Decisions…decisions…decisions. I’m not the type to make big purchases without doing my research, then doing more research. Well after the “more” research I have decided against the 2 choices I had on last week’s Tech Thursday.

Now I am confident that the two choices below are the ones that I want. I’ll state their specs and add a poll at the end.

HDTV #1

SAMSUNG 32-inch LCD TV LN32A550P1

Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution

15000:1 dynamic contrast

3 HDMI (1.3)

5 ms panel reaction speed

Brightness: 500cd/m2

Component video: 2 rear (Y, Pb, Pr)

A/V inputs: 1 rear/ 1 side

S-Video: 1 side

PC input: 1 rear

RF antenna inputs

Wiselink (USB 2.0)

Headphone jack: 1

1 Year Warranty

HDTV #2

Proton 37-inch LCD TV 37-TF68P

Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution

1000:1 dynamic contrast

1 HDMI

8 ms panel reaction speed

Brightness: 550cd/m2

Component video: 2 rear (Y, Pb, Pr)

A/V inputs: 1

S-Video: 1

PC input: 1

RF antenna inputs

Headphone jack: 1

3 Year Warranty

Proton’s panels are made by Hitachi

As you can see somethings are better than others. While Samsung is a brand most people know of and has some better features, the Proton is bigger and about $5000NT($165USD) cheaper. I’m no expert, so I need some votes to sway me. Hopefully very soon, since my PS3 demands a sacrifice. Voting ends this Friday (07/04). Also remember this is for a small room, and I’ll be sitting about 1-1.5 meters(about 6 feet) away.

Which To Buy?

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Ever since coming to Taiwan I have been looking for a specific kind of wall clock. You would think that in Asia finding a wall clock with the Chinese characters for numbers would be everywhere. Sadly this was not the fact. I looked everyplace imaginable, from clock stores, to night markets, I even searched the internet, but no luck. So instead of giving up I decided to make my own, and that’s what I did.

The first thing I had to do was to find a good, cheap, and customizable wall clock. I found what I was looking for at Ikea of all places.

This clock fit all of my requirements and now the hard part was in the design.

To design my clock was no easy task. The first thing I had to do was disassemble the whole clock to get the correct measurements. After all of that was done, I fired up Illustrator and got down to work. I first had to create the perfect circle to fit the clock which was easy, but creating the hour and minute tabs was where I got in trouble. They had to be perfect all around and I won’t bore you with the details, but it took me a while to figure it. Once that was done I had to add the Chinese Characters and line them up perfectly. Here is the final design.

The character in the middle of the clock is my Chinese last name which is pronounced as “hey” which means the color black. I made a version that was black background and white tabs and numbers, but I think it looks better this way. Check out the final product.

As generous as I am, if anyone requests it, I will make a personalized design for you and send you the picture to print. Just tell me the character or imagine you want in the middle and if you want to keep the Chinese numbers or something else. You can send your request here : Clock Request

I like doing this kind of hack and will be thinking of new ones to do in the future.

(more…)

It’s always nice to spend some money. To treat yourself on some of the finer things in life. For me those things are electronics. The two electronics that I have cherished the most, is my iPod and my cell phone. Well it was about that time that I upgraded both.

My first purchase was a new phone. My previous phone was a Sony Ericsson K700i. Normally I hate Sony products because of their proprietary memory cards and accessories, but the design and interface of the phones are awesome. Since it was time to upgrade and since I enjoyed my last one so much I bought another Sony. I did my research and bought the K530i. It has everything thing(almost) my K700i had, but so much more. For starters it is a 3G phone, and for those who don’t know what that it(Mom) it’s high speed internet on the phone. With 3G I can access my email, google maps, and search engines(google). I can do video calling since it has a camera on the front. The only problem is that I don’t know anyone with a 3G phone, so I haven’t tested it out yet. It also comes with a 2MP camera on the back, which takes decent photos. Here is a picture:

K530i

My next upgrade was for my iPod Mini. I bought it on May 4, 2005, and it has served its purpose. It has survived through one battery change, once being dropped in the toilet(not full), and multiple drops. It still works, but I needed more than the 6gb it offered. Apple finally released a new version of their classic iPod so I bought one of them. It’s all black, and has a whopping 80gb storage(73gb after format). This one has a full color screen(as opposed to the half color screens), and can play videos. While the screen is a tad small to watch full length movies, it’s nice for short clips from YouTube or Frostfox Films. I have only filled about 40gb so far, so this time I am not worried about running out of space. I’ll run out of hard drive space first, but that’s cool, since I need a reason to buy more. Here it is:

iPod Classic

I also got some new clothes, but we can talk about that on a day I’m feeling more gay.

We all know China is famous for blocking and censoring the internet, but how does this affect you and your site? Are you banned in China? The website I found answers that question for you. Just visit “Great Firewall of China” website, enter in your URL and try it out. Unfortunately my site is not blocked yet… but some of my friends sites are. Let me know in the comments how your site holds up to the “Great Firewall of China”.

 P.S. All Blogspot blogs are blocked.

A few days ago I was walking around Yong He before I started work, and I saw some old style toy vending machine. I think it used to sell toys, or cards. I can’t really tell how old it is, I’m guessing from the 80’s or so. It appears to be electronic, but I saw no cord to plug it in. It doesn’t work anymore, and obviously long abandoned, but still looks kinda cool. I have never seen this style before and it sparked my interest. Maybe these were more popular back in the day, but lost the war to the crane games and bubblegum style vending machines. If anyone has more info on this type of vending machine, let me know in the comment section. Sorry for the poor image quality as the photos were taken by my crappy cell phone. Click below to see the pictures.

Toy Vending Machine

Some Dice and Monster Card Game

Price Tags Are Missing

Everyone loves toys, it doesn’t matter if your a boy or a girl. Girls toys are shoes, makeup, lotions, obelisk shaped back massagers. Guys toys are cars, electronic anything, and porn. You don’t really need that crap, but something deep inside you compels you to buy it. Even if you will never use it and it just looks pretty. I like to share with you such a toy. This toy just screams I am a geek, but it’s so stupid I must have it

It’s computer mice. Not just any computer mice, but an old school Mario and Star mice! So old school that it’s still uses a mechanical ball! I am not sure where I found this link at, but I am so glad I have. They from a company named NCSX. They sell a lot of import things from Japan mostly. Damn Japanese, they get all the cool shit first!

Here they are, in all their glory. Click on the picture to go to the website so you can buy these awesome things now!

There is this new search engine that’s on the web. It’s not very good, but at least it’s entertaining. It’s called Ms. Dewey and you can find it at www.msdewey.com.

It’s a flash based interactive search engine, but when you enter in stuff in the search box, she responds to your searches by saying funny things. It’s clever, but still needs work, as you can hear her being directed in the background, and searches take a while to do.

If you want to see a pretty girl say stupid things, then check it out. If your looking for a great search engine, I would stick with google.com

Here are some things to search for to get her to say funny things: illegal drugs, ho, blow me, fastest bittorrent client, how to fight a ninja, how to do the robot (try it twice), nintendo (you can try this one 3 or 4 times.)