Gonna buy me a Dropcam!

Yep, I'm getting tired of missing people who come to my door and knock or even ring the bell, and I don't hear them back in my room with the door closed. This little gadget should be perfect for letting me know when someone is outside as it can display video via wifi to the computer back in my room.

I saw the Dropcam in action while watching the CES coverage on TWiT TV and it should work rather well for this purpose, I hope. I plan to sit it in my front window, angled towards the driveway. In addition to the video, I will be able to hear the audio of someone knocking on my door as well.

At $149 it's a little expensive to use for this purpose, so I may do a little research to see if I can find a cheaper alternative. If you have a better idea, leave a comment below. Thanks!

Stop SOPA Stop SOPA Stop SOPA Stop SOPA Stop SOPA Stop SOPA

STOP

SOPA! ! !

A Cold Reminder

After the relatively mild winter we have had so far this season, I suppose mother nature decided to remind us that it is in fact wintertime with an arctic blast from the north. Temps here dipped to 15 degrees overnight, for the last two nights in fact. Although it didn't get quite as cold as they thought it would as 12 was the predicted low.

I suppose what makes it worse are the wind chills as those dipped to the single digits yesterday. It's even colder inside when this happens, even with well insulated houses. You just feel colder, even though the thermostat reads 72, it simply doesn't feel that warm.

But, before you know it, February will be here, with the groundhog poking his head up to see what he can see. Then the comical debate begins about how much longer it will last, 6 weeks, or a month and a half. Stay warm people...

CES

Been watching TWiT TV's coverage of the event all week. Nice to see it all just as though I was there, without walking a step!

Among the items shown, I like the Asus 7" tablet with the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core processor dubbed the Prime mini. Just like it's big brother (Transformer Prime), this little spitfire runs the latest Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. At $249, this one will be a hit.

Also this year seems to be the year for the Windows Phone to finally take off with the announcement of the Nokia Lumia 900 coming to the US. This device features a 1.4 GHz processor and a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display. No price was announced.

And finally, the biggest buzzword this year seems to be OLED. These Organic LED displays were present in 55" super thin forms from Samsung and LG. Cost will make these systems only for the rich at first, but as with everything else, eventually it will come down to a more reasonable amount.

A brand new year, same ol' story

Yep, another new year is upon us. Of course the biggest news is all the things that happened last year. It never ceases to amaze me how this happens each year. All of the news organizations are guilty of it. Each one tries to top the other one with the biggest stories of 2011. My question is, who are they doing this for? Did everyone suddenly have short term memory loss? It all took place within the last year people, how hard is that to remember?

I suppose if there were any big news item they would cover that, but in all honesty I think they would be disappointed if they didn't get to do their year end review of the previous year's events. And I don't really think nostalgia has a lot to do with it either, I just think they enjoy reliving their glory days of the previous year.

The difference is we are forced to relive them too. Some good moments I'm sure, but some we would rather forget. Thank goodness we have more choices these days and do not have to watch the broadcast media.

Online news sources aren't that different though as they usually do the same thing. I suppose we are just destined to live in the past no matter what...

H A P P Y   N E W   Y E A R ! ! !