The latest on the housing market…

This on building:

U.S. homebuilder optimism sank for a seventh consecutive month in August to its lowest level in 15 years as potential buyers pulled back amid rising uncertainty in the housing market, an industry trade group survey showed on Tuesday

Homebuilder optimism sinks

This on selling:

The slowdown in the once-sizzling housing market is spreading, with 28 states and the District of Columbia reporting spring sales declines, led by big drops in former boom areas of Arizona, Florida and California.

Home sales decline in 28 states, D.C.

So if you’re buying – it looks like you’re gonna be in great shape! 😀

Have seen the prices for virtual web hosting these days?

At Godaddy.com, you can now get 200gigs of disk space and 2terabytes of transfer for $15/month… no setup fees, no contracts… In fact, for the $15/month… you also get an SSL certificate, your choice of Windows or Linux, and all the addons you need… including SQL, Rails hosting, etc… they’ll even throw in a domain name for 2 bucks!

For that much disk and transfer, I can’t think why you’d want to do dedicated hosting anymore… wow!

This is sad… Eliot sent this to me after we all had some food at In-N-Out on the same day as this article…

Esther L. Snyder, who founded the In-N-Out Burgers restaurant chain with her husband, has died. She was 86.

Esther Snyder, matriarch of In-N-Out Burgers, dies at 86

A friend of mine sent me this link… cool!

The Aluminium 41 White LED 2 mode handtorch is bright, tough, and remarkably handy. Its piercing light comes from 41 bright white LEDs each with a life of 100,000 hours so you’ll never replace a bulb again. This flashlight features 2 way lighting for 21 LED short and 41 LED long distances. Plus, with a durable design and a battery life of up to 25 hours, this flashlight gives you the peace of mind you need in challenging situation, it’s O-ring sealed and water resistant.

41 LED Flashlight

and while we were at a bar, we saw this faux-candles used… and they looked pretty real:

Lasts Several Days on a set of Batteries • No Hot Wax • No Fire Hazard • No Wind Effect

Flameless LED Candle Flickers Like a Real Candle

Finally! Someone said it! 😀

Forget the silly debate over pixel counts among digital cameras. There is little visible difference between cameras with seemingly different ratings. For instance, a 3 MP camera pretty much looks the same as a 6 MP camera, even when blown up to 12 x 18!” I know because I’ve done this. Have you?

The Megapixel Myth

I always thought the 100-calorie packs of cookies, and the new smaller cans of soda were a great idea…

It’s “unit bias,” the tendency to think that a single unit of food — a bottle, a can, a plateful, or some more subtle measure — is the right amount to eat or drink, researchers propose.

Study: Surroundings play key role in diet

One of the great things about living in a major city is access to non-stop flights…

The fliers on American Airlines’ new USA-to-India flight know they are facing a long haul — the longest that American offers worldwide — and they’re steeling themselves for it. Fifteen hours on a plane. Fifteen non-stop hours. On a plane. With no stops.

Life aboard a 15-hour flight to India

Motorweek’s review of the Cadillac XLR-V… anyone want a ride? 😀

http://mpt.org/motorweek/video/roadtests/rt2540a_flash.shtml

Its well known that I love modding Xboxes and convert them into media players using Xbox Media Center. XBMC is great – it basically turns the Xbox into a media playing frontend for music, video, photos, streaming, etc…

Whenever a friend comes over and sees a demo of it, they immediately want one of their own. The only problem is – I usually get stuck with modding it for them… and the process takes an hour or longer since it involves dissassembling the Xbox, soldering, and a whole bunch of steps after that… not fun.

Seems that an enterprising individual figured out a way to mod the Xbox purely with software.

Dust off that old Xbox, add a little free software, and get your movies and songs into the living room where they belong

Xbox Media Monster

So on Sunday, I picked up a used Xbox at the local EBGames for about $100 and tried the Soft-Mod method – and after about 10mins…

It worked exactly as described – Awesome! 😀

I had completely missed this… seems that Gamestop and EBGames have merged!

GameStop Corp. (GME) and Electronics Boutique Holdings Corp. (ELBO), owner of EB Games, announced that their shareholders have green-lighted the merger of the two companies. The approval was the last step in the deal, which was made public in April.

Shareholders OK GameStop, EB Games merger

One of the most common mistakes people make when trying to avoid spam is ignoring how the email address is published.

Its amazing how often I see people’s addresses published on web pages – this is a spam-magnet. In fact, there was a study done awhile back, and it was pretty much 100% certain that if you published an email address on a webpage, that address would shortly start receiving spam. I forget where I read it, but when I run across it, I’ll make an update to this entry.

