Vote

Don't forget to vote on November 4th!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone. We usually get a lot of trick-or-treaters. Last year I wore a mask (sometimes) when I answered the door and I scared a little kid once. Bummer! I got two of the big bags of candy from Costco (a total of 300 pieces of chocolate candies). Hopefully I don't go through them too quick.




Edit (10/31/08): I decided to get a couple more bags (regular size) of candy. I also got some non-chocolate candy so if anyone asks for that, I'm ready.

CFLs Suck

There, I said it. Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs suck. I'm trying to be energy efficient so I bought a couple CFL reflector bulbs to replace some reflector flood lights in my ceiling cans (ceiling-recessed downlights). Specifically I got one GE 21710 (720 lumens, 6000 hours) and one GE 47478 (750 lumens, 10000 hours). Both are 15W CFLs equivalent to 65W incandescent. The 21710 package specifically indicated it was dimmable. The 47478 package didn't specify either way. Most of the CFLs are non dimmable. Anyway, neither is instant start. The delay was very noticeable. The 47478 did not dim with my Insteon SwitchLinc dimmer switch. The 21710 did not have enough "steps" or levels in dimming, and only went down to about 25% before turning off. I will now go to halogen bulbs

A good paper on Reflector Light Bulbs and Lighting Controls as it pertains to the Energy Act of 2007 (Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007)) can be found here. The Compact Fluorescent Dimming: Buyer Beware paper is another good source of information.

Let it snow!

Even though it was only 38° F when I looked at the temperature, the snow was coming down in big, fluffy flakes and was covering the grass.

I doubt it will last, but it was nice to see snow so early in the season, especially since it's not winter yet.

The Star Ledger newspaper is calling it a "freak fall snowstorm." The last time we had snow in October was in 2002.

SNL Weekend Update

Although I stopped watching Saturday Night Live long ago because I just don't think it's as funny as it was years ago, I still like the Weekend Update feature. This one with Fred Armison shows off his interactive map and Oscar Rogers still wants someone to FIX IT!

Magellan Roadmate 1412

Here's a mini review of the GPS. There are plenty of reviews of the features and functionality all over the Web. I guess my review will be about the things I don't like about it. If I decide there are too many problems, I will take it back and get a different model. I previously had a Garmin (250W, I think) but it took too long to lock onto satellites and map the route. (At this point, I should probably say that the GPS is my wife's, but I use it too.)

I was happy with the features, which are more than the Garmin, such as speaking the road names of the turns.

My first gripe is that it couldn't find the nearest Kinko's. The closest one it showed in a search was 6.5 miles away, but I knew of a closer one, and on the way to where I was going anyway. It was 4.8 miles from where I was when I searched. Even when I was in the parking lot when I got to the Kinko's I wanted to be at, the GPS didn't know about it. The people said they have been there for six years, plenty of time to be in Magellan's (or whoever they use) map database.

A good thing is that it gives plenty of notice of an exit on the highway, e.g. 2 miles out, 1.1 miles, .4 miles and finally at the exit. (I think the chime at the exit is Ok but my wife doesn't like it.)

I don't like that once you arrive at your destination, you have to cancel the existing route before entering a new address. Later today I used it to get home and I noticed that it went back to the main menu; I didn't have to cancel the existing route. Perhaps you need to arrive at the exact location???

In general, it takes too many menu clicks to enter things. (Getting Home takes 4 clicks: Main Menu, Home button, Route, and finally the orange Route button. It should be two at the most!) Another issue is that when changing the volume, you have to click Save to move on. After a few seconds, it should just go back to the previous screen. And maybe I just want to raise the volume temporarily due to road noise. It seems that I will always be changing the volume.

I'm sure I will continue to update this as time goes on....

Edit (10/24/08):
I mapped a route to 118 US-202 in Bernardsville and it brought me to a lake!!! Luckily I knew where I was supposed to be. When I got to the destination, the GPS indicated I was on Morristown Road, which could be the name of the small highway as it goes through town. Many small highways have road names also.

The suction cup/mounting bracket is much better than the Garmin.

Getting Home through my housing development takes a roundabout way which is not the shortest or fastest route. Good thing I know how to get home in my development!

Photosynth

From Microsoft Live Labs, Photosynth is a new and very interesting technology. From the website, "Imagine being able to share the places and things you love using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a video game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world. With nothing more than a bunch of photos, Photosynth creates an amazing new experience." You really need to take a look to understand it. And even though you may not understand it, it does look really cool.

My first attempt at creating a Synth wasn't all that successful, even though I used 51 photos. It was only 33% synthy. Since it was so bad, I won't bother posting a link, but you can search for it if you really want to see it. It was a fire truck.

Snarfer

I've been using Snarfer for reading RSS feeds. I'm pretty happy with it, except that it saves messages in a format that can't be indexed by Google Desktop Search. Hopefully as Snarfer matures, the author (or perhaps someone else) will create a plug-in for GDS.