I’ve been a big fan of Canon products ever since I purchased a Canon CanoScan N670U flatbed scanner after upgrading to Windows XP. I had an HP scanner prior to that which stopped working after the XP upgrade because HP couldn’t be bothered to make proper drivers for the new OS. After several months of half-assed solutions from HP their tech support suggested I “stop being an asshole and buy a new scanner.” So I did. I bought the Canon. That was in early 2002 and the damned thing still works great some seven years later. When it came time to replace the HP printer we were using we decided to go with the Canon Pixma iP3000 because it had individual ink tanks and a built-in duplexer at a decent price and we were thrilled with it. So when it came time to move up to a decent digital camera we picked up a Canon Powershot A80 back in 2003. Later we added a Canon Pixma MP970 multifunction in part because it had Ethernet networking built-in and we love that too, but that was after the camera.

At the time we bought the camera we allowed the Best Buy sales dude to talk us into one of their four year extended warranties that basically said we could smash the damn thing by accident and bring in the resulting shards for a replacement at no charge. That expired in 2007 without us ever having to make use of it. The camera has worked pretty well over the years even after taking a fairly nasty fall that left the casing near the flash dented, but sometime last year the CCD in the camera started having problems. You’d turn the camera on and the display would look like what you get when you try to watch porn on a scrambled cable channel without a proper decoder box. The image was all distorted and wavy with any resulting pictures looking exactly like the display which told me that it was the CCD and not the LCD display itself. If you turned the camera off and back on again it would sometimes clear up and be usable for awhile, but a couple of months ago it stopped clearing up and is that way all the time now. Six years is a pretty good run for a digital device I’ve used the hell out of so I wasn’t too upset about it and I’ve been looking to replace it with a newer model, probably another Canon, once I see a good deal on one of the bargain hunter websites I prowl.

Then I came across this Consumerist article about someone who got their five year old broken camera replaced by Canon for free that mentioned a recall relating to CCD issues. A little searching found the official Canon website about the recall which listed the A80 as one of the cameras covered by it. They put that out in 2005 so it’s four years old, but I gave the number a call and spoke with a rep who confirmed it’s still in effect. I’ll be getting a prepaid shipping form to send the camera to Canon and they’ll check it out. If it’s definitely the CCD problem listed in the recall it’ll be fixed for free, if it’s something else they’ll tell me how much it would cost to fix it. Can’t ask for much more than that.

We’ve been very happy with the camera as we have been with all the Canon products we’ve bought so far and this will just reinforce my loyalty to the brand. I’ll let you guys know what the verdict is on the camera once they get it and give it a look over, but the fact they’re willing to have it sent to them at no cost to me is pretty cool in itself. Needless to say I recommend the company pretty highly at this point. If you own a Canon camera that is giving you similar trouble you may want to give them a call or check the recall website I listed above to see if it’s something you can get fixed at little to no cost.

OK gang I need your help again. Anne and I will be taking a trip to Iowa over Memorial Day Weekend in May in the Civic we just bought to hang out with one of her best friends. In preparation for that trip one of the things we’re looking at buying is a GPS Navigation system for use in the car. I’ve been seeing all manner of deals on DealNews.com for new and refurbished systems from various manufacturers, but I’m not overly familiar with which features and whatnot we should be looking for. The big three appear to be Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan and prices seem to range from $65 all the way up to almost $400. I’m sure some of you out there in SEB Land have a GPS system or two so I’d love to hear from you on what you think are the absolute must-have features, any favorite models you’ve owned, and what we should plan on spending to get a decent system.

If I’d had my way we’d have bought a 2009 Civic with the GPS Navigation built-in, but this’ll have to do instead so I’m looking to you guys to help me get educated on this stuff.

You see this picture to the left? You’re going to think it’s an April Fool’s joke, but it’s not. That’s a real product you can buy that’ll make it look like your baby is bursting through your chest like those monsters from the Aliens movies. It’s called a Peekaru Original Fleece Baby Carrier Cover:

Let a Peekaru Original simplify the process of getting out of the door. Wear your Peekaru over any baby carrier and you’re ready for cooler weather. Add a coat and you’re ready for winter. Whether it’s a crisp fall evening walk, a winter carnival, or a springtime parade, the Peekaru will keep your baby toasty warm without the clutter.

