Looxcie LX1 Wearable Bluetooth Camcorder System

Saw an ad on my Google Reader feed for Boing Boing mentioning the Looxcie (look-see) LX1 Wearable Bluetooth Camcorder System. ( linked while it lasts.)

I've seen this camera being advertised and reviewed some time ago and didn't think it was that great. But when I saw this ad for deal on it (now for $70 whereas it was much more before), I thought it might be something to consider. However, I was quickly dissuaded from purchasing after clicking on the link to a video from the Manufacturer and then view other videos on YouTube under the Looxcie member name.

The initial video was informative, instructional, and did a decent job at presenting and selling the product. But...the other videos have me wondering about the actual quality of the video produced from the camera itself.

Click to view the various videos of mountain climbing, paintballing, cycling and others. If you aren't below the IQ of Forrest Gump, you'll notice the same thing I did. The video advertisements show very little actual footage from the camera! There is a 2-5 second clip here and there but most of the video is of the climbers/paintballers/cyclers from an angle not shot from the Looxcie camera on the persons head especially not the the LX1. Out of a 30-second ad, maybe a total of 3-5 very random seconds of video feed from the actual Looxcie camera is shown.

So, what are they selling? The person on the cyclist, the bike, the woods, the paintballer, paintball gun, the paintball course, the mountain, the climber, the camera each of these was actually shot with or the LX1? I don't think they sell the camera as much as they sold the environment it was used in. Beside the Looxcie camera was an helmet mounted one and not the over-the-ear LX1—from what I can tell in the video anyway.

I'll stick with my 2011 Tachyon XC HD Helmet Cam or my anticipated future purchase of the GoPro HD Hero 2. They are just more versatile.

Which laptop/notebook/ultrabook to buy?

I'm in the market for a new laptop. Not for school since I just graduated but I got all this graduation money to blow. I figured I'd replace my 3+ year old ASUS. The ASUS is still working and I'll use it until it dies but it's a big bitch to lug around. I got it as a desktop replacement and that's exactly what it did. I just am done lugging it every where especially if I just want to jog on down to the local Internet cafe. It's not conducive to jogging or even walking for that matter.

So, I've narrowed it down (sort of) to a few models...in no particular order:

• Alienware M14x—approx. $1,800-$2,000 after my customizations
• Dell XPS 13—approx. $1,400 after my customizations
• Dell XPS 14z—approx. $1,200 after my customizations
• Dell XPS 15z—approx. $1,400 after my customizations
• Samsung 9 series ultrabook—$1,400 is the starting price without any added upgrades

I like the XPS series. The XPS 13 doesn't have a disk drive which isn't important. I already have an external CD/DVD burner from when I purchased my netbook. I like the form factor. It's very portable and sleek looking. The biggest detractor: 1366 x 768 resolution. I hate this resolution on my ASUS as well as my netbook. It requires too much up/down and side-to-side scrolling when surfing the web or working in just about any type of Office file. Now it's way worse in a smaller screen like my netbook than in my ASUS 15" notebook but it's not a resolution I'm a fan of. The Alienware has a 1600x900 resolution and the XPS 15z has the option to upgrade from 1366x768 to the 1600x900 resolution. I thought I read somewhere that the 14z has this same option but I can't seem to find it so I might have just run the two different reviews/tech specs together while researching the 14z and 15z.

The XPS 13 and 14z are more in the size range that I'm looking for and I think the M14x is too—I'm not sure as I haven't seen and touched the M14x physically like I have the XPS notebooks. My only visual size comparison for the M14x is my M11x which I gave to my wife. I liked it a lot and it was a very nice size but the issue with the 11" screen and resolution was bothersome more often than not as well as the all-level-keys keyboard. If the wife didn't need a better machine from her netbook, I would probably still have the M11x and be very happy with it. The sleep and wake-from-sleep time was phenomenal on this "older" ultrabook-type gaming system.

The XPS 15z with the 1600x900 resolution is a plus for me but the size is a tad bigger than I really want it to be. It's not as big as my ASUS notebook because it doesn't have the ridiculous and mostly useless added number pad on the right-hand side of the keyboard. I don't type enough on the number pad to justify it being on my machine and even if I did use the number pad often, I'd purchase a USB one because the layout on my ASUS is not exactly the same as a full-size keyboard. The 15z feels more like a 15" Mac Book Pro(?). It's looks like a good machine and fairly lightweight but I'm not sure it's as portable as I'd like.