With that said, here are some really great tips on how to avoid posting your address on a web page:

I’ve compiled a list of methods to hide email addresses from the page source, to minimize visibility against the email harvesting spam bots. Each method has its (dis)advantages, therefore I leave it up to the reader to decide which method suits them the most, as there are many factors

Hiding Email Addresses

Sometimes, I feel this way too… 🙂

Convertible… 4-wheel drive… made by Audi… hmm…. 🙂

This guy as built one of the coolest home garages I’ve seen… he’s even installed a Bend-Pak lift so he can cram more cars in it… most impressive. Check it out:

Ed and Sandra’s Garage

I saw this on Dateline a few weeks ago. Its really quite scary to think that ice can make you sick.

You can watch the video of the show on the right-hand sidebar of the article:

Are food-handlers taking the same precautions with ice?

Health officials traced a gastrointestinal illness to coolers containing drinking water for the golfers.

Dirty ice can make you sick

This has been obvious to me for some time, but lots of people don’t realize this:

A radar detector should be mounted as high on the windshield as possible, preferably flush with the roof of the car. Any other mounting is a waste of time, money and dash space.

World’s Greatest… Radar Detectors

The Gizmo Project now supports Asterisk PBX integration… this is great news!

SIPphone, Inc., developers of the free Internet calling software Gizmo Project, today announced the delivery of Gizmo Project 2.0, highlighted by its support for Asterisk PBX software. Giving Gizmo Project users the ability to log into Asterisk means they can now be universally reachable via their Asterisk PBX or directly through the Gizmo Project network. The option to seamlessly receive calls from their office PBX while anywhere in the world leverages Gizmo Project’s advanced NAT (“network address translation”), firewall and router traversal features and server infrastructure.

Gizmo Project 2.0 Now Asterisk PBX-Compatible

Why am I so excited about Gizmo? Read this:

Why is Gizmo Project better than Skype, Vonage, etc?

And my buddy Chris just sent me this:

SIPphone on Thursday announced that users of Gizmo Project — its Mac-compatible Voice over IP (VoIP) communication service — can now place free calls to landlines and mobile phones in 60 countries. Signing up for Gizmo Project is free.

Gizmo Project VoIP service goes free

A couple of years ago, I met Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, SpaceX, and the new Tesla Motors… Since I wasn’t allowed to talk about his new project, I’d been secretly awaiting the arrival of his new electric sports car thats just been announced…

Can’t wait to get one! 😀

Martin Eberhard holds the brake down with his left foot and presses on the accelerator with his right. The motor revs, the car strains against the brake. I hear … almost nothing. Just a quiet whine like the sound of a jet preparing for takeoff 5 miles away. We’re belted into a shimmering black sports car on a quiet, tree-lined street in San Carlos, California, 23 miles south of San Francisco. It has taken Eberhard three years to get this prototype ready for mass production, but with the backing of PayPal cofounder Elon Musk, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and ex-eBay chief Jeff Skoll, he has created Silicon Valley’s first real auto company.

Battery-Fueled Car Will Smoke You

Its my understanding that you can avoid such things by calling late, late at night… [shrug]

I wouldn’t have thought that “southern Ohio” woud be hit by the slowdown… but I suppose even the “less hot” areas are feeling it too…

When Keith Gersin saw the perfect four-bedroom house in southern Ohio four years ago, he jumped to buy it before anyone else could snap it up. When he finally sold it last month, it went for $30,000 less than he had hoped — and that after seven months on the market.

Home sellers, builders feel pinch of slowdown

This is a bit alarming:

Earth’s north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday.

Earth’s magnetic pole drifting quickly

This is pretty slick:

Enter your address, the weight of a package and its destination, and the site displays a grid with the prices various couriers would charge to send the item, depending on the delivery time. With a few clicks, you can print a shipping label and schedule a pickup, or find the nearest drop-off center.

Web site comparing shipping rates launches

You can check it out at – http://www.redroller.com

Wow, this is pretty cool… Microsoft’s Virtual PC is now free… which means you try out different OS’s like Ubuntu without much headache…

Whether Microsoft virtualization technology is an important component of your existing infrastructure or you’re just a Virtual PC enthusiast, you can now download Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 absolutely free. Microsoft is also offering the free download of Virtual PC 2007, with support for Windows Vista in 2007.

Virtual PC Is Now Free!

Based on the 24hrs I’ve had it, I have to admit, the Motorola Q is a pretty sweet phone. Its small, its light, it looks cool, it sounds great, and its full featured. But it isn’t perfect… like how it doesn’t have a DUN profile for bluetooth.

But wait!

Someone figured out a hack:

I got it working 😉 I am typing this from my Q’s connection tethered via BT to my MacBookPro.

Motorola Q BT Tethering Working 😉

I had never really been too concerned with cellular coverage in most areas. Most of the time my mobile phone works, and when it doesn’t, I just walk around a bit.

This usually works fine – except that the new place I moved into is some sort of cell phone void zone.

I found this pretty cool web site where you can find out where the towers actually are in your area. Its not clear to me if this information is of any use, but its still interesting to see.

How can an AntennaSearch Report help me?
AntennaSearch is the only way to locate both visible and hidden antennas. Additionally, we are the only online service that alerts you to newly filed (or pending) tower applications.

AntennaSearch.com