December 2007 Entries
Just wanted to reiterate how cool my Griffin PowerMate is. I wrote about it in a post about analog computer devices a couple of years ago. I had it mothballed for a while, but I'm setting up my new desk space and installed it again. It works in 64-bit Vista which I wasn't expecting and the latest software update is much nicer than it used to be. iTunes integration is built in now, no hacks required. They even lowered the price, $36 On a related note my brother Kevin and I...
1) Gave (to Emily): Brompton M3L folding bike. Part of the actual gift many times is the research involved with picking the gift as much as the thing itself. Such was the case with folding bikes. If you're in the market for one, don't hesitate to ask, because now I know. I ended up with the Brompton because it met the following criteria: a) It folds up the smallest of any bike around b) it has an internal gear change mechanism, meaning there's no external derailer to get tangled or broken. c) it can carry...
Thanks to TJ, Matthew and Jeremy for hosting this year's Ugly Sweater party. Emily and I made the trek from NYC up to Cambridge, MA specifically to attend the festivities. (Priceline'd "3 stars", anywhere on route 128 for $60, got a great Doubletree room out of it) Can you readers shed light on whether you've heard of the ugly sweater party concept before? I have no heard any mention of it locally, but some of the attendees said the Garment District second hand shop was busy with sweater-party-seekers. I love it -- nobody can take themselves too seriously...
Studies have repeatedly shown that multiple monitors lead to increased productivity. Enthusiasts out there will tell you that three monitors is ideal [Scott Hanselman]. For our needs right now, I needed a monitor solution that gives us the absolute most pixels we can afford on our pre-funded startup budget. There are lots of monitor configurations to choose from at different price points, but which was *best*? I've done the analysis. (All prices and models are Dell) model resolution pixels price 20" standard 1600x1200 1,920,000 $449 20" widescreen 1680x1050 1,764,000 $339 24" widescreen...
My next running goal is to run an ultra-marathon (anything over 26.2 is "ultra") this winter/spring sometime. I've got a couple that I'm looking at doing, particularly the Loiusville Lovin' the Hills 50k trail run. What that means for me is that I need to get up earlier in the morning and that I need to start running a larger percentage of my miles on trails. Central Park has been just completely ideal as a training ground this past year for road racing, but the bridal path loops are just not long enough to support a 20+ mile...
I mentioned in the last post that I was considering building workstations instead of buying from Dell. Here's what I ended up with: As a starting point I used the ever-useful Ars Technica System Guide -- the Hot Rod. This ends up somewhat similar to the Hanselman/Attwood ultimate developer rig from a couple months ago. Motherboard - GigaByte GA-P35-DS4. My goodness, trying to tell these boards apart is really tough, GigaByte alone offers like 20 models with the same base chipset. $187.99 CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. For development I think quad cores makes sense and this...