Everyday Randomness

[/end moodswing]

Permalink | Shared On: 30 Jan 08 | Filed As: Blogging, Contests, Technology & Gadgets

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The Good News:

I’m not on the verge of crying anymore. I don’t know what that was all about, but I watched a movie, and the feeling went away.

The Bad News:
My all natural laundry soap still hasn’t arrived, and I’m out of clean clothes that haven’t been washed in regular detergent. I had to wash my bath robe with Purex earlier tonight because Alley puked on it. I pulled it out of the dryer fresh and warm, took a shower, and here I am 10 minutes later breaking out and itching all over again. I’m going to pick up a small bottle of All Free & Clear tomorrow to have on hand as my backup, and I shot an email to my laundry soap lady to see why it hasn’t arrived yet.

I’ve ordered from her plenty of times before, and yes it does normally take a couple weeks to get here, but this is going on 3 weeks. I know there’s no way she wouldn’t send it, so I shot her an email to make sure it didn’t get lost in shipping. It could very easily be delayed.

For some reason my Woot order has been delayed. It’s been stuck in Charlotte since the 25th and is marked for delivery on Feb. 2nd. Why I don’t know, but I’ve learned to live by the old Woot forums rule. Buy it, forget about it, and by the time it arrives it’s like opening a present because you can’t remember what you ordered! I actually HAD forgotten about my Woot order until hubby asked me about it today. I picked up 2 512mb Sandisk Sansa MP3 players for $20. Those are totally going in my gift drawer as I’m sure they’ll each make nice birthday presents for someone. If I like the controls on these better than my old school Sandisk I might just use one for myself and pass my old one along to someone else…

or give it away as a blog contest. We’ll just have to see. I don’t know if anyone would be interested in winning it because it’s Sandisk MX1 and it’s only a 512mb although that’s plenty big enough for me. You can check out the review I wrote about it here. Mine is the blue one. Hubby has the red one which is a 256mb, but he loves it.

Finally Installed Ubuntu

Permalink | Shared On: 27 Dec 07 | Filed As: Technology & Gadgets

I’ve been taking some time today to set my new computer up the way I want it.  I originally installed Windows for hubby’s sake because I’ve got his computer torn down at the moment.  I kind of snitched his sound card until mine comes in later this week.  *evil grin*

I went ahead and did something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile.  I dual booted Linux on this pc.  Now I can mainly use Ubuntu for myself, and when I want to play one of my Sims games or someone needs to use my pc I can boot back over to Windows.  I’m going to install Ubuntu on my laptop, but since I haven’t used Ubuntu before I’ll be able to really get the hang of it before going soley Linux on the laptop.

If I’m MIA for awhile over the next couple of days you can probably guess I’m playing around in Linux trying to figure out a few more things.

HD Radio

Permalink | Shared On: 03 Dec 07 | Filed As: Entertainment, Technology & Gadgets

We live in an ever changing world electronically. In the last 20 or so years we’ve watched computers change from the size of walls to something that can fit in your hand. We’ve gone from standing near a wall with a cord hanging out our phones to walking through the streets on cell phones so tiny they’ll fit almost anywhere. New technology means we’re always striving for something better.

We’ve all been introduced to the HD craze and how our TVs can bring us videos that are real to live. After watched a special with my in laws on Penquins, and on their HD TV everything was much more realistic. Television isn’t the only place to find HD these days. There’s also the new addition of HD radio that gives you a crisp clear sound while still providing a digital signal. Unlike satellite radio, you don’t have to buy a monthly subscription to a service to be able to enjoy HD radio. All you need is an HD radio receiver. There are a ton of radios out there these days like the Polk i-Sonic ES2 with built in HD tuners specifically designed to give you more free stations to listen to.

In fact HD radio can bring you more than 150 channels of free music, news, sports, and weather content. In my area this is a big plus because we don’t have a lot of radio stations I like. I listen to electronic or dance music mostly, and there aren’t any local stations that carry this. HD radio can bring me new stations with more genres to choose from. I’ll spend less time flipping through commercials or music I don’t like and more time listening to the things I do like.

With the addition of iTunes Tagging you’re giving the ability to tag your songs to help you find them easier. iTunes Tagging allows you to discover new music that you may want to preview and buy for your iPod. The songs can be downloaded from your radio to your docked iPod and ready for purchase at a later date. The Polk i-Sonic ES2 also provides the artist name and song title on your radio screen, so you never again have to worry about trying to figure out what the name of is of the song you’re listening to.

The best part of all is that while providing a crystal clear sound quality the subscription to high definition radio is still absolutely free, so you don’t have to worry about adding another bill just to enjoy the service.  What more could you ask for?  What are your thoughts on HD radio?

Yay She’s Working

Permalink | Shared On: 30 Nov 07 | Filed As: Technology & Gadgets

Yay! My new baby is running.  I’m adding all the needed drivers and files to her right now, then I’ll set her up on my network to transfer my stuff over.  It’s going to be so nice having a new computer.  I’ve been so afraid this one would die before I could get my new desktop put together.  This old Dell has been beeping at me left and right for the past week, and it looks like she survived long enough to help me get all the files I’ve needed for the other one.

I’ll be giving this one a complete overhaul once I’ve got everything moved, and hopefully the motherboard isn’t so strained from the fact that the onboard sound has been slowly dieing that I’ll need to replace it.  I’m going to set this one up in the guest room as our “guest” computer because we’ve always got someone over here wanting to check their Myspace or look up something.  It’s going to be nice having 3 fully functioning pc’s in the house at all times.