For reasons that I find completely reasonable, tech geeks have written an open letter to Microsoft, asking for a re-release of Windows XP. The computer company released Windows Vista last month, but the operating system is so stifled by digital rights management and other protections that it bogs down the system as it constantly checks to make sure your software is all legal.

There is no good reason to buy Windows Vista right now. The benefits are few, and Vista is too incompatible with existing software to be useful for most computer users. Everyone complained when Vista was delayed for the past 2 years, but the truth is that it should have been delayed for a couple more years, allowing developers time to figure out how to make it work with existing software without slowing down the computer to a point that it becomes unusable.
An Open Letter to Microsoft: Re-Release Windows XP : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

Designing new sites in CSS can be rewarding, but it is still a chore. With this CSS Tinderbox toolkit I've found, you'll have a variety of open source layouts that can be the foundation of your site. You'll still need to know CSS to customize the design and modify it the way you want, but using open source designs can save you a lot of time with the layout.
CSS Tinderbox: open source web design - DLS Design Tip - Download Squad

I just discovered Dream.In.Code, a web development community for anyone interested in programming. Anyone who is developing a website or just programming some software really needs the help of a community who have been down the same roads before. I can't think of a single programmer friend who has not had a tremendous amount of support from others.

Aside from getting great advice from its many members, Dream.In.Code gives free programming magazines like Dr. Dobbs and Queue, and free t-shirts to members with 500 or more posts. If you're an experienced programmer who reads the boards a lot, you'll get to that point without even noticing it.

I've found that reading community forums is much more educational that reading through those 1,000 page programming books. Real programmers are more likely to experience the real problems you have. Plus, have you ever tried asking questions to a book?

There are many other great programming forums out there as well. Just try Googling "PHP forum" or "C++ forum" etc.

How can there be so many PS3s on the store shelves while Sony claims their sales are great? It's all accounting tricks, I'm afraid. Sony has shipped 4 million systems from their factory, but most of them remain unbought. The reason for this is simple: nobody wants to lay down $600 for a video game system when the games on the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are much more fun at this point.
Videogame Charts - News

I love computer deals, even though I just bought a new computer last month. You never know when I'll need the newest equipment. Scouring the web for great computer deal sites can actually be quite fun.

If you like hunting for the latest Dell Coupons, check out CheapStingyBargains, for instance.

My friends and I are always sending each other links to various deals that seem almost too good to be true. They are often loss-leaders, meaning they want you to buy something cool from them, even if they lose a little money, because they know customers will often come back over and over again.

CheapStingyBargains also has great deals on things like hard drives, software, digital cameras, etc. Make sure to add it to your list of daily deals sites.

I just bought a new notebook computer last month, and I'm already jealous of the newest models being released. Just look at this baby (see link below). It's from a company named Canovo, and it has dual touchscreens. How does that work in a notebook, you ask? Well, one touchscreen for the monitor screen, and another for the keyboard. That's right, not more clunky keys to press, just light little taps on the screen. I'm sure this will cost a bundle, but think of how envious everyone will be.
Canovo dual-touchscreen tablet/notebook » All devices in one place. DevicePedia.com

I've stressed the importance of online backup in the past. This is especially true if you have a business. Just backing up your data to a disk is not enough; you really need to have off-site backup.

IBackup - Online Backup is a site that offers online storage of data with many features, such as sharing, collaboration, and sub-accounts. They have economy plans at very reasonable rates as well.

Using IBackup Professional, you can make sure your business meets federal mandates, such as HIPAA, SEC/NASD, and the Sarbanes-Oxley acts. You don't want to find out that you've lost some very important data because a hard drive failed. IBackup is a great form of "data insurance", to make sure you've always got the information you need, even in cases of disaster or other unforeseeable events.

Merrill Lynch may not be a company filled with gamers, but they tend to have experts trying to figure out a way to make money on every trend. Their latest prediction: the Nintendo Wii will be huge in a few years. Of course, in the gaming world the Wii is already creating quite a buzz, especially among those people who were lucky enough to find one on store shelves.

