Month: August 2009

Life hacker has a write up of the Five Best Disk Defragmenters. I have personally used Diskeeper for about 3-4 years and never had a problem. It will run in the background and you never notice it taking up CPU while you are working. My drives are always running at their optimum speeds. The reading and writing of large files is where you can really notice the difference. http://lifehacker.com/5348638/five-best-disk-defragmenters

Here is a link to a trial version of Diskeeper: http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home/trialware.aspx
The retail version costs $29.95 you can purchase it here: http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home/purchase.aspx

PCMag.com just release some details about AMD’s Six-Core Opteron that runs on 40 Watts. The six-core AMD Opteron EE consumes 40 watts, and is designed for 2P servers, among the most popular in the virtualized server space. The chip will cost $989, and will begin shipping on Monday. Mark Hachman wrote up the details here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352212,00.asp

Here is Newegg.com’s list of Six-Core Opteron that are available now. At the date of this post they are not listing the new AMD Opteron EE.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000727%201652944902&Description=amd%20operon&name=Six-Core

I joined the program about 9 months ago when it first started on live.com. It has got so popular that they made a commercial for it. Here is the first Bing.com Cashback commercial.

Also I would like to note that you do not get any cash back until your account has $5 or more in it. They will send you a check or preferably by paypal. Paypal is pretty much getting paid within 24 hours. The cash back percentage changes almost daily it seems by some retailers. Over the 9 months that I have been in the program I have only seen 2 stores raise their cashback percentage. Most lower it every 3 months. There are occasional specials where they have a higher percentage for a 24 hour period. If you shop online at major retailers you have nothing to lose but cash back by joining the cash back program.

Mozy.com has a nice picture that relates physical storage to digital storage. Digital storage has vastly increased the amount of information we can keep in smaller and smaller devices. http://www.mozy.com/blog/misc/physical-storage-vs-digital-storage/

Are you tired of cell phone carries taking advantage of you. Well I am and so are a lot of other people. Here is a nice artcle that will help you complain to your carrier. http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the-mandatory-15-second-voicemail-instructions/

Tech fiction that made the transition to the real world. Tech radar has 10 joke technologies that became reality. http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/10-joke-technologies-that-became-reality-628791

The companies that provide cell phone voice and data make their billions by cheating. They must be stopped. Mike Elgan from Computerworld and pcworld.com goes into detail on why we hate wireless carriers. I myself have the same gripes that Mike has and have had them for a while. http://www.pcworld.com/article/170624/10_things_we_hate_about_wireless_carriers.html

[img_assist|nid=440|title=The Bitch Switch|link=none|align=left|width=562|height=920]

I finally made the bitch switch. If you look closely you can tell that it happens to be on.

1. The Hockey Puck Mouse
2. The iPod Hi-Fi
3. Earbuds
4. QuickTake
5. iTunes

Wired.com goes into more detail about each product here: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/isuck-apples-five-worst-products-ever/

He was a 14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone. Then he discovered that he possessed a strange and fearsome superpower — one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI. Met Matthew Weigman — a fat, lonely blind kid who lived with his mom in a working-class neighborhood of East Boston. Who discovered the power of party lines and phone phreaking. Rolling stone details how it all happened: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/29787673/the_boy_who_heard_too_much/print