The Samsung 9 Series 13" ultrabook was a very pretty machine. I have a Samsung Netbook and have not had ANY issues with it that I didn't create myself. The netbook was the portability I wanted with more power than the "normal" netbook. I was $100 more than other netbooks with basically the same specs but it was rated better and it turned out to be just great for me...for a while. I ended up needing more speed with opening programs like a browser or any Word/Excel/Access files. The scrolling left/right/up/down in the browser window was tedious. It did it's job for what I needed it for at the time but I've increased my needs so it will no longer cut it for me. It is a Netflix playing machine which is hooked up to a projector and that's all it is used for now...it's does this quite well with only the occasional hiccup. I would be willing to take the chance on the Samsung 9 but not for a $400 difference. I went to Best Buy the other day to fondle the XPS 13, XPS 14z, and Series 9 machines and the Samsung started at $1,399 whereas the other two were $999. The specs were pretty identical give or take a few minor tweaks.

I tried to customize all the machines as close as possible to get the best comparison with power and cost. Looks is a bit secondary for me although these machines all look pretty good on the outside and under the cover. However, the XPS 13 would have to be the most eye-catching from the outside cover to the inside under the lid. The Samsung has a not-so-shiny finish on the outside and a less glossy screen which could be good in bright lights to combat glare and reflections. The Alienware look needs an update but it's flashy lights and all still make it look cool. The glossy screen helps add to the "shine" but it's very pricey for me since I don't really do gaming on my PC much anymore. Besides, I have a desktop for that. I want to use my new notebook more for Photoshop, Pinnacle Studio, Internet, Email, and the like. It's nice to have the power to play games but is it worth the additional $500 or more? Maybe. It was with the M11x but I got that for a very, very good deal. There isn't a very, very good deal right now for the M14x.

So, that's my dilemma. Thanks for listening.

Sara Jean Underwood

There has been quite a few posts referencing Sara Jean Underwood. Most of the time it's about her in the most scantily glad outfit she could find. Not a problem in my book but there are some haters out there...even some of them are male. WTF kind of males, I don't know but they are there. My thought is to just enjoy the hotness while it lasts. Reminds me a lot of when Megan Fox hit the "everything hotness" links on the Internet. Also, I'm sure the Attack of the Show program is loving her bringing viewers in even if it's just for her.

So, here's a link to today's images courtesy of Egotastic. These are for Men's Fitness Magazine. Funny thing is I don't consider her "fit" in the sense of what most people consider fit: tone, muscular, aerobic, etc., nor is she a man so WTF is she doing in Men's Fitness? Again, I'll enjoy the photos but anything else is just on the side of ridiculous.

I predict within the near future she will pose fully nude for free or for Playboy. I don't really care which. In fact, I'd be happy if someone hacked her phone because I know she has some self-shot nudes on it! Ha!

UPDATE: Well, shit! A quick search on Egotastic and I found these and these.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

My youngest kid changed the password to the only login for their computer and forgot it. It's a Sony Vaio notebook with Windows 7. Funny thing is, my kid saved the password so it wouldn't be forgotten...in a Word document on the computer. The good intentions were there, just not the good smarts.

Luckily, I was able to Google "how to recover Windows 7 password" and a lot of different information was found. I tried a couple of different steps and software but then I found Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. If you Google it, you'll find it just like I did. You'll find a link to download the software. You'll find the instructions on how to burn it to a CD. You'll find out how to use it. I'm not here to explain what is already explained.

What I will tell you is two things:

1. The software did not change the password for me like it said it would.
2. The software did clear the password like it said it would.

Since the password was cleared, I was able to log in to the computer and reset the password on the user account. All is well now.

So, if you forgot your Windows 7 password, you need to get Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. It says it works for XP and Vista but I have not used it for those operating systems. It did work on Windows 7.

25th Anniversary of the Challenger tragedy

So, the word about town is it's the 25^th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. Click here for a good article with pics and vids over at Gizmodo.

I remember exactly where I was when it happened. I was in 3^rd period science class in 9^th grade.

