After driving it for a bit, I’d have to say that, at least in the case of a Prius, it’s not a smooth switch to a hybrid. It really takes some getting used to. In fact, I actually started to get used to the weird feeling like it was stalling whenever you stopped at a red light, and it switched from gas to battery power. I might have even gotten used to just how light it felt as we were driving around and how odd it is to have a park button instead of a park on the gear shift. What I don’t think I’ll ever get used to is just how little power it had! Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big SUV, V-8 kind of guy. We have two Subaru’s in our family, a Forrester (lightweight SUV) and an Impreza so it’s not like we’re blowing people away with the engine power, but there’s enough there that I can step on it and get up to speed merging on the freeway, or turning out into traffic, as quickly as I need to. I didn’t feel that in the Prius. I felt like I was in danger of getting run down by other vehicles on the road as I put-putted along trying to get up to speed. That’s not a good feeling.

So techies and early adopters, is this a hybrid thing, or just a Prius thing?  Any of you own a hybrid? What are your thoughts? Do you expect the technology to get better and eliminate the lack of power, or are we headed to a future of driving around in golf carts?

I have been using them for several weeks now. Both in my Altec Lansing inMotion ipod portable speakers and in my Canon S2 IS camera. They last amazingly long and recharge way faster than my Energizer batteries. Usually the energizers can go dead within a few days. They also take over 30 minutes to charge on their own 15 minute speed charger. The eneloops can last over a year charged without use. They even come charged in the package. I also just charged a set of four AAs in 10 minutes on my Energizer charger.

They just rock. Finally what rechargeable batteries should have been all along. I definitely recommend these to anyone who wants to be a little green and not use disposable batteries.

As the session went along, one of the speakers recommended using a second, web-based, email account for non-essential stuff. That way you don’t have mailing lists, newsletter subscriptions, Google News alerts, or other non-essential email keeping you from finding what you need in your Outlook, or interrupting you with a new mail alert. (Although they suggested killing that too, in all fairness.)

Anyhow, that got me thinking. Lots of places block access to web based email as a matter of policy. I began to wonder if unblocking that would put a small dent in the amount of email that our users are storing, and handling? After all, I know there are mailing lists I would rather subscribe to in Gmail, but don’t because I can’t access it at work.  That means, at least in my case, there’s a significant amount of email being handled by our Exchange server, and having to be dealt with somehow, in my Outlook, as opposed to just being over in Gmail, and me looking at it occasionally.

Now, I know the common refrain is that web based email account are a security risk, but is the risk that large, and does blocking access to web mail really mitigate that risk in a significant way? For example, years ago people decided to block it because of the virus risks, but just about all major web mail services do anti-virus scans on any attachments, and even then,  your desktop AV product should scan any attachments when you try to open them. So, to my mind, blocking might decrease the chance of getting a virus attachment slightly compared to depending on these other tools, but doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Now I know that’s hardly the only concern, but it’s just an example. Anyway, what do you think? I know some of you guys block web mail, and I’m sure some of you don’t. I also know almost all of us are struggling with what to do with all that email coming into, and being stored on, our networks and mail servers, so I’m curious about what you all think? Would allowing access put a dent in that, or is it not worth the increased risk?

Cnet had a good review on the 560 last fall. It has an improved vacuum, traction etc. You can read the review HERE.

The trick to buying an item like this from Linens and Things is to print off the 20$ discount coupon from the Internet. Here is a link to the 20% Coupon. It expires Dec 31, 2008. I was able to get the 560 for $305 including sales tax using the coupon.

The first one I got was dead out of the box. Would not power up or charge at all. Linens and Things exchanged it with no questions asked. The second one worked perfect. It made a little musical tone the moment I pulled out the battery protection tab from the bottom of the unit. Then I let it charge over night. It has been great. Our hardwood floors even feel cleaner when walking around in bare feet. Not that we ever had a messy house. It just makes so much difference in the feel of the floors and quality of the air having the roomba run twice a week during time we are out of the house. You can schedule the 560 for one time during any day of the week. So you can schedule say twice a week at 930am during the day while you are at work.

Tags: Roomba 560, Linens and Things Coupon

The first two were in the latest issue of Tech Support Alert

1.3 Fifty Gigabytes of Free Online Storage
Most sites offering large quantities of free online storage usually impose strict monthly transfer limits. This one, suggested by subscriber “Greetz:One”, doesn’t seem to. More accurately I couldn’t see any. I gave it a quick whirl and as usual the upload speeds were modest. Also, the desktop client is pretty basic but it does allow you view your online files and to transfer files by drag and drop. OK, the service lacks the fancy backup management features you get with services like Mozy, but if you simply want a lot of online storage space then this site is well worth checking out.
http://adrive.com/home

1.4 More Free Online Storage Options
Subscriber Richard Barnes writes, “Gizmo I saw in January issue you mentioned Amazon S3 online Storage. I use a company called Online Storage Solution [1]. They charge $3 a month for unlimited storage and unlimited downloads. The upload/download method is a bit slow and primitive, but it does the job eventually. I see that they’ve got a special offer at the moment: $20 for a year’s storage. If you’ve got a load of stuff to store, it’s a lot cheaper than Amazon’s S3. I’ve uploaded about 12GB of photos and am now embarking upon uploading my 100GB music collection.”
http://onlinestoragesolution.com

The third mention I saw was today over on Online Tech Tips, about MediaFire, which  offers unlimited storage for free. A business model I have my doubts about, but that I have no experience with to give an opinion one one way or the other.

I have to admit, aside from a few things I keep in Google Docs, my Google Notebook, and my Flickr account. I don’t really store much online, but I am thinking about taking advantage of some of these tools for a nice offsite backup for my files. What have your experiences been?

Tags: OpenDNS

I found a little utility called Recovery Toolbox for CD Free. Once installed, I launched it and had it copy off all the data from the CD. It took a little while, and made some odd noises in the CD drive when it hit the files that resided on the bad sectors of the CD, but it did recovery everything off the CD, which then allowed me to go ahead and make a copy of copies of it.

Can’t complain about a tool that does the job!

Tags: FileRecovery,, CD