Long time readers of this blog knows I canceled my Vonage to switch over to Ooma for free VOIP, saving me tons of money. But at the end, Vonage managed to give me a swift kick in my crotch with their $40 cancellation fee. End of story, right?

Maybe not. Apparently, some money hungry lawyers sued Vonage in a class action lawsuit and won a bunch of money for us ex-Vonage folk. I signed up for it to get my money back from them but I’m not really sure why they’re not allowed to have a cancellation free when just about every wireless phone company lives off of this fee.

Vonage class action lawsuit

Who knows. Maybe this is just a scam to get my name and address. I’ll believe it when I get my check in the mail and it clears.

Androidify.com

If you ever wanted to look like the Android logo, but dressed up like you, try this Android app from Androidify.com.

In case you haven’t heard yet, you can now take credit cards for payments via your iPhone or Android phone. All you have to do is open a free account at Square Up and they will send you a credit card reader like the one shown below. It plugs into the headphone jack on top of the iPhone or Andriod device.

Card reader goes into headset jack

When the app is launched, it will ask for the dollar amount that you enter using the screen keyboard provided. Next, you swipe the card through the reader. After that, you will see a screen like the one below where the purchaser will be able to sign his/her name using their finger.

Customer signs on screen

Once that is done, you will be presented with a screen that asks the purchaser if they want a receipt via email as shown below.

Get a receipt via email

That’s it. Very simple. Now anybody with an iPhone or Android phone can accept credit cards. The money under $1,000 goes right into your checking account. If you have more than $1,000 it takes longer or you can contact Square Up to arrange something with them.

As for cost, that’s the beauty of this service because there’s no monthly fee. If you only use this once every other month, there’s no cost when you aren’t using it. The fine print is that for each transaction, they charge 2.75% + 15 cents if you swipe the card and 3.5% plus 15 cents if you key enter the information (without swiping the card).

For people that don’t want to open a corporate account with their bank and pay a monthly fee, this is a perfect solution. Next time your friend can’t pay you his half of lunch because he has no cash, just whip out your iPhone, plug in the credit card reader and get paid.

After getting my new Alienware laptop with the backlit keyboard, my desktop keyboard started looking… well… dark. I really started wishing that my desktop keyboard was backlit like my new laptop.

There’s a bunch of gamer backlit keyboards available but they are expensive and not what I need. After looking around a bit, I came across the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard (model 920-000914) for $79.99. It was on sale for $59.99 at Best Buy.

Entire keyboard

The specs:

• Adjustable backlit keys (4 levels of brightness)
• PerfectStroke key system (eliminating slippage and delivering fluid and natural strokes)
• Music and volume controls
• Ultra-thin
• Soft-touch integrated palm rest

Ultra-thin design

This keyboard only works for PCs (sorry Mac users) and connects to your computer via USB cable that’s coming out of the keyboard. Although the keyboard comes with drivers on a CD, I just plugged the keyboard into the USB port and everything worked fine.

As you can see from the picture above, there’s clear plastic all around it and the keys are very low profile, along with the entire ultra-thin keyboard. Basically, they used the same technology that is used in laptops to make thin keyboards for this desktop keyboard. And as with laptop low profile keyboards, it is very quiet compared to the old school PC keyboards that make a lot of noise.

This post is being written from this keyboard and I can report that if you are used to using laptop keyboards with low profiles, you will quickly adjust to this keyboard. However, if you are used to using high profile keys that travel a long distance, you might need some time to adjust to this keyboard.

Backlit keyboard

There are also a few subtle difference with this keyboard compared to the standard PC keyboard. Normally, the backspace and backslash keys are slightly longer. On this keyboard, they are not as long as you might be used to. The entire top row is about 5mm to the right of regular keyboards. I’m not exactly sure why they decided to do that.

Also, the delete key in the middle area is vertically larger and takes up the space that normally would be the insert key. The insert key is above the delete where the “Print Screen” key would normally be. The “Windows” key on the right side is replaced with a “FN” function key which can be used in conjunction with the regular function keys as shown below.

Function keys

If you’re looking for a backlit keyboard for your PC, and don’t mind the thin laptop like profile keyboards, this one is for you. No more having to turn on my light to see where the keys are.

After watching the mayhem from the last iteration of iPhone mania, I already knew it would not be easy to reserve the new iPhone 4 online. But something like that has not stopped me in the past and won’t deter me now. I knew standing in line at the Apple store, going to AT&T, Best Buy or Radio Shack would be out of the question. From my past experience, I know that most of the clerks won’t even know what I’m talking about and/or just help me go to the Apple or AT&T website.