I remember my teacher, Mrs. Allen, wheeling in the TV cart—there weren't laptops or video projectors available at the time. My science teacher was so excited that she wanted all 20 of us to be quiet when they weren't really saying anything on the TV that was important.

I remember the teacher in the next class came over to watch as well, bringing his students into our already crowded classroom. Now there were around 40 of us.

I remember being pretty interested in the launch. Not because I was a space fanatic but just because I always wanted to fly and space launch was pretty close and probably fantastic in itself. I also just like seeing rockets launch. I'm a boy. What else do we care about at that age but electronics, sports and planes/rockets (I liked girls too but that's another story).

I remember the count down.

I remember it starting to lift off.

I remember the flames and all the smoke coming out of the rockets.

I remember how cool it looked on the 27-inch tube TV.

I remember it getting higher and higher.

I remember seeing this quick, smokey explosion thinking this was when the booster rockets separated.

I remember seeing the two booster rockets bow away from the cloud of smoke between them and start to wiggle into their own random flight pattern.

I remember not seeing the shuttle continue its ascent.

I remember my teacher looking at the other teacher wondering what had happened. Both were confused.

I remember silence in the classroom. Then...

I remember the commentator saying something like, "Where is the Challenger?" and "They seemed to have lost contact with the Challenger" and then after a few minutes or ten, the realization happened. NASA reports that the Challenger space shuttle has exploded and all crew members have perished.

I remember Mrs. Allen crying, subtly at first and then somewhat hysterically. She bolted out the classroom door into the hall and continued to cry.

I remember Mrs. Allen composing herself and then wheeling the TV cart back out to the hall and into another room where she and a few other teachers continued to watch the drama. I think it was smart of her to do this for the students and her as well.

I remember going home later in the day and knowing what had transpired but it really not affecting me personally. I knew it was tragic. I knew it was historical. But what did a 14-yr-old boy really care about in the world?

As a mature adult, I look back and I feel for the families of the crew. I understand this now as I have a family of my own that I care for and raise. I also see that if I was a kid and my mother/father had the opportunity to go into space it would be the fucking coolest thing EVER! In fact as a parent, if my child had that opportunity, it would still be the fucking coolest thing but I would worry in the back of my mind.

So, as an old guy, I say to those young and old: Remember the events in your life directly and indirectly, big and small, because one day you will say, "That was the fucking coolest thing...EVER!"

Is technology making us dumb?

I just upgraded my cell phone from a Blackberry 8310 to an HTC Evo Shift. I won't go into the details of the phone and all but I will say this, "It's different...way different!"

The point of my post is that continuously improving technology is dumbing us down—at least partially anyway. It could be just me but I doubt it. I agree it's assisting us to do better, greater, things but I think it's dwindling our brain power, specifically our memorization skills.

Switching phones has made me realize this.

Quick, tell me the phone number of a person that you talk to only once or twice a day.

Can't do it can you? Don't lie!

I can recall my wife's cell number in lightning speed. Not just because her number has the same first six numbers as mine but also because I call it ALL the time from my office phone or our house phone when I don't have my cell phone near me. I can dial my house number without pause because I dial it all the time from my work phone. I can call my office phone because I use it to check my work voice mail. They are all in my cell phone contacts list butI can dial them from memory.

Everyone else is on my cell phone I know their number as Stephanie, Shawn, Keith, Andy, Trey, etc. Have you tried punching in "T-R-E-Y" into a land line? It doesn't dial Trey's number nor does "A-N-D-Y" or "K-E-I-T-H" dial their respective numbers.

Now granted, I don't call these people often but I think it is often enough that I should have their number memorized by now if I was actually dialing it instead of selecting their name from my contacts list on my cell phone.

The worst (best?) story I have is the following: I am sitting at my desk working away at my computer. My office phone clicks - I don't like the ringing so there is a setting that makes the phone sort of click instead of ring. I look at the display and it's a number that seems familiar but I'm not totally convinced I know it. I don't answer it because my phone is part of a phone tree we used to have and I get the randomest, dumbest callers looking for information when it is now all on our website. Anyway, the phone clicks for 3-4 times and stops. About 10 seconds later, I hear it click again. I see it's the same somewhat-familiar number. I think to myself, "This caller really wants to talk to someone." I let it "ring" and stop once again. About 10 seconds later, my cell phone vibrates. I look at the display and see that it's my youngest calling because it has the name displayed. I look at the number and it's the same number that was calling my office line. How stupid am I that I don't even fully recall my own child's cell phone number?

