Eric Duncan : Geek Stuff, Friends and Family

Battling Laptop Theft

Eric A. Duncan — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:06:00 GMT

My friend Todd Major sent me this cute video.

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6060109.html

No, can't do video blogging of it here because it is flash. So you'll have to click on it there.

Now all you need is a LoJack.

Relocating to Dallas, TX - TelligentSystems

Eric A. Duncan — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 19:20:00 GMT

Rob Howard and the guys at Telligent have offered me a position that I could not refuse with Telligent Systems. And what a great blog post to start off my "Career" category here.

I will be relocating to Dallas, TX, where the business is homed, in the next coming months.

Some might think picking up and relocating at such a distance, to start a new life is very overwhelming. Besides the guys I've come to know at Telligent being extra nice and making me feel at home being a big plus, I have no family of my own (at this time) besides my parents in Chattanooga, TN. I haven't lived in Chattanooga since 1994 for when I left for college. So being single, I think this is the best time of my life to take on new adventures. I'll miss my friendships here, yes. But it's as much as I miss my Atlanta buddies already. It just means longer road trips in the Hot Rod. lol

Besides, this is my 3rd round of relocations. I did it back in 1997 for Hayes Microcomputers in Atlanta. I did it in 2000 for the State of Tennessee.

Now it's time, in 2005. The Lonestar state being my new home once and for all.

To say I am ecstatic is to put it mildly. Wish me luck!

BlueTooth - Making life too simple for everyone

Eric A. Duncan — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:56:00 GMT

Let me put this into perspective.

You can:

Answer cell calls with a BlueTooth headset.
Answer office phone calls with the same BlueTooth headset.
Talk in PC Video Conferences with the same BlueTooth headset.
Talk with VOIP for things such as Gamers and Vonage, using the same BlueTooth headset.
With a laptop, connect to the Internet via 256+Kbps DUN anywhere that has SprintPCS coverage (i.e. on road trips or no WiFi hotspots, < 2s to connect).
Newer Sprint phones are suppose to support up to 1.2Mbps download rate (like the one mentioned below).
Especially with Sprints Nights @ 7pm, it's free all night and weekend long.

With three devices:

Sprint MM-A940 2.0 Megapixel cell phone (or any BlueTooth cell, just sprint provides faster data xfer)
Plantronics Voyager 510S BlueTooth System for Desktop (DON'T BUY FROM THAT LINK! Search the net, much cheaper versions). If you don't want the Office Phone functionallity, get just the headset for $60)
BlueTooth-enabled Laptop supporting DUN and Audio/Voice BlueTooth profiles (or a $50 USB adapter if it doesn't)

And you can do this without removing the cell phone from your belt or pocket, or lifting your handset on your office phone. That's just too cool. Just imagine, riding along on a road trip or in the car pool to work in the morning. Flip open the laptop and connect to the Internet, without removing the phone from your belt clip.

I've spent a long time researching these devices, and finally the day has come. They are on order.

Now if I can just get them all to work...

Win a XBOX 360 Every 10 minutes

Eric A. Duncan — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 15:04:00 GMT

In case you haven't heard Mountain Dew and XBOX have teamed up to give away a free XBOX 360 every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 30 days straight starting, well, today.

www.every10minutes.com (website seems a bit slow with all of the traffic of launch)

Now I try to stay away from caffeine, but I think I found a reason to get hyper for the next month.

Host your videos on Google!

Eric A. Duncan — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:42:00 GMT

*** UPDATE 8/9/2005 - Google launched this service about a month ago and I've been serving videos since. It's VERY cool, but requires you to download a browser plugin.

Google is about to launch a new Video service. From what I gather, it will do two things.

The first is unlimited storage/hosting of your video! I've uploaded about 890MB and they haven't even batted an eye. No longer will you have to upload your video to a server somewhere to be hosted 'cause Google seems to be solving that issue (i.e. home videos?).

The other thing is indexing META data for searching. For Google's Videos, this information are things such as Title, Description, Language, Production company, Genre, dates, credits, etc. It also allows someone to upload a Transcript of the video! All of this information is indexed in Google's massive search library.

It also allows you to charge for access. I'm not sure how that will work, but it's there.

Here's the link that will be soon heard around the world:

http://video.google.com/

If you need a Gmail account, let me know as I have quite a few invitations left.