Starting at midnight, I started refreshing the Apple website on the iPhone page once every 10-15 minutes and got nothing very interesting. After many attempts, I finally got this screen.

Ready for pre-order?

When I tried to start the pre-order process, I kept getting this message below:

Apple server confused or busy

Inactivity!? I’m typing my address in as fast as I can. After a while, I figured out that the website was not really ready to take my pre-order so I waited. When I tried again later, I kept getting this message below:

Apple website probably being updated

When I got the “Oops!” message, there was no way to return back to the normal part of the Apple website except just to re-start from scratch. On one of my tries, I got this crazy screen:

Whoa! WTF!?

I have no idea what this error means but I’m sure my pre-order didn’t go through. Then around 3am, I finally got this message.

Apple website getting ready for pre-orders

This is what happened last time when they were pre-order selling the iPad so I already knew that I would have to wait until about 5-5:30am until the website was back up. While doing other work on my computer, I kept periodically refreshing the browser.

At about 5:30-ish, I was able to get back on but still kept getting errors. I was not able to get the online store to ship to me, maybe because I’m not a current AT&T customer, or because the AT&T servers were overtaxed, so I decided to try picking it up at the Apple store.

By the way, the white iPhone is not available for pre-order. If that’s what you want, you’ll just have to wait. Personally, I like the black one better. It looks more Vader-ish.

But I digress.

After several attempts at trying to do the pickup at the Apple store, I finally got to this:

Booyah!! Jackpot!

According to their email, I have to the end of business day on June 24 to pick up my iPhone at the Apple store. Nice.

In hindsight, I probably should have just waited a few hours and let everybody use the servers, then did my pre-ordering. But what would be the fun in that?

Since I’m going to have to update this website from the WSOP, I needed to upgrade my traveling laptop. After looking at all the current tiny Netbooks, I decided I needed one with a lot more power. The only laptop that’s very small with the power I was looking for was, of course from Alienware.

Alienware AM11X-2719CSB

I won’t bore you with the details but once again, Best Buy failed when it came down to their consistent problem of inventory mix-ups. The first one supposedly had 3 in stock but none were to be found. To make matters worse, they really didn’t give damn about it and was happy to see my leave their store. While there, I used their computer to look to see which other stores had it in stock and arrived at the second store in about 20 minutes.

The in-store inventory at the second store indicated there were none left but I forced the clerk to hunt down the online reserved ones in the back. After a few minutes, he came out with a completely black box. Success. It’s a wonder how Best Buy stays in business with their consistent incompetence.

Top of Box

Buy I digress.

I basically ran out of the store with my new laptop, just happy to get out of the hell hole.

Inside the all black box is another all black box shown above. Alienware is known for cool looking boxes but the inside box was over the top with the Alien-font writing.

Box inside box with Alien writing

Under this box is the actual laptop covered in a cloth protective cover. Nice touch.

Laptop inside protection

While at Best Buy, I tested the Netbook keyboards on the Toshiba, HP, Dell, and Acer and the Toshiba’s keyboard was unusable. Dell was the best. The HP keyboard was OK but the touchpad click is part of the touchpad and cause the cursor to move around. This is the worse design in the world.

So after seeing these marginal keyboards and touchpads, it was great to see how well designed the Alienware keyboard and touchpad was. I tested it extensively at the store, typing in several paragraphs. Also, this baby is backlit and you can even change the color of the backlighting. More on that later.

Backlit keyboard

The spec on the AM11X are as follows:

• 1.3GHz Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor SU7300, 800MHz system bus, 3MB cache
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB
• 11.6″ LCD widescreen LED backlit display (1366 x 768 max)
• 250GB Serial ATA hard drive (7200 rpm)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M graphics, 1GB GDDR3 memory
• Two built-in front speakers with high-definition 5.1 Surround Sound
• Built-in 1.3MP webcam
• Wireless LAN card (802.11b/g/n)
• Built-in 10/100 Ethernet LAN
• Weighs 3.8 lbs. and 1.3″ thick
• Long battery life (up to 5 hours and 35 minutes)
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit operating system
• $899.99 at Best Buy with above options. Alienware has a basic version for $799.

As you can see from the Windows Experience Index below, the graphics causes the index to be lower but the other numbers are more than decent for a small laptop.

Windows Experience Index

The photo below shows the left side of the laptop with the connectors, including the HDMI port to display on a large screen and the DisplayPort for projectors. The Firewire connector is the tiny version so you may need an adapter to connect.

