Once again, the road warrior in me caused the wallet to open and make a purchase in the name of portability.  This time it was the Sony VGN-UX280P Ultra-mobile PC.  Here are my thoughts.

For those that aren’t familiar with UMPCs, they are essentially handheld, very small and light PCs that are the tiny cousins of notebook computers.  They’re larger than Pocket PCs and Palms, but are full-featured computers running Windows XP (or perhaps some other desktop OS).

For those who like features, the UX280P is chock full.  It has a fingerprint reader, full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, WWAN (Cingular EDGE only), …

Now that I am a road warrior again, I looked into the Slingbox as a way to get my TV from home anywhere that I am.  Here are my thoughts on the Slingbox.

The Slingbox is a new product that’s been out a year or so that is designed to allow you to stream your television content over a TCPIP network (that means the Internet).  The two things you will need, essentially, are a Slingbox and a computer to watch your television on.  The requirements for the network vary depending on your desires.

The first thing to do is to select the …

Once you know what Hamachi can do for you, there really is no reason not to use it.  Hamachi is the best tool I’ve seen for the PC in a very long time.

So, what does Hamachi do?  Well, it establishes a completely virtual, completely secure, wide-area LAN.

I know, I know, you’re all saying, “But LAN is LOCAL Area Network.  How can it be a wide-area network, or WAN, and still be local?”  Well, I guess, technically it does establish a WAN, but with all the minimal headache and hassle of a LAN.

Here’s how it works.  First of all, if you …

I recently started a new job in software consulting. As such, travel is a must. It leads to all manner of interesting discoveries. Here are my first observations:

The first thing you notice, stepping off the plane, is that you are at
Gate 5. Not C-5. Or A-5. Just 5. But the airport has many
terminals. I guess you have to get lucky and go to the correct
terminal.

Then, as you’re waiting for your bags at baggage claim, you realize
that you are in an urgent nation… urination. The nearest bathroom
is 100 feet away… if you’re a woman. …

Okay, now that you have a good understanding of XML and RSS, it is time to discuss how these technologies are brought together to make a podcast.

Some bright and enterprising person (I looked it up but couldn’t get a clear answer as to who) decided to add a new tag to the RSS XML standard: the Enclosure tag. This indicates that there is a file associated with an RSS feed’s entry. This opened up many possibilities.

But we are only interested at this time in the possibilities that are strictly podcast related. Specifically enclosures that are audio content. …

Many of you are wondering what this podcasting thing is. Here’s a brief primer on what it is and how to catch the wave.To understand podcasting, you must first understand RSS. Don’t worry, you don’t have to understand all of it, and you won’t be tested. But a decent idea of what RSS is helps.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and was originally devised to help news aggregators get the latest stories as soon as they were available. It is still used as such today and has gone even further. This blog, for instance is available via …

Just noticed on one of my laptops – an IBM 600X – has starting displaying a strange straight out of a sci-fi flick error message upon boot-up.

When the machine powers on I get a RAM readout, which is okay, then I get two error codes 163 and 173. The screen then changes to a BIOS readout of the date and time (all nulled) with the mouse cursor having changed to a bird that flaps when moved. I kid you not. Those wacky folks at IBM.

From there, you have to set the time, then move the bird over and click …

Who loves the “buy one, get a second one free” deal?  Everyone, right?  How about, “buy one, get 3″?  Of course!

So, before you purchase your next computer, consider this: The Apple MacPro!

I know, I know, every one of you is now thinking, “how much is Steve Jobs paying this guy?”  Well, the answer is “nothing.”  I am not an Apple fanboy, I assure you.

But if any of you are like me and have many computers sitting around the house, each …

Intel is working on a new processor architecture, codenamed Olo River.  It includes an XScale processor core capable of 1GHz.

So, what is it for?

Multimedia, essentially.  The new architecture is designed to be placed in virtually any piece of A/V hardware to enhance the abilities of that device.  For instance, next generation televisions can use the Olo River processor to develop a 3D or 2D interface for the user to navigate.  Or it could connect to the internet via your ethernet LAN to download content such …