As soon as supply can meet demand, we might just see a Wii craze in this country that will change the video game industry forever. Instead of stuffing ridiculously advanced technology in future gaming systems and pricing them like they were a computer system, I think Sony and Microsoft will try to get more creative, making cheaper system that are easier to develop games for. These companies make their money off the games, not the systems, but they need to sell systems to a lot of people to make their money back. Nintendo has the right idea with the Wii. The system is about half the price of a PS3, and it has more games that people are excited about. It costs Nintendo about 1/3 the price to make a Wii compared to Sony's costs for the PS3, and they actually make some money on each console sale. Sony loses several hundred dollars.
GameDaily BIZ: Merrill Lynch: 30% of U.S. Households to Own Wii by 2011

I love massive multiplayer online role playing games. When I was in college, me and my roommates played Gunbound until our fingers were sore. A game that's been growing in popularity is Maple Story. Maplestory cheats, Maple story hacks, and Maple story guides can all be found on this website: http://maple-story-hacks.com/Basic-Hacking-Tutorials.php. They provide a hacking tutorial for people who are using either the KasperSky or ZenXEngine cheat engine. Use of other cheat engines might cause the game or the user's computer to crash when they start it up.

Some of the more experienced players may think they are too good for a hack, but they can actually be very interesting and add to the playability of the game. If you're getting bored of the regular game, use some cheats to try out Godmode or Vacuum (gathers monsters and items to one area, making it easier to level up).

I remember seeing this list a long time ago, but I thought I'd post it this time so I'd have it in my archives. These are the oldest registered .com domain names. It's amazing at how useless some of these are, and how much money people could have made if they only realized the future value of dot-coms with short "dictionary word" names, like money.com or tv.com or computer.com. That said, almost none of the top internet companies have a name like this. I guess having a kooky name that nobody else would register helps because they don't have to spend a lot of money to buy their domain and get the company started.
03/15/1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
04/24/1985 BBN.COM
05/24/1985 THINK.COM
07/11/1985 MCC.COM
09/30/1985 DEC.COM
11/07/1985 NORTHROP.COM
01/09/1986 XEROX.COM
01/17/1986 SRI.COM
03/03/1986 HP.COM
03/05/1986 BELLCORE.COM
03/19/1986 IBM.COM
03/19/1986 SUN.COM
03/25/1986 INTEL.COM
03/25/1986 TI.COM
04/25/1986 ATT.COM
05/08/1986 GMR.COM
05/08/1986 TEK.COM
07/10/1986 FMC.COM
07/10/1986 UB.COM
08/05/1986 BELL-ATL.COM
08/05/1986 GE.COM
08/05/1986 GREBYN.COM
08/05/1986 ISC.COM
08/05/1986 NSC.COM
08/05/1986 STARGATE.COM
09/02/1986 BOEING.COM
09/18/1986 ITCORP.COM
09/29/1986 SIEMENS.COM
10/18/1986 PYRAMID.COM
10/27/1986 ALPHACDC.COM
10/27/1986 BDM.COM
10/27/1986 FLUKE.COM
10/27/1986 INMET.COM
10/27/1986 KESMAI.COM
10/27/1986 MENTOR.COM
10/27/1986 NEC.COM
10/27/1986 RAY.COM
10/27/1986 ROSEMOUNT.COM
10/27/1986 VORTEX.COM
11/05/1986 ALCOA.COM
11/05/1986 GTE.COM
11/17/1986 ADOBE.COM
11/17/1986 AMD.COM
11/17/1986 DAS.COM
11/17/1986 DATA-IO.COM
11/17/1986 OCTOPUS.COM
11/17/1986 PORTAL.COM
11/17/1986 TELTONE.COM
12/11/1986 3COM.COM
12/11/1986 AMDAHL.COM
12/11/1986 CCUR.COM
12/11/1986 CI.COM
12/11/1986 CONVERGENT.COM
12/11/1986 DG.COM
12/11/1986 PEREGRINE.COM
12/11/1986 QUAD.COM
12/11/1986 SQ.COM
12/11/1986 TANDY.COM
12/11/1986 TTI.COM
12/11/1986 UNISYS.COM
01/19/1987 CGI.COM
01/19/1987 CTS.COM
01/19/1987 SPDCC.COM
02/19/1987 APPLE.COM
03/04/1987 NMA.COM
03/04/1987 PRIME.COM
04/04/1987 PHILIPS.COM
04/23/1987 DATACUBE.COM
04/23/1987 KAI.COM
04/23/1987 TIC.COM
04/23/1987 VINE.COM
04/30/1987 NCR.COM
05/14/1987 CISCO.COM
05/14/1987 RDL.COM
05/20/1987 SLB.COM
05/27/1987 PARCPLACE.COM
05/27/1987 UTC.COM
06/26/1987 IDE.COM
07/09/1987 TRW.COM
07/13/1987 UNIPRESS.COM
07/27/1987 DUPONT.COM
07/27/1987 LOCKHEED.COM
07/28/1987 ROSETTA.COM
08/18/1987 TOAD.COM
08/31/1987 QUICK.COM
09/03/1987 ALLIED.COM
09/03/1987 DSC.COM
09/03/1987 SCO.COM
09/22/1987 GENE.COM
09/22/1987 KCCS.COM
09/22/1987 SPECTRA.COM
09/22/1987 WLK.COM
09/30/1987 MENTAT.COM
10/14/1987 WYSE.COM
11/02/1987 CFG.COM
11/09/1987 MARBLE.COM
11/16/1987 CAYMAN.COM
11/16/1987 ENTITY.COM
11/24/1987 KSR.COM
11/30/1987 NYNEXST.COM

