Advice
I'm entering into direct competition with Ann Landers and Dear Abby. I'm often asked advice on potentially life-changing decisions. Here is a bit of my collected wisdom.
Questions with possibly useful answers:
Coming soon:
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What DVD player should I buy? |
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Which motherboard/CPU/video card/CD burner/monitor/hard drive/joystick/scanner should I buy? |
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How can I make a standard audio CD from MP3s? What software do I need and can I get it for free? |
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Should I buy PC hardware upgrades locally or online? What are good local PC shops? |
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Do I need to run a firewall if I have ADSL or a Cable Modem? Is there a good free software firewall? |
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Should I upgrade to Windows ME? How about Windows 2000? XP? |
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I want a bigscreen TV. Should I go with HDTV set even though they're way more expensive? |
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What's the hottest new PC game that will let me show off my new supercomputer? |
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Do you know of a company that uses IP telephony to provide unbeatable domestic and international long-distance rates? |
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Where is the best place to buy DVDs? |
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You might think it is always cheapest to buy DVDs online, but actually,
if you buy a DVD the first week it comes out, Best Buy and Circuit City
almost always will have it on sale for cheaper than you can find it
online.
If you didn't get it when it was first released, then online probably is your best bet. I like www.dvdpricesearch.com for comparing prices of all the online stores. Lately www.deepdiscountdvd.com has the best prices, especially considering that their shipping is free. Amazon.com and Buy.com are reliable and probably have the best selection. |
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What DVDs will best show off my great new home theater? |
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For sound, there are several good scenes in Saving Private Ryan, The Matrix, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, or Starship Troopers. For a sure-fire wall-rattler, try the T-Rex scene from the original Jurassic park. For a really vibrant picture that seriously impressed me the first time I saw it, check out The Fifth Element. Several direct digital transfer computer-animated movies are also worth showing off. Try Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life, Monsters, Inc, Shrek, or either Toy Story. Come to think of it Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is pretty nice for both picture and sound. (Nobody said anything about the quality of the actual story or acting, right?) And one more for both sound and picture: IMAX: Super Speedway. Some of the surround sound is fake, but it still sounds cool. |
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What essential (or just plain cool) software utilities would you recommend? |
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Anytime I set up a new computer (or reinstall the OS on mine), there are
several pieces of software that I just have to install
immediately. The table below lists some of those and more:
Also see my Home Theater PC page's software section for video-specific utilities (video format conversion, viewing, etc.) |
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How can I make sure my new ADSL or Cable Modem is downloading as fast as possible? |
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There are Windows registry tweaks you can apply to set various communications
parameters to their optimum values. The best place to learn about these
is http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks.
And I will warn you that if you install a new network interface card (NIC),
your settings will be lost and you'll have to apply the tweaks again.
Not that its difficult to do, but when I upgraded my LAN from 10Mbps to
100Mbps, my ADSL download speed actually decreased because my registry
tweaks were wiped out.
Note that on Windows 2000 and above, these tweaks are not necessary. |
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What are some resources if I want to register my own domain name? What if I want to run my own website or mail server? |
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I hope to provide a detailed description some day, but for now, use these links:
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What is a good Java programming tool? |
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I use the JBuilder Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from
Borland. It is excellent for helping you build your GUI and the editor
automatically pops up available class methods and each method's parameters
as you type. This really cuts down on making you look through the
documentation.
JBuilder Foundation is available for free at http://www.inprise.com/jbuilder/. |
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What should I look for when shopping for a digital camera? |
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[This was written quite some time ago, and certainly before I purchased my digital camera, but the basic advice still holds true.] The biggest thing that affects what camera you need is whether you're going to print the photos (either you yourself or some service), or if they are destined for email and/or web pages. If you want hard-copies, you need a multi-megapixel camera. Even though a 1024x768 image will completely fill the computer screen of most people, if it is printed at 300dpi, it's only 3.4" by 2.5". That's why you need tons of pixels. Of course you can print at 150, 100, or 75 dpi to make it larger, but then it might look blocky or blurry (totally pixilated, man). Of course, if you want "the best", you won't have to worry about that. The main things to look for are resolution (the higher, the better), storage capacity (something removable or
upgradeable (like a memory stick or Compact Flash) is better), and the interface to the PC (USB good/fast, serial-only bad/slow). Optical zoom is more important than digital zoom. Digital zoom is something you could do with a paint program and is another opportunity to make something totally
pixilated. |
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OK. Where can I find camera reviews and then actually buy the thing? |
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To see a list of current models and do some price comparisons, use Cnet.com's
comparison chart. You can sort by ratings or price with their
excellent charts. Most cameras will have a full review by Cnet, but
perhaps more interesting is the list of "User Opinions" where
normal people like you and me enter their opinions about their particular
model.
There are also good comparison charts and reviews at PCWorld.com. See the inexpensive list here and the higher-end list here. Where should I actually buy a camera online? I recommend www.buydig.com. They'll have one of the best prices you can find and are reputable unlike the other lowest-priced vendors you'll find. If you use www.pricewatch.com, www.cnet.com, or www.mysimon.com to find the best prices for any particular model, you see tons of stores in New York and New Jersey. Lots of reading (various camera-related threads on groups.google.com) last year revealed that most of those NY and NJ stores are crooked. The most common tactic is selling "gray market" units which often weren't meant for the US and won't have the full manufacturer's warranty and may have a Japanese-only instruction manual and/or no software. In my experience, www.buydig.com won't screw you in this way. It was around a year ago when I learned about the "NY/NJ vendor crook factor" and things may have changed since then, but I can personally recommend buydig.com. Any specific model I should look at now? Researching with a friend recently, we decided that the Canon Powershot A40 was an excellent camera for the price. It has most of the features I was looking for when I bought my Canon Powershot G2, and it is around half the price ($268 vs. $549 at buydig.com). |
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What's better? Java or Perl? |
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Java. |
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What's better? Emacs or vi? |
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Emacs. |
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Are we not men? |
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We are Devo. |
This page was last updated on 12/15/03 06:40 PM .
