Costco Return Policy Change

Electronics purchased at Costco now have a return policy of 90 days instead of forever. This went into effect yesterday to all California Costco's. But I think you can still return your electronics purchased before that. Costco's "laxed" return policy was the best, but I knew it couldnt last forever. I think what really hurt Costco was when it started to sell Plasma TV's. First of all, it was a new technology, so in the beginning there might have been a lot of defects or issues. Secondly, plasma prices are dropping so fast, that people are returning and buying. According to the article, "People had been returning TVs they had bought for $2,000 last year and turning around and buying the same TV for $1,200."

Read the full article

80's cartoons

Ohhh man.This video brings back some good memories. I might be biased, but I believe that the 80's had the best cartoons ever. And I love and remember all of their theme songs. The video isnt comprehensive, but it has a lot of classics. Hopefully, someone will come out with a video of ALL the 80's cartoons. Good memories. Enjoy.

Tivo Series 3 HD

I recently upgraded my Tivo Series 1 to Tivo Series 3 HD. Nope I dont have HD programming. So why did I get it you might ask? Well, because Tivo made me do it.

Here was the deal (expired).

For a limited time, transfer your product lifetime service from a Series1™ or
Series2™ box to the new Series3™ HD for only $199. As an added bonus, we'll
keep TiVo service activated on your old box for another 12 months for no
additional charge.

My current Tivo Series 1 w/ lifetime subscription works perfectly fine. I've been using it for over 5 years now and I love it. But what caught my attention in this deal was the opportunity to transfer my lifetime subscription. Tivo recently retired their lifetime subs on all Tivos. You can no longer get a lifetime sub on a new Tivo. Also, you cannot transfer a lifetime sub to another Tivo box. So this would be my only opportunity to upgrade my Tivo box as well as transfer my lifetime sub in one shot. I dont think Tivo will ever offer the opportunity to transfer a lifetime sub again. In otherwords, this will be the only way to get a Tivo Series 3 with lifetime. But that $199 lifetime transfer fee hurts, especially when I originally already paid $299 for my original lifetime sub. Ouch. So that's how Tivo trapped me.

Why do you LOVE Tivo? - No one can beat the functionality and the user experience that the Tivo has to offer. It is smart, sexy, and simple. You've probably heard of the cable companies offering their DVR's, but everyone who has experienced them says that they cannot compare to Tivo. Tivo is truly one of my favorite tech gadget. Tivo really did an outstanding job when it comes to user interface. Its hard to think of anything to improve it even on my standards ;)

What are the main differences between Tivo series 1, 2, and 3? - A lot. Let's talk about the Series 2 first.

1. Series 2 has the networking functionality which allows you to network your tivo to your home computer which is connect to the internet. You will need a Tivo wireless adapter to wireless connect your tivo to your wireless router.



2. Once you have this connection, you can do several things.You can use TivoToGo which is the ability to transfer your Tivo recordings onto your computer. Once the videos are transfered to your computer, then you can do whatever you want with the video. ie. burn them on dvd.



3. Stream your mp3s and pictures to your TV and home theater system.



4. Update Tivo without using a phone line.



5. Use Tivo online scheduling. In otherwords, you can go to Tivo's website and schedule your recordings there. This is cool if you are not home and you forgot to record something. However, you must schedule the recording at least 1 hour prior to the show starting since the Tivo does the online update about once per hour.



6. Real time Traffic and Weather



7. Many of the series 2 are dual tuner which is one of my favorite features. It can record 2 shows at the same time. Therefore, you can also record a show and watch another show at the same time.

Onto to Series 3

1. Series 3 has all of the features above except for TivoToGo. This is very sad, but hopefully they will allow it in a future software update. I think Tivo ran into a lot of copyright issues so until they get those settled, no TivoToGo.



2. Can record in HD.



3. THX



4. More than enough space. 300 hours standard record time. 32 hours in HD.
   

So basically, Series 3 is much like the Series 2, but has all of the high quality sound and video capabilities.

