icedlatte.com

So I decided to pickup a new laptop.  It’s actually my Christmas present.  Yes, it’s that early.  But hey, what can you do?

I got an Asus Aspire One.  Costco had them for $350, so that was in my price range.

What is it?  Well, it’s considered a netbook.  These are smaller than laptops, but also less powerful.  They’re designed for light use, and especially for travel.

All in all, I’m pretty impressed with it.  It won’t become my day to day laptop, replacing my Macbook Pro, but it will be nice to use on the couch, when we travel, and just for hanging out at Starbucks.

No Comments »

We live in the boonies. The QC. Queen Creek, AZ. As a result, our cell phone coverage isn’t the greatest. We have Sprint, and all issues aside, we’ve been pretty happy with them. (Their costs and plans are routinely lower than Verizon, for example. And before you ask why I don’t have an IPhone, it’s due to a few reasons, such as not having great signal from AT&T in the QC, slow data speed, and not being able to customize the IPhone much.)

But unfortunately, we never received great Sprint signal here in the house. I purchased a cell phone signal booster a few years ago, and it does a great job, but I mounted it in the laundry room, since it was the center of the house. What did that mean? Well, it worked great if you stood in the hallway or in the laundry room. Not a great solution.

That’s why I was excited when Sprint announced the Airave earlier this year.  And it finally went on sale Monday.

So, did the Sprint Airave work out?  Click “Continue Reading..” to read my review of the Sprint Airave.

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

I added a side-bar entry that shows my current Xbox 360 status.  So if you’re bored, and want a friend on the 360, add me.  We can rock out to “Don’t go Breakin’ My Heart” on Rock Band. (*)

(*) No, this song ain’t in the game.

No Comments »

For those of you that know me, you might call me a gadget freak.

For those of you that don’t know me, the people that do know me might call me a gadget freak.

One of those things is cell phones.

In the last two years, I’ve changed my cell phone three times. Not a lot compared to some people, but a lot compared to others.

It should be no surprise to some that I just upgraded to the Sprint 6800 “Mogul” phone.

Click below to read my review of this phone…

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

I have one of the original Microsoft Natural Keyboard’s. I got it when I bought my first ‘major’ computer back in 1998 from Gateway. I like it, and it worked good. But man, since I’ve had it for almost 10 years, it was looking really nasty.

So I decided that I would try and clean it. In the dishwasher. And amazingly, it worked.

After searching Google for “keyboard in dishwasher“, I went to work.

First, of course, I took a picture with the camera of the keyboard, so I would remember where the keys went. It came in handy later.

I popped all the keys off the keyboard, and set them aside. After taking off the keys, I realized how much dirt was underneath the keys. My old roommate had a cat, and a lot of the hair was under it. Didn’t even think about that. I had to take it outside with canned air and blow a lot of that dirt off first.

I put it in the dishwasher with a little bit of dish washing soap, and let it do it’s thing. Coming out of the dishwasher, it looked much better. I then set the keyboard aside for a few days to dry in the garage.

For the keys, I simply used some soap and a bowl of water to soak the keys for awhile, and then cleaned them off with a toothbrush. Let them dry, too.

A few days later, I snapped all the keys back on, and gave it a try…. and it didn’t work. I was a little mad, because, hey, I really like this keyboard. So I let it set aside for another day, and sure enough, it dried out more, and it works! So I was one happy coffee guy.

For the cost of a few pennies of dishwashing liquid, I have a like new keyboard.

1 Comment »

Sprinklers.  Need I say more.

So after testing some of my PVC gluing skills, I had a couple of leaks. I think that mostly could be attributed to the fact that I didn’t really wait for the glue to dry before pressure-testing.  I was probably a little too over-anxious.  So it had a slight drip from one of the pipes.

So basically I had to cut the PVC and start over again.  This time, though, I pre-glued a large portion of the valves, let it set overnight, then glued that onto the water-supply pipe.

Testing today, and it worked! Happy days.  So that means we’re now clear to start laying the pipe and the actual sprinkler heads.