Baby Wearing Made Warm
The Peekaru Original is a fleece vest that zips over a soft baby carrier to keep you and your child warm. It fits comfortably over all carriers, including Baby Bjorns, Hotslings, Ergos, Mei Tais, and Wraps.

Made from 85% recycled fleece, each Peekaru Original saves approximately 25 plastic bottles from reaching the landfill. Feel good knowing that while you are holding your baby close, you are also helping the environment.

So apparently it doesn’t actually come with the baby carrier itself, it just makes you look like your baby is trying to claw its way out of your chest cavity. In all fairness I should probably point out that the other pictures on their website aren’t quite so… cinematic. Most of them make the baby look more like some kind of weird tumor growing on your chest or back. Which reminds me of a scene from Hellboy II:

This monstrosity making apparel will set you back about $80. Which is probably worth it as it’s sure to make people get the hell out of your way at the local mall.

Found over at Crunchgear.

Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs are currently the best way to save money while lighting your home thanks to their low power consumption and long life, but they also require careful handling and disposal due to the mercury they contain. That’s why the next best thing just over the horizon will be LED based lighting. You can already buy some LED bulbs for use in your home, but it’s largely limited to spot lights and other highly directional lighting. What we need is a configuration that includes some sort of diffuser to spread out the light and the folks at Philips now have something that fits the bill:

Philips’ Master LED bulb has the same form factor as the old-fashioned kind, making it “simple for people to use and feel good about using.” The bulb draws just 7 watts but gives off light equivalent to 40 watts’ worth, and lasts 45,000 hours, as opposed to the 1,500 of its incandescent predecessors. Already available in Europe, the Master LED should make its way to North American shores sometime before July.

The good news is that it’s form factor mimics a traditional bulb so it should fit into any lamp/fixture designed for incandescents. The bad news is that initially these things will set you back somewhere between $50 and $70 making outfitting your entire home an expensive proposition. With any luck, however, we’ll see some competition in the market bringing the price down relatively quickly just as it has with the CFLs.

As far as I’m concerned these can’t get here soon enough. The lower energy use and longer life of these bulbs will make having at least a couple in your most-used lamps worthwhile.

... and bought a RCA EZ205 Small Wonder Digital Camcorder. You may recall back in 2007 I wanted one of the earlier models of these for the purpose of trying to do some video blogs. It didn’t happen due to a push back on the release date putting it too close to Krismas—I usually don’t buy anything for a couple of months before Krismas on the off-chance that someone might get it as a gift—and I never got around to ordering it afterward.

Well Amazon had it on sale yesterday for $69.99 with free super saver shipping and I hemmed and hawed over it for half the day and then broke down and bought it. Turns out that was only about $10 cheaper than they usually sell it, but that’s still $10 I didn’t spend. It’s not the worlds greatest digital camcorder, but it should be sufficient for dicking around with. It’ll do 30 minutes of recording at high resolution and 2 hours at “web” resolution (whatever that is). It accepts micoSD flash memory cards and can take up to I believe 8GB for up to 16 hours of recording. For what I’ll be using it for I’m sure the default memory will be fine. It handles low light pretty well, but has problems with bright light.

I’ve wanted a camcorder of my own for ages and while I don’t know if I’d use this for really important special family moments, it should be fun to have it for random nonsense that might make for interesting YouTube posts. Of course it could also make for really boringly bad YouTube videos, but I don’t see why everyone else should be having all the fun in that regard and not me.

I plan to make my next car either a Honda Civic or a Honda Fit if I ever get to a point where I can afford to take on a car payment, but if it takes long enough I may end up getting a Honda Clarity instead:

It’s very cool to see that the car has built-in feedback systems to encourage less fuel wasting driving habits. It’s also very cool to see that it’s a real production vehicle as well.

Know someone who is lonely? No one to hold them while they sleep at night? Do they long for the loving embrace of at least one quarter of a person? Are they not easily creeped out by weird design choices? Got $30 bucks? Then we have the perfect gift for them! 

