posted by Bob Buskirk on Events, Personal
2 comments
While in Vegas at CES
John was nice enough to take me as well as other TTZ Media affiliates out to Roy’s.
Roy’s is an award winning Hawaiian themed restaurant. I have only been out to a few restaurants that serve fine cuisine so it was a new experience for me. We were served a 3 course meal. This was also a first for me.
Dinner started out with a appetizer plate. Then we were served salad with some type of weird dressing on it. It was not bad. The main course was a choice of shrimp, mahi mahi, chicken, or pork. I choose the shrimp. It was very tasty and good. For dessert we were given a tray with 3 different desserts on them. I really enjoyed the Crème Brulee.
I really enjoyed going out to dinner with John and the other TTZ media affiliates. It was great to relax during the busy week of CES and talk with friends you only get to see once a year. Roy’s was very good, but I vote Morton’s for next year because I love steak!
posted by Bob Buskirk on Ramblings, Tech Related
4 comments
Since the announcement of the iPhone so many of my friends have asked me if I was going to get it because I am on Cingular. Well the answer is NO! So many people are wishing they were on Cingular because they want to iPhone so bad. Well I am not really excited about the iPhone at all. Here are some of the reasons…
Price – $500 – $600 with a 2 year contract! Most smartphones or PDA’s cost that without the 2 year contract! So since I am already with Cingular I would have to pay full price for the phone, which I’m guessing will be around $800-1000! $800 to $1000 for a phone…A PHONE!! Now that is crazy! There are so many other things that would benefit me more than an iPhone for that price, a laptop, tablet pc, OQO, etc. So price is probably the biggest factor.
It’s a phone – Ok I use my phone mainly to talk on it sometimes send some text messages, I do not need it to send e-mail or surf the web. That is why I do not have a smartphone in the first place.
No Keyboard – I guess I could get used to not having a keyboard, but I would prefer to have one. Pushing buttons on a phone has become like second nature to me and changing that would just be weird and also not worth the hefty price tag.
No Customization – At one time I did have a Windows smartphone and the thing I liked most about it was that I was able to download third-party applications and themes for free! Apple has said there will not be any third-party software / customization for the phone at all!
So those are some of the reasons I will not be getting the iPhone. There are probably more I could list! Anyone agree / disagree?
posted by Bob Buskirk on Tech Related, The Think Network
2 comments
2006 was a great year for ThinkComputers. We published 220 reviews and 16 articles. With all of those products that came in I decided to make a list of my favorite products that I reviewed over the past year. I tried to keep the list to 10, but there were so many great products I had to expand the list to 14. They are in chronological order from the date they were posted.
Corsair Voyager 4GB Flash Drive – The Corsair Voyager drive is simply awesome. It is very rugged and you can do anything to it and it will not break. This was my main drive I took with me everywhere and had all of my important files on. I recently lost it, but Vivian from corsair was nice enough to hook me up with another one.
Antec P150 Quiet Case – Antec really outdid themselves with this case. First of all it is white, which you do not see many cases that color. The design is very sleek and stylish. The insides of the case features sound dampening material, Tri-Cool fans, fan filters, and removable hard drive bays. If you do not want to use the drive bays you can suspend your hard drive in the hard drive suspension system, this will also cut down on sound. I am still using this case today for one of my systems.
iRiver U10 Portable Media Player – This little media player is just amazing. What sets this media player apart from others is its size and control system. It only measures 0.5 x 2.5 x 1.75-inches! You control the player by actually pressing down on the screen. It is not touch-screen but the entire screen is a button. I used the U10 all through summer while exercising and going to the pool!
GeCube Radeon X1600 Pro Video Card – This way my first PCI-Express card. Geeks.com was nice enough to send it out to me when I told them I was building a new system. For being my first PCI-Express card it performed really well and I still use it for testing today!
Antec 2U26ATX400XR-2 Rackmount Case – It was time to add a second server into our server rack for ThinkComputers. We had the system ready, but were unsure of the case. Talking with Antec they were nice enough to send the case out. We all know Antec for quality and this rackmount case shows just that. It was perfect for our server and if you are looking for a great rackmount case then I would definitely check out what Antec has to offer.
Saitek Eclipse II Illuminated Keyboard – This was one of my most anticipated products of 2006. The Eclipse II takes everything the original eclipse had and makes it better. Not to mention you get 3 different colors of illumination, not just one. I am still using this keyboard today and I love it!