So, I'm going to try a new tactic. I decided I'm going to try and dial the numbers of people I'm going to call instead of hitting Contacts->Name. I've tried it a few times and it's difficult because when I start to type the number it automatically reflects the numbers I have saved and shows the match possibilities. Most all of the time it's the exact person and I'm tempted to just reach my thumb up a few inches and click the name. It's like sticking my tongue to a 9-volt battery—I know what will happen but I can't keep from doing it.

Anyway, that's my thought and I'm going to attempt to get my "memory" back. Or at least practice using it a little more. Maybe it'll help in my studies...I'll take anything to help in that area!

Is online shopping risky?

This is a little late but better late than never...sometimes...right? Anyway...

This holiday season and the previous few I have turned to online shopping for a lot of my gifts for the family and a few of the friends. It's convenient, time-saving and I get to avoid all the asshole drivers and dickhead holiday shoppers. How's that for Christmas spirit?

Anyway, I ordered my Alienware m11x from Dell.com and this is the box that they shipped it in. No outside box. No identity-covering brown paper. Nothing. It's not extremely obviously identifiable as a laptop but still.

I bought a very discounted HP all-in-one printer for the wife from Walmart.com. I figured that $20 was a decent investment for an all-in-one. It was shipped in the box in the following picture. It's obvious. It's extremely easily identifiable. It delivered exactly as shown.

I ordered two Sony Vaios for my children from Buy.com. It sounds extravagant but they are teens and they will need to stop using my computers for their school work. Also, I got regularly-priced Vaios at $799 for $599. I could not pass up the deal and it worked out that they both wanted (and needed) their own PCs. The Vaios were shipped in their respective laptop boxes and then they were both packed inside this plain, brown cardboard box. Hiding what they were AND adding extra protection.

In my non-strategic analysis, Buy.com has the most favorable packing and shipping of their products customers have purchased online. The box was indistinguishable as to what it contained and it was shipped UPS. I doubt that the shipping provider has much to do with the way the product was initially packaged but maybe it does. Maybe UPS requires the extra layer of boxing for their protection as well as the end customer. Again, I don't know.

What I do know is that the products from Dell and Walmart were both shipped via FedEx.

FedEx made not extra effort to hide my packages but instead left them in plain view on my porch in front of my door. UPS dropped my box off but made a point to put it as out of view as possible from easy viewing from the street while at the same time I was able to know something was delivered (of course, the box was much bigger and it would ben damn difficult to miss for anyone walking to my porch. It probably also helps that UPS delivers regularly in my area and specifically on my street to multiple residences. It probably is also helpful that because UPS is a regular on the street that they tend to delivery later in the day usually after 5 p.m. because there are more businesses nearby that they have to hit before the 9-5 workday ends. FedEx dropped off the two packages at different times of the day. Maybe they just don't visit the area as much and don't have the need to deliver businesses first and then residences. Again, I'm just making assumptions here.

Overall, this won't affect my future online purchases but it does make one wonder if it would make a difference to ask an online store to make sure the product is delivered in a discreet, non-descript box. It may be asking too much but at the same time when FedEx and even UPS drops off a box on the porch and the delivery status changes to "DELIVERED," how is a problem of "a missing package" dealt with if it was stolen from a porch?

So, there are my random thoughts for online shopping. I think it's great and convenient. I don't just shop online to avoid the assholes. If I can get a better deal by braving the ignorant drivers and shoppers, then I will drive to the store to get the product. But I just usually happen to get a damn good deal online. Oh yeah, site-to-store is a good bargain too if you have the time for the "delivery" because sometimes the site-to-store delivery is like 3-5 days or more whereas having it shipped to the house takes 1-3 days or more and sometimes free shipping is offered.

Alienware M11x -- just a quick unboxing

I got my Christmas present (one of them anyway) from my wife and kids yesterday. I ordered it. It was a good-priced deal. Dell had a deal on an Alienware M11x. It's not the newest version with the i5 or i7 processor because I didn't want to spend that kind of money on a new laptop since I already have a "power" laptop in my ASUS that I wrote about some time ago, circa 2009. I still have that big beauty but that's slightly the problem: it's BIG! It's what I wanted, a desktop replacement, but sometimes it's not that convenient for everyday travel between home, work and school. I also purchased a netbook the same time as my ASUS. It was a Samsung N110. I still have it too.

The issue comes with the in-between of those two machines. The ASUS is big but great on speed and funtionality. The Samsung is small and has fairly decent functionality but it lacks speed and keyboard-sized comfort.

Enter Alienware M11x. I've seen this in the news since it's come out. It was way too expensive at its introduction for poor little me. I got an email a week or so ago about it being on sale. I'm sure because the i3/i5 versions had been introduced and those are way too expensive for poor little me. They have greater speed and functionality but they just aren't what I am looking for right now.

Anyway, the Alienware was $799 on Dell's website (same as at Best Buy). The price with coupon codes thru Gizmodo and LogicBuy knocked it downto $549. I first ask, "How can you not think of and end up buying this at a $250 discount?" So, I jumped in, slightly hesitantly. Not because I was unsure of the deal...I figured I could eBay it if I had to. I was hesitant because asking the wife to get another computer would be a tough sell especially since I just bought our two kids Sony laptops (another VERY good deal on those sleek powerhouses!).

So, to make a longer story short. I got the Alienware M11x in the "mail" yesterday. That's about an 11-day turnaround from date of order to being left on my door step. And that's what FedEx actually did. They left it on my door step. WTF? I can't believe they didn't have to have it signed for or at least shipped it in a "disguised" box. It wasn't obviously marked as Alienware but it wasn't hard to discern that it was a laptop. Besides, neighborhood thieves don't look to see what the box contains...they take the box and look at the contents later hoping they did well.

Just a quick list of the specs:

• Cosmic Black
• Overclockable Intel Core2 Duo SU7300 1.3GHz (3MB Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz (upgraded from standard 2GB)
• 11.6-inch WideHD 1366x768 (720p) WLED
• 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M
• 250GB SATAII 7,200RPM

Also, following are a few of the simple unboxing pictures. Hopefully, I'll follow up with a sort of review of the Alienware M11x once I have the time and experience with it to properly share. Don't hold your breath because I haven't "reviewed" many products that I have talked about getting in the past. Maybe I'll remedy that by using the M11x.

   

   

   

   

   

Blogger versus Wordpress

So, I have a two blogs: one on Blogger and one on Wordpress. They are essentially a copy of each other. That's more true than you think because I actually post in one or the other and copy the post to one or the other. It's truly a pain in the ass.

Sometimes I reference previous posts and those references have to point to their respective links on each host. Otherwise, I'll be directing people form Blogger to Wordpress and vice versa. As far as images, in the past, I would upload to Blogger which is tied to my Gmail photo account and keep those references the same since the picture location never changed. I see lately though that Wordpress puts these images on their server somewhere because the link now has a Wordpress.com address in it.

In the past, I used to import from Blogger into Wordpress. It worked fantastically for some time and then one time I noticed the import looked fine but it somehow screwed up how the Blogger blog looked. My margins were jacked. The text was jacked. The images were jacked. Everything was way effed up! I couldn't handle the non-uniformity of it and had to created a "mirror" blog on Blogger. I copied and pasted almost all my posts...yes, one at a time...because I didn't know of a more efficient way or if there even was one.

So, longer story short. I just post in one and then copy and paste into the other because I don't want to screw up the formatting.

I am too cheap, and poor, to pay for web hosting and just have each service point to my server. I have used free server-type software for creating a basic website (only basic in the sense that I didn't put too much effort into it because I am always busy and can't dedicate a whole lot of time to it) where I could access my music, photos, random software and other stuff. I even was able to password protect the initial logon. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, back on track for the reason of this post...I don't understand why the two services can't play more nicely together or intergrate some of the other's features into their own. I know there is some tech or marketing guy from each company that has created an account on the other company's product where they can get the user's view to steal implement new ideas.

I actually started on Blogger. I guess it was actually MySpace but I used it just to browse random "spaces" and connect with family/friends but it was just too convoluted. The way people would upload so much extraneous shit into their MySpace page like music, videos, and pictures made their page load painfully slow. I ended up creating accounts across many mediums because in my job we (I) need to stay abreast of ways to market and communicate to a wide variety of people in the cheapest and easist way.