Every business in modern times should have a website. It's almost a necessity to compete. Finding small business hosting for a good price is a much easier task than it used to be. For the most part, web hosting is getting better and better every year, with prices for bandwidth going down and services going up.

Concentric has all the great services that a small business needs from a web host: email, domain name hosting, dedicated and shared clustered hosting options, spam filters, and virus protection. They even have private domain registration available, a great service that is becoming more and more popular with people who do not want their name, address, and phone number to be available to everyone on the internet.

There are three basic services that every small business should look for in a web host: high storage space, high monthly bandwidth, and quality security software. Obviously, they want these things for a low price. Concentric offers all of that. Just a quick look at their basic package reveals that they have 2GB of storage, 40GB of bandwidth, and free spam/virus blocking tools for $13.50/month. Included in that package is 80 email addresses, which is more that enough to cover every employee at most small businesses, and a free domain name, which you would have to buy anyway if it were not included in the package.

Apple can finally use the iPhone name without threat of litigation from Cisco, which rightfully made use of the name before Apple announced its latest big product.

Apple could have avoided this a month ago, simply by completing an agreement with Cisco before making a public announcement about their iPhone. Once they made the name public, Cisco had leverage against them to up the stakes with any settlement offer.

Apple's newest product, which is a phone for anyone that can't figure these things out, promises to be one of the most-hyped technologies of the year. It doesn't do anything that other cell phones don't, but it's one of the first sold in the United States. For a variety of reasons, American's have been stuck with really poor technology when it comes to cell phones.
MacNN | Apple settles iPhone spat with Cisco

Just 15 years ago, when a businessman heard the word "marketing", he thought about TV, newspapers, radio stations, and maybe billboards. It was a multi-billion dollar industry back then, and it still is today, but businessmen would now put one word prominently ahead of those others: INTERNET.

The internet is the ultimate medium for marketing. It is as interactive as a company wants it to be, allowing customers to read, hear, or view videos of the information they want. The new battle isn't for a prominent space in the newspaper or that TV commercial at just the right time, it's for the number 1 spot in a search engine's results page for words relating to a company.

