Notsogood. Vonage Visual Voicemail is a service where they’ll type up your voicemails for you and send them to you in an e-mail. They charge 25 cents per message.

Sounds great, right? You can scan an e-mail quickly, whereas a voicemail can take a few minutes to listen to. With voicemail, you also need to write down any important phone numbers.

Sometimes, it works great, and sometimes it’s awful. For example, here’s how they transcribed a very clear voicemail message:

“Hi. This my sent it. Why iraq at some my name is when i send i’m i’m i’m not a lot of times. I’m calling to come from our point of for tomorrow morning at 8 am fair enough 3 fifty. You have any questions or like changing things he’s gonna so call back at 61739311 a there was. You know. Thank you.”

Notice the phone number is incomplete and it doesn’t tell you who it’s from. Really, it tells you nothing. Here’s the original voicemail message (typed by me):

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If you’re into RC flight, you have ot be into crashing. Even if it means you’ll have to spend hours repairing, a crash is always awesome to see. Here’s a collection of my favorite helicopter crashes.

To the guy on the forum who said you should just follow Radd’s school of flight so you won’t crash, I guess that guy needs to spend more time keeping the heli in the box. More videos after the jump.

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You bought this heli because it’s RTF–Ready To Fly. That means you probably don’t know a swashplate from a flybar. Well, no matter how careful you are, you’re going to crash it at some point. Then, you’re going to need to repair it.

I went through this recently, and here are some things I learned: (more…)

My first crash in my new Falcon 3D remote-controlled helicopter was caused by pilot error. I was comfortable hovering indoors, so I took it outside for the first time. The wind was calm and things were going well. Then, a gentle breeze blew. Now, when a wind hits a helicopter, it makes the helicopter more efficient, and adds lift (transient lift?). The wind caused the heli to gain altitutde from about 3 feet (where I was comfortable hovering) to about 30 feet. That freaked me out and nerves got the best of me, and i lost landed too hard, causing a boom strike (where the main rotor hits the tail boom).

That crash didn’t do much damage. It bent the boom, but I bent it back with my hand.  It also broke one of the main rotor grips, which I glued. Glueing that rotor grip was my biggest mistake, because it re-broke later during normal flight, causing a more serious crash. Now, I know better than to try and glue one of those high-stress parts.

Anyways, after a couple of minor crashes the main gear seemed to be a little rough at certain points in the rotation, and the main shaft seemed a little wobbly, so I decided to replace the boom, boom linkage, tail gears (which had a messed up tooth), main gear, main shaft, and of course the broken blade clip. That was a nightmare–it took me several hours. Most of the parts are cemented together, which makes them very difficult to disassemble. In fact, to remove the tail gear from the shaft, I had to cut it away with a dremel. I tried to replace the spindle shaft, but I couldn’t manage to remove the screws, and finally gave up (it seems ok, though, i just wanted to replace it to be sure).

Anyway, I took a lot of pictures before the repair to help me re-assemble it correctly. The instruction manual does have exploded views, but it’s not always clear how things connect. The pictures are huge to show the most detail, and I’ve adjusted most of them to show detail in the dark plastic.

• Falcon 3D rotors
• Falcon 3D rotors and main gear
• Falcon 3D main gear and swashplate
• Falcon 3D frame, motor, servos, swashplate, main gear, and gyro (right side)
• Falcon 3D frame, motor, servos, swashplate, main gear, and gyro (left side)
• Falcon 3D top view with flybar paddles
• Falcon 3D rotor head set and flybar control arms
• Falcon 3D main gear (notice the bearing in the center and the direection of the arrow)

Sorry, i’d put thumbnails, but I guess WordPress can’t deal with images of that size.

I like RC planes, but it’s a frustrating hobby because you need A LOT of space. So, I decided to look at RC helis, because I can fly them in a much smaller space (even indoors). Here are some of the popular helis with information to help you pick one:

$30:Air Hogs Havoc Heli

These tiny, wildly popular helicopters can only be flown indoors. They Air Hogs are other sub-$50 helis are fun, and you can learn to fly them in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, you have almost no control over them compared to larger helis. All you can do is move up and down or rotate left or right. If you add some weight to the nose, they’ll move forward and fly around. Because of their tiny blades, these aren’t likely to injure you or your pets if they run into you, and they’re pretty durable when you crash them.