It’s the Hug Me Pillow and it’s available for a mere $30 right now. Just check out this totally non-creepy shot of it in action:

But don’t take our word for it that this is the finest cure for loneliness ever invented! Just check out these testimonials:

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Keeps me company!,  Jun 7, 2006
By Anonymous from Alaska

I bought this pillow to keep my company on nights when my husband, a correspondent for the Trans-Alaskan News Network, was out of town. The pillow exceeded even my wildest expectations. I’m told the pillow was modeled after Brad Pitt, and I believe it! When I first nestled against the soft, but firm chest of my new “husband” I slept better than I ever had before. Now I don’t mind when my husband goes out of town!

Overall Rating:  5 out of 5
What an awesome pillow,  Jul 14, 2008
By WPCexpert from Arkansas

My husband ordered me this pillow for our two year wedding anniversary (cotton anniversary). It works for me in so many different ways, he is military so is constantly deployed so now I have a sleeping companion. It also works well for those nights when he is getting too overheated to snuggle and I can snuggle with my “man”. I absolutely love this pillow I sleep with it every night and can barely stay awake once I lay my head on this wonderful invention.

All the comforts of a fellow human being without any of those pesky adultery issues! ORDER YOURS TODAY!

If I were 20 years younger and stupider I’d so risk great bodily harm by having a pair of FlyJumpers Power Jumping Stilts on my Wish List. I’ve wanted them ever since I first saw them in action, but I’m sure I’d just kill myself with them at my current age. If you’ve not seen them in action before then check out this video clip:

How freakin’ cool is that? The video clip Amazon provides is a whole lot tamer and doesn’t show off just how cool these things are. I could’ve sworn I’d written about these before when I first saw them years ago, but all I could find in the archives was a similarly impressive suped up pogo stick. Even if I had the spare $270 these puppies cost I would be ill-advised in trying them as the X-tra large set has a maximum weight of 265 pounds which I currently exceed by 31 pounds, but boy that would be a helluva way to get some exercise in, wouldn’t it?

Though I’d probably be classified as a weapon of mass terrorism if I tried flipping my nearly 300 pound frame around out in public. And, yes, the link to the FlyJumpers page on Amazon will give me a little bit of credit if you decide to foolishly purchase a pair.

I don’t normally post deals on SEB because they tend to be fleeting, but this was too good not to mention. If you’re in the market for a new LCD HDTV and a PS3 then you might want to cheack out this offering from Walmart. Yes I know it’s Walmart and I’m not a huge fan of Walmart, but a deal is a deal and this seems a pretty good one.

It includes a Toshiba 32” Regza 1080P LCD HDTV, an 80GB PS3, the PS3 Blu-ray Remote Control, and your choice of either a Blu-ray movie of your choice (from a list of 27 options) or a HDMI cable. The movies being offered include 300, I Am Legend, and Reservoir Dogs so they’re not all craptastic titles. If you want it shipped it’ll ad $20 to the cost or you can pick it up at your local store. There’s sales tax to consider as well, but it’s still a helluva deal.

Seems the holiday deals are getting warmed up. Just thought some of you would like to know.

If you’re at all curious what a cellphone based on Google’s Android platform would be like then you may want to check out the live streaming T-Mobile G1 with Google Press Conference that’s due to start in a few minutes at 10:30AM EST. This is the first phone based on Google’s mobile OS and there’s been lots of speculation on how big an impact it’ll make in the market.

If you miss the live feed you’ll be able to pull the video up on demand shortly afterwards at the same site. Just thought some of you would be interested in checking it out.

I’m torn. I’ve had the TARDIS USB hub on my Amazon.com Wish List for ages now, but I’m also drawn to these two hubs modeled after iconic Star Wars characters:

Meet the $68 animatronic Darth Vader and R2D2 USB hubs. Just stuff a USB Princess Leia into Darth’s neck and watch the dark lord’s eyes glow red as he scans side-to-side for the pretentious scowls of your contemptuous co-workers. Sounds effects? Oh you betcha…

Alas it appears as though these two will only be available in Japan for the time being. Plus the fact that the TARDIS hub is a good $23 cheaper will probably ensure that I’ll be sticking with my favorite Time Lord when it comes time to by a new USB hub.

