Category Archives: Tech

Technology in general

Is HD-DVD dead?

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PC World – Warner’s Blu-ray Endorsement Boosts the Buzz at CES

I seriously considered whether to buy an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player this Christmas, but in the end I decided to hold out a little longer. I’ve gone back and forth over this a lot the past year, but up to this point there has just been too much uncertainty about which format would win. Warner’s announcement supporting Blu-ray definitely gives an advantage to Sony’s format, but I don’t know if I would call it the winner just yet. I’ve been leaning towards a PS3 anyway, but with the new models lacking full backwards compatibility I’m thinking I may have to look for a used model. Either way, this is good news as one format finally has a major advantage over the other. Another point of interest: I noticed recently that LG has a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray writer that can be found for about $250. Not a bad way to go if you already have a media center type PC.

Fed defrays cost of digital TV

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Now up for grabs: Federal funding for your digital-TV upgrade | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

In case you don’t remember, traditional analog TV will cease to exist (in the U.S.) next year. For many people, that’s still going to be a problem. With the price of even the cheapest digital TVs still over $100, many people will either purchase a tuner, or lease a converter box from their local cable/satellite provider. Thankfully the federal government is providing up to 2 coupons to those that apply before the cutoff date or whenever they run out of coupons. The coupons are good for only $40 each, but at least it’s something.

My first WordPress widget

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I’ve taken my first swing at writing a WordPress sidebar widget. Ever since upgrading to WordPress 2.2, I’ve wanted to convert some of the static elements of the old blog theme into widgets. Last night I was inspired to do that for my recent flickr photos section. You can see the result to the right.  If you have a WordPress blog and think this would be useful, please feel free to download my Flickr widget and use it on your site.