You may recall that I had a heck of a time getting an adapter for my LG EnV2 from Best Buy. Well, unfortunately for me, after only 24 hours of use, the adapter started to make scratching noises. It got so bad, it became useless in just 2 uses. What a quality product.

To make sure nobody buys this piece of crap product, I’ll put it’s picture below once again.  You can find it at Best Buy in the car & GPS section of the store.

Well, I still needed a working adapter so I finally broke down and checked the Radio Shack website.  Unlike the prices at Fry’s or Amazon, their price was a little more at $11.  That would be on the high side compared to the other places, but then it’s Radio Shack after all.  That’s what they’re known for.  But like 7-11, it’s really close.  In fact, there are no less than 4 Radio Shacks close to me.

Upon entering the store, the lady (yes, a female clerk at Radio Shack!) walked up and I explained what I wanted.  She went to the adapter section and they had everything there, including a Y adapter, 3.5mm to 2.5mm, female to female, except for what I wanted.

Interestingly, the one I wanted was placed in the cell phone area of the store, of all places.  The place that I would automatically assume it should be located, is exactly where Radio Shack put it.  The clerk told me that they had moved just that item over to the cell phone section recently.

These guys are a little smarter than Best Buy, that’s for sure.  Maybe there’s a reason why these guys have been around so long. The item is shown below on their website.

Although this adapter isn’t as slick looking as the one from Best Buy, at least it works.  So this round goes to Radio Shack of all places.

As you may know, I downgraded to the LG EnV2 because I hated the touchscreen on the Voyager. In any case, the headphone jack on the EnV2 (and probably all LG) is 2.5mm, and not the 3.5mm for normal headsets.  This means that I need a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter to use a headset to listen to my music on the LG.  I decided to take a look on Amazon to see what was available.

The list below shows what pops up on Amazon when you search for “2.5mm 3.5mm.”  Some items were only $2, up to around $12, but with shipping, it would be more like $7 to $19 or so.  And of course, I’d have to wait for it in the mail, which I wasn’t in any mood for.

Next, I did a search on Fry’s website and got the following list with the same search.  On here, they have adapters from 99 cents up to $5. Of course, the problem with Fry’s website is that there’s no direct connection between the online items and what’s available in their stores.  You can call them, but sometimes it’s very hard to find out if something is in stock at the store.  There’s no Fry’s close to me so I decided to keep searching.

Next, I did the same search on Best Buy’s website and came up with the following list.

As you can see, Best Buy’s search sucks big time. It lists 4 items which have nothing to do with what I was looking for.  For that matter, I couldn’t figure out how my 2.5mm search was matched with those items.  If you have any online store, rule #1 is to make sure that your searches work properly so people can find what they want.

In any case, being the Internet savvy guy that I am, I googled Best Buy’s website by using the search “site:bestbuy.com 2.5mm 3.5mm” and came up with the following list:

As you can see above, the top item on google’s list is exactly what I wanted.  I clicked on it and found the following item below on Best Buy’s website:

Interestingly, the item is under “Car & GPS”, then “Antennas & Adaptors.”  Sure.  I would have easily found this.  NOT!  Unfortunately, this item comes with a bunch of other adapters that I don’t really need, along with the one that I do need.  But since Best Buy is close, and they do have the “pick up at store” option, I decided to go ahead and pay $15 for the conveinience.

This last decision turned out to be a big mistake.

The closest Best Buy did not have this item in stock.  However, all the other ones did.  So I ordered it for pickup at the second closest store in West LA. The following email came back 20 minutes later telling me the store did not have it in stock and that I would have to call their 888 number.

After going back on to the Best Buy website and figuring out that there is no way to cancel the order, or to even change it for pickup at another store, I was forced to call their toll free number. After going through their bot, the nice lady on the phone changed my order to the Culver City store, which is the 3rd closest.

