slowly make a transition to a culture where employee's receive and hold real stock and benifit from dividends. The strategy would keep stock holders as well as employee's happy. Overall, the return still isn't that good but the direction is right.
Just a quick entry to let you know we're back from Cornwall. It was a good trip and we now know why so many British folk go down to Cornwall every year for their holiday. I wouldn't mind going again. I'll try and get a travelogue written up over the next week. Meanwhile, the next month looks like it's going to be pretty busy. R* starts a new school. My inlaws are visiting. I've got to finish my PADI certification. Jenny has a birthday. We've got two more trips planned.