Blog Marco - Gadgets

How to Build a Laptop Tray for Your Car

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:13:12 -0700

Teaser:
In this project Michael Davis built his own laptop tray for his car.

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I love reading about DIY (Do-it-yourself) projects. In this project Michael Davis built his own laptop tray for his car. In his creative but “ghetto” idea he created a laptop tray out of PVC piping, wooden boards and a little ingenuity and hard work. Why did he do it? Davis does a lot of travelling in his car and travels to many estate sales and auctions. He also often brings along his laptop to keep in touch, and to check what things are worth before buying them at estate sales, yard sales or bidding in auctions. Michael Davis has a broadband access card for his laptop, so he can get online from anywhere.

Davis had always wanted a built-in laptop / notebook computer tray for his car. The commercially made units are pricey and through a little research he found that several models cost close to $300. The commercially made units also bolt to the floor and take time and tools to install and remove. He thought of a better way to suit his situation through brainstorming and figured out a quick and easy way to build a laptop tray for his car that cost a little over $30! That's 1/10 of what the commercially made units cost! And it only took him an afternoon to build it.

What Mobile Phone to Buy?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:41:13 -0700

Teaser:
What Mobile Phone Should I Buy? Something I Want? or Need? Based on the Model or the Plan?

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Which mobile phone should I buy? Should I base my decision on the mobile phone model type or the cellphone plan and the amount of credit I get during the usual 24 month contract?

If I base my decision on what type of phone - which mobile phone type of function should I buy and look for? A Camera phone - mobile phone with camera as key feature, although there could be other fuctions like music player, but less advanced? Music phone - mobile phone with music playback capability as key feature, although there could be other functions such as camera / but less advanced? Multimedia phone - mobile phone with equally good functions of camera, music and video? Or a Smart phone - mobile phone with PDA like function?

If I base my decision on the mobile phone plan what numbers and costs should I look at? What will be my usage like? How many minutes will I be talking on the phone? How many SMS' will I send? How much credit will I need? Am I comfortable with a two year plan? What is my budget for a phone? Different mobile phone carriers have different flag fall rates and charge either per second or per 30 second block - perhaps I should calculate which carrier's plan is cheaper depending on how they price their call rates?

How to Lubricate Your Bicycle Chain

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:59:11 -0700

I'm a bit of a bicycle enthusiast. I enjoy riding my bike for exercise and leisure. I did the Spring Cycle in Sydney in 2006 and again last year. The Spring Cycle is a 50km public cycling event in Sydney held annually in October riding from North Sydney to Sydney Olympic Park. It's been a while since I gave the bike a clean: especially the most important part of the bicycle: the gears and the chain. So now I have to learn how to lubricate my bicycle chain. And from my research and asking around (thanks to the helpful guys at the bicycle shop Cheeky Transport.)

So what grease do you use to lube a bike chain?

Free Flash Drives in Magazine

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 22:06:06 -0700

If you live in the great ol' USA you may want to buy Entertainment Weekly. They have a free flash drive in their current September Issue of their magazine. They have a new marketing ploy of attaching a USB drive to the magazine advertising CBS and Cadillac when you insert it into your computer. Formatting the drive gives you 120MB. I assume the flash drives cost pennies to make and that someday soon we will be flooded with them like we used to be flooded with AOL CDs.

All in one DVD Player and Laptop combo

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:28:41 -0800

Teaser:
This simple idea introducts the Combo DVD player and Laptop in one package by adding this new feature for the future

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The International Consumer Electronics Show has introduced the new concept of having an all in one DVD Player and Laptop combo. Toshiba has come out with new notebooks with its "Express Media Player" feature, which enables users to instantly play audio or video DVDs and CDs with a simple push of a button and more importantly without the need to first boot the Microsoft Windows operating system. Actually, Toshioba was among the first to feature a no-waiting TV mode in 2004 with its Qosmio multimedia laptop. It then began to put the boot-less mode on its high-end models. This year, Toshiba plans to integrate the feature in about 80 per cent of its models.

Expect this feature concept of an all in one DVD Player and Laptop entertainment combo to be a feature in all laptops in the coming years. This is an great step in laptop entertainment considering it still typically takes anywhere from two to four minutes for a computer to boot up its operating system and be ready for duty.

Intel's new Viiv platform of technologies (which works in conjuction with your normal OS) for home entertainment PCs will also allow users to instantly turn their machines on or off after an initial boot. The feature actually amounts to something of a deception: It works by making the PC only appear to be off by powering down the monitor, audio and external LED lights of the system. In the "off" state, the machine is actually operating normally and capable of doing tasks such as recording a TV show. The technology appears to be similar to a new feature called "Away Mode" on some current PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Centre Edition.

Betamax - The Sequel - Searching for a DVD standard

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 01:43:22 -0700

Having been confused by the manufacturers about which DVD burner/player to buy - whether it is the PLUS (DVD+) or the MINUS (DVD-) variety, we have the battle between the Blu-ray and the HD DVD standards. Everyone run for cover!