Search Engine Placement is king, and there are plenty of "new" experts out there who specialize in this kind of marketing. Search engine optimizers know what each search engines like, and try to modify a client's site to take advantage of that.

Budget dollars are being shifted from people who made cool graphics for print or quality videos for TV to people who know how to make a site that search engines will like. Some companies are further ahead on this curve than others, but eventually most of them will come to the realization that they need to beat their competitors on the internet, or they won't beat them at all.

Anti-video game lawyer Jack Thompson sent an inflammatory email to reporters in Salt Lake City last week following a shooting that left five dead in a local mall. In the email, he claimed the teenager who committed the crime "probably trained on Grand Theft Auto video games".

Just Google Jack Thompson and "Grand Theft Auto" and you'll see how the truth is a concept he's not entirely familiar with. He went out of his way to start rumors in the media following the tragic shooting last week, all in an effort to further his anti-GTA cause. Now it turns out that the teen did not own a video game system, or even a computer.

Jack Thompson has few friends in the blogosphere, and there's a good reason for it. I've never heard a lawyer joke that didn't apply to that man. He'll probably sue me just for writing that. I hope the next time something tragic like the SLC incident happens Jack Thompson doesn't use it for his own personal agenda. I'm off to play some GTA now.
Surprise! Mall Shooter Didn't Own Video Games - Kotaku

With all the talk lately of the $100 laptop project and the emergence of India in the computing world, many people have asked about internet service in the nation with the world's largest population. It turns out India does have broadband services available.

Reliance broadband promised to have a connection set up within 7 days of calling them. They are one of the best ISP's in India and offer wireless internet via mobile phones and data cards.

Reliable internet service in India is not just reserved for outsourced customer service centers. Individuals can have the same connection to the rest of the world that you and I enjoy with little trouble. That's great, in my opinion, and will lead to more skilled workers in the tech industry in the coming decades.

The GeForce 8800 series graphics card is one of the best consumer-level cards to come out in a long time. Unfortunately, consumers can be easily confused by the fact that 8 different manufacturers are selling these cards, and each with different specs and speeds. The Tech Report has a run-down on these cards, so you know which ones are worth the high price.
Seven GeForce 8800 series graphics cards compared - The Tech Report - Page 1

Many people and businesses are just catching on to this whole VoIP thing, but established websites have been experts on the technology for a long time. I've found this forum that has lots of information about VoIP

With any new technology, there is going to be a learning curve. It's important to have an internet community that is going through the same experience and can answer the questions that people are bound to have, such as http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic18540.html. Having people there to answer these questions can level out the learning curve and save you a lot of time.

I found this great list of stupid peripherals for handheld consoles. I've actually owned several of these and can confirm that they were stupid. The Game Boy light magnifier thingy did serve a purpose, because the Game Boy had such a weak display and really needed more light. The warped plastic that formed a magnifying surface was really unnecessary and distorted the picture. Click on the link for more of these.
Ridiculous Handheld Peripherals - Modojo: Handheld and Mobile Reviews, Previews, Cheats, News, Games, and More

Any business that has tried to score a good Google rank for their website knows what a challenge it can be. Getting "organic" links to their site can be essential. Organic link means not a paid advertisement. Directories are a great source of organic links, and they're sorted by category to allow for more optimized traffic. Most of them allow free submissions, but it can be very time consuming.

Organic Natural Linking is a company that has launched a directory submission service. A client will give them their website, and Organic Natural Linking will go through the process of submitting it to 400 of the top directories. Since many other directories will use links from these top 400, the total number of links to the website created will be huge, resulting in higher traffic and possibly a higher Google rank.

This company is offering a discount until the end of April Fools Day.

I found this very complete story of Sergey Brin, the man who co-founded Google. It's amazing that this billionaire has done something that has impacted nearly all of our lives, and yet few people would recognize him if they walked past him on the street. Of course, they'd probably stare, because he likely walks around covered in diamond-encrusted clothing. I know I would.
The Story of Sergey Brin

Strategic planning is crucial to a business. Coming up with innovative ideas and implementing them in a way that can benefit the business can be much more challenging than people realize. In addition, there is almost always competition to deal with. If they don't have a similar product to yours, and yours is a success, there's a good chance the will be coming out with a similar product in the future.

