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Paul's Time Sink

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Portable/Car DVD player

Paul Westbrook | 06 August, 2004 21:32

Visteon DVD DocGizmodo has a post about an neat DVD player. It is the usual portable DVD player, that plays DVD with it's internal batteries. When you get into the car, you just have to connect the player to the dock on the roof of the car, and the picture on the screen automatically flips and the DVD will continue to play. When the player is docked, the audio can go to the cars sound system, so you can get better sound.

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Tom Tom Go

Paul Westbrook | 06 August, 2004 21:16

TomTom GoMy friend Steve (blog) sent me an email about a pretty cool car GPS navigation device. The TomTom Go, is a portable in car navigation device that incorporates navigation software, maps and GPS receiver in one device. It has voice prompts, 3D maps, and a touch screen.

It looks like it is not CD or DVD based, so I assume that there is a USB connector or it takes some flash media to load the maps. The map for the state of California is about 66Mb, according to their web site, and they do offer regional maps.

A car kit is available which offers Power supply, audio out, audio mute, audio in, and disconnect signals, so it seems like it could be integrated pretty well with a pre-existing head unit.

The one downside for this product, is that it doesn't appear to be a double din mounting kit. I would love it if this could be integrated into the dash, as opposed to sitting on top of the dash

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Restricting access to phpBB2 in PostNuke

Paul Westbrook | 05 August, 2004 20:37

I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to prevent unregister users from accessing the forums on my PostNuke web site. Tonight I found some instructions on how to get phpBB2 to respect the PostNuke permissions settings.

This seems to be working very well for me.

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Konfabulator

Paul Westbrook | 05 August, 2004 18:10

I have just installed Konfabulator on my laptop, and it seems like an interesting tool. Konfabulator is a JavaScript runtime engine that lets you run Widgets, which are little applications. For example there are alarm clocks, calculators, applications that display stock quotes, display the current weather, and tons of other ones.

In a post a while ago, I mentioned GeekTool. There are Widgets that can do everything that GeekTool can do, but they look pretty. The Widgets can take full advantage of Apple's Quartz rendering engine, so things can look very nice.

 (More)

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Updated Squeezebox

Paul Westbrook | 04 August, 2004 19:26

Updated SqueezeboxEngadget has a post that mentions that SlimDevices has updated the SqueezeBox. They have replaced the 2 line 40 character display with a 280 by 16 pixel display. Also they have updated the software to include a visualization feature.

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Netgear Access point

Paul Westbrook | 04 August, 2004 19:12

Netgear WGT634U Engadget has an post on the Netgear WGT634U. It is a 802.11g Access Point that has an USB 2.0 port that will let you share a hard drive across a network. I am not sure what protocols it uses to share the hard drive, but I am assuming that has implemented samba.

This would be a good solution for someone who needs an 802.11 access point, but also wants to share files around the network.

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Address book export to squirrelmail

Paul Westbrook | 03 August, 2004 20:39

There is an article on Mac OS X Hints on how to export Mac OS X Address Book's data for use in Squirrelmail. I have modified it slightly so that it creates the squirrelmail file in my home directory. I only had to change sm_data_path to my home directory

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Web controlled Thermostat

Paul Westbrook | 02 August, 2004 18:47

Proliphix Web Enabled ThermostatsI just saw this web site for a internet connected thermostat. I really like the potential of having appliances web connected to the network. There are so many potential applications with these devices.

This device will download a 5 day forcast for your local zip code. In addition, it can connect to remote temperature sensors, and will use the average temperature. (This would be great for us, since the thermostat is downstairs but our upstairs gets very hot.) Also, the thermostat can be configured to send email alerts when there is a tempertature high or low. Also the thermostat can be controlled remotely

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Broadband Phone system

Paul Westbrook | 01 August, 2004 20:20

I am thinking about setting up a broadband phone system for our house. I am interested in saving some money from from our current $60 a month from SBC. We currently have Unlimited local and long distance, voicemail, call waiting, caller id, call waiting id, and privacy manager. It seems that the broadband phone services offer the same features for about $30 a month.

I am really interested in Vonage and their Premium Unlimited Plan. Vonage offers some great, and what I think is required, features:

  1. Keeping existing phone number
  2. Dialing 911
  3. Network Available number (phone number that will calls get transfered to when network is down)
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