Finally he quit talking about hockey...

Ok, so I know I've talked about hockey a lot (it's been on my mind with the season and all) but today is going to be different, I promise. I want to talk technology. Yesterday was not a fun day for me, I spent most of the day offline dealing with a computer that for some reason would not work. After re-booting it about 10 times (amongst other things) it started working again. It never came up with a real error except maybe on IRQ issue. That, of course makes me a little nervous, as I don't know if something is failing in my system or if it was just a little problem. Needless to say my day could have gone just a little better.
The whole ordeal got me thinking about buying a new computer and maybe possibly some new accessories. So I grabbed what I like to affectionately call "the little blue flyer" (aka the Best Buy ads although it's yellow instead of blue now) and started looking through it for what the newest products might be. I was pretty disappointed. Laptops with no more hard drive space than I already have, no improvement in graphics and less battery life than 2 years ago. Not exactly what I'm looking for. But that's not even the worst thing.

There are lots of people out there paying way to much for tech products. Let me give you an example. HDMI cables. If you have a newer TV, sound system, computer or DVD player you've no doubt heard of this new way of connecting devices to a TV and getting better picture and sound out of it. The question is do you know how much the cables cost? According to the Fred Meyer ad (Best Buy doesn't have one on sale this week) you can get a 4 ft. HDMI cable for $32. It's a 4 ft. cable!?!? What's it made out of GOLD?!?! Well, actually it is, the ends are gold plated to be corrosion resistant. You want to know how much I payed for the 2 HDMI cables I have in my home? About 17 dollars and that includes a $6 S&H fee. They work fine and bonus they're 6 ft. long instead of only 4. WOW! How can I get that deal you might ask? It's simple go to www.monoprice.com. Cheap cables, heck they have tons of cool tech stuff for cheap.

The second product that I want to talk about is batteries. Since the dawn of digital camera's batteries have been trying to keep up. First there were Nickel Cadmium rechargeable batteries. Not better than the Alkaline ones already on the market but at least you could re-use them. Then they came out with Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH). Those started out pretty weak but improved and eventually surpassed their Alkaline counterparts, but they have one major flaw. They don't last when left sitting. If you're like me you take pictures maybe a couple of times a month, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the events going on in your life. I got really tired of having my NiMH batteries never giving me enough power to take more than 20 or 30 pictures. So I started talking to people. My cousin and my uncle both found the best batteries I have ever used. Hybrid Rechargeables! They're an 80%/20% mix of NiMH and alkaline. They are guaranteed to hold their charge above 80% for 6 months. I never have a problem with them anymore. If you want those you can find them in the US at www.batteriesplus.com. In Canada I've been told they are a little easier to find, Wal-Mart and London Drugs are probably good places to check. These batteries use a standard NiMH charger and require a lot less maintenance to stay in good condition. There now didn't I just make you feel either a lot better or a lot worse about tech stuff. I really have to start making these posts shorter (I'll work on that). Thanks for reading.