Pre-Order Nintendo DS and DS Games

Electronics Boutique is now letting you pre-order the Nintendo DS and DS games. As expected the DS hardware is set at $199.99. I am unhappy that DS games are set at the $49.99 price point which is common for home console games. I wish the DS games would follow the standard Game Boy price point of $29.99. I know the DS is not part of the GB line of Nintendo products, but I still think that the games in no way can live up to full home-console standards and therefore should be priced lower.

If you are unfamiliar with the Nintendo DS, here are some features you might want to know about it:

Joke of the Day via SPAM

I hate spam. We try to avoid it, we install software that attempts to block it, we try and prevent our e-mail address from being posted on public web sites where they can be collected by spammers. Spammers are all saying the same thing; "enlarge this", "refinance here", "blah blah blah". And since they are all saying the same thing, they have to include random text in their spam messages to try and make it seem different enough from previously identified spam to pass detection methods.

Here is an example of pure random nonsense included in the body of a spam I received:

A blonde went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. "I would like to buy this TV," she told the salesman. "Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
She hurried home and dyed her hair, then came back and again told the salesman, "I would like to buy this TV." "Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
"Darn, he recognized me," she thought. She went for a complete disguise this time; haircut and new color, new outfit, big sunglasses, then waited a few days before she again approached the salesman. "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied. Frustrated, she exclaimed, "How do you know I'm a blonde?" "Because that's a microwave," he replied.

I can't wait for the day when there is a widely adopted method between mail servers to authenticate e-mails and allow/deny delivery. Spam is such a huge problem; ISPs want to stop it so their bandwidth won't get eaten up. But spammers won't stop because it's profitable. I heard that last year over 20 million dollars was spent on product/services from spam. Why do people support these spammers!

Wifi Your Network for $68.18* with Linksys products from Amazon.com

This price is if you buy the Linksys Wireless-G Router with the Wireless-G Notebook Adapter. It's only 20 cents more to get the router with the Wireless-G PCI Adapter for your desktop.

Now this is for the Wireless-G (802.11g) product line which is fully backwards compatible with Wireless-B (802.11b) devices. Wireless-G transmits at speeds of 54 Mbps, Wireless-B transmits at 11 Mbps.

Linksys also recently introduced a SpeedBooster line of Wireless-G products, which while being fully 802.11 standard compliant and compatible with all 802.11 devices, when combined with other Linksys SpeedBooster devices delivers a 35% performance increase. You can get a Linksys Wireless-G Router with SpeedBooster combined with your choice of the notebook or desktop SpeedBooster adapter for only $102.38*.

*Price after $20 in mail-in rebates ($10 per product), and after you factor in $20 that you will receive as an Amazon.com promotional certificate to use on a future order. Here are links to the Linksys mail-in rebate form (PDF) (for purchases between 7/25/2004 - 9/25/2004) and the Amazon.com Linksys Promotion page (for purchases between 8/1/2004 and 8/31/2004).

Home Network Finally Running (Minimum Install)

Over a year ago I was crawling under my then new house and punch holes in the walls and drilling holes into the floor to run Cat 6 cables from the main rooms to a central hub in a closet under the stairs. I bought all the connectors and tools required for the job. I had even bought a 12 port patch panel for the closet. I wired my house as follows: 5 ports in my office, 2 in the family room by the entertainment center, 2 in the living room where my wife's desk is, 1 in my bedroom, and 1 in two of the other bedrooms of the house. But I never finished the project, I never connected the dot and made the thing work. I never terminated any of the cables, I just left all the cables hanging out of the wall.

My wife Kathryn never really complained about the cords or holes, maybe a few times here and there, but not really. However she did often get on my back about her computer not having internet access (rightfully so - it should have had access). She instead had to use my notebook with WiFi at her desk - which was a pain because she does all her MS Money on her own desktop but needed access to the internet, etc.

Flash forward to tonight. Well first to last night... I made plans with my wife that I was going to work on the network, and she would handle the kids.

Then tonight I got the bare minimum completed, I terminated 2 cables in my office, and 2 by her desk, and then the opposite ends of the cables into the patch panel in the closet. I had purchased some 3 ft. patch cables at Fry's the last time I was in So Cal (cause the Cat 6 cable I have is really a pain to crimp connectors onto), so I plug them all in and - voila! - Instant home network! Er.... long overdue home network!