FINALLY setup my D-LINK DCS-900 - with Password Problems

With the help of one of our newest contractors (my cousin Max), we setup a DCS-900 netcam. It is pretty basic: a lens, ethernet adapter, and power supply. The beauty is its cost: less than $100!

We had it up and running in about 15 minutes, but then when we tried the password, it wouldn't work! I read on newegg that there were several people who had a similar problem (new admin password not working, unable to reset password, etc.), so we shelved it for the time being.

When I got home tonight, I tried it again from Internet Explorer and was able to get in. I changed the password and was then able to access the administrator controls from Camino (Mac's Firefox) as well. Woo-hoo! Increased the image size to 640x480, synchronized the time with my ntp server, and smiled. Cool! Now I need to find the mounting bracket and we'll be done. You can see the base pretty good in this picture:






Here's a copy of an image from my DCS-900:

The SLUG

The SLUG remains one of my favorite tech deals. It is low, low power, and amazingly is able to run debian. If I were you, I would buy one. But I'm not you, so I bought three! :-)

Another hard drive enclosure

Just bought an inexpensive hard drive enclosure from CircuitCity.com:

Ultra 3.5" External USB 2.0 / Firewire IDE HD Enclosure

I like these enclosures a lot. I bought several Metal Gear enclosures, and they are working out great.

I returned the Happy Hacking Keyboard

I returned the Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional - it just didn't merit the cost. It definitely was nice, but not $275 nice. I might try the lite version, but I might just stick with the Mac keyboard, which is good quality too.

CompUSA.com Spam

This type of unsolicited email annoys me:

Dear So and So,

We hope you are enjoying the product(s) you recently purchased with CompUSA.

We'd love your opinions regarding the product(s) you purchased, thus, we
have a rating and review system in place. You will be able to help other
customers, just like you, make a better buying decision.

To rate your product(s), please click the link(s) below:

Burton Vapor Snowboard 1GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive

10oz Air Duster Unscented

Thank you for shopping with CompUSA!

The CompUSA Staff

Without some sort of incentive, there is no reason to provide product reviews for a retails. You'd be better off starting a blog, like MyTechDeals!

Stolen Mail

My mail was stolen last week, and that included the LaCrosse wooden clock I had purchased from Amazon. I emailed them today about it:

Was there insurance on this order? I spoke with my mailman last week on Wednesday (April 4th, 2007) and he said he delivered my mail on Tuesday, including an Amazon package outside my office door. I was not there all day Tuesday, but on Wednesday, when I went to the office, the mail had been taken. I am filing a police report today. Please advise. Thank you.

This is good customer service: Amazon is sending me a new one at no charge. Thank you. I reported the crime and a police officer stopped by my office to make a report, but we both agreed that little can be done. If other people report their mail getting stolen, they will monitor the location and neighborhood.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs and Belkin USB Ethernet Adapters

Just bought some cheap compact fluorescent, super bright light bulbs from lightbulbemporium.com:

42 Watt 120 Volt Coil Standard Base Daylight High Wattage Energy Wiser Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) only $6 for a 42 Watt bulb I bought 4.



and also from Belkin.com:

F5D5050 USB 10/100 Ethernet Adapter usually $29.99, but only $17.99 with the " 12345 " coupon code. I bought 4 again.

Tech Deals Roundup #1

Over the past few weeks I've made a bunch of purchases, and here's a quick review of the good, the bad, and the deals:

The Best:
* Samsung nv7 Anticipation, and Samsung nv7 Arrival
* HP Thin Clients, and HP and Upromise.com, and HP Thin Client Promo Details
* The Nokia n800!!!

The Good:
* Panasonic Lumix
* Aprevia Case

The Not-so-good:
* Oregon Scientific Clock
* Microsoft Digital Image Suite Annivesary Edition - feels like its turning into a big rebate hassle.

Oregon Scientific Atomic Clock

I just bought an Oregon Scientific Atomic Clock for travel and the darn thing will not display the correct time. I though the whole point was to not have to set it?
There are 4 zones (one for each time zone), mine is "E" for eastern, which is correct. I push the ^ button, it flashes for awhile, but then nothing happens.

I'm very close to sending it back, but first I'll try to find some help to fix it. Based on this experience alone, I don't recommend anyone but this, or any of their clocks!

I just found this:

When the unit is new and just out of the box, synchronization with the U.S. atomic clock can take upto 72 hours.

UPDATE - the clock is now displaying the correct time. :-)

Samsung NV7 Has Arrived!

As you may know, I've been eagerly awaiting the Samsung nv7 arrival, and it came today! :-)

The Samsung NV7 Box


Opening it up...


Isn't the Nv7 nice?