I've started reading this site called Strategic Planning Thoughts, and it has a lot of great ideas for businesses that need a little help with handling their own ideas.

There are so many things that go into a business, it can be easy to miss the little things. It's important to utilize the experience of others willing to share it, such as on the site above, and develop ideas from them. Understanding things like where your customers come from is as important when you business is successful as when your business is failing. No matter what position your business is in, it can always be improved with the help of others.

Spurred by the success of WiiSports Bowling and Boxing games, EA Sports is developing some more realistic versions of the sport to Nintendo's popular console. Although perhaps not suited for the same mass audience, I'm sure many Wii owner's have been anxiously awaiting a boxing game where they can actually punch air and hit the likes of Muhammad Ali.

As for bowling, it doesn't get better than Wii Bowling. I guess EA is hoping some people will want to bowl as a fat guy with a mustache, as all pro bowlers are.
PlayWii - Nintendo News

A new sub-site on the Ford Mustang will be launching as a part of this site very soon. It will be amazing, it will make you want to buy your own Mustang. In the meantime, there are many other resources on the web for America's car. Whether you've got a 1968 Shelby GT500 KR or a 1996 Mustang with all stock equipment, there is information and pictures out there for everyone.

Since it's introduction in 1964 (officially a 1964 1/2 model), the Mustang has been one of America's favorite cars, and also a favorite American car to customize. Originally, it seemed all those fancy options and customizations were factory or dealership made. Such minor options as Mustang embossed faux-fog lights on a first generation Mustang are now worth hundreds of dollars.

Spoilers and body kits became big for the car in the 1990s and beyond. Today there is hardly anything you cannot customize on the Mustang. From the hood to the mirrors to the interior seats to the dashboard to the steering wheel, everything can be taken out and replaced with something that more closely resembles "you".

The new Mustangs, which can be bought with some rather powerful engine options, are my favorites of the past 30 years. The first and second generation cars were great, but the line seemed to lag for several decades, although it rarely lost popularity. The new 'Stangs bring back a little of that classic look, while including all the new technology that people expect from a car in 2007. From the moment these cars first made it to dealer lots, the customizers were looking at them and figuring out new ways to customize the look.

Although I do not currently own a Mustang, I've been planning to buy one for a long time. I think I'd prefer a classic, just for the coolness factor, but since I live in the Northeast I might have to go for the newer one because it's more driveable and offers greater safety features.

The Corvette may be America's sports car, but I think the Mustang is America's car, and possibly the best bang for the buck of any car from Detroit in the past 3 decades. In my next sub-site, you'll be able to look at all the technology that goes into a factory car, and also all the great technology (such as those crazy horns I told you about yesterday) that can be put into for anyone with a little creativity and some pocket change.

There are rumors that Windows is developing a new operating system in 2009. Do not believe these rumors. A Microsoft director has officially ripped apart these rumors, saying that the Vista launch has been a huge success and they will continue to provide updates and upgrades to that operating system when necessary.

These rumors did not make any sense, and were the result of very poor journalism. Some writer heard a director say something about development of a new operating system, and somehow came to the conclusion that it would be ready by 2009. Someone should have told this writer that the current date is 2007. If Microsoft released a new OS that soon after Vista they would be cannibalizing their own core business for no good reason.
M-Dollar: Microsoft: no announced plans for Windows in 2009

Here's an annoying product that I'm surprised I haven't seen yet: a customizable car horn system. The next time some jerk cuts in front of you, don't just give him a "honk honk", let him know what kind of annoying music you like. Heck, just program this thing with this year's Grammy winners, that'll do the job.
www.uberreview.com/2007/02/horntones-customize-your-honk.htm

You want to know what I think of Take More Risks? Well, first of all, I think the layout is ugly and not user-friendly, especially considering the main topic is advertising online. The front page just scrolls down and down forever. My advice: shorten the posts, or separate pages into 3 or 4 posts apiece.