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Here’s a crazy variation on Asteroids: SlingStar. You play a floating space eye with two comet satellites. Move your eye with the mouse to sling your comets into the bad guys (everything else). I got to level 14 before I got bored. Crazy.

Here’s a rediculously fun game: Desktop Tower Defense. It’s along the same lines as Flash Circle TD, but the monsters don’t have a pre-defined maze to follow. Instead, they move from the left-to-right and the top-to-bottom (in normal mode). My high score is 4643 in Normal mode, 7022 on the 100-level challenge, and 3454 on Easy, and I feel like I’m nowhere near mastering it.

Use this tip to play it full screen. A full review is available at Jay Is Games.

I love a game that entertains me for five or ten minutes without sucking up my entire day. Bloons is one such game (assuming you can overlook the, uh, overly festive color scheme). A monkey pops balloons. Pac-man makes a cameo. What more do you need to know?

Use this tip to play it full-screen. I got to Level 27 before getting bored.

I just answered a reader question on my other blog that might interest this audience. Mark wanted some guidance on hooking up a TV to his computer. Basically, unless you’re playing games or watching video, I’m against it. I have a Media Center computer hooked up to a very nice plasma now, and it’s great for video, but not much good for anything else. Well, give the blog a read.

I had a friend ask me what to buy for an inexpensive macro setup so he could close-up pictures of the products they make for work. He wanted to be able to get within 1-6 inches of the product, which doesn’t really tell me the magnification he needs, but it gives me some idea that he wants to get closer than most cameras will allow.

I have a very expensive macro setup for my Canon 5d–a Sigma 150mm lens with a Canon ring-flash. That whole setup would run about $4k-$5k, and would be way out of his price range.

The hardest part of macro photography is the lighting, and you really need a ring flash mounted to the front of the lens if you’re not going to setup an entire macro studio. So, I started with the lighting, and found the Nikon Macro Cool Light SL-1 for their CoolPix series of consumer cameras. The best camera that was compatible with that flash is the Nikon Coolpix 5000. To connect the camera to the flash, you’ll need the Nikon UR-E6 adapter. Oh, and you’ll need a CF card for the camera.

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Here’s a simple version of SimCity that you can play in 20 minutes: DotVille. Build farms to create food and markets to make money. If you feed your dots enough, they’ll be happy with you and promote you. The goal is to reach Emporer status, and then to defeat the evil squares in a cunning battle of strategy. OK, there’s not really any strategy in the final battle, but it kept my interest.

Use this tip to play it full screen. It took me two tries to win the game with a high score of 759,124 (proof after the jump). A full review is available at Jay Is Games.

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I sell digital photos on my home page, and the most common question I get is, “Are these pictures 300 DPI?” Unfortunately, I usually can’t answer definitively, because they don’t tell me the size they’re going to print at.

DPI (dots-per-inch) depends on two factors: the resolution of the picture (“dots”) and the size of the image as you will print it (“per inch”). My website shows the resolution for every picture at the top of the page, as part of the pictures description.
For example, this picture has a resolution of 3072 x 2048:

If you wanted to print it at 3×5, it would be 614.4DPI (3072/5=614.4). Vertically, it would be 682.6DPI (2048/3), but you’d need to crop it vertically to get the 3×5 proportions, so the DPI will be the same once it’s cropped.

Question:

Can I add extra pixels in a picture saved im my computer by Photoshop or something else for enlarge or resize it??

Lauro

Brasil

Answer:

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Question:

Hi Tony!

I’m going to try to make this simple. Retired,love my back yard birds of which some species I had to work on attracting them after reading (Back Yard Birds), Woodpeckers,Finches etc. I got good at this and was flabbergasted when I finally got to see my first woodpecker. This was a big event for me and now I want a camera to go along with this great media center windows xp computer with 20” wide screen monitor. I would like to purchased a middle of the road digital camera that is fairly user friendly and yet has some step up settings for defined photos. With so much software out there which would you advise for me in the type/brand of camera and the softwhere that makes things more simple. I also have the printer that can handle this,a ( all in one photo printer ),pic bridge.plenty ram,photo ink & paper,and a wide variety of supported memory cards of different cameras. It would greatly appreciated if you could help me on this subject about which camera and software.