So what happens to your Tivo Series 1 box? - So this box no longer has the lifetime sub. Tivo gives me a free year's subscription. But in order to use the box after a year, I would have to start paying the monthly fee :(

2007 Technology Wishlist

• Hi Definition DVD - I really hope that we come out with a single format, but unfortunately it doesnt look like its going to turn out that way since companies are starting to come up with dvd players that support both HD DVD and Blu-ray. But having 2 formats still hurts the consumers by causing confusion. I hope HD DVD prevails because Im getting sick and tired of all of Sony's proprietory formats, cables, interfaces, etc.
  
  
• Bluetooth iPod - An ipod or any mp3 player that uses bluetooth to connect to your car's speaker system. Seems obvious, but dont know what's taking them so long.
  
  
• More Wireless - We see it everywhere now, but we need more of it. At the CES 2007 show, Samsung unveiled a wireless plasma. All you need to do is plug the plasma in. No need to hide any wires. BMW and Mercedes have car keys whereby you can open the door and start the car without inserting the keys. You can just leave them in your pocket. Any wireless connection that eliminates a physical wired connection is a good thing. We also need wifi digital camera's whereby you can transfer all the pics on your camera to your computer wirelessly. No more usb cable.
  
  
• Smarter Cell Phones - There are many new fancy phones out there, but I think cell phone manufacturers need to get back to the basics instead trying to add as many features possible onto a phone. I use my phone mainly to place phone calls, but sometimes "fancyness" and "features" gets in the way. I miss my first Nokia phone which had no features but worked flawlessly. Its battery life lasted a week too. How long does your phone's battery last now? Anyways, I think the cell phones now are dumb. Yes, they look good, have color, and lots of features, but I just want to make a simple phone call! Hopefully, the iPhone will be the start of cell phones that are actually useful.
  
  
• Evite killer - Evite should change their name to eAds since they display way too many ads. Im getting sick of it. The ads are starting to get in the way of using the application. A big no-no. The ads are getting larger and larger in more in your face. You have to dig through the ads to try to use the regular evite functions. This tells me something. Either Evite is not doing so well and therefore, trying to get as many ads out there or Evite's marketing department is way too aggresive. In either case, its bad for the users and therefore bad for the company. I havent seen a good evite competitor, but once it happens, everyone will have no problems switching. If you know of another evite site, let me know. I already tried renkoo, it sucks.
  

Online BackUp - Carbonite

I finally decided on online backup as a method of backing up my computer data. I never thought I would pay a subscription fee for any internet service, but it is well worth it. I was pretty good about backing up my data on hard drives and DVDs, but as gigabytes of Caden's photos started to accumulate, I started to worry. A while back, a bunch of Caden's photos were on my compact flash card and somehow the card got corrupted. We were so sad because those pictures meant a lot to us and there was no way to get it back. We would do (or pay) anything, just to get those pictures back. Luckily, it seems that memory flash cards crash frequently and there was software out on the internet that tries to rescue those files. It took many hours, but I was able to restore 99% of the photos :)

So I thought about all the ways to backup my data since they are more precious to me than anything.

1. External Hard Drive - Very fast and convenient. But what happens if my internal drive gets larger than my external drive? Then I would have to keep buying larger and larger external drives. Also, what would happen if I connect my USB external drive to back up my internal drive and something happens? Like a power outage or whatever. It could damage BOTH my external and internal drive in which my data would be lost on both drives. What if there was a fire?

2. DVD - Inexpensive. But a lot of my data is growing larger than the 4GB capacity. Therefore, I have to span my backup across several DVDs. And what happens if I change a file on my computer after I already backed it up on DVD? I would have to do burn another back up. You have to be diligent when it comes to backing up your data on DVD. You have to know what you have or have not backed up and you have to back up often. Also, I heard that DVD media just like CDs dont last forever. I just cant imagine that after my PC crashes, I would go into my binder full of DVDs and find out that they all arent readable. All that work for nothing. Again, what if there was a fire?