After another 20 minutes, I got another email telling me the Culver City store was out of stock.  OMG!  Now, I’ve already spent almost an hour with this crap. I could have almost driven to Fry’s and back in that time.

Once again, I call Best Buy and this time, another nice lady answers the call but she can tell that I’m getting pretty frustrated by now. She tells me that the online inventory is separate from the in-store inventory and that she will check the in-store inventory for me.  After a few clicks, she tells me that the West LA store does indeed have 6 in-store and that I can simply go to the store and pick it up.  So she cancels my online order, and out the door I go.

So next time, I’m just going to call the toll free number and ask for the in-store inventory instead of using their stupid website.  That’s the lesson I learned here.

I wish my story ended here but it goes on a little more.  When I got to the store, I decided I wanted to test the in-store people to see how smart they were.  At the entrance, the cell phone section had 3 live clerks helping people. I went to the first one and asked if they had a adapter for my LG EnV2 so I can use a headset. She told me no.  So, I showed her the SKU number for the item I was looking for.  She told me to ask the second guy there.  So far, this is a fail.

I go up to the second guy and ask the same question. He types in the SKU number but it doesn’t come up because unknown to me, I wrote it down wrong. He does a search on the Best Buy website and comes up with the same stupid list that I got. BWAHAHA!  I tell him how to use google to find it and he’s amazed how well google works.

He sees the item on his computer but can’t figure out exactly where it is. We walk to the MP3 area and it’s not there. He asks the Geek Squad guy walking by and he knows that it’s in the car adapter area.  He walks me there and finds the item.

Basically, this last guy is the only person that really helped me find my item. The online store pickup, didn’t help me, except to tell me to go into the store.  The first lady at the store didn’t help me. Only this last guy helped me.

Most people would have given up BEFORE the second call to Best Buy.  That should be an indicator to Best Buy that something is wrong with their setup and they will soon be on their way holding hands with Circuit City if they don’t do something about it.

Dont’ say I didn’t warn you, Best Buy.

I don’t know how long they’ve been doing this, but apparently, you can get a 10% discount on your order if the clerk likes you.  It’s called a 10% neighbor discount.  I guess that means that you have to be a regular customer or something.  Not sure if you can just ask for it, or you have to go there a lot for the clerk to recognize you.  It doesn’t hurt to ask for it.  10% discount on $2.50 is a whopping 25 cents.  In this economy, you need to save every cent.

While playing at a tournament in LA, a guy told me to checkout the Hard Rock poker room.  So while I was in Vegas, I decided to check it out.

Before I even got to the poker room, I noticed some go-go dancers doing pole work in the Casino itself. They are the “Hard Rock Hell’s Belles” dancers doing their thing at the black jack tables.  And these girls are actually hot.  I really wanted to walk over and tip them but I decided to control myself.

When I got to the poker room, which is kind of hidden away in the back, the first thing I noticed was the good looking hostess that walks you over to the table.  However, that turned out to be nothing compared to 2 dealers they had there who were hotties.  I don’t mean hot for a female dealer.  I mean HOT!  One was named Bella, and the other was a blond who’s name I can’t remember right now.  Bella was wearing fishnet stockings, mini-skirt and 4 inch high heals.  No, I’m not joking.

When was the last time you saw a poker dealer wearing a mini-skirt?  When was the last time you saw a dealer you wanted to see in a mini-skirt?

Just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m pretty used to looking at attractive females.  Your average wannabe Paris Hilton does nothing for me.  You have to be really hot for me to even take notice.  And Bella and the blond were both hotties.

So I’m playing and trying not to stare at the dealers, and up walks a stunning blond player.  WTF?  Yes, that’s right. Even the players looked good here.  Then a couple sits down, and they look like models.  I was clearly the ugliest player there.  No, the ugliest person there.

In any case, if you want to play around some really good looking people, this is the place to go. For more details on their strange “Hard Rock Straddle,” see my poker site.