The simplicity of Blogger is why I selected them for a personal site. There was Typepad and some others but I just like the ease of learning and using with Blogger. Word for Blogger was another awesome idea and then blogging via email was a step in the right direction.

Then I found Wordpress. It was different and a little niftier in the admin side. I saw that email to Wordpress was possible although sometimes it is hit or miss for me. I think it's because it doesn't like it if I put my Wordpress posting email second or if it likes to be alone period! But why would I want to send the same post via email twice when I would think multiple TOs on my Blackberry would be enough.

Anyway, I like the many different templates you can use/get for Blogger. I like how you can customize the coding as well to add hit counters, links, among other things. Wordpress doesn't allow this level of customization with their free version. Which is ridiculous to pay for me to add things in. Luckily, Wordpress has the stats in the dashboard which is a fantastic tool. I haven't dove very deeply into it but what I've used and clicked on is quite informative. I wish Blogger had this as part of their program.

Again, for me, there are likes and dislikes from both of them. I just wish they would implement the same tools or at least their version of a tool.

To bring my rant to a close, I have a Blogger and a Wordpress address for the same exact blog. If anyone is happy with the import into Wordpress, if it's been improved and won't jack up my Blogger pages, please let me know. I would much better import from one to the other than copy and paste entire posts at a time...although copy/paste makes me update it sooner/quicker than importing. If anyone has ideas on how to use one to "feed" off the other like if it was hosted somewhere else...I don't know the correct jargon, please let me know.

Simplicity is the key for me. Thanks!

SanDisk Compact Flash Card

1st question: Why would someone want to purchase a 256 MB compact flash card?

2nd question: Why would some business sell a 256 MB compact flash card?

3rd question: Are you fucking serious that this 256 MB compact flash card is selling at $13.99 -- a savings to the customer of $116.00?

I think this was on a page at Buy.com.

Toshiba Notebook hard drive upgrade: Complete

As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to upgrade my current 120GB hard drive in my laptop. The process seemed easy enough without actually starting it because I've done upgrades in laptops AND desktops before.

I finally got around to starting the process yesterday (Saturday) even though I purchased the drive on Thursday. I started the process early since I didn't go play tennis but it turned into almost an all-day deal.

The first problem I ran into is when I took the old drive out and put the new drive in. It wasn't recognized with the Toshiba recovery/software/driver CD. My assumption is that the factory CD was specific to the original configuration of my laptop. Weird but not totally inconceivable.

Luckily, I have a WinXP Pro Full CD. I popped that sucker into the disk drive. That's when I ran into the second problem. It only recognized up to 131GB of the 320GB. Now, I know that 320GB is never actually 320GB. In fact, I have a Western Digital 320GB Passport Portable USB Drive that only registers 298GB. So, I knew I was going to be shorted on the size recognition but not this shorted!

I put the 120GB back in and started thinking of options. I remembered seeing some backup program on the Start Menu. I think it's like Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Backup. This worked fine...at first. It takes roughly 3 1/2 hours to create a backup this way and then it ends by saying something like, "Sorry, you don't have a floppy drive so an ASR backup may not work." WTF? When is the last freaking time YOU saw a notebook with a 1.44" floppy drive? I got a backup file but I can't get the computer to boot from the floppy since there is none which then will allow me to use the backup file to recreate the image on the 320GB drive. After some intensive Googling, it seems the Internet consensus says that the ASR backup will not work without a floppy. Some did give workarounds to get the files that were created for the floppy on a network computer that does have a floppy, burn the files from that computer to a floppy and voila! The freaking problem is there is STILL no floppy drive on my notebook. That's when they say, "You can get a USB external floppy drive at any computer store for cheap." Again, WTF? Why do I want to purchase a floppy drive for a one-time in a long-time hopefully the only-time recovery? DUH!

After more Googling, I finally found some solutions for using disk copying/imaging, one-to-one copying software. Most were pay options or free-to-try but I was looking for purely free! I do have a copy of Ghost from work but after installing it, I didn't know what to do or didn't do something correctly or the interface was too confusing so I uninstalled it and tried the options found from Googling. Download.com had a few good choices but many were file syncing or file backup. I wanted full hard drive backup with boot sectors and all that shit so when I removed the old drive, the new drive will just load everything right up like the old drive was still there.