3. Online Back Up (Carbonite) - Let me just list some of the PROS that I experienced thus far with this service:

• Unlimited Storage: Go ahead and store you're terabytes of data. All other online backups have a limit.
  
• Set it and forget it: You dont have to manage it at all. It will automatically backup whatever you specify. It will do it in the background and will NOT slow down your internet connection. Its smart enough to detect that if you are using the Internet, it wont do any backup transfers.
  
• Inexpensive: The price is just right. $5 per month. Its actually cheaper than $5 in their 1 or 2 year subscription. So instead of buying that external hard drive or all your DVD media or paying someone to retrieve data on your crashed hard drive, use the saved money on the monthly fee.
  
• Restore deleted files: Ever delete a file and then empty the recycle bin and then wish you could take that back?
  
• Restore files easy: When you install the software, it will add a Carbonite drive in your my computer, just like your C: drive and your dvd/cd drives. Just double click it and you'll be able to navigate through your already backed up files. Then just right click the file or folder you want restored and select "restore". That's it. Just wait and presto, the file is back on your computer in it original location.
  
• Fire proof: So let's say that you have a fire and your computer is burnt to a crisp. No problem. When you get your new computer, just install the software and download all the files that were on your burnt computer.

Now you might ask, what can go wrong? Okay let me tell you how you can lose all your data even with Carbonite. All of the following need to occur at the same.

1. Your hard drive crashes
2. Carbonite's server hard drives crashes.
3. Carbonite's backup data center crashes.

If only 1 of the above occurs, you still have your data right?
If your hard drive crashes, your data is still safe with Carbonite.
If Carbonite crashes, well duh, you still have your data on your computer.

I just signed up for a 2 year term. I highly recommend them.
For more info, click here to go to their website.

Haha, as I was finishing up writing this post, I blew a fuse at my house and my computer shut off instantly. Luckily, my computer survived. Phew.

Video on the Web - Update

Last year i researched and tested out dozens of video sharing sites so that I can post and manage my personal videos online. Unfortunately, I couldnt find one that I liked.

In my intial post about video on the web, I stated that I wanted 4 key features:
1. Quality
2. Flash Video
3. Sharing
4. Free

Most of the sites satisfied all of them except for the MOST important one - quality. Seems like all the sites had really bad quality when they do their conversion to the flash format. Sorry, but i just cant accept that. Youtube videos look really bad.

So until those video sites get better in their quality, I'll stick with my very manual but better quality method. I use Adobe premiere elements to edit and export the video. Then I use Flash Video Exporter that comes with Flash Pro 8 to optimze and convert the file to flv. And as a result, a much better quality video. Check out this silly video of my son.

"Get out of Verizon Wireless Contract" for Free

Verizon Wireless is increasing the text messages to 15 cents for receiving and sending on March 1st. Therefore, that allows us to cancel our contract without having to pay the normal cancellation fee. This is bad timing for Verizon since the new Cingular Apple iPhone is coming out in June. Verizon could potentially lose a lot of customer. I think Im on a 2 year contract, but I love Verizon because I never have any problems with them whatsoever. Read more about this here.

Apple iPhone - First Impressions

Today, Apple announced their new iPhone. To be honest, I didnt care much about it. That was until I actually saw pictures and features of the iPhone. This might be the phone that I've been waiting for. An all-in-one phone. A phone that can browse the internet, take pictures, listen to music, and that can also be your PDA. Yes, there are already phones that are capable of this (ie. Palm Treo, Motorola Q, BlackBerry, etc). But they seem to make things more complicated. Or sometimes, some features work well while others do not. The iPhone supposedly solves all that as I will discuss its features below.

Features

• Screen - The screen makes up most of the phone, since the keyboard is also on the screen. The other PDA phones are usually half screen, half keyboard which results in a small screen and a small keyboard. Also, you can tilt the iPhone to either vertical or horizontal and whatever is on the screen will conform to the portrait or landscape view. This is really good for displaying video or browsing the web.