Ye Olde Matt, the man behind this site, seems to be a clone of many other infamous internet characters. I would say that he's like The Rich Jerk (a nameless fellow) or that guy behind ShoeMoney, but those guys have already made their millions.

Some of the posts need to be explained a little further. He claims to be averaging about 80 Adsense clicks a day (this is back in November), but a few weeks later claims to be making "$30/$35 a week". Did something happen there? Or is he really averaging like a couple cents per click (way below average)?

As the webmaster himself notes, there are way too many categories on this site to keep track of. He should combine all the affiliate programs and Adsense stuff together, and put Javascript, AJAX, and all the coding stuff together. Do AJAX and XAJAX really need separate categories? AJAX doesn't even have an real posts in it. No reason for it to exist.

Last of all, I don't know what BuzzBums is or what it's trying to be, but that little icon on the site is about the ugliest thing you could have on a website, aside from an animated gif circa 1995.

Alright, fine, one more thing. That photo at the top, the one with the bland houses and street lights... what the heck is up with that photo? Is that what this site wants people to think of when they read the posts? Most of the posts have to do with making money. Do online riches lead to suburban neighborhoods. At least let us dream of mansions and exotic cars. And there's even snow on the rooftops. I'm freezing my butt off over here and then I have to look at a website that makes me feel colder? How about a tropical beach? That's what I want to see!

Oh, and I'd like to see some more SEO content. I couldn't find any. If it's there, it's hidden in all those categories.

The early reviews of God of War II are out, and it looks like it will be an instant hit. Despite being made for that old dinosaur of a gaming system, the PS2, God of War II has fixed every imperfection of the original and has become an action game for the ages.

IGN is rating this game a 9.7, which translates to "incredible" on their scoring scale. They don't throw ratings like that around every day, and I've never known them to be fanboys of a particular system. It looks like PS2 owners (and by now, who isn't one?) have something to rejoice at during the long months waiting for something good to come out for the PS3.
IGN: God of War II Review

It's no secret that there are a ton of ways to make money with the internet. From Google, to Amazon, to eBay, the internet has made more than a few people rich.

Finding the right business opportunities can be a challenge. You've got to find something you like doing that can also make money. I've found the website above, which has lots of great ideas for making money that many people would never think of. That's usually the number one problem: getting started with a great idea. Sometimes all it takes is reading over the suggestions of others to find what you want to do.

A decent website domain name, combined with a strategy to flip the site to people who have a strong demand for the name, is one strategy many people have used to make a steady income online.

Sony is not giving up on the music player products that made it famous in the 80's. They are developing a new Walkman, which will have up to 8GB of flash memory for music. That makes it very competitive with the iPod Nano. They should be similar in size. No word yet on the retail price of this, but I would say that Sony Walkman is the one brand name that consumers might consider switching for, just because so many people have owned a Walkman in the past.
New Sony Walkman

Payperpost, the leader in paid blog postings, has developed a new affiliate program that pays people to review blog posts. This a great idea for many reasons, which I will explain later, but most of all it helps bloggers to build traffic.

Here's how the program works: you sign up for Payperpost, you put a code that they give you at the end of a blog post that says "get paid to review my post". When someone follows through on that offer, they are directed to Payperpost, which will pay them $7.50 (at the time of this writing) for writing a post about that particular blog post and putting on their blog. The owner of the original blog whose post got reviewed will also receive $7.50. That doesn't sound like a bad deal to me, how about you?

Not only will you get paid for each person that takes the offer to review your post, but because they are reviewing your post and linking to it, they are actually driving traffic to your blog. Those links are more valuable, in my opinion, than paid traffic from search engines, because they stay around longer and will improve your pages relevancy to search engine spiders. The search engines will then rank your site higher for relevant keywords. Do you see how this cycle works, and why blogs that are popular with other blogs are more likely to get the big traffic?

