Placing a large order at Amazon recently has taught me two things:

1) They do indeed have a customer service number. You won’t find it anywhere on the site, but you can dig it up.

The number is: (800) 201-7575.

2) If they lower the price on an item you purchased within the last 30-days, they will offer you a refund for the difference, no questions asked. Just fill out the Returns & Refunds Form explaining your situation. You should get a reply within 24-hours.

Two more reasons to keep shopping Amazon, IMO.

Paul Thurrott on Apple TV:

For these reasons, Apple TV is recommended only for those people who have drunk the Apple Kool-Aid and decided they really like the taste and can afford the upscale lifestyle. General fans of digital media or those who are interested in accessing PC-based media from their TVs should know that there are better solutions out there.

That’s fine and all, but he also says:

For the same price, you could get an Xbox 360 and use that device to stream media from any XP or Vista-based PC, access live and recorded TV, various online music, movie, and photo services via its Media Center Extender functionality and a Media Center PC, or download rented and purchased TV shows and movies, many in high definition (unlike iTunes, which only offers standard definition video).

The Xbox 360 “tard pack” is $299, the same price as Apple TV. This does not include a hard drive, or high-definition cables (the box includes “low-def” composite cables, not component) so his point that Apple does not include cables is moot.

The $399 unit (that’s $100 more than Apple TV) comes with a hard drive (a whopping 20GB, with ~8GB free when you take it out of the box thanks to the system software), half the size of Apple’s. It also lacks HDMI output, so all content suffers from an unnecessary digital to analog conversion.

There’s also no internal wireless connection on the 360 (that’s $99 more), bringing the overall price to $100 - $200 over the price of the Apple TV.

But in all fairness, the Xbox 360 does do more:

It also plays DVD movies, and, heck, it can play high-definition video games too. Yes, the thing sounds like a wind tunnel, especially when its playing games, but it’s far more versatile and powerful device than the Apple TV. And it costs exactly the same price.

However, Paul fails to mention that the Xbox 360 has worse DVD playback quality than most $99 stand-alone units. Besides, can you really enjoy a film with the box screeching like a F16 the entire time?

As for games, not everyone looking for a media center device is in the market for a hardcore gaming console. Rewind back to 1977, it would be like buying an 8-track player with a pinball machine grafted onto it. Convergence, bleh.

Not to worry, BOHICA, Microsoft will soon roll out a $480 Xbox with a 120GB HDD and HDMI. If you add the external HD-DVD drive ($200) that’s quite an expensive (not to mention unsightly) media center device.

When you add it all up, if a high-end game machine *slash* media center device is what you’re after, you’re better off getting a Playstation 3. You get a Blu-Ray player, internal HDD, internal Wi-Fi, HDMI, and high definition gaming for $599, almost $200 less than the Microsoft solution. All in one nice, quiet package.

So, basically, I’d recommend Apple TV on the low-end, the PS3 on the high end.

It seems I spoke too soon in saying Apple TV does not support alternate codecs. Perian is an OSS component wrapper for Quicktime which supports a boatloat of formats, Xvid and DivX included.

Consider it a done deal, I’m sold. I looks like the little white box has a very bright future indeed.

Wow. I didn’t realize Google Reader was so damn good.

If you’re used to the Gmail interface and are looking for a feed reader, it’s a no brainer.

I’m sad to see that Apple TV does not support Xvid or Divx. As much as I want one, I’m not going to pay $299 for a box that plays only State approved content. The same goes for the Xbox 360’s Media Center Extender functionality. Unnecessarily gimped.

I don’t see how offering alternative codecs hurts the bottom line, unless you’re from the camp that believes all Xvid content is pirated. If that’s the case, I guess all MP3 content is pirated as well, right?

Update: Somebody has already gotten Xvid to work, though it’s not a pretty solution.

I thought I was going to wait until July, but I broke down and joined the HD Era ahead of schedule. This morning I pulled the trigger and ordered a Samsung LN-S4695D (46″ 1080p LCD).

I was tossing around between the Sharp Aquos LC46D62U and the Sony KDL-46XBR2. From what I read, the Sharp models have a serious banding issue and the Sony models have clouding issues and the price includes the Sony tax.

Samsung has a newer model (LNS4696D) but as far as I can tell the only differences on the new model are USB 1.1, Firewire, and a cable card slot. Nothing I would miss, or pay an extra $400 for.

Now what the hell am I going to do with a 46″ set in a 600-square-foot apartment???

I might just be getting on in years, but is Twitter not the stupidest fucking idea to come along in a long while?

Maybe Mike Judge is a prophet after all?

Hello WordPress.

Sums up the whole ball of wax, IMO.

If you weren’t aware of it before, you probably know it by now. Anything interesting or useful that rears its head on Slashdot will likely be ripped to shreds by what has quickly become the nets most vicious and petty peanut gallery.

Slashdottians know nothing, they accomplish nothing, and their opinions are worth nothing. They are uniformly bitter, small-minded geeks who overestimate their own importance and their own skillz. They are, for the most part, losers. Their biggest accomplishment is in insulting others’ spelling and grammar, attacking the GPL license despite their grade level understanding of it, and tricking people into clicking on goatse.cx links. They are know-it-all blowhards who use their computers primarily for Pornography and online gaming, at which they cheat regularly to offset their complete lack of motor skills.

Despite touting the wonderous greatness of linux and open source, they all use Windows and Internet Explorer. They like Macs because of OSX, but want it to run on X86 so they can steal a copy and give nothing back. They will eventually buy a Mac due to their inability to run Windows without crashing it constantly by their own stupidity, and become raving unbalanced lunatics who do more harm than good for the Mac community by claiming that the G4 is quadruple the speed of a dual 3Ghz Xeon box.

They lie about their own experience to make their case, and when you win an argument with them, they post anonymously in order to tell you they’ve had sex with your mother.

Don’t become a regular here, you will become retarded.

Signed,
Yoda the Retard

Link

Possibly the coolest game demo I have ever seen.

LittleBigPlanet