Antec Fusion Media Center Case – This is my favorite media center case of 2006. Antec did a great job making the case stylish, but not to flashy. The case is perfect for anyone who has a media center. The included VFD and front ports really sell the system. I am currently using this case as my media center case and have no plans to replace it!
OCZ PC2-6400 Spec Ops Urban Elite Memory – This memory just kicks ass! It performs great and the heatspreaders look awesome. They are painted in urban camo paint and will turn heads at any LAN party. I am still using these sticks in one of my servers.
Corsair HX620 Power Supply – This was Corsair’s big jump into the power supply market and they did a great job. It seemed like they took all the great things about many different power supplies and put them into one. This power supply is still in my system.
Crucial 10th Anniversary PC2-5300 Memory – Crucial celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2006 and to commemorate that they put out a special edition memory kit. The kit is the normal PC2-5300 memory, but they feature special heatspreaders that commemorate their 10th anniversary.
NZXT Adamas Case – This case is probably the best case I received all year. The NZXT Adamas case really gives you all that you can ask for out of a case and adds its own style. And it is very durable, being able to support over 300 pounds! The Adamas is truly something different than the normal case.
Alienware Area-51 m5550 Laptop – We recently started working with Alienware reviewing their notebooks. The m5550 was the first unit we received and we were very pleased with it. It was amazing to see how well games played on a laptop!
Logitech AudioStation – This was the best iPod speaker system I reviewed all year. The touch sensitive controls are really cool and the huge LCD display on the front looks great. I have it sitting in my room now and it sounds great! If you are looking for any iPod speaker system I would check out the AudioStation.
Altec Lansing FX5051 Speaker System – I squeezed this review in right before the end of the year. What great about this system is that you do not need a sound card for full 5.1 surround sound! Everything is done via USB. Also the speakers are very small so they are easy to place. I am using this system in my office right now!
Well those were my favorite products that I got a chance to review over this past year. Hopefully 2007 will bring even better products!
posted by Bob Buskirk on Ramblings
2 comments
Just a quick note I have added a few blogs to my friends list on the right. Thanks everyone for exchanging links. If you sent me an e-mail about exchanging links and you do not see your site there please let me know. Also if you want to be added to my friends list just shoot me an e-mail.
posted by Bob Buskirk on Ramblings
9 comments
I know not everyone can be self-made millionaires, but so many people can do something about their current situation. So many people that I know constantly complain about how much their job sucks, how they are not making enough money, and even just how they are unhappy with their situation. Out of all these people I would say 75% of them are doing nothing about it. Why not strive for more?
A few years ago my life was hell. I was a full time student at Robert Morris University, worked 30+ hours at an insurance company, and was running ThinkComputers. I barely had time for anything. The thing that kept me going was the thing that I was most interested in, ThinkComputers. Now it is what I am doing full time. All the extra time I had I would work on the site. During my break at work, in between classes at school, and before I went to bed a night. I knew I could make something out of the site that would help me with my current situation and it really did. I added some ads to the site and started updating it more frequently. This of course brought more traffic to the site which in-turn gave me some extra income. Because of this extra income I did not have to work as many hours at the insurance company. From there I kept on working and now I am doing ThinkComputers full time and it is paying the bills.
So why do so many people just sit around and complain about their current situation? I’m really not sure, but here are some thoughts.
Laziness – This is probably the biggest reason why people do nothing for themselves. Some people come home from work and just sit around. And for them it is to hard to try to do anything that might help them out. Or these people would rather do other activities like video games, drinking, etc instead of helping themselves. What they don’t realize is they would have much more time for those activities if they would do something for themselves and get out of the situation that they are in.
Dependent on someone else – I see this a lot with younger people. They are living at home with their parents and their parents pay for most things so they are satisfied with the way things are going. So if they have free food and a roof over their head then why would they want to change things? These people really need a reality check. You also see this with people who are like, “Oh yeah Jeff is going to get me that job”. You can’t totally rely on other people to get you a job, you have to do some work yourself.
I guess those are really the only 2 big factors that I can think of right now, laziness is a huge factor in why so many people are not happy with their situation. Helping yourself out whether it be financially, mentally, or even physically is not easy, but if you don’t even try then you will never know how far you can go. That is why I continually worked on my websites and even now when I am happy I am still working hard to make things even better for myself. Hopefully some of you will do the same.
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