Digg has recently banned most SEO sites, so one such site decided to build their own Digg-like social site just for SEO news. Social News for SEO at seoyak.com provides a full website of news and discussion that is related to SEO. You won't find videos of Kevin Rose talking about the cool stuff he owns or pictures of the latest Wii hacks here, only SEO.

I spent a lot of time on Digg looking for SEO sites, and their recent decision to go in a different direction had me disappointed. Now this site will fill that void, and a whole lot more.

Remember when you were young and the SI Swimsuit Edition came in the mail once every year? If you just answered "no", and you cancelled that SI subscription your dad got you and subscribed to PC World instead, please get up from your computer right now. You probably need to get out more.

For everyone else, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is an annual event. The glossy cover and multiple cologne ads make it instantly stand out from regular issues of SI. Of course, it would get lost in that pile of other magazines after a few months.

Not anymore. Now you can get photos and content from the magazine and pictures straight from the photo shoots to your mobile phone. They cost $1.99 and are available on all major carriers.

You can also download images and videos from classic editions of the annual magazine. Video ringers and animated screensavers are also available. SI Mobile offers a lot more than that competing service that lets you program code from your phone. Trust me, as amazing as that feat is, no ladies are impressed by it. Oh, by the way, the newest Swimsuit edition comes out on February 14th. It may be Valentine's Day, but it's a whole different holiday for single guys and guys in a relationship with really cool women. Mark your calendars.

If you've got an HDTV, chances are you've had that moment where you realize your hdmi cables are too short.


HDMI cables are hard to make long, because they tend to lose some of their signal over those distances. That kind of defeats the purpose of the high definition setup, doesn't it? If you check out the link above, you'll find a product called an HDMI Equalizer which allows for very long cable lengths. They also have various conversion and adapter products, which can be helpful when you need to go HDMI to DVI.

Technorati Tags: hdmi, cable, hdtv

A professor born in Bangladesh but now living in the United States was awarded a $1 million prize for developing a system to filter arsenic out of well water. The invention, which is both simple to operate and inexpensive to build, will be very beneficial to his home country, where thousands of people die every year from unsafe water. LINK

Voice over Internet Protocol is better-known as VoIP. To put it simply, it's telephone calls made through the internet instead of telephone lines.

VoIP is often used by businesses, and for a number of reasons. A VoIP phone can receive messages no matter where it is, kind of like a cell phone. This allows users to take their VoIP phone with them on trips and all of their contacts will know exactly how to reach them. VoIP phone numbers can also be obtained for free in many countries. This is desirable because people want to be able to give out a concrete number where they can be reached, rather than paying for one number for the whole business and then paying a secretary to route the calls to the appropriate people.

There can be some drawbacks to VoIP. It requires a stable internet connection, which not everyone has. It also can have delays during a conversation if the connection is having problems. Faxes can be much harder to send over VoIP.

I encourage you to find out more about VoIP Phones and other products available to increase business communications and productivity.

Not to be outdone by Apple, Microsoft is working on a phone version of their Zune music player. The phone will also connect with other Microsoft products, such as the Xbox 360, to display video and other content.

The Zune phone will likely come out at the end of this year, so it will be far behind the iPhone, which should be out by June. Which phone will be under your XMas tree next year?
CrunchGear » Blog Archive » Source: Microsoft Zune Phone In the Works

There are plenty of coupon websites out there, offering great deals at a variety of online merchants. It just doesn't make sense to shop online without coupons.

In brick and mortar stores, coupons are a hassle. First you have to dig through the Sunday newspaper to find them, then you have to cut them out, then you have to remember to bring them, and then it takes longer to checkout. Online, no such hassle exists. You do a search on the site above, you find the coupon, copy the code, and paste it when you order.

My sister recently save a lot of money using a coupon when she bought a computer at Dell Business. You don't have to go to the mall to buy a Valentine's Day gift. Just use the internet and a few coupons.