This year, the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) was fairly small and some of the industry people didn’t show up. One thing I can tell you is I had a hell of a time trying to get my entry wrist-band because I paid for it online before the show.  The “Triple X Crew” where I bought my online tickets were so disorganized, it took longer for them to figure out what to do with me than for me to just stand in line and buy the ticket at the show.  It was horrible.  I’ll never do that again.

As for the show, I haven’t been to it in 10 years.  So it seemed very small to me, but I don’t know how it was last year.  I didn’t really see anything super interesting there except some lighting equipment that I might want to buy. Here are some of what I saw there.

The last time I went to CES was back in the 90′s. In fact, if I remember correctly, I think I went every year for 18 years or so before I stopped going.

Well, I decided to return to CES and by chance, it happened to be the first CES in many years that had less people than the year before, probably because of this little recession thingie.

In any case, other than the Palm Pre announcement and the demo of Windows 7 Beta, I really didn’t see anything all that exciting. The Palm Pre looks very promising as the first “real” iPhone killer. This thing blows the Android OS out of the water. Windows 7 is basically Vista 2.0 and nothing at all to write home about. Some people are saying that Windows 7 may come out of Beta around September 2008. If so, that’s about when I should be almost used to using Vista, and not about to spend any more money on an OS from Microsoft.

Here are pictures of some cool rides I saw at the show.

The picture below is a concept car from Hyundai with some sophisticated electronics in it. When will it be out in the wild?  Who knows.

This last picture below is the TV set (CRT at SD resolution) in my room at Bally’s, showing off it’s “Blue screen of death.” It’s amazing how many places Windows is being used.  Even to check out from my room can cause Windows to crash.  Nice.

As you may already know, I’ve been slowly trying to move from Windows XP to Vista and have been encountering some differences.  One big difference is that Vista no longer supports the old XP Web Publishing Wizard.  In case you don’t know what that is, it’s a Wizard that helps you upload pictures onto a website without having to use FTP.  It’s very useful if you have a picture gallery on your website.

Well, it turns out that Vista still has this feature, but it’s hidden.

On one of my websites, I use Coppermine Photo Gallery for the picture gallery.  The application creates a .REG file that you can use to modify your registry to automatically setup to use the XP Web Publishing Wizard. The name of the file it creates will be something like “cpg_1157950751.reg” or with some other random numbers.  Inside this file, you will find a line as shown below:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\PublishingWizard\
PublishingWizard\Providers\websitename]

Now, replace the second “PublishingWizard” with “InternetPhotoPrinting,” as shown below.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\PublishingWizard\
InternetPhotoPrinting\Providers\websitename]

Now, double click on the .REG file to execute it.  The Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE) will execute your .REG file and create entries that will allow you to upload images to your website.  You will get a warning window first telling you that you are about to modify your registry.  After you click “OK,” you will get a confirmation window telling you that the entry was created.

Next, open “Windows Photo Gallery” from the Start menu.  If you can’t find it, type in “Photo Gallery” in the search box at the bottom and it will most likely be the first item at the top.

Launch it, and use the program to find the photos that you want to upload to your website.  Highlight the photos that you want to upload.

Now, click on “Print” from the upper menu area as shown below.  Next, click on “Order prints…” as shown.

Next, you will get a window to order prints, as shown below. Scroll down to the entry that was just created for your website. Click on it and a window will open with the application running on your website.

Once you have executed your upload, the next time you run Windows Photo Gallery, your website will be listed in the pull-down menu from “Print,” so that you don’t have to look through the long list of printing companies any longer.

Also, if I remember correctly, in the XP version, there was an option to resize the images before uploading.  Unfortunately, the Vista version does not seem to have this option.  This means that you will have to manually resize the images before you do your uploading.  It’s an extra step but it’s still easier than having to do everything manually via FTP.

It’s good to know that Microsoft decided to take out one of the truely great features of XP in Vista.  No wonder these guys are doing so well.  Love your Vista TV ads too, Microsoft.  Keep up the good work.