• Keyboard - The keyboard is on the screen instead of physically on the phone. That's a good thing. But the question is, how well does it work with your fingers since it doesnt use a stylus. Oh yeah, no stylus, thats another good thing. Supposedly, its an "intelligent" keyboard and that it will know which letter you want to press without accidently pressing another letter. Hard to tell by looking at only screenshots, but my guess is that as you hover over a letter, the letter will pop out larger in size. If thats the case, then that's cool.



• Music - Plays music like an iPod. Nuff said.



• Video - Plays video like a PSP. Nice!



• Sensors - When you put the iPhone to your ear, the screen automatically turns off to prevent inadvertent touches. Now this is exactly what was need on my LG chocolate phone. Everytime, I would answer a call, the buttons on the front panel would be active, so when I put the phone to my ear, I would inadvertently press lots of different menu options and such. This is totally annoying. But I wonder how the sensor knows that Im putting it to my ear?



• OS X - Not Windows Mobile, Not Palm, Not blackberry, but OSX?! Wow, first time a phone PDA actually uses a real OS, instead of some modified and customized version of an OS. Does this mean it can run OS X applications too? Powerful!



• Phone - Oh yeah, its a phone too. Phone looks really easy to use. Especially with large and simple icons and using your fingers to dial.


• Wifi - connect to your wifi router for internet.



• Bluetooth - connect to computer or other cool bluetooth stuff.



• Multi touch - Okay so this is something really cool and exciting. Its all about the natural way we would interact with a touch panel display. This involves how the iPhone reacts to your finger movements. For example, how would you normally browse photos? The old way would be to use your stylus and click on the "next" button. But on the iPhone, you would just put your finger on the picture and swipe it to the left or right and you will see the next photo scrolling sideways accordingly. Hard to explain. But check out this video at a TED conference to find out more about this interaction.

Final thoughts

Im actually really impressed with what Apple has done with the iPhone. They really solved a lot of key issues when it came to the cell phone PDA market. Im also surprised and wonder how they kept it secret for 30 months without any leaks.

Now the question is, will I buy it? I dont think so, but we'll see. I would have to change my wireless provider from Verizon to Cingular (Verizon is the best!) I would also have to pay a lot more monthly for the internet plan. Do I really need to surf the internet when Im not at a computer? Very cool, but not a necessity. But then again, i dont have to use it for internet.

I think these are going to sell like hotcakes. Way to go Apple.

Simplicity Is Highly Overrated

I ran across Don Norman's article called "Simplicity Is Highly Overrated". It's exactly how I feel about today's products. Most of today's products contain way too many features and are therefore too complicated. I mean how many of the features do we really use? Dont get me wrong, I love features too. But when features start getting in the way of simplicity, that's where I draw the line.

Im a very simple person. I like things simple. I like things that make my life more simple. However, it seems that most of things that are suppose to make my life more simple actually does quite the opposite. Im mostly referring to technology and the internet. Seems like we are working more for them, then they are for us.

And that's where my blog comes in. My goal is to find technologies and websites that actually make our lives simpler. Im a lazy person and I want technology to do most of my work instead of the other way around.

So there you have it. I will blog about cool/useful web sites and write reviews on computers/electronics/services. I will tell you what I love and what I hate without holding back. And occasionally, I will post some crazy bargain deals as well as some not too personal stories of my life.

rogerchew.com 2.0

Happy New Year! What better way to bring in the new year with a site redesign. Yeah, yeah. I know...another redesign. I just wasnt satisfied with the design of my site. The previous designs weren't "web 2.0" enough for me. I also changed my web hosting provider in which I'll post a review of later. Anyways, I didnt add much stuff, but Im planning on it adding lots of cool new stuff this year. This year I plan to spend more time on updating my blog (at least once a week?). I'm going to try something new. Im planning on posting reviews of products, services, and web sites. So stay tuned for more.