Considering that we had recently got rid of our cable TV plan I would normally have expected a conspiracy had it not been for the fact that this had been such a chronic problem over the years.

I called again, got routed to India again, and was told that this time it would be FIVE DAYS MORE before they would get out to me.  No amount of arguing would change things.  So five days later here comes a different guy and I go out to meet him at the box and tell him of my troubles.  He checked it, said the levels were indeed off again but that there must be something wrong with the cable or a piece of hardware somewhere if I was continually having these problems. He said he was going to put in a work order to have some other techie subgroup come out and do a more thorough inspection of the equipment at the box but also proceeded to adjust the levels again and got me up and running.

Mediacom, you should really thank that guy because until I talked to him I was minutes away from calling up Qwest and ordering DSL even though I knew it would have crappy bandwidth compared to the 12 Mbps that Mediacom can provide.  Qwest is still an option though.  The next time our line goes dead I’m done with them, and their annoying overseas tech support people.  Just once I would love to call in and get someone local!

Want to win a free iPad? Check out these links!

In case you have not heard about it there is this new device coming out this week called the Apple iPad.  If you have not heard about it then honestly, you probably need one more than the techies who are all drooling over them even before they have shipped.  For those of us too cheap to shell out $500 for a new iPad take a look at the list below to get some entries into some free ipad giveaways on Twitter.  If you hear of any more of them feel free to leave a comment and add them to the list.

Please remember that I am only providing this information that I have seen on Twitter over the last few days for ways to sign up to win a free iPad.  I have no idea if each individual contest is authentic or not.  The only thing for certain is that apparently giving away a free iPad is darn good publicity on Twitter!

Be sure to follow @gadgetstuff for new iPad contests as they appear in the Twitter feeds.  I will keep this list up to date as best I can.

From Webs.com – #websdotcom AND http://bit.ly/ipadme

From iPadInsider – go to http://www.ipadinsider.com/free-ipad/ and read the details to send the tweet

PriceGrabber – @PriceGrabber: Who’s the lucky gal or lad, who will win our FREE Apple iPAD?! FOLLOW us, RT now, and find out on April 5 #PriceGrabber10K

jtgraphic – Follow @jtgraphic and RT to #WIN a #free #apple #iPad!! One RT per day is a valid entry – unlimited entries!

Digg.com – tweet this: the free @digg app comes to your iphone! to celebrate they’re giving out a custom colorware ipad each day for 2 weeks! http://bit.ly/diggapp

Picksthatmove – Follow @picksthatmove and RT to win 1 of 5 free iPads http://bit.ly/dCYG0J #contest #iPad

Happy Owl Studio – go to web site and read instructions then tweet about it http://www.happyowlstudio.com/win-an-ipad.html

Got more?  Add them as a comment below!

The MSI Big Bang Fuzion Motherboard

Running multiple video cards in a computer is one of several ways that gamers can tweak their frame rates to achieve the highest possible gaming experience.  Until now however, users wanting to do this were limited to using identical video cards and connecting them together using the proprietary technology used by NVIDIA or ATI.  With the new MSI Big Bang Fuzion Motherboard however, users have a new option.  Thanks to a very special new chipset on the board known as the Lucid Hydra chip multiple video cards from different vendors can be used in the same system.

The Hydra chip literally looks at the graphic rendering tasks being sent by the game and distributes different portions of those rendering tasks to the different cards.  Those completed images are then put back together by the Hydra and sent out to the monitor.  While this is perhaps the most innovative aspect of the Big Bang Fuzion motherboard the mobo has a great number of additional benefits and tweaks that make it one of the year’s most intriguing pieces of PC hardware and the preliminary reviews seem to reflect that statement.