The top panel looks nice and simple:


And the Schneider-Kreuznach lens looks big and powerful:

More Pictures of the Panasonic Lumix

Top panel looks good.



I REALLY like that Leica lens!! :-)



Standard battery charger.



Great (sarcasm) - yet another proprietary USB - camera connector. Why do they do this! At least my Canon SD450 uses a mini-USB cord. Why can't they all??? For my own sanity, I added the "Lumix" label you see in this picture.

Arrival of the Goodies! Opening the Panasonic Lumix

The Panasonic Box


Opening it up...



Looks pretty cool!



I like the Leica lens already. :-) Though I would have preferred to buy a Leica M8 10.3MP Digital Rangefinder Camera with .68x Viewfinder (Black Body Only)




LCD screen looks good too.

Microsoft Digital Image Suite Annivesary Edition for Free AR

Just picked up the Microsoft Digital Image Suite Annivesary Edition for $49.99 at Staples. After a $50 rebate, the final cost comes to zero, zilch, nada, aka FREE!

I don't use Microsoft Windows as my primary operating system, but I do have a copy of Windows XP Home installed via Parallels on my Macbook. I'm interested to see how the Microsoft Digital Image Suite Annivesary Edition stacks up again open source alternatives like Album Shaper Open Source Photo Album Editor.

Go to Staples.com and search for 656213.

Eagerly Awaiting the Samsung nv7

I recently purchased a Samsung NV7 7.2MP Digital Camera with 7x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom from Amazon.com for approximately $275 and I can't wait for it to get here. This camera features a Schneider-Kreuznach lens which I expect to have outstanding results. I just checked Amazon and the price has gone down again! They are now advertising it for around $249 - about $25 less than what I paid! Thanks to Amazon's great price protection policy, I emailed them a request for a refund.

If you want, buy one today! This image link will bring you right to Amazon.com:





Update: Amazon Customer service wrote back:

Please accept our apologies for this mix-up regarding the price of "Samsung NV7 7.2MP Digital Camera with 7x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom".

Occasionally, physical stores will return unsold merchandise to the supplier, and the supplier may send us these copies to fulfill our orders. In rare instances these copies will still have a discounted price sticker on them which was affixed by the previous store.

However, we will honor the price you saw on the item you received. Therefore, I have requested a refund of $12.50 to your account. This refund should take 2 to 3 business days to be processed.

You may view completed refunds by clicking the "Your Account" link at the top of our web site, then clicking "Go!" next to "open and recently shipped orders." Completed refunds will appear at the bottom of an individual order's summary page.

I hope this solution is satisfactory. Thank you again for shopping at Amazon.com.

Thanks Amazon!!! :-)

HP Thin Client Promo at Slickdeals.net

I just posted the HP thin client promo to Slickdeals.net. It will be interesting to see what people think of these types of machines.

The promo:

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/.../index.asp

Prices range from $597 to $1797, corresponding with savings for $199 to $590. The resulting machine prices are $150 to $450 each. These are NOT high performance machines, but about as low performance as you can go with full features. The benefit is low price, ease of configuration, and in my humble opinion, very low energy consumption.

The story:

I bought a refurbished HP thin client t5000 (discontinued) from techforless for $80 (last one) and when it arrived I was totally surprised - it was a decent machine - they have all the characteristics of a real machine, only slower and less power hungry. A VIA Eden 400mhz, 32mb flash, 128mb ram, no hd. Even came with a nice keyboard! Also has Unichrome VGA chip, and uses 16mb ram for video. I tried several configurations, but ended up installing Debian to the t5000 in the following manner:

http://www.docunext.com/.../debian-usb-hp-t5000/

In a nutshell: I installed the the /boot/ to the 32mb flash memory, and / to an external 2.5" sata drive. The machine uses around 12 watts of power (display not included obviously).

Anyway I checked what other devices I could buy and found that HP is having a promo through the end of April for thin clients, buy 3 get 1 free. I bought 4 of the t5135 for $597.
These have 64mb of ram, but still use the slow 400mhz via eden. You can get the via 800mhz, or the amd geode 1ghz with the same promo, but I wanted the cheapest option. They also have the t5125 which is similar to the t5000 I already have but only 32mb of flash ram.

What are these machines good for? Well since I installed debian, I'm going to use it as a server of some sorts, probably DNS, web, or Jabber. Not sure yet. I plan to install XUbuntu on the t5135's I get. I'll probably use one or two as extra workstations, and the other two as more servers.

Also, techforless also has Chip PC Extreme thin clients running Windows CE for $75. These are much more limited (no bios I could see) and pretty much only good for a KVMoverIP connection to IE6. That's it!

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?p=6154903

PC Connection also has some good deals on HP products: