Archive for the ‘Product Reviews’ Category
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
I needed a trailer to replace my XF falcon ute. To be flexible enough to replace the ute, I wanted a flatbed with removable sides. That would let me carry longer loads, larger loads, and store it where I wanted. I did not want a box trailer – too many limitations for my needs.
I own a large heavy car trailer, so this was to be light and simple instead. Up to the legal un-braked limit of 750kg. As I am legally limited to this weight, it made sense for the trailer to be as light as possible. This would leave more room for payload. Making it extra heavy duty wouldn’t let me carry any more load. I wasn’t planning on using it off-road. Read more... (1293 words, 12 images, estimated 5:10 mins reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, May 15th, 2010
I love my Maglites. I know technically there may be better out there, but they have such a nice solid feel to them as you thump them over someone’s ….. err, well, anyway.
Whilst they are good quality, they very old tech, so a swap to LED’s was in order. LED’s offer greater output, 5 – 10x battery life, and are much more shock proof.
The debate as to “which bulb is best” goes on endlessly, so I settled for those that I could source from eBay and post to Australia. Read more... (539 words, 6 images, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)
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Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
When I changed over to Naked ADSL2+ with Internode, I had to sort out a replacement for the home phone. It was a tough journey and about 12mths of problems before I found a reliable combination of devices.
The problems ranged from
- Failure to ring
- Low Volume
- Dropped calls mid call
- One way voice
- Poor call quality
After 12 mths of drama’s I found only Panasonic DECT handsets where reliable with the VOIP solutions.
I also found that running a “single box” solution is less hassles than “multiple box” solutions.
DECT has a much greater cordless range than most other handsets. Read more... (425 words, 11 images, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)
This is a preview of
Finally – Reliable Cordless Phones and VOIP on Naked ADSL
.
Read the full post (425 words, 11 images, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)
Posted in IT, Product Reviews | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Cheapest LED Bulb
Here’s a great hack. KMart is selling these torches for about $3.50 with batteries. The LED in this is fitted to a normal sized bulb fitting, meaning it can be taken out and put directly into any 2 Cell torch, AA, C or D.
http://www.dorcy.com/products.aspx?p=412503
It’s a very bright 10mm LED in a normal bulb fitting. No regulator circuitry.
This has to be the cheapest source of LED drop in bulbs for torches I have found. Or you could just use the torch. Read more... (132 words, 2 images, estimated 32 secs reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews, Tree Hugging | No Comments »
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
Review from someone that has owned both.
Summary
Despite very similar specs, these are two very different bikes.
Versys is more “fun” to ride round town, but not so comfortable on longer rides in stock form.
VStrom is better to customise and tour on. it has ABS.
Read more... (418 words, 2 images, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)
Posted in Bikes, Product Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
When I renovated the house I installed a heap (18) CFL downlights in the ceiling which I reviewed. These 15W reflector CFL’s warm up fast(ish) and provide good light.
I was never happy with the kitchen bench though – it wasn’t bright enough. I recently bought a light meter from eBay and confirmed my suspicions. 60 Lumens at the bench top whereas kitchens are recommended to be around 150 lumens.
Surprisingly under my range-hood with it’s pair of (yuck) 20w G4 halogens scored 140 lumens. Read more... (324 words, 4 images, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
I recently bought a fanless laptop mat for use with my Dell e4300. When sitting in the lounge with the laptop on my lap it gets a bit warmish for my comfort. The fact that my clothes block it’s cooling vents certainly doesn’t help.
These new thingies work on a very cool principal of thermodynamics. Normally when you pump heat into a material it’s temperature increases. If however that material is at a point where it’s phase changes (solid – liquid or liquid – gas), then until the phase change is complete, all the energy you put in will not increase the temperature of the material. This is known as the “Enthalpy of Fusion” and the “Enthalpy of Vaporization”. Read more... (507 words, 1 image, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
Buying motorcycle helmets used to be easy. Plastic was crap, Fibreglass was good, Kevlar / Carbon was best. If it was a Shoei, Arai or Bell it was good, everything else was only OK.
BUT – interestingly enough, every single helmet you could buy had passed the crash test standard, so the better / worse was opinion, nothing more. In Australia this is an Australian Standard (similar to the US DOT standard, and many others). Really, it’s a “minimum”, everything on the market is better than the standard, it’s just a question of how much. Read more... (320 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)
Posted in Bikes, Product Reviews | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
I’ve been trying to reduce the power of my Home Server and Media Centre. Since my Power Meter debacle, I am now re-testing all the equipment and getting some rude shocks.
One of the positives out of this is that my 1TB Western Digital My Book Essential and 300GB Western Digital My Passport Essential both spin down and save power. On USB, this is a nice feature, as many of the generic external cages don’t spin the drive down.
The WD’s spin down on XP, Vista and Windows Home Server which is based on Server 2003. The timeout appears to be independent of the OS settings. Read more... (311 words, 2 images, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)
Posted in IT, Product Reviews, Tree Hugging | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
I wanted to fit a winch 
to my ’98 HZJ105 without wearing a huge weight penalty, or spending too much money. That ruled out walking into ARB and handing over the Credit Card for a new Bullbar and Warn. It meant I had to DIY this little exercise.
I wanted to keep the weight down, so decided a 9500lb was smaller and lighter than a 12,000lb. If I needed more pulling power, I would use a pulley block. Read more... (944 words, 11 images, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)
Posted in 4WD, Product Reviews | 2 Comments »
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
When I first heard about Windows Home S
erver (WHS) – I was pretty reluctant to bother. I was happily running Server 2003 with a 1.5TB software RAID 5 array and am not a fan of NAS, so didn’t get the point.
With the release of Power Pack 1 (PP1), and support for external USB backups, I decided to take another look. I have not looked back.
OK – at it’s simplest WHS does three things Read more... (1639 words, 3 images, estimated 6:33 mins reading time)
Posted in IT, Product Reviews | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 11th, 2008
When I upgraded to Vista, I lost the ability to run one of my favourite XP Power Toys – Image Resizer.
I like to be able to resize stuff easily and quickly for a number of uses. It’s one of the main reasons I use Live Writer for this site – it’s quick and easy to to the image management.
Luckily a free replacement with all the simple “Right Click – Resize” features turned up – VSO Image Resizer. And it’s free for personal use. Read more... (125 words, 1 image, estimated 30 secs reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, June 16th, 2008
I like music in my house and have a mild audiophile fetish, not as bad as some, but enough. I wanted a nice system for the main living room that would be used for background music, the loud stuff being out on the deck, or in the home theatre room. Despite being quiet, it still had to be “nice”.
It also needed to be small an un-intrusive, and fit on some small bookshelves. This ruled out most amplifiers, as they just don’t come in small sizes. Read more... (332 words, 3 images, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews, Tree Hugging | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 15th, 2008
Speed, I need speed, and speed with coverage would be good. I was using a Netgear DG834G previously, and had a pretty good run out of it. I know Netgear kit ain’t the best, but it beats DLink in my experience, and is probably the biggest selling home and SOHO kit in Australia. Read more... (1404 words, 4 images, estimated 5:37 mins reading time)
This is a preview of
Netgear Dual Band Wireless N Review – WNDR3300 & WNDA3100
.
Read the full post (1404 words, 4 images, estimated 5:37 mins reading time)
Posted in IT, Product Reviews | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
It’s rather simple really. When the ink refill leaks and you have to wash it out, use Methylated Spirits. A few days sitting in metho to soften the old ink will result in the pictures below. Note, it wasn’t my pen, but I did supply the metho. Nothing on the web I have found so far indicates the special Mont Blanc resin they use is not alcohol stable. Not a bad effort for a several hundred $ pen. I’ll stick to my Fisher Space Pen.
”
Read more... (98 words, 7 images, estimated 24 secs reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
At $245 + $35 postage, the fridge slide from 4WD Systems seemed like a decent deal. I later found out that the genuine Waeco was about the same money, and probably a better unit. The Waeco slide is spec’d at 15KG.
The one I bought is worth the money as scrap steel however – weighing in at 20KG, it weighs more than my entire drawer system. I’ll be “modifying” this to reduce weight significantly when I can afford a plasma cutter. Read more... (326 words, 6 images, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)
| It’s a fridge slide. The fridge slides in and out. It kind of stays out, depending if the locking mechanism lines up that time or not. The straps it came with were a joke. |
 |
Posted in 4WD, Product Reviews | 1 Comment »
Monday, February 4th, 2008
I purchased a pretty average fridge slide to complement my home made shelf / drawer system before a trip over XMAS. The straps it came with to tie the fridge down were a simple “loop” type with a plastic tensioner, as you tend to find on kids school bags etc. The problem with these is two fold: Read more... (261 words, 4 images, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)
- They are difficult to tighten as the lop just goes round and round as you try and tighten it.
- They make it very difficult to remove the fridge as each strap has to be unthreaded back through it’s buckle. A tedious job for the rear ones.
Posted in 4WD, Product Reviews | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
A while ago due to a combination of circumstances I decided to build a Windows Media Centre PC. A few friends had them and spoke highly and being stuck on an island it seemed like a bright idea to pass the time between dives, fishing and drinking. I started, but never had the time to get it completed.
Then I moved back to Oz and it got put in a box for 12 months.
I recently resurrected the project and decided to fire the thing up with Vista. This is the story of woe that followed. Read more... (1315 words, 1 image, estimated 5:16 mins reading time)
Posted in IT, Product Reviews | 5 Comments »
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
We had to move Neuralfibre at Doteasy had gone to crap. WordPress and Tikiwiki both had Bluehost in their list of recommended providers. As we wanted to use both, and the features, price and other reviews were fair to excellent, went with it. These are my comments.
Package – Excellent
Price – Good
Features – Excellent
Auto Install Scripts – Excellent
Upgrades for Hosted Products – Yes – Scripted
Multiple Domains / Shared with mates – Yes
Heaps of space – Yes
eMail Limits – Good
WebMail Interface – Bad – only on weird port (But you can install and run Roundcube, and that is a good webmail client)
Help / FAQ – Excellent
eMail responses for Help – Excellent Read more... (122 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)
Posted in IT, Product Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, June 4th, 2007
The website is here
These things are excellent. 15W each. AU$40 for a pack of 4 from Lighting Illusions.
They are a reflective compact fluorescent downlight. The glass cover keeps the bugs out from between the tube elements as a bonus.
Startup is electronic and nearly instant. Warm up time is minimal, about the same as your eyes.
The bulbs are 5000K colour – Daylight. It is a very white light, makes the 50W halogen downlights look dull yellow in comparison. They look far whiter than the 3800K Warm White reflective downlight I tried. Read more... (155 words, 2 images, estimated 37 secs reading time)
Posted in Product Reviews, Tree Hugging | 2 Comments »