What else?  Well, our Canon I850 printer, which we’ve had for over 5 years, finally decided to die.  When you try and turn it on, it doesn’t power up.   So this time, I ordered a Brother HL2070N laser printer.  Not too bad for $140.  One of the nice things is that it has a network port, so we do not need to hook it up to the Mac.  Can print with everything off.

Not much else right now.  Peace out.

No Comments »

In case you didn’t know, this time of year is the exact reason we live in beautiful Arizona.  You won’t see me saying things like that in July or August, trust me.  But right now, with highs in the mid 70’s, and low of around 35 at our place, it’s not that bad.  Especially when I get on calls for work, and a coworker is in South Dakota, where the high is 7.  That’s just crazy.

It really hasn’t felt like Christmas yet, here in the Mr. Coffee household.  Mainly because we haven’t had the time yet to put up any Christmas decorations, or even buy the traditional Christmas tree.  Hopefully this weekend we’ll have a spare moment to do that.

And then, there is the Wii.  I think I got the wife addicted to Wii bowling.  It’s quite fun.  It was also funny seeing her do Wii boxing, but not as funny as this girl, at least.  I’ve been playing quite a lot of Zelda, and it just keeps getting more involved.  The graphics on it aren’t the greatest, especially since it’s basically a Gamecube game they moved to the Wii at near the last minute, but it’s still great to play.

Peace Out.

1 Comment »

So my wife and I did something that I’ve never done in my years o’ game playing.

Wait in line to get a new game system the day it comes out.

I’ve mentioned the Nintendo Wii a few times here.  Those that know me had to hear me talk about it, as well.  I was looking forward to picking one of these bad boys up.

We attempted to go to two WalMart’s  last night at midnight.  Unfortunately, the first one we went to already had 26 or so people in line, and they only had 20 Wii’s.  (I dunno either why people stayed there? Weird.)  We called another WalMart, and they too said their line was full.

So that wasn’t going to work.  Our next goal was Target.   They didn’t open until 8am on Sunday, though.  So we did what any reasonable, logical person would do.

We slept until 3am and then drove to Target.

I knew a Target by our house was going to have 60 or so.  Turns out from that line, I got Wii #10.   Now, waiting from 3am-8am isn’t as bad as it sounds, as long as you don’t ask the wife.  She was cold, and I was a little cold too.  But Starbucks opens at 5:30am,  and the wife slept/warmed up in the car every now and then.  And of course, you meet interesting people in line.

Now, the guy that got Wii #1 in our line was there at 7:30pm on Saturday night, so just over 12 hours. Eeesh.

In the end, people showed up at 8am and still got a Wii, but of course, they probably didn’t get any games or controllers with it.

So, how is the Wii?  Pretty cool.  The controls take a little bit of getting used to, but it has much potential.  The graphics are not Xbox 360 or PS3 quality, but it’s never been about the games.  And the ‘virtual console’ is a great idea, with Sega Genesis, NES, Super NES, and N64 games available already for download.  Very spiffy.

A big kudos for Target, as well.  They came out and handed out soda and popcorn for free, which was nice.  And they kept the line orderly and had everything organized very well.  We entered the store at 8am, and were on the road with our purchase before 8:30.  Not shabby.

Well, off to play some more Zelda.

2 Comments »

So, we decided it was about time to upgrade the television:

Picked up a 50″ DLP Samsung.  So far, very happy with it.  The only thing that really stinks is that the TiVo we currently have really doesn’t look great on it.  Of course, the HD TiVo is currently $800.  That’s a little rich for my blood.  Hopefully they’ll lower it, as the cable company’s DVR really stinks.

It’s amazing how when something looks great in hi-def, you’ll end up watching it.  I watched tennis for 20 minutes the other day.  And I hate tennis.

No Comments »

So, I woke up early this morning, after working until 2am, to head to Gamestop to pre-oder my Nintendo Wii.

I thought a few people might be there.

When I got there, there were over 20 people in line already, and that was an hour before Gamestop even opened!

So I did what any smart person did.

Went to Starbucks and then went home.

It seems like Nintendo is going to have quite a few of the consoles out, so I’m not too worried. I would rather get it from a place like Target or Costco rather than Gamestop anyway.

Ahhh well.

No Comments »