If you’ve had your eye on Apple’s latest 24-inch Cinema Display, then you no doubt know that it doesn’t play nicely with older hardware. Specifically, it only has a Mini DisplayPort connector. Unfortunately unlike DVI and VGA, you aren’t going to find a simple $2 adapter. In fact, if you were running an older laptop without a Mini DisplayPort, there was no way to get the two to work together, short of buying a whole new computer. Well the folks over at Atlona have whipped up something to help you out.
The AT-DP200 takes a regular DVI connection from your computer and transforms it into a Mini Displayport connection that you can use with your fancy-pants monitor. The converter will still keep your full 1920 x 1200 resolution and HDCP compatibility. You’d better be really attached to that older computer though, as this device will set you back $179 when it ships next week.
Being the geek that I am, I have computers scattered all through my house. It’s something that people tend to notice when they come over for the first time, not because they’re ugly and out of place, just that there seems to be a lot of them. A couple of them are used almost primarily for playing music, namely the ones in my kitchen or garage. Usually I’ll either have them playing music from my iTunes, or Pandora. If you’re not familiar with Pandora, I highly suggest checking it out. Essentially it’s free internet radio. You can create stations with the exact artists and genres that you want.
I little while ago I learned of the Livio Radio, which allows you to play music from your Pandora stations without a PC. I was given the opportunity to review one, so I could find out if this was really as awesome as it sounded. Hit the jump for my thoughts.
Browsing around the MIT website (as I do from time to time so that you don’t have to), I ran across the web page of Katie Byl (that’s “bill”), who is currently working at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab (on stuff like this). Katie used to study legged locomotion at MIT, which involved developing dynamic motions for LittleDog. And sometimes, these motions didn’t quite work out as planned… Also in the following video are clips of LittleDog walking on pegs (”Karate Kid” style), and a slow motion clip of LittleDog bounding up onto terrain…
This. Is. Just. Awful. Just so you’re up to speed, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 on October 22nd and as part of their launch promotions, they’ve asked people to host launch parties for the new OS. If chosen as a host, you’d have received a free Signature Edition of Windows 7 Ultimate and run a chance to win a $750. The video above was created for these chosen hosts as both a promotional tool and somewhat of an instructional video on how to host one of these parties. Never mind now though since confirmations are already being sent out. The point here is just how freaking horrible and asinine the above video is.
I have an idea. Watch it, and then in the comments here tell us what you’d rather do than attend a Windows 7 launch party? Myself, I’d rather spend an entire day cleaning old dentures with a toothpick.
It might not have a lot of sex appeal, or even a novel design, but Kingston’s DataTraveler 410 flash drives have been improved where it’s really important. Besides a maximum capacity of 32GB (they’re also available in 4, 8 & 16GB sizes) the DT410 features 20MB/sec read and 20MB/sec write speeds for faster data transfers. It also comes with Kingston’s SecureTraveler1 software which allows you to create a password protected area on the drive called the “Privacy Zone” for storing your indiscretions. $114.99 available from Newegg.com right now.
I don’t think Halloween can quite topple Christmas when it comes to being the holiday with the most themed crap filling store shelves, but it’s a close second. If it’s any consolation though, Halloween crap seems to be far more inspired and creative. Like these haunted, animated books. Stick ‘em on a bookshelf hidden amongst your other real tomes, and whenever someone walks by they’ll come to life, sliding in and out making “eery” haunted sounds. Will they actually fool or scare anyone? No. For $24.99 should you be disappointed if they don’t? Absolutely not.
If for whatever reason you’re still using a laptop that doesn’t have WiFi, or at least wireless N, Trendnet provides an easy and almost invisible upgrade with their new TEW-648UB USB wireless N adapter. It’s compatible with almost all popular flavors of Windows today (no mention of Mac support) and includes support for WiFi Protected Setup making it easier to connect to a password protected network. You’ll want to be aware that speeds max out at 150Mbps since it’s only a single-stream adapter, but since you’ll probably be buying it as an upgrade from a slower, older standard, I’m sure it’s a caveat you can live with. ~$25.
I use Gmail for all of my email conversations. Sure, I have a couple of other email addresses, but I just pipe them to a single one over at Google. I can still respond through Gmail and have it show as being sent from my other addresses, which makes it really convenient. With all of my email going through the one Gmail address, I’ve been waiting for an official Push solution. Sure, there are other 3rd party apps that can get the job done, but not until today have we had something straight from the source.
If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch owner (running 3.0 software or better) you can now get your Gmail (plus contacts and calendar) pushed to your device. This means no more setting your phone to check for email every so often. The only real catch is that it uses Microsoft Exchange to get this done. Since your iPhone can have only a single Exchange account, you may be out of luck if you’re already using it.
For those wondering, I got this setup last night, and while it was a little slow at first, it’s working like a charm this morning. Emails are showing up only a few seconds after I see them on my desktop.
Backlit keyboards have become rather popular over the years, especially with gamers. Why? Because we tend to sit in the dark and game until the sun comes up. Sure, we know how to type without looking at our keyboards, but sometimes after grabbing a drink, we need to be able to quickly see where a specific key is without first finding home row. Oh, and it just looks awesome. Well fancy keyboards such as these can be rather expensive, so someone crafted a way to make the keys glow on any old keyboard.
Glow in Dark Keyboard Stickers are the perfect solution. Of course by “perfect solution” I mean “worst idea ever.” Take a look at your current keyboard, with careful detail to your home row keys. If you’ve had it for a while, you’ll probably notice that either the letters have started to wear off a bit, or there is at least some visible signs that your fingers spend a good bit of time resting there. Now imagine if you put stickers on those keys. How long do you think they’d last? Oh, and don’t forget the tedious task of putting them all on straight. Even at $9, I’d rather have a plain boring keyboard than one with glow-in-the-dark stickers.
Related Tags: adapters, computer, Video
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