I finally decided on Macrium Reflect Free because it got good user reviews on Download.com and a lot of people recommended it on Lifehacker.com.

Another 3-4 hours and I had an image on an external USB hard drive. I then used Macrium Reflect Free to load the image onto the 320GB hard drive which I had connected via another USB connection. After another 2-3 hours, the image was successfully loaded.

Now, it was go time! Fingers crossed I removed the 120 and replaced it with the 320, turned on the computer and we had boot up. For a second, I didn't know if it worked because the boot up wallpaper and process seemed different than I remembered with the 120 but I waited. Just a little while longer, I had the Windows login screen for my username. I used my fingerprint on my fingerprint reader to log in and voila! I was logged on.

The computer went through some recognizing the new hard drive process after it booted into Windows and said that my computer needed to reboot to complete the installation process of my new hard drive. So, I rebooted and, so far, everything is running good as gravy! I have a hard drive recognized space of 298GB with 200GB available. Booyah!

Other than running to the park with the kids and dog, my Sunday consisted of this and watching the marathon of all the Karate Kid movies. Yep, my Sunday was awesomely entertaining!

Upgrade: Notebook Hard Drive

So, I went to Fry's Electronics today to pickup a hard drive upgrade for my Toshiba laptop before the sale ended today. I currently only have a 120GB hard drive but have been wanting a larger capacity one. I have been reluctant because I don't know if I want to go through the process of restoring all my shit on the new drive, if I am going to give my laptop to one of my kids, or if I even want to spend the money.

Well, the local Fry's ad for 1/7/2009 had a pretty decent deal. It was for a Toshiba 320GB Notebook Hard Drive for $79.99. It's been very rare to find a capacity of this size for this price. I pondered all day yesterday and today. I finally decided to take a chance and go get it.

I've been watching Bangkok Dangerous so I haven't had a chance to mess with it yet, but since tomorrow (or today) is Friday, I will get right on it after work Friday.

Technical Newsletters

I'm kind of a computer geek. I'm not one of those like serious nerds but I do like me some electronics and I occasionally like to work/toy with them to figure out how they work or how I can screw them up and make them work. It's not so prominent in my day-to-day life now that I'm older with a family and kids because they come first and then there are about a dozen other things and then there is "Jay time."

Anyway before I get to off topic. I have signed up with many online technical journals/webizines/etc. that I either receive their newsletters via email or on Google Reader.

A particular email newsletter that I joined within the past year or so but no more than two is called Ask Leo!. It's pretty informative, to an extent, but only if you click on a link within the email to "read the rest of the story" which opens your default browser back to the Ask Leo! web site where you can read the question and answer article.

I don't like to have to do that. It's a real pain in the ass and I usually don't click the link unless it's a topic in which I am REALLY interested. I prefer to read the question and see the answer in the newsletter. In my opinion, that's the whole point of signing up for the newsletter...so I don't have to visit the web site.

Kind of like WinXP News. There is also a Vista version but I have XP. Most of the questions are answered within the email newsletter. There are links to deeper discussions on certain topics like "Is big brother watching you?" or "Are you going to upgrade to Windows Vista or wait for Windows 7?" but the quick how-to/help questions are posted and answered within the email newsletter.

Anyway, I was going to rant a bit more about it but I actually started this post a couple of days ago and lost my train of thought.

Testing emailing from my new SPIFFY Blackberry

A week or so ago the wife and I upgraded cell phones and the plan. I can dig all this unlimited data/web/internet. Now if only I could get used to this smaller "full-size" keyboard I'd be good to go.

So, there was the test. I'm gone!

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

What did I say?

So, I know you people are checking what the weather is like in Dallas, Texas. Just to put my two cents in...it F-ing sucks. If I miss another Saturday of tennis, I'm gonna be pissed.

So pissed that I just called the wife to say,

"Mother nature needs a good anal raping to get her ass straight and stop messing up my weekends!"

The wife says, "That was just wrong."

I say, "What? I was just saying..."

Okay, that's it. Go back to whatever you were doing.

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Update: You know, I like using ScribeFire to blog sometimes. It's discreet for work when you want to blog and people around you not see the whole Blogger web page and colors. Anyway, what I hate is when they add this dame label above. I don't think they have an option to not add it so I have to log into my blog, edit the blog entry and the publish. What a pain in the ass!