MSI Big Bang Fuzion Motherboard Specifications

As Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective points out in an interview and walk through video, the MSI Big Bang Fuzion motherboard is packed with features, enough that it will fill the needs of even the most demanding computer user:

• 3 PCI Express x16 2.0 Slots
• 2 PCI Express Slots
• 2 Standard PCI Slots
• ATX Form factor
• Up to 16 GB RAM
• 6 SATA connectors plus on board RAID support
• 8 Channel Realtek Audio
• Gigabit LAN
• 12 USB 2.0 ports, 1 Firewire port, and 2 eSATA ports
• Ability to use Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 processors (LGA 1156 Socket)

The only significant power user features missing from the Big Bang Fuzion are the lack of USB 3.0 support and the lack of a front panel eSATA port.

Conclusions About The MSI Big Bang Fuzion Motherboard

In terms of features and convenience the MSI Big Bang Fuzion truly provides everything in one beautifully crafted motherboard, but these conveniences come with a price tag that places it out of range for all but the most die hard gamers.  At the time of its release the Big Bang Fuzion Motherboard was listing for nearly $400.  Once the price starts to drop though, grab it!

Zoom Q3 Digital Audio Recorder

Leave it to the guys over at Samson Electronics to come out with a new twist on digital audio recording technology.  I am a big fan of the other Zoom digital audio recorders such as the  Zoom H4n, as many other music educators are as well, but they now have released a new hybrid unit into the marketplace known as the Zoom Q3.  The twist is that this little unit not only records stereo audio, but it has a built in video camera to record video with at the same time.  At first glance I was kind of confused as it didn’t make much sense to me, but then I saw the potential applications of having both things available in one compact place.  Imagine throwing this thing on a tripod during a marching band rehearsal to not only record the audio but also the video at the same time.  A director could easily use the same thing in a classroom to record himself conducting while still getting high quality stereo audio at the same time.

I have not held a unit in my own hands yet to try it, so part of me wonders how this would be any better than a traditional video camera or one of the popular Flip video cameras, but the ads I have seen say that it uses the same microphones as the H4n so my guess would be that you are probably buying the unit for the audio more than the video.  It only records in 640×480 pixel resolution which is perfect for putting on YouTube but lousy for anything that you might want to save on to DVD or watch on a larger TV screen.

The form factor seems to be a bit of a step back from the stylish solid feel of the H4n, and the lack of many buttons on the unit makes me wonder how hard it will be to quickly adjust the settings on the unit.  Still, I will have to wait until I see it in person to make a real judgment call.  Also the 2GB SD card seems downright puny for recording video and stereo audio at the same time.  Still, all of the other portable digital audio recorders from Zoom have been really good, so I hope that this one follows suit.  If anyone has actually had a chance to try out the Zoom Q3 Digital Audio and Video Recorder please leave a comment and let us know what you think!

A few months later I found a product called the Replug Break Away Audio Cable Connector that is essentially a magnetic break away audio plug that works with any existing 3.5mm headphone jack.  Simply take your headphone (or microphone) cable from your laptop, iPhone, or MP3 player and plug in the Replug between the headphones and the device.  If you walk too far away and start to bend or pull too hard on the connection the magnet breaks away and prevents the cable from snapping its contacts or from breaking the internal connections inside the deviceFor the laptop example it probably would have prevented it being pulled onto the floor altogether, as it would have snapped off when the student walked away from the laptop.  I was lucky that the laptop survived, but it could have just as easily broken the microphone port as well. The Replug sounds like a great idea and it is priced very conservatively at around $9 on Amazon and comes in both black or white.

Deviant Art's Pictorial Guide To Computer Hardware

I tinker a lot with my computer and have torn apart and reassembled dozens of computers over the last ten years.  All that time this new Pictorial Guide To Computer Hardware from Deviant Art would have come in handy.  I may even buy one anyway just because on some strange level I think it is kind of cool.  Basically the poster shows images of every interface, port, and cable connection found on personal computers going back all the way to before the IBM PC days.  It even includes photos of RAM memory chips and motherboard power connections.  It is available in sizes up to 2 foot by 3 foot through the Deviant Art web site.