So now that I have my new JVC HD camcorder, I wanted to improve the images by getting a lighting adapter. After looking around the “Interwebs,” I came accross this interesting Ring light from SR Electronics called the Digi-Slave L Ring 3200 (MSRP $269.95).  After ordering online, the unit was shipped very quickly.

L Ring 3200 with LED cover on

This LED based close-up photography light/flash can be used as a continuous light source for videography. In my case, it’s for making home made pr0n and other indoor activities where the lighting conditions are not great.  The “ring” is made up of a bunch of white LEDs and is amazingly bright.

The unit uses 4 AA batteries or you can plug it into an adapter (not included) but that would make it less portable when you’re moving around.

With the brightness setting at the highest level, it’s very bright and might be too bright for using in close-up situations, especially pointed at the face.  At the lowest setting, it’s still bright enough for normal close-up situations.

Left side close-up showing brightness control and left/right on/off switch

The picture above shows the knob for the brightness control.  It’s a bit small for my taste but I suspect that most people who use this may not be changing the setting all that often.  The little switch causes the left/right side of the ring to turn on/off.  This is for photography where the objective is to make the item look more 3D.  For most uses, one would normally have both sides turned on.

Right side close-up showing on/off DC input and sync

The picture above shows the on/off switch, the DC input and sync plug if you are using this unit for still photography.

L-Ring LEDs on

The picture above shows the unit with the LEDs on at full brightness.  As you can see, it’s pretty bright and will be able to light up objects or people 10-20 feet away.

The following pictures show the light in action.  The first picture below shows an object with regular indoor ambient lighting.  The object is about 12-15 inches from the camcorder.

Ambient lighting only

The following picture shows the same object using the built in LED light of the JVC unit.  As you can see, the small LED causes uneven lighting, not to mention a blue-ish tint.

JVC built in LED light

The next photograph shows the Digi-Slave with the LED brightness setting to it’s lowest level.  As you can see, the lighting is more even than the previous picture.  However, there is a similar blue tint as with the JVC LED.  This might be something that could be reduced or removed via white balancing on the JVC but this test was done with the automatic setting.

L-Ring set to lowest level

In the following last picture, the Digi-Slave unit is set to the brightest level. Now you can see that the lighting is much more even and the blue tint is gone.

L-Ring set to highest level

All in all, I’m happy with this product which operates and works exactly as advertised.  It’s a little bit on the expensive side but if you want your amateur pr0n to look good, you have to pay the piper.

After an absence for 10 years, I will be returning to CES (the Consumer Electronic Show) and the AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo) in January 2009.  Even though I haven’t been in the electronics industry for many years now, you may have noticed from this website, gadgets are my life.  So, I’ve decided it was time to return to my roots.

Of course, there’s also the added incentive of knowing some new adult talent who will be at AEE.  In my fantasy, she’s going to hook me up with some of her co-workers.  Then, I woke up from my dreams.

At CES, I’ll be looking at any and all small HD camcorders that record on any solid state media, spy cameras, new cool cell phones, stuff for my PS3, and anything else that gives me a gadget woody.

I will be reporting directly from the show starting January 8th.  Stay tuned.

For Christmas, my friends gave me a bunch of PS3 games.  Nice.  One of the first things Bioshock does, is to try to download a newer version of the game to the hard drive.  However, everytime I tried to do this, it would fail.  My WiFi Internet connection was fine and I am able to use the browser to look at website.  Hmmm.

Upon checking the Playstation website, one of the recommendations they have is to disable the media server connection. To do so, just go to “Settings,” “Network Settings,” “Media Server Connection,” and select “disable.”

After making this small change, the download worked perfectly.  I guess I can’t have both going at the same time.  If I was an Internet wizard, I’d be able to figure out why this is the case.  But since I’m not, I’ll just turn this feature on and off as needed.