This is a windows xp media center computer and the monitor & photo printer was in mind with this kind of computer. One more thing, a external hard drive. Would it be wise to have one for photo backup or what would be appropriate and gig size. I liked your simple kitchen photos since I also garden peppers of all colors for my homemade salsa. I also would like to be able to make 8×10 portraits-Pixels ?

Sincerely,JDEME

Print a photograph from a memory card Printing tasks Scanning/Copying/Faxing tasks Troubleshooting

Most digital cameras use a media card to store photos. The Dell Photo AIO Printer 964 supports the following digital media and USB keys:

CompactFlash Type I and II

Memory Stick

Memory Stick PRO

SmartMedia

Secure Digital

MultiMediaCard

xD-Picture Card (up to 512 MB)

DELL – 256 MB High Speed USB 2.0 Memory Key, Part Number 311-4341

DELL – 128 MB High Speed USB 2.0 Memory Key, Part Number 311-4340

DELL – 64 MB High Speed USB 2.0 Memory Key, Part Number 311-4339

Answer:

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Question:

Hello Tony

Sorry I am technologically very ignorant. Finally I have managed to set up my blog space. I just cannot figure out how to publish this into RSS.

Hope you could help me.

BTW your notes were very helpful and they help me setup my Windows live space.

Cheers
Satha

Answer:

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Here’s a great way to kill ten minutes on your Sunday morning: NaaC. This simple, two-dimensional, one-room shooter reminds me of asteroids. Move around the room with your cursor keys, and hold down the left mouse button to fire. If you pick up a weapon, click the right mouse button to switch to it. The pace of the game cosntantly increases as new enemies are released into the room. When everything gets quiet, that means you’re about to meet one of the bosses.

For strategy:

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RC airplanes are made up of many different parts. Even if you buy an airplane that’s already assembled, you’re going to need to learn every part if you make more than one flight–because you’re going to break something, and then you’re going to have to fix it.

Don’t worry, airplanes only have a few parts, and they’re all user-replaceable. The parts are:

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I’m a fickle gamer. I love games, but I don’t have much time to play games, so when I do sit down with a controller I want the game to be great.

For years, I just bought games new from the local Circuit City. Often, though, I’d get a game home and realize I hated it, and I was out $50. When GameFly started, I thought, this’ll be cheaper than buying the games, and I won’t have to worry if I get a game that I hate–I just send it back and get another.

I’ve been a GameFly member for more than three years now (since January of 2004), and overall I’d give it 3/5 stars. It does work as advertise–they mail me games, and I send them back postage-free in the included mailer. They’ve always given me whatever game I had at the top of my queue, including games that would have been hard to buy in stores. They sell used games at very cheap prices ($20-$35) for the few occasions that I want to buy one.

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I’ve used Vonage for voice since August, 2004. Voice was okay; it was never great. There was always some delay/latency. Sometimes it wasn’t really noticeable, and other times it was very distracting–it seemed like a whole second between the time you spoke and the time the other person heard you speak. You’d be surprised how awkward that makes conversation, because you’ll often be inadvertently interrupting the person you’re speaking to, and you won’t realize it for a second.

I decided that I needed some Quality of Service (QoS) so I replaced my router with one of these D-Link GamerLounge routers. That series of routers has a much more aggressive QoS than other routers, because it will constantly break large, lower-priority packets into smaller segments. See, while QoS will prioritize realtime traffic like Voice over IP (VoIP) over traffic like Web transfers (say, HTTP and FTP), it can only prioritize queued traffic. That helps, but if the router is in the middle of transferring a large packet, it can’t be interrupted with a VoIP packet, and the VoIP packet has to wait the few milliseconds it takes to transmit the large, lower-priority packet. The GamerLounge routers minimize this effect by fragmenting all large, low-priority outbound packets so that the interruption will be less.

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FrostBite is a platform game that combines Super Mario Brothers and DigDug. Use the cursor keys to move and jump, and use your mouse to aim your grapple. My hi-score is 20850, at which point I got bored. It’s a good game, though, I just have to get back to work.

Use this tip to play it full screen. A full review is available at Jay Is Games.