Left - VGA, USB, Network, HDMI, DisplayPort, 3-in-1 Media, Firewire

On the right side, there are less connectors, including 2 USB ports, 2 headphone connectors and a microphone connector. Compared to the left side, this side looks empty. On the larger units, I assume they have the DVD drive on this side.

Right - 2 headphone, microphone, 2 USB

To change the LED colors for the different areas of the laptop (including the backlit keyboard), run the “Alienware Command Center” app and you will see the display below. From there, you can independently change the colors of the lighting. Most people will think this is over-kill but this is what makes me drool. I love toys inside of toys that do nothing but makes things look cool. Kudos to Alienware for knowing their audience.

Command center for LED color changing

The laptop comes with a pre-installed face recognition software to login to Windows 7. It seems to work when there’s good lighting but does not work properly in dark lighting. As with the fingerprint login on my Toshiba, it’s more for the coolness factor than something that you’re actually going to use.

Summary:
Compared to other Netbooks, this laptop is thicker and heavier. However, compared to other laptops, this is light and tiny and just as fast. The screen is slightly larger than the Netbooks but small compared to almost any laptop. There is no built-in CD/DVD reader/writer so you’ll need an external one. Even with the smaller keyboard, it’s very easy to use and the backlight makes it easy to see in the dark.

All in all, if you need the speed and power of a regular laptop, but don’t want to carry around a regular sized laptop, this is the model for you. I wouldn’t recommend it for a game machine because of the screen size and small speakers. I think it’s perfect for power users on trips or on the go and so far I’m happy with it.

After getting my new Samsung Syncmaster, but using my old analog cable, I decided to “upgrade” to a DVI cable. When I looked online at Best Buy, this is what I found on Best Buy.

$60 sure sounded high, so I took a quick look on Amazon.com and found this.

There was actually a cheaper one on Amazon but I didn’t like one of the review comments that said it was DOA and decided to pay $6 more for what I’m hoping is better quality. With shipping, the total came out to only $20, which is still $40 cheaper than Best Buy. However, I had to wait 6 days to get it in the mail.

The cable is 10′ long, which is plenty long enough from my computer to my new monitor. There’s no noticeable difference between the analog image and the DVI digital image but I feel better about going digital.

The last time I complained about Best Buy, their website inventory system told me they had the item for pickup, then it turned out they didn’t, then they did. So when I needed a new large screen LCD HDTV, this bad experience made me scared to order it online.  First, I looked online and saw that my local Best Buy did have them for pickup. But resisting just buying it online, I visited the retail store.

Lo and behold, the retail salesman tells me they only have one in stock and that it’s the floor model, which cannot be sold. WTF!? If I was a normal shopper, this would have been the end of it. Best Buy loses a sale and I don’t get my HDTV.

I didn’t even try arguing about it with him. I left and went home to my computer, and bought it online. I got a confirmation email in 15 minutes that it was indeed available at the same store I just visited.

Upon returning to the store within 30 minutes, the LCD HDTV was waiting for me to pickup. I just don’t know what to do now. Buying online the first time turned into a nightmare. This time, it would have been the quicker method.

So what the moral of this story? Best Buy’s inventory system is clearly F-ed up and needs to be fixed. If they don’t remedy this sooner than later, mark my words, they will be the next Circuit City.

Recently, I was trying to make reservations on Southwest Airlines’ website using Firefox. For the life of me, I was not able to make it work. Yes, I’m using the current version of Firefox. Maybe that’s the problem.

All I had to do was switch over to Internet Explorer and everything was right in the world again.

I really don’t blame the Southwest website designers for this problem because I know how hard it is to keep your website working for all versions of all browsers on all platforms. It’s a real headache.

So it’s been 3 years since I originally reviewed the Buffalo TeraStation NAS RAID drive I got. As you can see from the picture below, the red light indicates a drive failure.

The firmware automatically found the error and indicated the error on the LCD display, and of course turned on the red LED so that it was obvious that there was a problem.

To launch the Admin Web interface, launch the NASNavigator2 app for the device. Go to “Menu,” then “Properties,” then “Launch Web Admin.”

This will launch your browser which will be connected to the NAS device and will be presented with a login screen. Enter your username and password. Because of the drive failure, the status will indicate that the drive will have to be fixed. Click on the link to fix the drive and the process will start automatically.

The fix will take a while so you can just let the procedure run overnight. The instructions tells you that you may not get back all the data depending on the severity of the error. After the procedure was finished, I looked around on the drive and it appears that everything was restored but it’s impossible to tell for sure.

All in all, it was relatively painless and I didn’t even have to call customer service.