I’ve been meaning to buy a GPS navigation system for the car for awhile now and the folks at Mio have found a way to make that an urgent need with the upcoming release of the Knight Rider GPS Navigation.

When we were first contacted by Mio about their Knight Rider device, we couldn’t wait till the day that we could finally tell you. An officially licensed GPS unit with the original voice of KITT behind it, how could you lose?

Thankfully, you can’t! We have been very fortunate to get this exclusive extensive look at the Mio Knight Rider GPS. No longer will you have a boring list of computerized voices telling you directions on your GPS - now you can have KITT himself!

It’s the first time since the TV Movie Knight Rider 2000 - has William Daniels been involved in anything officially Knight Rider. In fact it had been rumored for quite some time that Daniels wanted nothing to do with the series. We are thrilled that this was not the case, and now we have this device here, complete with newly recorded dialog by Mr. Daniels (this isn’t reused TV clipings, it’s 100% original recordings!)

One of the great unique features with this concept, is that KITT will address the driver by their first name. Simply set your name from the pre-recorded list of hundreds, and off you go. You can be Michael if you want to be a purist, but if your name is Aaron, Joe or David, you can have that personalized experience. (Unfortunately Devon, Bonnie, Wilton are missing from the list, but Mio hopes to address this error)

They’ve also taken several design cues from the Knight 2000. The device has dual nose type designs on the left and right, complete with a red type of scanner insert. However, the actual use of this scanners LEDs is to be KITTs voice box. It’s a pretty neat effect, and initially we were bummed that it wasn’t more accurate to the voice box to the series, but in the end the effect still felt the same.

Yes I realize it would make me one of the biggest dorks in Dorkville and fits in with my Grand Prix about as well as a polar bear in Hawaii, but damned if that doesn’t get my gadget geek revving into overdrive. The deal breaker will be to find out if they have my first name programmed into it.

I never got around to writing about it, but awhile back word was spreading on the blogs about an amazingly overpriced set of ethernet cables being put out by the folks at Denon that supposedly enhanced audio playback to such a degree that they were selling these cables for a mere $500. No, that’s not a typo.

The page lists a lot of bullshit reasons why these cables are supposedly so good for audio playback that only the hyper-credulous could ever buy into, but it has spawned one bit of awesomeness and that’s the greatest Amazon.com customer reviews page ever seen by mortal man. I swear some of these folks must be ad copy people doing work for the Q-Ray and Q-Link scams. Here’s one of my favorites written by customer S. V. Bugaj:

Many people have posted here who appear not to understand the science behind Denon’s cabling and its superior hyperphasal multibit inductive ultraconductance technologies. They assume that there is no way to improve upon the transmissive properties of copper cabling (mainly because they don’t understand the properties of alloying megacopper), or to create a better-than-normal digital signal (BTND coding). I would give this cable eleventy million stars if I could, and once you understand, so will you.

In order to clear things up for the scitards, let me quote to you from the original Denon research literature by Quick & Salwen:

“Work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a new cable technology that will not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but will also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Despite the claims of some critics, such a cable is possible. We call it the Turbo-encable-ator.

The cabling system has a base-plate connector of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings are in a direct line with the pentametric fan. The main cable winding is of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremble pipe to the differential girdlespring on the ‘up’ end of the grammeters.

Forty-one manestically spaced grouting brushes are arranged to feed into the pulse phasing slipstream a mixture of high S-value phenylhydrobenzamine and 5% reminative tetryliodohexamine. Both of these liquids have specific pericosities given by P = 2.5C.n^6-7 where n is the diathetical evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition and C is Cholmondeley’s annular grillage coefficient. Initially, n was measured with the aid of a metapolar refractive pilfrometer, but up to the present date nothing has been found to equal the transcendental hopper dadoscope. It is clear from this that intrapolarphasal preteslence is now empraxified, correlating with an increase in conductive hyperplatitization.

Electrical engineers will appreciate the difficulty of nubbing together a regurgitative purwell and a supramitive wennelsprock. Indeed, this proved to be a stumbling block to further development until, in 1992, it was found that the use of anhydrous nangling pins enabled a kryptonastic boiling shim to the tankered. Spooling of the reframublant diaphanator became possible, allowing for cromulence.

