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Sumo Omni: First Impressions
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/30/08 at 09:06:07 pmI’ve had this old sofa in my bedroom for a while and I’ve been looking at getting a more space efficient replacement that perhaps wasn’t a hepatitis risk to sleep on and maybe lacked a unique funky smell.
Paul Stamatiou recently wrote a review on the Sumo Omni lounge chair which he dubbed The Ultimate Blogger’s Chair. After reading about the giant bean bag on his site and others I decided that I needed to own one.
The Sumo Omni is a mega-sized pillow made of rip-proof nylon that’s filled with high quality foam beads. This ‘pillow’ can be used in a number of ways including the glove shape I’m doing now along with 9 other ways according to the Sumo website. Honestly, so far I’m impressed with the quality - $130 may sound steep for a giant bean bag but the materials are top notch. I’ve read some complaints that the nylon exterior is almost too tough where it isn’t as soft as it should be. While I guess I can understand that now that I’m sitting in the chair I’m actually really digging the strength, it doesn’t feel like any other bean bag I’ve sat in before and it’s still super comfortable.
If you’re in the market for some new seating in your bedroom or office, or perhaps a makeshift guest bed, Sumo has a few different loungers to choose from including an even larger 6ft SumoSac in a wide variety of colors.
Expecting Daddy of a baby BlackBerry.
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/26/08 at 09:06:15 pmNot that I need yet another toy added to my growing list of “product reviews I’d like to write”, but I’m pretty excited about this purchase and I think I’ll be happy that I made the switch - I’m talking about owning my very first Blackberry device.
I’ve had plenty of smartphones in my day, most of them have their own review on this blog including my Samsung SPH i500, Hitachi G1000, and now my Motorola Q. I was satisfied with the Q but it lacked some of the features I need for daily use and to be honest I’m sort of bored with it.
I’ve been wanting to get a Blackberry for ages but the Blackberry data plans otherwise known as Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) seem so overpriced. At least, that was until I found that I have a need for mobile email and messaging. I’m only becoming busier with work which means my connection to the outside world is slowly fading away. Since work covers most of my cell phone anyways I might as well pick up the phone I really want with an unlimited email & data plan.
The Blackberry I decided to purchase is the sleek and powerful 8830. I decided to save myself a small fortune by going with an eBay adventure but it sounds like it’s in ‘like-new’ condition, which is good enough especially for saving $300 off buying it retail.
The new gadget is scheduled for delivery on Monday, if everything goes well you should be hearing more about my experience with the device.
Explosion at The Planet’s H1 Data Center
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/31/08 at 08:05:24 pmI got an interesting email tonight, apparently there was an electrical fire at The Planet’s H1 data center in Houston Texas. According to some sources there was an actual explosion powerful enough that it knocked down walls in an equipment room. So far there are no reports of damage to servers or networking equipment but power is offline at the facility and approximately 9000 websites are affected. This will surely be all over the tech news websites by morning.
Here is the official release that was sent to The Planet clients -
Dear Valued Customers,
In the interest of keeping you updated, tonight at 5:45 p.m. here in Houston, a transformer in our H1 data in Houston caught fire, which required us to take down all generators as instructed by the fire department. All servers in the H1 data center are down, as is our ServerCommand customer portal, which are working to move to another data center.
None of our other data centers are affected.
Our management team and facilities staff are on site evaluating the situation. In our latest assessment, we have determined that networking gear has not been damaged, but we are without power so assessments continue. All disaster recovery systems are in motion, and we have teams already working in the data center.
We are posting messages in our forum, in Orbit and on our customer support phone system.
We appreciate your patience. We are working around the clock to resolve these critical issues.
Windows 7 & Broken Space Toilets on WebbAlert
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/29/08 at 12:05:47 pmWhat kind of gear am I rockin’?
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/15/08 at 09:04:41 pm
A popular topic of interest buzzing around the blogosphere lately (especially among the SocialSpark folks) is “What kind of gear are you packing?”
Being a full time IT professional and part time blogger, aspiring web developer, casual gamer, and wannabe photog — you better believe that I have the gear to support my technolust. My technology toy chest is constantly growing but right now I think I have everything I need to rock out with my geeky interests.
Desktop -
For my desktop PC at the home office I’m still sporting my slowly aging Dell Dimension 5150. I bought the computer with my 2005 tax return and over the years it has gotten upgrades here and there to keep up with the times. I’m thinking maybe next year sometime I will purchase or build a replacement. Riken (the desktop) currently features a 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 3GB DDR2 RAM, 80 & 160GB SATA HDDs, and an NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT (Fatal1ty edition) graphics card. For displays I have a 19″ Samsung 940BW LCD for a primary and a 17″ Dell E176FP LCD as a secondary.
Notebook -
I recently purchased a new Dell XPS M1330 notebook to cure my mobile computing needs. Up until about a month ago I used it daily at work until I switched to using a desktop. Starscream packs a hell of a punch in such a small package with it’s 1.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB SATA HDD, and NVIDIA GeForce 8400M discrete graphics card. If you want to learn more about the M1330, check out my detailed product review.
File Server -
Over the past few years I’ve gone through more file servers then anything. I had used an old spare-parts-box for a while, then my 1st generation Apple Mac Mini, then Titan Blue which is now my desktop at work and more recently I have moved onto a Linksys NSLU2 USB Storage Link (NAS) device. So far the NSLU2 has been the perfect network storage appliance for my needs. I currently have my two 500GB Western Digital drives attached to Novalis making for a terabyte of total storage. The drives are mirrored every week for redundancy, ensuring maximum reliability.
Camera -
I wouldn’t call myself a professional photographer by any means but I could be considered an enthusiast at the very least. To take high quality photos you need a decent camera and this past Christmas I received a gift that I could only dream of purchasing myself. Another gadget I still need to write up a review for is my Canon PowerShot A650 IS. This incredible Canon innovation gives you the features and flexibility of a digital SLR in a light weight point-and-shoot form factor. I just recently started getting into buying external lenses and accessories for it and I’m really looking forward to using the camera to its full potential this summer.
Other Gadgets -
Where would a geek be without his gadgets?! My best friend for day-to-day business is my Motorola MOTO Q Smartphone. The phone has all of the basic PDA functions I need, it syncs with my Outlook which is important and I’m still overall fairly pleased with the device. I also have an Apple iPod Touch that I won by being a finalist in a PayPerPost Blog Battle Royale competition (here’s the winning entry). I don’t use the iPod nearly as much as I could but it’s a neat little device, check out my embarrassing video review here.
Well there you have it, I’m sure I could come up with some other odds and ends to throw into this now massive entry but those are the things I use on a daily basis, most of them anyway.
Now it’s your turn, what kind of gear are you packing?
Micro Center: Best Buy meets Ax-Man
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/13/08 at 02:04:45 amImagine a computer store that has absolutely everything you could possibly conjure. Everything you would need to build yourself a new PC, all of the accessories, networking supplies, software, games, and gadgets you could ever desire. Now imagine this store as if it were like your local surplus outfit. Just stacks of product everywhere in the most completely random places, power supplies next to mp3 players, video cards next to camera lenses, multiple isles with precisely the same products on opposite sides of the building, miscellaneous items lying around such as printers and computer cases. If this setting is starting to sound familiar then you may have already visited a Micro Center store.
Micro Center is a relatively small reseller with a handful of locations scattered across the US and Minnesota just so happens to have one of these stores just west of Minneapolis. If you’re from Minnesota you may have also heard of the Ax-Man stores which are essentially these surplus shops with everything from military gas masks to motherboard transistors. The Ax-Man store could give you nightmares from the strange array of things they sell but they are known for stocking hard to find gems. Combine a store like Ax-Man with a big box retailer such as Best Buy and you will end up with a place like Micro Center.
Micro Center not only has hard to find parts and accessories that you would otherwise have to order online, their prices are also very competitive. This weekend I wanted to purchase a cheap secondary SATA II hard drive for my desktop. I visited one of my favorite online retailers and I found myself a new 80GB OEM drive for about 40 bucks. The drive I ended up purchasing at Micro Center is a 160GB Western Digital for $57 plus tax. When you figure in the shipping for the hard drive from the online retailer it would cost about the same and I got a bigger and better product in a retail box without any hassle. Heck of a deal if you ask me.
Among the many things I stumbled across at Micro Center today I found something that I truly needed to purchase – Bawls G33K B33R. Nothing would make a nerdy computer store more complete then stocking a favorite geek refreshment and I have to say I’m digging the new flavor. The fact that this store is the only place I’ve seen that sells the new Bawls root beer makes me want to make the trip down there again just to stock up.
It’s a shame that Micro Center is so far away and I waited this long to venture down there, but in retrospect maybe that’s a good thing as I’d go broke from all of the new-found treasures I could blow my money on.
INTEROP Las Vegas 2008, April 27th - May 2nd
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/10/08 at 09:04:40 am
Times like these I wish I lived closer to the southwest so I could attend all of these big events. Interop Las Vegas is one of the largest business IT conferences in the country with over 250 sessions that cover everything from IT security to unified communications. The exhibition hall alone includes over 500 vendors including their major sponsors Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Dell, Intel, Novell, and Google among countless others. Also, this year there will be keynote speakers from all of the major players of the industry including Microsoft, Citrix, McAfee, Motorola and Cisco Systems.
If you find yourself in Vegas at the end of this month right now you can pick up a free expo pass on the Interop website, and by using priority code CMCLNL01 you can save 20% on a Conference Pass.
When does a collector make the switch?
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/24/08 at 07:03:34 pmOver the last 7 years or so my DVD collection has easily claimed its own space in the bedroom. I did a count yesterday and I have a grand total of 268 DVD movies, about 150 ‘retail’ and the others well… we’ll call them ‘permanent rentals’. Now that I have a fair amount of money invested into these DVDs I got into thinking about where they will stand a few years from now.
The problem is the transition from standard definition to high definition discs won’t be quite the same as it was with VHS to DVDs in the 90’s. Eventually most of the new Blu-Ray players will feature backwards compatibility with standard DVDs and the only real difference will be the picture resolution, sound quality, and a handful of new features including the online functionality (which hasn’t really surfaced yet) and better copy protection Yippee! When compared to the transition from VHS to DVD where the advantages were night and day as it stands right now the whole upgrade doesn’t seem worth it.
So the real question is, with Blu-Ray being the clear winner of the HD Optical Disc War, when is the right time to pick up a Blu-Ray player and start buying overpriced Blu-Ray discs? Will regular DVDs soon become worthless, only to be found at garage sales and K-Mart stores or will Blu-Ray turn out to be merely an upgrade rather than the new standard?
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