Our early attempts to construct a sufficiently robust spiral decommutator failed, potentially dooming the project, largely because of a lack of appreciation of the large quasi-piestic stresses in the gremlin strands; the latter were specially designed to hold the roffit windings to the spamshaft. When, however, it was discovered that wending could be prevented by a simple addition to the living sockets, almost perfect running was secured. With this problem overcome, we were able to initiate googolpolar preferatory unbinding.

The operating point is maintained as near as possible to the h.f. rem peak by constantly fromaging the bitumogenous spandrels. This is a distinct advance on the standard nivel-sheave in that no dramcock gel is required after the phase detractors have been remissed. Such advances allow for non-holoxified, doubly-flexocorrigent operation.

Undoubtedly, the Turbo-encable-ator has now reached a very high level of technical development. It has been successfully used for generating nofer trunnions. In addition, whenever a barescent skor signal is required, the cable connector may be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocating dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.”

Now that you know the science behind these amazing cables, you can see just what an amazing advance they truly are. With all that R&D behind them, they’d be cheap at twice the price. I haven’t listened to any music across them yet, but all relevant synthetic cableometrics show that the AKDL1 are operates at a very advanced level and should be more than suitable for hyperlistening.

If I ever get around to actually selling my soon-to-be-patented Anti-Alien Anal Probe Ass Shield you can bet your ass I’ll hire Mr. Bugaj to write my ad copy! And that’s just one of many hilarious customer reviews that only the deeply sarcasm impaired could ever mistake as being real.

Found via Boing Boing Gadgets.

I may have to sell a kidney or two to get it, but damn if this isn’t the ultimate workstation for computing and gaming: The Emperor!

At the press of a button, the Emperor’s tail section (the large articulated arm that holds the monitors) rises to allow the user to be seated, then lowers back into position the three monitors at the perfect height and angle for perfect viewing comfort.

The Emperor has three large monitors for a panoramic view, THX Dolby surround sound, air filtering, light therapy (so you can get a tan without having to go out under the sun,) webcam, battery backup, and other niceties. It can be built to order with a desktop Mac or PC, as well as the biggest docking station ever for laptops. If you want one, you will have to go rob a bank—price is not listed yet, but we can imagine lots of zeros in it—and wait for the release date: July 2008.

Click to embiggen!

Oh yeah! Just look at that monster! You’ll dominate any LAN party through sheer intimidation alone.

Found over at Gizmodo.

My mother-in-law recently purchased a Kodak C613 digital camera and finally got around to trying to pull pictures off of it tonight. Like any dutiful consumer she installed the included software which forgoes the simple act of transferring pictures from the camera to your PC in lieu of the unnecessarily complicated goal of being an everything-in-one digital photo album/printing/art project thingy. Kodak calls their software “EasyShare” because it’s supposedly so easy to use. It is, as they say, to laugh.

The software recognizes the camera when you plug it in, but it steadfastly refuses to actually transfer any of the pictures. Instead it lists off all the pictures which it didn’t transfer and doesn’t tell you why. So I told the software to check for upgrades and lo there was one. A lengthy—even by broadband speeds—download and install later the software asked to reboot the PC. Upon starting back up the software announced that it would have to upgrade all the photo albums on the PC to work with the new software. That is, all one of the photo albums which contained a grand total of zero pictures. Clicking the upgrade button presented us with a Fatal Error requester that suggested we run the “repair” function of the install script. So we did and, after another mandatory reboot, the software once again announced it would need to upgrade the photo albums whereupon it once again crashed and suggested we repair the software.

During this entire period the camera itself, despite being detected by the software, never showed up in the Device Manager for Windows. Fed up with the shitty software Kodak provided I proceeded to yank it out by its teeth. Immediately afterward I plugged in the camera, Windows detected it and added it to its device listing, and the built-in Scanner and Camera wizard kicked in and we were able to successfully download and remove the pictures from her camera. All this after an hour and a half of fighting with Kodak’s “easy” software solution.

Say what you will about Windows XP, but that built-in scanner and camera wizard is just this side of perfect.